title: Almoravid dynasty

text: After taking control of Al-Andalus in the Battle of Sagrajas, the Almoravids sent Muslim, Christian and Jewish artisans from Iberia to North Africa to work on monuments. The Great Mosque in Algiers (c. 1097), the Great Mosque of Tlemcen (1136) and al-Qarawiyyin (expanded in 1135) in Fez are important examples of Almoravid architecture. The Almoravid Qubba is one of the few Almoravid monuments in Marrakesh surviving, and is notable for its highly ornate interior dome with carved stucco decoration, complex arch shapes, and minor "muqarnas" cupolas in the corners of the structure. The central nave of the expanded Qarawiyyin Mosque notably features the earliest full-fledged example of muqarnas vaulting in the western Islamic world. The complexity of these muqarnas vaults at such an early date – only several decades after the first simple muqarnas vaults appeared in distant Iraq – has been noted by architectural historians as surprising. Another high point of Almoravid architecture is the intricate ribbed dome in front of the mihrab of the Great Mosque of Tlemcen, which likely traces its origins to the 10th-century ribbed domes of the Great Mosque of Córdoba. The structure of the dome is strictly ornamental, consisting of multiple ribs or intersecting arches forming a twelve-pointed star pattern. It is also partly see-through, allowing some outside light to filter through a screen of pierced and carved arabesque decoration that fills the spaces between the ribs.


title: Almoravid dynasty

text: Aside from more ornamental religious structures, the Almoravids also built many fortifications, although most of these in turn were demolished or modified by the Almohads and later dynasties. The new capital, Marrakesh, initially had no city walls but a fortress known as the Ksar el-Hajjar ("Fortress of Stone") was built by the city's founder, Abu Bakr ibn Umar, in order to house the treasury and serve as an initial residence. Eventually, circa 1126, Ali Ibn Yusuf also constructed a full set of walls, made of rammed earth, around the city in response to the growing threat of the Almohads. These walls, although much restored and partly expanded in later centuries, continue to serve as the walls of the medina of Marrakesh today. The medina's main gates were also first built at this time, although many of them have since been significantly modified. Bab Doukkala, one of the western gates, is believed to have best preserved its original Almoravid layout. It has a classic bent entrance configuration, of which variations are found throughout the medieval period of the Maghreb and Al-Andalus. Elsewhere, the archaeological site of Tasghîmût, southeast of Marrakesh, and Amargu, northeast of Fes, provide evidence about other Almoravid forts. Built out of rubble stone or rammed earth, they illustrate similarities with older Hammadid fortifications, as well as an apparent need to build quickly during times of crisis. The walls of Tlemcen (present-day Algeria) were likewise partly built by the Almoravids, using a mix of rubble stone at the base and rammed earth above.


title: Almoravid dynasty

text: In domestic architecture, none of the Almoravid palaces or residences have survived, and they are known only through texts and archaeology. During his reign, Ali Ibn Yusuf added a large palace and royal residence on the south side of the Ksar el-Hajjar (on the present site of the Kutubiyya Mosque). This palace was later abandoned and its function was replaced by the Almohad Kasbah, but some of its remains have been excavated and studied in the 20th century. These remains have revealed the earliest known example in Morocco of a riad garden (an interior garden symmetrically divided into four parts). In 1960 other excavations near Chichaoua revealed the remains of a domestic complex or settlement dating from the Almoravid period or even earlier. It consisted of several houses, two hammams, a water supply system, and possibly a mosque. On the site were found many fragments of architectural decoration which are now preserved at the Archeological Museum of Rabat. These fragments are made of deeply-carved stucco featuring Kufic and cursive Arabic inscriptions as well as vegetal motifs such as palmettes and acanthus leaves. The structures also featured painted decoration in red ochre, typically consisting of border motifs composed of two interlacing bands. Similar decoration has also been found in the remains of former houses excavated in 2006 under the 12th-century Almoravid expansion of the Qarawiyyin Mosque in Fes. In addition to the usual border motifs were larger interlacing geometric motifs as well as Kufic inscriptions with vegetal backgrounds, all executed predominantly in red.


title: Almoravid dynasty

text: The Almoravid movement has its intellectual origins in the writings and teachings of Abu Imran al-Fasi, who first inspired Yahya Ibn Ibrahim of the Godala tribe in Kairouan. Ibn Ibrahim then inspired Abdallah ibn Yasin to organize for jihad and start the Almoravid movement.


title: Almoravid dynasty

text: Moroccan literature flourished in the Almoravid period. The political unification of Morocco and al-Andalus under the Almoravid dynasty rapidly accelerated the cultural interchange between the two continents, beginning when Yusuf ibn Tashfin sent al-Mu'tamid ibn Abbad, former poet king of the Taifa of Seville, into exile in Tangier and ultimately Aghmat.


title: Almoravid dynasty

text: The historians Ibn Hayyan, Al-Bakri, Ibn Bassam, and al-Fath ibn Khaqan all lived in the Almoravid period. Ibn Bassam authored , Al-Fath ibn Khaqan authored "Qala'idu l-'Iqyan," and Al-Bakri authored "al-Masālik wa ’l-Mamālik" (Book of Roads and Kingdoms).


title: Almoravid dynasty

text: In the Almoravid period two writers stand out: Qadi Ayyad and Avempace. Ayyad is known for having authored "Kitāb al-Shifāʾ bī Taʾrif Ḥuqūq al-Muṣṭafá". Many of the Seven Saints of Marrakesh were men of letters.


title: Almoravid dynasty

text: The muwashshah was an important form of poetry and music in the Almoravid period. Great poets from the period are mentioned in anthologies such as , "Rawd al-Qirtas," and "Mu'jam as-Sifr".


title: Almoravid dynasty

text: The Moroccan historian noted that there were 104 paper mills in Fez under Yusuf ibn Tashfin in the 11th century.


title: Almoravid dynasty

text: Abdallah ibn Yasin imposed very strict disciplinary measures on his forces for every breach of his laws. The Almoravids' first military leader, Yahya ibn Umar al-Lamtuni, gave them a good military organization. Their main force was infantry, armed with javelins in the front ranks and pikes behind, which formed into a phalanx, and was supported by camelmen and horsemen on the flanks. They also had a flag carrier at the front who guided the forces behind him; when the flag was upright, the combatants behind would stand and when it was turned down, they would sit.


title: Almoravid dynasty

text: Al-Bakri reports that, while in combat, the Almoravids did not pursue those who fled in front of them. Their fighting was intense and they did not retreat when disadvantaged by an advancing opposing force; they preferred death over defeat. These characteristics were possibly unusual at the time.


title: Almoravid dynasty

text: After the death of El Cid, Christian chronicles reported a legend of a Turkish woman leading a band of 300 "Amazons", black female archers. This legend was possibly inspired by the ominous veils on the faces of the warriors and their dark skin colored blue by the indigo of their robes.


title: David Gray (musician)

text: David Peter Gray (born 13 June 1968) is a British singer-songwriter. He released his first album in 1993 and received worldwide attention after the release of "White Ladder" six years later. "White Ladder" was the first of three UK chart-toppers in six years for Gray; it became the fifth best-selling album of the 2000s in the UK and ranked as the tenth best-selling album of the 21st century in the United Kingdom in October 2019. Gray is also known for the hit single "Babylon" from the "White Ladder" album. He has received four Brit Award nominations, including two nominations for Best British Male.


title: David Gray (musician)

text: Gray was born in 1968 in Sale, Greater Manchester, England, and lived in Altrincham Greater Manchester before moving with his family at the age of nine to Solva, Pembrokeshire, Wales, where his parents took over a gift shop and started a clothing business. "I had an amazing time growing up there... My imagination could run wild... It was that which gave me the kind of insane self-belief I have, and had even then, that I could do something as unlikely as play music for a living." He went to Ysgol Dewi Sant high school in nearby St Davids and then on to Carmarthenshire College of Art and finally Liverpool School of Art.


title: David Gray (musician)

text: Gray's first two albums, "A Century Ends" and "Flesh", were issued in 1993 and 1994 respectively and led to Gray becoming popular in folk-rock circles, but both failed in terms of commercial sales. In 1996 Gray released his third album, "Sell, Sell, Sell". The album was recorded at Pyramid Sound Studios in Ithaca, NY. Despite his dislike of the album, Gray continued to maintain residence in Ithaca, NY on and off over the years. Despite critical acclaim, the album did not chart, but the song "Late Night Radio" received some airplay on alternative UK radio stations. On the 1997 Mary Black album "Shine", Gray contributed five songs.


title: David Gray (musician)

text: Originally released on Gray's own label IHT Records in November 1998, "White Ladder" was re-released in 2000 on ATO Records. The re-release brought him commercial success and critical attention. While his first three albums featured acoustic folk songs and guitar-based alternative rock, "White Ladder" introduced his now-trademark folktronic sound. The album included his best-known songs: "This Year's Love", "Babylon", "Please Forgive Me" and "Sail Away". After its re-release, combined with the release and success of single "Babylon", it sold 100,000 copies in Ireland alone, making it number one for six weeks, and according to a 2012 report was the biggest-selling album ever in that country. In June 2000, "Babylon" hit No. 5 in the UK Singles Chart; it remains his biggest UK hit to date. In the United States, the album received a boost from jam-band leader Dave Matthews, who made it the first release by ATO Records, the record company he co-founded. "Babylon" was also the first of three US chart entries for Gray to date.


title: David Gray (musician)

text: The album was No. 1 on the UK Albums Chart, two years and five months after its original release, spending a total of 151 weeks on the chart. Aside from "Please Forgive Me", which charted at No. 72 on the UK Singles Chart, all other single releases charted within the Top 20: the re-released "Please Forgive Me" charted at number 18, and "Say Hello, Wave Goodbye" and "Sail Away" peaked at number 26.


title: David Gray (musician)

text: The year 2001 also saw the release of a rarities compilation of Gray's early works, "The EPs 1992-1994", as well as an album of previously unreleased songs recorded in 1999, "Lost Songs 95-98", both of which followed "White Ladder" into the Top 20 in the UK Albums Chart. Gray also provided vocals on the electronic-based band Orbital's 2001 single "Illuminate".


