title: American Family Field

text: During the 2015 All-Star Break, American Family Field hosted a friendly between Mexican side Club Atlas and English Premier League side Newcastle United on July 14, 2015. Club Atlas won the match 2–1.


title: American Family Field

text: After a three-year hiatus, American Family Field once again hosted a friendly match between Mexican sides C.F. Pachuca and Club León. Pachuca won the match 3–1.


title: American Family Field

text: On August 11, 2012 American Family Field hosted an event called "Field of Honor: A Salute to the Greatest Generation". Over 30,000 tickets were sold for the event, which included the premiere showing of "Honor Flight", a documentary detailing the Honor Flight movement, where veterans of World War II are flown into Washington, D.C. on commercial flights via donations and non-profit organizations in order to visit the National World War II Memorial in person. The promoters were hoping to best a world record for a movie premiere attendance, previously held for the premiere in Brazil of a soccer film.


title: American Family Field

text: The Arctic Tailgate is an annual event where fans camp outside American Family Field the day before single game tickets are sold, which is usually the last weekend of February. (It is delayed or moved into the stadium's heated concourse if the temperatures are well below for the safety of fans.) The tradition is said to have started as early as the 1990s where Brewers fans would try to be the first to acquire tickets for Opening Day. Since 2006, the Brewers have made it an official event, even providing the waiting fans coffee, hot chocolate, and doughnuts in the morning, discounts on tickets for the first week of games in the season, as well as a free lunch consisting of a hot dog, chips, and a soda, eaten in a heated tent afterwards. Over 101,000 tickets were sold for the 2015 Arctic Tailgate.


title: American Family Field

text: American Family Field was also a major filming location for the motion picture "Mr. 3000", which centered on a fictional Brewers player played by comedian Bernie Mac.


title: Tina Smith

text: Christine Elizabeth Smith (née Flint, born March 4, 1958) is an American politician, retired Democratic political consultant, and former businesswoman serving as the junior United States senator from Minnesota since 2018. She is a member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), an affiliate of the Democratic Party.


title: Tina Smith

text: Born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Smith moved to Minnesota in the 1980s to work for General Mills and later became the vice president of Planned Parenthood of Minnesota. She then began a career as a political consultant and organizer for Democratic candidates. Smith managed Ted Mondale's unsuccessful bid for governor of Minnesota in 1998 and Walter Mondale's unsuccessful last-minute campaign in the 2002 United States Senate election in Minnesota after incumbent senator Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash 11 days before the election.


title: Tina Smith

text: After Mondale lost, Smith served as chief of staff to Mayor of Minneapolis R. T. Rybak. She then helped run Mark Dayton's successful campaign for Governor of Minnesota in 2010. After his extremely close victory, Dayton named Smith his chief of staff. Later, for Dayton's reelection campaign in the 2014 election, Smith was named as Dayton's pick for lieutenant governor. After winning her first election to public office, Smith served as the 48th lieutenant governor of Minnesota from 2015 to 2018. Dayton appointed her to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Al Franken's resignation in 2018. She won the 2018 special election and was elected to a full term in 2020.


title: Tina Smith

text: Smith was born on March 4, 1958, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the daughter of Christine, a teacher, and F. Harlan Flint, a lawyer. She mostly grew up in Santa Fe, New Mexico, attending Manderfield and Acequia Madre Elementary. She finished high school in Northern California.


title: Tina Smith

text: Before going to college, Smith worked on the Trans-Alaskan Pipeline in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. She graduated from Stanford University with a degree in political science, and later earned a master's degree in business administration from Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.


title: Tina Smith

text: In 1984, Smith moved to Minnesota for a marketing job at General Mills. She later started her own marketing firm, where she consulted with businesses and nonprofits.


title: Tina Smith

text: In the early 1990s, Smith became involved in local politics, volunteering for DFL campaigns in Minneapolis. She managed Ted Mondale's unsuccessful 1998 campaign for governor. After Minnesota's U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash weeks before the 2002 election, Smith managed former U.S. Vice President Walter Mondale's campaign for the seat. After Mondale lost a narrow election to Norm Coleman, Smith began working as the vice president of external affairs at Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota.


title: Tina Smith

text: In 2006, Smith left her job at Planned Parenthood to serve as chief of staff to Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak. In 2010 she was picked to manage Rybak's gubernatorial campaign, which ended after Margaret Anderson Kelliher won the DFL endorsement. Smith then joined the campaign of Mark Dayton, who skipped the endorsing convention and eventually won the DFL primary. After Dayton defeated Republican Tom Emmer in the general election, Smith was named a co-chair of the transition. When Dayton took office in January 2011, he appointed Smith his chief of staff.


title: Tina Smith

text: When Lieutenant Governor Yvonne Prettner Solon announced she would not seek reelection, Dayton selected Smith as his running mate in the 2014 gubernatorial election. He cited Smith's work on passing legislation for new Minnesota Vikings Stadium, as well as her support for the Destination Medical Center project with the Mayo Clinic in Rochester.


title: Tina Smith

text: Smith stepped down as Dayton's chief of staff to campaign for lieutenant governor. After being nominated by acclamation at the DFL state convention, and facing only token opposition in the DFL gubernatorial primary, Dayton and Smith defeated Republicans Jeff Johnson and Bill Kuisle in the general election.


title: Tina Smith

text: Smith took office as lieutenant governor on January 5, 2015, and served until she was appointed to represent Minnesota in the U.S. Senate on January 2, 2018. During her tenure Smith was described by many political observers as having a much higher profile and playing a much more significant role in legislative negotiations than her predecessors. She spent a significant amount of time traveling the state in support of the priorities of Dayton's administration, including funding for optional preschool for all four-year-olds, transportation infrastructure, and rural broadband internet access. She also served as chair of the Destination Medical Center board until her resignation in December 2017.


title: Tina Smith

text: In 2016 "Roll Call" named Smith to its "America's Top 25 Most Influential Women in State Politics" list, citing her high-profile role in the Dayton administration.


title: Tina Smith

text: Despite widespread speculation to the contrary, Smith announced in March 2017 that she would not run for governor in the 2018 election.


title: Tina Smith

text: On December 13, 2017, Governor Dayton announced Smith as his pick to fill the United States Senate seat held by Al Franken, who had announced he would resign amid allegations of sexual misconduct. Democrats in the state immediately united around Smith as the party's candidate in the November 2018 special election to fill Franken's term.


title: Tina Smith

text: In August 2018, Smith won the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party primary with 76% of the vote. Richard Painter, a White House ethics lawyer during the George W. Bush administration, finished second with 14%.


title: Tina Smith

text: In the November general election, Smith defeated Republican nominee Karin Housley, a state senator from St. Marys Point, with 53% of the vote to Housley's 42%.


title: Tina Smith

text: Minnesota was seen as a swing state in the 2020 presidential election, which made Smith a swing-state Democrat up for reelection. Her campaign focused on delivering results for Minnesotans on local issues, such as farming in southern Minnesota, police brutality in wake of the George Floyd protests and North Shore drilling in the Duluth area, and took strong positions on national issues such as the Amy Coney Barrett Supreme Court nomination. Smith defeated Republican nominee Jason Lewis with 48.8% of the vote to Lewis's 43.5%, thus winning her first full 6-year Senate term.


title: Tina Smith

text: With Vice President Mike Pence administering the oath of office, Smith was officially sworn in as a U.S. Senator on January 3, 2018, alongside Doug Jones of Alabama. She was accompanied by fellow Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar and former Vice President and former Minnesota Senator Walter Mondale.


title: Tina Smith

text: Smith was participating in the certification of the 2021 United States Electoral College vote count on January 6, 2021, when Trump supporters stormed the United States Capitol. She called the participants in the attack "seditionists" and blamed Trump for inciting the attack. When the Capitol was secure and the Congress returned to session, Smith supported the certification of the count. In response to the insurrection, she called for Trump's immediate removal from office through the invocation of the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution and impeachment, saying that the president needed to be held accountable for the attack and that "he is dangerous to our democracy and to public safety." She said that Representatives Michelle Fischbach and Jim Hagedorn, who objected to certifying the election, "were complicit in pushing for the president's big lie", and also called on Senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley to resign for objecting to the certification of the election and spreading falsehoods about election integrity.


title: Tina Smith

text: Smith previously served on the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources from January 10, 2018 to January 3, 2019, during the first session of the 116th Congress.


title: Tina Smith

text: Smith supports abortion rights. She was a vice president at Planned Parenthood from 2003 to 2006, where she lobbied against efforts to oppose abortion rights.


title: Tina Smith

text: In February 2019, Smith voted against the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, saying that the bill "would override physicians' professional judgment about what is best for their patients" and "put physicians in the position of facing criminal penalties if their judgment about what is best for their patient is contrary to what is described in this bill."


title: Tina Smith

text: On May 2, 2022, just after Politico obtained and released a 98-page U.S. Supreme Court draft opinion striking down "Roe v. Wade", Smith responded in a tweet, "This is bullshit." After the Supreme Court overturned "Roe v. Wade" on June 24, Senators Smith and Elizabeth Warren wrote a "New York Times" op-ed calling on President Joe Biden to unblock "critical resources and authority that states and the federal government can use to meet the surge in demand for reproductive health services."


title: Tina Smith

text: In March 2019, Smith and 37 other senators signed a letter to US Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue warning that dairy farmers "have continued to face market instability and are struggling to survive the fourth year of sustained low prices" and urging his department to "strongly encourage these farmers to consider the Dairy Margin Coverage program."


title: Tina Smith

text: In November 2018, Smith and 24 other Democratic senators cosponsored a resolution in response to findings of the Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change (IPCC) report and National Climate Assessment. The resolution affirmed the senators' acceptance of the findings and their support for bold action to address climate change.


