title: Witness (Katy Perry album)

text: Moving 180,000 album equivalent units in its first-week, "Witness" debuted atop the US "Billboard" 200 chart, becoming Perry's third chart-topping album in the country. The album also topped the charts in Canada and Spain, while reaching number two in Australia, South Korea, Mexico, and New Zealand and the top five region in nine other territories. To promote the album, Perry embarked on her fourth concert tour, . Prior to the release of the album, Perry had not released new material in four years, with the exception of the 2016 Summer Olympics anthem, "Rise". After releasing "Prism" (2013) and touring in 2014–2015, Perry went on hiatus to protect her mental health and to return afresh. Perry decided to shed her on-stage persona and embrace her self-proclaimed authentic self as Katheryn Hudson, her real name. As a result, she retired her long, dark hair for a short pixie cut, and adopted her natural blonde hair color.


title: Witness (Katy Perry album)

text: Following the release of her fourth album "Prism" in 2013 and the end of the Prismatic World Tour in October 2015, Katy Perry told "The New York Times" in February 2016 that she was in the "research and development phase" of a new album. She decided to take a hiatus after the tour concluded to "give my mental health a break" before starting to write new songs the following June. Perry felt "refreshed" after the hiatus, and had over 40 tracks "in progress" before the year ended. In August, the singer stated that she aspired to make material "that connects and relates and inspires" and told Ryan Seacrest that she was "not rushing" her fifth album, adding "I'm just having a lot of fun, but experimenting and trying different producers, and different collaborators, and different styles." The album marked a departure from long time producer and co-writer Dr. Luke. In February 2017, Perry stated that the album was "definitely a new era for me" and "an era of purposeful pop" she was proud of. Later that month, she told Capital FM that "I've got something swirling, but I think I want to put out some songs first before I give them the full meal." The following May, Perry revealed to "Entertainment Weekly" that the album would include 15 of the 40 songs she wrote for it, and described the record as "fun and dance-y and dark and light."


title: Witness (Katy Perry album)

text: Musically, "Witness" is an electropop album, containing influences of dance and EDM. As analyzed by Annie Zaleski from "The A.V. Club", hooks are in short supply, replaced by grooves and atmosphere that pick and choose elements from 1990s house music, mainstream EDM, electro-tinged hip-hop, and 1980s new wave.


title: Witness (Katy Perry album)

text: "Witness" opens with the title track, an electronic song backed by a 1990s house piano. "Hey Hey Hey" asserts that women can be complex people with a multitude of personality traits, as noted by Annie Zaleski from "The A.V. Club", "Hey Hey Hey" depicts a narrow version of femininity and success and it perpetuates irksome stereotypes about strong women. "Roulette" is an EDM song described as "explosive" by Christopher R. Weingarten from "Rolling Stone". "Swish Swish" runs throughout a house-influenced beat and contains a sample from "Star 69" by Fatboy Slim which itself samples "I Get Deep" by Roland Clark. "Déjà Vu" is "an electro-R&B ballad about wanting to free oneself from a dead-end relationship." "Power" is an electro composition, which explores a theme of self empowerment, Jillian Males from Pitchfork noted that the song "approximates feminism by politicizing a personal struggle for control."


title: Witness (Katy Perry album)

text: "Music has allowed me to travel, which has reeducated my mind and changed my perspective on so much, so my education and my consciousness comes from my voice, and that's how I see, and that's how I witness you and that's how you witness me and that's why the eye is in the mouth."


title: Witness (Katy Perry album)

text: On September 29, 2017, Urban Outfitters released a limited-edition exclusive vinyl of the album with alternate cover art.


title: Witness (Katy Perry album)

text: "Billboard"s Tatiana Cirisano listed the album cover as one of the worst of 2017, characterizing its "freaky alien theme" as "just a tad too horrifying".


title: Witness (Katy Perry album)

text: In February 2017, Spotify announced that it would run a campaign to promote the album up to its release in the middle of the year. On May 15, Perry confirmed the album would be titled "Witness" and would be released through Capitol Records on June 9, 2017. She also announced that the concert tour supporting the album would be titled . It began in September 2017 and concluded in August 2018. Tickets purchased would include a copy of the album. The night before "Witness" came out, she hosted a live countdown for the record on her YouTube channel, which featured the singer performing and discussing tracks on the record as well as responding to fan questions. To accompany the album's release, Perry also broadcast herself on YouTube with a live-stream titled for four days, concluding with a live concert on June 12.


title: Witness (Katy Perry album)

text: The album's lead single, "Chained to the Rhythm" featuring Skip Marley, was released on February 10, 2017. It went on to top the charts in Hungary while reaching number four in the United States. "Bon Appétit" with Migos followed as the second single on April 28, 2017. The track reached number 59 in the United States and number 14 in Canada. "Swish Swish", featuring Nicki Minaj, was released as the third single on May 19, 2017. The song peaked at number 46 in the United States, and number 13 in Canada. "Save as Draft" was released to American radio stations on June 26, 2017, and "Hey Hey Hey" was released in Italy as the album's fifth single on January 12, 2018.


title: Witness (Katy Perry album)

text: "Witness" was met with mixed reception from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 53, based on 20 reviews, which indicates "mixed or average reviews".


title: Witness (Katy Perry album)

text: Hannah J. Davies of "The Guardian" gave the album a rating of 4 out of 5 stars, writing that the singer "still has a flair for tunes that quickly seep into the collective consciousness" and praised "Swish Swish" as "a house-fuelled banger with undeniable groove," though felt that "Perry's heartfelt ballads feel tacked on in the face of all this weirdness." Leonie Cooper from "NME" gave it the same rating and noted that the album did not display any subtlety in the music, complimenting it for "[delivering] important messages about female autonomy to a young audience, it's surely better to shout than whisper." "USA Today"s Maeve McDermott commended the album for being "sonically coherent" and noted it as a personal record, rather than the politically charged marketing campaign it had received.


title: Witness (Katy Perry album)

text: Idolator's Mike Wass gave "Witness" a score of 4 out of 5. He did not feel it had "introspection or maturity," though praised "Miss You More" as "the kind of brutally honest anthem that Katy isn't given enough credit for," and dubbed it "the album's emotional core." Wass concluded that ""Witness" might be overly ambitious and is definitely a couple of songs too long, but dance-pop experiments don't come much more enjoyable than this." Kevin O'Donnell of "Entertainment Weekly" gave it a B rating stating, "Perry is reflective, anxious, and fired up on "Witness"," highlighting "Déjà Vu" and "Swish Swish" as the best tracks.


title: Witness (Katy Perry album)

text: Wren Graves from "Consequence of Sound" gave the album a rating of C. He listed "Swish Swish", "Power", and "Déjà Vu" as essential tracks, but felt that most of the other songs were more of a "filler," and that a lack of cohesiveness with Perry's output made "Witness" inferior to her previous material. Giving "Witness" 3 out of 5 stars, Christopher R. Weingarten wrote in "Rolling Stone" that it was comparable to the music of Halsey and Camila Cabello, and that the songs blended "into the rest of the radio." He also did not like how Perry's voice was "devoured in effects and reverb."


title: Witness (Katy Perry album)

text: Sal Cinquemani gave the same score, praising the empowerment themes within "Hey Hey Hey" and "Power", though ultimately felt that the record "lacks both the big hooks that propelled Perry's past hits up the charts and the conceptual and sonic focus to give her pop real purpose." AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine gave the album 2 out of 5 stars, saying it felt "relentless and a shade desperate" and called the record "a conceptual muddle." He added that "Witness" "erodes whatever adult contemporary progress Perry made with "Prism"." "The Daily Telegraph" journalist Neil McCormick gave "Witness" the same rating, and panned the usage of the term "purposeful pop" for the songs. He found "Witness" to be musically repetitive, explaining that within the multitude of people working on the record, Perry's "individual talent" was lost making ""Witness" [sound like] someone trying to cover too many bases."


title: Witness (Katy Perry album)

text: Writing for "The Independent", Andy Gill also rated the record 2 out of 5 stars. He criticized the production of the tracks, especially the ones by Max Martin, describing them as "identical to everyone else's." Mikael Wood from the "Los Angeles Times" shared a similar view in his analysis of the album. Wood was critical of the musical direction on "Witness", the supposed "purposeful pop" being lost in the tracks and Perry's singing. He listed "Chained to the Rhythm" and "Swish Swish" as highlights. According to Jordan Sargent from "Spin", the record "feels like it's making a bid for a level of artistic seriousness—a recognition of aesthetic vision—that Perry has never really been afforded." He felt that it indicated her "artillery of undeniable pop songs" had been "all but depleted." "Variety" writer Chris Willman did not feel album was "the kind of obvious smash to which all of America would plainly say: Baby, you're a firework," but asserted it "counts at least as a sparkler — the kind you hold in your hand for 45 seconds in the summer, if not the enduring."


title: Witness (Katy Perry album)

text: In the United States, "Witness" debuted at number one on the "Billboard" 200 with 180,000 album-equivalent units, which included 162,000 pure album sales. It became Perry's third album to the top the country's chart after "Teenage Dream" (2010) and "Prism" (2013) both debuted at number one. The record had the highest opening in the US for a female since Lady Gaga's "Joanne" in 2016 and became the second album by a female artist from 2017, after Halsey's "Hopeless Fountain Kingdom", to open atop the chart. "Witness" dropped to number 13 on the "Billboard" 200 the following week, earning 28,000 album-equivalent units and selling 18,000 copies. According to "Billboard", it was the country's eighth-highest performing album of the 2017 summer season, earning 431,000 album-equivalent units in the nation by September 2017. It has sold 311,000 copies there as of August 2020. "Witness" also became Perry's third album after "Teenage Dream" and "Prism" to open at number one on the Canadian Albums Chart, selling 23,000 units in its first week. The record subsequently descended to number four one week later. That November, it received a Platinum certification from Music Canada (MC). The album additionally entered at number one in Spain, and fell to number 13 in its second week.


title: Witness (Katy Perry album)

text: In New Zealand, "Witness" entered the albums chart at number two. In Australia, it also debuted at number two on the ARIA Albums Chart with opening sales of 5,794 copies. Selling another 2,069 the following week, it reached a total of 7,863 copies sold within the nation. The record has since been certified Gold by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA). In Japan, the album opened at number 22 on the Oricon Albums Chart, and moved up to number 19 the next week. In the United Kingdom, "Witness" debuted at number 6 on the UK Albums Chart, where it became Perry's third top 10 album, following "Teenage Dream" and "Prism". According to the Official Charts Company, it opened with 16,153 album-equivalent units in the nation. As of January 2018, "Witness" has sold more than 840,000 copies worldwide.


