title: Cubana de Aviación

text: The airline was established by Clement Melville Keys on 8 October 1929 as Compañía Nacional Cubana de Aviación Curtiss S.A., initially as a flying school as well as a charter carrier, beginning scheduled services in 1930. The airline's name indicated its association with the Curtiss aircraft manufacturing company. Cubana's early fleet used Curtiss Robin, amphibian Sikorsky S-38, Ford Trimotor, and Lockheed Electra (L-10) aircraft. Pan American acquired Cubana in 1932, and the word Curtiss was deleted from the carrier's name. By the end of the decade, the carrier had a fleet of four Ford Trimotors and three Lockheed Electras that operated on the domestic Havana–Camaguey, Havana–Guantanamo–Baracoa and Santiago–Baracoa routes.


title: Cubana de Aviación

text: In 1944, the first International Conference on Civil Aviation was convened, which later would lead to the creation of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). Cuba was a participant in this conference and a founding member of ICAO. In April 1945, the conference that created the International Air Transport Association (IATA) was held in Havana. Cubana became a founding member of IATA, and participated in the creation of that organization through its involvement with the Havana conference and the resulting accords. Both conferences and the organizations they spawned helped establish Cubana as an internationally recognized airline company.


title: Cubana de Aviación

text: In May 1945 Cubana started its first scheduled international flights to Miami, using Douglas DC-3 aircraft, making the airline the first Latin American one to establish scheduled passenger services to this city. In April 1948, a transatlantic route was started between Havana and Madrid (via Bermuda, the Azores and Lisbon) using Douglas DC-4 aircraft. The Madrid route was extended to Rome in 1950. The new route to Europe made Cubana one of the earliest Latin American carriers to establish scheduled transatlantic service.


title: Cubana de Aviación

text: In 1953, Airwork sold Cubana three Viscount 755s in advance of delivery. Cubana was also the first Latin American airline to operate jet-prop aircraft, starting in the mid-1950s with the Vickers Viscount (VV-755), which were put in service in its Miami and domestic routes, and later the Super Viscount (VV-818).


title: Cubana de Aviación

text: By , the carrier's fleet consisted of DC-3s and DC-4s. A year later, the strength of the fleet was 11 —six DC-3s, three Lockheed Constellations, one C-46 and one Stinson— while two Super Constellations were on order. Upon delivery of the first of these aircraft, in late 1954, the airline deployed it on the Mexico City–Madrid route. Cubana transported more than 227,000 passenger in 1955, and by that year end it had 715 employees. In , the airline ordered two Bristol Britannia 318s, intended to serve New York and Spain. An order for another two aircraft of the type was placed in mid-1958; the combined deal was worth  million. Aimed at replacing the Douglas DC-7s on the Havana–New York route, Cubana received the first of these aircraft in ; it was put in service on that route immediately after being phased in.


title: Cubana de Aviación

text: In May 1959, Cuba's new revolutionary government decided to take over Cubana, expropriating all its investors. The private passenger airline Aerovías Q and private cargo carriers Cuba Aeropostal and Expreso Aéreo Interamericano, were then merged into Cubana, which was rebranded as Empresa Consolidada Cubana de Aviación and had an initial state investment of 80%; it started operations on . The airline had expanded earlier that year its scheduled transatlantic services, adding Prague to its European route network that solely included Madrid. Having stopovers at Bermuda and the Azores, the route was flown with Bristol Britannia 318s. Cubana later sold one of its Britannias to Czechoslovak Airlines (CSA) so that this carrier could start their own Prague–Havana flights. Cubana trained CSA's personnel in the operation of the Britannias. CSA's new service started in February 1962 initially flying the Prague–Manchester–Prestwick–Havana route, and then switching to the Prague–Shannon–Gander–Havana run.


title: Cubana de Aviación

text: With the U.S. breaking relations (in 1961) and the imposition of the U.S. embargo on Cuba (in 1962), Cubana was forced to cancel all its U.S. services and turned to the Soviet Union to obtain new aircraft. The first Soviet-built aircraft were delivered in the early 1960s (Ilyushin Il-14 and Il-18), and were used in Cubana's domestic routes. Cubana thus became the first airline in the Americas at that time to operate Soviet-built aircraft. During the decade, the An-12 and the An-24s were also added to the fleet. Cubana's cooperation made it possible for Aeroflot to establish 18-hour non-stop scheduled services between Moscow and Havana in 1963, using Tupolev Tu-114 jet-props, which were the longest non-stop flights in the world at that time. Cooperation with the East German airline Interflug also made it possible for this carrier to establish its first scheduled transatlantic services, linking East Berlin with Havana.


title: Cubana de Aviación

text: In the number of employees was 1,971; at this time the carrier fleet consisted of Antonov An-24Bs, Britannias 318s, C-46s, DC-3s, DC-4, Il-14s and Il-18s. Regular services to Peru, Chile, Panama, Guyana and several Caribbean destinations were started in the early and mid- 1970s. Cubana also began operating Tupolev Tu-154, Ilyushin Il-76, Yakovlev Yak-40 and Yak-42 jets in the mid-1970s. These aircraft made it possible to upgrade Cubana's domestic services and to expand or start new services to Central and South America, and to some Caribbean nations. Regular services to Canada were also started, as Cuba began to develop its tourism sector. Routes to Africa were started in the mid-1970s, serving Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Cabo Verde. Cubana subsequently ceded one of its Il-62M jets to Angola's national airline TAAG so that it could start its own Luanda-Havana flights, in cooperation with Cubana's services on that route. This allowed TAAG to start its own, first-ever transatlantic route. In the late 1970s Cubana started services to Iraq, becoming the first Latin American carrier to serve Asia, although these services were discontinued in the early 1980s.


title: Cubana de Aviación

text: As of March 1990, Cubana had 5,658 employees and its fleet consisted of 12 An-24RVs, 26 Antonov An-26s, four Il-18s, 11 Ilyushin Il-62Ms, two Il-76Ds, eight Tupolev Tu-154s (five Tu-154B2s and three Tu-154Ms) and 12 Yakovlev Yak-40s. At this time, the airline flew internationally to Barbados, Basle, Berlin, Bissau, Buenos Aires, Georgetown, Kingston, Lima, Luanda, Madrid, Managua, Mexico City, Montreal, Panama City, Paris and Prague; it also served a domestic network consisting of Baracoa, Camaguey, Holguin, Nicaro, Nueva Gerona, Santiago de Cuba and Tunas.


title: Cubana de Aviación

text: In the early 1990s, Cubana pursued a multi-faceted strategy to face the challenges posed by the dissolution of the Socialist bloc and the Soviet Union. This strategy targeted a restructuring of Cubana's fleet, the revamping of the airline's technical capabilities, and upgrading the quality of passenger services. After the early 1990s, spare parts for Cubana's Soviet-built aircraft became increasingly harder to source. Limited financial resources and lack of Western financing to replace these aircraft, coupled with restrictions imposed by the U.S. embargo on the sale of American-built aircraft and components (including engines and avionics), made it necessary to keep some of the airline's Soviet-built airplanes in service. Cubana had received its last three new Il-62Ms in late 1990 and early 1991 [along with two other (also new) similar aircraft in 1988 and 1989], and was able to keep them in service long after the Soviet Union's dissolution and the end of all Il-62 production in the mid-1990s. Cubana started leasing some Western aircraft (Airbus, Boeing) for limited periods of time in the mid-1990s, to help sustain its services to Europe, Canada and some Latin American destinations, given the rapid growth of Cuba's tourism sector.


title: Cubana de Aviación

text: In the early 2000s, Cubana refurbished several of its Il-62Ms to use on some of its international routes (all but one of these aircraft were removed from service in 2011), and in 2004 it embarked on a long-term renovation programme. The strategy is based on the purchase of $100 million a year in new generation Russian-built aircraft until 2012. In 2012 Cubana has completely renovated its fleet with new-generation Russian airliners. As part of its renovation strategy, Cubana has sought to upgrade its technical support capabilities. The airline established a joint venture company with Iberia Airlines of Spain in 2005, to maintain and overhaul Western-built aircraft, such as Airbus and Boeing.


title: Cubana de Aviación

text: In , the airline placed an order for two convertible Ilyushin Il-96-300s in a  million deal; 85% of that price was financed by a loan from Roseximbank, while Cuba's Aviaimport raised the money for the balance. In , Cubana received the first of these aircraft, becoming the first customer of the type beyond the Russian borders. In , Cuba signed another deal —worth  million this time— on behalf of Cubana for the purchase of another two Il-96-300s and three Tupolev Tu-204s. Two of these Tu-204s, one passenger and one cargo version, were handed over to the carrier in and , respectively. During the MAKS Airshow Cubana signed a memorandum of understanding with Ilyushin Finance Company (IFC) for the purchase of another two Tu-204s and three Antonov An-148s. A Tu-204 freighter was never delivered to the company due to financing problems.


title: Cubana de Aviación

text: In , Cubana de Aviación signed a contract with IFC for the delivery of Antonov An-158 aircraft. In , Cubana signed a deal for the order of three 350-seater Ilyushin Il-96-400s. In the same year, Cubana received its first Antonov An-158; Cubana received another An-158s during . The delivery of the example marked the signing of another contract for more aircraft of the type, scheduled for delivery in . A An-158 was delivered in ; , Antonov was to deliver to the airline a aircraft of the type.


title: Cubana de Aviación

text: Cubana operates flights to over 20 destinations in Cuba, Europe, the Caribbean, North, Central and South America.


title: Lauren Faust

text: Lauren J. Faust (born July 25, 1974) is an American animator, writer, voice director, and storyboard artist, best known as the creator of the animated series "". Faust has collaborated with her husband Craig McCracken on his four animated series "The Powerpuff Girls", "Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends", "Wander Over Yonder", and "Kid Cosmic". Faust developed the 2019 television series "DC Super Hero Girls".


title: Lauren Faust

text: Faust attended the California Institute of Arts from 1992 to 1994. She started working in the animation industry as a character layouts artist for the character Julie from the MTV animated television series "The Maxx", before becoming an animator at Turner Feature Animation and Warner Bros Feature Animation, where she worked as an animator on feature films such as "Cats Don't Dance", "Quest for Camelot", and "The Iron Giant".


