title: Julia the Elder

text: In 1605, the Polish historian Laurentius Suslyga published a tract (later quoted by Kepler), which for the first time suggested that Jesus was born sometime during the years 6-4 BC, not on 25 December 1 BC as Dionysius Exiguus implied, but never stated. According to Dionysius' dating scheme, the Christian era supposedly began on 1 January AD 1, about one week after Jesus' birth at the end of December. Julia's expulsion from Rome in 2 BC was featured in Suslyga's chronological argument which sought to establish Herod's death in 4 BC. Suslyga's chronological ideas concerning the dating of Herod's death based on Julia the Elder's exile have since been challenged by archaeologists.


title: Omar bin Laden

text: Omar bin Osama bin Mohammed bin 'Awad bin Laden (, "ʿUmar bin ʾUsāmah bin Muḥammad bin ʿAwaḍ bin Lādin"; born March 1, 1981), better known as Omar bin Laden, is a Saudi-Arabian artist, author, cultural ambassador, and businessman, and fourth-eldest son of Osama bin Laden, with his first cousin and first wife Najwa Ghanhem (see Bin Laden family). He has been living in Normandy, France for several years.


title: Omar bin Laden

text: Earlier inaccurate reports described Omar and his brother Abdallah bin Laden as nephews or cousins of Osama bin Laden.


title: Omar bin Laden

text: Bin Laden was born the grandson of Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden, the founder of one of the wealthiest non-royal families in Saudi Arabia, and the son of Osama bin Laden, whose partisan activities shaped his childhood. Bin Laden accompanied his father on his exile to Sudan from 1991 to 1996, and then to Afghanistan after that.


title: Omar bin Laden

text: He said that he trained in al-Qaeda camps beginning at the age of 14, but after training with al-Qaeda for six years and sharing a house with al-Qaeda's second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri, he left al-Qaeda in 2000 because he did not want to be associated with killing civilians and his father Osama did not object.


title: Omar bin Laden

text: In 2010, Omar bin Laden told ABC News that Osama had severely beaten him when he was a child for smiling too widely.


title: Omar bin Laden

text: Bin Laden ran his own company in Jeddah prior to 2006 as a contractor and scrap metal dealer. Jeddah, a major city and important transit port for Saudi Arabia, is the site of the headquarters of the Saudi Binladen Group and has been reported to be "truly" ruled by Bakr bin Laden.


title: Omar bin Laden

text: Omar bin Laden married Jane Felix-Browne, who also goes by the name Zaina Mohamed Al-Sabah, a parish councillor from Moulton, near Northwich in Cheshire in the United Kingdom, on September 15, 2006. The marriage was conducted in September 2006 in Islamic ceremonies in both Egypt and Saudi Arabia, after which the couple spent a few months together in Jeddah before his wife returned to Britain for several weeks.


title: Omar bin Laden

text: It has been reported that Felix-Browne met bin Laden while she was undergoing treatment for multiple sclerosis. They met on a horseback ride at the Giza pyramids in Egypt. She is his second wife and 24 years older than he is, with five grandchildren. She was aware when she married bin Laden that he had been married and divorced, with a two-year-old son.


title: Omar bin Laden

text: After their wedding, Al-Sabah described the stress of bin Laden's family background: "Omar is wary of everyone. He is constantly watching people who he feels might be following him. Not without reason he is fearful of cameras. He is the son of Osama. But when we are together he forgets his life." The couple announced their divorce in September 2007, which was said to be in response to threats to their "lives and liberty" from two unspecified sources known to them in Saudi Arabia. At the time, Al-Sabah said she did not regard herself as divorced and that as the divorce was done under duress did not have legal standing under Sharia law. After two weeks, they decided not to part.


title: Omar bin Laden

text: In January 2008, bin Laden applied for a British spousal immigration visa which would have permitted him to reside indefinitely at his wife's home in Moulton, Cheshire, a process which required him to provide original documentation of his divorce from his first wife. The couple stated their desire to have a child using a surrogate mother. One report stated the visa application was denied because bin Laden failed to provide his father's permanent address. However, a later report by "The Times" of bin Laden's appeal stated that the visa had been denied by an entry clearance officer at the UK embassy in Cairo because bin Laden's entry would cause "considerable public concern." The officer was quoted "I note that statements made during recent media interviews indicate evidence of continuing loyalty to your father, and your presence in the UK could, therefore, cause considerable public concern." This written statement was shown to The Associated Press by the couple's legal firm, but Britain's Home Office declined to comment to the press on an individual case. In April 2008, bin Laden and Al-Sabah said they planned to appeal the ruling, calling it "unjust and arbitrary", stating that Al-Sabah requires medical attention in Britain and that her appeal to live with him in Saudi Arabia could take years to process. As of April 2008, bin Laden has a house in Cairo.


title: Omar bin Laden

text: Specifically, the countries of the Schengen zone, a block of 25 nations across Europe including Germany, France and Spain, rejected his request for a visa.


title: Omar bin Laden

text: In January 2008, an Associated Press interview in Cairo featured bin Laden with cornrows and a black leather biker jacket promoting a horse race for peace across North Africa.


title: Omar bin Laden

text: Bin Laden described the race as an equine counterpart to the canceled 2008 Paris-Dakar car rally, saying, "I heard the rally was stopped because of al-Qaida. I don't think they are going to stop me." The race was canceled after the killings of four French tourists near Aleg, Mauritania on Christmas Eve 2007. Following the murders race organizers received threats directly from heavily armed and organized groups linked to al-Qaeda, which led them to cancel the race on January 4, 2008, and soon after to plan the 2009 event for South America. Police in Guinea-Bissau said that two of five men arrested for the crime on January 11, 2008, admitted their involvement with al-Qaeda.


title: Omar bin Laden

text: Bin Laden said that his father felt that he was just trying to defend the Islamic world, and that his father was not a terrorist "because history tells you he's not". In an interview with ABC News, he said, "My father is a very kind man. And he is very sorry when he did something like 11th September." Osama bin Laden ordered the attacks "Because he believes if he put two buildings down, maybe some people, little will die, but millions other will (be) save(d). He believed that. ... I believe he did wrong". In a January 21, 2008, CNN interview, he said, "I try and say to my father: 'Try to find another way to help or find your goal. This bomb, these weapons, it's not good to use them on anybody". Regarding the September 11 attacks, he said, "I don't think 9/11 was right personally, but it happened. I don't think ... [the war] in Vietnam was right. I don't think what's going on in Palestine is right. I don't think what's going on in Iraq is right. If we make what is right and not right, we will make a very big list."


title: Omar bin Laden

text: Bin Laden stated that he had not been in contact with his father since leaving Afghanistan in 2000. He said, "The last time I saw my father was in 2000, 2001. I was in Saudi Arabia and felt a terrible sorrow for all the victims [of the September 11 attacks]", "My father has a kind heart", and "I do not believe my father is dead, otherwise I would have known it; the world would have known it." When asked whether he would tell the Americans if he found out where his father was living, he said with a smile, "Actually, I would hide him. Because he is my father."


title: Omar bin Laden

text: According to "Time", bin Laden has stated a desire to become an "ambassador of peace" between Muslims and the West. Bin Laden said that his father offered a truce to Europe in a 2004 videotape and a conditional truce with the United States in a 2006 videotape. "My father is asking for a truce but I don't think there is any government (that) respects him. At the same time they do not respect him, why everywhere in the world, they want to fight him? There is a contradiction." The truces offered in these videos of Osama bin Laden were promptly rejected at the time.


title: Omar bin Laden

text: After arriving in Rome from Switzerland amid heavy security on February 2, 2008, bin Laden said in a television interview that night "I would very much like to meet the Pope in Saint Peter's, but I have been told that it is not easy."


title: Omar bin Laden

text: On November 3, 2008, Spain's Interior Ministry, upon recommendation by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees denied, for "insufficient evidence of danger or threat to [his] life", bin Laden's political asylum petition, after he was refused a UK visa. Bin Laden had 24 hours to appeal, after he made his claim at Madrid's Barajas International Airport upon a stopover on a flight from Cairo, Egypt to Casablanca, Morocco.


title: Omar bin Laden

text: Bin Laden and his wife arrived in Doha, Qatar (where, as a Saudi citizen with a Saudi passport, he would have right of entry), on November 9, 2008, after deportation by Egypt per its denial of their entry.


title: Omar bin Laden

text: Bin Laden and his mother Najwa bin Laden published a book authored in late October 2009, titled "Growing Up bin Laden". According to media coverage, the book details that "the kids grew up in Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Afghanistan without laughter or toys, were routinely beaten, and lost their pets to painful death from poison gas experiments by their father's fighters." It states that Osama bin Laden tried to persuade his son to volunteer for suicide missions and exposed him to dangerous conditions visiting training camps in Afghanistan and sending him to the front lines of the Afghan civil war. The book describes the family living in Jeddah without air conditioning or refrigeration, treating asthma with honeycombs and onions, and eventually moving to stone huts in Tora Bora without electricity or running water in 1996.


title: Omar bin Laden

text: Subsequent correspondence with the Associated Press indicated that 25 bin Laden family members had moved to Iran, following U.S. involvement in Afghanistan.


title: Omar bin Laden

text: Bin Laden published a complaint on May 10, 2011, that the burial at sea of his father deprived the family of a proper burial. He made several other claims regarding the mission that killed his father, such as stating that no one living at the compound was armed; he also requested that the UN and other international groups investigate the killing of Osama bin Laden as a criminal matter. His requests were ignored by the U.S. and no actions based on them have been taken so far.


title: Tanzanite

text: Tanzanite is the blue and violet variety of the mineral zoisite (a calcium aluminium hydroxyl sorosilicate), caused by small amounts of vanadium. Tanzanite belongs to the epidote mineral group. Tanzanite is only found in Simanjiro District of Manyara Region in Tanzania, in a very small mining area (approximately long and wide) near the Mererani Hills.


title: Tanzanite

text: Tanzanite is noted for its remarkably strong trichroism, appearing alternately blue, violet and burgundy depending on crystal orientation. Tanzanite can also appear differently when viewed under different lighting conditions. The blues appear more evident when subjected to fluorescent light and the violet hues can be seen readily when viewed under incandescent illumination. In its rough state tanzanite is colored a reddish brown to clear, and it requires heat treatment to remove the brownish "veil" and bring out the blue violet of the stone.


title: Tanzanite

text: The gemstone was given the name 'tanzanite' by Tiffany & Co. after Tanzania, the country in which it was discovered. The scientific name of "blue-violet zoisite" was not thought to be sufficiently consumer friendly by Tiffany's marketing department, who introduced it to the market in 1968. In 2002, the American Gem Trade Association chose tanzanite as a December birthstone, the first change to their birthstone list since 1912.