title: Ticker tape

text: Ticker tape was the earliest electrical dedicated financial communications medium, transmitting stock price information over telegraph lines, in use from around 1870 through 1970. It consisted of a paper strip that ran through a machine called a stock ticker, which printed abbreviated company names as alphabetic symbols followed by numeric stock transaction price and volume information. The term "ticker" came from the sound made by the machine as it printed.


title: Ticker tape

text: The ticker tape revolutionized financial markets, as it relayed information from trading floors continuously and simultaneously across geographical distances. Paper ticker tape became obsolete in the 1960s, as television and computers were increasingly used to transmit financial information. The concept of the stock ticker lives on, however, in the scrolling electronic tickers seen on brokerage walls and on news and financial television channels.


title: Ticker tape

text: Ticker tape stock price telegraphs were invented in 1867 by Edward A. Calahan, an employee of the American Telegraph Company who later founded The ADT Corporation.


title: Ticker tape

text: Although telegraphic printing systems were first invented by Royal Earl House in 1846, early models were fragile, required hand-cranked power, frequently went out of synchronization between sender and receiver, and did not become popular in widespread commercial use. David E. Hughes improved the printing telegraph design with clockwork weight power in 1856, and his design was further improved and became viable for commercial use when George M. Phelps devised a resynchronization system in 1858. The first stock price ticker system using a telegraphic printer was invented by Edward A. Calahan in 1863; he unveiled his device in New York City on November 15, 1867. Early versions of stock tickers provided the first mechanical means of conveying stock prices ("quotes"), over a long distance via telegraph wiring. In its infancy, the ticker used the same symbols as Morse code as a medium for conveying messages. One of the earliest practical stock ticker machines, the Universal Stock Ticker developed by Thomas Edison in 1869, used alphanumeric characters with a printing speed of approximately one character per second.


title: Ticker tape

text: Previously, stock prices had been hand-delivered via written or verbal messages. Since the useful time-span of individual quotes is very brief, they generally had not been sent long distances; aggregated summaries, typically for one day, were sent instead. The increase in speed provided by the ticker allowed for faster and more exact sales. Since the ticker ran continuously, updates to a stock's price whenever the price changed became effective much faster and trading became a more time-sensitive matter. For the first time, trades were being done in what is now thought of as near real-time.


title: Ticker tape

text: By the 1880s, there were about a thousand stock tickers installed in the offices of New York bankers and brokers. In 1890, members of the exchange agreed to create the New York Quotation Co., buying up all other ticker companies to ensure accuracy of reporting of price and volume activity.


title: Ticker tape

text: Stock ticker machines are an ancestor of the modern computer printer, being one of the first applications of transmitting text over a wire to a printing device, based on the printing telegraph. This used the technology of the then-recently invented telegraph machines, with the advantage that the output was readable text, instead of the dots and dashes of Morse code. A special typewriter designed for operation over telegraph wires was used at the opposite end of the telegraph wire connection to the ticker machine. Text typed on the typewriter was displayed on the ticker machine at the opposite end of the connection.


title: Ticker tape

text: The machines printed a series of "ticker symbols" (usually shortened forms of a company's name), followed by brief information about the price of that company's stock; the thin strip of paper on which they were printed was called "ticker tape". The word "ticker" comes from the distinct tapping (or "ticking") noise the machines made while printing. Pulses on the telegraph line made a letter wheel turn step by step until the correct symbol was reached and then printed. A typical 32-symbol letter wheel had to turn on average 15 steps until the next letter could be printed resulting in a very slow printing speed of one character per second. In 1883, ticker transmitter keyboards resembled the keyboard of a piano with black keys indicating letters and the white keys indicating numbers and fractions, corresponding to two rotating type wheels in the connected ticker tape printers.


title: Ticker tape

text: Newer and more efficient tickers became available in the 1930s, but these newer and better tickers still had an approximate 15-to-20-minute delay. Ticker machines became obsolete in the 1960s, replaced by computer networks; none have been manufactured for use for decades. However, working reproductions of at least one model are now being manufactured for museums and collectors.


title: Ticker tape

text: Simulated ticker displays, named after the original machines, still exist as part of the display of television news channels and on some websites—see news ticker. One of the most famous outdoor displays is the simulated ticker scrolling marquee located at One Times Square in New York City.


title: Ticker tape

text: Ticker tapes then and now contain generally the same information. The ticker symbol is a unique set of characters used to identify the company. The shares traded is the volume for the trade being quoted. Price traded refers to the price per share of a particular trade. Change direction is a visual cue showing whether the stock is trading higher or lower than the previous trade, hence the terms "downtick" and "uptick". Change amount refers to the difference in price from the previous day's closing. Many today include color to indicate whether a stock is trading higher than the previous day's (green), lower than previous (red), or has remained unchanged (blue or white).


title: Ticker tape

text: In the early days of baseball, before electronic scoreboards, manual score turners used a ticker to get the latest scores from around the league. Today, computers and electronic scoreboards have replaced the manual scoreboard and the ticker.


title: Ticker tape

text: Used ticker tape was used as confetti, to be thrown from the windows above parades either cut up into scraps or thrown as whole spools, primarily in lower Manhattan; this became known as a ticker tape parade. Ticker tape parades generally celebrated some significant event, such as the end of World War I and World War II, or the safe return of one of the early astronauts.


title: Ticker tape

text: Ticker tape parades are still held in New York City, specifically in the "Canyon of Heroes" in Manhattan, most often when local sports teams win a championship. However, actual ticker tape is not used any longer during these parades; often, pieces of paper from paper shredders are used as a convenient source of confetti.


title: Hibakusha

text: Hibakusha ( ; or ; "person affected by a bomb" or "person affected by exposure [to radioactivity]") is a word of Japanese origin generally designating the people affected by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II.


title: Hibakusha

text: The word "hibakusha" is Japanese, originally written in kanji. While the term Hibakusha ("hi" "affected" + "baku" "bomb" + "sha" "person") has been used before in Japanese to designate any victim of bombs, its worldwide democratisation led to a definition concerning the survivors of the atomic bombs dropped in Japan by the United States Army Air Forces on the 6 and 9 August 1945.


title: Hibakusha

text: Anti-nuclear movements and associations, among others of "hibakusha", spread the term to designate any direct victim of nuclear disaster, including the ones of the nuclear plant in Fukushima. They therefore prefer the writing (substituting "baku" with the homophonous "exposition") or "person affected by the exposition", implying "person affected by nuclear exposure". This definition tends to be adopted since 2011.


title: Hibakusha

text: The Atomic Bomb Survivors Relief Law defines "hibakusha" as people who fall into one or more of the following categories: within a few kilometers of the hypocenters of the bombs; within 2 km of the hypocenters within two weeks of the bombings; exposed to radiation from fallout; or not yet born but carried by pregnant women in any of these categories. The Japanese government has recognized about 650,000 people as "hibakusha". , 118,935 were still alive, mostly in Japan. The government of Japan recognizes about 1% of these as having illnesses caused by radiation. "Hibakusha" are entitled to government support. They receive a certain amount of allowance per month, and the ones certified as suffering from bomb-related diseases receive a special medical allowance.


title: Hibakusha

text: The memorials in Hiroshima and Nagasaki contain lists of the names of the "hibakusha" who are known to have died since the bombings. Updated annually on the anniversaries of the bombings, , the memorials record the names of 526,000 "hibakusha"; 333,907 in Hiroshima and 192,310 in Nagasaki.


title: Hibakusha

text: In 1957, the Japanese Parliament passed a law providing for free medical care for "hibakusha". During the 1970s, non-Japanese "hibakusha" who suffered from those atomic attacks began to demand the right for free medical care and the right to stay in Japan for that purpose. In 1978, the Japanese Supreme Court ruled that such persons were entitled to free medical care while staying in Japan.


title: Hibakusha

text: During the war, many Korean people were forced to go to both Hiroshima and Nagasaki to work by Japanese imperialists. According to recent estimates, about 20,000 Koreans were killed in Hiroshima and about 2,000 died in Nagasaki. It is estimated that one in seven of the Hiroshima victims was of Korean ancestry. For many years, Koreans had a difficult time fighting for recognition as atomic bomb victims and were denied health benefits. However, most issues have been addressed in recent years through lawsuits.


title: Hibakusha

text: It was a common practice before the war for American Issei, or first-generation immigrants, to send their children on extended trips to Japan to study or visit relatives. More Japanese immigrated to the U.S. from Hiroshima than from any other prefecture, and Nagasaki also sent a high number of immigrants to Hawai'i and the mainland. There was, therefore, a sizable population of American-born Nisei and Kibei living in their parents' hometowns of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the time of the atomic bombings. The actual number of Japanese Americans affected by the bombings is unknown – although estimates put approximately 11,000 in Hiroshima city alone – but some 3,000 of them are known to have survived and returned to the U.S. after the war.


title: Hibakusha

text: A second group of "hibakusha" counted among Japanese American survivors are those who came to the U.S. in a later wave of Japanese immigration during the 1950s and 1960s. Most in this group were born in Japan and migrated to the U.S. in search of educational and work opportunities that were scarce in post-war Japan. Many were "war brides", or Japanese women who had married American men related to the U.S. military's occupation of Japan.


title: Hibakusha

text: As of 2014, there are about 1,000 recorded Japanese American "hibakusha" living in the United States. They receive monetary support from the Japanese government and biannual medical checkups with Hiroshima and Nagasaki doctors familiar with the particular concerns of atomic bomb survivors. The U.S. government provides no support to Japanese American "hibakusha".


title: Hibakusha

text: and seven Dutch POWs (two names known) died in the Nagasaki bombing, at least two POWs reportedly died postwar from cancer thought to have been caused by the atomic bomb.


title: Hibakusha

text: One American POW, Joe Kieyoomia, was a Navajo in Nagasaki at the time of the bombing but survived, reportedly having been shielded from the effects of the bomb by the concrete walls of his cell.


title: Hibakusha

text: A documentary called "Twice Bombed, Twice Survived: The Doubly Atomic Bombed of Hiroshima and Nagasaki" was produced in 2006. The producers found 165 people who were victims of both bombings, and the production was screened at the United Nations.