title: Lauren Faust

text: Faust shifted to television animation in 1999, working on "The Powerpuff Girls" and "Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends" at Cartoon Network Studios as a storyboard artist, screenwriter, supervising producer, story supervisor. Faust created and developed the toy line "Milky Way and the Galaxy Girls".


title: Lauren Faust

text: Faust worked with Hasbro to develop the company's "My Little Pony" property, resulting in the series "". The series proved to be a major success not only with the primary young audience, but also significantly among adults and teenagers, who became popularly known as "". She developed "Super Best Friends Forever" for Warner Brothers, and "Medusa" for Sony Pictures Animation, though Sony changed the creative direction of "Medusa", with Faust leaving the project. She worked with her husband Craig McCracken on "Wander Over Yonder" for Disney and "Kid Cosmic" for Netflix.


title: Lauren Faust

text: Faust worked with Warner Bros. in 2019 to develop a reboot of "DC Super Hero Girls". As of 2021, she was developing an animated series for Netflix Animation, called "Toil & Trouble". However, the series was cancelled by August of that year due to a change in leadership. Faust mentioned in April 2022 that she managed to retain the rights to the show, and was hoping some other network would pick it up eventually.


title: Lauren Faust

text: In 2004, Faust was nominated for an Emmy Award. In 2005, she was nominated for an Annie Award. In 2009, she shared a Primetime Emmy for the "Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends" special, "".


title: Lauren Faust

text: Faust is married to Craig McCracken, creator of "The Powerpuff Girls", "Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends", and "Wander Over Yonder". They met while they were working on the third season of "The Powerpuff Girls". Faust has worked with her husband on all of his shows. She considers herself a lifelong feminist. Faust took maternity leave in mid-2016 to take care of her newborn daughter.


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: Chaco Culture National Historical Park is a United States National Historical Park in the American Southwest hosting a concentration of pueblos. The park is located in northwestern New Mexico, between Albuquerque and Farmington, in a remote canyon cut by the Chaco Wash. Containing the most sweeping collection of ancient ruins north of Mexico, the park preserves one of the most important pre-Columbian cultural and historical areas in the United States.


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: Between AD 900 and 1150, Chaco Canyon was a major center of culture for the Ancestral Puebloans. Chacoans quarried sandstone blocks and hauled timber from great distances, assembling fifteen major complexes that remained the largest buildings ever built in North America until the 19th century. Evidence of archaeoastronomy at Chaco has been proposed, with the "Sun Dagger" petroglyph at Fajada Butte a popular example. Many Chacoan buildings may have been aligned to capture the solar and lunar cycles, requiring generations of astronomical observations and centuries of skillfully coordinated construction. Climate change is thought to have led to the emigration of Chacoans and the eventual abandonment of the canyon, beginning with a fifty-year drought commencing in 1130.


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: Comprising a UNESCO World Heritage Site located in the arid and sparsely populated Four Corners region, the Chacoan cultural sites are fragile—concerns of erosion caused by tourists have led to the closure of Fajada Butte to the public. The sites are considered sacred ancestral homelands by the Hopi and Pueblo people, who maintain oral accounts of their historical migration from Chaco and their spiritual relationship to the land. Although park preservation efforts can conflict with native religious beliefs, tribal representatives work closely with the National Park Service to share their knowledge and respect the heritage of the Chacoan culture.


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: Chaco Canyon lies within the San Juan Basin, atop the vast Colorado Plateau, surrounded by the Chuska Mountains to the west, the San Juan Mountains to the north, and the San Pedro Mountains to the east. Ancient Chacoans drew upon dense forests of oak, piñon, ponderosa pine, and juniper to obtain timber and other resources. The canyon itself, located within lowlands circumscribed by dune fields, ridges, and mountains, is aligned along a roughly northwest-to-southeast axis and is rimmed by flat massifs known as mesas. Large gaps between the southwestern cliff faces—side canyons known as "rincons"—were critical in funneling rain-bearing storms into the canyon and boosting local precipitation levels. The principal Chacoan complexes, such as Pueblo Bonito, Nuevo Alto, and Kin Kletso, have elevations of .


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: The alluvial canyon floor slopes downward to the northwest at a gentle grade of ; it is bisected by the Chaco Wash, an arroyo that rarely bears water. The canyon's main aquifers were too deep to be of use to ancient Chacoans: only several smaller and shallower sources supported the small springs that sustained them. Today, aside from occasional storm runoff coursing through arroyos, substantial surface water—springs, pools, wells—is virtually nonexistent.


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: After the Pangaean supercontinent sundered during the Cretaceous period, the region became part of a shifting transition zone between a shallow inland sea—the Western Interior Seaway—and a band of plains and low hills to the west. A sandy and swampy coastline oscillated east and west, alternately submerging and uncovering the area atop the present Colorado Plateau that Chaco Canyon now occupies.


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: The Chaco Wash flowed across the upper strata of what is now the Chacra Mesa, cutting into it and gouging out a broad canyon over the course of millions of years. The mesa comprises sandstone and shale formations dating from the Late Cretaceous, which are of the Mesaverde Group. The canyon bottomlands were further eroded, exposing Menefee Shale bedrock; this was subsequently buried under roughly of sediment. The canyon and mesa lie within the "Chaco Core"—which is distinct from the wider Chaco Plateau, a flat region of grassland with infrequent stands of timber. As the Continental Divide is only east of the canyon, geological characteristics and different patterns of drainage differentiate these two regions both from each other and from the nearby Chaco Slope, the Gobernador Slope, and the Chuska Valley.


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: An arid region of high xeric scrubland and desert steppe, the canyon and wider basin average of rainfall annually; the park averages . Chaco Canyon lies on the leeward side of extensive mountain ranges to the south and west, resulting in a rainshadow effect that fosters the prevailing lack of moisture in the region. The region sees four distinct seasons. Rainfall is most likely between July and September, while May and June are the driest months. Orographic precipitation, which results from moisture wrung out of storm systems ascending the mountain ranges around Chaco Canyon, is responsible for most of the summer and winter precipitation, and rainfall increases with higher elevation.


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: Chaco endures remarkable climatic extremes: temperatures range between , and may swing 60°F (33°C) in a single day. The region averages fewer than 150frost-free days per year, and the local climate swings wildly from years of plentiful rainfall to prolonged drought. The heavy influence of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation contributes to the canyon's fickle climate.


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: Chacoan flora typifies that of North American high deserts: sagebrush and several species of cactus are interspersed with dry scrub forests of piñon and juniper, the latter primarily on the mesa tops. The canyon is far drier than other parts of New Mexico located at similar latitudes and elevations, and it lacks the temperate coniferous forests plentiful to the east. The prevailing sparseness of plants and wildlife was echoed in ancient times, when overpopulation, expanding cultivation, overhunting, habitat destruction, and drought may have led the Chacoans to strip the canyon of wild plants and game. It has been suggested that even during wet periods the canyon was able to sustain only 2,000 people.


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: Among Chacoan mammals are the plentiful coyote ("Canis latrans"); mule deer, elk, and pronghorn also live within the canyon, although they are rarely encountered by visitors. Important smaller carnivores include bobcats, badgers, foxes, and two species of skunk. The park hosts abundant populations of rodents, including several prairie dog towns. Small colonies of bats are present during the summer. The local shortage of water means that relatively few bird species are present; these include roadrunners, large hawks (such as Cooper's hawks and American kestrels), owls, vultures, and ravens, although they are less abundant in the canyon than in the wetter mountain ranges to the east. Sizeable populations of smaller birds, including warblers, sparrows, and house finches, are also common. Three species of hummingbirds are present: one is the tiny but highly pugnacious rufous hummingbird, which compete intensely with the more mild-tempered black-chinned hummingbirds for breeding habitat in shrubs or trees located near water. Western (prairie) rattlesnakes are occasionally seen in the backcountry, although various lizards and skinks are far more abundant.


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: The first people in the San Juan Basin were hunter-gatherers: the Archaic–Early Basketmaker people. These small bands descended from nomadic Clovis big-game hunters who arrived in the Southwest around 10,000 BC. More than 70 campsites from this period, carbon-dated to the period 7000–1500 BC and mostly consisting of stone chips and other leavings, were found in Atlatl Cave and elsewhere within Chaco Canyon, with at least one of the sites located on the canyon floor near an exposed arroyo. The Archaic–Early Basketmaker people were nomadic or semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers who over time began making baskets to store gathered plants. By the end of the period, some people cultivated food. Excavation of their campsites and rock shelters has revealed that they made tools, gathered wild plants, and killed and processed game. Slab-lined storage cists indicate a change from a wholly nomadic lifestyle.


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: By 900 BC, Archaic people lived at Atlatl Cave and similar sites. They left little evidence of their presence in Chaco Canyon. By AD 490, their descendants, of the Late Basketmaker II Era, farmed lands around Shabik'eshchee Village and other pit-house settlements at Chaco.


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: A small population of Basketmakers remained in the Chaco Canyon area. The broad arc of their cultural elaboration culminated around 800, during the Pueblo I Era, when they were building crescent-shaped stone complexes, each comprising four to five residential suites abutting subterranean "kivas", large enclosed areas reserved for rites. Such structures characterize the "Early Pueblo People". By 850, the Ancient Pueblo population—the "Anasazi", from a Ute term adopted by the Navajo denoting the "ancient ones" or "enemy ancestors"—had rapidly expanded: groups resided in larger, more densely populated pueblos. Strong evidence attests to a canyon-wide turquoise processing and trading industry dating from the tenth century. Around then, the first section of Pueblo Bonito was built: a curved row of 50 rooms near its present north wall. Archaeogenomic analysis of the mitochondria of nine skeletons from high-status graves in Pueblo Bonito determined that members of an elite matriline were interred here for approximately 330 years between 800 and 1130, suggesting continuity with the matrilineal succession practices of many Pueblo nations today.


