title: First-class cricket

text: A key issue for the statisticians is when first-class cricket for their purpose is deemed to have begun. Writing in 1951, Roy Webber argued that the majority of matches prior to 1864 (i.e., the year in which overarm bowling was legalised) "cannot be regarded as first-class" and their records are used "for their historical associations". This drew a line between what was important historically and what should form part of the statistical record. Hence, for pre-1895 (i.e., in Great Britain) cricket matches, "first-class" is essentially a statistical concept while the historical concept is broader and takes account of historical significance. Webber's rationale was that cricket was "generally weak before 1864" (there was a greater and increasingly more organised effort to promote county cricket from about that time) and match details were largely incomplete, especially bowling analyses, which hindered compilation of records. According to Webber's view, the inaugural first-class match should have been the opening game of the 1864 season between Cambridge University and MCC at Fenner's on 12 and 13 May, Cambridge winning by 6 wickets.


title: First-class cricket

text: When the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians (ACS) published its "Guide to First-Class Cricket Matches Played in the British Isles" in 1982, it tentatively agreed with Webber's 1864 start date by saying that "the line between first-class and other matches becomes more easily discernible about that date". A year earlier, the ACS had published its "Guide to Important Cricket Matches Played in the British Isles 1709 – 1863" in which it listed all the known matches during that period which it considered to have historical importance. The ACS did stipulate that they had taken a more lenient view of importance regarding matches played in the 18th century than they did of matches played in the 19th century. As they explained, surviving details of 18th century matches are typically incomplete while there is a fairly comprehensive store of data about 19th century matches, certainly since 1825.


title: First-class cricket

text: Subsequently, Webber's view has been challenged by those who suggest earlier dates for the commencement of "first-class statistics". Bill Frindall believed that 1815 should be the start to encompass the entire roundarm bowling phase of cricket's history. However, roundarm did not begin in earnest until 1827. In Frindall's view, the inaugural first-class match should have been the opening game of the 1815 season between MCC and Middlesex at Lord's on 31 May and 1 June, Middlesex winning by 16 runs. On the internet, the "CricketArchive" (CA) and "ESPN Cricinfo" (CI) database sites both hold that the earliest first-class match was Hampshire "versus" All-England at Broadhalfpenny Down on 24 and 25 June 1772. CA has numbered this match "f1" (i.e., first-class match number one) and CI as "First-Class # 1".


title: First-class cricket

text: The status of earlier matches, including all in the ACS' "Important Matches" guide, which have left no scorecard and for which only a brief announcement or report exists, must be based on other factors. Contemporary importance is often measured by the amount of money at stake and the fact that a match was deemed notable enough to be reported in the press. The 18th century matches in the ACS list were primarily compiled to assist historians. The earliest match known to have been accorded superior status in a contemporary report (i.e., termed "a great match" in this case) and to have been played for a large sum of money was one in Sussex between two unnamed eleven-a-side teams contesting "fifty guineas apiece" in June 1697, a match of enormous historical significance but with no statistical data recorded.


title: Robert De Niro Sr.

text: Robert Henry De Niro (May 3, 1922 – May 3, 1993), better known as Robert De Niro Sr., was an American abstract expressionist painter and the father of actor Robert De Niro.


title: Robert De Niro Sr.

text: Robert De Niro Sr. was born in Syracuse, New York, to an Irish-American mother, Helen M. ("née" O'Reilly; 1899–1999). Helen's mother was Mary E. Burns (born to John and Mary Burns) and her father was Dennis Francis O'Reilly, born to Dundrum's Ellen Hall, the second wife of Edward O'Reilly. There was previous confusion about Dennis' maternity, his mother previously thought to be Edward's second wife Margaret.


title: Robert De Niro Sr.

text: De Niro's Italian-American father, Henry Martin De Niro (1897–1976), was born to parents who emigrated from Ferrazzano in 1887, Angelina Mercurio and Giovanni Di Niro.


title: Robert De Niro Sr.

text: Robert was the eldest of three children; he and siblings John and Joan were raised in Syracuse. De Niro studied at Black Mountain College under Josef Albers from 1939 to 1940. While Albers' highly analytical approach to painting did not appeal to De Niro's more instinctive style, the experience and international perspective of the Bauhaus master nonetheless left a lasting impression. De Niro studied with Hans Hofmann at his Provincetown, Massachusetts, summer school. Hofmann's teaching on Abstract Expressionism and Cubist formalism had a strong influence on De Niro's development as a mature artist.


title: Robert De Niro Sr.

text: At Hofmann's summer school, he met fellow student Virginia Admiral, whom he married in 1942. The couple moved into a large, airy loft in New York's Greenwich Village, where they were able to paint. They surrounded themselves with an illustrious circle of friends, including writers Anaïs Nin and Henry Miller, playwright Tennessee Williams, and the actress and famous Berlin dancer Valeska Gert. Admiral and De Niro separated shortly after their son Robert De Niro Jr. was born in August 1943 after De Niro came out as gay. In 1944, De Niro had a relationship with the poet Robert Duncan.


title: Robert De Niro Sr.

text: After studying with Hans Hofmann in New York and Provincetown and Josef Albers at Black Mountain College, North Carolina in the late 1930s and early 1940s, De Niro worked for five years at Hilla Rebay's legendary Museum of Non-Objective Art. In 1945, he was included in a group show at Peggy Guggenheim's Art of This Century in New York, which was a leading gallery for the art of both established European modernists and members of the emerging Abstract Expressionist group like Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell, and Clyfford Still. De Niro had his first solo exhibition at Guggenheim's gallery in April and May of the following year. At that point, he was primarily working in an abstract manner, often with figural references. Much of his work from this period was lost in a studio fire in 1949.


title: Robert De Niro Sr.

text: De Niro had a series of solo exhibitions in the 1950s at the Charles Egan Gallery in New York, which exhibited the work of Willem de Kooning and other early abstract expressionist artists. Critics praised DeNiro's compositions filled with improvised areas of vibrant color that gave way to loosely painted still lifes and curvaceous nudes. By the mid-1950s, De Niro was regularly included in important group exhibitions such as the Whitney Annual, the Stable Annual, and the Jewish Museum. He was awarded a Longview Foundation award in 1958.


title: Robert De Niro Sr.

text: From 1961 to 1964, De Niro traveled to France to paint in Paris and in the surrounding countryside. Collector Joseph Hirshhorn purchased a number of the artist's paintings and works on paper during this period through De Niro's gallerist, Virginia Zabriskie, which are now in the permanent collection of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC. In 2015, a number of De Niro paintings were sold at Christie's auction house by the order of the trustees of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden to benefit its acquisition program. In 1968, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.


title: Robert De Niro Sr.

text: Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, De Niro continued to exhibit in museums and galleries throughout the United States, including New York, San Francisco, Kansas City, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. He taught at several art schools and colleges including the New York Studio School, the Cooper Union, the New School for Social Research and the School of Visual Arts. De Niro was a visiting artist at Michigan State University's Department of Art in the spring of 1974.


title: Robert De Niro Sr.

text: His work is included in several museum collections including: Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Arkansas Arts Center, Brooklyn Museum, Baltimore Museum of Art, The Butler Institute of American Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Crocker Art Museum, The Denver Art Museum, The Heckscher Museum of Art, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Kansas City Art Institute, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Academy Museum, Mint Museum, Parrish Art Museum, Provincetown Art Association and Museum, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Wadsworth Atheneum, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art, Yale University Art Gallery, and the Yellowstone Art Museum.


title: Robert De Niro Sr.

text: De Niro Sr. died of cancer on the morning of May 3, 1993 (his 71st birthday), at his Manhattan home. He is interred at Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York.


title: Robert De Niro Sr.

text: The 1993 film "A Bronx Tale" was dedicated to De Niro after his death; it was the directorial debut of De Niro Jr.


title: Robert De Niro Sr.

text: In 2010, De Niro Jr. announced the creation of the Robert De Niro Sr. Prize, an annual $25,000 prize administered by the Tribeca Film Institute and funded by De Niro Jr. that "focuses on a mid-career American artist devoted to the pursuit of excellence and innovation in painting." Past winners include Stanley Whitney, Joyce Pensato, Catherine Murphy and Laura Owens.


title: Robert De Niro Sr.

text: De Niro Sr. is the subject of the 2014 short documentary "Remembering the Artist". According to De Niro Jr., "The thought of what he's done, all his work, I can't not but make sure that it's held up and remembered... So I just want to see him get his due. That's my responsibility and he used to always say that artists are always recognized after they're long gone."


title: Playboy Bunny

text: A Playboy Bunny is a waitress who works at a Playboy Club and selected through standardized training. Their costumes were made up of lingerie, inspired by the tuxedo-wearing Playboy rabbit mascot. This costume consisted of a strapless corset teddy, bunny ears, black sheer-to-waist pantyhose, a bow tie, a collar, cuffs and a fluffy cottontail. In more recent Playboy Clubs, such as Sin City that was re-opened in 2006, Playboy bunnies wore slightly altered costumes that were based on the original bunny suit.


title: Playboy Bunny

text: The original Playboy Bunny costume was designed by the mother of Ilse Taurins, who was a Latvian émigrée. At the time, Taurins was dating one of the Playboy Club co-founders, Victor Lownes III.


title: Playboy Bunny

text: Taurins had suggested a costume modeled after the Playboy Magazine trademark, either a rabbit or bunny, and she had her seamstress mother make a costume prototype. The prototype was reviewed at a meeting attended by Playboy Club co-founders Hugh Hefner, Victor Lownes and Arnold Morton, as well as frequent Playboy illustrator LeRoy Neiman.


title: Playboy Bunny

text: The outfits were initially not received well by the co-founders, but Hefner advised that it could work once changes were made. The initial costume looked similar to a one piece swimsuit, with a white yarn puff tail and a headband with bunny ears, and Hefner suggested cutting the leg higher on the hip to expose more of the leg, and sharpening the v-shape of the costume. His suggested modifications were in an attempt to make the costumes more visually appealing, and the tightly laced corsets added to the feminine appeal, cinching in the Bunny's waist by at least two inches. This redesign of the bunny costume tied in directly with the need for a show-girl type of costume, achieving this look with an addition of bow ties, collars and a fluffy cottontail.


