title: Burgas

text: Lake Burgas is Bulgaria's largest lake and is in the middle of the city. It is important for migrating birds. Over 250 species of birds inhabit the lake area, 61 of which are endangered in Bulgaria and 9 globally, attracting keen birdwatchers from all over the world. The lakes are also home to important fish and invertebrates. In the site have been recorded several IUCN Red-Listed species of animals – 5 invertebrates, 4 fish, 4 amphibians, 3 reptiles, 5 birds and 3 mammals. Situated along the second largest migration path of birds in Europe, the Via Pontica, the site is an important stopover and staging site for a large number of water-birds, raptors and passerines. Yearly during migration and wintering more than 20,000 (up to 100,000) waterbirds congregate there.


title: Burgas

text: The Atanasovo Lake is one of two salt-water lakes in the Black Sea region and contains rare and representative examples of wetland habitats. It is a hot spot for biodiversity, with many Red-Listed species of plants and animals. It is a well-known bottleneck site for migratory birds, with around 60,000 raptors and 240,000 storks, pelicans and cranes passing over the site and often landing in large numbers for staging. The highest numbers in Europe of migrating Great white pelican ("Pelecanus onocrotalus"), Dalmatian pelican ("Pelecanus crispus"), Western marsh harrier ("Circus aeruginosus") and Red-footed Falcon ("Falco vespertinus") have been recorded here.


title: Burgas

text: With a decision from the Counsel of Ministers in 2009, the villages of Banevo and Vetren were incorporated into Burgas.


title: Burgas

text: Currently a new city plan is being considered which will open the city to the sea and includes several residential neighbourhoods and a new highway junction.


title: Burgas

text: The earliest signs of life in the region date back 3000 years, to the Bronze Age and the early Iron Age. The favorable conditions on the fertile plain, around the sea, have brought people here from early antiquity. The biggest mark was left by the Thracians who made the region rich in archaeological finds (from around 4th c. BC). This includes their sanctuary at Beglik Tash along the south coast and a burial mound near Sunny Beach. They built the mineral baths of Aquae Calidae and the fortress "Tyrsis".


title: Burgas

text: Under Darius I became part of the Achaemenid Empire, before the Odrysian kingdom was established. Greeks from Apollonia built a marketplace to trade with the Thracians, in what is now the neighborhood of Pobeda.


title: Burgas

text: During the rule of the Ancient Romans, near Burgas, "Colonia Flavia Pacis Deultensium" ("Deultum", "Dibaltum", or "Develtum") was established as a military colony for veterans by Vespasian in AD 70. The Romans built this "colonia" on the main road Via Pontica. It was the second most important city in the province Haemimontus.


title: Burgas

text: In the Middle Ages, there were important settlements in the area: the fortress "Skafida", "Poros", "Rusokastron" (Battle of Rusokastro), the Baths called Aquae Calidae and used by Byzantine, Bulgarian and Ottoman Emperors; a small fortress called "Pyrgos" was erected where Burgas is today and was most probably used as a watchtower. Under the Byzantine Empire it became an important city on the Black Sea coast. The Bulgarian ruler Krum built the Erkesiya, a -long border wall from the Black Sea (near Gorno Ezerovo) to the Maritsa River.


title: Burgas

text: In 1206 the Latin Emperor Henry of Flanders (see Fourth Crusade) destroyed Aquae Calidae, which was known as Thermopolis at this time, The baths were later rebuilt by the Byzantines and Bulgarians. Poros was mentioned in a 1270 document of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Close to Poros took place the Battle of Skafida in 1304, when the Bulgarian Tsar Todor Svetoslav defeated the Byzantines and conquered the southern Black Sea coast.


title: Burgas

text: At the beginning of the 14th century the region was sacked by the Catalan Company. In the 13th century Burgas is mentioned by the Byzantine poet Manuel Philes in his works as "Burgas".


title: Burgas

text: Like many of the towns surrounding it, Burgas was conquered by the Ottomans with the rest of Bulgaria in the late 14th century, only to be returned to the Byzantine Empire during the Ottoman Interregnum and retained by the Byzantines until the fall of the Empire to the Ottomans in 1453. It was only in the 17th century that a settlement renamed to "Ahelo-Pirgas" grew in the modern area of the city. It was later renamed to "Burgas" again and had only about 3,000 inhabitants. In the early 19th century Burgas was depopulated after raids by "kurzdhali" bandits. By the mid-19th century it had recovered its economic prominence through the growth of craftsmanship and the export of grain. The city was a small town in İslimye (Sliven) sanjak in at first Rumelia Eyalet, after that in the Silistra Eyalet and Edirne Eyalet before the liberation in 1878.


title: Burgas

text: In the 17th and 18th centuries Burgas became an important port for cereal and possesses its own grain measure, the "Burgas-Kile". The town was the regional centre of trade and administrative centre of the Burgas Kaaza. In 1865 the port of Burgas was after Trapezunt the second most important Ottoman port in the Black Sea. Burgas was at this time the major centre on the southern Bulgarian Black Sea Coast.


title: Burgas

text: It was a department centre in Eastern Rumelia before incorporated in the Principality of Bulgaria in 1885.


title: Burgas

text: From the late 19th century Burgas became an important economic and industry center. The first development plan of the city was adopted in 1891 and the city's layout and appearance changed, especially through the newly constructed public buildings. In 1888, the city library was founded, in 1891 the sea garden was created and in 1897 the Cathedral of the Holy brothers Cyril and Methodius was built. In 1895 Georgi Ivanov opened the first Printing house in Burgas, followed by the house of "Christo Velchev" in 1897, which changed in 1900 his name in "Velchevi Brothers Printing house".


title: Burgas

text: The opening of the railway line to Plovdiv on 27 May 1890 and the deep water port in 1903 were important stages of this boom and led to the rapid industrialization of the city. In the period after 151 factories were founded. Among them were the "Sugar refinery" founded by Avram Chaliovski, the "Great Bulgarian Mills" of Ivan Chadzipetrov and the oil and soap factory "Kambana". In 1900 the mineral springs by the ancient Aquae Calidae were included in the urban area. In 1903, the new building of the Burgas Central railway station opened.


title: Burgas

text: Founded in 1924 in Burgas "Deweko" (now HemusMark AD) was the first pencil factory in Southeastern Europe and became in 1937 official supplier to the Bulgarian Monarchy. 1925 opened in Burgas a specialized high school for mechanics and technologies. The following year, a large covered market was opened. Because of the cold wave in winter 1928/29 the Black Sea iced in late January and early February, so that the island of Sveta Anastasia could be reached on foot. 1934, Burgas already had 34,260 inhabitants.


title: Burgas

text: During World War II on 9 September 1944 Red Army troops occupied the city and soon the whole country. In the following People's Courts, especially members of the wealthy families of the intelligentsia and members of the Bar Association were convicted. The two Chambers of the People's Courts met in Burgas in the former building of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Burgas (now the seat of the Governor of the Province Burgas).


title: Burgas

text: After the Communists took power in 1945, the German and Italian School and the People's University were closed<ref name="Burneva/Murdsheva">Burneva/Murdsheva: "Deutsch als Fremdsprache(n) an bulgarischen Hochschulen" in Hiltraud Casper-Hehne: "Die Neustrukturierung von Studiengängen "Deutsch als Fremdsprache": Probleme und Perspektiven; Fachtagung 17. - 19. November an der Universität Hannover", Universitätsverlag Göttingen, 2006, p. 238</ref> and over 160 factories and businesses (including the large companies "Great Bulgarian Mills", "Veriga", "Plug", "Dab", etc.), shops, baths and other private property were nationalized. The nationalization and inability to lead by the new rulers led the companies to the collapse of the food supply and the shortage of goods of daily life in the city. The political repression against the population of Burgas continued for the next few years. Access to universities and other higher education in the Bulgarian capital was refused for the young people of Burgas and some of them were interned in prison and labor camps.


title: Burgas

text: After the end of the Second World War, the Haganah organised several convoys for the European survivors of the Holocaust, which departed on ships from Burgas for Palestine. These convoys allowed 12,000 people, including the Jewish population of the city, to emigrate. In the following years the city center of Burgas, unlike many other Bulgarian cities, was not much affected by Communist-type urbanization and has kept much of its 19th- and early-20th-century architecture. A number of oil and chemical companies were gradually built.


title: Burgas

text: The terrorists of the Movement 2 June, Till Meyer, Gabriele Rollnik, Gudrun Stürmer and Angelika Goder were arrested on 21 June 1978 in Burgas by West German officials and then brought into the Federal Republic.


title: Burgas

text: Today the local port is the largest in Bulgaria adding significantly to the regional economy. Burgas also hosts annual national exhibitions and international festivals and has a vibrant student population of over 6,000 that add to the city's appeal. The historical society also maintains open-air museums at Beglik Tash and Develtum.


title: Burgas

text: Several countries have General Consulates in Burgas, among them Belarus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Greece, Romania, Russia, Sierra Leone, Turkey and Ukraine.


title: Burgas

text: On 18 July 2012 a terrorist attack was carried out by a suicide bomber on a passenger bus transporting Israeli tourists at the Burgas Airport. The bus was carrying forty-two Israelis, mainly youths, from the airport to their hotels, after arriving on a flight from Tel Aviv. The explosion killed the Bulgarian bus driver and five Israelis.


title: Burgas

text: During the first decade after the liberation of Bulgaria, in the 1880s the population of Burgas numbered about 6,000 inhabitants. Since then it started growing decade by decade, mostly because of the migrants from the rural areas and the surrounding smaller towns, reaching its peak in the period 1988-1991 exceeding 200,000.


title: Burgas

text: According to the latest 2011 census data, the individuals declared their ethnic identity were distributed as follows:


title: Burgas

text: Burgas is an important industrial centre. The most notable industrial enterprise is LUKOIL Neftochim Burgas - the largest oil refinery in South-eastern Europe and the largest manufacturing plant in the Balkans. The city, along with Sofia, is one of the key elements in supporting Bulgaria's future European transport network (TEN-T) EU and Pan-European Transport Corridor 8, which includes construction of the railway and road infrastructure and the development of the Port of Burgas and Burgas Airport.


title: Burgas

text: The university of Bourgas "Prof doc. Asen Zlatarov" is the first university and still the only public higher education facility in the Bourgas region.