title: Tina Smith

text: In a 2021 letter, Smith and four colleagues wrote to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to criticize the company's Diem digital currency project. In the letter, they argued that "stablecoins in general" are "incompatible with the actual financial regulatory landscape." In 2022, Smith and Elizabeth Warren wrote to Fidelity Investments CEO Abigail Johnson to object to a plan to allow for the inclusion of Bitcoin in their 401(k)s.


title: Tina Smith

text: In December 2018, Smith and 20 other senators signed a letter to Commissioner of Food and Drug Administration Scott Gottlieb stating their approval of the Food and Drug Administration's actions to hinder youth access to e-cigarettes and urging the FDA "to take additional, stronger steps to prevent and reduce e-cigarette use among youth."


title: Tina Smith

text: In July 2020, Smith introduced the Substance Regulation and Safety Act to legalize cannabis at the federal level and direct federal agencies to develop various regulations regarding cannabis. During a floor speech on racial justice, she called for passage of the bill along with the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act to end the "failed policy" of cannabis prohibition that "contributes to mass incarceration and over-policing of communities of color".


title: Tina Smith

text: In April 2019, Smith and 33 other senators signed a letter to then-President Donald Trump asserting that Trump had "consistently expressed a flawed understanding of U.S. foreign assistance" since becoming president and that by preventing the use of Fiscal Year 2018 national security funding he was "personally undermining efforts to promote U.S. national security and economic prosperity". The senators argued that foreign assistance to Central American countries decreased migration to the U.S. by helping to improve conditions in those countries.


title: Tina Smith

text: In March 2018 Smith and nine other senators signed a letter to Chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Lamar Alexander and ranking Democrat Patty Murray requesting they schedule a hearing on the causes and remedies of mass shootings in the wake of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.


title: Tina Smith

text: In the lead-up to the 2018 elections, Smith said her record in the Senate showed she would fight pharmaceutical companies to improve people's lives, and that she would continue to fight to lower the cost of health care and prescription drugs in Minnesota, for example by making generic drugs more available, preventing people with preexisting conditions from being charged more, and allowing Minnesotans to buy in to Medicare if they are dissatisfied with their options on the insurance market. Smith has endorsed single-payer healthcare.


title: Tina Smith

text: In December 2018, Smith and 41 other senators signed a letter to Trump administration officials Alex Azar, Seema Verma, and Steve Mnuchin arguing that the administration was improperly using Section 1332 of the Affordable Care Act to authorize states to "increase health care costs for millions of consumers while weakening protections for individuals with preexisting conditions." The senators requested the administration withdraw the policy and "re-engage with stakeholders, states, and Congress."


title: Tina Smith

text: In January 2019, during the 2018–19 United States federal government shutdown, Smith and 33 other senators signed a letter to Commissioner of Food and Drug Administration Scott Gottlieb recognizing the efforts of the FDA to address the shutdown's effect on public health and employees while remaining alarmed "that the continued shutdown will result in increasingly harmful effects on the agency's employees and the safety and security of the nation's food and medical products."


title: Tina Smith

text: In February 2019, Smith and ten other senators signed a letter to insulin manufactures Eli Lilly and Company, Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi about their increased insulin prices having deprived patients of "access to the life-saving medications they need."


title: Tina Smith

text: In April 2019, Smith and 40 other senators signed a bipartisan letter to the housing subcommittee praising the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development's Section 4 Capacity Building program as authorizing "HUD to partner with national nonprofit community development organizations to provide education, training, and financial support to local community development corporations (CDCs) across the country" and expressing disappointment that President Trump's budget "has slated this program for elimination after decades of successful economic and community development." The senators wrote of their hope that the subcommittee would support continued funding for Section 4 in Fiscal Year 2020.


title: Tina Smith

text: In June 2019 Smith was one of eight senators to sponsor the Made in America Act, legislation that would designate federal programs that had funded infrastructure projects not currently subject to Buy America standards and mandate that the materials used in these programs be domestically produced. Bill cosponsor Tammy Baldwin said the bill would strengthen Buy America requirements and that she was hopeful both Democrats and Republicans would support "this effort to make sure our government is buying American products and supporting American workers."


title: Tina Smith

text: In August 2018, Smith was one of 17 senators to sign a letter spearheaded by Kamala Harris to United States Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen demanding that the Trump administration take immediate action in attempting to reunite 539 migrant children with their families, citing each passing day of inaction as intensifying "trauma that this administration has needlessly caused for children and their families seeking humanitarian protection."


title: Tina Smith

text: In July 2019, following reports that the Trump administration intended to cease protecting spouses, parents and children of active-duty service members from deportation, Smith was one of 22 senators led by Tammy Duckworth to sign a letter arguing that the protection gave service members the ability "to fight for the United States overseas and not worry that their spouse, children, or parents will be deported while they are away" and that its termination would both cause service members personal hardship and negatively affect their combat performance.


title: Tina Smith

text: In October 2018, Smith and 19 other senators signed a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urging him to reverse the rolling back of a policy that granted visas to same-sex partners of LGBTQ diplomats who had unions that were not recognized by their home countries, writing that too many places around the world have seen LGBTQ individuals "subjected to discrimination and unspeakable violence, and receive little or no protection from the law or local authorities" and that refusing to let LGBTQ diplomats bring their partners to the US would be equivalent of upholding "the discriminatory policies of many countries around the world."


title: Tina Smith

text: In June 2019, Smith and nine other senators cosponsored the Safe Freight Act, a bill that would require freight trains to have one or more certified conductors and a certified engineer on board who can collaborate on how to protect the train and people living near the tracks. The legislation was meant to correct a Federal Railroad Administration rollback of a proposed rule intended to establish safety standards.


title: Tina Smith

text: Smith's husband, Archie Smith, is a successful independent investor, focusing largely on health care and medical companies. The couple have two sons.


title: Tina Smith

text: In May 2019, during a speech on the Senate floor, Smith described her experiences with getting help in college and in her early 30s for depression.


title: Words per minute

text: Words per minute, commonly abbreviated wpm (sometimes uppercased WPM), is a measure of words processed in a minute, often used as a measurement of the speed of typing, reading or Morse code sending and receiving.


title: Words per minute

text: Since words vary in length, for the purpose of measurement of text entry the definition of each "word" is often standardized to be five characters or keystrokes long in English, including spaces and punctuation. For example, under such a method applied to plain English text the phrase "I run" counts as one word, but "rhinoceros" and "let's talk" would both count as two.


title: Words per minute

text: Karat et al. found in one study of average computer users in 1999 that the average rate for transcription was 32.5 words per minute, and 19.0 words per minute for composition. In the same study, when the group was divided into "fast", "moderate", and "slow" groups, the average speeds were 40 wpm, 35 wpm, and 23 wpm, respectively.


title: Words per minute

text: Typically, professional typists type at speeds of 43 to 80 wpm, while some positions can require 80 to 95 (usually the minimum required for dispatch positions and other time-sensitive typing jobs), and some advanced typists work at speeds above 120 wpm. Two-finger typists, sometimes also referred to as "hunt and peck" typists, commonly reach sustained speeds of about 37 wpm for memorized text and 27 wpm when copying text, but in bursts may be able to reach much higher speeds. From the 1920s through the 1970s, typing speed (along with shorthand speed) was an important secretarial qualification, and typing contests were popular and often publicized by typewriter companies as promotional tools.


title: Words per minute

text: Stenotype keyboards enable the trained user to input text as fast as 360 wpm at very high accuracy for an extended period, which is sufficient for real-time activities such as court reporting or closed captioning. While training dropout rates are very high — in some cases only 10% or even fewer graduate — stenotype students are usually able to reach speeds of 100–120 wpm within six months, which is faster than most alphanumeric typists. Guinness World Records gives 360 wpm with 97.23% accuracy as the highest achieved speed using a stenotype.


title: Words per minute

text: The numeric entry or 10-key speed is a measure of one's ability to manipulate the numeric keypad found on most modern separate computer keyboards. It is used to measure speed for jobs such as data entry of number information on items such as remittance advice, bills, or checks, as deposited to lock boxes. It is measured in keystrokes per hour (KPH). Many jobs require a certain KPH, often 8,000 or 10,000.


title: Words per minute

text: For an adult population (age range 18–60) the average speed of copying is 40 letters per minute (approximately 13 wpm), with the range from a minimum of 26 to a maximum of 113 letters per minute (approximately 5 to 20 wpm).


title: Words per minute

text: A study of police interview records showed that the highest speed fell in the range 120–155 characters per minute, the highest possible limit being 190 characters per minute.


title: Words per minute

text: According to various studies the speed of handwriting of 3–7 graders varies from 25 to 94 letters per minute.


title: Words per minute

text: Using stenography (shorthand) methods, this rate increases greatly. Handwriting speeds up to 350 words per minute have been achieved in shorthand competitions.


title: Words per minute

text: Words per minute is a common metric for assessing reading speed and is often used in the context of remedial skills evaluation, as well as in the context of speed reading, where it is a controversial measure of reading performance.


title: Words per minute

text: Research done in 2012 measured the speed at which subjects read a text aloud, and found the typical range of speeds across 17 different languages to be 184±29 wpm or 863±234 characters per minute. However, the number of wpm varied between languages, even for languages that use the Latin or Cyrillic alphabets: as low as 161±18 for Finnish and as high as 228±30 for English. This was because different languages have different average word lengths (longer words in such languages as Finnish and shorter words in English). However, the number of characters per minute tends to be around 1000 for all the tested languages. For the tested Asian languages that use particular writing systems (Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese) these numbers are lower.


title: Words per minute

text: Scientific studies have demonstrated that reading—defined here as capturing and decoding all the words on every page—faster than 900 wpm is not feasible given the limits set by the anatomy of the eye.


title: Words per minute

text: While proofreading materials, people are able to read English at 200 wpm on paper, and 180 wpm on a monitor. [Those numbers from Ziefle, 1998, are for studies that used monitors prior to 1992. See Noyes & Garland 2008 for a modern tech view of equivalence.]


