title: Pyroraptor

text: However, recent studies show that "Pyroraptor" along with other European raptors, likely originated from the Southern continent of Gondwana. as its anatomy is more consistent with the Gondwanan Unenlagiines than with eudromaeosaurs. This is congruent with other Late Cretaceous European fauna, which are typically Gondwanan lineages.


title: Pyroraptor

text: "Pyroraptor olympius" is known from the Argiles et Grès à Reptiles Formation of what is now Southern France. During the Late Cretaceous, it was one part of the island landmass known as Ibero-Armorica, formed from what is today Southern France and Northern Spain in the Tethys Ocean.


title: Pyroraptor

text: At that time, "Pyroraptor" would have coexisted alongside a variety of species such as "Rhabdodon priscus", "Zalmoxes", "Ampelosaurus atacis", "Lirainosaurus astibiae", "Atsinganosaurus velauciensis", some undescribed titanosaurids, "Arcovenator escotae", "Tarascosaurus salluvicus", "Struthiosaurus sp"., "Variraptor mechanorum", "Gargantuavis philoinos," "Martinaves cruzyensis", and non-dinosaurs such as the pterosaur "Azhdarcho lancicollis", the crocodylomorphs "Musturzabalsuchus buffetauti, Massaliasuchus," "Allodaposuchus" the turtles "Dortoka", and Solemydid turtles, zhelestid eutherians, palaeobatrachid anurans, batrachosauroidid urodeles, amphisbaenian and/or anguid squamates, and derived alethinophidian snakes.


title: Bombing of Hamburg in World War II

text: The Allied bombing of Hamburg during World War II included numerous attacks on civilians and civic infrastructure. As a large city and industrial centre, Hamburg's shipyards, U-boat pens, and the Hamburg-Harburg area oil refineries were attacked throughout the war.


title: Bombing of Hamburg in World War II

text: As part of a sustained campaign of strategic bombing during World War II, the attack during the last week of July 1943, code named Operation Gomorrah, created one of the largest firestorms raised by the Royal Air Force and United States Army Air Forces in World War II, killing an estimated 37,000 civilians and wounding 180,000 more in Hamburg, and virtually destroying most of the city.


title: Bombing of Hamburg in World War II

text: Hamburg was selected as a target because it was considered particularly susceptible to attack with incendiaries, which, from the experience of the Blitz, were felt to inflict more damage than just high explosive bombs. Hamburg also contained a high number of targets supporting the German war effort and was relatively easy for navigators to find. Careful research was done on behalf of both the RAF and USAAF to discover the optimum mix of high explosives and incendiaries. Before the development of the firestorm in Hamburg, there had been no rain for some time and everything was very dry. The unusually warm weather and good conditions ensured that the bombing was highly concentrated around the intended targets, and helped the resulting conflagration create a vortex and whirling updraft of super-heated air which became a tornado of fire.


title: Bombing of Hamburg in World War II

text: Various other previously used techniques and devices were instrumental as well, such as area bombing, Pathfinders, and H2S radar, which came together to work with particular effectiveness. An early form of chaff, code named 'Window', was successfully used for the first time by the RAF – clouds of aluminium foil strips dropped by Pathfinders as well as the initial bomber stream – in order to completely cloud German radar. The raids inflicted severe damage to German armaments production in Hamburg.


title: Bombing of Hamburg in World War II

text: The name "Gomorrah" comes from that of one of the two Canaanite cities of Sodom and Gomorrah whose destruction is recorded in the Bible: "Then the Lord rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, from the Lord out of the heavens."


title: Bombing of Hamburg in World War II

text: RAF Bomber Command had made raids on Germany from the early days of World War II. Initially, only military targets were attacked. However, navigation to the target over a blacked-out wartime landscape was extremely poor, as was bombing accuracy if the target city (let alone the actual military target) could be found. Consequently bombing operations were very open to criticism as a waste of resources, since such poor results were achieved. The extent of this failure was exposed to the War Cabinet in August 1941 by the Butt Report, which by analysing 600 photographs of raids in the previous three months, found that only a third of crews that claimed to have reached their targets had actually dropped their bombs within five miles (eight kilometres) of them.


title: Bombing of Hamburg in World War II

text: Opinion on targeting steadily shifted as the war progressed, and by November 1940, the view was developing that the civilian population of Germany was a legitimate target in "total war". By June 1941, RAF thinking had been reversed from seeing any civilian casualties as collateral damage when attacking a military target, to deliberately targeting civilians in an attempt to destroy their morale. This was expected to reduce industrial production and therefore hinder the German war effort. The target was no longer factories, but the people who worked in them and lived in the surrounding area. This became known as "area bombing". This change was not driven by the inaccuracy of bombing at this stage, but by studying which aspects of the German Blitz on Britain had had most effect.


title: Bombing of Hamburg in World War II

text: Air Marshal Arthur "Bomber" Harris had taken charge of the RAF Bomber Command in February 1942. In the same month, the USAAF 8th Bomber Command set up a headquarters in the United Kingdom ready for the deployment of American units to Britain. Roosevelt was optimistic that bombing had war-winning potential, despite his appeal to Hitler in September 1939 to avoid bombing civilians. Winston Churchill was similarly enthusiastic to bomb Germany. This gave both air forces the political support to deal, at this stage, with criticism of their ineffectiveness.


title: Bombing of Hamburg in World War II

text: Harris strongly believed that attacking specific valuable targets such as oil refineries or ball-bearing factories was a waste of effort because the German economy had sufficient resources to work around any bottle-necks caused by damage to these facilities, and that area bombing was a war-winning tactic. In this he was supported by some prominent civilian and military leaders, including Air Vice Marshal Sir Norman Bottomley, who in February 1942 issued a directive that using the new Gee radio navigation equipment, the new priority was to attack "the morale of the enemy's civil population, and in particular, of the industrial workers". Support for this shift came from a minute at the end of March by Churchill's scientific advisor, Lord Cherwell, in which he asserted that losing one's house by bombing seemed to have the greatest impact on civilian morale, which he described as "dehousing".


title: Bombing of Hamburg in World War II

text: The build up of the 8th Bomber Command was slow and though some small scale raids were made in France during the latter half of 1942, capability to attack Germany was not obtained until 1943. The British resources were also limited. The Western Allies had had to tell the Soviet Union that any idea of opening a second front in Europe in the summer of 1942 was unfeasible. The only thing Churchill had to offer Stalin was a bombing campaign against Germany. This was hard for the RAF to deliver, but it meant that the bombing of Germany could not be abandoned, so Harris would ultimately get the heavy bombers needed. However, by the time of the big raid on Hamburg at the end of July 1943, both air forces needed a significant success to justify their existence.


title: Bombing of Hamburg in World War II

text: Britain's experience of being bombed in the Blitz had contributed to the RAF's thinking on how to conduct a bombing campaign. It had become clear that incendiaries could inflict much more damage than high explosive bombs. Detailed study of this was carried out by the Research and Experiment unit, RE8, (set up in November 1941). The details of how German houses were constructed were examined and tests were carried out on models to determine how effective an incendiary attack would be. The precise ratio of high explosive bombs and incendiaries was calculated. The high explosive was to blow out windows and make fire fighting dangerous. High explosive bombs with delayed action fuses were included in the mix to further suppress any fire fighting effort. The quantity of incendiaries delivered had to be high enough to totally overwhelm any fire fighting capability, so that a conflagration could become established.


title: Bombing of Hamburg in World War II

text: The Americans took a high level of interest in the British research on the effect of incendiaries. American expertise and experiments added to the planning of fire bombing raids. Despite belief to the contrary, US aircraft also carried a carefully considered mix of high explosive and incendiary bombs. Large quantities of US-made oil-based incendiaries went into service with the 8th Bomber Command shortly before the Hamburg raid – this was preferred by the Americans to the magnesium-cased thermite bomb used by the British.


title: Bombing of Hamburg in World War II

text: It is clear that the effectiveness of the Hamburg raid relied to a large extent on the careful research on how best to cause a large fire in a German city – as opposed to the popular view that it was some sort of accidental occurrence due to unusual weather conditions.


title: Bombing of Hamburg in World War II

text: A number of factors led to Hamburg being chosen for the planned firebombing raid. The construction of the city meant its vulnerability was considered "outstanding". It was Germany's second largest city. The city's shipbuilding industry made it a priority target. It also had more industrial targets of interest to the Ministry of Economic Warfare than most other German cities. It was reasonably close to the bomber bases in Britain, so giving a short flight, with less exposure to anti-aircraft fire and fighters. Hamburg's position, close to the coast and on a prominent river made the target easy to find.


title: Bombing of Hamburg in World War II

text: The Battle of Hamburg, codenamed Operation Gomorrah, was a campaign of air raids which began on 24 July 1943 and lasted for 8 days and 7 nights. It was at the time the heaviest assault in the history of aerial warfare and was later called the "Hiroshima of Germany" by British officials.


title: Bombing of Hamburg in World War II

text: Until the focus of RAF Bomber Command switched to Hamburg, their focus had been on the Ruhr industrial region which had been the target of a five-month-long campaign.


title: Bombing of Hamburg in World War II

text: The operation was conducted by RAF Bomber Command (including RCAF, RAAF and Polish Squadrons) and the USAAF Eighth Air Force. The British conducted night raids and the USAAF daylight raids.


title: Bombing of Hamburg in World War II

text: The initial attack on Hamburg included two new introductions to the British planning: they used "Window", later known as chaff, to confuse the German radar, while the Pathfinder Force aircraft, which normally kept radio silence, reported the winds they encountered, and this information was processed and relayed to the bomber force navigators.


title: Bombing of Hamburg in World War II

text: No. 35 Squadron led the target marking and, thanks to the clear weather and H2S radar navigation, accuracy was good, with markers falling close to the aiming point. On 24 July, at approximately 00:57, the first bombing started by the RAF and lasted for almost an hour. The confusion caused to German radar kept losses of aircraft low. While some 40,000 firemen were available to tackle fires, control of their resources was damaged when the telephone exchange caught fire and rubble blocked the passage of fire engines through the city streets; fires were still burning three days later.


