title: Islam in Iran

text: The domination of the Sunni creed during the first nine Islamic centuries characterizes the religious history of Iran during this period. There were however some exceptions to this general domination which emerged in the form of the Zaydīs of Tabaristan, the Buwayhid, the rule of Sultan Muhammad Khudabandah (r. Shawwal 703-Shawwal 716/1304-1316) and the Sarbedaran. Nevertheless, apart from this domination there existed, firstly, throughout these nine centuries, Shia inclinations among many Sunnis of this land and, secondly, original Imami Shiism as well as Zaydī Shiism had prevalence in some parts of Iran. During this period, Shia in Iran were nourished from Kufah, Baghdad and later from Najaf and Hillah.


title: Islam in Iran

text: Due to their history being almost fully intertwined, Iran as well as Azerbaijan are both discussed here. Iran and Azerbaijan were predominantly Sunni until the 16th century. Changes in the religious make-up of nowadays both nations changed drastically from that time and on. In 1500 the Safavid Shah Ismail I undertook the conquering of Iran and Azerbaijan and commenced a policy of forced conversion of Sunni Muslims to Shia Islam. Many Sunnis were murdered. When Shah Ismail I conquered Iraq, Dagestan, Eastern Anatolia, and Armenia he similarly forcefully converted or murdered Sunni Muslims. The oppression and forced conversion of Sunnis would continue, mostly unabated, for the greater part of next two centuries until Iran as well as what is now Azerbaijan became predominantly Shi’ite countries.


title: Islam in Iran

text: As in the case of the early caliphate, Safavid rule had been based originally on both political and religious legitimacy, with the shah being both king and divine representative. With the later erosion of Safavid central political authority in the mid-17th century, the power of the Shia scholars in civil affairs such as judges, administrators, and court functionaries, began to grow, in a way unprecedented in Shi'ite history. Likewise, the ulama began to take a more active role in agitating against Sufism and other forms of popular religion, which remained strong in Iran, and in enforcing a more scholarly type of Shi'a Islam among the masses. The development of the ta'ziah—a passion play commemorating the martyrdom of Imam Husayn and his family — and Ziarat of the shrines and tombs of local Shi'ite leaders began during this period, largely at the prompting of the Shi'ite clergy. According to Mortaza Motahhari, the majority of Iranians turned to Shi'a Islam from the Safavid period onwards. Of course, it cannot be denied that Iran's environment was more favorable to the flourishing of the Shi'a Islam as compared to all other parts of the Muslim world. Shi'a Islam did not penetrate any land to the extent that it gradually could in Iran. With the passage of time, Iranians' readiness to practise Shi'a Islam grew day by day.


title: Islam in Iran

text: It was the Safavids who made Iran the spiritual bastion of Shi’ism against the onslaughts of shi'as' by orthodox Sunni Islam, and the repository of Persian cultural traditions and self-awareness of Iranianhood, acting as a bridge to modern Iran. According to Professor Roger Savory:


title: Islam in Iran

text: During the 20th century Iran underwent significant changes such as the 1906 Constitutional Revolution and the secularism of the Pahlavi dynasty.


title: Islam in Iran

text: According to scholar Roy Mottahedeh, one significant change to Islam in Iran during the first half of the 20th century was that the class of ulema lost its informality that allowed it to include everyone from the highly trained jurist to the "shopkeeper who spent one afternoon a week memorizing and transmitting a few traditions." Laws by Reza Shah that requiring military service and dress in European-style clothes for Iranians, gave talebeh and mullahs exemptions, but only if they passed specific examinations proving their learnedness, thus excluding less educated clerics.


title: Islam in Iran

text: In addition Islamic Madrasah schools became more like 'professional' schools, leaving broader education to secular government schools and sticking to Islamic learning. "Ptolemaic astronomy, Aveicennian medicines, and the algebra of Omar Kahayyam" was dispensed with.


title: Islam in Iran

text: The Iranian Revolution (also known as the Islamic Revolution, Persian: انقلاب اسلامی, "Enghelābe Eslāmi") was the revolution that transformed Iran from a secular, westernizing monarchy under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, to an Islamic republic based on the doctrine of (rule by an Islamic jurist), under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the revolution and founder of the Islamic Republic. It has been called "the third great revolution in history", following the French and Russian Revolutions, and an event that "made Islamic fundamentalism a political force ... from Morocco to Malaysia."


title: Islam in Iran

text: Sunni Muslims constitute approximately 10% of the Iranian population. A majority of Lari people (Persians), a part of Kurds, virtually all Baluchis and Turkomans, and a minority of Arabs and Lurs are Sunnis, as are small communities of Persians in southern Iran and Khorasan.


title: Islam in Iran

text: The mountainous region of Larestan is mostly inhabited by indigenous Sunni Persians who did not convert to Shia Islam during the Safavids because the mountainous region of Larestan was too isolated. The majority of Lari people are Sunni Muslims, 35% of Lari people are Shia Muslims. The people of Larestan speak the Lari language, which is a southwestern Iranian language closely related to Old Persian (pre-Islamic Persian) and Luri.


title: Islam in Iran

text: Shia clergy tend to view missionary work among Sunnis to convert them to Shi'a Islam as a worthwhile religious endeavor. In those towns with mixed populations in the Persian Gulf region, and Sistan and Baluchistan, tensions between Shi'as and Sunnis existed both before and after the Revolution. Religious tensions have been highest during major Shi'a observances, especially Muharram.


title: Islam in Iran

text: Iran's government is unique in following the principle of "velayat-e faqih" or guardianship of the jurist, according to which


title: Islam in Iran

text: government must be run in accordance with traditional Islamic "sharia", and for this to happen a leading Islamic jurist ("faqih") must provide political "guardianship" ("wilayat" or "velayat") over the people.


title: Islam in Iran

text: Following the Iranian Revolution, the 1979 Constitution of Islamic Republic of Iran made the "guardian" the Supreme Leader of Iran The author of "Velayat-e faqih" doctrine, Ayatollah Khomeini, as the first Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic.


title: Islam in Iran

text: The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran mandates that the official religion of Iran is Shia Islam and the Twelver Ja'fari school, though it also mandates that other Islamic schools are to be accorded full respect, and their followers are free to act in accordance with their own jurisprudence in performing their religious rites and recognizes Zoroastrian, Jewish, and Christian Iranians as religious minorities.


title: Islam in Iran

text: Citizens of the Islamic Republic of Iran are officially divided into four categories: Muslims, Zoroastrians, Jews and Christians. This official division ignores other religious minorities in Iran, notably those of the Baháʼí Faith. State sanctioned persecution of Bahá’ís follows from them being a "non-recognized" religious minority without any legal existence, classified as "unprotected infidels" by the authorities, and are subject to systematic discrimination on the basis of their beliefs. Similarly, atheism is officially disallowed; one must declare oneself as a member of one of the four recognized faiths in order to avail oneself of many of the rights of citizenship.


title: Islam in Iran

text: One unanticipated effect of theocratic rule in Iran is that in the last couple of decades up to at least 2018, the state has lost much of its religious credibility among the ultra-religious communities because of widespread corruption, discrimination and its secularisation. Thus, many ultra-religious people deny the Islamic legitimacy of the government in toto and embrace this or that alternative religiosity ― with Ahmad al-Hassan offering one option among others.


title: Islam in Iran

text: Historically, the most important religious institution in Iran has been the mosque. In towns and cities, congregational prayers, as well as prayers and rites associated with religious observances and important phases in Muslim life, took place in mosques. Primarily an urban phenomenon, mosques did not exist in most Iranian villages. In the years preceding the Revolution, Iranian Shias generally attached diminishing significance to institutional religion, and by the 1970s there was little emphasis on mosque attendance, even for the Friday congregational prayers. During the Revolution, however, mosques in large cities played a prominent social role in organizing people


title: Islam in Iran

text: for large demonstrations. Since that time, the mosques have continued to play important political and social roles, in addition to their traditional religious functions. At the same time, weekly mosque attendance rate in Iran has been very low compared to other Muslim countries. In particular, politicization of Friday prayers under the Islamic Republic has had the paradoxical consequence of discouraging religious people from attending Friday prayers. People who attend prayers tend to have more positive evaluation of the political system than people who do not attend.


title: Islam in Iran

text: Another religious institution of major significance has been the hoseiniyeh, or Islamic center. Wealthy patrons financed construction of hoseiniyehs in urban areas to serve as sites for recitals and performances commemorating the martyrdom of Hussein, especially during the month of Moharram. In the 1970s, hoseiniyehs such as the Hoseiniyeh Irshad in Tehran became politicized as prominent clerical and lay preachers helped to lay the groundwork for the Revolution by referring to the symbolic deaths as martyrs of Hussein and the other imams in veiled but obvious criticism of Mohammad Reza Shah's regime. Institutions providing religious education include madrassas, or seminaries, and maktabs, or primary schools run by the clergy. The madrassas historically were important settings for advanced training in Shia theology and jurisprudence. Each madrassa generally was associated with a noted Shia scholar who had attained the rank of ayatollah. Some older madrassas


title: Islam in Iran

text: functioned like religious universities at which several scholars taught diverse religious and secular subjects. Students, or talabehs, lived on the grounds of the madrassas and received stipends for the duration of their studies, usually a minimum of seven years, during which they prepared for the examinations that qualify a seminary student to be a low-level preacher, or mullah. At the time of the Revolution, there


title: Islam in Iran

text: were slightly more than 11,000 talabehs in Iran, approximately 60 percent of them at the madrassas in Qom. From 1979 to 1982, the number of talabehs in Qom more than tripled from 6,500. There were just under 25,000 talabehs at all levels of study in Qom seminaries in the early 2000s, as well as about 12,000 talabehs at seminaries in other Iranian cities.


title: Islam in Iran

text: Maktabs started to decline in number and importance in the first decades of the twentieth century, once the government began developing a national public school system. Nevertheless, maktabs continued to exist as private religious schools until the Revolution. Because the overall emphasis of public schools has remained secular subjects, since 1979 maktabs have continued to serve children whose parents want them to have a more religious education.


title: Islam in Iran

text: In 2003, Abbas William Samii estimated that there are 90 000 (media observers) to 300 000 (European sources) clerics in Iran, with, back then, 40 000 students at the religious seminaries. To this he add 60 000 "people with no formal training or qualifications who acted as urban preachers, rural prayer leaders, and procession organizers." As for the numbers of seminaries, Qom alone had 60.