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: The cohesive Chacoan system began unravelling around 1140, perhaps triggered by an extreme fifty-year drought that began in 1130; chronic climatic instability, including a series of severe droughts, again struck the region between 1250 and 1450. Poor water management led to arroyo cutting; deforestation was extensive and economically devastating: timber for construction had to be hauled instead from outlying mountain ranges such as the Chuska mountains, which are more than to the west. Outlying communities began to depopulate and, by the end of the century, the buildings in the central canyon had been neatly sealed and abandoned.


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: Some scholars suggest that violence and warfare, perhaps involving cannibalism, impelled the evacuations. Hints of such include dismembered bodies—dating from Chacoan times—found at two sites within the central canyon. Yet Chacoan complexes showed little evidence of being defended or defensively sited high on cliff faces or atop mesas. Only several minor sites at Chaco have evidence of the large-scale burning that would suggest enemy raids. Archaeological and cultural evidence leads scientists to believe people from this region migrated south, east, and west into the valleys and drainages of the Little Colorado River, the Rio Puerco, and the Rio Grande. Anthropologist Joseph Tainter deals at length with the structure and decline of Chaco civilization in his 1988 study "The Collapse of Complex Societies".


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: Numic-speaking peoples, such as the Ute and Shoshone, were present on the Colorado Plateau beginning in the 12th century. Nomadic Southern Athabaskan-speaking peoples, such as the Apache and Navajo, succeeded the Pueblo people in this region by the 15th century. In the process, they acquired Chacoan customs and agricultural skills. Ute tribal groups also frequented the region, primarily during hunting and raiding expeditions. The modern Navajo Nation lies west of Chaco Canyon, and many Navajo live in surrounding areas.


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: The first documented trip through Chaco Canyon was an 1823 expedition led by New Mexican governor José Antonio Vizcarra when the area was under Mexican rule. He noted several large ruins in the canyon.


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: The American trader Josiah Gregg wrote about the ruins of Chaco Canyon, referring in 1832 to Pueblo Bonito as "built of fine-grit sandstone". In 1849, a U.S. Army detachment passed through and surveyed the ruins, following United States acquisition of the Southwest with its victory in the Mexican War in 1848. The canyon was so remote, however, that it was scarcely visited over the next 50 years. After brief reconnaissance work by Smithsonian scholars in the 1870s, formal archaeological work began in 1896 when a party from the American Museum of Natural History based in New York City—the Hyde Exploring Expedition—began excavating Pueblo Bonito. Spending five summers in the region, they sent more than 60,000 artifacts back to New York and operated a series of trading posts in the area.


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: In 1901 Richard Wetherill, who had worked for the Hyde expedition, claimed a homestead of that included Pueblo Bonito, Pueblo del Arroyo, and Chetro Ketl. While investigating Wetherill's land claim, federal land agent Samuel J. Holsinger detailed the physical setting of the canyon and the sites, noted prehistoric road segments and stairways above Chetro Ketl, and documented prehistoric dams and irrigation systems. His report went unpublished and unheeded. It urged the creation of a national park to safeguard Chacoan sites.


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: The next year, Edgar Lee Hewett, president of New Mexico Normal University (later renamed New Mexico Highlands University), mapped many Chacoan sites. Hewett and others helped enact the Federal Antiquities Act of 1906, the first U.S. law to protect relics; it was, in effect, a direct consequence of Wetherill's controversial activities at Chaco. The Act also authorized the President to establish national monuments: on March 11, 1907, Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed Chaco Canyon National Monument. Wetherill relinquished his land claims.


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: In 1920, the National Geographic Society began an archaeological examination of Chaco Canyon and appointed Neil Judd, then 32, to head the project. After a reconnaissance trip that year, Judd proposed to excavate Pueblo Bonito, the largest ruin at Chaco. Beginning in 1921, Judd spent seven field seasons at Chaco. Living and working conditions were spartan at best. In his memoirs, Judd noted dryly that "Chaco Canyon has its limitations as a summer resort". By 1925, Judd's excavators had removed 100,000 short tons of overburden, using a team of "35 or more Indians, ten white men, and eight or nine horses". Judd's team found only 69 hearths in the ruin, a puzzling discovery as winters are cold at Chaco. Judd sent A. E. Douglass more than 90 specimens for tree-ring dating, then in its infancy. At that time, Douglass had only a "floating" chronology. it was not until 1929 that a Judd-led team found the "missing link". Most of the beams used at Chaco were cut between 1033 and 1092, the height of construction there.


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: In 1949, the University of New Mexico deeded over adjoining lands to form an expanded Chaco Canyon National Monument. In return, the university maintained scientific research rights to the area. By 1959, the National Park Service had constructed a park visitor center, staff housing, and campgrounds. As a historic property of the National Park Service, the National Monument was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1966. In 1971, researchers Robert Lister and James Judge established the "Chaco Center", a division for cultural research that functioned as a joint project between the University of New Mexico and the National Park Service. A number of multi-disciplinary research projects, archaeological surveys, and limited excavations began during this time. The Chaco Center extensively surveyed the Chacoan roads, well-constructed and strongly reinforced thoroughfares radiating from the central canyon.


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: The richness of the cultural remains at park sites led to the expansion of the small National Monument into the Chaco Culture National Historical Park on December 19, 1980, when an additional were added to the protected area. In 1987, the park was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. To safeguard Chacoan sites on adjacent Bureau of Land Management and Navajo Nation lands, the Park Service developed the multi-agency Chaco Culture Archaeological Protection Site program. These initiatives have identified more than 2,400 archeological sites within the current park's boundaries; only a small percentage of these have been excavated.


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: Chaco Culture National Historical Park is managed by the National Park Service, a federal agency within the Department of the Interior; neighboring federal lands hosting Chacoan roads are controlled by the Bureau of Land Management. In the 2002–03 fiscal year, the park's total annual operating budget was $1.434 million. The park has a visitor center, which features the "Chaco Collection Museum", an information desk, a theater, a book store, and a gift shop. Prior to the 1980s, archeological excavations within current park boundaries were intensive: compound walls were dismantled or demolished, and thousands of artifacts were extracted. Starting in 1981, a new approach, informed by traditional Hopi and Pueblo beliefs, stopped such intrusions. Remote sensing, anthropological study of Indian oral traditions, and dendrochronology—which left Chacoan relics undisturbed—were pursued. In this vein, the "Chaco American Indian Consultation Committee" was established in 1991 to give Navajo, Hopi, Pueblo, and other Indian representatives a voice in park oversight.


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: Current park policy mandates partial restoration of excavated sites. "Backfilling", or re-burying excavated sites with sand, is one such means. Other measures attempt to safeguard the area's ancient ambiance and mystique, such as the "Chaco Night Sky Program", which seeks to eliminate the effect of light pollution on the park's acclaimed night skies; under the program, some 14,000 visitors make use of the Chaco Observatory (inaugurated in 1998), park telescopes, and astronomy-related programs. The park was named a Gold-tier Dark Sky Park by the International Dark-Sky Association in 2013. Chacoan relics outside the current park's boundaries have been threatened by development: an example was the proposed competitive leasing of federal lands in the San Juan Basin for surface coal mining beginning in 1983. As ample coal deposits abut the park, this strip mining threatened the web of ancient Chacoan roads. The year-long "Chaco Roads Project" thus documented the roads, which were later protected from mining.


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: As archaeological significance extends beyond the park's boundaries, the United States Department of the Interior intends to withdraw a 10-mile buffer zone around the park from development.


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: The Chacoans built their complexes along a stretch of canyon floor, with the walls of some structures aligned cardinally and others aligned with the 18.6-year cycle of minimum and maximum moonrise and moonset.


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: The central portion of the canyon contains the largest Chacoan complexes. The most studied is Pueblo Bonito. Covering almost and comprising at least 650 rooms, it is the largest great house; in parts of the complex, the structure was four stories high. The builders' use of core-and-veneer architecture and multi-story construction necessitated massive masonry walls up to thick. Pueblo Bonito is divided into two sections by a wall precisely aligned to run north–south, bisecting the central plaza. A great kiva was placed on either side of the wall, creating a symmetrical pattern common to many Chacoan great houses. The scale of the complex, upon completion, rivaled that of the Colosseum. Nearby is Pueblo del Arroyo, which was founded between AD 1050 and 1075 and completed in the early 12th century; it sits at a drainage outlet known as South Gap.


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: Casa Rinconada, isolated from the other central sites, sits to the south side of Chaco Wash, adjacent to a Chacoan road leading to a set of steep stairs that reached the top of Chacra Mesa. Its sole kiva stands alone, with no residential or support structures whatsoever; it did once have a passageway leading from the underground kiva to several above-ground levels. Chetro Ketl, located near Pueblo Bonito, bears the typical 'D'-shape of many other central complexes. Begun between 1020 and 1050, its 450–550 rooms shared one great kiva. Experts estimate that it took 29,135man-hours to erect Chetro Ketl alone; Hewett estimated that it took the wood of 5,000 trees and 50 million stone blocks.


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: Kin Kletso ("Yellow House") was a medium-sized complex located west of Pueblo Bonito. It shows strong evidence of construction and occupation by Pueblo peoples from the northern San Juan Basin. Its rectangular shape and design is related to the Pueblo II cultural group, rather than the Pueblo III style or its Chacoan variant. It contains 55 rooms, four ground-floor "kivas", and a two-story cylindrical tower that may have functioned as a "kiva" or religious center. Evidence of an obsidian-processing industry was discovered near the village, which was erected between 1125 and 1130.


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: Pueblo Alto is a great house of 89 rooms located on a mesa top near the middle of Chaco Canyon, from Pueblo Bonito; it was begun between AD 1020 and 1050 during a wider building boom throughout the canyon. Its location made the community visible to most of the inhabitants of the San Juan Basin; indeed, it was only north of Tsin Kletzin, on the opposite side of the canyon. The community was the center of a bead- and turquoise-processing industry that influenced the development of all villages in the canyon; chert tool production was common. Research at the site conducted by archaeologist Tom Windes suggests only a handful of families, perhaps as few as five to twenty, lived in the complex; this may imply that Pueblo Alto served a primarily non-residential role. Another great house, Nuevo Alto, was built on the north mesa near Pueblo Alto; it was founded in the late 12th century, a time when the Chacoan population was declining.


