title: The Frighteners

text: Soon after Frank cons local health nut Ray Lynskey and his wife Lucy, a physician, Ray dies of a heart attack. Frank discovers that there is an entity, appearing as the Grim Reaper, killing people, first marking numbers on their foreheads that only Frank sees. Debra had a similar number when she was found.


title: The Frighteners

text: Frank's ability to foretell the murders puts him under suspicion with the police and FBI agent Milton Dammers, who is convinced Frank is responsible. Frank is arrested for killing newspaper editor Magda Rees-Jones, who had attacked him in the press. It was actually the Grim Reaper who killed Rees-Jones, despite Frank's attempts to prevent it.


title: The Frighteners

text: Lucy investigates the murders and becomes a target of the Grim Reaper. She is attacked while visiting Frank in jail; but they escape with the help of Cyrus and Stuart, who are both dissolved in the process. Frank wants to commit suicide to stop the Grim Reaper. Lucy helps Frank have a near-death experience by putting him into hypothermia and using barbiturates to stop his heart. Dammers abducts Lucy, revealing that he had been a victim of Charles Manson and his "Family" in 1969.


title: The Frighteners

text: In his ghostly form, Frank confronts the Grim Reaper and discovers that he is the ghost of Johnny Bartlett, a psychiatric hospital orderly who killed twelve people in 1964, before being captured, convicted and executed. Newspaper reports reveal that his greatest desire was to become the most prolific serial killer ever, showing pride at killing more than contemporaries like Charles Starkweather. Patricia Bradley, then a teenager, was accused as his accomplice, although she escaped the death penalty due to her underage status. Lucy resuscitates Frank and they visit Patricia. Unknown to them, Patricia is still in love with Bartlett and on friendly, homicidal terms with Bartlett's ghost, and eventually kills her own mother, who had been trying to monitor her daughter's behavior. Lucy and Frank trap Bartlett's spirit in his urn, which Patricia has kept. The pair make for the chapel of the now-abandoned psychiatric hospital hoping to send Bartlett's ghost to Hell.


title: The Frighteners

text: Patricia and Dammers chase them through the ruins. Dammers throws the ashes away, releasing Bartlett's ghost again before Patricia kills Dammers. Bartlett's ghost and Patricia hunt down Frank and Lucy. Frank realizes that Bartlett's ghost, with Patricia's help, was responsible for his wife's death and the number on her brow, and that he is still trying to add to his body count (and infamy) even after his death.


title: The Frighteners

text: Out of bullets, Patricia strangles Frank to death, but Frank in spirit form rips Patricia's spirit from her body, forcing Bartlett to follow them. Bartlett grabs Patricia's ghost, while Frank makes it to Heaven, where he is reunited with Cyrus and Stuart, along with his wife Debra. Bartlett and Patricia's spirits claim they will now go back to claim more lives, but the portal to Heaven quickly changes to a demonic-looking appearance and they are both dragged to Hell by a giant worm-like creature. Frank learns it is not yet his time and is sent back to his body as Debra's spirit tells him to "be happy."


title: The Frighteners

text: Frank and Lucy fall in love. Lucy is now able to see ghosts as well. Frank later begins demolishing the unfinished dream house and building a life with Lucy while the morose-looking ghost of Dammers is riding around in the Sheriff Walt Perry's car. The sheriff, who is also Frank's friend, approaches him and reveals that the police discovered a huge collection of Ouija Boards in Patricia's room. This causes Frank to realize how Johnny Bartlett managed to come back to the world of the living as Patricia used the Ouija Board to bring him back from hell. Frank and Lucy then enjoy their picnic.


title: The Frighteners

text: In addition, Peter Jackson cameos as a man with piercings, his son Billy is a baby in a bouncer, Melanie Lynskey cameos as the deputy who is briefly seen standing next to Lucy Lynskey, Byron McCrawerly plays Victim #38 and Angela Bloomfield plays Frank's deceased wife, Debra.


title: The Frighteners

text: Peter Jackson and co-writer Fran Walsh conceived the idea for "The Frighteners" in 1992, during the script-writing phase of "Heavenly Creatures". Together, they wrote a three-page film treatment and sent it to their talent agent in Hollywood. Robert Zemeckis viewed their treatment with the intention of directing "The Frighteners" as a spin-off film of the television series, "Tales from the Crypt" (which he helped produce). Zemeckis hired Jackson and Walsh to turn their treatment into a full-length screenplay in January 1993. The husband and wife duo completed their first draft for "The Frighteners" in early-January 1994. Zemeckis was so impressed with their script, he decided "The Frighteners" would work better directed by Jackson, executive produced by Zemeckis and funded/distributed by Universal Pictures. Universal green-lighted the film to commence pre-production on a $26 million budget in April 1994. The studio also granted Jackson and Zemeckis total artistic control and the right of final cut privilege.


title: The Frighteners

text: Jackson decided to film "The Frighteners" entirely in New Zealand. Zemeckis and Universal agreed on the condition that Jackson made New Zealand look similar to the Midwestern United States. Principal photography began on May 14, 1995, and lasted until November 16, which is one of the longest shooting schedules ever approved by Universal Pictures. Six weeks into the shoot, cinematographer Alun Bollinger had a serious car accident. His replacement, John Blick, later alternated duties with Bollinger for much of the rest of the shoot. Location shooting primarily included Wellington and three weeks spent in Lyttelton. Interior scenes were compiled at Camperdown Studios in Miramar.


title: The Frighteners

text: Jackson's Weta Digital created the visual effects, which included computer-generated imagery, as well as scale models (which were necessary to make Lyttelton look American), prosthetic makeup and practical effects with help from Weta Workshop. Visual effects supervisor Richard Taylor explained that effects work on "The Frighteners" was complex due to Weta's inexperience with computer technology in the mid-1990s. Prior to this film, Weta worked largely with physical effects. With so many ghosts among its main cast, "The Frighteners" required more digital effects shots than almost any movie made up till that time. For a special effects company that had been in existence less than three years, the eighteen-month period for completing "The Frighteners" was largely stressful. Some shots were handled by a small New Zealand company called Pixel Perfect, many of whose employees would eventually join Weta Digital. Rick Baker was hired to design the prosthetic makeup for The Judge, portrayed by John Astin (the detachable jawbone was later added digitally). However, Baker was not able to apply Astin's five hours of makeup due to his commitment on "The Nutty Professor". Makeup artist Brian Penikas ("Pirates of the Caribbean" trilogy, "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull") fulfilled Baker's duties.


title: The Frighteners

text: The extended shooting schedule owed much to the fact that scenes where ghosts and human characters interacted had to be filmed twice; once with human characters acting on set, and then with the ghost characters acting against a blue screen. The two elements would later be digitally composited into one shot with the use of split screen photography. Such sequences required precise timing from the cast as they traded dialogue with characters who were merely blank air. The hardest challenge for the digital animators at Weta was creating the Grim Reaper, which went through many transformations before finding physical form. "We set out with the intention of doing the Reaper as a rod puppet, maybe shooting it in a water tank," Jackson commented. "We even thought of filming someone, dressed in costume, at different camera speeds." Test footage was shot with puppets and a man in a Reaper suit, but in the end, it was decided that using computer animation would be the easiest task. Another entirely computerized character called "the Gatekeeper", a winged cherub who helps guard the cemetery, was deleted from the final cut.


title: The Frighteners

text: With digital effects work running behind schedule, Zemeckis convinced Wes Takahashi, an animation supervisor from visual effects company Industrial Light & Magic, to help work on "The Frighteners". "The shots Zemeckis showed me were pretty remarkable," Takahashi reflected, "but there were still about 400 shots to do, and everyone was kind of worried." Takahashi was quickly drafted as a visual effects supervisor, and began looking at the schedule, trying to work out whether "The Frighteners" could be finished in time. "There was no way we'd make the deadline. I figured out a concerted plan involving Jackson and Zemeckis to convince Universal it was worthy of asking for more money." The executives at Universal proposed splitting some of the shots to visual effects companies in the United States, but Jackson, for whom the film was a chance to show New Zealand filmmaking could stand alongside Hollywood, convinced Universal otherwise. Instead, "The Frighteners" received an accelerated release date, four months earlier than planned, and an additional $6 million in financing, with fifteen digital animators and computer workstations (some were borrowed from Universal and other effects companies in the US).


title: The Frighteners

text: The film score was written and composed by Danny Elfman. It was released in 1996 on cassette and compact disc by Universal Records. The closing credits play a cover of Blue Öyster Cult's "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" performed by New Zealand alternative rock band The Mutton Birds. The Mutton Birds version of the song had been previously released as a B-side to their single "She's Been Talking" released in 1996. It plays also "Superstar", written by Bonnie Bramlett + Leon Russell and performed by Sonic Youth.


title: The Frighteners

text: Critical reception was average; Jason Ankeny of album database AllMusic described the soundtrack as "imaginative" giving it three stars out of five. This was a lower rating on the site than Elfman's other scores of the era, such as "", "Mars Attacks!" and "Flubber". The soundtrack review website Filmtracks referred to the album as "lacking much cohesion or singular creativity".


title: The Frighteners

text: The intended release date was October 1996, but after Universal studio executives viewed a rough cut of "The Frighteners", they were impressed enough to move the release date to their "summer blockbuster slot" on July 19, 1996. In addition, Universal offered the filmmaker the opportunity to make "King Kong", which was not released until 2005. Jackson often disputed the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)'s decision on the film's rating. Aware that he was meant to be delivering Universal a PG-13 rated film, Jackson tried his best to omit graphic violence as much as possible, but the MPAA still believed "The Frighteners" deserved an R rating.


title: The Frighteners

text: "The Frighteners" was released in the United States in 1,675 theaters, and opened at #5, earning $5,565,495 during its opening weekend, averaging $3,335 per theater. The film eventually grossed a worldwide total of $29,359,216. "The Frighteners" ended up being a box office disappointment, mostly due to competition from "Independence Day"; in interviews conducted years after "The Frighteners" release, Jackson commented he was disappointed by Universal's ubiquitous marketing campaign, including a poster which "didn't tell you anything about the picture", which he believed was the primary reason the film was not a financial success. Additionally, the film opened on the same day the Atlanta Summer Olympics began; when Jackson realized this and told the studio, they answered "'We don't think so; our research indicates that's not the case...' And I just thought how the hell do they know? There had only ever been three Olympic Games held in the United States in one hundred years!" Jackson acknowledged "The Frighteners" tone made it hard to pigeon-hole and sell, and his experience on the film made him understand the importance of marketing.