title: Burgas

text: It was founded on 6 October 1963 by Decree No 162 of the Council of Ministers as Higher Chemico-technological institute "Prof. d-r Asen Zlatarov"


title: Burgas

text: In the past, the university included only specialties related to Chemistry, but now the university is the major educational institution in the Bourgas region, that incorporates the several faculties and colleges:


title: Burgas

text: The university itself is named after Professor Doctor Asen Zlatarov - a Bulgarian scientist, the founder of the Bulgarian biochemistry school, and a major public figure in Bulgarian history.


title: Burgas

text: Burgas Free University (BFU) was established with an Act of The Great National Assembly on 18 September 1991 and is one of the first non-state universities in the country.


title: Burgas

text: The university is accredited by the National Evaluation and Accreditation Agency and is certified under the international quality standard ISO 9001:2008. BFU is a modern and innovative university, caring for its students and their professional realization, and which has significant academic achievements and an internationally recognized status.


title: Burgas

text: BFU is a member of the European Universities Association (EUA). It has signed Agreements of Cooperation with 36 universities and organizations in Europe, America, Asia and Africa. It implements students and staff exchange programmes with 24 universities in Europe. It participates in the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS).


title: Burgas

text: BFU is a partner of UNESCO under the UNITWIN/UNESCO Chairs Programme and is a host institution of UNESCO Chair on Culture of Peace and Human Rights.


title: Burgas

text: Burgas Free University is certified according to the quality standards of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). In 2005 BFU was certified under ISO 9001:2000 and in 2010 under ISO 9001:2008. All the university's main activities have been certified, as well as its degree programmes: education of students in Bachelor, Master and PhD programmes, qualification, research and international relations activities.


title: Burgas

text: The School of Commerce is a vocational college specialized in the fields of economics, finance, management and accounting education. Established on 1 October 1905, it is the second oldest business school in Bulgaria.


title: Burgas

text: The modern building of the Burgas Opera House is home to the city's two major musical institutions; the Burgas State Opera and the Philharmonic Society of Burgas.


title: Burgas

text: A municipal park built in 1910 for the residents of Burgas by the city's chief gardener, Georgi Duhtev.


title: Burgas

text: Armenian Apostolic and Orthodox Church Surp Hach (Church of the Holy Cross) was built in 1853 and is one of the oldest in the city and has been named as one of the city's monuments of culture. With stained glass windows and intricate decoration inside, the picturesque church was built in 1855.


title: Burgas

text: Burgas Peninsula on Livingston Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica is named after the city of Burgas. The ships of the company Ocean Fisheries – Burgas operated in the waters of South Georgia, Kerguelen, the South Orkney Islands, South Shetland Islands and Antarctic Peninsula from 1970 to the early 1990s. Bulgarian fishermen, along with those of the Soviet Union, Poland, and East Germany, were pioneers of the modern Antarctic fishing industry.”


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: The GAA Hurling All-Ireland Senior Championship, known simply as the All-Ireland Championship, is an annual inter-county hurling competition organised by the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA). It is the highest inter-county hurling competition in Ireland, and has been contested every year except one since 1887.


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: The final, currently held on the third Sunday in August, is the culmination of a series of games played during July and August, with the winning team receiving the Liam MacCarthy Cup. For the majority of its existence, the All-Ireland Championship has been played on a straight knockout basis whereby once a team loses they are eliminated from the championship. In more recent years, the qualification procedures for the championship have changed several times. Currently, qualification is limited to teams competing in three feeder competitions; the bulk of the teams involved make up the tier one Leinster Championship and the Munster Championship while two teams also qualify to the preliminary rounds from the second tier Joe McDonagh Cup. Annual promotion and relegation allows teams outside these competitions (teams from the Christy Ring Cup (tier 3), the Nicky Rackard Cup (tier 4) and the Lory Meagher Cup (tier 5)) to eventually reach the All-Ireland championship.


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: Twelve teams currently participate in the All-Ireland Championship, with the most successful teams coming from the provinces of Leinster and Munster. Kilkenny, Cork and Tipperary are considered "the big three" of hurling. They have won 94 championships between them.


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: The title has been won by 13 different teams, 10 of whom have won the title more than once. The all-time record-holders are Kilkenny, who have won the championship on 36 occasions. Limerick are the current champions, and have won the last three championships.


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: The All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship final was listed in second place by CNN in its "10 sporting events you have to see live", after the Olympic Games.


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: Following the foundation of the Gaelic Athletic Association in 1884, new rules for Gaelic football and hurling were drawn up and published in the "United Irishman" newspaper. In 1886, county committees began to be established, with several counties affiliating over the next few years. The GAA ran its inaugural All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship in 1887. The decision to establish that first championship was influenced by several factors. Firstly, inter-club contests in 1885 and 1886 were wildly popular and began to draw huge crowds. Clubs started to travel across the country to play against each other and these matches generated intense interest as the newspapers began to speculate which teams might be considered the best in the country. Secondly, although the number of clubs was growing, many were slow to affiliate to the Association, leaving it short of money. Establishing a central championship held the prospect of enticing GAA clubs to process their affiliations, just as the establishment of the FA Cup had done much in the 1870s to promote the development of the Football Association in England. The championships were open to all affiliated clubs who would first compete in county-based competitions, to be run by local county committees. The winners of each county championship would then proceed to represent that county in the All-Ireland series.


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: The inaugural All-Ireland Championship used, for the only time in its history, an open draw format without the provincial series of games. All of the existing county boards were eligible to enter a team, however, only six chose to do so. Disputes in Cork and Limerick over which club should represent the county resulted in neither county fielding a team. Dublin later withdrew from the championship. In all five teams participated: Clare (Garraunboy Smith O'Briens), Galway (Meelick), Kilkenny (Tullaroan) Tipperary (Thurles) and Wexford (Castlebridge).


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: Galway and Wexford contested the very first championship match on Saturday 2 July 1887. Postponements, disqualifications, objections, withdrawals and walkovers were regular occurrences during the initial years of the championship. The inaugural All-Ireland final took place on 1 April 1888 in Birr, County Offaly, with Tipperary defeating Galway to take the title.


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: The provincial championships were introduced in 1888 in Munster, Leinster, Connacht and Ulster on a knock-out basis. The winners of the provincial finals participated in the All-Ireland semi-finals. Over time the Leinster and Munster teams grew to become the superpowers of the game, as Gaelic football was the more dominant sport in Ulster and Connacht. After some time Galway became the only credible team in Connacht and was essentially given an automatic pass to the All-Ireland semi-final every year. This knock-out system persisted for over 100 years and was considered to be the fairest system as the All-Ireland champions would always be the only undefeated team of the year.


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: Unlike in other European countries, such as neighbouring England, where annual sports events were cancelled during the twentieth century due to the First and Second World Wars, the All-Ireland Championship has been running continuously since 1887, with the final running since 1889 (the 1888 competition was played but no final was held due to the Invasion). The competition continued even in spite of the effects on the country of the Civil War and the Second World War (the National Hurling League was not held during the latter). In 1941, the All-Ireland Championship was disrupted by an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease.


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: The duration of certain championship matches increased from 60 to 80 minutes during the 1970s. They were settled at 70 minutes after five seasons of this in 1975. This applied only to the provincial finals, All-Ireland semi-finals and finals.


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: In the mid-1990s the Gaelic Athletic Association looked at developing a new system whereby a defeat in the championship for certain teams would not mean an immediate exit from the Championship. In the 1997 championship the first major change in format arrived when the 'back-door system' was introduced. This new structure allowed the defeated Munster and Leinster finalists another chance to regain a place in the All-Ireland semi-finals. Tipperary and Kilkenny were the first two teams to benefit from the new system when they defeated Down and Galway respectively in the quarter-finals. The All-Ireland final in the first year of this new experiment was a replay of the Munster final with Clare defeating Tipperary. The first team to win the All-Ireland through the 'back-door' was Offaly in 1998, winning a replay of the Leinster final by beating Kilkenny 2–16 to 1–13.


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: The new "back-door system" proved successful and was expanded over the following years. The 2005 Championship saw even bigger changes in the "back-door" or qualifier system. The Munster and Leinster champions and defeated finalists automatically qualified for the new quarter-final stages, while two groups of four other teams played in a league format to fill the vacant four places in the quarter-finals. Many criticised the structure for not being a real championship at all, for degrading the Munster and Leinster championships and for penalising the strongest teams.


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: 2008 brought a change to the competition format, whereby the team that won the Leinster and Munster championships advanced to the All-Ireland semi-finals, and the losers of the provincial finals advanced to two quarter-finals. A series of knockout qualifiers for the remaining teams decided which other two teams would reach the quarter-finals. The updated qualifier structure provided more games and gave renewed hope to the "weaker" teams, as a defeat in the first round no longer meant the end of a county's All-Ireland ambitions.


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: Teams from the first two levels are eligible for the All-Ireland series in that year. Teams from tiers 3 to 5 may reach tiers 1 and 2 through promotion.


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: There are twelve teams in the All-Ireland Championship. During the course of a championship season (from July to August) seven games are played comprising two preliminary quarter-finals, two quarter-finals, two semi-finals and a final. The championship is played as a single-elimination tournament.


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: London became the first overseas team to compete in the All-Ireland Championship in 1900. For four consecutive years they were given a bye to the All-Ireland final where they played the "home" champions in the final proper. They won their only All-Ireland title in 1901. London returned to the All-Ireland Championship on a number of occasions between 1969 and 1996.


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: In 1905 Lancashire and Glasgow entered the All-Ireland Championship at the quarter-final stage. Lancashire returned for one more championship campaign in 1913, whilst Glasgow returned for the 1910 and 1913 championships.


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: Stadium attendances are a significant source of regular income for the GAA and for the teams involved. For the 2017 championship, the average attendances for the five games was 56,565 with a total aggregate attendance figure of 282,826. The 2017 figure represented the highest combined total for an All-Ireland Championship since 2012, when 294,079 fans attended six games, including a final replay between Kilkenny and Galway. The highest all-time aggregate attendance for the championship was 332,387 in 2007 when eight games were played.


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: Croke Park was initially used as the venue for All-Ireland quarter-finals following their introduction in 1997. These games were usually played as a double-header. From 2008 until 2017 the quarter-finals were played at Semple Stadium in Thurles.