title: Islam in Iran

text: Another major religious institution in Iran is the shrine. Pilgrimage to the shrines of imams is a specific Shia custom, undertaken because Shia pilgrims believe that the imams and their relatives have the power to intercede with God on behalf of petitioners. Of the more than 1,100 shrines in Iran, the most important are those for the Eighth Imam, Ali al-Ridha, in Mashhad and for his sister Fatimah bint Musa in Qom, and for Seyyed Rouhollah Khomeini in Tehran. Each of these is a huge complex that includes the mausoleum of the venerated one, tombs of various notables, mosques, madrassas, and libraries. Imam Reza's shrine is considered the holiest. In addition to the usual shrine accoutrements, it comprises hospitals, dispensaries, a museum, and several mosques located in a series of courtyards surrounding the imam's tomb. The shrine's endowments and gifts are the largest of all religious institutions in the country. Although there are no special times for visiting this or other shrines, it is customary for pilgrimage traffic to be heaviest during Shia holy periods. Visitors represent all socioeconomic levels. Whereas piety is a motivation for many, others come to seek the spiritual grace or general good fortune that a visit to the shrine is believed to ensure. Since the nineteenth century, it has been customary among the bazaar class and members of the lower classes to recognize those who have made a pilgrimage to Mashhad by prefixing their names with the title mashti. Shrine authorities have estimated that at least 4 million pilgrims visit the shrine annually in the early 2000s. There are also important secondary shrines for other relatives of the Eighth Imam in Tehran and Shiraz. In virtually all towns and in many villages, there are numerous lesser shrines, known as imamzadehs, that commemorate descendants of the imams who are reputed to have led saintly lives. In Iraq the shrines at Karbala and An Najaf also are revered by Iranian Shias. Pilgrimages to these shrines and the hundreds of local mamzadehs are undertaken to petition the saints to grant special favors or to help one through a period of troubles. The constant movement of pilgrims from all over Iran has helped bind together a linguistically heterogeneous population. Pilgrims serve as major sources of information about conditions in different parts of the country and thus help to mitigate the


title: Islam in Iran

text: The vaqf is a traditional source of financial support for all religious institutions. It is a religious endowment by which land and other income-producing property is given in perpetuity for the maintenance of a shrine, mosque, madrassa, or charitable institution such as a hospital, library, or orphanage. A mutavalli administers a vaqf in accordance with the stipulations in the donor's bequest. In many vaqfs, the position of mutavalli is hereditary. Under the Pahlavis, the government attempted to exercise control over administration of the vaqfs, especially those of the larger shrines. This practice caused conflict with the clergy, who perceived the government's efforts as inimical


title: Islam in Iran

text: to their influence and authority in traditional religious matters. The government's interference with the administration of vaqfs during the Pahlavi era led to a sharp decline in the number of vaqf bequests. Instead, wealthy and pious Shias chose to give financial contributions directly to the leading ayatollahs in the form of zakat, or obligatory alms. The clergy, in turn, used the funds to administer their madrassas and to institute various educational and charitable programs, which indirectly provided them with more influence in society. The access of the clergy to a steady and independent source of funding was an important factor in their ability to resist state controls, and ultimately helped them direct the opposition to the shah.


title: Islam in Iran

text: Statistics of religious buildings according to (Statistics of Religious Places) which has been gathered in 2003.


title: Twat

text: "Twat" is an English-language vulgarism which means the vulva or vagina, and is used figuratively as a derogatory epithet. In British English, it is a common insult referring to an obnoxious or stupid person regardless of gender; in American English, it is rarer and usually used to insult a woman. In Britain, the usual pronunciation rhymes with "hat", while Americans most often use the older pronunciation that rhymes with "squat". This is reflected in the former variant spelling of "twot".


title: Twat

text: The literal sense is first attested in 1656, the epithet in the 1930s. The word's etymology is uncertain. The "American Heritage Dictionary" suggests a conjectural Old English word "thwāt", meaning "a cut", cognate with the Old Norse "þveit" ("thveit"). Jonathon Green suggests a connection with "twitchel", a dialect term for a narrow passage. The twentieth-century British slang verb "twat", meaning 'to hit, whack', is probably an unrelated homonym of onomatopoeic origin.


title: Twat

text: Frederick J. Furnivall wrote to ask Browning what he meant by "twat"; Browning replied that as a youth he had encountered the word in a volume of broadsides and inferred it to be an item of nun's clothing akin to a wimple. The relevant lines are from "Vanity of Vanities", a 1660 attack on Henry Vane the Younger which includes an anti-Catholic joke:


title: Twat

text: Melissa Mohr suggests few Victorians knew the word, given that "none of the twenty-three or so Victorian editions" of Browning's poem omit it. An 1868 query to "Notes and Queries" asked what the word in the poem meant; the only published reply was, "Twat is good Somersetshire dialect for a toad=twoad=twat". A footnote in William James Rolfe and Heloise Hersey's 1886 "Select Poems of Robert Browning" summarised his reply to Furnivall with the additional comment, ""Twat" is in no dictionary"; H. W. Fay noted in 1888 in "The Academy" that the word was in fact in Thomas Wright's 1857 "Dictionary of Obsolete and Provincial English", and said Browning, Furnivall and Rolfe had all made a "distressing blunder". The 1894 reprint of "Select Poems" replaced the comment with "Browning would not have used the word if he had known its meaning". In 1911 Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve alluded to "a notorious word which smirches the skirt of Pippa Passes".


title: Twat

text: Browning's error posed a dilemma for many pre-1960s lexicographers, who excluded words deemed obscene but aspired to include all words used by major writers like Browning. The 1890 "Century Dictionary" included the correct definition, labelled "vulgar", and noted Browning's "supposition" of its meaning. In 1934 "Webster's Second New International Dictionary" entry for "twat" read: "Some part of a nun's garb. "Erron. Browning"". The "Oxford English Dictionary" (OED) included many taboo words, albeit often with circumscribed definition and quotations, and "twat" was duly included in the relevant OED fascicle, published in 1916. The entry labelled it "low" and obsolete and noted Browning's "erroneous" use. There was no direct definition, but rather "See quot. 1727", a reference to the latest of the entry's five historical citations, namely the definition in the 1727 "Universal Etymological English Dictionary", which was in New Latin: ("female private part"). Two of the other OED citations included quotes: "Vanity of Vanities" and a c. 1704 bawdy verse with a variant spelling: "At last, as groping thro' a dang'rous Street, / Where Stones and Twaits in frosty Winters meet".


title: Twat

text: The two unquoted citations were a 1656 translation of Martial's "Epigrams" and a 1719 bawdy song by Thomas d'Urfey. In 1986 the "Supplement to the OED" deleted the "obsolete" label and added twentieth-century quotations and the figurative insult as a second sense.


title: Twat

text: Besides Thomas Wright's 1857 dialect dictionary (" ") the word also appears in Joseph Wright's 1892 "Grammar of the Dialect of Windhill" ("twot ") but not in the latter's 1905 "English Dialect Dictionary". The 1950s Survey of English Dialects recorded the word at several sites as the term for a cow's vulva.


title: Twat

text: Edward Bulwer-Lytton's 1870 science fiction novel "The Coming Race", uses it to mean tadpole in an apparent satire on Darwin:


title: Twat

text: In 1979, British punk poet John Cooper Clarke included the poem "Twat" on his album "Walking Back to Happiness". It has been described, by Nick Duerden of "The Independent", as "memorable".


title: Twat

text: In August 2008, Random House, the publisher of the children's book "My Sister Jodie" by Jacqueline Wilson, decided after receiving three complaints to reprint the word "twat" as "twit" in future editions of the novel so as not to offend readers or their parents.


title: Twat

text: In a 2009 breakfast radio interview with Christian O'Connell, British Conservative Party leader and future Prime Minister David Cameron quipped that "the trouble with Twitter, the instantness of it—too many twits might make a twat". O'Connell said Cameron did not realise the word could cause offense until Gabrielle Bertin advised him to issue an apology.


title: Twat

text: In his 2011 book "Filthy English", linguist Peter Silverton asked, "Can you distinguish an utter twat from a complete prick? I think you can. An utter twat knows not what he or she does. A complete prick does."


title: Twat

text: Workers who go to the office on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays and work remotely from home on Mondays and Fridays have been irreverently called "TWaTs". Although the term predated the COVID-19 lockdowns it has become more prevalent since, as more people partially return to offices.


title: Twat

text: For the purposes of film certification, usage of the word is not considered as serious as many other swear words. It is listed by the British Board of Film Classification as an example of "moderate language" for the 12 certificate. However, the film "Kes" originally released in 1969 and given a 'U' certificate by the then British Board of Film Censors, denoting suitable for children, has in later years been re-certified PG in the United Kingdom, meaning: "All ages admitted, but certain scenes may be unsuitable for young children. Should not disturb children aged 8 years or over", despite more than one instance of the word. The word also appears in writing in an episode of "Fawlty Towers" (the letters on the sign have been rearranged to say "Flowery Twats"). The episode has a 12 certificate.


title: Twat

text: It also is not on the list of the seven dirty words by George Carlin in his 1972 monologue "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television", perhaps because the word is much less common in North America than in Britain, although it was used as a term of insult in Mel Brooks' comedy western "Blazing Saddles" (1974).


title: George de Mohrenschildt

text: George Sergius de Mohrenschildt (; April 17, 1911 – March 29, 1977) was an American petroleum geologist, professor, and known CIA informant. De Mohrenschildt is best known for having befriended Lee Harvey Oswald in the summer of 1962. De Mohrenschildt later alleged that their friendship continued until Oswald's death following the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy. In actuality, de Mohrenschildt never saw Oswald, or wrote to him, after April 13, 1963—three days after Oswald's alleged attempt on the life of General Edwin Walker.


title: George de Mohrenschildt

text: De Mohrenschildt's testimony before the Warren Commission investigating the assassination was one of the longest of any witness.


title: George de Mohrenschildt

text: De Mohrenschildt was born as Jerzy Sergius von Mohrenschildt in Mozyr, in the Russian Empire, now in Belarus, on April 4 in the old-style Russian Julian calendar. He had an older brother, Dimitri. His aristocratic father, Sergey Alexandrovich von Mohrenschildt, was of Baltic German, Swedish, and Russian descent. De Mohrenschildt's mother, Alexandra, was of aristocratic Polish, Russian, and Hungarian descent.