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: Another cluster of great houses lies in Chaco's northern reaches; among the largest is Casa Chiquita ("Small House"), a village built in the 1080s, when, in a period of ample rainfall, Chacoan culture was expanding. Its layout featured a smaller, squarer profile; it also lacked the open plazas and separate kivas of its predecessors. Larger, squarer blocks of stone were used in the masonry; kivas were designed in the northern Mesa Verdean tradition. Two miles down the canyon is Peñasco Blanco ("White Bluff"), an arc-shaped compound built atop the canyon's southern rim in five distinct stages between 900 and 1125. A nearby cliff painting (the "Supernova Platograph") may record the sighting of the SN 1054 supernova on July 5, 1054.


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: Hungo Pavi, located from Una Vida, measured in circumference. Initial probes revealed 72 ground-level rooms, with structures reaching four stories in height; one large circular kiva has been identified. Kin Nahasbas, built in either the 9th or 10th century, is sited slightly north of Una Vida, positioned at the foot of the north mesa. Limited excavation of it has taken place. Tsin Kletzin ("Charcoal Place"), a compound located on the Chacra Mesa and positioned above Casa Rinconada, is due south of Pueblo Alto, on the opposite side of the canyon. Nearby is Weritos Dam, a massive earthen structure that scientists believe provided Tsin Kletzin with all of its domestic water. The dam worked by retaining stormwater runoff in a reservoir. Massive amounts of silt accumulated during flash floods would have forced the residents to regularly rebuild the dam and dredge the catchment area.


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: Deeper in the canyon, Una Vida ("One Life") is one of the three oldest great houses; construction began around 900. Comprising at least two stories and 124 rooms, it shares an arc or "D"-shaped design with its contemporaries, Peñasco Blanco and Pueblo Bonito, but has a unique "dog leg" addition made necessary by topography. It is located in one of the canyon's major side drainages, near Gallo Wash, and was massively expanded after 930. Wijiji ("black greasewood"), comprising just more than one hundred rooms, is the smallest of the great houses. Built between 1110 and 1115, it was the last Chacoan great house to be constructed. Somewhat isolated within the narrow wash, it is positioned from neighboring Una Vida. Directly north are communities even more remote: Salmon Ruins and Aztec Ruins, sited on the San Juan and Animas Rivers near Farmington, were built during a thirty-year wet period commencing in 1100. Some directly south of Chaco Canyon, on the Great South Road, lies another cluster of outlying communities. The largest, Kin Nizhoni, stands atop a mesa surrounded by marshy bottomlands.


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: Casamero Pueblo is located on McKinley County Road 19, near Tecolote Mesa, a red sandstone mesa. It was connected to its nearby outlier, Andrews Ranch, by a Chacoan road. Chaco Canyon, Aztec Ruins, Salmon Ruins, and Casamero Pueblo are on the Trail of the Ancients Scenic Byway.


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: Immense complexes known as "great houses" embodied worship at Chaco. The Chacoans used masonry techniques unique for their time, and their building constructions lasted decades and even centuries. As architectural forms evolved and centuries passed, the houses kept several core traits. Most apparent is their sheer bulk; complexes averaged more than 200 rooms each, and some enclosed up to 700 rooms. Individual rooms were substantial in size, with higher ceilings than Ancestral Puebloan works of preceding periods. They were well-planned: vast sections or wings erected were finished in a single stage, rather than in increments. Houses generally faced the south, and plaza areas were almost always girt with edifices of sealed-off rooms or high walls. Houses often stood four or five stories tall, with single-story rooms facing the plaza; room blocks were terraced to allow the tallest sections to compose the pueblo's rear edifice. Rooms were often organized into suites, with front rooms larger than rear, interior, and storage rooms or areas.


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: Ceremonial structures known as "kivas" were built in proportion to the number of rooms in a pueblo. One small "kiva" was built for roughly every 29 rooms. Nine complexes each hosted an oversized great kiva, each up to in diameter. "T"-shaped doorways and stone lintels marked all Chacoan kivas. Although simple and compound walls were often used, great houses were primarily constructed of core-and-veneer walls: two parallel load-bearing walls comprising dressed, flat sandstone blocks bound in clay mortar were erected. Gaps between walls were packed with rubble, forming the wall's core. Walls were then covered in a veneer of small sandstone pieces, which were pressed into a layer of binding mud. These surfacing stones were often placed in distinctive patterns. The Chacoan structures altogether required the wood of 200,000 coniferous trees, mostly hauled—on foot—from mountain ranges up to away.


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: The meticulously designed buildings composing the larger Chacoan complexes did not emerge until around AD 1030. The Chacoans melded pre-planned architectural designs, astronomical alignments, geometry, landscaping, and engineering into ancient urban centers of unique public architecture. Researchers have concluded that the complex may have had a relatively small residential population, with larger groups assembling only temporarily for annual ceremonies. Smaller sites, apparently more residential in character, are scattered near the great houses in and around Chaco. The canyon itself runs along one of the lunar alignment lines, suggesting the location was originally chosen for its astronomical significance. If nothing else, this allowed alignment with several other key structures in the canyon.


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: Turquoise was very important to the people of Chaco. Approximately 200,000 pieces of turquoise have been excavated from the ruins at Chaco Canyon, and workshops for local manufacture of turquoise beads have been found. The turquoise was used locally for grave goods, burials and ceremonial offerings. More than 15,000 turquoise beads and pendants accompanied two burials at Pueblo Bonito.


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: Around this time, the extended Ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi) community experienced a population and construction boom. Throughout the 10th century, Chacoan building techniques spread from the canyon to neighboring regions. By AD 1115 at least 70 outlying pueblos of Chacoan provenance had been built within the composing the San Juan Basin. Experts speculate the function of these compounds, some large enough to be considered great houses in their own right. Some suggest they may have been more than agricultural communities, perhaps functioning as trading posts or ceremonial sites.


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: Thirty such outliers spread across are connected to the central canyon and to one another by an enigmatic web of six Chacoan road systems. Extending up to in generally straight routes, they appear to have been extensively surveyed and engineered. Their depressed and scraped caliche beds reach wide; earthen berms or rocks, at times composing low walls, delimit their edges. When necessary, the roads deploy steep stone stairways and rock ramps to surmount cliffs and other obstacles. Although their purpose may never be certain, archaeologist Harold Gladwin noted that nearby Navajo believe that the Anasazi built the roads to transport timber; archaeologist Neil Judd offered a similar hypothesis.


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: Two whorl-shaped etchings near the top of Fajada Butte compose what is called the "Sun Dagger" petroglyph that is tucked behind the eponymous rock panels of the "Three-Slab Site". They are symbolically focal.


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: It consists of two spirals—one principal and one ancillary. The latter left-hand spiral captured both spring and fall equinoxes; its artifice was revealed by a descending spear of light, filtered through the slabs, that shone upon it and split it in two. The former and larger whorl to its right was lit by the titular "sun dagger", which bisected it through another interplay of slab and sunlight. Light struck it, brilliantly, as the summer sun attains its solstice midday peak. The Chacoans were said to be marking, as artist, "Sun Dagger" discoverer, and leading proponent Anna Sofaer puts it, "the middle of time". Each turn of the 9.25-turn large spiral was found to mark one year in the 18.6-year "lunar excursion cycle" of the rising mid-winter full moon. This record is kept by a slab-cast lunar shadow whose edge strikes in succession each ring. As the full "minimum moon" closest to the winter solstice rises, the shadow's edge precisely strikes the center of the larger spiral; it steps outward year by year, ring by ring, until it strikes the outermost edge of it during the full "maximum moon", again in mid-winter.


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: Fajada Butte bears five other petroglyphs—including a carving of a "rattlesnake", other spirals, and a rectangle—that are conspicuously lit by contrasts between sunbeams and shadows during equinoxes or solstices. Public access to the butte was curtailed when, in 1989, erosion from modern foot traffic was found to be responsible for one of the three screening slabs at the "Sun Dagger" site shifting out of its ancient position; the assemblage of stones has thus lost some of its former spatial and temporal precision as a solar and lunar calendar. In 1990 the screens were stabilized and placed under observation, but the wayward slab was not moved back into its original orientation.


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: Some parties have advanced the theory that at least 12 of the 14 principal Chacoan complexes were sited and aligned in coordination, and that each was oriented along axes that mirrored the passing of the Sun and Moon at visually pivotal times. The first great house known to evince fastidious proportioning and alignment was Casa Rinconada: the twinned "T"-shaped portals of its radius great "kiva" were north–south collinear, and axes joining opposing windows passed within of its center. The great houses of Pueblo Bonito and Chetro Ketl were found by the "Solstice Project" and the U.S. National Geodetic Survey to be sited along a precisely east–west line, an axis that captures the passage of the equinox sun. The lines perpendicularly bisecting their principal walls are aligned north–south, implying a possible intent to mirror the equinox midday. Pueblo Alto and Tsin Kletsin are also north–south aligned. These two axes form an inverted cross when viewed from above; its northbound reach is extended another past Pueblo Alto by the ramrod-straight Great North Road, a pilgrimage route that modern-day Pueblo Indians believe to be an allusion to myths surrounding their arrival from the distant north.


title: Chaco Culture National Historical Park

text: Two shared-latitude but diametrically opposed complexes, Pueblo Pintado and Kin Bineola, are located some from the core buildings of the central canyon. Each lies on a path from the central canyon that is collinear with the passage and setting of the full mid-winter "minimum moon", which recurs every 18.6 years. Two other complexes that are less distant from Pueblo Bonito, Una Vida and Peñasco Blanco, share an axis collinear with the passage of the full "maximum moon". The terms "minimum" and "maximum" refer to the azimuthal extreme points in the lunar excursion cycle, or the swings in direction relative to true north that the setting full moon exhibits. It takes roughly 9.25 years for the rising or setting full moon nearest to winter solstice to proceed from its maximum azimuthal north, or "maximum extremum", to its southernmost azimuth, known as "minimum extremum".