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: The All-Ireland semi-finals have been played exclusively at Croke Park since 1977. Croke Park had been regularly used as a semi-final venue prior to this, however, a number of other stadiums around the country were also used. St Brendan's Park and St Cronan's Park were regularly used for semi-finals involving Kilkenny and Galway. Other regular semi-final venues included the Markets Field, Páirc Uí Chaoimh, St Ciarán's Park, the Cork Athletic Grounds and Cusack Park.


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: Since 1910, Croke Park has been the regular venue for the All-Ireland final. Only on two occasions since then has the final been played outside of Croke Park. Construction of the Cusack Stand in 1937 meant that that year's final was played at the newly opened FitzGerald Stadium in Killarney. In 1984 the GAA celebrated its centenary by playing the All-Ireland final at Semple Stadium in Thurles.


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: In the years prior to 1910, the All-Ireland final was held in a variety of locations around the country, including Jones's Road as Croke Park was known before its dedication to Thomas Croke. The inaugural final in 1887 was played at Birr, before Dublin venues Clonturk Park, the Pond Field and the Phoenix Park were used in the early 1890s. Fraher Field hosted the final on three occasions, while the final was played at the newly opened Cork Athletic Grounds on two occasions.


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: Managers in the All-Ireland Championship are involved in the day-to-day running of the team, including the training, team selection, and sourcing of players from the club championships. Their influence varies from county-to-county and is related to the individual county boards. From 2018, all inter-county head coaches must be Award 2 qualified. The manager is assisted by a team of two or three selectors and an extensive backroom team consisting of various coaches. Prior to the development of the concept of a manager in the 1970s, teams were usually managed by a team of selectors with one member acting as chairman.


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: At the end of the All-Ireland final, the winning team is presented with a trophy. The Liam MacCarthy Cup is held by the winning team until the following year's final. Traditionally, the presentation is made at a special rostrum in the Ard Chomairle section of the Hogan Stand where GAA and political dignitaries and special guests view the match.


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: The cup is decorated with ribbons in the colours of the winning team. During the game the cup actually has both teams' sets of ribbons attached and the runners-up ribbons are removed before the presentation. The winning captain accepts the cup on behalf of his team before giving a short speech. Individual members of the winning team then have an opportunity to come to the rostrum to lift the cup.


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: The Liam MacCarthy Cup commemorates the memory of Liam MacCarthy. Born in London to Irish parents in 1851, he was prominently involved in the establishment of a county board in London in the 1890s. In 1922 he presented the GAA with £500 to commission a cup for the All-Ireland champions. The cup, which was constructed to look like a medieval Irish drinking vessel called a mather, was made by jeweller Edmund Johnson at his premises on Dublin's Grafton Street. It replaced the Great Southern Cup as the All-Ireland trophy and was first presented to Bob McConkey of Limerick in 1923.


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: Declan Carr of Tipperary was the last recipient of the original Liam MacCarthy Cup in 1991 before it was retired. It is now on display in the GAA Museum in Croke Park. JMK Gold & Silversmith's produced an exact replica which was first awarded to Liam Fennelly of Kilkenny in 1992.


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: In accordance with GAA rules, the Central Council awards up to twenty-six gold medals to the winners of the All-Ireland final. The medals are 9 carat gold and depict the design of the GAA. Trophies are awarded to the All-Ireland runners-up. A miniature replica of the Liam MacCarthy Cup is awarded to the captain of the winning team.


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: Since 1995, the All-Ireland Championship has been sponsored. The sponsor has usually been able to determine the championship's sponsorship name.


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: From the early 1920s, British Pathé recorded newsreel footage of the All-Ireland finals which was later shown in cinemas around the country. The National Film Institute and Gael Linn later produced their own newsreels of All-Ireland finals with Michael O'Hehir providing commentary. These newsreels were staples for cinema-goers until the 1960s.


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: Following the establishment of 2RN, Ireland's first radio broadcasting station, on 1 January 1926, sports coverage, albeit infrequent, was a feature of the schedules. Early broadcasts consisted of team announcements and short reports on events of interest. 2RN recorded a broadcasting first on 29 August 1926, when former hurler and journalist P.D. Mehigan carried a live commentary of the All-Ireland semi-final between Kilkenny and Galway. It was the first live radio broadcast of a field game outside of the United States. Although there was no designated sports department within Irish radio for many years, a two-way relationship between the national broadcaster and the GAA was quickly established. As well as exclusive live commentaries, Seán Ó Ceallacháin began broadcasting a weekly results programme on Radio Éireann in 1930.


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: When Telefís Éireann was established on 31 December 1961, the new station was interested in the broadcasting of championship games. The GAA, however, were wary that live television coverage would result in lower attendances at games. Because of this, the association restricted annual coverage of its games to the All-Ireland hurling and football finals, the two All-Ireland football semi-finals and the two Railway Cup finals. The first live broadcast of a hurling championship match was the All-Ireland final between Tipperary and Wexford on 2 September 1962. While the All-Ireland semi-finals were reintroduced in 1969, RTÉ was still confined to just broadcasting the final. In spite of this, highlights of the semi-finals were regularly shown.


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: The All-Ireland final between Tipperary and Kilkenny on 5 September 1971 was the first to be broadcast in colour.


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: The first All-Ireland semi-final to be broadcast live was the meeting of Cork and Galway on 7 August 1977. The popularity of the evening highlights programme led to the development of "The Sunday Game", which was first broadcast on 8 July 1979. For the early years financial and logistical reasons restricted the programme to featuring just one full championship game and discussion about it. The show, however, soon expanded featuring coverage of one or more of the day's main championship games, followed by extended highlights of the other major games of the day.


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: The 1981 All-Ireland final between Offaly and Galway was simultaneously broadcast on RTÉ 1 and RTÉ 2, with Ger Canning providing commentary in the Irish language on the secondary channel.


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: In 1983, Channel 4 began broadcasting RTÉ's coverage of the All-Ireland final in Britain. This simulcast lasted until 1992 when the live broadcast was dropped; however, the entire match was shown at a later time.


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: In 2014, the GAA signed a three-year broadcasting deal with Sky Sports. While Sky were granted exclusive rights to some high-profile games, they were also permitted to broadcast live coverage of the All-Ireland semi-finals and final, however, these games were also broadcast live on RTÉ.


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: Kilkenny are the most successful hurling county to date, having won the All-Ireland Hurling Championship the most times (36). Kilkenny have also been runners-up more often than any other team (28).


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: Only two teams have won the Championship on four consecutive occasions — Cork (1941–44) and Kilkenny (2006–09).


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: Only four teams have won the Championship on three consecutive occasions - Cork (1892–94, 1941–44 (4 times), 1952–54 & 1976–78), Tipperary (1898–1900, 1949–51), Kilkenny (1911–13, 2006–09 (4 times)) and Limerick (2020-2022).


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: Antrim hold the unfortunate record of appearing in two All-Ireland Finals (1943 and 1989) without ever winning the cup.


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: In 1971 Eddie Keher of Kilkenny broke his own record of 14 points from the 1963 final by capturing 2–11 against Tipperary (although his team lost). This record was broken by Nicky English of Tipperary in 1989 when he scored 2–12 against Antrim. Keher's tally of 6–45 in the 1972 championship is also a record.


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: The official hurling records owned and published by Croke Park, and authenticated by the county historians of participating counties, note three records. (This information comes from p. 40 of official programme published the GAA on the day of 2005 final between Cork and Galway).


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: (1) The 80 minute final. This 80 minute final took place in 1971 between Tipperary and Kilkenny. Eddie Keher scored 2-11 which makes a total of 17 points. However 2-8 of this was scored from frees. (2) The record for all 70 minute finals. This record was made in 1989. This hurling final was between Tipperary and Antrim. Nicholas English scored 2-12 points which equals a total of 18 points. However 0-9 of this was achieved from frees. (3) The 60 minute final: The overall scoring record is held by Michael Gah Ahern the greatest sharpshooter of the 1920s and early 1930s. He scored 5–4. What makes this scoring record remarkable is that he scored all of his scores from his hands.


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: Nicky Rackard of Wexford got the highest total in a championship game. In Wexford's 12−17 to 2–3 defeat of Antrim in the 1954 semi-final, he scored a remarkable 7-7.


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: Prior to the 1930s, scoring records for championship games were rarely kept. A number of players have been credited with enormous tallies. Andy 'Dooric' Buckley scored at least 6 goals when Cork beat Kilkenny by 8–9 to 0–8 in the 1903 All-Ireland 'home' final. Other newspaper reports credit him with 7 goals and 4 points.


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: P. J. Riordan is alleged to have scored all but 1 point of Tipperary's total when they beat Kilkenny by 6–8 to 0−1 in the 1895 All-Ireland final.


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: Jimmy Kelly of Kilkenny is said to have scored 7 goals in 30 minutes against Cork in the replay of the 1905 final.


title: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship

text: In 1990 the rule prohibiting a hand-passed score was introduced. This had a large bearing on scoring, with fewer goals being scored in open play.


title: Mammal classification

text: Mammalia is a class of animal within the phylum Chordata. Mammal classification has been through several iterations since Carl Linnaeus initially defined the class. No classification system is universally accepted; McKenna & Bell (1997) and Wilson & Reader (2005) provide useful recent compendiums. Many earlier ideas from Linnaeus et al. have been completely abandoned by modern taxonomists, among these are the idea that bats are related to birds or that humans represent a group outside of other living things. Competing ideas about the relationships of mammal orders do persist and are currently in development. Most significantly in recent years, cladistic thinking has led to an effort to ensure that all taxonomic designations represent monophyletic groups. The field has also seen a recent surge in interest and modification due to the results of molecular phylogenetics.


title: Mammal classification

text: George Gaylord Simpson's classic "Principles of Classification and a Classification of Mammals" (Simpson, 1945) taxonomy text laid out a systematics of mammal origins and relationships that was universally taught until the end of the 20th century.


title: Mammal classification

text: Since Simpson's 1945 classification, the paleontological record has been recalibrated, and the intervening years have seen much debate and progress concerning the theoretical underpinnings of systematization itself, partly through the new concept of cladistics. Though field work gradually made Simpson's classification outdated, it remained the closest thing to an official classification of mammals. See List of placental mammals and List of monotremes and marsupials for more detailed information on mammal genera and species.


