title: Maggot Brain

text: The subsequent five tracks have been described as "sour harmony-group meditations heavy with bass, keyboard and class consciousness," with the band exploring a "psychedelic/funk fusion." "Can You Get to That" features Isaac Hayes's backing vocal group Hot Buttered Soul, and contains elements of folk blues and gospel music. "You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks" explores interracial love and features electronically distorted drums. The track "Super Stupid" was described by "Pitchfork" as a "tale of a dumbass junkie set to a tune Black Sabbath would have been proud of." The 9-minute closing track "Wars of Armageddon" has been described as a "freak-out" jam, and makes use of "paranoid, psychedelic sound effects and crowd sounds." Popular music scholar Yuval Taylor described it as "a burning hot prefiguring" of the music that Miles Davis would perform on his 1975 live album "Agharta".


title: Maggot Brain

text: Reportedly, "Maggot Brain" was the nickname of Hazel. Other sources say the title is a reference to band leader George Clinton finding his brother's "decomposed dead body, skull cracked, in an apartment in Newark, New Jersey."


title: Maggot Brain

text: The cover artwork depicts a screaming black woman's head coming out of the earth; it was photographed by Joel Brodsky and features model Barbara Cheeseborough. The album's liner notes are a polemic on fear provided by the Process Church of the Final Judgement, an obscure Satanist religious cult. According to author Rickey Vincent, the organization's presumed association with mass-murderer Charles Manson, along with the album's foreboding themes and striking artwork, lent Funkadelic the image of a "death-worshipping black rock band."


title: Maggot Brain

text: Westbound Records released "Maggot Brain" in July 1971. It peaked at number 108 on the US pop chart while missing the UK chart, and also reached the top 20 of the R&B charts.


title: Maggot Brain

text: After the album was released, the band effectively disbanded: drummer Tiki Fulwood was fired due to drug use; guitarist Tawl Ross reportedly got into an "acid eating contest, then snorting some raw speed, before completely flipping out" and has not performed since; bassist Billy Nelson quit over a money dispute with Clinton. Subsequently only Clinton, Hazel, and keyboardist Bernie Worrell remained from the original Funkadelic lineup.


title: Maggot Brain

text: A 2005 reissue included three bonus tracks, among them an alternate mix of "Maggot Brain" featuring the full-band performance.


title: Maggot Brain

text: Reviewing for "Rolling Stone" in September 1971, Vince Aletti negatively described "Maggot Brain" as "a shattered, desolate landscape with few pleasures," competently performed but "limited." He was particularly critical of the record's second side, panning it as "dead-end stuff," and asked "who needs this shit?" "Village Voice" critic Robert Christgau was more enthusiastic, praising the title-track as "druggy, time-warped super-schlock" and claiming that the second track features "a rhythm so pronounced and eccentric it could make Berry Gordy twitch to death"; he added that "the funk pervades the rest of the album, but not to the detriment of other peculiarities."


title: Maggot Brain

text: Writing years later for "PopMatters", Taylor called the album "one of the loudest, darkest, most intense records ever made," and stated that the group "captured the odor of the age, the stench of death and corruption, the weary exhalation of America at its lowest." Dominque Leone of "Pitchfork" called the album "an explosive record, bursting at the seams with exactly the kind of larger than life sound a band called Funkadelic should have made." Dave Segal, from the same publication, revered it as "a monument of psychedelic funk" and "a defining document of Black rock music in the early '70s". Additionally, he called its two bookending tracks "the most evocative expressions of birth and annihilation ever put on record" and suggested that the "soulful funk-rock" tracks in between represent the "hott[est] five-song streak in the Clinton canon". "The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Rock History" (2006) claimed that "Maggot Brain" and Funkadelic's previous two albums "created a whole new kind of psychedelic rock with a dance groove". Music historian Bob Gulla hailed it as an "iconoclastic funk-rock" record, featuring the best guitar playing of Hazel's career. Author Matthew Grant describes the album as marking where "the band really hit their stride.


title: Maggot Brain

text: In a subsequent review for "Blender", Christgau described the 10-minute title track as "indelible" and said the album culminated in "Funkadelic's most incendiary freak-out ever" on the last track, while also applauding the 2005 CD reissue's bonus tracks. "Stereogum" named it the second best album by the Parliament-Funkadelic collective, and called it "one of the most cathartic R&B albums ever made." John Bush of AllMusic stated that the group "hit its stride with [the] acid-rock extravaganza." "Happy Mag" named the album among the 5 best P-Funk releases, describing it as "an absolute freakout of psychedelic funk sounds," but also "perhaps Clinton’s most lyrically sparse album." "Fender" called the album "an eruption of psychedelic agit-funk that blended the increasingly bleak American story—urban decay, prime time body counts from an ongoing slog through Vietnam, and front page assassinations—with the sounds of Hendrix, Motown, James Brown, Cream, Sly Stone, Blue Cheer and Vanilla Fudge." "The Washington Post" critic Geoffrey Himes names it an exemplary release of the progressive soul development from 1968 to 1973.


title: Maggot Brain

text: In 2003, "Rolling Stone" ranked "Maggot Brain" #486 on the magazine's list of 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, with the magazine raising its rank in 2012 to #479, calling it "the heaviest rock album the P-Funk ever created". In the 2020 reboot of the list, the album's rank shot up to #136. The record was also listed in the music reference book "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die". The singer Bilal names it among his 25 favorite albums, citing its "loose" creative direction as an influence on his own music.


title: Foreign policy

text: A state's foreign policy or external policy (as opposed to internal or domestic policy) is its objectives and activities in relation to its interactions with other states, unions, and other political entities, whether bilaterally or through multilateral platforms. The "Encyclopedia Britannica" notes that a government's foreign policy may be influenced by "domestic considerations, the policies or behaviour of other states, or plans to advance specific geopolitical designs."


title: Foreign policy

text: The idea of long-term management of relationships followed the development of professional diplomatic corps that managed diplomacy.


title: Foreign policy

text: In the 18th century, due to extreme turbulence in European diplomacy and ongoing conflicts, the practice of diplomacy was often fragmented by the necessity to deal with isolated issues, termed "affairs". Therefore, while domestic management of such issues was termed civil affairs (peasant riots, treasury shortfalls, and court intrigues), the term foreign affairs was applied to the management of temporary issues outside the sovereign realm. This term remained in widespread use in the English-speaking states into the 20th century, and remains the name of departments in several states that manage foreign relations. Although originally intended to describe short term management of a specific concern, these departments now manage all day-to-day and long-term international relations among states.


title: Foreign policy

text: Think Tanks are occasionally employed by government foreign relations organisations to provide research and advocacy in the development of foreign policy proposals, alternatives to existing policy, or to provide analytical assessments of evolving relationships.


title: Foreign policy

text: There are several objectives that may motivate a government's foreign policy. Among other reasons, foreign policy may be directed for defense and security, for economic benefit, or to provide assistance to states that need it. All foreign policy objectives are interconnected and contribute to a single, comprehensive foreign policy for each state. Unlike domestic policy, foreign policy issues tend to arise suddenly in response to developments and major events in foreign countries.


title: Foreign policy

text: Foreign policy is often directed for the purpose of ensuring national security. Governments forming military alliances with foreign states in order to deter and show stronger resistance to attack. Foreign policy also focuses on combating adversarial states through soft power, international isolation, or war.


title: Foreign policy

text: In the 21st century, defensive foreign policy has expanded to address the threat of global terrorism.


title: Foreign policy

text: Foreign policy is central for a country's role within the world economy and international trade. Economic foreign policy issues may include the establishment of trade agreements, the distribution of foreign aid, and the management of imports and exports.


title: Foreign policy

text: Many states have developed humanitarian programs under the concept of the responsibility to protect. Proponents of liberal internationalism believe that it is the duty of stronger and more well-off countries to assist and support less powerful countries. This idea is often associated with the idealist school of thought. Liberal internationalist support can take the form of defensive or economic support.


title: Foreign policy

text: Superpowers are able to project power and exercise their influence across the world, while great powers and middle powers have moderate influence in global affairs.


title: Foreign policy

text: Small powers have less ability to exercise influence unilaterally, as they have fewer economic and military resources to leverage. As a result, they are more likely to support international and multilateral organizations. The diplomatic bureaucracies of smaller states are also smaller, which limits their capacity to engage in complex diplomacy. Smaller states may seek to ally themselves with larger countries for economic and defensive benefits, or they may avoid involvement in international disputes so as to remain on friendly terms with all countries.


title: Foreign policy

text: The political institutions and forms of government play a role in a country's foreign policy. In a democracy, public opinion and the methods of political representation both affect a country's foreign policy. Democratic countries are also believed to be less likely to resort to military conflict with one another. Autocratic states are less likely to use legalism in their foreign policies. Under a dictatorship, a state's foreign policy may depend heavily on the preferences of the dictator. Dictators that interfere significantly with their foreign policy apparatus may be less predictable and more likely to make foreign policy blunders.


title: Foreign policy

text: The study of foreign policy considers why and how states interact with one another and maintain relations. Several schools of thought exist in the study of foreign policy, including the rational actor model based on rational choice theory, the government bargaining model that posits the foreign policy apparatus as several competing interests, and the organizational process model that posits the foreign policy apparatus as interlinked bureaucracies that each play their own role.


title: Foreign policy

text: Think tanks exist that study foreign policy specifically, including the Council on Foreign Relations in the United States and the Chatham House in the United Kingdom.


title: Lahore Fort

text: The Lahore Fort () is a citadel in the city of Lahore, Pakistan. The fortress is located at the northern end of walled city Lahore, and spreads over an area greater than 20 hectares. It contains 21 notable monuments, some of which date to the era of Emperor Akbar. The Lahore Fort is notable for having been almost entirely rebuilt in the 17th century, when the Mughal Empire was at the height of its splendour and opulence.


title: Lahore Fort

text: Though the site of the Lahore Fort has been inhabited for millennia, the first record of a fortified structure at the site was regarding an 11th-century mud-brick fort. The foundations of the modern Lahore Fort date to 1566 during the reign of Emperor Akbar, who bestowed the fort with a syncretic architectural style that featured both Islamic and Hindu motifs. Additions from the Shah Jahan period are characterized by luxurious marble with inlaid Persian floral designs, while the fort's grand and iconic Alamgiri Gate was constructed by the last of the great Mughal Emperors, Aurangzeb, and faces the renowned Badshahi Mosque.