title: Ilse Braun

text: Ilse Braun (18 June 1909 – 28 June 1979) was one of two sisters of Eva Braun. Born in Munich, Ilse was the oldest daughter of school teacher Friedrich "Fritz" Braun and seamstress Franziska "Fanny" Kronberger. She became the sister-in-law of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler following his marriage to Eva on 29 April 1945, less than 40 hours before the couple committed suicide together on 30 April 1945.


title: Ilse Braun

text: Braun moved out of her parents' home in 1929 and took a position as an assistant to Martin Levy Marx, a Jewish otolaryngologist and surgeon. She was provided with a room at the office of her employer, and left his employ only when he made preparations to emigrate to the United States in 1937 in the face of persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany. Non-Aryan doctors had been excluded from payments under the national health insurance plan in April 1933, and the passing of the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour in 1937 meant he and Braun risked arrest on charges of "defiling the race". Marx's licence to practice medicine was revoked in 1938 and he was expatriated in April 1939. His doctorate was revoked in October 1939; he had already emigrated to the United States by then. Braun stated after the war that she and Eva had tried unsuccessfully to intercede on his behalf.


title: Ilse Braun

text: Eva overdosed on sleeping pills on 28 May 1935 in a suicide attempt. Ilse discovered her that night, gave first aid, and called a doctor. Ilse removed the relevant pages from Eva's diary to protect Eva's relationship with Hitler; the diary indicated that he had failed to make adequate time for Eva. This was Eva's second suicide attempt—she had shot herself in August 1932.


title: Ilse Braun

text: Braun began working in the Berlin office of Albert Speer on 15 March 1937. Speer, an architect, had just been appointed General Building Inspector for the Reich Capital. Braun was one of his first employees. She left Speer's employ and married a man named Höchstetter in October that same year. Braun and Höchstetter divorced after three years of marriage. After graduating from a journalism programme, Braun began work as an editor at "Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung", a conservative newspaper. She remarried in 1941 to a man named Fucke-Michels, and moved to Breslau, where she was employed by the "Schlesische Zeitung".


title: Ilse Braun

text: Braun had no involvement in politics. Unlike her sisters Eva and Gretl, she was not a member of Hitler's inner circle or a regular visitor to the Berghof in Bavaria, though she fled there at the end of the war. She loved to dance, and became a European amateur champion in ballroom dancing. Braun lived with her mother in the family home in Ruhpolding in Upper Bavaria after her father's death in 1964. She died of cancer in Munich in 1979, and is buried there, next to her niece, Eva Fegelein (daughter of Gretl Braun). She had no children.


title: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones

text: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones is a 2005 action-adventure video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and Ubisoft Casablanca, and published by Ubisoft for the PlayStation 2, GameCube, Microsoft Windows, Xbox and Java (mobile phones only). The game was later censored and ported to the PlayStation Portable and Wii in 2007 under the title Prince of Persia: Rival Swords. The Wii version utilizes the motion-sensing functionality of its controller, while the PSP version added exclusive content and local multiplayer.


title: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones

text: "The Two Thrones" is the sixth main installment of the "Prince of Persia" series, and the final chapter of the "Sands of Time" trilogy; however, it is not the last game to be set in its continuity. The story follows the Prince as he returns to his home in Babylon, only to find that his actions in "" have undone the events of "". The villainous Vizier is back from the dead and kills the Prince's companion Kaileena, absorbing the Sands of Time from her, which transform him into an immortal monster. Now, the Prince must work together with his past love Farah (whom he meets for the first time in this new timeline) to defeat the Vizier once and for all, while also struggling against his own Dark Prince persona, which is slowly corrupting him.


title: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones

text: Upon release, the game received generally positive reviews, with praise for its story, characters, level design, graphics, combat and new speed kill mechanic; however, the PSP and Wii versions reviewed significantly worse than the others. It was also a commercial success, selling over 1.5 million copies within one month of release. Following "The Two Thrones", the series was rebooted a second time with 2008's "Prince of Persia". However, it eventually returned to the "Sands of Tim"e continuity with 2010's "", which is set between the events of "The Sands of Time" and "Warrior Within".


title: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones

text: The game combines exploration and combat. Both elements make use of the Prince's acrobatic capability and agility. Throughout much of the game, the player must attempt to traverse the palace by running across walls, ascending or descending chasms by jumping back and forth between walls, avoiding traps, climbing structures and jumping from platform to platform, making other types of well-timed leaps, solving puzzles and using discovered objects to progress. There are also a few on-rails sequences where the Prince must ride a chariot along a long stretch of road at a dangerous, fast speed, requiring the player to avoid obstacles and fend off enemies along the way.


title: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones

text: During combat, many of the same moves vital to the player in other situations can be put to use to overpower enemies. An example is the ability of the Prince to jump off walls in order to strike enemies decisively. The player generally attacks enemies and blocks using a dagger, although other objects or factors, such as the Dagger of Time and its time-control abilities eventually prove to be critical to victory. The Dagger of Time can also be upgraded by disabling "sand gates" that enemies may use to summon reinforcements, which will increase the number of sand charges it can hold for its powers and eventually unlock two new abilities that consume multiple sand charges to damage or destroy multiple enemies at once. Continuing the freeform fighting style employed in "Warrior Within", the Prince can also obtain secondary weapons from defeated enemies or weapon racks and use them in dual wield combat, with most weapons having limited durability and becoming unusable after a certain amount of hits, or after they are thrown as projectiles or dropped when the Prince turns into the Dark Prince. The Wii version of the 2007 port, "Rival Swords", implements attacks with generic shakes of the Wii Remote and Nunchuk, with the former swinging the Dagger and the latter swinging the equipped secondary weapon.


title: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones

text: In "The Two Thrones", the Prince's acrobatic skills have improved and is now able to launch himself off walls at 45 degree angles at strategically placed vertical shutters, slide down chutes and balance on swinging poles, among other things. The designers have also improved the stealth system. Instead of merely being able to do more damage when striking without being seen, the game uses a speed kill system to provide a single opportunity to instantly defeat an enemy or two. To succeed in doing so, the player must press the attack button at certain times (with the number of required hits and the intervals between each attack cue depending on the target); failure to do so results in the target throwing off the Prince. The same system is also integral to dealing damage in some of the boss battles. Attacks against enemies feature graphic violence effects that can be toggled in the in-game options menu, but are removed in "Rival Swords".


title: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones

text: The Prince also develops a split personality, known as the Dark Prince, and this alter ego constantly bickers with him in his mind about right and wrong as just an inner voice for most of the time. At certain times, the Prince will automatically and physically transform into the Dark Prince, which the player cannot do at will. During these times, however, the Prince retains control of his body, and the player still has control over the character. When controlling the Dark Prince, the player loses the ability to wield a secondary weapon, instead using the "Daggertail", a bladed whip fused to his arm. This special weapon can slash enemies at mid-range and is critical to pulling blocks out of walls and grappling along torches or high bars to cross long gaps. The Dark Prince also constantly loses health as a result of the semi-transformation, with eventual death from the loss. He goes back to full health whenever he collects Sand, from either a monster or object. Also, his Daggertail has a different control scheme for speed kills, in which the player repeatedly presses the attack button to make him saw off the heads of his victims (or strangle them if blood effects are disabled) with this weapon. The Prince will turn back to normal upon stepping into water, which cannot be avoided.


title: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones

text: Throughout the game, the Prince can find up to six branching side routes to earn health upgrades, as well as earn sand credits to unlock concept art by collecting sand charges, destroying sand chests and disabling sand gates throughout the city. The Prince can only recover health by drinking water from certain areas or at save fountains, but can also fully recover health when changing to and from the Dark Prince. If the Prince or Dark Prince dies from losing all health, a chariot accident or a fatal fall and the player is unable or unwilling to use the Dagger's recall power to reverse his demise, play continues from either the last save fountain he used or checkpoint he passed, with a few of the latter present between most save fountains.


title: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones

text: The PlayStation Portable version of the 2007 port, "Rival Swords", expands the single-player mode by adding a few more chariot sequences and requiring the player to complete an obstacle course inside a sand gate to disable it. Also exclusive to this version is a local wireless 2-player racing mode that pits the Prince against a separated Dark Prince in foot races that demand skilled platforming and feature multiple routes and traps that can be activated by the opponent.


title: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones

text: The game is set after the events of "", in which the Prince kills the Dahaka, saves Kaileena and prevents the Sands of Time from being created. Unlike the previous games, the story is narrated by Kaileena. The Prince's actions alter the timeline of events that took place before that point. In the original timeline, the Vizier and Maharajah traveled to the Island of Time and found an hourglass filled with the Sands of Time. In the modified timeline, they find the hourglass empty. Since the Vizier never released the Sands of Time and fought the Prince, he is still alive at the beginning of this game. As a result, Farah, who helped the Prince during the events for "Sands of Time", has never met the Prince.


title: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones

text: As the Prince and Kaileena return to the city of Babylon, they find it ravaged by war. Their ship is attacked and destroyed, and they wash ashore. The Prince awakens and watches as enemy soldiers take Kaileena away. The Prince fights his way into the palace and confronts the Vizier, who kills Kaileena with the Dagger of Time, unleashing the Sands again. The Vizier then impales himself with it and makes himself immortal. The Prince is also affected, having a whip-like weapon known as a Daggertail embedded in his skin when the Sands infect the wound. However, in the confusion following the release of the Sands, the Vizier throws the Dagger aside and the Prince manages to steal it before the Sands infect him completely.


title: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones

text: The Prince falls into the sewers and gets carried to the outskirts of Babylon. As he travels through the city once again to kill the Vizier, he finds that the infection caused by the Sands of Time is affecting his mind, giving rise to an alter ego called the Dark Prince, manifested by a voice within. The Dark Prince is cold, cruel, arrogant and sarcastic; he attempts to convince the Prince that he should strive to serve only himself, using his vengeance as a catalyst for his other emotions. On many occasions, the Dark Prince seizes control of the Prince's body and the Prince is fully transformed into a hybrid sand monster with abilities that allow the Prince to pass otherwise insurmountable obstacles. The Prince makes efforts to keep his transformation a secret to everyone, most evident when he is forced to flee into the sewers when he begins to transform shortly after people witness his victory over the hulking Klompa, a general of the Vizier, at the arena where they were imprisoned.