title: Playboy Bunny

text: For mass production, the costume was manufactured for the Playboy Clubs by the Chicago-based Kabo Corset Company, and was based upon a "merry widow" style of corset within their line.


title: Playboy Bunny

text: Later, in 1962, French fashion designer Renee Blot was further employed to refine the design, and her revisions included making the ears smaller, adding a collar with bow tie and cuffs with rabbit-head cufflinks, and a satin rosette with the bunny's name, worn on the hip. The original costumes were made in twelve colours of rayon satin. Several years later, Playboy engaged a prominent manufacturer of lingerie and swimwear to create a modified bunny costume that used washable stretch knit fabrics, allowing for costumes in vibrant prints as well as solid colors. The standard stockings also evolved from fishnet material to a special sheer pantyhose style supplied by Danskin. Bunnies wore two pair of these sheer stockings, a black pair worn on top of a taupe toned pair.


title: Playboy Bunny

text: Since 2013, rumours suggested the original design of the Playboy bunny costume was by New York fashion designer Zelda Wynn Valdes, however, there exists no evidence to support this. This is also contradicted by recounts in much earlier publications such as "Big Bunny" by Joe Goldberg (1967) and "The Bunny Years" by Kathryn Leigh Scott (1998).


title: Playboy Bunny

text: The bunny costume became a symbol of the Playboy Clubs, and was also the first commercial uniform to be registered by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (U.S. trademark registration number 0762884).


title: Playboy Bunny

text: The Playboy Bunnies are waitresses who serve drinks at Playboy Clubs. There are different types of Bunnies, including the Door Bunny, Cigarette Bunny, Floor Bunny, Pool Bunny, Fine Dining Bunny, Playmate Bunny, and the Jet Bunnies (specially selected Bunnies trained as flight attendants; they served on the Playboy "Big Bunny" Jet).


title: Playboy Bunny

text: To become a Bunny, women are first carefully chosen and selected from auditions. Bunnies then undergo thorough and strict training before officially becoming a Bunny. Bunnies are required to be able to identify 143 brands of liquor and know how to garnish 20 cocktail variations. Customers are not allowed to touch the Bunnies, demerits are given if a Bunny's appearance does not meet requirements, and dating or mingling with customers is forbidden.


title: Playboy Bunny

text: A Bunny also has to master the required maneuvers to work. These include the "Bunny Stance", a posture that is required in front of patrons, where the Bunny must stand with legs together, back arched and hips tucked under. When the Bunny is resting or waiting to be of service, she must do the "Bunny Perch," where she must sit on the back of a chair, sofa, or railing without sitting too close to a patron. The most famous maneuver of all, the "Bunny Dip", was invented by Kelly Collins, once renowned for being the "Perfect Bunny." To do the "Bunny Dip," the Bunny gracefully leans backwards while bending at the knees with the left knee lifted and tucked behind the right leg. This maneuver allows the Bunny to serve drinks while keeping her low-cut costume in place. Strict regulations were enforced by special workers in the guise of patrons.


title: Playboy Bunny

text: In the 1970s, Lownes used his country mansion, Stocks House in Hertfordshire, England, as a training camp for Bunnies. The Bunnies acted as hostesses at lavish parties thrown in the house.


title: Playboy Bunny

text: The uniforms were tailored to each Bunny at the clubs in which they worked, and a full-time seamstress always remained on duty whenever the club opened. The costumes were stocked in two pieces, the front part being pre-sewn in different bra cup sizes, and the seamstress would match the Bunnies' figure to the correct fitting front and back pieces. The two pieces were then sewn together to fit each person with great precision.


title: Playboy Bunny

text: A woman, also known as the "Bunny Mother", took responsibility for the welfare of the women working as Playboy Bunnies. This was a human-resources role and a management position as the Bunny Mother was in charge of scheduling work shifts, hiring, firing and training. The Club Manager carried two responsibilities for the Bunnies – floor service and weigh-in. Before every shift, the Manager would weigh each Bunny, and bunnies could not gain or lose more than one pound, with exceptions only being made for water retention. Playboy Enterprises required all employees to turn in their costumes at the end of employment and Playboy still retains some of these costumes in storage. Occasionally, costumes are offered for sale on the Playboy Auction site or eBay, but some of the costumes on eBay are known to be counterfeit or damaged. The only two costumes on public display are in the collections of the Smithsonian and the Chicago History Museum.


title: Playboy Bunny

text: The treatment of Playboy Bunnies was exposed in a piece written by Gloria Steinem and reprinted in her 1983 book "Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions". The article featured a photo of Steinem in Bunny uniform and detailed how women were treated at those clubs. The article was published in 1963 in "Show" magazine as "A Bunny's Tale". Steinem has maintained that she is proud of the work she did publicizing the exploitative working conditions of the Bunnies and especially the sexual demands made of them, which skirted the edge of the law.


title: Playboy Bunny

text: Clive James wrote of the "callous fatuity of the selection process" and observed that "to make it as a Bunny, a girl need[ed] more than just looks. She need[ed] idiocy, too."


title: Playboy Bunny

text: The costume of a Playboy Bunny gained huge popularity in Japan, where it has lost much of its association with Playboy and is accordingly referred to simply as the or . It has frequently been featured in manga and anime; notable examples of characters who have been depicted wearing it include the title character of "Haruhi Suzumiya", Kallen Stadtfeld of "Code Geass", Bulma of "Dragon Ball", Haruko Haruhara of "FLCL", and the unnamed protagonist of the "Daicon III" and "Daicon IV Opening Animations". The outfit is alluded to in the title of the series "Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai", and the character Mai Sakurajima is seen wearing one in its first episode. The suit is also popularly depicted in anime and manga fan art and merchandise, even for characters who are never seen wearing it in official works. Bunny suits are most frequently worn by female characters, but they are occasionally worn by male characters, usually for comedic effect.


title: Playboy Bunny

text: There are no Playboy Clubs in Brazil, but Playboy's Brazilian division has Bunnies who attend its events. For most of the 2000s there were three official Bunnies, and they were also Playmates — both separately, and together in the cover pictorial for the December 2008 edition. The last printed issue of the magazine, in 2018, featured the five Bunnies of the period on the cover.


title: Playboy Bunny

text: Playboy Bunnies are a separate entity from Playboy Playmates, women who appear in the centerfold pictorials of "Playboy" magazine, however, a few Playboy Bunnies went on to become Playmates and vice versa (see below).


title: Playboy Bunny

text: In 2006, The Palms Hotel-Casino in Las Vegas opened the first new Playboy Club in over a quarter-century, located on the 52nd floor of the Fantasy Tower. Italian fashion designer Roberto Cavalli was chosen to re-design the original Bunny suit. It closed in 2012.


title: Out-of-place artifact

text: An out-of-place artifact (OOPArt or oopart) is an artifact of historical, archaeological, or paleontological interest found in an unusual context, which challenges conventional historical chronology by its presence in that context. Such artifacts may appear too advanced for the technology known to have existed at the time, or may suggest human presence at a time before humans are known to have existed. Other examples may suggest contact between different cultures that is hard to account for with conventional historical understanding.


title: Out-of-place artifact

text: This description of archaelogical objects is used in fringe science such as cryptozoology, as well as by proponents of ancient astronaut theories, young Earth creationists, and paranormal enthusiasts. It can describe a wide variety of items, from anomalies studied by mainstream science to pseudoarchaeology to objects that have been shown to be hoaxes or to have mundane explanations.


title: Out-of-place artifact

text: Critics argue that most purported OOPArts which are not hoaxes are the result of mistaken interpretation and wishful thinking, such as a mistaken belief that a particular culture could not have created an artifact or technology due to a lack of knowledge or materials. In some cases, the uncertainty results from inaccurate descriptions. For example, the cuboid Wolfsegg Iron is not really a perfect cube, nor are the Klerksdorp spheres actual perfect spheres. The Iron pillar of Delhi was said to be "rust proof", but it has some rust near its base; its relative resistance to corrosion is due to slag inclusions left over from the manufacturing conditions and environmental factors.


title: Out-of-place artifact

text: Supporters regard OOPArts as evidence that mainstream science is overlooking huge areas of knowledge, either willfully or through ignorance. Many writers or researchers who question conventional views of human history have used purported OOPArts in attempts to bolster their arguments. Creation science often relies on allegedly anomalous finds in the archaeological record to challenge scientific chronologies and models of human evolution. Claimed OOPArts have been used to support religious descriptions of prehistory, ancient astronaut theories, and the notion of vanished civilizations that possessed knowledge or technology more advanced than that known in modern times.


title: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (film)

text: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind is a 2002 American biographical spy film depicting the fictional life of game show host and producer Chuck Barris. The film was George Clooney's directorial debut, was written by Charlie Kaufman and starred Sam Rockwell as Barris, as well as Julia Roberts, Drew Barrymore, and Clooney. It is based on Barris's 1984 "unauthorized autobiography" of the same name, in which he claimed to have been an assassin for the CIA in addition to his show business career. These allegations have been denied by the CIA, while Barris throughout his life generally refused to say whether the claim was true or not.


title: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (film)

text: The film had a long development process. Columbia Pictures briefly planned to produce a film adaptation in the late 1980s, to be directed by Jim McBride. The film rights were purchased in 1997 by producer Andrew Lazar, who hired Kaufman to write a screenplay; the project then quickly attracted a string of well-known directors, including David Fincher, Brian De Palma and Bryan Singer, and lead actors, including Mike Myers, Ben Stiller and Johnny Depp. When Clooney was hired to direct, he brought on Barris to consult on the project in order to provide additional authenticity. This in turn led to (uncredited) rewrites on the script, which Kaufman was unhappy with, including the removal of a drug addiction subplot. Clooney also championed the casting of Rockwell, who at that point was mostly unknown. To accommodate the $30 million budget, Clooney convinced Barrymore and Roberts to lower their salaries.


title: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (film)

text: The film was released to favorable reviews from critics and was modestly successful at the box office. Rockwell, in particular, was praised for his acting and won the Silver Bear for Best Actor at the 2003 Berlin International Film Festival.