title: The Frighteners

text: , 67% of the 42 reviewers selected by review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a positive review, and the average score is 6.2/10. The website's critical consensus states, "Boasting top-notch special effects and exuberant direction from Peter Jackson, "The Frighteners" is visually striking but tonally uneven." Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale.


title: The Frighteners

text: Kenneth Turan of the "Los Angeles Times" stated "Director Peter Jackson, at home with all kinds of excess in New Zealand, keeps everything spinning nicely, not even losing a step when the mood turns increasingly disturbing." Janet Maslin from "The New York Times" enjoyed "The Frighteners", but "walked out the theater with mixed emotions," she commented that "Peter Jackson deserves more enthusiasm for expert, imaginative effects than for his live actors anyhow. These lively touches would leave "The Frighteners" looking more like a more frantic "Beetlejuice" if Jackson's film weren't so wearyingly overcrowded. "The Frighteners" is not immune to overkill, even though most of its characters are already dead." Jeff Vice of the "Deseret News" praised the acting in the film, with the performances of Fox and Alvarado in particular, but said that there were also "bits that push the taste barrier too far and which grind things to a screeching halt", and that if "Jackson had used the restraint he showed in "Heavenly Creatures", the movie could have "been the best of its kind". Critic Christopher Null praised the film, as he described it as a mixture between "Ghostbusters" and "Twin Peaks". Michael Drucker of IGN said that although the film would not make Jackson's top five of movies, it "is a harmless and fun dark comedy that you'll enjoy casually watching from time to time". "The Frighteners" received mixed reviews from critics from Jackson's native country, New Zealand.


title: The Frighteners

text: Conversely, Todd McCarthy of "Variety" thought that the film should have remained an episode of "Tales from the Crypt". Critic James Berardinelli believed that although "The Frighteners" wasn't "a bad film", it was "a disappointment, following Jackson's powerful, true-life matricide tale, "Heavenly Creatures"", and because of that ""The Frighteners" fell short of expectations by being just one of many in the long line of 1996 summer movies." "Chicago Sun-Times" Roger Ebert gave the film one star out of four, and felt that Jackson was more interested in prosthetic makeup designs, computer animation, and special effects than writing a cohesive storyline. Ebert and critic Gene Siskel gave it a "two thumbs down" rating on their TV show "At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert".<ref name="Siskel/Ebert"> </ref> "Chicago Reader" critic Jonathan Rosenbaum, described the film's special effects as "ugly, aggressive" and "proliferating", saying that "trying to keep interested in [the special effects] was like trying to remain interested in a loudmouth shouting in [his] ear". Edward Guthmann of the "San Francisco Chronicle" stated that "instead of moving the horror genre in new directions, "The Frighteners" simply falls apart from its barrage of visual effects and the overmixed onslaught of Danny Elfman's music score". "The Austin Chronicle"s Joey O'Brien, said that although the screenplay was "practically loaded with wild ideas, knowingly campy dialogue and offbeat characterizations", it "switched gears" too fast and too frequently that "the audience is left struggling to catch up as ["The Frighteners"] twists and turns its way unmercifully towards a literally out-of-this-world finale".


title: The Frighteners

text: At the 23rd Saturn Awards, the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films honored Jackson with nominations for Best Director and Best Writing, the latter he shared with wife Fran Walsh. "The Frighteners" also was nominated for Best Horror Film, and for its Special Effects, Make-up (Rick Baker) and Music (Danny Elfman). Michael J. Fox and Jeffrey Combs were also nominated for their work.


title: The Frighteners

text: "The Frighteners" was released on Laserdisc in 1996 in a standard release with Dolby surround on both Digital and Analog channels.


title: The Frighteners

text: 4 hour documentary 'The Making Of The Frighteners' directed by Peter Jackson featuring cast interviews, rehearsals, storyboarding, miniatures and special effects


title: The Frighteners

text: To coincide with the release of Jackson's "King Kong", Universal Studios Home Entertainment issued a double-sided director's cut DVD of the film in November 2005, which featured a version of "The Frighteners" that was 12 minutes longer. The other side includes a documentary prepared by Jackson and WingNut Films originally for the Laserdisc release. The theatrical and director's cut were also made available in HD DVD in 2007 and Blu-ray in 2011.


title: John Galt

text: John Galt () is a character in Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged" (1957). Although he is not identified by name until the last third of the novel, he is the object of its often-repeated question "Who is John Galt?" and of the quest to discover the answer. Also, in the later part it becomes clear that Galt had been present in the book's plot all along, playing several important roles though not identified by name.


title: John Galt

text: As the plot unfolds, Galt is acknowledged to be a philosopher and inventor; he believes in the power and glory of the human mind, and the rights of individuals to use their minds solely for themselves. He serves as a highly individualistic counterpoint to the collectivist social and economic structure depicted in the novel, in which society is based on oppressive bureaucratic functionaries and a culture that embraces mediocrity in the name of egalitarianism, which the novel posits is the result of collectivist philosophy.


title: John Galt

text: The novel unfolds Galt's story in a progressive retrospective, with Galt, the son of an Ohio garage mechanic, leaving home at age twelve and beginning college at the fictional Patrick Henry University at age sixteen. There he meets Francisco d'Anconia and Ragnar Danneskjöld, who become his two closest friends. Galt takes a double major in physics and philosophy, and after graduating, he becomes an engineer at the Twentieth Century Motor Company, where he designs a revolutionary new motor powered by ambient static electricity. When the company owner dies and his heirs decide to run the factory by the collectivist maxim, "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need", Galt refuses to work there any longer and abandons his motor.


title: John Galt

text: During the main storyline of the book, Galt has secretly organized a strike by the world's creative leaders, including inventors, artists and businessmen, in an effort to "stop the motor of the world" and bring about the collapse of the bureaucratic society. While working incognito as a laborer for Taggart Transcontinental railroad, he travels to visit the key figures that he has not yet recruited, systematically persuading them to join the strike. This strike is not revealed immediately within the story, but forms the backdrop of the novel as a mystery which protagonist Dagny Taggart seeks to uncover, with Galt as her antagonist. She calls him "The Destroyer" and regards him as her arch-enemy, on one occasion seeing a door which just closed and realizing he had been in the room ahead of her. The strikers have created their own secret enclave known as "Galt's Gulch", a town secluded in a Colorado mountain valley, based on Ouray, Colorado.


title: John Galt

text: Galt had been deeply in love with Dagny for years, but knew he could not reveal himself until she would be ready to join his strike. On one night he was struggling with the temptation to knock on her door but restrained himself – and she saw his shadow, but not himself. Dagny herself had always had a concept of an ideal man "at the end of the railway", and her other lovers – Francisco D'Anconia and Hank Rearden – did not fit this image, however much she loved and respected both of them.


title: John Galt

text: While in the valley, Dagny develops a romantic relationship with Galt, although it remains physically unconsummated – which is linked to her refusing to join the strike. After she returns home to New York, Galt takes over the airwaves, delivering a lengthy speech that explains what he sees to be the irrationality of collectivism and offers his own philosophy (Ayn Rand's Objectivism) as an alternative. Galt speaks against what he sees as the evil of collectivism and the idea that individuals must be responsible for each other, and says that should be replaced by voluntary association and adherence to rational self-interest. Seeking Galt after the speech, Dagny accidentally leads the authorities to him, and he is arrested. She and the strikers rescue Galt as the government tortures him. They return to Galt's Gulch and prepare to rebuild the rest of the world, as the collapse of the incompetent government nears.


title: John Galt

text: Literature professor Shoshana Milgram traces the origins of the character to adventure stories that Rand read as a child, including the French novels "La Vallée Mystérieuse" and "Le Petit Roi d'Ys". Rand also owned a copy of a 1940 novel with characters named Jed and John Peter Galt. There was a 19th-century Scottish novelist of the same name, but Milgram says that any connection to the character is "highly unlikely". Milgram also notes that the name Rand originally picked for her character was "Iles" Galt.


title: John Galt

text: At least two real people of Rand's acquaintance have been suggested as partial inspirations for Galt. Rand denied any connection to her friend John Gall, a conservative attorney, but did claim some inspiration came from her husband, Frank O'Connor.


title: John Galt

text: Author Justin Raimondo has found parallels between "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Driver", a 1922 novel by Garet Garrett. Garrett's novel has a main character named Henry M. Galt. This Galt is an entrepreneur who takes over a failing railway, turning it into a productive and profitable asset for the benefit of himself and the rest of the nation. The general population and government turn against him instead of celebrating his success. Raimondo also notes that in "The Driver", some characters ask, "Who is Henry M. Galt?", similar to the question "Who is John Galt?" that plays an important role in "Atlas Shrugged".


title: John Galt

text: Rand is not the only famous author to invent a character with this name. Pulp fiction author Robert E. Howard, creator of heroes such as Conan the Barbarian, used a villain named John Galt—also a man of mystery missing for a long time and possessed of great wealth, trying to manipulate his world from the background—in the tale "Black Talons" in 1933, more than twenty years before "Atlas Shrugged" was published.


title: John Galt

text: The Galt character has been compared to various iconic figures from literature and history. In the novel itself, he is compared with Prometheus from the Greek myths. English literature scholar Mimi Reisel Gladstein sees similarities to the figures of Arthur and Galahad from the Arthurian legends. Parallels have also been drawn to Captain Nemo, the anti-hero of Jules Verne's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", who has likewise turned his back on "civilization" in self-imposed exile with a number of chosen allies, refusing to partake in a society he views as irreconcilably evil and oppressive.


title: John Galt

text: Galt is not necessarily intended to be a rounded or realistic character; he has been called "more a symbol than a person" and "two-dimensional". Mimi Reisel Gladstein describes Galt as "more icon than character". Rand's own notes indicate that she expected the character to have "[n]o progression" and "no inner conflict" because he was "integrated (indivisible) and perfect".


title: John Galt

text: The book's opening line, "Who is John Galt?", becomes an expression of helplessness and despair at the current state of the novel's fictionalized world. The book's protagonist, Dagny Taggart, hears a number of legends of Galt, before finding him. In one legend Galt seeks the lost island of Atlantis, in another he discovers the Fountain of Youth. After eventually joining Galt's cause, Taggart learns that all of the stories have an element of truth to them. She names the Colorado spur of her railroad line the "John Galt Line" which surprises many people. When asked "Who is John Galt?", she replies "We are!"


title: John Galt

text: "The book's hero, John Galt, also continues to live on", wrote journalist Harriet Rubin in a September 2007 article about the influence of "Atlas Shrugged". Rubin mentions John Galt Solutions (a software company) and the John Galt Corporation (a demolition company) as examples of companies named after the character.