title: David Gray (musician)

text: In November 2002, Gray released the follow-up to "White Ladder", entitled "A New Day at Midnight". The new release did not receive the same critical acclaim as its predecessor, but still went straight in at number 1, famously beating "Pop Idol" runner-up Gareth Gates's debut album "What My Heart Wants to Say" to the summit and selling nearly 150,000 copies in its first week of release. It went on to achieve platinum status within a year, eventually being certified four times platinum overall, and was the second-biggest selling album by a UK artist in 2002, behind "Pop Idol" winner Will Young's debut album "From Now On". "A New Day at Midnight" produced two further UK Top 30 hits in "The Other Side" and "Be Mine" and a minor US hit with "Dead in the Water".


title: David Gray (musician)

text: After a three-year hiatus which saw him wind down his recording and touring schedule due to exhaustion, Gray returned with his seventh album, "Life in Slow Motion", in September 2005. Like its predecessor, it topped the UK Albums Chart in its first week of release. After the much-criticised "A New Day at Midnight", "Life in Slow Motion" was hailed as a return to form by many critics. Lead single "The One I Love" was a Top 10 hit in the UK in October 2005 and spent three months in the UK chart. Following the relative commercial failure of follow-up singles "Hospital Food" and "Alibi", Gray again went into hiatus during 2006.


title: David Gray (musician)

text: In March 2007, Gray released the compilation album "". On 7 July 2007, Gray performed with Damien Rice at the UK leg of Live Earth at Wembley Stadium in London. Gray released a compilation CD of live covers entitled "A Thousand Miles Behind" exclusively through his official website on 8 October that year on CD and digital download. On 13 November, Gray released the album "Greatest Hits", which includes many of his best known songs as well as two new songs, including the lead single "You're the World to Me".


title: David Gray (musician)

text: On 28 May 2009, Gray announced that his album "Draw the Line" would be released on 14 September in the UK and on 22 September in the United States. The album features guest appearances by Annie Lennox and Jolie Holland. The album's first single, "Fugitive", was released on 7 September 2009, coinciding with the start of an expansive world tour. On 19 September, Gray performed his self-proclaimed first pool-side concert at the Rooftop Pool at The Colonnade Hotel in Boston for the Mix 104.1 "End of Summer Bash". Gray performed songs from the new album, including "Fugitive", "Draw the Line" and "Jackdaw".


title: David Gray (musician)

text: In an interview for "Hot Press", released on 3 December 2009, Gray revealed to Jackie Hayden that he was working on his next album, "Foundling". Gray said that one of the tracks would be called "The Old Chair", which, according to Gray, "features just a drum kit and me on my Steinway piano. It's very quiet." "Foundling" was released in the UK on 16 August. and in the United States on 17 August. "Foundling" is a double album: the first CD consists of 11 new songs and the second consists of eight previously unreleased songs. A ninth is available via iTunes.


title: David Gray (musician)

text: David Gray signed a global agreement with Kobalt Label Services for the release of his 10th studio album, "Mutineers". His first in four years, it was recorded at The Church Studios in London and produced by Andy Barlow (Lamb). The release took place on 17 June 2014. It was announced that Gray would support the new release with a North American tour through April and May, followed by an eight-date UK tour in June and July that included a show at the Royal Albert Hall in London.


title: David Gray (musician)

text: "The Best of David Gray" was released on CD, double CD and LP in October 2016, and included two new recordings. The album, released in conjunction with IHT Records, had already been released as a dynamic playlist on Spotify that automatically changed shape every week Gray commented: "What we have on our hands is an ever-evolving 'Best Of' that is different every week, every month, every year, every decade."


title: David Gray (musician)

text: In March 2019, Gray released his 11th record, "Gold in a Brass Age". It was produced by Ben de Vries, son of producer Marius de Vries, and was seen largely as a return to his signature "folktronica" sound.


title: David Gray (musician)

text: In the year 2020, Gray released a 20th anniversary edition of "White Ladder". A deluxe set with bonus tracks and demos was also made available on both CD and vinyl formats. He embarked on an international tour to celebrate the anniversary, starting in Europe in February, but it was cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Gray announced on 20 May 2020 via his social media channels that the tour had to be postponed. The tour kicked off in Belfast on the 17th of May 2022 nearly two years to the day it was cancellled. Gray has always credited Ireland for boosting his career with the original sales of White Ladder so it felt fitting to start the tour in Ireland.


title: David Gray (musician)

text: In January 2021, Gray announced that his 12th studio album was to be released on 19 February 2021. Entitled "Skellig" (named after the Skellig Islands in County Kerry, Ireland) it featured a title track and a single called "Heart and Soul". It was recorded at Edwyn Collins' Helmsdale studio in Scotland and features David Kitt, Rob Malone and producer Ben de Vries as musicians on the record.


title: David Gray (musician)

text: Gray's early music was in a contemporary folk-rock, singer-songwriter mode; his primary instrument was acoustic guitar, with occasional piano. 1996's "Sell, Sell, Sell" featured some rock arrangements and electric instrumentation. Starting with the release of "White Ladder", Gray began to make significant use of computer-generated music to accompany his voice and acoustic instrumentation. "A New Day at Midnight" continued this direction, although lyrically it was darker in tone than "White Ladder" and the instrumentation much more downbeat. In the liner notes, Gray dedicated the album to his father, who died in 2001. Despite the move to more complex music, Gray has used small-scale, often home-based, recording methods and equipment and espoused a do-it-yourself approach to music production. However, 2005's "Life in Slow Motion" was a collaboration with the record producer Marius de Vries.


title: David Gray (musician)

text: Gray has been touring since 1993. Prior to his breakthrough album "White Ladder" in 1998, Gray had been the supporting act for the likes of Kirsty MacColl, Dave Matthews Band and Radiohead. He has had multiple tour dates in many different places such as Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and the United States.


title: David Gray (musician)

text: Gray married his wife Olivia in Los Angeles, California in 1993, and together they have two daughters: Ivy and Florence. He lives in London, having moved to Hampstead in 2009. Gray is also the brother-in-law of Phil Hartnoll of Orbital.


title: David Gray (musician)

text: In 2011, a portrait of Gray was painted by English artist Joe Simpson. The painting was exhibited around the UK, including at a solo exhibition at the Royal Albert Hall.


title: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

text: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast (), also referred to as Dnipropetrovshchyna (), is an oblast (province) of central-eastern Ukraine, the most important industrial region of the country. It was created on February 27, 1932. Dnipropetrovsk Oblast has a population of about approximately 80% of whom live centering on administrative centers: Dnipro, Kryvyi Rih, Kamianske, Nikopol and Pavlohrad. The Dnieper River runs through the oblast.


title: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

text: In 2019, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine approved the change of the oblast's name to Sicheslav Oblast ().


title: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

text: The Dnipropetrovsk Oblast is located in southeastern Ukraine. The area of the oblast (31,974 km) comprises about 5.3% of the total area of the country. Its longitude from north to south is 130 km, from east to west – 300 km. The oblast borders the Poltava and Kharkiv Oblasts on the north, the Donetsk Oblast on the east, the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson Oblasts on the south, and the Mykolayiv and Kirovohrad Oblasts on the west.


title: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

text: The Black Sea Lowland covers about half of the territory of the oblast. In Ternivka, a meteorite crater is located. It is in diameter and it’s age is estimated at 280 ± 10 million years (Permian). The crater is not exposed at the surface. The Dnieper Upland contains a number of minerals including iron, manganese, granite, graphite, brown coal, and kaolin. Kryvbas is an important economic region, specializing in iron ore mining and the steel industry. It is arguably the main iron ore region of Eastern Europe. Named after the city of Kryvyi Rih, the region occupies the southwestern part of the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, as well as a small neighboring part of the Kirovohrad Oblast.


title: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

text: The region possesses major deposits of iron ore and some other metallurgical ores. To exploit them, several large mining companies were founded here in the middle of the 20th century. Most of them are located in Kryvyi Rih itself, which is the longest city in Europe.


title: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

text: Much of the Dnipropetrovsk region is located within the boundaries of the Ukrainian Shield and only the northern regions and the extreme eastern part of the territory are confined to the south-eastern side of the Dnipro-Donets depression.


title: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

text: In the geological structure of the region, the breeds come from the archaea, the Proterozoic, the Paleozoic, the Mesozoic and the Cenozoic.


title: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

text: In the 6th and 8th centuries, the first settlements of Slavs appeared on the banks of the Dnieper within the region. During the period of Kievan Rus' (9-12 centuries AD) the Dnieper River was one of the main trade routes of medieval Eastern Europe called "From the Varangians to the Greeks", which connected the Baltic countries with the Crimea and the capital of Byzantium, Constantinople. The Dnieper also served as a major route for transporting the army of Kyiv princes on their way to the Byzantine coastal cities in the early 9th and late 9th centuries.


title: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

text: At the beginning of the 15th century, Tatar tribes inhabiting the right bank of the Dnieper were driven away by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. However, by the mid-15th century, the Nogai (who lived north of the Sea of Azov) and the Crimean Khanate invaded these lands. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Crimean Khanate agreed to a border along the Dnieper, and farther east along the Samara River, i.e. through what is today the city of Dnipro. It was in this time that there appeared a new force, the Cossacks, armed freemen not subject to any feudal lord who were to soon dominate the region. They later became known as Zaporozhian Cossacks, from Zaporizhzhia, the lands south of Naddniprianshchyna, which translates as "the Land Beyond the Weirs [Rapids]"). This was a period of raids and fighting causing considerable devastation and depopulation in that area; the area became known as the 'Wilderness'.


title: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

text: In 1635, the Polish Government built the Kodak fortress above the Dnieper Rapids at "Kodaky", partly as a result of rivalry in the region between Poland, Turkey and the Crimean Khanate, and partly to maintain control over Cossack activity (i.e. to suppress the Cossack raiders and to prevent peasants moving out of the area). On the night of 3 or 4 August 1635, the Cossacks of Ivan Sulyma captured the fort by surprise, burning it down and butchering the garrison of about 200 West European mercenaries under Jean Marion. The fort was rebuilt by French engineer Guillaume Le Vasseur de Beauplan for the Polish Government in 1638, and had a mercenary garrison. "Kodak" was captured by Zaporozhian Cossacks on 1 October 1648, and was garrisoned by the Cossacks until its demolition in accordance with the Treaty of the Pruth in 1711.