title: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (film)

text: Tired of being rejected by the beautiful women he lusts after, Chuck Barris moves to Manhattan to become an NBC page with dreams of becoming famous in television but is eventually fired. He moves back to Philadelphia and becomes Dick Clark's personal assistant on "American Bandstand" in 1961. He writes the successful song "Palisades Park" and becomes romantically involved with a woman named Penny Pacino. Chuck is given permission to pitch the concept for "The Dating Game" at ABC. He is given $7,500 to create a television pilot, but ABC abandons the idea in favor of "Hootenanny".


title: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (film)

text: One night after Barris is kicked out of a bar for fighting, he is approached by CIA agent Jim Byrd, who recruits him as an assassin. Returning from a mission in Mexico, Barris finds that Penny has become a hippie. Meanwhile, ABC green-lights "The Dating Game", and by 1967 the show is a phenomenon.


title: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (film)

text: On a CIA mission in Helsinki, Finland, he meets female operative Patricia Watson. He finds more success back home when "The Newlywed Game" goes on air. He and Penny decide to move to Los Angeles, but Barris is cautious of marriage, much to Penny's dismay. In 1970, Byrd convinces Barris to go on a mission to West Berlin to assassinate Hans Colbert. Barris is introduced to German-American agent Keeler, whom he helps to kill Colbert. However, he is captured by the KGB and, after some weeks, freed during a west–east spy exchange.


title: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (film)

text: In 1976, Barris creates "The Gong Show," becoming famous as its host. Keeler is murdered and Byrd warns Barris of a mole in the agency. His TV shows are canceled due to poor ratings, and Penny threatens to leave after catching him cheating. One night, Barris finds Byrd sitting atop the diving board of his backyard pool. Byrd reveals why he was chosen by the CIA to become an assassin: he is the son of a serial killer and had been raised as a girl by his mother, so he "fit the profile". Barris threatens Byrd, and after Byrd is shown dead moments later, we can see him holding a gun at him.


title: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (film)

text: Faced with the unpleasant truth about himself, Barris begins to spiral out of control. After almost having a nervous breakdown on "The Gong Show", Barris shuts himself away in a New York City hotel. Penny finds him and tries in vain to convince him to return to California to get married.


title: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (film)

text: Barris finally leaves his room to meet Patricia in Boston. After a cup of coffee, Barris collapses, seemingly poisoned. Patricia reveals that she is the mole. Barris has tricked Patricia into drinking from the poisoned cup, and she falls dead. After her death, he returns home and begins writing his autobiography, "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind". He finally decides to marry Penny. At the end of the ceremony, he sees some of the people he killed in the crowd. Distraught, he confesses to her his double life as a CIA assassin, but she merely laughs, assuming he is joking, and he decides not to correct her.


title: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (film)

text: Barris, Dick Clark, Jim Lange, Murray Langston, Jaye P. Morgan, and Gene Patton are featured in interviews central to the storyline.


title: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (film)

text: Chuck Barris first sold the film rights of his "unauthorized autobiography" to Columbia Pictures in the late 1980s. Columbia president Dawn Steel greenlighted "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" with Jim McBride directing. McBride offered the lead role to Richard Dreyfuss, who refused to read the script because he believed Barris's morbid humor was distasteful. The project was abandoned at Columbia when Steel was fired in 1989. Producer Andrew Lazar optioned the film rights from Columbia in 1997 and set "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" at Warner Bros. Pictures that same year. Charlie Kaufman entered discussions to write a new screenplay in June 1997 and finished his first draft later that year. Barris gave positive feedback to Kaufman's script and Curtis Hanson instantly agreed to direct with Sean Penn in the lead role and George Clooney and Drew Barrymore attached to co-star.


title: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (film)

text: Hanson eventually dropped out, but with the financial success of "My Best Friend's Wedding" (1997), P. J. Hogan entered discussions with Warner Bros. to direct in January 1998. Mike Myers signed on to replace Sean Penn, who vacated the lead role. However, negotiations with Hogan fell through; Sam Mendes, David Fincher and Darren Aronofsky all became interested in taking over the director's position. Fincher and Myers were fast tracking production for "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" in April 2000 but Fincher dropped out and, by that October, Brian De Palma was attached to direct with Renaissance Pictures co-financing. Later that month, Warner Bros. put the project in turnaround, and Myers lost interest. Russell Crowe, Kevin Spacey, and Edward Norton had also been attached to the film in the early development stages.


title: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (film)

text: In December 2000, Ben Stiller was in discussions to star as Chuck Barris, with Bryan Singer directing and Clooney still aboard. However, Stiller was forced to vacate "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" due to scheduling conflicts with "Zoolander" (2001) and "The Royal Tenenbaums" (2001). Although Singer was interested in Sam Rockwell in the lead role, the director cast Johnny Depp to replace Stiller and commenced pre-production in January 2001 on a planned $35 million budget. Renaissance Pictures was holding international distribution rights, but the filmmakers still needed more financing as well as a studio to cover distribution duties in the United States.


title: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (film)

text: Grosvenor Park was interested in co-financing with Renaissance, but the next month (February 2001), "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" was once again stalled in development. Miramax Films had been negotiating for domestic rights, but difficulties arose when Miramax also wanted to cover international rights. Renaissance was also unable to close the financing in time to accommodate both the "production insurance" deadline and the 65-day shooting schedule, which was set to primarily take place in Montreal and British Columbia, Canada. Artisan Entertainment then became interested in covering North American distribution rights but dropped out after the bid went over $8 million. Johnny Depp eventually went to work on other films.


title: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (film)

text: With Singer busy preparing "X2", "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" was rejuvenated with Clooney taking over as director. Miramax Films agreed to cover distribution duties and co-finance the film. In the end, funding for "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" came from Miramax, Clooney's own Section Eight Productions, Village Roadshow Pictures, producer Andrew Lazar's Mad Chance, Allied Filmmakers, and The Kushner-Locke Company. Clooney explained, "I thought if I came on board as a director, for scale, and was able to bring everybody else on inexpensively, if I could get the film back down to $30 million, then I was going to be able to get the film made. That was a big part of my pitch to Harvey Weinstein at Miramax."


title: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (film)

text: Because "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" was his directing debut, Clooney took inspiration from friends Steven Soderbergh and the Coen brothers for his filmmaking style. Writer Charlie Kaufman said he was dissatisfied with the way Clooney treated the screenplay. "I spent a lot of time working on the script," he explained, "but I don't think he was interested in the things I was interested in. I've moved on and I don't have any animosity towards Clooney, but it's a movie I don't really relate to." Clooney acknowledged that Kaufman's original script contained "really funky scenes that would never reach the green light of being a studio film." A drug addiction subplot was removed based on Barris's request for historical authenticity.


title: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (film)

text: Clooney was adamant that Barris become heavily involved during production in an attempt to portray the film from his point of view. Barris was so enthusiastic with Clooney's work on the film that he began writing "Bad Grass Never Dies" (), the sequel to "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind"; Miramax also owns the film rights to "Bad Grass". Barris filmed cameo appearances of himself during the shoot in Canada and taped a voice-over in Clooney's house.


title: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (film)

text: When asked about Barris's claim of being a CIA assassin, Clooney commented, "I don't know how much I believed it. I didn't want to officially ask him, because I didn't want him to say, 'I made it up.' I wanted to tell the story and I thought how interesting, if it was all made up, why someone as wealthy and as successful as Chuck Barris would have to do that. I thought that was an interesting person to explore, and that's what we wanted to do with the film." (Barris had already admitted he had made the story up in a 1984 interview promoting the book; he wrote the story in large part because he had been exiled from television over the controversy surrounding one of his shows, "3's a Crowd". In the same interview, Barris noted that he had applied for work with the CIA in the early 1960s but never actually entered the agency; "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" was the product of Barris imagining how he could have done both at the same time.) Clooney acknowledged that his upbringing with father Nick Clooney had a great bearing on his choice of depicting the 1960/70s game shows. "My father had a game show when I was growing up called "The Money Maze". I know what those sets look like. I showed the guy how to do cue cards. I grew up on them," the director reflected, "and knew what it looked like and smelled like. And I know something about some of the trappings of fame, so I thought I had a unique take on it."


title: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (film)

text: Casting the lead role of Barris was a long, difficult process. "After two months of screen tests and everything I still wasn't able to get Sam Rockwell," Clooney reflected. Rockwell had always been Clooney's first choice ever since they worked together on "Welcome to Collinwood" (2002). Both Clooney and Barris also believed Rockwell shared an uncanny resemblance to Barris. "I didn't want someone too famous to play the role," the director reasoned. "In my opinion, you cannot have famous people playing famous people. It doesn't work. Sam was the guy for the part, ready to break and hadn't yet."


title: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (film)

text: Prior to his audition, Rockwell "immersed" himself in the role by watching episodes of "The Gong Show" in an attempt to impress the filmmakers. "I went to LA [and] did an old-fashioned screen test, like a real Scarlett O'Hara-type screen test, which you know they don't really do anymore," the actor remembered. For research, Rockwell spent two and a half months with Barris. "We went to coffee shops and dinner and movies, took walks, went to the zoo; I even filmed him," Rockwell explained. "I had him tape my lines in a tape recorder, and I listened to that to get his voice down."


title: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (film)

text: Clooney cast Julia Roberts as the mysterious CIA agent Patricia Watson due to their positive working relationship in "Ocean's Eleven" (2001). Her role was originally set for Nicole Kidman, who dropped out over scheduling conflicts with "The Hours". After Rockwell's casting, "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" was once again briefly postponed; Miramax did not greenlight the film until Roberts signed on. Clooney commented, "Julia really helped me. Her doing the part made it possible for me to cast Sam Rockwell. He can't drive a $28 million film, but Julia certainly can." Renée Zellweger and Gwyneth Paltrow were considered for the Penny Pacino role, which eventually went to Drew Barrymore.


title: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (film)

text: Miramax was unsure of Clooney's decision to cast Rockwell over other famous actors such as Robert Downey Jr., and Ben Stiller. Clooney convinced the studio into giving him the right of final cut privilege and casting Rockwell in exchange for first-look deals on "Full Frontal" (2002) and other low-budget films from Clooney's Section Eight Productions. Clooney also agreed to cameo in Miramax's "" (2003) so Rockwell could be cast. To accommodate the $30 million budget, Clooney convinced Roberts and Barrymore to lower their asking prices.