title: Lahore Fort

text: After the fall of the Mughal Empire, Lahore Fort was used as the residence of Emperor Ranjit Singh, founder of the Sikh Empire. The Sikhs made several additions to the fort. It then passed to the control of the East India Company after they annexed Punjab following their victory over the Sikhs at the Battle of Gujrat in February 1849. In 1981, the fort was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its "outstanding repertoire" of Mughal monuments dating from the era when the empire was at its artistic and aesthetic zenith.


title: Lahore Fort

text: The fort is located in the northern part of Lahore's old walled city. The fort's Alamgiri gate is part of an ensemble of buildings, which along with the Badshahi Mosque, Roshnai Gate, and Samadhi of Ranjit Singh, form a quadrangle around the Hazuri Bagh. The "Minar-e-Pakistan" and Iqbal Park are adjacent to the northern boundary of the fort.


title: Lahore Fort

text: Though the site is known to have been inhabited for millennia, the origins of Lahore Fort are obscure and traditionally based on various myths.


title: Lahore Fort

text: The first historical reference to a fort at the site is from the 11th century during the rule of Mahmud of Ghazni. The fort was made of mud and was destroyed in 1241 by the Mongols during their invasion of Lahore. A new fort was constructed in 1267 at the site by Sultan Balban of the Turkic Mamluk dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate. The re-built fort was destroyed in 1398 by the invading forces of Timur, only to be rebuilt by Mubarak Shah Sayyid in 1421, In the 1430s, the fort was occupied by Shaikh Ali of Kabul. and remained under the control of the Pashtun sultans of the Lodi dynasty until Lahore was captured by the Mughal Emperor Babur in 1526.


title: Lahore Fort

text: The present design and structure of the fort trace its origins to 1575 when the Mughal Emperor Akbar occupied the site as a post to guard the northwest frontier of the empire. The strategic location of Lahore, between the Mughal territories and the strongholds of Kabul, Multan, and Kashmir necessitated the dismantling of the old mud-fort and fortification with solid brick masonry. Lofty palaces were built over time, along with lush gardens. Notable Akbar period structures included the "Doulat Khana-e-Khas-o-Am", "Jharoka-e-Darshan", and "Akbari Gate". Many Akbari structures were modified or replaced by subsequent rulers.


title: Lahore Fort

text: Emperor Jahangir first mentions his alterations to the fort in 1612 when describing the Maktab Khana. Jahangir also added the Kala Burj pavilion, which features European-inspired angels on its vaulted ceiling. British visitors to the fort noted Christian iconography during the Jahangir period, with paintings of the Madonna and Jesus found in the fort complex. In 1606, Guru Arjan of the Sikh faith was imprisoned at the fort before his death.


title: Lahore Fort

text: Jahangir bestowed the massive Picture Wall, a by wall which is exquisitely decorated with a vibrant array of glazed tile, faience mosaics, and frescoes. On the spandrels of the large arched panels below Jahangir's "Khwabgah" (the Imperial Bedchamber) are "azdahas" or winged dragons from ancient Persian mythology, cup-bearing angel figures herons, cranes and other flying birds. Many of the scenes displayed on this ‘Picture Wall’ illustrate the court life of the Mughal sovereigns, their sports and their pastimes. One of the finest panels shows four horsemen playing the noble game of chaughan, nowadays known as polo. Most prominent are those relating to elephant fights, which were one of the favourite recreations of the Mughal court.


title: Lahore Fort

text: The Mosque of Mariyam Zamani Begum was built adjacent to the forts of eastern walls during the reign of Jahangir. While the mosque likely served as a Friday congregational mosque for members of the Royal Court, it was not financed by Jahangir, although it likely required his approval. The foundation of this mosque was laid by the Empress Mariam-uz-Zamani in the year 1611 and the construction was completed on the order of her son Jahangir in her honor.


title: Lahore Fort

text: Shah Jahan's first contribution to the fort commenced in the year of his coronation, 1628, and continued until 1645. Shah Jahan first ordered the construction of the Diwan-i-Aam in the style of a "Chehel Sotoun" - a Persian style 40-pillar public audience hall. Though construction of the Shah Burj commenced under Jahangir, Shah Jahan was displeased with its design and appointed Asif Khan to oversee reconstruction. Shah Jahan's Shah Burj forms a quadrangle with the famous Sheesh Mahal, and Naulakha Pavilion. Both are attributed to Shah Jahan, although the Naulakha Pavilion may be a later addition possibly from the Sikh era. The white marble Moti Masjid, or Pearl Mosque, also dates from the Shah Jahan period.


title: Lahore Fort

text: Emperor Aurangzeb, built the Alamgiri Gate, whose semi-circular towers and domed pavilions are a widely recognised symbol of Lahore that was once featuredPakistani currency.


title: Lahore Fort

text: The Mughals lost the fort to the Afghan Durranis, who in turn briefly lost the fort to Maratha forces before being recaptured by the Durranis. The fort was then captured by the Bhangi Misl - one of the 12 Sikh Misls of Punjab that ruled Lahore from 1767 until 1799.


title: Lahore Fort

text: The fort fell to the army of Ranjit Singh, who took Lahore from the Bhangi Misl in 1799. During their occupation of the fort, the Sikhs made many additions to the fort and repurposed portions of it for their own use. The famed Hazuri Bagh garden and its central "baradari" were constructed during Sikh rule to celebrate the Maharaja's capture of the Koh-i-Noor diamond. Ranjit Singh used the fort's Summer Palace as his own residence, while the Moti masjid was repurposed as a Gurdwara called Moti mandir, and later used as royal treasury. The "Sehdari" pavilion, or "Three-doored" pavilion, was added to the fort during this period, as was the "Ath dara" or "Eight-doored" pavilion. The fort's Naag Temple and Loh temple were also constructed during Sikh rule, while the "Mai Jindan Haveli" was extensively modified. "Kharak Singh Haveli" was also added. The fort's northern outer wall, parallel to the picture wall, was constructed during this period.


title: Lahore Fort

text: The fort's Diwan-i-Aam was destroyed in 1841 when the son of Ranjit Singh, Sher Singh bombarded the fort in his fight against Chand Kaur. Maharaja Ranjit Singh's elder son and successor, Kharak Singh was born in the fort to his wife, Maharani Datar Kaur. The youngest son of Ranjit Singh, Maharaja Duleep Singh was born at the fort's "Mai Jindan Haveli" in 1838. Duleep Singh had signed the Treaty of Bhyroval in 1847 that brought the Sikh empire to an effective end. The fort and the city had remained under the control of Ranjit Singh's family until the fall of the Sikh Empire in 1849.


title: Lahore Fort

text: Excavations in 1959 in front of Diwan-i-Am led to the discovery of a gold coin dated 1025 CE belonging to Mahmud Ghaznavi. The coin was unearthed at the depth of from the lawn. The cultural layers were continuous to the depth of indicating that the fort was inhabited by people even before his conquest.


title: Lahore Fort

text: While relaying the deteriorated floor of Akbari Gate in April 2007, three floors in the fort were unearthed belonging to the British, Sikh and Mughal periods. The floor of the British, Sikh and Mughal periods was constructed with bricks, burnt bricks and pebbles respectively. The latter either built during Jahangir's or Shah Jahan's era was the hallmark of Mughals.


title: Lahore Fort

text: The fort is divided into two sections: first, the administrative section, which is well connected with main entrances, and includes gardens and "Diwan-e-Khas" for royal audiences. The second, a private and concealed residential section is divided into courts in the north and accessible through elephant gate. It also contains Sheesh Mahal, spacious bedrooms and small gardens. The exterior walls are decorated with blue Persian Kashi tiles. The original entrance faces the Maryam Zamani Mosque and the larger Alamgiri gate opens towards Hazuri Bagh through the majestic Badshahi mosque. Influence of Hindu architecture is seen in the zoomorphic corbels.


title: Lahore Fort

text: The Naulakha Pavilion is an iconic sight of the Lahore Fort built in 1633 during the Shah Jahan period that is made of prominent white marble, and known for its distinctive curvilinear roof. It cost around 900,000 rupees, an exorbitant amount at the time. The structure derives its name from the Urdu word for 900,000, "Naulakha".


title: Lahore Fort

text: The Naulakha Pavilion served as a personal chamber and was located to the west of the Sheesh Mahal, in the northern section of the fort. The pavilion served as inspiration for Rudyard Kipling, who named his Vermont home Naulakha in honour of the pavilion.


title: Lahore Fort

text: The structure was originally inlaid with precious and semi-precious stones. It reflects a mixture of contemporary traditions at the time of its construction, with a sloping-roof based on a Bengali style, and a baldachin from Europe, which makes evident the imperial as well as the religious function of the pavilion. The marble shades of the pavilion are capped with merlons to hide the view from the grounds.


title: Lahore Fort

text: Emperor Jahangir ordered the construction of the massive "Picture Wall", which is considered to be the greatest artistic triumph of the Lahore Fort. Unlike the Red Fort and Agra Fort, Lahore Fort's ramparts were made of brick rather than red stone. The monumental Picture Wall is a large section of the outer wall which is exquisitely decorated with a vibrant array of glazed tile, faience mosaics, and frescoes.


title: Lahore Fort

text: The embellished wall stretches over much of the fort's northern and western walls and measures approximately by . The wall contains 116 panels, which depict a myriad of subjects, including elephant fights, angels, and polo games that do not form a cohesive narrative; each can be viewed in isolation. Though begun under Jahangir, the Picture Wall was decorated throughout the 1620s, and may have been completed under the reign of his son, Shah Jahan.


title: Lahore Fort

text: The Picture Wall was badly neglected and suffered from disrepair and damage. Conservation works at the site began in 2015 by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture and Walled City of Lahore Authority, which together have also restored other Lahore landmarks such as the Wazir Khan Mosque and Shahi Hammam. Detailed documentation of the wall using 3D scanner was completed in July 2016, after which conservation work would start.


title: Lahore Fort

text: The Sheesh Mahal (""The Palace of Mirrors""; ) is located within Jahangir's "Shah Burj" block in the northern-western corner of the Lahore Fort. It was constructed under the reign of Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in 1631-32 by Mirza Ghiyas Begh, the grandfather of Mumtaz Mahal, and father of Nur Jahan. The ornate white marble pavilion's walls are decorated with frescoes and are inlaid with pietra dura and complex mirror-work known as Āina-kāri. It is among the best-known monuments of Lahore Fort and forms the jewel in the fort's crown. The distinctive Shah Jahani style is reflected in the extensive use of white marble, and hierarchical accents of the construction.