title: Hibakusha

text: On March 24, 2009, the Japanese government officially recognized Tsutomu Yamaguchi (1916–2010) as a double "hibakusha". Tsutomu Yamaguchi was confirmed to be 3 kilometers from ground zero in Hiroshima on a business trip when the bomb was detonated. He was seriously burnt on his left side and spent the night in Hiroshima. He got back to his home city of Nagasaki on August 8, a day before the bomb in Nagasaki was dropped, and he was exposed to residual radiation while searching for his relatives. He was the first officially recognized survivor of both bombings. Tsutomu Yamaguchi died at the age of 93 on January 4, 2010, of stomach cancer.


title: Hibakusha

text: "Hibakusha" and their children were (and still are) victims of severe discrimination when it comes to prospects of marriage or work due to public ignorance about the consequences of radiation sickness, with much of the public believing it to be hereditary or even contagious. This is despite the fact that no statistically demonstrable increase of birth defects/congenital malformations was found among the later conceived children born to survivors of the nuclear weapons used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or found in the later conceived children of cancer survivors who had previously received radiotherapy.


title: Hibakusha

text: The surviving women of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that could conceive, who were exposed to substantial amounts of radiation, went on and had children with no higher incidence of abnormalities/birth defects than the rate which is observed in the Japanese average.


title: Hibakusha

text: Studs Terkel's book "The Good War" includes a conversation with two "hibakusha". The postscript observes:


title: Hibakusha

text: The is a group formed by "hibakusha" in 1956 with the goals of pressuring the Japanese government to improve support of the victims and lobbying governments for the abolition of nuclear weapons.


title: Hibakusha

text: Some estimates are that 140,000 people in Hiroshima (38.9% of the population) and 70,000 people in Nagasaki (28.0% of the population) died in 1945, but how many died immediately as a result of exposure to the blast, heat, or due to radiation, is unknown. One Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC) report discusses 6,882 people examined in Hiroshima, and 6,621 people examined in Nagasaki, who were largely within 2000 meters from the hypocenter, who suffered injuries from the blast and heat but died from complications frequently compounded by acute radiation syndrome (ARS), all within about 20–30 days.


title: Hibakusha

text: In the rare cases of survival for individuals who were in utero at the time of the bombing and yet who still were close enough to be exposed to less than or equal to 0.57 Gy, no difference in their cognitive abilities was found, suggesting a threshold dose for pregnancies below which, no life-limiting issues arise. In 50 or so children who survived the gestational process and were exposed to more than this dose, putting them within about 1000 meters from the hypocenter, microcephaly was observed; this is the only elevated birth defect issue observed in the Hibakusha, occurring in approximately 50 in-utero individuals who were situated less than 1000 meters from the bombings.


title: Hibakusha

text: In a manner dependent on their distance from the hypocenter, in the 1987 "Life Span Study", conducted by the Radiation Effects Research Foundation, a statistical excess of 507 cancers, of undefined lethality, were observed in 79,972 hibakusha who had still been living between 1958–1987 and who took part in the study.


title: Hibakusha

text: An epidemiology study by the RERF estimates that from 1950 to 2000, 46% of leukemia deaths and 11% of solid cancers, of unspecified lethality, could be due to radiation from the bombs, with the statistical excess being estimated at 200 leukemia deaths and 1,700 solid cancers of undeclared lethality.


title: Dragan Stojković

text: Dragan Stojković (, ; born 3 March 1965), also known by the nickname Piksi (Пикси), is a Serbian former footballer who played as a midfielder, and the current manager of the Serbia national team. Widely regarded as one of the greatest players to ever play for the extinct Yugoslavia national team.


title: Dragan Stojković

text: Stojković was long time captain of the Yugoslavia national team and Red Star Belgrade, and is considered one of the best players in the history of Yugoslav and Serbian football. He was a star player for Yugoslavia at the 1990 FIFA World Cup (where he was selected for the World Cup All-Star Team) and 1998 FIFA World Cup where he captained the team.


title: Dragan Stojković

text: He is one of only five players to be awarded the title Star of the Red Star. He is widely considered to have never shown his true potential in Europe as injury prevented him from establishing himself at Marseille over the long term. Despite this, there is consensus among critics that he displayed an extraordinary ability throughout his career in spite of his chronic injuries, his renown being greatest in Japan.


title: Dragan Stojković

text: Born to father Dobrivoje and mother Desanka in Niš, SR Serbia, SFR Yugoslavia, Stojković took to football very early while growing up in the Pasi Poljana community near Niš. He was nicknamed Piksi after "Pixie", one of the characters from the cartoon "Pixie and Dixie and Mr. Jinks".


title: Dragan Stojković

text: In addition to his native Serbian, Stojković also speaks English, French, Italian, and some Japanese.


title: Dragan Stojković

text: Playing in the FK Radnički Niš youth system, in summer 1979, fourteen-year-old Stojković's talent was already evident as he was attached to the Vladica Kovačević-coached FK Partizan under-16 team as a temporary addition to the squad for the duration of a tournament in Quimper, France. Flown to Belgrade and then to France for the occasion, the trip marked a series of firsts for the youngster: his very first time in the Yugoslav capital Belgrade, first time travelling abroad, and his first time on an airplane.


title: Dragan Stojković

text: Upon returning to Radnički, Stojković was again attached to the FK Partizan youth squad the following summer, 1980, for youth tournaments in the Italian Adriatic coastal towns of Senigallia and Falconara Marittima.


title: Dragan Stojković

text: A midfielder and occasional forward, Stojković began his professional playing career with Yugoslav First League and hometown side Radnički Niš. His full squad debut took place at age seventeen under head coach Dušan Nenković during the 1981-82 season in the form of a substitute league appearance on 4 April 1982 away at FK Vardar. It was the young player's only full squad appearance of the season and it took place just a few days before Radnički's famous UEFA Cup semifinal tie versus Hamburger SV, the Niš club's greatest success.


title: Dragan Stojković

text: In the summer of 1986, twenty-one-year-old Stojković moved to Red Star Belgrade where he would spend the next four seasons, scoring 54 times in 120 appearances.


title: Dragan Stojković

text: By the 1989-90 season, Stojković became a transfer target for some of the biggest and richest European clubs of the day. Juventus representatives first reached out to the player as well as Red Star. However, any possibility of a deal soon fell through as Stojković was reportedly skeptical about his playing opportunities in Turin due to the UEFA-enforced three-foreigners matchday squad rule and the "bianconeri" already having three foreigners in their Dino Zoff-coached team—Soviets Sergei Aleinikov and Oleksandr Zavarov as well as Portuguese Rui Barros. In late November 1989, Olympique de Marseille owner Bernard Tapie flew to Belgrade, reaching a preliminary agreement—with the Red Star management about a transfer fee amount as well as with the player about his wages—that was to be officially signed at the end of the season during the summer 1990 transfer window. Right after agreeing a pre-contract with Marseille, Stojković was contacted by AC Milan's Adriano Galliani, who was ultimately unsuccessful in persuading Tapie to give up on Stojković. One of his most famous goals was scored in the derby against Partizan Belgrade from a corner kick.


title: Dragan Stojković

text: In the summer of 1990, twenty-five-year-old Stojković made the much publicized move to Olympique de Marseille for a transfer fee of £5.5 million, joining the star-laden squad bankrolled by French businessman/politician Bernard Tapie. The expectations were sky-high with a team featuring world-class players such as Jean-Pierre Papin, Éric Cantona, Chris Waddle, Carlos Mozer, Manuel Amoros, Didier Deschamps, Jean Tigana, Abédi Pelé, as well as newly arrived defender Basile Boli and new head coach Franz Beckenbauer fresh off winning the 1990 FIFA World Cup with West Germany. Stojković had his own shining moments at the same World Cup, all of which contributed further to Marseille's interest.


title: Dragan Stojković

text: Early into his debut season, Stojković sustained a knee injury for which he had to have surgery in Germany, forcing him to the sidelines for months. In fact, the entire 1990–91 league season was injury riddled for the Serb and he ended up making only eleven league appearances. Beckenbauer stepped down from the coaching post during the winter break, although he remained with the club in an adviser capacity. The new head coach to replace the famous German was Raymond Goethals. In the final of the UEFA European Champions' Cup, Marseille played against Stojković's former team Red Star. Stojković, a penalty kick specialist, entered the game late during the extra-time as a substitute, but as the match eventually went to a penalty shootout, he informed head coach Goethals that he did not want to take a penalty shot against his former team. Red Star won the European Cup in the shootout.


title: Dragan Stojković

text: He subsequently transferred to Hellas Verona in Italy in the summer of 1991, for ten billion lira. The team had won the scudetto just six years before, but after some financial problems had just been promoted back to serie A after one year in the Italian second league. Stojkovic had an unlucky season, plagued by injuries and disciplinary troubles, and was sold back to Marseille where he remained for two more seasons, which meant he finally won a Champions league winner medal in 1992–93. However, he was unlucky to miss the final because of injury.


title: Dragan Stojković

text: In the spring of 1994, Stojković signed with Japanese J-League team Nagoya Grampus Eight, joining a squad managed by Gordon Milne and featuring Gary Lineker.


title: Dragan Stojković

text: He spent seven seasons with Grampus Eight, retiring as a player in 2001. Stojković played 183 matches for the club, scoring 57 times. He was named J-League MVP for the 1995 season. Since then, he has gained huge popularity among Japanese supporters, most notably among Nagoya Grampus fans, due to his skillful display, which followed him even after his retirement. Fans commemorated him by chanting "Ale Piksi" whenever he scored a goal.


title: Dragan Stojković

text: Stojković made his under-21 debut on 11 October 1983 versus Norway in Pančevo as part of qualifying for the 1984 UEFA European Under-21 Football Championship. Playing under head coach Ivan Toplak, the youngster from Radnički Niš scored on his debut as Yugoslavia won 6–2.


title: Dragan Stojković

text: Stojković made 84 career international appearances, scoring 15 times, those split between the SFR Yugoslavia national team and the FR Yugoslavia national team. He played for the former in UEFA Euro 1984, 1984 Summer Olympics, 1988 Summer Olympics and the 1990 FIFA World Cup and for the latter in the 1998 FIFA World Cup and UEFA Euro 2000. He made his international debut on 12 November 1983 in a scoreless draw against France.


title: Dragan Stojković

text: At the 1990 World Cup, Stojković scored both goals in Yugoslavia's 2–1 round-of-16 defeat of Spain in Verona. In the quarter-final, he was one of three Yugoslavs to miss in the 3–2 penalty shootout defeat to world champions Argentina.