title: George de Mohrenschildt

text: Sergey von Mohrenschildt was described by his son as the Marshal of Nobility of the Minsk Governorate from 1913-1917, and a civil rank of Actual Civil Councilor corresponding to Major General. In 1920, during the Russian Civil War, Sergey von Mohrenschildt was arrested by the Bolsheviks for anti-Soviet agitation. He was sentenced to exile for life in Veliky Ustyug, a town in the north of Russia. De Mohrenschildt later testified to the Warren Commission that, while awaiting transport to Veliky Ustyug, his father became ill. Two Belarusian Jewish doctors who treated him in jail advised him to stop eating so he would appear more sickly. The doctors then told the Soviet government that Sergey was too ill to survive the trip to Veliky Ustyug and he should be allowed to recover at home. The Soviet Government agreed, under the condition that Sergey check in weekly until he was well enough to be sent to Veliky Ustyug. After his release, Sergey, his wife and the young de Mohrenschildt then fled to the Second Polish Republic in a hay wagon (de Mohrenschildt's older brother Dimitri, who was awaiting execution, was later repatriated to Poland as part of a prisoner exchange). During their journey, de Mohrenschildt, his father and mother Alexandra contracted typhoid fever. Alexandra died of the disease shortly after the family crossed into Poland.


title: George de Mohrenschildt

text: After the death of his mother, de Mohrenschildt and his father made their way to Wilno, where the family owned a six-acre estate. De Mohrenschildt graduated from the Wilno gymnasium in 1929 and later graduated from the Polish Cavalry Academy in 1931. He went on to earn a master's degree at the Institute of Higher Commercial Studies. Having completed a dissertation on the economic influence of the U.S. on Latin America, he received a doctor of science degree in international commerce from the University of Liège in Belgium in 1938.


title: George de Mohrenschildt

text: George von Mohrenschildt emigrated to the United States in May 1938, after which he legally changed the nobiliary particle in his name from the Germanic "von" to the French "de". According to de Mohrenschildt, he gathered information about people involved in pro-Nazi activities, such as those bidding for US oil leases on behalf of Nazi Germany before the US became involved in World War II. De Mohrenschildt testified that a further purpose of his data collection was to help the French outbid the Germans.


title: George de Mohrenschildt

text: De Mohrenschildt spent the summer of 1938 with his older brother Dimitri von Mohrenschildt on Long Island, New York. Like George, Dimitri was a staunch anti-communist, but was also an agent of General William J. Donovan's OSS and, during the Cold War, one of the founders of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty.


title: George de Mohrenschildt

text: While in New York, de Mohrenschildt became acquainted with the , including the young Jacqueline Bouvier, the future First Lady of the United States. Jacqueline grew up calling de Mohrenschildt "Uncle George" and would sit on his knee. He became a close friend of Jacqueline's aunt Edith Bouvier Beale.


title: George de Mohrenschildt

text: De Mohrenschildt dabbled in the insurance business from 1939 to 1941, but failed his broker's examination. In 1941, he became associated with Film Facts in New York, a production company owned by his cousin, Berend Maydell, also known as Baron Maydell (or Count Maydell) who allegedly had pro-Nazi sympathies. (De Mohrenschildt denied any Nazi sympathies of his own and claimed to have helped raise money in America for the Polish resistance.) For this reason, De Mohrenschildt made a documentary film about resistance fighters in Poland. According to a memo by former CIA director Richard Helms, de Mohrenschildt "was alleged to be a Nazi espionage agent."


title: George de Mohrenschildt

text: In 1942, de Mohrenschildt married an American teenager named Dorothy Pierson. They had a daughter, Alexandra (known as Alexis) and divorced in early 1944. In 1945, de Mohrenschildt received a master's degree in petroleum geology from the University of Texas.


title: George de Mohrenschildt

text: After the end of World War II, de Mohrenschildt moved to Venezuela, where he worked for Pantepec Oil, a company owned by the family of William F. Buckley Sr. In 1947, he married Phyllis Washington, the daughter of a diplomat with the State Department. They divorced in 1949. That same year, de Mohrenschildt became a naturalized U.S. citizen. In 1950, he launched an oil investment firm with his step-nephew Edward Hooker, with offices in New York City, Denver, and Abilene. In 1951, de Mohrenschildt's third marriage was to the physician Wynne "Didi" Sharples. The following year, the couple settled in Dallas, Texas, where de Mohrenschildt took a job with oilman Clint Murchison as a petroleum geologist. De Mohrenschildt and his third wife had two children, a son and a daughter, both of whom were born with cystic fibrosis (the couple's son died of the disease in 1960, as did their daughter in 1973). De Mohrenschildt and Sharples were divorced in 1957.


title: George de Mohrenschildt

text: De Mohrenschildt joined the Dallas Petroleum Club, was a member of the Dallas Council on World Affairs, and taught at a local college. One of his longtime friends, offshore oil engineer George Kitchel, told the FBI that de Mohrenschildt counted among his good friends oil barons Clint Murchison, H.L. Hunt, John W. Mecom Sr., and Sid Richardson. De Mohrenschildt also joined the right-wing Texas Crusade for Freedom, whose members included Earle Cabell, Everette DeGolyer, David Harold Byrd and Ted Dealey.


title: George de Mohrenschildt

text: In 1957, de Mohrenschildt went to Communist Yugoslavia to conduct a geological field survey for the U.S. State Department-sponsored International Cooperation Administration. While in Yugoslavia, he was accused by the authorities there of making drawings of military fortifications. After returning to the United States, de Mohrenschildt was debriefed by the CIA, both in Washington and in Dallas.


title: George de Mohrenschildt

text: Following his divorce in 1957, de Mohrenschildt married his fourth wife, former dancer, model, and fellow Russian-American Jeanne LeGon, in June 1959. LeGon (née Eugenia Fomenko) was the daughter of a director of the Chinese Far East Railway who was later killed by communists. From late 1960 and into 1961, he and his wife toured Central America and the Caribbean. His "walking trip" through Central America was made to recover from the grief of losing his only son in 1960 to cystic fibrosis. However, de Mohrenschildt also submitted a written report of his trip to the U.S. State Department, and a photograph taken during the trip shows him meeting the American ambassador to Costa Rica.


title: George de Mohrenschildt

text: Lee Harvey Oswald and his Russian-born wife Marina Oswald were introduced to de Mohrenschildt in the summer of 1962 in Fort Worth, Texas. De Mohrenschildt testified before the Warren Commission in 1964 that he met the Oswalds through a prominent member of Fort Worth's Russian-American community, oil accountant George Bouhe. When de Mohrenschildt asked whether it was safe to help Oswald, Bouhe said that he had checked with the FBI. De Mohrenschildt also believed that he had discussed Oswald with Max Clark, whom he believed worked for the FBI, and with J. Walton Moore, whom de Mohrenschildt described as "a Government man — either FBI or Central Intelligence", and who had debriefed de Mohrenschildt several times following his travels abroad, starting in 1957. (According to a declassified CIA document, obtained by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, de Mohrenschildt was in fact correct and J. Walton Moore was an agent of the CIA's Domestic Contacts Division in Dallas.) De Mohrenschildt asserted that, shortly after meeting Oswald, he had asked Moore and Fort Worth attorney Max E. Clark about Oswald to reassure himself that it was "safe" to assist Oswald. De Mohrenschildt testified that one of the persons with whom he had discussed Oswald told him that Oswald "seems to be OK," and that "he is a harmless lunatic." However, he was no longer sure who had told him that. (When interviewed in 1978 by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, J. Walton Moore said that while he "had 'periodic' contact with de Mohrenschildt", he had no recollection of any conversation with him concerning Oswald. During this period, tens of thousands of American citizens were routinely debriefed by the CIA after traveling to communist countries such as Yugoslavia, as de Mohrenschildt was.) After returning home from a weekend trip to Houston, de Mohrenschildt became aware that someone had broken into his home and copied his personal papers and other documents. At the time, he also had a manuscript that Oswald had given him to read, and realized that the document might also have been photocopied in the search. His primary concern was that the CIA was behind the break-in. According to de Mohrenschildt, Moore flatly denied when confronted that the CIA was involved in any way.


title: George de Mohrenschildt

text: In October 1962, Oswald informed de Mohrenschildt that he had lost his job in nearby Fort Worth. In response, de Mohrenschildt advised Oswald that he would have a better chance of finding work in Dallas. Oswald was soon hired by the Dallas photographic firm of Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall. De Mohrenschildt's wife and daughter would later say that it had been he who had secured the job at Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall for Oswald.


title: George de Mohrenschildt

text: On April 14, 1963, de Mohrenschildt and his wife Jeanne visited the Oswalds' Dallas apartment. As Marina was showing Jeanne around the apartment, they discovered Oswald's rifle leaning against the wall inside a closet. Jeanne told George that Oswald had a rifle, and George joked to Oswald, "Were you the one who took a pot-shot at General Walker?" (General Edwin Walker was an ultra-conservative politician whom de Mohrenschildt "knew that Oswald disliked.") When later asked by the Warren Commission about Oswald's reaction to his joke, de Mohrenschildt said that Oswald "smiled at that". In an interview with Edward Jay Epstein, de Mohrenschildt claimed to have told the CIA that he believed Oswald had attempted to murder General Walker. "I spoke to the CIA both before and afterwards. It was what ruined me." The Warren Commission concluded that on April 10, 1963, Oswald had attempted to kill General Walker.


title: George de Mohrenschildt

text: After Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, de Mohrenschildt testified before the Warren Commission in April 1964. According to Colonel L. Fletcher Prouty, then chief Pentagon-to-CIA liaison officer, de Mohrenschildt also had several private lunches with former CIA director and Warren Commission member Allen Dulles while testifying. In November 1966, de Mohrenschildt left Haiti and returned to Dallas. During 1967, Orleans Parish District Attorney Jim Garrison interviewed de Mohrenschildt and his wife as part of Garrison's prosecution of Clay Shaw. Garrison said that both of the de Mohrenschildts insisted that Oswald had been the scapegoat in the assassination. Garrison concluded from his conversation with them that George de Mohrenschildt had been one of Oswald's unwitting "baby-sitters ... assigned to protect or otherwise see to the general welfare of Oswald."


title: George de Mohrenschildt

text: George and Jeanne de Mohrenschildt obtained a divorce in Dallas, Texas on April 3, 1973, after nearly 14 years of marriage. It was not reported in the local newspapers, and the couple continued to present themselves as husband and wife.