title: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

text: Under the Treaty of Pereyaslav of 1654, the territory became part of the Russian Empire. In 1774 Prince Grigori Potemkin was appointed governor of Novorossiysk Governorate, and after the destruction of the Zaporozhian Sich, he started founding cities in the region and encouraging foreign settlers. The city of "Yekaterinoslav" was founded in 1776, not in the current location, but at the confluence of the River Samara with the River Kil'chen' at Loshakivka, north of the Dnieper. On May 8, 1775, after the end of the Russian-Turkish War, Russian authorities opened a postal station and track which linked Kremenchuk, Kinburn foreland and Ochakiv, all locations of the Imperial Russian Army.


title: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

text: In December 1796, Paul I reestablished the Novorossiysk Governorate, mostly with land from the former Yekaterinoslav Viceroyalty. In 1802, this province was divided into the Nikolayev Governorate (known as the Kherson Governorate from 1803), Yekaterinoslav Governorate, and the Taurida Governorate. Its capital was the city of Yekaterinoslav (modern Dnipro) created in 1802 out the Yekaterinoslav Vice-regency. It was located within the former lands of Zaporizhian Sich. The government bordered to the north with the Kharkov Governorate and Poltava Governorate, to the west and southwest with the Kherson Governorate, to the south with the Taurida Governorate and Sea of Azov, and to the east with Don Host Oblast.


title: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

text: Olexander Paul discovered and initiated iron ore investigation and production, and this in turn caused the formation of a mining district. In 1874 Alexander II initiated the founding project of a railway, running . This enabled transportation directly to the nearest factories and greatly sped up the development of the region.


title: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

text: On 1 August 1925, the Yekaterinoslav Governorate administration was discontinued, and in 1926 the city of Yekterinoslav was renamed Dnipropetrovsk in honor of communist leader Grigory Petrovsky. Before the introduction of oblasts in 1932, Ukraine comprised 40 okrugs, which had replaced the former Russian Imperial guberniya (governorate) subdivisions. In 1932 the territory of the Ukrainian SSR was re-established based on oblasts. The first oblasts were Vinnytsia Oblast, Kyiv Oblast, Odessa Oblast, Kharkiv Oblast, and Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. Soon after that in the summer of 1932 Donetsk Oblast was formed out of eastern parts of Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk.


title: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

text: During the Holodomor more than 200 collective farms in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast were put on "Blackboards" which was a complete blockade of trade and food aid to villages under performing in grain procurement quotas; a number representing more than half of all such "Blackboards" throughout all of Ukraine.


title: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

text: During the 1991 referendum, 90.36% of votes in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast were in favor of the Declaration of Independence of Ukraine. A survey conducted in December 2014 by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology found 2.2% of the oblast's population supported their region joining Russia, 89.9% did not support the idea, and the rest were undecided or did not respond.


title: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

text: The city of Dnipropetrovsk was renamed Dnipro in May 2016 as part of the decommunization laws enacted a year earlier. Dnipropetrovsk Oblast was not renamed because it is mentioned as such in the Constitution of Ukraine, and the oblast can only be renamed by a constitutional amendment. In April 2018 a group of over a hundred deputies formally initiated a proposal in the Ukrainian Parliament to change the name to Sicheslav Oblast; in February 2019, the Verkhovna Rada voted to officially amend the Constitution thus granting state sanction to the name change. Later that year the Constitutional Court officially approved the change. The oblast's administrative centre and largest city, Dnipro, had the unofficial name "Sicheslav" in 1918–21 during the Ukrainian War of Independence, commemorating the Zaporizhian Sich.


title: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

text: During the 2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine the cities of Dnipro, Kryvyi Rih, and Nikopol, among other locations in the region, were bombed by Russia. However, as of September 2022 there has been no ground fighting and the province remains completely under Ukrainian control.


title: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

text: The following data incorporates the number of each type of administrative divisions of the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast:


title: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

text: The local administration of the oblast is controlled by the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Rada. The governor of the oblast is the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Rada speaker, appointed by the President of Ukraine.


title: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

text: A Pew survey of Dnipropetrovsk residents' religious self-identification showed the following distribution of affiliations: Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) 47.5%, Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyivan Patriarchate 10.7%, Roman Catholic 1.3%, Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church 0.8%, Protestantism 32.3%.


title: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

text: Dnipropetrovsk has one of the most balanced percentage of religious people in the nation mainly due to large number of ethnic groups. The Jewish community is centered in the Dnipro (Golden Rose Synagogue) and Kryvyi Rih area, and emerged during a wave of Jewish immigration.


title: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

text: There are 20 cities and towns in Dnipro. Major population centers today result from historical factors — with the advent of the iron development took place predominantly along the Kryvyi Rih and Dnipro, a city located on the Dnieper. Kryvyi Rih is the center of a large metropolitan area called Kryvyi Rih Metropolitan Region.


title: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

text: There are eight over-Dnieper bridges and dozens of grade-separated intersections. Several new intersections are under construction. European route E105 cross Left-bank Dnipro from North to South. Highway M04 (Ukraine) and Highway M18 (Ukraine) cross River Dnieper and Dnipro from West to East, entering Kryvyi Rih. Overall, roads are in poor technical condition and maintained inadequately.


title: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

text: Near-Dnipro Railway (NDZ), headquartered in Dnipro, is a component part of the Ukrzaliznytsia (UZ) company. NDR's route map includes all the railroads in the Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhya, Kharkiv, Kherson and Crimea oblasts (provinces of Ukraine).


title: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

text: As of 2008, NDR's rail system included 3,275 km (2,035 mi) of track, of which 93,3% were electrified. The PDR consists of five sections (directions), the Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kryvyi Rih, and Crimea directions. There are 244 railway stations in the NDR system. More than a dozen "elektrichka" stops are located within the city allowing residents of different neighborhoods to use the suburban trains.


title: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

text: The cities of Dnipro and Kryvyi Rih are served by a local sales-tax-funded bus, tram, metro and trolleybus systems.


title: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

text: Dnipro International Airport is the only international airport in the state and serves as one of the hubs for Dniproavia. The airport has non-stop service to over 20 destinations throughout Ukraine, Russia, and Turkey, as well as to Vienna and Tel Aviv. Kryvyi Rih International Airport provides limited commercial air service.


title: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

text: The oblast is situated in the steppe region. Forests in the oblast occupy about 3.9% of the oblast's total territory. The average temperature in the winter balances from −3 to −5 °C and in the summer from 22 to 24 °C. The average annual rainfall is 400–490 mm. During the summer, Dnipropetrovsk oblast is very warm (average day temperature in July is 24 to 28 °C (75 to 82 °F), even hot sometimes 34 to 38 °C (90 to 97 °F). Temperatures as high as 36 °C (97 °F) have been recorded in May. Winter is not so cold (average day temperature in January is −3 to 0 °C (25 to 32 °F), but when there is no snow and the wind blows hard, it feels extremely cold. A mix of snow and rain happens usually in December.


title: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

text: The tender climate, mineral sources, and the curative mud allow opportunities for rest and cure within the region. Here there are 21 health-centers and medicated pensions, 10 rest homes, recreation departments and rest camps for children.


title: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

text: The Dnipropetrovsk Oblast has splendid flora and fauna. Here, there are more than 1700 kinds of vegetation, 7500 kinds of animals (including elk, wild boar, dappled deer, roe, hare, fox, wolf, etc.) There are also 114 park and nature objects, including 15 state reserves; 3 nature memorials, 24 local parks; 7 landscape parks; 3 park tracts, which altogether make up approximately 260 square kilometres.


title: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

text: 217 rivers flow within the area, including 55 rivers which are longer than 25 km, the major one being the Dnieper, which crosses through the center of the oblast. Also flowing through the region are three major reservoirs, the Kamianske, Dnieper and Kakhovka, and the Dnieper-Kryvyi Rih Canal.


title: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

text: The Dnipropetrovsk Oblast has a high industry potential. There are 712 basic industrial organizations, including 20 different types of economic activity with about 473,4 thousand workers. The area also produces about 16.9% of the total industry production of Ukraine. This places the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast second in Ukraine (after the neighbouring Donetsk Oblast).


title: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

text: Dnipro is a major industrial centre of Ukraine. It has several facilities devoted to heavy industry that produce a wide range of products, including cast-iron, rolled metal, pipes, machinery, different mining combines, agricultural equipment, tractors, trolleybuses, refrigerators, different chemicals and many others. The most famous and the oldest (founded in the 19th century) is the Metallurgical Plant named after Petrovsky. The city also has big food processing and light industry factories. Many sewing and dress-making factories work for France, Canada, Germany and Great Britain , using the most advanced technologies, materials and design. Dnipro also formerly dominated in the aerospace industry since the 1950s: engineering department Yuzhnoye Design Bureau and construction at Pivdenmash.


title: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

text: Pivdenmash, the former Yuzhmash, is a manufacturer of space rockets, agricultural equipment, buses, trolley buses, trams, wind turbines, and satellites that was inherited from the Soviet Union. It is a large state-owned company located in Dnipro.


title: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

text: The region possesses major deposits of iron ore and some other metallurgical ores. To exploit them, several large mining companies were founded here in the middle of the 20th century. Most of them are located in Kryvyi Rih itself, which is the longest city in Europe. Steel companies of the region (except Mittal Steel-owned Kryvorizhstal) are controlled by either the Privat Group or the SCM. From the 1990s until 2004, these once united and state-owned industries went through a hard and scandal-ridden process of privatization. Being a business oligarch entity, Privat Group controls some prominent Ukrainian media, maintains close relations with politicians and sponsors professional sports. Key businesses of the group (including the PrivatBank itself) are based in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, which is regarded as its "homeland". Group's founding owners are natives of Dnipropetrovsk and made their entire career there.


title: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

text: ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih, owned by ArcelorMittal since 2005 is the largest private company by revenue in Ukraine, producing over 7 million tonnes of crude steel, and mined over 17 million tonnes of iron ore. As of 2011, the company employed about 37,000 people. 4 Iron Ore Enrichment Works of Metinvest are a large contributors to the UA's balance of payments. The third giant – Evraz mining company.