title: Tanzanite

text: Tanzanite was formed around 585 million years ago during the mid-Ediacaran Period by massive plate tectonic activity and intense heat in the area that would later become Mount Kilimanjaro. The mineral is located in a relatively complex geological environment. Deposits are typically found in the "hinge" of isoclinal folds.


title: Tanzanite

text: In July 1967, Manuel de Souza, a Goan tailor and part-time gold prospector living in Arusha (Tanzania), found transparent fragments of blue and blue-purple gem crystals on a ridge near Mererani, some southeast of Arusha. He assumed that the mineral was olivine (peridot) but, after soon realizing it was not, he concluded it was "dumortierite" (a blue non-gem mineral). Shortly thereafter, the stones were shown to John Saul, a Nairobi-based consulting geologist and gemstone wholesaler who was then mining aquamarine in the region around Mount Kenya. Saul, who later discovered the famous ruby deposits in the Tsavo area of Kenya, eliminated dumortierite and cordierite as possibilities, and sent samples to his father, Hyman Saul, vice president at Saks Fifth Avenue in New York. Hyman Saul brought the samples across the street to the Gemological Institute of America which correctly identified the new gem as a variety of the mineral zoisite. Correct identification was also made by mineralogists at Harvard University, the British Museum, and Heidelberg University, but the very first person to get the identification right was Ian McCloud, a Tanzanian government geologist based in Dodoma.


title: Tanzanite

text: Scientifically called "blue zoisite", the gemstone was renamed as tanzanite by Tiffany & Co., who wanted to capitalize on the rarity and single location of the gem, and thought that "blue zoisite" (which might be pronounced like "blue suicide") would not sell well. Tiffany's original campaign advertised that tanzanite could now be found in two places: "in Tanzania and at Tiffany's".


title: Tanzanite

text: From 1967, an estimated two million carats of tanzanite were mined in Tanzania before the mines were nationalized by the Tanzanian government in 1971.


title: Tanzanite

text: In 1990, the Tanzanian government split the tanzanite mines into four sections: Blocks A, B, C and D. Blocks A and C were awarded to large operators, while Blocks B and D were reserved for the local miners. In 2005 the government renewed the lease of Block C mine to TanzaniteOne, who paid US$40 million for their lease and mining license.


title: Tanzanite

text: In June 2003, the Tanzanian government introduced legislation banning the export of unprocessed tanzanite to India. (Like many gemstones, most tanzanite is cut in Jaipur.) The reason for the ban is to attempt to spur development of local processing facilities, thereby boosting the economy and recouping profits. This ban was phased in over a two-year period, until which time only stones over 0.5 grams were affected. In 2010, the government of Tanzania banned the export of rough stones weighing more than one gram.


title: Tanzanite

text: TanzaniteOne Mining Ltd is owned by Richland Resources, but a 2010 law in Tanzania required them to cede 50% ownership of their mining license to the Tanzanian State Mining Company (Stamico). Production in 2011 amounted to , earning them $24 million.


title: Tanzanite

text: Following the construction of a perimeter wall around the mines, to improve security and prevent smuggling, production rose from in 2018 to a record in 2019.


title: Tanzanite

text: On 24 June 2020, a new record for the world's largest rough tanzanite was set after a small-scale miner, Mr. Saniniu Laizer, mined two stones of and and sold them to the Government of Tanzania through Ministry of Mining for TSh 7.74 billion (US$3.35 million) surpassing a record of stone mined by TanzaniteOne in 2005.


title: Tanzanite

text: Total reserves of tanzanite are estimated at , according to a report published in 2018. Block C, by far the largest site, has been estimated at with a Life of Mine (LOM) expected to last until the 2040s.


title: Tanzanite

text: There is no universally accepted method of grading colored gemstones. TanzaniteOne, a major commercial player in the tanzanite market, through its non-profit subsidiary, the Tanzanite Foundation, has introduced its own color-grading system. The new system's color-grading scales divide tanzanite colors into a range of hues, between bluish-violet, indigo and violetish-blue.


title: Tanzanite

text: The normal primary and secondary hues in tanzanite are blue and violet. Untreated tanzanite is a trichroic gemstone, meaning that light that enters this anisotropic crystal gets refracted on different paths, with different color absorption on each of the three optical axes. As a result of this phenomenon, a multitude of colors have been observed in various specimens: shades of purple, violet, indigo, blue, cyan, green, yellow, orange, red and brown. After heating, tanzanite becomes dichroic. The dichroic colors range from violet through bluish-violet to indigo and violetish-blue to blue.


title: Tanzanite

text: Clarity grading in colored gemstones is based on the eye-clean standard, that is, a gem is considered flawless if no inclusions are visible with the unaided eye (assuming 20/20 vision). The Gemological Institute of America classifies tanzanite as a Type I gemstone, meaning it is normally eye-clean. Gems with eye-visible inclusions will be traded at deep discounts.


title: Tanzanite

text: Tanzanite forms as a brownish crystal and is trichroic, which means it shows three colors – brown, blue and violet – concurrently. Heating, either underground naturally by metamorphic processes, or artificially, removes the brown or burgundy color component to produce a stronger violet-blue color and makes the stone "dichroic", which means it only reflects blue and violet. Rarely, gem-quality tanzanite will heat to a green primary hue, almost always accompanied by a blue or violet secondary hue. These green tanzanite have some meaningful value in the collector market, but are seldom of interest to commercial buyers.


title: Tanzanite

text: Heat-treating in a furnace is usually carried out at between for 30 minutes. The stones should not have any cracks or bubbles, as they could shatter or the cracks/ bubble could increase in size during furnace heating.


title: Tanzanite

text: Some stones found close to the surface in the early days of the discovery (in an area now called D block) were gem-quality blue without the need for heat treatment – probably the result of a wildfire in the area which heated the stones underground. This gave rise to the idea that "D block" stones were more desirable than tanzanite found in other areas of the small tanzanite mining area.


title: Tanzanite

text: Since heat treatment is universal, it has no effect on price, and finished gems are assumed to be heat-treated. Gemological Institute of America states that the source of heating is gemologically undetectable, but is assumed because of its prevalence.


title: Tanzanite

text: Tanzanite may be subjected to other forms of treatment as well. Recently, coated tanzanites were discovered and tested by the AGTA and AGL laboratories. A thin layer containing cobalt, determined by X-ray fluorescence, had been applied to improve the color. It was noted that "coatings in particular are not considered permanent", and in the United States are required to be disclosed at the point of sale.


title: Tanzanite

text: Pleochroism has a physical property in which the gemstone will appear to have multiple colors based on the angle of the light hitting the stone. Tanzanite is a pleochroic gemstone. Most Tanzanite are blue when viewed from one direction but can vary from violet to red when seeing from a different angle.


title: Tanzanite

text: The physical characters can make cutting process difficult due to the problem of selecting the perfect color. The finished color of the gemstone will vary depending on how the table cut reflects the light.


title: Tanzanite

text: , tanzanite has never been successfully synthesized in a laboratory, so all genuine tanzanite is naturally occurring. However, because of its rarity and market demand, tanzanite has been imitated in several ways. Among the materials used for this are cubic zirconia, synthetic spinel, yttrium aluminium garnet, and colored glass. A test of the stone with a dichroscope can easily distinguish these from genuine tanzanite, as only tanzanite will appear doubly refractive: the two viewing windows of the dichroscope will display different colors (one window blue, the other violet) when viewing genuine tanzanite, while the imitation stones are all singly refractive and will cause both windows to appear the same color (violet).


title: Tanzanite

text: Synthetic forsterite (, the magnesium-rich end-member of olivine) has also been sold as tanzanite, and presents a similar appearance. It can be distinguished from tanzanite in three ways. The first is by using a refractometer: forsterite will show a refractive index of between 1.63 and 1.67, while tanzanite will show a higher index of 1.685 to 1.707. The second way is by using a Hanneman filter: through it, genuine tanzanite will appear orange-pink, while forsterite will appear green. The third way is by examining a cut stone through its crown facets and viewing the pavilion cuts at the back of the stone using a standard jeweler's loupe: forsterite will show birefringence, making the pavilion cuts appear "doubled up", while the much lower birefringence of tanzanite will not have this characteristic.


title: Tanzanite

text: Lower grades of tanzanite are occasionally enhanced using a layer of cobalt, as cobalt imparts a deeper shade of blue. The cobalt layer does not adhere well to these stones, and tends to rub off over time, resulting in a much less intensely colored stone. Though still tanzanite, the practice of cobalt coating is considered deceptive unless well-advertised.


title: Web series

text: A web series (also known as a web show) is a series of scripted or non-scripted online videos, generally in episodic form, released on the Internet, which first emerged in the late 1990s and became more prominent in the early 2000s. A single instance of a web series program can be called an episode or a "webisode", however the term is not always used. In general, web series can be watched on a range of platforms and devices, including desktop, laptop, tablets and smartphones. They are different from streaming television, which can be watched on various streaming platforms.


title: Web series

text: As of 2016, there were a number of awards that have been established to celebrate excellence in web series, like the Streamys, Webbys, IAWTV, and Indie Series Awards, although the Streamys and IAWTV also cover programs on streaming platforms. There are also several web series festivals, most notably in Los Angeles and Vancouver. Most major award ceremonies have also created web series and digital media award categories, including the Emmy Awards and the Canadian Screen Awards.


title: Web series

text: In April 1995, "Global Village Idiots", an episode of the Bloomington, Indiana-based public access program "Rox", was uploaded to the Internet, making "Rox" the first series distributed via the web. The same year, Scott Zakarin created "The Spot", an episodic online story which integrated photos, videos, and blogs into the storyline. Likened to "Melrose Place-on-the-Web", "The Spot" featured a rotating cast of characters playing trendy twenty-somethings who rented rooms in a fabled Santa Monica, California beach house called "The Spot". "The Spot" earned the title of Infoseek's "Cool Site of the Year," an award which later became the Webby.


title: Web series

text: In January 1999, Showtime licensed the animated sci-fi web series "WhirlGirl", making it the first independently produced web series licensed by a national television network. In February 1999, the series premiered simultaneously on Showtime and online. The character occasionally appeared on Showtime, for example hosting a "Lethal Ladies" programming block, but spent most of her time online, appearing in 100 webisodes.


title: Web series

text: As broadband bandwidth began to increase in speed and availability, delivering high-quality video over the Internet became a reality. In the early 2000s, the Japanese anime industry began broadcasting original net animation (ONA), a type of original video animation (OVA) series, on the Internet. Early examples of ONA series include "Infinite Ryvius: Illusion" (2000), "Ajimu" (2001), and "Mahou Yuugi" (2001). In 2003, The Spot executive producer and head writer Stewart St. John revived the brand for online audiences with a new cast, and created a separate mobile series to air on Sprint PCS Vision-enabled phones. St. John and partner Todd Fisher produced over 2,500 daily videos of the first American mobile phone soap, driving story lines across platforms to the web counterpart, The Spot (2.0).