title: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones

text: Later, the Prince encounters Farah, who is surprised that the Prince knows her name. Despite this, the pair begin to grow an entirely new romance together, but it does not hold after the Dark Prince's influence causes Farah to question his character. After Farah sets out to rescue women at a brothel and the Prince briefly parts to defeat Mahasti, another trusted general of the Vizier, Farah ends up discovering the Prince transformed into Dark Prince not long after he kills Mahasti, and her distrust of him comes to a head. She tries to stay away from him and the Prince continues into the city alone.


title: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones

text: Realizing the negative impact the Dark Prince's corruption is having on his relationship with Farah, the Prince resolves to change his attitude and begins to ignore the Dark Prince. He resolves to fight against the suffering of his people, which the Dark Prince had always spoken against. With the occasional help of the Dark Prince's powers, the Prince gets to the royal workshop and uses a statue of his father to smash a way out for people trapped in a fire, including the old man in "Warrior Within", who now expresses hope that the Prince can save his empire after initially doubting his ability to change fate. The Prince then chases and fights two more of the Vizier's generals, the Twin Warriors who are armed with a sword and an axe respectively. The Prince kills the sword-wielding Twin Warrior while Farah returns to finish off the axe-wielding one. They are then cornered by the Vizier's sand army, but are saved by the rescued citizens of Babylon, mobilizing an unexpected army. They cut an opening through the enemy forces to help the two heroes escape.


title: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones

text: They eventually reunite at the palace entrance, where the Prince apologizes to Farah for his past arrogant and reckless attitude under the Dark Prince's influence. The Prince then repairs an elevator to bring the two to the palace's hanging gardens. Deeper into the gardens, the Vizier captures Farah and casts the Prince into an ancient well, where the long silent Dark Prince emerges once again and tries to take permanent control. The Prince resists the power, driving slowly deeper into the well looking for an escape, but he slowly weakens. At the bottom of the well, the Prince stumbles upon the dead body of his father Sharaman. He mourns for him, picking up his father's sword and accepting the consequences of what he has done to finally suppress the Dark Prince's ability to control his body. With a new resolve to set things right, the Prince fights his way underground and back into the palace halls, before ascending its massive tower to finally face the Vizier and free Farah.


title: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones

text: At the top of the palace's tower, the Prince confronts and kills the Vizier with the Dagger of Time. The Sands are released from the Vizier and his soldiers, who die. Seeing this, the people of Babylon rejoice. The Sands take the shape of Kaileena who cures the Prince's infection and destroys the Dagger of Time. She tells him that this world wasn't meant for her but there will be other worlds for her where she will find her place. She also tells the Prince that his journey is at an end and then disappears. As the Prince finds Sharaman's crown, the Dark Prince takes it and tells him that whatever the Prince owns will be rightfully his and lures the Prince into his mind, where the two struggle until the Prince abandons his shadow with the help of Farah's voice. The unconscious Prince is woken up by Farah. The game ends with her asking how the Prince knows her name and the Prince answers by beginning to retell a story about his first experience with the Sands of Time in "".


title: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones

text: While the gameplay additions of "Warrior Within" met with praise when the game released in 2004, its aesthetic changes were met with a polarised response. Many players requested a return to a Persian style for the music and the incorporation of original heroine Farah. Production on "The Two Thrones" began in 2004 at Ubisoft Casablanca, starting in parallel with Ubisoft Montreal finishing work on "Warrior Within"; the Ubisoft team had always envisioned "The Sands of Time" narrative as a trilogy following the Prince's growth as a character. During early phases, it was alternately known under the working titles "Prince of Persia 3" and "Prince of Persia: Kindred Blades", the latter referring to the Dark Prince. Different staff later cited poor technical performance and its dark tone as reasons why production was restarted at Ubisoft Montreal. An Ubisoft Casablanca staff member blamed unspecified "internal issues" for the project's change to Montreal. Ubisoft Casablanca retained credit for pre-production, and was attributed for the remaining aesthetic design. The final production time at Ubisoft Montreal was estimated by level artist Erwan Davisseau at nine months, the shortest production time out of the three "Sands of Time" titles and the most stressful for the team.


title: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones

text: Much of the gameplay was redesigned from the Casablanca prototype, though climbing between two parallel walls and the associated stealth kill was retained in the final game. The free-form combat style introduced in "Warrior Within" was retained, with some refinements and additions. The Speed Kill was intended as the new gameplay twist to make "The Two Thrones" stand out from both its predecessors and other games of its genre on the market, along with the chariot sections. A dropped gameplay concept was a "bloodlust" state that could trigger in combat and distort the Prince's vision, but test players found it obscured their objective and made playing the game too difficult. The enemy AI was tweaked and expanded to match the Prince's expanded move set.


title: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones

text: Another addition was the Dark Prince, described as the negative aspects of the Prince given a will and form of their own. The aim was to present players with a scenario where the Prince is confronted with the Sands' corruption first hand after seeing it in others during previous games. While the Dark Prince was teased during the canon ending of "Warrior Within", the team were still unsure what the character would be, with him going through a number of aesthetic and character changes during production. The Dark Prince character was influenced by unspecified elements of Islamic mythology. The character also acted as a homage to a similar entity in "". The Dark Prince's health draining continuously was a contentious topic during production, eventually coming down to an "executive decision" with the acknowledgement that some players would find those sequences frustrating. The shift between the Prince and Dark Prince was going to be player controlled, but the PS2 lacked the memory capacity for this function, so the transformation was limited to being story-related.


title: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones

text: The action drew inspiration from Hollywood and Asian action movies. No motion capture was used, with character animations being created by the animation team. The artistic style of "The Two Thrones" was based on research photographs taken by the team in Morocco, with the building design based on Islamic architecture and "iconoclastic" art from the region. This approach was partially inspired by its early development at Ubisoft Casablanca. The style of architecture, with different layers of habitation and flat roofs, gave the team more options for creating traversal points, in addition to making gameplay less claustrophobic by mostly moving out of the enclosed spaces of earlier entries. The Prince was portrayed as a mature warrior able to hold his own, with his appearance roughened using scars and his Sands infection being designed to appear like a "living wound" more than a tattoo.


title: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones

text: "Warrior Within" writers Corey May and Dooma Wendschuh returned to script "The Two Thrones". The initial story was more complicated, with the team leads pushing for a simpler story which could be told within the game's production schedule; part of the simplification was the removal of the time travel elements of "Warrior Within" and a focus on the Prince's character. The "twists and turns" in the plot came from character growth rather than plot development, with the storyline focusing on the Prince's struggle with his dark side. Early promotional material had the Prince captured by Babylon's forces and Kaileena sacrificing herself to save him, granting him powers related to the Sands. The final confrontation with the Dark Prince was originally going to be physical, but inspired by mind-based conflicts in movies including "Fight Club" (1999) "Spider-Man" (2002), the confrontation was shifted to a mental realm which could be created within time and budget. The final scene where the Prince walks away from his dark side rather than fighting or accepting him was intended to show the character's maturity. Due to the tight production schedule at Ubisoft Montreal, story cuts and changes were made very early, with the team's experience from the first two games allowing them to easily focus on key story sections to animate with cutscenes.


title: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones

text: Inon Zur, composer of the cinematic soundtrack for "Warrior Within", returned as lead composer for "The Two Thrones", collaborating with original composer Stuart Chatwood. The score was performed by the Hollywood Studio Symphony Orchestra. Compared to earlier entries which had prominent contemporary elements, the soundtrack made use of more "eastern elements" and had a more orchestral style. The sound design was meant to be immersive and realistic.


title: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones

text: Voice recording for "The Two Thrones" completed in the summer of 2005. Yuri Lowenthal returned to voice the Prince due to fan demand. The Prince's actor in "Warrior Within" Robin Atkin Downes was originally announced as the voice of the Dark Prince, but in the final release the character is voiced by Rick Miller. Miller received the role through the game's voice director Simon Peacock, who was a friend. As his first video game role, Miller found it challenging due to the need to record effort and death sounds. While Farah was voiced by Joanna Wasick in "The Sands of Time", in "The Two Thrones" she is voiced by Helen King. King, who knew the fan liking for the character, was given sketches of her to inform her performance. While King recorded her voice lines in Montreal where the development studio was based, Lowenthall recorded his lines in Los Angeles.


title: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones

text: "The Two Thrones" was announced in May 2005. The announcement trailer was created by a third-party CGI studio based on assets and concepts given to them for "The Two Thrones"; while most of the story elements were set, several elements including the Prince's appearance and Kaileena's role were in flux.


title: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones

text: By the end of December 2005, sales of "The Two Thrones" had surpassed 1.5 million copies. The game received a "Gold" sales award from the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA), indicating sales of at least 200,000 copies in the United Kingdom.


title: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones

text: "Two Thrones" and "Rival Swords" received mixed to positive reviews, with the original release deemed slightly superior over its re-release. GameRankings and Metacritic gave the game a score of 86.45% and 85 out of 100 for the PlayStation 2 version; 86.35% and 85 out of 100 for the Xbox version; 85.25% and 84 out of 100 for the GameCube version; 82.81% and 85 out of 100 for the PC version; 82.40% for the mobile version; 71.22% and 70 out of 100 for the Wii version; and 70.44% and 74 out of 100 for the PSP version.


title: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones

text: IGN gave the PC version 9 out of 10, saying, "Two Thrones is great. The story is cool, the heroes are likable, the weak are pitiable, the villains are bastards, the major plot points are exciting, the art is grand, the sound is wonderful...and then the gameplay comes." GameSpy gave the original "Two Thrones" release four stars, saying of the PC version, "All of [the] settings, without exception, are stunning. As might be expected, the sharper, more detailed graphics for the PC version of the game are the clear winner when compared with the consoles, especially at higher resolutions." GameSpy graded "Rival Swords" a half-star lower. GameSpot gave the PC version 8.4 out of 10.