title: John Galt

text: The use of Galt as a symbol in the context of political or social protest has taken root in some places. "Who is John Galt?" signs were seen at Tea Party protests held in the United States and at banking protests in London in April 2009. Texas Republican congressman Ron Paul's presidential primary campaign of 2008 included a play on the phrase, using "Who is Ron Paul?" on campaign T-shirts; his web site biography uses the same title.


title: John Galt

text: In August 1988, the Louisiana business lobbyist and columnist Edward J. Steimel referred to the United States Congress and the liberal majority elected in 1986 in the last two years of the administration of US President Ronald W. Reagan as "the John Galt Congress". Steimel objected to an increase in the minimum wage, a measure which he said would "wreak havoc with the very individuals it is designed to help most – new entrants into the work force and new minority workers in particular". Steimel described the public as uninformed people who merely shrug their shoulders and ask "Who is John Galt?" whenever they are questioned about the grip of expanded government on their lives and liberty.


title: John Galt

text: In May 2011, "I Am John Galt: Today's Heroic Innovators Building the World and the Villainous Parasites Destroying It", by libertarian columnist and business consultant Donald Luskin and businessman Andrew Greta was published, profiling modern-day examples of Ayn Rand's iconic heroes and villains.


title: John Galt

text: In 2009, For Beginners, LLC released "Ayn Rand for Beginners" by Andrew Bernstein as part of its "... For Beginners" graphic nonfiction comic book series. The illustrations by Own Brozman included a number of drawings of Galt in the section discussing "Atlas Shrugged".


title: John Galt

text: From 2011 to 2014, a movie adaptation of "Atlas Shrugged" was released in three parts. A different actor portrayed Galt in each film. In "", director Paul Johansson played the role, albeit with limited screen time and in shadow. Actor D. B. Sweeney took over the role for "", released in 2012. For the 2014 release of "", the role was again recast, this time with Kristoffer Polaha.


title: Old Swiss Confederacy

text: The Old Swiss Confederacy or Swiss Confederacy (Modern German: ; historically , after the Reformation also , "Confederation of the Swiss") was a loose confederation of independent small states (, German or ), initially within the Holy Roman Empire. It is the precursor of the modern state of Switzerland.


title: Old Swiss Confederacy

text: It formed during the 14th century, from a nucleus in what is now Central Switzerland, expanding to include the cities of Zürich and Bern by the middle of the century. This formed a rare union of rural and urban communes, all of which enjoyed imperial immediacy in the Holy Roman Empire.


title: Old Swiss Confederacy

text: This confederation of eight cantons () was politically and militarily successful for more than a century, culminating in the Burgundy Wars of the 1470s which established it as a power in the complicated political landscape dominated by France and the Habsburgs. Its success resulted in the addition of more confederates, increasing the number of cantons to thirteen () by 1513. The confederacy pledged neutrality in 1647 (under the threat of the Thirty Years' War), although many Swiss served privately as mercenaries in the Italian Wars and during the early modern period.


title: Old Swiss Confederacy

text: After the Swabian War of 1499 the confederacy was a "de facto" independent state throughout the early modern period, although still nominally part of the Holy Roman Empire until 1648 when the Treaty of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years' War. The Swiss Reformation divided the confederates into Reformed and Catholic parties, resulting in internal conflict from the 16th to the 18th centuries; as a result, the federal diet () was often paralysed by hostility between the factions. The Swiss Confederacy fell to invasion by the French Revolutionary Army in 1798, after which it became the short-lived Helvetic Republic.


title: Old Swiss Confederacy

text: The adjective "old" was introduced after the Napoleonic era with , retronyms distinguishing the pre-Napoleonic from the restored confederation. During its existence the confederacy was known as or ("oath fellowship"), in reference to treaties among cantons; this term was first used in the 1370 . Territories of the confederacy came to be known collectively as "Schweiz" or "Schweizerland" ("Schwytzerland" in contemporary spelling), with the English "Switzerland" beginning during the mid-16th century. From that time the Confederacy was seen as a single state, also known as the Swiss Republic (, and by Josias Simmler in 1576) after the fashion of calling individual urban cantons republics (such as the Republics of Zürich, Berne and Basel).


title: Old Swiss Confederacy

text: The nucleus of the Old Swiss Confederacy was an alliance among the valley communities of the central Alps to facilitate management of common interests (such as trade) and ensure peace along trade routes through the mountains. The foundation of the Confederacy is marked by the Rütlischwur (dated to 1307 by Aegidius Tschudi) or the 1315 Pact of Brunnen.


title: Old Swiss Confederacy

text: Since 1889, the Federal Charter of 1291 among the rural communes of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden has been considered the founding document of the confederacy.


title: Old Swiss Confederacy

text: The initial pact was augmented by pacts with the cities of Lucerne, Zürich, and Bern. This union of rural and urban communes, which enjoyed the status of imperial immediacy within the Holy Roman Empire, was engendered by pressure from Habsburg dukes and kings who had ruled much of the land. In several battles with Habsburg armies, the Swiss were victorious; they conquered the rural areas of Glarus and Zug, which became members of the confederacy.


title: Old Swiss Confederacy

text: From 1353 to 1481, the federation of eight cantons—known in German as the "Acht Orte" (Eight Cantons)—consolidated its position. The members (especially the cities) enlarged their territory at the expense of local counts—primarily by buying judicial rights, but sometimes by force. The "Eidgenossenschaft", as a whole, expanded through military conquest: the Aargau was conquered in 1415 and the Thurgau in 1460. In both cases, the Swiss profited from weakness in the Habsburg dukes. In the south, Uri led a military territorial expansion that (after many setbacks) would by 1515 lead to the conquest of the Ticino.


title: Old Swiss Confederacy

text: None of these territories became members of the confederacy; they had the status of condominiums (regions administered by several cantons).


title: Old Swiss Confederacy

text: At this time, the eight cantons gradually increased their influence on neighbouring cities and regions through additional alliances. Individual cantons concluded pacts with Fribourg, Appenzell, Schaffhausen, the abbot and the city of St. Gallen, Biel, Rottweil, Mulhouse and others. These allies (known as the "Zugewandte Orte") became closely associated with the confederacy, but were not accepted as full members.


title: Old Swiss Confederacy

text: The Burgundy Wars prompted a further enlargement of the confederacy; Fribourg and Solothurn were accepted in 1481. In the Swabian War against Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, the Swiss were victorious and exempted from imperial legislation. The associated cities of Basel and Schaffhausen joined the confederacy as a result of that conflict, and Appenzell followed suit in 1513 as the thirteenth member. The federation of thirteen cantons ("Dreizehn Orte") constituted the Old Swiss Confederacy until its demise in 1798.


title: Old Swiss Confederacy

text: The expansion of the confederacy was stopped by the Swiss defeat in the 1515 Battle of Marignano. Only Bern and Fribourg were still able to conquer the Vaud in 1536; the latter primarily became part of the canton of Bern, with a small portion under the jurisdiction of Fribourg.


title: Old Swiss Confederacy

text: The Reformation in Switzerland led to doctrinal division amongst the cantons. Zürich, Bern, Basel, Schaffhausen and associates Biel, Mulhouse, Neuchâtel, Geneva and the city of St. Gallen became Protestant; other members of the confederation and the Valais remained Catholic. In Glarus, Appenzell, in the Grisons and in most condominiums both religions coexisted; Appenzell split in 1597 into a Catholic Appenzell Innerrhoden and a Protestant Appenzell Ausserrhoden.


title: Old Swiss Confederacy

text: The division led to civil war (the Wars of Kappel) and separate alliances with foreign powers by the Catholic and Protestant factions, but the confederacy as a whole continued to exist. A common foreign policy was blocked, however, by the impasse. During the Thirty Years' War, religious disagreements among the cantons kept the confederacy neutral and spared it from belligerents. At the Peace of Westphalia, the Swiss delegation was granted formal recognition of the confederacy as a state independent of the Holy Roman Empire.


title: Old Swiss Confederacy

text: Growing social differences and an increasing absolutism in the city cantons during the Ancien Régime led to local popular revolts. An uprising during the post-war depression after the Thirty Years' War escalated to the Swiss peasant war of 1653 in Lucerne, Bern, Basel, Solothurn and the Aargau. The revolt was put down swiftly by force and with the help of many cantons.


title: Old Swiss Confederacy

text: Religious differences were accentuated by a growing economic discrepancy. The Catholic, predominantly rural central-Swiss cantons were surrounded by Protestant cantons with increasingly commercial economies. The politically dominant cantons were Zürich and Bern (both Protestant), but the Catholic cantons were influential since the Second War of Kappel in 1531. A 1655 attempt (led by Zürich) to restructure the federation was blocked by Catholic opposition, which led to the first battle of Villmergen in 1656; the Catholic party won, cementing the "status quo".


title: Old Swiss Confederacy

text: The problems remained unsolved, erupting again in 1712 with the second battle of Villmergen. This time the Protestant cantons won, dominating the confederation. True reform, however, was impossible; the individual interests of the thirteen members were too diverse, and the absolutist cantonal governments resisted all attempts at confederation-wide administration. Foreign policy remained fragmented.


title: Old Swiss Confederacy

text: The "(Alte) Eidgenossenschaft" was initially united not by a single pact, but by overlapping pacts and bilateral treaties between members. The parties generally agreed to preserve the peace, aid in military endeavours and arbitrate disputes. Slowly, the members began to see the confederation as a unifying entity. In the "Pfaffenbrief", a treaty of 1370 among six of the eight members (Glarus and Bern did not participate) forbidding feuds and denying clerical courts jurisdiction over the confederacy, the cantons for the first time used the term "Eidgenossenschaft". The first treaty uniting the eight members of the confederacy was the "Sempacherbrief" of 1393, concluded after victories over the Habsburgs at Sempach in 1386 and Näfels in 1388, which forbade a member from unilaterally beginning a war without the consent of the other cantons. A federal diet, the "Tagsatzung", developed during the 15th century.


title: Old Swiss Confederacy

text: Pacts and renewals (or modernizations) of earlier alliances reinforced the confederacy. The individual interests of the cantons clashed in the Old Zürich War (1436–1450), caused by territorial conflict among Zürich and the central Swiss cantons over the succession of the Count of Toggenburg. Although Zürich entered an alliance with the Habsburg dukes, it then rejoined the confederacy. The confederation had become so close a political alliance that it no longer tolerated separatist tendencies in its members.


title: Old Swiss Confederacy

text: The "Tagsatzung" was the confederation council, typically meeting several times a year. Each canton delegated two representatives (including the associate states, which had no vote). The canton where the delegates met initially chaired the gathering, but during the 16th century Zürich permanently assumed the chair ("Vorort") and Baden became the seat. The Tagsatzung dealt with inter-cantonal affairs and was the court of last resort in disputes between member states, imposing sanctions on dissenting members. It also administered the condominiums; the reeves were delegated for two years, each time by a different canton.


