title: BBC Online

text: The website focuses around the primary top level domains of News, Sport, Weather, iPlayer, TV and Radio. These are easily accessible from the taskbar running across the top of all current BBC Online pages. However, other top level domains are also in existence: some are available from a drop down list on the taskbar including CBBC, CBeebies, Comedy, Food, Health, History, Learning, Music, Science and Nature, while other top level domains are only available through the A-Z index on the BBC website. These include Archives, Arts & Culture, Ethics, Gardening, Parenting, Religion and Travel news. However, there are many more top level domains – some 400 in March 2010 however this number has decreased as top level domains now frequently link to a lower domain name – that link to websites for individual services or programmes.


title: BBC Online

text: One of the most used aspects of the BBC Online website are the sections relating to News content, Sports results and news and Weather forecasts. The BBC News Online subsite launched in 1997 and received around 2 billion page views each month in 2012. The site contains journalistic content from the BBC covering news from the UK, both as a whole as well as regional news from the BBC Nations and Regions, and International content. The site also contains analysis from correspondents and other features from the Magazine section of the website. The BBC Sport Online subsite offers, in a similar way to news, a wide variety of material including sports results, live feeds to on-air programming, sports related news and analysis from commentators and pundits. The BBC Weather subsite primarily focuses on weather forecasts for UK and International locations, but also includes other features including Country guides that detail to geography and climate of each country, winter sports forecasts and during times of unusual or extreme weather, videos are produced explaining the causes for this weather.


title: BBC Online

text: The BBC iPlayer subsite allows programmes to be viewed again after broadcast over the Internet. This successful site has now been expanded to include mobile views and downloads onto computers and mobiles allowing viewing for up to 30 days after broadcast.


title: BBC Online

text: BBC Programmes is a service of BBC Online which provides a page for every television and radio programme broadcast by the BBC in the United Kingdom. It was launched in October 2007 and gives each programme an eight or eleven digit identifier which is used to provide a permanent URL. It currently only holds data from the launch date plus a selection of high-profile programmes (notably Natural History programmes and Radio 4 programmes), but Jana Bennett, Director of BBC Vision, said in June 2008 that the BBC will eventually add a page for each programme it has broadcast over its history to the service.


title: BBC Online

text: The BBC Programme Catalogue is an internal archive of the BBC back catalogue which was briefly available online to the public in beta.


title: BBC Online

text: BBC Sounds is an internet streaming, catchup, radio and Podcast service from the BBC. The service is available on a wide range of devices, including mobile phones and tablets, personal computers, and smart televisions. It was launched in November 2018 and replaces the 'iPlayer Radio' branded service, and the mobile apps currently complement the existing iPlayer Radio native applications, which remain available.


title: BBC Online

text: The BBC also operates numerous sub sites that focus on different topics and subjects to expand the knowledge of the reader. These are mainly centred around the topics of Science, Nature, Arts and Culture, Religion and Ethics, Food and History. Each of these sub sites feature new articles published on the topic and contain other collections relating to the topic.


title: BBC Online

text: For example, the Food site contains recipes featured on various BBC cookery programmes, the History site has an interactive timeline of key events and individuals, the Nature site contains a database of creatures, and the Language site teaches phrases and more in 40 languages. Included in this range was the well received Your Paintings website that catalogued every painting in public ownership for view.


title: BBC Online

text: Until 2013, the BBC also hosted a health website with detailed information, checked by professionals, of medical conditions and symptoms. However, the BBC withdrew the site as this service is available from other sources on the Internet which did not exist when the Health site launched, the most prominent of which is NHS Choices.


title: BBC Online

text: In addition to these subsites, the BBC also runs sites dedicated to education and learning. These include the Bitesize revision website for teenagers and a section with resources for teachers including Learning Zone Class Clips that provides video from educational programmes for use in the classroom.


title: BBC Online

text: BBC Own It is an offshoot that provides online safety advice for parents, teachers, and young people to help them make positive choices online. It follows in the footsteps of other online safety services such as Internet Matters and Childnet.


title: BBC Online

text: The BBC runs a comprehensive children's website. It includes information on all of CBBC's shows along with several subsites covering art, sport, news, and other current events. Its message boards are especially popular with children who use them to communicate with each other about all of CBBC's output among other salient topics for kids like bullying, books, and personal problems.


title: BBC Online

text: In conjunction with the Children's subsite, the BBC also runs an online revision website using the Bitesize brand and also ran a message board for students. This latter service, now called "BBC Student Life" and previously called "Onion Street", was launched in 2001 and is aimed at young people between the ages of 11 and 16. The site offers a pre-moderated forum discussion on school work, revision and other areas of learning.


title: BBC Online

text: The BBC previously ran a page to help young people sort out their life difficulties entitled "Your Life". The page featured agony uncle "Ask Aaron," a professional psychotherapist who provided regular answers to children's questions across the message boards; after the page's closure, the agony uncle has moved on to Radio One's Sunday Surgery as their mental health expert.


title: BBC Online

text: There is integration between television output and website content with aspects of children's programming have follow-up information on their websites.


title: BBC Online

text: An international BBC subsite named "BBC Britain" is only available to users with IP addresses outside the UK. UK users attempting to visit the site are told: "We're sorry but this site is not accessible from the UK as it is part of our international service and is not funded by the licence fee."


title: BBC Online

text: Additional subsites exist which were initially inaccessible to UK users in the same manner as BBC Britain but have since been made accessible while displaying the following disclaimer: "This website is produced by BBC Global News Ltd, a commercial company owned by the BBC (and just the BBC). No money from the licence fee was used to create this website. The money we make from it is re-invested to help fund the BBC’s international journalism." These subsites include:


title: BBC Online

text: BBC Blast was the BBC's network for creative teenagers. It provided access to mentors both online and at free events and workshops across the UK. The website specifically catered for 13- to 19-year-olds but the BBC Blast project also ran a variety of work experience schemes for young adults between the ages of 18 to 25. Blast was running from 2002 until 2011. It included a forum where participants could upload videos, audio tracks and images and comment on each other's work.


title: BBC Online

text: In the past the BBC Blast tour featured workshops and talks with stars from a variety of backgrounds, including rapper Akala, director and actor Noel Clarke, BBC Radio 1Xtra DJs Ace and Vis, singer-songwriter Jay Sean, rapper Chipmunk, Panjabi Hit Squad and Yngve & The Innocent. The tour also featured very early performances and interviews by artists such as Rizzle Kicks and Ed Sheeran.


title: BBC Online

text: Blast worked with a number of partners to put on events and give content a chance to be promoted at a higher level. These partners included the Victoria and Albert Museum, RSC, National Portrait Gallery, National Theatre, Zoo Nation, and the British Film Institute.


title: BBC Online

text: On 24 January 2011, the BBC announced the closure of BBC Blast as part of a 25% cut to the BBC Online budget, resulting in a £34 million shortfall.


title: BBC Online

text: From 1999 to 2005, the BBC ran a popular subsite called "Cult TV". This subsite had news, star interviews, trivia, and other content popular with fans of the cult TV shows they covered. Examples of covered TV shows include "The X-Files", "Doctor Who", "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", "Farscape" and "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy".


title: BBC Online

text: On 15 July 2005, the BBC announced that the site was closing as of the end of the month, although the "Doctor Who" section would be unaffected as the series was an ongoing BBC concern. The announcement explained that this was "part of the restructuring of the BBC's online activities". It was promised that some of the content would be moved to new places on bbc.co.uk, although as of January 2017 it is currently still all online at the no-longer-updated Cult site. In recent years, some of the content covered in the Cult section was included in the BBC's Archive section, such as content and information on the 25th Anniversary of Children's BBC.


title: BBC Online

text: The "BBC Guide to Comedy" was an online encyclopaedia based on Mark Lewisohn's 1998 book "The Radio Times Guide to Comedy". It offered "Info on every TV comedy shown in the UK, from 1936 to today..." and featured articles on almost every comedy programme and sitcom produced by the main channels in the United Kingdom. The site also featured video clips, viewable in RealPlayer, and a small gallery of cast photographs or screenshots. It was replaced by a smaller, less detailed guide in 2007, which only focussed on BBC shows and is also now discontinued.


title: BBC Online

text: Democracy Live was a subsite of the BBC that contains live streams and recorded programmes from deciding bodies that affect the UK. Launched in November 2009, the site focused around live and recorded debate from the House of Commons and the House of Lords in Westminster, the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales, the Northern Ireland Assembly and the European Parliament. While recordings tended to focus on the main debating chambers, the site also hosted video from some committees. The site also included a search facility to find relevant debate, a tool to follow a particular member and see videos of their contributions and other videos of historic events from these institutions. The service also allowed the translation of Welsh Assembly proceedings to and from Welsh.


title: BBC Online

text: The BBC's site was initially entirely free from advertising, this was due to the BBC's funding, derived primarily from compulsory television licence fees from UK viewers. BBC Studios who exploit BBC brands commercially have had several attempts at launching services online including Beeb.com in the late 1990s.


title: BBC Online

text: In 2006, the BBC began making controversial plans to raise revenue by including advertising on the international version of BBC News Online accessed from outside the United Kingdom. BBC Online is currently freely available worldwide (via various URLs including bbc.com/news) but planned video services and a lower than expected licence fee settlement paid for by UK residents only led to the BBC introducing banner advertisements to the site from November 2007. The BBC Trust approved the plans for introducing advertisements which also involved creating bbc.com as a part of BBC Worldwide. Sir Michael Lyons, Chairman of the Trust, confirmed the BBC would not charge for online news following News International's planned introduction of charges for online content.


title: BBC Online

text: Prior to this there had been criticism from some, as web users outside the UK could use the services (including the entire BBC radio services) without having to pay for them. In addition, where rights to sporting events (such as certain football or cricket matches) do not include international online coverage, users from outside the UK are blocked from listening to commentaries.


