title: Slack Technologies

text: In April 2016, Slack raised another $200 million, led by Thrive Capital, with participation by GGV, Comcast Ventures and existing investors, including Accel, Index Ventures, and Social Capital. In 2016, Slack was ranked #1 on the "Forbes" Cloud 100 list. In September 2017, Slack raised $250 million, the majority of which came from Softbank Vision Fund, with about 45% of that, or $112.5 million, originally from the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia. This round put Slack's total fundraising at $841 million and its valuation at $5.1 billion (including cash raised). In early 2018, Slack announced the company's first CFO, Allen Shim.


title: Slack Technologies

text: On July 26, 2018, Atlassian announced the shutdown of its competing HipChat and Stride effective February 11, 2019, and the sale of their intellectual property to Slack. Slack was to pay an undisclosed amount over three years to assume the user bases of the services, and Atlassian was to take a minority investment in Slack. The companies also announced a commitment to work on integration of Slack with Atlassian services.


title: Slack Technologies

text: In September 2018, it was announced the firm was preparing for an initial public offering in the first half of 2019. In November 2018, Slack was recognized in Credit Suisse AG's inaugural Disruptive Technology Recognition (DTR) Program, an annual recognition of five top companies who are disrupting traditional enterprise information technology. On January 16, 2019, Slack announced the launch of the company's new logo.


title: Slack Technologies

text: On December 11, 2018, it was reported that Slack was considering a direct public listing. In the lead-up to its DPO, Slack reported that it had generated $400.6 million in revenue for the fiscal year ending January 31, 2019, up from $220.5 million in the previous year and up from $105.2 million in 2017. Slack also reported losses of $138.9 million for the fiscal year ending in January 2019. On February 4, 2019, several media news outlets reported that Slack had filed for taking the company public. According to "The Wall Street Journal", sources indicated the company would pursue a Direct Listing Process (DLP) instead of the traditional IPO. On April 26, 2019, Slack filed its Form S-1 to go public through a direct listing on the New York Stock Exchange, similar to Spotify in 2018. Its stock, ticker WORK, started trading on June 20, 2019. The NYSE set a reference price of $26 to start off trading and the stock rose to more than $41 in the initial hours of trading. It was delisted in June 2021 after Salesforce completed is acquisition, and shareholders were given Salesforce stock.


title: Slack Technologies

text: On November 13, 2019, Slack announced the formation of its partner channel as part of its focus on enterprise clients.


title: Slack Technologies

text: On February 10, 2020, it was reported that IBM will deploy Slack to all of its 350,000 employees, making IBM Slack's largest client to date.


title: Slack Technologies

text: On November 25, 2020, the "Wall Street Journal" reported that Salesforce was in advanced talks to acquire Slack. The company announced its planned acquisition of Slack on December 1, 2020, for over $27 billion in cash and stock.


title: Slack Technologies

text: In July 2020, Slack filed a lawsuit with the European Commission accusing Microsoft of anticompetitive behavior. Slack alleges that Microsoft illegally bundled their competing Microsoft Teams collaboration product with the Microsoft office suite.


title: Slack Technologies

text: In October 2020, investors plaintiffs filed a class action lawsuit against Slack in the California State Superior Court of San Mateo County, alleging securities violations. Plaintiffs claimed, on behalf of individuals who acquired Slack Class A common stock in Slack’s June 2019 direct public offering, that Slack violated Sections 11, 12, and 15 of the Securities Act of 1933 because its IPO documentation allegedly had untrue statements and material omissions. Earlier, in April 2020, Judge Susan Illston of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California had issued an order partially granting Slack’s motion to dismiss a similar federal class action complaint against it. On the one hand, while typically, plaintiffs must show they can trace their shares of stock in the issuer back to the relevant offering, however, if there are multiple registration statements, plaintiffs must prove that the shares they purchased were issued under the allegedly false or misleading registration statement, Illiston held that a direct listing is different and requires a broader reading of Section 11 of the '33 Act of the phrase “such security,” meaning: “acquiring a security of the same nature as that issued pursuant to the registration statement.” As a result, she denied defendant’s motion to dismiss the case under Section 11. On the other hand, she granted the motion to dismiss partially - as to claims that Slack misled plaintiffs regarding Slack's scalable architecture, and she also found the statements in the “Key Benefits” portion of Slack's registration statement to be unactionable.


title: 1998 Philippine presidential election

text: The 1998 Philippine presidential and vice presidential elections were held on May 11, 1998. In the presidential election, Vice President Joseph Estrada won a six-year term as President by a landslide victory. In the vice-presidential race, Senator Gloria Macapagal Arroyo won a six-year term as Vice President, also by a landslide victory. This was the third election where both the president and vice president came from different parties.


title: 1998 Philippine presidential election

text: At the tail-end of the presidency of Fidel V. Ramos, several politicians have been jockeying for the nomination of his Lakas-NUCD-UMDP party. This included Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr., Defense Secretary Renato de Villa, and Cebu Governor Lito Osmeña.


title: 1998 Philippine presidential election

text: The Lakas nominee is widely expected to face Vice President Joseph Estrada, who had been leading candidate in the various opinion polls. Estrada had earlier declared in 1992 that he will not run for president, stating that he intends to retire when he reaches the age of 60 in 1998, but he later recanted this decision.


title: 1998 Philippine presidential election

text: Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago, who considered herself to have been cheated out of the presidency by Ramos in 1992, was also expected to run again.


title: 1998 Philippine presidential election

text: Former First Lady Imelda Marcos was also seen to run for the presidency. She was banking on the support of loyalists of deposed president Ferdinand Marcos.


title: 1998 Philippine presidential election

text: Senator Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who had topped the 1995 Senate election, was also seen to be a strong contender to the presidency, founding the Kabalikat ng Malayang Pilipino party, with Tito Sotto, who himself topped the 1992 Senate election, widely seen to be her vice presidential running mate.


title: 1998 Philippine presidential election

text: Senator Raul Roco, who had a noteworthy Senate career up to this point, had the strong backing of the youth via his Aksyon Demokratiko party.


title: 1998 Philippine presidential election

text: The Lakas convention nominated de Venecia, Ramos handpicked successor. This led to de Villa and Osmeña bolting from Lakas and setting up their own parties. De Venecia picked Arroyo as his running mate.


title: 1998 Philippine presidential election

text: The Liberal Party nominated Manila mayor Alfredo Lim. Meanwhile, the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino (LDP), Nationalist People's Coalition (NPC) and Estrada's own Partido ng Masang Pilipino (the forerunner of the Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino) established an electoral pact and formed the Laban ng Makabayang Masang Pilipino. Estrada chose Senator Edgardo Angara of the LDP as his running mate.


title: 1998 Philippine presidential election

text: Weeks before election day, Marcos withdrew from the election. Estrada had widened his lead among other candidates at this point.


title: 1998 Philippine presidential election

text: The 10th Congress canvassed the votes in joint session for a number of days before declaring Estrada and Arroyo as the winners; with Senate President Neptali Gonzales and Speaker De Venecia announcing the victors.


title: 1998 Philippine presidential election

text: While the official canvassing did not start a fortnight after Election Day, the National Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL) held a parallel and unofficial quick count which was released days after the election and was updated at irregular intervals. NAMFREL based their tally from the seventh copy of the election returns given to them.


title: 1998 Philippine presidential election

text: In theory, the totals for the official canvassing (derived from the certificates of canvass, which are then derived from the election returns) and the completed NAMFREL quick count should be equal.


title: 1998 Philippine presidential election

text: De Venecia carried his home province of Pangasinan as well as Baguio, Roco carried his home province of Camarines Sur and the rest of the Bicol Region (excluding Masbate), and Osmeña got his foothold over his home province of Cebu and other provinces in the South.


title: 1998 Philippine presidential election

text: Other candidates also carried their home provinces such as De Villa of Batangas and Siquijor, Enrile of Cagayan and Iloilo City, and Defensor Santiago of Iloilo Province, as well as Tawi-Tawi and Bacolod. Lim was the only major candidate who did not carry any provinces (with the exception of Batanes) and failed to capture his hometown of Manila.


title: 1998 Philippine presidential election

text: Take note that Manuel Morato had a higher number of votes in the NAMFREL quick count than in the official congressional canvass.


title: 1998 Philippine presidential election

text: Source: Exit polls conducted by Social Weather Stations on May 12, 100% total (margin of error: 1.3%)


title: 1998 Philippine presidential election

text: Arroyo also carried most of the provinces including her home province of Pampanga. Other candidates also carried their home provinces such as Angara of Aurora and Quezon being mother province, Tatad of Catanduanes and Sueno of South Cotabato.


title: 1998 Philippine presidential election

text: Take note that Reynaldo Pacheco had a higher number of votes in the NAMFREL quick count than the official Congressional canvass.


title: 1998 Philippine presidential election

text: Source: Exit polls conducted by Social Weather Stations on May 12, 100% total (margin of error: 1.4%)


title: Zimbabwe national football team

text: The Zimbabwe national football team (Nicknamed "The Warriors"), represents Zimbabwe in men's international football and is controlled by the Zimbabwe Football Association (ZIFA), formerly known as the Football Association of Rhodesia. The team has never qualified for the FIFA World Cup finals, but has qualified for the Africa Cup of Nations five times. Zimbabwe has also won the COSAFA Cup a record six times. The team represents both FIFA and Confederation of African Football (CAF).