title: Web series

text: The same year, Microsoft launched MSN Video, which featured the original web series "Weird TV 2000", a spin-off of the syndicated television series "Weird TV". The web series featured dozens of shorts, comedy sketches, and mini-documentaries produced exclusively for MSN video. The video-sharing site YouTube was launched in early 2005, allowing users to share television programs. YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim said the inspiration for YouTube first came from Janet Jackson's role in the 2004 Super Bowl incident, when her breast was exposed during her performance, and later from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Karim could not easily find video clips of either event online, which led to the idea of a video sharing site.


title: Web series

text: From 2003 to 2006, several independent web series began to achieve popularity, most notably Rooster Teeth's series "Red vs. Blue". The series was distributed independently using online portals YouTube and Revver, as well as the Rooster Teeth website, and acquired over 100 million views during its run. "Sam Has 7 Friends", which ran in the summer and fall of 2006, was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award, and was temporarily removed from the Internet when it was acquired by Michael Eisner. In 2004–2005, Spanish producer Pedro Alonso Pablos recorded a series of video interviews featuring actors and directors like Guillermo del Toro, Santiago Segura, Álex de la Iglesia, and Keanu Reeves, which were distributed through his own website. "lonelygirl15", "California Heaven", "The Burg", and "SamHas7Friends" also gained popularity during this time, acquiring audiences in the millions. "Lonelygirl15" was so successful that it secured a sponsorship deal with Neutrogena. In 2007, the creators of "Lonelygirl15" followed up the series' success with "KateModern", a series which debuted on social network Bebo, and took place in the same fictional universe as their previous show. Big Fantastic created and produced "Prom Queen", which was financed and distributed by Vuguru, and debuted on MySpace. These web serials highlighted interactivity with the audience in addition to the narrative on relatively low budgets. In contrast, the web series "Sanctuary", starring actor/producer Amanda Tapping, cost $4.3 Million to produce. Both "Sanctuary" and "Prom Queen" were nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award. Award-winning producer/director Marshall Herskovitz created "Quarterlife", which debuted on MySpace and was later distributed on NBC. In 2009, the first web series festival was established, called the Los Angeles Web Series Festival.


title: Web series

text: In 2008, major television studios began releasing web series, such as the ABC show "Squeegies", the NBC show "Gemini Division", and the Bravo show "The Malan Show". Warner Bros. relaunched The WB as an online network beginning with their first original web series, "Sorority Forever", created and produced by Big Fantastic and executive produced by McG. Meanwhile, MTV announced a new original series created by Craig Brewer that brought together the indie music world and new media expansion. Joss Whedon created, produced and self-financed "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog" starring Neil Patrick Harris and Felicia Day. Big Fantastic wrote and produced "Foreign Body", a mystery web series that served as a prequel to Robin Cook's novel of the same name. Beckett and Goodfried founded a new Internet studio, EQAL, and produced a spin-off from ""lonelygirl15"" entitled "". Dedicated media coverage of the web series debuted with organizations such as GigaOm's NewTeeVee and Tubefilter News. Mainstream press also began to provide coverage. In the UK, KateModern ended its run on Bebo. That site also hosted a six-month-long reality/travel show, "The Gap Year", produced by Endemol UK, who also made Kirill, a drama for MSN.


title: Web series

text: During MipCom, in October 2008, MySpace announced plans for a second series and indicated that it was in talks with cable network Foxtel to distribute their first series on network television. Additionally MySpace spoke of their plans to produce versions of the MySpace Road Tour in other countries. The emerging potential for success in web video caught the attention of top entertainment executives in America, including former Disney executive and current head of the Tornante Company, Michael Eisner. Torante's Vuguru subdivision partnered with Canadian media conglomerate Rogers Media on October 26, securing plans to produce upwards of 30 new web shows a year. Rogers Media agreed to help fund and distribute Vuguru's upcoming productions, thereby solidifying a connection between old and new media.


title: Web series

text: The rise in the popularity of the Internet and improvements the accessibility and affordability of high speed broadband and streaming video technology meant that producing and distributing a web series became a feasible alternative to "traditional" series production, which was formerly mostly done for broadcast and cable TV. In comparison with traditional TV series production, web series are less expensive to produce. This has allowed a wider range of creators to develop web series. As well, since web series are made available online, instead of being aired at a single preset time to specific regions, they enable producers to reach a potentially global audience who can access the shows 24 hours a day and seven days a week, at the time of their choosing. Moreover, in the 2010s, the rising affordability of tablets and smartphones and the rising ownership rates of these devices in industrialized nations means that web series are available to a wider range of potential viewers, including commuters, travelers, and other people who are on the go.


title: Web series

text: The emerging potential for success in web video has caught the eye of some of the top entertainment executives in America, including former Disney executive and current head of the Tornante Company, Michael Eisner. Eisner's Vuguru subdivision of Tornante partnered with Canadian media conglomerate Rogers Media on October 26, 2009, securing plans to produce over 30 new web shows a year. Rogers Media will help fund and distribute Vuguru's upcoming productions, solidifying a connection between traditional media and new media such as web series. Web series can be distributed directly from the producers' websites, through streaming services or via online video sharing websites .


title: Web series

text: A number of web series incorporate interactive Web 2.0 features on their producer's websites, the show website, or other online fora. These Web 2.0 features enable viewers and fans to post comments online about episodes and link or "tag" favorite shows, episodes or video clips. These activities help to build viewer and fan engagement. Some producers use social media and social networking websites for the promotion of their web series and seek new viewers. As well, some producers monitor social media and networking comments as a way to obtain fan feedback on their shows.


title: Web series

text: A web series is simply a series of web videos, usually in serial form, posted on the Internet, that first appeared in the late 1990s and gained popularity in the early to mid-2000s. In this new digital millennium, a web series can reach a wide international audience just by making a quick and cleverly produced video. A web series consists of an ensemble cast who create their own online characters to tell a story over the Internet. They use special computer-generated technology to create a virtual world filled with interactive interfaces and visual effects. While it was once the domain of a small group of Hollywood producers, web series are now being used by major corporations as a means of spreading corporate goodwill and promoting upcoming movies.


title: Web series

text: The Webby Awards, established in 1995, and the Indie Series Awards, established in 2009, recognize top web series in the comedy, drama, and reality TV categories. In 2009, the International Academy of Web Television was founded with the mission to organize and support the community of streaming television creators, actors, producers and executives. It administered the selection of winners for the Streamy Awards, (which awards streaming television and web series content,) in 2009 and 2010. Due to poor reception and execution from the 2010 Streamy Awards, the IAWTV decided to halt its production of the award ceremony. The IAWTV followed this decision by forming their own award presentation, the IAWTV Awards.


title: 1. FC Kaiserslautern

text: 1. Fußball-Club Kaiserslautern e. V., also known as 1. FCK, FCK (), FC Kaiserslautern () or colloquially Lautern (), is a German sports club based in Kaiserslautern, Rhineland-Palatinate. In addition to football, the club also operates in several other sports.


title: 1. FC Kaiserslautern

text: On 2 June 1900, Germania 1896 and FG Kaiserslautern merged to create FC 1900. In 1909, the club went on to join FC Palatia (founded in 1901) and FC Bavaria (founded in 1902) to form FV 1900 Kaiserslautern. In 1929, they merged with SV Phönix to become FV Phönix-Kaiserslautern before finally taking on their current name in 1933.


title: 1. FC Kaiserslautern

text: As a founding member of the Bundesliga, FCK played from 1963 to 1996 uninterrupted in the top division. It has won four German championships, two DFB-Pokals, and one DFL-Supercup, and historically is among the most successful football clubs in Germany, currently occupying eleventh place in the all-time Bundesliga table. The club's international performances include reaching the Champions League quarter-finals in 1999 as well as two participations in the UEFA Cup semi-finals. Their first league title in the Bundesliga era was won in 1991. Kaiserslautern then won the German championship in the 1997–98 season as a newly promoted team, which is unique in German football. After a six-year spell in the second tier, in 2018 they were relegated to the 3. Liga for the first time. In 2022, Kaiserslautern was promoted again to the 2. Bundesliga because they won the promotion playoff.


title: 1. FC Kaiserslautern

text: Since 1920, Kaiserslautern's stadium has been the Fritz-Walter-Stadion, named in 1985 after Fritz Walter, the captain of the West German national team who won the World Cup in 1954. Walter spent his entire career at Kaiserslautern.


title: 1. FC Kaiserslautern

text: Two of the club's predecessors, Bavaria and FC 1900 Kaiserslautern, were part of the Westkreis-Liga (I) when this league was formed in 1908, with the latter winning the first league. From 1909 through 1918, the new FV Kaiserslautern performed well, finishing runners-up in 1910 and 1912. The team reached tier-one in the new Kreisliga Saar in 1919, the Kreisliga Pfalz in 1920 and the Bezirksliga Rhein-Saar in 1931 and spent the rest of the 1930s bouncing up and down between the Bezirksliga and the upper level Gauliga Südwest, one of sixteen top flight divisions formed in the re-organization of German football under Nazi Germany.


title: 1. FC Kaiserslautern

text: The club's performance was unremarkable in the years leading up to World War II, but improved after 1939. They captured the Gauliga Südwest/Staffel Saarpfalz title, but lost the overall division title to Staffel Mainhessen winners Kickers Offenbach. In the 1941–42 season the Gauliga Südwest was split into the Gauliga Hessen-Nassau and the Gauliga Westmark, and Kaiserslautern took the Westmark title, going on to play for the first time in the national final rounds. They were decisively put out 3–9 by eventual champions Schalke 04, the dominant side in this era of German football.


title: 1. FC Kaiserslautern

text: The performance of the team slipped and they finished last in their division in 1944. The following year saw the collapse of league play as Nazi Germany crumbled under the advance of Allied armies.


title: 1. FC Kaiserslautern

text: After the war, Southwestern Germany was part of the occupation zone held by the French. Teams there were organized into northern and southern divisions and played to determine which of them would join the new Oberliga being put together. French authorities were slow to loosen their control over play in their zones of occupation – and in the Saarland in particular – Teams in the French areas took longer to join the re-established German national league than in other parts of the country. 1. FC Kaiserslautern resumed play in the Oberliga Südwest in 1945 and finished the season just one point behind 1. FC Saarbrücken. The next season, they easily won the Gruppe Nord in 1947 due in large part due to the play of Fritz Walter and his brother Ottmar – the duo scored 46 goals between them, more than any other entire team.