title: BBC Online

text: On 24 January 2011, it was announced that the BBC was to cut its online budget by 25% or £34 million. To cope with this, many BBC websites would be closed including BBC Switch, BBC Blast, 6-0-6, BBC raw, Video Nation, and planned to sell the Douglas Adams created website h2g2, as well as the automation of many programme websites and radio websites.


title: BBC Online

text: A service, called BBC iPlayer, was launched in December 2007, which allows users to download both radio and TV content for up to seven days after broadcast. The television version allows users to either stream programmes or to download them using peer-to-peer and DRM technology.


title: BBC Online

text: Initially streams were generally broadcast in the RealAudio and RealVideo formats controlled by RealNetworks and the BBC drew criticism with some for using those closed formats which, at the time, could only be played using RealPlayer. In response to such criticisms, the BBC negotiated a deal with RealNetworks a 'cut-down' version of RealPlayer which did not contain as much advertising and marketing.


title: BBC Online

text: Windows Media has also been adopted and since Autumn 2006, a Windows Media stream of all national BBC radio stations has been available.


title: BBC Online

text: More recently, the BBC has been experimenting with MP3 downloads and podcasting facilities for an increasing number of radio shows, with a high level of success; a less publicised trial of Ogg Vorbis streams for certain programmes was less successful, and has now been discontinued.


title: BBC Online

text: During major events, the BBC often features liveblogs which publish the most recent text and image posts from BBC correspondents; particularly significant political events may pair live blogs with live video streams or recorded video loops relevant to the event.


title: BBC Online

text: In February 2001, BBC Online incorporated Douglas Adams' previously independent h2g2 project into its group of web sites, and eventually replaced all its existing message boards, which used an archaic system called Howerd, with the DNA software derived from that project. The site's now archived "Collective" magazine also used the DNA software along with numerous other sites created after the BBC's acquisition of h2g2.


title: BBC Online

text: The website has extensive technical information available about its operation. The BBC also made some of the content on bbc.co.uk and the BBC News Website available in XML format on the former developer network backstage.bbc.co.uk. Also, through participation in the Creative Archive Licence group, bbc.co.uk allows legal downloads of selected material via the Internet.


title: BBC Online

text: In November 2011, the BBC launched the Connected Studio initiative which resulted in the running of workshops for independent web designers to work with the BBC in conceiving new designs and ways for current BBC services to be improved.


title: BBC Online

text: BBC Online uses several third-party companies to log information from users, by means of cookies. The BBC lists the companies it uses in its privacy policy:


title: BBC Online

text: In March 2007, a vulnerability was exposed in the BBC's "Most Emailed" and "Most Read" news sections which could allow for the popularity of a news article to be exaggerated and thus highlight it to other website visitors.


title: BBC Online

text: In early 2004, the site was made the focus of a government review, launched by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, led by Philip Graf. Sections of the UK Internet industry had argued that the BBC site offered things that were available in the commercial sector, creating unnecessary competition.


title: BBC Online

text: The review was published in July 2004 and it was recommended that the BBC "prioritise news, current affairs, education and information which is of value to the citizen." In response the BBC also shut down a small number of sections of the site, including the Soaps section.


title: BBC Online

text: In November 2004, the Governors of the BBC announced a newer, much more tightly drawn remit for bbc.co.uk as part of their response to the review. They also announced, as Graf had recommended, a new approach towards external providers which will see bbc.co.uk aiming to spend at least 25% of its eligible budget on content and services through independent commissions by the end of 2006/07.


title: BBC Online

text: The implementation of the Graf report has seen the popular message boards in the BBC Sport section shut down, as the BBC tries to promote its 606 brand, but these changes have proved unpopular as the interface has proven unusable and large numbers of content providers have abandoned the BBC site.


title: Lester Bangs

text: Leslie Conway "Lester" Bangs (December 14, 1948 – April 30, 1982) was an American music journalist, critic, author, and musician. He wrote for "Creem" and "Rolling Stone" magazines, and was known for his leading influence in rock music criticism. The music critic Jim DeRogatis called him "America's greatest rock critic".


title: Lester Bangs

text: Bangs was born in Escondido, California. He was the son of Norma Belle ("née" Clifton) and Conway Leslie Bangs, a truck driver. Both of his parents were from Texas: his father from Enloe and his mother from Pecos County. Norma Belle was a devout Jehovah's Witness. Conway died in a fire when his son was young. When Bangs was 11, he moved with his mother to El Cajon, also in San Diego County. His early interests and influences ranged from the Beats (particularly William S. Burroughs) and jazz musicians John Coltrane and Miles Davis, to comic books and science fiction. He had a connection with "The San Diego Door", an underground newspaper of the late 1960s.


title: Lester Bangs

text: Bangs became a freelance writer in 1969, after reading an ad in "Rolling Stone" soliciting readers' reviews. His first accepted piece was a negative review of the MC5 album "Kick Out the Jams", which he sent to "Rolling Stone" with a note requesting, if the magazine were to decline to publish the review, that he be given a reason for the decision; no reply was forthcoming, as the magazine did indeed publish the review.


title: Lester Bangs

text: His 1970 review of Black Sabbath's first album in "Rolling Stone" was scathing, rating them as imitators of the band Cream:


title: Lester Bangs

text: Bangs wrote about the death of Janis Joplin in 1970 from a drug overdose: "It's not just that this kind of early death has become a fact of life that has become disturbing, but that it's been accepted as a given so quickly."


title: Lester Bangs

text: In 1973, Jann Wenner fired Bangs from "Rolling Stone" for "disrespecting musicians" after a particularly harsh review of the group Canned Heat.


title: Lester Bangs

text: Bangs began freelancing for Detroit-based "Creem" in 1970. In 1971, he wrote a feature for "Creem" on Alice Cooper, and soon afterward he moved to Detroit. Named "Creem"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s editor in 1971, Bangs fell in love with Detroit, calling it "rock's only hope", and remained there for five years.


title: Lester Bangs

text: During the early 1970s, Bangs and some other writers at "Creem" began using the term "punk rock" to designate the genre of 1960s garage bands and more contemporary acts, such as MC5 and Iggy and the Stooges. Their writings would provide some of the conceptual framework for the later punk and new wave movements that emerged in New York, London, and elsewhere later in the decade. They would be quick to pick up on these new movements at their inception and provide extensive coverage of the phenomenon. Bangs was enamored of the noise music of Lou Reed, and "Creem" gave significant exposure to artists such as Reed, David Bowie, Roxy Music, Captain Beefheart, Blondie, Brian Eno, and the New York Dolls years earlier than the mainstream press. Bangs wrote the essay/interview "Let Us Now Praise Famous Death Dwarves" about Reed in 1975. "Creem" was also among the earliest publications to give sizable coverage to hard rock and metal artists such as Motörhead, Kiss, Judas Priest, and Van Halen.


title: Lester Bangs

text: After leaving "Creem" in 1976, he wrote for "The Village Voice", "Penthouse", "Playboy", "New Musical Express", and many other publications. He won a 1984 Grammy Award for his liner notes on "The Fugs Greatest Hits, Volume 1".


title: Lester Bangs

text: Bangs died in New York City on April 30, 1982, at the age of 33; he was self-medicating a bad case of the flu and accidentally overdosed on dextropropoxyphene (an opioid analgesic), diazepam (a benzodiazepine), and NyQuil.


title: Lester Bangs

text: At the time of his death, Bangs appeared to be listening to music. Earlier that day he had bought a copy of "Dare" by the English synth-pop band The Human League, according to Jim DeRogatis's well-sourced biography "Let It Blurt". Later that night, Bangs's friend found him unresponsive, lying on a couch in his apartment. ""Dare" was spinning on the turntable, and the needle was stuck on the end groove", DeRogatis wrote.


title: Lester Bangs

text: Bangs's criticism was filled with cultural references, not only to rock music but also to literature and philosophy. His radical and confrontational style influenced others in the punk rock and related social and political movements. In a 1982 interview, he said,


title: Lester Bangs

text: A performer with his own band, he also appeared on stage with others at times. On one occasion, while the J. Geils Band were playing in concert, Bangs climbed onto the stage, typewriter in hand, and proceeded to type a supposed review of the event, in full view of the audience, banging the keys in rhythm with the music.


title: Lester Bangs

text: In 1979, writing for "The Village Voice", Bangs wrote a piece about racism in the punk music scene, called "The White Noise Supremacists", wherein he re-examined his own actions and words, and those of his peers, in light of some bands using Nazi symbolism, and other racist speech and imagery, "for shock value". He came to the painful conclusion that generating outrage for attention wasn't worth the harm it was causing fellow members of the community, and expressed his personal shame and embarrassment about having engaged in these racist behaviors himself. He praised the efforts of activist groups like Rock Against Racism and Rock Against Sexism as "an attempt at simple decency by a lot of people whom one would think too young and naive to begin to appreciate the contradictions."


title: Lester Bangs

text: Bangs was also a musician. In 1976, he and Peter Laughner recorded an acoustic improvisation in the "Creem" office. The recording included covers/parodies of songs like "Sister Ray" and "Pale Blue Eyes", both by the Velvet Underground.


title: Lester Bangs

text: In 1977, Bangs recorded, as a solo artist, a 7" vinyl single named "Let It Blurt/Live", mixed by John Cale and released in 1979.


title: Lester Bangs

text: In 1977, at the famous New York City nightclub, CBGB, while Bangs was talking to guitarist Mickey Leigh, Joey Ramone's brother, the idea for a band named "Birdland" came to fruition. Although they both had their roots in jazz, the two wanted to create an old school rock & roll group. Leigh brought in his post-punk band, The Rattlers (David Merrill on bass; Matty Quick on drums), and cut "Birdland with Lester Bangs". The recording took place at the under renovation Electric Lady Studios. Bassist David Merrill, who was working on the construction of the studio, had the keys to the building and they snuck the band in on April Fool's Day, 1979 for an impromptu and late night recording session. The result was a completely uncut and un-dubbed recording that displayed raw music. Birdland broke up within two months of this rare recording (in which the cassette tape from the session became the master, mixed by Ed Stasium and released by Leigh only in 1986).