title: Zimbabwe national football team

text: Southern Rhodesia played their first official match against the England Amateur national football team as part of their tour of South Africa and Rhodesia in June 1929. Southern Rhodesia lost their first two matches against England 4–0 and 6–1 respectively. In 1965, following Southern Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence as Rhodesia, FIFA requested that the Football Association of Rhodesia reform to be a multi-racial organisation. Prior to this only white Rhodesians were selected for the national football team but after 1965 the team became multi-racial. In 1969, Rhodesia took part in the Oceanic 1970 FIFA World Cup qualification tournament. This was their first attempt to qualify for the FIFA World Cup. Contrary to the team being viewed as the representative team of white Rhodesians, the team was multi-racial including black players. They were drawn against the Australia national football team. Both legs were held in Lourenço Marques, Portuguese Mozambique as the Rhodesian team were unable to get Australian visas. Rhodesia drew the first leg 1–1 but lost the second leg 3–1 thus eliminating Rhodesia from qualification.


title: Zimbabwe national football team

text: In 1980, following the country's reconstitution as Zimbabwe, they played their first FIFA World Cup qualifying match for 11 years against the Cameroon national football team. However they lost 2–1 on aggregate after a 1–0 win in the first leg in Salisbury and a 2–0 loss in the second leg. Following this, the country passed a law that people who held British passports would not be permitted to hold a Zimbabwean passport, which mean that players such as goalkeeper Bruce Grobbelaar were not selected for the national team for 10 years. Following a change in policy that allowed Grobbelaar to play for Zimbabwe, who entered the country on his British passport, Zimbabwe under manager Reinhard Fabisch were one match away from qualifying for the 1994 FIFA World Cup. However, they lost their final qualifying match to Cameroon.


title: Zimbabwe national football team

text: In 2004, Zimbabwe qualified for their first Africa Cup of Nations. During their first match against Egypt, their former anthem "Ishe Komborera Africa" was accidentally played instead of "Simudzai Mureza wedu weZimbabwe", an act which Information Minister Jonathan Moyo called "a cheap attempt by the organisers to demoralise our boys".


title: Zimbabwe national football team

text: In 2015, the Zimbabwe national football team were banned from participating in 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifying due to an unpaid debt to former coach, José Claudinei. At the time, the team was experiencing its strongest period for many years, qualifying for both the 2017 and 2019 Africa Cup of Nations.


title: Zimbabwe national football team

text: On 1 March 2022, Zimbabwe, along with Kenya, was suspended again from international sport due to the interference of the government. Earlier in November 2021, Harare and Nairobi dissolved their federations and were replaced with government-officials. On 31 March, the suspension was made indefinitely and was ratified by FIFA. Suspension is set until Zimbabwe and Kenya meet the demands given by FIFA.


title: Zimbabwe national football team

text: The following is a list of match results in the last 12 months, as well as any future matches that have been scheduled.


title: Loft

text: A loft is a building's upper storey or elevated area in a room directly under the roof (American usage), or just an attic: a storage space under the roof usually accessed by a ladder (primarily British usage). A loft apartment refers to large adaptable open space, often converted for residential use (a converted loft) from some other use, often light industrial. Adding to the confusion, some converted lofts include upper open loft areas.


title: Loft

text: In U.S usage, a loft is an upper room or storey in a building, mainly in a barn, directly under the roof, used for storage (as in most private houses). In this sense it is roughly synonymous with attic, the major difference being that an attic typically constitutes an entire floor of the building, while a loft covers only a few rooms, leaving one or more sides open to the lower floor.


title: Loft

text: In British usage, lofts are usually just a roof space accessed via a hatch and loft ladder, while attics tend to be rooms immediately under the roof accessed via a staircase. Lofts may have a specific purpose, e.g. an "organ loft" in a church, or to sleep in (sleeping loft). In barns a hayloft is often larger than the ground floor as it would contain a year's worth of hay.


title: Loft

text: An attic or loft can often be converted to form a functional living accommodation (see Loft conversions in the United Kingdom).


title: Loft

text: In modern Norwegian and in English, "loft" is used for the upper room or the space just under the roof in larger buildings. The word originates from Old Norse "lopt, loft" which also could mean air or being elevated (as in the related word "løfte", English "to lift"). In older Scandinavian usage, "loft" referred to a two-storey unheated building used for storage and bedroom, in contrast to dwelling buildings that were one-storey with a fireplace.


title: Loft

text: Loft apartments are apartments that are generally built from former industrial buildings. When industrial developments are developed into condominiums instead of apartments, they may be called loft condominiums. The general term warehouse-to-loft conversions may sometimes be used for development of industrial buildings into apartments and condominiums. "Loft-style" may also refer simply to developments where a street-level business occupies the first floor while apartment "lofts" are placed "above" the first floor.


title: Loft

text: Sometimes, loft apartments are one component of municipal urban renewal initiatives that also include renovation of industrial buildings into art galleries and studio space as well as promotion of a new part of the city as an "arts district".


title: Loft

text: Originally popular with artists, they are now highly sought-after by other bohemians and hipsters, and the gentrification of the former manufacturing sectors of medium to large cities is now a familiar pattern. One such sector is Manhattan's Meatpacking District. The adoption of the Adaptive Reuse Ordinance (2001) in the City of Los Angeles (primarily the Arts District) is another example of such legislation to encourage the conversion of no longer economically viable industrial and commercial buildings to residential loft communities. Such is the demand for these spaces that real estate developers have taken to creating ready-made "lofts" in urban areas that are gentrifying or that seem primed to do so. While some of these units are created by developers during the renovation of old buildings, a number of them are included in the floor plans of brand new developments. Both types of pre-fab loft offer buyers or renters proximity to urban amenities afforded by traditional lofts, but without perceived safety risks of living in economically depressed formerly industrial areas.


title: Loft

text: Real estate industry distinguishes between two kinds of lofts. "Hard lofts" are former industrial buildings converted to residential or live/work use. Many of these conversions retain open ceilings with exposed beams, electrical wiring and HVAC ducts instead of modern suspended ceilings or sheetrock ceilings.


title: Loft

text: "Soft lofts" are loft-style residential buildings built entirely anew. They are open-concept spaces with high ceilings, large windows, brickwork and cement ceilings. Soft lofts can be warmer and have modern finishes but lack the history of hard lofts.


title: Loft

text: A commercial loft refers to upper storey space, usually in a commercial or industrial building with higher ceilings; a second storey area for storage or offices above may be added within the original space used by a previous business occupant, effectively becoming a mezzanine area within the commercial loft space. Such adaptation of loft space, can result in better operating efficiencies for ongoing light industrial, commercial and work/live use.


title: Loft

text: A Live/work loft is a residential unit located in a commercially zoned building that has either been issued a certificate of residential occupancy or meets specific criteria making it eligible for the protection of loft laws, which vary state by state.


title: Loft

text: Loft Law was designed to protect artists and other entrepreneurs that are remote workers. To qualify for the Loft Law protection, the unit must be primarily residential with the commercial purpose being clearly incidental to the residential use; utilising no more than 49% of the total space; with no more than 3 employees; and be carried on by the actual occupant of the unit.


title: Loft

text: Historically, loft residents consisted of artists and other artisans taking advantage of cheap rents, large spaces and load-bearing floors. Loft residences were illegal and loft dwellers resided under commercial leases, forgoing basic residential rights such as hot water and sanitation. To relieve their plight, many state legislatures enacted loft laws.


title: Loft

text: A long building at a shipyard with a considerable floor area on which the lines produced by a naval architect can be laid off in their full dimensions. After that the full-size drawings can be copied with the aid of wooden moulds to which, in turn, the steel frames or, in the case of wooden vessels, the hull moulds, are fashioned (see lofting).


title: Loft

text: A large, open, high ceilinged space where parachute riggers re-pack parachutes into parachute containers.


title: Loft

text: A large open space used by sailmakers to make sails. The floor has to be big enough to lay out the sail as the canvas is marked and cut ready for sewing.


title: Loft

text: Some churches have a choir loft, where the singers stand or sit during services. Sometimes the church organ is located in an organ loft, which may or may not have space for musicians apart from the organist. Churches may also contain triforiums with projecting watching-lofts.


title: Loft

text: It is fairly common to convert all or part of a home into a loft to create an extra room in order to prevent needing to move to a new house. The most common additions are an extra bedroom or study. The attic area of a building tends to be unused, but when converted can add a large amount of floor space.


title: Loft

text: Housing for domestic pigeons are often called pigeon lofts. Pigeon lofts consist of a large cage or aviary and sometimes a nest box. They were a traditional amenity, now usually abandoned or repurposed in the palaces of nobility and commercial buildings that predate telegraphy.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: Adnan Oktar (; born 2 February 1956), also known as Adnan Hoca or Harun Yahya, is a Turkish religious sex cult leader, creationist/anti-evolutionist, conspiracy theorist, preacher and pamphleteer. In the 2000s, he was engaged in "a massive campaign" of proselytizing Westerners to Islam, producing dozens of vividly illustrated books.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: In the West, before his arrest and trial, he was perhaps best known for his unsolicited sending thousands of copies of his book, "The Atlas of Creation", which advocates Islamic creationism, to French schools and universities in January 2007, and several months later to American scientists, members of Congress, science museums and schools.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: Before his arrest, Oktar ran two organizations in which he also served as honorary president: "Bilim Araştırma Vakfı" (BAV, literally, "Science Research Foundation", established 1990), which promoted creationism and "Millî Değerleri Koruma Vakfı" (literally, "Foundation for Protection of National Values", established 1995) which worked domestically on a variety of moral issues.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: In more recent years, Adnan Oktar has preached "the true Islam" based on the Quran on his TV channel, A9 TV. His organization is commonly referred to as a cult, and he has been described by "Vice" magazine as the "most notorious cult leader in Turkey." Oktar filed more than 5,000 lawsuits against individuals for defamation from 2005 to 2015, which led to the blocking of a number of prominent websites in Turkey.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: After being arrested in July 2018, and indicted a year later, on 11 January 2021, Oktar was sentenced to 1,075 years in prison,


title: Adnan Oktar

text: after being tried for charges including forming a criminal enterprise, financial fraud, and sexual abuse. Along with 13 others detained in the case, sentences totalled 9,803 years.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: However on 15 March 2022, his verdict was overturned by the Turkish Court of Appeal "due to incomplete prosecution and erroneous assessment." He was subsequently sentenced to 8,658 years on 17 November 2022 as a result of his retrial.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: Adnan Oktar was born in Ankara, Turkey, in 1956, and raised there through his high school years. where he studied the works of Islamic scholars like Said Nursî, a Kurdish Muslim scholar who wrote "Risale-i Nur", an extensive tafsir (Qur'anic commentary) that includes a comprehensive political and religious ideology. According to "The Mahdi Wears Armani", an "academic work focusing on Oktar and his movement", he grew up in a "relatively affluent secular family".