title: Bombing of Hamburg in World War II

text: A second, daylight raid, by the USAAF was conducted at 16:40. It had been intended for 300 aircraft to attack Hamburg and Hanover but problems with assembling the force in the air meant that only 90 Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses reached Hamburg. The bombers attacked the Blohm and Voss shipyard and an aero-engine factory, with German flak damaging 78 aircraft. However the shipyard was not badly damaged and the aero-engine manufacturer could not be seen for smoke (a generating station was attacked instead).


title: Bombing of Hamburg in World War II

text: De Havilland Mosquitos of the RAF Light Night Striking Force (LNSF) carried out nuisance raids to keep the city on a state of alert and delayed-action bombs from the night's raid exploded at intervals. Extra firemen were brought in from other cities including Hanover; as a result when the US bombers attacked, these firemen were in Hamburg and fires in Hanover burned unchecked.


title: Bombing of Hamburg in World War II

text: Another attack by the RAF on Hamburg for that night was cancelled due to the problems the smoke would cause and 700 bombers raided Essen instead. Mosquitos carried out another nuisance raid.


title: Bombing of Hamburg in World War II

text: A third raid was conducted on the morning of the 26th. The RAF night attack of 26 July at 00:20 was extremely light because of severe thunderstorms and high winds over the North Sea, during which a considerable number of bombers jettisoned the explosive part of their bomb loads (retaining just the incendiaries) with only two bomb drops reported. That attack is often not counted when the total number of Operation Gomorrah attacks is given. There was no day raid on the 27th.


title: Bombing of Hamburg in World War II

text: On the night of 27 July, shortly before midnight, 787 RAF aircraft74 Vickers Wellingtons, 116 Short Stirlings, 244 Handley Page Halifaxes and 353 Avro Lancastersbombed Hamburg. The aiming points were the dense housing of the working-class districts of Billwerder, Borgfelde, Hamm, Hammerbrook, Hohenfelde and Rothenburgsort. The unusually dry and warm weather, the concentration of the bombing in one area and firefighting limitations due to blockbuster bombs used in the early part of the raid – and the recall of Hanover's firecrews to their own city – culminated in a firestorm. The tornadic fire created a huge inferno with winds of up to reaching temperatures of and altitudes in excess of , incinerating more than of the city. Asphalt streets appeared to burst into flame (in fact, it was the phosphor from the fire bombs that was burning), and fuel oil from damaged and destroyed ships, barges and storage tanks spilled into the water of the canals and the harbour, causing them to ignite as well.


title: Bombing of Hamburg in World War II

text: An estimated 18,474 people died on this night. A large number of those killed were seeking safety in air raid shelters and cellars. The firestorm consumed the oxygen in the burning city above and the carbon monoxide poisoned those sheltering below. The furious winds created by the firestorm had the power to sweep people up off the streets like dry leaves.


title: Bombing of Hamburg in World War II

text: On the night of 29 July, Hamburg was again attacked by over 700 RAF aircraft. A planned raid on 31 July was cancelled due to thunderstorms over the UK. The last raid of Operation Gomorrah was conducted on 3 August.


title: Bombing of Hamburg in World War II

text: The death toll from Operation Gomorrah will always be uncertain, but the most accepted single number is now 37,000. If a range is stated, this is generally between 34,000 (from police records) and 40,000 (a commonly used figure in Germany before the end of the war). Most of the dead were unidentified. By 1 December 1943, there were 31,647 confirmed dead, but of these only 15,802 were based on the identification of a body. In some cases, the numbers of people who had perished in cellars converted into "air protection rooms" could only be estimated from the quantity of ash left on the floor. Those who died represented about 2.4% of the total population of Hamburg at the time.


title: Bombing of Hamburg in World War II

text: In the first week after the raid, about one million people evacuated the city. 61% of the housing stock was destroyed or damaged. The city's labour force was reduced by ten percent. Approximately 3,000 aircraft were employed, 9,000 tons of bombs were dropped and over 250,000 homes and houses were destroyed. No subsequent city raid shook Germany as did that on Hamburg; documents show that German officials were thoroughly alarmed and there is some indication from later Allied interrogations of Nazi officials that Hitler stated that further raids of similar weight would force Germany out of the war. The industrial losses were severe: Hamburg never recovered to full production, only doing so in essential armaments industries (in which maximum effort was made). Figures given by German sources indicate that 183 large factories were destroyed out of 524 in the city and 4,118 smaller factories out of 9,068 were destroyed.


title: Bombing of Hamburg in World War II

text: Other losses included damage to or destruction of 580 industrial concerns and armaments works, 299 of which were important enough to be listed by name. Local transport systems were completely disrupted and did not return to normal for some time. Dwellings destroyed amounted to 214,350 out of 414,500. Hamburg was hit by air raids another 69 times before the end of World War II. In total, the RAF dropped 22,580 long tons of bombs on Hamburg.


title: Bombing of Hamburg in World War II

text: There was press coverage of the Hamburg raids as they were taking place, with for instance both "The Times" of London and "The New York Times" running stories on 26 July 1943, after the raids had commenced but a day before the firestorm raid took place, that emphasized the large size and coordinated British-American nature of the bombing campaign against the city.


title: Bombing of Hamburg in World War II

text: The destruction of Hamburg became a major news story at the time and caused a great impression as to the extent of the damage and loss of life. By 3 August 1943, just as the raids were concluding, military expert George Fielding Eliot was analyzing the subject at length in his syndicated column published in U.S. newspapers. Newspaper editorials and cartoons also referred to the complete destruction of Hamburg. A report from the Newspaper Enterprise Association's London correspondent on 9 August speculated on how quickly Berlin could "be eliminated" in the same fashion. At the same time in Germany itself, the Hamburg raids were seen as a far worse development than major German military reverses then taking place on the Eastern Front and in Sicily and Italy.


title: Bombing of Hamburg in World War II

text: Initial eyewitness accounts by foreign nationals who had been in Hamburg did not attempt to give numerical figures for the destruction, instead describing it as beyond belief. As one 9 August 1943 United Press story about a Swiss merchant's account related, it was a "hell released" by a "devil's concert" that amounted to "Hamburg's ceaseless, inescapable destruction on a scale that defies the imagination." Even the German press, which had previously downplayed or not discussed bombings of German cities, here emphasized the effects on Hamburg and the numbers of refugees coming from there. Later in August, "New York Times" foreign correspondent C. L. Sulzberger relayed a German belief that there had been 200,000 deaths, which he viewed as credible. By November 1943, a Swiss dispatch to Swedish newspapers gave a figure of 152,000 killed in the Hamburg bombing, but without supplying an explanation for the source of the number.


title: Bombing of Hamburg in World War II

text: Just a few months after the European war's conclusion, newspaper accounts described the findings of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS), publicly released on 30 October 1945, which gave the German estimates of 60,000–100,000 deaths in the Hamburg bombings. And even higher numbers sometimes were still used. During the 1949–50 debate within the U.S. government about whether to proceed with development of the hydrogen bomb, arguments based on morality were made against developing a weapon whose main utility seemed to be killing massive numbers of civilians with one detonation. Objecting to this line of reasoning, Senator Brien McMahon, chairman of the United States Congressional Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, wrote a letter to President Harry S. Truman in which he asked, "Where is the valid ethical distinction between the several Hamburg raids that produced 135,000 fatalities," the March 1945 firebombing of Tokyo, the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, and the proposed thermonuclear weapon. McMahon concluded that "There is no moral dividing line that I can see" between any of these.


title: Bombing of Hamburg in World War II

text: The totally-destroyed quarter of Hammerbrook, in which mostly port workers lived, was rebuilt not as a housing area but as a commercial area. The adjoining quarter of Rothenburgsort shared the same fate since only a small area of housing was rebuilt. The underground line that connected both areas with the central station was not rebuilt, either.


title: Bombing of Hamburg in World War II

text: In the destroyed residential areas, many houses were rebuilt across the street and so no longer form connected blocks. The hills of the Öjendorfer Park are formed by the debris of destroyed houses.


title: Bombing of Hamburg in World War II

text: In January 1946, Major Cortez F. Enloe, a surgeon in the USAAF who worked on the USSBS, said that the fire effects of the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki "were not nearly as bad as the effects of the R.A.F. raids on Hamburg on July 27th 1943". He estimated that more than 40,000 people died in Hamburg.


title: Shifty Shellshock

text: Seth Brooks Binzer (born August 23, 1974), better known by his stage name Shifty Shellshock, is an American musician, best known for being a co-founder and front man of the rap rock band Crazy Town, known for their hit song "Butterfly". He has also had a solo music career and appeared in the reality television series "Celebrity Rehab" 1 and 2 and "Sober House" 1 and 2.


title: Shifty Shellshock

text: Binzer met fellow Crazy Town front-man, Bret Mazur, in 1992; they started collaborating under the name "The Brimstone Sluggers". By early 1999, they formed the group "Crazy Town". In 2000 Crazy Town was signed to tour with Ozzfest; however, they were forced to withdraw after only two weeks when Binzer was arrested after he threw a chair through a window while he was drunk.


title: Shifty Shellshock

text: The band's single, "Butterfly", was a global hit. It peaked at the top of the "Billboard" Hot 100 and in several other countries including Austria, Denmark, and Norway. The success of the single prompted sales of their debut album, "The Gift of Game", to exceed 1.5 million.


title: Shifty Shellshock

text: Their 2002 follow-up album, "Darkhorse", was a commercial failure by comparison, and the band broke up shortly after its release.


title: Shifty Shellshock

text: Crazy Town announced they had reformed in 2007, and performed live for the first time in five years in August 2009. They released their third album, "The Brimstone Sluggers", in 2015.


title: Shifty Shellshock

text: During Crazy Town's hiatus, Binzer collaborated with British producer and musician Paul Oakenfold, contributing vocals to Oakenfold's hit single "Starry Eyed Surprise". The track was for Oakenfold first solo studio album "Bunkka". In an interview with "Rolling Stone" magazine in the US, Binzer said that the track known as "Starry Eyed Surprise" was created after the pair met at a Crazy Town show.


title: Shifty Shellshock

text: The song peaked at number 41 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and number six on the UK Singles Chart in Oakenfold's native United Kingdom. In the latter country, it became Binzer's first top ten song as a solo artist.


title: Shifty Shellshock

text: Binzer released his own first solo album, "Happy Love Sick" in 2004. He released two singles from the album: "Slide Along Side" a pan-European hit for Shifty that peaked at number 29 on the UK Singles Chart with moderate chart success in Italy, France, Germany, Sweden and Switzerland. His follow-up single, "Turning Me On", did not chart.