title: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (film)

text: Under Clooney's direction, filming was initially set to begin in September 2001, but principal photography did not start until January 14, 2002. From January to March 2002, production for "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" took place primarily in California and Montreal. The Playboy Mansion scene was shot in early April at Los Angeles, California; the remaining two weeks of production took place around the Mexico – United States border. Filming for "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" ended in late April 2002.


title: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (film)

text: Clooney and cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel used various techniques when portraying the different decades of Barris's life. "We thought in order to go back in time, most people remember things through film," Clooney reasoned. "I don't remember the 1950s – I wasn't around for them – I know the 50s through Technicolor. Not Technicolor as it was shot, but Technicolor as it has faded now." The filmmakers studied various films and magazine issues of that decade for inspiration on the color palette. Racking focuses were highly stylized for scenes set in the 1960s, similar to the Spaghetti Westerns of that era. Hand-held cameras were used for scenes set in the 1970s, an homage to the films of Sidney Lumet, Mike Nichols and Alan J. Pakula, primarily "Klute" (1971), "Carnal Knowledge" (1971), and "The Parallax View" (1974). Bob Fosse's "All That Jazz" also influenced Clooney's direction.


title: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (film)

text: Clooney commented that post-production for "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" was stressful because he was simultaneously acting in "Solaris" (2002).


title: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (film)

text: To tie in with the release of the film, Miramax Books republished Barris's 1984 book. The film premiered out-of-competition at the May 2002 Cannes Film Festival before Miramax Films gave it a limited release in the United States on December 31, 2002; the wide release came on January 24, 2003. The film only barely recouped its production costs, grossing only $33.01 million, of which $16 million was domestic revenue and $17.01 million came from foreign markets. It also suffered poor sales in its September 2003 Region 1 DVD release. The DVD includes over 20 minutes of deleted scenes, Rockwell's three screen tests, a short documentary titled "The Real Chuck Barris", Clooney's audio commentary, and a making-of featurette.


title: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (film)

text: The film received positive responses from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 79% based on 165 reviews, with an average rating of 7.2/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Rockwell is spot-on as Barris, and Clooney directs with entertaining style and flair." On "Metacritic", the film has a weighted average score of 67/100, based on 33 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" was shown at the Berlin International Film Festival on February 10, 2003. Sam Rockwell won the Silver Bear for Best Actor and George Clooney was nominated the Golden Bear but lost to Michael Winterbottom of "In This World".


title: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (film)

text: Roger Ebert gave "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" a positive review, awarding it 3 out of 4 stars. "George Clooney's directorial debut is not only intriguing as a story but great to look at," Ebert said, "a marriage of bright pop images from the 1960s and 1970s and dark, cold spyscapes that seem to have wandered in from John le Carré." Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" magazine wrote that the film carried a perfect balance of dark humor and psychological drama. "Clooney tackles a far-reaching absurdist fantasy with Barris as a paradigm of paranoia," Travers reviewed. "He wisely hooks up with talent he worked with as an actor: cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel, from "Three Kings" (1999), and editor Stephen Mirrione from "Ocean's Eleven" (2001)."


title: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (film)

text: Mick LaSalle from the "San Francisco Chronicle" wrote that "there may be more entertaining and less problematic movies, but "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" has something about it that hangs in there, working on the mind like a dog gnawing on a table leg. The movie makes a case for itself through sheer oddness and perversity. I'm not sure "Confessions" is a good movie, but I am sure I like it." Owen Gleiberman, writing in "Entertainment Weekly", observed that "Sam Rockwell is handsome in a rumpled, slightly goofy rabbit-toothed way, but he doesn't really have the look, or aura, of a movie star," Glieberman stated. "He's more like a weirdly sincere space cadet, babbling to himself with puppyish befuddlement, breaking into funky soft dance moves that look as if he's been doing them in his bedroom since he was 8. All of which makes him an inspired choice to play Chuck Barris."


title: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (film)

text: Kenneth Turan of the "Los Angeles Times" gave a negative review. He disliked the characterization of Chuck Barris and commented that "with its multiplicity of over-stylized looks and slick gimmicks, "Dangerous Mind" was doubtless more stimulating to direct than it will be for audiences to experience." Internet reviewer James Berardinelli wrote a mixed critique. "George Clooney is eager to show how much he has learned at the hands of the A-list filmmakers he has toiled under. So we get a style that is about 50% Steven Soderbergh and 50% Coen brothers. Sometimes it works, but mostly it comes across as too artsy, with all sorts of bizarre angles and unusual shots."


title: 2017 NFL season

text: The 2017 NFL season was the 98th season in the history of the National Football League (NFL) and the 52nd of the Super Bowl era. The season began on September 7, 2017, with Kansas City defeating defending Super Bowl LI champion New England in the NFL Kickoff Game. The season concluded with Super Bowl LII, in which Philadelphia defeated American Football Conference (AFC) champion New England to win their first Super Bowl title, and fourth NFL championship, in franchise history.


title: 2017 NFL season

text: For the second time since the league expanded to a 16-game season, a team finished winless in a full season, as Cleveland lost all 16 of their games this season.


title: 2017 NFL season

text: For the second consecutive year, a team relocated to the Los Angeles metropolitan area, as the former San Diego Chargers announced their intent to do so in January 2017.


title: 2017 NFL season

text: The 2017 NFL League year began on March 9 at 4:00 p.m. ET. On March 7, clubs were allowed to contact and enter into contract negotiations with the agents of players who became unrestricted free agents upon the expiration of their contracts two days later. On March 9, clubs exercised options for 2017 on players who have option clauses in their contracts, submitted qualifying offers to their restricted free agents with expiring contracts and to whom desire to retain a Right of Refusal/Compensation, submitted a Minimum Salary Tender to retain exclusive negotiating rights to their players with expiring 2016 contracts and who have fewer than three accrued seasons of free agent credit, and teams were required to be under the salary cap using the "Top-51" definition (in which the 51 highest paid-players on the team's payroll must have a collected salary cap hit below the actual cap). The 2017 trading period also began the same day.


title: 2017 NFL season

text: A total of 496 players were eligible for some form of free agency at the beginning of the free agency period. Notable players to change teams via free agency included:


title: 2017 NFL season

text: The 2017 NFL Draft was held on April 27–29 in Philadelphia. The Cleveland Browns selected Myles Garrett with the first overall pick.


title: 2017 NFL season

text: Alberto Riveron replaced Dean Blandino as the league's Vice President of Officiating. Blandino would then be hired by Fox Sports as a rule analyst.


title: 2017 NFL season

text: The following rule changes were approved for the 2017 NFL season at the owners' meeting on March 28, 2017:


title: 2017 NFL season

text: The following rule changes were approved for the 2017 NFL season at the NFL Spring League meeting on May 23, 2017:


title: 2017 NFL season

text: The ban on teams contacting potential coaching candidates until that candidate's team has been eliminated from the playoffs was tabled.


title: 2017 NFL season

text: Training camps for the 2017 season were held in late July through August. Teams started training camp no earlier than 15 days before the team's first scheduled preseason game.


title: 2017 NFL season

text: Prior to the start of the regular season, each team played four preseason exhibition games, beginning on August 10. The preseason began on August 3, with the 2017 Pro Football Hall of Fame Game between the Dallas Cowboys (represented in the 2017 Hall of Fame Class by owner Jerry Jones) and the Arizona Cardinals (represented by quarterback Kurt Warner). It was televised nationally on NBC. The preseason schedule ended on August 31; One preseason game between the Dallas Cowboys and Houston Texans, was canceled in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey.


title: 2017 NFL season

text: The 2017 regular season's 256 games were played over a 17-week schedule which began on September 7. Each of the league's 32 teams plays a 16-game schedule, with one bye week for each team. The slate also features games on Monday nights. There are games played on Thursday, including the National Football League Kickoff game in prime time on September 7 and games on Thanksgiving Day. The regular season concluded with a full slate of 16 games on Sunday, December 31, all of which were the intra–division matchups, as it has been since .


title: 2017 NFL season

text: Under the NFL's current scheduling formula, each team plays the other three teams in its own division twice. In addition a team plays against all four teams in one other division from each conference. The final two games on a team's schedule are against the two teams in the team's own conference in the divisions the team was not set to play which finished the previous season in the same rank in their division (e.g. the team which finished first in its division the previous season would play each other team in its conference that also finished first in its respective division). The preset division pairings for 2017 will be as follows.


title: 2017 NFL season

text: The following games were moved or canceled because of severe weather, by way of flexible scheduling, or for other reasons:


title: 2017 NFL season

text: The 2017 playoffs began on January 6–7, 2018 with the Wild Card playoff round. The four winners of these playoff games visited the top two seeded teams in each conference in the Divisional round games played on January 13–14. The winners of those games advanced the Conference championship games was held on January 21. The two Conference champions advanced to Super Bowl LII was held on February 4 at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis. The 2018 Pro Bowl was held at Camping World Stadium in Orlando on January 28.


title: 2017 NFL season

text: During a September 22, 2017 speech, the President of the United States, Donald Trump, made controversial remarks criticizing the practice of taking a knee during the playing of the national anthem—a practice popularized by Colin Kaepernick in 2016 as part of an effort to protest alleged racial inequality and police brutality. Trump suggested that those who partake in the practice were disrespecting the country's heritage, and asked his audience, "wouldn't you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, 'Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out! He's fired. He's fired!'" During the subsequent weekend of games, over 200 players protested the remarks, by either kneeling or locking arms during the playing of the national anthem. The Pittsburgh Steelers (with the exception of offensive tackle and former Army Ranger Alejandro Villanueva), Tennessee Titans and Seattle Seahawks chose to not go out on field at all during the anthem.


title: 2017 NFL season

text: On December 17, 2017, Jerry Richardson, owner of the Carolina Panthers, announced he was putting the team up for sale. Richardson had previously indicated the team would be put up for sale after his death (since his only living son left the team in 2009), but an exposé in "Sports Illustrated" accused Richardson of paying hush money to cover up questionable conduct, including racial slurs and sexually suggestive requests of employees, hastening Richardson's decision. The Panthers' lease on Bank of America Stadium expired after the 2018 season, which would have allowed any incoming owner to relocate the team out of the Carolinas to another market of their choice without penalty had they so desired.