title: Dragan Stojković

text: He was later called to UEFA Euro 1992, but the nation would be suspended due to the Yugoslav Wars. After being part of team in 1998 FIFA World Cup and UEFA Euro 2000, his final international match was against the country he spent much of his playing career in, Japan, on 4 July 2001.


title: Dragan Stojković

text: A highly skilful midfield playmaker, Stojković is considered to be one of the greatest players ever to come out of former Yugoslavia; he was also capable of playing as an attacking midfielder, as a central midfielder, or as a forward, and was even used as a "target–man" on occasion. A quick, opportunistic, and unpredictable player, he was known in particular for his vision, creativity, and passing ability, as well as his excellent technique and dribbling skills, which enabled him to beat several opponents, and earned him the nickname "the Maradona of the Balkans." Despite his talent, however, his career was affected by several injuries, which hindered his potential.


title: Dragan Stojković

text: Upon retiring in 2001, 36-year-old Stojković immediately became the Serbian Football Association president, succeeding Miljan Miljanić.


title: Dragan Stojković

text: During that period he was elected as a member of the UEFA technical committee and member of FIFA football committee for an 8-year term.


title: Dragan Stojković

text: In July 2005, Stojković became the president of Red Star Belgrade. Similar to his FA appointment four years earlier, Stojković again became a successor to another tenured, larger than life figure in Serbian football, Dragan Džajić, who had occupied various leading posts within the club's management over the preceding 26 years. The transfer of power was full of controversy with plenty of lobbying behind the scenes and at times open feuding in the press.


title: Dragan Stojković

text: One of Stojković's first orders of business ahead of the 2005–06 season was firing the head coach he inherited, Ratko Dostanić, and bringing Walter Zenga who thus became the first foreigner ever to coach Red Star. Calling on his Japan connections, Stojković also got Toyota Motor Corporation to invest in the club through a shirt sponsorship deal. Additionally, he also opened the club's doors to various prominent Serbian companies like Delta Holding and Telekom Srbija thus creating a pool of sponsors.


title: Dragan Stojković

text: On the player personnel front, Stojković initially more-or-less continued the existing "buy low sell high" policy that meant players were mostly recruited from Red Star's own youth system or smaller clubs throughout Serbia and Montenegro, and then sold abroad as soon as they gained some exposure on the European scene. Stojković's most prominent initial move was loaning out striker Marko Pantelić to Hertha Berlin for €250,000 on the last day of the summer 2005 transfer window (Pantelić would eventually be sold to Hertha for additional €1.5 million in April 2006). On the other hand, 20-year-old striker Milan Purović and 22-year-old keeper Vladimir Stojković were brought to the club from Budućnost Podgorica and FK Zemun, respectively. Additionally, by bringing in Ghanaian midfielder Haminu Dramani, president Stojković indicated he was also interested in affordable foreign imports, which would soon become a staple of his transfer policy. All three new arrivals gelled well with the existing squad (featuring the likes of Nikola Žigić, Boško Janković, Milan Biševac, Dušan Basta, Nenad Kovačević, Aleksandar Luković, and Milan Dudić), as Red Star jumped out to a lead in the league, including a 2–0 home win against the cross-town rivals FK Partizan in mid-October 2005.


title: Dragan Stojković

text: Simultaneously, the club also played some inspired football in the UEFA Cup—including a notable 3–1 home win versus A.S. Roma—before being prevented from progressing to the eight-finals stage during the group's last matchday away at RC Strasbourg via a goal by Kevin Gameiro deep into injury time.


title: Dragan Stojković

text: The squad was further strengthened during the 2005-06 winter transfer window, especially the spots upfront, with the arrivals of attacking midfielder Igor Burzanović from Budućnost Podgorica, Japanese forward Takayuki Suzuki, midfielder Nenad Milijaš from FK Zemun, and striker Dušan Đokić from FK Voždovac. Red Star comfortably won the league-cup double, losing only two league matches during the season.


title: Dragan Stojković

text: Winning the double combined with some fine European outings during the previous season raised the fans' expectations considerably as they now wanted the existing Red Star squad kept intact (especially Nikola Žigić who had reportedly already become a transfer target for some high-profile English Premiership clubs) in order to make a serious run at qualifying for the UEFA Champions League group stage. However, the first move came as a complete shock—president Stojković sold goalkeeper Vladimir Stojković to FC Nantes, reportedly for €3 million. Trying to deal with the angry fan reaction, he attempted to explain the move as being necessitated by the club's accumulated debts that had reportedly grown to alarming levels following "years of mismanagement and unpaid commitments of some of the key sponsor pool members". With head coach Zenga departing, Stojković hired celebrated coach Dušan Bajević who thus returned to Serbian/ex-Yugoslav football after almost two decades of coaching in Greece with great success. The transfers out of the club continued with Milan Dudić sold to Red Bull Salzburg, Haminu Dramani to Gençlerbirliği, and Aleksandar Luković to Udinese, however, their departures caused comparatively less angry fan reaction. Preparing for Champions League qualifying, players brought in by president Stojković were twenty-four-year-old Bulgarian international attacking midfielder Blagoy Georgiev, Brazilian forward Ely Thadeu, and Senegalese defender Ibrahima Gueye.


title: Dragan Stojković

text: Red Star easily eliminated Irish champions Cork City at the start of Champions League qualifying, however, getting drawn against Carlo Ancelotti's powerhouse AC Milan featuring Kaká, Andrea Pirlo, Clarence Seedorf, Cafu, Gennaro Gattuso, Pippo Inzaghi, Billy Costacurta, etc. in the next qualifying round proved too difficult to overcome, as the Belgrade club lost 1–3 on aggregate. Failure to reach the Champions League group stage prompted another round of transfers out of the club with captain Nenad Kovačević sold to RC Lens, Boško Janković to RCD Mallorca, and finally the club's most prized asset Nikola Žigić to Racing Santander while Milan Biševac's future transfer to Lens effective 2006-07 winter transfer window was already agreed upon in advance.


title: Dragan Stojković

text: On the other hand, Ecuadorian defensive midfielder Segundo Castillo joined the club towards the end of the transfer window. Finally, on the last day of the summer 2006 transfer window Stojković brought in the club's most prominent foreign acquisition to date and since, thirty-three-year-old Aílton who had been the Bundesliga top scorer only two years prior.


title: Dragan Stojković

text: On 12 October 2007 Stojković announced that he was stepping down as the president of Red Star Belgrade.


title: Dragan Stojković

text: In April 2009, at a press conference announcing the club's current debt to be €22.3 million, Red Star Belgrade general secretary Saša Kozić (subordinate to club president Dan Tana) accused the former club president Stojković of "running the club irresponsibly, to say the least". Kozić—who had much like the current president Tana been part of the club's managing board during Stojković's 2005-2007 club presidency—added that Red Star's operating expenses had increased significantly under Stojković to €1.5–2 million per month, including the salaries of club officials doubling during 2007 as well as promotional expenses (normally at €100,000) ballooning to €1.1 million over the two-year period. He added that in total the club had spent almost €50 million during Stojković's two-year presidency; funds obtained either through bank loans or from player sales.


title: Dragan Stojković

text: Responding to Kozić's accusations, Nagoya head coach Stojković "rejected them categorically", claiming his physical absence from Serbia is being used as "cover-up for Red Star's bad business results".


title: Dragan Stojković

text: Despite his status as the club's playing legend as well as its official "fifth star", ever since his 2007 resignation from the post of Red Star president, Stojković has had a contentious relationship with a section of the club's ultras, Delije, who blame him for "jumping ship and leaving a financial mess behind".


title: Dragan Stojković

text: In January 2012, while having coffee at a Red Star Belgrade licensed and operated cafe within the club's Marakana stadium, Nagoya head coach Stojković—in town for the funeral of Miljan Miljanić—was forced to leave his old club's premises by a group of three Delije following an uncomfortable verbal exchange during which the club's former president was reportedly told he's "not welcome". The incident led to club's current president Vladan Lukić expressing "shock and dismay" and announcing personal intention of inviting Stojković for a cup of coffee in his office, stating "the club's doors are always open to him" while adding that "it's superfluous to explain what Dragan Stojković means to this club".


title: Dragan Stojković

text: Stojković, for his part, mostly shrugged off the incident as "three young men, one of whom I recognized as the ultra fan group leader back from my [club presidential] tenure, walking up to me and telling me they're not permitting me to be there" while further dismissing their action as being motivated by "dislike of me because I had had a clear code of conduct that excluded them [club's ultra fans] from influencing club policy and prevented them from enjoying certain [financial] benefits". Within days, Delije put out a press release asking Stojković for detailed explanation of club's finances during his presidential tenure, specifically posing a question to him "how's it possible to take over a club with debts of €5 million and then depart two years later, leaving the same club with €20 million in debts while simultaneously over the same period receiving €40 million worth of transfer fees for sold players".


title: Dragan Stojković

text: In November 2012—amidst Red Star's 2008-2009 club president Dan Tana's announcement of writing-off the €600,000 that the entrepreneur had reportedly given the cash-strapped club out of his own pocket during his club presidency—Stojković too announced he's willing to forget the €32,000 the club had reportedly owed him due to Stojković reportedly paying the amount out of his own pocket for the players' hotel stay during the club's away trip to Milan. Stojković reportedly decided to forgive the club's debt to him after previously refusing to do so when asked to during Vladan Lukić's club presidency.


title: Dragan Stojković

text: The antagonism between Delije and Stojković reignited again in late May 2022, more than 10 years after the initial 2012 cafe incident, when Stojković—now Serbia national team head coach—came to the Marakana to watch the Serbian Cup final. Knowing he'll be at the match in person, some of the Delije unfurled a sizable banner calling Stojković out again over his 2005-2007 time as club president, claiming it set up a "decade-long calamity for the club".


title: Dragan Stojković

text: Stojković returned to Japan to take over as manager of his former club, Nagoya Grampus, on 22 January 2008. On 15 March 2008 the former J.League MVP won his first game as manager as Nagoya Grampus stunned AFC Champions League 2007 Champions Urawa Reds 2–0 at Urawa's home, the Saitama Stadium. Despite his glorious playing career at Nagoya, some Nagoya fans were initially worried about his lack of experience as a coach; however, his team finished in 3rd place and he led the club to AFC Champions League for the first time in his debut season.