title: Shifty Shellshock

text: In 2009, Binzer founded Platinum Status Records, though the label did not release material from any other artists.


title: Shifty Shellshock

text: In 2010, Binzer fronted the group, Shifty and The Big Shots. They released their first single, "Save Me", on July 6, 2010, and followed it up with the single "City of Angels".


title: Shifty Shellshock

text: In a 2001 interview with "Rolling Stone", Binzer admitted to spending three months in the California Institution for Men following an attempted burglary, to selling and using recreational drugs over a period of several years, as well as to struggling with drug addiction.


title: Shifty Shellshock

text: Binzer married Melissa Clark in 2002. They have a son named Halo. In 2011, Clark filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences. Binzer dated a woman named Tracy in 2008. They have a son named Gage.


title: Shifty Shellshock

text: Binzer began a relationship with Jasmine Lennard in 2010. On March 27, 2011, police responded to a report of a domestic disturbance between the pair. Binzer was arrested for outstanding warrants and released later that day. In a video interview with TMZ.com, Binzer stated the disturbance was simply a noise complaint, and that the outstanding warrant was for counter-assaulting a security guard who was using unnecessary force when trying to throw him out of a club. Lennard and Binzer announced their engagement in 2012. Binzer was arrested in February 2012 for battery and cocaine possession, and sentenced to three years' probation; his relationship with Lennard ended shortly thereafter. Binzer and Lennard have a son named Phoenix. In 2013, Lennard asked a California court for exclusive custody of their son, claiming Binzer smoked crack in front of him and once left a crack pipe in his room.


title: Shifty Shellshock

text: Following his struggle with substance abuse, Binzer was one of nine celebrities featured in the first season of VH1's "Celebrity Rehab". Upon arrival at the Pasadena Recovery Center (which was filmed as part of "Celebrity Rehab"s first episode), Binzer was in a sober state but brought along a couple of Red Stripe beers, which were quickly confiscated. Binzer told Dr. Drew Pinsky that he was motivated to achieve sobriety and admitted that cocaine would be the toughest drug for him to avoid.


title: Shifty Shellshock

text: He graduated from treatment with the other cast members in the summer of 2007. His sobriety was short-lived and subsequently appeared towards the end of "Celebrity Rehab 2". Dr. Drew and Binzer's sponsor retrieved him from his hotel room where he had been using and brought him to the Pasadena Recovery Center where they, along with Bob Forrest, pleaded with him to reenter treatment immediately. Binzer agreed to reenter treatment but said he needed "an hour or two" to "chill" and "get a cup of coffee", so he could ready himself for treatment. Realizing that his subterfuge was not fooling anyone (he wanted the time to have another fix), he admitted his intentions saying, "Even though I don't like the drugs, I like 'em". As Binzer got up to leave, the worn-out Dr. Drew said to Binzer's sponsor: "If he stops breathing, call the paramedics." Under the supervision of his sponsor, Binzer scored drugs, returned to the rehab facility that night in an intense state of crack cocaine-induced intoxication, and smoked the remainder of his crack on the roof. He eventually entered the facility and reentered treatment.


title: Shifty Shellshock

text: Binzer also appeared on a follow-up show titled "Sober House". However, on July 25, 2008, while shooting scenes for the show, Binzer was insulted at a club and responded by walking out on production and embarking on a heavy relapse. To the annoyance of Dr. Drew, Bob Forrest, and several of his housemates, he treated his relapse like a game and sent everyone coded videos on his MySpace about his current location. William Smith, an employee of Dr. Drew, eventually sought out Binzer at a motel and brought him back to the rehab facility. An embarrassed Binzer pledged to Smith and Dr. Drew that the binge he embarked on was his last. On the show's final episode, Binzer is shown in the preliminary stages of being signed to a record producer for a new song, and resolves to stay sober.


title: Shifty Shellshock

text: On the August 30, 2009 episode of "Loveline", Dr. Drew gave an emotional eulogy to his good friend and Binzer's former bandmate Adam Goldstein, who had died two days previously from an accidental drug overdose shortly after breaking 11 years of sobriety. During the tribute, Dr. Drew mentioned that Binzer's problems with addiction continued after "Sober House 1", eventually leading Binzer to take part in "Sober House 2". When filming for "Sober House 2" began, Dr. Drew got a "distress call" from Seth (filmed as part of the season's second episode) and the two met, with Seth revealing to Drew that his thirst for drugs was still very much active, and that he needed more help. Dr. Drew reluctantly allowed him to take part in the show and firmly stated that it would be the last time Drew gave him treatment. Dr. Drew voiced his hope that Goldstein's death would inspire Binzer to remain sober. Binzer later thanked Dr. Drew for his tough love.


title: Shifty Shellshock

text: On 29 March 2012 Binzer was admitted to hospital after losing consciousness. Binzer awakened from the coma and was later released from hospital.


title: Shifty Shellshock

text: Binzer had a minor role in the 1994 film "Clifford", and played the lead role in the 2004 short film "Willowbee". Binzer also had a small appearance in the 2005 film "Hustle & Flow". In 1995, he took part in "Shark Hunters: Ultimate Tournament Series" TV series. He also appeared in the 2016 film "Dead 7".


title: Delaware River

text: The Delaware River is a major river in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. From the meeting of its branches in Hancock, New York, the river flows for along the borders of New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, before emptying into Delaware Bay. It is the longest free-flowing river in the Eastern United States.


title: Delaware River

text: The river has been recognized by the National Wildlife Federation as one of the country's Great Waters. The river's watershed drains an area of and provides drinking water for 17 million people.


title: Delaware River

text: The river has two branches that rise in the Catskill Mountains of New York: the West Branch at Mount Jefferson in Jefferson, Schoharie County, and the East Branch at Grand Gorge, Delaware County. The branches merge to form the main Delaware River at Hancock, New York. Flowing south, the river remains relatively undeveloped, with protected as the Upper, Middle, and Lower Delaware National Scenic Rivers. At Trenton, New Jersey, the Delaware becomes tidal, navigable, and significantly more industrial. This section forms the backbone of the Delaware Valley metropolitan area, serving the port cities of Philadelphia, Camden, New Jersey, and Wilmington, Delaware. The river flows into Delaware Bay at Liston Point, upstream of the bay's outlet to the Atlantic Ocean between Cape May and Cape Henlopen.


title: Delaware River

text: Before the arrival of European settlers, the river was the homeland of the Lenape Native Americans. They called the river Lenapewihittuk, or Lenape River, and Kithanne, meaning the largest river in this part of the country.


title: Delaware River

text: In 1609, the river was visited by a Dutch East India Company expedition led by Henry Hudson. Hudson, an English navigator, was hired to find a western route to Cathay (China), but his discoveries set the stage for Dutch colonization of North America in the 17th century. Early Dutch and Swedish settlements were established along the lower section of the river and Delaware Bay. Both colonial powers called the river the "South River" (Zuidrivier), compared to the Hudson River, which was known as the "North River". After the English expelled the Dutch and took control of the New Netherland colony in 1664, the river was renamed "Delaware" after Sir Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr, an English nobleman and the Virginia colony's first royal governor who defended the colony during the First Anglo-Powhatan War.


title: Delaware River

text: The Delaware River is named in honor of Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr (1577–1618), an English nobleman and the Virginia colony's first royal governor, who defended the colony during the First Anglo-Powhatan War. Lord de la Warr waged a punitive campaign to subdue the Powhatan after they had killed the colony's council president, John Ratcliffe, and attacked the colony's fledgling settlements. Lord de la Warr arrived with 150 soldiers in time to prevent the colony's original settlers at Jamestown from giving up and returning to England and is credited with saving the Virginia colony. The name of the barony (later an earldom) is pronounced as in the current spelling form "Delaware" ( ) and is thought to derive from French "de la Guerre".


title: Delaware River

text: It has often been reported that the river and bay received the name "Delaware" after English forces under Richard Nicolls expelled the Dutch and took control of the New Netherland colony in 1664. However, the river and bay were known by the name "Delaware" as early as 1641. The state of Delaware was originally part of the William Penn's Pennsylvania colony. In 1682, the Duke of York granted Penn's request for access to the sea and leased him the territory along the western shore of Delaware Bay, which became known as the "Lower Counties on the Delaware". In 1704, the Lower Counties were given political autonomy to form a separate provincial assembly, but they shared Pennsylvania's provincial governor until the two colonies separated on June 15, 1776, and they remained separate as states after the establishment of the United States.


title: Delaware River

text: The name "Delaware" also came to be used as a collective name for the Lenape, a Native American people who inhabited an area of the basins of the Susquehanna River, Delaware River, and lower Hudson River in the northeastern United States at the time of European settlement, as well as for their language. As a result of disruption following the French and Indian War, American Revolutionary War, and the later Indian removals from the eastern United States, the name "Delaware" has been spread with the Lenape's diaspora to municipalities, counties and other geographical features in the American Midwest and Canada.


title: Delaware River

text: The Delaware River's drainage basin has an area of and encompasses 42 counties and 838 municipalities in five U.S. states: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Delaware. This total area constitutes approximately 0.4% of the land mass in the United States. In 2001, the watershed was 18% agricultural land, 14% developed land, and 68% forested land.


title: Delaware River

text: There are 216 tributary streams and creeks comprising an estimated 14,057 miles of streams and creeks, in the watershed. While the watershed is home to 4.17 million people according to the 2000 Federal Census, these bodies of water provide drinking water to 17 million people—roughly 6% of the population of the United States. The waters of the Delaware River's basin are used to sustain "fishing, transportation, power, cooling, recreation, and other industrial and residential purposes." It is the 33rd largest river in the United States in terms of flow, but the nation's most heavily used rivers in daily volume of tonnage. The average annual flow rate of the Delaware is 11,700 cubic feet per second at Trenton, New Jersey. With no dams or impediments on the river's main stem, the Delaware is one of the few remaining large free-flowing rivers in the United States.


title: Delaware River

text: The West Branch of the Delaware River, also called the Mohawk Branch, spans approximately from the northern Catskill Mountains to its confluence with the Delaware River's East Branch at Hancock, New York. The last forms part of the boundary between New York and Pennsylvania.