title: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

text: Region houses the Ukrainian Premier League football club, FC Dnipro. This club, commonly seen as representing the city at large, holds a record for being the only Soviet team to win the USSR Federation Cup twice; since independence they have gone on to win the Ukrainian Championship once and the Ukrainian League Cup three times. Kryvyi Rih was home to the football team Kryvbas Kryvyi Rih. FC Hirnyk Kryvyi Rih is a club based in Kryvyi Rih. The club currently competes in the Ukrainian First League. It is part of the Sports Club Hirnyk which combines several other sections. The club's owner is the Kryvyi Rih Iron Ore Combine (KZRK), the biggest subterranean mining public company in Ukraine.


title: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

text: SC Kryvbas is a professional basketball club. Achievements of the team are winning the Ukrainian Basketball League in 2009, and winning the Higher League in 2003 and 2004. Since 2010 the team is active in the Ukrainian Basketball SuperLeague.


title: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

text: Recently built Dnipro-Arena has a capacity of 31,003 people. The Dnipro-Arena hosted the 2010 FIFA World Cup qualification game between Ukraine and England on 10 October 2009. The Dnipro Arena was initially chosen as one of the Ukrainian venues for their joint Euro 2012 bid with Poland. However it was dropped from the list in May 2009 as the capacity fell short of the minimum 33,000 seats required by UEFA.


title: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

text: Historically, Dnieper Ukraine comprised territory that roughly corresponded to the area of Ukraine within the expanding Russian Empire. Ukrainians sometimes call it Great Ukraine (Velyka Ukrayina). Historically, this region is tightly entwined with the history of Ukraine and is considered the heart of the country.


title: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

text: Ukrainian (Middle Dnieprian dialect, 67,0%) and Russian (31,9%) language are both equally used officially, with Russian being more common in cities, while Ukrainian is the dominant language in rural communities. These details result in a significant difference across different survey results, as even a small restating of a question switches responses of a significant group of people. The speaking of Surzhyk instead of Russian or Ukrainian is wide and viewed negatively by nationalist language activists. Because it is neither the one nor the other, they regard Surzhyk as a threat to the uniqueness of Ukrainian culture.


title: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

text: Petrykivsky Painting originates from Petrykivka village. The distinctive features of this handicraft are the patterns, unusual technique and white background. It was included to the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.


title: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

text: A Cossack with a musket was an emblem of the Zaporizhian Host and later the state emblem of the Hetmanate and the Ukrainian State. The origin of the emblem is uncertain, while its first records date back to 1592. On the initiative of Pyotr Rumyantsev the emblem was phased out and replaced by the Russian double-headed eagle in 1767.


title: Dnipropetrovsk Oblast

text: A Cossack with a rifle was restored by the Hetman of Ukraine Pavlo Skoropadsky in 1918. However, later the emblem disappeared again until in 2005 it reappeared on the proposed Great Seal of Ukraine. In 2002 was adopted flag and identical coat of arms of Oblast, which consists of cossack with musket and nine yellow eight-pointed stars. Stars represent coat of arms of Yekaterinoslav Governorate which also consisted of imperial monogram of Catherine the Great.


title: Billboard Year-End Hot 100 singles of 1972

text: This is a list of "Billboard" magazine's Top Hot 100 songs of 1972. The Top 100, as revealed in the year-end edition of "Billboard" dated December 30, 1972, is based on Hot 100 charts from the issue dates of December 4, 1971 through November 18, 1972.


title: Samaire Armstrong

text: Samaire Rhys Armstrong ( ) is an American actress and fashion designer. She is known for her roles in "Stay Alive", "The O.C.", "It's a Boy Girl Thing", and as Juliet Darling in the ABC television series, "Dirty Sexy Money". She has appeared on television as Elaine Richards in the ABC fantasy-drama "Resurrection". She has also appeared in music videos for "Penny & Me" by Hanson and "Bad Day" by Daniel Powter.


title: Samaire Armstrong

text: Armstrong was born in Tokyo to a Scottish father, Hunter Armstrong, and an Italian mother, Sylvia Sepielli. Her mother designs spas for resorts and her father teaches soldiers close combat training. Armstrong lived in Japan for five years, before moving to Hawaii and later Sedona, Arizona where she grew up and attended Sedona Red Rock High School. She has also lived in Malaysia and China.


title: Samaire Armstrong

text: In 2000, Armstrong made her television debut guest starring in an episode of the teen drama television series "Party of Five" portraying Meredith. Throughout 2000 to 2001, Armstrong made guest roles on high-profile television shows such as "The X-Files", "ER", "Judging Amy" and "Freaks and Geeks".


title: Samaire Armstrong

text: In 2003, Armstrong was cast in the role of Anna Stern on the Fox teen drama television series, "The O.C.". Armstrong was intended to only appear in one episode. However, after her character proved to be a fan favorite, she was brought back to appear in several more episodes. She portrays the role of a self-confessed comic book reader and a sarcastic socialite from Pittsburgh who is a recurring love interest for Seth Cohen. Despite the regular appearance of her character throughout the series first season, she was not promoted to series regular. In 2006, Armstrong was confirmed to return for the series third season for two episodes. She did not return to the series which was cancelled after its fourth season.


title: Samaire Armstrong

text: In 2004, Armstrong appeared on the HBO television series "Entourage", as an assistant to Ari Gold and love interest for Eric Murphy. Critics noted many similarities to her character Anna Stern and Emily. She was praised for her performance. She appeared in only eight episodes of the series' first two seasons. She went on to guest star in the television series "" and "Living with Fran".


title: Samaire Armstrong

text: In 2007, Armstrong was cast in her first series regular role on the ABC drama/comedy television series, "Dirty Sexy Money". She portrayed the role of Juliet Darling, a spoiled heiress who aspired to be a serious actress. The series was an instant success and premiered on September 26, 2007 to 10.44 million viewers. The series received mixed reviews from critics. Her character has been noted to have many similarities to real-life heiress Paris Hilton. In March 2008 Armstrong announced she would not return for the series second season as a series regular. The series did not maintain its success and slipped in ratings throughout its run dramatically. The series was cancelled on August 8, 2009.


title: Samaire Armstrong

text: In 2010, Armstrong guest appeared in the HBO television series "How To Make It In America" in the series first episode portraying the role of Jane.


title: Samaire Armstrong

text: In 2012, she appeared in an episode of "The Mentalist", "Pink Tops" as a prostitute turned confidential informant for the California Bureau of Investigation. Her character Summer shared a kiss with Tim Kang's character Kimball Cho in the episode "At First Blush" after Cho admitted having feelings for Summer.


title: Samaire Armstrong

text: In September 2013, she played the mother of the blond boy who perpetrated the school shooting in the "Sons of Anarchy" season six premiere "Straw".


title: Samaire Armstrong

text: Armstrong made her film debut portraying the role of Kara Fratelli, one of the conjoined twins in the parody film "Not Another Teen Movie" in 2001. Samaire has since appeared in notable small roles in films such as "Would I Lie To You?", "Gramercy Park" and "Trash". In 2006, Armstrong co-starred alongside Lindsay Lohan in the film "Just My Luck" portraying the role of Maggie, Lohan's character's best friend. The film was a box office bomb and was negatively received by critics.


title: Samaire Armstrong

text: In 2005, "The O.C." producer McG offered the leading female protagonist role in the horror film "Stay Alive". She portrays the role of Abigail, an aspiring photographer and love interest to Jon Foster's character. The film was released on June 29, 2006, and debuted at #3 at the U.S. box office. Despite a worldwide gross of just $27,105,095 it was considered a box office success compared to the film's modest $9 million budget. The film was negatively received by critics with her performance receiving mixed reviews.


title: Samaire Armstrong

text: Armstrong starred as Nell Bedworth in the Canadian comedy "It's a Boy Girl Thing", which was released on December 26, 2006, and received positive reviews from critics. The film was considered a box office success, earning worldwide $7,385,434. Samaire's performance was praised by critics.


title: Samaire Armstrong

text: In 2007, Armstrong starred in a relatively small supporting role as Jenny in the horror film "" alongside Lucy Liu. The film was a box office and critical failure. She also had a leading role portraying Caitlin Atwater in the Lifetime film "The Staircase Murders". The film follows the real-life crimes of Michael Peterson who was convicted in 2003 of pushing his wife down the stairs. The film received mixed reviews.


title: Samaire Armstrong

text: In 2008, Armstrong starred the independent romance film "Around June". The film follows a young woman who finds love with an illegal immigrant whose love changes her life. Filming took place in San Francisco, California, in 2008. The film played at the Santa Cruz Festival in 2009. Armstrong has since been cast in another independent film, a crime thriller "The Last Harbor", which released in 2010. She also starred in another thriller, "5 Souls", in 2013.


title: Samaire Armstrong

text: Armstrong entered an "outpatient facility" in October 2007 "to deal with some personal issues." She checked out after six weeks but returned and stayed for another three months.


title: Samaire Armstrong

text: In December 2012, Armstrong and her then-boyfriend Jason Christopher welcomed their first child, a boy. She lives in Sedona, AZ where she went to school as a teen. She has entered political life and is running for mayor.


title: Samaire Armstrong

text: Armstrong is a conservative and voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. In 2020, she was criticized after she said that "BLM is a billion dollar domestic terrorist organization" on her Instagram.


title: Mildred and Richard Loving

text: Mildred Delores Loving (née Jeter; July 22, 1939 – May 2, 2008) and her husband Richard Perry Loving (October 29, 1933 – June 29, 1975) were an American married couple who were the plaintiffs in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) case "Loving v. Virginia" (1967). Their marriage has been the subject of three movies, including the 2016 drama "Loving", and several songs. The Lovings were criminally charged with interracial marriage under a Virginia statute banning such marriages, and were forced to leave the state to avoid being jailed. They moved to Washington, DC, but wanted to return to their home town. With the help of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), they filed suit to overturn the law. In 1967, the Supreme Court ruled in their favor, striking down the Virginia statute and all state anti-miscegenation laws as unconstitutional, for violating due process and equal protection of the law under the Fourteenth Amendment. On June 29, 1975, a drunk driver struck the Lovings' car in Caroline County, Virginia. Richard was killed in the crash, at age 41. Mildred lost her right eye.