title: Words per minute

text: Audiobooks are recommended to be 150–160 words per minute, which is the range that people comfortably hear and vocalize words.


title: Words per minute

text: Slide presentations tend to be closer to 100–125 wpm for a comfortable pace, auctioneers can speak at about 250 wpm, and the fastest speaking policy debaters speak from 350 to over 500 words per minute. Internet speech calculators show that various things influence words per minute including nervousness.


title: Words per minute

text: John Moschitta, Jr., was listed in "Guinness World Records", for a time, as the world's fastest speaker, being able to talk at 586 wpm. He has since been surpassed by Steve Woodmore, who achieved a rate of 637 wpm.


title: Words per minute

text: In the realm of American Sign Language, the American Sign Language University (ASLU) specifies a cutoff proficiency for students who clock a signing speed of 110-130 wpm.


title: Words per minute

text: Morse code uses variable length sequences of short and long duration "signals" (dits and dahs, colloquially called dots and dashes) to represent source information "e.g.", sequences for the letter "K" and numeral "2" are respectively () and (). This variability complicates the measurement of Morse code speed rated in words per minute. Using telegram messages, the average English word length is about five characters, each averaging 5.124 dot durations or baud. Spacing between words should also be considered, being seven dot durations in the USA and five in British territories. So the average British telegraph word was 30.67 dot times. So the baud rate of a Morse code is × word per minute rate.


title: Words per minute

text: It is standard practice to use two different such "standard words" to measure Morse code speeds in words per minute. The standard words are: "PARIS" and "CODEX". In Morse code "PARIS" has a dot duration of 50, while "CODEX" has 60.


title: Words per minute

text: Although many countries no longer require it for licensing, Morse is still widely used by amateur radio ("ham") operators. Experienced hams routinely send Morse at 20 words per minute, using manually operated hand telegraph keys; enthusiasts such as members of The CW Operators' Club routinely send and receive Morse code at speeds up to 60 wpm. The upper limit for Morse operators attempting to write down Morse code received by ear using paper and pencil is roughly 20 wpm. Many skilled Morse code operators can receive Morse code by ear mentally without writing down the information at speeds up to 70 wpm. To write down the Morse code information manually at speeds higher than 20 wpm it is usual for the operators to use a typewriter or computer keyboard to enable higher speed copying.


title: Words per minute

text: In the United States a commercial radiotelegraph operator's license is still issued, although there is almost no demand for it, since for long distance communication ships now use the satellite-based Global Maritime Distress and Safety System. Besides a written examination, proficiency at receiving Morse at 20 wpm plain language and 16 wpm in code groups must be demonstrated.


title: Words per minute

text: High-speed telegraphy contests are still held. The fastest Morse code operator was Theodore Roosevelt McElroy copying at 75.6 wpm using a typewriter at the 1939 world championship.


title: Afghan afghani

text: The afghani (sign: or Af (plural: Afs) code: AFN; Pashto: ; Persian : ) is the currency of Afghanistan, which traditionally is issued by the nation's central bank called Da Afghanistan Bank. It is nominally subdivided into 100 "puls" (پول), although there are no pul coins currently in circulation. In September 2021, one U.S. dollar was exchanged for approximately 88 afghanis. The afghani is also informally referred to as "rūpa".


title: Afghan afghani

text: The original afghani (ISO 4217 code: AFA) was introduced in 1925, replacing the Afghan rupee that was used from 1891 and other currencies. In addition to being subdivided into 100 puls, 20 afghanis were equal to one "amani". The rate of conversion from the rupee is sometimes quoted as 1 afghani = 1 rupee 6 paisas, based on the silver contents of the last rupee coins and the first afghani coins. The afghani initially contained 9 grams of silver.


title: Afghan afghani

text: Except during World War I, Afghanistan's foreign exchange rate has been freely determined by market forces. However, for some periods, a dual exchange rate regime existed in Afghanistan: an official exchange rate which was fixed by the Afghan Central Bank, and a free market exchange rate which was determined by the supply and demand forces in Kabul's money bazaar called "Saraye Shahzada". For example, in order to avoid the seasonal fluctuations in the exchange rate, a fixed exchange rate was adopted in 1935 by the Bank-e-Millie (National Bank), which was then responsible for the country's exchange rate system and official reserves. Bank-e-Millie agreed to exchange afghani at Afs. 4 against 1 Indian rupee in 1935. After the establishment of Da Afghanistan Bank as the Central Bank of Afghanistan, such a preferential official fixed exchange rate continued to be practiced. Although Da Afghanistan Bank tried to keep its official rate close to the Sarai Shahzada exchange rate, the gap between the official and free-market exchange rates widened in the 1980s and during the civil war thereafter.


title: Afghan afghani

text: The afghani traded at Afs. 67 to one US dollar in 1973. After the start of a civil war in 1992, the same US dollar bought Afs. 16,000. Banknotes from the period of Zahir Shah's monarchy ceased to be legal tender by 1991. After the creation of a dysfunctional government and the start of the civil war, different warlords and factions, foreign powers and forgers each made their own afghani banknotes to support themselves financially, with no regard to standardization or honoring serial numbers.


title: Afghan afghani

text: In December 1996, shortly after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan's institutions, Ehsanullah Ehsan, the chairman of the Taliban's Central Bank, declared most afghani notes in circulation to be worthless (approximately 100 trillion Afghani) and cancelled the contract with the Russian firm that had been printing the currency since 1992. Ehsan accused the firm of sending new shipments of afghani notes to ousted President Burhanuddin Rabbani in northern Takhar province. The exchange rate at the time of Ehsan's announcement was Afs. 21,000 to one US dollar. It was then devalued to Afs. 43,000 to the dollar. Abdul Rashid Dostum, who controlled a self-declared autonomous region in northern Afghanistan until 1998, also printed his own money for his region.


title: Afghan afghani

text: Following the United States intervention, the currency became highly destabilized. The afghani traded at Afs. 73,000 per US$1 in September 2001, steeply soaring to Afs. 23,000 after the fall of the Taliban regime in December 2001, before plunging again to Afs. 36,000 in January 2002. Around seven different versions of the currency were in circulation by that time. A former governor said at the time that maybe "trillions" of banknotes are in circulation as a result.


title: Afghan afghani

text: In 2002, the afghani was redenominated, and it received a new ISO 4217 code AFN. No subdivisions were issued. It replaced the previous afghani at two distinct rates: issues of the government of former President Rabbani ("de jure" 1992–2001) were replaced at a rate of 1,000 to the new afghani, whilst the issues of warlord Dostum (1992–1997 in northern Afghanistan) were replaced at a rate of 2,000 to the new afghani. It was created in an effort to stabilize the economy and stop the rapid inflation. The notes were printed in Germany.


title: Afghan afghani

text: The new currency was announced by President Hamid Karzai on 4 September 2002, and was introduced to the market on October 8, 2002. This monetary reform was well received by the public as it was a sign of security and stability, especially the country's rebuilding effort. People also no longer had to carry many bags of money for ordinary things. It was the first time in many years that a sole currency was under the control of the central bank instead of warlords. Most old banknotes were destroyed by the end of 2002.


title: Afghan afghani

text: Da Afghanistan Bank has adopted a floating exchange rate regime and has let the exchange rate be determined freely by market forces. The new afghani was valued at Afs. 43 to one US dollar.


title: Afghan afghani

text: After depreciating during the last quarter of 2003/04, the afghani appreciated steadily, gaining 8 per cent against the US dollar between March 2004 and July 2004. This appreciation, at a time of increasing inflation, appears to reflect a greater willingness by the population to use the afghani as a medium of exchange and as a store of value. This trend appears to be attributable to the relative stability of the exchange rate since the introduction of the new currency, administrative measures aimed at promoting its use, such as the requirement that shopkeepers must price goods in afghani. Donors are increasingly making payments in afghanis instead of US dollars and this appears to be widely accepted. By 2009, the afghani was valued at Afs. 45 per one US dollar. In 2019, the afghani reached Afs. 75 to the US dollar.


title: Afghan afghani

text: After the Taliban took over, Afghanistan's foreign assets were frozen. IMF blocked the release of $450 million in August. Subsequently, the value of the afghani fell. The Taliban banned all foreign currencies to encourage use of the afghani as national tender.


title: Afghan afghani

text: In 1952, aluminium 25 pul and nickel-clad steel 50 pul were introduced, followed by aluminium Afs. 2 and Afs. 5 in 1958. In 1961 nickel-clad steel Af. 1, Afs. 2 and Afs. 5 were minted; the Af. 1 and Afs. 2 coins show years of SH 1340 and the Afs. 5 coin shows the year AH 1381. A number of commemorative coins were also issued by the Islamic State of Afghanistan between 1995 and 2001.


title: Afghan afghani

text: Between 1925 and 1928, Treasury notes were introduced in denominations of Afs. 5, Afs. 10 and Afs. 50. In 1936, Afs. 2, Afs. 20 and Afs. 100 notes were added. The Bank of Afghanistan ("Da Afghanistan Bank") took over paper money production in 1939, issuing notes for Afs. 2, Afs. 5, Afs. 10, Afs. 20, Afs. 50, Afs. 100, Afs. 500 and Afs. 1,000. The Afs. 2 and Afs. 5 notes were replaced by coins in 1958. In 1993, Afs. 5,000 and Afs. 10,000 notes were introduced.


title: Afghan afghani

text: "A 'pothole cave' or 'mouth of a shaft' (or Pit cave) is said to be visible on the Afs. 10,000 banknote from 1993 as a limited dark area in the hillside above the ancient 'pol' or gateway at the ruins near Lashkar Gah. This is possibly the entrance to one of the man-made undergrounds at Qala-e-Bost."