title: Lester Bangs

text: Reviewing the 1986 LP ""Birdland" with Lester Bangs", Robert Christgau gave it a B-plus and said, "musically he always had the instincts, and words were no problem."


title: Lester Bangs

text: In 1980 Lester Bangs traveled to Austin, Texas, where he met a surf/punk rock group, "The Delinquents". In early December of the same year, they recorded an album as "Lester Bangs and the Delinquents", titled "Jook Savages on the Brazos", released the following year.


title: Lester Bangs

text: In 1990 the Mekons released the EP "F.U.N. 90" with Bangs's declamation in the song "One Horse Town".


title: Thing (assembly)

text: A thing (that is, "assembly" or folkmoot) was a governing assembly in early Germanic society, made up of the free people of the community presided over by a lawspeaker. Things took place at regular intervals, usually at prominent places that were accessible by travel. They provided legislative functions, as well as being social events and opportunities for trade. In modern usage, the meaning of this word in English and other languages has shifted to mean not just an assemblage of some sort but simply an object of any sort.


title: Thing (assembly)

text: The first detailed description of a thing was made by Tacitus in AD 98. Tacitus suggested that the things were annual delegate-based meetings that served legal and military functions.


title: Thing (assembly)

text: The oldest written reference of the thing is on a stone pillar found along Hadrian's Wall at Housestead in the UK. It is dated AD 43-410 and reads: "DEO MARTI THINCSO ET DUABUS ALAISIAGIS BEDE ET FIMMILENE ET N AUG GERM CIVES TUIHANTI VSLM"; to the god Mars Thincsus and the two Alaisiagae, Beda and Fimmilena, and to the Divinity of the Emperor the Germanics, being tribesmen of Tuihanti, willingly and deservedly fulfilled their vow. The pillar was raised by a Frisian auxiliary unit of the Roman army deployed a Hadrian's Wall. The name Tuihanti refers to the current region Twente in the east of the Netherlands. However, these Tuihanti tribesmen have been interpreted by different historians as Frisians. Deo Mars Thincsus means ‘god Mars of the Thing’. Mars of the Thing must be interpreted as Tiwas of the Thing. The god Tiwas, also named Tíwes or Tiwaz, is the same as the god Tuw. This was, in early Germanic times, a supreme idol. In Scandinavia it was often known as Tyr. The idol names Beda and Fimmilena of the same pillar inscription refer to bodthing and fimelthing, both of which are also recorded in Old Frisian codices from around 1100 onward. These were specific types of assemblies. Perhaps the distinction was: the ‘fixed thing’ protected by the god Thincsus, the ‘extra-ordinary thing’ protected by the god Beda, and the ‘informative or non-decision-making thing’ protected by the god Fimmilena.


title: Thing (assembly)

text: The Old Germanic form of the word ‘thing’ is þingsō which derives from the word þengaz, and which means ‘certain time’. In Gothic it is þeihs meaning time. It was therefore a specific time the people gathered, and that is how the word thing received the meaning of folkmoot and assembly, and of justice. In German and Dutch languages the day of the week Tuesday is called after the thing, namely 'Dienstag' and 'dinsdag'. In other words, thing-day. In Dutch speech the expressions 'in geding zijn' (being disputed) or 'een geding aanspannen' (filing a court case) are still being used in daily life. English, Frisian and Scandinavian speeches refer with respectively Tuesday (Old English: Tíwes dæg), 'tiisdei' and 'ti(r)sdag' to the god of the thing being Tiwas or Tyr.


title: Thing (assembly)

text: The word appears in Old Norse, Old English, and modern Icelandic as "þing", in Middle English (as in modern English), Old Saxon, Old Dutch, and Old Frisian as "thing", in German as "Ding", in Dutch and Afrikaans as "ding", and in modern Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Faroese, Gutnish, and Norn as "ting", all from a reconstructed Proto-Germanic neuter "*þingą"; the word is the same as the more common English word "thing", both having at their core the basic meaning of "an assemblage, a coming together of parts"—in the one case, an "assembly" or "meeting", in the other, an "entity", "object", or "thing". The meeting-place of a thing was called a "thingstead" (Old English "þingstede") or "thingstow" (Old English "þingstōw").


title: Thing (assembly)

text: The Old Norse, Old Frisian, and Old English "þing" with the meaning "assembly" is identical in origin to the English word "thing", German "Ding", Dutch "ding", and modern Scandinavian "ting" when meaning "object". All of these terms derive from Proto-Germanic *"þingą" meaning "appointed time", possibly originating in Proto-Indo-European *"ten-", "stretch", as in a "stretch of time for an assembly". The word shift in the meaning of the word "thing" from "assembly" to "object" is mirrored in the evolution of the Latin "causa" ("judicial lawsuit", "case") to modern French "chose", Spanish/Italian/Catalan "cosa", and Portuguese "coisa" (all meaning "object" or "thing"). A word with similar meaning, the cognate to English "sake" (purpose), "sak" in Norwegian and Swedish, "sag" in Danish, "zaak" in Dutch, "saak" in Afrikaans, and "Sache" in German, still retains the meaning "affair, matter" alongside "thing, object".


title: Thing (assembly)

text: In English, the term is attested from 685 to 686 CE in the older meaning "assembly"; later it referred to a being, entity or matter (sometime before 899), and then also an act, deed, or event (from about 1000). The early sense of "meeting, assembly" did not survive the shift to Middle English. The meaning of personal possessions, commonly in the plural, first appears in Middle English around 1300.


title: Thing (assembly)

text: The Anglo-Saxon "folkmoot" (Old English "folcgemōt", "folk meeting"; Middle English "folkesmōt"; modern Norwegian "folkemøte") was analogous, the forerunner to the "witenagemōt" and a precursor of the modern Parliament of the United Kingdom.


title: Thing (assembly)

text: Today the term lives on in the English term "hustings" and in the names of national legislatures and political and judicial institutions of Nordic countries and of the Isle of Man.


title: Thing (assembly)

text: In the Viking Age, things were the public assemblies of the free men of a country, province, or a hundred (, ). They functioned as both parliaments and courts at different levels of society—local, regional, and supra-regional. Their purpose was to solve disputes and make political decisions, and thing sites were also often the place for public religious rites. According to Norway's Law of the Gulathing, only free men of full age could participate in the assembly. According to written sources, women were clearly present at some things despite being left out of the decision making bodies, such as the Icelandic Althing.


title: Thing (assembly)

text: In the pre-Christian clan-culture of Scandinavia, the members of a clan were obliged to avenge injuries against their dead and mutilated relatives. As a result, feuding is often seen as the most common form of conflict resolution used in Viking society. However, things are in a more general sense balancing structures used to reduce tribal feuds and avoid social disorder in North-Germanic cultures. They played an important role in Viking society as forums for conflict resolution, marriage alliances, power display, honor, and inheritance settlements.


title: Thing (assembly)

text: In Sweden and England, assemblies were held both at natural and man-made mounds, often burial mounds. Specifically in Scandinavia, unusually large rune-stones and inscriptions suggesting a local family's attempt to claim supremacy are common features of thing sites. It is common for assembly sites to be located close to communication routes, such as navigable water routes and clear land routes.


title: Thing (assembly)

text: The thing met at regular intervals, legislated, elected chieftains and kings, and judged according to the law, which was memorized and recited by the "lawspeaker" (the judge). The thing's negotiations were presided over by the lawspeaker and the chieftain or the king. More and more scholarly discussions center around the things being forerunners to democratic institutions as we know them today. The Icelandic Althing is considered to be the oldest surviving parliament in the world, the Norwegian Gulathing also dating back to 900-1300 AD. While the things were not democratic assemblies in the modern sense of an elected body, they were built around ideas of neutrality and representation, effectively representing the interests of larger numbers of people. In Norway, the thing was a space where free men and elected officials met and discussed matters of collective interest, such as taxation. Though some scholars say that the things were dominated by the most influential members of the community, the heads of clans and wealthy families, other scholars describe how every free man could put forward his case for deliberation and share his opinions. History professor Torgrim Titlestad describes how Norway, with the thing sites, displayed an advanced political system over a thousand years ago, one that was characterized by high participation and democratic ideologies. These things also served as courts of law, and if one of the smaller things could not reach agreement, the matter at hand would be brought to one of the bigger things, which encompassed larger areas. The legislature of Norway is still known as the Storting (Big Thing) today.


title: Thing (assembly)

text: Towards the end of the Viking age, royal power became centralized and the kings began to consolidate power and control over the assemblies. As a result, things lost most of their political role and began to function largely as courts in the later Middle Ages.


title: Thing (assembly)

text: In the period between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries, Norway went through a state-formation process that elevated the control and power of the king. On the regional level, it has been assumed that the king would have taken control of the organization of assemblies via local representatives. Today, few thing sites from Norway are known for certain, and as new assembly sites are found, scholars question whether these are old jurisdiction districts which the king used as a foundation for his organization or whether he created new administrative units. In southeast Norway in particular, one hypothesis for why the king would have established new thing sites might be that they were a "strategic geopolitical response to the threat from the Danish king in the beginning of the 11th century." Since the record of Norwegian thing sites is not comprehensive, it is not favorable to rely on archeological and topographical characteristics to determine whether they were established prior to the state-formation period.


title: Thing (assembly)

text: In northern and southwestern Norway, there appears to have been a close association between chieftains' farms and sites interpreted to be assemblies or court sites. These areas were considered neutral ground where the landowning elite could meet for political and religious activities. This view is based partly on Saga narratives of Viking chieftains as well as the distribution of large grave mounds. Ultimately, this neutrality was important for thing participants' cooperation; royal officials required cooperation in order to look after the king's interests in local areas. In this regard, Norwegian things became an arena for cooperation between the royal representatives and the farmers.


title: Thing (assembly)

text: Based on what is known from later medieval documents, one deep-rooted custom of Norwegian law areas was the bearing of arms coming from the old Germanic tradition of the "weapon-take", which refers to the rattling of weapons at meetings to express agreement. The Law of the Gulathing provides that the handling of these weapons should be controlled and regulated.