title: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones

text: Non video-game publications gave the game some positive reviews. "The A.V. Club" gave the game an A− and stated: "The nice thing about sequels to successful games is that all the rough edges are buffed out, and "The Two Thrones" honors its graceful hero with impeccable controls and design." "Maxim" gave it a score of eight out of ten and said that the game "gets points for cribbing Sam Fisher's stealth skills and using a whip-like weapon that will send "God of War" fans scurrying to gaming chat rooms to voice their displeasure with the similarities. Thankfully, the controversy is worth it for this energetic adventure." "The Times" gave it a favorable review and said, "The graphics are superb, especially on the Xbox, and if you can cope with the frustration of replaying tricky scenes again and again, this could be the game for you." "The Sydney Morning Herald" also gave it four stars out of five and stated that "One of the best new features is the Speed Kill, a stealth attack that requires timed button presses for successful take-downs – a brilliant addition to the already exhilarating game play." "Detroit Free Press" gave the PS2 version three stars out of four and said, "The fighting in "The Two Thrones" is superb. The prince has a nice array of combination moves that accompany his acrobatic skills. But the signature part of combat is the speed kill, which allows you some nifty and gruesome stealth kills." However, Charles Herold of "The New York Times" gave it an average review and stated that "I felt all the considerable pleasure the game had given me had been taken back."


title: Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones

text: Aspects of the Dark Prince character have appeared in , such as his signature Daggertail being wielded by an enemy assassin. Two unlockable cosmetics for "", a tie-in game used to promote the film, are inspired by "Two Thrones": a weapon skin resembling the king's sword acquired near the end of "Two Thrones" and a costume inspired by the Dark Prince. The Prince's normal appearance in "Two Thrones" is also a costume for ".


title: The Persuaders!

text: The Persuaders! is an action-comedy series starring Tony Curtis and Roger Moore, produced by ITC Entertainment, and initially broadcast on ITV and ABC in 1971. The show has been called 'the last major entry in the cycle of adventure series that began 11 years earlier with "Danger Man" in 1960', as well as 'the most ambitious and most expensive of Sir Lew Grade's international action adventure series'. "The Persuaders!" was filmed in Britain, France, and Italy between May 1970 and June 1971.


title: The Persuaders!

text: Despite its focus on the British and American markets, "The Persuaders!" became more successful elsewhere. It won its highest awards in Australia and Spain, and Roger Moore and Tony Curtis were honoured in Germany and France for their acting.


title: The Persuaders!

text: "The Persuaders!" used many of the resources of Moore's previous show, "The Saint". These included locations, and the idea of reusing many of the visible vehicles from episode to episode. The series' synth-laden theme music was composed by John Barry.


title: The Persuaders!

text: The Persuaders are two equally-matched men from different backgrounds who reluctantly team together to solve cases that the police and the courts cannot.


title: The Persuaders!

text: Danny Wilde, portrayed by Tony Curtis, is a rough diamond, educated and moulded in the slums of New York City, who escaped by enlisting in the US Navy. He later became a millionaire in the oil business, subsequently making and then losing several fortunes as a Wall Street investor. Curtis himself had suffered a tough childhood in the Bronx, and also had served in the US Navy. Curtis was 46 when he made "The Persuaders", but he performed all his own stunts and fight sequences.


title: The Persuaders!

text: Lord Brett Rupert George Robert Andrew Sinclair, played by Roger Moore, is a polished British nobleman, educated at Harrow and Oxford, a former British Army officer and an ex-racing car driver, who addresses his colleague as "Daniel".


title: The Persuaders!

text: A pair of globe-trotting millionaire playboys, the men are brought together by retired Judge Fulton (Laurence Naismith) in the French Riviera. They instantly dislike each other and destroy a hotel bar during a fist-fight. They are arrested and delivered to Fulton, who offers them the choice of spending 90 days in jail or helping him to right errors of impunity. Grudgingly, Wilde and Sinclair agree to help Fulton to solve a case. He then releases them from any threat of jail.


title: The Persuaders!

text: The men develop a sparing affection for each other and soon stumble into more adventures, sometimes by chance, sometimes on commission from Judge Fulton. Although the Judge recurs in the series, he has no formal relationship with his two agents. Eleven episodes depict his finding a way to convince Wilde and Sinclair to act on his behalf. For instance, in "Angie, Angie" he easily convinces one of the pair. In "The Man in the Middle" he endangers his agents so that they "must" act in his behalf. When they are short of cash he lures them with money. In "Powerswitch" he manipulates events from the shadows, and Sinclair and Wilde do not know that he is involved.


title: The Persuaders!

text: Some episodes rely on Danny being mistaken for other people, usually by some bizarre coincidence. In "Element of Risk", he is mistaken for a criminal mastermind named Lomax, played by Shane Rimmer. In "Anyone Can Play", he is mistaken at a Brighton casino for a Russian spy paymaster.


title: The Persuaders!

text: In episode 12, "That's Me Over There", it appears that Sinclair has had a longstanding interest in crime-fighting, as he has had a dedicated telephone line installed for an informer on a master criminal. In episode 17, "Five Miles to Midnight", Sinclair tells Joan Collins's character that he is working for the judge because it has given him something worthwhile to do after his failed motor racing career. Wilde never reveals or explains his motives.


title: The Persuaders!

text: "The Persuaders!" titles and synthesiser theme, by John Barry, establish the background and current identities of the protagonists via split-screen narrative technique: two dossiers, one red, one blue, labelled "Danny Wilde" and "Brett Sinclair" simultaneously depict their lives. The younger images of Tony Curtis are genuine, whereas the images of Roger Moore (with one exception) were mock-ups created for the credits. As the biographies approach their current ages, a series of four short sequences combine live footage with torn newspaper clippings, connoting their excitingly peripatetic lifestyles. The conclusion shows them together enjoying a life of sport, drink, women and gambling. The titles were specifically designed so that neither actor would appear to have top billing, something both Moore and Curtis stipulated when they agreed to co-star.


title: The Persuaders!

text: The title sequence retains a certain cachet among professional film editors. In 1995, Peugeot released an advertisement for the 306 car, with the theme of the opening title sequence, the split-screen process and even the voice of Michel Roux, who dubbed Tony Curtis in the French broadcast of the original series. In 2007, France 2 satirically used it to introduce a report about relations between the newly elected French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his first Prime Minister François Fillon.


title: The Persuaders!

text: The protagonists drive signature cars. Danny Wilde drives a red left-hand-drive Ferrari Dino 246 GT (chassis number 00810). Brett Sinclair drives a UK-registered Bahama Yellow right-hand-drive 6-cylinder Aston Martin DBS (chassis number DBS/5636/R) with V8 wheels and markings. Both cars were provided to the show's producers courtesy of the respective vehicle manufacturers.


title: The Persuaders!

text: As with Simon Templar – Roger Moore's character in the television series "The Saint" – Sinclair's car has personalised number plates of his initials: Simon Templar's were "ST 1", Brett Sinclair's are "BS 1" (except for one scene in the episode "The Gold Napoleon", where the car is seen with its real UK registration number PPP 6H). The true owner of the index number of Sinclair's car, Billy Smart, Jr., permitted its use in the series.


title: The Persuaders!

text: The Aston Martin from the show was sold by the factory after filming ended, via HR Owen in London, to its first private owner. It was restored in recent years by the Aston Martin factory, and is presently owned by divorce lawyer and art collector Jeremy Levison. Both Moore and Curtis had signed the underside of the car's boot (rear luggage compartment): Moore at Pinewood Studios in May 2003; Curtis at Cheltenham Racecourse in October 2008. In 2013, the Aston Martin DBS was an invited participant at two of Europe's most exclusive motoring concours, the Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este at Lake Como, and the Salon Privé Concours in London.


title: The Persuaders!

text: Danny Wilde's Dino bears Italian registration plate MO 221400 (the 'MO' component represents the province of Modena, which happens to be the headquarters and manufacturing base of Ferrari). The exact whereabouts of the Dino today is unknown, but it is believed to be in private ownership in Italy.


title: The Persuaders!

text: The concept of "The Persuaders!" originated in one of the final episodes of "The Saint", titled "The Ex-King of Diamonds", wherein Simon Templar (Moore) is partnered with a Texas oilman (Stuart Damon) in a Monte Carlo gambling adventure. Pleased with that combination, Robert S. Baker and Lew Grade funded the new series. Unusually, production of the series began and continued without contracts among the producers and Moore. Moreover, Moore's role as producer is not obvious from watching the series, but Curtis confirmed the fact: 'Roger was always like the host with the show, because it was his company that was producing it. I would say he was the largest independent owner of it; Roger and his company owned it with Bob Baker, and Sir Lew owned the rest of it.'


title: The Persuaders!

text: Curtis became involved in the series because ITC knew it needed an American co-star to ensure the series would be picked up by US television stations. Initially, the role was offered to Rock Hudson and Glenn Ford, but they each rejected the part. ITC then asked the American Broadcasting Company for a list of suitable actors, which included Tony Curtis. He eventually agreed, and flew to the UK in April 1970 to commence location filming.


title: The Persuaders!

text: Filming was conducted on location in Europe (such as location filming in France, Spain, Sweden, and Italy) and at Pinewood Studios in Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire. In total, 24 episodes of "The Persuaders!" were completed; each cost £100,000, (or approx. £1,800,000 in 2007) to make. Only one series of "The Persuaders!" was made because Moore accepted the role of James Bond in the 007 franchise. In the DVD documentary, "The Morning After", Baker stated that Grade was prepared to finance a second series, despite its failure in America, by re-casting with Noel Harrison, son of Rex Harrison, as a replacement for Moore. Baker states that he convinced Grade that the dynamic that Moore and Curtis had worked out was unique, and it was better to leave the series as it stood.


title: The Persuaders!

text: During "The Persuaders!", Moore acted — officially and practically — as his own wardrobe stylist. It stemmed from genuine sartorial interests and because he was the director of textile firm Pearson and Foster. Every episode carried the closing credit, 'Lord Sinclair's clothes designed by Roger Moore', with 'Roger Moore' written as a large signature.


title: The Persuaders!