title: Mammal classification

text: Molecular studies by molecular systematists, based on DNA analysis, in the early 21st century have revealed new relationships among mammal families. Classification systems based on molecular studies reveal three major groups or lineages of placental mammals, Afrotheria, Xenarthra, and Boreotheria. which diverged from early common ancestors in the Cretaceous.


title: Mammal classification

text: The relationships between these three lineages is contentious, and all three have been proposed as basal in different hypotheses.


title: Mammal classification

text: A somewhat standardized classification system has been adopted by most current mammalogy classroom textbooks. The following taxonomy of extant and recently extinct mammals is taken from the 6th edition of Vaughan's "Mammalogy". This approach emphasizes an initial split between egg-laying prototherians and live-bearing therians. The therians are further divided into the marsupial Metatheria and the "placental" Eutheria. No attempt is made in this classification to further distinguish among the orders within these subclasses and infraclasses. This system also makes no note of the position of entirely fossil groups.


title: Mammal classification

text: In this and later taxonomies, families are merely listed under the order to which they belong. More detailed relationships among families is presented in the article of each order.


title: Mammal classification

text: In 1997, the classification of mammals was revised by Malcolm C. McKenna and Susan K. Bell. The "Classification of Mammals Above the species level", here referred to as the "McKenna/Bell classification", is a comprehensive work on the systematics, relationships, and occurrences of all mammal taxa, living and extinct, down through the rank of genus. The authors worked together as paleontologists at the American Museum of Natural History, New York. McKenna inherited the project from Simpson and, with Bell, constructed a completely updated hierarchical system, covering living and extinct taxa that reflects the historical genealogy of Mammalia.


title: Mammal classification

text: The McKenna/Bell hierarchical listing of all of the terms used for mammal groups above the species includes extinct mammals as well as modern groups, and introduces some fine distinctions such as legions and sublegions and ranks which fall between classes and orders that are likely to be glossed over by the layman.


title: Mammal classification

text: Click on the highlighted link for a table comparing the traditional and the new McKenna/Bell classifications of mammals.


title: Mammal classification

text: Several important fossil mammal discoveries have been made that have led researchers to question many of the relationships proposed by McKenna and Bell (1997). Additionally, researchers are subjecting taxonomic hypotheses to more rigorous cladistic analyses of early mammal fossils. Luo et al. (2002) summarized existing ideas and proposed new ideas of relationships among mammals at the most basal level. They argued that the term mammal should be defined based on characters (especially the dentary-squamosal jaw articulation) instead of a crown-based definition (the group that contains most recent common ancestor of monotremes and therians and all of its descendants). Their definition of Mammalia is roughly equal to the Mammaliaformes as defined by McKenna and Bell (1997) and other authors. They also define their taxonomic levels as clades and do not apply Linnean hierarchies.


title: Mammal classification

text: The following classification is a simplified version based on current understanding suitable for non-specialists who want to understand how living genera are related to each other. The classification ignores differences in levels and thus cannot be used to estimate the respective distances between taxa. It also ignores taxa that became extinct in pre-historic times. Finally, English names are preferred whenever they exist. This makes it especially suited for non-specialists who wish to gain an easy overview. For the full picture, the non-simplified versions above should be consulted.


title: Chris Wondolowski

text: Christopher Elliott "Chris" Wondolowski (born January 28, 1983) is an American former professional soccer player who played as a forward. Nicknamed Wondo, he scored 171 career goals, the most in Major League Soccer history, and he was MLS's top scorer in the 2010 and 2012 seasons, also being named the 2012 Most Valuable Player, and was one of the top strikers during his time playing in Major League Soccer. With 171 goals in Major League Soccer, he is the highest scorer in the competition's history, as well as the only player in league history to score 150 or more regular-season goals.


title: Chris Wondolowski

text: A college soccer player for the Chico State Wildcats, he played in 2004 for the Chico Rooks and was drafted to the San Jose Earthquakes in 2005. The team became the Houston Dynamo the following season, and he played a part in their MLS Cup wins in 2006 and 2007 before returning to the re-established Earthquakes in 2009. As of September 28, 2019, Wondolowski is also the only player in league history to have scored ten or more goals in ten consecutive seasons. He also holds the record for most MLS goals on the road and MLS game winning goals (both home and away). On November 7, 2021 after a 1–1 draw against FC Dallas, Wondolowski announced his retirement from professional soccer.


title: Chris Wondolowski

text: A full international between 2011 and 2016, Wondolowski represented the United States at three CONCACAF Gold Cups – winning the 2013 edition – and also played at the 2014 FIFA World Cup.


title: Chris Wondolowski

text: Wondolowski played high school soccer at De La Salle High School in Concord, California, where he earned All-Bay Valley Athletic League first team and all-East Bay first-team honors in 2000 and 2001. He was awarded two area "Player of the Year" awards in 2001 by local media. Wondolowski played club soccer for the Diablo Valley Soccer Club (DVSC) and Danville Mustang Soccer Association.


title: Chris Wondolowski

text: He enjoyed a standout college soccer career at Chico State University, finishing with 39 goals in 84 games. He led the Chico Rooks of the then Men's Premier Soccer League with 17 goals in the 2004 season.


title: Chris Wondolowski

text: Wondolowski was drafted in the fourth round of the 2005 MLS Supplemental Draft with the 41st overall pick by the San Jose Earthquakes. Although he made only two MLS appearances for San Jose in 2005, he led the Earthquakes reserve team in scoring with eight goals in 12 games.


title: Chris Wondolowski

text: Along with the rest of his Earthquakes teammates, he moved to Houston for the 2006 season and once again led the reserve team in scoring, tallying 13 goals in 11 games. He scored his first MLS goal on August 30, 2006 against the Chicago Fire.


title: Chris Wondolowski

text: In 2007, Wondolowski scored against Pachuca in the semifinal round of the CONCACAF Champions' Cup, although Houston was eliminated in the second leg. Wondolowski scored his first US Open Cup goal in a 3–0 victory against FC Dallas on August 23 of that same year. He scored his second career MLS goal – a tap-in against Chicago – on July 12, 2007.


title: Chris Wondolowski

text: In 2008 Wondolowski continued to make appearances for the reserve squad as well as the first team in various competitions. He captained the team in its US Open Cup loss against Charleston Battery, converting his shot in the penalty shootout as well.


title: Chris Wondolowski

text: Wondolowski was traded to the San Jose Earthquakes in exchange for Cam Weaver in June 2009. With the move to San Jose, Wondolowski began to receive more playing time and appeared in 14 games in which he scored 3 goals for San Jose.


title: Chris Wondolowski

text: Wondolowski had a break-out season in 2010 in which he led Major League Soccer in scoring with 18 goals in 26 matches, leading San Jose into the MLS Playoffs. The 18 regular season goals scored was the highest in the league, and made for Wondolowski to win his first MLS Golden Boot. He scored his first playoff goal with the series winning goal against New York in their playoff game, propelling San Jose to a 3–2 aggregate win.


title: Chris Wondolowski

text: Wondolowski's first brace of 2011 started in the fifth minute of play against FC Dallas. After receiving a ball in the box, Wondolowski took the ball off a volley with time to turn and punch the shot past a helpless Kevin Hartman. His second goal would come in just the 23rd minute after Dallas was unable to clear the ball on a set piece. He finished the season with 16 goals, tied with Dwayne De Rosario for 1st overall in scoring but lost the Golden Boot on an assists tie breaker.


title: Chris Wondolowski

text: Wondolowski was elected to the 2012 MLS All-Star Game versus Chelsea. He was defended by John Terry, and managed to score in the 21st minute. NBC Sports Network aired an episode of "MLS 36" following Wondolowski for 36 hours through his arrival in Philadelphia for the All-Star festivities and the game itself. It shows Terry personally complimenting Wondolowski at halftime on his movement, adding that it was a "nightmare" to cover him. On October 6, 2012, Wondolowski became the San Jose Earthquakes' all-time leading goal-scorer at Colorado Rapids, a night where he notched his fourth career hat-trick. That season he also matched Roy Lassiter's MLS record of 27 goals in a season. The conclusion of the regular season also saw Wondolowski become the first and only MLS player so far to win the Player of the Month award four times in a single season, for his performances during the months of April, June, September, and October.


title: Chris Wondolowski

text: Wondolowski's high scoring rate fell a bit in 2013 with the striker scoring only 13 goals in all competitions, the lowest total since arriving in San Jose in 2009. The low total may have been partially due to the fact that he played the majority of 2013 with a broken foot.


title: Chris Wondolowski

text: On August 24, 2014, Wondolowski became only the third MLS player to ever score double digit goal totals for five seasons in a row, following the lead of Carlos Ruiz and Juan Pablo Angel. Wondolowski finished the season with 14 goals, leading the San Jose Earthquakes for the fifth consecutive season.


title: Chris Wondolowski

text: On May 24, 2015, Wondolowski drew a penalty against Orlando City SC at Levi's Stadium and scored his hundredth goal in MLS play. He became only the ninth player in MLS history to achieve this feat.


title: Chris Wondolowski

text: On September 11, 2016, Wondolowski scored his tenth goal of the 2016 season in a 1–1 home draw with Seattle Sounders FC, achieving his seventh consecutive season with ten or more goals and making him the only player in league history to have accomplished this in over five consecutive seasons.


title: Chris Wondolowski

text: On July 4, 2017, Wondolowski made his 229th career start for San Jose against Atlanta United FC at Bobby Dodd Stadium, surpassing Ramiro Corrales to take the record for most starts made for the club. His 66th minute tally, assisted by Nick Lima, tied him with Landon Donovan for the league record of most goals scored on the road at 63 each, and also marked the 22nd MLS team scored upon by Wondolowski, leaving only expansion side Minnesota United FC.


title: Chris Wondolowski

text: Wondolowski wore the number 38 in San Jose's U.S. Open Cup quarterfinal match on July 10, 2017, against the LA Galaxy in honor of teammate Matheus Silva, who nearly drowned the week before while swimming at Lake Tahoe. He scored a brace, both goals assisted by Tommy Thompson, to lead the Earthquakes to a 3–2 victory that advanced them to the Cup semifinals for the first time since 2004 and for only the second time in club history.