title: Old Swiss Confederacy

text: A unifying treaty of the Old Swiss Confederacy was the "Stanser Verkommnis" of 1481. Conflicts between rural and urban cantons and disagreements over the bounty of the Burgundian Wars had led to skirmishes. The city-states of Fribourg and Solothurn wanted to join the confederacy, but were mistrusted by the central Swiss rural cantons. The compromise by the "Tagsatzung" in the "Stanser Verkommnis" restored order and assuaged the rural cantons' complaints, with Fribourg and Solothurn accepted into the confederation. While the treaty restricted freedom of assembly (many skirmishes arose from unauthorised expeditions by soldiers from the Burgundian Wars), it reinforced agreements amongst the cantons in the earlier "Sempacherbrief" and "Pfaffenbrief".


title: Old Swiss Confederacy

text: The civil war during the Reformation ended in a stalemate. The Catholic cantons could block council decisions but, due to geographic and economic factors, could not prevail over the Protestant cantons. Both factions began to hold separate councils, still meeting at a common "Tagsatzung" (although the common council was deadlocked by disagreements between both factions until 1712, when the Protestant cantons gained power after their victory in the second war of Villmergen). The Catholic cantons were excluded from administering the condominiums in the Aargau, the Thurgau and the Rhine valley; in their place, Bern became co-sovereign of these regions.


title: Old Swiss Confederacy

text: The confederation expanded in several stages: first to the Eight Cantons ("Acht Orte"), then in 1481 to ten, in 1501 to twelve, and finally to thirteen cantons ("Dreizehn Orte").


title: Old Swiss Confederacy

text: Associates "(Zugewandte Orte)" were close allies of the Old Swiss Confederacy, connected to the union by alliance treaties with all or some of the individual members of the confederacy.


title: Old Swiss Confederacy

text: Condominiums () were common subject territories under the administration of several cantons. They were governed by reeves ("Vögte") delegated for two years, each time from another of the responsible cantons. Bern initially did not participate in the administration of some of the eastern condominiums, as it had no part in their conquest and its interests were focused more on the western border. In 1712, Bern replaced the Catholic cantons in the administration of the "Freie Ämter" ("Free Districts"), the Thurgau, the Rhine valley, and Sargans, and furthermore the Catholic cantons were excluded from the administration of the County of Baden.


title: Old Swiss Confederacy

text: The "German bailiwicks" () were generally governed by the "Acht Orte" apart from Bern until 1712, when Bern joined the sovereign powers:


title: Old Swiss Confederacy

text: In 1440, Uri conquered the Leventina Valley from the Visconti, dukes of Milan. Some of this territory had previously been annexed between 1403 and 1422. Further territories were acquired in 1500; "see History of Ticino for further details".


title: Old Swiss Confederacy

text: Three bailiwicks, all now in the Ticino, were condominiums of the Forest cantons of Uri, Schwyz and Nidwalden:


title: Old Swiss Confederacy

text: Four other Ticinese bailiwicks were condominiums of the "Zwölf Orte" (the original 13 cantons, minus Appenzell) from 1512:


title: Old Swiss Confederacy

text: Another three bailiwicks were condominiums of the "Zwölf Orte" from 1512, but were lost from the Confederacy three years later and are all now "comuni" of Lombardy or Piedmont:


title: Omid Djalili

text: Djalili was born on 30 September 1965 in Chelsea, London, to Iranian Baháʼí parents. He attended Holland Park School and then Ulster University in Coleraine, Northern Ireland, studying English and theatre studies.


title: Omid Djalili

text: The first significant success of his stand-up comedy career was at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1995 with "Short, Fat Kebab Shop Owner's Son", followed by "The Arab and the Jew" with Jewish comedian Ivor Dembina in 1996.


title: Omid Djalili

text: Djalili has performed in numerous countries, including Australia, Ireland, Sweden, Belgium, Canada and the United States, where he had his own HBO Special.


title: Omid Djalili

text: Djalili took part in a show for Comic Relief after the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami and also in 2005 he appeared on the British TV show "Top Gear" as a celebrity driver. The same year he broke Edinburgh Festival box office records with over 16,500 ticket sales.


title: Omid Djalili

text: In 2006, Sky Television picked him to be the face of their Saturday night film premières, and he also announced a new tour of the UK called 'No Agenda', from January 2007 until March 2007, covering 23 different dates. The "No Agenda" tour DVD was released in late 2007.


title: Omid Djalili

text: On 18 March 2007, Djalili was voted by the British public as the 60th best stand-up comedian in a Channel 4 programme "The 100 Greatest Stand-Ups". On 26 October 2007, he guest-presented the BBC political quiz show "Have I Got News for You". "The Omid Djalili Show" started on BBC1 on 17 November 2007. The series was a mix of sketches and stand-up material. A second series was recorded in late 2008 and began broadcast on BBC 1 on 20 April 2009. He performed on "We Are Most Amused" on ITV1 to mark Prince Charles's 60th birthday in 2008 and on "We Are Most Amused and Amazed" to mark his 70th birthday in 2018.


title: Omid Djalili

text: Djalili has appeared in a number of films, most notably "Gladiator", "The Mummy", "Mean Machine", "The World Is Not Enough", "Alien Autopsy", "Spy Game", "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow", "Grow Your Own", "Notting Hill", "Mr Nice", "", "Sex and the City 2" and provides his voice in "Over the Hedge".


title: Omid Djalili

text: He has observed that he usually appears as a generic Middle Eastern background character in many of these films, often commenting that he appears in the James Bond film as the "Second Azerbaijani oil pipe attendant". He appeared as Nasim in 22 episodes of the U.S. sitcom "Whoopi", starring Whoopi Goldberg, and picked up an international film award for Best Supporting Actor in "Casanova", starring alongside Heath Ledger and Jeremy Irons.


title: Omid Djalili

text: On 12 February 2009, producer Cameron Mackintosh announced that Djalili would appear as the second Fagin in the new West End production of "Oliver! " at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London. Omid took over from Rowan Atkinson, who had been contracted until 18 July 2009.


title: Omid Djalili

text: In 2009, Djalili became the voice of Yusuf Amir in the popular gaming series "Grand Theft Auto". He took up the role in the "" spin-off game. In 2010, he starred in the David Baddiel-scripted film "The Infidel".


title: Omid Djalili

text: Djalili appeared in the short-lived NBC sitcom "The Paul Reiser Show", which was a midseason replacement for the 2010–11 television season.


title: Omid Djalili

text: For the BBC Learning project "Off By Heart Shakespeare", Omid played Lord Capulet from "Romeo and Juliet" and delivered the speech "Hang thee, young baggage, disobedient wretch!"


title: Omid Djalili

text: In 2017 Djalili appeared in an acclaimed performance of "Fiddler on the Roof" at the Chichester Festival Theatre.


title: Omid Djalili

text: In 2019 he appeared as Dr Martin Lanselius in the BBC adaptation of Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials".


title: Omid Djalili

text: In 2008, he was an official festival judge for the Noor Iranian Film Festival. In June 2010, Djalili appeared in a Meltdown Festival concert given by the Philharmonia Orchestra at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall, performing the part of the narrator in 'Rubaiyat', a tone poem by American classical composer Alan Hovhaness which sets the words of Omar Khayyám to music.


title: Omid Djalili

text: He also appeared on the "Graham Norton Show" on 17 February 2012, alongside Daniel Radcliffe and Cuba Gooding Jr. He now presents the ITV daytime quiz show, "Winning Combination".


title: Omid Djalili

text: In February 2022 he shot two pilots of a chat show called "Tonight With Omid" for the BBC, one version in Persian (for BBC Persia) and another in English.


title: Omid Djalili

text: Djalili has won awards for his comedy. These include the EMMA Award, "Time Out" Award, and LWT Comedy Award for Best Stand-up Comedian, Spirit of the Fringe Award as well as the One World Media Award for his Channel 4 documentary, "Bloody Foreigners".


title: Omid Djalili

text: He has also been nominated for awards, such as the Perrier Award for Best Comedian, the Gemini Award for Best Comedy Performance of 2003, the South Bank Award for Best Comedy of 2003, the Royal Television Society Award for Best Stand-up, and the European TV Award for his "Bloody Foreigners".


title: Omid Djalili

text: In 1992, Djalili married actress Annabel Knight, with whom he has three children: Isabella, Louis and Daniel. He is a practising Baháʼí.


title: Ukrainian War of Independence

text: The Ukrainian War of Independence was a series of conflicts involving many adversaries that lasted from 1917 to 1921 and resulted in the establishment and development of a Ukrainian republic, most of which was later absorbed into the Soviet Union as the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic of 1922–1991.


title: Ukrainian War of Independence

text: The war consisted of military conflicts between different governmental, political and military forces. Belligerents included Ukrainian nationalists, Ukrainian anarchists, Ukrainian Bolsheviks, the forces of Germany and Austria-Hungary, the White Russian Volunteer Army, and Second Polish Republic forces. They struggled for control of Ukraine after the February Revolution (March 1917) in the Russian Empire. The Allied forces of Romania and France also became involved. The struggle lasted from February 1917 to November 1921 and resulted in the division of Ukraine between the Bolshevik Ukrainian SSR, Poland, Romania, and Czechoslovakia.


title: Ukrainian War of Independence

text: The conflict is frequently viewed within the framework of the Southern Front of the Russian Civil War of 1917–1922, as well as the closing stage of the Eastern Front of the First World War of 1914–1918.


title: Ukrainian War of Independence

text: During the First World War Ukraine was in the front lines of the main combatants: the Entente-allied Russian Empire and Romania, and the Central Powers of the German Empire and Austria-Hungary. By the start of 1917, after the Imperial Russian Army's Brusilov Offensive—strategically successful yet costly in terms of the army's manpower—the Tsar's forces held a front line which partially reclaimed Volhynia and eastern Galicia.


title: Ukrainian War of Independence

text: The February Revolution of 1917 encouraged many ethnic groups in the Russian Empire to demand greater autonomy and various degrees of self-determination. A month later, the Ukrainian People's Republic was declared in Kyiv as an autonomous entity with close ties to the Russian Provisional Government, and governed by a socialist-dominated "Tsentralna Rada" ("Central Council"). The weak and ineffective Provisional Government in Petrograd continued its loyalty to the Entente and the increasingly unpopular war, launching the Kerensky Offensive in the summer of 1917. This offensive was a complete disaster for the Russian Army. The German counter-attack caused Russia to lose all their gains of 1916 and ruined the morale of its army, which caused the near-complete disintegration of the armed forces and the governing apparatus all over the vast Russian Empire.