title: George de Mohrenschildt

text: On September 17, 1976, the CIA requested that the FBI locate de Mohrenschildt, because he had "attempted to get in touch with the CIA Director." On September 5, 1976, de Mohrenschildt had written a letter to the director of the CIA, George H. W. Bush, asking for his assistance. He was acquainted with the Bush family; George H.W. Bush had roomed with de Mohrenschildt's nephew, Edward G. Hooker, at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. The letter said:


title: George de Mohrenschildt

text: On November 9, 1976, Jeanne had de Mohrenschildt committed to a mental institution in Texas for three months, and listed in a notarized affidavit four previous suicide attempts while he was in the Dallas area. In the affidavit, she stated that de Mohrenschildt suffered from depression, heard voices, saw visions, and believed that the CIA and the Jewish Mafia were persecuting him. However, he was released at the end of the year.


title: George de Mohrenschildt

text: According to the Dutch journalist Willem Oltmans, in 1967 a "serious and famous Dutch clairvoyant" named Gerard Croiset had a vision of a conspirator who had manipulated Oswald; his description led Oltmans to de Mohrenschildt, and the two stayed in touch. In 1977, Oltmans went to Texas and brought de Mohrenschildt to the Netherlands. Oltmans claimed that he had rescued de Mohrenschildt from a mental institution to bring him to Croiset. According to Oltmans, Croiset agreed that de Mohrenschildt was the man whom he had seen in his vision.


title: George de Mohrenschildt

text: Oltmans says that after de Mohrenschildt arrived in the Netherlands, he invited him out with some Russian friends. They went to Brussels and had plans to go to Liège, a city in the French-speaking part of Belgium. Oltmans owned a house in the countryside not far from Liège. Upon returning to Brussels, de Mohrenschildt went for a short walk from which he failed to return. He had earlier agreed to meet Oltmans and his friends for lunch. Oltmans waited for him but he did not come back.


title: George de Mohrenschildt

text: On March 16, 1977, de Mohrenschildt returned to the United States from his trip. His daughter talked with him at length and found him to be deeply disturbed about certain matters, reporting that he had expressed a desire to kill himself. On March 29, de Mohrenschildt gave an interview to author Edward Jay Epstein, during which he claimed that in 1962, Dallas CIA operative J. Walton Moore and one of Moore's associates had handed him the address of Lee Harvey Oswald in nearby Fort Worth and then suggested that de Mohrenschildt might like to meet him. He suggested to Moore that he would appreciate some help from the U.S. Embassy in Haiti. "I would never have contacted Oswald in a million years if Moore had not sanctioned it", de Mohrenschildt said. "Too much was at stake." On the same day as the Epstein interview, de Mohrenschildt received a business card from Gaeton Fonzi, an investigator for the House Select Committee on Assassinations, telling him that he would like to see him. The HSCA considered him a "crucial witness". That afternoon, de Mohrenschildt was found dead from a self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head in a house at which he was staying in Manalapan, Florida. The coroner's verdict was suicide.


title: George de Mohrenschildt

text: In the book "Killing Kennedy" (2012), television personality Bill O'Reilly claimed he had been knocking on de Mohrenschildt's front door when he heard a shotgun blast that marked the suicide. However, this claim has since been proven false. A contemporaneous phone call recording between O'Reilly and Fonzi confirmed that O'Reilly had been investigating the Russian immigrant. However, O'Reilly learned of de Mohrenschildt's suicide from Fonzi and was not even in Florida at the time, but was in Dallas, Texas.


title: George de Mohrenschildt

text: On April 2, 1977, Willem Oltmans told the House Select Committee on Assassinations that de Mohrenschildt had implicated himself in the conspiracy to kill President Kennedy. And Pat S. Russell, who was de Mohrenschildt's attorney, said "I definitely feel there was a conspiracy and that definitely was the opinion of George." Oltmans testified for three hours behind closed doors and told the committee that de Mohrenschildt had told him that he had discussed all aspects of the assassination with Oswald. "De Mohrenschildt told me that Oswald acted at his (de Mohrenschildt's) instructions and that he knew Oswald was going to kill Kennedy," Oltmans said.


title: George de Mohrenschildt

text: On July 6, 1978, Joseph Dryer told the HSCA that he and de Mohrenschildt were associated with a woman named Jacqueline Lancelot. Dryer's relationship with Lancelot included passing messages for her to people in the United States whom Dryer assumed were connected in some way to the CIA. Dryer said that Lancelot had told him shortly after the assassination that a "substantial" sum of money, $200,000 or $250,000, had been deposited in de Mohrenschildt's account. Dryer said that de Mohrenschildt had claimed that he had come to Haiti to scout for oil, but Dryer stated that "I could never figure out what he did." Dryer expressed the belief that de Mohrenschildt had "some intelligence connection."


title: George de Mohrenschildt

text: Congressional researcher Gaeton Fonzi noted that in late 1963 "several large deposits popped up in de Mohrenschildt's Haitian bank account including one for two hundred thousand dollars from a Bahamian bank." This occurred when de Mohrenschildt and Clemard Joseph Charles, an advisor to Haitian president Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier, "were 'supposedly' running a sisal plantation, a derelict operation they never went near."


title: George de Mohrenschildt

text: In a 1976 CIA internal memo regarding de Mohrenschildt, Director George H. W. Bush stated: "At one time he had/or spent plenty of money."


title: George de Mohrenschildt

text: On April 1, 1977, Jeanne de Mohrenschildt gave the House Select Committee on Assassinations a print of a photograph showing Lee Harvey Oswald standing in his Dallas backyard holding two newspapers and a rifle, and with a pistol on his hip – a photograph taken by Oswald's wife Marina. While similar to other prints that had been found among Oswald's effects on November 23, 1963, the existence of this particular print was previously unknown. On the back was written "To my friend George from Lee Oswald" and the date "5/IV/63" (April 5, 1963), along with the words "Copyright Geo de M" and a Russian phrase translated as "'Hunter after fascists, ha-ha-ha!!!" Handwriting specialists later concluded that the words "To my friend George ..." and Oswald's signature were written by Lee Harvey Oswald, but could not determine whether the rest was the writing of Oswald, his wife, or de Mohrenschildt. De Mohrenschildt assumed that Marina had written it sarcastically.


title: George de Mohrenschildt

text: De Mohrenschildt wrote in his manuscript that he had missed Oswald's photograph in packing for the move to Haiti in May 1963, which was why he had not mentioned it to the Warren Commission (though he had noted in his manuscript that Oswald had a rifle in April 1963, and scoffed to Oswald that he had missed General Walker, remembering that Oswald had blanched at the joke). According to de Mohrenschildt, the photograph was not found among his stored papers until he and his wife found it in February 1967. When analyzed by the HSCA in 1977, this photo turned out to be a first-generation print of the backyard photo already known to the Warren Commission as "CE-133A" and which had probably been taken on March 31, 1963.


title: George de Mohrenschildt

text: Jeanne de Mohrenschildt also gave the HSCA a copy of a draft manuscript called "I Am a Patsy! I Am a Patsy!", which George de Mohrenschildt had completed in the summer of 1976 about his relationship with his "dear, dead friend" Oswald. In the manuscript, he said that the Oswald he knew was rarely ever violent, and would not have been the sort of person to have killed Kennedy. In part, this judgment was based on de Mohrenschildt's estimation of Oswald's political views and Kennedy's liberal ideas. Until 2014 the memoir had never been published as a standalone book, but the entire typescript was published as an appendix in the HSCA report.


title: George de Mohrenschildt

text: The primary focus of de Mohrenschildt's text is a series of recollections about the brief time period between September 1962 and April 1963 when he and his wife were acquainted with the Oswalds. A secondary focus consists of a number of meditations on the corrosive effects the Oswalds had on the professional and personal lives of the de Mohrenschildts. "It must be acknowledged that our brief friendship with the Oswalds had strange and adverse effects on our lives." The manuscript is less concerned with Oswald's guilt or innocence and who the real criminals might be. Stating that Oswald was a "patsy not involved in any revenge", and referencing articles describing "organized murder for profit", de Mohrenschildt challenges readers to make up their own minds. De Mohrenschildt's manuscript was edited and annotated as "Lee Harvey Oswald as I Knew Him" by Michael A. Rinella. It was released in November 2014 by the University Press of Kansas.


title: George de Mohrenschildt

text: De Mohrenschildt was played by Willem Oltmans, the Dutch journalist who befriended him in the late 1960s, in the 1991 film "JFK", and by Bill Bolender in the 1993 TV movie "". He is also mentioned at length in the Stephen King novel "11/22/63", a time-travel novel about the assassination, and appears in the 2016 television adaptation "11.22.63", played by Jonny Coyne. His Haitian experience is depicted in Hans Christoph Buch's novel "Haïti Chérie" (Suhrkamp, 1990).


title: George de Mohrenschildt

text: De Mohrenschildt was discussed at length in the TruTV series "Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura". The episode claims that de Mohrenschildt was in fact a CIA handler for Oswald.


title: George de Mohrenschildt

text: In 1997, Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh released the film "Willem Oltmans, De Eenmotorige Mug" ("Willem Oltmans, the single-engined mosquito"). In the film, journalist Willem Oltmans makes claims about his contacts with de Mohrenschildt (and Oswald's mother, Marguerite Oswald) until de Mohrenschildt's death in 1977.


title: Kirito (Sword Art Online)

text: , born as , is a fictional character and the protagonist of the "Sword Art Online" series of light novels written by Reki Kawahara. Known by a portmanteau of his name, which is his user name in the "Sword Art Online" video game which the series are partially set in.


title: Kirito (Sword Art Online)

text: Kirito is a teenager who was chosen as one of 1,000 beta testers for a new virtual reality video game: "Sword Art Online". After the game is released to the general public, he and the rest of the 10,000 players discover that they are unable to log out and are trapped in the simulation unless they manage to beat the game. In the anime adaptation, Kirito is voiced in Japanese by Yoshitsugu Matsuoka and in English by Bryce Papenbrook.


title: Kirito (Sword Art Online)

text: In an interview with "Sword Art Online" series creator Reki Kawahara, they wrote the series to change popular opinion of online gaming; viewing it not a social ill or just an escape from real life, and thus decided to show games in a more positive light in his light novels. He stated that he does not usually put aspects of himself into his characters, he did note that "neither of us are good at forming parties. We [both] tend to play solo in these games a lot." When asked about Kirito using a sword in a gun-based game during the "Gun Gale Online" arc, Kawahara responded that the energy sword in "Halo" can be the most powerful weapon if used properly.