title: Mildred and Richard Loving

text: With the exception of LGBT rights, Mildred lived "a quiet, private life declining interviews and staying clear of the spotlight" after "Loving" and the passing of her husband. On the 40th anniversary of the decision, she stated: "I am still not a political person, but I am proud that Richard’s and my name is on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight, seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all. That’s what "Loving", and loving, are all about.” Beginning in 2013, the case was cited as precedent in U.S. federal court decisions holding restrictions on same-sex marriage unconstitutional, including in the SCOTUS decision "Obergefell v. Hodges" (2015).


title: Mildred and Richard Loving

text: Mildred Jeter was the daughter of Musial (Byrd) Jeter and Theoliver Jeter. She was born and raised in the small community of Central Point in Caroline County, Virginia. Mildred identified culturally as Native American, specifically Rappahannock, an historic and now a federally recognized tribe in Virginia. (She was reported to have Cherokee, Portuguese, and African-American ancestry.) She is often described as having Native-American and African-American ancestry.


title: Mildred and Richard Loving

text: Richard Loving was the son of Lola (Allen) Loving and Twillie Loving. He was also born and raised in Central Point, where he became a construction worker after school. He was European American, classified as white. His maternal grandfather, T. P. Farmer, fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War.


title: Mildred and Richard Loving

text: Caroline County adhered to the state's strict 20th-century Jim Crow segregation laws, but Central Point had been a visible mixed-race community since the 19th century. Virginia's one drop rule, codified in law in 1924 as the Racial Integrity Act, required all residents to be classified as "white" or "colored", refusing to use people's longstanding identification as Indian among several tribes in the state.


title: Mildred and Richard Loving

text: Richard's father worked for one of the wealthiest black men in the county for 25 years. Richard's closest companions were black (or colored, as was the term then), including those he drag-raced with and Mildred's older brothers. "There's just a few people that live in this community," Richard said. "A few white and a few colored. And as I grew up, and as they grew up, we all helped one another. It was all, as I say, mixed together to start with and just kept goin' that way."


title: Mildred and Richard Loving

text: The two first met when Mildred was 11 and Richard was 17. He was a family friend of her brothers. Years later, when she was in high school, they began dating. When Mildred was 18 she became pregnant and Richard moved into the Jeter household. They decided to marry in June 1958 and traveled to Washington, D.C., to do so.


title: Mildred and Richard Loving

text: At the time, interracial marriage was banned in Virginia by the Racial Integrity Act of 1924. Mildred later stated that when they married, she did not realize their marriage was illegal in Virginia but she later believed her husband had known it.


title: Mildred and Richard Loving

text: After their marriage, the Lovings returned home to Central Point. They were arrested at night by the county sheriff who had received an anonymous tip, and charged with "cohabiting as man and wife, against the peace and dignity of the Commonwealth." They pled guilty and were convicted by the Caroline County Circuit Court on January 6, 1959. They were sentenced to one year in prison, suspended for 25 years on the condition that they leave the state. They moved to Washington, DC, but missed their country town.


title: Mildred and Richard Loving

text: They were frustrated by their inability to travel together to visit their families in Virginia, and by social isolation and financial difficulties in Washington, DC. In 1964, after their youngest son was hit by a car in the busy streets, they decided they needed to move back to their home town, and they filed suit to vacate the judgment against them so they would be allowed to return home.


title: Mildred and Richard Loving

text: In 1964, Mildred Loving wrote in protest to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. Kennedy referred her to the American Civil Liberties Union.


title: Mildred and Richard Loving

text: The ACLU filed a motion on the Lovings' behalf to vacate the judgment and set aside the sentence, on the grounds that the statutes violated the Fourteenth Amendment. This began a series of lawsuits and the case ultimately reached the United States Supreme Court. On October 28, 1964, when their motion still had not been decided, the Lovings began a class action suit in United States district court. On January 22, 1965, the district court allowed the Lovings to present their constitutional claims to the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals. Virginia Supreme Court Justice Harry L. Carrico (later Chief Justice) wrote the court's opinion upholding the constitutionality of the anti-miscegenation statutes and affirmed the criminal convictions.


title: Mildred and Richard Loving

text: The Lovings and ACLU appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Lovings did not attend the oral arguments in Washington, but their lawyer, Bernard S. Cohen, conveyed a message from Richard Loving to the court: "[T]ell the Court I love my wife, and it is just unfair that I can't live with her in Virginia."


title: Mildred and Richard Loving

text: The case, "Loving v. Virginia", was decided unanimously in the Lovings' favor on June 12, 1967. The Court overturned their convictions, dismissing Virginia's argument that the law was not discriminatory because it applied equally to and provided identical penalties for both white and black persons. The Supreme Court ruled that the anti-miscegenation statute violated both the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Lovings returned to Virginia after the Supreme Court decision.


title: Mildred and Richard Loving

text: The Lovings had two children together: Donald Lendberg Loving (October 8, 1958 – August 2000) and Peggy Loving (born c. 1960). Mildred's oldest, Sidney Clay Jeter (January 27, 1957 – May 2010), was born in Caroline County prior to her relationship with Richard. He lived with the Lovings. Each of the children married and had their own families. At the time of her death, Mildred had eight grandchildren and eleven great-grandchildren.


title: Mildred and Richard Loving

text: After the Supreme Court ruled on the case in 1967, the couple moved with their children back to Central Point, Virginia, where Richard built them a house. This was their home for the rest of their lives.


title: Mildred and Richard Loving

text: Mildred said she considered her marriage and the court decision to be "God's work". She supported everyone's right to marry whomever they wished. In 1965, while the case was pending, she told the "Washington Evening Star", "We loved each other and got married. We are not marrying the state. The law should allow a person to marry anyone he wants."


title: Mildred and Richard Loving

text: On June 12, 2007, Mildred issued a statement on the 40th anniversary of the "Loving v. Virginia" Supreme Court decision.


title: Mildred and Richard Loving

text: On June 29, 1975, a drunk driver struck the Lovings' car in Caroline County, Virginia. Richard was killed in the crash, at age 41. Mildred lost her right eye.


title: Mildred and Richard Loving

text: Mildred died of pneumonia on May 2, 2008, in Milford, Virginia, at age 68. Her daughter, Peggy Loving Fortune, said, "I want [people] to remember her as being strong and brave, yet humble—and believ[ing] in love."


title: Mildred and Richard Loving

text: The final sentence in Mildred Loving's obituary in the "New York Times" notes her statement to commemorate the 40th anniversary of "Loving v. Virginia": "A modest homemaker, Loving never thought she had done anything extraordinary. 'It wasn't my doing,' Loving told the Associated Press in a rare interview [in 2007]. 'It was God's work.'"


title: Desertification

text: Desertification is a type of land degradation in drylands in which biological productivity is lost due to natural processes or induced by human activities whereby fertile areas become increasingly arid. It is the spread of arid areas caused by a variety of factors, such as climate change and overexploitation of soil as a result of human activity.


title: Desertification

text: Throughout geological history, the development of deserts has occurred naturally. In recent times, the potential influences of human activity, improper land management, deforestation and climate change on desertification is the subject of many scientific investigations.


title: Desertification

text: As recently as 2005, considerable controversy existed over the proper definition of the term "desertification." Helmut Geist (2005) identified more than 100 formal definitions. The most widely accepted of these was that of the Princeton University Dictionary which defined it as "the process of fertile land "transforming into desert" typically as a result of deforestation, drought or improper/inappropriate agriculture".However, this original understanding that desertification involved the physical expansion of deserts has been rejected as the concept has evolved. Desertification has been defined in the text of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) as "land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid regions resulting from various factors, including climatic variations and human activities."


title: Desertification

text: There exists also controversy around the sub-grouping of types of desertification, including, for example, the validity and usefulness of such terms as "man-made desert" and "non-pattern desert".


title: Desertification

text: The world's most noted deserts have been formed by natural processes interacting over long intervals of time. During most of these times, deserts have grown and shrunk independently of human activities. Paleodeserts are large sand seas now inactive because they are stabilized by vegetation, some extending beyond the present margins of core deserts, such as the Sahara, the largest hot desert.


title: Desertification

text: Historical evidence shows that the serious and extensive land deterioration occurring several centuries ago in arid regions had three centers: the Mediterranean, the Mesopotamian Valley, and the Loess Plateau of China, where population was dense.


title: Desertification

text: The earliest known discussion of the topic arose soon after the French colonization of West Africa, when the Comité d'Etudes commissioned a study on "desséchement progressif" to explore the prehistoric expansion of the Sahara Desert. The modern study of desertification emerged from the study of the 1980s drought in the Sahel.


title: Desertification

text: Drylands occupy approximately 40–41% of Earth's land area and are home to more than 2 billion people. It has been estimated that some 10–20% of drylands are already degraded, the total area affected by desertification being between 6 and 12 million square kilometres, that about 1–6% of the inhabitants of drylands live in desertified areas, and that a billion people are under threat from further desertification.


title: Desertification

text: The impact of global warming and human activities are presented in the Sahel. In this area the level of desertification is very high compared to other areas in the world. All areas situated in the eastern part of Africa (i.e. in the Sahel region) are characterized by a dry climate, hot temperatures, and low rainfall (300–750 mm rainfall per year). So, droughts are the rule in the Sahel region. Some studies have shown that Africa has lost approximately 650,000 km of its productive agricultural land over the past 50 years; the propagation of desertification in this area is considerable.


title: Desertification

text: The climate of the Sahara has undergone enormous variations over the last few hundred thousand years, oscillating between wet (grassland) and dry (desert) every 20,000 years (a phenomenon believed to be caused by long-term changes in the North African climate cycle that alters the path of the North African Monsoon, caused by an approximately 40000-year cycle in which the axial tilt of the earth changes between 22° and 24.5°). Some statistics have shown that, since 1900, the Sahara has expanded by 250 km to the south over a stretch of land from west to east 6,000 km long. The survey, done by the Research Institute for Development, had demonstrated that this means dryness is spreading fast in the Sahelian countries. 70% of the arid area has deteriorated and water resources have disappeared, leading to soil degradation. The loss of topsoil means that plants cannot take root firmly and can be uprooted by torrential water or strong winds.