title: Lahore Fort

text: Sheesh Mahal was reserved for personal use by the imperial family and close aides. During the Sikh Empire, "Shah Burj" became Ranjit Singh's favourite place, who built a harem on top of the Sheesh Mahal. This was also the place where he would display his prized possession, the Koh-i-Noor.


title: Lahore Fort

text: Located directly beneath the Sheesh Mahal and Shah Burj quadrangle is the Summer Palace, also known as the "Pari Mahal", or "Fairy Palace." The palace is a labyrinth of chambers that date from the Shah Jahan period. They were used as a residence during hot weather months, as they were cooled by effective ventilation systems that channelled cool breezes into the palace. The palace's flooring system also helped cool the space - its floors were made of two layers that were separated by a layer of water pumped in from the Ravi River. Cool water perfumed by roses flowed through an elaborate system of 42 waterfalls and cascades throughout the palace.


title: Lahore Fort

text: The palace was historically only accessible from the overlying Sheesh Mahal, though a new entrance was built by the British near Hathi Pul, or "Elephant Stairs." Its walls were decorated with intricate frescoes and marble inlay that have been severely deteriorate by layers of subsequent white-washing and centuries of dampness. Passage tunnels also exist that lead from the palace to the fort's exterior where the River Ravi once flowed, suggesting that it may have been part of an escape tunnel designed to allow occupants to flee in case of attack.


title: Lahore Fort

text: The Summer Palace remained in use during the Sikh period under the reign of Ranjit Singh. After the defeat of the Sikh empire in the Second Anglo-Sikh War, it went into the hands of the East India Company and in 1858, into the hands of the British Raj, and its appointed agents and executors.


title: Lahore Fort

text: Beginning in World War 2, the Summer Palace was used as a storehouse for the British Civil Defence Department, and remained in use by Pakistan until 1973. The building's structural integrity was affected by its use as a storehouse. As of 2014, the Walled City of Lahore Authority has assumed control of the space in order to undertake restoration works with the Aga Khan Trust for Culture Following its restoration, the space will house the Lahore Fort's museum.


title: Lahore Fort

text: "Āth darā", an elevated pavilion with eight openings, was built by Maharaja Ranjit Singh for use as his court. It is located near the gate of the Shah Burj quadrangle and shares a wall with it. The structure is made of marble and red sandstone. The ceiling is decorated with colourful mirror-work, and Kangra style frescoes depicting Krishna are present on the interior walls.


title: Lahore Fort

text: "Khilwat Khana" was built by Shah Jahan in 1633 to the east of the Shah Burj Pavilion, and west of the Shah Jahan Quadrangle. It was the residence of the royal ladies of the court. The plinth and door frames are made of marble with a curvilinear roof.


title: Lahore Fort

text: In the northwest corner of the Khilawat Khana stands the Kala Burj ("Black Pavilion"). The pavilion is the most significant of the Jahangir-era additions to the Lahore Fort. The vaulted ceilings in the pavilion feature paintings in a European-influenced style of angels which symbolize the virtuosity of King Solomon, who is regarded as the ideal ruler in the Quran, and a ruler with whom Jahangir identified. Angels directing "djinns" are also painted on tiles in the ceiling, which also reference King Solomon. Kala Burj was used as a summer pavilion.


title: Lahore Fort

text: In the northeast corner of the Khilawat Khana stands the Lal Burj ("Red Pavilion"). Like the nearby Kala Burj, the Lal Burj was built during the reign of Jahangir, though finished during the reign of Shah Jahan. Octagonal in shape, the Lal Burj was used as a summer pavilion. It features primary windows that opened to the north to catch cool breezes. The interior frescoes date mostly from the Sikh era, along with the entire upper level that was also added during the Sikh era.


title: Lahore Fort

text: The collection of buildings surrounding the quadrangle situated between Jahangir's Quadrangle and Khilawat Khana is referred to as Shah Jahan's Quadrangle.


title: Lahore Fort

text: In contrast to the Diwan-i-Aam, the Diwan-i-Khas served as a hall where the Emperor would attend to matters of the state, and where courtiers and state guests were received. The hall was site of elaborate pageantry, with processions of up to one hour long occurring before each audience session.


title: Lahore Fort

text: Khwabgah was the bedroom of Shah Jahan. It was built by Shah Jahan under the supervision of Wazir Khan in 1634 during his first visit to the city. Five sleeping chambers are aligned in a single row. The chambers feature carved marble screens and are decorated with inlaid white marble and frescoes, It is the first building built by Shah Jahan in the fort. At present, its decorations have vanished except for a trace of the marble which once might have beautified the façade.


title: Lahore Fort

text: Jahangir's Quadrangle occupies the northeastern corner of the fort. Though named for Jahangir, construction on the site began during the reign of Akbar but was completed in 1620 under Jahangir. Akbar's syncretic style is noted in the quadrangle, as it employs column brackets carved in the form of animals. The quadrangle's layout differs from other Mughal quadrangles which are based upon the layout of a Persian paradise garden and instead is formed by concentric rectangles with a fountain in its centre.


title: Lahore Fort

text: The Diwan-i-Aam was built by Shah Jahan in 1628 in a prominent part of the fort immediately south of Jahangir's Quadrangle. It was built style of a "Chehel Sotoun" - a Persian style 40-pillar public audience hall, in a style similar to the Diwan-i-Aam at the Agra Fort. The Diwan-i-Aam was used as a hall for the emperors to hold an audience with commoners.


title: Lahore Fort

text: Shah Jahan's Diwan-i-Aam was destroyed in 1841 when the son of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, Sher Singh bombarded the fort in his fight against Maharani Chand Kaur, the wife of Maharaja Kharak Singh. The current structure was built by the British in 1849 after their victory against the Sikhs.


title: Lahore Fort

text: Kharak Singh Haveli was the "haveli" of Kharak Singh, the heir to Ranjit Singh. It lies in the southeast of the Jahangir's Quadrangle. It was later occupied by the British where the first and the ground floor were used as a Commandant's Quarters and godown and servants house respectively. Currently, it houses the archaeological survey office.


title: Lahore Fort

text: The Jahangir Quadrangle is bordered on its northern edge by Jahangir's sleeping chambers, the "Bari Khwabgah", which was largely reconstructed during the British era.


title: Lahore Fort

text: The Sikh-era "Sehdari" pavilion, or "Three-doored" pavilion, is located to the east of the "Bari Khwabgah". A second "Sehdari" pavilion was located to the west of the "Bari Khwabgah", but was subsequently destroyed during the British period. The surviving pavilion was used as an office for Faqir Syed Noor-ud-din, a trusted Governor of Ranjit Singh. The architectural style of the "Sehdari" pavilion is typical of the Sikh period. Frescoes decorating the pavilion portray floral designs, birds, and Hindu religious themes.


title: Lahore Fort

text: The Maktab Khana ("Clerk's Quarters") originally known as "Dawlat Khana-e-Jahangir", was constructed in 1617 under the supervision of Mamur Khan during the reign of Jahangir as a set of cloisters near the Moti Masjid. Designed by Khawaja Jahan Muhammad Dost, it was used as a passage to the Audience Hall from the palace buildings to the north. Clerks in the Maktab Khana would also record the entry of guests into the fort. It features iwans in the Persian-Timurid style on each of its four sides. Each iwan is flanked by arches.


title: Lahore Fort

text: The Moti Masjid (), one of the "Pearl Mosques", is a mosque dating from the Shah Jahan Period that is located on the western side of Lahore Fort, closer to Alamgiri Gate. It is situated in the northwestern corner of "Dewan-e-Aam". The white marble structure is among its prominent extensions (such as Sheesh Mahal and Naulakha pavilion) to the Lahore Fort Complex. "Moti" in Urdu language means "pearl", which designates a perceived preciousness to the religious structure. It was an established practice among Mughal emperors to name the mosques after generic names for gemstones. The mosque, built between 1630–35, has three superimposed domes, two aisles of five bays, and a slightly raised central "pishtaq", or portal with a rectangular frame. This five-arched facade distinguishes it from other mosques of a similar class with three-arched facades. The interior is simple and plain with the exception of ceilings that are decorated and designed in four different orders, two arcuate, and two trabeated.


title: Lahore Fort

text: After the demise of the Mughal Empire, the mosque was converted into a Sikh temple and renamed "Moti Mandir" during the period of the Sikh rule under Ranjit Singh's Sikh Confederacy. He later used the building for the state treasury. When the East India Company took over Punjab in 1849, they discovered precious stones wrapped in bits of rags and placed in velvet purses scattered inside the mosque, along with other inventory.


title: Lahore Fort

text: Located at the western end of the fort, the Alamgiri Gate is the entrance of the Lahore Fort. It was built by the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb in 1674. It has two semi-circular bastions where lotus petal design adorns its base. It opens to the Hazuri Bagh and faces the Badshahi Mosque. The gate is one of Lahore's most iconic monuments, and once featured on Pakistani currency.


title: Lahore Fort

text: Restoration work was completed in March 2020 by Aga Khan Cultural Service Pakistan with funding from the Royal Norwegian Embassy, the Walled City of Lahore Authority, and the Aga Khan Trust for Culture.


title: Lahore Fort

text: The Naag temple is a Sikh temple built by Chand Kaur, the wife of Kharak Singh, daughter in law of the then ruling Maharaja Ranjit Singh. The temple is square in plan and built on a raised platform. Its exterior walls are covered with fresco paintings. The temple also has a water-melon shaped dome. The site is currently closed to the public in order to prevent further deterioration.


title: Lahore Fort

text: "Mai Jindan Haveli" is of unknown origins and believed to be a Mughal structure but attributed to the Mai Jindan, Chand Kaur because of the extensive additions by the Sikhs. It is a two-storied building and is presently the site of the Sikh Gallery Museum.


title: Lahore Fort

text: In 1980, Government of Pakistan nominated the fort for inclusion in UNESCO World Heritage Site based on the criteria i, ii, and iii together with the Shalimar Gardens. In the fifth meeting session held in Sydney in October 1981, the World Heritage Site committee added both the monuments to the list.


title: Lahore Fort

text: In 2000, Pakistan sent a letter to the organization to include both the sites in List of World Heritage in Danger and sought help to restore the damaged part of the outer walls and hydraulic works of Shalamar Gardens. In April 2006, it was reported that officials had urged UNESCO to remove the name of the fort from the list of endangered World Heritage Sites because of extensive restoration work funded by Norway, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom and France. Restoration projects included works at the Sheesh Mahal, Alamgiri Gate, and Hazuri Bagh. After years of extensive renovation and restoration work, the fort and Shalimar Gardens were removed from the endangered list in June 2012.