title: Adnan Oktar

text: In 1979, Oktar came to Istanbul and entered Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University. According to "The Mahdi Wears Armani", it was only there that he became really "involved in religious activism".


title: Adnan Oktar

text: Following the coup of September 1980 in Turkey a military junta was installed, and the environment in Turkey was one of political and cultural instability, violence and repression, Cold War politics, and a clash between Kemalist secular modernisers and a rising tide of Islamic militancy. In this environment Oktar regularly attended the Molla Mosque in Fındıklı locality, close to the academy of fine arts where he studied interior architecture, to pray regardless of threats. Edip Yüksel, who knew him during those years, described him as a "Sunni zealot."


title: Adnan Oktar

text: In the early 1980s, Oktar preached his views on Islam to young students around him from socially connected, wealthy Istanbul families, employing his "undoubted charisma (something even his most ardent opponents concede)". 20 to 30 of them formed a group between 1982 and 1984. They were joined by newly religious private high school students who were from families with similar higher-class economic backgrounds. Yüksel said Oktar presented "a refined and urbanized version" of Said Nursi's teachings "to the children of the privileged class", avoiding a high pressure or traditional, old fashioned approach. Like Said Nursi, (who advocated the combining "traditional Islamic beliefs with scientific ideas" and eventually became "one of the leading figures" of the Islamic revival in Turkey), Oktar argued against Marxism, communism and materialistic philosophy, but Oktar attached special importance to refuting evolution and Darwinism because he felt that it had been turned into an ideology used to promote materialism and atheism and similar unreligious ideologies. In a cultural analysis of psychosis and politics in Turkey, Canadian psychological anthropologist Sadeq Rahimi observes, "while Said Nursi set his 'enemy' to be the 'irreligion' of communism, Yahya has singled out the 'materialism of Darwinism' and the evolutionary theory as the antichrist, a strategic adaptation that led to both a serious internal inconsistency and an intricate network of conspiracy theories." He personally funded a pamphlet entitled the "Theory of Evolution", which combined "mysticism with scientific rhetoric", pseudoscientific arguments against evolution.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: In 1986 he enrolled in the Philosophy Department of Istanbul University. Oktar appeared as the cover story of "Nokta" magazine, reporting how he gathered with his friends and held lectures in a mosque. Many university students, mostly from Boğaziçi University, one of the most prestigious universities of Turkey, started to participate. Adnan Oktar's name began to appear regularly in the press, sometimes in the headlines. Later that year he published a 550-page book titled "Judaism and Freemasonry", based on the antisemitic canard that state offices, universities, political groups and media were influenced by a "hidden group" "to erode the spiritual, religious, and moral values of the Turkish people and make them like animals."


title: Adnan Oktar

text: Oktar was arrested on the grounds of promoting a theocratic revolution, and he was detained 19 months, though never formally charged. In 1986, Oktar spent 10 months in a mental hospital, where he was diagnosed with schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive personality disorder, but he maintains that he was not mentally ill but a political "prisoner" who was punished because of the publication of "Judaism and Freemasonry".


title: Adnan Oktar

text: Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, Oktar built up his community. His followers were especially active recruiting at summer resorts along the Sea of Marmara. The social organization within the group became more hierarchical and took on a Messianic nature. Two themes one ex-follower remembered from the 1980s and early 1990s were a strong hatred of Jews and Freemasons, and in a move away from orthodox Islam, abandoning belief in hadith."Suddenly Adnan Hodja repudiated all oral traditions relating to the words and deeds of Muhammad (hadith) and decided that the Koran would be the only point of reference. Henceforth, he reduced the five daily prayers to three, and he dropped the veiling of women. He told us the Mehdi would emerge from Turkey, and he would come with an army of youth. He never said that he was the Mehdi himself, but we all believed that he was."


title: Adnan Oktar

text: Oktar says that due to the anarchy and terror in those years, he was unable to continue his studies. He had already begun working on his books, so when he left school he devoted his energy to his books.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: In 1990, he founded the "Science Research Foundation" (SRF, or, in Turkish, "Bilim Araştırma Vakfı", or BAV), Members discarded their "overtly Islamic garments" in favor of "designer clothing" and "proclaimed themselves supporters of the ideals" of the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, despite the fact that Atatürk was secularist.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: BAV held conferences and seminars that targeted "mass awareness concerning what the real underlying causes of social and political conflicts are", which he identified as materialism and Darwinism. Others in some media organizations describe the BAV as "a secretive Islamic sect" and "cult-like organization, that jealously guards the secrets of its considerable wealth". Based his own experiences and conversations with ex-members of Oktar's group, Edip Yüksel says Oktar's group "was a complete cult" with "all the criteria of a cult as you would define it today, ... isolation, entire control of the lives of the cult members".


title: Adnan Oktar

text: Members of the BAV are sometimes referred to as "Adnan Hocacılar" ("Adherents of Adnan the Hodja") by the public.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: In 1994, the Islamist Welfare Party ("Refah Partisi"), the predecessor of the Virtue Party, won control of the municipalities of Istanbul and Ankara. The new mayors (in Istanbul this was Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, now Turkey's president and head of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), sought broader support. The journalist and editor Fatih Altaylı wrote in the "New Humanist" that Oktar made business agreements with municipalities under the control of the Welfare Party. Oktar denied and sued Fatih Altaylı several times with various results. In 1995, Oktar founded "Foundation for Protection of National Values" (FPNV or in Turkish "Millî Değerleri Koruma Vakfı"), through which he networks with other conservative Turkish nationalist organizations and individuals on shared issues. In 1997, after another military intervention, the "bloodless coup" of 1997, the government of Erbakan stepped down and the Welfare Party disbanded. According to Altaylı, the current AKP government avoids political connections with Oktar and his organization. According to Luca Steinmann, writing in the "HuffPost", there are no major differences between the version of Islam that Oktar preaches and what Erdoğan promotes since Erdoğan's conservative change for Turkey correlates with Oktar's cultural point of view.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: In 1998 the BAV, launched its campaign against Darwinism, with Oktar's book "The Evolution Deceit", distributing tens of thousands of free copies in Turkey.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: In September 1999 Adnan Oktar was arrested and charged with using threats for personal benefit and creating an organization with the intent to commit a crime (see "Legal issues" below). Oktar was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison, but the verdict was appealed and in May 2010 it was overturned. During these years he engaged in numerous libel suits with various results (See "Legal Issues" below). In some cases he was successful in blocking high-profile websites in Turkey for slander (see "Blocking Internet Sites" below), including that of Richard Dawkins, as well as the entirety of WordPress.com.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: Between that time and the present, BAV has organized hundreds of conferences on creationism in Turkey and worldwide. He built a large publishing enterprise with publications sold though Islamic bookstores worldwide. He is one of the most widely distributed authors in the Muslim world.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: In 2007 he sent out thousands of unsolicited copies of his "Atlas of Creation" advocating Islam and creationism to schools and colleges in several European countries and the USA.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: His television show is viewed by many in the Arab world. According to Middle East Eye, his TV programs were known for featuring him discussing Islamic principles, while (somewhat incongruously), "scantily clad women with bleached blonde hair danced around him to popular music. These women Oktar referred to as his 'kittens'".


title: Adnan Oktar

text: In 2010, Oktar was selected as one of the top fifty of "The 500 Most Influential Muslims" in the World by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre of Jordan for his dissemination of creationism in an Islamic context, and other extensively distributed publications on Islamic topics.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: On 11 July 2018, the financial crimes section of the Turkish police detained Oktar and over 160 of his associates on charges including forming a criminal enterprise, financial fraud and sexual abuse. Other charges Oktar faces range from sexual intercourse with minors and kidnapping children to holding people captive, political and military espionage, money laundering and torture. According to the Istanbul chief prosecutor's office, Oktar was apprehended while attempting to run away from the arresting police officers.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: On 19 July 2018, Adnan Oktar was remanded into custody pending trial along with 168 of his associates. In addition, after Oktar's initial arrest, over 45 people from over six countries, including two children, have pressed charges against him. When asked why he was arrested before being questioned by the police, Oktar stated: "It's a British plot."


title: Adnan Oktar

text: On 19 July 2019, an Istanbul high court approved the indictment of Oktar for the charges. The first hearing was scheduled for 17 September in Silivri Prison. On 11 January 2021, Oktar was sentenced to 1,075 years in prison. An international trial observation report written by Lionel Blackman heavily criticised the conduct of the trial.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: On 15 March 2022, his verdict was overturned by the Turkish Court of Appeal "due to incomplete prosecution and erroneous assessment," with the court asking for "the retrial of all defendants". As of 17 March, taking into account time spent in jail, the appeal court has "decided to release 68 defendants", but not "16 high-profile defendants, including Oktar".