title: 1. FC Kaiserslautern

text: This marked the beginning of the club's dominance of the Oberliga Südwest as they went on to capture the division title eleven times over the next twelve seasons. FCK advanced to Germany's first post-war national final in 1948, but lost 1–2 to 1. FC Nürnberg.


title: 1. FC Kaiserslautern

text: Kaiserslautern became a presence on the national scene through the early 1950s, capturing their first German championship in 1951 with a 2–1 victory of their own, this time over Preußen Münster. They won a second title in 1953, followed by two losing final appearances in 1954 and 1955. The club also sent five players to the national side for the 1954 FIFA World Cup, which West Germany won in what became popularly known as "The Miracle of Bern".


title: 1. FC Kaiserslautern

text: Kaiserslautern's performance fell off late in the decade and into the early 1960s, the only highlight being an advance to the 1961 DFB-Pokal final, where they lost 0–2 to Werder Bremen. The side recovered its form in time to again win their division on the eve of the formation in 1963 of the Bundesliga, Germany's new professional football league. This secured them one of the 16 places in the new top flight circuit. However, the club's next honours would be some time in coming: they made failed German Cup final appearances in 1972, 1976, and 1981 and were UEFA Cup semi-finalists in 1982 (losing narrowly to eventual winners IFK Göteborg). In that time from 1974 to 1984 Ronnie Hellström as goalkeeper, among others, has shaped the time. The club could finally win the domestic Cup in 1990. They followed up the next season with their first Bundesliga championship. Both times the manager was Karl-Heinz Feldkamp.


title: 1. FC Kaiserslautern

text: 1. FCK won a second German Cup in 1996, but that victory was soured since the team had been relegated to 2. Bundesliga with a 16th-place finish just one week before the Cup final. At the time, Kaiserslautern was one of only four of the original 16 teams that had played in each Bundesliga season since the inception of the league, having never been relegated. This group also included Eintracht Frankfurt (who went down in the same season), 1. FC Köln (down in 1998), and "the Dinosaur", Hamburger SV, whose spell ended in 2018.


title: 1. FC Kaiserslautern

text: The "Red Devils" came storming back with an accomplishment unique in Bundesliga history – and very rare across the major European football leagues – by winning promotion from the 2. Bundesliga at the first attempt in 1997, and immediately going on to win the national championship under veteran coach Otto Rehhagel. They also played in the 1998–99 UEFA Champions League, where they topped a group comprising PSV, Benfica and HJK Helsinki but were eliminated in the quarter-finals by compatriots Bayern Munich, who also took back the domestic title (FCK finished 5th).


title: 1. FC Kaiserslautern

text: The club, however, found itself in serious trouble soon after. Despite coming close to a UEFA Cup final in 2001, Kaiserslautern soon found itself on the brink of bankruptcy and at the centre of controversy being played out publicly. The club's management – Jürgen Friedrich, Robert Wieschemann and Gerhard Herzog – were forced out. A new team president, Rene C. Jäggi, sold the debt-ridden Fritz-Walter-Stadion to an entity owned by the Land Rheinland-Pfalz and the city of Kaiserslautern, thus saving the club from financial disaster, while a new coach, Erik Gerets, led a run after the winter break that moved the footballers out of last place and saved them from relegation.


title: 1. FC Kaiserslautern

text: The club started the 2003–04 season under the burden of a three-point penalty imposed by the German Football Association for its financial misdeeds. After a faltering start to the season, Gerets was fired and replaced by Kurt Jara. Jara was unpopular with the FCK faithful for his defensive football philosophy, but with him at the helm, the club had a safe season. Jara, however, quit the position before the season ended, citing irreconcilable differences with club management.


title: 1. FC Kaiserslautern

text: In 2005, Michael Henke, who served as long-time assistant to Germany's most successful coach Ottmar Hitzfeld, became coach. FCK was initially successful, but then suffered a string of reverses and crashed to the bottom of the table. Henke was fired, and FCK alumnus Wolfgang Wolf took up the trainer's role. Wolf brought in many young, home-grown players, but despite winning over fans and experts alike, the 2005–06 season ended in failure as FCK was once again relegated to the 2. Bundesliga after a nine-year stay at the top flight. They finished the 2006–07 season in sixth place in the 2. Bundesliga, seven points out of the promotion places.


title: 1. FC Kaiserslautern

text: On 20 May 2007, the club announced the Norwegian manager Kjetil Rekdal, formerly with Belgian side Lierse, as their new head coach. Rekdal took over the reins on 1 July. Due to very bad results (the club being in 16th place in the standings with only three wins in 19 games), Rekdal was sacked and replaced by Milan Šašić in February 2008. In April 2008, the club hired Stefan Kuntz as chairman, and with new leadership at the helm, managed to save themselves from relegation to the new 3. Liga with a win over already promoted 1. FC Köln on the final day of the 2007–08 season.


title: 1. FC Kaiserslautern

text: Šašić lasted almost the entire 2008–09 season but was dismissed on 4 May 2009 after run of poor results in the second half of the season, and three days after a 1–5 defeat by Hansa Rostock. Alois Schwartz was named interim coach and he managed the club to a seventh-place finish on the season. The club eventually hired Marco Kurz as head coach.


title: 1. FC Kaiserslautern

text: Under Kurz, the club secured promotion to the 1. Bundesliga on 25 April 2010 after four years in the second league. At the start of the 2010–11 season, newly promoted 1. FCK had a promising two-straight wins, including a 2–0 victory over the previous year's Bundesliga champions, Bayern Munich. However, after a hard-fought 2–1 defeat at Mainz 05 and a 5–0 drubbing at eventual season champions, Borussia Dortmund, the club began to struggle and fell back to just ahead of the relegation zone. The club then had a poor start to the second half of the season – dropping into the relegation zone for several weeks – but managed to coalesce and eventually earned seven victories in their last ten matches, recording only two defeats and a single draw. They ended this run with four straight victories to finish the season at the seventh place.


title: 1. FC Kaiserslautern

text: The following season, 2011–12, the club finished in the bottom 18th place and after only two seasons in the top flight, were relegated to the 2. Bundesliga. They remained in that division until 2018, being relegated to the third tier for the first time in club history.


title: 1. FC Kaiserslautern

text: In March 2022, a U.S. consortium consisting of Paul Conway, Chien Lee, Michael Kalt, Krishen Sud and Randy Frankel bought 10% of the club.


title: 1. FC Kaiserslautern

text: On 24 May 2022, four years after their first-ever relegation into Germany's third division, Kaiserslautern were promoted back to the 2. Bundesliga.


title: 1. FC Kaiserslautern

text: The club's reserve team, 1. FC Kaiserslautern II, played as 1. FC Kaiserslautern Amateure until 2005. It made a first appearance in the tier three Amateurliga Südwest in 1957. It won a league championship in 1960 and 1968 but was not entitled to promotion to professional level. In 1978, when the Oberliga Südwest was introduced the team qualified for this new league which it would belong to, with the exception of the 1982–83 season, until 1992. It won promotion back to the Oberliga in 1994 and became a yo-yo team between this league and the Regionalliga above, a league newly introduced in 1994. The team was relegated from the latter in 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2007 but each time won promotion back to the league. Between 2012 and 2017, the club played in the Regionalliga Südwest.


title: 1. FC Kaiserslautern

text: The team has also won the Southwestern Cup on three occasions, in 1979, 1997 and 2008. Through this competition, 1. FC Kaiserslautern II qualified for the DFB-Pokal on three occasions, reaching the second round twice and being drawn against their own first team in 1997–98 where they lost 5–0.


title: 1. FC Kaiserslautern

text: FCK plays its home fixtures in the Fritz Walter Stadion first built in 1920. In 1985 the stadium and the adjacent street were named for the player who brought the club to prominence after World War II. The facility is built on the Betzenberg, literally "Mount Betze", a steep sandstone hill.


title: 1. FC Kaiserslautern

text: The stadium has a capacity of 49,850 and was a 2006 World Cup venue, hosting four preliminary round and one group of 16-round matches. The facility underwent a major refurbishment for the tournament with addition of new grandstands and a roof.


title: 1. FC Kaiserslautern

text: Kaiserslautern's Fritz-Walter-Stadion has long been a feared away venue given the rabid ferocity of Kaiserslautern fans: the most faithful of these supporters are located in the stadium's "Westkurve" (Westside, literally "West Curve", since the stands used to be shaped in a semicircle behind the goals). Most famously, Bayern Munich once lost a match here in a charged atmosphere by a score of 7–4 after leading 4–1 at the 58th minute.


title: 1. FC Kaiserslautern

text: The club has friendly ties to 1860 Munich, VfB Stuttgart, Werder Bremen and Kilmarnock F.C. of Scotland and are bitter rivals of Waldhof Mannheim and Bayern Munich. They also have lesser local rivalries with Eintracht Frankfurt and, more recently, with Mainz 05 and Karlsruher SC.


title: 1. FC Kaiserslautern

text: 1. FC Kaiserslautern also has sports departments in athletics, basketball, boxing, handball, headis, hockey, running, and triathlon.


title: 1. FC Kaiserslautern

text: The basketball department was founded in 1952. The seniors team played in the second German Basketball league from 2002 until 2007. In the 2014–15 season, both the male and female senior teams play in the fourth division.


title: 1. FC Kaiserslautern

text: The boxing department exists since the times of FV Kaiserslautern. Most prominent athletes are Silver medalist of the 1964 Summer Olympics Emil Schulz, Bronze medalist of the 1988 Summer Olympics Reiner Gies and, before his professional career, later European heavyweight champion Karl Mildenberger.


title: 1. FC Kaiserslautern

text: The wheelchair basketball team FCK Rolling Devils was founded in 2009 as a part of the club's basketball department and turned into a separate department in 2013. Since 2014, the Rolling Devils play in the 1st German Wheelchair Basketball Federal League. In July 2015, the outsourcing of Rolling Devils into an independent club with 1.FC Kaiserslautern as name sponsor took place and the FCK department was suspended at the annual meeting of 1.FC Kaiserslautern in December 2015.


title: Ahna O'Reilly

text: O'Reilly began her acting career in 2003 in the film, "Bill the Intern". She has appeared in several other movies like "Dinocroc", "Nancy Drew", "Just Add Water" and "Forgetting Sarah Marshall". She also acted in television series like "", "Unhitched", "The Vampire Diaries" and "Prime Suspect".


title: Ahna O'Reilly

text: In 2011, she appeared in the movie "The Help" based on Kathryn Stockett's best-selling novel of the same name, a period piece set in Jackson, Mississippi, in the 1960s. The film opened to positive reviews and became a box-office success with a worldwide gross of $211,608,112. It also won several ensemble awards including National Board of Review Award, Screen Actors Guild Award and Satellite Award. O'Reilly co-starred in the 2013 film "Jobs", alongside Ashton Kutcher and Josh Gad, about the life of technology pioneer Steve Jobs.