title: Afghan afghani

text: On 7 October 2002, banknotes were introduced in denominations of Af. 1, Afs. 2, Afs. 5, Afs. 10, Afs. 20, Afs. 50, Afs. 100, Afs. 500, and Afs. 1,000. The Af. 1, Afs. 2 and Afs. 5 notes were replaced by coins in 2005. In 2004 and 2008, the security features on several denominations were improved. In 2014 a new Afs. 1,000 note was introduced to prevent counterfeit notes.


title: Afghan afghani

text: The Afghani exchange rate vis-à-vis the U.S. dollar since 1950 has been shown in the following table:


title: McKinney, Texas

text: McKinney is a city in and the county seat of Collin County, Texas. It is Collin County's third-largest city, after Plano and Frisco. A suburb of the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, McKinney is about north of Dallas.


title: McKinney, Texas

text: The U.S. Census Bureau listed McKinney as the nation's fastest-growing city from 2000 to 2003 and again in 2006, among cities with more than 50,000 people. In 2007, it was ranked second-fastest-growing among cities with more than 100,000 people and in 2008 as third-fastest. In the 2010 census, the city's population was 131,117, making it Texas's 19th-most populous city. The population estimate produced by the city as of 2019 was 199,177, which made it Texas's 16th most populous city. In 2020, its population was 195,308. As of May 2017, McKinney was the third-fastest-growing city in the United States.


title: McKinney, Texas

text: On March 24, 1849, William Davis, who owned where McKinney now stands, donated for the townsite. Ten years later, McKinney incorporated, and in 1913, the town adopted the commission form of government.


title: McKinney, Texas

text: For its first 125 years, McKinney served as the county's principal commercial center. The county seat provided farmers with flour, corn, cotton mills, cotton gins, a cotton compress, and a cottonseed oil mill, as well as banks, churches, schools, newspapers, and from the 1880s, an opera house. Businesses also came to include a textile mill, an ice company, a large dairy, and a garment-manufacturing company. The population grew from 35 in 1848 to 4,714 in 1912. By 1953, McKinney had a population of more than 10,000 and 355 businesses. The town continued to serve as an agribusiness center for the county until the late 1960s.


title: McKinney, Texas

text: By 1970, Plano surpassed McKinney in size. McKinney experienced moderate population growth, from 15,193 in the 1970 census to 21,283 in the 1990 census. By the mid-1980s, the town had become a commuter center for residents who worked in Plano and Dallas. In 1985, it had a population of just over 16,000 and supported 254 businesses. Since then, McKinney's rate of increase has been much more dramatic. In the 2000 census, McKinney had grown to 54,369 with 2,005 businesses and in the 2010 census the population had more than doubled to 131,117 residents. The Census Bureau's most recent estimated population for McKinney (July 1, 2015) is 162,898. The most recent population estimate, produced by the city as of January 1, 2019, is 187,802.


title: McKinney, Texas

text: Both the city and the county were named for Collin McKinney, signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, and a congressman for the Red River district of the Republic of Texas. He was the author of a bill establishing counties in the northern part of the state.


title: McKinney, Texas

text: According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of , of which is land and 0.7 square mile (1.7 km), or 1.07%, is covered by water.


title: McKinney, Texas

text: It is also part of the Texas blackland prairies, which means it gets hot summers because it is in the Sun Belt. Humidity makes temperatures feel higher, and winters are mild and are usually rainy; snowstorms occasionally occur. Spring is the wettest part of the year, which brings winds from the Gulf Coast.


title: McKinney, Texas

text: At the 2010 U.S. census, the city had a population of 131,117 people. In 2020, the U.S. Census Bureau tabulated a population of 195,308, representing continued growth from the city's 2000 population of 54,369.


title: McKinney, Texas

text: As of the 2000 U.S. census, 64% of the foreign-born residents of McKinney originated from Mexico. Since 2009, 70% of McKinney's total population born outside of the United States had arrived in the U.S. in the 1990s. In May 2017, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that McKinney was the third fastest-growing city in the United States. It had a 5.9% growth rate between 2015 and 2016.


title: McKinney, Texas

text: Of the 68,458 households at the 2019 American Community Survey, 59.8% were married-couples living together. The average household size was 2.88 and the average family size was 3.36. In 2010, there were 28,186 households; 45.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 63.6% were married couples living together, 9.5% had a female householder with no husband present, and 23.2% were not families; 19.0% of all households were made up of individuals, and 5.3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.89 and the average family size was 3.29.


title: McKinney, Texas

text: In 2010, the median income for a household in the city was $63,366, and for a family was $72,133. Males had a median income of $50,663 versus $32,074 for females. The per capita income for the city was $28,185. About 4.9% of families and 8.5% of the population were below the poverty line, including 9.2% of those under age 18 and 7.9% of those age 65 or over. In 2019, the median income in the city increased to $89,828; the mean income was $111,588.


title: McKinney, Texas

text: According to the city's 2018 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, the top 10 employers in the city are:


title: McKinney, Texas

text: According to the "Comprehensive Annual Financial Report" (2016), the city's various funds had $324.6 million in total revenues, $247.9 million in total expenditures, $1.36 billion in total assets, $437.6 million in total liabilities, and $363.9 million in cash and investments.


title: McKinney, Texas

text: The McKinney City Council has seven members. Two members and the mayor are elected at large, and four members are elected to single-member districts.


title: McKinney, Texas

text: McKinney's City Manager serves under the direction of the City Council, and administers and coordinates the implementation of procedures, policies, and ordinances.


title: McKinney, Texas

text: The city of McKinney is a voluntary member of the North Central Texas Council of Governments association, the purpose of which is to coordinate individual and collective local governments and facilitate regional solutions, eliminate unnecessary duplication, and enable joint decisions.


title: McKinney, Texas

text: McKinney is represented in the Texas Senate by Republican Angela Paxton, District 8, and Republican Drew Springer, District 30. McKinney is also represented in the Texas House of Representatives by Republican Scott Sanford, District 70.


title: McKinney, Texas

text: At the federal level, Texas's U.S. senators are John Cornyn and Ted Cruz. McKinney is in the 3rd Congressional district, which is represented by Van Taylor.


title: McKinney, Texas

text: The McKinney Police Department is the primary municipal law enforcement agency that serves the city. Chief Greg Conley is the head of the department. In fiscal year 2016–2017, the department had 201 sworn peace officers and 59 non-sworn civilian positions.


title: McKinney, Texas

text: The department was awarded national accredited status from the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA) and is also a Texas Police Chief's Association Foundation (TPCAF) Recognized Agency, making it only the third agency in Texas to receive both state and national accreditation.


title: McKinney, Texas

text: Notable recent incidents in the department's history include the high-profile investigation of the McKinney homicide that claimed the lives of two adults and two high school football players; a 2010 attack on the police department headquarters by a gunman who fired over 100 rifle rounds at the building and employees after attempting to detonate a truck and trailer full of explosives; and protests and media attention after a video was released of the 2015 Texas pool party incident.


title: McKinney, Texas

text: The department has lost three officers in the line of duty: City Marshal Samuel Burks in 1902, Officer Marion Taylor in 1938, and Officer Milligan Burk in 1970.


title: McKinney, Texas

text: McKinney is the home of the Central Park Campus of Collin College near the city's center at US 75 and US 380, which opened in 1985 as the initial campus for the community college district. The Collin Higher Education Center campus of Collin College opened in southern McKinney in 2010 and offers select bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree programs in partnership with Texas A&M University-Commerce, Texas Woman's University, The University of Texas at Dallas, and the University of North Texas.


title: McKinney, Texas

text: Two-thirds of McKinney residents are in the McKinney Independent School District; the remaining third are part of Frisco Independent School District, Prosper Independent School District, Allen Independent School District, Melissa Independent School District, Lovejoy Independent School District, or Celina Independent School District.


title: McKinney, Texas

text: Five of the seven school districts serving the city placed in the top 5% in the Niche 2018 Best School Districts in America rankings; Allen ISD ranked #33 nationally, Frisco ISD ranked #60, Prosper ISD ranked #73, Lovejoy ISD ranked #78, and McKinney ISD ranked #268.


title: McKinney, Texas

text: For high school, the two thirds of the city's students who are in McKinney ISD attend McKinney High School, McKinney North High School and McKinney Boyd High School. The remaining third of McKinney students attend Emerson High School (Frisco ISD), Heritage High School (Frisco ISD), Rock Hill High School (Prosper ISD), Allen High School, Melissa High School, Lovejoy High School, or Celina High School.


title: McKinney, Texas

text: In the 2018 "U.S. News & World Report" high school rankings, Lovejoy High School ranked #49 in Texas rankings and #283 nationally; McKinney North High School ranked #76 and #627, respectively; McKinney Boyd High School ranked #85 and #722 respectively; and Allen High School ranked #130 and #1228, respectively.


title: McKinney, Texas

text: Imagine International Academy of North Texas is a no-tuition open-enrollment public charter school for grades K–12 in McKinney. It is open to students in any school district that serves McKinney residents. It is state-funded, independently run, and not part of any school district.


title: McKinney, Texas

text: There are two private schools in the city that serve all grades from K–12, McKinney Christian Academy and Cornerstone Christian Academy.


title: McKinney, Texas

text: The "McKinney Courier-Gazette" is a daily newspaper published in McKinney, covering Collin County. It is owned by American Community Newspapers. It has a daily circulation of 4,400 and a Sunday circulation of 26,400.


title: McKinney, Texas

text: McKinney is served by two U.S. Highways: US 75 and US 380. The city is also bordered by the Sam Rayburn Tollway, a toll road administered by the North Texas Tollway Authority that runs to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.


title: McKinney, Texas

text: McKinney offers discounted transit services to elderly, disabled, or low-income residents through the Collin County Transit Program.


