title: Barry Allen (DC Extended Universe)

text: During the battle under Gotham Harbor, Allen is more confident in his abilities. Prior to Kent's resurrection, Allen mistakes Stone's "no" for "go", charging up the Mother Box, and he is also shown crashing into Curry as the amnesiac Kent dodges an attack from him. Stone is also the one who discovers that Steppenwolf's base is in Russia, not Allen. During the final battle, Allen is assigned to provide an extra spark to help Stone pull apart the Mother Boxes. He fails the first time around as he is shot by a parademon while charging up his speed, allowing the "Unity" time to form, which kills the team and begins destroying the Earth. However, after regaining his confidence and healing himself, he manages to enter the Speed Force, running faster than the speed of light to reverse time and save his teammates from annihilation. He assists Stone in separating the boxes, allowing the team to defeat and kill Steppenwolf.


title: Barry Allen (DC Extended Universe)

text: Following the battle, Allen enthusiastically remains part of the team and obtains an entry-level job with the Central City police department to his father's approval.


title: Barry Allen (DC Extended Universe)

text: In the intermittent years, Allen became one of the world's best known superheroes with his image and powers becoming ingrained into popular culture.


title: Barry Allen (DC Extended Universe)

text: At some point, Allen encountered another version of himself (played by Grant Gustin) in the Speed Force. The two have a brief exchange, discovering they are the same person from different universes, and that the second Allen has adopted the monikor of "The Flash". Oblivious to the crisis the Flash is facing, Allen fades out from the Speed Force. This encounter led to Allen's own eventual adoption of the superhero moniker "The Flash."


title: Barry Allen (DC Extended Universe)

text: The vigilante Peacemaker claims to have met Allen, describing him as an 'unbearable d-bag'. Allen, alongside Prince, Kent and Curry, arrive to assist Peacemaker in fighting a group of parasitic aliens named The Butterflies, albeit too late, and are insulted by a frustrated and disdainful Peacemaker as a result.


title: Barry Allen (DC Extended Universe)

text: Shortly after, Allen's prototype suit was destroyed following a skirmish with the supervillain Girder. Following a series of training sessions in order for Allen to reach his full potential, Bruce Wayne created a new suit for Allen using nanotechnology in order for it to be carried around in a ring.


title: Barry Allen (DC Extended Universe)

text: In a dark potential future seen in visions by Bruce Wayne and Victor Stone, Darkseid has taken over the world after turning it into an apocalyptic wasteland and corrupted Superman into his second-in-command after killing Lois Lane. Flash, Batman, Cyborg, Mera, Deathstroke, and Joker are seen being hunted by the brainwashed Superman in one of these visions. Allen is shown to have travelled from this future reality back to 2015 to tell Wayne that Lane "is the key" and to "find the others" before disappearing, implying that he is trying to prevent Lane's death.


title: Barry Allen (DC Extended Universe)

text: At some point, Allen encountered another version of himself (played by Grant Gustin) in the Speed Force. The two Allens have a brief exchange, discovering they are the same person from different universes, and that the second Allen has adopted the moniker of "The Flash". Oblivious to the crisis the Flash is facing, Allen fades out from the Speed Force. This encounter led to Allen's own eventual adoption of the superhero moniker "The Flash."


title: Barry Allen (DC Extended Universe)

text: Miller's performance in the theatrical cut of "Justice League" was praised as one of the film's highlights, despite the overall mixed-to-negative reviews for the film as a whole. In particular, Steve Persall of the "Tampa Bay Times" noted that "Ezra Miller's hyper-fast Flash is another sort of amusing, his fanboy spirit speaking for the audience while the CGI lightning trailing him is one of the movie's defining effects. The Flash's expression upon realizing he isn't the fastest person in the world is priceless, setting up the first of two end credits sequences." However, certain aspects of the character, such as an awkward-looking running motion and "forced" jokes as part of Joss Whedon's rewrites of the film, including the infamous "brunch" line and Flash falling on Wonder Woman's chest during the Gotham Harbor battle, were criticized.


title: Barry Allen (DC Extended Universe)

text: Despite his lone major film role and numerous cameos at the time, the DCEU version of Flash was praised as a better-written character than his counterpart in the Arrowverse by Erik Kain of "Forbes". Writing shortly after the premiere of "Justice League", Kain writes that Ezra Miller's rendition of the character, despite being socially-awkward and having far less character development than Grant Gustin's version, is more likeable as a "quirky genius superhero" and is not tied down by "bad soap opera writing, propensity to lie all the time, and episode upon episode of filler" like his television counterpart.


title: Barry Allen (DC Extended Universe)

text: Ezra Miller's performance and characterization in "Zack Snyder's Justice League" was also well-received with critics praising Barry Allen's increased confidence and chemistry with other characters, reduced "cringe-worthy" one liners, and his more integral role in the final battle, as compared to the theatrical cut. Tom Jergensen from IGN wrote: "He remains the comic relief character and fills that role well, as he's still a green enough hero to freak out when entering the Batcave for the first time. Snyder doubles down on Flash in the finale, with spectacular use of the Speed Force that raises the bar for his eventual solo film." The "Speed Force" scene from this cut of the film was later voted by fans as the winner of the "Oscars Cheer Moment" at the 94th Academy Awards.


title: Barry Allen (DC Extended Universe)

text: After a series of grooming allegations and disorderly conduct arrests, Miller's participation in " The Flash" began to cause controversy with some fans campaigning that the role be recast. Reportedly, Grant Gustin trended often on the social media site Twitter as a replacement due to his work with the character in the television series. It was reported by Deadline, that although Miller would play the role in the solo film - Warner Bros will not 'likely keep Miller in the Flash role in future DC films'.


title: Barry Allen (DC Extended Universe)

text: The plot description and characterization were adapted from Flash and Justice League (film) at the DC Extended Universe Wiki, which are available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license.


title: Frankie Rayder

text: Francesca "Frankie" Rayder (born Heidi A. Rayder; January 26, 1975) is an American model. She has a portfolio of covergirl appearances for high fashion magazines and was once a VH1/Vogue Fashion Awards for Model of the Year nominee. She has performed in runway shows, including the annual Victoria's Secret Fashion Show four times and the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue twice. She has also been featured in print ad campaigns. At the peak of her fame, she was an it girl according to "The New York Times" and "GQ" once named her the Sexiest Woman in the World.


title: Frankie Rayder

text: She is known for her print work for "Sports Illustrated" swimsuit issues, The Gap holiday ads, a Godiva Chocolatier ad campaign, and the 50th anniversary Ann Taylor ad campaign. She has appeared on the cover of "Vogue", "Vogue Paris", "Vogue Italia", "British Vogue", "German Vogue" and "Vogue España".


title: Frankie Rayder

text: Rayder was engaged to Red Hot Chili Peppers bass player, Flea, with whom she has one child. After giving birth in 2005, she took a hiatus from modeling until 2008. At first, she returned only to print work, but she also returned to runway modeling in 2009. She has a younger sister, Missy Rayder, who is also a fashion model.


title: Frankie Rayder

text: Rayder was born in River Falls, Wisconsin, where she was known as Heidi Rayder. As a teenager, she moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, a large city close to her home town, where she was first approached by a model scout who spurred her interest in the industry. Her first major success came in 1992, when she met photographer Steven Meisel. Meisel booked her for a photo session, which became the first of many. Rayder's first session was soon featured in the magazine "Italian Glamour". She is a graduate of River Falls High School, where she played for the basketball team, and she began her modeling career with Caryn Modeling & Talent Agency in Minneapolis. She worked at a golf clubhouse in her youth. She was given the stage name Francesca to seem more exotic.


title: Frankie Rayder

text: Rayder made her Paris runway debut on the 1997 fall runway for designers like Chanel, Christian Lacroix, and Dries van Noten. In 1998, she was in high demand and her booking prices were sometimes bid up to $25,000 by clients hoping to pay her enough to cancel other appearances. In 1999, she became the face of Givenchy and Meisel photographed her for Dolce & Gabbana and Versace ad campaigns. In the fall of 2000, "The New York Times" referred to her and her sister collectively as the famous Rayder Sisters. At the same time, it also described Frankie as an it girl.


title: Frankie Rayder

text: In 1999, she became the face of Givenchy. During New York Fashion Week 1999, Rayder was booked solid for four or five shows a day for designers such as Marc Jacobs, Badgley Mischka, Daryl K, Tommy Hilfiger and John Bartlett in typical day. In 2000, she was one of the top-priced models. That season she modelled in the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. Later that year she was a nominee at the 2000 VH1/Vogue Fashion Awards for Model of the year along with Gisele Bündchen, Carmen Kass, Angela Lindvall, and Maggie Rizer, but Kass was the winner after defending-winner Bundchen withdrew to host the show.


title: Frankie Rayder

text: In 2003 she became the face of Chanel. Rayder worked New York Fashion Week for top designers for several years. During the 40h Anniversary Swimsuit Issue shooting, Stewart Shining photographed Rayder. Rayder is, along with Cheryl Tiegs and Melissa Keller, one of several models associated with Minnesota who have made a name in the Swimsuit Issue. She has also appeared in 1999, 2000, 2002, and 2003 Victoria's Secret fashion shows and a cameo role in the 2001 movie "Zoolander". In the early 2000s, "GQ" named her the Sexiest Woman in the World.


title: Frankie Rayder

text: In 2004, she was one of the featured models (along with Linda Evangelista, Patti Hansen and her daughters Alexandra and Theodora Richards, Twiggy, and Beverly Johnson) in the 50-model 50th Anniversary Ann Taylor ad campaign photographed by Annie Leibovitz. Rayder was also mentioned in the press for several months for an ad campaign for Godiva Chocolatier. In 2005, she appeared in ads, which also included models such as Sophie Dahl, and Anouck Lepere, where the models posed lovingly with chocolate goods for Valentine's Day in "Vogue", "Harper's Bazaar", and "Elle". The promotion was for chocolate products that came with a "lottery" ticket that potentially could give the buyer 52 pairs of Manolo Blahnik shoes, including one custom-designed by Blahnik himself. The ads began receiving publicity in the fall of 2004.


title: Frankie Rayder

text: Between 2004 and 2009, Rayder took a hiatus from runway modeling. She returned to the stage in New York in February 2009 for the Fall 2009 show. She had previously made a return to print work in fall 2008 advertisement campaigns for both Stella McCartney and Roberto Cavalli and for the 2008 Gap holiday campaign. Rayder also became part of The Gap's United States and Japan 2009 spring/summer campaigns. As part of her comeback, Rayder performed covergirl work for the February 2009 "Vogue España" and one of fourteen alternative covers for the September 2008 "V magazine".