title: Ukrainian War of Independence

text: Many deserting soldiers and officers—particularly ethnic Ukrainians—had lost faith in the future of the Empire, and found the increasingly self-determinant Central Rada a much more favorable alternative. Nestor Makhno began his anarchist activity in the south of Ukraine by disarming deserting Russian soldiers and officers who crossed the Haychur River next to Huliaipole, while in the east in the industrial Donets Basin there were frequent strikes by Bolshevik-infiltrated trade unions.


title: Ukrainian War of Independence

text: All this led to the October Revolution in Petrograd, which quickly spread all over the empire. The Kyiv Uprising in November 1917 led to the defeat of Russian Republic forces in the capital. Soon after, the Central Rada took power in Kyiv, while in late December 1917 the Bolsheviks set up a rival Ukrainian republic in the eastern city of Kharkov ()—initially also called the "Ukrainian People's Republic". Hostilities against the Central Rada government in Kyiv began immediately. Under these circumstances, the Rada declared Ukrainian independence on 22 January 1918, and broke ties with Russia. As in the case of the Baltic countries, the independence of the Ukrainian People's Republic was not recognized by Russia's new Soviet government.


title: Ukrainian War of Independence

text: The Rada had a limited armed force at its disposal (the Ukrainian People's Army) and was hard-pressed by the Ukrainian Soviet Government in Kharkov, where Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko had established headquarters, intending to cut off Kaledin's forces in the Don from Ukraine. Bolshevik forces led by Mikhail Artemyevich Muravyov quickly took Poltava, then Yekaterinoslav on 10 January, Zherminka and Vinnitsa on 23 January, Odesa on 30 January, and Nikolaev on 4 February. Slowed by the Battle of Kruty on 30 January, but aided by the Kyiv Arsenal January uprising, Kyiv was captured by the Reds on 9 February. The Rada Ministers fled to Zhytomyr. Muravyov then engaged the Romanians occupying Bessarabia.


title: Ukrainian War of Independence

text: Across Ukraine, local Bolsheviks also formed the Odessa and Donetsk–Krivoy Rog Soviet Republics; and in the south Nestor Makhno formed Makhnovshchina—an anarchist territory—then allied his forces with the Bolsheviks. Most remaining Russian Army units either allied with the Bolsheviks or joined the Ukrainian People's Army. A notable exception was Colonel Mikhail Drozdovsky, who marched his White Volunteer Army unit across the whole of Novorossiya to the River Don, defeating Makhno's forces in the process.


title: Ukrainian War of Independence

text: Faced with imminent defeat, the Rada turned to its still hostile opponents—the Central Powers—for a truce and alliance, which was accepted by Germany in the first Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (signed on 9 February 1918) in return for desperately needed food supplies which the Ukrainian People's Republic would provide to the Germans. The Imperial German and Austro-Hungarian armies then drove the Bolsheviks out of Ukraine, taking Kiev on 1 March. Two days later, the Bolsheviks signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which formally ended hostilities on the Eastern Front of World War I and left Ukraine in a German sphere of influence. The Ukrainian People's Army took control of the Donets Basin in April 1918. Also in April 1918 Crimea was cleared of Bolshevik forces by Ukrainian troops and the Imperial German Army. On 13 March 1918, Ukrainian troops and the Austro-Hungarian Army secured Odessa. On 5 April 1918, the German army took control of Yekaterinoslav, and 3 days later Kharkov. By April 1918 all Bolshevik gains in Ukraine were lost; this was due to the apathy of the locals and the then-inferior fighting skills of the Red Army compared to their Austro-Hungarian and German counterparts.


title: Ukrainian War of Independence

text: Yet disturbances continued throughout Eastern Ukraine, where local Bolsheviks, peasant self-defense groups known as "green armies", and the anarchist Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine refused to subordinate to Germany. Former Imperial Russian Army General Pavlo Skoropadsky led a successful German-backed coup against the Rada on 29 April. Skoropadsky proclaimed the conservative Ukrainian State (also known as the "Hetmanate") with himself as monarch, and reversed many of the socialist policies of the former government. The new government had close ties to Berlin, but Skoropadsky never declared war on any of the Triple Entente powers; he also placed Ukraine in a position that made it a safe haven for many upper- and middle-class people fleeing Bolshevik Russia, and was keen on recruiting many former Russian Army soldiers and officers.


title: Ukrainian War of Independence

text: Despite sporadic harassment from Makhno, the territory of the Hetmanate enjoyed relative peace until November 1918; when the Central Powers were defeated on the Western Front, Germany completely withdrew from Ukraine. Skoropadsky left Kiev with the Germans, and the Hetmanate was in turn overthrown by the socialist Directorate.


title: Ukrainian War of Independence

text: Almost immediately after the defeat of Germany, Lenin's government annulled their Brest-Litovsk treaty—which Leon Trotsky described as "no war no peace"—and invaded Ukraine and other countries of Eastern Europe that were formed under German protection. Simultaneously, the collapse of the Central Powers affected the former Austrian province of Galicia, which was populated by Ukrainians and Poles. The Ukrainians proclaimed a Western Ukrainian People's Republic (WUNR) in Eastern Galicia, which wished to unite with the Ukrainian People's Republic (UNR); while the Poles of Eastern Galicia—who were mainly concentrated in Lwów ()—gave their allegiance to the newly formed Second Polish Republic. Both sides became increasingly hostile with each other. On 22 January 1919, the Western Ukrainian People's Republic and the Ukrainian People's Republic signed an Act of Union in Kiev. By October 1919, the Ukrainian Galician Army of the WUNR was defeated by Polish forces in the Polish–Ukrainian War and Eastern Galicia was annexed to Poland; the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 granted Eastern Galicia to Poland for 25 years.


title: Ukrainian War of Independence

text: The defeat of Germany had also opened the Black Sea to the Allies, and in mid-December 1918 some mixed forces under French command were landed at Odessa and Sevastopol, and months later at Kherson and Nikolayev (). Yet, on 2 April, Louis Franchet d'Espèrey ordered Philippe Henri Joseph d%27Anselme to evacuate Odessa within 72 hours. Similarly, on 30 April, the French evacuated Sevastopol. According to Kenez, "The French withdrew not in order to avoid defeat, but in order to avoid fighting. They had no plans for evacuation. The French left behind enormous stores of military material. They embarked on an ambitious scheme without clear goals, without an understanding of the consequences and with insufficient forces."


title: Ukrainian War of Independence

text: A new, swift Bolshevik offensive overran most of Eastern and central Ukraine in early 1919. Kiev—under the control of Symon Petliura's Directorate—fell to the Red Army again on 5 February, and the exiled Soviet Ukrainian government was re-instated as the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. The Ukrainian People's Republic (UNR) was forced to retreat into Eastern Galicia along the Polish border, from Vinnytsia to Kamianets-Podilskyi, and finally to Rivne. According to Chamberlin, April was the greatest Soviet military success in Ukraine, "The Soviet regime was now at least nominally installed all over Ukraina, with the exception of the portion of the Donetz Basin which was held by Denikin." Yet in May, the Soviets had to deal with the mutiny of Ataman Nikifor Grigoriev and the advance of Denikin's forces.


title: Ukrainian War of Independence

text: On 25 June 1919, Denikin's Armed Forces of South Russia captured Kharkov, followed by Ekaterinoslav on 30 June. According to Peter Kenez, "Denikin's advance in the Ukraine was most spectatular. He took Poltava on July 31, Odessa on August 23, and Kiev on August 31."


title: Ukrainian War of Independence

text: Yet by winter the tide of war reversed decisively, and by 1920 all of Eastern and central Ukraine except Crimea was again in Bolshevik hands. The Bolsheviks also betrayed and defeated Nestor Makhno, their former ally against Denikin.


title: Ukrainian War of Independence

text: Again facing imminent defeat, the UNR turned to its former adversary, Poland; and in April 1920, Józef Piłsudski and Symon Petliura signed a military agreement in Warsaw to fight the Bolsheviks. Just like the former alliance with Germany, this move partially sacrificed Ukrainian sovereignty: Petliura recognised the Polish annexation of Galicia and agreed to Ukraine's role in Piłsudski's dream of a Polish-led federation in Central and Eastern Europe.


title: Ukrainian War of Independence

text: Immediately after the alliance was signed, Polish forces joined the Ukrainian army in the Kyiv Offensive to capture central and southern Ukraine from Bolshevik control. Initially successful, the offensive reached Kyiv on 7 May 1920. However, the Polish-Ukrainian campaign was a pyrrhic victory: in late May, the Red Army led by Mikhail Tukhachevsky staged a large counter-offensive south of Zhytomyr which pushed the Polish army almost completely out of Ukraine, except for Lviv in Galicia. In yet another reversal, in August 1920 the Red Army was defeated near Warsaw and forced to retreat. The White forces, now under General Wrangel, took advantage of the situation and started a new offensive in southern Ukraine. Under the combined circumstances of their military defeat in Poland, the renewed White offensive, and disastrous economic conditions throughout the Russian SFSR—these together forced the Bolsheviks to seek a truce with Poland.


title: Ukrainian War of Independence

text: Soon after the Battle of Warsaw the Bolsheviks sued for peace with the Poles. The Poles, exhausted and constantly pressured by the Western governments and the League of Nations, and with its army controlling the majority of the disputed territories, were willing to negotiate. The Soviets made two offers: one on 21 September and the other on 28 September. The Polish delegation made a counteroffer on 2 October. On the 5th, the Soviets offered amendments to the Polish offer, which Poland accepted. The Preliminary Treaty of Peace and Armistice Conditions between Poland on one side and Soviet Ukraine and Soviet Russia on the other was signed on 12 October, and the armistice went into effect on 18 October. Ratifications were exchanged at Liepāja on 2 November 1920. Long negotiations of the final peace treaty ensued.


title: Ukrainian War of Independence

text: Meanwhile, Petliura's Ukrainian forces, which now numbered 23,000 soldiers and controlled territories immediately to the east of Poland, planned an offensive in Ukraine for 11 November but were attacked by the Bolsheviks on 10 November. By 21 November, after several battles, they were driven into Polish-controlled territory.


title: Ukrainian War of Independence

text: On 18 March 1921, Poland signed a peace treaty in Riga, Latvia, with Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine. This effectively ended Poland's alliance obligations with Petliura's Ukrainian People's Republic. According to this treaty, the Bolsheviks recognized Polish control over Galicia () and western Volhynia—the western part of Ukraine—while Poland recognized the larger central parts of Ukrainian territory, as well as eastern and southern areas, as part of Soviet Ukraine.