title: Kirito (Sword Art Online)

text: In the anime adaptation, Kirito is voiced in Japanese by Yoshitsugu Matsuoka and in English by Bryce Papenbrook. In an interview with Matsuoka on the similarities between him and his character, Matsuoka opinioned that "there's only one chance" for success in both acting and for Kirito in the game universe. They also noted that Kirito eventually had to "pull people along" and "pave the way for others" like themselves.


title: Kirito (Sword Art Online)

text: As the main protagonist of "Sword Art Online", Kazuto "Kirito" Kirigaya, is one of 1,000 testers in the previous closed beta of "Sword Art Online" ("SAO"), a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game played with a virtual reality headset, known as the NerveGear. The helmet stimulates the user's five senses via their brain, allowing players to experience and control their in-game characters with their minds. He later joins the official version of the game where he becomes one of the 10,000 players to log into the game on opening. The players only discover that they are unable to log out and leave the game. Kayaba, the games creator, appears and tells the players that they must beat the game to escape. Aincrad, a steel castle which is the setting of "SAO", has 100 floors, which need to be climbed and completed to finish the game. Those who suffer in-game deaths or forcibly remove the NerveGear will suffer real-life deaths.


title: Kirito (Sword Art Online)

text: With the advantage of previous VR gaming experience and a drive to protect other beta testers from discrimination, he isolates himself from the greater groups and plays the game alone, bearing the mantle of "beater", a portmanteau of "beta tester" and "cheater". As the players progress through the game Kirito eventually befriends a young girl named Asuna Yuuki, forming a relationship with and later marrying her in-game. After the duo discover the identity of Kayaba's secret ID, who was playing as the leader of the guild Asuna joined in, they confront and destroy him, freeing themselves and the other players from the game.


title: Kirito (Sword Art Online)

text: In the real world, Kazuto discovers that 300 "SAO" players, including Asuna, remain trapped in their NerveGear. As he goes to the hospital to see Asuna, he meets Shouzou Yuuki, Asuna's father, who is asked by an associate of his, Nobuyuki Sugou, to make a decision, which Sugou later reveals to be his marriage with Asuna, angering Kazuto. Several hours later, he is informed by Agil, another "SAO" survivor, that a figure similar to Asuna was spotted on "The World Tree" in another VRMMORPG cyberspace called "Alfheim Online" ("ALO"). Assisted in-game by his cousin Suguha "Leafa" Kirigaya and Yui, a navigation pixie (originally an AI from "SAO"), he quickly learns that the trapped players in "ALO" are part of a plan conceived by Sugou to perform illegal experiments on their minds. The goal is to create the perfect mind-control for financial gain and to subjugate Asuna, whom he intends to marry in the real world, to assume control of her family's corporation. Kirito eventually stops the experiment and rescues the remaining 300 "SAO" players, foiling Sugou's plans. Before leaving "ALO" to see Asuna, Kayaba, who has uploaded his mind to the Internet using an experimental and destructively high-power version of NerveGear at the cost of his life, entrusts Kirito with The Seed – a package program designed to create virtual worlds. Kazuto eventually reunites with Asuna in the real world and The Seed is released onto the Internet, reviving Aincrad as other VRMMORPGs begin to thrive.


title: Kirito (Sword Art Online)

text: Soon after, at the prompting of a government official investigating strange occurrences in VR, Kazuto takes on a job to investigate a series of murders involving another VRMMORPG called "Gun Gale Online" ("GGO"), the AmuSphere (the successor of the NerveGear), and a player called Death Gun. Aided by a female player named Shino "Sinon" Asada, he participates in a gunfight tournament called the Bullet of Bullets (BoB) and discovers the truth behind the murders, which originated with a player who participated in a player-killing guild in "SAO". Through his and Sinon's efforts, two suspects are captured, though the third suspect, Johnny Black, escapes.


title: Kirito (Sword Art Online)

text: Kazuto is later recruited to assist in testing an experimental FullDive machine, Soul Translator (STL), which has an interface that is far more realistic and complex than the previous machine he had played to help develop an artificial intelligence for the Ministry of Defense (MOD) named A.L.I.C.E. He tests the STL by entering a virtual reality cyberspace created with The Seed package, named UnderWorld (UW). In the UW, the flow of time proceeds a thousand times faster than in the real world, and Kirito's memories of what happens inside are restricted. However, Black injures Kazuto with suxamethonium chloride. The MOD recovers Kazuto and places him back into the STL to preserve his mind while attempts are made to save him. Meanwhile, it is revealed that UnderWorld was created as part of an experiment to create artificial intelligence that could be used for military purposes.


title: Kirito (Sword Art Online)

text: Kirito makes a cameo appearance in the eighth episode of the anime series "Eromanga Sensei", with Yoshitsugu Matsuoka reprising his role.


title: Kirito (Sword Art Online)

text: In a review, Richard Eisenbeis of Kotaku hailed "Sword Art Online" as the smartest series in recent years; Eisenbeis particularly noted how the romance between Kirito and Asuna is explored bringing "definition to exactly what love is like in a virtual world." However, the two characters' relationship in the second half of the novels was criticized, with Eisenbeis complaining about Asuna being deregulated to a damsel in distress stock character for Kirito to fight for, lamenting that the "strong female lead" had been "reduced to nothing but the quest item the male lead is hunting for." The love triangle between Kirito and the other female characters was also scrutinized; Eisenbeis considered it "ludicrous" that Kirito would consider abandoning Asuna, especially considering his devotion to her in the previous storyline. Nevertheless, Kirito was considered a likable and "fun" character.


title: Kirito (Sword Art Online)

text: In response to criticism directed at the series that Kirito was a "Mary Sue" type character, Karen Mead of Japanator.com wrote that "I don't think we ever see enough of Kirito's weaknesses to balance out his strengths: he's pretty much a genius at video games, as well as a kind, giving person, and those are some pretty major positives." However, she praised the positive aspects of Kirito's character, and his "competent and noble" self distinguishes him from other harem protagonists in that he actually earns the girls' affection. Carly Smith of "The Escapist" criticized "Sword Art Online II" and compared it unfavourably to the original storyline, summarizing "welcome to "Sword Art Online II": the show where everyone loves Kirito and nothing matters", and that the anime doesn't "start to shine" until "Kirito is pushed to the sidelines". In an interview with Bryce Papenbrook, Kirito's English voice actor, when asked whether he would pick Kirito or Eren Yeager (whom he also voiced) from "Attack on Titan" in a fight, Papenbrook joked that "Inside a game, obviously Kirito would win, because he has God Mode running at all times. I think in real life, Kirito is strong-willed and passionate, but I think Eren would slice him up in real life. He's just too crazy."


title: Kirito (Sword Art Online)

text: Kirito is one of the most popular characters in "Sword Art Online". In a poll by anime website Charapedia, 10,000 respondents voted on their favorite couples in anime, with Kirito and Asuna topping the list. Additionally, a Chinese website, bilibili, took a reader poll to find the most "moe" characters of 2015; Kirito placed sixth in the male top 8 and Asuna third in the female top 8. Asuna and Kirito were awarded first and second respectively in a character poll by Dengeki Bunko (the publisher of "Sword Art Online") for their light novels. Asuna and Kirito once again made a list of the "[Top] 7 Couples Who Make Love and War" by Anime News Network, writing "love blossoms on the virtual battlefield and the two wed before taking on the game's creator together. The August 2014 issue of "Newtype" published results of a recent character popularity poll, with Kirito placing 1st overall for male characters; Asuna placed 4th for all female characters. Another poll which would decide the characters placed on a "Sword Art Online" artbook had Kirito placed in fourth place. "Kazuto" (Kirito) was also fourth on a list of the "top 20 anime characters Japanese fans would name their children after"; "Asuna" placed first. Italian restaurant La Ricetta in Zama, Kanagawa features pancakes prepared with anime and video game character art, including Kirito and Asuna.


title: Kirito (Sword Art Online)

text: The character has received positive critical reception, and his popularity has led to him being featured in several promotional efforts and merchandise of the series. Kirito makes an appearance in an April 2015 campaign which promotes Namco gaming arcades. Fan-made replicas of Asuna's "Lambent Light" and Kirito's "Elucidator" rapiers have been built by the Man At Arms team of blacksmiths and craftsmen. There are also Kirito, Asuna, and Sinon "Sword Art Online"-branded perfumes for sale; "Kirito" is described as "dry citrus with a touch of brandy, meant to evoke a mature spirit. It uses green apple, apricot and lime above Muguet, Rose, Jasmine, grapefruit and a musk and brandy base." "Sword Art Online" glasses based on the characters had a "Kirito" model; "these matte black frames feature a cross and the excalibur on each arm [of the glasses]." A series of anime-inspired Christmas cards featured characters such as Rin Matsuoka from "Free!", Godoka from "Puella Magi Madoka Magica", and Kirito. He has also appeared in several "Sword Art Online"-related video games. This includes "", in which several characters appearing under the "Dengeki Bunko" imprint are featured. In a costume swap between video games "" and "", "Lost Song" received a Julius costume for Kirito and an Alisa costume for Asuna whilst "Rage Burst" received costumes of Kirito and Sinon. Asuna, Kirito and Leafa appeared in a campaign by the "Manga Anime Guardians" project in combating anime and manga piracy, with the project being supported by 15 anime production studios and manga publishers.


title: Conscription in Israel

text: Conscription in Israel has been in place since the country's independence in 1948, and is limited to Israelis of three ethnicities: Jews (both genders), Druze (male only), and Circassians (male only). Under Israeli law, only men are drafted from the smallest minority groups of the Druze and of the Circassians, whereas Jewish women are required to serve alongside Jewish men. While the largest minority group of the Arab citizens of Israel (both genders of the Arab-Muslims, and both genders of the Arab-Christians) are allowed to enlist voluntarily, they are not conscripted by law; and therefore the vast majority of them opt not to volunteer whatsoever.


title: Conscription in Israel

text: Exemptions can be made for potential conscripts on religious, physical, psychological, or lawful grounds.


title: Conscription in Israel

text: , the minimum required length of military service is two years and eight months (with some roles requiring an additional four months of service) for all conscripted men, and two years (with some roles requiring an additional eight months of service) for conscripted Jewish women.