title: Frankie Rayder

text: Following her success, Rayder traveled to Miami Beach, New York, Paris, London, and Milan, working for a number of agencies such as Company, Women Model Management, Page 305, City Models, Take Two, Storm, and Why Not. Her advertisement portfolio includes Givenchy, Valentino, Lagerfeld, Chanel, Gucci, Dolce & Gabbana, Versace, DKNY, Gap, and Tommy Hilfiger. Rayder has also worked for designers such as Anne Klein, Matthew Williamson, Zac Posen, Marc Jacobs, Donna Karan, Carolina Herrera, and Michael Kors, and appeared in a number of magazines, including "Elle", "Vogue", "The Face", "Photo", "Harper's Bazaar", "Allure", "Rebel", and "Marie Claire". Her magazine cover credits include: "US Vogue" (November 2000), "Vogue Paris" (April 1999), "Vogue Italia" (January 1999), "British Vogue" (April 1999, July 1999, November 1999, January 2001), "German Vogue" (September 1997, May 2000), "Vogue España" (July 2000, January 2004, February 2009), "Vogue South Korea" (December 2000), "Vogue Brazil" (September 2000), "Elle" France (August 2000), Elle United States (August 2000), and Elle Germany (September 1992). She was also featured in the 2004 (40th Anniversary) and 2005 "Sports Illustrated" Swimsuit Issue. She appeared in the video for Phoenix's "Funky Squaredance," which was directed by her then-boyfriend Roman Coppola.


title: Frankie Rayder

text: In 2002 Rayder was falsely linked to Nicolas Cage after his relationship with Lisa Marie Presley ended and when she was dating his cousin Roman Coppola. Her relationship with Coppola was widely chronicled and serious; that year, she was close to marrying the son of Francis Ford Coppola by some accounts. Early in her career, Rayder and her sister Missy lived across the street from each other. They were featured together on the May 2000 cover of "Harper's Bazaar". The Rayder sisters (along with a third sister named Molly) appeared in holiday advertisements for Gap as siblings in 2003 to the tune of "Put a Little Love in Your Heart". In later years, the Rayder sisters appeared in Gap holiday advertisements as a pair.


title: Frankie Rayder

text: In 2004, Rayder started dating Red Hot Chili Peppers' bass player, Flea. In January 2005 the couple publicly announced their engagement. On October 26, 2005 Rayder gave birth to her first child, a daughter named Sunny Bebop Balzary. Flea's bandmate, John Frusciante, is Sunny's godfather. The song, "Hard to Concentrate" from the Red Hot Chili Peppers' 2006 album, "Stadium Arcadium" was written by Anthony Kiedis as a wedding proposal for Flea and Rayder. Rayder and Flea lived together in Malibu, California before separating.


title: Frankie Rayder

text: In the September 2010 issue of ‘’C’’ magazine, Rayder is featured with a group of women friends known as "The L.A. Ladies Choir" which meets at her and Flea's house in Los Feliz. The article goes on to mention that Flea is her husband and that he joins the women's group playing bass. The choir's group is coming out with their first album in September named "Joyfully."


title: Frankie Rayder

text: Rayder is a knowledgeable Boston Red Sox fan, and she is also a Green Bay Packers fan. Rayder has volunteered her time for programs for youth in the arts. Rayder has a tattoo on her back.


title: Klagenfurt

text: Klagenfurt am Wörthersee (; ; ), usually known as just Klagenfurt ( ), is the capital of the state of Carinthia in Austria. With a population of 103,009 (1 January 2022), it is the sixth-largest city in the country. The city is the bishop's seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Gurk-Klagenfurt and home to the University of Klagenfurt, the Carinthian University of Applied Sciences and the Gustav Mahler University of Music.


title: Klagenfurt

text: The city of Klagenfurt is in southern Austria, near the border with Slovenia. It is in the lower middle of Austria, almost the same distance from Innsbruck in the west as it is from Vienna in the northeast.


title: Klagenfurt

text: Klagenfurt is elevated above sea level and covers an area of . It is on the lake Wörthersee and on the Glan river. The city is surrounded by several forest covered hills and mountains, with heights of up to (for example Ulrichsberg). To the south of the city is the Karawanken mountain range, which separates Carinthia from bordering nations of Slovenia and Italy.


title: Klagenfurt

text: Klagenfurt is a statutory city of Carinthia, and the administrative seat of the district of Klagenfurt-Land, but is a separate district from Klagenfurt-Land. In fact, their licence plates are different (K for the city, KL for the district). Klagenfurt is divided itself into 16 districts:


title: Klagenfurt

text: It is further divided into 25 Katastralgemeinden. They are: Klagenfurt, Blasendorf, Ehrenthal, Goritschitzen, Großbuch, Großponfeld, Gurlitsch I, Hallegg, Hörtendorf, Kleinbuch, Lendorf, Marolla, Nagra, Neudorf, St. Martin bei Klagenfurt, St. Peter am Karlsberg, St. Peter bei Ebenthal, Sankt Peter am Bichl, St. Ruprecht bei Klagenfurt, Stein, Tentschach, Viktring, Waidmannsdorf, Waltendorf, and Welzenegg.


title: Klagenfurt

text: Klagenfurt has a typical continental climate, with a fair amount of fog throughout the autumn and winter. The rather cold winters are, however, broken up by occasional warmer periods due to foehn wind from the Karawanken mountains to the south. The average temperature from 1961 and 1990 was , while the average temperature in 2005 was .


title: Klagenfurt

text: Carinthia's eminent linguists Primus Lessiak and Eberhard Kranzmayer assumed that the city's name, which literally translates as "ford of lament" or "ford of complaints", had something to do with the superstitious thought that fateful fairies or demons tend to live around treacherous waters or swamps. In Old Slovene, "cviljovec" is a place haunted by such a wailing female ghost or "cvilya". Thus, they assumed that Klagenfurt's name was a translation made by the German settlers of the original Slovene name of the neighbouring wetland. However, the earliest Slovene mention of Klagenfurt in the form of "v Zelouzi" ("in Celovec", the Slovene name for Klagenfurt), dating from 1615, is 400 years more recent and thus could be a translation from German. The latest interpretation, on the other hand, is that the Old Slovene "cviljovec" itself goes back to an Italic "l'aquiliu" meaning a place at or in the water, which would make the wailing-hag theory obsolete.


title: Klagenfurt

text: Scholars had at various times attempted to explain the city's peculiar name: In the 14th century, the abbot and historiographer John of Viktring translated Klagenfurt's name in his "Liber certarum historiarum" as "Queremoniae Vadus", i.e. "ford of complaint", Hieronymus Megiser, Master of the university college of the Carinthian Estates in Klagenfurt and editor of the earliest printed history of the duchy in 1612, believed to have found the origin of the name in a "ford across the River Glan", which, however, is impossible for linguistic reasons. The common people also sought an explanation: A baker's apprentice was accused of theft and executed, but when a few days afterwards the alleged theft turned out to be a mistake and the lad was proved to be totally innocent, the citizens' "lament" ("Klagen") went forth and forth". This story was reported by Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, who later became Pope Pius II.


title: Klagenfurt

text: In 2007, the city changed its official name to "Klagenfurt am Wörthersee" (i.e., Klagenfurt on Lake Wörth). However, since there are no other settlements by the name of "Klagenfurt" anywhere, the previous shorter name remains ubiquitous.


title: Klagenfurt

text: Legend has it that Klagenfurt was founded after a group of brave men slayed an abominable winged "lindwurm" from the moors adjoining the lake, which was preying on the nearby duchy. The legend says that a tower at the edge of the moor was erected to watch out for the dragon, and that the dragon was baited using a bull fitted with a chain and hook, which caught the beast's palatal. A village was subsequently founded on the battlesite, which later expanded into a town, while the watchtower made way for a castle. The feat is commemorated by a grandiose 9-ton Renaissance monument in the city centre.


title: Klagenfurt

text: Historically, the place was founded by the Spanheim Duke Herman as a stronghold sited across the commercial routes in the area. Its first mention dates from the late 12th century in a document in which Duke Ulric II. exempted St. Paul's Abbey from the toll charge "in "foro Chlagenvurth"". That settlement occupied an area that was subject to frequent flooding, so in 1246 Duke Herman's son, Duke Bernhard von Spanheim, moved it to a safer position and is thus considered to be the actual founder of the market place, which in 1252 received a city charter.


title: Klagenfurt

text: In the following centuries, Klagenfurt suffered fires, earthquakes, invasions of locusts, and attacks from Ottomans, and was ravaged by the Peasants' Wars. In 1514, a fire almost completely destroyed the city, and in 1518 Emperor Maximilian I, unable to rebuild it, despite the loud protests of the citizens, ceded Klagenfurt to the Estates, the nobility of the Duchy. Never before had such a thing happened. The new owners, however, brought about an economic renaissance and the political and cultural ascendancy in Klagenfurt. A canal was dug to connect the city to the lake as a supply route for timber to rebuild the city and to feed the city's new moats; the noble families had their town-houses built in the duchy's new capital; the city was enlarged along a geometrical chequer-board lay-out according to the Renaissance ideas of the Italian architect Domenico dell'Allio; a new city centre square, the "Neuer Platz", was constructed; and the new fortifications that took half a century to build made Klagenfurt the strongest fortress north of the Alps.


title: Klagenfurt

text: In 1809, however, the French troops (under Napoleon) destroyed the city walls, leaving, against a large sum collected by the citizens, only one eastern gate (which was pulled down to make way for traffic some decades later), and the small stretch in the west which is now all that is left of the once grand fortifications. In 1863, the railway connection to St. Veit an der Glan boosted the city's economy and so did the building of the Vienna-Trieste railway that brought to the city an imposing central station (destroyed in World War II) and solidified Klagenfurt as the centre of the region.


title: Klagenfurt

text: During the 19th century, the city developed into an important centre of Carinthian Slovene culture. Many important Slovene public figures lived, studied or worked in Klagenfurt, among them Anton Martin Slomšek, who later became the first bishop of Maribor and was beatified in 1999, the philologists Jurij Japelj and Anton Janežič, the politician Andrej Einspieler, and the activist Matija Majar. The Slovene national poet France Prešeren also spent a short part of his professional career there. On the initiative of bishop Slomšek, teacher Anton Janežič and vicar Andrej Einspieler on 27 July 1851 in Klagenfurt the Hermagoras Society publishing house was founded, which in 1919 moved to Prevalje and then in 1927 to Celje, but was re-established in Klagenfurt in 1947. Several Slovene language newspapers were also published in the city, among them the "Slovenski glasnik". By the late 19th century, however, the Slovene cultural and political influence in Klagenfurt had declined sharply, and by the end of World War I, the city showed an overwhelmingly Austrian German character.