title: 2017 NFL season

text: The 7th Annual NFL Honors, saluting the best players and plays from 2017 season, was held at the Northrop Auditorium in Minneapolis, Minnesota on February 3, 2018.


title: 2017 NFL season

text: The Atlanta Falcons played their first season at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, after playing in the Georgia Dome for the previous 25 seasons. The Georgia Dome was demolished by implosion on the morning of November 20, 2017.


title: 2017 NFL season

text: On January 12, 2017, the San Diego Chargers exercised their option to relocate to Los Angeles as the Los Angeles Chargers. They joined the Los Angeles Rams as tenants in their new stadium, SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California when that stadium opened in 2020. Between 2017 and 2019, the Chargers played at the 30,000 seat StubHub Center in Carson, California, the smallest venue (in terms of number of seats) the league has used for a full season since 1956.


title: 2017 NFL season

text: On January 19, 2017, the Oakland Raiders filed paperwork to relocate to Las Vegas, Nevada. The NFL officially approved the Raiders relocation to Las Vegas on March 27. Unlike the Chargers, the Raiders remained at the Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum through the 2018 and 2019 seasons while Allegiant Stadium was built, with the team moving to Nevada in 2020.


title: 2017 NFL season

text: The Los Angeles Rams, who had capped season ticket sales at 55,000 for the 2017 season, announced to have 60,128 spectators in the first home game on week 1. However, reports estimate that spectators only filled a third of the 93,607 seats of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The Los Angeles Chargers did not sell out their week 2 game at the StubHub Center, which was never expanded to 30,000 seats as originally stated and has typically had less than 26,000 fans in attendance. When the StubHub Center was at capacity, the majority of the fans present were supporters of the opposing team. Among the most notable examples was the October 1 game against Philadelphia Eagles being a mainly pro-Philadelphia crowd.


title: 2017 NFL season

text: The San Francisco 49ers reported a Week 3 attendance total that exceeded the capacity of Levi's Stadium, even as wide swaths of empty seats were seen throughout the game. This followed similar sparse attendance for the 49ers' home opener. Even the Dallas Cowboys, a team whose fan base is among the largest in the United States, played their week 13 "Thursday Night Football" game in front of a half-empty AT&T Stadium. The lifting of the league's blackout policy was cited as one factor in the decline in ticket sales, as viewers would rather watch from the comfort of their homes, especially when weather conditions were less than ideal. At a Colts-Bills game held in blinding lake-effect snow on December 10, scalpers said they had not sold any tickets, an extreme rarity. A majority of television sets in all Western New York were tuned into some portion of the game, the highest viewership for a non-Super Bowl NFL game in the region since record-keeping began.


title: 2017 NFL season

text: This was the fourth season under the league's broadcast contracts with its television partners. ESPN continued to air "Monday Night Football", while ESPN2 simulcast ESPN Deportes' Spanish-language "Monday Night Football" broadcasts for the first nine weeks of the regular season; this served as filler programming for the channel until the start of its Monday-night college basketball broadcasts. Along with ESPN's Wild Card game on ABC, ESPN also simulcast the 2018 Pro Bowl on ABC, marking the return of the Pro Bowl to ABC for the first time since 2003.


title: 2017 NFL season

text: The practice of "cross-flexing" (switching) Sunday afternoon games continued between CBS and Fox before or during the season, regardless of whether the visiting team is in the AFC (which CBS normally airs) or the NFC (which is normally carried by Fox). NBC continued to air "Sunday Night Football", the annual Kickoff game, and the primetime Thanksgiving game, and broadcast Super Bowl LII. This also was the second and final year of the current "Thursday Night Football" contract with CBS, NBC, and NFL Network.


title: 2017 NFL season

text: Although never explicitly announced, the league continued the moratorium on its blackout policy, ensuring all games would be televised in the market of their home teams regardless of ticket sales.


title: 2017 NFL season

text: Because of fog and smoke obstruction, NBC was forced to televise large portions of two of their "Sunday Night Football" games from the skycam angle. Positive reception led NBC to experiment with increased usage of the angle as a primary view during its November 16 and December 14 "Thursday Night Football" telecasts. Because the angle distorts distance, the traditional sideline camera angle was used for close-yardage situations such as the red zone.


title: 2017 NFL season

text: In over-the-top rights, Amazon Video acquired non-exclusive streaming rights to the 10 broadcast television "Thursday Night Football" games for $50 million. These streams are exclusive to paid Amazon Prime subscribers, in contrast to Twitter, which held the rights to the same package in 2016 and had made those streams free to most of the world.


title: 2017 NFL season

text: Verizon Communications acquired international streaming rights to an NFL London Game between the Baltimore Ravens and Jacksonville Jaguars, in a similar arrangement to the 2015 game that was streamed by Yahoo!—which was acquired by Verizon in 2017. The game was streamed by Yahoo and other Verizon-owned platforms, including AOL, go90, and Complex. NFL Network remains a partner with Twitter for online content, including its new streaming news program "NFL Blitz Live". The NFL also reached a deal with Facebook in September 2017 to offer video highlights following games, and streaming programs on the service's new Watch platform.


title: 2017 NFL season

text: This was the final season of the NFL's exclusive mobile streaming contract with Verizon Wireless; the league intended to no longer have a single exclusive partner going forward, citing changes to viewing habits. On December 11, 2017, the NFL announced that it had agreed to a new 5-year, $2.5 billion digital rights agreement with Verizon, allowing it to stream in-market Sunday afternoon games, as well as all nationally televised games, across its mobile platforms. Unlike the previous deal, these streams are no longer exclusive to Verizon Wireless subscribers, as Verizon planned to leverage the divisions of its digital media subsidiary Oath (including the aforementioned Yahoo) as a platform to promote these streams to a larger audience, as well as other digital content and expanded highlights rights. As part of the agreement, Verizon began allowing access to its existing mobile streams to non-customers for the 2017-18 playoffs. As the new contract is non-exclusive, the NFL's television partners may negotiate to add the mobile streaming rights that were reserved to Verizon under the previous contract; NBC was the first to do so.


title: 2017 NFL season

text: Two new international digital rights deals led to user criticism over their quality of service. In Canada, NFL Sunday Ticket shifted from distribution through television providers to the over-the-top provider DAZN, while in Europe, Deltatre took over European distribution of NFL Game Pass and launched new mobile apps. Both services faced criticism over their streaming quality, while Delatre's app faced criticism for having bugs and initially lacking features seen in the previous version of the platform. "The Independent" exposed that Deltatre had also issued an internal e-mail instructing its employees to give the apps 5-star reviews. DAZN subsequently announced that it would return to distributing Sunday Ticket through Canadian television providers in addition to their OTT service.


title: 2017 NFL season

text: This was the final season of the NFL's existing national radio contract with Westwood One. Entravision (in the last year of a three-year deal) and ESPN Deportes Radio split Spanish broadcast rights.


title: 2017 NFL season

text: The league has sought to reduce the number of standard commercial breaks (media timeouts) on its telecasts from 21 to 16, four in each quarter, with each break extended by one additional 30-second commercial. One particular scenario the league sought to eliminate is the "double-up," in which a network cuts to a commercial after a scoring play, then airs the kickoff, and again goes to commercial before play from scrimmage resumes. Under the proposal, the league will allow networks to cut to commercial during instant replay reviews, which it had not been allowed to do before. Commissioner Roger Goodell stated that the changes are being made in an attempt to consolidate downtime between the actual game play so that there are fewer and less noticeable interruptions; he does not expect the changes to have an appreciable impact on the real-time length of a game, which currently clocks in at slightly over three hours.


title: 2017 NFL season

text: The NFL has also, as a trial, lifted its ban on the broadcast of commercials for distilled spirits during its telecasts. However, they are subject to restrictions; a maximum of four liquor ads may be broadcast per-game, along with two per-pregame and postgame show. These ads may not contain football-related themes or target underage viewers, and must contain a "prominent social responsibility message".


title: 2017 NFL season

text: Tony Romo, who announced his retirement as a player on April 4, 2017, joined CBS, where he replaced Phil Simms as lead color commentator. Simms and Nate Burleson, who comes over from NFL Network, will replace Tony Gonzalez and Bart Scott on CBS's pregame show, "The NFL Today". Jay Cutler also announced his retirement from professional football on May 5 and was slated to join Fox as a color analyst for its NFL coverage; he later rescinded that announcement in August and joined the Miami Dolphins. Gonzalez will move to Fox, where he will join "Fox NFL Kickoff"; upon his departure, Gonzalez stated that he wished to pursue opportunities closer to his home in California, rather than travel to New York weekly to appear on CBS. James Lofton, coming over from radio, will replace Solomon Wilcots as a CBS analyst.


title: 2017 NFL season

text: On May 31, 2017, it was announced that Mike Tirico would replace Al Michaels on play-by-play on NBC's portion of the "Thursday Night Football" package, joined by Cris Collinsworth. The NFL had previously required this role to be filled by NBC's lead broadcast team of Michaels and Collinsworth; Tirico called a limited slate of games in 2016, including several NBC-broadcast games as a fill-in for Michaels (who voluntarily took several games off due to the increased number he was calling that season), and as part of a secondary team for selected games the "TNF" package. He will also succeed Bob Costas as the lead studio host for NBC. However, due to its proximity to the 2018 Winter Olympics (where he also succeeded Bob Costas as lead host), Tirico did not participate in NBC's Super Bowl LII coverage.


title: 2017 NFL season

text: Beth Mowins became the second woman to call play-by-play for a national NFL broadcast, following Gayle Sierens in 1987, when she served as play-by-play announcer for the nightcap in ESPN's Week 1 Monday Night doubleheader, with Rex Ryan as her color commentator. In an unusual case of a broadcaster working for two networks in the same season, Mowins also called a regional game for CBS in Weeks 3, 15 and 17, with Jay Feely as her partner.