title: McKinney, Texas

text: The far southwestern corner of McKinney, in the large Craig Ranch development, has a trolley bus that serves the development and some shopping centers in the surrounding area.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: Legislative elections were held in Austria on 29 September 2019 to elect the 27th National Council, the lower house of Austria's bicameral parliament. The snap election was called in the wake of the Ibiza affair in May, which caused the resignation of Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache and the collapse of the governing coalition of the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) and Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ). The government subsequently lost a motion of no confidence in parliament, and ÖVP Chancellor Sebastian Kurz was replaced by non-partisan Brigitte Bierlein on an interim basis.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: The conservative ÖVP achieved its best result since 2002, improving its vote share six percentage points. The centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) won just 21.2%, its worst result in over a century. The FPÖ suffered a substantial loss of almost ten points. The Greens re-entered the National Council after falling out in 2017, and achieved their best ever result with 13.9% and 26 seats. NEOS improved from 2017, rising from 10 to 15 seats.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: With the ÖVP in a clear position to lead the new government, it held talks with all other parties. By early November, a coalition with The Greens was seen as the most likely outcome. Negotiations continued through December, and on 1 January, ÖVP leader Kurz and Greens leader Werner Kogler announced the formation of a coalition government between their two parties. The government was sworn in on 7 January 2020 as Second Kurz government, with Sebastian Kurz returning as Chancellor and Kogler taking office as Vice Chancellor.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: The 2017 legislative election was called four years into a grand coalition between the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) and Austrian People's Party (ÖVP), prompted by the demand of newly elected ÖVP leader Sebastian Kurz for a snap election. Although the SPÖ won 52 seats, as it did in the 2013 election, the ÖVP and FPÖ both made large gains, increasing their strength by 15 seats to 62 and by 11 to 51, respectively, making the former the largest party at the federal level. The Peter Pilz List entered the National Council with 8 seats, while the NEOS gained one seat and the Greens lost all of their 24 seats because they failed to clear the 4% threshold of the vote, which is required to qualify for the proportional allocation of seats.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: Following the election, President Alexander Van der Bellen asked Kurz to form the next government, and the ÖVP initiated exploratory talks with the other parties represented in the National Council. The ÖVP officially started coalition negotiations with the FPÖ on 25 October 2017, agreeing on a five-point roadmap. Negotiations drew towards a close in late November, and the parties announced a coalition agreement on 15 December, with the coalition government led by Kurz sworn in on 18 December.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: On 4 November 2017, Peter Pilz announced that he would not take his seat, following accusations of sexual harassment. On 11 June 2018, Pilz returned to the National Council and was sworn in after charges of sexual harassment were dropped by the state prosecution. His return was made possible by the resignation of another member of the National Council, Peter Kolba, who stepped down after significant disputes within the List Pilz. The swearing-in ceremony of Pilz was met with heavy resistance. Almost all female representatives walked out of the parliament room as he was about to take the oath.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: On 7 May 2018, Matthias Strolz announced that he would step down as leader of NEOS and hand over the party leadership in June, citing personal reasons and a successful period for the party since it was founded in 2012, with steady electoral gains during his term. On 23 June 2018, party delegates elected Beate Meinl-Reisinger as their new leader in a meeting that took place in Vienna.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: On 20 August 2018, Maria Stern was elected new party leader of the List Pilz during a party meeting in Vienna. Participants also agreed to rename the list, for which a PR agency was hired. On 19 November 2018, the List Pilz presented their new name: "Jetzt" (or "Now", in English).


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: On 18 September 2018, opposition leader Christian Kern announced that he would resign as leader of the Austrian Social Democrats. Four days later, former Minister of Health Pamela Rendi-Wagner was designated as the new chairwoman of the Social Democratic Party. She was officially confirmed as party leader through a delegate vote at a party convention held on 24 November 2018. Rendi-Wagner is the first female leader of the SPÖ.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: On 17 May 2019, a secretly recorded video was published of a July 2017 meeting in Ibiza, Spain, which appeared to show the then opposition politicians Heinz-Christian Strache and Johann Gudenus discussing their party's underhanded practices and intentions. In the video, both politicians appeared receptive to proposals by a woman posing as the niece of a Russian oligarch, discussing providing the FPÖ positive news coverage in return for government contracts. Strache and Gudenus also hinted at corrupt political practices involving other wealthy donors to the FPÖ in Europe and elsewhere.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: On 18 May, Strache announced that he would resign as FPÖ leader and vice chancellor, with Norbert Hofer replacing him as FPÖ leader.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: On 19 May, Kurz tore up the coalition agreement and announced his intention to seek a snap election in September with President Alexander Van der Bellen also signalling an election early that month. Just eight days later, the Kurz government was toppled in the first successful no-confidence vote in modern Austrian history.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: On 3 June, Brigitte Bierlein and her independent technocratic interim government was sworn into office by President Alexander Van der Bellen. Her government consisted of 12 members, instead of the 16 in the first Kurz government.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: On 12 June 2019, the election date was eventually set for 29 September with the votes of SPÖ and FPÖ, while the ÖVP was opposed, having favoured an early September poll date instead. The prevailing view was that the snap election should not be held during the summer holiday season, and that it should not coincide with state elections in Vorarlberg, to be held on 13 October 2019.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: The 183 members of the National Council are elected by open list proportional representation at the level of one federal constituency consisting of all of Austria, 9 state constituencies, and 39 regional constituencies. Seats in the National Council are apportioned to the regional constituencies based on the results of the most recent census. Following elections, seats are allocated to the candidates of successful parties and lists in a three-stage process: from regional constituencies to state constituencies to the federal constituency.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: For parties to receive any representation in the National Council, they must either win at least one seat in a constituency directly, or clear a 4 percent national electoral threshold. Seats are distributed according to the Hare method in the first two stages, at the level of regional and state constituencies, with any remaining seats allocated using the D'Hondt method at the federal level, to ensure overall proportionality between a party's national vote share and its share of parliamentary seats. Deviations from near-perfect proportionality can nevertheless occur when a smaller party fails to clear the 4% hurdle and receives no seats, a fate the Green Party suffered in 2017. The rationale for the threshold is to discourage parties from splintering, and thereby prevent parliament from fragmenting into numerous small parties, which would complicate coalition formation in the first instance, and would undermine their stability once they are formed.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: In addition to voting for a political party, voters may cast three preferential votes for specific candidates of that party, but are not required to do so. These additional votes do not affect the proportional allocation based on the vote for the party or list, but can change the rank order of candidates on a party's lists at the federal, state, and regional level. The threshold to increase the position of a candidate on a federal party list is 7 percent, compared to 10 percent at the state level, and 14 percent at the regional level. The names of candidates on regional party lists are printed on the ballot and can be marked with an "x" to indicate the voter's preference. Preference votes for candidates on party lists at the state and federal level, however, must be written in by the voter, either by writing the name or the rank number of the candidate in a blank spot provided for that purpose. Austria still uses paper ballots, rather than electronic voting machines or online voting. Because the names of candidates on the regional lists are printed on the ballot, and because more parties and lists compete today than was the case in earlier decades of the Second Republic, today's ballots are much larger in size than was the case before the introduction of preferential voting. Voting by placing an "x" in the circle provided next to party name on the top of the ballot, or marking a specific candidate name on the regional list of a party at the bottom, is the most common method, but other markings other than "x" are also allowed. A voter may not cross party-lines to cast a preference vote for a candidate of another party, however. Such preference votes are invalid.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: Per Article 26 and 27 of the Federal Constitutional Law, the National Council must be convened by the President no later than 30 days after the most recent election. The standard duration of the legislative period of the National Council is five years, by the end of which it must be renewed through an election on a Sunday or a public holiday. Because the inaugural meeting of the 26th National Council took place on 9 November 2017, as determined by President Alexander Van der Bellen, the latest date on which the next legislative election could have been held would be 6 November 2022.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: In order to contest the election nationwide, a party (or list) must have the support of three members of parliament or collect 2,600 valid signatures from eligible voters ahead of the elections.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: Parties may contest the election in individual states only, if they so chose. To do so, they must submit a minimum number of voter signatures that varies by state as follows:


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: For the 2019 elections, parties had less than a month (9 July and 2 August) to collect signatures. The state and federal election commissions then validated the signatures and announced the list of parties that qualified.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: In addition to the parties already represented in the National Council, eight parties collected enough signatures to be placed on the ballot. Three of these were cleared to be on the ballot in all states, five of them only in some.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: Another eight parties or lists sought ballot access, but failed to collect enough signatures to meet the 2 August 2019 deadline.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: Alongside votes for a party, voters were able to cast a preferential votes for a candidate on the party list. The ten candidates with the most preferential votes on a federal level were as follows:


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: Although the ÖVP under Sebastian Kurz won a large plurality, it came up 21 seats short of a majority and thus needed the support of a junior partner in order to return Kurz to the chancellorship. Several coalition options were mathematically possible based on the distribution of parliamentary seats among the other parties, which reflected their respective shares of the vote. The Green Party achieved their best electoral results ever, in part at the expense of the SPÖ, and was viewed as a potentially viable coalition partner, although such a conservative-green alliance would have unprecedented at the national level in Austria and would have required compromise on policy positions by both sides.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: President Van der Bellen met with Kurz on Monday, 7 October 2019 to charge him with the task of forming a new government. Kurz had committed himself to hold talks with all parties. The Green Party leadership had already voted in favor of exploratory talks, and had avoided setting preconditions, though as of 29 September, a coalition with the ÖVP was backed by only 1/3 of Green party members. The Green Party leader, Werner Kogler, is a veteran of coalition talks with the ÖVP that failed on an earlier occasion after the 2002 election. However, 4 in 10 ÖVP voters prefer FPÖ, whereas only 1 in 5 could imagine cooperation with the Green Party. The party leaders of SPÖ, FPÖ and NEOS also agreed to take part in the exploratory talks, which are the first step to form a new government.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: After the conclusion of the first round of talks, the FPÖ told Kurz that they would not continue the exploratory talks, but would consider re-entering negotiations should talks with other parties fail. Another round of exploratory talks with SPÖ, the Greens, and NEOS was then scheduled for Thursday, 17 October and Friday, 18 October.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: Meanwhile, regional elections to the state legislature were held in Vorarlberg, Austria's westernmost constituent "Bundesland" (state) on 13 October 2019. The outcome of the election to this state legislature was closely watched because it came on the heels of the National Council elections, and because the state had already established a precedent for a workable conservative-green coalition government at the sub-national level in the previous election cycle. Based on the final election results, all parties represented in the Vorarlberg state legislature increased their share of the vote - except for the scandal-plagued FPÖ, which sustained heavy losses, just as it did in the national parliamentary elections two weeks earlier. With 18.9% of the vote, the Greens emerged as the second-largest party after the ÖVP, which garnered 43.5%. Based on the final election results, four parties represented in the 36-seat state legislature prior to the election gained one additional seat each, all at the expense of the FPÖ, which lost four. As is the case at the federal level, coalition talks were held to determine the composition of the new government. A renewal of the ÖVP-Green coalition was the most likely outcome after Governor Markus Wallner (ÖVP) invited the Greens once again to in-depth talks following a round of talks with other party leaders. The coalition negotiations between ÖVP and Greens were finalized on 5 November 2019, and the new Vorarlberg government was sworn in on 6 November.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: Kurz set a deadline for 8 November for exploratory talks with the Greens to end. Previously, SPÖ and NEOS broke off talks with Kurz and told him they are only available for direct coalition talks. Kurz then agreed to schedule four more rounds of in-depth exploratory talks with the Green Party and told the media that he plans a decision about formal coalition talks for the days after 8 November.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: After the final round of talks between ÖVP and Greens on 8 November, the Greens announced a party meeting for Sunday, 10 November and scheduled a subsequent vote on the approval of coalition talks with the ÖVP. Kurz announced that he would talk with key ÖVP party members, such as state governors, over the weekend and await a decision by the Greens before announcing his own decision. According to a poll by broadcaster ATV, published on 8 November, public support for a ÖVP-Green coalition increased to 55%, with 36% opposed. Among Green Party voters only, support rose to 96%, while among ÖVP voters only, 61% supported such a coalition, with 33% opposed. Support was also high among voters from the liberal NEOS (79%) and the SPÖ (68%), with opposition only coming from the FPÖ (71%).


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: After conferring with numerous ÖVP leaders around the country by phone over the weekend, Kurz announced his party's unity in favor of formal coalition negotiations with the Greens, rather than with the Social Democrats. He cited government stability as a key consideration for the choice, but cautioned that the outcome was still uncertain. Although unprecedented in Austria at the federal level, the idea of a coalition between the Christian-Democrats with the Greens was disproportionately favored by voters under 30 in both parties. Austria's younger generation has greater political clout than elsewhere because the voting age was lowered to 16, thus increasing their demographic share of the electorate. Born in 1986, Sebastian Kurz himself was one of the youngest heads of government on a global level when he first became Federal Chancellor in 2017.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: A Kurz-Kogler meeting was scheduled for Tuesday morning, 12 November 2019. Green leaders had unanimously approved opening coalition negotiations at a party meeting on Sunday. Kogler was quoted as saying that "our hand is extended to the ÖVP" but acknowledged that this undertaking had its risks. Major topics on which the two ideologically disparate parties had to strive to reach common ground are migration (refugees/immigration/integration), education, the economy, and transparency in government.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: President Van der Bellen and NEOS welcomed the breakthrough announced by Kurz Monday morning, while the FPÖ criticized him for "delivering Austria to the Greens". The SPÖ called for government formation to finish quickly. Kurz had not offered any particular reason why a coalition with the SPÖ had been rejected.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: The prospect of Austria being governed by a coalition of conservatives and greens was a novel development on the western European political landscape at a national level, and was watched with anticipation from the outside.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: On 15 November, ÖVP and Greens decided to create a negotiation team of more than 100 people combined, to negotiate in 6 major groups and 36 sub-groups, discussing different policy areas and issues. Group leaders from the two parties were named to oversee the comprehensive talks, which started on Monday, 18 November, involving all sub-groups.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: On Sunday, 24 November 2019, legislative elections were held in Styria, Austria's fourth-largest state by population. The ÖVP won a resounding victory at the expense of both the Social Democrats and the FPÖ, which had done very well in the Styrian election of 2015. The ÖVP managed to re-establish itself as the historically dominant political force in the state. The Greens exceeded 10% of the vote statewide for the first time in history. With 6% the Communists did better than the NEOS who received 5%, but the NEOS had ground to celebrate nonetheless because they won enough votes to enter the Landtag for the first time, and with two seats.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: Based on preliminary data reported as of 1700 on polling day, the breakdown by party is as follows: ÖVP 36.61% - SPÖ 22.89% - FPÖ 17.94% - GRÜNE 11.43% - KPÖ 6.02% - NEOS 5.10%. The Greens did exceptionally well in Graz, Styria's capital, which is also the stronghold of the Communist Party, a unique facet in Styrian politics.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: Styria uses a slightly different version of PR to convert vote shares into seats than is used for elections to the national parliament. There is no 4% threshold. Instead, a party must win at least one seat (Grundmandat) by meeting a certain numerical requirement (Wahlzahl). Rather than being fixed, the number of votes necessary to meet this quota varies because it is computed based on all valid ballots cast in a district and the number of mandates allocated to that district. For the purpose of Landtag elections, Styria is divided into four districts ("Wahlkreise") of unequal size, to which mandates (corresponding to seats in the Landtag) are apportioned based on the most recent census. The number of mandates per district is known going into the election, but the "Wahlzahl" is not known because it is affected by turnout, which this time was low by historical standards. As in national elections, the voting age is 16. Austria is an international outlier in giving youth in 16-18 age range the right to vote, and thus a stake in the political game and an ability to help shape their country's future. Voting used to be compulsory in several states, including, Styria, but that is no longer the case.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: At the end of election day, the provisional distribution of seats in the 48-seat Landtag was projected as follows: ÖVP 18 seats (+4), SPÖ 12 (-3), FPÖ 8 (-6), GRÜNE 6 (+3), KPÖ 2 (no change), NEOS 2 (+2). After all ballots were counted (including postal votes and those cast by voters outside their precincts using a voting card available for that purpose) one mandate that was projected for the Communists shifted to the SPÖ, whose leader had already resigned, following his party's sharp drop in voter support. The Communists and the Neos accordingly received two seats each. Each won one basic mandate in the regional district that includes Graz, the capital, and a second one by aggregating their statewide votes. The Greens won five basic mandates outright, three of them in the Graz district, and received one more in the second stage of the seat-allocation process, bringing their total of 6, thereby doubling their strength in the Landtag. The turnout in this election was 64.5%, the lowest in history. As a result of the large shifts in voter support among the parties, the constellation of power in Styria came to mirror that at the federal level: Multiple variants of possible coalitions led by the ÖVP as the leading party were possible, but a coalition government with the Greens as a junior coalition partner would have required the inclusion of a third small party.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: While coalition negotiations between the ÖVP and the Greens were continuing at the federal level, they were concluded in Styria in only three weeks. On Monday, December 16, 2019, ÖVP and SPÖ presented an agreement for a joint government dubbed „Koalition weiß-grün“ (White-Green Coalition), which eschewed reference to the two parties' traditional political colors (black and red, respectively). The newly formed coalition was also promoted as a "Partnership for Reform" and a "Partnership for the Future."


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: Notwithstanding the novel branding, this pact was a new edition of a conventional "grand coalition" between Austria's traditional center-right and center-left parties. Reflecting the ÖVP election win, the new government was led by Hermann Schützenhöfer (ÖVP) as Governor. Anton Lang (SPÖ) was the deputy governor. Because of the shift in respective electoral support for the two parties, the ÖVP had one more seat in the provincial government, filled by ex-minister Juliane Bogner-Strauß.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: The Styrian Landtag met on Tuesday, 17 December, for its inaugural session. The immediate task of the re-constituted body consisted of electing its three presiding officers (one each from the three largest parties), installing in the new state government pursuant to the coalition agreement, and designating Styria's nine representatives in the Bundesrat, the upper chamber of Austria's bicameral national parliament.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: On 29 December the ÖVP and the Greens informed the media that their coalition negotiations are close to coming to fruition. This followed a series of one-on-one talks between Kurz and Kogler that continued over the weekend and into the new week, with a few details remaining to be worked out. Prospective ministers were to pay courtesy calls to federal president Van der Bellen, who wished to confer with each one of them prior to them being sworn in. The public presentation of the coalition government was expected as early as 2 January 2020. According to the "Salzburger Nachrichten", the post of ministers of the Interior, Foreign Relations, Finances, Economy, Instruction and Agriculture will be given to ÖVP members, while the posts of ministers of Infrastructures, Environment, Justice, Health and Social Affairs will go to the Greens.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: The coalition agreement on a joint government program and on the allocation of ministerial portfolios must, however, be approved by the rank and file of the Green party at a national party congress (Bundeskongress) called for that purpose, in keeping with the party's commitment to "Basisdemokratie", which can be translated as bottom-up or grassroots democracy, here as an organizational principle within the party. The invitation to the Congress was delivered by email shortly before midnight on Saturday. The party's internal rules required at least one week notice, and the delegates had yet to see the full text of the coalition agreement on which they were to vote. Therefore, the party's ratification of the negotiated coalition agreement through its 276 delegates at the party congress could not take place until 4 January 2020. The earliest swearing-in date could have been 7 January 2020 because the Monday the 6th is a national holiday in Austria. Even if approval was likely, the Green Party Congress (dubbed "BuKo") was to give an idea of how unified the party is, and whether internal fissures will jeopardize its leadership's role and effectiveness as junior partner in the anticipated ÖVP–Green coalition government, the first of its kind at the federal level.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: On New Year's Day, 22:00 local time, in a joint televised appearance, Sebastian Kurz and Werner Kogler announced the successful conclusion of their coalition talks and formation of a new joint government, with the formal government program to be released on 2 January. They complimented each other and thanked Austrians for their patience. Between them, the two parties had 97 seats, a five-seat majority.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: Kurz said a very good result had been achieved; not just a deal based on the least common denominator. He again stressed that two parties had received their respective mandates from the voters for different reasons: Tax relief and a hard line against illegal immigration and "political Islam" in the case of the ÖVP; the imperative to fight climate change in the case of the Greens. Kogler acknowledged that the negotiations were not easy, given the different orientations and policy positions of the two parties, and expressed a commitment to assume governing responsibility for the entirety of the Austrian "population", rather than just those who had voted Green or those who possess the right to vote. That larger constituency includes children and noncitizens. By expressing support for social policies to address child poverty and the challenges of other socially disadvantaged groups, such as the elderly, Kogler reaffirmed that the Green party stands for more than the environmental agenda. Also invoked was another core issue associated with the Green Party: "Transparenz". While this is easily translated as transparency, it is a somewhat more expansive concept in Austrian political discourse that encompasses open government, freedom of information, ethics in public life, and the fight against corruption. The need for the latter was highlighted by the Ibiza affair that precipitated the fall of the previous coalition (Kurz Government I) and necessitated premature national elections in 2019, following a vote of no-confidence in the National Council.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: The joint announcement also paid homage to the idea that policymaking need not be a zero-sum game, and that the parties' divergent policy goals and priorities with respect to tax relief and environmental policy measures can be reconciled and pursued through compromise, with due consideration of their disparate impact on different income strata in the population, and ameliorative policy measures ("Sozialausgleich"). Kurz made an analogous point about protecting the country's border (ÖVP priority) and protecting the environment (Green priority).