title: Delaware River

text: The West Branch rises in Schoharie County, New York at above sea level, near Mount Jefferson, and flows tortuously through the plateau in a deep trough. The branch flows generally southwest, entering Delaware County and flowing through the towns of Stamford and Delhi. In southwestern Delaware County it flows in an increasingly winding course through the mountains, generally southwest. At Stilesville the West Branch was impounded in the 1960s to form the Cannonsville Reservoir, the westernmost of the reservoirs in the New York City water system. It is the most recently constructed New York City reservoir and began serving the city in 1964. Draining a large watershed of , the reservoir's capacity is . This water flows over halfway through the reservoir to enter the West Delaware Tunnel in Tompkins, New York. Then it flows through the aqueduct into the Rondout Reservoir, where the water enters the Delaware Aqueduct, that contributes to roughly 50% of the city's drinking water supply. At Deposit, on the border between Broome and Delaware counties, it turns sharply to the southeast and is paralleled by New York State Route 17. It joins the East Branch at above sea level at Hancock to form the Delaware.


title: Delaware River

text: Similarly, the East Branch begins from a small pond south of Grand Gorge in the town of Roxbury in Delaware County, flowing southwest toward its impoundment by New York City to create the Pepacton Reservoir, the largest reservoir in the New York City water supply system. Its tributaries are the Beaver Kill River and the Willowemoc Creek which enter into the river ten miles (16 km) before the West Branch meets the East Branch. The confluence of the two branches is just south of Hancock.


title: Delaware River

text: The East Branch and West Branch of the Delaware River parallel each other, both flowing in a southwesterly direction.


title: Delaware River

text: From Hancock, New York, the Delaware flows between the northern Poconos in Pennsylvania, and the lowered shale beds north of the Catskills. The river flows down a broad Appalachian valley, passing Hawk's Nest overlook on the Upper Delaware Scenic Byway. The river flows southeast for 78 miles through rural regions along the New York-Pennsylvania border to Port Jervis and Shawangunk Ridge.


title: Delaware River

text: At Port Jervis, New York, it enters the Port Jervis trough. At this point, the Walpack Ridge deflects the Delaware into the Minisink Valley, where it follows the southwest strike of the eroded Marcellus Formation beds along the Pennsylvania–New Jersey state line for to the end of the ridge at Walpack Bend in the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area.


title: Delaware River

text: The Minisink is a buried valley where the Delaware flows in a bed of glacial till that buried the eroded bedrock during the last glacial period. It then skirts the Kittatinny ridge, which it crosses at the Delaware Water Gap, between nearly vertical walls of sandstone, quartzite, and conglomerate, and then passes through a quiet and charming country of farm and forest, diversified with plateaus and escarpments, until it crosses the Appalachian plain and enters the hills again at Easton, Pennsylvania. From this point it is flanked at intervals by fine hills, and in places by cliffs, of which the finest are the Nockamixon Cliffs, long and above high.


title: Delaware River

text: The Appalachian Trail, which traverses the ridge of Kittatinny Mountain in New Jersey, and Blue Mountain in Pennsylvania, crosses the Delaware River at the Delaware Water Gap near Columbia, New Jersey.


title: Delaware River

text: In Easton, Pennsylvania, the Lehigh River joins the Delaware. At Trenton, the Delaware crosses the Atlantic Seaboard Fall Line with a drop of .


title: Delaware River

text: Below Trenton, the Delaware flows between Philadelphia and New Jersey before becoming a broad, sluggish inlet of the sea, with many marshes along its side, widening steadily into its great estuary, Delaware Bay.


title: Delaware River

text: The Delaware River constitutes the boundary between Delaware and New Jersey. The Delaware-New Jersey border is actually at the easternmost river shoreline within the Twelve-Mile Circle of New Castle, rather than mid-river or mid-channel borders, causing small portions of land lying west of the shoreline, but on the New Jersey side of the river, to fall under the jurisdiction of Delaware. The rest of the borders follow a mid-channel approach.


title: Delaware River

text: At the time of the arrival of the Europeans in the early 17th century, the area near the Delaware River was inhabited by the Native American Lenape people. They called the Delaware River "Lenape Wihittuck", which means "the rapid stream of the Lenape". The Delaware River played a key factor in the economic and social development of the Mid-Atlantic region. In the seventeenth century it provided the conduit for colonial settlement by the Dutch (New Netherland), the Swedish (New Sweden). Beginning in 1664, the region became an English possession as settlement by Quakers established the colonies of Pennsylvania (including present-day Delaware) and West Jersey. In the eighteenth century, cities like Philadelphia, Camden (then Cooper's Ferry), Trenton and Wilmington, and New Castle were established upon the Delaware and their continued commercial success into the present day has been dependent on access to the river for trade and power. The river provided the path for the settlement of northeastern Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley, and northwestern New Jersey by German Palatine immigrants—a population that became key in the agricultural development of the region.


title: Delaware River

text: The strategic Delaware River was the scene of several important campaigns during the American Revolutionary War. Perhaps the most famous event was George Washington's crossing of the Delaware River with the Continental Army on the night of December 25–26, 1776, leading to a successful surprise attack and victory against the Hessian troops occupying Trenton, New Jersey on the morning of December 26.


title: Delaware River

text: During the Philadelphia Campaign control of the Delaware River was urgently needed by the British, allowing their naval fleet to supply troops occupying Philadelphia. To this end, the Battle of Red Bank and the Siege of Fort Mifflin were fought on and along the shores of the Delaware by the American and British navies, commanded by Commodore John Hazelwood and Admiral Francis Reynolds respectively. See of that campaign.


title: Delaware River

text: The magnitude of the commerce of Philadelphia has made the improvements of the river below that port of great importance. Small improvements were attempted by Pennsylvania as early as 1771. Commerce was once important on the upper river, primarily prior to railway competition of 1857.


title: Delaware River

text: The Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area came about as a result of the failure of a controversial plan to build a dam on the Delaware River at Tocks Island, just north of the Delaware Water Gap to control water levels for flood control and hydroelectric power generation. The dam would have created a lake in the center of present park for use as a reservoir. Starting in 1960, the present-day area of the Recreation Area was acquired for the Army Corps of Engineers through eminent domain. Between 3,000 and 5,000 dwellings were demolished, including historical sites, and about 15,000 people were displaced by the project.


title: Delaware River

text: Because of massive environmental opposition, dwindling funds, and an unacceptable geological assessment of the dam's safety, the government transferred the property to the National Park Service in 1978. The National Park Service found itself as the caretaker of the previously endangered territory, and with the help of the federal government and surrounding communities, developed recreational facilities and worked to preserve the remaining historical structures.


title: Delaware River

text: The nearby Shawnee Inn, was identified in the 1990s as the only resort along the banks of the Delaware River. America Rivers, an environmental advocacy group, named the Delaware River as the river of the year for 2020.


title: Delaware River

text: In 1984, the U.S. Department of the Treasury authorized the creation of a wine region or "American Viticultural Area" called the Central Delaware Valley AVA located in southeastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The wine appellation includes surrounding the Delaware River north of Philadelphia and Trenton, New Jersey. In Pennsylvania, it consists of the territory along the Delaware River in Bucks County; in New Jersey, the AVA spans along the river in Hunterdon County and Mercer County from Titusville, New Jersey, just north of Trenton, northward to Musconetcong Mountain. As of 2013, there are no New Jersey wineries in the Central Delaware Valley AVA.


title: Delaware River

text: In the Project of 1885, the U.S. government undertook systematically the formation of a channel wide from Philadelphia to deep water in Delaware Bay. The River and Harbor Act of 1899 provided for a channel wide from Philadelphia to the deep water of the bay.


title: Delaware River

text: Since 1941, the Delaware River Main Channel was maintained at a depth of . There is an effort underway to deepen the 102.5-mile stretch of this federal navigation channel, from Philadelphia and Camden to the mouth of the Delaware Bay to 45 feet.


title: Delaware River

text: The Delaware River port complex refers to the ports and energy facilities along the river in the tri-state PA-NJ-DE Delaware Valley region. They include the Port of Salem, the Port of Wilmington, the Port of Chester, the Port of Paulsboro, the Port of Philadelphia and the Port of Camden. Combined they create one of the largest shipping areas of the United States. In 2015, the ports of Philadelphia, Camden, and Wilmington handled 100 million tons of cargo from 2,243 ship arrivals, and supported 135,000 direct or indirect jobs. The biggest category of imports was fruit, carried by 490 ships, followed by petroleum, and containers, with 410 and 381 ships, respectively. The biggest category of exports was of shipping was containers, with 470 ships.


title: Delaware River

text: At one time it was a center for petroleum and chemical products and included facilities such as the Delaware City Refinery, the Dupont Chambers Works, Oceanport Terminal at Claymont, the Marcus Hook Refinery, the Trainer Refinery, the Paulsboro Asphalt Refinery, Paulsboro Refinery, Eagle Point Refinery, and Sunoco Fort Mifflin. As of 2011, crude oil was the largest single commodity transported on the Delaware River, accounting for half of all annual cargo tonnage.


title: Delaware River

text: The Delaware River is a major barrier to travel between New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Most of the larger bridges are tolled only westbound, and are owned by the Delaware River and Bay Authority, Delaware River Port Authority, Burlington County Bridge Commission or Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission.


title: Delaware River

text: After New York City built 15 reservoirs to supply water to the city's growing population, it was unable to obtain permission to build an additional five reservoirs along the Delaware River's tributaries. As a result, in 1928 the city decided to draw water from the Delaware River, putting them in direct conflict with villages and towns across the river in Pennsylvania which were already using the Delaware for their water supply. The two sides eventually took their case to the U.S. Supreme Court, and in 1931, New York City was allowed to draw of water a day from the Delaware and its upstream tributaries.


title: Delaware River

text: The Delaware River has been attached to areas of high pollution. The Delaware River in 2012 was named the 5th most polluted river in the United States, explained by PennEnvironment and Environment New Jersey. The activist groups claim that there is about 7–10 million pounds of toxic chemicals flowing through the waterways due to dumping by DuPont Chambers Works. PennEnvironment also claims that the pollutants in the river can cause birth defects, infertility among women, and have been linked to cancer.