title: Lahore Fort

text: Though in 1990, UNESCO had ordered the Punjab Archaeological Department to bar the use of the Fort for state or private functions on account of historical significance, a wedding reception was held in violation on 23 December 2010. The Antiquities Act of 1975, which prohibits the use of historical places to protect them from damage, was violated in the following month by hosting a dinner in the Diwan-i-Khas.


title: Lahore Fort

text: Conservation works at the Picture Wall began in 2015 by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture and Walled City of Lahore Authority. Documentation of the wall using 3D scanner was completed in July 2016, after which conservation work would start.


title: Lahore Fort

text: Under the new Local Government Act of Punjab, 2013, Shahi Qila also serves as a union council located in the Ravi Zone.


title: MRC (company)

text: MRC II Distribution Company L.P., doing business as MRC (formerly Media Rights Capital), is an American film and television studio. Founded by Mordecai (Modi) Wiczyk and Asif Satchu, the company funds and produces film and television programming.


title: MRC (company)

text: The company's divisions include MRC Film, MRC Non-Fiction, and MRC Television. In 2018, the company merged with Todd Boehly's media assets under Valence Media, with the company as a whole taking on the MRC name in 2020; this included Dick Clark Productions (briefly known as MRC Live & Alternative), audience data firm Luminate, and the entertainment industry publications "Billboard" and "The Hollywood Reporter". Boehly (through Eldridge Industries) re-acquired most of these assets in August 2022.


title: MRC (company)

text: The company's most notable productions have included the Netflix series "House of Cards" and "Ozark," and the films "Baby Driver", "Knives Out", and "Ted".


title: MRC (company)

text: MRC's investors include Guggenheim Partners, AT&T, WPP Group, Goldman Sachs and ABRY Partners. On September 4, 2007, it funded top directors, namely Robert Rodriguez, Ricky Gervais, Walter Salles, Ryan Murphy, Richard Kelly, Bennett Miller and Todd Field, which both spent $250 million in film funding. On December 5, 2007, it inked a pact with Warner Bros. Pictures, in which MRC allowed WB to distribute three of the eight pictures over a $250 million feature production funding.


title: MRC (company)

text: Keith Samples had briefly joined the television division of the studio, which was announced in early 2008. On June 24, 2008, Dawn Parouse, who produced "Prison Break", had joined the television division of the studio. On October 22, 2008, Keith Samples had been resigned as president of the Media Rights Capital television division.


title: MRC (company)

text: In 2008, The CW leased its Sunday-night schedule to MRC beginning in the 2008-09 television season. MRC scheduled the reality show "In Harm's Way" and the dramas "Valentine" and "Easy Money". In November 2008, after all four shows drew poor viewership, The CW announced that it would withdraw from the agreement. The network returned the Sunday timeslots to its affiliates in the 2009–10 season.


title: MRC (company)

text: After acquiring rights to produce a U.S. remake of the BBC miniseries "House of Cards", MRC would sell the series to the streaming service Netflix in 2011, where it ran for six seasons as one of its first original series.


title: MRC (company)

text: On February 1, 2018, Eldridge Industries, a holding company owned by former Guggenheim Partners president Todd Boehly, announced that it would contribute its media assets — including "The Hollywood Reporter", Dick Clark Productions, and "Billboard," and merge them with MRC into a new company known as Valence Media. In October 2018, MRC formed a joint venture with United Talent Agency known as Civic Center Media, which seeks to back projects involving its members via MRC.


title: MRC (company)

text: In December 2019, Valence Media acquired Nielsen Holdings' music data business, with the division being rebranded as MRC Data.


title: MRC (company)

text: In April 2020, it was reported that Valence Media would rebrand under the MRC name. The rebranding was completed in July 2020.


title: MRC (company)

text: On September 23, 2020, it was announced that Penske Media Corporation, owner of "The Hollywood Reporter"'s main competitor "Variety", would assume operations of the MRC Media & Info publications under a joint venture with MRC known as PMRC. In turn, MRC will form a second joint venture that will develop content tied to PMRC publications.


title: MRC (company)

text: In September 2021, former E! president Adam Stotsky became the new president of MRC Live & Alternative, replacing the outgoing Amy Thurlow. At this time, Dick Clark Productions was folded into MRC Live & Alternative and discontinued as a brand.


title: MRC (company)

text: In August 2022, Eldridge agreed with Wiczyk and Satchu to divide MRC's assets, effectively undoing the 2018 Valence Media merger. Eldridge re-acquired the company's live and alternative division, which will resume business as Dick Clark Productions, as well as MRC's share of the PMRC joint venture, Luminate (the former MRC Data), and investments in studios including A24 and Fulwell 73. The remaining MRC entity, in which Eldridge will retain a minority stake, will retain its scripted film and TV production entity as well as investments in Civic Center Media and T-Street Productions.


title: MRC (company)

text: SpinMedia (formerly Buzz Media) was an American digital publisher that owned a number of pop culture websites, including "Spin", "Stereogum", "Vibe", and "The Frisky". It was founded by Anthony Batt (CEO), Marc Brown, Kevin Woolery, and Steve Haldane under the name Buzznet.


title: MRC (company)

text: In 1999, Anthony Batt and Marc Brown started a blog, and by 2006, Buzznet had a total of nine employees in the Los Angeles, California, area. The Buzz Media name was created as the company started to acquire more pop-culture and music blogs.


title: MRC (company)

text: On March 19, 2009, the company announced that it raised US$12.5 million in funding from venture capitalists including Anthem Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, Redpoint Ventures, and Sutter Hill Ventures, and Focus Ventures.


title: MRC (company)

text: The company acquired Spin Media, publisher of "Spin" magazine, in July 2012. After shutting down the print version of the magazine, reducing its staff to about 200, and focusing on advertising, it rebranded itself as SpinMedia in March 2013. At that time, Steve Hansen became its chief executive.


title: MRC (company)

text: In 2014, M/C Partners became the primary owner of SpinMedia after an assignment for benefit of creditors. That year, Buzz Media had also acquired music sites Property of Zack, AbsolutePunk.net, Under The Gun Review, and Punknews.org.


title: MRC (company)

text: In September 2016, SpinMedia sold Buzznet, Idolator, and PureVolume to startup corporation Hive Media. In December of that year, Eldridge Industries acquired "Spin", "Vibe", "Stereogum", and "Death and Taxes" via the Hollywood Reporter-Billboard Media Group for an undisclosed amount, making Billboard the world's largest music brand in terms of digital traffic and audience share. Celebuzz, "The Frisky", and The Superficial were sold to CPX Interactive.


title: MRC (company)

text: In January 2020, "Spin" and "Stereogum" were sold to Next Management Partners and the site's management, respectively, as part of a larger focus on "Vibe" and a music data business.


title: Theo Epstein

text: Theo Nathaniel Epstein (born December 29, 1973) is an American Major League Baseball executive, who currently works for MLB as a consultant. He was the vice president and general manager for the Boston Red Sox and then the president of baseball operations for the Chicago Cubs. He worked for each team for nine seasons.


title: Theo Epstein

text: While working for both teams, Epstein became notable for helping to end two of the longest World Series droughts in the history of Major League Baseball. In 2004, the Red Sox won their first World Series championship in 86 years; in 2016, the Cubs won their first World Series championship in 108 years.


title: Theo Epstein

text: Epstein was born to a secular Jewish family in New York City and raised in Brookline, Massachusetts. He attended Brookline High School (a 1991 graduate), and played baseball for the Brookline High School Warriors, but dreamed of working for the Red Sox.


title: Theo Epstein

text: Epstein attended Yale University, where he lived at Jonathan Edwards College. He served as sports editor of the "Yale Daily News". He graduated in 1995 with a degree in American Studies. During his time as an undergraduate, he wrote letters to several teams expressing interest in working for them. His letter to the Baltimore Orioles reached team executive Calvin Hill, a Yale alumnus and head of personnel, who invited him for an interview. Epstein interned for three consecutive summers for the Orioles. Eventually he was hired as the public relations assistant for the Orioles.


title: Theo Epstein

text: Epstein then moved with Larry Lucchino to the San Diego Padres as director of player development. While working for the Padres, he also studied at the University of San Diego School of Law and earned a Juris Doctor degree at Lucchino's suggestion. Epstein based his class selection on which professors seemed to be the most lenient with attendance policies given the Padres' often-late work hours. By studying law Epstein was invited to take part in high-level negotiations and discussions by then-GM Kevin Towers since few in the Padres' small operations division had a legal background to understand contract language. Epstein worked his way up to become the team's Director of Baseball Operations.


title: Theo Epstein

text: After leaving the position as the Padres' President, Lucchino became president and chief executive officer (CEO) of the Red Sox on November 15, 2001 and hired Epstein to work under him. At the end of the 2002 season, Lucchino appointed Epstein to replace interim general manager (GM) Mike Port. Epstein is credited with initiating the trade of Nomar Garciaparra and making key contract acquisitions including those of Bill Mueller and Curt Schilling during his first tenure as Red Sox GM. The new players were regarded as instrumental in breaking the so-called "Curse of the Bambino" when the Red Sox defeated the St. Louis Cardinals in the 2004 World Series, their first championship since 1918.


title: Theo Epstein

text: On October 31, 2005, Epstein resigned, rejecting a three-year, $1.5-million-per-year contract for personal reasons. According to "The Boston Globe", "This is a job you have to give your whole heart and soul to", he said. "In the end, after a long period of reflection about myself and the program, I decided I could no longer put my whole heart and soul into it." Because it was Halloween the night he resigned from the Red Sox, Epstein left Fenway Park wearing a gorilla suit in an attempt to avoid reporters. A witness reported spotting a person wearing a gorilla suit driving a Volvo similar to Epstein's that night. The suit was loaned to him and was later auctioned for $11,000. The money raised was given to The Jimmy Fund and the Foundation to be Named Later (FTBNL).


title: Theo Epstein

text: Epstein remained in contact with the team's front office and in January 2006, he and Red Sox management announced he would return, resuming the title of general manager and add the title of executive vice president. The Red Sox went on to win the 2007 World Series, Epstein's second championship with Boston. In November 2007, Epstein announced, at the annual general manager meeting, that he had signed a new contract with the Red Sox but declined to disclose the terms of the deal.


title: Theo Epstein

text: On October 12, 2011, Epstein agreed to a five-year contract worth $18.5 million with the Chicago Cubs. On October 19, 2011, it was reported that Epstein's official title with the Cubs would be President and that San Diego Padres general manager Jed Hoyer would take the GM position with the Cubs.