title: Ahna O'Reilly

text: In 2016, she appeared in the Roundabout Theatre Company off-Broadway production of "The Robber Bridegroom". A cast recording featuring O'Reilly in her role as Rosamund was released on September 9, 2016.


title: Ahna O'Reilly

text: O'Reilly graduated from Menlo School in 2003 and attended the University of Southern California for one year before dropping out. She dated actor James Franco for a time before the two broke up in 2011. In December 2021 O'Reilly announced via Instagram that she married writer and producer Dave Andron a year earlier, in secret.


title: Shahnameh

text: The Shahnameh or Shahnama (, ) is a long epic poem written by the Persian poet Ferdowsi between c. 977 and 1010 CE and is the national epic of Greater Iran. Consisting of some 50,000 "distichs" or couplets (two-line verses), the "Shahnameh" is one of the world's longest epic poems. It tells mainly the mythical and to some extent the historical past of the Persian Empire from the creation of the world until the Muslim conquest in the seventh century. Iran, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and the greater region influenced by Persian culture such as Armenia, Dagestan, Georgia, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan celebrate this national epic.


title: Shahnameh

text: The work is of central importance in Persian culture and Persian language, regarded as a literary masterpiece, and definitive of the ethno-national cultural identity of Iran. It is also important to the contemporary adherents of Zoroastrianism, in that it traces the historical links between the beginnings of the religion and the death of the last Sasanian emperor, which brought an end to the Zoroastrian influence in Iran.


title: Shahnameh

text: Ferdowsi started writing the "Shahnameh" in 977 and completed it on 8 March 1010. The "Shahnameh" is a monument of poetry and historiography, being mainly the poetical recast of what Ferdowsi, his contemporaries, and his predecessors regarded as the account of Iran's ancient history. Many such accounts already existed in prose, an example being the Abu-Mansuri Shahnameh. A small portion of Ferdowsi's work, in passages scattered throughout the "Shahnameh", is entirely of his own conception.


title: Shahnameh

text: The "Shahnameh" is an epic poem of over 50,000 couplets written in Early New Persian. It is based mainly on a prose work of the same name compiled in Ferdowsi's earlier life in his native Tus. This prose "Shahnameh" was in turn and for the most part the translation of a Pahlavi (Middle Persian) work, known as the "Xadāynāmag" "Book of Kings", a late Sasanian compilation of the history of the kings and heroes of Persia from mythical times down to the reign of Khosrau II (590–628). The "Xadāynāmag" contained historical information on the later Sasanian period, but it does not appear to have drawn on any historical sources for the earlier Sasanian period (3rd to 4th centuries). Ferdowsi added material continuing the story to the overthrow of the Sasanians by the Muslim armies in the middle of the seventh century.


title: Shahnameh

text: The first to undertake the versification of the Pahlavi chronicle was Daqiqi, a contemporary of Ferdowsi, poet at the court of the Samanid Empire, who came to a violent end after completing only 1,000 verses. These verses, which deal with the rise of the prophet Zoroaster, were afterward incorporated by Ferdowsi, with acknowledgment, in his own poem. The style of the "Shahnameh" shows characteristics of both written and oral literature. Some claim that Ferdowsi also used Zoroastrian "nasks", such as the now-lost "Chihrdad," as sources as well.


title: Shahnameh

text: Many other Pahlavi sources were used in composing the epic, prominent being the "Kārnāmag-ī Ardaxšīr-ī Pābagān", which was originally written during the late Sassanid era and gave accounts of how Ardashir I came to power which, because of its historical proximity, is thought to be highly accurate. The text is written in the late Middle Persian, which was the immediate ancestor of Modern Persian. A great portion of the historical chronicles given in "Shahnameh" is based on this epic and there are in fact various phrases and words which can be matched between Ferdowsi's poem and this source, according to Zabihollah Safa.


title: Shahnameh

text: Traditional historiography in Iran has claimed that Ferdowsi was grieved by the fall of the Sassanid Empire and its subsequent rule by "Arabs" and "Turks". The "Shahnameh", the argument goes, is largely his effort to preserve the memory of Persia's golden days and transmit it to a new generation so that they could learn and try to build a better world. Although most scholars have contended that Ferdowsi's main concern was the preservation of the pre-Islamic legacy of myth and history, a number of authors have formally challenged this view.


title: Shahnameh

text: This portion of the "Shahnameh" is relatively short, amounting to some 2100 verses or four percent of the entire book, and it narrates events with the simplicity, predictability, and swiftness of a historical work.


title: Shahnameh

text: After an opening in praise of God and Wisdom, the "Shahnameh" gives an account of the creation of the world and of man as believed by the Sassanians. This introduction is followed by the story of the first man, Keyumars, who also became the first king after a period of mountain-dwelling. His grandson Hushang, son of Sīyāmak, accidentally discovered fire and established the Sadeh Feast in its honor. Stories of Tahmuras, Jamshid, Zahhāk, Kawa or Kaveh, Fereydūn and his three sons Salm, Tur, and Iraj, and his grandson Manuchehr are related in this section.


title: Shahnameh

text: Almost two-thirds of the "Shahnameh" is devoted to the age of heroes, extending from Manuchehr's reign until the conquest of Alexander the Great. This age is also identified as the kingdom of Keyaniyan, which established a long history of heroic age in which myth and legend are combined. The main feature of this period is the major role played by the Saka or Sistānī heroes who appear as the backbone of the Empire. Garshāsp is briefly mentioned with his son Narimān, whose own son Sām acted as the leading paladin of Manuchehr while reigning in Sistān in his own right. His successors were his son Zāl and Zal's son Rostam, the bravest of the brave, and then Farāmarz.


title: Shahnameh

text: Among the stories described in this section are the romance of Zal and Rudāba, the Seven Stages (or Labors) of Rostam, Rostam and Sohrab, Sīyāvash and Sudāba, Rostam and Akvān Dīv, the romance of Bijan and Manijeh, the wars with Afrāsīyāb, Daqiqi's account of the story of Goshtāsp and Arjāsp, and Rostam and Esfandyār.


title: Shahnameh

text: A brief mention of the Arsacid dynasty follows the history of Alexander and precedes that of Ardashir I, founder of the Sasanian Empire. After this, Sasanian history is related with a good deal of accuracy. The fall of the Sassanids and the Arab conquest of Persia are narrated romantically.


title: Shahnameh

text: According to Jalal Khaleghi Mutlaq, the "Shahnameh" teaches a wide variety of moral virtues, like worship of one God; religious uprightness; patriotism; love of wife, family and children; and helping the poor.


title: Shahnameh

text: There are themes in the Shahnameh that were viewed with suspicion by the succession of Iranian regimes. During the reign of Mohammad Reza Shah, the epic was largely ignored in favor of the more obtuse, esoteric and dryly intellectual Persian literature. Historians note that the theme of regicide and the incompetence of kings embedded in the epic did not sit well with the Iranian monarchy. Later, there were Muslim figures such as Ali Shariati, the hero of Islamic reformist youth of the 1970s, who were also antagonistic towards the contents of the Shahnameh since it included verses critical of Islam. These include the line: "tofu bar to, ey charkh-i gardun, tofu!" (spit on your face, oh heavens spit!), which Ferdowsi used as a reference to the Muslim invaders who despoiled Zoroastrianism.


title: Shahnameh

text: After the "Shahnameh", a number of other works similar in nature surfaced over the centuries within the cultural sphere of the Persian language. Without exception, all such works were based in style and method on the "Shahnameh", but none of them could quite achieve the same degree of fame and popularity.


title: Shahnameh

text: Some experts believe the main reason the Modern Persian language today is more or less the same language as that of Ferdowsi's time over 1000 years ago is due to the very existence of works like the "Shahnameh", which have had lasting and profound cultural and linguistic influence. In other words, the "Shahnameh" itself has become one of the main pillars of the modern Persian language. Studying Ferdowsi's masterpiece also became a requirement for achieving mastery of the Persian language by subsequent Persian poets, as evidenced by numerous references to the "Shahnameh" in their works.


title: Shahnameh

text: Although 19th century British Iranologist E. G. Browne has claimed that Ferdowsi purposefully avoided Arabic vocabulary, this claim has been challenged by modern scholarship, specifically Mohammed Moinfar, who has noted that there are numerous examples of Arabic words in the "Shahnameh" which are effectively synonyms for Persian words previously used in the text. This calls into question the idea of Ferdowsi's deliberate eschewing of Arabic words.


title: Shahnameh

text: The "Shahnameh" has 62 stories, 990 chapters, and some 50,000 rhyming couplets, making it more than three times the length of Homer's "Iliad", and more than twelve times the length of the German "Nibelungenlied". According to Ferdowsi himself, the final edition of the "Shahnameh" contained some sixty thousand distichs. But this is a round figure; most of the relatively reliable manuscripts have preserved a little over fifty thousand distichs. Nezami-e Aruzi reports that the final edition of the "Shahnameh" sent to the court of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni was prepared in seven volumes.


title: Shahnameh

text: The Shirvanshah dynasty adopted many of their names from the "Shahnameh". The relationship between Shirwanshah and his son, Manuchihr, is mentioned in chapter eight of Nizami's "Leili o Majnoon". Nizami advises the king's son to read the "Shahnameh" and to remember the meaningful sayings of the wise.


title: Shahnameh

text: Shah Ismail I (d.1524), the founder of the Safavid dynasty of Iran, was also deeply influenced by the Persian literary tradition, particularly by the "Shahnameh", which probably explains the fact that he named all of his sons after "Shahnameh" characters. Dickson and Welch suggest that Ismail's "Shāhnāmaye Shāhī" was intended as a present to the young Tahmāsp. After defeating Muhammad Shaybāni's Uzbeks, Ismāil asked Hātefī, a famous poet from Jam (Khorasan), to write a "Shahnameh"-like epic about his victories and his newly established dynasty. Although the epic was left unfinished, it was an example of "mathnawis" in the heroic style of the "Shahnameh" written later on for the Safavid kings.


title: Shahnameh

text: The "Shahnameh"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s influence has extended beyond the Persian sphere. Professor Victoria Arakelova of Yerevan University states:


title: Shahnameh

text: Despite a belief held by some, the Turanians of "Shahnameh" (whose sources are based on Avesta and Pahlavi texts) have no relationship with Turks. The Turanians of "Shahnameh" are an Iranian people representing Iranian nomads of the Eurasian Steppes and have no relationship to the culture of the Turks. Turan, which is the Persian name for the areas of Central Asia beyond the Oxus up to the 7th century (where the story of the "Shahnameh" ends), was generally an Iranian-speaking land.