title: Delaware River

text: In 2015, the EPA saw the Delaware River as a concern for mass pollution especially in the Greater Philadelphia and Chester, Pennsylvania area. The EPA was involved after accusations that the river met standards made illegal by the Clean Water Act. In complying with the Clean Water Act, the EPA involved the Delaware County Regional Water Authority (DELCORA) where they set up a plan to spend around $200 million to help rid the waterway of about 740 million gallons of sewage and pollution. DELCORA was also fined about $1.4 million for allowing the Delaware River to have so much pollution residing in the river in the first place and for not complying with the Clean Water Act.


title: Delaware River

text: The Clean Water Act explains the importance of low pollution for human and species health. One of the sectors in the Clean Water Act explains how conditions of the river should be stable enough for human fishing and swimming. Even though the river has had success with the cleanup of pollution, the Delaware River still does not meet that standard of swimmable or fishable conditions in the Philadelphia/ Chester region.


title: Delaware River

text: With the failure of the dam project to come to fruition, the lack of flood control on the river left it vulnerable, and it has experienced a number of serious flooding events as the result of snow melt or rain run-off from heavy rainstorms. Record flooding occurred in August 1955, in the aftermath of the passing of the remnants of two separate hurricanes over the area within less than a week: first Hurricane Connie and then Hurricane Diane, which was, and still is, the wettest tropical cyclone to have hit the northeastern United States. The river gauge at Riegelsville, Pennsylvania recorded an all-time record crest of on August 19, 1955.


title: Delaware River

text: More recently, moderate to severe flooding has occurred along the river. The same gauge at Riegelsville recorded a peak of on September 23, 2004, on April 4, 2005, and on June 28, 2006, all considerably higher than the flood stage of .


title: Delaware River

text: Since the upper Delaware basin has few population centers along its banks, flooding in this area mainly affects natural unpopulated flood plains. Residents in the middle part of the Delaware basin experience flooding, including three major floods in the three years (2004–2006) that have severely damaged their homes and land. The lower part of the Delaware basin from Philadelphia southward to the Delaware Bay is tidal and much wider than portions further north, and is not prone to river-related flooding (although tidal surges can cause minor flooding in this area).


title: Delaware River

text: The Delaware River Basin Commission, along with local governments, is working to try to address the issue of flooding along the river. As the past few years have seen a rise in catastrophic floods, most residents of the river basin feel that something must be done. The local governments have worked in association with FEMA to address many of these problems, however, due to insufficient federal funds, progress is slow.


title: Delaware River

text: The National Marine Fisheries Service is considering designating sixteen rivers as endangered habitat for the Atlantic Sturgeon which would require more attention to be given to uses of the rivers that affect the fish.


title: Magic word

text: Magic words are often nonsense phrases used in fantasy fiction or by stage magicians. Frequently such words are presented as being part of a divine, adamic, or other secret or empowered language. Certain comic book heroes use magic words to activate their powers. Magic words are also used as "Easter eggs" or cheats in computer games, other software, and operating systems. (For example, the words "xyzzy", "plugh", and "plover" were magic words in the classic computer adventure game "Colossal Cave Adventure".)


title: Magic word

text: Craig Conley, a scholar of magic, writes that the magic words used by conjurers may originate from "pseudo-Latin phrases, nonsense syllables, or esoteric terms from religious antiquity", but that what they have in common is "language as an instrument of creation".


title: 1st millennium

text: The first millennium of the anno Domini or Common Era was a millennium spanning the years 1 to 1000 (1st to 10th centuries; in astronomy: JD – ). The world population rose more slowly than during the preceding millennium, from about 200 million in the year AD 1 to about 300 million in the year 1000.


title: 1st millennium

text: In Western Eurasia (Europe and Near East), the first millennium was a time of great transition from Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages. The 1st century saw the peak of the Roman Empire, followed by its gradual decline during the period of Late Antiquity, the rise of Christianity and the Great Migrations. The second half of the millennium is characterized as the Early Middle Ages in Europe, and marked by the Viking expansion in the west, the rise of the Byzantine Empire in the east.


title: 1st millennium

text: In East Asia, the first millennium was also a time of great cultural advances, notably the spread of Buddhism to East Asia. In China, the Han dynasty is replaced by the Jin dynasty and later the Tang dynasty until the 10th century sees renewed fragmentation in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. In Japan, a sharp increase in population followed when farmers' use of iron tools increased their productivity and crop yields. The Yamato court was established. The North Indian subcontinent was divided among numerous kingdoms throughout the first millennium, until the formation of the Gupta Empire. Islam expanded rapidly from Arabia to western Asia, India, North Africa and the Iberian peninsula, culminating in the Islamic Golden Age (700–1200).


title: 1st millennium

text: In Mesoamerica, the first millennium was a period of enormous growth known as the Classic Era (200–900). Teotihuacan grew into a metropolis and its empire dominated Mesoamerica. In South America, pre-Incan, coastal cultures flourished, producing impressive metalwork and some of the finest pottery seen in the ancient world.


title: 1st millennium

text: In North America, the Mississippian culture rose at the end of the millennium in the Mississippi and Ohio river valleys. Numerous cities were built; Cahokia, the largest, was based in present-day Illinois. The construction of Monks Mound at Cahokia was begun in 900–950.


title: Ent

text: Ents are a species of beings in J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy world Middle-earth who closely resemble trees; their leader is Treebeard of Fangorn forest. Their name is derived from an Old English word for giant.


title: Ent

text: The Ents appear in "The Lord of the Rings" as ancient shepherds of the forest and allies of the free peoples of Middle-earth during the War of the Ring. The Ent who figures most prominently in the book is Treebeard, who is (credibly) called the oldest creature in Middle-earth. At the time of the War of the Ring, there are no young Ents (Entings) because the Entwives (female Ents) were lost. Akin to Ents are Huorns, whom Treebeard describes as a transitional form of trees which become animated or, conversely, as Ents who grow more "treelike" over time.


title: Ent

text: Inspired by Tolkien and similar traditions, animated or anthropomorphic tree creatures appear in a variety of media and works of fantasy.


title: Ent

text: The word "Ent" was taken from the Old English "ent" or "eoten", meaning "giant". Tolkien borrowed the word from a phrase in the Anglo-Saxon poems "The Ruin" and "Maxims II", "orþanc enta geweorc" ("cunning work of giants"), which describes Roman ruins.


title: Ent

text: In Sindarin, one of Tolkien's invented Elvish languages, the word for Ent is "Onod" (plural "Enyd"). Sindarin "Onodrim" means the Ents as a race.


title: Ent

text: Treebeard, called by Gandalf the oldest living Ent and the oldest living thing that walks in Middle-earth, is described as being around tall:


title: Ent

text: Ents vary widely in personal traits (height, heft, colouring, even the number of digits), having come to resemble somewhat the specific types of trees that they shepherded. Quickbeam, for example, guarded rowan trees and bore some resemblance to rowans: tall and slender, smooth-skinned, with ruddy lips and grey-green hair. Some Ents, such as Treebeard, were like


title: Ent

text: Ents share some of the strengths and weaknesses of trees. Their skin is extraordinarily tough, and very much like wood; they can erode stone extremely rapidly, in the manner of tree roots, but they are vulnerable to fire and chopping blows from axes. Ents are an extremely patient and cautious race, with a sense of time more suited to trees than to short-lived mortals. For example, in the Entmoot regarding the attack on Isengard, some of them considered their three-day deliberation to be "hasty".


title: Ent

text: Ents are tall and very strong, capable of tearing apart rock and stone (though they use their full strength only when they are "roused"). Tolkien describes them as tossing great slabs of stone about, and ripping down the walls of Isengard "like bread-crust". Treebeard boasted of their strength to Merry and Pippin; he said that Ents were much more powerful than Trolls, which Morgoth made in the First Age in mockery of Ents, as orcs were of elves. The book further lays out the power of Ents; their bark-like skin and flesh make them difficult to harm even with axes, and a single punch from an Ent can kill; although they do hurl stones, they use no other weapons.


title: Ent

text: Almost nothing is known of the early history of the Ents. After the Dwarves were put to sleep by Eru to await the coming of the Elves, the Vala Aulë told his wife Yavanna, "the lover of all things that grow in the earth," of the Dwarves. She replied, "They will delve in the earth, and the things that grow and live upon the earth they will not heed. Many a tree shall feel the bite of their iron without pity." She went to Manwë and appealed to him to protect the trees, and they realized that Ents, too, were part of the Song of Creation. Yavanna then warned Aulë, "Now let thy children beware! For there shall walk a power in the forests whose wrath they will arouse at their peril." The Ents are called "the Shepherds of the Trees". Much later, when Beren and a force of Green Elves waylay the force of Dwarves returning from the sack of Doriath, the Dwarves are routed and scatter into the wood, where the Shepherds of the Trees ensure that none escape.


title: Ent

text: Although the Ents were sentient beings from the time of their awakening, they did not know how to speak until the Elves taught them. Treebeard said that the Elves "cured us of dumbness", calling that a great gift that could not be forgotten. ("They always wished to talk to everything, the old Elves did.") In the Third Age of Middle-earth, the forest of Fangorn was the only place still inhabited by Ents.


title: Ent

text: Treebeard tells of a time when much of Eriador was forested and part of his domain, but these immense forests dwindled over time. Treebeard's statement is corroborated by Elrond: "Time was when a squirrel could go from tree to tree from what is now the Shire to Dunland west of Isengard." Of this vast forest, according to Treebeard, Fangorn forest was "just the East End".


title: Ent

text: Treebeard says that the Entwives began to move farther away from the Ents because they liked to plant and control things, while the Ents preferred forests and liked to let things take their natural course. The Entwives moved away to the region that would later become the Brown Lands across the Great River Anduin, although the male Ents still visited them. The Entwives, unlike the Ents, interacted with the race of Men and taught them much about the art of agriculture. The Entwives lived in peace until their gardens were destroyed by Sauron, whereupon the Entwives themselves disappeared. The Ents looked for them but never found them. It was sung by the Elves (as the Ents were content simply to "chant their beautiful names") that one day the Ents and Entwives would find each other. Indeed, in "The Return of the King", Treebeard implored the Hobbits not to forget to send word to him if they "hear any news" of the Entwives "in your land".