title: Adnan Oktar

text: Oktar has written numerous books under the pen name Harun Yahya. "Harun" refers to the biblical Aaron and "Yahya" refers to the New Testament John the Baptist.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: His publications argue against evolution. They assert that evolution denies the existence of God, abolishes moral values, and promotes materialism and communism.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: Truman State University physicist Taner Edis, who was born in Turkey, says the secret to BAV's success is the huge popularity of the Harun Yahya books. "They're fairly lavishly produced, on good-quality paper with full-color illustrations all over the place," he says. "They're trying to compete with any sort of science publication you can find in the Western world. And in a place like Turkey, Yahya books look considerably better-published than most scientific publications." Many of his books have been made into high-resolution videos which are freely downloadable on the Internet.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: Oktar has been called "fiercely opposed to the theory of evolution" and Darwinism, which he believes undermines religious belief, thus leading to "the discord, atheism, terrorism and extreme political ideologies" of contemporary life.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: The spread of organized Christian creationism to Islam began in the 1980s, when the Muslim minister of education in Turkey turned to the Institute for Creation Research (ICR), a Christian institution then located near San Diego, California, for help in developing twofold curriculum that would teach evolution and creationism side by side. In 1990, the "Science Research Foundation" (BAV in Turkish) was formed in Istanbul, headed by Oktar.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: For many years Oktar drew on the writings of young earth Christian creationists to develop his case against evolution. Oktar later produced material which was more similar to Intelligent Design. In fact, Harun Yahya's website was listed as an "Islamic intelligent design" website by the Discovery Institute. However Oktar does not embrace use of the term 'Intelligent Design' due to its lack of specific mention of God, calling it 'another of Satan's snares'.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: In early 1998, the BAV launched its first campaign against evolution. Thousands of free copies of Oktar's book, "The Evolution Deceit", and the booklets based on this book were distributed throughout Turkey. They regularly ran full-page ads against evolution in daily Turkish newspapers and even ran an ad in the U.S. magazine "Time". Where the funding for the campaign came from is unknown.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: BAV spearheaded an effort to confront Turkish academics who taught evolutionary biology. A number of faculty members were harassed, threatened and slandered in fliers, leading to legal action against BAV (see "Legal Issues" below). In 2005, Professor Ümit Sayın summed up the effect of the BAV's campaign when he said to "The Pitch":In 1998, I was able to motivate six members of the Turkish Academy of Sciences to speak out against the creationist movement. Today, it's impossible to motivate anyone. They're afraid they'll be attacked by the radical Islamists and the BAV.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: In September 2008 Oktar issued a challenge offering "10 trillion Turkish lira to anyone who produces a single intermediate-form fossil demonstrating evolution". He has stated: "Not one [fossil] belongs to strange-looking creatures in the course of development of the kind supposed by evolutionists." Biology professor Kevin Padian at the University of California, Berkeley has criticized the notion that such fossils do not exist, stating that Oktar "does not have any sense of what we know about how things change through time. If he sees a fossil crab, he says, 'It looks just like a regular crab, there's no evolution.'"


title: Adnan Oktar

text: Taner Edis has said "there is nothing new in the Yahya material: scientifically negligible arguments and outright distortions often copied from Christian anti-evolution literature, presented with a conservative Muslim emphasis" concluding it "has no scholarly standing whatsoever". According to Richard Dawkins, Oktar "doesn't know anything about zoology, doesn't know anything about biology. He knows nothing about what he is attempting to refute".


title: Adnan Oktar

text: Oktar published volume 1 of his "Yaratılış Atlası" ("The Atlas of Creation"), with Global Publishing, Istanbul, Turkey in October 2006.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: Volumes 2 and 3 followed in 2007. A dedicated website (yaratilisatlasi.com, English atlasofcreation.com) registered to Global Yayıncılık (Global Publishing), Istanbul, went online also in 2007.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: At 28 cm x 43 cm and nearly 5.5 kg, with a bright red cover and almost 800 glossy pages, most of them lavishly illustrated, "Atlas of Creation" is according to "The New York Times" "probably the largest and most beautiful creationist challenge yet to Darwin's theory, which Yahya calls a feeble and perverted ideology contradicted by the Koran". Tens of thousands of copies of the book were sent—unsolicited—to schools, prominent researchers and research institutes throughout Europe and the United States.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: Padian said that people who had received copies were "just astounded at its size and production values and equally astonished at what a load of crap it is," adding that "[Oktar] does not really have any sense of what we know about how things change through time."


title: Adnan Oktar

text: Geneticist and writer Adam Rutherford writes that the book claims to prove that no species alive on Earth today underwent mutagenesis, but points out that


title: Adnan Oktar

text: "Page 244 has a picture of a caddis fly, with a legend that asserts - as virtually every page does - that the beast in question has always existed in its current form as demonstrated by a vaguely similar looking fossil, therefore evolution is bunk. Except it's not a caddis fly, it's a fishing lure, beautifully crafted by master tier Graham Owen, with the clearly visible hook piercing the man-made abdomen. Other exquisite examples of Owen's work also appear in the Atlas.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: Gerdien de Jong, one of five biologists at Utrecht University who received a copy of the book, has described its reasoning as "absurdly ridiculous".


title: Adnan Oktar

text: Biologist PZ Myers wrote: "The general pattern of the book is repetitious and predictable: the book shows a picture of a fossil and a photo of a living animal, and declares that they haven't changed a bit, therefore evolution is false. Over and over. It gets old fast, and it's usually wrong (they have changed!) and the photography, while lovely, is entirely stolen."


title: Adnan Oktar

text: The Committee on Culture, Science and Education of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe wrote in a report that "None of the arguments in this work are based on any scientific evidence, and the book appears more like a primitive theological treatise than the scientific refutation of the theory of evolution."


title: Adnan Oktar

text: Oktar propagates a number of conspiracy theories, beginning with the antisemitic canard in his 1986 "Judaism and Freemasonry" ("Yahudilik ve Masonluk"). The book suggests that the principal mission of Jews and Freemasons in Turkey was to erode the spiritual, religious, and moral values of the Turkish people and, thus, make them like animals, as stated in what Oktar refers to as their use of "Distorted Torah." Oktar asserts that "the materialist standpoint, evolution theory, anti-religious and immoral lifestyles were indoctrinated to the society as a whole" by Jews and Freemasons.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: His theory of a global conspiracy of Freemasonry is expounded in his book "Global Masonluk" ("Global Freemasonry") and on his websites "Masonluk" and "Global Freemasonry". According to Oktar, Freemasonry is "the main architect of the world system based on materialist philosophy, but which keeps that true identity concealed." Oktar called the theory of evolution a Masonic conspiracy initiated by the Rosicrucians.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: Oktar's recent publications no longer attack Jews and Judaism, but declare Darwinism and Materialism to be conspiracies responsible for antisemitism and terrorism. In recent publications and interviews (since 2004). Oktar qualifies his condemnations of Zionism and Freemasonry by adding the word atheist before them, as in "atheist Zionists" and "atheist Freemasons".


title: Adnan Oktar

text: Oktar's position on the holocaust has evolved from "antisemitic conspiracy-theorising" (1980s), denying that the Nazis had a plan for the mass extermination of Jews ("The Holocaust Deception," 1996), to acknowledging the genocide ("The Holocaust Violence", 2006), and most recently to attending "numerous events in Israel", being photographed with "far-right Zionists like Yehuda Glick and Rabbi Meir Lau".


title: Adnan Oktar

text: In 1996, BAV distributed its first book, originally published the previous year, entitled "Soykırım Yalanı" ("The Holocaust Deception" or "The Holocaust Lie"). The publication of "Soykırım Yalanı" sparked controversy. This book claims that "what is presented as Holocaust is the death of some Jews due to the typhus plague during the war and the famine towards the end of the war caused by the defeat of the Germans."


title: Adnan Oktar

text: A Turkish painter and intellectual, Bedri Baykam, published a strongly worded critique of the book in Ankara's daily newspaper, "Siyah-Beyaz" ("Black and White"). A legal suit for slander was brought against him. During the trial in September, Baykam exposed the real author of "The Holocaust Lie" as Adnan Oktar. The suit was withdrawn in March 1997.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: In 2001, the Stephen Roth Institute, of Tel Aviv University, listed Oktar as a Holocaust denier due to the publication of "The Holocaust Lie". Three years later, the Stephen Roth Institute expressed the opinion that Oktar had increased his tolerance toward others, asserting that "he now works towards promoting inter-religious dialogue". calling upon all Muslims to have "a tolerant and friendly attitude toward other religions".


title: Adnan Oktar

text: In 2006, BAV published a book affirming the Holocaust, called "The Holocaust Violence". "The Holocaust Violence" states,


title: Adnan Oktar

text: In a 2007 interview with "The Guardian", Oktar denied writing "The Holocaust Lie", a claim that "The Guardian" stated was "hard to believe." The next year in an interview with "Der Spiegel", Oktar claimed "The Holocaust Lie" had been written by a friend who had published his own essays using Oktar's pen name, "Harun Yahya", on his own. Oktar disclaimed the first book, and said the second book reflected his own opinions.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: In 2009, Oktar expressed his new views on Jews in his own words, "hatred or anger toward the line of the Prophet Abraham is completely unacceptable. The Prophet Abraham is our ancestor, and the Jews are our brothers. We want the descendants of the Prophet Abraham to live in the easiest, pleasantest and most peaceful manner. We want them to be free to perform their religious obligations, to live as they wish in the lands of their forebears and to frequently remember Allah in comfort and security."


title: Adnan Oktar

text: Nevertheless, that year the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) described Yahya as "an anti-Semitic Turkish writer whose articles demonize Jews who support Israel as "godless" and blames them for committing atrocities." The ADL also argued that Yahya quotes Holocaust-denier Roger Garaudy and still cites "The Holocaust Deception" in the articles on his site.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: After his 2018 arrest Oktar was described by "The Times of Israel" as having "been criticized in the past for publishing books featuring anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and Holocaust denial, but in recent years has renounced them and held events to combat those phenomena in the Muslim world. He has been embraced by some high-profile Israelis."