title: Shahnameh

text: According to Richard Frye, "The extent of influence of the Iranian epic is shown by the Turks who accepted it as their own ancient history as well as that of Iran... The Turks were so much influenced by this cycle of stories that in the eleventh century AD we find the Qarakhanid dynasty in Central Asia calling itself the 'family of Afrasiyab' and so it is known in the Islamic history."


title: Shahnameh

text: Turks, as an ethno-linguistic group, have been influenced by the "Shahnameh" since advent of Saljuqs. Toghrul III of Seljuqs is said to have recited the "Shahnameh" while swinging his mace in battle. According to Ibn Bibi, in 618/1221 the Saljuq of Rum Ala' al-Din Kay-kubad decorated the walls of Konya and Sivas with verses from the "Shahnameh". The Turks themselves connected their origin not with Turkish tribal history but with the Turan of "Shahnameh". Specifically in India, through the "Shahnameh", they felt themselves to be the last outpost tied to the civilized world by the thread of Iranianism.


title: Shahnameh

text: This prediction of Ferdowsi has come true and many Persian literary figures, historians and biographers have praised him and the "Shahnameh". The "Shahnameh" is considered by many to be the most important piece of work in Persian literature.


title: Shahnameh

text: Western writers have also praised the "Shahnameh" and Persian literature in general. Persian literature has been considered by such thinkers as Goethe as one of the four main bodies of world literature. Goethe was inspired by Persian literature, which moved him to write his "West-Eastern Divan". Goethe wrote:


title: Shahnameh

text: "Sargozasht-Nameh" or biography of important poets and writers has long been a Persian tradition. Some of the biographies of Ferdowsi are now considered apocryphal, nevertheless this shows the important impact he had in the Persian world. Among the famous biographies are:


title: Shahnameh

text: Famous poets of Persia and the Persian tradition have praised and eulogized Ferdowsi. Many of them were heavily influenced by his writing and used his genre and stories to develop their own Persian epics, stories and poems:


title: Shahnameh

text: Many other poets, e.g. Hafez, Rumi and other mystical poets, have used imageries of "Shahnameh" heroes in their poetry.


title: Shahnameh

text: The "Shahnameh"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s impact on Persian historiography was immediate and some historians decorated their books with the verses of Shahnameh. Below is sample of ten important historians who have praised the "Shahnameh" and Ferdowsi:


title: Shahnameh

text: Illustrated copies of the work are among the most sumptuous examples of Persian miniature painting. Several copies remain intact, although two of the most famous, the Houghton "Shahnameh" and the Great Mongol "Shahnameh", were broken up for sheets to be sold separately in the 20th century. A single sheet from the former was sold for £904,000 in 2006. The Baysonghori "Shahnameh", an illuminated manuscript copy of the work (Golestan Palace, Iran), is included in UNESCO's Memory of the World Register of cultural heritage items.


title: Shahnameh

text: The Mongol rulers in Iran revived and spurred the patronage of the "Shahnameh" in its manuscript form. The "Great Mongol" or Demotte "Shahnameh", produced during the reign of the Ilkhanid Sultan Abu Sa'id, is one of the most illustrative and important copies of the "Shahnameh".


title: Shahnameh

text: The Timurids continued the tradition of manuscript production. For them, it was considered "de rigueur" for the members of the family to have personal copies of the epic poem. Consequently, three of Timur’s grandsons—Bāysonḡor, Ebrāhim Solṭān, and Moḥammad Juki—each commissioned such a volume. Among these, the Baysonghor Shahnameh commissioned by Ḡīāṯ-al-Dīn Bāysonḡor is one of the most voluminous and artistic "Shahnameh" manuscripts.


title: Shahnameh

text: The production of illustrated "Shahnameh" manuscripts in the 15th century remained vigorous during the Qarā-Qoyunlu or Black Sheep (1380–1468) and Āq Qoyunlu or White Sheep (1378–1508) Turkman dynasties. Many of the extant illustrated copies, with more than seventy or more paintings, are attributable to Tabriz, Shiraz, and Baghdad beginning in about the 1450s–60s and continuing to the end of the century.


title: Shahnameh

text: The Safavid era saw a resurgence of "Shahnameh" productions. Shah Ismail I used the epic for propaganda purposes: as a gesture of Persian patriotism, as a celebration of renewed Persian rule, and as a reassertion of Persian royal authority. The Safavids commissioned elaborate copies of the "Shahnameh" to support their legitimacy. Among the high points of "Shahnameh" illustrations was the series of 250 miniatures commissioned by Shah Ismail for his son's Shahnameh of Shah Tahmasp. Two similar cycles of illustration of the mid-17th century, the "Shahnameh" of Rashida and the Windsor "Shahnameh", come from the last great period of the Persian miniature.


title: Shahnameh

text: In honour of the "Shahnameh"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s millennial anniversary, in 2010 the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge hosted a major exhibition, called "Epic of the Persian Kings: The Art of Ferdowsi’s "Shahnameh"", which ran from September 2010 to January 2011. The Arthur M. Sackler Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC also hosted an exhibition of folios from the 14th through the 16th centuries, called "Shahnama: 1000 Years of the Persian Book of Kings", from October 2010 to April 2011.


title: Shahnameh

text: In 2013 Hamid Rahmanian illustrated a new English translation of the "Shahnameh" (translated by Ahmad Sadri) creating new imagery from old manuscripts.


title: Shahnameh

text: In 1808 Mathew Lumsden (1777–1835) undertook the work of an edition of the poem. The first of eight planned volumes was published in Kolkata in 1811. But Lumsden didn't finish any further volumes.


title: Shahnameh

text: In 1829 Turner Macan published the first complete edition of the poem. It was based on a comparison of 17 manuscript copies.


title: Shahnameh

text: Between 1838 and 1878, an edition appeared by French scholar Julius von Mohl, which was based on a comparison of 30 manuscripts. After Mohl's death in 1876, the last of its seven volumes was completed by Charles Barbier de Meynard, Mohl's successor to the chair of Persian of the College de France.


title: Shahnameh

text: Both editions lacked critical apparatuses and were based on secondary manuscripts dated after the 15th century; much later than the original work. Between 1877 and 1884, the German scholar Johann August Vullers prepared a synthesized text of the Macan and Mohl editions under the title "Firdusii liber regum", but only three of its expected nine volumes were published. The Vullers edition was later completed in Tehran by the Iranian scholars S. Nafisi, Iqbal, and M. Minowi for the millennial jubilee of Ferdowsi, held between 1934 and 1936.


title: Shahnameh

text: The first modern critical edition of the "Shahnameh" was prepared by a Russian team led by E. E. Bertels, using the oldest known manuscripts at the time, dating from the 13th and 14th centuries, with heavy reliance on the 1276 manuscript from the British Museum and the 1333 Leningrad manuscript, the latter of which has now been considered a secondary manuscript. In addition, two other manuscripts used in this edition have been so demoted. It was published in Moscow by the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in nine volumes between 1960 and 1971.


title: Shahnameh

text: For many years, the Moscow edition was the standard text. In 1977, an early 1217 manuscript was rediscovered in Florence. The 1217 Florence manuscript is one of the earliest known copies of the "Shahnameh", predating the Moghul invasion and the following destruction of important libraries and manuscript collections. Using it as the chief text, Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh began the preparation of a new critical edition in 1990. The number of manuscripts that were consulted during the preparation of Khaleghi-Motlagh edition goes beyond anything attempted by the Moscow team. The critical apparatus is extensive and a large number of variants for many parts of the poem were recorded. The last volume was published in 2008, bringing the eight-volume enterprise to a completion. According to Dick Davis, professor of Persian at Ohio State University, it is "by far the best edition of the "Shahnameh" available, and it is surely likely to remain such for a very long time".


title: Shahnameh

text: The only known Arabic translation of the "Shahnameh" was done in c. 1220 by al-Fath bin Ali al-Bondari, a Persian scholar from Isfahan and at the request of the Ayyubid ruler of Damascus Al-Mu'azzam Isa. The translation is "Nathr" (unrhyming) and was largely forgotten until it was republished in full in 1932 in Egypt, by historian Abdelwahhab Azzam. This modern edition was based on incomplete and largely imprecise fragmented copies found in Cambridge, Paris, Astana, Cairo and Berlin. The latter had the most complete, least inaccurate and well-preserved Arabic version of the original translation by al-Bondari.


title: Shahnameh

text: There have been a number of English translations, almost all abridged. James Atkinson of the East India Company's medical service undertook a translation into English in his 1832 publication for the Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland, now part of the Royal Asiatic Society. Between 1905 and 1925, the brothers Arthur and Edmond Warner published a translation of the complete work in nine volumes, now out of print. There are also modern incomplete translations of the "Shahnameh": Reuben Levy's 1967 prose version (later revised by Amin Banani), and another by Dick Davis in a mixture of poetry and prose which appeared in 2006. Also a new English translation of the book in prose by Ahmad Sadri was published in 2013.


title: Shahnameh

text: The Parsis, Zoroastrians, whose ancestors had migrated to India in the 8th or 10th century so they could continue practice of their religion in peace, have also kept the "Shahnameh" traditions alive. Dr. Bahman Sohrabji Surti, assisted by Marzban Giara, published between 1986 and 1988 the first detailed and complete translation of the "Shahnameh" from the original Persian verse into English prose, in seven volumes.


title: Shahnameh

text: There are various translations in French and German. An Italian translation was published in eight volumes by Italo Pizzi with the title "Il libro dei re." Poema epico recato dal persiano in versi italiani da Italo Pizzi, 8 voll., Torino, Vincenzo Bona, 1886–1888 (later reissued in two volumes with a compendium, from UTET, Turin, 1915).


title: Shahnameh

text: Dastur Faramroz Kutar and his brother Ervad Mahiyar Kutar translated the "Shahnameh" into Gujarati verse and prose and published 10 volumes between 1914 and 1918.


title: Shahnameh

text: A Spanish translation was published in two volumes by the Islamic Research Institute of the Tehran Branch of McGill University.


title: Shahnameh

text: The "Shahnameh", especially the legend of Rostam and Sohrab, is cited and plays an important role in the novel "The Kite Runner" by Afghan-American writer Khaled Hosseini.


title: Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon?

text: Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon? ( "What Should We Name This Love?") is an Indian Hindi-language romantic drama television series that aired on Star Plus from 6 June 2011 to 30 November 2012. Produced by Gul Khan under 4 Lions Films, it starred Barun Sobti and Sanaya Irani. It is the first installment of the "Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon?" series.


title: Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon?