title: Klagenfurt

text: Nevertheless, in 1919, the city was occupied by the Army of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and claimed for the newly founded South-Slav kingdom. In 1920, the Yugoslav occupying forces withdrew from the town centre, but remained in its southern suburbs, such as Viktring and Ebenthal. They eventually withdrew after the Carinthian Plebiscite in October 1920, when the majority of voters in the Carinthian mixed-language "Zone A" decided to remain part of Austria.


title: Klagenfurt

text: In 1938, Klagenfurt's population suddenly grew by more than 50% through the incorporation of the town of St. Ruprecht and the municipalities of St. Peter, Annabichl, and St. Martin but during World War II, the city was bombed 41 times. The bombs killed 612 people, completely destroyed 443 buildings and damaged 1,132 others. A volume of of rubble had to be removed before the citizens could set about rebuilding their city.


title: Klagenfurt

text: From the beginning of 1945, when the end of the war was rather obvious, numerous talks among representatives of democratic pre-1934 organisations had taken place, which later extended to high-ranking officers of the Wehrmacht and officials of the administration. Even representatives of the partisans in the hills south of Klagenfurt were met who, in view of the strong SS-forces in Klagenfurt, agreed not to attempt to take the city by force, but upheld the official declaration that south-eastern Carinthia was to be a Yugoslav possession.


title: Klagenfurt

text: In order to avoid further destruction and a major bloodshed, on 3 May 1945 General Löhr of Army Group E (Heeresgruppe E) agreed to declare Klagenfurt an "open city" "in case Anglo-American forces should attack the city", a declaration that was broadcast several times and two days later also published in the "Kärntner Nachrichten".


title: Klagenfurt

text: On 7 May 1945, a committee convened in the historic "Landhaus" building of the Gau authorities in order to form a Provisional State government, and one of the numerous decisions taken was a proclamation to the "People of Carinthia". This proclamation included the reporting of the resignation of the "Gauleiter" and "Reichsstatthalter" Friedrich Rainer, the transfer of power to the new authorities, and an appeal to the people to decorate their homes with Austrian or Carinthian colours. The proclamation was printed in the "Kärntner Zeitung" of 8 May. When on the following day, Yugoslav military demanded of Klagenfurt's new mayor that he remove the Austrian flag from the city hall and fly the Yugoslav flag instead, the acting British Town Officer Captain Watson immediately prohibited this, but also ordered that the Austrian flag be taken down. Accompanied by a guerilla troop carrying a machine pistol, a Yugoslav emissary appeared on the same day in the "Landesregierung" building, demanding of the Acting State Governor Piesch repeal the order to take down the Yugoslav flag, which was ignored.


title: Klagenfurt

text: On 8 May 1945, 9:30 a.m., British troops of the Eighth Army under General McCreery entered Klagenfurt and were met in front of "Stauderhaus" by the new democratic city and state authorities. All the strategic positions and important buildings were immediately seized, and Major General Horatius Murray was taken to General Noeldechen for the official surrender of the 438th German Division. Three hours later, groups of partisan forces arrived on a train they had seized in the Rosental valley the day before, at the same time as Yugoslav regular forces of the IVth army. Both of these forces made their way through the city's streets which were jammed with tens of thousands of "Volksdeutsche" refugees, and masses of soldiers of all the nationalities that had been fighting under German command and were now fleeing the Russians. These partisan and Yugoslav regular forces claimed the city and the surrounding South Carinthian land, establishing the "Komanda staba za Koroška", which would be named the "Commandantura of the Carinthian Military Zone" under Major Egon Remec. On "Neuer Platz"—renamed "Adolf Hitler Platz" in 1938—British armoured vehicles are said to have faced allied Yugoslav ones in a hostile way, which would have been a curious spectacle for the liberated citizens, but this is probably one more of those modern legends.


title: Klagenfurt

text: Several days passed before, under British pressure with US diplomatic backing, the Yugoslav troops withdrew from the city proper, not before establishing a parallel Carinthian-Slovene civil administration (the "Carinthian National Council") which was presided over by Franc Petek. However, protected by British soldiers, the members of the Provisional State Government went about devising a comprehensive programme to cover the new political, sociological, and economic outlooks in the land, which would serve the British military authorities. Rapid financial assistance and the restitution of property to the victims of the Nazi regime was necessary. This posed a problem, because one of the first actions of the British had been to confiscate all the property of the Nazi Party, as well as to freeze their bank accounts and to block their financial transfers. It took months before basic communication and public transport, mail service and supply were working again, to some extent at least. During the years that followed these turbulent days, a major part of the British Eighth Army, which in July 1945 was re-constituted as "British Troops in Austria" (BTA), had their headquarters in Klagenfurt - as Carinthia, together with neighbouring Styria, formed part of the British occupation zone in liberated Austria, which remained to be the case until 26 October 1955.


title: Klagenfurt

text: In 1961, Klagenfurt became the first city in Austria to adopt a pedestrian zone. The idea of a friendly twinning of cities in other countries began with the very first-ever city partnership between Klagenfurt and Wiesbaden, Germany, as early as 1930. This was followed up by numerous city partnerships, with the result that in 1968, Klagenfurt was honoured with the title of "European City of the Year". Klagenfurt has also been awarded the prestigious Europa Nostra Diploma of Merit (an award for the exemplary restoration and redevelopment of its ancient centre) a total of three times, which is a record for a European city.


title: Klagenfurt

text: In 1973, Klagenfurt absorbed four more adjacent municipalities: Viktring, with its grand Cistercian monastery; Wölfnitz; Hörtendorf; and St. Peter am Bichl. The addition of these municipalities increased the population of Klagenfurt to about 90,000.


title: Klagenfurt

text: In 2019, there were around 20,000 people who were born outside the country living in Klagenfurt, corresponding to around 20% of the city's population.


title: Klagenfurt

text: The Old City, with its central "Alter Platz" (Old Square) and the Renaissance buildings with their charming arcaded courtyards are a major attraction.


title: Klagenfurt

text: Klagenfurt is the economic centre of Carinthia, with 20% of the industrial companies. In May 2001, there were 63,618 employees in 6,184 companies here. 33 of these companies employed more than 200 people. The prevalent economic sectors are light industry, electronics, and tourism. There are also several printing offices.


title: Klagenfurt

text: The most important market place in Klagenfurt since 1948 is Benedikterplatz, formerly known as Herzogplatz. There is a market at Benediktenplatz twice a week with a diverse selection of food available for sale.


title: Klagenfurt

text: As well as the historical market, there are several shopping centres in Klagenfurt. The City-Arkaden shopping centre, founded in 2006, is located at the northern part of the city centre. The shopping centre has 120 businesses in a total floor area of 30 thousand square metres, and is one of the largest shopping centres in Carinthia. At the time of its foundation, it was one of the first shopping centres with a central arcade in the entire country of Austria.


title: Klagenfurt

text: The second-largest shopping centre in the city is Südpark, founded in 1998 and located near the Klagenfurt central station.


title: Klagenfurt

text: Klagenfurt Airport is a primary international airport with connections to several major European cities and holiday resorts abroad.


title: Klagenfurt

text: The city is situated at the intersection of the A2 and S37 motorways. The A2 autobahn runs from Vienna via Graz and Klagenfurt to Villach and further to the state border of Italy. The S37 freeway runs from Vienna via Bruck an der Mur and Sankt Veit an der Glan to Klagenfurt. The Loibl Pass highway B91 goes to Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, which is only from Klagenfurt.


title: Klagenfurt

text: The volume of traffic in Klagenfurt is high (motorisation level: 572 cars/1000 inhabitants in 2007). Service on the city's streetcar (tram) system, as well as its trolleybus system, ended in April 1963. In the 1960s, Klagenfurt was meant to become a car-friendly city, with many wide roads. A motorway was even planned which was to cross the city partly underground, but which now by-passes the city to the north. The problem of four railway lines from north, west, south, and east meeting at the central station south of the city centre and strangulating city traffic has been eased by a considerable number of underpasses on the main arteries. Nevertheless, despite 28 bus lines, traffic jams are frequent nowadays as in most cities of similar size. Ideas of a rapid transport system using the existing railway rails, of an elevated cable railway to the football stadium, or of a regular motorboat service on the Lend Canal from the city centre to the lake have not materialized. But for those who fancy leisurely travel there is a regular motorboat and steamer service on the lake connecting the resorts on Wörthersee. During severe winters, which no longer occur regularly, it might be faster to cross the frozen lake on skates.


title: Klagenfurt

text: There is a civic theatre-cum-opera house with professional companies, a professional symphony orchestra, a university of music and a concert hall. There are musical societies such as Musikverein (founded in 1826) or Mozartgemeinde, a private experimental theatre company, the State Museum, a modern art museum and the Diocesan museum of religious art; the Artists' House, two municipal and several private galleries, a planetarium in Europa Park, literary institutions such as the Robert Musil House, and a reputable German-literature competition awarding the prestigious Ingeborg Bachmann Prize.


title: Klagenfurt

text: Klagenfurt is the home of a number of small but fine publishing houses, and several papers or regional editions are also published here including dailies such as "Kleine Zeitung" and "Kärntner Krone".


title: Klagenfurt

text: Klagenfurt is a popular vacation spot, with mountains both to the south and north, numerous parks and a series of 23 stately homes and castles on its outskirts. In summer, the city is home to the Altstadtzauber (The Magic of the Old City) festival.


title: Klagenfurt

text: The city is home to the University of Klagenfurt and hosts a campus of the Fachhochschule Kärnten (Carinthia University of Applied Sciences), a college of education for primary and secondary teacher training and further education of teachers as well as a college of general further education (VHS) and two institutions of further professional and vocational education (WIFI and BFI). Among other Austrian educational institutions, there is a Slovene language Gymnasium (established in 1957) and a Slovene language commercial high school. Several Carinthian Slovene cultural and political associations are also based in the city, including the Hermagoras Society, the oldest Slovene publishing house founded in Klagenfurt in 1851.


title: Klagenfurt

text: The Austrian ice-hockey record-champion EC KAC is one of the best known sports clubs in Austria. The "Eishockey Club Klagenfurter Athletiksport Club" has won the Austrian Championship 30 times and its fans come from all over Carinthia.


title: Klagenfurt

text: The Bundesliga football club SK Austria Kärnten was based in Klagenfurt, with their second-tier phoenix club Austria Klagenfurt also playing there.


title: Klagenfurt

text: Klagenfurt hosts the Start/Finish of the Austrian Ironman Contest, swim, cycling, and a run, part of the WTC Ironman series, which culminates in the Hawaii World Championships.