title: Ukrainian War of Independence

text: Having secured peace on the Western front, the Bolsheviks immediately moved to crush the remnants of the White Movement. After a final offensive on the Isthmus of Perekop, the Red Army overran Crimea. Wrangel evacuated the Volunteer Army to Constantinople in November 1920. After its military and political defeat, the Directorate continued to maintain control over some of its military forces; in October 1921, it launched a series of guerrilla raids into central Ukraine that reached as far east as the modern Kyiv Oblast ("Kyiv province"). On 4 November, the Directorate's guerrillas captured Korosten and seized a cache of military supplies, but on 17 November 1921, this force was surrounded by Bolshevik cavalry and destroyed.


title: Ukrainian War of Independence

text: In the current Cherkasy Raion of Cherkasy Oblast (then in the Kyiv Governorate), a local man named Vasyl Chuchupak led the "Kholodnyi Yar Republic" which strove for Ukrainian independence. It lasted from 1919 to 1922, making it the last territory held by armed supporters of an independent Ukrainian state before the incorporation of Ukraine into the Soviet Union as the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.


title: Ukrainian War of Independence

text: In 1922, the Russian Civil War was coming to an end in the Far East, and the Communists proclaimed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) as a federation of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Transcaucasia. The Ukrainian Soviet government was nearly powerless in the face of a centralized monolith Communist Party apparatus based in Moscow. In the new state, Ukrainians initially enjoyed a titular nation position during the nativization and Ukrainization periods. However, by 1928 Joseph Stalin had consolidated power in the Soviet Union. Thus a campaign of cultural repression started, cresting in the 1930s when the Holodomor, a massive famine, struck the republic and claimed several million lives. The Polish-controlled part of Ukraine, there was very little autonomy, both politically and culturally, but it was not affected by famine. In the late 1930s the internal borders of the Ukrainian SSR were redrawn with no significant changes.


title: Ukrainian War of Independence

text: The political status of Ukraine remained unchanged until the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact between the USSR and Nazi Germany in August 1939, in which the Red Army allied with Nazi Germany to invade Poland and incorporate Volhynia and Galicia into the Ukrainian SSR. In June 1941, Germany and its allies invaded the Soviet Union and conquered Ukraine completely within the first year of the conflict. Following the Soviet victory on the Eastern Front of World War II, to which Ukrainians greatly contributed, the region of Carpathian Ruthenia—formerly a part of Hungary before 1919, of Czechoslovakia from 1919 to 1939, of Hungary between 1939 and 1944, and again of Czechoslovakia from 1944 to 1945—was incorporated into the Ukrainian SSR, as were parts of interwar Poland. The final expansion of Ukraine took place in 1954, when Crimea was transferred to Ukraine from Russia with the approval of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.


title: Ukrainian War of Independence

text: Many folk songs were written from 1918 to 1922 that were inspired by people and events of this conflict. ""Oi u luzi chervona kalyna"" and ""Oi vydno selo"" were inspired by the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen unit of the Austro-Hungarian Army, which became the core battalion of the West Ukrainian People's Republic's Ukrainian Galician Army. ""Pisnya pro Tiutiunnyk"" was inspired by events surrounding Ukrainian People's Army brigade commander Yuriy Tiutiunnyk. Another song written at this time was ""Za Ukrayinu"". These "war songs" started to be sung publicly again in the western part of the Ukrainian SSR after the introduction of "glasnost" (Ukrainian: "hlasnist") by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, and regained popularity throughout Ukraine after independence—especially during the current Russian military intervention.


title: Ukrainian War of Independence

text: Another musical legacy of this period was the Ukrainian Republic Capella (later the Ukrainian National Chorus), set up in early 1919 by the Directorate government of Symon Petliura. Under the direction of Oleksandr Koshetz, the Capella/Chorus toured Europe and North America from 1919 to 1921 and while in exile from 1922 to 1927; popularising the songs ""Shchedryk"" and ""Oi khodyt son, kolo vikon""—which influenced the composition of the popular English language songs "Carol of the Bells" and "Summertime", respectively.


title: Ukrainian War of Independence

text: In the 21st century the Kholodnyi Yar Republic flag was seen during the Euromaidan demonstrations and was later used by the Azov Battalion at the 2014–2022 Donbas front.


Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station (commonly abbreviated as TMI) is a closed nuclear power plant on Three Mile Island in Londonderry Township, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania on Lake Frederic, a reservoir in the Susquehanna River just south of Harrisburg. It has two separate units, TMI-1 (owned by Constellation Energy) and TMI-2 (owned by EnergySolutions).


title: Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station

text: The plant was the site of the most significant accident in United States commercial nuclear energy when, on March 28, 1979, TMI-2 suffered a partial meltdown. According to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) report, the accident resulted in no deaths or injuries to plant workers or in nearby communities. Follow-up epidemiology studies did not find causality between the accident and any increase in cancers. One work-related death has occurred on-site during decommissioning.


text: The reactor core of TMI-2 has since been removed from the site, but the site has not been fully decommissioned. In July 1998, Amergen Energy (now Exelon Generation) agreed to purchase TMI-1 from General Public Utilities for $100 million.


text: The plant was originally built by General Public Utilities Corporation, later renamed GPU Incorporated. The plant was operated by Metropolitan Edison Company (Met-Ed), a subsidiary of the GPU Energy division. In 2001, GPU Inc. merged with FirstEnergy Corporation. On December 18, 2020 - FirstEnergy transferred Unit 2's license over to EnergySolutions' subsidiary TMI-2 Solutions after receiving approval from the NRC.


text: Exelon was operating Unit 1 at a financial loss since 2015. In 2017 the company said it would consider ceasing operations at Unit 1 because of high costs unless there was action from the Pennsylvania government. Unit 1 officially shut down at noon on September 20, 2019.


text: Unit 1 decommissioning is estimated to be finished in 2079, and will cost $1.2 billion. Unit 2, which has been dormant since the accident in 1979, is estimated to close in 2037.


text: The NRC defines two emergency planning zones around nuclear power plants: a plume exposure pathway zone with a radius of , concerned primarily with exposure to, and inhalation of, airborne radioactive contamination, and an ingestion pathway zone of about , concerned primarily with ingestion of food and liquid contaminated by radioactivity.


text: The 2010 U.S. population within of Three Mile Island was 211,261, an increase of 10.9 percent in a decade, according to an analysis of U.S. Census data. The 2010 U.S. population within was 2,803,322, an increase of 10.3 percent since 2000. Cities within 50 miles include Harrisburg (12 miles to city center), York (13 miles to city center), and Lancaster (24 miles to city center).


text: The Three Mile Island Unit 1 is a pressurized water reactor designed by Babcock & Wilcox with a net generating capacity of 819 MW. The initial construction cost for TMI-1 was , equal to $ billion in 2018 dollars. Unit 1 first came online on April 19, 1974, and began commercial operations on September 2, 1974. TMI-1 is licensed to operate for 40 years from its first run, and in 2009, was extended 20 years, which means it could have operated until April 19, 2034.


text: TMI-1 had a closed-cycle cooling system for its main condenser using two natural draft cooling towers. Makeup water was drawn from the river to replace the water lost via evaporation in the towers. Once-through cooling with river water is used for the service water system which cools auxiliary components and removed decay heat when the reactor was shut down. On February 17, 1979, TMI-1 went offline for refueling. It was brought back online on October 9, 1985, after public opposition, several federal court injunctions, and some technical and regulatory complications - more than six years after it initially went offline.


text: Unit 1 was scheduled to be shut down by September 2019 after Exelon announced they did not receive any commitments for subsidies from the state, rendering Exelon unable to continue operating the reactor. TMI-1 was shut down on September 20, 2019.


text: In February 1993, a man drove his car past a checkpoint at the TMI nuclear plant, then broke through an entry gate. He eventually crashed the car through a secure door and entered the Unit 1 turbine building. The intruder, who had a history of mental illness, hid in the turbine building and was apprehended after four hours.


text: During and following the September 11 attacks, there was a moral panic that United Airlines Flight 93 was headed towards Three Mile Island. On that day, the NRC placed all of the nation's nuclear power plants into the highest level of security. United Flight 93 crashed into a field about 135 miles west (217 km) of Three Mile Island in Stonycreek Township, just outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania, with its actual target believed to be intended for Washington, D.C.


text: On November 21, 2009, a release of radioactivity occurred inside the containment building of TMI-1 while workers were cutting pipes. Exelon Corporation stated to the public that "A monitor at the temporary opening cut into the containment building wall to allow the new steam generators to be moved inside showed a slight increase in a reading and then returned to normal. Approximately 20 employees were treated for mild radiation exposure." , it was believed that no radiation escaped the containment building and the public was not in any danger. The inside airborne contamination was caused by a change in air pressure inside the containment building that dislodged small irradiated particles in the reactor piping system. Some of the small particles became airborne inside the building and were detected by an array of monitors in place to detect such material. The air pressure change occurred when inside building ventilation fans were started to support outage activities. The site modified the ventilation system to prevent future air pressure changes. Work continued on the project the following day. On January 24, 2010, TMI-1 was brought back online.


text: On September 10, 2021, a contractor from Alabama was fatally injured while unloading equipment from a truck. Fire and emergency medical personnel from Londonderry Township were dispatched and declared the contractor dead on arrival. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said the injury was work-related, and the contractor was outside the radiological controlled area.


text: The Three Mile Island Unit 2 was also a pressurized water reactor constructed by B&W, similar to Unit 1. The only difference was that TMI-2 was slightly larger with a net generating capacity of 906 MW, compared to TMI-1, which delivers 819 MW. Unit 2 received its operating license on February 8, 1978, and began commercial operation on December 30, 1978. TMI Unit 2 has been permanently shut off after the Three Mile Island accident in 1979.


text: On March 28, 1979, a cooling system malfunction caused a partial meltdown of the reactor core. This loss-of-coolant accident resulted in the release of an estimated 43,000 curies (1.59 PBq) of radioactive krypton-85 gas (half life 10 yrs), and less than 20 curies (740 GBq) of the especially hazardous iodine-131 (half life 8 days), into the surrounding environment.


text: Nearly 2 million people were exposed to radiation from the accident. A review by the World Nuclear Association concluded that no deaths, injuries or adverse health effects resulted from the accident, and a report by Columbia University epidemiologist Maureen Hatch confirmed this finding. Because of the health concerns, the Pennsylvania Department of Health kept a registry of more than 30,000 people that lived within 5 miles of TMI at the time of the accident. The registry was kept for nearly 20 years until 1997, when no evidence was found of unusual health effects. Further epidemiology studies have not shown any increase in cancer as a result of the accident. However, almost $25 million was paid in insurance settlements to people who then agreed not to discuss their injuries in ongoing litigation.