title: Dragan Stojković

text: In a 2009 J.League match between Yokohama F. Marinos and Nagoya Grampus, Stojković amazed everyone by scoring a goal from his technical area. One of the players had just been injured, so the goalkeeper Tetsuya Enomoto kicked the ball out of play to stop the game. Stojković got out of his seat in the dugout and volleyed the ball, which went high into the air before dipping into goal. For this action he was sent off by the referee.


title: Dragan Stojković

text: On 20 November 2010, Stojković led Grampus to the J. League title, the club's very first. Stojković has stated that he had learnt a lot about football from former manager Arsène Wenger, who had led the club to their previous best showing in 1995 when they finished runners-up and Emperor's Cup champions, and had kept regular contact with him, with Wenger giving him advice and congratulating him on the club's success. Stojković has been named by Wenger as the person he would like to take over Arsenal when he has gone stating "Our ideas are the same and we both strive for perfect football." After the successful 2010 season, Stojković was awarded the J. League Manager of the Year.


title: Dragan Stojković

text: Stojković was announced as manager of Chinese Super League side Guangzhou R&F on 24 August 2015 on a contract that would expire in 2017. On 8 September 2016, Guangzhou R&F confirmed that Stojković had signed a renewed contract with Guangzhou R&F until the end of the 2020. Stojković saved the team from the threat of relegation in 2015. The rest of his time in charge was characterised by attacking football, with striker Eran Zahavi twice winning the CSL golden boot award. Guangzhou R&F also made the semi-finals of the CFA Cup in 2016 and 2018, and just missed out on qualifying for the Asian Champions League in 2017. The team finished 12th in the 2019 Super League and had the league's worst defensive record, conceding 72 goals in 30 games. After spending over four seasons at the club - making him Guangzhou R&F's longest ever serving manager - Stojkovic left the club in January 2020.


title: Dragan Stojković

text: On 3 March 2021, on his birthday, Stojković was appointed new manager of the Serbia national football team. Under his leadership Serbia qualified for the 2022 FIFA World Cup after 2-1 win over Portugal in the last match with Aleksandar Mitrović scoring in the 90th minute.


title: Dragan Stojković

text: In the 2022 World Cup, Serbia were drawn in Group G with Brazil, Cameroon, and Switzerland. On November 24 in the opening game of group play, Serbia lost to Brazil 2-0 with Richarilson scoring two second goals. On November 28, Serbia faced Cameroon in the second game of group play. Cameroon opened the scoring with an early goal but Serbia fought back to score two goals in extra time before end of the first half. Serbia opened the second half with another goal in the 53th minute by Aleksander Mitrovic. However, Cameroon were able to fight back and equalize the game with two quick goals in the 63rd and 66th minute marks. The game ended in a thrilling draw with both countries sharing a point in group play. In the final game of group play against Switzerland, Serbia needed a win and help to advance. On December 2, Serbia played Switzerland and Switzerland opened the scoring with a goal in the 20th minute but Serbia battled back and scored goals in the 26th mark by Aleksander Mitrovic and in the 35th minute by Dusan Vlahovic to take the lead. Switzerland was able to score before the end of the first half and equalize the game 2-2. Switzerland scored the decisive goal in the 48th minute and secured the victory in hotly contested match. Serbia finished 4th in Group G and were eliminated.


title: Second Battle of Ypres

text: During the First World War, the Second Battle of Ypres was fought from for control of the tactically important high ground to the east and south of the Flemish town of Ypres in western Belgium. The First Battle of Ypres had been fought the previous autumn. The Second Battle of Ypres was the first mass use by Germany of poison gas on the Western Front.


title: Second Battle of Ypres

text: The eminent German chemist Walther Nernst, who was in the army in 1914 as a volunteer driver, saw how trenches produced deadlock. He proposed to Colonel Max Bauer, the German general staff officer responsible for liaison with scientists, that they could empty the opposing trenches by a surprise attack with tear gas. Observing a field test of this idea, the chemist Fritz Haber instead proposed using heavier-than-air chlorine gas


title: Second Battle of Ypres

text: The German commander Erich von Falkenhayn agreed to try the new weapon, but intended to use it in a diversionary attack by his 4th Army. Falkenhayn wanted to use the gas to cover the withdrawal of Imperial German Army units to the Eastern Front to assist its ally Austria-Hungary in the Gorlice–Tarnów offensive against the Russian Empire. The gas would be released by siphoning liquid chlorine out of cylinders; the gas could not be released directly because the valves would freeze; wind would carry the gas to the enemy lines. 5730 gas cylinders, the largest weighing each, were carried into the front line. Installation was supervised by Haber, Otto Hahn, James Franck and Gustav Hertz. Twice cylinders were breached by shell fire, the second time three men were killed and fifty wounded. Some of the Germans were protected by miners's oxygen breathing apparatus.


title: Second Battle of Ypres

text: The Ypres salient was selected for the attack. It followed the canal, bulging eastward around the town. North of the salient, the Belgian army held the line of the Yser and the north end of the salient was held by two French divisions. The eastern part of the salient was defended by the Canadian and two British divisions. The II Corps and V Corps of the Second Army comprised the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Cavalry Divisions and the 4th, 27th, 28th, Northumbrian, Lahore and 1st Canadian divisions.


title: Second Battle of Ypres

text: In "A record of the Engagements of the British Armies in France and Flanders", 1914–1918 (1923 [1990]) E. A. James used "The Official Names of the Battles and Other Engagements Fought by the Military Forces of the British Empire during the Great War, 1914–1919, and the Third Afghan War, 1919: Report of the Battles Nomenclature Committee as approved by the Army Council" (1921) to provide a summary of each engagement and the formations involved. In The Battles of Ypres, 1915 six engagements involving the Second Army were recorded, four during the Second Battle (22 April – 25 May).


title: Second Battle of Ypres

text: On 22 April 1915 at about , the 4th Army released of chlorine gas on a front between the hamlets of Langemark () and Gravenstafel () on the Allied line held by French Territorial and (Moroccan and Algerian troops) of the French 45th and 87th divisions. The French troops in the path of the gas cloud suffered with fatalities. Troops fled in all directions,


title: Second Battle of Ypres

text: A gap in the French front was left undefended. German infantry followed well behind the cloud, breathing through cotton pads soaked with sodium thiosulfate solution and occupied the villages of Langemark and Pilkem, where they dug in, even though they might have occupied Ypres almost unopposed. They had taken 2,000 prisoners and 51 guns. Canadian troops defending the southern flank of the break-in identified chlorine because it smelled like their drinking water. The Germans released more chlorine gas at them the following day. Casualties were especially heavy for the 13th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF), which was enveloped on three sides and had over-extended its left flank after the Algerian Division broke.


title: Second Battle of Ypres

text: In an action at Kitcheners' Wood, the 10th Battalion of the 2nd Canadian Brigade was ordered to counter-attack in the gap created by the gas attack. They formed up after on 22 April, with the 16th Battalion (Canadian Scottish) of the 3rd Brigade arriving to support the advance. Both battalions attacked with over in waves of two companies each, at Without reconnaissance, the battalions ran into obstacles halfway to their objective. Engaged by small-arms fire from the wood, they began an impromptu bayonet charge. The attack cleared the former oak plantation of Germans at a 75 per cent casualty rate. The British press were confused by the attack:


title: Second Battle of Ypres

text: The Germans reported that they treated 200 gas casualties, 12 of whom died. The Allies reported 5,000 killed and 15,000 wounded.


title: Second Battle of Ypres

text: Within days the British were advised by John Scott Haldane to counter the effects of the gas by urinating into a cloth and breathing through it. Both sides set about developing more effective gas masks.


title: Second Battle of Ypres

text: The village of St. Julien (now Sint-Juliaan; ) was in the rear of the 1st Canadian Division until the poison-gas attack of 22 April, when it became the front line. Some of the first fighting in the village involved the stand of lance corporal Frederick Fisher of the 13th Battalion CEF's machine-gun detachment; Fisher went out twice with a handful of men and a Colt machine gun, preventing advancing German troops from passing through St. Julien into the rear of the Canadian front line. He was killed the following day.


title: Second Battle of Ypres

text: On the morning of 24 April, the Germans released another gas cloud towards the re-formed Canadian line just west of St. Julien. Word was passed to the troops to urinate on their handkerchiefs and place them over their nose and mouth. The countermeasures were insufficient, and German troops took the village. The next day the York and Durham Brigade units of the Northumberland Division counter-attacked, failing to secure their objectives but establishing a new line closer to the village. On 26 April 4, 6 and 7 Battalions, the Northumberland Brigade, the first Territorial brigade to go into action, attacked and gained a foothold in the village but were forced back, having suffered Despite hundreds of casualties, the 2nd Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers participated without respite in the battles at Frezenberg and Bellewaarde. On 24 April the battalion, subjected to a German gas attack near St. Julien, was nearly annihilated.


title: Second Battle of Ypres

text: The German Army first used chlorine-gas cylinders in April 1915 against the French Army at Ypres, when yellow-green clouds drifted towards the Allied trenches. The gas had a distinctive odour, resembling pineapple and pepper. The French officers, assuming at first that the German infantry were advancing behind a smoke screen, alerted the troops. When the gas reached the front Allied trenches, soldiers began to complain of chest pains and a burning sensation in the throat.


title: Second Battle of Ypres

text: Captain Francis Scrimger of the 2nd Canadian Field Ambulance may have passed the order to use urine to counteract the gas, on the advice of Lieutenant-Colonel George Gallie Nasmith. Soldiers realised they were being gassed and many ran as fast as they could. An hour after the attack began, there was a gap in the Allied line. Fearing the chlorine, few German soldiers moved forward and the delay enabled Canadian and British troops to retake the position before the Germans could exploit the gap.


title: Second Battle of Ypres

text: After the first German chlorine-gas attacks, Allied troops were supplied with masks of cotton pads soaked in urine; it had been discovered that the urea in the pad neutralised the chlorine. The pads were held over the face until the gas dispersed. Other soldiers preferred to use a handkerchief, sock or flannel body-belt, dampened with a sodium-bicarbonate solution and tied across the mouth and nose, until the gas passed. Soldiers found it difficult to fight like this, and attempts were made to develop a better means of protection against gas attacks. By July 1915, soldiers received efficient gas masks and anti-asphyxiation respirators. Private W. Hay of the Royal Scots arrived in Ypres just after the chlorine-gas attack on 22 April 1915:


title: Second Battle of Ypres

text: The Germans moved field artillery forward, placing three army corps opposite the 27th and 28th Divisions on the Frezenberg ridge (). The German attack began on 8 May with a bombardment of the 83rd Brigade in trenches on the forward slope of the ridge, but the first and second infantry assaults were repelled by the survivors. However, the third German assault of the morning pushed the defenders back. Although the neighbouring 80th Brigade repulsed the attack, the 84th Brigade was pushed back; this left a gap in the line. The Germans were prevented from advancing further by Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry (PPCLI)'s counter-attacks and a night move by the 10th Brigade. The PPCLI held the line at a steep cost; their 700-man force was reduced to 150, who were in no shape to fight. After this, their unofficial motto—"Holding up the whole damn line"—is still used today.