title: Chris Wondolowski

text: Wondolowski became the first player in league history to score 10 or more goals in 8 consecutive seasons on August 19, 2017, after converting an equalizing penalty in the final seconds of stoppage time in a 2–2 home draw against the Philadelphia Union, after Joshua Yaro brought down Shea Salinas in the box. On October 22, 2017, he received his seventh overall and fourth consecutive Team MVP award after finishing the 2017 regular season with 13 goals and 8 assists.


title: Chris Wondolowski

text: On May 18, 2019, Wondolowski scored four goals against the Chicago Fire at Avaya Stadium to tie and break Landon Donovan's goal-scoring record, scoring 148 goals in his 338th MLS appearance.


title: Chris Wondolowski

text: On November 7, 2021, Wondolowski scored his 171st goal for the Earthquakes in his final professional match, a 1–1 draw against FC Dallas. He announced his retirement following the contest.


title: Chris Wondolowski

text: Following his successful stint with the Earthquakes during the 2010 season which included winning the 2010 MLS Golden Boot, Wondolowski was called up to Winter Training Camp with the United States men's national soccer team. At the conclusion of the three-week camp, his first cap with the national team came in a January 22, 2011 friendly against Chile at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California.


title: Chris Wondolowski

text: On May 23, 2011, Wondolowski was named to the United States roster for the 2011 CONCACAF Gold Cup competition.


title: Chris Wondolowski

text: In 2012, Wondolowski was called into the United States' initial 27-man roster for a series of three friendlies and the first two World Cup qualifiers for the U.S. Wondolowski made the 23-man roster but only appeared once as a sub in a friendly 0–0 draw against Canada.


title: Chris Wondolowski

text: On July 5, 2013, Wondolowski scored his first international goal in a match against Guatemala at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, California, and four days later, wearing a jersey on which his name was spelled "Wondowlowski", he scored a hat-trick in the first half against Belize at Jeld-Wen Field in Portland, Oregon. He continued his scoring run with a brace against Cuba at Rio Tinto Stadium in Sandy, Utah. On February 1, 2014, Wondolowski added two more goals to his tally, by scoring a brace against South Korea at StubHub Center in Carson, California.


title: Chris Wondolowski

text: Since the Gold Cup, Wondolowski plays with an extra 'W' on the inside of his shirt when on National Team duty. This happened after scoring a hat-trick against Belize while having an extra W on his shirt by mistake.


title: Chris Wondolowski

text: In 2017, he was named to the preliminary 40-man roster for the Gold Cup, but was not called up during the tournament. On August 27, 2017, he was called up to the 26-man roster for the World Cup qualifiers taking place on September 2, against Costa Rica, and September 5, against Honduras.


title: Chris Wondolowski

text: Wondolowski was selected as one of the final 23 players chosen for the 2014 FIFA World Cup to represent the United States. On June 22, 2014, Wondolowski came in as a substitute for Clint Dempsey in the 87th minute during the Group G game against Portugal. On July 1 he came in as a substitute for Graham Zusi in the 72nd minute in the Group of 16 elimination game against Belgium. In the final minutes of normal time in what was then a 0–0 game, Wondolowski failed to direct his shot on the net from just yards out and Belgium won in extra time. "I'm gutted to have let down everyone but especially my teammates," said Wondolowski about the missed opportunity. In extra time Wondolowski nearly set up the game tying goal, but the chance was missed by teammate Clint Dempsey.


title: Chris Wondolowski

text: Chris Wondolowski was selected as one of the final 23 players chosen for the Copa América Centenario to represent the United States.


title: Chris Wondolowski

text: Chris is the brother of fellow professional soccer player Stephen Wondolowski. He is of half Native American descent through his mother (Janis Hoyt) who was born into the Kiowa tribe from Oklahoma, of which Chris himself is also a member. His tribal name Bau Daigh, pronounced "Bowe Dye", means "warrior coming over the hill". His paternal grandfather arrived in the United States at the age of seven with his family that originated from Warsaw, Poland. He married his wife Lindsey in 2009, and their daughter Emersyn was born on December 23, 2013. Their second daughter Brynlee was born on March 10, 2016.


title: Chris Wondolowski

text: In 2013, Wondolowski was named to the Division II 40th Anniversary Tribute Team, honoring his time spent at Chico State.


title: Don't Stop the Music (Rihanna song)

text: "Don't Stop the Music" is a song recorded by Barbadian singer Rihanna for her third studio album, "Good Girl Gone Bad" (2007). It was released worldwide on September 7, 2007, as the album's fourth single. The song was written by Tawanna Dabney and its producers StarGate. Michael Jackson also received a songwriting credit for the sampling of the line "Mama-say, mama-sa, ma-ma-koosa" from Jackson's 1983 single "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin". Both Rihanna and Jackson were sued by Cameroonian musician Manu Dibango, who asserted that the hook originated in his 1972 song "Soul Makossa". "Don't Stop the Music" is a dance track that features rhythmic devices used primarily in hip hop music.


title: Don't Stop the Music (Rihanna song)

text: Many music journalists praised the sampling of the "Mama-say, mama-sa, ma-ma-ko-ssa" hook. The song received a number of accolades, including a Grammy Award nomination for Best Dance Recording. "Don't Stop the Music" reached number one in nine countries, including Australia, France, Germany, and Switzerland. In the UK, it reached number four on the singles chart and it was certified platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI). The single peaked at number three on the US "Billboard" Hot 100 and number one on the US "Billboard" Dance Club Songs charts. Certified four times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), as of 2015, it has sold more than 3.7 million copies in the US.


title: Don't Stop the Music (Rihanna song)

text: Anthony Mandler filmed the song's music video in Prague. In the video, Rihanna and her friends sneak into the back of a candy store that contains a secret club, and she parties with club-goers. The singer performed "Don't Stop the Music" at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards and the NRJ Music Awards in 2008, and included it on her Good Girl Gone Bad, Last Girl on Earth, Loud and Diamonds World Tour set lists. The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) recognized it as one of the most-performed songs of 2009. English recording artist Jamie Cullum released a cover of the song as the second single from his 2009 album "The Pursuit", and his version charted in several European countries.


title: Don't Stop the Music (Rihanna song)

text: "Don't Stop the Music" was written and produced by the Norwegian production duo StarGate, with additional songwriting by Tawanna Dabney. Michael Jackson received a songwriting credit for the sampling of the line "Mama-say, mama-sa, ma-ma-ko-ssa" from his 1983 single "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin". Tim Sturges and Phillip Ramos provided additional production for the song. It was recorded at Battery Studios in New York City and Westlake Recording Studios in Los Angeles by Mikkel S. Eriksen and Al Hemberger. Phil Tan and Josh Houghkirk mixed the single, and StarGate provided vocal production and instrumentation.


title: Don't Stop the Music (Rihanna song)

text: In February 2009, Cameroonian musician Manu Dibango filed a lawsuit claiming that "Don't Stop the Music" and "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin used the "Mama-say, mama-sa, ma-ma-ko-ssa" hook without his permission. According to Dibango, the line is from his 1972 single "Soul Makossa". Agence France-Presse reported that Jackson admitted that he borrowed the line for "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin and settled out of court. When Rihanna asked Jackson in 2007 for permission to sample the line, he allegedly approved the request without contacting Dibango beforehand. Dibango's attorneys brought the case before a court in Paris, demanding €500,000 in damages and asking for Sony BMG, EMI and Warner Music to be "barred from receiving 'mama-say mama-sa'-related income until the matter is resolved". The judge ruled that Dibango's claim was inadmissible: a year earlier, a different Paris-area judge had required Universal Music to include Dibango's name in the liner notes of future French releases of "Don't Stop the Music", and at the time of this earlier court appearance, Dibango had withdrawn legal action, thereby waiving his moral right to seek further damages.


title: Don't Stop the Music (Rihanna song)

text: "Don't Stop the Music" was the fourth single from Rihanna's third album, "Good Girl Gone Bad" (2007). Before its release, two promotional remixes of the song (Solitaire's More Drama and the Wideboys Club Mix) were added to digital outlets in Canada and the United States on August 7, 2007. On September 7, an EP of the single was released via the iTunes Store in some countries including Australia, Italy, New Zealand and Spain. The EP contains the Wideboys Club Mix and instrumental and album versions of the song. That day, "Don't Stop the Music" was released as a CD single in Germany with the same material as the EP and the song's music video. The following month, it was released as a CD single in France. Def Jam Recordings provided the song to contemporary hit radio stations in the United States on January 15, 2008, and to rhythmic contemporary stations a week later. Nine remixes, including the album version of the song, were released on May 14 to digital outlets in territories including Australia, Germany, New Zealand and Spain.


title: Don't Stop the Music (Rihanna song)

text: "Don't Stop the Music" is a four-minute, 27-second dance-pop song, written in the key of F minor in common time, with a moderate tempo of 123 beats per minute. Rihanna's voice ranges from F to A. The syncopated song samples a variety of layered rhythms, with hip hop rhythms and a heavy bass drumbeat predominating. The sampled chant "Mama-say, mama-sa, ma-ma-ko-ssa" was added to the arrangement as a complementary throbbing motif, becoming the main background vocals.


title: Don't Stop the Music (Rihanna song)

text: Sal Cinquemani of "Slant Magazine" described "Don't Stop the Music" as having a bouncy feel similar to Rihanna's 2006 single "SOS". According to Fraser McAlpine of BBC's Chart Blog, Rihanna's vocals on the song sound as if she recorded them to a different backing track, "then gave them to some nerdy beatmatcher with an extensive collection of dark electro and classic pop." McAlpine compared the verses' vocal melody to that of Aaliyah's single "Try Again", the chorus to Madonna's "La Isla Bonita", and the base track to Eric Prydz-style trance music. After the release of Rihanna's single "Only Girl (In the World)" in 2010, many critics compared its composition and structure to "Don't Stop the Music".


title: Don't Stop the Music (Rihanna song)

text: Music journalists praised the sampling of the "Mama-say, mama-sa, ma-ma-ko-ssa" hook. For Pitchfork Media's Tom Breihan—who characterized "Don't Stop the Music" as "an amazing bit of euroclub insanity combined with synth and bass"—the hook from Jackson's track smoothly blends into the song's powerful beat. Nick Levine of Digital Spy called "Don't Stop the Music" "brilliant and unwitting", and said that it was the best single with a Jackson writing credit since his 1997 "Blood on the Dance Floor". "PopMatters" Quentin B. Huff wrote that "the Michael Jackson-sampling 'Don't Stop the Music', inspires the type of tail feather shaking you can only produce when you're chanting, 'Mama-say, mama-sa, ma-ma-ko-ssa.