title: Ent

text: In "The Fellowship of the Ring", Samwise Gamgee mentions that his cousin Hal claims to have seen a treelike giant, which resembled an elm not only in size but also in actual appearance, in the north of the Shire. During the Fangorn episode, Merry and Pippin told Treebeard about the Shire. Treebeard said that the Entwives would have liked that land. This, combined with the giant-sighting by Sam's cousin Hal mentioned above, has led to some speculation by readers that the Entwives may have lived near the Shire. Tolkien himself spent much time considering what actually happened to the Entwives (at one point saying that even he did not know), but eventually he stated in "Letters" #144: "I think that in fact the Entwives have disappeared for good, being destroyed with their gardens in the War of the Last Alliance...some may have fled east, or even have become enslaved..."


title: Ent

text: At the end of the story after Aragorn is crowned king, he promised Treebeard that the Ents could prosper again and spread to new lands with the threat of Mordor gone, and renew their search for the Entwives.


title: Ent

text: However, Treebeard lamented that forests may spread but the Ents would not, and he predicted that the few remaining Ents would remain in Fangorn forest until they slowly dwindled in number or became "treeish", saying: "Sheep get like shepherds, and shepherds get like sheep. [...] But it is quicker and closer, with trees and Ents."


title: Ent

text: In "The Two Towers", the second volume of Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings", the Ents – usually a very patient, deliberate people – become roused with their long simmering anger at Saruman, whose armies are cutting down large numbers of their trees. They convene an Entmoot, a meeting of the Ents of Fangorn forest at Derndingle.


title: Ent

text: After lengthy deliberation (three days; though from the perspective of the Ents this was almost no time at all), they march on Saruman's fortress at Isengard - 'the last march of the Ents'. Led by Treebeard, the oldest Ent, and accompanied by the hobbits Meriadoc Brandybuck and Peregrin Took, the Ents numbered about 50, plus an army of Huorns. They destroy Isengard, tearing down the wall around it: "If the Great Sea had risen in wrath and fallen on the hills with storm, it could have worked no greater ruin". Saruman is trapped in the tower of Orthanc.


title: Ent

text: Tolkien noted in a letter that he had created Ents in response to his "bitter disappointment and disgust from schooldays with the shabby use made in Shakespeare's "Macbeth" of the coming of 'Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane hill': I longed to devise a setting in which the trees might really march to war". As well as destroying Isengard, Treebeard ensured victory at the Battle of Helm's Deep, in which Saruman tried to destroy Rohan. On the morning after the long night of battle, both armies saw that a forest of angry, tree-like Huorns now filled the valley, trapping Saruman's army of Orcs. The Orcs fled into the Huorn forest and were destroyed. Commentators have observed that this represented a wish-fulfilment on Tolkien's part, concerned as he was with the increasing damage to the English countryside in the 20th century.


title: Ent

text: In Peter Jackson's films "" (2002) and "" (2003), Treebeard is a combination of a large animatronic model and a CGI construct; he is voiced by John Rhys-Davies, who also portrays Gimli.


title: Ent

text: The Fall of Troy has a song entitled "The Last March of the Ents" on their self-titled debut album released in 2003.


title: Ent

text: Permission was granted for a statue of Treebeard by Tim Tolkien, near his great-uncle J. R. R. Tolkien's former home in Moseley, Birmingham.


title: Ent

text: Ents appeared in the earliest edition of the roleplaying game "Dungeons & Dragons" in the 1974 white box set, where they were described as tree-like creatures able to command trees, and lawful in nature. In 1975, Elan Merchandising, which owned the game license to the Tolkien estate, issued a cease-and-desist order regarding the use of the word "ent", so the "Dungeons & Dragons" creatures were renamed "treants". "Heroes of Might and Magic III" and "V" include Treants as a part of the Elven alliance; however, in "Heroes of Might and Magic V", due to copyright infringement issues, their look was changed between the beta phase and the retail version, making them quadrupedal.


title: John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton

text: John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton, 13th Marquess of Groppoli, (10 January 1834 – 19 June 1902), better known as Lord Acton, was an English Catholic historian, politician, and writer. He is best remembered for the remark he wrote in a letter to an Anglican bishop in 1887: ""Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men…""


title: John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton

text: The only son of Sir Ferdinand Dalberg-Acton, 7th Baronet, and grandson of the Neapolitan admiral and prime minister Sir John Acton, 6th Baronet (who succeeded to the baronetcy and estates held by another branch of the Acton family in Shropshire in 1791), Acton was known as Sir John Dalberg-Acton, 8th Baronet, from 1837 to 1869. His grandfather was part of a younger line of the family that had moved to France and Italy, but after the extinction of the elder branch he became the patriarch.


title: John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton

text: Acton's father, known as Richard, married Marie Louise Pelline, the only daughter of Emmerich Joseph, 1st Duc de Dalberg, a naturalised French noble of ancient German lineage who had entered the French service under Napoleon and represented Louis XVIII at the Congress of Vienna in 1814. After Sir Richard Acton's death in 1837, she became the wife of the 2nd Earl Granville (1840). Marie Louise Pelline de Dalberg was heiress of Herrnsheim in Germany. She became the mother of John Dalberg-Acton who was born in Naples.


title: John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton

text: He was raised as a Roman Catholic, and was educated at Oscott College, under the future-Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman, until 1848. He then studied privately at Edinburgh. He was denied entry to the University of Cambridge because he was a Catholic, and subsequently went to Munich where he studied at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and resided in the house of Johann Joseph Ignaz von Döllinger, the theologian and forerunner of the Old Catholic Church, with whom he became lifelong friends. Döllinger inspired in him a deep love of historical research and a profound conception of its functions as a critical instrument in the study of sociopolitical liberty.


title: John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton

text: He was a master of the principal foreign languages, and began at an early age to collect a magnificent historical library, which he intended to use to compose a "History of Liberty". In politics, he was always an ardent Liberal.


title: John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton

text: During his extensive travels, Acton spent much time in the chief intellectual centres of Europe, reading the correspondence of historical personalities. Among his friends were Montalembert, Tocqueville, Fustel de Coulanges, Bluntschli, von Sybel and Ranke. In 1855, he was appointed Deputy Lieutenant of Shropshire. A year later, he was attached to Lord Granville's mission to Moscow as British representative at the coronation of Alexander II of Russia.


title: John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton

text: In 1859, Acton settled in England, at his country house, Aldenham, in Shropshire. He was returned to the House of Commons that same year as member for the Irish Borough of Carlow and became a devoted admirer and adherent of Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone. However, Acton was not an active MP, and his parliamentary career came to an end after the general election of 1865, when he headed the Liberal ballot for Bridgnorth near his Shropshire home. Acton nearly defeated Conservative leader Henry Whitmore, but Whitmore successfully petitioned for a scrutiny of the ballots, and thus retained his seat. After the Reform Act 1867, Acton again contested Bridgnorth, this time reduced to a single seat, in 1868 but to no avail.


title: John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton

text: Acton took a great interest in the United States, considering its federal structure an ideal guarantor of individual liberties. During the American Civil War, his sympathies lay entirely with the Confederacy, for their defence of States' Rights against a centralised government that he believed would inevitably turn tyrannical. His notes to Gladstone on the subject helped sway many in the British government to sympathise with the South. After the South's surrender, he wrote to Robert E. Lee that "I mourn for the stake which was lost at Richmond more deeply than I rejoice over that which was saved at Waterloo," adding that he "deemed that you were fighting battles for our liberty, our progress, and our civilization." Acton's stance on the Confederacy was shared by most English Catholics at the time, both liberal and Ultramontane. The editors of the Ultramontane "Tablet" denounced Abraham Lincoln as a dangerous radical, and John Henry Newman, when asked for his opinion on the matter, stated that slavery was not "intrinsically evil" and that the issue had to be assessed on a case-by-case basis.


title: John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton

text: In 1869, Queen Victoria raised Acton to the peerage as "Baron Acton, of Aldenham in the County of Shropshire". His elevation came primarily through the intercession of Gladstone. The two were intimate friends and frequent correspondents. Gladstone was particularly concerned to elevate Acton's standing as he headed out to Rome to resist the Pope's plan to have Papal Infallibility confirmed at the Vatican Council. Both Acton and Gladstone opposed this scheme and it was thought that, if Acton were an English Peer, it would strengthen his position in Rome. Matthew Arnold said: "Gladstone influences all round him but Acton; it is Acton who influences Gladstone." Acton was appointed to the Royal Victorian Order as a Knight Commander (KCVO) in the 1897 Birthday Honours. He was also a strong supporter of Irish Home Rule.


title: John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton

text: Meanwhile, Acton became the editor of the Roman Catholic monthly paper, "The Rambler", in 1859, upon John Henry (later Cardinal) Newman's retirement from the editorship. In 1862, he merged this periodical into the "Home and Foreign Review". Though a sincere Roman Catholic, his spirit as a historian was hostile to ultramontane pretensions, and his independence of thought and liberalism soon brought him into conflict with the church hierarchy. As early as August 1862, Cardinal Wiseman publicly censured the "Review"; and when in 1864, after Döllinger's appeal at the Munich Congress for a less hostile attitude towards historical criticism, the pope issued a declaration that the opinions of Catholic writers were subject to the authority of the Roman congregations, Acton felt that there was only one way of reconciling his literary conscience with his ecclesiastical loyalty, and he stopped the publication of his monthly periodical. He continued, however, to contribute articles to the "North British Review", which, previously a Scottish Free Church organ, had been acquired by friends in sympathy with him, and which for some years (until 1872, when it ceased publication) promoted the interests of a high-class Liberalism in both temporal and ecclesiastical matters. Acton also did a good deal of lecturing on historical subjects.


title: John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton

text: And: "Subjection to a people of a higher capacity for government is of itself no misfortune; and it is to most countries the condition of their political advancement."


title: John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton

text: In 1870, along with his mentor Döllinger, Acton opposed the moves to promulgate the doctrine of papal infallibility in the First Vatican Council, travelling to Rome to lobby against it, ultimately unsuccessfully. Unlike Döllinger, Acton did not become an Old Catholic, and continued attending Mass regularly; he received the last rites on his deathbed. The Catholic Church did not try to force his hand. It was in this context that, in a letter he wrote to scholar and ecclesiastic Mandell Creighton, dated April 1887, Acton made his most famous pronouncement:


title: John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton

text: But if we might discuss this point until we found that we nearly agreed, and if we do agree thoroughly about the impropriety of Carlylese denunciations and Pharisaism in history, I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favourable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption it is the other way, against the holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority, still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it. That is the point at which the negation of Catholicism and the negation of Liberalism meet and keep high festival, and the end learns to justify the means. You would hang a man of no position like Ravaillac; but if what one hears is true, then Elizabeth asked the gaoler to murder Mary, and William III of England ordered his Scots minister to extirpate a clan. Here are the greatest names coupled with the greatest crimes; you would spare those criminals, for some mysterious reason. I would hang them higher than Haman, for reasons of quite obvious justice, still more, still higher for the sake of historical science.