title: 2017 NFL season

text: Also, this would end up being the last season for the Monday Night Football broadcast team of Sean McDonough, Jon Gruden, and Lisa Salters. Gruden would return to coaching the next year for the Oakland Raiders, while McDonough would return to doing College Football for ESPN, although Salters will still be on MNF. McDonough will be replaced by Joe Tessitore, who has done work for ESPN as a College Football announcer, like McDonough, while Jason Witten, who would end up retiring after this season, will replace Gruden, with Booger McFarland, being added as a field analyst.


title: Scania

text: Scania, also known by its native name of Skåne (, ), is the southernmost of the historical provinces ("landskap") of Sweden. Located in the south tip of the geographical region of Götaland, the province is roughly conterminous with Skåne County, created in 1997. Like the other former provinces of Sweden, Scania still features in colloquial speech and in cultural references, and can therefore not be regarded as an archaic concept. Within Scania there are 33 municipalities that are autonomous within the Skåne Regional Council. Scania's largest city, Malmö, is the third-largest city in Sweden, as well as the fifth-largest in Scandinavia.


title: Scania

text: To the north, Scania borders the former provinces of Halland and Småland, to the northeast Blekinge, to the east and south the Baltic Sea, and to the west Öresund. Since 2000, a road and railway bridge, the Öresund Bridge, bridges the Sound and connects Scania with Denmark. Scania forms part of the transnational Øresund Region.


title: Scania

text: From north to south Scania is around 130 km; it covers less than 3% of Sweden's total area. The population of over 1,320,000 represents 13% of the country's population. With 121 inh/km Scania is the second-most densely populated province of Sweden.


title: Scania

text: Historically, Scania formed part of the kingdom of Denmark until the signing of the Treaty of Roskilde in 1658. Denmark regained control of the province (1676–1679) during the Scanian War and again briefly in 1711 during the Great Northern War. Scania has been an undisputed part of Sweden since 1720.


title: Scania

text: The endonym used in Swedish and other North Germanic languages is "Skåne" (formerly spelled "Skaane" in Danish and Norwegian). The Latinized form "Scania" is an exonym in English. Sometimes the endonym Skåne is used in English text, such as in tourist information, even sometimes as "Skane" with the diacritic omitted. Scania (as also Dalarna) is one of the few Swedish provinces for which exonyms are widely used in many languages, such as French "Scanie", Dutch and German "Schonen", Polish "Skania", Spanish "Escania", Italian "Scania", etc. For the province's modern administrative counterpart, "Skåne län", the endonym "Skåne" is used in English.


title: Scania

text: In the Alfredian translation of Orosius's and Wulfstan's travel accounts, the Old English form "Sconeg" appears. Frankish sources mention a place called "Sconaowe"; Æthelweard, an Anglo-Saxon historian, wrote about "Scani"; and in Beowulf's fictional account, the names "Scedenige" and "Scedeland" appear as names for what is a Danish land.


title: Scania

text: The names "Scania" and "Scandinavia" are considered to have the same etymology. The southernmost tip of what is today Sweden was called Scania by the Romans and thought to be an island. The actual etymology of the word remains dubious and has long been a matter of debate among scholars. The name is possibly derived from the Germanic root "*Skaðin-awjã", which appears in Old Norse as . According to some scholars, the Germanic stem can be reconstructed as *"Skaðan-" meaning "danger" or "damage" (English "scathing", German "Schaden", Swedish "skada"). Skanör in Scania, with its long Falsterbo reef, has the same stem ("skan") combined with -"ör", which means "sandbanks".


title: Scania

text: Between 1719 and 1996, the province was subdivided in two administrative counties ("län"), Kristianstad County and Malmöhus County, each under a governor ("landshövding") appointed by the central government of Sweden.


title: Scania

text: When the first local government acts took effect in 1863, each county also got an elected county council ("landsting"). The counties were further divided into municipalities.


title: Scania

text: The local government reform of 1952 reduced the number of municipalities, and a second subdivision reform, carried out between 1968 and 1974, established today's 33 municipalities () in Scania. The municipalities have municipal governments, similar to city commissions, and are further divided into parishes ("församlingar"). The parishes are primarily entities of the Church of Sweden, but they also serve as a divisioning measure for the Swedish population registration and other statistical uses.


title: Scania

text: In 1999, the county council areas were amalgamated, forming Skåne Regional Council ("Region Skåne"), responsible mainly for public healthcare, public transport and regional planning and culture.


title: Scania

text: During the Danish era, the province had no coat of arms. In Sweden, however, every province had been represented by heraldic arms since 1560. When Charles X Gustav of Sweden suddenly died in 1660 a coat of arms had to be created for the newly acquired province, as each province was to be represented by its arms at his royal funeral. After an initiative from Baron Gustaf Bonde, the Lord High Treasurer of Sweden, the coat of arms of the City of Malmö was used as a base for the new provincial arms. The Malmö coat of arms had been granted in 1437, during the Kalmar Union, by Eric of Pomerania and contains a Pomeranian griffin's head. To distinguish it from the city's coat of arms the tinctures were changed and the official blazon for the provincial arms is, in English: "Or, a griffin's head erased gules, crowned azure and armed azure, when it should be armed."


title: Scania

text: The province was divided in two administrative counties 1719–1996. Coats of arms were created for these entities, also using the griffin motif. The new Skåne County, operative from 1 January 1997, got a coat of arms that is the same as the province's, but with reversed tinctures. When the county arms is shown with a Swedish royal crown, it represents the County Administrative Board, which is the regional presence of central government authority. In 1999 the two county councils () were amalgamated forming Region Skåne. It is the only one of its kind using a heraldic coat of arms. It is also the same as the province's and the county's, but with a golden griffin's head on a "blue" shield. The 33 municipalities within the county also have coats of arms.


title: Scania

text: The "Scania Griffin" has become a well-known symbol for the province and is also used by commercial enterprises. It is, for instance, included in the logotypes of the automotive manufacturer Scania AB and the airline Malmö Aviation.


title: Scania

text: Scania was first mentioned in written texts in the 9th century. It came under Danish king Harald Bluetooth in the middle of the 10th century. It was then a region that included Blekinge and Halland, situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula and formed the eastern part of the kingdom of Denmark. This geographical position made it the focal point of the frequent Dano-Swedish wars for hundreds of years.


title: Scania

text: By the Treaty of Roskilde in 1658, all Danish lands east of Øresund were ceded to the Swedish Crown. First placed under a Governor-General, the province was eventually integrated into the kingdom of Sweden. The last Danish attempt to regain its lost provinces failed after the 1710 Battle of Helsingborg.


title: Scania

text: In 1719, the province was subdivided in two counties and administered in the same way as the rest of Sweden. Scania has since that year been fully integrated in the Swedish nation. In the following summer, July 1720, the last peace treaty between Sweden and Denmark was signed.


title: Scania

text: During Sweden's financial crisis in the early and mid-1990s, Scania, Västra Götaland and Norrbotten were among the hardest hit in the country, with high unemployment rates as a result. In response to the crisis, the County Governors were given a task by the government in September 1996 to co-ordinate various measures in the counties to increase economic growth and employment by bringing in regional actors. The first proposal for regional autonomy and a regional parliament had been introduced by the Social Democratic Party's local districts in Scania and Västra Götaland already in 1993. When Sweden joined the European Union two years later, the concept "Regions of Europe" came in focus and a more regionalist-friendly approach was adopted in national politics. These factors contributed to the subsequent transformation of Skåne County into one of the first "trial regions" in Sweden in 1999, established as the country's first "regional experiment".


title: Scania

text: The relatively strong regional identity in Scania is often referred to in order to explain the general support in the province for the decentralization efforts introduced by the Swedish government. On the basis of large scale interview investigations about Region Skåne in Scania, scholars have found that the prevailing trend among the inhabitants of Scania is to "[look] upon their region with more positive eyes and a firm reliance that it would deliver the goods in terms of increased democracy and constructive results out of economic planning".


title: Scania

text: Electrified dual track railroad exists from the border with Denmark at the Øresund Bridge to Malmö and onwards to Lund. The latter part is currently being upgraded to four tracks and expected to enter service in 2023. In Lund, the tracks split into two directions. The dual tracks going towards Gothenburg end at Helsingborg, while the other branch continues beyond the provincial border to neighbouring Småland, close to Killeberg. This latter dual track continues to mid-Sweden. There are also a few single track railroads connecting cities like Trelleborg, Ystad and Kristianstad. Just as five Scanian stations are served partly (Hässleholm and Osby) or entirely (Ballingslöv, Hästveda and Killeberg) by Småland local trains, the Scanian Pågatåg trains serve Markaryd in Småland.


title: Scania

text: There are basically three ticket systems: Skånetrafiken tickets can be purchased for all regional traffic including to Denmark, while the Danish Rejsekort system can only be used at stations served by Øresundståg and equipped with special card readers. Additionally, Swedish national SJ-tickets are available for longer trips to the north.


title: Scania

text: The E6 motorway is the main artery through the western part of Scania all the way from Trelleborg to the provincial border towards neighbouring Halland. It continues along the Swedish west coast to Gothenburg and most of the way to the Norwegian border. There are also several other motorways, especially around Malmö. Since 2000, the economic focus of the region has changed, with the opening of a road link across the Øresund Bridge to Denmark.


title: Scania

text: There are three minor airports in Sturup, Ängelholm and Kristianstad. The nearby Copenhagen Airport, which is the largest international airport in the Nordic countries, also serves the province.


title: Scania

text: Unlike some regions of Sweden, the Scanian landscape is generally not mountainous, though a few examples of uncovered cliffs can be found at Hovs Hallar, at Kullaberg, and on the island Hallands Väderö. With the exception of the lake-rich and densely forested northern parts (Göinge), the rolling hills in the north-west (the Bjäre and Kulla peninsulas) and the beech-wood-clad areas extending from the slopes of the horsts, a sizeable portion of Scania's terrain consists of plains. Its low profile and open landscape distinguish Scania from most other geographical regions of Sweden which consist mainly of waterway-rich, cool, mixed coniferous forests, boreal taiga and alpine tundra. The province has several lakes but there are relatively few compared to Småland, the province directly to the north. Stretching from the north-western to the south-eastern parts of Scania is a belt of deciduous forests following the Linderödsåsen ridge and previously marking the border between Malmöhus County and Kristianstad County. The much denser fir forests — typical of the greater part of Sweden — are only found in the north-eastern Göinge parts of Scania along the border with the forest-dominated province of Småland. While the landscape typically has a slightly sloping profile, in some places, such as north of Malmö, the terrain is almost completely flat.