title: Second Battle of Ypres

text: On 24 May the Germans released a gas attack that hit Shell Trap Farm and to the area around the north west, which was affected the most by the attack. A report of the event by Captain Thomas Leahy, of the 2nd Royal Dublin Fusiliers, shows that their C.O. Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Loveband suspected a gas attack and had warned all company officers. Later the Germans threw up red lights over their trench, which would signal a gas release.


title: Second Battle of Ypres

text: German forces managed to advance and occupy the British line to north and left of the Battalion. The Battalion was now under heavy fire from the German forces. But with shellfire and the aid from the 9th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders they managed to hold their trenches to the end.


title: Second Battle of Ypres

text: By the end of the battle, British forces had withdrawn to a new line 3 miles closer to Ypres, thereby resulting in a compression of its surrounding salient. The city, bombarded by artillery fire, was demolished. Although poison gas had been used on the Eastern Front, it surprised the Allies and about 7,000 gas casualties were transported in field ambulances and treated in casualty clearing stations. In May and June, 350 British deaths were recorded from gas poisoning. Both sides developed gas weapons and counter-measures, which changed the nature of gas warfare; the French and British used gas at the Battle of Loos in late September. Gas protection was somewhat improved with the issue of improvised respirators made from cotton waste pads impregnated with sodium hyposulphite, sodium bicarbonate and glycerin. The respirators made little difference, however, due to lack of training and the use of local contraptions and poorly made items imported from Britain. The "P helmet" (or "Tube Helmet") soaked in sodium phenate was issued by December 1915, and the PH helmet (effective against phosgene) was issued in early 1916.


title: Second Battle of Ypres

text: Although many French troops ran for their lives, others stood their ground and waited for the cloud to pass. Field Marshal Sir John French, Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force, wrote,


title: Second Battle of Ypres

text: The Canadian Division mounted an effective defence but had 5,975 casualties by its withdrawal on 3 May. The division was unprepared for the warfare prevailing on the Western Front, where linear tactics were ineffective against attackers armed with magazine rifles and machine guns. The Canadian field artillery had been effective but the deficiencies of the Ross rifle worsened tactical difficulties. The Canadian Division received several thousand replacements shortly after the battle. At Second Ypres, the smallest tactical unit in the infantry was a company; by 1917 it would be the section. The Canadians were employed offensively later in 1915 but not successfully. The battle was the beginning of a long period of analysis and experiment to improve the effectiveness of Canadian infantry weapons, artillery and liaison between infantry and artillery.


title: Second Battle of Ypres

text: After the war, German casualties from 21 April to 30 May were recorded as 34,933 by the official historians of the . In the British Official History, J. E. Edmonds and G. C. Wynne recorded British losses of 59,275 casualties, the French about 18,000 casualties on 22 April and another 3,973 from Canadian casualties from 22 April to 3 May were 5,975, of whom about 1,000 men were killed. The worst day was 24 April, when were suffered during infantry attacks, artillery bombardments and gas discharges. In 2003, Clayton wrote that thousands of men of the 45th and 87th divisions ran from the gas but that the number of casualties was low. The Germans overran both divisions' artillery but the survivors rallied and held a new line further back. In 2010, Humphries and Maker, in their translated edition of "Der Weltkrieg" recorded that by 9 May, there had been more than 35,000 German casualties, 59,275 British between 22 April and 31 May and very many French casualties, 18,000 on 22 April alone. In 2012, Sheldon gave similar figures and in 2014, Greenhalgh wrote that French casualties had been exaggerated by propaganda against German "frightfulness" and that in 1998, Olivier Lepick had estimated that were killed by gas in April out of casualties.


title: Second Battle of Ypres

text: The First Attack on Bellewaarde was conducted by the 3rd Division of V Corps on 16 June 1915 and the Second Attack on Bellewaarde, a larger operation, was conducted from by the 3rd Division and the 14th Division of VI Corps. The Battle of Mont Sorrel took place south of Ypres with the 20th Division (XIV Corps) and the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Canadian divisions of the Canadian Corps. The Third Battle of Ypres, also known as the Battle of Passchendaele, was fought from 31 July to 10 November 1917.


title: Second Battle of Ypres

text: Canadian participation in the Battle of Gravenstafel is commemorated on the Saint Julien Memorial in the village. During the Second Battle of Ypres, Lt. Col. John McCrae M.D. of Guelph wrote "In Flanders Fields" in the voice of those who perished in the war. Published in "Punch" 8 December 1915, the poem is still recited on Remembrance Day and Memorial Day.


title: May Britt

text: May Britt (born May Britt Wilkens; 22 March 1934) is a Swedish actress who had a brief career in the 1950s in Italy and later in the United States. She was married to American entertainer Sammy Davis Jr. from 1960 to 1968.


title: May Britt

text: Britt was discovered as a teenager by Italian filmmakers Carlo Ponti and Mario Soldati in 1951. She was then an assistant to a Stockholm photographer. The two filmmakers were in Sweden to cast a young blonde for the title role in "Jolanda, the Daughter of the Black Corsair". They came to the studio where she worked to view photographs of models. After meeting her, they offered her the part. May Britt, as she was renamed professionally, moved to Rome. As expected, she made her movie debut as the leading actress in "Jolanda, the Daughter of the Black Corsair" (1952). (Gary Fishgall, in "Gonna Do Great Things: The Life of Sammy Davis Jr.", wrote of Britt, "... she made her film debut in "Le Infideli" in 1952.")


title: May Britt

text: In the following years she worked in some ten Cinecittà productions. She also featured in the epic film "War and Peace" of 1956.


title: May Britt

text: In the late 1950s, Britt relocated to Hollywood after signing with 20th Century Fox. She starred in a few movies, including "The Young Lions" (1958) with Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift, "The Hunters" (1958) with Robert Mitchum and Robert Wagner and "Murder, Inc." (1960) with Peter Falk, as well as a much-criticised remake of "The Blue Angel" (1959) in the legendary role first created by Marlene Dietrich in 1930.


title: May Britt

text: She met Sammy Davis Jr. in 1959. They began dating, and, after a brief engagement, were married on 13 November 1960. Their wedding caused controversy. A rumour or myth was that John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy told Frank Sinatra to tell Davis not to marry May until after the 1960 Presidential Election. At that time interracial marriage was forbidden by law in 31 U.S. states, and only in 1967 were those laws (by then down to 17 states) ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. Prior to the wedding, Britt converted to Judaism. The couple were married by Reform Rabbi William M. Kramer. It has been confirmed, however, by Sammy and Britt's daughter Tracey, Nancy Sinatra, and documentarian Sam Pollard that this marriage resulted in President Kennedy rejecting an invitation for Davis to perform at his Inauguration. Yet, Harry Belafonte who was married to a white woman at the time, was invited to perform.


title: May Britt

text: Once married, Britt left the movies. She and Davis had a daughter, Tracey (b. 5 July 1961 - d. 2 November 2020), and adopted two sons: Mark Sidney Davis (born 1960, adopted 4 June 1963) and Jeff (born 1963). They divorced in 1968 after Davis reportedly had an affair with dancer Lola Falana.


title: May Britt

text: After the divorce, Britt resumed working with sporadic television guest appearances, the last in 1988. Since then she has been retired and mainly involved in painting. She currently resides in California. Her third husband, Lennart Ringquist, died in 2017.


title: May Britt

text: May Britt was portrayed by Megan Dodds in the 1998 television film "The Rat Pack" which depicted her marriage to Sammy Davis Jr., who was played by Don Cheadle.


title: Benny Gantz

text: Benjamin Gantz (, Transliterated: ; born 9 June 1959) is an Israeli politician and retired army general serving as the minister of Defense since 2020 and deputy prime minister of Israel since 2021. He previously served as the alternate prime minister of Israel from 2020 to 2021.


title: Benny Gantz

text: He served as the 20th chief of General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) from 2011 to 2015. In December 2018, he entered politics by establishing a new political party named Israel Resilience. The party later allied itself with Telem and Yesh Atid to form Blue and White (Hebrew: "Kaḥol Lavan"), the colours of the Israeli national flag. Gantz's Blue and White alliance platform includes introducing prime ministerial term limits, barring indicted politicians from serving in the Knesset, amending the nation-state law to include Israeli minorities, limiting the power of the Chief Rabbinate of Israel over marriages, investing in early education, expanding health care, and re-entering negotiations with the Palestinian Authority for a peace agreement.


title: Benny Gantz

text: Gantz was the 17th Speaker of the Knesset from 26 March 2020 to 17 May 2020. On 20 April 2020, Gantz agreed to join a rotation government with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Under the terms of the agreement, Gantz would serve as Alternate Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, before succeeding Netanyahu as Prime Minister of Israel in November 2021. However, the coalition collapsed, resulting in another election in 2021. As defense minister, Gantz was in charge of Operation Guardian of the Walls in Gaza. In June 2021, he was reappointed Defense Minister and became Deputy Prime Minister.


title: Benny Gantz

text: Benjamin Gantz was born in Kfar Ahim, Israel, in 1959. His mother Malka was a Holocaust survivor, originally from Mezőkovácsháza, Hungary. His father Nahum came from Sovata, Székely Land, Romania, and was arrested by the British authorities for trying to enter Palestine illegally, before reaching Israel. His parents were among the founders of Moshav Kfar Ahim, a cooperative agricultural community in south-central Israel. In his youth, he attended the Shafir High School in Merkaz Shapira, and boarding school at the HaKfar HaYarok youth village in Ramat HaSharon.


title: Benny Gantz

text: Gantz is a graduate of the IDF Command and Staff College and the National Security College. He holds a bachelor's degree in history from Tel Aviv University, a master's degree in political science from the University of Haifa, and an additional master's degree in National Resources Management from the National Defense University in the United States. Gantz is married to Revital, with whom he has four children. He lives in Rosh HaAyin.