title: John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton

text: Thenceforth he steered clear of theological polemics. He devoted himself to reading, study and congenial society. With all his capacity for study, he was a man of the world and a man of affairs, not a bookworm. His only notable publications were a masterly essay in the "Quarterly Review" of January 1878 on "Democracy in Europe;" two lectures delivered at Bridgnorth in 1877 on "The History of Freedom in Antiquity" and "The History of Freedom in Christianity"—these last the only tangible portions put together by him of his long-projected "History of Liberty;" and an essay on modern German historians in the first number of the "English Historical Review", which he helped to found (1886). After 1879 he divided his time between London, Cannes, and Tegernsee in Bavaria, enjoying and reciprocating the society of his friends. In 1872 he had been given the honorary degree of Doctor of Philosophy by the University of Munich; in 1888 Cambridge gave him the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws, and in 1889 Oxford the Doctor of Civil Law; and in 1890 he received the high academic accolade of being made a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford.


title: John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton

text: In 1874, when Gladstone published his pamphlet on "The Vatican Decrees in their Bearing on Civil Allegiance", Lord Acton wrote during November and December a series of remarkable letters to "The Times", illustrating Gladstone's main theme by numerous historical examples of papal inconsistency, in a way which must have been bitter enough to the ultramontane party, but ultimately disagreeing with Gladstone's conclusion and insisting that the Church itself was better than its premises implied. Acton's letters led to another storm in the English Roman Catholic world, but once more it was considered prudent by the Holy See to leave him alone. In spite of his reservations, he regarded "communion with Rome as dearer than life".


title: John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton

text: On 1 August 1865, Acton married Countess Marie Anna Ludomilla Euphrosina von Arco auf Valley (1841–1923), daughter of the Bavarian Count Maximilian von Arco auf Valley, with whom he had six children:


title: John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton

text: His nephew was Anton Graf von Arco auf Valley (1897–1945), a German count and political activist, and assassin of socialist Bavarian minister-president Kurt Eisner in 1919.


title: John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton

text: When his cousin Maria, Duchess of Galliera died in 1888, Acton inherited the dormant title of Marquess of Groppoli.


title: John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton

text: Acton's reputation for learning gradually spread abroad, largely through Gladstone's influence. Gladstone found him a valuable political adviser, and in 1892, when the Liberal government came in, Lord Acton was made a lord-in-waiting. Finally, in 1895, on the death of Sir John Seeley, Lord Rosebery appointed him to the Regius Professorship of Modern History at Cambridge. He delivered two courses of lectures on the French Revolution and on Modern History, along with private tutoring. The "Cambridge Modern History", though he did not live to see it, was planned under his editorship.


title: John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton

text: After his health began to fail in 1901, Acton died on 19 June 1902 at his wife's family home in the spa town of Tegernsee, Bavaria, Germany. He was buried in a small communal graveyard by Lake Tegernsee, a grave which today lies unmarked, having lost its headstone in the latter half of the 20th century. He was succeeded in the title by his son, Richard Lyon-Dalberg-Acton, 2nd Baron Acton. His 60,000-volume library, with books full of his own annotations, was purchased prior to his death by Andrew Carnegie in secret, in order to secure the library for Acton's use during his lifetime. Upon Lord Acton's death, it was presented to John Morley, who donated it to the University of Cambridge.


title: Srijit Mukherji

text: Srijit Mukherji is an excellent national award winning Indian film director and screenwriter who predominantly works in Bengali cinema. His regular collaboration with veteran actor Prosenjit Chatterjee brought him into the limelight. His first feature film "Autograph" (2010), was a critical and commercial success, where he had written the script with Chatterjee in mind. His fifth film, "Jaatishwar," won four national awards at India's 61st National Film Awards (2014). He won the National Film Award for Best Direction and Best Original Screenplay for his sixth film, "Chotushkone," at India's 62nd National Film Awards. His eighth film, "Rajkahini" had been remade into a Hindi film titled, "Begum Jaan", starring Vidya Balan in 2017. His 2018 release Ek Je Chhilo Raja won the 'Best Bengali Film' Award at India's 66th National Film Awards. His 2019 film Gumnaami won him the Best Bengali Film and Best Adapted Screenplay Awards at the 67th National Film Awards


title: Srijit Mukherji

text: Mukherji completed his schooling from Dolna Day School, Kolkata and South Point High School, Kolkata, before studying economics at Presidency College, Kolkata. He went on to complete his MA and M.Phil in environmental economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, parallelly working as a social scientist in the Urban Transport and Pollution Sector with TERI in New Delhi. He quit his Ph.D while in his first year, to join IRI Symphony, Bangalore as an econometrician and business analyst. After working in Bangalore and a brief stint in Milan, he quit his job to actively pursue theatre and films.


title: Srijit Mukherji

text: Even while working as an economist and statistician, he was actively involved with the English professional theatre circuit in Delhi and Bangalore. He has acted in "Madness", adapted from Paulo Coelho's "Veronica Decides To Die"; Manoj Mitra's "The Orchard of Banchharam"; Badal Sircar's "The Other Side of History"; Sunil Ganguly's "Pratidwandi – The Adversary", adapted for the stage from Satyajit Ray's film of the same name and "Lucknow 76". He wrote and directed "Mindgame", an Indian adaptation of Reginald Rose's "Twelve Angry Men", at the Alliance Francaise De Bangalore in 2006. In April 2008, he formed his own troupe, Pandora's Act, whose first production, "Feluda Pherot!" at Rangashankara in July 2008 was a runaway success and was the first ever non-canonical dramatisation of Satyajit Ray's sleuth Feluda. Barun Chanda, Ray's leading man in "Seemabodhho", and Parambrata Chatterjee, the screen Topshe and film youth icon, starred in this production. In 2009, he wrote, directed and acted in the English play "Checkmate", a non-canonical re-interpretation of Byomkesh Bakshi, Saradindu Bandopadhyay's sleuth. He was an assistant director, lyricist and actor in both Anjan Dutt's "Madly Bangalee" and Aparna Sen's "Iti Mrinalini", in 2009. He has also written lyrics for films like "Cross Connection", "Le Chakka" and "Josh", TV serials like "Coffee and More" and "Dadagiri" and non-film albums of Usha Uthup.


title: Srijit Mukherji

text: In 2010 Mukherji directed his debut feature film, the award-winning blockbuster – "Autograph" which was both critically acclaimed and commercially successful. The film won 41 awards and was an official selection at Abu Dhabi International Film Festival 2010, MIAAC Film Festival in New York 2010, Glasgow International Film Festival 2011 and London Indian Film Festival 2011.


title: Srijit Mukherji

text: In the same year he also made his acting debut on Bengali television in the Rituparno Ghosh scripted mega serial "Gaaner Opare", produced by Ideas Entertainment.


title: Srijit Mukherji

text: His work in 2011 included a major role in Anindya Banerjee's "Chaplin" starring Rudranil Ghosh and his second film, "Baishe Srabon" starring Prosenjit Chatterjee, Parambrata Chatterjee, Raima Sen, Abir Chatterjee and Gautam Ghose, who returned to acting after a hiatus of 29 years. "Baishe Srabon" was recently the official selection at the Dubai International Film Festival and the closing film at the London Indian Film Festival, and had a 105-day run at the box office making it the biggest blockbuster of the year. "Baishe Srabon" has won 41 awards. His third feature film was "Hemlock Society", a romantic satire set at the backdrop of a school which teaches aspirants how to successfully commit suicide. It featured Parambrata Chatterjee and Koel Mallick and won 21 awards.


title: Srijit Mukherji

text: Mukherji's fourth film, "Mishawr Rawhoshyo", based on Kakababu with Prasenjit Chattopadhyay playing the lead character has been declared as one of the biggest blockbusters ever and the highest earning urban mainstream film. He has acted in films like "Dutta Vs Dutta", "Bapi Bari Jaa" and the national award-winning "Shobdo". His fifth film "Jaatishwar" is generally considered to be the best in his career and most critically acclaimed. It is the musical bridge between two centuries of Bengali culture and a biopic cum a musical cum a reincarnation drama. At the 61st National Awards 2014, the highest film honour in India, it won 4 national awards for Music Direction, Playback Singing, Costume and Make up. This was the highest tally for a film in India this year, and the second highest ever for a Bengali film. It also swept the Mirchi Music Awards in 2015 winning 7 awards. The following year at the 62nd National Awards 2015, Chotushkone won him the Best Director and Best Original Screenplay awards, along with winning the Best Cinematography.


title: Srijit Mukherji

text: He also received the Young Achiever Award from Rotary International, the prestigious Shera Bangali Award from ABP Anando and the Shoilojanando Mukhopadhyay Memorial Award in 2012 for his contribution in the field of film direction. In 2013 he received the Uttam Kumar Memorial Award from the Government of West Bengal becoming the youngest director to achieve this. He has also received the oldest film award in India, the BFJA award, for remarkable contribution to Bengali Cinema in the last few years.


title: Srijit Mukherji

text: Mukherji has made his directorial debut in Bollywood with the film "Begum Jaan" which is a remake of his earlier Bengali film Rajkahini. Vidya Balan plays the lead role of a brothel's madam during the partition of India in 1947.


title: Srijit Mukherji

text: He had two releases in 2018, Uma and Ek Je Chhilo Raja. Both were box office superhits. The former went to 10 film festivals around the world and won 6 awards while the latter won 23 awards and went to 7 film festivals around the world including Palm Springs International Film Festival.


title: Srijit Mukherji

text: In 2018, it was reported that Mukherji will be directing a Junglee Pictures produced yet to be titled web-series in Hindi, based on the novel of noted novelist and blogger Arnab Ray, The Mahabharata Murders. This will be his first foray into web-series direction.