text: There is much speculation about the professional relationship between Moore and Curtis, on- and off-set. In her autobiography "Second Act", Joan Collins detailed how they did not get along when she was a guest star. She cited Curtis's foul temper as the reason why the set of the episode "Five Miles to Midnight" was tense. In a 2005 interview given to the British Film Institute, director Val Guest confirmed Collins's assessment of Curtis:


title: The Persuaders!

text: In his autobiography, "Still Dancing", Lew Grade noted that the actors 'didn't hit it off all that well",' because of different work ethics. According to Moore's autobiography, Curtis's use of cannabis was so extensive that he even smoked it in front of a police officer while filming at 10 Downing Street. Despite third-party claims, Curtis and Moore consistently maintained they had an amicable working relationship. Moore said: 'Tony and I had a good on- and off-screen relationship; we are two very different people, but we did share a sense of humour.'


title: The Persuaders!

text: In a 2005 interview, Curtis referred to Moore with affection and stated that he would not participate in a remake of "The Persuaders!" without Moore.


title: The Persuaders!

text: Although the series was placed in the Top 20 of most-viewed television series in Britain throughout 1971, Lew Grade wanted it to do well in the profitable American television market. It followed his earlier series such as "Man in a Suitcase", "The Champions" and "The Baron". But "The Persuaders!" made little impact in America, airing on ABC on Saturday nights opposite "". In an interview given in 2007, Curtis attributed the lack of success in the US to the ABC network failing to screen it at prime time.


title: The Persuaders!

text: ITC subsequently sought to repackage and re-release "The Persuaders!" in the American market, by editing eight of the episodes together and releasing them as four 90-minute TV movies (each comprising two episodes from the series, typically missing only their original opening and closing title sequences). These were:


title: The Persuaders!

text: But the trailer and opening is included in the 2006 Region 2 DVD/2011 Region B Blu Ray Network Special Edition set along with the 4 completed films and their trailers


title: The Persuaders!

text: Despite the overall disappointment in the UK and USA, "The Persuaders!" sold well in other international markets, particularly Continental Europe. This success allowed ITC to recoup much of its production costs, soon after principal photography was completed. The series has remained popular in Germany, Denmark, France, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Russia, Hungary and Italy; episodes are still regularly repeated throughout Europe. For instance, DR2 in Denmark rebroadcast the entire series on weekday early evenings during the Spring of 2012.


title: The Persuaders!

text: In the UK, "The Persuaders!" had re-runs on Channel 4, Granada Plus, Bravo and ITV4 in the 1990s and 2000s. When the pilot episode, "Overture", was screened as part of Channel 4's nostalgia strand TV Heaven in 1992, that series' host (comedy writer Frank Muir) said in a "Radio Times" interview that "The Persuaders!" 'must have been the best bad series ever made... absolute hokum'. However, BBC Radio 5 presenter Dave Aldridge later asked: 'Was seventies TV really this good?'


title: The Persuaders!

text: "Die Zwei", the German version of "The Persuaders!", became a cult hit in Germany and Austria. This was largely because the dubbing was substantively altered, creating a completely different program. In France, "Amicalement Vôtre" ('Amicably Yours') was based on the re-dubbed German version instead of the English original .


title: The Persuaders!

text: The German dubbing was described as 'a unique mixture of street slang and ironic tongue-in-cheek remarks' and it 'even mentioned Lord Sinclair becoming 007 on one or two occasions'. Dialogue frequently broke the fourth wall with lines like 'Junge, lass doch die Sprüche, die setzen ja die nächste Folge ab!' ('Lad, just quit the big talk, or they'll cancel the next episode!') in S01/E05 at 44:36 or 'Du musst jetzt etwas schneller werden, sonst bist Du nicht synchron' ('You have to speed up [talk faster] now, or else you won't be in sync').


title: The Persuaders!

text: Research from the University of Hamburg notes the only common elements between "Die Zwei" and "The Persuaders!" are the images. Other than 'the linguistic changes entailed by the process of translation, result in radically different characterizations of the protagonists of the series. The language use in the translations is characterized by a greater degree of sexual explicitness and verbal violence, as well as an unveiled pro-American attitude which is not found in the source texts.'


title: The Persuaders!

text: In 2006, a news story by CBS News on the German dubbing industry mentioned "The Persuaders!" The report discovered that many German dubbing artists believed that 'staying exactly true to the original was not always the highest aim'. Rainer Brandt, co-ordinator of the German dubbing of "The Persuaders!" and Curtis' dubbing voice, said: 'This spirit was invoked by the person who oversaw the adaption and also performed [Tony] Curtis' role: when a company says they want something to be commercially successful, to make people laugh, I give it a woof. I make them laugh like they would in a Bavarian beer garden.'


title: The Persuaders!

text: Other researchers suggest that international versions of "The Persuaders!" were given different translations, simply because the original English series would not have made sense to local audiences. For instance, the nuanced differences between the accents and manners of Curtis, the American self-made millionaire Danny Wilde from the Brooklyn slums, and Moore, the most polished British Lord Sinclair, would be hard to convey to foreign viewers. Argentinian academic Sergio Viaggio commented 'how could it have been preserved in Spanish? By turning Curtis into a low class Caracan and Moore into an aristocratic 'Madrileño'? Here, not even the approach that works with "My Fair Lady" would be of any avail; different sociolects of the same vernacular will not do — much less in subtitling, where all differences in accent are irreparably lost.'


title: The Persuaders!

text: Airdates are from LWT London. ITV. Regions varied date and order (Granada and Anglia, for instance, transmitted a day earlier). The production number refers to the order on Network's DVD.


title: The Persuaders!

text: In 2006, because of its popularity in Britain, a nine-disc DVD special edition boxed set was released, with extra material to the complete, uncut, re-mastered 24-episode series.


title: The Persuaders!

text: In September 2011, the Region B Blu-ray box set containing all remastered, restored episodes of "The Persuaders!" was released to considerable praise from reviewers.


title: The Persuaders!

text: In Region 1, A&E Home Video, under license from Carlton International Media Ltd., released the entire series of the classic '70s British cult adventure series on DVD in two volume sets in 2003/2004.


title: The Persuaders!

text: On 10 September 2014, it was announced that Visual Entertainment had acquired the rights to the series in Region 1 and would re-release all 24 episodes on DVD on 4 November 2014.


title: The Persuaders!

text: A motion picture was announced in 2005 with Steve Coogan and Ben Stiller. In 2007 Hugh Grant and George Clooney were later announced as the stars with Stiller attached as producer. The film was slated for a December 2008 release, but was never completed.


title: The Persuaders!

text: The series' theme song was sampled in the video for the single "Lavender" by Snoop Dogg. It was also used diegetically in the movie "Nocturama", directed by Bertrand Bonello


title: Snake wine

text: Snake wine (; ; , ) is an alcoholic beverage produced by infusing whole snakes in rice wine or grain alcohol. The drink was first recorded to have been consumed in China during the Western Zhou dynasty (c. 1040–770 BC) and considered an important curative and believed to reinvigorate a person according to Traditional Chinese medicine. It can be found in China, North-Korea, Goa (India), Vietnam, Okinawa (Japan), Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and throughout Southeast Asia.


title: Snake wine

text: The snakes, preferably venomous ones, are not usually preserved for their meat but to have their "essence" and/or snake venom dissolved in the liquor. The snake venom proteins are unfolded by the ethanol and therefore the completed beverage is usually, but not always, safe to drink.


title: Snake wine

text: The Huaxi street night market () of Taipei, Taiwan, is renowned for its snake foods and wine products.


title: Snake wine

text: Snakes and their viscera have long been considered by followers of Traditional Chinese Medicine to be invaluable for the promotion of vitality and health. The drink was first recorded to be used in China during the Western Zhou dynasty (771 BC) and the medicinal use of snakes was noted in the medical manual "Shen nong ben cao jing" () compiled between 300 B.C. and 200 A.D. The detailed use of various snake feces, their body parts, and various preparations were greatly elaborated in Li Shizhen's "Bencao Gangmu" (). Snake bile was offered to Yang Jisheng as treatment for the injuries he suffered in prison circa 1554.


title: Snake wine

text: Snakes are widely believed to possess medicinal qualities and the wine is often advertised to cure everything from farsightedness to hair loss, as well as to increase sexual performance. In Vietnam, the common regional name for snake wines is "rượu thuốc", while less common ones are referred to as "rượu rắn". In Vietnamese culture it is believed by some individuals that snake wine can improve health and virility. A similar drink is made with dehydrated geckos or sea horses rather than snakes. Snake wine, due to its high alcohol percentage, is traditionally drunk in shot glasses.


title: Snake wine

text: It is illegal to import snake wine to many countries because many of the snakes used for its production are endangered species.


title: Snake wine

text: The risks of ingesting snake wine include systemic envenomation from the contained venom, which may present features differing from direct envenomation by snakebite. A number of health problems of the vascular system may result, including damage to the vascular wall endothelium, abnormal platelet function and activation, and coagulopathy.


title: Snake wine

text: There are two main types of snake wine, which utilize either parts of a live snake, or the entire snake itself.


title: Kinema Citrus

text: On December 12, 2019, Kinema Citrus announced that Kadokawa and Bushiroad acquired each of them a total of 31.8% on the company. The three companies previously announced a partnership in the same year for the creation of different anime, and one of the reasons for the deal was due to that partnership.


title: Dolichovespula maculata

text: Dolichovespula maculata is a species of wasp in the genus "Dolichovespula" and a member of the eusocial, cosmopolitan family Vespidae. It is known by many colloquial names, primarily bald-faced hornet, but also including bald-faced aerial yellowjacket, bald-faced wasp, bald hornet, white-faced hornet, blackjacket, white-tailed hornet, spruce wasp, and bull wasp. Technically a species of yellowjacket wasp, it is not one of the true hornets, which are in the genus "Vespa". Colonies contain 400 to 700 workers, the largest recorded colony size in its genus, "Dolichovespula". It builds a characteristic large hanging paper nest up to in length. Workers aggressively defend their nest by repeatedly stinging invaders.


title: Dolichovespula maculata

text: The bald-faced hornet is distributed throughout the United States and southern Canada, but is most common in the Southeastern United States. Males in this species are haploid and females are diploid. Worker females can, therefore, lay eggs that develop into males.