title: Scania

text: The narrow lakes with a long north to south extent, which are very common further north, are lacking in Scania. The largest lake, Ivösjön in the north-east, has similarities with the lakes further north, but has a different shape. All other lakes tend to be round, oval or of more complex shape and also lack any specific cardinal direction. Ringsjön, in the middle of the province, is the largest of such lakes.


title: Scania

text: In the winter, some smaller lakes east of Lund often attract young Eurasian sea eagles ("Haliaeetus albicilla").


title: Scania

text: Where the sea meets higher parts of the sloping landscape, cliffs emerge. Such cliffs are white if the soil has a high content of chalk. Good examples of such coastlines exist at the southern side of Ven, between the towns of Helsingborg and Landskrona, and in parts of the south and south-east coasts. In other Swedish provinces, steep coastlines usually reveal primary rock instead.


title: Scania

text: The two major plains, Söderslätt in the south-west and Österlen in the south-east, consist of highly fertile agricultural land. The yield per unit area is higher than in any other region in Sweden. The Scanian plains are an important resource for Sweden since 25–95% of the total production of various types of cereals come from the region. Almost all Swedish sugar beet comes from Scania; the plant needs a long vegetation period. The same applies also to corn, pea and rape (grown for its oil), although these plants are less imperative in comparison with sugar beets. The soil is among the most fertile in the world.


title: Scania

text: The Kullaberg Nature Preserve in northwest Scania is home to several rare species including spring vetchling, "Lathyrus sphaericus".


title: Scania

text: The gross relief of Scania reflects more the preglacial development than the erosion and deposits caused by the Quaternary glaciers. In Swedish the word "ås" commonly refers to eskers, but major landmarks in Scania, such as Söderåsen, are horsts formed by tectonic inversion along the Sorgenfrei-Tornquist Zone in the late Cretaceous. The Scanian horsts run in a north-west to south-east direction, marking the southwest border of Fennoscandia. Tectonic activity of the Sorgenfrei-Tornquist Zone during the break-up of Pangaea in the Jurassic and Cretaceous epochs led to the formation of hundreds of small volcanoes in central Scania. Remnants of the volcanoes are still visible today. Parallel with volcanism a hilly peneplain formed in northeastern Scania due to weathering and erosion of basement rocks. The kaolinite formed by this weathering can be observed at Ivö Klack. In the Campanian age of the Late Cretaceous a sea level rise led to the complete drowning of Scania. Subsequently, marine sediments buried old surfaces preserving the rocky shores and hilly terrain of the day.


title: Scania

text: In the Paleogene period southern Sweden was at a lower position relative to sea level but was likely still above it as it was covered by sediments. Rivers flowing over the South Småland peneplain flowed also across Scania which was at the time covered by thick sediments. As the relative sea level sank and much of Scania lost its sedimentary cover antecedent rivers begun to incise the Söderåsen horst forming valleys. During deglaciation these valleys likely evacuated large amounts of melt-water. The relief of Scania's south-western landscape was formed by the accumulation of thick Quaternary sediments during the Quaternary glaciations.


title: Scania

text: The vast majority of Scania belongs to the European hardwood vegetation zone, a considerable part of which is now agricultural rather than the original forest. This zone covers Europe west of Poland and north of the Alps, and includes the British Isles, northern and central France and the countries and regions to the south and southeast of the North Sea up to Denmark. A smaller north-eastern part of Scania is part of the pinewood vegetation zone, in which spruce grows naturally. Within the larger part, pine may grow together with birch on sandy soil. The most common tree is beech. Other common trees are willow, oak, ash, alder and elm (which until the 1970s formed a few forests but now is heavily infected by the elm disease). Also rather southern trees like walnut tree, chestnut and hornbeam can be found. In parks horse chestnut, lime and maple are commonly planted as well. Common fruit trees planted in commercial orchards and private gardens include several varieties of apple, pear, cherry and plum; strawberries are commercially cultivated in many locations across the province. Examples of wild berries grown in domesticated form are blackberry, raspberry, cloudberry (in the north-east), blueberry, wild strawberry and loganberry.


title: Scania

text: Scania is divided into 33 municipalities with population and land surface as the table below shows. There is a large population difference between the western Scania, that is located by, or close to Øresund sea compared to the middle and eastern parts of the province.


title: Scania

text: Western Scania has a high population density, not only by Scandinavian standards but also by average European standards, at close to 300 inhabitants per square kilometre. But the Danish Copenhagen region at north-east Zealand, on the other side of Øresund Sea, is even more densely populated. The north-east part of Zealand (or the Danish Region Hovedstaden without the Baltic island of Bornholm) has a population density of 878 inhabitants/km, most of Greater Copenhagen included.


title: Scania

text: By adding the population of western Scania to the same of Metropolitan area of Copenhagen, then close to 3 million people live around the Øresund sea, within a maximum distance from Øresund of 25 to 30 kilometres, at a land surface of approx. 6100 km (approx 460 inhabitants/km). This is in many ways a better measurement of describing the area around Øresund than what the far wider Øresund Region constitutes, as the latter includes also eastern Scania (whose beaches are Baltic Sea ones and is far less populated) as well as all Denmark east of the Great Belt.


title: Scania

text: Regardless of counting a smaller area with higher population density or a larger one, the Øresund Strait is located in the largest metropolitan area in Scandinavia with Finland.


title: Scania

text: In 1658, the following ten places in Scania were chartered and held town rights: Lund (since approximately 990), Helsingborg (1085), Falsterbo (approximately 1200), Ystad (approximately 1200), Skanör (approximately 1200), Malmö (approximately 1250), Simrishamn (approximately 1300), Landskrona (1413), and Kristianstad (1622). Others had existed earlier, but lost their privileges. Ängelholm got new privileges in 1767, and in 1754, Falsterbo and Skanör were merged. The concept of municipalities was introduced in Sweden in 1863, making each of the towns a city municipality of its own. In the 19th and 20th centuries, four more municipalities were granted city status, Trelleborg (1867), Eslöv (1911), Hässleholm (1914) and Höganäs (1936). The system of city status was abolished in 1971.


title: Scania

text: Over 90% of Scania's population live in urban areas. In 2000, the Øresund Bridge – the longest combined road and rail bridge in Europe – linked Malmö and Copenhagen, making Scania's population part of a 3.6 million total population in the Øresund Region. In 2005, the region had 9,200 commuters crossing the bridge daily, the vast majority of them from Malmö to Copenhagen.


title: Scania

text: It has been estimated that around 1570, Scania had about 110,000 inhabitants. But before the plague in the middle of the 14th century the population of all Danish territory east of Øresund (Scania, Island of Bornholm, Blekinge and Halland) may have exceeded 250,000.


title: Scania

text: The table shows average temperatures in degrees Celsius at ten Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI) weather stations in Scania and three stations further north for comparison issues. Average temperature in this case means the average of the temperature taken throughout both day and night unlike the more usual daily maximum or minimum average. This is done for specific measured periods of thirty years. The last period began at 1 January 1961 and ended at 31 December 1990. The current such period started at 1 January 1991 and will end by 31 December 2020. At that time it will be possible to with a high degree of mathematical certainty to measure possible climate changes, by comparing two separate periods of 30 years with each other.


title: Scania

text: Compared with locations further north, the Scanian climate differs primary by being far less cold during the winter and in having longer springs and autumns. While the July temperatures doesn't differ much (see table above).


title: Scania

text: The highest temperature ever recorded in the province is (Ängelholm, 30 July 1947) and the lowest ever recorded is (Stehag, 26 January 1942) Temperatures below are relatively rare even at night, while summer temperatures above occurs once in a while every summer. Precipitation is spread fairly evenly, both across the province and during the year.


title: Scania

text: A typical winter, with average temperatures around the freezing point during January and February, means that a period of mild weather (often windy or/and rainy) is followed by a colder period (when precipitation falls as snow)—and then the mild weather returns etc., rather than a stable temperature close to zero degrees. During the colder periods, the temperature often is below freezing point also during daytime while during the milder periods temperatures below freezing point are unusual even at night. During the "mild periods" temperatures slightly below freezing point only occur if the night is both calm and free of clouds. If the same circumstances occur during a "cold period," the nights can get very cold though. All together this adds up to a 24 hrs/day "winter average" of around 0 degrees In the north-eastern corner (and at the top of the ridges) the winter is in general notably colder though, and a snow cover may last for weeks.


title: Scania

text: March is locally known as the first month of the spring. The colder periods are fewer and sunny days may even feel pleasant. During April and early May temperature rises rather fast. Though spring (especially in the sense "first heat") arrives later compared to northernmost Germany and Poland. This is particularly notable in the south-eastern corner. This is explained by the open coastline and low temperatures in the Baltic sea. Øresund is both narrow and shallow, and gets warmer faster. The most common Scanian tree, the beech, usually comes into leaf during the last days of April or the first days of May, but is often delayed by 10–14 days in the south-east, due to the Baltic Sea chill factor.


title: Scania

text: Unlike the other seasons, summer is not warmer in Scania compared to many other Swedish provinces. As in winter, the weather usually changes between periods that either are sunny and fairly hot (up to 30 degrees, even higher away from the coastlines), and periods of unstable cloudy and cooler weather. The time between sunset and sunrise during June and earliest July is less than 7 hours, and both the dawn and the dusk are rather long as well. However, there are still a few hours of real night. Further north in Sweden there is no real night, as dusk turns into dawn. (In northernmost Sweden, the sun does not set at all for around two months.)


title: Scania

text: The autumn in Scania is a slow process, compared with more northern parts of Sweden (but a faster one, when comparing with any part of the British Isles). During the first half of September, temperatures usually are not so much affected, but the sunset is obviously earlier compared with in June. Temperatures drop in steps. Every new period with sunny weather becomes a bit cooler than the last one. By the end of October the defoliation process becomes evident. But not until late November have all the trees lost their leaves. The period when storms and even hurricanes becomes most likely to occur is between November and February. Most hurricanes come from the Atlantic Ocean and don't involve snow or temperatures below freezing point. Late Scanian autumn is in general benefited from the surrounding waters (the opposite effect early spring).