title: Don't Stop the Music (Rihanna song)

text: McAlpine called Rihanna's vocals "emotionally removed, a little distant and naughty, but a smidge melancholy and tearful". According to a "New York Times" reviewer, in "Don't Stop the Music" Rihanna "[found] exuberance in a ... severe techno beat". In 2012, "Billboard" ranked the song 13th on its list of "Rihanna's 20 Biggest Billboard Hits" of all time; they wrote, "we defy you to get the hook from this pounding 2007 dancefloor favorite out of your mind."


title: Don't Stop the Music (Rihanna song)

text: "Don't Stop the Music" won the Best International Song award at the 2008 NRJ Music Awards. It was nominated for Single of the Year at the 2008 Teen Choice Awards, losing to the Jonas Brothers' "When You Look Me in the Eyes". The song was nominated for Best Dance Recording at the 50th Grammy Awards, losing to Justin Timberlake's "LoveStoned/I Think She Knows". At the 2009 Kids' Choice Awards "Don't Stop the Music" was nominated as Best Favorite Song, losing to Beyoncé's "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)". At the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers Pop Music Awards, ASCAP recognized it as one of 2009's most-performed songs. "Don't Stop the Music" was a winning song at the 2009 BMI Pop Awards. In 2014, David Drake of the magazine "Complex" called the single "one of the earliest shots fired in the mainstreaming of dance music" compared with typical 2007 top-forty fare.


title: Don't Stop the Music (Rihanna song)

text: "Don't Stop the Music" debuted at number 94 on the US "Billboard" Hot 100 chart in the issue dated December 8, 2007, and peaked at number three on February 16, 2008, becoming Rihanna's fourth top-three single. It topped the US Dance Club Songs chart (Rihanna's sixth number-one single), reached number two on the Pop Songs chart and number 74 on the Hot R&B/Hip Hop Songs chart. "Don't Stop the Music" had sold 3.7 million digital copies in the US as of June 2015, and has been certified four-times platinum from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The song reached number two on the Canadian Hot 100, remaining on the chart for a total of 52 weeks. It was Rihanna's second song to reach the chart's top three, following "Umbrella".


title: Don't Stop the Music (Rihanna song)

text: In Australia, "Don't Stop the Music" debuted at number 22 on February 3, 2008. After three weeks, on February 24, the song peaked at number one and remained there for four weeks. It was Rihanna's third number-one single in the country, after "SOS" and "Umbrella", remaining on the chart for 27 weeks. "Don't Stop the Music" charted at number 12 on the 2008 year-end Australian Singles Chart. In 2015, the song was certified five times platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) for sales of over 350,000 digital copies. The single debuted at number 31 in New Zealand on October 12, 2007. After fluctuating for four weeks, it peaked at number three for a week and spent a total of 22 weeks on the chart. "Don't Stop the Music" was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (RIANZ) in April 2008 for sales of over 7,500 digital copies.


title: Don't Stop the Music (Rihanna song)

text: In the United Kingdom, the song debuted at number 68 on December 15, 2007. After seven weeks on the chart, it peaked at number four. In July 2013, the song was certified gold by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) for sales of over 400,000 digital copies. The single was 24 on the 2008 year-end UK Singles Chart. "Don't Stop the Music" debuted atop the French Singles Chart on October 27, 2007, Rihanna's first number-one single on the chart. Remaining at number one for two weeks, the song spent a total of 34 weeks on the chart. On the German Singles Chart, it debuted at number two on September 24, 2007. After two weeks, it reached number one, staying there for two consecutive weeks. "Don't Stop the Music" was certified gold by the Bundesverband Musikindustrie for shipments of 100,000 copies. It was successful on the Swiss Singles Chart, peaking at number one for five weeks. The song reached number one in Austria, Flanders and Wallonia in Belgium, Hungary and the Netherlands.


title: Don't Stop the Music (Rihanna song)

text: The song's music video was directed by Rihanna's regular director, Anthony Mandler, and filmed in a nightclub in Prague, the Czech Republic. The video was digitally released on iTunes on July 26, 2007. It was uploaded on Rihanna's Vevo channel on YouTube on November 21, 2009.


title: Don't Stop the Music (Rihanna song)

text: In the video, Rihanna and two friends arrive at a nightclub in a yellow taxi and enter a candy store where a boy is standing with his mother. Rihanna tells the boy not to tell anyone where they are going, and the singer and her friends sneak into the back of the store (where there is a secret nightclub entrance). The narrative is intercut with Rihanna singing the song against a wall and dancing in the club. After she enters the club, she checks her makeup in a restroom as she sings.


title: Don't Stop the Music (Rihanna song)

text: Rihanna returns to the dance floor for the chorus, dancing and singing with her friends. Her fellow club-goers clap along with the sample from "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin. VH1's Christopher Rosa ranked the video 18th on his list of Rihanna's 20 sexiest videos: "This dance-by-numbers song gets a facelift with its brisk, energetic video featuring R as the undisputed queen of the clubs".


title: Don't Stop the Music (Rihanna song)

text: "Don't Stop the Music" was the 14th song on the set list of Rihanna's 2007–2009 Good Girl Gone Bad Tour, her first world tour. The singer's performance in Manchester was released in the United Kingdom through iTunes, and is featured on the "Good Girl Gone Bad Live" DVD. Rihanna performed "Don't Stop the Music" at the 2008 NRJ Music Awards in Cannes on January 26, 2008. She sang the song at the 50th Grammy Awards on February 10, 2008, as half of a medley with "Umbrella" with American funk band The Time. On June 20, 2008, Rihanna was a guest on NBC's "Today Concert Series" at Rockefeller Center in New York City, performing "Don't Stop the Music", "Umbrella" and "Take a Bow".


title: Don't Stop the Music (Rihanna song)

text: After the 2009 United Kingdom release of her fourth album, "Rated R", Rihanna gave a Nokia promotional concert at the Brixton Academy in London. She performed songs from the new album, including "Russian Roulette", "Wait Your Turn" and "Hard" (the last of these sung with Young Jeezy). Rihanna also performed "Don't Stop the Music" and other previously released songs, including "Disturbia", "Unfaithful" and "Take a Bow". On December 4, 2009, the singer performed on "The Release", MySpace Music's urban-music concert series. Rihanna performed her new material, mashed up with older songs including "Don't Stop the Music", "Live Your Life" and "Run This Town", against a background of stacked vintage televisions and silver mannequins.


title: Don't Stop the Music (Rihanna song)

text: On February 1, 2010, Rihanna performed "Don't Stop the Music" and "Hard" on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show". She performed at the 2010 Kids' Choice Awards on March 27, 2010, in the Pauley Pavilion of the UCLA campus, singing "Don't Stop the Music", "Hard" and her 2010 single "Rude Boy". To promote "Rated R", Rihanna embarked upon the 2010–2011 Last Girl on Earth Tour (her second worldwide tour), where she performed the song. In June 2011, Rihanna began the Loud Tour, her third major worldwide tour, where the single was twentieth on the set list. She performed "Don't Stop the Music" at Radio 1's Hackney Weekend on May 24, 2012, as the thirteenth song on the set list, with a giant onstage sphinx. The song was on the set list for Rihanna's 2013 Diamonds World Tour, where she sang it as part of a medley with "S&M" and "Only Girl (In the World)". She also performed the song at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards in a medley with "Only Girl (In the World)", "We Found Love" and "Where Have You Been".


title: Don't Stop the Music (Rihanna song)

text: During the sixth season of the dance reality-television series "America's Best Dance Crew", the dancers Phunk Phenomenon performed a Charlie Chaplinesque music-hall version of "Don't Stop the Music". In 2011, the California indie pop duo The Bird and the Bee covered the song and posted it on SoundCloud. South Korean recording artist Hyoyeon, part of the girl group Girls' Generation, covered the song during the group's 2011 tour. Her version was included on their second live album, "2011 Girls' Generation Tour", which was released on April 11, 2013. In October 2011 Rihanna joined L.A. Reid at his home in the Hamptons to help him judge male contestants for the first season of the American version of "The X Factor", where contestant Philip Lomax performed a stripped-down version of "Don't Stop the Music" for Rihanna and Reid. The song was performed by the Treblemakers in the 2012 film "Pitch Perfect", and was included on its soundtrack.


title: Don't Stop the Music (Rihanna song)

text: English singer and songwriter Jamie Cullum covered "Don't Stop the Music" on his 2009 album, "The Pursuit". Produced by Martin Terefe, the song was digitally released as the second single from the album on January 25, 2010. Cullum's version substituted the original's electro-house groove with a "sinuous" acoustic bass and "brushed" drumming. His rendition is in the key of A minor and set in common time at 100 beats per minute, and his voice ranges from C to F.


title: Don't Stop the Music (Rihanna song)

text: According to "PopMatters" Will Layman, the piano builds the groove from soft to loud (a technique used by Herbie Hancock during the 1960s). Adrian Edwards of BBC Music wrote that Cullum's version of "Don't Stop the Music" is one of the best songs on "The Pursuit", and that "the novel production techniques and his broken-voiced pleading to his girl on the dance floor would blend well in any night club with strobe lighting and the clink of glasses at the bar." Cullum's version peaked at number two on the Ultratip chart in Belgium, number 28 in the Netherlands and number 58 in Germany. A music video for the song was released on December 2, 2009, on Cullum's YouTube Vevo channel.


title: Shruti (actress)

text: Girija (born 18 September 1975), known by her screen name Shruti, is an Indian actress, television personality and politician. As an actress, she predominantly appears in Kannada film industry. She is currently serving as chief secretary of Bharatiya Janata Party's women's wing in its Karnataka cadre.


title: Shruti (actress)

text: In addition to Kannada, Shruti has appeared in a handful of Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam films. She was among the leading actresses in Kannada cinema during the 1990s and has won three Karnataka State Film Awards and four Filmfare Awards South in her career spanning over 25 years. She is known for performance in films such as "Gauri Ganesha" (1991), "Aagatha" (1995), "Kalki" (1996), "Gowdru" (2004), "Akka Thangi" (2008) and "Puttakkana Highway" (2011). She is sister of actor Sharan. In 2016, she won the third season of the reality television show Bigg Boss Kannada.