title: Srijit Mukherji

text: In 2019, he has three releases Shahjahan Regency, Vinci Da and Gumnaami, the last two being both critical and commercial successes along with being a festival favourite. Gumnaami won the Best Bengali Feature Film and Best Adapted Screenplay Awards at the 67th National Film Awards.


title: Srijit Mukherji

text: He has also completed another web-series, "Feluda Pherot", which is based on two Feluda stories written by Satyajit Ray, "Chhinomostar Obhishaap" and "Darjeeling Jomjomat".


title: Manchester City F.C. ownership and finances

text: Manchester City Football Club dates back to 1894, when "Ardwick A.F.C." dissolved and were reformed as "Manchester City Football Club Ltd." Over recent years, the ownership and finances of Manchester City Football Club have been tumultuous with various owners of contrasting fortunes much in line with their inconsistent trend on the pitch. The club is currently owned by the City Football Group, a British-based holding company; with the majority stake owned by the Abu Dhabi United Group, a smaller consortium of owners from the United States and China collectively own 24%.


text: Since 4 August 2008, the club has been majority owned by Sheikh Mansour, one of football's wealthiest owners, with an estimated individual net worth of at least £17 billion and a family fortune of at least $1 trillion. A 13.79% stake purchase of the club's parent company, (CFG), by the CITIC Group for £265 million valued it at $3 billion.


text: Since the Robinho shock signing on the transfer deadline day in September 2008, the club have been branded "the richest club in the world" by the media and the Robinho signing heralded a new era of spending for the club with Sheikh Mansour willing to invest in the club off the pitch and on it by signing new players.


text: Having spent in approximately £320m on transfers from the arrival of Sheikh Mansour in September 2008 to September 2010 it was reported that owner Sheikh Mansour had earmarked £500m for transfers – regardless of any revenue during that two-year period. The report highlighted the club's immense spending power, meaning as of September 2010 there was a surplus transfer budget of around £175m after the transfer window of summer 2010. Since September 2010 up to September 2011, approximately a further £100m has been spent, but with players being sold this is around £80 to 85m in net expenditure.


text: Since September 2008, the club is owned fully by Sheikh Mansour. Khaldoon Al Mubarak has been Chairman since September 2008, when he took over from previous owner, Thaksin Shinawatra.


text: Garry Cook has been Chief Executive Officer since July 2008, after he was previously one of Nike Inc. top hierarchy. His tenure at the club has been marked by improvement in facilities for supporters, players, and staff, but one marred by numerous gaffes.


text: Brian Marwood has been Football Administration Officer since March 2009. Then manager Mark Hughes was concerned about the club bringing someone in a Director of Football role and thus Football Administration Officer was the title given instead. Its main role signing transfer targets, whilst improving the club's infrastructure off the pitch.


text: The club posted a loss of £92.5 million for the fiscal year ending 31 May 2009, up from £32.5 million in May 2008. Under the new ownership, the club embarked on a complete transformation of the club by acquiring new players such as Carlos Tevez, Robinho, David Silva, Yaya Touré and Mario Balotelli, while improving training facilities.


text: In March 2010, the club signed an initial agreement with Manchester City Council and the New East Manchester Agency to explore alternative leisure attraction proposals to replace the doomed Supercasino which was originally planned to be built next to Eastlands. Furthermore the agreement of understanding gave the club permission to build and expand the new facilities it wishes to build.


text: In July 2011, it was announced the area where the developments will be built will be called the Etihad Campus. In return Etihad Airways will pay sponsorship to Manchester City F.C. for ten years, and for Manchester City Council who own the stadium, Etihad will create a British hub for Etihad Airways at Manchester Airport creating further jobs and helping to fuel the £600m Manchester Airport City project. When complete, revenue from the Etihad Campus will go towards helping the club meet the new Uefa Financial Fair Play Regulations


text: The club is currently planning to move from its current Carrington Training Centre complex to east Manchester nearby the City of Manchester Stadium. The new training complex will be based on A.C. Milan's Milanello training complex, which is understood to be one of top training complexes in world football. It is believed the new £50m million training facility will house all aspects of the playing staff as the youth academy will be moved from its current site in Platt Lane to join the new training complex.


text: Preliminary preparation began in April 2010 with remiadiation of the of empty land around the Eastlands stadium.


text: After increasing tickets figures and a sell out all 36,000 season tickets for the 2010–11 season the club has explored options for increasing the stadium's capacity. The stadium is currently leased to Manchester City and the owners are believed to want to buy the stadium outright


text: The lease on the stadium was renegotiated in October 2010, with Manchester City paying Manchester City Council a flat base rate of £3 million a year rather than the council taking half of the revenue of ticket sales over 35,000. This previous system earned the council approximately £2 million a year, whereas the new, higher £3 million single payment agreement signals the club are looking to expand the stadium. The agreement is linked to Manchester City's willingness to "considering potential development as part of a contribution to the regeneration of east Manchester", proposals which are being planned.


text: The modern day Manchester City Football Club became a registered limited company on 16 April 1894. Shares in the club were owned by a number of club figures, who all had one share each. The first Chairman was John Chapman, a local publican. Edward Hulton, an early board member and influential newspaper owner in the early 20th Century, took charge after City were relegated in 1902.


text: In the 1920s Lawrence Furniss was Chairman, he had served the club in various capacities since playing for them when the club was still Gorton AFC in the mid-1880s.


text: After the end of hostilities in the mid-1940s the Chairman was Robert Smith. In the mid-50s Walter Smith became Chairman before Alan Douglas took over between 1956 and 1964. Douglas stepped down due to ill health, allowing the Alexander family to gain control.


text: Albert Alexander Jr., son of the man who had founded the Manchester City Academy in the 1920s was chairman during the 1960s. The start of the 1970s saw a boardroom power struggle. At its heart was the relationship between Joe Mercer and Malcolm Allison. With Mercer as manager and Allison as coach, the club had experienced the most successful period in its history. However, Allison sought greater control, as he felt as coach he was "constantly being patted on the head". In November 1970 it became known that vice-chairman Frank Johnson was willing to sell most of his shareholding. Joe Smith, the owner of a double-glazing business in Oldham, attempted to gain a controlling stake in the club. Together with four others, including Simon Cussons of the Cussons soap-making family, he formed a pro-Allison faction — one that Allison claimed in his autobiography to have initiated himself. The Alexander family wished to keep Mercer as manager. When Frank Johnson realised the effect selling to Smith would have, he chose not to sell.


text: Smith and Cussons gained places on the board in 1971. In October, Allison took sole charge of the first team, and Mercer became "general manager". By November 1971 Albert Alexander's age and declining health had become a factor. His son Eric took over as chairman, becoming the youngest chairman in the Football League, and Albert was given the title of "President".


text: At the start of the 1973–74 season Eric Alexander announced his intention to step down in October. Minority shareholder Peter Swales positioned himself as a unifying figure acceptable to both Joe Smith's faction and longstanding directors such as Eric Alexander and John Humphreys (who was also managing director of Umbro). Swales was elected as chairman, and held the position for more than 20 years. Swales time in charge was one of impatience with him sacking eleven Manchester City managers in 21 years, however he had reputation as a generous chairman when providing money for transfer Swales was remembered for his gaffe with manager Malcolm Allison after Swales sanctioned the purchase of Steve Daley from Wolves for £1,450,000, a then British transfer fee record. Daley turned out to be a flop, and Allison always claimed that he had agreed a much lower fee with the then Wolves manager for Daley. Allison later claimed Swales intervened on a chairman to chairman basis and secured the transfer instantly but at a much higher, possibly rip-off price.


text: After over 20 years of frustration delivering little success, Swales fell out of favour with the Manchester City supporters who led a long anti-Swales campaign. Momentum gathered in the 1990s, in the form of a movement named "Forward With Franny", backing former City player Francis Lee's attempt to gain control of the club.


text: In 1994, with Swales was ousted from his chairmanship by former City player Francis Lee, whose paper business F. H. Lee Ltd. had made him a multimillionaire. Lee gained control of the club by purchasing £3 million of shares at a price of £13.35 per share.


text: Swales was offered a role as life president at the club upon his departure but he never returned to Maine Road. It was a sad departure for a chairman who loyally invested large sums of money into Manchester City in search of new success and greater parity with a resurgent Manchester United. Swales died on 3 May 1996, three days before a now yoyo club, Manchester City were relegated from the top tier of English football.


text: Upon becoming Chairman, Lee made a series of extravagant claims about his plans for the club, announcing that, "This will be the happiest club in the land. The players will be the best paid and we'll drink plenty of champagne, celebrate and sing until we're hoarse." The club floated on the OFEX exchange in 1995, valuing the club at £8 million.


text: In 1996, Lee appointed his friend Alan Ball as Manager, but the appointment proved unsuccessful and the club was relegated. Both Ball and Lee stated later that Swales had left the club with catastrophic debts which had undermined their plans. Lee stepped down in 1998, with the club on the brink of relegation to the third tier of English football, a fate which Lee had dismissed at the previous annual general meeting by saying that he would "Jump off the Kippax" if the club was relegated. He was replaced as Chairman by Financial Director David Bernstein.


text: Chairman Franny Lee tried to new investors into the club, one of which was Saudi billionaire Prince Walid who was interested in making a £75m investment in 1996, but Lee refused to show Walid the club accounts and Walid cooled his interest. City shareholders also attempted to woo Wigan chairman Dave Whelan into investing in the club, but City's precarious position without a manager at the time did not convince Whelan.


text: In November 1999, broadcasting company BSkyB purchased a 9.9% stake in the club for £5.5 million, plus a further sum for media rights. The deal was part of a series of acquisitions by BSkyB which included a similar stake in Leeds United. A share rights issue announced at the same time as the BSkyB purchase saw JD Sports founders John Wardle and David Makin increase their stake and become the club's largest shareholders.


text: Bernstein resigned on 5 March 2003, believing that differences of opinion regarding player transfers had undermined his ability to lead the club. Bernstein had favoured a fiscally conservative transfer policy, but manager Kevin Keegan and major shareholder John Wardle wished to spend heavily on new players, such as Robbie Fowler. Wardle became Temporary Chairman, taking the position on a permanent basis two months later. Bryan Bodek, who had been a board member since February 2000, was appointed as his deputy.