title: Theo Epstein

text: On October 23, 2011, he took out a full-page ad in "The Boston Globe", thanking Red Sox fans and the team's owners for their support. Two days later, the Cubs officially introduced Epstein as


title: Theo Epstein

text: president of baseball operations. The Cubs finished in last place in the National League Central for the first three years of Epstein's presidency, as the focus was to acquire young talent rather than maximize short-term competitiveness. After a three-year rebuild, the Cubs clinched a playoff berth in 2015 and advanced to the National League Championship Series, where they were swept by the New York Mets.


title: Theo Epstein

text: Epstein signed an extension with the club on September 28, 2016, with a contract estimated to be worth up to $25 million. The Cubs would proceed to break the so-called "Curse of the Billy Goat" by defeating Cleveland Indians in the 2016 World Series, their first championship since 1908.


title: Theo Epstein

text: Epstein stepped down from his role on the Cubs on November 20, 2020. Jed Hoyer, Epstein's long-time deputy, took over his position.


title: Theo Epstein

text: Epstein has a twin brother, Paul, who is a social worker at Brookline High School in Brookline, Massachusetts. He and Paul are co-founders of "The Foundation to be Named Later", established in 2005.


title: Theo Epstein

text: Epstein's grandfather, Philip G. Epstein, and great-uncle, Julius J. Epstein – with Howard E. Koch – won Academy Awards for the screenplay of "Casablanca", while his father, novelist Leslie Epstein, heads the Creative Writing Program at Boston University. His mother, Ilene (Gradman), opened a clothing store. Epstein's sister, Anya, is a screenwriter and television producer ("" and "Tell Me You Love Me").


title: Theo Epstein

text: On January 12, 2007, Epstein married Marie Whitney, a Roman Catholic, who is the founder and creative director of Two Penny Blue. The couple have two sons, Jack and Andrew. An initial report on the marriage from "Boston Globe" sportswriter Gordon Edes said the site of the wedding was Nathan's Famous hot dog stand at Coney Island. Edes later published a correction, noting that he had fallen for a prank by Theo's father, Leslie. The site and actual date of the wedding was never released, but the "Boston Herald" later published a story claiming the wedding took place on Red Sox owner John Henry's yacht in Saint Thomas.


title: Theo Epstein

text: Epstein's "Hot Stove Cool Music" are biannual Boston and Chicago benefit concerts that have raised millions of dollars for the "disadvantaged youth and families" of the respective cities. Epstein said in advance of the 2015 event, "We've collectively raised more than $6 million and look forward to increasing that total this year through another great night of music, baseball and giving back."


title: Theo Epstein

text: As a front office executive, Epstein is a three-time World Series Champion, winning twice with the Red Sox (2004 and 2007) and once with the Cubs (2016).


title: Theo Epstein

text: In 2007, the United States Sports Academy named Epstein the recipient of its "Carl Maddox Sport Management Award."


title: Theo Epstein

text: In December 2008, "Baseball America" named Epstein its "Baseball America" Major League Executive of the Year.


title: Theo Epstein

text: In September 2009, Epstein was named "Sporting News" Executive of the Decade. At the same time, the Red Sox were named "Sporting News" Team of the Decade. In December, "Sports Illustrated" named him MLB's Best General Manager of the Decade and number 3 on its list of the Top 10 GMs/Executives of the Decade (in all sports).


title: Theo Epstein

text: In November 2016, Epstein was named the "Sporting News" Executive of the Year. Also in November, Epstein won the Esurance MLB Award for Best Executive.


title: Theo Epstein

text: In March 2017, Epstein was announced as Yale's Class Day Speaker. Fortune Magazine also ranked Epstein #1 in their 2017 list of the "World's Greatest Leaders". In April 2017, "Time Magazine" named Epstein one of the world's 100 most influential people.


title: Oxana Malaya

text: Oksana Oleksandrivna Malaya (, born 4 November 1983), better known as Oxana Malaya, is a Ukrainian woman internationally known for her dog-imitating behavior. Malaya has been the subject of documentaries, interviews and tabloid headlines as a feral child "raised by dogs".


title: Oxana Malaya

text: Malaya was born in the village of Nova Blagovishchenka in Hornostaivka Raion, Kherson Oblast, of the Ukrainian SSR. According to doctors and medical records, she was a normal child at birth, but was later neglected by her alcoholic father at age three, and she lived surrounded by dogs. When Malaya was found by authorities, she was seven and a half years old, but she could not talk, lacked many basic skills, and physically behaved like a dog. She was running around on all fours, barking, slept on the floor, and she ate and took care of her hygiene like a dog. Malaya was removed from her parents' custody by social services.


title: Oxana Malaya

text: Malaya was eventually transferred to the foster home for mentally-disabled children in Barabol (rural Ovidiopol Raion of Odessa Oblast). She underwent years of specialized therapy and education to address her behavioural, social and educational issues. Upon adulthood, Malaya was taught to subdue her dog-like behaviour; she learned to speak fluently and intelligibly and works at a farm milking cows, but remains somewhat intellectually impaired.


title: Oxana Malaya

text: In a Channel 4 documentary, and in the Portuguese SIC channel documentary, her doctors stated that it is unlikely that she will ever be completely rehabilitated into "normal" society. In 2001, Russian TV channel "NTV" made a documentary about her life. There have been multiple articles about her in the press.


title: Oxana Malaya

text: In 2013, Malaya gave an interview on national Ukrainian TV, on the talk-show "Govorit Ukraina", where she talked about herself and answered questions. During the show, Malaya said that she wants to be treated like a normal human being, and is offended when others call her a "dog-girl". She said that she wants her brothers to visit her more often and that her main dream in her life is to find her biological mother. She also talked about her boyfriend, her life in the state foster home and her work with animals on the farm.


title: The Pandemic Special

text: "The Pandemic Special" is the first episode of the twenty-fourth season of the American animated television series "South Park". The 308th episode overall of the series, it premiered on Comedy Central in the United States on September 30, 2020, and was also simulcast on MTV and MTV2.


title: The Pandemic Special

text: "The Pandemic Special" centers on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the people of South Park; it particularly focuses on Randy Marsh, who is desperate to conceal his role in the pandemic, while the students of South Park Elementary are placed on lockdown following an incident with police. The episode satirizes aspects of the United States' response to the pandemic, police brutality and racial unrest, including mental health, handling of face masks, education, Sinophobia and divestment from the police. Critics praised the social commentary and humor, but criticized the plot and overall length of the episode, with Adam Beam of "The Slate" opining that the episode's running time was not sufficient to develop its various story threads.


title: The Pandemic Special

text: It was the highest-rated "South Park" episode in over seven years, amassing over 4.05 million viewers and becoming the most-watched program of the night.


title: The Pandemic Special

text: After its premiere, the episode was released on the "South Park" website for free, as well as on the Comedy Central app and website with TV Everywhere authentication. It was also released on HBO Max in the United States 24 hours after its premiere, becoming the first new "South Park" episode released after the service acquired the series' streaming rights.


title: The Pandemic Special

text: The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on South Park. To Butters Stotch's chagrin, his paranoid parents refuse to take him to Build-A-Bear Workshop even as restrictions are eased. Butters' father, Stephen, criticizes improperly worn masks as "chin diapers" when he notices the townspeople gathering for an assembly by Randy Marsh, who is offering a strain of marijuana called the Pandemic Special. His wife, Sharon, berates Randy for attempting to profit from the pandemic.


title: The Pandemic Special

text: Meanwhile, Eric Cartman is ecstatic about social distancing, as he can avoid remote classes by faking connection problems with Zoom. He becomes infuriated when his mother, Liane, informs him of plans to reopen the school.


title: The Pandemic Special

text: Randy boasts of his success with the Pandemic Special when Sharon reveals that her brother, Jimbo Kern, is hospitalized with COVID-19, which Randy dismisses. A news report reveals that the pandemic's origins were traced to a bat in Wuhan, which prompts a flashback to Randy's visit to China, during which he and Mickey Mouse had sex with a bat. Realizing that they are responsible for the outbreak, Randy is overcome with guilt. A later news report reveals the source to instead be a pangolin, with which Randy and Mickey also had sex.


title: The Pandemic Special

text: The South Park Elementary school board convenes a Zoom meeting led by Mr. Mackey, which devolves into a shouting match of obscenities. The board decides that the school will reopen, but will be run by the now-defunct police department, which had lost most of its funding due to police violence. Sergeant Harrison Yates and his officers struggle to adapt to teaching when Cartman is dragged in and handcuffed to a chair as class begins. Attempting to escape, Cartman incites a fight with Kyle Broflovski. The police attempt to break them up, but end up shooting Token Black.


title: The Pandemic Special

text: The pangolin is brought to the United States for research in developing a vaccine. Desperate to avoid being found out, Randy absconds with the pangolin. Mickey threatens to have Randy killed and send his DNA samples to scientists for studies. Randy convinces Mickey to spare him, promising to find a cure; he later laces the Pandemic Special with his semen and secretly tests it on Jimbo. It initially proves successful, and Randy sells the semen-laced Special to an influx of customers. However, Jimbo and several others soon relapse and grow mustaches similar to Randy's, resulting in numerous hospitalizations. Anthony Fauci appears at a press conference, where some in attendance dismiss his advice.


title: The Pandemic Special

text: The police claim that Token tested positive for COVID-19 and the entire school is placed under increasingly strict lockdown. Butters becomes increasingly upset that he may never get to visit Build-A-Bear, while Stan Marsh starts to suffer a nervous breakdown. Stan calls President Garrison to appeal to him. Garrison, however, refuses to act, citing the virus' disproportionate effect on Mexicans.


title: The Pandemic Special

text: Stan promises to take Butters to Build-A-Bear and convinces the students to escape from the school. Protests, rioting, and looting ensue, prompting Mayor McDaniels to reimburse the police with supplies to quell the unrest. Kenny McCormick is among those killed by the police. The boys break into Build-A-Bear, but Stan cannot properly operate the equipment. The police prepare to shoot at the boys when Randy arrives with the pangolin. Cartman seizes the pangolin with the intent to kill it, but relents when Stan makes an impassioned speech. Cartman gives the pangolin to a scientist, only for Garrison to immolate them with a flamethrower before reminding people to vote in the upcoming election.


title: The Pandemic Special

text: In the aftermath, wildfires have broken out, and South Park is placed under lockdown. Randy is about to confess his actions to Sharon when he notices a mustache on her face before departing to produce more specials.


title: The Pandemic Special

text: The episode drew 2.3 million viewers on Comedy Central and a total of 4.05 million viewers overall including the simulcast on MTV and MTV2, making it the highest-rated "South Park" episode since 2014's "Go Fund Yourself". The episode was the number one rated cable broadcast on the evening of September 30, 2020.