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: Kogler echoed President van der Bellen's message of national unity by quoting him for the proposition that "if you love your country, you don't split it."


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: The joint announcement was brief and cordial. No mention was made of a carbon tax or any specific policy measures or of the allocation of portfolios in the new government, at least half of which are expected to be assumed by women. No questions were entertained from members of the media.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: On 4 January 2020, a national party convention cleared the way for the Greens to share governing power with the conservatives New People's Party (ÖVP) in a Kurz-Kogler Cabinet, to be sworn in next week.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: 276 Green Party delegates from across the country met in Salzburg for a party congress required by the party's charter to formally approve the party's participation with the ÖVP on the terms spelled out in the coalition pact hammered out by Kurz and Kogler, and their respective negotiating teams, over the course of three month following the snap elections of 2019. The vote, taken on the open floor by show of hands with voting cards, was overwhelmingly in favor: 205 votes out of 220 (or 93.18%), with only 15 voting against.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: The floor vote followed an open-mic session in which speakers had two minutes each to make statements, which some delegates used to voice criticism about the party having made too many concessions on core Green principles and positions, such as with respect to expansion of police powers and pretrial detention of persons deemed public security risks, and policies that reflect a contempt for human rights. Lack of progress on the issue of non-discrimination against homosexuals was also invoked as a reason to oppose the alliance with the Conservatives.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: The designation of the five Greens to assume positions in the new Government—a selection that had been made and approved unanimously by the party's expanded executive committee—was put to a convention floor vote separately, and received near-unanimous approval with 99.25% of the votes, with only one "No" vote and one abstention. Among the Green members of the new Government is a former refugee from Bosnia, who will head the ministry of justice.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: On Tuesday, 7 January 2020, President Van der Bellen swore in the new ÖVP-Green government at the Hofburg (11AM local time).


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: Regional elections for the Landtag of Burgenland, Austria's easternmost and least populous state, were held on January 26, 2020, and yielded an unexpected outcome: An absolute majority for the Social Democrats (SPÖ), who had governed the State in a coalition with the FPÖ. Both parties are currently in opposition to the ÖVP-Green coalition government at the national level. The Burgenland elections were called ahead of schedule, following the Ibiza affair. Both FPÖ and SPÖ suffered major setbacks in the national parliamentary elections of 2019 and in the 2019 Landtag elections in neighboring Styria, but nevertheless became the junior partner in an ÖVP-SPÖ coalition there. Burgenland uses a more personalized election system for Land election in which a preference vote for a candidate trumps the vote for a party list, with a 4% threshold to keep out the smallest parties. Of the six lists that competed, two did not surpass the threshold, including the NEOS.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: According to preliminary results, the SPÖ garnered close to 50% of the votes, which translates into a majority in the provincial legislature, making a coalition with another party unnecessary. SPÖ leader and incumbent Governor Hans Peter Doskozil had steered pragmatic course, focusing on traditional Socialist objectives, such as higher wages, and had taken a more restrictive stance on immigration than the national SPÖ. He succeeded in his bid to demonstrate that the SPÖ is still capable of winning elections if it stays attuned to what the people want. Doskozil benefited from high personal popularity and from the "Governor-bonus" despite being handicapped in his re-election campaigning by a subdued voice related to vocal cord problems.


title: 2019 Austrian legislative election

text: The New ÖVP received 30.6% of the vote while support for the FPÖ dropped to 9.7%. The Greens held steady with 6.5% but performed worse than had been projected. Seventy-five percent of the 250,181 registered voters turned out. Commentators and pundits expected that the SPÖ's overwhelming victory under Doskozil in Burgenland would have repercussions for the SPÖ at the national level, both with respect to the composition of its leadership, and the party's search for its place in Austria's evolving political landscape.


title: Circular error probable

text: In the military science of ballistics, circular error probable (CEP) (also circular error probability or circle of equal probability) is a measure of a weapon system's precision. It is defined as the radius of a circle, centered on the mean, whose perimeter is expected to include the landing points of 50% of the rounds; said otherwise, it is the median error radius. That is, if a given munitions design has a CEP of 100 m, when 100 munitions are targeted at the same point, 50 will fall within a circle with a radius of 100 m around their average impact point. (The distance between the target point and the average impact point is referred to as bias.)


title: Circular error probable

text: There are associated concepts, such as the DRMS (distance root mean square), which is the square root of the average squared distance error, and R95, which is the radius of the circle where 95% of the values would fall in.


title: Circular error probable

text: The concept of CEP also plays a role when measuring the accuracy of a position obtained by a navigation system, such as GPS or older systems such as LORAN and Loran-C.


title: Circular error probable

text: The original concept of CEP was based on a circular bivariate normal distribution (CBN) with CEP as a parameter of the CBN just as μ and σ are parameters of the normal distribution. Munitions with this distribution behavior tend to cluster around the mean impact point, with most reasonably close, progressively fewer and fewer further away, and very few at long distance. That is, if CEP is "n" metres, 50% of shots land within "n" metres of the mean impact, 43.7% between "n" and "2n", and 6.1% between "2n" and "3n" metres, and the proportion of shots that land farther than three times the CEP from the mean is only 0.2%.


title: Circular error probable

text: CEP is not a good measure of accuracy when this distribution behavior is not met. Precision-guided munitions generally have more "close misses" and so are not normally distributed. Munitions may also have larger standard deviation of range errors than the standard deviation of azimuth (deflection) errors, resulting in an elliptical confidence region. Munition samples may not be exactly on target, that is, the mean vector will not be (0,0). This is referred to as bias.


title: Circular error probable

text: To incorporate accuracy into the CEP concept in these conditions, CEP can be defined as the square root of the mean square error (MSE). The MSE will be the sum of the variance of the range error plus the variance of the azimuth error plus the covariance of the range error with the azimuth error plus the square of the bias. Thus the MSE results from pooling all these sources of error, geometrically corresponding to radius of a circle within which 50% of rounds will land.


title: Circular error probable

text: Several methods have been introduced to estimate CEP from shot data. Included in these methods are the plug-in approach of Blischke and Halpin (1966), the Bayesian approach of Spall and Maryak (1992), and the maximum likelihood approach of Winkler and Bickert (2012). The Spall and Maryak approach applies when the shot data represent a mixture of different projectile characteristics (e.g., shots from multiple munitions types or from multiple locations directed at one target).


title: Circular error probable

text: While 50% is a very common definition for CEP, the circle dimension can be defined for percentages. Percentiles can be determined by recognizing that the horizontal position error is defined by a 2D vector which components are two orthogonal Gaussian random variables (one for each axis), assumed uncorrelated, each having a standard deviation formula_1. The "distance error" is the magnitude of that vector; it is a property of 2D Gaussian vectors that the magnitude follows the Rayleigh distribution, with a standard deviation formula_2, called the "distance root mean square" (DRMS). In turn, the properties of the Rayleigh distribution are that its percentile at level formula_3 is given by the following formula:


title: Circular error probable

text: The relation between formula_6 and formula_7 are given by the following table, where the formula_7 values for DRMS and 2DRMS (twice the distance root mean square) are specific to the Rayleigh distribution and are found numerically, while the CEP, R95 (95% radius) and R99.7 (99.7% radius) values are defined based on the 68–95–99.7 rule


title: Circular error probable

text: We can then derive a conversion table to convert values expressed for one percentile level, to another. Said conversion table, giving the coefficients formula_9 to convert formula_10 into formula_11, is given by:


title: Circular error probable

text: For example, a GPS receiver having a 1.25 m DRMS will have a 1.25 mformula_121.73 = 2.16 m 95% radius.


title: Circular error probable

text: Warning: often, sensor datasheets or other publications state "RMS" values which in general, "but not always", stand for "DRMS" values. Also, be wary of habits coming from properties of a 1D normal distribution, such as the 68-95-99.7 rule, in essence trying to say that "R95 = 2DRMS". As shown above, these properties simply "do not" translate to the distance errors. Finally, mind that these values are obtained for a theoretical distribution; while generally being true for real data, these may be affected by other effects, which the model does not represent.