title: Desertification

text: The United Nations Convention (UNC) says that about six million Sahelian citizens would have to leave the desertified zones of sub-Saharan Africa for North Africa and Europe between 1997 and 2020.


title: Desertification

text: Lake Chad, located in the Sahel region, has been hit particularly hard by this phenomenon. The cause of the lake drying up is due to irrigation withdrawal and the annual rainfall decreasing. The lake has shrunk by over 90% since 1987, displacing millions of inhabitants. Recent efforts have managed to make some progress toward its restoration, but it is still considered to be at risk of disappearing entirely.


title: Desertification

text: Another major area that is being impacted by desertification is the Gobi Desert. The Gobi Desert is the fastest expanding desert on Earth, as it transforms over of grasslands into wasteland annually. Although the Gobi Desert itself is still a distance away from Beijing, reports from field studies state there are large sand dunes forming only 70 km (43.5 mi) outside the city.


title: Desertification

text: In Mongolia, around 90% of grassland is considered vulnerable to desertification by the UN. An estimated 13% of desertification in Mongolia is caused by natural factors; the rest is due to human influence particularly overgrazing and increased erosion of soils in cultivated areas. The area of Mongolian land covered by sand has increased by 8.7% over the last 40 years. These changes have accompanied the degradation of 70% of Mongolian pasture land. As well as overgrazing and climate change, the Mongolia government listed forest fires, blights, unsustainable forestry and mining activities as leading causes of desertification in the country. A more recent study also reports overgrazing as a leading cause of desertification as well as the transition from sheep to goat farming in order to meet export demands for cashmere wool. Compared to sheep, goats do more damage to grazing lands by eating roots and flowers.


title: Desertification

text: South America is another area vulnerable by desertification, as 25% of the land is classified as drylands. In Argentina specifically, drylands represent more than half of the total land area, and desertification has the potential to disrupt the nation's food supply.


title: Desertification

text: There has been a 25% increase in global annual dust emissions between the late nineteenth century to present day. The increase of desertification has also increased the amount of loose sand and dust that the wind can pick up ultimately resulting in a storm. For example, dust storms in the Middle East “are becoming more frequent and intense in recent years” because “long-term reductions in rainfall promot[ing] lower soil moisture and vegetative cover”.


title: Desertification

text: Dust storms can contribute to certain respiratory disorders such as pneumonia, skin irritations, asthma and many more. They can pollute open water, reduce the effectiveness of clean energy efforts, and halt most forms of transportation.


title: Desertification

text: Dust and sand storms can have a negative effect on the climate which can make desertification worse. Dust particles in the air scatter incoming radiation from the sun. The dust can provide momentary coverage for the ground temperature but the atmospheric temperature will increase. This can disform and shorten the life time of clouds which can result in less rainfall.


title: Desertification

text: Global food security is being threatened by desertification. The more that population grows, the more food that has to be grown. The agricultural business is being displaced from one country to another. For example, Europe on average imports over 50% of its food. Meanwhile, 44% of agricultural land is located in dry lands and it supplies 60% of the world's food production. Desertification is decreasing the amount of sustainable land for agricultural uses but demands are continuously growing. In the near future, the demands will overcome the supply. The violent herder–farmer conflicts in Nigeria, Sudan, Mali and other countries in the Sahel region have been exacerbated by climate change, land degradation and population growth.


title: Desertification

text: As the desertification takes place, the landscape may progress through different stages and continuously transform in appearance. On gradually sloped terrain, desertification can create increasingly larger empty spaces over a large strip of land, a phenomenon known as "brousse tigrée". A mathematical model of this phenomenon proposed by C. Klausmeier attributes this patterning to dynamics in plant-water interaction. One outcome of this observation suggests an optimal planting strategy for agriculture in arid environments.


title: Desertification

text: The immediate cause is the loss of most vegetation. This is driven by a number of factors, alone or in combination, such as drought, climatic shifts, tillage for agriculture, overgrazing and deforestation for fuel or construction materials. Though Vegetation plays a major role in determining the biological composition of the soil. Studies have shown that, in many environments, the rate of erosion and runoff decreases exponentially with increased vegetation cover. Unprotected, dry soil surfaces blow away with the wind or are washed away by flash floods, leaving infertile lower soil layers that bake in the sun and become an unproductive hardpan.


title: Desertification

text: Early studies argued one of the most common causes of desertification was overgrazing, over consumption of vegetation by cattle or other livestock. However, the role of local overexploitation in driving desertification in the recent past is controversial. Drought in the Sahel region is now thought to be principally the result of large scale sea surface temperature variations, largely driven by natural variability and the effect of industrial pollutants. As a result, changing ocean temperature and reductions in sulfate emissions have caused a re-greening of the region. This has led some scholars to argue that agriculture-induced vegetation loss is a minor factor in desertification.


title: Desertification

text: Scientists agree that the existence of a desert in the place where the Sahara desert is now located is due to natural variations in solar insolation due to orbital precession of the Earth. Such variations influence the strength of the West African Monsoon, inducing feedback in vegetation and dust emission that amplify the cycle of wet and dry Sahara climate. There is a suggestion the transition of the Sahara from savanna to desert during the mid-Holocene was partially due to overgrazing by the cattle of the local population.


title: Desertification

text: Human population dynamics have a considerable impact on overgrazing, over-farming and deforestation, as previously acceptable techniques are becoming less sustainable.


title: Desertification

text: There are multiple reasons farmers use intensive farming as opposed to extensive farming but the main reason is to maximize yields. By increasing productivity, they require a lot more fertilizer, pesticides, and labor to upkeep machinery. This continuous use of the land rapidly depletes the nutrients of the soil causing desertification to spread.


title: Desertification

text: At least 90% of the inhabitants of drylands live in developing countries, where they also suffer from poor economic and social conditions. This situation is exacerbated by land degradation because of the reduction in productivity, the precariousness of living conditions and the difficulty of access to resources and opportunities.


title: Desertification

text: Many underdeveloped countries are affected by overgrazing, land exhaustion and overdrafting of groundwater due to pressures to exploit marginal drylands for farming. Decision-makers are understandably averse to invest in arid zones with low potential. This absence of investment contributes to the marginalisation of these zones. When unfavourable agro-climatic conditions are combined with an absence of infrastructure and access to markets, as well as poorly adapted production techniques and an underfed and undereducated population, most such zones are excluded from development.


title: Desertification

text: Desertification often causes rural lands to become unable to support the same sized populations that previously lived there. This results in mass migrations out of rural areas and into urban areas (urbanisation), particularly in Africa. These migrations into the cities often cause large numbers of unemployed people, who end up living in slums.


title: Desertification

text: In Mongolia the land is 90% fragile dry land, which causes many herders to migrate to the city for work. With very limited resources the herders that stay in the dry land graze very carefully in order to preserve the land. With the increasing population of Mongolia it is very difficult to stay a herder for long.


title: Desertification

text: The number of these environmental refugees grows every year, with projections for sub-Saharan Africa showing a probable increase from 14 million in 2010 to nearly 200 million by 2050. This presents a future crisis for the region, as neighboring nations do not always have the ability to support large populations of refugees.


title: Desertification

text: Agriculture is a main source of income for many desert communities. The increase in desertification in these regions has degraded the land to such an extent where people can no longer productively farm and make a profit. This has negatively impacted the economy and increased poverty rates.


title: Desertification

text: There is however increased global advocacy to combat desertification and restore affected lands such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 15 amongst other countermeasures.


title: Desertification

text: Techniques and countermeasures exist for mitigating or reversing the effects of desertification, and some possess varying levels of difficulty. For some, there are numerous barriers to their implementation. Yet for others, the solution simply requires the exercise of human reason.


title: Desertification

text: One proposed barrier is that the costs of adopting sustainable agricultural practices sometimes exceed the benefits for individual farmers, even while they are socially and environmentally beneficial. Another issue is a lack of political will, and lack of funding to support land reclamation and anti-desertification programs.


title: Desertification

text: Desertification is recognized as a major threat to biodiversity. Some countries have developed biodiversity action plans to counter its effects, particularly in relation to the protection of endangered flora and fauna.


title: Desertification

text: Reforestation gets at one of the root causes of desertification and is not just a treatment of the symptoms. Environmental organizations work in places where deforestation and desertification are contributing to extreme poverty. There they focus primarily on educating the local population about the dangers of deforestation and sometimes employ them to grow seedlings, which they transfer to severely deforested areas during the rainy season. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations launched the FAO Drylands Restoration Initiative in 2012 to draw together knowledge and experience on dryland restoration. In 2015, FAO published global guidelines for the restoration of degraded forests and landscapes in drylands, in collaboration with the Turkish Ministry of Forestry and Water Affairs and the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency.


title: Desertification

text: The "Green Wall of China" is a high-profile example of one method that has been finding success in this battle with desertification. This wall is a much larger-scale version of what American farmers did in the 1930s to stop the great Midwest dust bowl. This plan was proposed in the late 1970s, and has become a major ecological engineering project that is not predicted to end until the year 2055. According to Chinese reports, there have been nearly 66 billion trees planted in China's great green wall. The green wall of China has decreased desert land in China by an annual average of 1,980 square km. The frequency of sandstorms nationwide have fallen 20% due to the green wall. Due to the success that China has been finding in stopping the spread of desertification, plans are currently being made in Africa to start a "wall" along the borders of the Sahara desert as well to be financed by the United Nations Global Environment Facility trust.


title: Desertification

text: In 2007 the African Union started the Great Green Wall of Africa project in order to combat desertification in 20 countries. The wall is 8,000 km wide, stretching across the entire width of the continent and has 8 billion dollars in support of the project. The project has restored 36millionhectares of land, and by 2030 the initiative plans to restore a total of 100millionhectares. The Great Green Wall has created many job opportunities for the participating countries, with over 20,000 jobs created in Nigeria alone.


title: Desertification

text: Techniques focus on two aspects: provisioning of water, and fixation and hyper-fertilizing soil. Fixating the soil is often done through the use of shelter belts, woodlots and windbreaks. Windbreaks are made from trees and bushes and are used to reduce soil erosion and evapotranspiration. They were widely encouraged by development agencies from the middle of the 1980s in the Sahel area of Africa.