title: Klagenfurt

text: One of the FIVB's Beach Volleyball Grand Slams takes place in Klagenfurt every July and is almost always one of Austria's biggest celebrations during the year. Beach volleyball is popular in Austria even though the country is landlocked. Austrian players Clemens Doppler, Florian Gosch, and Alexander Horst, who are perennial European powerhouses take part every year. The 2009 champions of this tournament were the 2008 Beijing gold medal team from the US, Phil Dalhausser and Todd Rogers.


title: Klagenfurt

text: Klagenfurt also hosted three games during the UEFA Euro 2008 Championships in the recently built Hypo-Arena. Klagenfurt was also a contender for the 2006 Winter Olympics


title: Klagenfurt

text: and is home to an American Football team, the Carinthian Black Lions, competing in the First League of the Austrian Football League. The Black Lions attract fans from all over Carinthia, playing home games in both Klagenfurt and Villach.


title: Peter Laird

text: Peter Alan Laird (born January 27, 1954) is an American comic book writer and artist best known for co-creating the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with writer and artist Kevin Eastman.


title: Peter Laird

text: Laird was born on January 27, 1954, in North Adams, Massachusetts. Toward the end of 1983, Laird was earning just ten dollars an illustration from a local newspaper in Dover, New Hampshire. He was also doing illustrations for fanzines like "The Oracle".


title: Peter Laird

text: In May 1984, Laird and Kevin Eastman self-published the first black & white issue of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", at an initial print run of 3000 copies for the forty-page oversized comic. It was largely funded by a loan from Eastman's uncle, Quentin (the experience of which had a profound impact on Laird, and led indirectly to his later work with the Xeric Foundation), and published by the duo's Mirage Studios, a name chosen because "there wasn’t an actual studio, only kitchen tables and couches with lap boards." That first issue received a number of subsequent printings over the next few years, as the Turtles phenomenon began to take off.


title: Peter Laird

text: Laird's newspaper experience led to the duo creating "a four-page press kit," that, according to "Flaming Carrot" creator Bob Burden's own "Mystery Men" press-kit, included "a story outline and artwork that they sent to 180 TV and radio stations," as well as both the Associated Press and United Press International. This led to widespread press coverage of both the TMNT property and Mirage Studios itself, creating "a demand for the interestingly-titled comic that caught everyone by surprise." With the solicitation of their second issue, Eastman and Laird's "Turtles" comic began a meteoric rise to success, bringing in advance orders of 15,000 copies. This, Eastman has been quoted as saying, "basically ended up with us clearing a profit of two thousand dollars apiece. Which allowed us to write and draw stories full-time: it was enough to pay the rent, pay the bills, and buy enough macaroni and cheese and pencils to live on."


title: Peter Laird

text: The "Turtles" phenomenon saw the duo invited to their first comics convention at the tenth annual Atlanta Fantasy Fair in 1984, where they mingled with the likes of Larry Niven, Forrest J Ackerman and Fred Hembeck (among others). With their (November 1985) fifth issue, "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" downsized to the more common American comics format and size, and the previous four issues were also reprinted in this size and format with new color covers. Also in 1985, Solson Publications released "How To Draw Eastman and Laird's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles." Solson would follow this up with the six issue "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Authorized Martial Arts Training Manual" as well as one issue of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Teach Karate" volume in 1987.


title: Peter Laird

text: That the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" became such a success (and in such a short space of time) came as a surprise to both Eastman and Laird. Laird has stated on several occasions that:


title: Peter Laird

text: This led to increased pressures on the two creators (and the team which they formed to help them), including a prolonged period (about a year) of artist's block in Laird. The "incredible growth and complexity of the business" that sprang up around their instantly-successful Turtles properties led to Laird's "suddenly discover[ing] to my horror that I no longer enjoyed drawing. It was a real shock, because if I ever had anything that I could rely on... it was that I loved to draw."


title: Peter Laird

text: Laird and Eastman's creations went on to become a popular cultural phenomenon, forcing both of them to take regular sabbaticals from the comic to deal with the day to day pressures of running what had become a multimedia franchise. Eastman sold his share of the franchise, with the exception of a small continuing income participation, to Laird and the Mirage Group on June 1, 2000. On March 1, 2008, Laird and Mirage bought out Eastman's remaining rights and interest and the two went their separate ways. Concerning Eastman's departure, Laird stated his belief that Eastman "was just tired of it." On October 19, 2009, Laird sold the franchise to Viacom, the parent company of Nickelodeon, but still retains the rights to create and publish up to eighteen black-and-white comics based on the franchise per year.


title: Peter Laird

text: Although ostensibly over-seeing the animated "Turtles" projects through Mirage, Laird had minimal hands-on involvement in the development of the original animated series, and even less with series. One of the unique products of this series, female turtle Venus, is notorious for becoming one of the additions to the franchise that Laird most despises. However, he took a more active role in the next "TMNT" animated venture, acting as "a consultant, and... working with the guy I consider the head writer, Lloyd Goldfine." In this role, he says "[f]rom the get-go I've been looking at everything, from day one. Story premises, outlines, the full scripts and the sketching and designing of characters and settings. I've been doing a little drawing myself. Lots of suggestions. I've seen a few of the episodes, and it's neat to see a lot of the stuff I've worked on." While final preparations were underway, he relaunched the official comics canon of the franchise with "Volume Four" (the third published by Mirage Studios), with artwork supplied by fellow TMNT writer, friend, and Rat King creator Jim Lawson. When the new series proved a success, Laird relaunched "Tales of the TMNT" to accompany the fourth volume.


title: Peter Laird

text: Following a successful deal to revive the Turtles theatrically, Laird put Volume Four on hold to develop the new film, leaving several plot lines unresolved. "Tales of the TMNT" was thought to go on hiatus in 2008, and the franchise's future beyond its on-screen presence was uncertain, but staff confirmed that this was not the case. It was confirmed on Steve Murphy's blog that Peter Laird was intending to return to Volume 4 and that the title would return, distributed digitally by Mirage.


title: Peter Laird

text: With the success of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Eastman and Laird hired a core group of artists to help with the increasing workload, beginning with Eastman's high school friend Steve Lavigne, brought on in 1984 as a letterer.


title: Peter Laird

text: In 1985, Eastman and Laird hired Cleveland artist Ryan Brown to assist them as an inker, and a year later penciler Jim Lawson and cover painter Michael Dooney joined the studio. These six individuals would allow Mirage to expand into a number of spin-off and companion titles, starting with "Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", designed to fill in continuity gaps in the main title. Operating from a renovated factory space in Florence, Massachusetts, the Mirage team produced most of their work in-house, including the Playmates Toys toy designs and the Archie TMNT comic series, until Tundra Publishing took over the building.


title: Peter Laird

text: Eastman and Laird along with Brown, Dooney, Lavigne and Lawson toured extensively over the years, making personal appearances and attending many comic book conventions. As the Turtles' popularity increased, further people were added to the studio, including Eric Talbot (who attended Eastman and Lavigne's old high school), writer Stephen Murphy, and Brown's friend, Dan Berger, who was brought in from Ohio to ink the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures title from Archie Comics. Aside from Eastman (whose creative differences and other pursuits saw him leave and sell his interest to Laird and Mirage), these individuals have remained with Mirage to the present. Stephen Murphy stepped down from his position as the managing editor in the middle of 2007 in favor of Dan Berger; Murphy remained as the creative director. In 1988, Mirage Studios participated in the drafting of the Creator's Bill of Rights for comic book creators.


title: Peter Laird

text: In addition to his other interests, Laird founded the Xeric Foundation, a nonprofit organization created after considerable thought, as "an appropriate way to give back something extra to the comics world," by providing grants for self-publishers. While Eastman founded Tundra Publishing to embody the ideals of the Creator's Bill of Rights from a publishers standpoint, Laird's vision involved funding rather than actively publishing individuals' work. His reasoning for this decision was in part simply due to him having "far too much to do as it is with Mirage." He "preferred to do something where it was more of a transfer of capital," with "all the worries... on "other" people's shoulders." The foundation itself, he explains is: "actually two foundations in one. One half of it is for charitable organizations, and the other half is for creators who want to self-publish their comics." That later half is perhaps what the foundation is best known for, working much the same as any benevolent fund, involving an applicatory process detailing how much money is being applied for and why.


title: Peter Laird

text: Laird's "experience with the Turtles and self-publishing" was a learning process that, he felt "would be very valuable to other people to go through" as well, "in teaching creators about themselves, about life [and] about the hard reality of business." He cites the summits he, Eastman, Scott McCloud, Dave Sim and others had (which led directly to the formalising of the "Creator's Bill of Rights," setting out in writing the necessary working arrangements that comics creator's felt ought to be met regarding ownership of their work and proper remuneration, etc.) in informing his decision to set up the foundation, but also notes that he received "many requests for money," necessitating the creation of the Xeric Foundation's charitable end simply to deal with such requests "in an organized fashion."


title: Peter Laird

text: "The initial impetus for creating the Xeric Foundation was frustration -- when the Turtle thing started getting really huge, people started coming out of the woodwork to ask for money. Many of them were legitimate charitable organizations or creators needing funding, but there were also quite a few ridiculous things -- like the total stranger who asked me for a quarter of a million dollars to fund his general store. It got to the point where I was getting overwhelmed with making these kinds of decisions, and it was suggested to me that a foundation might be a good way to "separate the wheat from the chaff", providing official and clearly delineated channels through which people looking for money had to make their way."


title: Peter Laird

text: Laird recalled that the publication of the first issue of his and Eastman's "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" comic came about thanks to a loan the two secured from Quentin Eastman, Kevin Eastman's uncle. Although the two were able to pay him back swiftly, it led Laird to speculate about what could have been: "if we hadn't gotten that loan from him at that point in our lives, it might have taken us a couple more months to raise that money from other sources, and who "knows" what might have happened differently as a result of that delay?" It occurred to him that "there must be so many times where a self-publishing venture can sink or float on the strength of" a relatively small amount of money, so he felt a desire to use some of his "good fortune, in the financial sense, to help people out" (and, in addition to the creators, the foundation also aids those "involved in charitable organizations").


title: Peter Laird

text: Moreover, he cites "[a] big difference" between his and Eastman's personal "Turtles" situation and the charitable foundation as being "that the Xeric grants are not loans, which have to be paid back, but actual grants, which do not." He "credit[s] Kendall Clark, who has run the foundation for me from the beginning, as one of the main reasons it has worked as well as it has... she's done a wonderful job."


title: Peter Laird

text: The naming of the foundation "originated out of a Scrabble game with [Laird's] brother Don," "Xeric" simply being "a word [he] like[d]" ostensibly meaning dry and desertlike - but which ultimately "has absolutely no direct connection with the foundation."