title: The Pandemic Special

text: Jesse Schedeen, writing for IGN gave the episode a 5 out of 10, writing, "There's no doubt that some new "South Park" is better than no "South Park" at all. Unfortunately, the series' first experiment with a longer, standalone format doesn't really pay off. 'The Pandemic Special' has moments of comedic brilliance but is brought down by a messy plot that struggles to put a fresh spin on the reality of life in 2020." Stephanie Williams for The A.V. Club gave the episode a B+, stating, "While things were far from normal for the residents of "South Park" in this hour-long special, the show stays true to form, offering a surprising source of consistency. The world is in complete chaos, which couldn't be any more on-brand for "South Park"."


title: The Pandemic Special

text: Ben Travers of IndieWire gave the special an overall grade of B-, praising the special for how it tackled the social issues, stating, "...kudos to "South Park" for being one of the first scripted series to tackle America's new normal head-on, all the while making the case against its very existence. The hourlong special had plenty of targets — from trigger-happy cops to a bat-raping Mickey Mouse — but it only really dialed in on its own relevance in these trying times. And in the end, 'The Pandemic Special' is only here because TV is an essential — and still lucrative — service." Andrew Bloom from Consequence of Sound gave the special a mixed review, praising the social commentary but criticising the plot, stating, "'The Pandemic Special' is unlikely to become anyone's new favorite episode of "South Park". Randy's adventures are fine but nothing truly new. Cartman's homebody preservationism is amusing but slight. And the social commentary at play here is entertaining, but not exactly revolutionary. What's novel, though, is that sort of sincerity and vulnerability coming from the show's usual mouthpiece, echoing what we're all going through right now. There's a particular resonance to that at the present moment, especially when a series that can otherwise project the sense of being 'above it all' is admitting that this hurts."


title: The Pandemic Special

text: A point of criticism for multiple reviewers was the overall length of the special. Writing for "The Slate", Adam Beam stated, "The hour-long runtime greatly hurts this special, and a lot of this material would work better if the show was given more time to develop. Maybe as their own individual episodes. While plenty of the jokes land and many 'South Park' fans will enjoy, 'The Pandemic Special' lacks any kind of focus as it struggles to cram too much material into a very limited time frame. No matter how you feel about the special, the creative team continues to work on the new season remotely."


title: Stocking

text: Stockings (also known as hose, especially in a historical context) are close-fitting, variously elastic garments covering the leg from the foot up to the knee or possibly part or all of the thigh. Stockings vary in color, design, and transparency. Today, stockings are primarily worn for fashion and aesthetics, usually in association with mid-length or short skirts.


title: Stocking

text: Historically, even though the word "sock" is at least as ancient in origin, what men normally wore were often referred to as stockings, probably especially when referring to longer hose. The word "stock" used to refer to the bottom "stump" part of the body, and by analogy the word was used to refer to the one-piece covering of the lower trunk and limbs of the 15th century—essentially tights consisting of the "upper-stocks" (later to be worn separately as knee breeches) and "nether-stocks" (later to be worn separately as "stockings"). (See Hose.)


title: Stocking

text: Before the 1590s, stockings were made of woven cloth. The first knitting machines were for making stockings. The stockings themselves were made of cotton, linen, wool or silk. A polished cotton called lisle was common, as were those made in the town of Balbriggan.


title: Stocking

text: Before the 1920s, stockings, if worn, were worn for warmth. In the 1920s, as hemlines of dresses rose and central heating was not widespread, women began to wear flesh-colored stockings to cover their exposed legs. Those stockings were sheer, first made of silk or rayon (then known as "artificial silk") and after 1940 of nylon.


title: Stocking

text: The introduction of nylon in 1939 by chemical company DuPont began a high demand for stockings in the United States with up to 4 million pairs being purchased in one day. Nylon stockings were cheap, durable, and sheer compared to their cotton and silk counterparts. When America entered World War II, DuPont ceased production of nylon stockings and retooled their factories to produce parachutes, airplane cords, and rope. This led to a shortage and the creation of a black market for stockings. At the end of the war DuPont announced that the company would return to producing stockings, but could not meet demand. This led to a series of disturbances in American stores known as the nylon riots until DuPont was able to increase production.


title: Stocking

text: A precursor of pantyhose made an appearance in the 1940s and 1950s, when film and theater productions had stockings sewn to the briefs of actresses and dancers, according to actress-singer-dancer Ann Miller and seen in popular films such as "Daddy Long Legs". Today, stockings are commonly made using knitted wool, silk, cotton or nylon (see hosiery). The introduction of commercial pantyhose in 1959 gave an alternative to stockings, and the use of stockings declined dramatically. A main reason for this was the trend towards higher hemlines on dresses (see minidress). In 1970, U.S. sales of pantyhose exceeded stockings for the first time, and has remained this way ever since. Beginning in 1987, sales of pantyhose started a slight decline due to the newly invented hold-ups, but still remain the most sold kind of hosiery.


title: Stocking

text: Stockings are still sometimes preferred to pantyhose in North American English, for a number of reasons. These may include the perception that stockings, and the associated use of garters, lace, high fashion, appliqué and the exposure of the thigh, are more aesthetically pleasing, or sexually attractive and alluring than pantyhose.


title: Stocking

text: Both nylon stockings and pantyhose in being sheer share the advantage of being quick-drying compared to pants. Spare pairs are also easy to carry if they are ruined. If laddered they can be replaced 'one at a time' which provides a cost advantage over tights.


title: Stocking

text: However, stockings have a drawback in colder weather, because more skin is exposed to the cold compared to pantyhose. Also, pantyhose do not require garters or garter belts, and do not need to be adjusted as much, whilst also leaving a smoother line under form-fitting clothing.


title: Stocking

text: In modern usage, "stocking" specifically refers to the form of hosiery configured as two pieces, one for each leg (except for American and Australian English, where the term can also be a synonym for pantyhose). The terms "hold-ups" and "thigh highs" refer to stockings that stay up through the use of built-in elastic, while the word "stockings" is the general term or refers to the kind of stockings that need a suspender belt (garter belt, in American English), and are quite distinct from tights or pantyhose (American English).


title: The Essex Serpent

text: The Essex Serpent is a 2016 novel by British author Sarah Perry. The book is the second novel by Perry and was released on 27 May 2016 in the United Kingdom through Serpent's Tail, an imprint of Profile Books.


title: The Essex Serpent

text: Set in the Victorian era, in the year 1893, it tells the tale of Cora Seaborne, a woman relishing her recent freedom from an abusive husband, who moves from London to a small village in Essex and becomes intrigued by the idea that it might be haunted by a mythological sea serpent.


title: The Essex Serpent

text: After being widowed when her wealthy, abusive husband dies of throat cancer, Cora Seaborne decides to ignore the trappings of her London society life and take up amateur palaeontology. While on holiday in Colchester with her son, Francis, and her companion, Martha, Cora is intrigued by a ruin caused by an earthquake which was rumoured to have awakened the Essex Serpent, a mythical sea dragon. Cora believes that the beast could be an undiscovered kind of dinosaur that survived extinction. Meeting two married London acquaintances, Charles and Katherine Ambrose, Cora tells them of her theories. The Ambroses tell her of friends of theirs, the Reverend William Ransome and his family, who live in the small village of Aldwinter where a serpent is carved in one of the pews of the church. The Ambroses write an introduction for Cora to the Ransome family and Cora goes to visit them. To their mutual surprise, she and the Reverend find they had already met under unfavourable circumstances: each had mistaken the other for a tramp. Cora becomes fast friends with the Reverend, his wife Stella and their children, and moves to Aldwinter to continue her research into the serpent.


title: The Essex Serpent

text: The children and locals become increasingly convinced that the serpent, which they call the Blackwater Beast, is real and waiting to attack them. This irritates Will Ransome. He and Cora repeatedly argue over his faith and refusal to believe in the serpent, and their dispute draws them closer to one another. After a visit to the local school results in the schoolchildren falling into fits, Cora seeks an explanation by inviting her friend, Dr. Luke Garnett, from London to examine them. Luke hypnotizes the Ransomes' eldest daughter, Joanna, with Stella's consent. Will walks in on the scene and is enraged, causing a serious rift between himself and Cora. During the rift, both Cora and Will begin to realize they are entangled in an emotional affair, as do Martha and Dr. Luke, who has long been in love with Cora himself.


title: The Essex Serpent

text: Will confesses his feelings to Cora in a letter shortly before he discovers that Stella, sick with tuberculosis, is near death. Luke also confesses his feelings to Cora via letter. Cora, left wary of men by her abusive former husband, is angered by them both. She ignores Will and writes an angry reply to Luke, only discovering later that her letter reached him the same day that a knife attack maimed him permanently and ended his medical career.


title: The Essex Serpent

text: In Aldwinter a mysterious stench covers the town and the villagers believe it is related to the Blackwater Beast. All they discover at the shore is a gigantic dying fish and they rejoice that the serpent was never real.


title: The Essex Serpent

text: Ashamed of her behaviour towards Luke, Cora allows Katherine to persuade her to return to Aldwinter to avoid abandoning her friends, the Ransomes. Returning, she and Will are once again strongly attracted to one another and consummate their relationship.


title: The Essex Serpent

text: Joanna and her friend meanwhile discover that the Blackwater Beast turns out to be only an old boat previously thought to have been washed away. However Cora comes to realise that Stella, delirious from her illness, has gone to the "beast" to die. Cora and Will are able to rescue Stella.


title: The Essex Serpent

text: The Ransome children are sent to the Ambroses while Stella awaits her death. Will finds himself equally happy with Stella while still in love with Cora. Luke finds a kind of peace living with his friend Spencer, who has also been jilted in love, and Cora moves to London. Living alone, since her companion Martha has fallen in love and her son is in boarding school, Cora is happy in her solitude but continues to write to Will, urging him to reunite with her one day.


title: The Essex Serpent

text: Described by "The Guardian" as a "word-of-mouth bookselling success", the publication noted in May 2017 that "The Essex Serpent" had sold over 200,000 hardback copies. Publisher Serpent's Tail had originally set a modest sales target of 5,000 hardback copies for the title. In February 2021, publishing industry title "The Bookseller" reported that "The Essex Serpent" had sold 359,747 copies across all editions, according to Nielsen BookScan data.


title: The Essex Serpent

text: "The Essex Serpent" won the British Book Awards for 2016 Book of the Year and Waterstones Book of the Year 2016.