title: Desertification

text: Some soils (for example, clay), due to lack of water can become consolidated rather than porous (as in the case of sandy soils). Some techniques as zaï or tillage are then used to still allow the planting of crops. Waffle gardens can also help as they can provide protection of the plants against wind/sandblasting, and increase the hours of shade falling on the plant.


title: Desertification

text: Another technique that is useful is contour trenching. This involves the digging of 150 m long, 1 m deep trenches in the soil. The trenches are made parallel to the height lines of the landscape, preventing the water from flowing within the trenches and causing erosion. Stone walls are placed around the trenches to prevent the trenches from closing up again. The method was invented by Peter Westerveld.


title: Desertification

text: Enriching of the soil and restoration of its fertility is often achieved by plants. Of these, leguminous plants which extract nitrogen from the air and fix it in the soil, succulents (such as Opuntia), and food crops/trees as grains, barley, beans and dates are the most important. Sand fences can also be used to control drifting of soil and sand erosion.


title: Desertification

text: Another way to restore soil fertility is through the use of nitrogen-rich fertilizer. Due to the higher cost of this fertilizer, many smallholder farmers are reluctant to use it, especially in areas where subsistence farming is common. Several nations, including India, Zambia, and Malawi have responded to this by implementing subsidies to help encourage adoption of this technique.


title: Desertification

text: Some research centres (such as Bel-Air Research Center IRD/ISRA/UCAD) are also experimenting with the inoculation of tree species with mycorrhiza in arid zones. The mycorrhiza are basically fungi attaching themselves to the roots of the plants. They hereby create a symbiotic relation with the trees, increasing the surface area of the tree's roots greatly (allowing the tree to gather much more nutrient from the soil).


title: Desertification

text: The bioengineering of soil microbes, particularly photosynthesizers, has also been suggested and theoretically modeled as a method to protect drylands. The aim would be to enhance the existing cooperative loops between soil microbes and vegetation.


title: Desertification

text: As there are many different types of deserts, there are also different types of desert reclamation methodologies. An example for this is the salt flats in the Rub' al Khali desert in Saudi Arabia. These salt flats are one of the most promising desert areas for seawater agriculture and could be revitalized without the use of freshwater or much energy.


title: Desertification

text: Farmer-managed natural regeneration (FMNR) is another technique that has produced successful results for desert reclamation. Since 1980, this method to reforest degraded landscape has been applied with some success in Niger. This simple and low-cost method has enabled farmers to regenerate some 30,000 square kilometers in Niger. The process involves enabling native sprouting tree growth through selective pruning of shrub shoots. The residue from pruned trees can be used to provide mulching for fields thus increasing soil water retention and reducing evaporation. Additionally, properly spaced and pruned trees can increase crop yields. The Humbo Assisted Regeneration Project which uses FMNR techniques in Ethiopia has received money from The World Bank's BioCarbon Fund, which supports projects that sequester or conserve carbon in forests or agricultural ecosystems.


title: Desertification

text: Grazing livestock, usually not left to wander, eat the grass and minimize grass growth. A method proposed to restore grasslands uses fences with many small paddocks and moving herds from one paddock to another after a day or two in order to mimic natural grazers and allowing the grass to grow optimally. Proponents of managed grazing methods estimate that increasing this method could increase carbon content of the soils in the world's 3.5 billion hectares of agricultural grassland and offset nearly 12 years of CO emissions.


title: Desertification

text: One proponent of managed grazing, Allan Savory, as part of holistic management, claims that keeping livestock tightly packed on smaller plots of land, meanwhile rotating them to other small plots of land will reverse desertification; range scientists have however not been able to experimentally confirm his claims.


title: Heaven and Hell (Black Sabbath album)

text: Heaven and Hell is the ninth studio album by English heavy metal band Black Sabbath, released on 18 April 1980. It is the first Black Sabbath album to feature vocalist Ronnie James Dio, who replaced original vocalist Ozzy Osbourne in 1979.


title: Heaven and Hell (Black Sabbath album)

text: Produced by Martin Birch, the album was a commercial success, particularly in the United States, where it reached number 28 on the "Billboard" 200 chart and was certified platinum for one million sales. In the band's native country, it sold well enough to be certified silver by the British Phonographic Industry in April 1982.


title: Heaven and Hell (Black Sabbath album)

text: The initial sessions for what became "Heaven and Hell" began with Ozzy Osbourne following the conclusion of Black Sabbath's Never Say Die! Tour. The band convened in Los Angeles for eleven months to record a new album, a process described by guitarist Tony Iommi as a "highly frustrating, never-ending process". Osbourne has stated that he had become fed up with the experimentation on the preceding albums "Technical Ecstasy" and "Never Say Die!", preferring the band's earlier, heavier sound. In his memoir, Iommi revealed that he still possesses a recording featuring Osbourne singing an early version of what would become "Children of the Sea" with different lyrics and "a totally different" vocal melody.


title: Heaven and Hell (Black Sabbath album)

text: Ronnie James Dio was introduced to Iommi in 1979 by Sharon Arden, who would later marry Osbourne. Initially, Dio and Iommi discussed forming a new band, rather than a continuation of Black Sabbath. The pair met again by chance at The Rainbow on Sunset in Los Angeles later that year. Both men were in similar situations: Dio was seeking a new project and Iommi required a vocalist. "It must have been fate," Dio recalled, "because we connected so instantly." The pair kept in touch via telephone until Dio arrived at Iommi's Los Angeles house for a relaxed, getting-to-know-you jam session. On that first day, the duo finished "Children of the Sea", a song Iommi had abandoned prior to Osbourne's firing.


title: Heaven and Hell (Black Sabbath album)

text: "Sabbath was a band that was floundering," Dio observed. "And, with my inclusion in it, we pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps, cared a lot about each other, and knew that we could do it again – especially under the banner of a band that had been so successful."


title: Heaven and Hell (Black Sabbath album)

text: Sabbath's line-up was in a state of chaos as the band prepared to enter the studio to record what would become "Heaven and Hell". Not only had the band replaced its longtime vocalist, but drummer Bill Ward was battling personal issues that would see him also leave the band within months. Demo recordings for the album, including song titles like "Lady Evil Blues", "Slap Back", "Lord She's Handsome" and an early version of the title track featured Geoff Nicholls on bass, as longtime bassist Geezer Butler was going through a divorce and his future with the band was in question. When Dio first joined the band, he doubled for a short time as bassist and vocalist, having played bass in the band Elf in the early 1970s. At one point Iommi contacted close friend Frank Zappa for help finding a bassist. Zappa offered his bassist for the "Heaven and Hell" sessions but Iommi preferred a permanent member. Eventually, Butler returned to the band and Nicholls stayed on as the band's unofficial keyboardist.


title: Heaven and Hell (Black Sabbath album)

text: Former Elf and Rainbow bassist Craig Gruber also rehearsed with the band, though the extent of his involvement is unclear. In a 1996 interview, Iommi stated that Gruber participated only "for a bit". Gruber has stated that his contribution was quite substantial; he says he cowrote most of "Heaven and Hell"s songs and that it was he and not Butler who played bass on the album. Despite not being credited for his contributions, Gruber says he and the band nonetheless reached "a suitable financial arrangement". Iommi conceded in his 2011 autobiography that Gruber had indeed recorded all the bass parts on "Heaven and Hell", but Butler had re-recorded them upon his return, without listening to Gruber's bass tracks. Gruber later stated in an interview in 2009 that he only helped write "Die Young".


title: Heaven and Hell (Black Sabbath album)

text: Personal issues aside, drummer Bill Ward was not completely happy with the direction Black Sabbath was moving in creatively. ""Heaven and Hell" for me wasn't a turning point," he recalled. ""Heaven and Hell" was the beginning of a new band of which I had no idea what band I was in. It was almost like Ron was capable of coming up with lyrics that seemed to fit his idea of how Black Sabbath "ought" to be, and I sensed a kind of "unrealness" about the lyrics. My favourite song on "Heaven and Hell" was a blues song that we did, 'Lonely Is the Word' – and that seemed to be real. But things like 'Lady Evil', they seemed almost like bandwagon-type lyrics. 'Lonely Is the Word', I definitely liked playing that song. And 'Children of the Sea' – I did like to play that too. I thought Ronnie was a very good singer."


title: Heaven and Hell (Black Sabbath album)

text: "Heaven and Hell" was recorded at Miami's Criteria Studios (in which the band recorded "Technical Ecstasy") and in Paris. Dio suggested the band hire producer Martin Birch, who he had worked with as a member of Rainbow in the 1970s. Birch was Sabbath's first outside producer since the band parted ways with Rodger Bain following 1971's "Master of Reality", with Iommi primarily producing the band's albums since that point by himself. Iommi stated that the band felt that they were creating something special in "Heaven and Hell". In his memoir, he wrote, "Ozzy would sing with the riff. Just listen to 'Iron Man' and you'll catch my drift: his vocal melody line copies the melody of the music. There was nothing wrong with that, but Ronnie liked singing across the riff instead of with it, come up with a melody that was different from that of the music, which musically opens a lot more doors. I don't want to sound like I'm knocking Ozzy, but Ronnie's approach opened up a new way for me to think."


title: Heaven and Hell (Black Sabbath album)

text: Black Sabbath had a long history of playing pranks on drummer Ward, and this continued during the recording of "Heaven and Hell". During a slow day in the studio, Iommi doused Ward with a solution used by studio technicians to clean the tape heads, and he then set light to the solution, which was much more flammable than he had anticipated. Ward suffered third degree burns as a result and still has scars on his legs from the incident. Ward has stated that, due to his alcoholism, he has no memory at all of the period in which the album was recorded. His behaviour became erratic; on the Heaven & Hell Tour, Ward began dictating long and rambling press releases to the band's public relations representatives after every show, instructing them to "get that out on the news wires tonight". Ward's personal issues, which included the deaths of both his parents, would soon force him to leave the band. Dio recalled answering the telephone in his hotel room one morning mid-tour to hear Ward say "I'm off then, Ron", to which Dio replied "That's nice Bill, where are you going?" "No, I'm off mate. I'm at the airport now", indicating that he was incapable of completing the tour. American drummer Vinny Appice was quickly brought in to replace him. The "Heaven and Hell" album represents the only Sabbath material recorded during the Dio-era that does not feature Appice on drums.