title: Scania

text: Scania's long-running and sometimes intense trade relations with other communities along the coast of the European continent through history have made the culture of Scania distinct from other geographical regions of Sweden. Its open landscape, often described as a colourful patchwork quilt of wheat and rapeseed fields, and the relatively mild climate at the southern tip of the Scandinavian Peninsula, have inspired many Swedish artists and authors to compare it to European regions like Provence in southern France and Zeeland in the Netherlands. Among the many authors who have described the "foreign" continental elements of the Scanian landscape, diet and customs are August Strindberg and Carl Linnaeus. In 1893 August Strindberg wrote about Scania: "In beautiful, large wave lines, the fields undulate down toward the lake; a small deciduous forest limits the coastline, which is given the inviting look of the Riviera, where people shall walk in the sun, protected from the north wind. [...] The Swede leaves the plains with a certain sense of comfort, because its beauty is foreign to him." In another chapter he states: "The Swedes have a history that is not the history of the South Scandinavians. It must be just as foreign as Vasa’s history is to the Scanian."


title: Scania

text: In Ystad, singer-songwriter Michael Saxell's popular Scanian anthem "Om himlen och Österlen" (Of Heaven and Österlen), the flat, rolling hill landscape is described as appearing to be a little closer to heaven and the big, unending sky.


title: Scania

text: Scania's historical connection to Denmark, the vast fertile plains, the deciduous forests and the relatively mild climate make the province culturally and physically distinct from the emblematic Swedish cultural landscape of forests and small hamlets.


title: Scania

text: Traditional Scanian architecture is shaped by the limited availability of wood; it incorporates different applications of the building technique called half-timbering. In the cities, the infill of the façades consisted of bricks, whereas the country-side half-timbered houses had infill made of clay and straw. Unlike many other Scanian towns, the town of Ystad has managed to preserve a rather large core of its half-timbered architecture in the city center—over 300 half-timbered houses still exist today. Many of the houses in Ystad were built in the renaissance style that was common in the entire Øresund Region, and which has also been preserved in Elsinore (Helsingør). Among Ystad's half-timbered houses is the oldest such building in Scandinavia, "Pilgrändshuset" from 1480.


title: Scania

text: In Göinge, located in the northern part of Scania, the architecture was not shaped by a scarcity of wood, and the pre-17th-century farms consisted of graying, recumbent timber buildings around a small grass and cobblestone courtyard. Only a small number of the original Göinge farms remain today. During two campaigns, the first in 1612 by Gustav II Adolf and the second by Charles XI in the 1680s, entire districts were levelled by fire. In Örkened Parish, in what is now eastern Osby Municipality, the buildings were destroyed to punish the different villages for their protection of members of the Snapphane movement in the late 17th century. An original, 17th century Göinge farm, "Sporrakulla Farm", has been preserved in a forest called Kullaskogen, a nature reserve close to Glimåkra in Östra Göinge. According to the local legend, the farmer saved the farm in the first raid of 1612 by setting a forest fire in front of it, making the Swedish troops believe that the farm had already been plundered and set ablaze.


title: Scania

text: A number of Scanian towns flourished during the Viking Age. The city of Lund is believed to have been founded by the Viking-king Sweyn Forkbeard. Scanian craftsmen and traders were prospering during this era and Denmark's first and largest mint was established in Lund. The first Scanian coins have been dated to 870 AD. The archaeological excavations performed in the city indicate that the oldest known stave church in Scania was built by Sweyn Forkbeard in Lund in 990. In 1103, Lund was made the archbishopric for all of Scandinavia.


title: Scania

text: Many of the old churches in today's Scanian landscape stem from the medieval age, although many church renovations, extensions and destruction of older buildings took place in the 16th and 19th century. From those that have kept features of the authentic style, it is still possible to see how the medieval, Romanesque or Renaissance churches of Danish Scania looked like. Many Scanian churches have distinctive crow-stepped gables and sturdy church porches, usually made of stone.


title: Scania

text: The first version of Lund Cathedral was built in 1050, in sandstone from Höör, on the initiative of Canute the Holy. The oldest parts of today's cathedral are from 1085, but the actual cathedral was constructed during the first part of the 12th century with the help of stone cutters and sculptors from the Rhine valley and Italy, and was ready for use in 1123. It was consecrated in 1145 and for the next 400 years, Lund became the ecclesiastical power center for Scandinavia and one of the most important cities in Denmark. The cathedral was altered in the 16th century by architect Adam van Düren and later by Carl Georg Brunius and Helgo Zetterwall.


title: Scania

text: Scania also has churches built in the gothic style, such as Saint Petri Church in Malmö, dating from the early 14th century. Similar buildings can be found in all Hansa cities around the Baltic Sea (such as Helsingborg and Rostock). The parishes in the countryside did not have the means for such extravagant buildings. Possibly the most notable countryside church is the ancient and untouched stone church in Dalby. It is the oldest stone church in Sweden, built around the same time as Lund cathedral. After the Lund Cathedral was built, many of the involved workers travelled around the province and used their acquired skills to make baptism fonts, paintings and decorations, and naturally architectural constructions.


title: Scania

text: Scania has 240 palaces and country estates—more than any other province in Sweden. Many of them received their current shape during the 16th century, when new or remodelled castles started to appear in greater numbers, often erected by the reuse of stones and material from the original 11th–15th-century castles and abbeys found at the estates. Between 1840 and 1900, the landed nobility in Scania built and rebuilt many of the castles again, often by modernizing previous buildings at the same location in a style that became typical for Scania. The style is a mixture of different architectural influences of the era, but frequently refers back to the style of the 16th-century castles of the Reformation era, a time when the large estates of the Catholic Church were made Crown property and the abbeys bartered or sold to members of the aristocracy by the Danish king. For many of the 19th century remodels, Danish architects were called in. According to some scholars, the driving force behind the use of historical Scanian architecture, as interpreted by 19th century Danish architects using Dutch Renaissance style, was a wish to refer back to an earlier era when the aristocracy had special privileges and political power in relation to the Danish king.


title: Scania

text: Scanian dialects have various local native idioms and speech patterns, and realizes diphthongs and South Scandinavian Uvular trill, as opposed to the supradental /r/-sound characteristic of spoken Standard Swedish. They are very similar to the dialect of Danish spoken in Bornholm, Denmark. The prosody of the Scanian dialects has more in common with German, Danish and Dutch (and sometimes also with English, although to a lesser extent) than with the prosody of central Swedish dialects.


title: Scania

text: Famous Scanian authors include Victoria Benedictsson, (1850–1888) from Domme, Trelleborg, who wrote about the inequality of women in the 19th century society, but who also authored regional stories about Scania, such as "Från Skåne" of 1884; Ola Hansson (1860–1925) from Hönsinge, Trelleborg; Vilhelm Ekelund (1880–1949) from Stehag, Eslöv; Fritiof Nilsson Piraten (1895–1972) from Vollsjö, Sjöbo; Hjalmar Gullberg (1898–1961) from Malmö; Artur Lundkvist (1906–1991) from Hagstad, Perstorp; Hans Alfredsson (1931–2017) and Jacques Werup (1945–2016), both from Malmö. Birgitta Trotzig (1929–2011) from Gothenburg has written several historic novels set in Scania, such as "The Exposed" of 1957, which describes life in 17th century Scania with a primitive country priest as its main character and the 1961 novel "A Tale from the Coast", which recounts a legend about human suffering and is set in Scania in the 15th century. Gabriel Jönsson (1892–1984) from Ålabodarna, Landskrona.


title: Scania

text: A printing-house was established in the city of Malmö in 1528. It became instrumental in the propagation of new ideas and during the 16th century, Malmö became the center for the Danish reformation.


title: Scania

text: Scanian culture, as expressed through the medium of textile art, has received international attention during the last decade. The art form, often referred to as Scanian Marriage Weavings, flourished from 1750 for a period of 100 years, after which it slowly vanished. Consisting of small textile panels mainly created for wedding ceremonies, the art is strongly symbolic, often expressing ideas about fertility, longevity and a sense of hope and joy. The Scanian artists were female weavers working at home, who had learned to weave at a young age, often in order to have a marriage chest filled with beautiful tapestries as a dowry.


title: Scania

text: According to international collectors and art scholars, the Scanian patterns are of special interest for the striking similarities with Roman, Byzantine and Asian art. The designs are studied by art historians tracing how portable decorative goods served as transmitters of art concepts from culture to culture, influencing designs and patterns along the entire length of the ancient trade routes. The Scanian textiles show how goods traded along the Silk Road brought Coptic, Anatolian, and Chinese designs and symbols into the folk art of far away regions like Scania, where they were reinterpreted and integrated into the local culture. Some of the most ancient designs in Scanian textile art are pairs of birds facing a tree with a "great bird" above, often symbolized simply by its wings. Regionally derived iconography include mythological Scanian river horses in red (), with horns on their foreheads and misty clouds from their nostrils. The horse motif has been traced to patterns on 4th- and 5th-century Egyptian fabrics, but in Scanian art it is transformed to illustrate the Norse river horse of Scanian folklore.


title: Scania

text: The title of duke was reintroduced in Sweden in 1772 and since this time, Swedish princes have been created dukes of various provinces, although the titles are purely nominal.


title: Scania

text: From his marriage, in 1905, King Gustaf VI Adolf had his summer residence at Sofiero Palace in Helsingborg. He and his family spent their summers there, and the cabinet meetings held there during the summer months forced the ministers to arrive by night train from Stockholm. He died at Helsingborg Hospital in 1973.


title: Scania

text: Football has always been the most popular arena and team sport within the province, from attendances not least. Clubs are administered by Skånes Fotbollförbund.


title: Scania

text: Malmö FF has won Allsvenskan 23 times, Helsingborg IF 7 times and was one of the twelve clubs in the league's very first season, 1924/25. Also Landskrona BoIS was among the twelve original clubs, but has never won. These three clubs are historically the most famous football clubs in Scania. But also IFK Malmö, Stattena IF, Råå IF (the latter two clubs are both from Helsingborg) as well as Trelleborgs FF have participated.