text: "The New York Times" reported on August 14, 1993, 14 years after the accident, that the cleanup had been finished. According to the United States NRC, 2.3 million gallons of waste water had been removed.


text: The incident was widely publicized internationally, and had far-reaching effects on public opinion, particularly in the United States. "The China Syndrome", a movie about a nuclear disaster, which was released 12 days before the incident and received a glowing reception from the movie-going public, became a blockbuster hit.


text: On January 22, 2010, officials at the NRC announced the electrical generator from the damaged Unit 2 reactor at TMI will be used at Shearon Harris Nuclear Plant in New Hill, North Carolina. The generator was transported in two parts, weighing a combined 670 tons. It was refurbished and installed during a refueling outage at Shearon Harris NPP in November 2010. TMI's Unit 2 reactor has been shut down since the partial meltdown in 1979.


text: Exelon Corporation was created in October 2000 by the merger of PECO Energy Company and Unicom, of Philadelphia and Chicago respectively. Unicom owned Commonwealth Edison. The PECO share in AmerGen was acquired by Exelon during late 2000. Exelon acquired British Energy's share in AmerGen in 2003, and transferred Unit 1 under the direct ownership and operation of its Exelon Nuclear business unit. According to Exelon Corporation, "many people are surprised when they learn that Three Mile Island is still making electricity, enough to power 800,000 households" from its undamaged and fully functional reactor unit 1. Exelon viewed the plant's economics of $44/MWh as challenging due to the low price of natural gas at $25/MWh. As of 2016, the average price of electricity in the area was $39/MWh.


text: On June 20, 2017, Exelon Generation, the owners of Three Mile Island's Unit 1, sent to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission a formal notice of its intention to shut down the plant on September 30, 2019, unless the Pennsylvania legislature rescued the nuclear industry, which was struggling to compete as newfound natural gas resources drove down electricity prices. Exelon Generation's Senior Vice President Bryan Hanson noted that once Three Mile Island was closed, it could never be reopened for use again. Hanson explicitly stated the reason for the shutdown is because of the unprofitability of Unit 1. Unit 1 has lost the company over $300 million over the last half-decade despite it being one of Exelon's best-performing power plants.


text: Shut down of Unit 1 can go in two possible directions, the first being the immediate dismantlement after the radioactive fuel has been moved away from the plant. The dismantlement can proceed after the spent fuel is removed from the pool, put into storage casks, and the casks are transferred to the ISFSI pad for storage until the DOE takes them away to a DOE repository. Dismantling the plant this way will take anywhere from 8 to 10 years. The second option Exelon could take is the long-term storage, which involves mothballing the plant and letting the radiation decay for up to 60 years on its own to a harmless level before completely dismantling the buildings. The advantage to the long-term storage is the lack of radiation when the dismantlement would begin but the disadvantage would be the possible lack of qualified workers at the time of dismantlement. Exelon would also have to pay for limited maintenance and security of the plant over the potential 60 years. The entirety of the spent fuel will be moved to the Londonderry Township facility, which is another process that could take decades to complete.


text: About 70 state legislators signed the industry-inspired Nuclear Caucus but made no financial commitments.


text: In April 2019, Exelon stated it would cost $1.2 billion over nearly 60 years to completely decommission Unit 1. Unit 1 closed on September 20, 2019.


text: In 2022, Unit 1 was transferred to Constellation Energy following separation from Exelon. Unit 2 was also transferred to TriArtisan ES Partners, LLC - following their acquisition of EnergySolutions.


text: Following the TMI-2 accident in 1979, approximately 99% of the fuel and damaged core debris was removed from the reactor vessel and associated systems and shipped to the Idaho National Laboratory near Idaho Falls, Idaho. Since 1993, when the initial cleanup of the plant was completed, TMI-2 has been in a condition known as Post Defueling Monitored Storage (PDMS) and is under constant monitoring to ensure the plant's safety and stability.


text: The cost of decommissioning a closed nuclear reactor and related structures at Three Mile Island is estimated at $918 million.


text: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's estimate of the risk each year of an earthquake intense enough to cause core damage to the reactor at Three Mile Island was 1 in 25,000, according to an NRC study published in August 2010.


title: Arnaut Danjuma

text: Arnaut Danjuma Groeneveld (born 31 January 1997) is a professional footballer who plays as a winger for La Liga club Villarreal and the Netherlands national team.


title: Arnaut Danjuma

text: After making one substitute appearance for Jong PSV in the Eerste Divisie, he played for NEC in the Eredivisie and Eerste Divisie, Club Brugge in the Belgian First Division A and AFC Bournemouth in the Premier League and EFL Championship. He signed for Villarreal for an estimated €25 million in 2021.


title: Arnaut Danjuma

text: Born in Nigeria and raised mainly in the Netherlands, Danjuma earned his first cap for the Dutch national team in October 2018. He was recalled to the team three years later.


title: Arnaut Danjuma

text: Danjuma was born in Lagos, Nigeria to a Dutch father and a Nigerian mother. After his parents' divorce, he was briefly homeless and spent time in foster care. He joined PSV in 2008 from TOP Oss; he made his professional debut for Jong PSV in the Eerste Divisie on 7 December 2015 against NAC, replacing Moussa Sanoh after 65 minutes of a 3–0 home loss.


title: Arnaut Danjuma

text: In the summer of 2016, Danjuma signed for NEC where he was expected to play for the second team. On 10 September, he made his debut and first Eredivisie appearance against his former club PSV; he was an 85th-minute substitute for Reagy Ofosu in a 4–0 home loss. In 16 appearances in his first season, he scored once to open a 2–0 win at Heerenveen on the final day of the season; the team were relegated through the playoffs.


title: Arnaut Danjuma

text: In July 2018, Danjuma signed for Club Brugge. He made his debut on 22 July in the 2018 Belgian Super Cup, helping his team to a 2–1 win over Standard Liège. On 3 October, he scored a goal against Atlético Madrid in a 3–1 loss in the Champions League group stage. In his only full season in the Belgian First Division A, he scored five goals, starting with two in a 3–0 home win over Kortrijk on 10 August.


title: Arnaut Danjuma

text: On 1 August 2019, Danjuma joined Premier League club AFC Bournemouth for a fee of £13.7 million, signing a long-term contract. He made his debut against Burton Albion in the third round of the EFL Cup on 25 September, as a 61st-minute substitute for Dominic Solanke in a 2–0 away loss; his first goal was in a 3–2 win against Blackburn Rovers on 12 September 2020.


title: Arnaut Danjuma

text: After ten goal contributions in a month, Danjuma was awarded the Championship Player of the Month award for April 2021. He was awarded the Bournemouth Player of the Year award after receiving 40% of the supporters' vote, narrowly beating Asmir Begović who had 38% of the vote.


title: Arnaut Danjuma

text: On 19 August 2021, Danjuma joined La Liga club Villarreal for a fee believed to be in the region of €25 million, signing a contract until June 2026. He scored his first goal for the club in a 1–1 draw with reigning league champions Atlético Madrid on 29 August, and his first UEFA Champions League goal in a 2–2 draw against Atalanta on 14 September. On 19 February 2022, he scored a hat-trick in a 4–1 league victory over Granada; two months later he contributed both goals of a home win against regional rivals Valencia.


title: Arnaut Danjuma

text: Danjuma scored six Champions League goals in his first season at Villarreal. His brace in a 3–2 win at Atalanta on 9 December put the team into the last 16 as group runners-up. On 6 April 2022, he scored the only goal against Bayern Munich at the Estadio de la Cerámica in the quarter-finals first leg; he missed the second leg of the semi-final elimination by Liverpool through a muscle injury.


title: Arnaut Danjuma

text: Danjuma was born in Nigeria to a Dutch father and Nigerian mother, and was eligible for either national team. He was first called up for the Dutch national team by Ronald Koeman in October 2018. He made his debut on 13 October in a 3–0 UEFA Nations League home win over Germany, as a 68th-minute substitute for former Jong PSV teammate Steven Bergwijn. Three days later, he scored his first international goal to equalise in a 1–1 friendly draw away to neighbours Belgium.


title: Arnaut Danjuma

text: After nearly three years without a cap, Danjuma returned to the squad as a replacement for Cody Gakpo. On 11 October 2021 in a 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifier at home to Gibraltar, he came off the bench and scored in a 6–0 win. Louis van Gaal did not call him up for the final tournament in Qatar.


title: Sunisa Lee

text: Sunisa "Suni" Lee (born Sunisa Phabsomphou; March 9, 2003) is a Hmong American artistic gymnast. She is the 2020 Olympic all-around champion and uneven bars bronze medalist. She was a member of the teams that won gold at the 2019 World Championships and silver at the 2020 Summer Olympics. Lee is a six-time member of the U.S. women's national gymnastics team and is the first Hmong-American Olympian. With six world championship and Olympic medals, she is tied with Gabby Douglas, Kim Zmeskal, Kyla Ross, and Rebecca Bross as the tenth most decorated American female gymnast.


title: Sunisa Lee

text: Sunisa Lee was born Sunisa Phabsomphou on March 9, 2003, in Saint Paul, Minnesota, to Yeev Thoj, a healthcare worker. Lee is of Hmong descent, and her mother, a refugee, immigrated to the United States from Laos as a child. Lee was raised by her mother's longtime partner, John Lee, from the age of two. Lee considers John to be her father, and she began using his surname professionally as a teenager. She has three half-siblings, Evionn, Lucky, and Noah, through her mother's relationship with Lee, and Lee had two children, Jonah and Shyenne, from a previous relationship. Evionn also competed in artistic gymnastics at the regional level.


title: Sunisa Lee

text: At six years old, Lee started gymnastics at the Midwest Gymnastics Center in Little Canada, Minnesota, a St. Paul suburb. The following year, Lee began competing and won the all-around at a state meet, the second meet of her career. At age eight, she moved up three levels. She qualified for elite at age 11. From six to 12 years old, Lee was trained by Punnarith Koy at Midwest Gymnastics.


title: Sunisa Lee

text: In August 2019, just days before Lee competed in her first senior USA Gymnastics National Championships, her father fell off of a ladder while helping a friend, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. The following year, Lee's aunt and uncle died from COVID-19. When discussing these tragedies, Lee said, "I am tougher because of it."


title: Sunisa Lee

text: In 2021, Lee was included on the "Time" 100, "Time"s annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world.


title: Sunisa Lee

text: In November 2021, she said that she was pepper-sprayed in a racial incident while in Los Angeles for her stint on "Dancing with the Stars". In January 2022, she responded in the comment section of a TikTok video about facing racial comments from her own Hmong-American community for expressing her interracial relationship with USC Trojans football player Jaylin Smith.