title: Peter Laird

text: The creative side of the foundation involves the usual application process, but in addition, the foundation began with "an advisory committee made up of three... people working in the industry" whose input is sought on how best to proceed with each application. Submissions are evaluated prior to Laird's involvement, and then he makes the ultimate decisions based on their recommendations. Laird stated in 1993 that: "...knock on wood, God willing, and the creek don't rise, if we go on for another couple of decades, and I'm able to put more money into the basic funding of the Xeric Foundation, then the amount of money that can be given out can really be raised significantly." He hoped that ultimately the figure can be raised from "thousands of dollars" to "hundreds of thousands of dollars," to support an increasing number of large and small projects.


title: Peter Laird

text: In a 1993 interview with Stephen Bissette and Stanley Wiater, interviewer-editors of "Comic Book Rebels", Laird commented:


title: Peter Laird

text: Since that time, Laird has been able to find time to pursue some other comic book work, including publishing "Stupid Heroes", and the graphic novel trilogy "Planet Racers", with Jim Lawson. Even this ties into the TMNT, however, since the 2003 "TMNT" series has episodes based on the theme of "Planet Racers".


title: Peter Laird

text: In December 2019, issue #100 of IDW Publishing's "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" comic series featured a teaser ad for an upcoming comic project titled "The Last Ronin" in which the prospect of a possible reunion and cooperation between Laird and Eastman was held out. The project was confirmed in April 2020, with a TPD release date sometime in the summer.


title: History of Nokia

text: Nokia is a Finnish multinational corporation founded on 12 May 1865 as a single paper mill operation. Through the 19th century the company expanded, branching into several different products. In 1967, the Nokia corporation was formed. In the late 20th century, the company took advantage of the increasing popularity of computer and mobile phones. However, increased competition and other market forces caused changes in Nokia's business arrangements. In 2014, Nokia's mobile phone business was sold to Microsoft.


title: History of Nokia

text: The name "Nokia" is derived from the town Nokia and the Nokianvirta River which was aside the factory. The commercial entities that preceded the modern-day Nokia company included "Nokia Ab" (Nokia company); "Suomen Gummitehdas Oy" (Finnish Rubber Works Ltd); and "Suomen Kaapelitehdas Oy" (Finnish Cable Works Ltd).


title: History of Nokia

text: In 1865, the mining engineer, Fredrik Idestam established a ground wood pulp mill on the banks of the Tammerkoski rapids in the town of Tampere, in southwestern Finland. Tampere was then part of the Russian Empire. In 1868, Idestam built a second mill near the town of Nokia. Nokia lies west of Tampere, by the Nokianvirta river. The river had better hydropower resources than those at Tampere. In 1871, Idestam and Leo Mechelin, a statesman and Idestam's friend, transformed Idestam's enterprises into a public limited company called "Nokia Ab".


title: History of Nokia

text: In the late 1800s, Mechelin wanted to expand the company into the electricity business. However, Idestam refused. In 1896, Idestam retired and Mechelin became the company's chairman. He remained chairman from 1898 to 1914. During this time, Mechelin persuaded shareholders to allow the company to enter the electricity business. In 1902, Nokia commenced electricity generation.


title: History of Nokia

text: Eduard Polón (1866 1960), was a Finnish business leader. In 1898, Polón founded "Suomen Gummitehdas Oy" (Finnish Rubber Works) - a manufacturer of galoshes and other rubber products. In the early 1900s, the Finnish Rubber Works established factories near Nokia and used the town's name in the company's branding.


title: History of Nokia

text: After World War I, the Nokia Company was nearing bankruptcy and was acquired by the Finnish Rubber Works.


title: History of Nokia

text: In 1932, the Finnish Rubber Works also acquired the "Suomen Kaapelitehdas Oy" (Finnish Cable Works). The cable works had been founded in 1912 by Arvid Wickström. His company produced telephone, telegraph, and electrical cables.


title: History of Nokia

text: In 1963, after 16 years as a technical director, Verner Weckman became the president of the Finnish Cable Works company. Weckman was a wrestler and was Finland's first Olympic Gold medallist. After World War II, Finnish Cable Works supplied cables to the Soviet Union as part of its war reparations. This gave the company a foothold for later trade.


title: History of Nokia

text: In 1967, Nokia Corporation was formed through the merger of the three companies. The new company manufactured products including paper items, car and bicycle tires, rubber boots, communications cables, televisions and other consumer electronics, personal computers, generators, robotics, capacitors, Military technology and equipment (such as the SANLA M/90 device and the M61 gas mask for the Finnish Army), plastics, aluminum and chemicals.


title: History of Nokia

text: In 1960, a cable division of the Nokia group had been formed. In 1962, it produced a pulse height analyzer used in nuclear power plants. In 1967, an electronics division within the Nokia corporation was formed. It operated for the next fifteen years, sometimes at a loss. Nokia researchers were encouraged to develop their own projects. This may have contributed to Nokia's focus on mobile phone technologies.


title: History of Nokia

text: In the 1970s, Nokia produced the Nokia DX 200, a digital switch for telephone exchanges. The DX 200 became the workhorse of the network equipment division. Its architecture allowed it to be further developed into other switching products. For example, in 1984, the development of an exchange for the Nordic Mobile Telephone network was begun. The network equipment division was merged with a Finnish State entity to form "Telefenno". In 1987, the state sold its shares in Telefenno to Nokia and in 1992, the name was changed to Nokia Telecommunications.


title: History of Nokia

text: In 1998, the Israeli multinational company, Check Point which was founded in 1993, established a partnership with Nokia. Check Point's software was bundled with Nokia's network security tools.


title: History of Nokia

text: Prior to cellular mobile telephony, there was mobile radio telephony. In the 1960s, Nokia had started producing commercial and military mobile radio telephones. From 1964, Nokia had developed VHF radios in collaboration with Salora Oy. From 1966, Nokia and Salora had developed ARPs ("Autoradiopuhelin" or radio car phones). In 1971, this technology became the first commercially available mobile phone network in Finland and in 1978, it offered 100 percent coverage in Finland. In the 1970s and 1980s, Nokia developed the "Sanomalaitejärjestelmä" (messaging system), a digital, portable and encrypted text-based communications device for the Finnish Defence Forces.


title: History of Nokia

text: In 1979, Nokia and Salora established a joint venture, "Mobira Oy". Mobira developed mobile phones for the Nordic Mobile Telephone (NMT) network, called the "1G" and was the first fully automatic cellular phone system. It became commercially available in 1981. In 1982, Mobira introduced its first car phone, the "Mobira Senator" for NMT 450 networks.


title: History of Nokia

text: In 1984, Nokia purchased Salora. Nokia's telecommunications division was renamed "Nokia-Mobira Oy". In the same year, the "Mobira Talkman", an early portable phone was launched. In 1987, Nokia introduced its first mobile phone, the "Mobira Cityman 900" for NMT 900 networks. In comparison to the NMT 450 network, there was a better signal strength but less coverage. While the Mobira Senator of 1982 had weighed and the Talkman just under , the Mobira Cityman weighed only including its battery. The phone, which was considered expensive, became an item indicating a high status.


title: History of Nokia

text: In 1987, the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was seen using a Mobira Cityman in Helsinki. The phone developed the nickname, the "Gorba". In 1989, Nokia-Mobira Oy was renamed "Nokia Mobile Phones".


title: History of Nokia

text: Nokia contributed to the development of the GSM 2G. It was able to carry data (computing) as well as voice traffic. Nordic Mobile Telephony (NMT) was an early provider of international roaming. In 1987, GSM 2G became the new European standard for digital mobile technology.


title: History of Nokia

text: In 1989, Nokia delivered its first GSM network to the Finnish operator Radiolinja. On 1 July 1991, in Helsinki, the first telephone call on the GSM G2 network was made by Harri Holkeri, the Prime Minister of Finland. He used a prototype Nokia GSM phone to make the call. In 1992, the first GSM phone, the Nokia 1011, was made commercially available. The model number, "1011" refers to its launch date on 10 November 1992. In 1994, a branding ringtone, the Nokia tune, was included with the Nokia 2100 series.


title: History of Nokia

text: The GSM 2G network and mobile phones provided improved voice calls, international roaming and support for new services such as text messaging (Short Message Service (SMS)). In 2008, the GSM 2G network had approximately 3 billion users. There were at least 700 mobile phone commercial providers in 218 nations or territories. There were 15 mobile phone connections per second and 1.3 million mobile phone connections per day.


title: History of Nokia

text: In the 1980s, Nokia's computer division "Nokia Data" produced a series of personal computers called the "MikroMikko". It was aimed at the business market. MikroMikko 1, was released on 29 September 1981. Its competitor was the IBM personal computer. In 1991, Nokia Data was sold to a British company, International Computers Limited (ICL).


title: History of Nokia

text: Nokia produced Cathode ray tubes (CRT) and thin film transistor liquid crystal displays (|TFT LCDs) for personal computers and other applications. In 2000, Nokia sold its display products division to ViewSonic. However, in August 2009, Nokia released the Nokia Booklet 3G mini laptop which it continued for a short time. Other abandoned Nokia products include DSL modems and digital set-top boxes.


title: History of Nokia

text: In the 1980s under the chief executive officer (CEO) Kari Kairamo, Nokia expanded, mostly through acquisitions. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, however, Nokia corporation experienced financial difficulties. Losses were made in the television manufacturing division. In 1988, Nokian Tyres became a separate entity. Nokia's paper division was sold in 1989. In 1990, Nokian Footwear was a separate entity. During the rest of the 1990s, Nokia divested itself of all other businesses.


title: History of Nokia

text: In 1988, Kairamo committed suicide. Following his death, Simo Vuorilehto became Nokia's chairman and CEO. From 1990 to 1993, Finland was in recession. Vuorilehto made major changes to the Nokia corporation. The telecommunications division was stream-lined. The television and personal computing divisions were sold.


title: History of Nokia

text: In 1992, Jorma Ollila became CEO. He made telecommunications Nokia's sole concern. International sales increased relative to those in Finland. By the mid-1990s, Nokia's supply of mobile telephones could not meet demand. Changes to Nokia's supply chain were made. Between 1996 and 2001, Nokia's revenue increased from 6.5 billion euros to 31 billion euros and between 1998 and 2012, Nokia was the world's largest mobile phone manufacturer. Nokia's logistics and economies of scale advantaged the company.


title: History of Nokia

text: In 2000, Nokia launched the Nokia 3310. In 2003, the Nokia 1100 handset was launched. Nokia combined a video game console and a mobile phone in the "N-Gage".