title: Thing (assembly)

text: This is seen at Haugating, the thing for Vestfold in Norway, which was located in Tønsberg at Haugar (from the Old Norse "haugr" meaning hill or mound). This site was one of Norway's most important places for the proclamation of kings. In 1130, Harald Gille called together a meeting at the Haugating at which he was declared to be King of Norway. Sigurd Magnusson was proclaimed king in 1193 at Haugating. Magnus VII was acclaimed hereditary King of Norway and Sweden at the Haugating in August 1319.


title: Thing (assembly)

text: Similar to Norway, thing sites in Sweden experienced changes in administrative organization beginning in the late tenth and eleventh century. This was a result of the power struggle between the rising Christian royal power in the process of establishing itself and the old, local magnate families attempting to maintain power. The battle for power between the king and local magnates is most visible through runic inscriptions at thing sites, which were used to make important power statements. Swedish assembly sites could be characterized by a number of typical features: large mounds, rune-stones, and crossings between roads by land or water to allow for greater accessibility.


title: Thing (assembly)

text: A famous incident took place when Þorgnýr the Lawspeaker told the Swedish king Olof Skötkonung (c. 980–1022) that the people, not the king, held power in Sweden; the king realized that he was powerless against the thing and gave in. Main things in Sweden were the Thing of all Swedes, the Thing of all Geats and the Lionga thing.


title: Thing (assembly)

text: The island of Gotland had twenty things in late medieval times, each represented at the island-thing called "landsting" by its elected judge. New laws were decided at the "landsting", which also took other decisions regarding the island as a whole. The "landsting"s authority was successively eroded after the island was occupied by the Teutonic Order in 1398. In late medieval times the thing was made up of twelve representatives for the farmers, free-holders or tenants.


title: Thing (assembly)

text: As a representative legislative body, the things in Iceland were similar to those in greater Scandinavia, but they had a very clear organizational structure. Iceland was divided into four administrative quarters during the Viking Age with a fixed number of thirty-nine lawmakers ("goðis"): twelve "goðis" in the northern quarter and nine each in the eastern, southern, and western quarters.


title: Thing (assembly)

text: The main distinction between Iceland and greater Scandinavia lies in the organization of the Icelandic Althing ("Alþingi"), the main assembly during the Viking period and the Middle Ages. Unlike other European societies in the Middle Ages, Iceland was unique for relying on the Althing's legislative and judicial institutions at the national level rather than an executive branch of government. Þingvellir was the site of the Althing, and it was a place where people came together once a year to bring cases to court, render judgments, and discuss laws and politics.” At the annual Althing, the thirty-nine "goðis" along with nine others served as voting members of the Law Council (Lögrétta), a legislative assembly. The Lögrétta reviewed the laws which the lawspeaker recited, made new laws, set fines and punishments and were informed of sentences of outlawry and banishment that were passed by the courts in local spring assemblies.


title: Thing (assembly)

text: Besides the Althing, there were local assembly districts in each of the four quarters of Iceland, and each year a Spring Assembly ("vorþing") was brought together by three "goðis" who lived in each local assembly district ("samþingsgoðar"). The four quarters also had courts ("fjórðungsdómar") that met at the Althing after a constitutional reform around 965. The "goðis" appointed the judges for these courts from the farmers in their districts.


title: Thing (assembly)

text: In the early twentieth century, scholars identified two potential Greenlandic thing sites at Brattahlíð in Eiríksfjörður and Garðar in Einarsfjörður; both are located in the Eastern Settlement of Greenland. These two sites were located through a combination of written sources and archeological evidence. Between these two Greenlandic sites, there are a number of overlapping characteristics that support the hypothesis that these booth sites are assemblies. However, not all "assembly features" previously seen in Scandinavia appear at every assembly site, and there are also characteristics that have either not been recorded in Greenland or are unique to Greenland.


title: Thing (assembly)

text: The temporary turf structures of the Greenlandic booths have only been recorded in Iceland and would not have been seen at the assembly sites of Viking Age Sweden. Further, the booth sites at Brattahlíð and Garðar were located close to high-status farms. Taken together, it indicates that trade would have taken place at these sites, and given the sparse nature of the Greenlandic settlement, it is reasonable that the participants of the thing would have taken the opportunity for social interaction or trade when gathered with others.


title: Thing (assembly)

text: As a part of the Germanic world, thing sites were also found in the British Isles. In England, there is Thingwall on the Wirral. In the Yorkshire and former Danelaw areas of England, wapentakes—another name for the same institution—were used in public records. Several places ending in the "-by" ('village') place name suffix originally possessed their own laws, by-laws, and jurisdiction subject to the wapentake in which they served, which often extended over a surrounding ground called a thorpe ("hamlet"). If there was a riding surrounding the wapentake, the wapentake would merely be a local assembly coordinating the power of the riding. In Scandinavian York's case, it would be under the king's command at what is now King's Square in York.


title: Thing (assembly)

text: The Kingdom of East Anglia was in control of the Danelaw which had been organised as the Five Boroughs. The Five were fortifications defending land against Wessex, or against the Vikings, depending on who ruled there; together with Lindsey, Lincolnshire, which was divided into three ridings like Yorkshire. Again, the naming of the two roads named Inner and Outer Ting Tong on a hill-top in Devon between Budleigh Salterton, Woodbury and Exmouth is widely derided as fanciful, but may be derived from Thing-Tun, a "dun" (hill fort) or "tun" (settlement) around the place where the Thing used to meet.


title: Thing (assembly)

text: Thynghowe was an important Danelaw meeting place, or thing, located in Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire, England. It was lost to history until its rediscovery in 2005–06 by local history enthusiasts Lynda Mallett and Stuart Reddish. The site lies amidst the old oaks of an area known as the Birklands in Sherwood Forest. Experts believe it may also yield clues as to the boundary of the Anglo Saxon kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria. English Heritage has recently inspected the site, and has confirmed it was known as "Thynghowe" in 1334 and 1609. It functioned as a place where people came to resolve disputes and settle issues. Thynghowe is an Old Norse name, although the site may be older than the Danelaw, perhaps even Bronze Age. The word "howe" is derived from the Old Norse word "haugr" meaning 'mound'. This often indicates the presence of a prehistoric burial mound.


title: Thing (assembly)

text: Early-medieval Frisia knew three levels thing assemblies: the highest level of the civitas, the middle level of the pagus, and the lowest level of the centena. The pagi are being considered the oldest building block, and probably took place three times a year and attended by all freemen. Early-medieval Frisia consisted of about 16 pagi. Only in the course of the Middle Ages became the other thing levels relevant. The thing was led by law-speakers called asega, with the component "-a" meaning 'law' and the component "-sega" meaning 'to say/speak'. Every pagus had its own thing but due to lack of written sources it is difficult to establish where the thing sites were. Thing sites are being presumed by historians at Naaldwijk in the pagus Maasland (Land of the River Meuse), at Katwijk in the pagus Rijnland (Land of the River Rhine), at Heemskerk in the pagus Kennemerland, at De Waal in the pagus Texel, at Franeker in the pagus Westergo and at Dokkum in the pagus Oostergo. From the 12th century the thing called Upstalsboom took place on the level of the civitas. At , near the current town of Aurich in the East Frisia region, Germany, delegates and judges from all seven Frisian Sealands used to gather once a year.


title: Thing (assembly)

text: The assembly of things were typically held at a specially designated place, often a field or common, like Þingvellir, the old location of the Icelandic thing (Alþingi). The parliament of the Isle of Man is still named after the meeting place of the thing, Tynwald, which etymologically is the same word as ""þingvellir"" (there is still an annual public assembly at Tynwald Hill each July 5, where the new Manx laws are read out and petitions delivered). Other equivalent place names can be found across northern Europe: in Scotland, there is Dingwall in the Scottish Highlands and Tingwall, occurring both in Orkney and Shetland, and further south there is Tinwald, in Dumfries and Galloway and – in England – Thingwall, a village on the Wirral Peninsula. In Sweden, there are several places named Tingvalla, which is the modern Swedish form of "Þingvellir", and the Norwegian equivalent is found in the place name Tingvoll. In Dublin, Ireland, the "Thingmote" was a raised mound, 40 foot high and 240 foot in circumference, where the Norsemen assembled and made their laws. It stood on the south of the river, where Saint Andrew's Church now stands, until 1685.


title: Thing (assembly)

text: It is contested between scholars to what extent things were sites of economic transactions and commerce as well as arenas for political and legal decisions. In Norway, it is clear that the assemblies functioned as an administrative level for economic transactions and taxes to the king. The role of commerce at the thing is more undetermined in Iceland in particular because of the role of saga literature in influencing conclusions about things. Þingvellir was thought of as a trading place as a result of saga passages and law texts that refer to trade:


title: Thing (assembly)

text: As shown in the "Laxdæla saga", meetings at Þingvellir required people to travel from long distances and gather together for an extended period of time, thus it was inevitable that entertainment, food, tools, and other goods would have played a role in the gatherings. The main question lies in whether trade was conducted in the assembly or on the margins of the gathering. Similarly, there are unanswered questions about the connection between trade and assembly in Greenland. Research on Scandinavian trade and assembly is burgeoning, and thus far evidence has mostly been found in written sources, such as the sagas, and place names, "such as the 'Disting' market that is said to have been held during the thing meetings at Gamla Uppsala in Sweden."


title: Thing (assembly)

text: The legislatures of the self-governing territories of Åland, Faroe Islands, Greenland and Isle of Man also have names that refer to "thing":


title: Thing (assembly)

text: In addition, "thing" can be found in the name of the Swedish Assembly of Finland ("Svenska Finlands folkting"), a semi-official body representing the Finland Swedish, and those of the three distinct elected Sámi assemblies which are all called "Sameting" in Norwegian and Swedish (Northern Sami "Sámediggi").