title: Benny Gantz

text: In February 2011, following the government decision to promote Gantz to Chief of the General Staff, Attorney Avi'ad Vissuli of the Forum for the Land of Israel unsuccessfully petitioned to revoke the appointment.


title: Benny Gantz

text: In February 2019, an Israeli-American woman accused Gantz of exposing himself to her 40 years earlier, causing her traumatic disorders. Gantz denied all allegations, claiming that such an incident never took place, and that the allegations were politically motivated. Gantz has since sued the woman for defamation.


title: Benny Gantz

text: Gantz was drafted into the IDF in 1977. He volunteered as a paratrooper in the Paratroopers Brigade. His first mission as a young conscript in 1977 was as part of the security detail for Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's visit to Israel. As a paratrooper, he fought in Operation Litani in March 1978 and also participated in a June 1978 raid against a Fatah training base in Lebanon. In 1979, Gantz became an officer after completing Officer Candidate School. He returned to the Paratroopers Brigade and served as a platoon leader and company commander, completed a course in the U.S. Army Special Forces, and fought in the First Lebanon War.


title: Benny Gantz

text: Later on, he led 890 "Efe" (Echis) paratroop battalion in counter-guerrilla operations in the South Lebanon security zone. In 1991, he commanded the commando unit that was on the ground in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, for 36 hours, securing the Operation Solomon airlift of 14,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel. He served in senior command positions during the Second Intifada and Second Lebanon War.


title: Benny Gantz

text: In the course of his military career, Gantz served as commander of the Shaldag Unit in the Israeli Air Force; commander of the 35th Paratroopers Brigade; commander of the Reserves Division in the Northern Command; commander of the Lebanon Liaison Unit; commander of the Judea and Samaria Division in 2000, before becoming the commander of the Israeli Northern Command in 2001; and as Israel's military attaché in the United States from 2005 until 2009, before becoming the deputy chief of the General Staff.


title: Benny Gantz

text: Following the canceled appointment of previous nominee Aluf Yoav Galant, Defense Minister Ehud Barak announced on 5 February 2011 that he would be recommending to the government that Gantz be appointed the 20th Chief of the General Staff (after the pending approval by the Turkel Advisory Committee on Senior Appointments and a government vote). Gantz had already been in the process of an honorable discharge from his army service.


title: Benny Gantz

text: On 13 February 2011, the Israeli government unanimously approved Gantz to be the next IDF chief of staff. According to "The Jerusalem Post", Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated in the weekly Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem that Gantz was an "excellent officer and experienced commander, and had rich operational and logistical experience, with all the attributes needed to be a successful army commander".


title: Benny Gantz

text: On 14 February 2011, Gantz returned to the IDF and assumed command as the chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces. He served for the required three years and was nominated for a fourth year, which he agreed to fulfill, followed by retirement.


title: Benny Gantz

text: In his first year as Chief of the General Staff, Gantz appointed the IDF's first-ever female major-general, Orna Barbivai. In July 2011, Gantz appointed a special committee to address a controversy that had developed concerning mention of the word "Elohim", "God", in the military Yizkor prayer. The committee determined that a disputed passage should read "Yizkor 'Am Yisrael", "May the Nation of Israel remember", and not "Yizkor Elohim", "May God remember". Gantz upheld the committee's ruling.


title: Benny Gantz

text: Gantz commanded the IDF when it fought against Palestinian factions in Gaza in the campaigns Operation Pillar of Defense and Operation Protective Edge.


title: Benny Gantz

text: Gantz was the chairman of the Fifth Dimension, a computer security and law enforcement technology company, which specialized in tracking via smartphone spyware. The company closed due to financial reasons, after its Russian investor Viktor Vekselberg was sanctioned under CAATSA by the United States during the Special Counsel investigation into Russian attempts to interfere with the US election, led by Robert Mueller.


title: Benny Gantz

text: In December 2018, Gantz announced the formation of a new political party, but did not originally disclose his views or name of the organization. Polls demonstrated fluctuating support for the party. On 27 December 2018, Gantz formally established the Israel Resilience Party ("Hosen LeYisrael" in Hebrew), with the intention of running in the upcoming April 2019 election. In his first major political speech on 29 January 2019, Gantz pledged to strengthen Israeli settlement blocs in the West Bank and said that Israel would never leave the Golan Heights. He neither endorsed nor rejected a two-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. "The Jordan Valley will be our border, but we won't let millions of Palestinians living beyond the fence to endanger our identity as a Jewish state," he said. In addition, Gantz helped formulate a unilateral separation plan for the Institute for National Security Studies calling for the unilateral creation of a contiguous Palestinian "entity" on 65% of the West Bank and a freeze on construction in settlements outside the major settlement blocs expected to be retained in a future peace agreement in order to stave off the perceived threat of a one-state solution, which the plan termed as being an existential threat to Israel, along with a nuclear Iran.


title: Benny Gantz

text: On 17 February 2019, at the Munich Security Conference, Gantz enumerated the main challenges of the West as "extremist Iran, Islamic terror, and regional instability". Gantz criticized Benjamin Netanyahu's decision to bar U.S. Congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib from entering Israel, saying that Omar and Tlaib would have seen that the West Bank is "the second best place" for Arabs in the Middle East. In December 2021, Gantz described the Islamic Republic of Iran as "the biggest threat to the global and regional peace and stability".


title: Benny Gantz

text: Gantz negotiated with leader of the Yesh Atid party Yair Lapid, leader of the Telem party Moshe Ya'alon, and former Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, as well as with Orly Levy's Gesher. and reached an agreement with these parties, with the exception of Gesher, to form a political alliance and run jointly. the alliance, named Blue and White, was formally announced on 21 February 2019. with Gantz and Lapid agreeing to rotate the position of Prime Minister with one another if elected.


title: Benny Gantz

text: In the April election, the alliance won 35 seats, tying for first place with Netanyahu's Likud, but winning a smaller share of the popular vote. following the election, Gantz conceded defeat, and Netanyahu received the opportunity to form a government for President Reuven Rivlin, who gave Netanyahu until 29 May to form a governing coalition. Netanyahu was unable to do so, and the mandate to form a government returned to Rivlin. before he could grant the mandate to another individual, potentially Gantz, Netanyahu successfully pushed to dissolve the Knesset on 30 May, leading to new elections in September.


title: Benny Gantz

text: Blue and White won 33 seats in the September election, one more than the Likud's 32 seats. Rivlin met with representatives of all elected parties on 22 and 23 September to receive recommendations on whom to allow to form a government. Gantz received recommendations from Labor-Gesher, the Democratic Union and the Joint List. the number of Knesset Seats held by all parties that endorsed Gantz was greater than that of those who endorsed Netanyahu. However, on 23 September, members of the Balad party requested that their recommendation of Gantz, given automatically by their membership in the Joint List, be rescinded. following this, Netanyahu had more recommendations and was chosen by Rivlin to form a government on 25 September, on the condition that he not dissolve the Knesset should he fail to form a government. Netanyahu failed to form a government, and returned the mandate to Rivlin, who gave it to Gantz on 23 October. Gantz failed to form a government, and the mandate passed collectively to the Knesset, who failed to form a government, and dissolved on 12 December, triggering a third election in March of 2020. on 19 December, Gantz and Lapid's planned rotation agreement was scrapped, with Gantz becoming Blue and White's sole candidate for Prime Minister.


title: Benny Gantz

text: The March election resulted in the loss of Blue and White's parliamentary plurality, with the party winning 33 seats to the Likud's 36. On 15 March, Gantz received recommendations from parties that held a combined 61 seats, and was again given a mandate by Rivlin the next day. Before the election, Gantz vowed to form a government that would not include Netanyahu. Initially an attempt was made to form a minority government with external support from the Joint List, however this initiative promptly collapsed as Members of the Knesset from Gantz's Party, Yoaz Hendel and Zvi Hauser announced they would vote against such a government, citing an electoral promise not to lean on the Joint List. During the COVID-19 pandemic in Israel, Gantz reversed his stance and announced he was willing to support an emergency coalition with Netanyahu.


title: Benny Gantz

text: On 26 March, Gantz was elected Speaker of the Knesset by a margin of 74–18, following the resignation of Yuli Edelstein. His nomination was supported by the Likud and members of Netanyahu's right-wing coalition, which put the future of the Blue and White alliance in jeopardy. On 29 March, Yesh Atid and Telem left Blue and White and formed a separate faction in the Knesset.


title: Benny Gantz

text: On 20 April, Gantz and Netanyahu announced that an agreement on a unity government had been reached. The deal would involve both parties sharing power, with Gantz and Netanyahu rotating the position of Prime Minister. Under the terms of the agreement, Netanyahu remained as prime minister, with Gantz serving as Alternate Prime Minister, and the two set to exchange roles in October of 2021. On 7 May, Netanyahu won the support of 72 Members of the Knesset to form a government, with Rivlin giving Netanyahu a two-week mandate to form a government shortly after. The parties who gave their support included Blue and White, Likud, Gesher, Shas and United Torah Judaism, two of the three members of the Labor Party, and Derekh Eretz, formed by Hauser and Hendel. Gantz resigned as speaker of the Knesset on 12 May as part of the coalition agreement, and the new government was sworn in on 17 May, with Gantz being sworn in as Alternate Prime Minister and Minister of Defense.


title: Benny Gantz

text: In November of 2020, Gantz formed a military committee to investigate Case 3000, a corruption case involving the purchase of submarines. the committee's members resigned in late December due to restrictions placed on the investigation by Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit, who was running a parallel investigation. Gantz established a second committee in May of 2021 to investigate the treatment of Veterans, after a former soldier of the IDF lit himself on fire in an act of protest.


title: Benny Gantz

text: Despite agreeing to take part in a Netanyahu-led coalition government in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, Gantz would again express opposition to Netanyahu's annexation plans. On 29 June 2020, Gantz said the Israeli Prime Minister should instead put the COVID-19 pandemic first. on December 23rd, shortly after the expiration of a budgetary deadline, Gantz and Netanyahu's unity government collapsed. triggering new elections in March of 2021.


title: Benny Gantz

text: Following the resignation of Avi Nissenkorn as the Minister of Justice on 30 December, Gantz became the acting Minister of Justice until 1 April 2021, at which point the position became vacant. Netanyahu nominated Member of the Knesset Ofir Akunis for the position in a cabinet meeting on 27 April 2021. Akunis won a majority in a vote held by the cabinet, but was not confirmed to the position as the vote was rulled illegal by Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit and the Israeli Supreme Court. as it was not part of the meeting's pre-written agenda. Gantz was subsequently approved as Minister of Justice by the cabinet in a legal vote on 28 April.