title: Adnan Oktar

text: On 21 March 2011, Oktar started television broadcasting on the A9 satellite channel, which broadcasts over both the internet and Turkish cable networks.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: The channel is his "main platform" for broadcasting his "unique brand of televangelism", interviews, night lectures, as well as documentaries based on his works.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: His TV programs have received considerable attention from both Turkish and international media for their 'weirdness', and in particular for featuring female devotees, he calls his 'kittens'. In stark contrast to orthodox Islamic decorum and the shows of any other Muslim televangelist, the women, who are usually wealthy socialites who have undergone plastic surgery, wear heavy make-up and tight Versace T-shirts (or other tight, revealing outfits), and dance to pop music between sets. They and Adnan Oktar have discussions about Islam, fossils that supposedly discredit evolution, and about Oktar himself.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: Oktar has defended the unusual appearance of his co-hosts in Islamic terms ("A woman may wear the head-covering, or cover herself up entirely or uncover her head or wear low-cut clothes. Once she says, 'I am a Muslim,' nobody has the right to judge her.") But others have questioned whether Oktar and his kitten cohosts are motivated by the empowerment of women and basing Islam only on the Quran (setting aside Sunni and Shia doctrines and traditions).


title: Adnan Oktar

text: According to Edip Yüksel, Oktar got the idea that hijab is not necessary for women from him in the 1980s. "At that time I said that the headscarf doesn't exist in the Quran", and thought of Oktar as a kindred spirit. But now he feels his argument has been "abused" on behalf of a "sex cult", which has "created very bad associations for the cause of reformation" of Islam. Journalist Meher Ahmad attempted to interview the women in Oktar's group about feminism in Islam, travelling to Istanbul in 2015 to make a video for Vice. But when she arrived she found herself repeatedly stonewalled and treated with suspicion", by Oktar's people unable to get "a one-on-one interview or a group interview with the women."


title: Adnan Oktar

text: Oktar has been described as preaching Islam as a "dutiful disciple" of Kurdish Islamic scholar Said Nursî, criticizing not only Communism, but Atatürk's secular reforms, and especially his mortal enemy Freemasonry, but making "no claim whatever to clerical authority".


title: Adnan Oktar

text: Oktar has preached for Turkish-Islamic union, "a new Ottoman Empire girdling the world from Eastern Russia to Western Nigeria, which would unify the Islamic world under Turkish leadership".


title: Adnan Oktar

text: According to Halil Arda, Oktar justified concubinage "by reference to the Ottoman harems, while passages of the Koran were recited to justify the practice of severing the ties of the young followers to their families". He quotes a Turkish legal scholar "involved in some of the court cases against Oktar": "In [Oktar's] reading, the love for mother and father is an offence to God. Parents are seen as the executors of God's will to raise the child. Once the child reaches adulthood, their role is fulfilled. If the parents happen to join, they are considered pious and may become fellow comrades. If they remain 'infidels', they are considered enemies." Despite cutting off these relations, the group ultimately depended on parents financial and social resources. "followers were encouraged to plunder their parents' bank accounts and sell their assets".


title: Adnan Oktar

text: "I want to resemble Prophet Solomon. Prophet Solomon was like this. He used to be well dressed. He liked being well dressed. His palace was beautiful; there were beautiful people around him. Allah is beautiful. Allah loves those who are beautiful, wants everywhere to be beautiful. Paradise is also beautiful. [The] aim of a Muslim should be beauty."


title: Adnan Oktar

text: Oktar preaches that "the day of judgement, contrary to what may believe , is approaching now, not in some distant future". There will be two apocalyptic phases: one of "material and spiritual problems", followed by a 'Golden Age', where "true religion" brings "generosity and kindness". This will be followed by "rapid social collapse" before Judgment Day arrives. One unique variation by Oktar on the traditional prophesy of Gog and Magog is that their invasion will not be of hordes of warriors but of television programs they transmit, and that the blocking of them by the Two-Horned One (Dhu al-Qarnayn) will not be by some wall but by electromagnetic jamming.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: Oktar has also emphasized the importance in Islam of "the role to be played by Jesus at the end of the world", which permits him "to cultivate an ecumenical image" -- Muslims and Christians will be joined in combat 'destroying the society established by the Antichrist, they will save mankind from atheism'".


title: Adnan Oktar

text: According to one critic (Halil Arda in New Humanist), Oktar's "ideological and political promiscuity" (juming from Anti-Darwinism, interfaith dialogue, Turkish-Islamic union) may be because he doesn't really have any "genuine beliefs", and merely work by opportunistically jumping "on issues" that followers have come up with and that he thinks "will further his notoriety". Arda quotes a former follower: "We had something to please everybody: Atatürk, namaz (ritual prayer), creationism and, if need be, cocaine."


title: Adnan Oktar

text: Oktar's books and brochures appear in Turkish published by "Vural Yayıncılık" ("Global Publishing") of Istanbul. English translations of his books are published by Ta-Ha Publishers in London, Global Publishing of Istanbul, Al-Attique Publishers in Toronto, and Goodword Books of New Delhi, India. As of mid-2008, Oktar's "publishing empire" had produced "260 books in 52 languages, over 80 DVDs and dozens of websites".


title: Adnan Oktar

text: Publication media includes: Books, booklets, pamphlets, children's books, journals, documentaries, audiobooks, CDs, posters and over a hundred websites. The total number of books and brochures published by Oktar number in the hundreds. The works are lavishly produced, on good-quality paper with full-color illustrations and sold in Islamic bookstores worldwide.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: In addition to the slander trial over "The Holocaust Lie", Oktar has been involved in other cases. Although most are unrelated to creationism or religion, a BAV spokesperson says Oktar is being persecuted "because of his ideas." Physicist Taner Edis of Truman State University, who has followed the case closely, says given the political pressures on Turkey's justice system, that's "not entirely implausible."


title: Adnan Oktar

text: In the summer of 1986, Oktar was arrested for his statement "I am from the nation of Abraham and Turkish ethnicity" in a newspaper interview. Oktar was arrested for promoting a theocratic revolution for which he served 19 months, though he was never formally charged.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: In 1991, Oktar was arrested for possession of cocaine, which he claimed had been planted in one of the books in his library by the security forces, who, he said, also spiked his food with cocaine. He was later acquitted.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: A number of faculty members who taught evolution were harassed, threatened and slandered in flyers that labeled them "Maoists". In 1999, six of the professors won a civil court case against the BAV for defamation and were each awarded $4,000.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: In 1999, Oktar was arrested and charged with using threats for personal benefit and creating an organization with the intent to commit a crime. BAV's lawyers claimed there were several human rights violations during this police operation, as well as the use of violence during the arrest and afterwards. The judicial process lasted over two years, during which most of the complainants retracted their claims. As a result, cases against Oktar and other BAV members were dismissed.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: The 1999 case was reopened by another court in 2008. The indictment from the prosecutor's office, made public by "Cumhuriyet", claimed blackmail and extortion. Among other things, it claimed that BAV used its female members to attract young scholars from rich families with the promise of sexual favors in exchange for attending events. It was claimed that the sexual activities of thousands of people were videotaped with hidden cameras for the purpose of blackmail. Members who wanted to leave the group were threatened that the tapes would be made public. In the face of all these allegations against BAV, the Chairman of the Court announced in the hearing on 29 February 2008, that testimonies obtained through unlawful means may not be considered as evidence based on article 148 of the criminal code.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: Oktar was convicted of creating an illegal organization for personal gain. He and 17 other members of his organisation were sentenced to three years in prison. Oktar appealed the verdict. In May 2010, the Court of Appeals overturned the conviction and dismissed the charges.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: Since 2007, Oktar has successfully had the Turkish government block public access to several websites. In April 2007, Oktar filed a libel lawsuit against the owners of Ekşi Sözlük, a virtual community similar to everything2. The court reviewed the complaint and ordered the service provider to close the site to public access. The site was temporarily suspended so the entry on Oktar could be expunged and locked. Then access to "Süper Poligon", a news website, was also restricted following Oktar's complaint. In August 2007, Oktar got a Turkish court to block WordPress.com throughout Turkey. His lawyers argued that blogs on WordPress.com contained libelous material, which WordPress.com was unwilling to remove.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: Edip Yüksel, a Turkish writer who knew Oktar in the 1980s, had his own website banned in Turkey due to Oktar's complaints. In addition, Yüksel wrote a Turkish-language book, "The Cult of the Antichrist", but has yet to find "a publisher willing to brave Mr. Oktar's lawyers."


title: Adnan Oktar

text: On 19 September 2008, a Turkish court banned Internet users in Turkey from viewing the official Richard Dawkins website after Oktar claimed its contents were defamatory, blasphemous and insulting to religion, arguing that his personality was violated by this site. The ban was lifted on 8 July 2011.


title: Adnan Oktar

text: In September 2008, a complaint by Oktar led to the banning of the internet site of the Union of Education and Scientific Workers. This was followed by a block of the country's third-biggest newspaper site, "Vatan", in October.


title: Competitive programming

text: Competitive programming is a mind sport usually held over the Internet or a local network, involving participants trying to program according to provided specifications. Contestants are referred to as "sport programmers". Competitive programming is recognized and supported by several multinational software and Internet companies, such as Google and Facebook.


title: Competitive programming

text: A programming competition generally involves the host presenting a set of logical or mathematical problems, also known as puzzles, to the contestants (who can vary in number from tens or even hundreds to several thousands), and contestants are required to write computer programs capable of solving each problem. Judging is based mostly upon number of problems solved and time spent for writing successful solutions, but may also include other factors (quality of output produced, execution time, memory usage, program size, etc.)


title: Competitive programming

text: One of the oldest contests known is the International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) which originated in the 1970s, and has grown to include 88 countries in its 2011 edition.