title: Epirus

text: Epirus () is a geographical and historical region in southeastern Europe, now shared between Greece and Albania. It lies between the Pindus Mountains and the Ionian Sea, stretching from the Bay of Vlorë and the Acroceraunian Mountains in the north to the Ambracian Gulf and the ruined Roman city of Nicopolis in the south. It is currently divided between the region of Epirus in northwestern Greece and the counties of Gjirokastër and Vlorë in southern Albania. The largest city in Epirus is Ioannina, seat of the Greek region of Epirus, with Gjirokastër the largest city in the Albanian part of Epirus.


title: Epirus

text: A rugged and mountainous region, Epirus was the north-west area of ancient Greece. It was inhabited by the Greek tribes of the Chaonians, Molossians, and Thesprotians. It was home to the sanctuary of Dodona, the oldest oracle in ancient Greece, and the second most prestigious after Delphi. Unified into a single state in 370 BC by the Aeacidae dynasty, Epirus achieved fame during the reign of Pyrrhus of Epirus who fought the Roman Republic in a series of campaigns. Epirus subsequently became part of the Roman Republic along with the rest of Greece in 146 BC, which was followed by the Roman Empire and Eastern Roman Empire.


title: Epirus

text: Following the fall of Constantinople to the Fourth Crusade, Epirus became the center of the Despotate of Epirus, one of the successor states to the Byzantine Empire. Conquered by the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century, Epirus became part of the semi-independent Pashalik governed by the Ottoman Albanian ruler Ali Pasha in the early 19th century, but the Sublime Porte re-asserted its control in 1821. Following the Balkan Wars and World War I, southern Epirus became part of Greece, while northern Epirus became part of Albania.


title: Epirus

text: The name "Epirus" is derived from the (), meaning "mainland" or "terra firma". It is thought to come from an Indo-European root "<nowiki>*</nowiki>apero-" 'coast', and was applied to the mainland of north-west Greece opposite Corfu and the Ionian islands. The local name was struck on the coinage of the unified Epirote commonwealth: "ΑΠΕΙΡΩΤΑΝ" (, , i.e. "of the Epirotes", see image right). The Albanian name for the region, which derives from the Greek, is . Similarly, the Aromanian name for Epirus, which is also Greek-derived, is .


title: Epirus

text: Historically, the geographical area of Epirus proper is defined within the lines drawn from Cape Gjuhëz of the Ceraunian Mountains in the north-west, to Mount Qelqëz in the north-east, to Mount Gavrovo in the south-east, to the mouth of the Ambracian Gulf in the south-west. The northern boundary of ancient Epirus is alternatively given as the Vjosa (or Aoös) river. Epirus's eastern boundary is defined by the Pindus Mountains, that form the spine of mainland Greece and separate Epirus from Macedonia and Thessaly. To the west, Epirus faces the Ionian Sea. The island of Corfu is situated off the Epirote coast but is not regarded as part of Epirus.


title: Epirus

text: The definition of Epirus has changed over time, such that modern administrative boundaries do not correspond to the boundaries of ancient Epirus. The region of Epirus in Greece only comprises a fraction of classical Epirus and does not include its easternmost portions, which lie in Thessaly. In Albania, where the concept of Epirus is never used in an official context, the counties of Gjirokastër, Vlorë, and Berat extend well beyond the northern and northeastern boundaries of classical Epirus.


title: Epirus

text: Epirus is a predominantly rugged and mountainous region. It is largely made up of the Pindus Mountains, a series of parallel limestone ridges that are a continuation of the Dinaric Alps. The Pindus mountains form the spine of mainland Greece and separate Epirus from Macedonia and Thessaly to the east. The ridges of the Pindus are parallel to the sea and generally so steep that the valleys between them are mostly suitable for pasture rather than large-scale agriculture. Altitude increases as one moves east, away from the coast, reaching a maximum of 2,637 m at Mount Smolikas, the highest point in Epirus. Other important ranges include Tymfi (2,496 m at Mount Gamila), Lygkos (2,249 m), to the west and east of Smolikas respectively, Gramos (2,523 m) in the northeast, Tzoumerka (2,356 m) in the southeast, Tomaros (1,976 m) in the southwest, Mitsikeli near Ioannina (1,810 m), Mourgana (1,806 m) and Nemercke/Aeoropos (2,485 m) on the border between Greece and Albania, and the Ceraunian Mountains (2,000 m) near Himara in Albania. Most of Epirus lies on the windward side of the Pindus, and the prevailing winds from the Ionian Sea make the region the rainiest in mainland Greece.


title: Epirus

text: Significant lowlands are to be found only near the coast, in the southwest near Arta and Preveza, in the Acheron plain between Paramythia and Fanari, between Igoumenitsa and Sagiada, and also near Saranda. The Zagori area is a scenic upland plateau surrounded by mountain on all sides.


title: Epirus

text: The main river flowing through Epirus is the Vjosë ("Aoös" in Greek), which flows in a northwesterly direction from the Pindus mountains in Greece to its mouth north of the Bay of Vlorë in Albania. Other important rivers include the Acheron river, famous for its religious significance in ancient Greece and site of the Necromanteion, the Arachthos river, crossed by the historic Bridge of Arta, the Louros, the Thyamis or Kalamas, and the Voidomatis, a tributary of the Vjosë flowing through the Vikos Gorge. The Vikos Gorge, one of the deepest in the world, forms the centerpiece of the Vikos–Aoös National Park, known for its scenic beauty. The only significant lake in Epirus is Lake Pamvotis, on whose shores lies the city of Ioannina, the region's largest and traditionally most important city.


title: Epirus

text: The climate of Epirus is Mediterranean along the coast and Alpine in the interior. Epirus is heavily forested, mainly by coniferous species. The fauna in Epirus is especially rich and features species such as bears, wolves, foxes, deer and lynxes.


title: Epirus

text: In the Neolithic period Epirus was populated by seafarers along the coast and by shepherds and hunters from the southwestern Balkans who brought with them the Greek language. These people buried their leaders in large mounds containing shaft graves. Similar burial chambers were subsequently used by the Mycenaean civilization, suggesting that the founders of Mycenae may have come from Epirus and central Albania. Epirus itself remained culturally backward during this time, but Mycenaean remains have been found at two religious shrines of great antiquity in the region: the Oracle of the Dead on the Acheron River, familiar to the heroes of Homer’s Odyssey, and the Oracle of Zeus at Dodona, to whom Achilles prayed in the Iliad.


title: Epirus

text: In the Middle Bronze Age, Epirus was inhabited by the same nomadic Hellenic tribes that went on to settle in the rest of Greece. Aristotle considered the region around Dodona to have been part of Hellas and the region where the Hellenes originated. According to Bulgarian linguist Vladimir I. Georgiev, Epirus was part of the Proto-Greek linguistic area during the Late Neolithic period. By the early 1st millennium BC, all fourteen Epirote tribes including the Chaonians in northwestern Epirus, the Molossians in the centre and the Thesprotians in the south, were speakers of a strong west Greek dialect.


title: Epirus

text: Geographically on the edge of the Greek world, Epirus remained for the most part outside the limelight of Greek history until relatively late, much like the neighbouring Greek regions of Macedonia, Aetolia, and Acarnania, with which Epirus had political, cultural, linguistic and economic connections. Unlike most other Greeks of this time, who lived in or around city-states, the inhabitants of Epirus lived in small villages and their way of life was foreign to that of the poleis of southern Greece. Their region lay on the periphery of the Greek world and was far from peaceful; for many centuries, it remained a frontier area contested with the Illyrian peoples to the north. However, Epirus had a far greater religious significance than might have been expected given its geographical remoteness, due to the presence of the shrine and oracle at Dodona – regarded as second only to the more famous oracle at Delphi.


title: Epirus

text: The Epirotes, speakers of a Northwest Greek dialect, different from the Dorian of the Greek colonies on the Ionian islands, and bearers of mostly Greek names, as evidenced by epigraphy, seem to have been regarded with some disdain by some classical writers. The 5th-century BC Athenian historian Thucydides describes them as "barbarians" in his "History of the Peloponnesian War", as does Strabo in his "Geography". Other writers, such as Herodotus, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Pausanias, and Eutropius, describe them as Greeks. Similarly, Epirote tribes/states are included in the Argive and Epidaurian lists of the Greek Thearodokoi (hosts of sacred envoys). Plutarch mentions an interesting element of Epirote folklore regarding Achilles: In his biography of King Pyrrhus, he claims that Achilles "had a divine status in Epirus and in the local dialect he was called Aspetos" (meaning "unspeakable", "unspeakably great", in Homeric Greek).


title: Epirus

text: Beginning in 370 BC, the Molossian Aeacidae dynasty built a centralized state in Epirus and began expanding their power at the expense of rival tribes. The Aeacids allied themselves with the increasingly powerful kingdom of Macedon, in part against the common threat of Illyrian raids, and in 359 BC the Molossian princess Olympias, niece of Arybbas of Epirus, married King Philip II of Macedon. She was to become the mother of Alexander the Great.


title: Epirus

text: On the death of Arybbas, Alexander of Epirus succeeded to the throne and the title King of Epirus in 334 BC. He invaded Italy, but was killed in battle by a Lucanian in the Battle of Pandosia against several Italic tribes 331 BC. Aeacides of Epirus, who succeeded Alexander, espoused the cause of Olympias against Cassander, but was dethroned in 313 BC. His son Pyrrhus came to throne in 295 BC, and for six years fought against the Romans and Carthaginians in southern Italy and Sicily. The high cost of his victories against the Romans gave Epirus a new, but brief, importance, as well as a lasting contribution to the Greek language with the concept of a "Pyrrhic victory". Pyrrhus nonetheless brought great prosperity to Epirus, building the great theater of Dodona and a new suburb at Ambracia (now modern Arta), which he made his capital.