title: Shruti (actress)

text: Shruti joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2008. She was made the chairperson of the Karnataka Women and Child Development Corporation before being removed in 2009. In 2013, she joined the Karnataka Janata Paksha which eventually merged in 2014 with the BJP.


title: Shruti (actress)

text: Born in a Kannada speaking family in Karnataka, Shruti's birth name is Girija. She was credited as Priyadarshini in her first Kannada movie "Aasegobba Meesegobba". She was named Shruti by the actor-director Dwarakish who introduced her in a leading role for his film "Shruthi" in 1990.


title: Shruti (actress)

text: Shruthi was in Puttur in her early ages of life. Shruti started her cinema career in Malayalam film Swantham ennu karuthi. Kannada movie "Aasegobba Meesegobba" as Shivarajkumar's sister role. Later in the year 1990, she acted as heroine in the movie "Shruthi" directed and produced by Dwarakish. This movie was a successful one running over 25 weeks. Some of the most famous and successful Kannada movies from Shruti are, "Shruti", "Taayi Illada Tavaru", "Veerappa Nayaka", "Gauri Ganesha", "Bombat Hendthi", "Muddina Maava", ‘’Mr. Mahesh Kumar’’, "Midida Hrudayagalu". Soon after these films, Shruti was stereotyped for tear jerking roles in many Kannada films. She won her first Karnataka State Film Award for Best Actress for the movie "Aagatha" (1995) directed by Suresh Heblikar.


title: Shruti (actress)

text: In her career spanning for more than two decades, she acted with all the leading male stars in the film industry of her times like Vishnuvardhan, Ambareesh, Tiger Prabhakar, Shiva Rajkumar, Shashikumar, Ramesh Aravind, Jaggesh, Devaraj, Sunil, Abhijeeth, Ram Kumar and others.


title: Shruti (actress)

text: In Telugu, most of her films are with the famous comedy hero Rajendra Prasad. She made her debut in Telugu withe movie Parugo Parugu against Rajendra Prasad.


title: Shruti (actress)

text: Her Tamil film "Kalki" (1996) directed by the ace director K. Balachander won her the Filmfare Award and also the Tamil Nadu State Award for Best Actress. "Navashakthi Vaibhava" (2008) was Shruti's 100th film when she began filming in 2003. The film however saw theatrical release five years later. "Gowdru" turned out to be her 100th film, in which she played the sister of Ramegowda (played by Ambareesh).


title: Shruti (actress)

text: Shruti made her small screen debut in the Malayalam serial "Sthreethvam" aired on Surya TV during 2005. Also, her Tamil daily serial, "Karthigai Pengal" aired on Sun TV from July 2012.


title: Shruti (actress)

text: Shruti was a contestant in the reality television show Bigg Boss Kannada 3, winning the season, in January 2016. In 2017, she appeared as a judge in the comedy television series "Majaa Bharatha".


title: Shruti (actress)

text: Shruti was married to film director S. Mahendar for 11 years and divorced in 2009. Post her divorce, she was linked with Chakravarthy Chandrachud, a journalist-turned-director and they married in June 2013 before the marriage ended in a divorce a year later.


title: Furkan Andıç

text: Furkan Andıç (born 4 April 1990) is a Turkish actor and model, known for "Kaçak Gelinler" (2014–2015), "Bir Kurabiye Masalı" (2012), "Kolej Günlüğü" (2011), "Tatlı İntikam" (2016), "Meryem" (2017) and "Her Yerde Sen" (2019)


title: Furkan Andıç

text: Andıç was born and raised in Istanbul, Turkey. His mother is of Bosnian descent while his father is from Trabzon, Turkey. He graduated from Yeditepe University in 2012. He's the middle son of his parents' three sons.


title: Furkan Andıç

text: He began his television career with the TNT series "Kolej Günlüğü" ("College Diary"). In August 2015, it was announced that he had been cast in the Turkish TV series "Kırgın Çiçekler".


title: Furkan Andıç

text: He then played in "Kaçak Gelinler". In 2016, he portrayed the character Sinan/Tankut on Kanal D's series "Tatlı İntikam". In 2017, he was cast in a leading role in the TV series "Meryem". In January 2018, he revealed that he was in a relationship with actress Dilan Çiçek Deniz. The two broke up in November 2018. In June 2019, he was cast in a leading role in the TV series "Her Yerde Sen" alongside Aybüke Pusat.


title: Big Bounce

text: The Big Bounce is a hypothesized cosmological model for the origin of the known universe. It was originally suggested as a phase of the "cyclic model" or "oscillatory universe" interpretation of the Big Bang, where the first cosmological event was the result of the collapse of a previous universe. It receded from serious consideration in the early 1980s after inflation theory emerged as a solution to the horizon problem, which had arisen from advances in observations revealing the large-scale structure of the universe. In the early 2000s, inflation was found by some theorists to be problematic and unfalsifiable in that its various parameters could be adjusted to fit any observations, so that the properties of the observable universe are a matter of chance. Alternative pictures including a Big Bounce may provide a predictive and falsifiable possible solution to the horizon problem, and are under active investigation as of 2017.


title: Big Bounce

text: The concept of the Big Bounce envisions the Big Bang as the beginning of a period of expansion that followed a period of contraction. In this view, one could talk of a "Big Crunch" followed by a "Big Bang", or more simply, a "Big Bounce". This suggests that we could be living at any point in an infinite sequence of universes, or conversely the current universe could be the very first iteration. However, if the condition of the interval phase "between bounces", considered the 'hypothesis of the primeval atom', is taken into full contingency such enumeration may be meaningless because that condition could represent a singularity in time at each instance, if such perpetual return was absolute and undifferentiated.


title: Big Bounce

text: The main idea behind the quantum theory of a Big Bounce is that, as density approaches infinity, the behavior of the "quantum foam" changes. All the so-called fundamental physical constants, including the speed of light in a vacuum, need not remain constant during a Big Crunch, especially in the time interval smaller than that in which measurement may never be possible (one unit of Planck time, roughly 10 seconds) spanning or bracketing the point of inflection.


title: Big Bounce

text: Big bounce models were endorsed on largely aesthetic grounds by cosmologists including Willem de Sitter, Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker, George McVittie and George Gamow (who stressed that "from the physical point of view we must forget entirely about the precollapse period").


title: Big Bounce

text: By the early 1980s, the advancing precision and scope of observational cosmology had revealed that the large-scale structure of the universe is flat, homogenous and isotropic, a finding later accepted as the Cosmological Principle to apply at scales beyond roughly 300 million light-years. It was recognized that it was necessary to find an explanation for how distant regions of the universe could have essentially identical properties without ever having been in light-like communication. A solution was proposed to be a period of exponential expansion of space in the early universe, as a basis for what became known as Inflation theory. Following the brief inflationary period, the universe continues to expand, but at a less rapid rate.


title: Big Bounce

text: Various formulations of inflation theory and their detailed implications became the subject of intense theoretical study. In the absence of a compelling alternative, inflation became the leading solution to the horizon problem. In the early 2000s, inflation was found by some theorists to be problematic and unfalsifiable in that its various parameters could be adjusted to fit any observations, a situation known as a fine-tuning problem. Furthermore, inflation was found to be inevitably eternal, creating an infinity of different universes with typically different properties, so that the properties of the observable universe are a matter of chance. An alternative concept including a Big Bounce was conceived as a predictive and falsifiable possible solution to the horizon problem, and is under active investigation as of 2017.


title: Big Bounce

text: The phrase "Big Bounce" appeared in the scientific literature in 1987, when it was first used in the title of a pair of articles (in German) in "Stern und Weltraum" by Wolfgang Priester and Hans-Joachim Blome. It reappeared in 1988 in Iosif Rozental's "Big Bang, Big Bounce", a revised English-language translation of a Russian-language book (by a different title), and in a 1991 article (in English) by Priester and Blome in "Astronomy and Astrophysics". (The phrase apparently originated as the title of a novel by Elmore Leonard in 1969, shortly after increased public awareness of the Big Bang model with of the discovery of the cosmic microwave background by Penzias and Wilson in 1965.)


title: Big Bounce

text: The idea of existence of a big bounce in the very early universe has found a diverse support in works based on loop quantum gravity. In loop quantum cosmology, a branch of loop quantum gravity, big bounce was first discovered in February 2006, for isotropic and homogeneous models by Abhay Ashtekar, Tomasz Pawlowski and Parampreet Singh at Pennsylvania State University. This result has been generalized to various other models by different groups, and includes the case of spatial curvature, cosmological constant, anisotropies and Fock quantized inhomogenities.


title: Big Bounce

text: Martin Bojowald, an assistant professor of physics at Pennsylvania State University, published a study in July 2007 detailing work somewhat related to loop quantum gravity that claimed to mathematically solve the time before the Big Bang, which would give new weight to the oscillatory universe and Big Bounce theories.


title: Big Bounce

text: One of the main problems with the Big Bang theory is that at the moment of the Big Bang, there is a singularity of zero volume and infinite energy. This is normally interpreted as the end of the physics as we know it; in this case, of the theory of general relativity. This is why one expects quantum effects to become important and avoid the singularity.


title: Big Bounce

text: However, research in loop quantum cosmology purported to show that a previously existing universe collapsed, not to the point of singularity, but to a point before that where the quantum effects of gravity become so strongly repulsive that the universe rebounds back out, forming a new branch. Throughout this collapse and bounce, the evolution is unitary.


title: Big Bounce

text: Bojowald also claims that some properties of the universe that collapsed to form ours can also be determined. Some properties of the prior universe are not determinable however due to some kind of uncertainty principle. This result has been disputed by different groups which show that due to restrictions on fluctuations stemming from the uncertainty principle, there are strong constraints on the change in relative fluctuations across the bounce.


title: Big Bounce

text: While the existence of big bounce is still to be demonstrated from loop quantum gravity, robustness of its main features has been confirmed using exact results and several studies involving numerical simulations using high performance computing in loop quantum cosmology.


title: Big Bounce

text: In 2006, it was proposed that the application of loop quantum gravity techniques to Big Bang cosmology can lead to a bounce that need not be cyclic.