title: Competitive programming

text: From 1990 to 1994, Owen Astrachan, Vivek Khera and David Kotz ran one of the first distributed, internet-based programming contests inspired by the ICPC.


title: Competitive programming

text: Interest in competitive programming has grown extensively since 2000, and is strongly connected to the growth of the Internet, which facilitates holding international contests online, eliminating geographical problems.


title: Competitive programming

text: The aim of competitive programming is to write source code of computer programs which are able to solve given problems. A vast majority of problems appearing in programming contests are mathematical or logical in nature. Typical such tasks belong to one of the following categories: combinatorics, number theory, graph theory, algorithmic game theory, computational geometry, string analysis and data structures. Problems related to constraint programming and artificial intelligence are also popular in certain competitions.


title: Competitive programming

text: Irrespective of the problem category, the process of solving a problem can be divided into two broad steps: constructing an efficient algorithm, and implementing the algorithm in a suitable programming language (the set of programming languages allowed varies from contest to contest). These are the two most commonly tested skills in programming competitions.


title: Competitive programming

text: In most contests, the judging is done automatically by host machines, commonly known as judges. Every solution submitted by a contestant is run on the judge against a set of (usually secret) test cases. Normally, contest problems have an all-or-none marking system, meaning that a solution is "Accepted" only if it produces satisfactory results on all test cases run by the judge, and rejected otherwise. However, some contest problems may allow for partial scoring, depending on the number of test cases passed, the quality of the results, or some other specified criteria. Some other contests only require that the contestant submit the output corresponding to given input data, in which case the judge only has to analyze the submitted output data.


title: Competitive programming

text: Online judges are online environments in which testing takes place. Online judges have ranklists showing users with the biggest number of accepted solutions and/or shortest execution time for a particular problem.


title: Competitive programming

text: There are two types of competition formats: short-term and long-term. Each round of short-term competition lasts from 1 to 5 hours. Long-term competitions can last from a few days to a few months.


title: Competitive programming

text: In most of the above competitions, since the number of contestants is quite large, competitions are usually organized in several rounds. They usually require online participation in all rounds except the last, which requires onsite participation. A special exception to this is IEEEXtreme, which is a yearly 24-hour virtual programming competition. The top performers at IOI and ICPC receive gold, silver and bronze medals while in the other contests, cash prizes are awarded to the top finishers. Also hitting the top places in the score tables of such competitions may attract interest of recruiters from software and Internet companies.


title: Competitive programming

text: The programming community around the world has created and maintained several internet-resources dedicated to competitive programming. They offer standalone contests with or without minor prizes. Also the past archives of problems are a popular resource for training in competitive programming. There are several organizations who host programming competitions on a regular basis. These include:


title: Competitive programming

text: Participation in programming contests may increase student enthusiasm for computer science studies. The skills acquired in ICPC-like programming contests also improve career prospects, as they help to pass the "technical interviews", which often require candidates to solve complex programming and algorithmic problems on the spot.


title: Competitive programming

text: There has also been criticism of competitive programming, particularly from professional software developers. One critical point is that many fast-paced programming contests teach competitors bad programming habits and code style (like unnecessary use of macros, lack of OOP abstraction and comments, use of short variable names, etc.). Also, by offering only small algorithmic puzzles with relatively short solutions, programming contests like ICPC and IOI don't necessarily teach good software engineering skills and practices, as real software projects typically have many thousands of lines of code and are developed by large teams over long periods of time. Peter Norvig stated that based on the available data, being a winner of programming contests correlated negatively with a programmer's performance at their job at Google (even though contest winners had higher chances of getting hired). Norvig later stated that this correlation was observed on a small data set, but that it could not be confirmed after examining a larger data set


title: Competitive programming

text: Yet another sentiment is that rather than "wasting" their time on excessive competing by solving problems with known solutions, high-profile programmers should rather invest their time in solving real-world problems.


title: ROH Pure Championship

text: The ROH Pure Championship is a professional wrestling championship contested for in the American professional wrestling promotion Ring of Honor (ROH). The championship is generally contested in professional wrestling matches, in which participants execute scripted finishes rather than contend in direct competition. The current champion is Wheeler Yuta, who is in his record-setting second reign.


title: ROH Pure Championship

text: Matches for the ROH Pure Championship are conducted under "Pure Wrestling Rules." As of 2022, the rules are as follows:


title: ROH Pure Championship

text: The title was originally named the ROH Pure Wrestling Championship and A.J. Styles defeated CM Punk in the final of an eight-man, one night tournament to crown the first champion. The tournament took place at the "Second Anniversary Show" and also featured John Walters, Chris Sabin, Doug Williams, Matt Stryker, Josh Daniels and Jimmy Rave.


title: ROH Pure Championship

text: Styles was forced to vacate the Pure Wrestling title in the wake of the Rob Feinstein controversy that resulted in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) abruptly ending its talent-sharing agreement with ROH (pulling all of its contracted performers, including Styles, from all ROH shows). However, for almost ten years ROH considered the Pure Wrestling Championship and the Pure Championship two distinct titles—not a single title that was merely renamed/re-branded. There was no mention of Styles on ROH's website as having held the Pure Championship, and it was seldom, if ever, acknowledged in commentary that Styles held the previous version of the title or that it even existed until in January 2014, when ROH released a DVD about Styles, describing him as the first ROH Pure Champion. Doug Williams would win the vacant title after he defeated Alex Shelley in the final of a one night mini-tournament at "Reborn: Completion" on July 17, 2004.


title: ROH Pure Championship

text: On April 29, 2006, "Weekend of Champions: Night Two" saw the first ever title vs. title match in Ring of Honor as ROH World Champion Bryan Danielson took on ROH Pure Champion Nigel McGuinness. The match was contested under Pure title rules, but both the World and Pure titles were on the line. McGuinness won the bout by countout, but since only the Pure title could change hands on a countout, he did not win the ROH World Championship. The two faced each other again on August 12, 2006 in Liverpool, England, with Danielson defeating McGuinness to unify the ROH Pure Championship with the ROH World Championship. Danielson and McGuinness competed in a rematch for the ROH World Championship later that month, wrestling to a one-hour draw. After the match, Danielson announced that the ROH Pure Championship had been officially retired, and gave the title belt back to McGuinness to keep.


title: ROH Pure Championship

text: On January 30, 2020, nearly 14 years after it was retired, Ring of Honor announced they were reinstating the ROH Pure Championship, with a tournament to crown a new champion beginning in 2020. Following ROH taking a five-month hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a 16-man tournament was conducted in August 2020 to crown the new champion, which ultimately became Jonathan Gresham.


title: ROH Pure Championship

text: Overall, there have been 12 championship reigns between 11 different champions. The title has been vacated once. A.J. Styles was the inaugural champion, while Jonathan Gresham was the first champion upon the title's revival. Wheeler Yuta has most reigns with two. Nigel McGuinness had the longest reign at 350 days with 17 title defenses. Bryan Danielson had the shortest reign at less than a day since the title was decommissioned after being unified with the ROH World Championship.


title: ROH Pure Championship

text: Wheeler Yuta is the current champion in his record-setting second reign. He defeated Daniel Garcia at Final Battle on December 10, 2022 in Arlington, Texas


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: Denali National Park and Preserve, formerly known as Mount McKinley National Park, is an American national park and preserve located in Interior Alaska, centered on Denali, the highest mountain in North America. The park and contiguous preserve encompass which is larger than the state of New Hampshire. On December 2, 1980, Denali Wilderness was established within the park. Denali's landscape is a mix of forest at the lowest elevations, including deciduous taiga, with tundra at middle elevations, and glaciers, snow, and bare rock at the highest elevations. The longest glacier is the Kahiltna Glacier. Wintertime activities include dog sledding, cross-country skiing, and snowmobiling. The park received 594,660 recreational visitors in 2018.


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: Human habitation in the Denali Region extends to more than 11,000 years before the present, with documented sites just outside park boundaries dated to more than 8,000 years before the present. However, relatively few archaeological sites have been documented within the park boundaries, owing to the region's high elevation, with harsh winter conditions and scarce resources compared to lower elevations in the area. The oldest site within park boundaries is the Teklanika River site, dated to about 7130 BC. More than 84 archaeological sites have been documented within the park. The sites are typically characterized as hunting camps rather than settlements and provide little cultural context. The presence of Athabaskan peoples in the region is dated to 1,500 - 1,000 years before present on linguistic and archaeological evidence, while researchers have proposed that Athabaskans may have inhabited the area for thousands of years before then. The principal groups in the park area in the last 500 years include the Koyukon, Tanana and Dena'ina people.


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: In 1906, conservationist Charles Alexander Sheldon conceived the idea of preserving the Denali region as a national park. He presented the plan to his co-members of the Boone and Crockett Club. They decided that the political climate at the time was unfavorable for congressional action and that the best hope of success rested on the approval and support of the Alaskans themselves. Sheldon wrote, "The first step was to secure the approval and cooperation of the delegate who represented Alaska in Congress."


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: In October 1915, Sheldon took up the matter with Dr. E. W. Nelson of the Biological Survey at Washington, D.C., and with George Bird Grinnell, with the purpose to introduce a suitable bill in the coming session of Congress. The matter was then taken to the Game Committee of the Boone and Crockett Club and, after a full discussion, it received the committee's full endorsement.


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: On December 3, 1915, the plan was presented to Alaska's delegate, James Wickersham, who after some deliberation gave his approval. The plan then went to the executive committee of the Boone and Crockett Club and, on December 15, 1915, it was unanimously accepted. The plan was thereupon endorsed by the club and presented to Stephen Mather, Assistant Secretary of the Interior in Washington, D.C., who immediately approved it.