title: Conscription in Israel

text: In 2013, 26 percent of all potential conscripts were exempted from military service in the Israel Defense Forces; 13.5 percent for religious reasons, 4 percent for psychological reasons, 2 percent for physical health reasons, 3 percent due to existing criminal records, and 3 percent due to residing abroad.


title: Conscription in Israel

text: According to the Israeli Defense Service Law, which regulates duties and exceptions, all Israeli citizens who meet the conscription criteria are required to serve once they reach 18 years of age unless they qualify for any of the above-mentioned exemptions.


title: Conscription in Israel

text: In 1949, after the founding of the State of Israel, the Defense Service Law gave the IDF the authority to enlist any citizen. Draftees would then be required to show up for the draft in accordance with the military's decision to enlist them. Under this law, the period of service for men was 30 months and for women 18 months (although in accordance with a temporary order from January 10, 1968, six additional months were added to the mandatory service, 36 months for men and 24 months for women respectively.) The service for men has been reduced to 32 months since 2015. In 2020 the service for men was reduced to 30 months following a decision made in 2016, in 2021 this change was reverted and the reduction in service length was postponed to 2024.


title: Conscription in Israel

text: The draft requirement applies to any citizen or permanent resident who has reached the age of 18, and in accordance with the law, the individuals who are exempt from the draft are dismissed for various reasons, such as incapability, medical problems, military personnel needs, etc. Many of the soldiers who complete their mandatory military service are later obligated to serve in a reserve unit in accordance with the military's needs.


title: Conscription in Israel

text: Economic constraints on the IDF have caused them to reconsider their structure and slowly shift towards a more modern military. A shift towards a professional militia has caused the IDF to adopt more career-oriented attributes, thus becoming more selective than in prior years. Instead of focusing on “role expansion,” Israel, most specifically its government, is focusing on “nation building.” One of the most recent developments is a focus on inclusivity of gay and especially disabled citizens.


title: Conscription in Israel

text: The IDF determines a medical profile for each soldier; according to that profile, the army decides where to assign the draftees. The highest medical profile draftees serve in the five infantry Brigades, Field/Combat Intelligence units, and Combat engineers. The second highest medical profiles are assigned to serve in the Armoured Corps, Artillery, Military Police, Border Police, and Aman. The lowest acceptable level of medical profiles are drafted into the combat support and combat service support Arms, such as the Adjutant Corps, Logistics Corps, and the Ordnance Corps. Draftees with lower than acceptable profiles (Profile 21) and draftees diagnosed as "not suitable for military service" are fully exempted from military obligations. The highest profile is 97.


title: Conscription in Israel

text: Although the conscription is officially compulsory, in practice a significant percentage of the population does not enlist for various reasons. Among other things, recent decades have seen a growing, but still very rare, phenomenon of draft dodging from military service, mainly due to conscience or political reasons (See Refusal to serve in the IDF). Exemptions have come under attack on grounds of fairness, and also because of a perceived shortage of combat personnel.


title: Conscription in Israel

text: Yeshiva students who declare that "Torah study is their occupation" (, "Torato Umanuto") can delay their conscription as long as they continue their studies, under the so-called "Tal Law" (see: Tal Committee). In practice, many of them end up never serving at all. This is a very controversial issue in Israel and key component of religious relations in Israel. Several attempts were made to change the practice, notably the establishment of the Tal committee in 1999, which led to the "Tal Law", implemented in 2002. Yet the "Torato Umanuto" exemption continued largely unchanged. The Tal Law was later ruled unconstitutional in its current form, and a replacement is needed before August 2012. Most beneficiaries of this exemption are Haredi Jews. Members of the Religious Zionist sector often serve within a separate system called Hesder, a concept developed by Rabbi Yehuda Amital, which combines advanced Talmudic studies with military service in the Israel Defense Forces. The IDF also tends to make the military service easier for recruits at an older age and recruits with families; as well as high-ranked sportspeople and artists (musicians, models, actors, and social media influencers) of note.


title: Conscription in Israel

text: From time to time a public debate emerges in Israel around the issue of exemption from military service in Israel.


title: Conscription in Israel

text: A basic law of Israel is the Israeli Defense Service Law. It lists the guidelines and regulations of mandated military service in Israel. Some regulation includes age, duties, service requirements, time of service, etc. Chapter 5: Reserve Service: Going Abroad covers the rules and requirements for going on becoming a temporary reserve and going abroad.


title: Conscription in Israel

text: (a) A person designated for defense service and a person of military age who belongs to the regular forces of the Israel Defense Forces shall not go abroad unless granted a permit from the Minister of Defense.


title: Conscription in Israel

text: (b) A person of military age the continuance of whose regular service has been deferred for any reason shall not go abroad during the period of deferment save under a permit from the Minister of Defense.


title: Conscription in Israel

text: (c) A permit under this section may be unconditional or subject to conditions, including a condition relating to the holder's stay abroad.


title: Conscription in Israel

text: (e) Where any of the conditions of the permit is not fulfilled, the Minister of Defense may revoke the permit and may direct him, by order, to return to Israel within the time prescribed in the order.


title: Conscription in Israel

text: (f) The Minister of Defense shall not exercise his power under subsection (e) before he has given the holder of the permit an opportunity to state his case to him.


title: Conscription in Israel

text: The IDF had strict restraints on letting individuals go into the reserves, even if just temporarily because of their high risk of attack from neighboring states. Through the dissolution of partnerships and peace treaties in recent years, that threat has reduced considerably. Consequently, the high demand for IDF soldiers has slightly decreased as well.


title: Conscription in Israel

text: The Army calls upon a potential soldier in a letter and this is called the "First Calling" or Tzav Rishon. This letter states that the teenager must report to a certain place at a certain time for a day-long examination and interviewing.


title: Conscription in Israel

text: After careful looking over of the Tzav Rishon's results the army will call the people to enlist when they turn a certain age to begin the army process and basic training.


title: Conscription in Israel

text: There are various routes which allow the draftees to postpone the date of recruitment. An automatic postponement is granted for student to graduate from high school. Additional routes which lead to the postponing of the recruitment:


title: Conscription in Israel

text: During the drafting process sometimes draftees get exempted from the draft because of incompatibility. Sometimes the incompatibility of an individual is determined later on during his or her military service, and leads to dismissal from the army. The incompatibility may stem from various reasons:


title: Conscription in Israel

text: When there is a surplus of recruits, the military often raises the threshold required of recruits, and grants an exemption due to incompatibility to a much larger number of recruits. In addition, there is a widespread phenomenon of granting exemption from military service because of incompatibility to female candidates who were identified as having a low medical profile and/or low motivation to serve. In such cases the reason for the exemption would usually be stated as: "Excess of female recruits."


title: Conscription in Israel

text: The IDF can also determine that a draftee has adjustment difficulties. A soldier with adjustment difficulties would not serve as a combat soldier.


title: Conscription in Israel

text: A draftee found unfit for military service may still choose to volunteer for military service; their status will be similar to all the other draftees found to be fit for service. Once enlisted, these volunteers cannot choose to quit the military early.


title: Conscription in Israel

text: There is an alternative voluntary civilian national service in Israel for those that cannot or do not wish to serve in the Israel Defense Forces. Most participants are Jewish women from the Religious Zionist sector.


title: Conscription in Israel

text: The IDF has reportedly concluded that it will, at some point in the future, have to end conscription in favor of an all-volunteer force. Reasons include growing unpopularity of military service among Israeli youth, a growth in draft-dodging, and budgetary constraints that would prevent the IDF from conscripting all those eligible even if draft-dodging were not an issue. Israel is reportedly studying how the United States and European nations ended conscription and transitioned to all-volunteer forces, for a possible future transition.


title: Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger

text: The show succeeded "Mashin Sentai Kiramager", joining "Kamen Rider Saber", and later, "Kamen Rider Revice" in the Super Hero Time line-up on TV Asahi on March 7, 2021. The show's name comes from the titular team's catchphrase, . A direct sequel, titled "Avataro Sentai Donbrothers", aired following the finale.


title: Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger

text: One month ago, a strange phenomenon suddenly fused the human world with the parallel world of Kikaitopia. Despite this, the inhabitants of both worlds, humans and Kikainoids, quickly got along and live peacefully together.


title: Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger

text: In the present, however, their lives are threatened by Kikaitopia's evil rulers, the Tozitend Dynasty, who seek to conquer all parallel worlds. To face this new threat, a brave and energetic young man named Kaito Goshikida inherits the powers of all previous Super Sentai. Transforming into Zenkaizer, he joins forces with the Kikainoids Juran, Gaon, Magine, and Vroon to save the multiverse from Tozitend and find Kaito's missing parents as the Zenkaigers. The conflict later intensifies with the arrival of the World Pirates. Led by Zocks Goldtsuiker, who can transform into Twokaizer, the World Pirates oppose Tozitend in pursuit of their own objectives and occasionally ally with the Zenkaigers for the sake of it.


title: Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger

text: According to producer Shinichiro Shirakura, the show's diversity in its titular members, featuring a human and four Kikainoids, is due to the Super Sentai series' recurring themes of diversity in its group of protagonists while maintaining strong characters. The reason why Zenkaizer was chosen as the leader despite being colored white is to ensure that he would stand out in future crossovers when grouped alongside other Red Rangers. The four Kikainoids were based on the non-human members of "Uchu Sentai Kyuranger". Although "Zenkaiger" is open to the idea of featuring past heroes in certain episodes, Shirakura mentioned that it will not be done in a similar way to "Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger". As members of the Zenkaigers combine to form the series' mecha, ZenkaiOh, the original plan was for their combined forms to appear human-sized at first, but as the show needed to keep up with the toy releases, this idea was scrapped and eventually implemented in the sequel series "Avataro Sentai Donbrothers" through the titular group's mecha, Don Onitaijin.


title: Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger

text: After series voice actor Tatsuhisa Suzuki chose to go on hiatus, his role as Gege was rendered voiceless between episodes 21 and 25. Toei later announced Masaya Fukunishi will take over the role of Gege from episode 25 onward.


title: Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger

text: "Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger" is ranked 19th place in the 2021's "100 Internet Buzzwords" in Japan, held by Nico Nico Pedia and Pixiv Encyclopedia. The physical award is given to Toei's producers of the series, Shinichiro Shirakura, Naomi Takebe, Kōichi Yada and Akihiro Fukada during the award ceremony in December 15, 2021.