title: Thing (assembly)

text: The Swedish national legislature, since medieval times, has borne a different style, Riksdag, which is cognate to the old name of the German national assembly, Reichstag. In Sweden, however, "ting" is used to name the subnational county councils, which are called Landsting. That name was also used in medieval times for the tings that governed the historical Landskap provinces, that were superseded by the counties in the 17th century. The name "ting" is also found in the names of the first level instances of the Swedish and Finnish court system, which are called "tingsrätt" (), the 'court of the thing'.


title: Thing (assembly)

text: Similarly, prior to 1953, the Danish legislature was known as Rigsdagen, which comprised the two houses of the Folketing "People's Thing" and Landsting "Land Thing". The latter, which was reserved for people of means, was abolished by the constitution of 1953.


title: Thing (assembly)

text: The Norwegian parliament, the "Storting", has historically been divided into two chambers named the "Lagting" and the "Odelsting", which translates loosely into the "Thing of the Law" and the "Thing of the Allodial rights". However, for much of the Storting's recent history, the division into Lagting and Odelsting has been mostly ceremonial, and the Storting has generally operated as a unicameral parliament. A constitutional amendment passed in February 2007 abolished the Lagting and Odelsting, making this "de facto" unicameralism official following the 2009 election.


title: Thing (assembly)

text: On the lower administrative level the governing bodies on the county level in Norway are called Fylkesting, the Thing of the County. The names of the judicial courts of Norway contain for the most part the affix "ting". The primary level of courts is called the "Tingrett", with the same meaning as the Swedish "Tingsrätt", and four of the six Norwegian Courts of Appeal are named after historical Norwegian regional Things ("Frostating", "Gulating", "Borgarting" and "Eidsivating").


title: Thing (assembly)

text: In Dutch, the word "geding" refers to a lawsuit or trial, most noticeably with the term "kort geding" (literally: "short thing") which refers to an injunction.


title: Stairway to Heaven (South Korean TV series)

text: Stairway to Heaven () is a 2003 South Korean television series starring Choi Ji-woo, Kwon Sang-woo, Kim Tae-hee, and Shin Hyun-joon. It aired on SBS from 3 December 2003 to 5 February 2004 on Wednesdays and Thursdays at 21:55 for 20 episodes. The title of the show comes from the Led Zeppelin song of the same name, which is frequently used in the underscore.


text: The drama is the second entry in director Lee Jang-soo's "Heaven Trilogy" which included "Beautiful Days" in 2001 and "Tree of Heaven" in 2006. The drama was a hit and received an average viewership rating of 38.8%, and 45.3% for the finale.


text: Han Jung-suh (Choi Ji-woo) and Cha Song-joo (Kwon Sang-woo) are childhood friends and have a special bond that blossoms into love. They both share the pain of losing a loved one: Song-joo's father died in a traffic accident and Jung-suh's mother died of eye cancer. Jung-suh's father (Ha Jae-young) marries an actress named Tae Mi-ra (Lee Hui-hyang), who brings her real daughter, Han Yoo-ri (Kim Tae-hee), and son, Han Tae-hwa (Lee Wan) into the household. Yoo-ri is jealous of Jung-suh, making her look terrible in front of her mother, who begins to turn on Jung-suh. When Jung-suh's father leaves for work, her stepmother assaults her. She thwarts Jung-suh's attempts to study abroad with Song-joo, who then leaves for America alone. Mi-ra plots for Yoo-ri to win the affections of Song-joo who is the heir of his family fortune. All the while, Jung-suh tries to be nice to Tae-hwa, but he mistakes her friendship for something more, and falls in love with her.


text: Three years later, Song-joo (Kwon Sang-woo) comes back from America, and Jung-suh (Choi Ji-woo) rushes to greet him. A jealous Yoo-ri (Kim Tae-hee) tries to stop them from reuniting. As they race to the airport, Yoo-ri intentionally hits Jung-suh with her car. Jung-suh is taken to the hospital where a group of people had just died in fire. Yoo-ri swaps Jung-suh's ID with one of the people to fake her death. She takes the real Jung-suh to her biological father's home. Tae-hwa (Shin Hyun-joon), still in love with Jung-suh, finds out what Yoo-ri has done, but seizes the opportunity to run away with Jung-suh. Jung-suh loses her memory, and Tae-hwa moves them away and changes their names.


text: Five years later, Yoo-ri is soon to be engaged to Song-joo. Song-joo decides that he needs to let go of Jung-suh and goes to the carousel they used to ride as children. He wishes to see Jung-suh just once more, looks up, and sees her on the carousel. Jung-suh, now named Kim Ji-soo, works at a small clothing shop while living with Tae-hwa (now Chul-soo). Song-joo rushes to Ji-soo and tells her that he is Jung-suh, but she doesn't believe him. Song-joo is determined to make her remember her past, and through a series of events, he and Jung-suh become close.


text: Jung-suh regains her memory when Yoo-ri nearly hits her with her car again and rushes to tell Song-joo. She forgives Tae-hwa as she knew he did it out of love. Jung-suh and Song-joo are happy together, until she discovers she has eye cancer. She asks Tae-hwa to take her away from Song-joo, since she can't bear to see him in pain. Gradually, Jung-suh's vision deteriorates into blindness. Tae-hwa tells Song-joo and his family the truth starting from the accident. Yoo-ri is arrested, and her mother goes insane and is admitted to a mental hospital.


text: Song-joo marries Jung-suh, who is now blind, with the blessing of his mother and her father. Jung-suh tells Tae-hwa that her one wish is to see Song-joo's face one last time. Both Song-joo and Tae-hwa ask a doctor to let them give Jung-suh one of their corneas, but the doctor tells them that they can't take corneas from live donors. Tae-hwa wants to grant her wish at all costs and commits suicide via car crash in order to donate his cornea to her. After his death, Jung-suh has the operation and is able to see again. However, Song-joo finds out about Tae-hwa's death and later on tells Jung-suh. She starts to feel sick again, and the doctor states that the tumor has spread to her brain and is inoperable; the same incurable illness that killed her mother. Jung-suh, realizing this, forgives Tae Mi-ra and Yoo-ri because of Tae-hwa. Both Yoo-ri and Tae Mi-ra feel remorse for their wrongdoings against Jung-suh, and apologize to her. Jung-suh dies a few days later at the seaside near her childhood home, in the arms of Song-joo. The ending scene reverts to the beginning scene where Song-joo is playing his piano by the ocean of the memorable beach house. He says, "Perhaps, that person (Tae-hwa) might have loved that girl (Jung-suh) more than I. But even though I say this, that doesn't mean that I loved her any less."


text: Recreation complex Lotte World in Seoul was used as a filming location, namely the carousel, ice rink and as the seat of Cha Song-joo's family business.


text: In 2004, the broadcast rights were sold to Japan for appropriately , at the time a record price for a Korean drama export. It aired as part of Fuji TV's "Saturday Hallyu Wide Hour" programming block. The first episode received a viewership rating of 6% to 8% and went on to receive ratings as high at 12%. It also aired on cable channel KNTV from 4 June to 29 October 2005. According to a poll conducted by TV Asahi variety show "SMAP Station" in May 2007, "Stairway to Heaven" ranked as the third most popular Korean drama in Japan.


text: It aired in the Philippines on GMA Network in 2005, during which it received a peak viewership rating of 41.5% and an average viewership rating of 36.1%, making it one of the highest rated programs of all time in the country. The series became a rerun after 10 years from 28 September to 27 November 2015 which transferred to morning from primetime on the same network. The series was rebroadcast on GMA News TV from November 23, 2020 to January 1, 2021 and was repaired on Heart of Asia, starting mid-week of September 2021.


text: In 2005, broadcasting rights to the drama were sold to eight countries across Latin America including Mexico, Peru and Costa Rica.


text: It was aired in Indonesia on Indosiar in 2004 and became one of the most popular Korean drama at the time.


text: The show was popular among North Koreans. Allegedly, the show was seen by North Koreans via smuggling, as they wanted an alternative to watching North Korean state propaganda.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: Janet Ann Napolitano (; born November 29, 1957) is an American politician, lawyer, and university administrator who served as the 21st governor of Arizona from 2003 to 2009 and third United States secretary of homeland security from 2009 to 2013, under President Barack Obama. She was named president of the University of California system in September 2013, and stepped down from that position on August 1, 2020 to join the faculty at the Goldman School of Public Policy. She was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2018.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: Prior to her election as governor, she served as attorney general of Arizona from 1999 to 2003. She was the first woman and the 23rd person to serve in that office. Napolitano had earlier served as the United States attorney for the District of Arizona. She has been the first woman to serve in several offices, including attorney general of Arizona, secretary of homeland security, and president of the University of California.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: "Forbes" ranked her as the world's ninth most powerful woman in 2012 and eighth most powerful woman in 2013. In 2008, she was listed by "The New York Times" as one of the women most likely to become the first female president of the United States. Napolitano also sits on the bipartisan advisory board of States United Democracy Center.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: Janet Napolitano was born on November 29, 1957, in New York City, the daughter of Jane Marie (née Winer) and Leonard Michael Napolitano, who was the dean of the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. Her father was of Italian descent and her mother had German and Austrian ancestry. Her grandfather was named Filippo Napolitano.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: Napolitano is a Methodist. She is the oldest of three children, with a younger brother and sister. She was raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she graduated from Sandia High School in Albuquerque in 1975.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: Napolitano received a Bachelor of Science "summa cum laude" in political science from Santa Clara University in 1979 and a Juris Doctor from the University of Virginia in 1983.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: Napolitano was a Truman Scholar, the university’s first female valedictorian, and a Phi Beta Kappa member when she graduated from college. After graduation, she worked as an analyst for the United States Senate Committee on the Budget. In 1978, she studied for a term at the London School of Economics as part of Santa Clara's exchange program through IES Abroad. She then went to the University of Virginia School of Law. After law school, she served as a law clerk for Judge Mary M. Schroeder of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, then joined Schroeder's former firm, Lewis and Roca, in Phoenix. She was named a partner of the firm in 1989.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: In 1991, while a partner at Lewis and Roca LLP, Napolitano served as an attorney for Anita Hill. Hill testified in the U.S. Senate that then U.S. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas had sexually harassed her ten years earlier when she was his subordinate at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: In 1993, Napolitano was appointed by President Bill Clinton as United States attorney for the District of Arizona. As U.S. attorney, she was involved in the investigation of Michael Fortier of Kingman, Arizona, in connection with the Oklahoma City bombing. She ran for and won the position of Arizona attorney general in 1998. During her tenure as attorney general, she focused on consumer protection issues and improving general law enforcement.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: While serving as attorney general, she spoke at the 2000 Democratic National Convention just three weeks after having a mastectomy. Napolitano recalled that the pain was so unbearable that she could not stand up. "Work and family helped me focus on other things while I battled the cancer," says Napolitano. "I am very grateful for all the support I had from family, friends and Arizonans."