text: On 24 November 2015, Hotstar launched an eight episode web series, "Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon? – Ek Jashan", to extend the "Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon?" storyline. Barun Sobti and Sanaya Irani reprised their respective roles as Arnav and Khushi.


title: Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon?

text: The story revolves around a Delhi-based business tycoon, Arnav Singh Raizada (ASR), and a middle-class girl from Lucknow, Khushi Kumari Gupta.


title: Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon?

text: Khushi stumbles into Arnav in Lucknow after mistakenly crashing one of his promotional fashion events. Arnav accuses Khushi of deliberately disrupting the show. Khushi pleads innocence. This delays her duties towards her sister Payal's wedding, which is canceled. Meanwhile, Khushi gets harassed by eve-teasers and is saved by Shyam Manohar Jha, a married man, who instantly gets attracted to her beauty and begins to pursue Khushi romantically. Rebuked by society, Khushi's adoptive parents decide to send Payal and Khushi to live with their paternal aunt in Delhi. Khushi is adopted as her parents had died in a car crash when she was young. Her maternal aunt and uncle had decided to take them in.


title: Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon?

text: The two sisters arrive in Delhi to live with their aunt. Upon traveling on a scooter, she bumps into Arnav’s car. He challenges her to pay for the damage, and Khushi accepts. She goes on to sell Lucknow's indigenous Chikankaari sarees to pay for Arnav's broken car, and she ends up at his house, Shantivan, by mistake. She meets Arnav's sister, Anjali, and their maternal grandmother, Devyani Devi, fondly called Naani. Both of them take an instant liking to the lively and cheerful Khushi as she reminds them of their hometown Lucknow. She successfully sells her sarees and gets an even bigger order from them, only to be falsely framed by Arnav's aunt, Manorama, to have sold torn sarees. Thus, she loses the order and finds herself unable to gather the money to pay Arnav for the car damages.


title: Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon?

text: Back at her aunt's, Shyam, who is Anjali's husband, reaches Khushi's place as a bachelor wanting to get engaged to Khushi. Khushi asks Shyam to help her get a job, and thus she reaches ASR's office. Khushi's clumsiness irritates Arnav, so he does not want her in his office. Khushi, not wanting to give up, taunts Arnav, and eventually, they sign a 15-day contract, which says if she quits before the end of the contract period, Khushi would have to pay ASR one lakh rupees. Khushi takes up the challenge only to find ASR going out of his way to make her quit the job somehow. He makes her miserable by assigning her humanely impossible tasks, but Khushi does them all in stride. In a particularly life-threatening situation, Arnav rescues Khushi and briefly regrets putting her in that predicament. Tired of these antics, Payal convinces Khushi to quit the job, and the two sisters decide to go back to Lucknow. However, inspiration hits Khushi, who believes that it is a sign from the goddess she has strong faith in (Devi Maiyya). They decide to stay and open a sweet shop and as luck would have it, they end up at the Raizada house to fulfill an order of sweets for Anjali's wedding anniversary celebrations.


title: Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon?

text: At Shantivan, one thing leads to another, and Anjali hires Khushi to groom Arnav's girlfriend, Lavanya, to make her the perfect daughter-in-law of the Raizadas. Khushi's constant presence at his house initially irritates Arnav, but her funny antics and lively nature wins him over slowly. He refuses to admit this and frequently taunts Khushi about her social status, in an attempt to satisfy his own ego.


title: Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon?

text: During Diwali celebrations, Arnav and Khushi share an intimate moment that Arnav is in denial about. He then says he is willing to marry Lavanya, much to his own displeasure, and because he is not willing to come to terms that he is in fact in love with Khushi. Khushi is devastated when she hears this. On the other hand, Shyam is successful in getting engaged to Khushi. Arnav is terribly disappointed when he learns that Khushi is engaged to be married to another man and once again resorts to his old ways of making her miserable.


title: Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon?

text: On a parallel, Arnav's cousin Akash falls in love with Payal and proposes marriage. As the wedding preparations begin, Khushi's adoptive father, Shashi, discovers Shyam's secret - that he is married to Anjali. When he tries to reveal this to the rest of the family, Shyam tortures him into partial paralysis, rendering him unable to speak. Shyam then cleverly manipulates Buaji under the pretext of taking up family responsibilities instead.


title: Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon?

text: With the wedding rituals beginning in Raizada and Gupta household, it becomes increasingly difficult for Shyam to hide his secret, and eventually, Khushi finds out the truth and breaks the engagement, enraging Shyam. Shyam then threatens to ruin Akash and Payal’s relationship. Khushi doesn't want to break Payal's wedding and she thinks that Anjali would be heartbroken so she doesn't reveal the truth to the Raizadas. Arnav realizes that he is in love with Khushi and breaks off his engagement with Lavanya. He plans on professing his love to Khushi on Payal and Akash's wedding day, when he overhears Shyam professing his love to Khushi and pleading for her to marry him, and mistakes Khushi to be instigating Shyam to break off his marriage with Anjali. To save his now pregnant sister's marital life, Arnav blackmails Khushi into marrying him for six months, by keeping Payal's wedding at stake. A heartbroken and confused Khushi reluctantly agrees to this just so she can save Payal's wedding.


title: Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon?

text: Khushi and Arnav begin a pretend marriage filled with love and hate. They constantly bicker and prank one another while also deeply caring for each other. Khushi brings Arnav to her aunt's house to irk him more but they bond in the time they spend together. She starts to wonder why Arnav married her. She suspects that Arnav is trying to kill her in order to marry Lavanya and decides to commit suicide instead. Arnav saves her and tells her that he knows the truth about her and Shyam. Enraged by this, Khushi explains the story in its entirety but Arnav refuses to believe her. On the other hand, Shyam, greedy for the Raizada estate and industries, plans to murder Arnav and arranges his abduction. Khushi manages to rescue him with the help of his NRI cousin - Nandkishore (NK) and Manorama. Arnav comes home, exposes Shyam, and throws him out, causing Anjali to fall into depression. Over the next few days, Anjali begins meeting Shyam secretly, who continues to deceive her with his manipulative ways. Meanwhile, Anjali and Arnav's paternal grandmother, Subhadra Devi (Dadi), arrives at Shantivan and takes an instant disliking towards Khushi, but Khushi receives support from Arnav and other family members. Subhadra Devi is also displeased to learn about Shyam and Anjali's separation and tries her best to bring Shyam back to Shantivan. During the Janamashtmi celebrations, Khushi realizes that her wedding ceremony lacked the rituals to bind her and Arnav in holy matrimony and thus insists that Arnav fulfill them. Subhadra Devi overhears this and insults Khushi for living with Arnav without being properly married. Arnav finally agrees to marry Khushi in an elaborate ceremony so as to make their relationship official. Subhadra Devi, however, is still displeased and tries to call off the wedding, suspecting a connection between Khushi's mother and Arnav's parents' death. Shyam gets a hint of this and plots to use it to his advantage in stopping Arnav and Khushi's wedding. It is revealed that Khushi's adoptive mother Garima had an extra-marital affair with Arnav's father, unaware of the fact that he was a married man. When Arnav's mother learns of this, she kills herself. This leads to Arnav's father taking his life, too, out of guilt. Subhadra Devi holds Garima responsible for the deaths of her son and daughter-in-law.


title: Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon?

text: As the wedding preparations begin, unaware of Shyam's duplicity, Subhadra Devi encourages Anjali to meet and repair her relationship with him. Shyam, on the other hand, hatches a plan for Anjali's miscarriage, which he brings to fruition on her baby shower day. Anjali falls deeper into depression and adamantly asks Shyam to be allowed back in the house. Khushi notices that Anjali feels better in Shyam's presence and for the sake of Anjali's well-being decides to bring Shyam back to Shantivan, much to Arnav's displeasure. However, they sort out their differences, reassure each other of their love and trust, and consummate their relationship.


title: Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon?

text: On the wedding day, Subhadra Devi reveals the truth to Arnav about his parents' suicide. Initially shattered, he realizes that Garima was unaware of his father's marriage, and punishing Khushi for something that she did not do would be unfair. Arnav marries her despite Subhadra Devi's opposition and makes it clear to her that his father was to be equally blamed for their family's sufferings and that holding Garima alone responsible would be wrong.


title: Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon?

text: On their wedding night, Arnav and Khushi discover several cameras hidden in their room and all over the Raizada house and realize that they could be placed by Shyam. With some investigative work, they further discover that Shyam was responsible for Anjali's miscarriage. Arnav, Khushi, and NK together expose Shyam, who confesses to his misdeeds. Anjali finally sees him for who he truly is and throws him out of the house.


title: Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon?

text: As Khushi and Arnav's relationship gets better, Arnav's college friend Sheetal drops in with Aarav, an orphan, disguising him as Arnav's "son" to inherit Arnav's property. Arnav exposes Sheetal’s plan to extort money from him, and later Arnav & Khushi adopt Aarav. Khushi later runs for a beauty pageant due to wanting to establish her own identity. With Arnav and his family’s motivation, she goes on to win it and they live happily ever after.


title: Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon?

text: In 2015, Hotstar released an extension of an eight-episode series. Arnav has forgotten their 3rd wedding anniversary, causing Khushi to leave for Lucknow. Throughout the series, it is revealed that Anjali is running an NGO, Payal is revealed to be pregnant, Mami Ji has started a business, and Khushi and Arnav are happily living together, celebrating their 3rd wedding anniversary. All is well that ends well.


title: Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon?

text: The show was produced and directed by Gul Khan under the banner of 4 Lions Films. Barun Sobti was cast as Arnav Singh Raizada after the original choice, Karan Singh Grover, opted out of the role to focus on his film career and Sanaya Irani replaced Shraddha Arya who had originally been cast as the female lead. Dalljiet Kaur, Deepali Pansare & Akshay Dogra were finalized to play supporting roles to the main leads. Other supporting cast include Jayshree T., Tuhina Vohra, Abha Parmar, Utkarsha Naik, Sanjay Batra and many other actors. Abhaas Mehta and Sana Makbul entered the show as antagonists of the show. Sana later quit the show in December 2011.


title: Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon?

text: When Barun Sobti announced his break from the show due to health problems, fans of the series requested the production team to shut down the show on a happy note rather than any replacement.


title: Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon?

text: In week 15 to 21 of 2011, it entered top ten Hindi GEC list garnering 2.6 TVR occupying ninth position.


title: Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon?

text: In 2015, Hotstar launched a finite web series of eight episodes titled "Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon? - Ek Jashn" with the original cast and the characters. The story revolves around Arnav and Khushi's married life after three years.


title: The Jim Henson Company

text: The Jim Henson Company (formerly known as Muppets, Inc., Henson Associates, Inc., and Jim Henson Productions, Inc.; commonly referred to as Henson) is an American entertainment company located in Los Angeles, California. The company is known for its innovations in the field of puppetry, particularly through the creation of Kermit the Frog and the Muppets characters.