title: Heaven and Hell (Black Sabbath album)

text: The album's cover art was taken from a painting by artist Lynn Curlee, "Smoking Angels", inspired by a 1928 photograph of women dressed as angels smoking backstage during a break at a college pageant. The album's back cover illustration of the band was drawn by artist Harry Carmean.


title: Heaven and Hell (Black Sabbath album)

text: The album was successful, becoming the band's highest-charting album (No. 9 UK, No. 28 US) since 1975's "Sabotage" and the third highest-selling album of Black Sabbath behind "Paranoid" and "Master of Reality", respectively. It was eventually certified platinum in 1986 for selling 1 million copies in the United States. In the UK, it became the third Black Sabbath studio album to attain silver certification (60,000 units sold) by the British Phonographic Industry, achieving this in November 1980. It subsequently attained gold certification (100,000 units sold) in April 1982, the only Black Sabbath studio album to be thus certified. "Heaven and Hell" was re-released as part of the Black Sabbath box set "The Rules of Hell" in 2008. In 2017, it was ranked 37th at "Rolling Stone"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s "100 Greatest Metal Albums of All Time".


title: Heaven and Hell (Black Sabbath album)

text: Six of the album's tracks were played live, with only "Walk Away" and "Wishing Well" not making the setlists on the Heaven & Hell Tour. Four of those became mainstays in setlists for the band's tours with Dio and Tony Martin: "Children of the Sea", "Neon Knights", "Die Young" and the title track.


title: Heaven and Hell (Black Sabbath album)

text: Some critics insisted that Dio's addition irretrievably altered the band, with "Rolling Stone" contending, "Although Dio could belt with the best of them, Sabbath would never be the same." In his autobiography, Iommi admits, "We were doing big shows and it was difficult for Ronnie to go out and stand in front of people who had seen Ozzy in that spot for ten years. Some of the kids hated it and they'd shout: 'Ozzy, Ozzy!' But eventually Ronnie won them over."


title: Heaven and Hell (Black Sabbath album)

text: In an interview with Songfacts, current Osbourne guitarist Zakk Wylde of Black Label Society dismisses the idea of the Dio-era being authentic Sabbath: "You listen to Black Sabbath with Ronnie James Dio in it, and it's not Black Sabbath. They should have just called it Heaven & Hell right from the beginning. Because you listen to that "Heaven and Hell" album, that doesn't sound anything close to Black Sabbath. I mean, that sounds about as much like Black Sabbath as "Blizzard of Ozz" sounds like Black Sabbath. If you were to play Black Sabbath for me – and I'm a huge Sabbath freako – and then with Father Dio over there, I'd be going, 'Oh, cool, what band is this? This is good stuff.' I mean, the songs don't even sound Black Sabbath-y. I mean, 'Neon Knights', could you picture Ozzy singing over that song?"


title: Heaven and Hell (Black Sabbath album)

text: Mick Wall noted in his book "Black Sabbath: Symptom of the Universe", "For once their timing was spot on. In Britain, "Sounds" magazine had begun championing a new musical phenomenon it dubbed 'The New Wave of British Heavy Metal' ... The reborn Black Sabbath, with their glistening new sound, incomparable new singer and top-drawer new album, were seen as part of a widespread revival in rock fandom."


title: Synchronic (film)

text: Synchronic is a 2019 American science fiction horror film written by Justin Benson, who also directed and produced with Aaron Moorhead. It shares continuity with other films by Benson and Moorhead, following "Resolution" and "The Endless". "Synchronic" stars Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan as paramedics who investigate a series of inexplicable deaths and their connection to a new designer drug.


title: Synchronic (film)

text: It had its world premiere at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival. It was released on October 23, 2020, by Well GO USA Entertainment.


title: Synchronic (film)

text: Steve, a ladies' man, and Dennis, a married father, work together as paramedics in New Orleans, Louisiana. They are called out to a series of cases where people are either dead in strange circumstances or whose stories are incoherent. The cases are linked to a new designer drug called Synchronic.


title: Synchronic (film)

text: At a domestic abuse call, they find a stabbing victim and an old sword embedded in the wall. While Steve tends to an injured man, he is accidentally pierced by a dirty needle. Being tested for possible infections leads to the discovery of cancer in his underdeveloped and non-calcified pineal gland. The second call, a burn victim, is a completely burned body. The third call is a bite from a venomous snake no longer found in the area.


title: Synchronic (film)

text: On a call to a drug party, they find a dead boy, and a girl says there was a third girl, Brianna, Dennis's teenage daughter. The next morning. Steve goes to a local smoke shop and buys all the Synchronic, which he learns is discontinued. As he leaves, Steve declines a man's offer to pay triple its worth and stays firm even when the man ups his offer to almost 20 times what he paid. The next morning, Steve catches the man breaking into his house. He says he is the chemist who created Synchronic from a red flower that grows in the California desert, which alters the pineal gland's perception of time. Children, who have a non-calcified pineal gland, pass through time. Adults seem to only partially move through time like ghosts.


title: Synchronic (film)

text: During their next call, a victim of a sword fight dies. Steve, who is a fan of the history of science, quotes Albert Einstein on the meaninglessness of time when faced with his friend's death. Under the stress of Brianna's disappearance, Dennis' marriage deteriorates. When he learns someone has been stealing morphine, he misinterprets Steve's poor health and use of painkillers as evidence he is a morphine addict. The two come to blows while treating a shouting patient.


title: Synchronic (film)

text: At home, Steve takes Synchronic, travels back to when the area was covered in a swamp, and is attacked by a conquistador. Steve records his observations, deducing that Synchronic allows traveling backwards through time for seven minutes in the same geographical location. When he travels back to the Ice Age, he realizes that his location when taking the pill determines the destination year.


title: Synchronic (film)

text: During his next attempt, Steve takes back his dog, Hawking, to the 1920s where he is chased by the Ku Klux Klan. Moving from the original location, he loses Hawking and is unable to bring him back. Taking another Synchronic pill where Brianna disappeared, he discovers several tribal men, who chase him up a tree. He later learns from one of Brianna's friends that she may have wandered off before taking Synchronic. He also realizes that touching objects can anchor someone to the object's time period.


title: Synchronic (film)

text: Steve and Dennis talk at a bar. Dennis, who has taken his life for granted, believes he is headed to a divorce. Steve tells Dennis about his cancer, and the two reconcile. Their driver, Tom, was stealing the morphine. At the graveyard of Steve's family, Steve shows Dennis the videos of his time travel, and they deduce that Brianna may have left a message for them to find in the park. Steve travels back in time from there and finds himself on a battlefield during the War of 1812. He is shot in the leg while searching for Brianna. Upon finding her in a trench, he gives her his last pill. Steve praises her idea to mark a boulder, but she says she did not. At the boulder, they are intercepted by a looter who, believing Steve is a runaway slave, threatens to kill them both. Steve distracts the looter as Brianna returns safely to the present. The looter steps on a landmine after being startled by an explosion. Steve realizes while sitting on the boulder that he is the one who carved the message in the boulder. Back in the present as Dennis hugs Brianna Steve appears ghost-like and shakes Dennis' hand.


title: Synchronic (film)

text: In September 2018, it was announced Jamie Dornan and Anthony Mackie had joined the cast of the film, with Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead directing.


title: Synchronic (film)

text: "Synchronic" shares continuity with previous films by Benson and Moorhead. It is mentioned that the titular drug was synthesized from a red flower grown in the California desert, referencing the plant smoked by members of a commune in the film "The Endless".


title: Synchronic (film)

text: The film had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 7, 2019. Shortly after, Well Go USA Entertainment acquired distribution rights to the film, announcing a 2020 release. It was released in theaters on October 23, 2020.


title: Synchronic (film)

text: "Synchronic" was released on digital and video on demand in the United States on January 12, 2021. The movie was released on Netflix in the US on April 16, 2021.


title: Synchronic (film)

text: Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reports an approval rating of based on reviews and an average rating of . The site's critics consensus reads: ""Synchronic" sets off on an intriguingly idiosyncratic journey that should satisfy fans of Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson's earlier work." Metacritic reports a weighted average score of 64 out of 100 based on 23 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: W. C. Fields

text: William Claude Dukenfield (January 29, 1880 – December 25, 1946), better known as W. C. Fields, was an American comedian, actor, juggler, and writer. Fields's comic persona was a misanthropic and hard-drinking egotist who remained a sympathetic character despite his supposed contempt for children and dogs.


title: W. C. Fields

text: Fields's career in show business began in vaudeville, where he attained international success as a silent juggler. He began to incorporate comedy into his act and was a featured comedian in the Ziegfeld Follies for several years. He became a star in the Broadway musical comedy "Poppy" (1923), in which he played a colorful small-time con man. His subsequent stage and film roles were often similar scoundrels or henpecked everyman characters.


title: W. C. Fields

text: Among his trademarks were his raspy drawl and grandiloquent vocabulary. His film and radio persona was generally identified with Fields himself. It was maintained by the publicity departments at Fields's studios (Paramount and Universal) and was further established by Robert Lewis Taylor's biography "W. C. Fields, His Follies and Fortunes" (1949). Beginning in 1973, with the publication of Fields's letters, photos, and personal notes in grandson Ronald Fields's book "W. C. Fields by Himself", it was shown that Fields was married (and subsequently estranged from his wife), financially supported their son, and loved his grandchildren.


title: W. C. Fields

text: Fields was born William Claude Dukenfield in Darby, Pennsylvania, the oldest child of a working-class family. His father, James Lydon Dukenfield (1841–1913), was from an English family that emigrated from Sheffield, Yorkshire, England, in 1854. James Dukenfield served in Company M of the 72nd Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment in the American Civil War and was wounded in 1863. Fields's mother, Kate Spangler Felton (1854–1925), was a Protestant of British ancestry. The 1876 "Philadelphia City Directory " lists James Dukenfield as a clerk. After marrying, he worked as an independent produce merchant and a part-time hotel-keeper.