title: Janet Napolitano

text: In 2002, Napolitano narrowly won the gubernatorial election with 46 percent of the vote, succeeding Republican Jane Dee Hull and defeating her Republican opponent, former congressman Matt Salmon, who received 45 percent of the vote. She was Arizona's third female governor and the first female elected governor in the United States to succeed another elected female governor. She was also the first Democrat popularly elected to the governorship since Bruce Babbitt left office in 1987, and the first female governor of Arizona to be elected outright.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: She spoke at the 2004 Democratic Convention, where some initially considered her to be a possible running mate for presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election. Kerry selected Senator John Edwards instead. In November 2005, "Time" magazine named her one of the five best governors in the U.S.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: As Governor, Napolitano set records for total number of vetoes issued. In 2005, she set a single-session record of 58 vetoes, breaking Jane Dee Hull's 2001 record of 28. This was followed in June 2006, less than four years into her term, when she issued her 115th veto and set the all-time record for vetoes by an Arizona governor. The previous record of 114 vetoes was set by Bruce Babbitt during his nine years in office. By the time she left office, Napolitano had issued 180 vetoes.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: Napolitano supported many educational initiatives. She successfully negotiated the creation of voluntary full-day kindergarten in Arizona. The state previously only funded half-day programs. She created a literacy program, and acquired funding for an increase in teacher salaries. She spearheaded significant investments in higher education, including funding a Phoenix campus for the University of Arizona College of Medicine.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: She also built the state's rainy day fund to more than $650 million, at the time the highest ever. She played a leading role in the successful bid to host Super Bowl XLII in Glendale, Arizona, expanded the number of teams in the Cactus league and invested heavily in tourism and economic development initiatives. She was one of the first governors to call for the National Guard at the border after declaring a state emergency related to border security.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: In November 2006, Napolitano was re-elected as governor, defeating the Republican challenger, Len Munsil, by a nearly 2:1 ratio. She was the first woman to be re-elected to that office and the first gubernatorial candidate in state history to win every county and every legislative district in Arizona. Arizona's constitution limits its governors to two consecutive terms, so Napolitano would not have been eligible to seek a third term in office in 2010.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: In January 2006, Napolitano won the Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service. She served as a member of the Democratic Governors Association Executive Committee. She has also served previously as chair of the Western Governors Association, and the National Governors Association. She served as NGA chair from 2006 to 2007, and was the first female governor and first governor of Arizona to serve in that position.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: In February 2006, Napolitano was named by The White House Project as one of "8 in '08", a group of eight female politicians who were suggested as possible candidates for president in 2008. On January 11, 2008, she endorsed then Illinois Senator Barack Obama as the Democratic nominee for president. On November 5, 2008, she was named to the advisory board of the Obama-Biden Transition Project.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: On December 1, 2008, Barack Obama introduced Napolitano as his nominee for United States Secretary of Homeland Security. On January 20, 2009, Napolitano was confirmed, becoming the first woman appointed as Secretary in the relatively new department, and the fourth person to hold the position overall (including one acting secretary). Arizona Secretary of State Jan Brewer became governor of Arizona.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: In March 2009, Napolitano told the German news site "Der Spiegel" that while there is always a threat from terrorism, she preferred to talk about "man-caused' disasters" as a way "to move away from the politics of fear toward a policy of being prepared for all risks that can occur."


title: Janet Napolitano

text: In April 2009, in an interview defending her plans to tighten the Canada–US border, Napolitano incorrectly implied that the September 11 attack perpetrators entered the United States from Canada. This claim was made by several politicians based upon erroneous news reports in the days after the attack. Napolitano explained that she misunderstood the question and was referring to other individuals who had planned attacks and entered through Canada, but Canadian diplomats rebuked her for helping perpetuate a myth.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: In response to criticism, she later said that while she knew no 9/11 terrorists entered the U.S. through Canada, "there are other instances … when suspected terrorists have attempted to enter our country from Canada to the United States... [s]ome of these are well known to the public, such as the millennium bomber, while others are not due to security reasons." There has only been one publicly reported case of terrorists coming to the United States through Canada, that of Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian citizen who was in Canada illegally and who had planned an attack on Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) as part of the 2000 millennium attack plots. Nevertheless, Napolitano later claimed that "Canada allows people into its country that we do not allow into ours" as a justification for treating the Mexican and Canadian borders equally.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: As Secretary, Napolitano was a central leader in the federal response to the 2009 flu pandemic.  Rather than closing schools and businesses, which would have led to wide-scale disruption, Napolitano advanced a strategy of proactive education for prevention. This included a basic virus-prevention education program. Ultimately, as a result of the programs implemented by Napolitano and others, much of the damage expected from this flu was mitigated.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: Napolitano was the subject of controversy after the release of a Department of Homeland Security threat assessment report that was seen as derogatory towards armed forces veterans. The report focused on potential threats from the radical right. "Rightwing" "Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment" was made public in April 2009. The report suggested several factors, including the election of the first black or mixed race president in Barack Obama, concerns regarding future gun control measures, illegal immigration, the economic downturn beginning in 2008, abortion controversy, and disgruntled military veterans' possible vulnerability to recruitment efforts by extremist groups as potential risk factors regarding right-wing extremism recruitment.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: Napolitano made multiple apologies for offending veterans groups by the reference to veterans in the assessment, and promised to meet with those groups to discuss the issue. The Department of Homeland Security admitted a "breakdown in an internal process" by ignoring objections by the Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties to a portion of the document.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: While the American Legion reportedly criticized the assessment, Glen M. Gardner Jr., the national commander of the 2.2 million-member Veterans of Foreign Wars, generally defended it, saying it "should have been worded differently" but served a vital purpose. "A government that does not assess internal and external security threats would be negligent of a critical public responsibility", he said in a statement.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: Napolitano was criticized for stating in an interview with CNN's Candy Crowley that "the system worked" with regard to an attempted terrorist attack on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 approaching Detroit on Christmas Day 2009. She said:


title: Janet Napolitano

text: What we are focused on is making sure that the air environment remains safe, that people are confident when they travel. And one thing I'd like to point out is that the system worked. Everybody played an important role here. The passengers and crew of the flight took appropriate action. Within literally an hour to 90 minutes of the incident occurring, all 128 flights in the air had been notified to take some special measures in light of what had occurred on the Northwest Airlines flight. We instituted new measures on the ground and at screening areas, both here in the United States and in Europe, where this flight originated. So the whole process of making sure that we respond properly, correctly and effectively went very smoothly.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: She later went on NBC's Today Show with host Matt Lauer and admitted that the security system had indeed failed. She said that her earlier statement was "taken out of context" and maintained "air travel is safe", but admitted, "our system did not work in this instance" and no one "is happy or satisfied with that". Lauer then asked her whether the system failed up until the moment the bomber had tried to blow up the plane, and Napolitano answered, "It did [fail]."


title: Janet Napolitano

text: In response to the NW253 bomb attempt, Napolitano instituted emergency enhanced pat-down screening until airport security technology could be deployed that could detect non-metallic explosives. After full body scanners were deployed, the enhanced pat-downs were used selectively on passengers who triggered an alarm when passing through the detection equipment.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: To reduce the time consumed by airport security checks Napolitano created the popular program TSA Pre Check, which allows travelers to provide background information about themselves to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in return for expedited security screening. TSA Pre-Check reduces the number of unknown passengers arriving at security screening lines in airports. She also expanded the U.S. Customs and Border Protection trusted traveler program, Global Entry, to include more American travelers and some from verified partners abroad.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: Secure Communities, or SComm, is a deportation program managed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a subdivision of Homeland Security. Napolitano came under scrutiny for contradicting herself about whether the program is voluntary or mandatory for local jurisdictions. On September 7, 2010, Napolitano said in a letter to Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren that jurisdictions that wished to withdraw from the program could do so. However, in October 2010 a "Washington Post" article quoted an anonymous senior ICE official saying: "Secure Communities is not based on state or local cooperation in federal law enforcement ... State and local law enforcement agencies are going to continue to fingerprint people and those fingerprints are forwarded to FBI for criminal checks. ICE will take immigration action appropriately."


title: Janet Napolitano

text: Napolitano later modified her position: "What my letter said was that we would work with them on the implementation in terms of timing and the like ... But we do not view this as an opt-in, opt-out program." At the same time Arlington, Virginia passed a resolution to opt out of SComm. A DHS employee commented at a policy conference: "Have we created some of the confusion out there? Absolutely we have."


title: Janet Napolitano

text: Under Napolitano's leadership, the DHS invested heavily in border security and border security technology. These investments included a border security supplement passed by Congress to fund an increase in technology and infrastructure along the southern border with Mexico. This technology was used to replace Boeing's SBI Net, which was widely criticized as expensive and dysfunctional.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: After the 2010 transatlantic aircraft bomb plot, which used printer cartridges to conceal bombs, Napolitano issued a ban for toner and ink cartridges weighing more than one pound on passenger flights.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: On December 6, 2010, Walmart announced it was partnering with the DHS. The partnership included a video message from Napolitano on TV screens in Walmart stores playing a "public service announcement" to ask customers to report suspicious activity to a Walmart manager. Napolitano compared the undertaking to "the Cold War fight against communists."