title: Benny Gantz

text: In May 2021, as Defense Minister, Gantz presided over Operation Guardian of the Walls, a military operation conducted in the Gaza Strip. During the operation, Israel conducted around 1,500 aerial, land, and sea strikes within the territory. the operation began on 10 May, and ended on 21 May due to a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, mediated by the Egyptian government.


title: Benny Gantz

text: Following the collapse of the Blue and White's alliance with Telem and Yesh Atid, the party often polled at a single digit number of seats, narrowly surpassing, or falling beneath, the electoral threshold. in addition, several members of the party, including Minister of Foreign Affairs Gabi Ashkenazi, Minister of Justice Avi Nissenkorn, Minister of Science, Technology and Space, Yizhar Shai, and Members of the Knesset Ram Shefa, Einav Kabla, and Hila Vazan either retired from politics or defected to another party, while Members of the Knesset Miki Haimovich and Asaf Zamir were removed from the party list by Gantz after voting against a bill meant to delay the dissolution of the Knesset. in the last days of the election, Gantz ran a Gevald campaign, arguing that Blue and White falling beneath the electoral threshold would harm Israeli democracy.


title: Benny Gantz

text: Blue and White won 8 seats in the 2021 election, exceeding the number of seats the party was projected to win in most polls. on 5 April, Rivlin met with representatives of all elected parties. Blue and White recommended Lapid for Prime Minister, but Netanyahu received a larger number of recommendations, and was given a mandate by Rivlin. Netanyahu failed to form a government, and his mandate expired on 4 May. the next day, Rivlin gave Lapid the mandate to form a government, who entered negotiations with Naftali Bennett to form a unity government, in which Lapid and Bennett would rotate the position of Prime Minister. Lapid and Bennett formed a government with Ra'am, Meretz, the Labor Party, New Hope, Yisrael Beiteinu and Blue and White. Lapid became the Alternate Prime Minister, and Gideon Sa'ar replaced Gantz as Justice Minister. Gantz remained the Defense Minister and became a Deputy Prime Minister. the new government was sworn in on 13 June.


title: Benny Gantz

text: In October of 2021, Gantz announced that six Palestinian human rights organizations would be designated as terrorist organizations. The Ministry of Defense claimed that the groups are connected to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and that funding is being funneled from the groups to the PFLP. As of April 2022, Israel has not publicly released any evidence of such a link.


title: Benny Gantz

text: In November of 2021, Gantz became the first Israeli Minister of Defense to visit Morocco, where he signed an agreement for security cooperation with the Moroccan government. he similarly signed a defense memorandum with the Government of Bahrain.


title: Benny Gantz

text: On 30 May 2022, following violence and racist remarks against Palestinians in the annual Dance of Flags, Gantz called for La Familia and Lehava to be designated as terrorist organizations.


title: Honda Ridgeline

text: The Honda Ridgeline is a midsize pickup truck manufactured by Honda. The Ridgeline is the only pickup truck currently produced by Honda. The Ridgeline is built using a unibody frame, a transverse-mounted engine, and is only offered in a crew–cab short-box configuration with one powertrain.


title: Honda Ridgeline

text: The first generation Ridgeline went on sale in March 2005 as a 2006 model year vehicle. According to the author of "The Car Design Yearbook", the Ridgeline was "Honda's first foray into the true heartland of the American automotive way of life—the pickup truck." It was designed and engineered by an engineering team from Honda R&D Americas, led by Gary Flint. According to the author of "Driving Honda", the automaker wanted to target buyers who were looking to transition out of sedans, minivans, and sport utility vehicles (SUV) into pickups.


title: Honda Ridgeline

text: The development started in 2001 when the engineering team began experimenting with their first development mule, an extended version of a first generation Acura MDX with a competitor's pickup bed integrated into the rear structure. After four years of development, the final design was revealed to the public as Honda's Sport Utility Truck Concept at the 2004 North American International Auto Show. Later that same year, Honda unveiled a revised version of their pickup concept at the Specialty Equipment Market Association show and announced the official name of the vehicle, the Ridgeline. The production version of the Ridgeline was unveiled the following year at the 2005 North American International Auto Show.


title: Honda Ridgeline

text: Honda's publications state that the first generation Ridgeline shared only 7% of its components with other Honda vehicles. Its powertrain resembled the one used in the first generation Acura MDX but was "extensively calibrated and strengthened" for heavier hauling and towing duties.


title: Honda Ridgeline

text: After a one-year hiatus in Ridgeline production, the second generation of their mid-size truck went on sale in June 2016 as a 2017 model year vehicle. The second generation Ridgeline took a different approach in design from the first generation Ridgeline by sharing Honda's new "global light truck platform," found in the third generation Honda Pilot as well as other large Honda vehicles. However, Honda did have to modify the Pilot platform in order to support their next generation pickup, including extending the wheelbase and modifying various parts to support hauling, towing, and off-road use. Despite these modifications, Honda has stated that 73% of the second generation Ridgeline's components remain common in some way with the third generation Pilot.


title: Honda Ridgeline

text: Honda has stated that nearly every major component has been beefed up with a 17% stronger front structure, a 31% sturdier rear, and 50% of the chassis' components changed or were strengthened for the second generation Ridgeline. The second generation Ridgeline's new structure gives it an average reduction in weight from the first generation pickup. The C-pillar and rear subframe were strengthened giving the second generation 28% more torsional rigidity over the first generation Ridgeline.


title: Honda Ridgeline

text: In addition to being a unibody pickup with a transverse-mounted engine, and a crew-cab short-box configuration, Honda and some automotive journalists have described other noteworthy aspects of the Ridgeline.


title: Honda Ridgeline

text: Some in the automotive press that have studied the first generation Ridgeline, such as PickupTrucks.com, consider it "one of those odd vehicles." They wrote, "The Ridgeline can't really do what most people who like trucks need it to do." Others in the automotive press, such as The Driver's Seat TV, had differing views and call the Ridgeline, "the Swiss Army knife of trucks." They also called the Ridgeline "the anti-truck" and summarized their view by saying "the Ridgeline scores high on practicality but very low on image."


title: Honda Ridgeline

text: Compared to the first generation Ridgeline, Honda's second generation Ridgeline has the automotive press changing its tune, yet it still has an image problem. Gearheads.org wrote the "2017 Honda Ridgeline still won’t get respect but should" stating, its "downside is going to be looks." "Car and Driver" wrote, "The company [Honda] readily admits that the problem with the first generation pickup was that the styling was off-putting, but then it went ahead and made the next iteration of the truck just as unconventional as before." "The Ridgeline’s roomy cabin, ample storage, smooth ride, and innovative touches make its rivals seem outdated. ...it not only has cargo space, but also the makings of a great tailgate party..."


title: Honda Ridgeline

text: Karl Forster, a member of the SAE trailer towing group who was vehicle dynamics project leader on Honda's unibody Ridgeline pickup and Pilot SUV, says Honda's ratings come from actual customer usage. "We spent a fair amount of time observing and talking to light-truck customers to understand how they use and load their vehicles and how they tow trailers," he says. "For the Ridgeline, our survey found out that 84 percent of truck buyers tow 5000 pounds or less."


title: Honda Ridgeline

text: According to Honda, the Ridgeline was not designed to steal sales from the more traditional trucks sold in North America, but was developed to "give the 18% of Honda owners who also own pickups a chance to make their garages a Honda-only parking area." Despite the first generation Ridgeline's poor sales, according to the author of "Driving Honda", this mid-size pickup was one of the more profitable vehicles for Honda with reported sales in over 20 countries.


title: Honda Ridgeline

text: The second generation Ridgeline sales appeared to start strong but comparing sales in the US between 2017 and 2018 shows a 12% decline overall. A 2018 Autoline Daily report stated the Ridgeline is the only mid-size truck in North America whose sales are down in a market that "suggests there’s room for more players."


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: "Frozen" is a song by American singer and songwriter Madonna from her seventh studio album, "Ray of Light" (1998). Maverick and Warner Bros. Records released it as the album's lead single on January 23, 1998. The song was also included on the compilation albums, "GHV2" (2001) and "Celebration" (2009). "Frozen" was written by Madonna and Patrick Leonard, who both produced it in collaboration with William Orbit. The mid-tempo electronica ballad, which has a layered sound enhanced by synthesizers and strings, lyrically addresses a cold and emotionless man.


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: "Frozen" received acclaim from music critics, some of whom deemed it as a highlight from "Ray of Light". The song was described as being a masterpiece, and its melodic beat and sound were defined as "cinematic". "Frozen" was also a global commercial success. In the United States, it became Madonna's sixth single to peak at number two on the "Billboard" Hot 100, making her the female artist with the most number-two hits in the history of that chart at the time. In the United Kingdom, "Frozen" became Madonna's first single to debut at number one on the UK Singles Chart, while also reaching number one in Finland, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Scotland and Spain, and the top-five elsewhere.


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: The accompanying music video for "Frozen", directed by Chris Cunningham, was filmed at Cuddeback Lake in California, and features Madonna as an ethereal, witch-like, melancholy persona, who shapeshifts into a flock of birds and a black dog. The music video won a Moonman for Best Special Effects in a Video at the 1998 MTV Video Music Awards. To promote "Ray of Light", Madonna performed the song live in several occasions, including its first world premiere on Sanremo Music Festival in Italy and on "Wetten, dass..?" in Germany. Additionally, it was performed in several of her concert tours. "Frozen" has been covered by many artists, such as Swedish hard rock band Talisman, and Polish industrial metal band Thy Disease.


title: Frozen (Madonna song)

text: In 2021, a trap remix of "Frozen", made by Canadian DJ Sickick, became viral on TikTok. On December 3, 2021, it was officially released as the first single from Madonna's entire-catalog reissue project. Madonna and Sickick released three further renditions of the remix—the version featuring Nigerian singer Fireboy DML, the version featuring American rapper 070 Shake, and the version featuring vocals from Sickick himself titled "Frozen on Fire"—all of which were supported by music videos. The Sickick remix charted within the top-ten of the "Billboard" Dance/Electronic Songs chart, and was certified Gold by the Syndicat National de l'Édition Phonographique (SNEP) in France.