title: Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger

text: is a film which serves as the Zenkaigers' official debut and was released in Japanese theaters on February 20, 2021 as part of , alongside "Mashin Sentai Kiramager the Movie: Be-Bop Dream" and "Kishiryu Sentai Ryusoulger Special: Memory of Soulmates". Naoya Makoto, Kei Hosogai, and Jingi Irie reprise their respective roles as Tsuyoshi Kaijo/Akarenger, Basco Ta Jolokia, and Zamigo Delma. Additionally, Nobutoshi Canna and Megumi Han reprise their respective voice roles as Bangray and Kyuemon Izayoi. The events of the film take place between episode 6 of the regular series and the companion web series "Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger Spin-Off: Zenkai Red Great Introduction!".


title: Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger

text: is a crossover film released on July 22, 2021, starring the cast from "Zenkaiger" and "Kamen Rider Saber", as well as featuring characters from past entries of the franchises involved. The film is part of the celebrations for both the 45th anniversary of the "Super Sentai" franchise and the 50th anniversary of the "Kamen Rider" franchise, and serves as the final crossover between them. Actors Fuku Suzuki and Ayumi Tanida portrayed Shotaro Ishinomori and the film's main antagonist, Asmodeus, respectively. Moreover, Kenjirō Ishimaru of "Kamen Rider Den-O"; Takashi Ukaji of "Kamen Rider OOO"; So Okuno of "Kamen Rider Zi-O"; Fumiya Takahashi of "Kamen Rider Zero-One"; Shogo Suzuki of "Samurai Sentai Shinkenger"; Atomu Mizuishi of "Mashin Sentai Kiramager"; and Hiroshi Fujioka of "Kamen Rider" (1971 - 1973) reprise their respective roles while Naoya Makoto of "Himitsu Sentai Gorenger"; Toshihiko Seki, Kōji Yusa, Masaki Terasoma, and Kenichi Suzumura of "Kamen Rider Den-O"; Tetsu Inada of "Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger"; and M·A·O and Hiroshi Kamiya of "Uchu Sentai Kyuranger"; and Rikiya Koyama of "Kamen Rider Zi-O" reprise their respective voice roles. Additionally, the two main characters of the then-upcoming "Kamen Rider Revice" made their first appearances and a prequel film for the series was double billed with "Super Hero Senki". The events of the film take place between the two-part "Movie Release Commemorative Combo Special" and episode 21 of the series.


title: Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger

text: is an upcoming V-Cinema release that features a crossover between "Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger" and "Mashin Sentai Kiramager". The V-Cinema is scheduled for a limited theatrical release on April 29, 2022, followed by its DVD and Blu-ray release on September 28, 2022. Additionally, Ryota Ozawa of "Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger" and Asahi Ito of "Kaitou Sentai Lupinranger VS Keisatsu Sentai Patranger" will reprise their respective roles as Captain Marvelous/Gokai Red and Kairi Yano/Lupin Red. The events of the V-Cinema take place after the final episode of the series.


title: The Mentalist (season 5)

text: The fifth season of the CBS police procedural series "The Mentalist" premiered on September 30, 2012. As of this season, "The Mentalist" was scheduled to air on Sundays at 10:00 pm ET. The fourth, eighth and nineteenth episode of this season aired at 11:00 pm ET. The season finale aired on May 5, 2013.


title: The Mentalist (season 5)

text: All 22 episodes were included on the five disc complete fifth season set. It was released on September 17, 2013 in Region 1, October 14, 2013 in Region 2, and October 16, 2013 in Region 4. It included the featurettes "The Artistry of Action: From Script to Screen" and "Arresting Excitement: Keeping it Real with the CBI".


title: University of Bradford

text: The University of Bradford is a public research university located in the city of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. A plate glass university, it received its royal charter in 1966, making it the 40th university to be created in Britain, but can trace its origins back to the establishment of the industrial West Yorkshire town's Mechanics Institute in 1832.


title: University of Bradford

text: The student population includes undergraduate and postgraduate students. Mature students make up around a third of the undergraduate community. A total of 22% of students are foreign and come from over 110 countries. There were 14,406 applications to the university through UCAS in 2010, of which 3,421 were accepted.


title: University of Bradford

text: It was the first British university to establish a Department of Peace Studies in 1973, which is currently the world's largest university centre for the study of peace and conflict.


title: University of Bradford

text: The university's origins date back to "the Mechanics Institute", founded in 1832, formed in response to the need in the city for workers with skills relevant to the workplace. In 1882, the institute became the "Bradford Technical College". In 1957, the "Bradford Institute of Technology", was formed as a "College of Advanced Technology" to take on the running of higher education courses. Construction of the Richmond Building, the largest building on campus, began in 1963. The Horton Building and Chesham Building were subsequently added, on the opposite side of Richmond Road.


title: University of Bradford

text: The charter of incorporation was granted in 1966, to create the University of Bradford; the then Prime Minister Harold Wilson became the university's first chancellor. In 1970s the university became an important international centre in the field of Yugoslav studies with the establishment of the University of Bradford Postgraduate School of Yugoslav Studies serving as a core institution in this effort. Research Unit in Yugoslav Studies at Bradford was established already in 1965 with significant involvement of British geographer Frederick Bernard Singleton. After her exile from South Africa AnnMarie Wolpe gained a post at the Bradford Department of Yugoslav Studies in 1963.


title: University of Bradford

text: Expansion of the main campus continued in the 1970s and onwards, with the addition of the Library and Computer Centre, Communal Building, Pemberton Building and Ashfield Building. An extension to the Library and Computer Centre was completed in the mid-1990s. In 1996, the university joined with the former Bradford and Airedale College of Health, which then became the School of Health Studies within the university. The Department of Physics was closed in the 1980s. The Department of Mathematics was closed to new undergraduates in 1997, with the remaining postgraduate activities and lecture support being integrated into the Department of Computing as the Mathematics Unit. The Department of Mathematics has since been reopened within the School of Computing, Informatics and Media.


title: University of Bradford

text: In September 2009, it was announced that the university was to merge with Leeds College of Music. The college had originally announced a merger with Leeds Metropolitan University in April 2009. However, discussions broke down due to issues with the provision of further education courses at the college.


title: University of Bradford

text: It was later announced that this merger would not go ahead due to financial constraints. LCM's degrees are now validated by the University of Hull.


title: University of Bradford

text: In 2005, a project to become an 'Ecoversity' was initiated, along with an £84 million redevelopment of the campus. The university aimed to reduce its environmental footprint by reducing waste and using sustainable materials. As part of this, Bradford became a Fairtrade University in December 2006.


title: University of Bradford

text: As of 2008, several of the redevelopment projects have been completed. The Richmond Building has been partially re-clad with extra insulation and a new atrium; designed by local Saltaire-based architects Rance Booth & Smith; opened in December 2006, the roof of which uses ETFE – the same material used in the Eden Project. The university's cancer therapeutics research centre was moved from a separate site on All Saint's Road onto the main campus, into a new building which also provides conference facilities; the buildings on the old site were demolished in February 2008.


title: University of Bradford

text: Redevelopment of the sports facilities was completed in summer 2009, and a new student village called "The Green" was constructed which opened in September 2011. The Green has the highest ever BREEAM rating for any building. Of the existing halls owned by the university, those on the Laisteridge Lane site were sold to "Corporate Residential Management" in 2005, and Shearbridge Green Halls were demolished in December 2006. Longside Lane halls and Kirkstone Halls were demolished during the first half of 2009.


title: University of Bradford

text: The university has a "leading-edge 100-seat PC cluster" for teaching, learning and computer-based assessment, and there is an art gallery, theatre and music centre. The £84 million investment in the campus included a major refurbishment of the laboratories in the school of life sciences, creation of a new MBA suite and library at the school of management, refurbishment of the student union building, Student Central.


title: University of Bradford

text: The university has won its campus the award for ‘Outstanding Contribution to Sustainable Development’ in The Times Higher Education Awards two years running.


title: University of Bradford

text: The J. B. Priestley library is open 24 hours, 360 days a year, it has 530,000 volumes, more than 1,100 printed periodical titles and approximately 60,000 electronic journals.


title: University of Bradford

text: The first vice-chancellor was Dr E.G. Edwards, who as principal of the Bradford Institute of Technology took over the new institution.


title: University of Bradford

text: The Green, which opened September 2011, is a £40 million purpose built student accommodation village. Designed for eco-friendly living, The Green has the highest ever BREEAM rating for any building (95.05%), awarded for sustainable building development and operation. It is also the first BREEAM 'Outstanding' student accommodation in the country.


title: University of Bradford

text: There are four academic faculties. These were previously called "schools" but changed their name in 2014 to avoid confusion with the sub-units also sometimes called schools. Many buildings and facilities, such as lecture theatres, are shared and used by all faculties.


title: University of Bradford

text: On 1 October 2013, the School of Engineering, Design and Technology and the School of Computing, Informatics and Media were merged to form the Faculty of Engineering and Informatics. Three schools make up this new overarching Faculty: the School of Engineering (Mechanical and Energy Systems Engineering, Biomedical and Electronics Engineering, Civil and Structural Engineering & Chemical Engineering programmes), the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (Electrical & Electronic Engineering, Computing & Maths programmes) and the School of Media, Design & Technology (Media & Design programmes).


title: University of Bradford

text: The second-largest school in the university consists of the departments of Computing, Bradford Media School (BMS), Creative Technology (CT) and Mathematics.


title: University of Bradford

text: SCIM offers over 40 undergraduate degrees and postgraduate study in various areas including computing, ICT, robotics, mathematics, media and television. The School has a very lively research culture with over 100 students registered for MPhil/PhD.


title: University of Bradford

text: The Department of Computing was one of the first in the UK to run an MSc course in Computing in 1967. Undergraduate courses began in 1970.


title: University of Bradford

text: The EIMC department was founded in 1991 and developed its courses in conjunction with the School of Art, Design & Textiles at Bradford and Ilkley Community College (now known as Bradford College) and the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television (now the National Media Museum). It was one of the first departments to offer BSc courses in media technology, going on to introduce some of the first animation and computer games degrees, and more recently expanding to offer a new range of similar BA courses. Today, SCIM no longer works in association with the college, but has strengthened its relationship with the nearby National Media Museum. In association with the Department of Computing, it obtained a research grade 4 at RAE 2001.


title: University of Bradford

text: A non-linear video editing / training suite is named in honour of the Shipley born film director Tony Richardson, and was opened by his daughter, the film actress Natasha Richardson in 1996.