title: Janet Napolitano

text: On January 12, 2011, together with President Barack Obama, Napolitano was one of the speakers selected to express sympathy to the community of Tucson, the State of Arizona, and the rest of the nation in a televised memorial for the 2011 Tucson shooting.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: In July 2012, Napolitano was accused of allowing discrimination against male staffers within the Department of Homeland Security. The federal discrimination lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, was filed by James Hayes Jr., at the time a special agent of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in New York City. The suit alleged that managers Dora Schriro and Suzanne Barr mistreated male staffers, and that promotions were given to women who were friends of Napolitano. The suit also claimed that when the abuse was reported to the Equal Employment Opportunity office Napolitano launched a series of misconduct investigations against the reporting party, Hayes. This allegation was never proven. The spokesperson for ICE declined to comment on "unfounded claims".


title: Janet Napolitano

text: Suzanne Barr, who was one of Napolitano's first appointments after she became secretary in 2009, went on leave after Hayes filed his lawsuit and resigned on September 1, 2012. She called the allegations in the lawsuit "unfounded." In November 2012, Hayes' attorney said that the "parties have come to an agreement in principle" to settle the case for $175,000 plus a settlement that would include other conditions, including Hayes keeping his job.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: Napolitano was also sued by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who claims he was pulled from his post at JFK Airport after making a series of employment-discrimination complaints.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: Napolitano was a long-term advocate for comprehensive immigration reform, starting with her terms as governor of Arizona. In 2012, in an effort to provide relief for the so-called DREAM Act population, or DREAMers, Napolitano used prosecutorial discretion to create the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA). DREAMers were brought to the U.S. by their parents as minors and have no experience of living in their countries of citizenship. The program deferred removal proceedings against DREAMers, providing them with the legal status to remain in the United States without fear of deportation.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: DACA was announced by President Obama in a Rose Garden ceremony shortly after its creation. It was criticized by some members of Congress as an abuse of executive authority.  Napolitano's successor, Jeh Johnson, later attempted to expand the program to include parents of DREAMers, but that expansion was subsequently overturned in courts. DACA remains in place and has never been found unconstitutional by a U.S. court.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: In July 2013, Napolitano announced she would leave her post as Secretary of Homeland Security to become president of the University of California (UC). She was appointed the 20th president by the University of California Board of Regents on July 18, 2013, the first woman to lead the University of California, and began her tenure as president on September 30, 2013. On September 18, 2019, Napolitano announced her resignation as president, effective August 1, 2020. She plans to then teach at the Goldman School of Public Policy at University of California, Berkeley, where she is a tenured professor.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: Among her first acts as president was the allocation of more support for UC's undocumented students, and expanded efforts to diversify the ranks of UC graduate students and post-doctoral researchers. She also initiated an ambitious ongoing plan for the ten-campus system to achieve carbon neutrality by 2025, saying that it was a 'moral imperative' for UC to find solutions to global climate change. In seeking to reduce UC's carbon footprint to zero, Napolitano authorized the university to register as an Electric Service Provider, allowing it to supply energy directly to some of its campuses and medical centers from an 80-MW solar farm in Fresno. In 2017, Napolitano was awarded the Pat Brown Award from the California Council for Environmental and Economic Balance for her environmental leadership.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: Napolitano has used her tenure as president to encourage more students to pursue public interest careers. She created a fund for fellowships for undergraduate students to offset costs related to public service internships in Sacramento and Washington D.C. She also created the President's Public Service Law Fellowship program, which awards $4.5 million annually to law students at UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Irvine and UCLA to make postgraduate work and summer positions more accessible for students who wish to pursue public interest legal careers but might be forced to seek private sector jobs out of financial need.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: As part of her Global Food Initiative, which was launched in 2014, Napolitano committed $3.3 million to help students at the University of California access nutritious food. At the time it was the nation's most comprehensive, systematic plan to tackle the problem of food insecurity.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: Napolitano led efforts to combat sexual violence and harassment at the University of California through improvements to the system's policies and procedures. On March 7, 2014 Napolitano wrote a letter to the UC community announcing a new presidential policy prohibiting sexual harassment and violence and providing support for victims and training for faculty, staff and students. She also created a system-wide Title IX office and appointed the first system-wide Title IX coordinator in January 2017.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: On October 26, 2017 the University of California announced the establishment of the National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement. Chaired by Napolitano, the center is devoted to research, education and advocacy on issues of free speech and civic engagement.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: During Napolitano's time as president of UC, tuition for undergraduates has held steady, with one tuition increase of $282 in 2017.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: In April 2016, Napolitano placed Linda Katehi, the chancellor of the University of California, Davis, on administrative leave following revelations that UC Davis attempted to suppress web searches relating to the UC Davis pepper spray incident, as well as charges of nepotism and allegation of misuse of student funds.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: On April 25, 2017 the California State Auditor issued a report that Janet Napolitano and her University of California Office of the President failed to disclose $175 million and engaged in misleading budget practices. After an investigation, the University of California took disciplinary action against Napolitano, issuing a public admonishment. According to an independent report by retired State Supreme Justice Carlos R. Moreno, Napolitano approved a plan that pressured the ten UC campuses to change their survey responses about Napolitano's administration from negative responses to positive ones.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: On September 8, 2017 the University of California and Janet Napolitano filed a lawsuit against the United States Federal Government in response to President Donald Trump's decision to ultimately end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA, making her the first former secretary of homeland security to sue the agency she once led over a policy that she created.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: In 2020, Janet Napolitano fired 82 University of California, Santa Cruz graduate students for withholding grades in a wildcat strike for a Cost of Living Adjustment to address living conditions. Dismissed students faced loss of tuition remission, health benefits, and living stipends and international students faced loss of student visa status.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: Napolitano was repeatedly discussed as a contender for appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court. Some political commentators also suggested a possible candidacy in the 2016 United States presidential election.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: In September 2014, when Attorney General Eric Holder announced his intention to step down, there was speculation that Napolitano might be a candidate for the next United States attorney general. Instead, Loretta Lynch replaced Holder.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: In May 2022, Napolitano was appointed to serve as a member of the President's Intelligence Advisory Board.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: Napolitano is an avid basketball fan and regularly plays tennis and softball. Whitewater rafting and hiking are among her hobbies. She has hiked in Arizona's Superstition Mountains, New Mexico's Sandia Mountains, and the Himalayas, and has climbed Mount Kilimanjaro.


title: Janet Napolitano

text: Napolitano has never married or had children; as a result, some of her political opponents have speculated about her sexual orientation. In 2002, "vote gay" fliers were posted next to her campaign signs. Napolitano responded by saying that she is "just a straight, single workaholic".


title: Janet Napolitano

text: Napolitano began undergoing cancer-related treatment in August 2016. On January 17, 2017, Napolitano was hospitalized in Oakland due to complications from the cancer treatment. She was released from hospital on January 23, 2017.


title: Grave Digger (monster truck)

text: Grave Digger is a monster truck racing team in the Feld Entertainment Monster Jam series founded by original driver Dennis Anderson. Considered one of the most famous and recognized monster trucks of all time, Grave Digger serves as the flagship team of the Monster Jam series, with seven active Grave Digger trucks being driven by different drivers to allow a truck to appear at every Monster Jam event.


title: Grave Digger (monster truck)

text: Grave Digger was originally built in 1982 by Dennis Anderson as a mud bogger. This first truck was assembled from salvaged parts, including the body of a red 1952 Ford pickup truck. The truck received its name when Anderson, amicably retorting trash talking from his fellow racers about the truck's salvaged parts, said, "I'll take this old junk and dig you a grave with it." Anderson gained a reputation for an all-or-nothing driving style and quickly became popular at local events. At one show, a scheduled monster truck failed to show up and Anderson, who already had large tractor tires on the truck, offered to crush cars in the absence of the full-size monster. The promoter accepted and Grave Digger was an instant success as a car crusher and led Anderson to leave mud bogging and pursue monster trucks instead. In 1984 Anderson rebuilt the truck as a true monster truck using a 1951 Ford panel van body originally sporting a silver and blue paint scheme.


title: Grave Digger (monster truck)

text: In 1986 Grave Digger first received its famous black graveyard paint scheme. In 1987 and 1988 Anderson drove the truck primarily at TNT Motorsports races and became a crowd favorite for driving hard despite lacking major funding that better-known teams, like Bigfoot, had. In 1987, Anderson beat Bigfoot in Saint Paul, Minnesota, on a show taped for ESPN. It was the first major victory for Grave Digger.


title: Grave Digger (monster truck)

text: Anderson moved to Grave Digger 2 in 1989, with a new 1950 Chevy panel van body, while his brother Leslie Anderson drove Grave Digger 1. It was during this time that the reputation for wild passes was developed, and the popularity of the truck increased. It was also during this time that "Bad To The Bone" began to be used as the truck's theme song. TNT recognized his rising popularity and began promoting Grave Digger heavily, especially for races on the Tuff Trax syndicated television series. This was helped by Bigfoot not racing for points in the 1989 championship, leaving Grave Digger as the most popular truck on the tour.


title: Grave Digger (monster truck)

text: When TNT became a part of the United States Hot Rod Association in 1991, Anderson began running on the USHRA tour and debuted his first four-link truck, Grave Digger 3. Throughout the 1990s, the popularity of the truck grew and forced Anderson to hire other drivers to run other Grave Digger trucks. Grave Diggers 4, 5 and 8 were built to suit this purpose, and were never driven in any major capacity by Anderson. Anderson drove Grave Digger 7, a direct successor to 3, for most of the decade. It was replaced by Grave Digger 12, well known as the "long wheelbase Digger", which was also the first Grave Digger with purple in the paint job.