title: History of Nokia

text: In April 2008, Nokia Productions started a mobile movie-making project. The movie which was presented at the Nokia Theater Los Angeles on 14 October 2008 was directed by Spike Lee. It was approximately 15 minutes long and comprised short segments made on phones contributed by the public. The theme of the movie was "humanity".


title: History of Nokia

text: In 2009, Nokia reentered the personal computing market. Its product, the Nokia Booklet 3G was a Windows-based netbook. The company also entered the smartphone market. The Series 40 was a phone platform used in feature phones, mainly running Java-based applications.


title: History of Nokia

text: Nokia acquired Smarterphone, a company making the Smarterphone OS for "low end" phones and merged it with Series 40 to form the Asha Platform, which also used some user interface characteristics from Nokia's MeeGo platform. The Asha 501 used this new operating system. The Series 40 was discontinued in late 2014.


title: History of Nokia

text: Until 2011, Symbian was Nokia's main smartphone operating system. The devices using the Symbian operating system included the Nokia 7650, Nokia N-Gage, Nokia N96, Nokia 6600, Nokia 7610, Nokia 6630, Nokia N90, Nokia N95, Nokia N82, Nokia E71, Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, Nokia N97, Nokia X6 and the Nokia N8. The 2012 Nokia 808 PureView had a 41-megapixel camera. It was the last phone using the Symbian platform.


title: History of Nokia

text: Nokia's first Linux devices were the Nokia Internet tablets and the Nokia N900, which ran the Debian-based Maemo. The Maemo project merged with Intel's Moblin to create MeeGo. The Nokia N9 was released before MeeGo was abandoned in favour of Windows Phone. The final products using Linux were the Nokia X series which had an Android operating system.


title: History of Nokia

text: In April 2003, difficulties in Nokia's division of network equipment led to restructuring and layoffs. Nokia's public image in Finland was diminished. litigation was brought against Nokia and a critical documentary television program was broadcast.


title: History of Nokia

text: In June 2006, CEO of Nokia Jorma Ollila, resigned and became the chairman of Royal Dutch Shell Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo was the new CEO.


title: History of Nokia

text: In March 2007, Nokia signed an agreement with Cluj County Council, Romania to open a plant near the city in Jucu commune. Moving the production from the Bochum, Germany factory to a low wage country created an uproar in Germany.


title: History of Nokia

text: In 2008, Nokia ceased its mobile phone distribution in Japan. In 2009, Check Point purchased Nokia's network security division.


title: History of Nokia

text: In February 2012, Nokia announced that 4,000 employees would be dismissed. This was to allow its manufacturing centres to move from Europe and Mexico to Asia. In March 2012, Nokia dismissed 1,000 employees at its Salo, Finland factory. In June 2012, research facilities in Ulm, Germany and Burnaby, Canada closed. By the end of 2013, 10,000 employees had been dismissed. In January 2013, Nokia dismissed 1,000 employees from its internet technology, production and logistics divisions.


title: History of Nokia

text: On 22 September 2003, Nokia acquired "Sega.com", a branch of Sega in order to develop the N-Gage device. On 10 February 2006, Nokia purchased the Intellisync Corporation, a provider of data and Personal information management (PIM) synchronization software.


title: History of Nokia

text: On 19 June 2006, Nokia and Siemens AG announced the merger of their mobile and fixed-line phone network equipment businesses with equal holdings. This created the entity "Nokia Siemens Networks" located in Espoo, Finland. Approximately 20,000 Nokia employees were employed by the new company. On 8 August 2006, Nokia purchased the online music distributor "Loudeye Corporation" for approximately US$60 million.


title: History of Nokia

text: In July 2007, Nokia purchased the media sharing service "Twango". In September 2007, Nokia purchased "Enpocket", a supplier of mobile advertising technology and services. On 10 July 2008, Nokia purchased "Navteq", a U.S. based supplier of digital mapping data, for $8.1 billion.


title: History of Nokia

text: In September 2008, Nokia purchased "OZ Communications" of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. OZ was a private company with approximately 220 employees.


title: History of Nokia

text: On 5 August 2009, Nokia purchased some of the assets belonging to "Cellity", a privately owned mobile software company. In September 2009, Nokia purchased some of the assets belonging to "Plum Ventures corporation" to complement Nokia's social location services.


title: History of Nokia

text: In March 2010, Nokia purchased "Novarra", a mobile web browser firm. In April 2010, Nokia acquired MetaCarta, a local search technology firm. In 2012, Nokia purchased "Smarterphone", a feature phone operating system developer, and the imaging company Scalado.


title: History of Nokia

text: Apple's iPhone (2007) did not immediately outsell the Nokia smartphones such as the Nokia N95. At the end of the 2007 financial year, Symbian had 62.5 percent of the market share while Microsoft's Windows Mobile had 11.9 percent and BlackBerry (RIM) had 10.9 percent. However, at the end of the 2008 financial year, Nokia's market share had fallen to 40.8 percent. The Nokia N96, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic and the Nokia E71 did not compete against Apple's iPhone 3G. On 24 June 2008, Nokia bought the Symbian operating system and in 2009 made it open source.


title: History of Nokia

text: In early 2009, Nokia released several devices such as the Nokia N97, a touchscreen device with a landscape QWERTY slider keyboard that was focused on social networking which received mixed reviews and the Nokia E52 which received positive reviews. At the end of the 2008 financial year, Symbian's market share was 52.4 percent and at the same time in 2009, it was 46.1 percent with the loss going to Blackberry, iOS and Android.


title: History of Nokia

text: In 2010, the commercial pressure on Nokia increased. Original equipment manufacturers such as Samsung Electronics and Sony Ericsson chose to make Android based smartphones, not Symbian based smartphones. Nokia developed "Symbian^3" to replace the S60 platform but it never became popular. At the end of the 2010 financial year, Symbian's market share was 32 percent while Android's was 30 percent. Despite losing market share, Nokia's smartphones were profitable. Sales in 2010 steadily increased quarter by quarter. In the last quarter of 2010, Nokia sold 4 million N8 smartphones.


title: History of Nokia

text: In February 2010, Nokia and Intel announced "MeeGo". MeeGo was a merger of their Linux based Maemo and Moblin projects. The project aimed to create one mobile operating system suitable for many types of device including tablets and smartphones. Nokia planned to use MeeGo on its smartphones. This was only achieved on the Nokia N9 (2011).


title: History of Nokia

text: In February 2011, Elop wrote to his employees. He said Nokia was on a "burning platform". Elop said the "war of ecosystems" (software ecosystem) between iOS and Android was part of Nokia's commercial difficulties.


title: History of Nokia

text: In February 2011, Stephen Elop and Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer formed a business partnership. (Elop had worked at Microsoft.) Nokia adopted Windows Phone as the operating system on its smartphones and accessed the Bing search engine for its devices. The "Here" Nokia maps software was integrated into Microsoft's "Bing" mapping services.


title: History of Nokia

text: In June 2011, Apple was making more smartphones than Nokia and a successful partnership with Microsoft became imperative for Nokia's business. In September 2011, Nokia dismissed 3,500 employees and closed its factory in Cluj, Romania.


title: History of Nokia

text: On 26 October 2011, at the Nokia World conference, the first Nokia Windows Phone 7 based devices were launched. They were the Nokia Lumia 710 and the more expensive Nokia Lumia 800.


title: History of Nokia

text: After the launch, Nokia's share price fell approximately 14 percent and Nokia's smartphone sales rapidly decreased. Between 2011 until 2013, Nokia's sales of smartphones fell from first in the market to tenth. In the second quarter of the 2011 financial year, Nokia made a loss of 368 million Euros.


title: History of Nokia

text: On 26 January 2012, Nokia reported its sales of the Lumia smartphones was "well above one million", two million sales in the first quarter of the 2012 financial year and four million sales in the second quarter of the 2012 financial year. However, in the second quarter of the 2012 financial year, in North America, Nokia sold 600,000 Symbian and Windows phones combined. In the same period, 26 million iPhones and 105 million Android phones were sold.


title: History of Nokia

text: On 8 February 2012, Nokia dismissed 4,000 employees from smartphone manufacturing plants in Europe. Smartphone assembly was moved closer to component suppliers in Asia. On 14 June 2012, Nokia a further 10,000 dismissals. Production and research sites in Finland, Germany and Canada were closed. On 18 June 2012, Moody's downgraded Nokia's bond rating to junk. On 4 May 2012, a group of Nokia investors filed a class action against the company as a result of disappointing sales. On 22 August 2012, there were calls for Elop's dismissal. In December 2012, Nokia sold its headquarters, Nokia House, for €170 million and then leased the property. In the fourth quarter of the 2012 financial year, Nokia sold 6.6 million smartphones (2.2 million Symbian and 4.4 million Lumia devices).


title: History of Nokia

text: In May 2013, Nokia released the Asha platform on its inexpensive smartphone devices. The American media company Vox Media speculated Nokia was not fully committed to Windows.


title: History of Nokia

text: In the same month, Nokia entered a partnership with China Mobile, the Chinese mobile service provider to make the Lumia 920 (Lumia 920T) available in China.


title: History of Nokia

text: In the second quarter of the 2013 financial year, Nokia recorded an operating loss of €115m. Nokia's revenue fell to €5.7bn. In the same period, sales of the Lumia smartphone exceeded those of BlackBerry's handsets. Nokia's sales results were especially poor in China and the US. In the second quarter of the 2013 financial year, 7.4 million Lumia devices were sold.


title: History of Nokia

text: On 25 April 2014, Nokia sold its mobile phone business to Microsoft for approximately €3.79bn. €1.65bn was paid by Microsoft for a ten-year license to Nokia's patents. Nokia's mobile phone assets became a part of Microsoft Mobile, based in Finland. The purchase was delayed from March 2014 to April 2014 while a taxation dispute in India was resolved.


title: History of Nokia

text: Microsoft acquired the Asha, X and Lumia brands, but had only a limited license to the Nokia brand. Microsoft could only use the Nokia brand to promote Asha, X and Lumia products until December 2015, and feature phones for 10 years. Microsoft did not acquire any rights to the Nokia tune but can use it as the default ringtone on Nokia branded devices. Nokia was prohibited from manufacturing any Nokia branded smartphones until December 2015. Microsoft also took over Nokia's website and social media outlets for a minimum of one year. Microsoft used Nokia branding until October 2014.


title: History of Nokia

text: Elop became the head of Microsoft's devices division. Risto Siilasmaa became acting CEO of Nokia until the appointment of Rajeev Suri.


title: History of Nokia

text: Nokia continued Nokia Networks, its infrastructure division and Nokia Technologies, its development and licensing division.