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: The bill was introduced in April 1916, by Delegate Wickersham in the House and by Senator Key Pittman of Nevada in the Senate. Much lobbying took place the following year, and on February 19, 1917, the bill passed. On February 26, 1917, 11 years from its conception, the bill was signed in legislation by the President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, thereby creating Mount McKinley National Park.


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: A portion of Denali, excluding the summit, was included in the original park boundary. The boundary was expanded in 1922 and again in 1932 and 1947 to include the area of the hotel and railroad.


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: On Thanksgiving Day in 1921, the Mount McKinley Park Hotel opened. In July 1923, President Warren Harding stopped at the hotel, on a tour of the length of the Alaska Railroad, during which he drove a golden spike signaling its completion at Nenana. The hotel was the first thing visitors saw stepping down from the train. The flat-roofed, two-story log building featured exposed balconies, glass windows, and electric lights. Inside were two dozen guest rooms, a shop, a lunch counter, a kitchen, and a storeroom. By the 1930s, there were reports of lice, dirty linen, drafty rooms, and marginal food, which led to the hotel eventually closing. After being abandoned for many years, the hotel was destroyed in 1972 by a fire.


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: There was no road access to the park entrance until 1957 when the Denali Highway opened; park attendance greatly expanded: there were 5,000 visitors in 1956 and 25,000 visitors by 1958. In 1971, the George Parks Highway, under piecemeal construction for several years, was completed, providing direct highway connections to Anchorage and Fairbanks. Visitation doubled to 88,000 from 1971 to 1972.


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: In 1967, the park was the site of one of the deadliest mountaineering accidents in the United States with the Mount McKinley disaster, where seven climbers died in an intense blizzard on Denali. The Park Service debated closing the mountain to climbing in the wake of the accident, but ultimately it remained open.


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: The park was designated an international biosphere reserve in 1976. A surrounding Denali National Monument by President Jimmy Carter on December 1, 1978, which was combined with the park in 1980.


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: The name of Mount McKinley National Park was subject to local criticism from the beginning of the park. The word Denali means "the high one" in the native Athabaskan language and refers to the mountain itself. The mountain was named after newly elected US president William McKinley in 1897 by local prospector William A. Dickey. The United States government formally adopted the name Mount McKinley after President Wilson signed the bill creating Mount McKinley National Park into effect in 1917. In 1980, Mount McKinley National Park was combined with Denali National Monument, and the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act named the combined unit the Denali National Park and Preserve. At that time the Alaska state Board of Geographic Names changed the name of the mountain to Denali. However, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names did not recognize the change and continued to denote the official name as Mount McKinley. This situation lasted until August 30, 2015, when President Barack Obama directed Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell to rename the mountain to Denali, using statutory authority to act on requests when the Board of Geographic Names does not do so in a "reasonable" period.


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: In 1992, Christopher McCandless ventured into the Alaskan wilderness and settled in an abandoned bus in the park on the Stampede Trail at , near Lake Wentitika. He carried little food or equipment, and hoped to live simply for a time in solitude. Almost four months later, McCandless' starved remains were found, weighing only . His story has been widely publicized via articles, books, and films, and the bus where his remains were found has become a shrine attracting people from around the world.


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: On September 24, 2020, the Museum of The North at the University of Alaska (Fairbanks) announced it became the permanent home of McCandless' 'Magic Bus 142' where it will be restored and an outdoor exhibit will be created.


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: On November 5, 2012, the United States Mint released the 15th of its America the Beautiful Quarters series, which honors Denali National Park. The coin's reverse side features a Dall sheep with Denali in the background.


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: In September 2013, President Barack Obama signed the Denali National Park Improvement Act into law. The statute allows the United States Department of the Interior to "issue permits for microhydroelectric projects in the Kantishna Hills area of the Denali National Park and Preserve in Alaska"; it authorizes the Department of the Interior and a company called Doyon Tourism, Inc. to exchange some land in the area; it authorizes the National Park Service (NPS) to "issue permits to construct a natural gas pipeline in the Denali National Park"; and it renames the existing Talkeetna Ranger Station the Walter Harper Talkeetna Ranger Station. The National Parks Conservation Association supported the bill because the legislation "takes a thoughtful approach to protecting roadless Alaska, promoting renewable energy development, and honoring native Alaskans."


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: Denali National Park and Preserve includes the central, highest portion of the Alaska Range, together with many of the glaciers and glacial valleys running southwards out of the range. To the north the park and preserve encompass the valleys of the McKinley, Toklat, and Foraker Rivers, as well as the Kantishna and Wyoming Hills. The George Parks Highway runs along the eastern edge of the park, crossing the Alaska Range at the divide between the valleys of the Chultina River and the Nenana River. The entrance to the park is about south of Healy. The Denali Visitor Center and the park headquarters are located just inside the entrance. The park road parallels the Alaska Range for , ending at Kantishna. Preserve lands are located on the west side of the park, with one parcel encompassing areas of lakes in the Highpower Creek and Muddy River areas, and the second preserve area covering the southwest end of the high Alaska Range around Mount Dall. In contrast to the park, where hunting is prohibited or restricted to subsistence hunting by local residents, sport hunting is allowed in the preserve lands. Nikolai, Telida, Lake Minchumina, and Cantwell residents are authorized to hunt inside the park because large portions of these communities historically hunted in the area for subsistence purposes.


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: The park is serviced by the long Denali Park Road, which begins at the George Parks Highway and continues to the west, ending at Kantishna. Located within the park, the Wilderness Access Center (which houses a small gift shop, a coffee stand, and an information desk) is the main location to arrange a bus trip into the park or reserve/check-in for a campground site. All shuttle buses depart from here, as do some tours. The Denali Visitor Center is at mile marker 1.5 on the park road and is the main source of visitor information. Most ranger-led programs begin at the Denali Visitor Center. Other features include an exhibit hall. Within a short walking distance from the Visitor Center are a restaurant, a bookstore, the Murie Science and Learning Center, the Denali National Park railroad depot, and the McKinley National Park Airport.


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: The Denali Park Road runs north of and roughly parallel to the imposing Alaska Range. Only a small fraction of the road is paved because permafrost and the freeze-thaw cycle would create a high cost for maintaining a paved road. The first of the road are available to private vehicles, allowing easy access to the Riley Creek and Savage River campgrounds. Private vehicle access is prohibited beyond the Savage River Bridge. There is a turnaround for motorists at this point, as well as a nearby parking area for those who wish to hike the Savage River Loop Trail. Beyond this point, visitors must access the interior of the park through tour/shuttle buses.


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: The road has been impacted by the Pretty Rocks landslide at Polychrome Pass at Mile 45.4. NPS believes the landslide has been active since before the road was built, but only required moderate maintenance every 2–3 years. Beginning in 2014, the landslide accelerated considerably, requiring the road crew to spread 100 truckloads of gravel per week to keep the road passable until August 2021, when the park decided to close the road beyond Mile 45 until 2023 at the earliest. After studying potential solutions including re-routing the road, park officials decided to construct a bridge over the landslide which will cost $55 million and is expected to begin in 2022 and take two or three seasons to complete.


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: The tours travel from the initial boreal forests through tundra to the Toklat River or Kantishna. Several portions of the road run alongside sheer cliffs that drop hundreds of feet at the edges. There are no guardrails. As a result of the danger involved, and because most of the gravel road is only one lane wide, drivers must be trained in procedures for navigating the sharp mountain curves and yielding the right-of-way to opposing buses and park vehicles.


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: There are four camping areas located within the interior of the park (Sanctuary River, Teklanika River, Igloo Creek, and Wonder Lake). Camper buses provide transportation to these campgrounds, but only passengers camping in the park can use these particular buses. At mile marker 53 on road is the Toklat River Contact Station. All shuttle and tour buses make a stop at Toklat River. The contact station features restrooms, visitor information, and a small bookstore. Eielson Visitor Center is located four hours into the park on the road (at mile marker 66). It features restrooms, daily ranger-led programs during the summer, and on clear days, views of Denali and the Alaska Range. Wonder Lake and Kantishna are a six-hour bus ride from the Visitors Center. During the winter, only the portion of Denali Park Road near the Visitors Center remains open.


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: Kantishna features five lodges: the Denali Backcountry Lodge, Kantishna Roadhouse, Skyline Lodge, Camp Denali, and North Face Lodge. Visitors can bypass the six-hour bus ride and charter an air taxi flight to the Kantishna Airport. The Kantishna resorts have no TVs, and there is no cell phone service in the area. Lodging with services can be found in McKinley Park, one mile north of the park entrance on the George Parks Highway. Many hotels, restaurants, gift shops, and convenience stores are located in Denali Park.


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: While the main park road goes straight through the middle of the Denali Wilderness, the national preserve and portions of the park not designated wilderness are even more inaccessible. No roads are extending out to the preserve areas, which are on the northwest and southwest ends of the park. The far north of the park, characterized by hills and rivers, is accessed from the east by the Stampede Trail, a dirt road that effectively stops at the park boundary near the former location of the "Into the Wild" bus. The rugged south portion of the park, characterized by large glacier-filled canyons, is accessed by Petersville Road, a dirt road that stops about outside the park. The mountains can be accessed most easily by air taxis that land on the glaciers. Kantishna can also be reached by air taxi via the Purkeypile Airport, which is just outside the park boundary.


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: Visitors who want to climb Denali need to obtain a climbing permit first and go through an orientation as well. These can be found at the Walter Harper Talkeetna Ranger Station in Talkeetna, Alaska, about south of the entrance to Denali National Park and Preserve. This center serves as the center of mountaineering operations. Hours of operation vary, check the National Park website for specific details.


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: Savage River, Eielson Visitor Center, and Wonder Lake offer maintained hiking trails, and at Riley Creek, there are several maintained trails including a hike up to Mt. Healy Overlook trail. The park also encourages off-trail hiking.