title: Grave Digger (monster truck)

text: In 1993, Dennis Anderson and Grave Digger #7 were heavily featured on the TV series "Monster Wars". Anderson led the beginning of the season until breakages and disqualifications; he finished 5th. That year, Anderson won the 2nd USHRA wreck of the year title after he won and rolled over in Lebanon Valley Speedway, racing UFO. There was footage inside the cab of Anderson uttering his famous catch-saying “Yea we turned er over, she’s over, that’s what the people want, that’s what they got, I got a torn up truck!”


title: Grave Digger (monster truck)

text: In late 1998, Anderson sold the Grave Digger team to Pace Motorsports (now Feld Entertainment). Anderson continued to drive, being the most visible member of the team, and remained in charge of drivers and of training team members.


title: Grave Digger (monster truck)

text: Anderson competed in his final event on January 14, 2017 at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida. On September 18, 2017, Dennis announced his full retirement from Monster Jam, stating however that he would still be behind the scenes and in the pits.


title: Grave Digger (monster truck)

text: There have been a total of 41 Grave Digger monster trucks built. There are seven trucks currently competing.


title: Grave Digger (monster truck)

text: Grave Digger's origins, the imagery associated with the truck, and the truck's wild reputation, are all considered part of the mystique of the truck and have contributed to its continued popularity. The paint scheme, which combines green flames, letters dripping blood, a foggy graveyard scene with tombstones bearing names of competitors, a haunted house silhouetted by a full moon, and a giant skull-shaped ghost, has not strayed far from the first incarnation of the paintwork from 1986.


title: Grave Digger (monster truck)

text: Perhaps the most visible trademark is the red headlights which glow menacingly whenever the truck is in competition. The lights were first used when Anderson was building a transporter out of a school bus and removed the red stop lights. After realizing they would fit in the headlights of the van, he installed them and the truck has had them ever since.


title: Grave Digger (monster truck)

text: Anderson became known for destructive qualifying passes which entertained the crowd but on many occasions put the truck out of competition for the rest of the event. With the advent of freestyle, Anderson gained a means by which he could entertain the crowd with wild stunts while also focusing on winning races. Today, Grave Digger, no matter which driver is appearing, is traditionally the last truck to freestyle at most events, providing the "grand finale" which caps off the show.


title: Grave Digger (monster truck)

text: The immense popularity of Grave Digger has made it the flagship truck of Monster Jam, and in some cases monster trucks in general. There is much debate over whether Grave Digger has taken over the title of "Most Popular Monster Truck" from Bigfoot. As a result, the Grave Digger vs. Bigfoot rivalry is one of the strongest in the sport, despite the fact that the teams have not raced each other regularly since the late 1990s.


title: Grave Digger (monster truck)

text: Digger’s Dungeon, located in Poplar Branch, North Carolina, is the official home of Grave Digger. Besides the usual gift shop, there are several Grave Diggers located outside on display, including Grave Digger 1. There are also various pieces of other Grave Diggers hanging throughout the store, all of which have been damaged from various accidents.


title: Grave Digger (monster truck)

text: Digger’s Dungeon hosted the 2010 No Limit R/C Monster Truck World Finals, taking place from May 28 to May 30. The RC World Finals is the largest RC Monster Truck event in the world.


title: Madchester

text: Madchester was a musical and cultural scene that developed in the English city of Manchester in the late 1980s, closely associated with the indie dance scene. Indie-dance (sometimes referred to as indie-rave) saw artists merging indie music with elements of acid house, psychedelia and 1960s pop. The term Madchester was coined by Factory Records' Tony Wilson, with the label popularised by the British music press in the early 1990s, and its most famous groups include the Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, Inspiral Carpets, the Charlatans, James and 808 State. It is widely seen as being heavily influenced by drugs, especially MDMA. At that time, the Haçienda nightclub, co-owned by members of New Order, was a major catalyst for the distinctive musical ethos in the city that was called the Second Summer of Love.


title: Madchester

text: The music scene in Manchester immediately before the Madchester era had been dominated by The Smiths, New Order, and The Fall, who were to become a significant influence on the Madchester scene. The May 1982 opening of the Haçienda nightclub, an initiative of Factory Records, was also influential in the development of popular culture in Manchester. For the first few years of its life, the club played predominantly club-oriented pop music and hosted gigs by artists including New Order, Cabaret Voltaire, Culture Club, Thompson Twins, and the Smiths. It had DJs such as Hewan Clarke and Greg Wilson and switched focus from being a live venue to being a dance club by 1986. In 1987, the Hacienda started playing house music with DJs Mike Pickering, Graeme Park, and "Little" Martin Prendergast hosting "Nude Night" on Fridays.


title: Madchester

text: The Festival of the Tenth Summer in July 1986, organised by Factory Records, helped to consolidate Manchester's standing as a centre for alternative pop culture. The festival included film screenings, a music seminar, art shows, and gigs by the city's most prominent bands, including an all-day gig at Manchester G-Mex featuring A Certain Ratio, the Smiths, New Order, and the Fall. According to Dave Haslam, the festival demonstrated that "the city had become synonymous with larger-than-life characters playing cutting edge music. [...] Individuals were inspired and the city was energised; of own accord, uncontrolled".


title: Madchester

text: The Haçienda went from making a consistent loss to selling out by early 1987. During 1987, it hosted performances by American house artists including Frankie Knuckles and Adonis. Other clubs in the Manchester area started to catch on to house music including Devilles, Isadora's, Konspiracy, House, Soundgardens and Man Alive in the city centre, Bugsy's in Ashton-under-Lyne and the Osbourne Club in Miles Platting. Another key factor in the build-up to Madchester was the sudden availability of the drug MDMA in the city, beginning in 1987 and growing the following year. According to Haslam, "[MDMA] use changed clubs forever; a night at the Haçienda went from being a great night out to an intense, life changing experience."


title: Madchester

text: The British music scene was such that "The Guardian" later stated, "The '80s looked destined to end in musical ignominy." The Madchester movement burgeoned as its sound was new and refreshing, and its popularity soon grew. Music by artists such as the Stone Roses and Happy Mondays began to chart highly in 1989 with New Order releasing the acid house-influenced "Technique", which topped the UK Albums Chart.


title: Madchester

text: In October 1988, the Stone Roses released "Elephant Stone" as a single. Around the same time, the Happy Mondays released the single "Wrote for Luck" (followed by the "Bummed" album, produced by Martin Hannett). In November, A Guy Called Gerald released his first solo single, "Voodoo Ray". Only "Voodoo Ray" was a commercial success; by December of that year, however, a sense had started to develop in the British music press that there was something going on in the city. According to Sean O'Hagan, writing in the "NME", "There is a particularly credible music biz rumour-come theory that certain Northern towns — Manchester being the prime example — have had their water supply treated with small doses of mind-expanding chemicals. [...] Everyone from Happy Mondays to the severely disorientated Morrissey conform to the theory in some way. Enter A Guy Called Gerald, out of his box on the limitless possibilities of a bank of keyboards."


title: Madchester

text: The Stone Roses' following increased as they gigged around the country and released the "Made of Stone" single in February 1989. This did not chart, but enthusiasm for the band in the music press intensified when they released their debut album (produced by John Leckie) in March. Bob Stanley (later of Saint Etienne), reviewing the Stone Roses album in "Melody Maker", wrote, "This is simply the best debut LP I've heard in my record buying lifetime. Forget everybody else. Forget work tomorrow." "NME" did not put it quite so strongly, but reported nonetheless that it was being talked of as "the greatest album ever made". John Robb in "Sounds" gave the album 9/10 and said that the Stone Roses "revolutionised British pop".


title: Madchester

text: The club scene in Manchester continued to grow during 1988 and 1989, with the Haçienda launching Ibiza-themed nights in the summer of 1988 and the "Hot" acid house night (hosted by Mike Pickering and Jon DaSilva) in November of the same year.


title: Madchester

text: The "baggy" sound generally includes a combination of funk, psychedelia, guitar rock, and house music. In the Manchester context, the music can be seen as mainly influenced by the indie music that had dominated the city's music scene during the 1980s, but also absorbing the various influences coming through "the Haçienda" nightclub. Alongside the music, a way of dressing emerged that gave baggy its name. Baggy jeans (often flared, with the pants usually being made by Shami Ahmed's 'Joe Bloggs' brand) alongside brightly coloured or tie-dye casual tops and general 1960s style became fashionable first in Manchester and then across the country, frequently topped off with a fishing hat in the style sported by the Stone Roses' drummer Alan "Reni" Wren. The overall look was part rave, part retro or part hippie, part football casual. Many Madchester bands had football casual fans and a number of bands even wore football shirts.


title: Madchester

text: In mid-1989, media interest in the Manchester scene continued to grow. In September, the Happy Mondays released a Vince Clarke remix of "Wrote for Luck" as a single. In November, four important singles were released: "Move" by the Inspiral Carpets, "Pacific State" by 808 State, the Happy Mondays EP "Madchester Rave On" and "Fools Gold"/"What the World is Waiting For" by the Stone Roses. The Happy Mondays record, featuring the lead track "Hallelujah!", coined the term "Madchester" – it had originally been suggested by their video directors the Bailey Brothers as a potential T-shirt slogan.


title: Madchester

text: In November, the Stone Roses performed a gig at London's Alexandra Palace and were invited onto BBC Two's high-brow "Late Show" (during their performance the electricity was cut off by noise limiting circuitry and singer Ian Brown shouted "Amateurs, amateurs" as the presenter tried to link into the next item). On 23 November 1989, the Stone Roses and the Happy Mondays appeared on the same edition of "Top of the Pops". The "Fools Gold" single made number 8 in the UK Singles Chart, becoming the biggest-selling indie single of the year.


title: Madchester

text: Madchester became something of an industry bandwagon from this time. According to NME journalist Stuart Maconie, the British press had "gone bonkers over Manchester bands". James were amongst the first beneficiaries of this. The local success of their self-financed singles "Come Home" and "Sit Down" led to a deal with Fontana, and they were to score chart hits with "How Was it For You" and a re-recorded version of "Come Home" in the summer of 1990.