title: History of Nokia

text: In July 2014, Microsoft dismissed 12,500 former Nokia employees. Microsoft also ended development of Nokia's non-Windows Phone product lines.


title: History of Nokia

text: In October 2014, Nokia and China Mobile signed a $970 million framework deal for delivery between 2014 and 2015.


title: History of Nokia

text: On 17 November 2014, Ramzi Haidamus, head of the Nokia technologies division said the company planned to re-enter the consumer electronics business by licensing in-house hardware designs and technologies to third-party manufacturers. On 18 November 2014, the N1, an Android tablet manufactured by Foxconn was released.


title: History of Nokia

text: On 3 November 2016, Nokia purchased the French telecommunications equipment company Alcatel-Lucent for approximately €15.6 billion. At completion, Nokia shareholders held 66.5% of the new company and Alcatel-Lucent shareholders held 33.5% of the new company. Alcatel-Lucent's Bell Labs and submarine cables division were maintained in the new company. The Alcatel-Lucent brand was no longer used. The purchase required approval by China's Ministry of Commerce and French regulators.


title: History of Nokia

text: On August 3, 2015, Nokia announced that it had reached a deal to sell its Here digital maps division to a consortium of three German automakers—BMW, Daimler AG and Volkswagen Group, for €2.8 billion.


title: History of Nokia

text: On 18 May 2016 Microsoft sold the Nokia-branded featurephone division to FIH Mobile, a division of Foxconn, and HMD, a new company in Finland. Nokia provided its brand and patent licensing to HMD, and took a seat on the board of directors.


title: History of Nokia

text: On 8 January 2017, Nokia 6, a mid-range smartphone based on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 system-on-chip running Android was launched. The Nokia 5, Nokia 3, Nokia 3310 and Nokia 6 Arte were also released.


title: Now (Sky)

text: Now (formerly Now TV and often stylised as NOW) is a subscription over-the-top internet television service operated by British satellite television provider Sky. Launched in the United Kingdom in 2012, the service is now also available in Ireland, Italy, Germany (where it operates as Wow, formerly Sky Ticket), and arguably to some extent in Austria (where elements like online account management support the Sky X service).


title: Now (Sky)

text: Now offers both live streaming and video-on-demand without a contract. The service offers "passes" for various types of content, for a monthly fee on a pay-as-you-go basis. Differing passes offer films, sports and entertainment from Sky such as material from Sky Atlantic and Sky Cinema, and from British and American licensed third-parties such as Fox. The service is available to consumers through retail Roku-based Now TV digital media players (in both set-top box and HDMI dongle form factors) as well as via an app on computers, various mobile devices, some game consoles and set-top boxes. It is separate from and not viewable through the Sky Go Internet service, or via Sky's digital satellite television service Sky Q.


title: Now (Sky)

text: Sky Picnic was a proposed pay television service which would have sat alongside Freeview and Top Up TV on the digital terrestrial television (DTT) platform in the United Kingdom. The proposal detailed replacing Sky's three free-to-air channels (Sky News, Sky Sports News and Sky Three) with five pay TV channels: Sky Sports 1, Sky Movies SD1 plus Sky One during the evening with one hour of Sky News content. There would also be two further daytime channels: a factual channel and a children's channel. It was first proposed in 2007 but was subject to a public consultation by Ofcom. Whilst the service was cleared to launch in 2010 it never officially launched, Sky having put it on hold in 2008.


title: Now (Sky)

text: Now TV was unveiled by Sky UK in March 2012, and designed for people who have no existing pay TV subscription. Its official launch was on 17 July 2012, initially providing films, putting it in competition with Lovefilm and Netflix.


title: Now (Sky)

text: The Now TV service was later extended to other territories covered by the Sky Group. In 2014 a similar internet service called "Sky Online" was launched by Sky Deutschland in Germany and Austria, and by Sky Italia in Italy in 2015. In 2016, Sky Online in Germany and Austria was revamped as "Sky Ticket" and structured the same as Now TV in the UK, and was rebranded in Italy under the original British name of Now TV. On 26 April 2017, Now TV launched in Ireland. On 11 September 2017, the service launched as simply "Sky" in Spain, the first Sky-branded product in that country. In March 2019, Sky X launched in Austria, making use of a blend of Now TV and Sky Q elements, and gradually replaced Sky Ticket, as an offering between Sky Ticket and the full TV service Sky Q. On 1 September 2020, Sky stopped offering the product in Spain.


title: Now (Sky)

text: In Summer 2016, Sky UK extended the brand to telecommunication services by launching contract-free budget broadband internet in the UK, initially named Now TV Combo, and from early 2018 branded as Now Broadband.


title: Now (Sky)

text: Sky España was a service of Sky and supplied over-the-top pay television and video on demand service accessible only through the Internet created to compete with Movistar+, Netflix, and Amazon Prime Video in Spain.


title: Now (Sky)

text: Yoigo is an operator of Internet and mobile services which maintains an exclusive agreement that allows customers to the rate into Fibra + la Sinfín with unlimited fibre access to Sky España service for €6 per month.


title: Now (Sky)

text: The service ceased to be available on 1 September 2020. Some content had already disappeared prior to it closing on 10 August 2020.


title: Now (Sky)

text: Upon its UK debut in 2012, Now TV offered only films at first, adding sports in March 2013, and entertainment channels in October 2013. Film and entertainment channels are accessed by paying a monthly fee, and sports on an ad-hoc basis ("pay as you go"). Unlike Sky's flagship satellite TV service, Now TV does not require a long-term contract.


title: Now (Sky)

text: Now TV offers "passes" with a specific set of content or channels that can be watched on demand or as live TV. The "Entertainment" pass has general entertainment content/channels from Sky itself (e.g. Sky One) and third-parties (e.g. Syfy), whilst the "Kids" pass covers children's networks such as Nickelodeon, and a "Sky Cinema" pass offers over a thousand films from Sky Cinema. There is also a dedicated "Hayu" pass, and a "Sports" pass (which offers a daily or monthly option), along with a sports pass solely for mobile devices to stream live Sky Sports channels.


title: Now (Sky)

text: The Now TV boxes and dongles have extra downloadable apps that provide access to free catch-up or streaming services such as BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub, and UKTV Play, as well as access to Sky Store, Netflix (added in late 2018), Peacock (added in November 2021), Sky Sports Box Office, Disney+ (added in April 2020) and YouTube. From Spring 2020, Now TV provided access to BT Sport, and at the same time Now TV became available for BT TV customers.


title: Now (Sky)

text: On 28 June 2022, National Geographic departed the service as its programming moved over to Disney+. In its place, Now users had access to UKTV's mystery drama channel Alibi and NBC News Now, whilst customers with the Sky Cinema subscription package could access a range of films from Paramount+.


title: Now (Sky)

text: Now is available on a number of platforms, providing access via both big-screen and small screen mobile devices (correct as of April 2020):


title: Now (Sky)

text: The service offers streams at up to 720p resolution (or up to 1080p resolution, when subscribed to Now TV HD Boost at an extra cost) depending on the playback device. It uses adaptive bitrate streaming.


title: Now (Sky)

text: In July 2013, Sky launched a white Now TV-branded Roku streaming box, allowing users to stream Now TV content to their television via an analogue baseband connection or an HDMI input. It retailed for £9.99. It has limited access to the Roku Channel Store and only a pre-approved list of channels can be downloaded. A number of third-party channels can be side-loaded to the device using its Developer Mode.


title: Now (Sky)

text: In August 2015, Sky launched the Now TV Box 2 (based around a 2015 Roku 2) in black. It offers the same content as the original Now TV (white) box, but has a faster processor, an Ethernet port alongside Wi-Fi, a USB port and an SD card slot (not functional by default), and is capable of outputting at full HD (1080p) resolution. Unlike the original Now TV Box, the Now TV Box 2 does not have an analogue audio/video output socket.


title: Now (Sky)

text: The Now TV Smart Box ("Smart Box with Freeview"), coloured black with a blue logo, was launched exclusively in the UK in July 2016. It includes access to Freeview channels through an aerial, via an internal DTT tuner that allows the user to pause (for up to 30 minutes) and rewind live TV.


title: Now (Sky)

text: In January 2018, Sky introduced the Now TV Smart Stick dongle which plugs directly into a TV's HDMI input and includes voice search. It was noted as the cheapest smart TV stick in the UK, costing £14.99 at launch compared to £39.99 for its rival Amazon Fire TV Stick.


title: Now (Sky)

text: The second generation Now TV Smart Box ("Smart Box with 4K") was introduced in September 2018 and is coloured black with a pink logo. It is smaller in size (mainly due to the removal of the Freeview TV tuner) and includes the voice search capability from the Smart Stick. This box is capable of streaming at 2160p (4K) resolution.


title: Now (Sky)

text: NOW TV recently re-branded to NOW has announced late in 2021 that it is discontinuing all NOW hardware products.


title: Now (Sky)

text: As of Q4 2018, Now TV had a 10% share in the UK OTT subscription market, placing it third behind Netflix and Amazon Prime Video.


title: Now (Sky)

text: Before its launch, Hong Kong based PCCW filed trademark complaints about British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB)'s Now TV service. In October 2012, a High Court judgment in London ruled that BSkyB did not infringe PCCW's rights regarding the Now TV name.


title: Oklahoma State University–Stillwater

text: Oklahoma State University–Stillwater (officially Oklahoma State University; informally Oklahoma State, OK State, OSU) is a public land-grant research university in Stillwater, Oklahoma. OSU was founded in 1890 under the Morrill Act. Originally known as Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College (Oklahoma A&M), it is the flagship institution of the Oklahoma State University System that holds more than 35,000 students across its five campuses with an annual budget of $1.5 billion. The main campus enrollment for the fall 2019 semester was 24,071, with 20,024 undergraduates and 4,017 graduate students. OSU is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". According to the National Science Foundation, OSU spent $198.8 million on research and development in 2021.


title: Oklahoma State University–Stillwater

text: The Oklahoma State Cowboys and Cowgirls have won 52 national championships, which ranks fourth in most NCAA team national championships after Stanford University, University of California, Los Angeles, and University of Southern California . The Oklahoma State Cowboys wrestling is the most successful NCAA Division I program of all time in any sport. As of 2021, Oklahoma State students and alumni have won 34 Olympic medals (21 gold, 5 silver, and 8 bronze). The university has produced 29 Goldwater Scholars, 18 Truman Scholars, 18 Udall Scholars, and 48 Fulbright Scholars, astronauts, and a billionaire. OSU is ranked top 10 nationally and top 100 in the world for contributions to United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.