title: The Essex Serpent

text: In 2020, a planned television adaptation was announced, to be directed by Clio Barnard with Keira Knightley starring. Knightley later dropped out of the project citing difficulties obtaining childcare due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. On February 10, 2021, it was announced that Claire Danes would helm the drama series, replacing Knightley, as Cora Seaborne.


title: The Essex Serpent

text: On February 17 2021, it was announced that Tom Hiddleston would take the lead male role of Will Ransome.


title: The Essex Serpent

text: Anna Symon is the lead writer on the adaptation. Barnard and Symon are producing with Jamie Laurenson, Hakan Kousetta, Patrick Walters, Iain Canning, Emile Sherman and Andrea Cornwell via See-Saw Films for Apple.


title: Evolution of mammals

text: The evolution of mammals has passed through many stages since the first appearance of their synapsid ancestors in the Pennsylvanian sub-period of the late Carboniferous period. By the mid-Triassic, there were many synapsid species that looked like mammals. The lineage leading to today's mammals split up in the Jurassic; synapsids from this period include "Dryolestes", more closely related to extant placentals and marsupials than to monotremes, as well as "Ambondro", more closely related to monotremes. Later on, the eutherian and metatherian lineages separated; the metatherians are the animals more closely related to the marsupials, while the eutherians are those more closely related to the placentals. Since "Juramaia", the earliest known eutherian, lived 160 million years ago in the Jurassic, this divergence must have occurred in the same period.


title: Evolution of mammals

text: After the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event wiped out the non-avian dinosaurs (birds being the only surviving dinosaurs) and several mammalian groups, placental and marsupial mammals diversified into many new forms and ecological niches throughout the Paleogene and Neogene, by the end of which all modern orders had appeared.


title: Evolution of mammals

text: The synapsid lineage became distinct from the sauropsid lineage in the late Carboniferous period, between 320 and 315 million years ago. The only living synapsids are mammals, while the sauropsids gave rise to the dinosaurs, and today's reptiles and birds along with all the extinct amniotes more closely related to them than to mammals. Primitive synapsids were traditionally called mammal-like reptiles or pelycosaurs, but both are now seen as outdated and disfavored paraphyletic terms, since they were not reptiles, nor part of reptile lineage. The modern term for these is stem mammals, and sometimes protomammals or paramammals.


title: Evolution of mammals

text: Throughout the Permian period, the synapsids included the dominant carnivores and several important herbivores. In the subsequent Triassic period, however, a previously obscure group of sauropsids, the archosaurs, became the dominant vertebrates. The mammaliaforms appeared during this period; their superior sense of smell, backed up by a large brain, facilitated entry into nocturnal niches with less exposure to archosaur predation. The nocturnal lifestyle may have contributed greatly to the development of mammalian traits such as endothermy and hair. Later in the Mesozoic, after theropod dinosaurs replaced rauisuchians as the dominant carnivores, mammals spread into other ecological niches. For example, some became aquatic, some were gliders, and some even fed on juvenile dinosaurs.


title: Evolution of mammals

text: Most of the evidence consists of fossils. For many years, fossils of Mesozoic mammals and their immediate ancestors were very rare and fragmentary; but, since the mid-1990s, there have been many important new finds, especially in China. The relatively new techniques of molecular phylogenetics have also shed light on some aspects of mammalian evolution by estimating the timing of important divergence points for modern species. When used carefully, these techniques often, but not always, agree with the fossil record.


title: Evolution of mammals

text: Although mammary glands are a signature feature of modern mammals, little is known about the evolution of lactation as these soft tissues are not often preserved in the fossil record. Most research concerning the evolution of mammals centers on the shapes of the teeth, the hardest parts of the tetrapod body. Other important research characteristics include the evolution of the middle ear bones, erect limb posture, a bony secondary palate, fur, hair, and warm-bloodedness.


title: Evolution of mammals

text: While living mammal species can be identified by the presence of milk-producing mammary glands in the females, other features are required when classifying fossils, because mammary glands and other soft-tissue features are not visible in fossils.


title: Evolution of mammals

text: One such feature available for paleontology, shared by all living mammals (including monotremes), but not present in any of the early Triassic therapsids, is shown in Figure 1 (on the right), namely: mammals use two bones for hearing that all other amniotes use for eating. The earliest amniotes had a jaw joint composed of the articular (a small bone at the back of the lower jaw) and the quadrate (a small bone at the back of the upper jaw). All non-mammalian tetrapods use this system including amphibians, turtles, lizards, snakes, crocodilians, dinosaurs (including the birds), ichthyosaurs, pterosaurs and therapsids. But mammals have a different jaw joint, composed only of the dentary (the lower jaw bone, which carries the teeth) and the squamosal (another small skull bone). In the Jurassic, their quadrate and articular bones evolved into the incus and malleus bones in the middle ear. Mammals also have a double occipital condyle; they have two knobs at the base of the skull that fit into the topmost neck vertebra, while other tetrapods have a single occipital condyle.


title: Evolution of mammals

text: In a 1981 article, Kenneth A. Kermack and his co-authors argued for drawing the line between mammals and earlier synapsids at the point where the mammalian pattern of molar occlusion was being acquired and the dentary-squamosal joint had appeared. The criterion chosen, they noted, is merely a matter of convenience; their choice was based on the fact that "the lower jaw is the most likely skeletal element of a Mesozoic mammal to be preserved." Today, most paleontologists consider that animals are mammals if they satisfy this criterion.


title: Evolution of mammals

text: The first fully terrestrial vertebrates were amniotes — their eggs had internal membranes that allowed the developing embryo to breathe but kept water in. This allowed amniotes to lay eggs on dry land, while amphibians generally need to lay their eggs in water (a few amphibians, such as the common Suriname toad, have evolved other ways of getting around this limitation). The first amniotes apparently arose in the middle Carboniferous from the ancestral reptiliomorphs.


title: Evolution of mammals

text: Within a few million years, two important amniote lineages became distinct: synapsids, from which mammals are descended, and sauropsids, from which lizards, snakes, turtles/tortoises, crocodilians, dinosaurs, and birds are descended. The earliest known fossils of synapsids and sauropsids (such as "Archaeothyris" and "Hylonomus", respectively) date from about 320 to 315 million years ago. The times of origin are difficult to know, because vertebrate fossils from the late Carboniferous are very rare, and therefore the actual first occurrences of each of these types of animal might have been considerably earlier than the first fossil.


title: Evolution of mammals

text: Synapsid skulls are identified by the distinctive pattern of the holes behind each eye, which served the following purposes:


title: Evolution of mammals

text: A number of creatures often - and incorrectly - believed to be dinosaurs, hence part of the reptile lineage and sauropsids, were in fact synapsids. This includes the well-known dimetrodon.


title: Evolution of mammals

text: When referring to the ancestors and close relatives of mammals, paleontologists also use the following terms of convenience:


title: Evolution of mammals

text: Pelycosaur and "mammal-like reptile" are both paraphyletic terms (and in the latter case also based on incorrect historical belief that mammals evolved from reptiles rather than in parallel to them), and for that reason are disfavored and outdated terms rarely used in modern literature.


title: Evolution of mammals

text: Therapsids descended from sphenacodonts, a primitive synapsid, in the middle Permian, and took over from them as the dominant land vertebrates. They differ from earlier synapsids in several features of the skull and jaws, including larger temporal fenestrae and incisors that are equal in size.


title: Evolution of mammals

text: The therapsid lineage then went through several stages, leading to the evolution of cynodonts in the late Permian, some of which had begun to resemble early mammals:


title: Evolution of mammals

text: Dinocephalians ("terrible heads") included both carnivores and herbivores. They were large; "Anteosaurus" was up to 6 m (20 ft) long. Some of the carnivores had semi-erect hindlimbs, but all dinocephalians had sprawling forelimbs. In many ways they were very primitive therapsids; for example, they had no secondary palate and their jaws were rather "reptilian".


title: Evolution of mammals

text: The anomodonts ("anomalous teeth") were among the most successful of the herbivorous therapsids — one sub-group, the dicynodonts, survived almost to the end of the Triassic. But anomodonts were very different from modern herbivorous mammals, as their only teeth were a pair of fangs in the upper jaw and it is generally agreed that they had beaks like those of birds or ceratopsians.


title: Evolution of mammals

text: The theriodonts ("beast teeth") and their descendants had jaw joints in which the articular bone of the lower jaw tightly gripped the very small quadrate bone of the skull. This allowed a much wider gape and allowed one group, the carnivorous gorgonopsians ("gorgon faces"), to develop "sabre teeth". However, the jaw hinge of the theriodont had a longer term significance — the much reduced size of the quadrate bone was an important step in the development of the mammalian jaw joint and middle ear.


title: Evolution of mammals

text: The gorgonopsians still had some primitive features: no bony secondary palate (other bones in the right places perform the same functions); sprawling forelimbs; hindlimbs that could operate in both sprawling and erect postures. The therocephalians ("beast heads"), which appear to have arisen at about the same time as the gorgonopsians, had additional mammal-like features, e.g. their finger and toe bones had the same number of phalanges (segments) as in early mammals (and the same number that primates have, including humans).


title: Evolution of mammals

text: The cynodonts, a theriodont group that also arose in the late Permian, include the ancestors of all mammals. Cynodonts' mammal-like features include further reduction in the number of bones in the lower jaw, a secondary bony palate, cheek teeth with a complex pattern in the crowns, and a brain which filled the endocranial cavity.


title: Evolution of mammals

text: Multi-chambered burrows have been found, containing as many as 20 skeletons of the Early Triassic cynodont "Trirachodon"; the animals are thought to have been drowned by a flash flood. The extensive shared burrows indicate that these animals were capable of complex social behaviors.


title: Evolution of mammals

text: Their primitive synapsid and therapsid ancestors were very large (between ) but cynodonts gradually decreased in size (to ) even before the Permian-Triassic extinction event, probably due to competition with other therapsids. After the extinction event, the probainognathian cynodont group rapidly decreased in size (to 4 in–1.5 ft (10–50 cm)) due to new competition with archosaurs and transitioned to nocturnality, evolving nocturnal features, pulmonary alveoli, bronchioles and a developed diaphragm for a larger surface area for breathing, enucleated erythrocytes, a large intestine which bears a true colon after the cecum, endothermy, a hairy, glandular and thermoregulatory skin (which releases sebum and sweat), and a 4-chambered heart to maintain their high metabolism, larger brains, and fully upright hindlimb (forelimbs remained semi sprawling, and became like that only later, in therians). Some skin glands may have evolved into mammary glands in females for fulfilling the metabolic demands of their offspring (which increased 10 times). Many skeletal changes occurred also: the dentary bone became stronger and held differentiated teeth, the pair of nasal openings in the skull became fused. These evolutionary changes lead to the first mammals (size around ). They also adapted to a burrowing lifestyle, losing their big tail-based leg muscles which allowed dinosaurs to become bipedal, and explains why bipedal mammals are so rare.