title: Sunisa Lee

text: Lee competed in the Hopes division in 2015 and became a junior elite in 2016. She made her junior elite debut at the 2016 U.S. Classic.


title: Sunisa Lee

text: In 2017, she made the junior national team and made her international debut at the Gymnix International Junior Cup, where the US won the gold medal in the team event and Lee won the silver medal on uneven bars. In May 2017, Lee announced her verbal commitment to Auburn University on a gymnastics scholarship.


title: Sunisa Lee

text: Lee was named to the team to compete at the 2018 Pacific Rim Gymnastics Championships. There, she won the gold medal with the U.S. team in the team final and won the silver medal on vault, balance beam, and floor exercise. She finished 4th in the all-around. The following month, an ankle injury forced Lee to withdraw from the Pan American Junior Championships in Buenos Aires, Argentina.


title: Sunisa Lee

text: On July 28, Lee competed at the 2018 U.S. Classic where she finished fifth in the all-around. She won the gold medal on balance beam despite not doing a dismount. Lee competed in August at the 2018 U.S. National Championships in Boston as one of the favorites for the junior national title along with Leanne Wong, Jordan Bowers, and Kayla DiCello. She won the bronze medal in the all-around behind Wong and DiCello and won the gold medal on the uneven bars.


title: Sunisa Lee

text: In February, USA Gymnastics announced that Lee would make her senior debut at the 2019 City of Jesolo Trophy. There, she won the gold medal in the all-around and helped the U.S. win the gold medal in the team final. She also won the gold medal on bars and floor, as well as the bronze medal on beam behind reigning World Champion Liu Tingting of China and teammate Emma Malabuyo.


title: Sunisa Lee

text: The following month, Lee injured her ankle, and in June, she sustained a hairline fracture to her left tibia while practicing a balance beam dismount.


title: Sunisa Lee

text: Later that month, Lee competed at the American Classic on only bars and beam. She placed second on beam and fifth on bars after falling off twice. After the conclusion of the American Classic, Lee was named as one of the eight athletes being considered for the team to compete at the 2019 Pan American Games along with Sloane Blakely, Kara Eaker, Aleah Finnegan, Morgan Hurd, Shilese Jones, Riley McCusker, and Leanne Wong.


title: Sunisa Lee

text: At the 2019 GK US Classic, Lee opted to only compete bars and beam, where she placed second and tied for eighth, respectively. She was not named to the Pan-American Games team.


title: Sunisa Lee

text: At the 2019 U.S. National Championships, Lee competed all four events on the first day of competition and was in second place in the all-around behind Simone Biles and in first place on uneven bars. On the second day of competition, she continued performing clean routines and ended up winning the silver medal in the all-around behind Biles. She also won the gold medal on bars ahead of Morgan Hurd and Biles, placed fourth on beam behind Biles, Kara Eaker, and Leanne Wong, and won the bronze medal on floor behind Biles and Jade Carey. As a result, she was named a member of the national team.


title: Sunisa Lee

text: In September, Lee competed at the US World Championships trials, where she placed second in the all-around behind Simone Biles, losing by only 0.350 points. The following day she was named to the team to compete at the 2019 World Championships in Stuttgart alongside Biles, Kara Eaker, MyKayla Skinner, Jade Carey, and Grace McCallum. She was the only first-year senior named to the team and the only team member without prior World Championships experience.


title: Sunisa Lee

text: During the qualification round at the World Championships, Lee helped the USA qualify to the team final in first place, over five points ahead of second place China. Individually, Lee qualified to the all-around final in second place behind teammate Biles despite a fall on the balance beam. She also qualified in second place behind Biles to the floor exercise final, beating out teammate Carey in a tiebreaker, and to the uneven bars final in third place behind reigning World Champion Nina Derwael of Belgium and 2015 World Champion Daria Spiridonova of Russia. Even with the fall on beam, Lee also would have qualified as a reserve for the balance beam finals, but was excluded by the two-per-country rule, as Biles and Eaker had both qualified in higher positions.


title: Sunisa Lee

text: In the team final of the World Championships, Lee competed on uneven bars, balance beam, and floor exercise and helped the USA win the gold medal ahead of Russia and Italy. Although she fell again on balance beam, her score on uneven bars (14.733) was the third highest of the day, as was her score on floor exercise (14.233). In the all-around final, Lee finished in eighth place after an uncharacteristic fall from the uneven bars. In the uneven bars final, Lee performed a clean routine and earned a score of 14.800, winning the bronze medal behind Derwael and Becky Downie. The following day, she competed in the floor final and won the silver medal behind Biles.


title: Sunisa Lee

text: In late January, it was announced that Lee would compete at the Stuttgart World Cup taking place in March. The Stuttgart World Cup was later canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany.


title: Sunisa Lee

text: Later that year, Lee spent two months recovering from a broken bone in her left foot, as well as two months recovering from an Achilles tendon injury. Lee did not compete for the remainder of the season due to the pandemic. In November, Lee signed her National Letter of Intent with Auburn University.


title: Sunisa Lee

text: In February, Lee returned to competition at the 2021 Winter Cup, where she competed on bars and beam. She placed first on bars and third on beam, behind Skye Blakely and Jordan Chiles, even though she used a relatively low-scoring layout dismount. In April, Lee competed at the American Classic on the floor exercise, uneven bars, and balance beam, placing first on the latter two with scores of 15.200 and 14.550. She placed fifth on floor despite using a simple layout for two of her tumbling passes. In May, Lee competed at the U.S. Classic on the uneven bars and balance beam. She fell off both and placed tenth and eighth respectively. Lee was one of five gymnasts featured on the Peacock docuseries "Golden: The Journey of USA's Elite Gymnasts".


title: Sunisa Lee

text: In June, Lee competed at the 2021 National Championships. During the first day of competition, Lee executed an uneven bars routine of 6.8 difficulty, scoring 15.3. Lee finished the competition second in the all-around behind Simone Biles, first on the uneven bars, and second on the balance beam. This qualified her to compete at the upcoming Olympic Trials.


title: Sunisa Lee

text: On the first night of the Olympic Trials, Lee performed all four routines, with an uneven bars score of 15.300, and ended the night in second place behind Biles. On the second night of competition, she scored a combined 58.166 on day two, higher than Biles' 57.533. This was the only third time in Biles' senior career, and the first time since 2013, when someone else posted a higher one-day all-around score. However, Lee's two-day combined score was less than Biles' and she finished the competition in second place, automatically qualifying for the Olympic team alongside Biles. Also named to the team were Jordan Chiles and Grace McCallum.


title: Sunisa Lee

text: At the Olympic Games, Lee performed the all-around during qualifications and helped the USA qualify to the team final in second place behind the Russian Olympic Committee. She hit all four of her routines and finished in third place overall behind Simone Biles and Rebeca Andrade and advanced to the final. Additionally, she advanced to the uneven bars final in second place behind Nina Derwael and the balance beam final in third behind Guan Chenchen and Tang Xijing.


title: Sunisa Lee

text: During the team final, Lee was initially set to compete only on uneven bars and balance beam. However, Biles withdrew from the competition after the first rotation and Lee replaced her on floor exercise. She hit all three of her routines, including her uneven bars routine which scored 15.400 (tying the highest mark of the competition in any event), and helped the United States finish second behind the Russian Olympic Committee.


title: Sunisa Lee

text: During the all-around final, Lee hit all four of her routines to win the gold medal, surpassing Brazil's Rebeca Andrade and ROC's Angelina Melnikova. She is the sixth American champion in the event following Mary Lou Retton, Carly Patterson, Nastia Liukin, Gabby Douglas, and Simone Biles, and the first Asian champion of any nationality.


title: Sunisa Lee

text: During the uneven bars final, Lee was the first competitor to go. She uncharacteristically failed to connect several elements and scored a 14.500; despite this, she won the bronze medal. During the balance beam final, Lee placed fifth with a score of 13.866, after a large balance check on one of her elements.


title: Sunisa Lee

text: In honor of her historic Olympic success, the governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, as well as the mayor of St. Paul, Melvin Carter, declared Friday, July 30, 2021, to be "Sunisa Lee Day". In October Lee was one of the recipients of the Asia Game Changer Award for "competing with grace under pressure and making Olympic history".


title: Sunisa Lee

text: Lee made her NCAA debut on January 7 in a tri-meet against North Carolina and Bowling Green. She competed on uneven bars and balance beam to help Auburn win the meet. The following week, Lee debuted her floor exercise routine in a meet against Arkansas. Lee made her all-around debut on January 28 in a meet against Alabama. She earned a score of 39.700 to help Auburn win the meet; Lee won the all-around title outright and co-won the titles on the uneven bars and balance beam. As a result, Lee was named SEC freshman of the week for the first time. On February 5, in a meet against LSU, Lee earned her first collegiate perfect ten on the uneven bars. It was the sixth perfect ten scored by an Auburn gymnast and first since 2004. Lee also won the all-around with a score of 39.825. On February 25, in a meet against Kentucky, Lee earned her first perfect ten on the balance beam and became the first collegiate gymnast to perform a Nabieva on the uneven bars. At the NCAA Championship, Lee finished first on balance beam and second in the all-around behind Trinity Thomas.


title: Sunisa Lee

text: On November 15, 2022, Lee announced that the 2022–2023 season would be her final season competing for Auburn University so that she can return to elite gymnastics with the goal of competing at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.


title: Sunisa Lee

text: A few months after the 2020 Olympic Games Lee competed on season 30 of "Dancing with the Stars". She was the seventh Olympic gymnast to be a contestant following Shawn Johnson, Nastia Liukin, Aly Raisman, Laurie Hernandez, Simone Biles, and Mary Lou Retton. During the premiere episode it was revealed that her partner was Sasha Farber, the same professional Biles and Retton were partnered with. Lee was eliminated during week 9 of the competition, finishing in 5th place.


title: Roundabout

text: A roundabout is a type of circular intersection or junction in which road traffic is permitted to flow in one direction around a central island, and priority is typically given to traffic already in the junction.


title: Roundabout

text: Engineers use the term modern roundabout to refer to junctions installed after 1960 that incorporate various design rules to increase safety. Both modern and non-modern roundabouts, however, may bear street names or be identified colloquially by local names such as rotary or traffic circle.


title: Roundabout

text: Compared to stop signs, traffic signals, and earlier forms of roundabouts, modern roundabouts reduce the likelihood and severity of collisions greatly by reducing traffic speeds and minimizing T-bone and head-on collisions. Variations on the basic concept include integration with tram or train lines, two-way flow, higher speeds and many others.