title: Oklahoma State University–Stillwater

text: Students spend part of the fall semester preparing for OSU's Homecoming celebration, begun in 1913, which draws more than 40,000 alumni and over 70,000 participants each year to campus and is billed by the university as "America's Greatest Homecoming Celebration." The Oklahoma State University alumni network exceeds 250,000 graduates.


title: Oklahoma State University–Stillwater

text: On December 25, 1890, the Oklahoma Territorial Legislature finally gained approval for Oklahoma Territorial Agricultural and Mechanical (A&M) College, the land-grant institution established under the Morrill Act of 1862. The legislature specified that the college was to be within Payne County. Such an ambiguous description created a rivalry among towns in the county, with Stillwater ultimately gaining the campus. Upon statehood in 1907, "Territorial" was dropped from its title.


title: Oklahoma State University–Stillwater

text: The first students assembled for class on December 14, 1891. For two and a half years, classes were held in local churches, until the first academic building, later known as Old Central, was constructed and dedicated on June 15, 1894, on the southeast corner campus. It was surrounded by flat plowed prairie.


title: Oklahoma State University–Stillwater

text: In 1896, Oklahoma A&M held its first commencement with six male graduates. The first Library was established in Old Central in one room shared with the English Department. The first campus building to have electricity, Williams Hall, was constructed in 1900. Because of its turreted architecture, it was referred to as the "Castle of the Prairies"; It survived until 1969.


title: Oklahoma State University–Stillwater

text: One of the earliest campus buildings was also a barn, used as part of an agricultural experiment station, which was served by a large reservoir pond created in 1895. The barn burned down in 1922, but the pond, enlarged and remodeled in 1928 and 1943, is now known as Theta Pond, a popular campus scenic landmark. In 1906, Morrill Hall was completed and became the principal building on campus. A fire gutted the building in 1914, but the outside structure survived intact, and the interior was reconstructed.


title: Oklahoma State University–Stillwater

text: On-campus housing at Oklahoma A&M College began in 1910, with the opening of the Boys' Dormitory. Later renamed Crutchfield Hall, the Historic American Buildings Survey said it was significant as "... the first permanent boy's dormitory in Oklahoma ... [and] the sole surviving example of a pre-1930 utilitarian dormitory that is characteristic of modified Italian Renaissance Revival architecture". Crutchfield Hall later served the School of Music and the College of Engineering, Architecture, and Technology before it was ranked as outdated and demolished in 1995.


title: Oklahoma State University–Stillwater

text: Also opened in 1910 was the Women's Building, a dorm for female students that also containing a dining hall, home economics classes, and a women's gymnasium. It was later named Garner Hall. Today it is known as the Bartlett Center for the Studio Arts and houses the Gardiner Art Gallery.


title: Oklahoma State University–Stillwater

text: By 1919 the campus included Morrill Hall, the Central Building, the Engineering Building (now Gundersen Hall), the Women's building, the Auditorium (replaced later by the Seretean Center for Performing Arts), the Armory-Gymnasium (now the Architecture Building) and the Power Plant.


title: Oklahoma State University–Stillwater

text: At the beginning of World War II, Oklahoma A&M was one of six schools selected by the United States Navy to give the Primary School in the Electronics Training Program (ETP), also known as Naval Training School Elementary Electricity and Radio Materiel (NTS EE&RM). Starting in March 1942, each month a new group of 100 Navy students arrived for three months of 14-hour days in concentrated electrical engineering study. Cordell Hall, the newest dormitory, was used for housing and meals; lectures and lab sessions were held in the Engineering Building. Professor Emory B. Phillips was the Director of Instruction. ETP admission required passing the Eddy Test, one of the most selective qualifying exams given during the war years. At a given time, some 500 Navy students were on the campus, a significant fraction of the war-years enrollment. The training activity continued until June 1945 and served a total of about 7,000 students; among these was Robert B. Kamm, a future professor and president of Oklahoma State University. During some of the war years, the Navy also operated a Yeoman training activity for WAVES and SPARS on this campus.


title: Oklahoma State University–Stillwater

text: Much of the growth of Oklahoma A&M and the architectural integrity of the campus can be attributed to Henry G. Bennett, who served as the school's president from 1928 to 1950. Early in his tenure, Dr. Bennett developed a strategic vision for the university campus's physical expansion. The plan was adopted in 1937, and his vision was followed for more than fifty years, including the predominant Georgian architecture style that permeates the campus. He intended the focal point to be a centrally located library building: this was the Edmon Low Library, which opened in 1953. Another major addition to the campus during the Bennett years was the Student Union, which opened in 1950. Subsequent additions and renovations have made the building one of the largest student union buildings in the world at . A complete renovation and further expansion of the building began in 2010.


title: Oklahoma State University–Stillwater

text: Oklahoma A&M's global engagement at an institutional level began in the 1950s when President Bennett was appointed in 1950 to be the first director of US President Harry Truman’s “Point Four Program,” a technical assistance program for developing countries. As part of the Point Four program, Oklahoma A&M College entered into an agreement in 1952 with the government of Ethiopia to establish a technical high school, an agricultural university, and an agricultural extension service there. Faculty and staff from the Stillwater campus traveled to Ethiopia and established Jimma Agricultural Technical School (now Jimma University), the Imperial Ethiopian University of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts (now Haramaya University), and an agricultural and research station at Debra Zeit. In recognition of the contributions of the OSU staff, Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie visited the Stillwater campus in 1954, the first foreign head of state to visit Oklahoma and the only one to visit Stillwater.


title: Oklahoma State University–Stillwater

text: On May 15, 1957, Oklahoma A&M changed its name to the Oklahoma State University of Agricultural and Applied Sciences, to reflect the broadening scope of its curriculum. Oklahoma Gov. Raymond Gary signed the bill authorizing the name change passed by the 26th Oklahoma Legislature on May 15, 1957. However, the bill only authorized the Board of Regents to change the college's name, a measure they voted on at their meeting on June 6. However, the name was quickly shortened to Oklahoma State University for most purposes, and the "Agricultural & Applied Sciences" name was formally dropped in 1980. Subsequently, the Oklahoma State University System was created, with the Stillwater campus as the flagship institution and several outlying branches: OSU-Institute of Technology in Okmulgee (1946), OSU-Oklahoma City (1961), OSU-Tulsa (1984), and the Center for Health Sciences also in Tulsa (1988).


title: Oklahoma State University–Stillwater

text: In 2005, OSU announced its "Campus Master Plan", a campaign to enhance academic, athletic, and administrative facilities. Over $800 million is earmarked for campus construction and renovation over twenty years. The Plan calls for an "athletic village", where all of the university's athletic facilities will be located on the main campus. To accomplish this goal, the athletic department bought all (or nearly all) the property north of Boone Pickens Stadium up to McElroy between Knoblock and Washington streets. The city of Stillwater and property owners criticized this land gram. While the vast majority of the real estate was rental property appealing to college students, a few owners were longtime residents. A lone holdout in this parcel of land sued OSU over their right to use eminent domain to condemn and acquire their land. The case was decided in favor of the university. The project includes constructing an indoor practice facility for most sports, a soccer stadium/outdoor track, a tennis complex, and a baseball stadium.


title: Oklahoma State University–Stillwater

text: In 2006, OSU received a gift of $165 million from an alumnus T. Boone Pickens to the university's athletic department, and in 2008 received another gift from Pickens, of $100 million for endowed academic chairs. It was the largest gift for academics ever given in the state. Ethical concerns have been raised by the media questioning the propriety of some of the Pickens' gifts, which were in media reports about the propriety of how some of the Pickens gifts have been made, were immediately returned to Pickens, and then placed in hedge funds owned by Pickens' companies In February 2010, Pickens announced that he was pledging another $100 million to fund a scholarship endowment as part of a $1 billion fund-raising campaign titled "Branding Success." The pledge brought the total pledged or contributed to OSU by Pickens to over $500 million.


title: Oklahoma State University–Stillwater

text: On October 24, 2015, during the annual homecoming parade, Adacia Chambers drove her vehicle into a crowd of people, killing 4 people and injuring 47. She faced 2nd-degree murder charges.


title: Oklahoma State University–Stillwater

text: OSU also has its main medical campus in Tulsa, Oklahoma called the Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences. While a separate campus in the OSU System, the medical campus is jointly accredited with OSU-Stillwater as one institution. It houses the following schools and colleges:


title: Oklahoma State University–Stillwater

text: The medical campus has an affiliation with Oklahoma State University Medical Center for clinical training and offers residency/fellowship opportunities. Also with the medical school, OSU established a campus in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, the capital of the Cherokee Nation and the nation's first, and currently only, tribally-affiliated medical school.


title: Oklahoma State University–Stillwater

text: In 2020, the College of Education and Human Sciences was created, which merged the College of Human Sciences and College of Education, Health, and Aviation into a single college. In August 2021, the university announced the creation of the Oklahoma Aerospace Institute for Research and Education (OAIRE).


title: Oklahoma State University–Stillwater

text: The Center for Veterinary Health Sciences (CVHS) has three academic Departments: Veterinary Pathobiology, Physiological Sciences, and Veterinary Clinical Sciences. Each of the three academic departments share responsibility for the four-year professional curriculum leading to the Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (D.V.M.) degree. The interdepartmental Veterinary Biomedical Sciences graduate program offers MS and Ph.D. degrees. It also offers ECFVG and PAVE programmes for foreign-trained veterinarians.


title: Oklahoma State University–Stillwater

text: The School of Global Studies and Partnerships (prior to 2017 the School of International Studies) offers a Masters of Science in Global Studies, as well as serving as the administrative hub for the university's international activities. It incorporates several units, including:


title: Oklahoma State University–Stillwater

text: For the Class of 2023 (enrolling Fall 2019), OSU received 15,277 applications and accepted 10,691 (70.0%), with 4,200 enrolling. The middle 50% range of SAT scores for enrolling freshmen was 530-635 for evidence-based reading and writing, 510-630 for math, and 1040-1255 for the composite. The middle 50% ACT score range was 19-27 for math, 21-27 for English, and 21-28 for the composite.


title: Oklahoma State University–Stillwater

text: Current university-owned housing options include 31 residence halls, more than 15 dining options, and six family-first apartment complexes. In recent years, on-campus housing has been undergoing significant transformation. Student living was previously dominated by traditional residence halls; however, apartment-style buildings now comprise approximately half of the living quarters. In 2005, the high-rise Willham North and South residence halls that once dominated the Stillwater skyline were demolished and replaced with the Village suites on its site. Iba Hall, another traditional hall, was closed in 2007, but was reopened in 2011 due to an increase of incoming freshman. In 2017, Iba Hall underwent significant renovations which lasted through most of that year, before reopening in time for the Fall 2018 semester.