title: Big Bounce

text: In 2010, Roger Penrose advanced a general relativity based theory which he calls the "conformal cyclic cosmology”. The theory explains that the universe will expand until all matter decays and is ultimately turned to light. Since nothing in the universe would have any time or distance scale associated with it, it becomes identical with the Big Bang, in turn resulting in a type of Big Crunch which becomes the next big bang, thus perpetuating the next cycle.


title: Big Bounce

text: In 2011, Nikodem Popławski showed that a nonsingular Big Bounce appears naturally in the Einstein-Cartan-Sciama-Kibble theory of gravity.


title: Big Bounce

text: This theory extends general relativity by removing a constraint of the symmetry of the affine connection and regarding its antisymmetric part, the torsion tensor, as a dynamical variable. The minimal coupling between torsion and Dirac spinors generates a spin-spin interaction which is significant in fermionic matter at extremely high densities. Such an interaction averts the unphysical Big Bang singularity, replacing it with a cusp-like bounce at a finite minimum scale factor, before which the universe was contracting. This scenario also explains why the present Universe at largest scales appears spatially flat, homogeneous and isotropic, providing a physical alternative to cosmic inflation.


title: Big Bounce

text: In 2012, a new theory of nonsingular big bounce was successfully constructed within the frame of standard Einstein gravity.


title: Big Bounce

text: This theory combines the benefits of matter bounce and Ekpyrotic cosmology. Particularly, the famous BKL instability, that the homogeneous and isotropic background cosmological solution is unstable to the growth of anisotropic stress, is resolved in this theory. Moreover, curvature perturbations seeded in matter contraction are able to form a nearly scale-invariant primordial power spectrum and thus provides a consistent mechanism to explain the cosmic microwave background (CMB) observations.


title: Big Bounce

text: A few sources argue that distant supermassive black holes whose large size is hard to explain so soon after the Big Bang, such as ULAS J1342+0928, may be evidence for a Big Bounce, with these supermassive black holes being formed before the Big Bounce.


title: Québec solidaire

text: Québec solidaire (QS; ) is a democratic socialist and sovereigntist political party in Quebec, Canada. The party and media outlets in Canada usually use the name "Québec solidaire" in both French and English, but the party's name is sometimes translated as "Solidarity Quebec" or "Quebec Solidarity" in foreign English-language media.


title: Québec solidaire

text: Québec solidaire was founded on 4 February 2006 in Montreal by the merger of the left-wing party Union des forces progressistes (UFP) and the alter-globalization political movement Option Citoyenne, led by Françoise David. It was formed by a number of activists and politicians who had written "", a left-wing response to "Pour un Québec lucide". "Pour un Québec lucide" presented a distinctly neoliberal analysis of and set of solutions to Quebec's problems, particularly criticizing the sovereignty movement as distracting from Quebec's real issues and the Quebec social model as inefficient and out-of-date. "Pour un Québec solidaire" presented an alternate analysis, and later its writers formed the party Quebec solidaire, taking its name from the manifesto.


title: Québec solidaire

text: Québec solidaire's first political venture was to field a candidate, Manon Massé, in a 10 April 2006 by-election in Sainte-Marie–Saint-Jacques. She received 22% of the vote. Eight years later, she became QS' third MNA.


title: Québec solidaire

text: Québec solidaire contested the 2007 Quebec election. It won 3.65% of the popular vote and received 144,418 votes, 0.21% behind the Green Party of Quebec. They were also endorsed by the Montreal Central Council of the Confédération des syndicats nationaux which represents 125,000 members in Quebec. According to an analysis on "Canadian Dimension," this was the first time a trade union in Quebec has endorsed a party more left-wing than the Parti Québécois.


title: Québec solidaire

text: On 8 December 2008, the first Quebec solidaire candidate was elected in the provincial election. Amir Khadir was elected in the Montreal riding of Mercier. He won his seat for the second term in the 2012 election along with another QS candidate Françoise David in the Montreal riding of Gouin. Subsequently, Khadir stepped down as co-spokesperson in accordance with QS party rules that stipulate one spokesperson must be from outside the legislature. André Frappier served as interim co-spokesperson until Andrés Fontecilla was chosen on 5 May 2013 to permanently fill the role. David and Frontecilla led the party into the 2014 election where Manon Massé was elected in Sainte-Marie–Saint-Jacques, becoming the party's third MNA, joining David and Khadir who were both re-elected.


title: Québec solidaire

text: On 19 January 2017, Françoise David announced her immediate retirement as both party spokesperson and as a Member of the National Assembly due to her health. Massé was named the interim spokesperson, and later announced she would be a candidate for the position on a permanent basis. In March, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, one of the leaders of the 2012 Quebec student protests, joined the party as its candidate for the Gouin by-election and a candidate for party co-spokesperson. On 21 May 2017, at the party's annual convention, Massé and Nadeau-Dubois were elected as the party's spokespeople.


title: Québec solidaire

text: At the 2017 party convention, the party voted against co-operation with the Parti Québécois, and agreed to begin talks with the centre-left sovereignist Option nationale party. On 2 December 2017, QS party members approved the merger. On 10 December, ON members approved the merger, which gave them "collective" status within Québec solidaire.


title: Québec solidaire

text: In the 2018 election, Massé was put forward as the party's candidate for premier if the party formed government; she also participated in leaders' debates. Massé brought attention to the QS due to her "unconventional" performance in the debates where she used simple, blunt language. Ultimately, QS gained 7 seats, bringing them to a total of 10, tying the Parti Québécois.


title: Québec solidaire

text: On 22 November 2018, Québec solidaire, along with Parti Québécois, were granted official party status in the legislature. On 20 March 2019, the QS was officially recognized as the second opposition party, behind the Liberals and ahead of the Parti Québécois, after a PQ MNA left the party.


title: Québec solidaire

text: On 16 May 2021, Massé announced she would hand the parliamentary leadership role to Nadeau-Dubois, and that he would be the party's candidate for premier in the upcoming 2022 election. However, Massé said she would remain co-spokesperson.


title: Québec solidaire

text: The 2022 general election saw mixed results for Québec solidaire. The party finished second in terms of overall votes for the first time in its history, winning 15.4% of the vote, and won eleven seats, its most ever. However, the party did not form official opposition, as the Quebec Liberal Party won 21 seats on 14.4% of the vote, and the 15.4% of the vote the party won was slightly lower than the 16% of the vote the party won in 2018. The party also lost a seat it was holding for the first time in its history, losing Rouyn-Noranda–Témiscamingue to the governing Coalition Avenir Québec.


title: Québec solidaire

text: The aim of QS's foundation was to unify the sovereigntist political left of the political spectrum in Quebec by merging the Union des forces progressistes (UFP) party with the Option citoyenne social movement. In addition to advocating the independence of Quebec from Canada, the party's platform identifies with the concepts of environmentalism, feminism, social justice, proportional representation and participatory democracy, pacifism, aboriginal rights, and alter-globalism. The party also favours immigration, human dignity, and opposes discrimination including racism, sexism, and homophobia. QS describes itself as a sovereigntist, green, alter-globalizationist, and feminist party. It is the most left-wing of the five parties presently represented in the National Assembly.


title: Québec solidaire

text: At the party's founding, the congress unanimously adopted a document called the "Déclaration de principes" (declaration of principles) which laid out the principles and values that led the two organizations to merge. The declaration of principles does not specifically endorse social democracy or socialism, although it includes certain activists and tendencies that do. The document declared:


title: Québec solidaire

text: During the 2022 Quebec general election, party spokesman Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois stated that ending food waste in Quebec would be a priority of the party if in government. The party seeks to cut food waste by 50% by mandating large businesses and institutions to give unsold food to groups that would distribute the food, or to businesses that would process the food.


title: Québec solidaire

text: As with its predecessors, Québec solidaire has no party leader; instead, the party practices collective leadership. The duties generally entrusted to the leader in most other Canadian federal and provincial parties are instead divided among the president, secretary general and two spokespeople. The party leadership is assumed by the National Coordinating Committee, composed of 16 persons elected by the founding congress. A person from the team of volunteers will always have a seat. However, as Quebec's election laws requires the appointment of a leader, the party's secretary general is the "de jure" party leader recognized by the Chief Electoral Officer of Quebec. The party's statutes call for it to be represented by a male and female co-spokesperson, one of whom serves in the dual role of party president. If one of the spokespeople is a member of the National Assembly, the other spokesperson remains outside of the legislature and holds the party presidency. The national spokespersons have greater visibility than the secretary general and are best known; they are sometimes referred to in the media as the "de facto" co-leaders of the party.


title: Québec solidaire

text: Françoise David and Amir Khadir were the two spokespersons at the party's founding. Alexa Conradi was president from the foundation of the party until June 2009 after which Françoise David was named president-spokeswoman. After the 2012 election, where Françoise David won a seat for the first time and Amir Khadir was re-elected, Khadir stepped down as co-spokesperson so a new one could be chosen from outside the legislature. André Frappier served as interim co-spokesperson until Andrés Fontecilla was chosen on 5 May 2013 to permanently fill the role. Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois and Manon Massé became the current co-spokespersons of the party on 21 May 2017.


title: Québec solidaire

text: The basic unit of the party is the local association. There is a local association for each of the 125 ridings in Quebec. These local associations are grouped into 19 regional associations, whose primary mandate to support the establishment of local associations. In March 2007, Québec solidaire has 61 local associations organized. Students and staff at institutions of higher education are grouped in campus associations that also participate in the democratic life of the party. Two national commissions are also part of the structure of Québec solidaire: the Political Committee and the National Commission for Women. The first is composed of 14 thematic committees and is responsible for proposing a program to members. It was responsible for drafting the electoral platform of the party in general elections of 2007. The National Commission for Women is composed of delegates from each region and is responsible for ensuring that feminism is a value which transverses the party.


title: Québec solidaire

text: Québec solidaire also includes a number of collectives, made up of members in good standing who may, in compliance with requirements, promote their respective political views within Québec solidaire. Unlike such groups did in the UFP, these groups do not have formal representation in Québec solidaire's Congress, National Council, or other party bodies. Current collectives include:


title: Québec solidaire

text: The "Parti Communiste du Québec – Parti Communiste du Canada" (PCQ-PCC) left QS following Québec solidaire's merger with Option nationale in 2017.