title: The Jim Henson Company

text: Brian Henson serves as chairman, while Lisa Henson serves as CEO. Since 2000, The Jim Henson Company is headquartered at the Jim Henson Company Lot, the historic former Charlie Chaplin Studios, in Hollywood.


title: The Jim Henson Company

text: The company was established in November 1958 by puppeteers Jim and Jane Henson, and is currently independently owned and operated by their children. Henson has produced many successful television series, including "The Muppet Show" (1976–1981), "Fraggle Rock" (1983–1987), and "Bear in the Big Blue House" (1997–2006); as well, the company designed the Muppet characters for "Sesame Street" (1969–present).


title: The Jim Henson Company

text: The company has also produced theatrical films, including "The Muppet Movie" (1979), "The Dark Crystal" (1982) and "Labyrinth" (1986). Henson also operates Jim Henson's Creature Shop, an animatronics and visual effects studio which has created characters and effects for both Henson productions and outside projects. In 1989, the company entered merger negotiations with The Walt Disney Company, which were canceled following Jim Henson's death in 1990.


title: The Jim Henson Company

text: Subsequently, control of the company was assumed by Henson's children: Lisa, Cheryl, Brian, John, and Heather. In 2000, Henson was sold to German media company EM.TV & Merchandising AG; by the end of that year, however, EM.TV's stock collapsed, and the Henson family re-acquired the company in 2003.


title: The Jim Henson Company

text: In the interim, EM.TV sold the rights to the "Sesame Street" Muppets to Sesame Workshop in early January 2001, following a December 2000 announcement. Henson sold The Muppets and "Bear in the Big Blue House" properties to Disney in 2004, but retains the remainder of its program library and assets.


title: The Jim Henson Company

text: , Brian, Lisa, Cheryl, and Heather Henson maintain control of the company. Jane Henson died in April 2013, and John Henson died in February 2014.


title: The Jim Henson Company

text: Jim and Jane Henson officially founded Muppets, Inc. on November 20, 1958, three years after "Sam and Friends" debuted on WRC-TV in Washington, D.C. Aside from "Sam and Friends", the majority of its work until 1969 was in advertising; appearances on late-night talk shows; and short "meeting films" primarily for enterprise use, produced from 1965 to 1996. In 1968, the company began designing characters and producing short films for the fledgling "Sesame Street", which premiered on NET (succeeded by PBS) in November 1969.


title: The Jim Henson Company

text: One of the company's first characters to appear regularly on television, Rowlf the Dog, originated in commercials for Purina Dog Chow and became a regular character on "The Jimmy Dean Show" from 1963 to 1966. During this time, the show's host, Jimmy Dean, refused an opportunity to own 40% of the company, assuming that he did not attain that right. Jim Henson also pitched several different projects to the major American television networks, to little avail. Some ideas became unaired pilots, while others were never produced.


title: The Jim Henson Company

text: In 1976, producer Lew Grade approached Henson to produce a weekly series in Grade's native United Kingdom. This series became "The Muppet Show", produced by Associated Television (ATV) for the ITV network. The success of "The Muppet Show" led to the Muppets becoming an enduring media franchise. Another company controlled by Grade, ITC Entertainment, originally owned "The Muppet Show", among other Henson productions, but Henson acquired the rights to these productions in the 1980s. During this time, Henson formed Jim Henson's Creature Shop, a special effects studio partially responsible for the films "The Dark Crystal" and "Labyrinth"; and television series "The StoryTeller", "Farscape", and "Dinosaurs".


title: The Jim Henson Company

text: Later in his life, Henson produced "Fraggle Rock" and "The Jim Henson Hour". In August 1989, Henson and Disney CEO Michael Eisner began merger discussions reportedly valued at $150 million, which also included a fifteen-year contract for Henson's personal "creative services." However, the deal did not include the rights to the "Sesame Street" characters, which were owned by Henson, although merchandising revenue was split between Henson and the Children's Television Workshop.


title: The Jim Henson Company

text: Also during the negotiations, management of the company's Henson International Television distribution unit based in the UK purchased their unit from the company, leading to the establishment of HIT Entertainment. On May 16, 1990, as negotiations continued, Jim Henson died of toxic shock syndrome. Following Henson's death, neither Disney nor Jim Henson Productions could come to an accord. Negotiations officially ended in December 1990, and Henson remained an independent company.


title: The Jim Henson Company

text: The Henson family assumed management of the company, and Brian Henson was named president, chairman, and CEO in January 1991. In the following years, Henson entered into deals with several companies, including television rights to the Henson library with Disney Channel and Nickelodeon; a record label with BMG Kidz; and a home media label with Buena Vista Home Video. In 1995, Henson entered into an agreement with ABC to produce primetime television series, leading to "Muppets Tonight" and "Aliens in the Family".


title: The Jim Henson Company

text: Following the releases of "The Muppet Christmas Carol" and "Muppet Treasure Island" by Walt Disney Pictures, Henson formed Jim Henson Pictures with Sony Pictures Entertainment. In 1998, the company signed a deal with Columbia TriStar Home Video to launch Jim Henson Home Entertainment. By 1999, Henson held partial interests in two cable channels: The Kermit Channel (broadcasting in Asia) and Odyssey Network (broadcasting in the United States), both jointly owned with Hallmark Entertainment. After Hallmark (through Crown Media Holdings) assumed full ownership of these networks, the Kermit Channel was discontinued and Odyssey was renamed the Hallmark Channel.


title: The Jim Henson Company

text: In 2000, the Henson family sold the company to the German media company EM.TV & Merchandising AG, for $680 million. That summer, EM.TV sold Henson's stakes in the Odyssey and Kermit cable channels in exchange for an 8.2% stake in Hallmark-controlled Crown Media Holdings. By the end of 2000, after EM.TV subsequently experienced major financial problems, EM.TV sold the company's ownership of the "Sesame Street" Muppets and Henson's small interest in the Noggin television network to Sesame Workshop, and by early 2001, Henson itself was marked for sale. The Walt Disney Company, Viacom, HIT Entertainment, Aol Time Warner, Haim Saban, Classic Media, as well as Henson management, among others, were all parties reportedly interested in acquiring the company.


title: The Jim Henson Company

text: In December 2002, a deal was announced in which EM.TV would sell a 49.9% stake in Henson to an investment group led by Dean Valentine, a former executive at Disney and UPN. However, in March 2003, the deal was canceled, citing financial issues on Valentine's part. In May 2003, EM.TV was reportedly nearing an agreement to sell Henson to a consortium between Classic Media and Sesame Workshop (with financing from Sony Pictures Entertainment), until the Henson family re-acquired the company for a closing price of $84 million.


title: The Jim Henson Company

text: In February 2004, Henson sold the Muppets and "Bear in the Big Blue House" to The Walt Disney Company, who subsequently formed The Muppets Studio (known at that time as The Muppets Holding Company). The term "Muppet", likewise, became a legal trademark of Disney; Sesame Workshop retains permission to use the term for its "Sesame Street" characters under a license from Disney.


title: The Jim Henson Company

text: On April 1, 2004, Henson and HIT Entertainment agreed to a five-year global distribution and production deal which included distribution of 440 hours of the company's remaining library including "Fraggle Rock", "Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas", "The Hoobs" and "Jim Henson's Mother Goose Stories". In addition, the agreement also included the production of new properties, including "Frances", in which both companies co-produced and also both co-own the copyright to the series. After that deal expired, Henson entered similar agreements with Lionsgate Home Entertainment and Gaiam Vivendi Entertainment. As well, the company became involved with computer animated projects, including the direct-to-video "Unstable Fables" series; "Sid the Science Kid"; "Dinosaur Train"; and "Splash and Bubbles", as well as the puppet series "Pajanimals".


title: The Jim Henson Company

text: Henson later formed Henson Alternative, which specializes in adult content, including the live shows known alternatively as "Puppet Improv", "Puppet Up!", and "Stuffed and Unstrung". In recent years, the "Fraggle Rock" characters have made several appearances, usually at special events. The characters appeared with Ben Folds Five in the music video for "Do It Anyway"; and in 2013, Gobo and Red Fraggle hosted a "Fraggle Rock" marathon on the Hub Network.


title: The Jim Henson Company

text: In 2019, "", a prequel to "The Dark Crystal", premiered on Netflix. In 2022, "", a reboot of "Fraggle Rock", premiered on Apple TV+.


title: The Jim Henson Company

text: On August 9, 2022, the company signed a worldwide distribution agreement with Shout! Factory which would allow Shout! to distribute thirteen series and specials from the Henson catalog on home entertainment and streaming platforms across all territories.


title: The Jim Henson Company

text: From 1969 to 2000, Henson was contracted to design and create Muppet characters for "Sesame Street". With the exception of occasional appearances in the Muppets franchise, the characters were used exclusively for "Sesame Street", but Henson legally owned these characters prior to their acquisition by Sesame Workshop. The only exception was Kermit the Frog, who was featured in other projects prior to "Sesame Street". Sesame Workshop retains the rights to use any "Sesame Street" footage featuring the character.


title: The Jim Henson Company

text: The sale ended any direct affiliation between The Muppets and "Sesame Street", although the series retains use of the term "Muppet" under license from Disney. Many of the puppeteers continue to perform with both The Muppets and "Sesame Street" franchises. While no longer owning the "Sesame Street" characters, Henson continues to design them. This list excludes pre-2001 "Sesame Street" co-productions outside the United States.


title: The Jim Henson Company

text: The first eight series are produced under its Henson Alternative banner exclusively in North America before premiering worldwide in 2015.


title: Grindcore

text: Grindcore is an extreme fusion genre of heavy metal and hardcore punk that originated in the mid-1980s, drawing inspiration from abrasive-sounding musical styles, such as thrashcore, crust punk, hardcore punk, extreme metal, and industrial. Grindcore is considered a more noise-filled style of hardcore punk while using hardcore's trademark characteristics such as heavily distorted, down-tuned guitars, grinding overdriven bass, high-speed tempo, blast beats, and vocals which consist of growls, shouts and high-pitched shrieks. Early groups like Napalm Death are credited with laying the groundwork for the style. It is most prevalent today in North America and Europe, with popular contributors such as Brutal Truth and Nasum. Lyrical themes range from a primary focus on social and political concerns, to gory subject matter and black humor.


title: Grindcore

text: A trait of grindcore is the "microsong" much shorter than average for punk or metal; several bands have produced songs that are only seconds in length. British band Napalm Death holds the Guinness World Record for shortest song ever recorded with the one-second "You Suffer" (1987). Many bands, such as Agoraphobic Nosebleed, record simple phrases that may be rhythmically sprawled out across an instrumental lasting only a couple of bars in length.