title: University of Bradford

text: In 2007 the School launched a partnership with East Coast Media at the Grimsby Institute and the National Media Museum to bid for Skillset Media Academy status, which was granted in 2008. Accreditation mainly covers courses in the Bradford Media School.


title: University of Bradford

text: A core part of the school is the Innovations Unit, which offers the expertise of specialists within SCIM to commercial and social enterprises. This collaboration is part of a government initiative called Knowledge Transfer, which also includes partnerships with national and international companies. The IIU is also home to "Simula", which using knowledge transfer and resources for commercial projects including the school's motion capture suite for video games including Driver Parallel Lines, World Snooker Championships and GTR.


title: University of Bradford

text: The university inherited several engineering courses from the Bradford Institute of Technology and some of these courses, such as Civil Engineering, are still taught today. All of the engineering courses are accredited by their relevant institute. The school also has a large number of both undergraduate and postgraduate design and technology courses. Its research areas include automotive engineering, polymers, telecommunications and advanced materials engineering.


title: University of Bradford

text: From the establishment of the university in 1966, the individual branches of engineering were taught in separate departments. When reorganisation of the three faculties of the university took place, a single School of Engineering, Design and Technology was created and incorporated the Department of Mechanical Engineering, the Department of Civil & Structural Engineering, the Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering and the Department of Industrial Studies. The Department of Chemical Engineering was closed shortly before the creation of the new school. However, in 2010, an undergraduate programme in Chemical Engineering was re-launched in 2010 with support from the Institute of Chemical Engineers – the first graduates from the three year BEng version of this course graduated in June 2013. In 2012 a postgraduate course was also launched.


title: University of Bradford

text: Faculty of Health Studies was formerly the School of Nursing and Bradford and Airedale University of Health, this became part of the university in 1996; previously it was an associate college with the university validating its degrees. The School has moved to the main city campus, into the Horton A building which underwent major refurbishment in 2011. The Horton building was extended and another floor added to accommodate the School of Nursing. The School of Nursing was previously located on a separate site on Trinity Road, about 10 minutes walk from the main campus and near to St Luke's Hospital.


title: University of Bradford

text: It specialises in degrees in nursing, physiotherapy, midwifery, occupational therapy and radiography. A specialist drug therapy course is run by the department and there are also part-time courses in dementia care. The department's student demographics are largely female, with a higher proportion of mature students.


title: University of Bradford

text: The Faculty of Life Sciences has the most students of all of the schools, with more than 2,000 students admitted to a variety of undergraduate courses in the areas of Biomedical Sciences, Chemical and Forensic Science, Clinical Sciences, Optometry, Pharmacy and Archaeological, Geographical and Environmental Sciences.


title: University of Bradford

text: The Bradford School of Optometry and Vision Science (BSOVS) has its own Eye Clinic, situated in the DHEZ - Phoenix South West Building, providing Primary Care for the local community in conjunction with a student training facility. BSOVS also provides a variety of other clinical services (e.g. an Electro-diagnostic Unit opened October 2010) that people may be referred to by practitioners.


title: University of Bradford

text: The Division of Chemical and Forensic Science runs a number of forensic science courses in conjunction with the Division of Biomedical Sciences and further undergraduate and postgraduate courses are being developed in the area of Biotechnology. The Division of Biomedical Sciences is also a contributor the Clinical Sciences degree, which commenced in 2002. Although the Division of Clinical Sciences provides a degree in its own right, as importantly there is provision for students to transfer to Leeds Medical School's MBChB programme.


title: University of Bradford

text: The Centre for Skin Sciences is one of the largest academic centres in Britain for fundamental and translational skin and hair follicle research.


title: University of Bradford

text: The Institute of Cancer Therapeutics has an excellent reputation for research and there is very close collaboration with staff from other divisions within the School.


title: University of Bradford

text: The Division of Archaeological, Geographical and Environmental Sciences is located in refurbished, late 19th century mill buildings, housing extensive specialist facilities. Formerly a separate school, it was merged with Life Sciences in 2006.


title: University of Bradford

text: The Faculty of Management, Law, and Social Sciences is a recent merger. Until 2018 Social Sciences was separate. Management and Law, consisting of Bradford School of Management and the Law School was previously located away from the main campus on a parkland campus, Emm Lane. In 2019, the university moved its Faculty of Management, Law and Social Sciences to its main city centre campus. It teaches courses in business, finance, accountancy, management and marketing. As of 2005 the department commenced teaching an accredited LLB law degree. It has a number of master's degrees, MBA programmes and doctoral programmes running alongside undergraduate programmes.


title: University of Bradford

text: Its research is both international and interdisciplinary and has five main research groups covering all the main areas of management, and co-operative links and exchange agreements with 20 universities in America, Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Holland, Spain and Sweden.


title: University of Bradford

text: The School of Management has full Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) accreditation for DBA and PhD programmes, portfolio Association of MBAs accreditation for MBA programmes and EQUIS accreditation.


title: University of Bradford

text: The School of Social and International Studies covers the areas of development, economics, humanities (including English and history), politics, international relations, peace studies, psychology, criminology and social work. The school offers a range of taught undergraduate and postgraduate courses and has a number of active research areas, especially in conflict resolution. The school is actively engaged in the Programme for a Peaceful City initiative.


title: University of Bradford

text: It contains six division (some of which were previously called Departments or Schools) Divisions of Economics, Peace Studies, International Development (BCID), Sociology and Criminology, Psychology and finally Social Care and Social Work.


title: University of Bradford

text: The Centre for Psychology Studies offers a psychology course for undergraduates, accredited by the British Psychological Society. In 2008, Lord Winston officially opened new state of the art psychology laboratories, for teaching and research. One of the university's most popular courses, The National Student Survey ranked Psychology at Bradford as being within the Top 5 in the UK with 94% Student Satisfaction.


title: University of Bradford

text: The motto which appears on most current University of Bradford publications is "Making Knowledge Work", which relates to the institution's focus on courses that lead to employment. The university announced in June 2007 it was to use this phrase as a trademark.


title: University of Bradford

text: However, the motto inscribed beneath the official coat of arms is "Give Invention Light", which is taken from Shakespeare's Sonnet 38. The university has also used the slogans "Be Inspired" and "Confronting Inequality, Celebrating Diversity" in recent promotional material.


title: University of Bradford

text: "The Times" Good University Guide ranked Bradford 7th in UK for graduate employment in 2005 and 2nd in 2006.


title: University of Bradford

text: The university has a strong reputation for research and knowledge transfer. It is ranked in the Top 50 English Universities based on research funding (HEFCE 2009–10).


title: University of Bradford

text: Staff-student ratios are amongst the best in the UK (The University of Bradford is in the 2nd quartile for staff-student ratios in The Independent, The Times and The Guardian League Tables). The 2008 RAE reported that 80 per cent of academics at the university who submitted research to the panel are doing international or world-leading research.


title: University of Bradford

text: Membership at the University of Bradford's Students' Union (UBU), is automatic upon confirmation of enrolment. UBU has advice services, a radio station, and runs many societies and sports clubs. The union is run by an annually elected Council, which includes an executive committee of six full-time sabbatical officers and nine non-sabbatical officers. The sabbaticals are slightly unusual within the sector, in having a ‘flat structure’, lacking a Union President: the post was abolished by then President Shumon Rahman in 2001.


title: University of Bradford

text: The union is located in the Student Central building on campus, alongside the university bars, a cafe and shop, and the library. Union of Students (UBU) is available to assist students by giving necessary advice and information.


title: University of Bradford

text: Students may make use of the ‘Unique’ centre which is located on campus. Facilities include a fitness suite, an indoor 25-metre swimming pool and a climbing wall.


title: University of Bradford

text: The largest student involvement in their Union comes in the forms of the sports clubs (through the Athletics Union, commonly known as the AU), and the societies (through the Societies Federation). There is a wide variety of both, including many course related societies such as the Bradford Ophthalmic Optics Student Association. Students are also free to start their own societies.


title: University of Bradford

text: The Student Union also has Ramair, one of the UK's longest running student radio stations, as well as a student newspaper and the long-established Bradford Student Cinema that regularly screens recent releases to students and staff for free. RamAir hosted the Student Radio Conference in 2012 with student Ian Thursfield winning a national award for Radio in 2011.


title: University of Bradford

text: The university were champions of University Challenge in 1979 on 28 January 1979, when Bradford defeated Lancaster University in the third leg by 215 points to 160. It was less successful in 2004, achieving only 35 points, the joint 3rd lowest score ever recorded on the show.


title: Cornus

text: Cornus is a genus of about 30–60 species of woody plants in the family Cornaceae, commonly known as dogwoods, which can generally be distinguished by their blossoms, berries, and distinctive bark. Most are deciduous trees or shrubs, but a few species are nearly herbaceous perennial subshrubs, and some species are evergreen. Several species have small heads of inconspicuous flowers surrounded by an involucre of large, typically white petal-like bracts, while others have more open clusters of petal-bearing flowers. The various species of dogwood are native throughout much of temperate and boreal Eurasia and North America, with China, Japan, and the southeastern United States being particularly rich in native species.


title: Cornus

text: Species include the common dogwood "Cornus sanguinea" of Eurasia, the widely cultivated flowering dogwood "(Cornus florida)" of eastern North America, the Pacific dogwood "Cornus nuttallii" of western North America, the Kousa dogwood "Cornus kousa" of eastern Asia, and two low-growing boreal species, the Canadian and Eurasian dwarf cornels (or bunchberries), "Cornus canadensis" and "Cornus suecica" respectively.


title: Cornus

text: Depending on botanical interpretation, the dogwoods are variously divided into one to nine genera or subgenera; a broadly inclusive genus "Cornus" is accepted here.


title: Cornus

text: The name "cornel" dates to the 1550s, via German from Middle Latin "cornolium", ultimately from the diminutive "cornuculum", of "cornum", the Latin word for the cornel cherry. "Cornus" means "horn",


title: Cornus

text: presumably applied to the cherry after the example of κερασός, the Greek word for "cherry", which itself is of pre-Greek origin but reminiscent of κέρας, the Greek word for "horn".


title: Cornus

text: The name "dog-tree" entered the English vocabulary before 1548, becoming "dogwood" by 1614. Once the name dogwood was affixed to this kind of tree, it soon acquired a secondary name as the Hound's Tree, while the fruits came to be known as "dogberries" or "houndberries" (the latter a name also for the berries of black nightshade, alluding to Hecate's hounds).