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: The Denali Wilderness is a wilderness area within Denali National Park that protects the higher elevations of the central Alaska Range, including Denali. The wilderness comprises about one-third of the current national park and preserve— that correspond with the former park boundaries before 1980.


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: Denali National Park and Preserve is located in the central area of the Alaska Range, a mountain chain extending across Alaska. Its best-known geologic feature is Denali, formerly known as Mount McKinley. Its elevation of makes it the highest mountain in North America. Its vertical relief (distance from base to peak) of is the highest of any mountain in the world. The mountain is still gaining about in height each year due to the continued convergence of the North American and Pacific Plates. The mountain is primarily made of granite, a hard rock that does not erode easily; this is why it has retained such a great height rather than being eroded.


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: The park area is characterized by collision tectonics: over the past millions of years, exotic terranes in the Pacific Ocean have been moving toward the North American landmass and accreting, or attaching, to the area that now makes up Alaska. The oldest rocks in the park are part of the Yukon-Tanana terrane. They originated from ocean sediments deposited between 400 million and 1 billion years ago. The original rocks have been affected by the processes of regional metamorphism, folding, and faulting to form rocks such as schist, quartzite, phyllite, slate, marble, and limestone. The next oldest group of rocks is the Farewell terrane. It is composed of rocks from the Paleozoic era (250-500 million years old). The sediments that make up these rocks were deposited in a variety of marine environments, ranging from deep ocean basins to continental shelf areas. The abundant marine fossils are evidence that around 380 million years ago, this area had a warm, tropical climate. The Pingston, McKinley, and Chulitna terranes are the next oldest; they were deposited in the Mesozoic era. The rock types include marble, chert, limestone, shale, and sandstone. There are intrusions of igneous rocks, such as gabbro, diabase, and diorite. Special features include pillow basalts, which are formed when molten lava flows into water and a hard outer crust forms, making a puffy, pillow-shaped feature; as well as an ophiolite sequence, which is a distinct sequence of rocks indicating that a section of the oceanic crust has been uplifted and thrust onto a continental area.


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: Some of the youngest rocks in the park include the Kahiltna terrane, which is a flysch sequence (a sedimentary rock sequence deposited in a marine environment during the early stages of mountain building) formed about 100 million years ago, during late Cretaceous time. Another rock sequence is the McKinley Intrusive Sequence, which includes Denali. The Cantwell Volcanics include basalt and rhyolite flows, as well as ash deposits. An example can be seen at Polychrome Pass in the park.


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: Mesozoic fossils include fossil trackways from therizinosaurids and hadrosaurids in the Cantwell Formation indicate the area was once an immigration point for dinosaurs traveling between Asia and North America during the Late Cretaceous period. Studies of fossil plants from the same formation indicate the area was wet, with marshes and ponds throughout the region.


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: Denali National Park and Preserve are located in an area of intense tectonic activity: the Pacific Plate is subducting under the North American plate, creating the Denali fault system, which is a right-lateral strike-slip fault over long. This is a part of the larger fault system which includes the famous San Andreas Fault of California. Over 600 earthquakes occur in the park each year, helping seismologists to understand this fault system. Most of these earthquakes are too small to be felt, although two large earthquakes did occur in 2002. On October 23, 2002, a magnitude 6.7 earthquake occurred in the park, and on November 3, 2002, a magnitude 7.9 earthquake occurred. These earthquakes did not cause a significant loss of life or property, since the area is very sparsely populated, but they did trigger thousands of landslides.


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: Glaciers cover about 16% of the 6 million acres of Denali National Park and Preserve. Measurements indicate that glaciers in the park are losing about 6.6 ft (2 m) of vertical water equivalency each year. There are more extensive glaciers on the southeastern side of the range because more snow is dropped on this side from the moisture-bearing winds from the Gulf of Alaska. The 5 largest south-facing glaciers are Yentna ( long), Kahiltna (), Tokositna (), Ruth (), and Eldrige (). The Ruth glacier is thick. However, the largest glacier, Muldrow Glacier ( long), is located on the north side. Nonetheless, the northern side has smaller and shorter glaciers overall. Muldrow glacier has "surged" twice in the last hundred years. Surging means that it has moved forward for a short time at greatly increased speed, due to a build-up of water between the bottom of the glacier and the bedrock channel floating on the ice (due to hydrostatic pressure).


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: At the upper ends of Denali's glaciers are steep-walled semicircular basins called cirques. Cirques form from freeze-thaw cycles of meltwater in the rocks above the glacier and glacial erosion and mass wasting occur under the glacier. As cirques on the opposite sides of a ridge are cut deeper into the divide, they form a narrow, sharp, serrated ridge called an arête. As the arête wears away from glacial ice erosion, the low point between cirques is called a col (or if it is large a pass). Cols are saddle-shaped depressions in the ridge between cirques. A spire-like sharp peak, the horn, forms when cirques cut back into a mountaintop from three or four sides.


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: Glaciers deposit rock fragments, but the most notable of the depositions are the erratics, which are large rock fragments carried some distance from the source, found on glacial terraces and ridge tops in many places throughout Denali. Headquarter erratics are made of granite and can be the size of a house. Some erratics (like those from the Yanert Valley) are located away from their original location.


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: Large amounts of rock debris are carried on, in, and beneath the ice as the glaciers move downslope. Lateral moraines are created as debris accumulates as low ridges of till that ride along the edge of the moving glaciers. When lateral moraines adjacent to each other join, they create medial moraines, which are also carried down on the surface of the moving ice.


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: Braided meltwater streams heavily loaded with rock debris continually shift and intertwine their channels over valley floors. Valley trains are built up as streams drop quantities of poorly sorted sediment. Valley trains are long, narrow accumulations of glacial outwash, confined by valley walls.


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: Kettles are formed when glacial retreat and melting is rapid, and blocks of ice are still buried under till. When the ice under the till melts, the till slumps in and forms depressions called kettles. When kettles fill with water, they are known as kettle lakes. Kettle lakes are visible near the Polychrome Overlook, the Teklanika rest stop, and Wonder Lake.


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: Permanently frozen ground is known as permafrost. The permafrost is discontinuous in Denali due to differences in vegetation, temperatures, snow cover, and hydrology. The active layer freezing and thawing seasonally can be from 1 inch (25 mm) to 10 feet (3.0 m) thick. The permafrost layer is located between 30 and 100 feet (9.1 and 30.5 m) below the active layer. A stand of oddly leaning white spruce growing on a lower slope of Denali is called the Drunken Forest. The trees lean due to the soil sliding as a result of permafrost freeze/thaw cycles. Permafrost impacts the ecosystem in the park by influencing hydrology, patterns of vegetation, and wildlife. During the very cold Pleistocene climates, all of Denali was solidly frozen. The northern areas of the range are still frozen due to continued cold temperatures. About 75% of Denali had near-surface permafrost, or an active permafrost layer, in the 1950s. In the 2000s, around 50% of Denali had near-surface permafrost. It is suspected that by the 2050s, only about 6% of surface permafrost will remain. Because of climate change, most of the shallow permafrost is thawing. It is estimated that with an additional 1-2 degree warming, most of Denali's permafrost will thaw. Permafrost thaw causes landslides as the ice-rich soil transforms into mud slurry. Landslides have previously impacted accessibility in Denali by obstructing the roads in the park. Permafrost thaw releases addition carbon into the atmosphere.


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: Shallow ponds in Denali are known as thaw lakes and cave-in lakes formed when the water warmed by the sun forms basins in the underlying permafrost. These ponds deepen gradually during the summer and, if the temperature is high enough, they will grow in size as their rims collapse.


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: Thermal expansion and contraction cause permafrost cracking. In the summer water fills these cracks and forms veins called ice wedges. These wedges enlarge with seasonal freezing/thawing cycles. Some ice wedges buried for centuries are revealed during excavations or landslides.


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: According to the Köppen climate classification, Denali National Park has a subarctic climate ("Dfc"). The plant hardiness zone at Denali Visitor Center is 3a with an average annual extreme minimum temperature of .


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: Long winters are followed by short growing seasons. Eighty percent of the bird population returns after cold months, raising their young. Most mammals and other wildlife in the park spend the brief summer months preparing for winter and raising their young.


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: Summers are usually cool and damp, but temperatures in the 70s are not rare. The weather is so unpredictable that there have even been instances of snow in August.


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: The north and south side of the Alaskan Range have completely different climates. The Gulf of Alaska carries moisture to the south side, but the mountains block water to the north side. This brings a drier climate and huge temperature fluctuations to the north. The south has transitional maritime continental climates, with moister, cooler summers, and warmer winters.


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: The Alaska Range is a mountainous expanse running through the entire park, strongly influencing the park's ecosystems. Vegetation in the park depends on the altitude. The treeline is at , causing most of the park to be a vast expanse of tundra. In the lowland areas of the park, such as the western sections surrounding Wonder Lake, spruces and willows dominate the forest. Most trees and shrubs do not reach full size, due to unfavorable climate and thin soils. There are three types of forest in the park: from lowest to highest, they are low brush bog, bottomland spruce-poplar forest, and upland spruce-hardwood forest. The forest grows in a mosaic, due to periodic fires.


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: In the tundra of the park, layers of topsoil collect on rotten fragmented rock moved by thousands of years of glacial activity. Mosses, ferns, grasses, and fungi grow on the topsoil. In areas of muskeg, tussocks form and may collect algae. The term 'muskeg' includes spongy waterlogged tussocks as well as deep pools of water covered by solid-looking moss. Wild blueberries and soap berries thrive in the tundra and provide the bears of Denali with the main part of their diet.


title: Denali National Park and Preserve

text: Over 450 species of flowering plants fill the park and can be viewed in bloom throughout summer. Images of goldenrod, fireweed, bluebell, and gentian filling the valleys of Denali are often used on postcards and in the artwork.