title: Evolution of mammals

text: The catastrophic mass extinction at the end of the Permian, around 252 million years ago, killed off about 70 percent of terrestrial vertebrate species and the majority of land plants.


title: Evolution of mammals

text: As a result, ecosystems and food chains collapsed, and the establishment of new stable ecosystems took about 30 million years. With the disappearance of the gorgonopsians, which were dominant predators in the late Permian, the cynodonts' principal competitors for dominance of the carnivorous niches were a previously obscure sauropsid group, the archosaurs, which includes the ancestors of crocodilians and dinosaurs.


title: Evolution of mammals

text: The archosaurs quickly became the dominant carnivores, a development often called the "Triassic takeover". Their success may have been due to the fact that the early Triassic was predominantly arid and therefore archosaurs' superior water conservation gave them a decisive advantage. All known archosaurs have glandless skins and eliminate nitrogenous waste in a uric acid paste containing little water, while the cynodonts probably excreted most such waste in a solution of urea, as mammals do today; considerable water is required to keep urea dissolved.


title: Evolution of mammals

text: However, this theory has been questioned, since it implies synapsids were necessarily less advantaged in water retention, that synapsid decline coincides with climate changes or archosaur diversity (neither of which has been tested) and the fact that desert-dwelling mammals are as well adapted in this department as archosaurs, and some cynodonts like "Trucidocynodon" were large-sized predators.


title: Evolution of mammals

text: The Triassic takeover was probably a vital factor in the evolution of the mammals. Two groups stemming from the early cynodonts were successful in niches that had minimal competition from the archosaurs: the tritylodonts, which were herbivores, and the mammals, most of which were small nocturnal insectivores (although some, like "Sinoconodon", were carnivores that fed on vertebrate prey, while still others were herbivores or omnivores). As a result:


title: Evolution of mammals

text: This retreat to a nocturnal role is called a nocturnal bottleneck, and is thought to explain many of the features of mammals.


title: Evolution of mammals

text: Mesozoic synapsids that had evolved to the point of having a jaw joint composed of the dentary and squamosal bones are preserved in few good fossils, mainly because they were mostly smaller than rats:


title: Evolution of mammals

text: In the past years, however, the number of Mesozoic fossil mammals has increased decisively; only 116 genera were known in 1979, for example, but about 310 in 2007, with an increase in quality such that "at least 18 Mesozoic mammals are represented by nearly complete skeletons".


title: Evolution of mammals

text: Some writers restrict the term "mammal" to the crown group mammals, the group consisting of the most recent common ancestor of the monotremes, marsupials, and placentals, together with all the descendants of that ancestor. In an influential 1988 paper, Timothy Rowe advocated this restriction, arguing that "ancestry... provides the only means of properly defining taxa" and, in particular, that the divergence of the monotremes from the animals more closely related to marsupials and placentals "is of central interest to any study of Mammalia as a whole." To accommodate some related taxa falling outside the crown group, he defined the Mammaliaformes as comprising "the last common ancestor of Morganucodontidae and Mammalia [as he had defined the latter term] and all its descendants." Besides Morganucodontidae, the newly defined taxon includes Docodonta and Kuehneotheriidae. Though haramiyids have been referred to the mammals since the 1860s, Rowe excluded them from the Mammaliaformes as falling outside his definition, putting them in a larger clade, the Mammaliamorpha.


title: Evolution of mammals

text: Some writers have adopted this terminology noting, to avoid misunderstanding, that they have done so. Most paleontologists, however, still think that animals with the dentary-squamosal jaw joint and the sort of molars characteristic of modern mammals should formally be members of Mammalia.


title: Evolution of mammals

text: Where the ambiguity in the term "mammal" may be confusing, this article uses "mammaliaform" and "crown mammal".


title: Evolution of mammals

text: The Morganucodontidae first appeared in the late Triassic, about 205 million years ago. They are an excellent example of transitional fossils, since they have both the dentary-squamosal and articular-quadrate jaw joints. They were also one of the first discovered and most thoroughly studied of the mammaliaforms outside of the crown-group mammals, since an unusually large number of morganucodont fossils have been found.


title: Evolution of mammals

text: Docodonts, among the most common Jurassic mammaliaforms, are noted for the sophistication of their molars. They are thought to have had general semi-aquatic tendencies, with the fish-eating "Castorocauda" ("beaver tail"), which lived in the mid-Jurassic about 164M years ago and was first discovered in 2004 and described in 2006, being the most well-understood example. "Castorocauda" was not a crown group mammal, but it is extremely important in the study of the evolution of mammals because the first find was an almost complete skeleton (a real luxury in paleontology) and it breaks the "small nocturnal insectivore" stereotype:


title: Evolution of mammals

text: The family tree above shows "Hadrocodium" as an "aunt" of crown mammals. This mammaliaform, dated about 195M years ago in the very early Jurassic, exhibits some important features:


title: Evolution of mammals

text: The crown group mammals, sometimes called 'true mammals', are the extant mammals and their relatives back to their last common ancestor. Since this group has living members, DNA analysis can be applied in an attempt to explain the evolution of features that do not appear in fossils. This endeavor often involves molecular phylogenetics, a technique that has become popular since the mid-1980s.


title: Evolution of mammals

text: Early amniotes had four opsins in the cones of their retinas to use for distinguishing colours: one sensitive to red, one to green, and two corresponding to different shades of blue. The green opsin was not inherited by any crown mammals, but all normal individuals did inherit the red one. Early crown mammals thus had three cone opsins, the red one and both of the blues. All their extant descendants have lost one of the blue-sensitive opsins but not always the same one: monotremes retain one blue-sensitive opsin, while marsupials and placentals retain the other (except cetaceans, which later lost the other blue opsin as well). Some placentals and marsupials, including higher primates, subsequently evolved green-sensitive opsins; like early crown mammals, therefore, their vision is trichromatic.


title: Evolution of mammals

text: Australosphenida is a group that has been defined in order to include the Ausktribosphenidae and monotremes. "Asfaltomylos" (mid- to late Jurassic, from Patagonia) has been interpreted as a basal australosphenid (animal that has features shared with both Ausktribosphenidae and monotremes; lacks features that are peculiar to Ausktribosphenidae or monotremes; also lacks features that are absent in Ausktribosphenidae and monotremes) and as showing that australosphenids were widespread throughout Gondwanaland (the old Southern Hemisphere super-continent).


title: Evolution of mammals

text: Recent analysis of "Teinolophos", which lived somewhere between 121 and 112.5 million years ago, suggests that it was a "crown group" (advanced and relatively specialised) monotreme. This was taken as evidence that the basal (most primitive) monotremes must have appeared considerably earlier, but this has been disputed (see the following section). The study also indicated that some alleged Australosphenids were also "crown group" monotremes (e.g. "Steropodon") and that other alleged Australosphenids (e.g. "Ausktribosphenos", "Bishops", "Ambondro", "Asfaltomylos") are more closely related to and possibly members of the Therian mammals (group that includes marsupials and placentals, see below).


title: Evolution of mammals

text: "Teinolophos", from Australia, is the earliest known monotreme. A 2007 study (published 2008) suggests that it was not a basal (primitive, ancestral) monotreme but a full-fledged platypus, and therefore that the platypus and echidna lineages diverged considerably earlier. A more recent study (2009), however, has suggested that, while "Teinolophos" was a type of platypus, it was also a basal monotreme and predated the radiation of modern monotremes. The semi-aquatic lifestyle of platypuses prevented them from being outcompeted by the marsupials that migrated to Australia millions of years ago, since joeys need to remain attached to their mothers and would drown if their mothers ventured into water (though there are exceptions like the water opossum and the lutrine opossum; however, they both live in South America and thus don't come into contact with monotremes). Genetic evidence has determined that echidnas diverged from the platypus lineage as recently as 19-48M, when they made their transition from semi-aquatic to terrestrial lifestyle.


title: Evolution of mammals

text: Unlike other mammals, female monotremes do not have nipples and feed their young by "sweating" milk from patches on their bellies.


title: Evolution of mammals

text: These features are not visible in fossils, and the main characteristics from paleontologists' point of view are:


title: Evolution of mammals

text: Multituberculates (named for the multiple tubercles on their "molars") are often called the "rodents of the Mesozoic", but this is an example of convergent evolution rather than meaning that they are closely related to the Rodentia. They existed for approximately 120 million years—the longest fossil history of any mammal lineage—but were eventually outcompeted by rodents, becoming extinct during the early Oligocene.


title: Evolution of mammals

text: Some authors have challenged the phylogeny represented by the cladogram above. They exclude the multituberculates from the mammalian crown group, holding that multituberculates are more distantly related to extant mammals than even the Morganucodontidae. Multituberculates are like undisputed crown mammals in that their jaw joints consist of only the dentary and squamosal bones-whereas the quadrate and articular bones are part of the middle ear; their teeth are differentiated, occlude, and have mammal-like cusps; they have a zygomatic arch; and the structure of the pelvis suggests that they gave birth to tiny helpless young, like modern marsupials. On the other hand, they differ from modern mammals:


title: Evolution of mammals

text: Theria ("beasts") is the clade originating with the last common ancestor of the Eutheria (including placentals) and Metatheria (including marsupials). Common features include:


title: Evolution of mammals

text: The living Metatheria are all marsupials (animals with pouches). A few fossil genera, such as the Mongolian late Cretaceous "Asiatherium", may be marsupials or members of some other metatherian group(s).


title: Evolution of mammals

text: The oldest known metatherian is "Sinodelphys", found in 125M-year-old early Cretaceous shale in China's northeastern Liaoning Province. The fossil is nearly complete and includes tufts of fur and imprints of soft tissues.


title: Evolution of mammals

text: Didelphimorphia (common opossums of the Western Hemisphere) first appeared in the late Cretaceous and still have living representatives, probably because they are mostly semi-arboreal unspecialized omnivores.


title: Evolution of mammals

text: Tracks from the Early Cretaceous of Angola show the existence of raccoon-size mammals 118 million years ago.


title: Evolution of mammals

text: Although some marsupials look very like some placentals (the thylacine, "marsupial tiger" or "marsupial wolf" is a good example), marsupial skeletons have some features that distinguish them from placentals: