title: Tenebrae (film)

text: Gracey refers to the film's cinematography as "nothing short of astounding", and cites a particular example as highlighting Argento's "passion for technical prowess and breathtaking visuals". Influenced by the penultimate shot in Antonioni's "The Passenger" (1975), on which Tovoli had also been the cinematographer, one of "Tenebrae"s main setpieces is the murder of the lesbian couple. To introduce the scene, Argento and Tovoli employed the use of a Louma crane to film a several minutes-long tracking shot. Owing to its extreme length, the tracking shot ended up being the most difficult and complex part of the production to complete. It required a maze of scaffolding to be built around the outside of the home. Argento captured all the footage he needed in two takes, but insisted on filming ten more. The scene, which lasts for two-and-a-half minutes on-screen, took three days to shoot. It marked the first time the Louma crane had been used in an Italian production; the crane itself had to be imported from France. According to Gracey, the camera performs "aerial gymnastics", scaling the victims' house in "one seamless take, navigating walls, roofs, and peering in through windows, in a set piece that effortlessly exposes the penetrability of a seemingly secure home". Newman and Jones said that although this type of crane shot became commonplace later, at the time it was "truly ground-breaking" in the way the camera seemingly crawled over the walls and up the building – not quite from the killer's viewpoint. Patrick McAllister of "Scifilm" said the sequence should be considered "one of the most memorable moments in cinema". According to McAllister, "Tenebrae"s distributor begged Argento to cut the shot down because it was "meaningless". Newman and Jones agreed that the shot added nothing to the film's plot, but called it "meaninglessly brilliant".


title: Tenebrae (film)

text: Some European publicity materials for the film, including posters and lobby card sets, advertised the film as "Tenebre", and the 1999 Anchor Bay DVD release uses that same title. However, on the print itself, during the opening credits, the title is clearly "Tenebrae". In addition, the title of Neal's latest book in the film is shown in closeup as being "Tenebrae". In a lengthy interview with Argento conducted by Martin Coxhead that appeared in two issues of "Fangoria" in 1983 and 1984, the title was always referred to as "Tenebrae". Early on in production, the film was referred to as "Under the Eyes of the Assassin", which was later used as one of the poster taglines. In Japan, the film was released as "Shadows", and in the United States it was titled "Unsane" in its initial – heavily edited – incarnation.


title: Tenebrae (film)

text: The Italian rock band Goblin had provided the scores for two of Argento's previous films, "Deep Red" (1975) and "Suspiria" (1977), but the director had employed English composer Keith Emerson for his foray outside of the "giallo" subgenre, 1980's "Inferno". Goblin had disbanded that year, but in 1982 Argento asked three of the band's former members – Claudio Simonetti, Fabio Pignatelli, and Massimo Morante – to work on "Tenebrae". Owing to their history together, Simonetti felt it appropriate that Argento's return to "giallo" films should use the core members of Goblin. The resulting synth-driven score was credited to "Simonetti-Pignatelli-Morante", as Goblin's former drummer owned the rights to use the band's name.


title: Tenebrae (film)

text: "Tenebrae"s score is very different from those the band had produced for Argento previously. The early 1980s had seen Simonetti experimenting with dance music, and he decided on a more electronic sound for "Tenebrae". Simonetti described the score as an electronica/rock hybrid, with the main theme including disco elements. So it would not be difficult to accommodate Argento's preference for long takes, Simonetti, Pignatelli and Morante made sure to play each song for 3–4 minutes. Recording the score, Simonetti used the Roland Jupiter-8, Roland Vocoder Plus and Minimoog synthesizers, as well as a piano, electric piano, the Oberheim DMX drum machine, the Roland TR-808 drum machine, and Roland MC-4 music sequencer. Pignatelli played bass and fretless guitar, while Morante played electric and acoustic guitar.


title: Tenebrae (film)

text: While the soundtrack is not as well regarded as Goblin's earlier scores for "Deep Red", "Suspiria", or "Dawn of the Dead" (1978), Tim Lucas felt it "... so fused to the fabric of the picture that "Tenebrae" might be termed ... a "giallo musicale"; that is, a "giallo" in which the soundtrack transcends mere accompaniment to occupy the same plane as the action and characters." Writers David Kerekes and David Slater were also favorable to the score; writing that the film "bristles with arresting imagery and a cracking musical score from ex-members of Goblin". Simonetti felt the score was good, but that it was only a "medium"-level success. However, it did enjoy a second wave of popularity being remixed in clubs. The album has had multiple reissues in numerous countries since its original release in 1982 on the Italian Cinevox label. The album was also released by Waxwork Records on a double LP that included the complete score by Goblin in 2018.


title: Tenebrae (film)

text: "Tenebrae" had a wide theatrical release throughout Italy and mainland Europe, something Argento very much needed after having suffered major distribution problems with his previous film, "Inferno". Released on 27 October 1982, "Tenebrae" saw modest success at the box office in Italy and Europe, but it did not perform as well as some of Argento's previous films. In Italy, "Tenebrae" had been released with a VM18 rating, meaning it could not be seen legally by persons under the age of eighteen. Argento had desired a VM14 rating, both to attract a younger audience and to increase the film's chances of commercial success. "Tenebrae" features scenes of female homosexuality; attitudes towards homosexuality in Italy were fairly conservative at the time, and Argento said he wanted to "recount this subject freely and in an open manner, without interference or being ashamed". The VM18 rating upset him, as he believed it was a result of the sexual diversity on display rather than the film's violence.


title: Tenebrae (film)

text: One of the film's most excessively violent scenes features the death of Neal's ex-wife, Jane (played by Veronica Lario). This scene was one which suffered the most from cuts when the film was first released in Italy. The original scene featured Jane's arm being cut off at the elbow; blood sprays from the wound onto white walls until the character falls to the floor. After a back-and-forth between Argento and Italian censors (at the time a panel of judges), the scene was first trimmed from showing an "immense" spray to a small one, then a smaller one still. For TV broadcasts, the scene was cut to insignificance in the 1990s, when Lario married future Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. According to Alan Jones, Berlusconi "did not want the public seeing [Lario] so explicitly murdered, even if it was in a film by his country's premier horror expert". For a few years, it was impossible to legally see the uncensored version of the film in Italy, as prints were withdrawn altogether. A later DVD release did become available, with the scene restored.


title: Tenebrae (film)

text: Averaging a murder every ten minutes, "Tenebrae" ranks as one of Argento's most violent films. In the United Kingdom, the film was shorn of five seconds from the arm severing scene by the British Board of Film Classification before its theatrical release, on 19 May 1983. The advertising campaign for "Tenebrae" featured posters and a soundtrack sleeve depicting a woman with her throat cut, blood dripping from the wound. According to Jones, who worked for "Tenebrae"s distributor at the time, in the UK the posters had to be recalled after the London Underground refused to run them. New posters were issued that replaced the image of the wound and blood with a red ribbon. A similar change was made to the soundtrack sleeve.


title: Tenebrae (film)

text: In the United States the film remained unseen until 1984, when Bedford Entertainment briefly released a heavily edited version under the title "Unsane". It was approximately ten minutes shorter than the European release and was missing nearly all the film's violence, which effectively rendered the many horror sequences incomprehensible. Also, certain scenes that established the characters and their relationships were excised, making the film's narrative difficult to follow. This version of "Tenebrae" received nearly unanimously negative reviews.


title: Tenebrae (film)

text: "Tenebrae" has been released on home media in many different versions in numerous territories. In 1983, when the VHS edition was released in the United Kingdom, it was short by about four seconds. However, the film soon found itself included in a list of thirty-nine so-called "video nasties" that were successfully prosecuted and banned from sale in UK video stores under the Video Recordings Act 1984. Deemed harmful to audiences, "video nasties" were strongly criticized for their violent content by the press, social commentators and various religious organizations. Speculating in 2011, Thomas Rostock said that the higher-than-usual murder count for an Argento film was partially responsible, while James Gracey believed it was perhaps "the highly sexualized presentation of its violent content". He went on to say, "Of all the titles placed on the video nasty list, "Tenebrae" is perhaps the most misunderstood and undeserving of the grimy status it gained through its association with the whole debacle." Kim Newman agreed that "Tenebrae"s reputation as a "video nasty" was unwarranted, saying that none of the on-screen deaths are as gory or lingering as those in Argento's previous films. He also believed "Tenebrae" would eventually be remembered on its own merits, rather than as part of the "video nasties" list. Nevertheless, the ban lasted until 1999, when "Tenebrae" was legally released on videotape with one second of footage removed in addition to the previously censored five. In 2003, the BBFC reclassified the film and passed it without any cuts. In Germany, the release was strongly cut, and reportedly seized by the authorities.


title: Tenebrae (film)

text: The film has since been released on DVD in the US, mostly uncut save for approximately twenty seconds of extraneous material. "Tenebrae" received an initial DVD release in March 1999 from Anchor Bay Entertainment, with a re-release in May 2008. The Anchor Bay release, though presented as "uncut" was not the fully restored version of the film. A DVD German release by Raptor was also missing about one-and-a-half seconds of material. In June 2011, Arrow Films issued a special edition on DVD, but although the image quality was far better than in previous DVD releases, this version was "heavily lambasted" for carrying a transfer of the film that had visible noise and "distorted audio". In 2013, Arrow released a Blu-ray edition that corrected the audio and video problems. Additional corrections were made to the transfer and released by Synapse Films in 2016, as a steelbook edition limited to 3000 copies. The Arrow & Synapse DVD and Blu-ray releases are "completely uncut".


title: Tenebrae (film)

text: "Tenebrae" has since become regarded as among Argento's best films by many fans and critics, with some calling it his last great film. AllMovie refers to the film as "one of Dario Argento's best thrillers". In her 1994 book on the director, "Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds: The Dark Dreams of Dario Argento," Maitland McDonagh maintains that "Tenebrae" is "in many respects ... the finest film that Argento has ever made." Richard Dyer, writing for the "Directory of World Cinema: Italy", describes the film as a "tease", one which is "perhaps the apotheosis of one of the core pleasures of detective fiction: being outwitted, wrong-footed, led up the garden path". Dyer believes that the degree of lighting used in the film is unsurpassed. Ed Gonzalez of "Slant Magazine" said that "Tenebrae" "is a riveting defense of auteur theory, ripe with self-reflexive discourse and various moral conflicts. It's both a riveting horror film and an architect's worst nightmare." Keith Phipps of "The A.V. Club" noted "... Argento makes some points about the intersection of art, reality, and personality, but the director's stunning trademark setpieces, presented here in a fully restored version, provide the real reason to watch." Almar Haflidason, in a review for BBC Online, opined, "Sadistically beautiful and viciously exciting, welcome to true terror with Dario Argento's shockingly relentless "Tenebrae"." Tim Lucas in "Video Watchdog" said, "Though it is in some ways as artificial and deliberate as a De Palma thriller, "Tenebrae" contains more likeable characters, believable relationships, and more emphasis on the erotic than can be found in any other Argento film." Gordon Sullivan of DVD Verdict wrote, ""Tenebre" is a straight-up "giallo" in the old-school tradition. It may have been filmed in 1982, but it comes straight out of the '70s tradition. We've got all the usual suspects, including a writer for a main character, lots of killer-cam point of view, some crazily over the top kills, and approximately seventy-two twists before all is revealed ... For fans of Argento's earlier "giallo", this is a must-see."


title: Tenebrae (film)

text: Not all the recent critical reaction to "Tenebrae" has been positive. Geoff Andrew of "Time Out" thought that the film was "unpleasant even by contemporary horror standards". John Kenneth Muir, author of "Horror Films of the 1980s", considers the film to be far inferior to "Suspiria", but acknowledges that it was so "unremittingly gory" that it justified its US title of "Unsane". John Wiley Martin, although evaluating the film as a "technically mesmeric" one, felt that thematically it was a "disappointingly retrograde step" for Argento. Christopher Null of Filmcritic.com called it a "gory but not particularly effective Argento horror flick", while Dennis Schwartz of "Ozus' World Movie Reviews" dismissed it as "trash". Gary Johnson, editor of "Images", complained, "Not much of "Tenebre" makes much sense. The plot becomes little more than an excuse for Argento to stage the murder sequences. And these are some of the bloodiest murders of Argento's career." In 2004, Tim Lucas re-evaluated the film and found that some of his earlier enthusiasm had dimmed considerably, noting that, ""Tenebre" is beginning to suffer from the cheap 16 mm-like softness of Luciano Tovoli's cinematography, its sometimes over-storyboarded violence (the first two murders in particular look stilted), the many bewildering lapses in logic ... and the overdone performances of many of its female actors".


title: Tenebrae (film)

text: Coming at the tail end of the "giallo" cycle, "Tenebrae" does not appear to have been as influential as Argento's earlier films. Douglas E. Winter, however, has commented that "Tenebrae"s Louma crane sequence has been stylistically influential, pointing to its use in Brian De Palma's "The Untouchables" (1987). In addition, towards the end of the film, with Neal supposedly dead, the camera faces Detective Giermani directly. When he stoops to pick up some evidence from the floor, Neal is revealed to be stood behind him, their silhouettes having perfectly matched in the shot. Alan Jones cited "Tenebrae" as the first film to use this specific type of camera blocking, and believes it to have been copied and referenced deliberately by later filmmakers. One such example, discussed as an unacknowledged "steal" from "Tenebrae", is De Palma's "surprise reveal" of John Lithgow standing behind a victim in "Raising Cain" (1992). Robert Zemeckis's "What Lies Beneath" (2000) also contains a similar moment, although Zemeckis has denied familiarity with Italian movies.


title: Tenebrae (film)

text: The final death scene in "Tenebrae" – where Neal is accidentally impaled by a sculpture – is directly referenced in Kenneth Branagh's Hitchcockian murder mystery "Dead Again" (1991). Kim Newman maintains that Branagh's film imitates the sequence so entirely – with Derek Jacobi being pierced by the sculpture – that Branagh must have included the reference deliberately. The next moment, where Nicolodi screams repeatedly in the rain, was cited by Asia Argento (Nicolodi's daughter with Dario Argento) as the moment that inspired her to become an actress.


title: Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2

text: Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 is a 2009 action role-playing video game featuring characters from Marvel Comics. It is the sequel to 2006's "", and the second installment in the "Marvel: Ultimate Alliance" series. The game was jointly developed by Vicarious Visions (PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360), n-Space (Nintendo DS, PlayStation 2 and Nintendo Wii) and Savage Entertainment (PlayStation Portable), and published by Activision in September 2009. A port for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Microsoft Windows by Zoë Mode was released in July 2016.


title: Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2

text: Unlike the first game, which featured an original plot, "Ultimate Alliance 2"'s storyline is mostly based on the "Secret War" and "Civil War" story arcs from the Marvel comics. After a series of devastating attacks on the United States, the American government passes the Superhero Registration Act, which forces all super-powered individuals to act under official regulation, in an effort to reduce the chaos that results from their battles. The superhero community is left divided, as some, including Iron Man, support the Act, while others, such as Captain America, oppose it. The two factions quickly find themselves in conflict with each other, all the while a new enemy threatens global peace. The game features two distinct storylines depending on which faction the player selects at the start, which cross over on several instances.


title: Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2

text: Upon release, "Ultimate Alliance 2" received mixed to positive reviews from critics, who generally found it to be inferior to its predecessor. The game was praised for its branching narrative, improved writing and replay value, and new additions to the character roster, but criticized for the absence of certain elements from the first game, which many critics and players felt that "oversimplified" the gameplay. After almost ten years without a new entry in the "Marvel: Ultimate Alliance" series, a reboot, "", was released in July 2019 by Nintendo, without the involvement of Activision (whose license to publish Marvel games expired in 2014).


title: Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2

text: "Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2" borrows much of its gameplay from its . The game allows players to select a team of four given characters from a larger pool of heroes and villains; team members are interchangeable and may be swapped during gameplay. General gameplay mechanics are similar to those of the "X-Men Legends" series. The game is played from an isometric dungeon crawl perspective, supporting up to four players simultaneously. The Vicarious Visions version on PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One and PC consoles of the game also features online play via the PlayStation Network, Xbox Live, and Windows Live/Steam respectively.


title: Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2

text: The power system also has been improved, allowing two characters to combine powers, yielding a new attack, known as a ""fusion"". Each playable character in the game has a unique fusion with every other playable character in the game. An example is Captain America using his shield to reflect Storm's lightning bolts. Players have the ability to level up characters and earn new abilities and powers. The Vicarious Visions version on PS3, 360, PS4, Xbox One and PC consoles features an updated character progression system, with each character having four core powers that evolve as the character levels up. The n-Space version on Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 2, and PlayStation Portable consoles of the game resembles the character progression system found in the original "" and original "X-Men Legends", except the power set numbers are different, whereas the Nintendo DS version's power set number is limited to 4 powers limited like in the original "X-Men Legends".


title: Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2

text: The game begins with a military operation in Latveria, home of the supervillain Doctor Doom. "The story starts with "Secret War". We're using Nick Fury's invasion of Latveria as a jumping off point. The rest of the story is derived from the consequences of those actions", stated Dan Tanguay, creative director for Vicarious Visions.


title: Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2

text: The game then follows the "Civil War" story arc: a fight between heroes and villains causes an explosion in Stamford, Connecticut, killing 612 civilians (including a number of school children). The government labels the incident "super powered negligence", and the public demand a Superhuman Registration Act. The government passes the act, and all meta-humans are forced to adhere to or disobey the law. In the game, players are able to choose between the Pro-Registration side, headed by Iron Man and Mister Fantastic, or the Anti-Registration side, headed by Captain America and Luke Cage. These characters and several other characters are 'locked' into a specific side during the game's second act, but can be used on either side during repeat playthroughs. Two different endings are available, determined by the side chosen at the beginning of the game. Tanguay stated that the story follows into the aftermath of the Civil War.


title: Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2

text: Nick Fury leads a team of superheroes on an unsanctioned attack on Castle Doom in Latveria after discovering that the newly elected prime minister, Lucia von Bardas, has been supplying weapons to the Tinkerer, who in turn sells them to supervillains. After the defeats of her forces, Castle Doom is destroyed in an explosion, with Von Bardas assumed dead. One year later, Von Bardas returns as a cyborg, and joins forces with several villains to destroy New York City as revenge for the attack on Latveria. The heroes defeat Von Bardas, but the destruction and Fury's unlawful actions cause the U.S. government to consider the Superhuman Registration Act (SRA). In light of this incident, Fury disappears and Maria Hill is sworn in as the new Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., while Iron Man begins lobbying against the act in Washington, D.C.


title: Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2

text: Three days later during a telecast of "The New Warriors", Nitro kills over 600 civilians in Stamford, Connecticut, prompting the SRA's immediate passage. Opposing the act, Captain America goes underground, along with several other superheroes and S.H.I.E.L.D agents who form a group called "The White Star". In response, the Pro-Registration group develops nanite technology and use it to mind control several supervillains to increasing their ranks. At this point, the player is given the ability to side with Anti-Registration or Pro-Registration factions; the missions and boss encounters during the following chapters differ based on which side the player chooses. The two sides have several skirmishes, including a Pro-Registration raid on a White Star base, and an Anti-Registration attack on a prison convoy carrying their allies.


title: Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2

text: When the Anti-Registration heroes respond to a hostage situation at a Stark Industries chemical plant, Iron Man appears and reveals it to have been a hoax. He attempts to negotiate with Captain America, promising amnesty, but Captain America refuses and a battle ensues between the two factions. The nanite-controlled villains go haywire and attack the agents they were programmed to help, stealing explosives to destroy the facility. Disguised as one of the agents, Fury enlists the help of a group of heroes to disarm the bombs, but before he can disarm the final one, he is attacked by Venom. The explosion wounds the heroes and seemingly kills Fury, but he is revealed to be a Life Model Decoy. The real Fury saves the injured heroes and takes them to his hideout, where he has recruited the Tinkerer to help discover the malfunction's cause. To obtain a sample of the nanite formula, the group travels to Prison 42 in the Negative Zone, where most of the captured heroes and villains are held. They collect the samples and Fury activates the prison's self-destruct system to prevent the nanites' spread, but does not escape with the others; he and several other heroes are presumed dead.


title: Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2

text: The heroes learn the nanites survived and have now spread worldwide, causing the SRA's temporary suspension to combat the threat. A group of heroes travels to Wakanda, where they help Black Panther and the Dora Milaje defend the country from nanite agents, now under the moniker of "The Fold." Establishing a temporary base in Wakanda, they develop a cure and learn that Fury survived, now under the Fold's control. The heroes infiltrate a base in Iceland to broadcast a nanite stasis signal that will paralyze those in the Fold's control, allowing them to be cured. At the culmination of their mission, the heroes face off against Tinkerer, revealed to be the Fold's creator, and a nanite-controlled Nick Fury enhanced with numerous superpowers. After defeating Fury, everyone is freed from the nanites, and Fury receives a presidential pardon.


title: Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2

text: The game's ending depends on which side the player chose. In the Anti-Registration ending, Congress repeals the Superhero Registration Act and the President pardons the Anti-Registration heroes. In the Pro-Registration ending, Congress amends the Superhero Registration Act, making it voluntary, and Iron Man becomes the new Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.


title: Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2

text: The game includes some format-specific characters, with additional characters released as downloadable content. In addition, each character on the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions has one alternate costume that can be unlocked during the course of the game. Stan Lee, co-creator of Marvel Comics and creator of many of the characters, also lends his likeness and voice to New York senator Lieber; this marks the first time Stan has made a physical cameo in a video game. On April 1, 2009, Aunt May was announced to be a playable character on the official website as part of an April Fool's joke.


title: Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2

text: Several playable characters also appear as bosses throughout the game, such as battling Iron Man if the player chooses the Anti-Registration path, or facing Captain America on the Pro-Registration path. Other playable characters are unlocked by defeating them, such as Deadpool, Green Goblin and Venom.


title: Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2

text: Juggernaut was available as a pre-order bonus incentive for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions. A patch was released to allow those who do not have Juggernaut installed to play with others who have the character. On October 9, 2009, downloadable content was announced for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions, which included new characters and comic missions, as well as new achievements. It was released on November 5, 2009, for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Additionally the once pre-order exclusive character Juggernaut was available for $1.99/160MSP. The content was removed from both networks on December 31, 2009, with Activision claiming the content was "a limited time offer". On July 1, 2010, Activision re-released the DLC on Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network shortly thereafter, at Xbox Live where it was released on July 3, 2010, and at PlayStation Network where it was released on July 20, 2010. Players could purchase both the five-character DLC pack and the Juggernaut pre-order character for the same cost previously mentioned. Activision, however, stipulated that the content would only be available until December 31, 2010. The expansion packs returned to the European PlayStation Network in January 2012, but were not added back to Xbox Live. In January 2014, the packs were removed once again from the PlayStation Network. As the 2016 re-release is based on the Vicarious Visions versions, it includes all downloadable content by default.


title: Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2

text: The game was officially announced in a press release by Activision on February 8, 2008. "MUA2" was released on September 15, 2009. At E3 2008, it was given the official name of "Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2: Fusion", which would later be shortened to "Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2". On February 5, 2009, a new trailer was released, revealing that the story would continue from the Secret War saga into Marvel Comic's Civil War. Three days later, the game was featured at New York Comic Con, where players were able to take green screen pictures and have themselves superimposed into the game's backdrops.


title: Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2

text: Vicarious Visions, developers for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions, upgraded the Alchemy engine in several ways, including adding Havok physics technology, a new 3D sound system and syncing character's lips to dialogue. Vicarious Visions also had a development blog which began on February 6, 2009 and which is updated bi-monthly. Users could follow Vicarious Visions' creative director Dan Tanguay and executive producer Jennifer Oneal on Twitter as they answer questions and post news about "MUA2".


title: Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2

text: The Nintendo DS, PlayStation 2 and Nintendo Wii versions were developed by n-Space, with Savage Entertainment porting the PS2 version to the PSP. Version 3.5 of the Alchemy engine was used, and a team of around thirty developers worked approximately thirteen months to develop the game. Online multiplayer for the Wii is not supported due to time constraints during development. Several changes were made to the next-gen versions of MUA2 late during n-Space's development, accounting for the fact that Stan Lee does not cameo in these versions, that there are no alternate costumes, nor on-the-fly character swapping. n-Space created a series of articles to address fan concerns, the "perceived shortcoming[s]" of the game, and to answer questions. The Wii version of the game used WiiConnect24 to implement a feature known as B.R.A.G. (Broadcast Realtime Accomplishment Gloating), which allows players to share level results and high scores, and also features extensive use of the Wii remote for puzzles and manning turrets. Users could also follow n-Space president and founder Dan O'Leary via Twitter to receive updates on the game.


title: Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2

text: As of 2020, the multiplayer servers for "Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2", like other games published by Activision, have been shut down.


title: Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2

text: The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of "Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2" have received positive reviews from most critics, and Metacritic currently holds the game at 74/100 for the PlayStation 3 and 73/100 for the Xbox 360. Brian Michael Bendis, writer for Marvel Comics, was given an early opportunity to play the game, to which he later tweeted: "Happy to give a huge thumbs up for "Ultimate Alliance 2". The stills do it no justice. It's gorgeous". The Nintendo DS and Wii fared much poorer, holding 65/100 and 50/100 for their respective platforms.


title: Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2

text: "GameSpot" Kevin VanOrd stated that the game delivers "the button-mashing, power-flinging, over-the-top action fans of the original would expect", additionally praising the branched story and unlockables, citing additional replay value. However, the reviewer cited "technical oddities" and said that the "RPG elements were stripped down". "1Up.com" Thierry Nguyen was more critical, saying that the game was "like Ben Reilly: almost, but not quite as good as the original", citing issues with alternate costumes that "seem pretty lame", "a persistent feeling of oversimplification" and that a hope that "either Raven returns as the developer or Vicarious Visions learns from its missteps". He did however praise a "more coherent story", new fusion abilities, and gameplay tweaks. "IGN" Greg Miller gave the game a 7.7 /10, praising its new fusions and "healthy cast" but criticizing the game's similar gameplay to its predecessor, inconsistent voice acting, and its weak CG cutscenes.


title: Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2

text: The Xbox 360 and PlayStation versions were nominated for a 2009 D.I.C.E. Award for Outstanding Achievement in Adapted Story.


title: Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2

text: According to the NPD sales group the Xbox 360 version of "Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2" was seventh in sales for September 2009, selling 236,000 units. However, the sales dropped in October 2009, with the game no longer listed in the top ten in sales.


title: Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2

text: On December 6, 2018, a third game was announced in the "Ultimate Alliance" franchise titled "". Unlike the previous games which were released on multiple consoles, this installment is published by Nintendo as a Nintendo Switch exclusive. The game features a team of heroes uniting to prevent Thanos and the Black Order from obtaining the Infinity Stones.


title: Nacelle

text: A nacelle ( ) is a "streamlined body, sized according to what it contains", such as an engine, fuel, or equipment on an aircraft. When attached by a pylon entirely outside the airframe, it is sometimes called a pod, in which case it is attached with a pylon or strut and the engine is known as a podded engine. In some cases—for instance in the typical "Farman" type "pusher" aircraft, or the World War II-era P-38 Lightning—an aircraft cockpit may also be housed in a nacelle, rather than in a conventional fuselage.


title: Nacelle

text: The Arado Ar 234 was one of the first operational jet aircraft with engines mounted in nacelles. During its development, the four jet engines were merged from having four distinct nacelles, all of which contained their own landing gear wheel, to two nacelles with two engines each.


title: Nacelle

text: In recent years, General Electric and NASA have developed nacelles with chevron-shaped trailing edges to reduce the engine noise of commercial aircraft, using an experimental Boeing 777 as a test platform.


title: Nacelle

text: Usually, multi-engined aircraft use nacelles for housing the engines. Combat aircraft (such as the Eurofighter Typhoon) usually have the engines mounted within the fuselage. Some engines are installed in the aircraft wing, as in the De Havilland Comet and Flying Wing type aircraft. Engines may be mounted in individual nacelles, or in the case of larger aircraft such as the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress (pictured right) may have two engines mounted in a single nacelle. Nacelles can be made fully or partially detachable for holding expendable resources such as fuel and armaments. Nacelles may be used to house equipment that will only function remote from the fuselage, for example the Boeing E-3 Sentry radar is housed in a nacelle called a radome.


title: Nacelle

text: The primary design issue with aircraft-mounted nacelles is streamlining to minimize drag so nacelles are mounted on slender pylons. This can cause issues with routing the necessary conduits required for the equipment mounted within the nacelle to connect to the aircraft through such a narrow space. This is especially a concern with nacelles housing engines, as the fuel lines and control lines for multiple engine functions must all go through the pylon.


title: Nacelle

text: It is often necessary for nacelles to be asymmetrical, but aircraft designers try to keep asymmetrical elements to a minimum to reduce operator maintenance costs associated with having two sets of parts for either side of the aircraft.


title: The X-Files (season 9)

text: The ninth season of the American science fiction television series "The X-Files" commenced airing in the United States on November 11, 2001, concluded on May 19, 2002, and consists of twenty episodes. The season takes place after Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) goes into hiding, following the events of the eighth season finale, "Existence". As such, the main story arc for the season follows Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), John Doggett (Robert Patrick), and Monica Reyes (Annabeth Gish) on their hunt to reveal a government conspiracy involving the elaborate and malevolent creation of the "Super Soldiers".


title: The X-Files (season 9)

text: For this season, former series' leads Duchovny and Anderson scaled back their involvement with the show, with Duchovny only starring in the two episodes that formed the season finale, "The Truth". Doggett and Reyes became the show's central characters, and former recurring character Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi) became a main character. Series creator Chris Carter had hopes that the show could continue on with new leads, and the opening credits were accordingly redesigned again.


title: The X-Files (season 9)

text: Season nine received mixed reviews by critics and garnered negative reaction from many long-time fans and viewers, partially because Duchovny did not make regular appearances on the show, after fulfilling his contract in the previous season. During this year, ratings for the season fell dramatically. Critics blamed it on what they considered an increasingly incoherent story arc, whilst the cast and crew ascribed the drop in viewership to the September 11 attacks. Regardless, Fox eventually decided to cancel the series.


title: The X-Files (season 9)

text: During the airing of season eight, Carter and "The X-Files" production team had created and aired a spinoff titled "The Lone Gunmen". The show was unsuccessful and was canceled before any story arcs were resolved, but "The X-Files" episode "Jump the Shark" was written to give closure to the series. The "X-Files" storyline was continued with the 2008 theatrical film "" and later with a tenth season in 2016 and an eleventh season in 2018.


title: The X-Files (season 9)

text: After the eighth season finale "Existence", Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) goes into hiding. Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) is again reassigned to the FBI Academy, and Monica Reyes (Annabeth Gish) becomes John Doggett's (Robert Patrick) new FBI partner in the X-Files office. Doggett asks Scully for help on a case involving an EPA official, Carl Wormus (Nicholas Walker), who died after his car was forced off a bridge by a woman he picked up. Doggett and Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi) travel to a reclamation plant, looking for links between Wormus' work and death. After doing an illegal autopsy on Wormus, Alvin Kersh (James Pickens, Jr.) sends Brad Follmer (Cary Elwes) to locate Doggett. The investigation at the reclamation plant leads to an unknown woman, whose identity is later revealed to be Shannon McMahon (Lucy Lawless), one of Doggett's former Marine associates. She reveals to Doggett that she is a "Super Soldier". This leads them to a clandestine laboratory where a secret experiment is taking place on board on a naval ship. They later find connections between the experiments on the ship and Scully's child, William.


title: The X-Files (season 9)

text: After Scully begins to miss Mulder, a complete stranger—the "Shadow Man" (Terry O'Quinn)—offers his service to drive Mulder out of hiding. Scully takes the offer, but unknowingly gets herself and Mulder in even more danger. The "Shadow Man", who is revealed to be a "Super Soldier" bent on killing Scully and Mulder. After a chase through a quarry, the "Shadow Man" is destroyed after being exposed to magnetite. Later, Scully, Doggett and Reyes find evidence of a dangerous UFO cult which has uncovered a second spacecraft similar to one Scully studied in Africa three years ago. Misled by the FBI, the agents enlist the help of The Lone Gunmen to protect Scully's son after they learn that the cult intends to kill the child. The cult, however, is successful in kidnapping the child. Concurrent with these events, Doggett is run over by a car, which sends him to the hospital. As Follmer and the "Toothpick Man" (Alan Dale) try to uncover the plans of the three agents, Scully and Reyes leave Washington, D.C. to find Scully's son.


title: The X-Files (season 9)

text: Doggett finds a strange disfigured man in the X-Files office; believing he is Mulder, Scully has his DNA tested, and the results reveal him to have the same pattern as Mulder. The disfigured man sticks a needle into William, which the other agents believe to be a virus of some kind, but it is later revealed to be a cure for William's powers. The unnamed man is later revealed to be Jeffrey Spender (Chris Owens), Mulder's half-brother. In the season finale, Mulder returns from hiding in the attempts of finding classified information at an army base. He is caught, however, after allegedly killing an apparently indestructible "Super Soldier", which causes him to be tried before a military tribunal. With the help of Kersh, Scully, Reyes, Doggett, Spender, Marita Covarrubias (Laurie Holden) and Gibson Praise (Jeff Gulka), Mulder breaks out, and Mulder and Scully travel to New Mexico to find an old "wise man", later revealed to be the "Cigarette Smoking Man" (William B. Davis). He tells the two that aliens will begin colonizing the planet on December 22, 2012. Cigarette Smoking Man appears to be killed by a missile, launched under the command of Knowle Rohrer (Adam Baldwin), who is revealed to be alive and well. Mulder and Scully escape, but become fugitives on the run from the FBI. The final scene of the season features the two in a motel room facing an uncertain—but possibly hopeful—future.


title: The X-Files (season 9)

text: Following the eighth season of "The X-Files", David Duchovny announced that he would be completely leaving the show. As such, the future of the show was up in the air. Before greenlighting a ninth season, neither the Fox Network nor any of the Ten Thirteen Productions members knew if creator Chris Carter would return for another season. With this being said, he encouraged the other members of the crew to continue the series without him. Eventually, however, several crew members began to develop new scripts ideas for the ninth season, many of which excited Carter. This new-found enthusiasm eventually caused Carter to sign a contract with Fox for another year. Likewise, Anderson signed on at the last minute, with her contract extension only lasting until the end of 2002; she specifically stated that she would leave the show following the conclusion of the season. Due to the changes in the cast, during the ninth season Doggett and Reyes became the series' new leads. Executive producer Frank Spotnitz speculated that the show could extend into a tenth and possibly eleventh season, if the show was able to attract an audience. However, the show lost viewers and was eventually cancelled by Fox.


title: The X-Files (season 9)

text: With the news of the impending end to the series, the crew members decided to wrap up long-running plots. "Jump the Shark", the final episode to feature the Lone Gunmen, served as a "de facto" series finale for the cancelled "X-Files" spin-off series "The Lone Gunmen". Executive producer and co-writer Frank Spotnitz had to fight to get the episode made; the studio informed Spotnitz that they did not want to bring the characters back in any capacity, as Fox reportedly "hated [the] characters". Similarly, "Release" was written to create closure to the story of the murder of Doggett's son.


title: The X-Files (season 9)

text: The show's crew and actors had a range of opinions about the show's finale, "The Truth". Carter said of the finale, "It's the end—you don't get another chance. So you'd better put everything you've ever wanted to put in into the episode. There were things to distract from what was going on. The band was breaking up." Gish said, "It did feel like a big movie set. We were on location, there was an enormous budget, and everyone came back." Davis said, "It was great that they brought us all back in the finale, that they found a way to get us all in again." Pileggi said, "I can remember the last day on the set. We shot a scene with Gillian and myself, and that was it. And then I had to say goodbye to another family, another crew. I almost teared up, and Gillian was standing there looking at me saying 'Okay, go ahead, big guy; get through this.' It was tough." Patrick said, "It was pretty euphoric, and sad, and all those emotions you can imagine. A chapter's closing, and we're all moving on to something new and exciting. And yet we were all going to miss each other." Kim Manners called the final scene "truly one of the most emotional experiences I've ever witnessed in my life." Former lead actor Duchovny said, "In some ways, psychically I didn't really leave. It was nice to be able to – I'm just really happy that I was able to come back and finish it."


title: The X-Files (season 9)

text: With "Nothing Important Happened Today", the style of the opening credits was changed from the original credits, which, more or less, had been the same for the previous eight seasons. The credits included new graphics as well as new cards for Gish and Pileggi. In addition, Elwes was cast to portray the new recurring character, Brad Follmer, an Assistant Director at the FBI, and Alan Dale was also written into the show as a new "villain", the "Toothpick Man". Lucy Lawless was cast as the intended-recurring character Shannon McMahon, but she became pregnant after filming the season premiere, and—due to her high-risk pregnancy—had to leave the series.


title: The X-Files (season 9)

text: After the departure of Duchovny, the show garnered much criticism by fans and critics alike, with many saying that the bond between Mulder and Scully was what actually kept the show together for the first seven seasons of the show. Realizing his importance in the series, Chris Carter and his crew opened negotiations with Duchovny in the hopes that he would reprise his character for the finale. Initially, they were unsure if he would appear, but he eventually elected to return. Spotnitz said, "My impression from talking to him was that he still cares about the show. He's still invested in it and certainly cares about [Mulder]. And I think he recognized that it was the best thing for the show and the audience [for him] to come back and give closure to nine years of the series." Not only did Duchovny return for the finale, he also returned to write and direct the episode "William"; he even had a small cameo in the episode, appearing as a reflection in Scully's eye. Three episodes later, Duchovny returned as an actor for the season finale, "The Truth".


title: The X-Files (season 9)

text: Chris Carter served as executive producer and showrunner for the season and wrote nine episodes, including the two-part season premiere and season finale, as well as important mytharc episodes. Spotnitz continued as executive producer and wrote seven episodes, plus receiving story credit for an additional episode. Vince Gilligan continued as executive producer and wrote three episodes. John Shiban was promoted to executive producer and wrote two episodes, plus receiving story credit for an additional episode. David Amann was promoted to supervising producer and wrote two episodes. Steven Maeda was promoted to executive story editor and wrote two episodes. Former writer for "The Lone Gunmen" Thomas Schnauz joined the writing staff as a story editor and wrote two episodes. Duchovny received story credit for a single episode.


title: The X-Files (season 9)

text: Manners continued as co-executive producer and directed the most of episodes of the season with eight, including the two-part season finale. Tony Wharmby directed three episodes. Series creator Chris Carter directed two episodes. Co-executive producer Michelle MacLaren and series writer John Shiban each made their directorial debuts, directing one episode. Series writers Frank Spotnitz and Vince Gilligan each directed an episode, after previously directing their first episodes the previous season. The remaining episodes were directed by Dwight Little, Cliff Bole, and cast member David Duchovny.


title: The X-Files (season 9)

text: The first episode of the season, "Nothing Important Happened Today", gathered 10.6 million viewers, whereas the second part gathered 9.4 million viewers. On May 19, 2002, the series finale, "The Truth", aired, and the Fox Broadcasting Company confirmed that "The X-Files" was not being renewed for a tenth season. When talking about the beginning of the ninth season, Chris Carter said, "We lost our audience on the first episode. It's like the audience had gone away, and I didn't know how to find them. I didn't want to work to get them back because I believed what we are doing deserved to have them back." "The Truth" received the highest Nielsen household rating and viewership numbers of the season. It earned a 7.5 rating and gathered 13.25 million viewers in the United States. The loss of viewers resulted in this season seeing a 30 percent ratings drop when compared to the eighth season.


title: The X-Files (season 9)

text: Sabadino Parker from "PopMatters", when commenting on the series finale, said, "It's also for the good, because "The X-Files" has long been but a pale reflection of the show it once was." Brian Linder from "IGN" was more positive to the ninth season, saying that the series could still have aired if the writers created a new storyline for Robert Patrick and Annabeth Gish's character, which "The X-Files" crew did not do and continued what was seen by many critics as tiresome. Aaron Kinney from "Salon" magazine was more negative to the new season, even joking about the new female lead, calling her a "peppy new female presence." "Entertainment Weekly" reviewer Ken Tucker said the show operated in what he called "quaint territory", speculating that Chris Carter was the only one who seemed to understand the complex mytharc. Elizabeth Weinbloom from "The New York Times" concluded with, "shoddy writing notwithstanding, it was this halfhearted culmination of what was once a beautifully complicated friendship", between Mulder and Scully, ended remaining interest in what was a "waning phenomenon". Another review from "The New York Times" said of the show, "The most imaginative show on television has finally reached the limits of its imagination." "The A.V. Club" listed the ninth season and the 2008 film "" as the "bad apple" of "The X-Files", describing the ninth season as "clumsy mish-mash of stuff that had once worked and new serialized storylines about so-called 'super soldiers'". M.A. Crang, in his book "Denying the Truth: Revisiting The X-Files after 9/11", noted that season nine "does not have a great reputation among viewers". However he argued that the season contains a few "hidden gems" and praised those episodes which dealt with new material, while criticising other entries for focusing too heavily on "plotlines and characters from years gone by".


title: Persecutory delusion

text: A persecutory delusion is a common type of delusional condition in which the affected person believes that harm is going to occur to oneself by a persecutor, despite a clear lack of evidence. The person may believe that they are being targeted by an individual or a group of people. Persecution delusions are very diverse in terms of content and vary from the possible, albeit improbable, to the completely bizarre. The delusion can be found in a multitude of disorders being more usual in psychotic disorders, such as schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder and delusional disorder.


title: Persecutory delusion

text: Persecutory delusion is at the more severe side of the paranoia spectrum and it often induces anxiety, depression and sleep disturbance, patients with this delusion have also been found to have a low self-esteem. Persecutory delusions have a high percentage to be acted upon, such as not leaving the house due to fear or acting violently. Persecutory type is a common type of delusion and is more prevalent in males. Theory of mind deficits are present in people with this delusion.


title: Persecutory delusion

text: As with others disorders it is thought that persecutory delusions is a combination of genetic and environment factors. This type of delusion is difficult to treat. A couple of methods are used, therapy, specifically cognitive behavioral therapy, medications, namely first and second generation antipsychotics and hospitalization in severe cases.


title: Persecutory delusion

text: Persecutory delusions are persistent, distressing beliefs that one is or will be harmed, they continue even in the face of evidence. This condition is mainly seen on schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, delusional disorder but can also be found on manic episodes of bipolar disorder, psychotic depression, and personality disorder. Alongside delusional jealousy, persecutory delusions are the most common types of delusion in males and are a frequent symptom of psychosis. The delusions are often paired with anxiety, depression, and disturbed sleep. People with persecutory delusions have an increased difficulty in attributing mental states to oneself in addition to others and oftentimes misread others' intentions as a result.


title: Persecutory delusion

text: The degree of functionality in people who suffer from persecutory delusions is considered normal, though people who present with this form of delusion are often in the bottom 2% in terms of psychological well-being. A correlation has also been found between the delta of imagined power the persecutor has and the control the sufferer has over the delusion. Those with a higher delta between the two factors have a higher rate of depression and anxiety. In urban environments, going outside leads people with this delusion to have a major increases in levels of paranoia, anxiety, depression and lower self-esteem. People with this delusion often live a more inactive life and are at a higher risk of developing high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease, having a lifespan 14.5 years less than the average in their area as a result.


title: Persecutory delusion

text: Those with persecutory delusions have the highest risk of acting upon those thoughts, such as by not leaving the house out of the fear of being harmed, or acting violently due to a perceived threat. Safety behaviors are also frequently found, individuals who feel threatened perform actions in order to avert their feared delusion from occurring. Avoidance is commonly observed, people with this delusion might avoid going to the mall or the metro where they feared harm. Individuals also try to lessen the threat, such as only leaving the house with a trusted person, reduce their visibility by taking alternative routes, increase their vigilance by looking up and down the street, or acted as if they would resist attack by being prepared to strike out.


title: Persecutory delusion

text: A study assessing schizophrenia patients with persecutory delusions found remarkably higher levels of childhood emotional abuse within those people but found no differences of trauma, physical abuse, physical neglect and sexual abuse. Biological elements, such as chemical imbalances in the brain and alcohol and drug use are a contributing factor to persecutory delusions, genetic elements are also thought to influence, family members with schizophrenia and delusional disorder are at a higher risk of developing persecutory delusion.


title: Persecutory delusion

text: Persecutory delusions has been difficult to treat and is therapy resistant. Medications for schizophrenia are often used, especially when positive symptoms are present. Both first-generation antipsychotics and second-generation antipsychotics may be useful. Since these delusions are often accompanied with worry, using cognitive behavioral therapy to tackle this thought has shown to reduce the frequency of the delusions itself, improvement of well-being and less rumination. Vitamin B12 supplements have shown positive results in treating patients with persecutory delusion. Virtual reality cognitive therapy has a way to treat persecutory delusions, has shown a reduction in paranoid thinking and distress. Virtual reality permits patients to be immersed in world that replicates real life but with a decreased amount of fear, patients are then proposed to fully explore the environment without engaging in safety behaviors, thus challenging their perceived threat has unfounded.


title: Persecutory delusion

text: The "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders" (DSM-5) enumerates seven types of delusions and the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) defines fifteen types of delusions both including persecutory delusion. They state that it's a common type of delusion that includes the belief that the person or someone close to the person is being maliciously treated, this encompasses thoughts that oneself has been drugged, spied upon, harmed, mocked, cheated, conspired against, persecuted, harassed and so on and may procure justice by making reports, taking action or responding violently.


title: Persecutory delusion

text: Two psychologist, Daniel Freeman and Philippa Garety have advanced a diagnostic table for persecutory delusion divided in two criteria that must be met, the individual believes that harm is going to occur to oneself at the present or future and that the harm is made by a persecutor. There's also points of clarification, the delusion has to cause distress to the individual, only harm to someone close to the person doesn't count as a persecutory delusion, the individual must believe that the persecutor will attempt to harm him or her and delusions of reference do not count within the category of persecutory beliefs.


title: Persecutory delusion

text: When the focus is to remedy some injustice by legal action, persecutory delusions are sometimes called "querulous paranoia". Querulous paranoia is found more frequently on males between 40 and 60 years old.


title: Persecutory delusion

text: In cases where reporters of stalking behavior have been judged to be making false reports, a majority of them were judged to be delusional.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: Castilla–La Mancha (, , ), or Castile La Mancha, is an autonomous community of Spain. Comprising the provinces of Albacete, Ciudad Real, Cuenca, Guadalajara and Toledo, it was created in 1982. The government headquarters are in Toledo, and its largest city is in Albacete.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: The region largely occupies the southern half of the Iberian Peninsula's Inner Plateau, including large parts of the catchment areas of the Tagus, the Guadiana and the Júcar, while the northeastern relief comprises the Sistema Ibérico mountain massif.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: It is bordered by Castile and León, Madrid, Aragon, Valencia, Murcia, Andalusia, and Extremadura. It is one of the most sparsely populated of Spain's regions. Albacete, Guadalajara, Toledo, Talavera de la Reina and Ciudad Real concentrate the largest urban areas in the region.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: Castilla–La Mancha is located in the middle of the Iberian peninsula, occupying the greater part of the Submeseta Sur, the vast plain composing the southern part of the Meseta Central. The Submeseta Sur (and the autonomous community) is separated from the Submeseta Norte (and the community of Castilla y León) by the mountain range known as the Sistema Central. Despite this, the region has no shortage of mountain landscapes: the southern slopes of the aforementioned Sistema Central in the north, the Sistema Ibérico in the northeast, and the Sierra Morena and Montes de Toledo in the south.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: Castilla–La Mancha is the third largest of Spain's autonomous regions, with a surface area of , representing 15.7 percent of Spain's national territory.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: The regional urban structure is polycentric, with no dominant central city. Insofar the largest municipality (Albacete) is located in the peripheral southeast, Madrid (outside the region), exerts influence over the extension of the so-called into the province of Guadalajara (including the provincial capital) as well as the north of the province of Toledo. The rest of urban centres lie on the central plains (with for example, the presence of intermediate agro-cities in La Mancha), contrasting with the sparsedly populated mountains and other peripheral areas.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: The Meseta is the dominant landscape unit of a great part of the territory of Castilla–La Mancha: a vast, uniform plain with little relief.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: The west-to-east Montes de Toledo range cuts across the meseta separating the (northern) Tagus and the (southern) Guadiana drainage basins. The most outstanding peaks of this modest mountain range include La Villuerca () and Rocigalgo ().


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: In contrast, a more mountainous zone surrounds the Meseta and serves as the region's natural border. In the north of the Province of Guadalajara, bordering Madrid and Segovia, is a mountain range forming part of the Sistema Central, among which can be distinguished the mountain ranges Pela, Ayllón, Somosierra, Barahona and Ministra, with the headwaters of the rivers Jarama, Cañamares and Henares. The Sistema Central also penetrates the northwest of the Province of Toledo: a southwest to northeast sub-range known as the Sierra de San Vicente, bordered on the north by the Tiétar and on the south by the Alberche and the Tagus, rising up to its maximum heights at the summits of Cruces (1373 m), Pelados (1331 m) and San Vicente (1321 m).


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: On the northwest is the Sistema Ibérico, where there is important fluvial and especially karstic activity, which has given rise to such landscapes as the Ciudad Encantada, the Callejones de Las Majadas and the Hoces del Cabriel.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: In the southeast is the ridge of the Sierra Morena, the southern border of the Meseta Central and the region's border with Andalusia. Within the Sierra Morena, distinction can be made between the Sierra Madrona, Sierra de Alcudia and Sierra de San Andrés. At the other southern extreme of Castilla–La Mancha, the Sierra de Alcaraz and Sierra del Segura form part of the Sistema Bético.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: The territory of Castilla–La Mancha is divided into five principal watersheds. The Tagus, Guadiana, and Guadalquivir drain into the Atlantic Ocean and the Júcar and Segura into the Mediterranean Sea. The Tagus provides water for some 587,000 inhabitants in a watershed of . It includes the entire province of Guadalajara and the greater part of the province of Toledo, including the two largest cities of the latter province: the capital, Toledo, as well as Talavera de la Reina.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: The Guadiana watershed extends in Castilla–La Mancha, 37 percent of that river's entire watershed, with a population of 583,259 inhabitants. It includes the southern part of the province of Toledo, nearly all of the province of Ciudad Real (except the very south), the southwest of the province of Cuenca and the northwest of the province of Albacete. The Guadalquivir watershed extends over 5.2 percent of the surface area of the autonomous community, extending through the southern parts of the provinces of Ciudad Real and Albacete, including such important population center as Puertollano.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: The Júcar watershed had, in 2006, 397,000 inhabitants in an area of , 19.9 percent of the Castillian-Manchegan territory and 36.6 percent of total of the Júcar watershed. It includes the eastern parts of the provinces of Cuenca and Albacete, including their respective capitals. Finally, the 34 municipalities of southeastern Albacete fall in the Segura watershed, with an extent of .


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: Castilla–La Mancha has a continentalized Mediterranean climate: a Mediterranean climate with a marked character of a continental climate. The continentalized Mediterranean climate is similar to a typical Mediterranean climate, but with more extreme temperatures typical of a continental climate. Lack of a marine influence leads to much more extreme temperatures: hotter summers and quite cold winters, with a daily oscillation of 18.5 °C (33.3 °F). Summer is the driest season, with temperatures often exceeding , sometimes reaching and exceeding . In winter, temperatures often drop below , producing frosts on clear nights, and occasional snow on cloudy nights.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: Castilla–La Mancha is part of what has traditionally been called "España Seca" ("Dry Spain"). It receives relatively scarce precipitation, much as in a typical Mediterranean climate. Precipitation presents a notable gradient from the center of the region, where it does not surpass per year, to the mountains where it can exceed per year, on the slopes of the Sierra de Gredos and the Serranía de Cuenca. The greater part of the region has less than of rain annually. The driest part of the region is along the Albacete-Hellín axis, with less than per year.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: The presents material linked to the transition from earlier settlers to the Early Acheulean. Archaeological sites related to the Middle Acheulean in the current-day region lie on the Campo de Calatrava as well as in the source of the Villanueva river, the Guadiana catchment area and the Segura catchment area. The Upper Acheulean sites are mostly located within the limits of the current-day province of Ciudad Real, substantially increasing in number and territorial spread across the region for the ensuing Middle Paleolithic. The Upper Paleolithic in the region presents instances of the art of the Upper Paleolithic in the Serranía del Alto Tajo and the Upper Júcar. There are instances of Cardium pottery in Caudete from the Early Neolithic.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: In the 2nd century BC, by the time of the advent of the Roman conquest wars, the first actual cities had begun to grow in the inner plateau. The Roman conquest brought substantial transformations to the Carpetani urban settlements, including the social division between slaves and freemen, the monetary economy, the fostering of manufacture and trade or the new Roman acculturation.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: Built from scratch on state initiative, the founding of the city of Reccopolis by Visigoths in the late 6th century was a singular development in the context of the European Early Middle Ages.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: Following the 8th century Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, just after the 741 Berber Revolt, the so-called Middle March of Al-Andalus ("al-Ťāğr al-Awsat") was created as territorial sub-division, existing for the rest of the ensuing emiral and caliphal period of Al-Andalus. During this era, the Middle March had eminently a military nature, both shielding the core of Al-Andalus from the raids of the Northern Christian polities as well as serving as staging ground for Muslim offensive campaigns against the former. Berber clans such as the Masmuda Banu-Salim (linked to the founders of Guadalajara) or the Hawwara Banu Zennun (based in the ) had an important role in the Muslim settlement of parts of the Middle March. The city of Toledo stood distinctly unruly towards the Cordobese authorities, and remained a major city of al-Andalus, preserving quite of its former importance and hosting a leading cultural centre that lasted even after the Christian conquest.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: As consequence of the fitna of al-Andalus in the early 11th century, an independent polity with its center in Toledo (the Taifa of Toledo), emerged, roughly occupying the territory of the current-day provinces of Toledo, Ciudad Real, Guadalajara and Cuenca (as well as that of Madrid),


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: Following the Christian conquest of Toledo in 1085, the ensuing unsuccessful attempts by North-African Almoravids and Almohads to take the city turned the territory of the inner plateau south of the Tagus subject to extreme warfare for about a century and a half. The military insecurity south of the Tagus constrained the colonisation process undertaken by the new Castilian rulers. This underpinned the features of a sparse population in the region; as a result, ranching became a mainstay of the economy, which later led to the leading role of the military orders. The latter controlled over 20,000 km in the region of "La Mancha", managed from just 25 castles. The weak Christian grip over the territory collapsed after their crushing defeat from the Almohads in Alarcos (1195). Christian control south of the Tagus would only start to consolidate after the 1212 battle of Las Navas. The weak settlement and insecurity also allowed for countryside banditry (the so-called "golfines") in the area of the Montes de Toledo until its progressive quelling, already effective by the late 13th century. By that time, rural beekeepers self-organised to repel the predatory practices in the by the golfines, whose presence in the Montes de Toledo was further obliterated by the creation of the so-called "hermandades viejas" by councils at Toledo, Talavera or Villa Real in the dawn of the 14th century.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: Despite a poorly representative degree of permeability, urban oligarchies in the current-day region during the Late Middle Ages were largely perpetuated by means of lineage, through inheritance and marriage. Following the ascension of the Trastámaras, the territory of the current-day province of Toledo underwent a process of seigneuralization, and a number of non-religious lordships were progressively created in the area. The 15th century also brought a growing importance of the political elites belonging to towns of the southern meseta in the affairs of the Crown of Castile relative to the prior uncontested preponderance of those elites from towns north of the Sistema Central.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: Throughout the 18th century, following the War of Spanish Succession, the Spanish Bourbon monarchs sought to equilibrate the commercial balance with the exterior carrying out an economic policy that tried to foster industrial capacity through economic interventionism. The State shall either stimulate the capacity of private capital or simply provide the capital itself. Examples of royal manufactures created in the 18th century included the Real Fábrica de Paños in Guadalajara, the in Talavera de la Reina, or the in Brihuega.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: The current provincial configuration roughly dates from the 1833 division by Javier de Burgos, establishing the outline of the modern provinces of Albacete, Ciudad Real, Cuenca, Guadalajara and Toledo, bar relatively minor later adjustments. Albacete was part, together with Murcia of a wider region, whereas Ciudad Real, Cuenca, Guadalajara, and Toledo formed a region together with the Province of Madrid, "New Castile". The justice administration stood in between the national and provincial levels of government (also unaligned with the purported regional classification insofar Albacete is concerned), with the "audiencia" of Albacete managing the provinces of Albacete, Cuenca and Ciudad Real, and the "audiencia" of Madrid managing the provinces of Toledo and Guadalajara (and that of Madrid).


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: The aforementioned modifications to the 1833 division include the party of Villena (lost by Albacete to Alicante in 1836), Requena (lost by Cuenca to Valencia in 1851), Villarrobledo (lost by Ciudad Real to Albacete circa 1846) or Valdeavero (lost by Guadalajara to Madrid in 1850). The provincial government institution was the "provincial deputation".


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: The agrarian capitalism favoured by the bourgueoise in the 19th century enshrined an economy based on cereal commodities and the primary sector, favouring the leveling of the reduced industrial activity—chiefly textile—in the territory corresponding to the current-day region, whereas mining output—with sites such of the mercury deposits in Almadén or the coal deposits in Puertollano—remained below potential. A silver rush broke out in the mining district around Hiendelaencina after 1844. Large-scale mining of lead and zinc in San Quintín (province of Ciudad Real) ensued in between 1884 and 1934. The arrival of railway transport in the mid 19th-century subordinated the interests of the provinces to those of Madrid and the Levante, although it fostered the development of some urban centres such as those of Alcázar de San Juan, Manzanares and Albacete. The five provinces lost relative demographic weight relative to the national total over the course of the century.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: The territory of the current-day region was singularly affected by the "desamortizaciones", particularly those of Mendizábal and Madoz. From 1836 to 1924 of land were auctioned (1,100,000 hectares of municipal properties and the rest church's property). They were purchased by the political and economic elites of the country.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: Under the auspices of the 1978 Constitution, a decree-law was issued on 15 November 1978, establishing the conditions of the "pre-autonomous regime" of the "Castilian-Manchegan region". A joint assembly of legislators and provincial deputies of the provinces of Albacete, Ciudad Real, Cuenca, Guadalajara, Toledo was established in Manzanares in 1981 to draft the early sketch of the regional statute. On 17 June 1982, the Congress of Deputies approved the final text of the regional statute (an organic law), which was later published on 16 August 1982, giving birth to the autonomous community of "Castilla-La Mancha". The constituent process of the autonomous community was sealed with the election of the first regional legislature in May 1983 and the ensuing investiture of José Bono as regional president. By December 1983 still less than half of citizens actually knew the autonomous community they belonged to.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: Since its opening in 1979 the Tagus-Segura Water Transfer has caused a severe social-economic impact on the region, with the water resources available in the Tagus headwaters decreasing by about a 47.5% after 1980.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: Castilla–La Mancha is divided into 5 provinces named after their capital cities. The following category includes:


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: According to the official data of the INE, Castilla–La Mancha consists of 919 municipalities, which amount to 11.3 percent of all the municipalities in Spain. 496 of these have less than 500 inhabitants, 231 have between 501 and 2,000 inhabitants, 157 between 2,000 and 10,000 inhabitants, and only 35 have more than 10,000 inhabitants. The municipalities in the north are small and numerous, while in the south they are larger and fewer. This reflects different histories of how these sub-regions were repopulated during the "Reconquista".


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: The Organic Law 9/1982 (August 10, 1982), which is the Statute of Autonomy of Castilla–La Mancha established the flag of Castilla–La Mancha and the law 1/1983 (30 June 1983) established the coat of arms.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: Seven different designs for a flag were proposed during the era of the "pre-autonomous" region. The selected design was that of heraldist Ramón José Maldonado. This was made official in Article 5 of the Statute of Autonomy:


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: The coat of arms of Castilla–La Mancha is based on the flag of the region, and not the other way around, as is more typical in heraldry. Article 1 of the law 1/1983 describes it as follows:


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: Some institutions of the region have adopted this coat of arms as part of their own emblem, among these the Cortes of Castilla–La Mancha, the Consultative Council and the University of Castilla–La Mancha.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: Although Article 5 of the Statute of Autonomy indicates that the region will have its own anthem, after more than 25 years no such anthem has been adopted. Among the proposed anthems have been the "Canción del Sembrador" ("Song of the Sower") from the zarzuela "La rosa del azafrán" by Jacinto Guerrero, the "Canto a la Mancha" ("Song of La Mancha") by Tomás Barrera, and many others, such as one presented by a group of citizens from Villarrobledo with the title "Patria sin fin" ("Fatherland without end").


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: Article 8 of the Statute of Autonomy states that the powers of the region are exercised through the Junta of Communities of Castilla–La Mancha ("Junta de Comunidades de Castilla–La Mancha"). Organs of the Junta are the Cortes of Castilla–La Mancha, the President of the Junta and the Council of Government.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: The Cortes of Castilla–La Mancha represent the popular will through 33 deputies elected by universal adult suffrage through the secret ballot. They are elected for a term of four years under a proportional system intended to guarantee representation to the various territorial zones of Castilla–La Mancha. The electoral constituency is at the level of each province, with provinces being assigned the following number of deputies as of 2009: Albacete, 6; Ciudad Real, 8; Cuenca, 5; Guadalajara, 5; and Toledo, 9. Article 10 of the Statute of Autonomy states that elections will be convoked by the President of the Junta of Communities, following the General Electoral Regime ("Régimen Electoral General"), on the fourth Sunday in May every four years. This stands in contrast to the autonomous communities of the Basque Country, Catalonia, Galicia, Andalusia and the Valencian Community where the president has the power to convoke elections at any time. (In the Valencian Community that power has never been exercised. Elections there have, in practice, taken place on a four-year cycle.)


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: Since the Spanish regional elections of 2015, the Cortes of Castilla–La Mancha has consisted of 16 deputies from the conservative People's Party, 15 from the socialist PSOE and 2 from the left-wing Podemos. The Cortes sits in the former Franciscan convent in Toledo, the "Edificio de San Gil" ("San Gil building").


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: The Council of Government is the collegial executive organ of the region. It directs regional political and administrative action, exercises an executive function and regulatory powers under the Spanish Constitution of 1978, the Statute of Autonomy, and the laws of the nation and region. The Council of Government consists of the president, vice presidents (if any) and the Councilors.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: The President of the Junta directs the Council of Government and coordinates the functions of its members. The president is elected by the Cortes from among its members, then formally named by the monarch of Spain. The president's official residence is the Palace of Fuensalida in Toledo.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: Large parts of the region are experiencing a demographic decline. In contrast, besides the provincial capitals, two specific areas bordering the Madrid region associated to the Madrid metropolitan area have experienced a population growth well above the national average: La Sagra (around the A-42 highway) and the Henares Corridor (around the A-2). Overall, as of 2016, the NUTS-2 region of Castilla–La Mancha featured an average index of demographic vulnerability of 30, similar to those of the European regions of Upper Palatinate (Germany), Styria (Austria), Catalonia (Spain), Overijssel (Netherlands) and Campania (Italy).


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: According to the official 11 January 2008 data of the INE Castilla–La Mancha has 2,043,100 inhabitants in its five provinces. Despite being the third largest of Spains communities by surface area (after Castilla y León and Andalusia), it is only the ninth most populous. Castilla–La Mancha has just 4.4 percent of Spain's population.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: With an average population density of , Castilla–La Mancha has the least dense population in all of Spain: the national average is . Industrialized zones such as the Henares Corridor (along the river Henares, a tributary of the Jarama) with a density of , the comarca of la Sagra or the industrial zone of Sonseca are dramatically more dense than the region as a whole.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: The population pyramid of Castilla–La Mancha is typical for a developed region, with the central zone wider than the base or the upper zone. The population between 16 and 44 years of age represents about 44 percent, from 45 to 64 about 21.3 percent, with those 15 and under constituting 15 percent and those over 65, 18 percent. These data show the progressive aging of the "castellanomanchego" population.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: The region has about 9,000 more males than females; in percentage terms, 50.3 percent versus 49.7 percent. This is opposite to Spain as a whole, where women constitute 50.8 percent of the population.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: According to 2006 INE numbers, the birth rate in Castilla–La Mancha is 10.21 per thousand inhabitants, lower than the national average of 10.92 per thousand. The death rate is 8.83 per thousand inhabitants, higher than the national average of 8.42 per thousand.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: Life expectancy at birth is one of the highest in Spain: 83.67 years for women and 77.99 years for men.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: As of 2018, the region had a foreign population of 163,820. Most of the foreigners had Romanian or Moroccan citizenship.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: The 2020 report on urban areas in Spain published by the Ministry of Transports, Mobility and Urban Agenda identifies among the urban areas in the region (with population data referring to 2019) those of Albacete (173,329), Guadalajara (161,683), Toledo (123,509), Talavera de la Reina (94,028), Ciudad Real (90,114), Cuenca (54,690) and Puertollano (47,035).


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: Castilla–La Mancha generates a GDP of €33,077,484,000, 3.4 percent of the Spanish GDP, placing it ninth among the 19 Spanish autonomous communities. GDP has been roughly 3.4 percent of the national GDP since at least 2000. A per capita GDP of €17,339 places Castilla–La Mancha 17th among the 19 communities, with only Andalusia and Extremadura having lower per capita GDP; the national average is €22,152. Nonetheless, in the early to mid-1990s, Sonseca in the province of Toledo several times had the highest per capita income in Spain.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: According to the statistics of the INE's Encuesta de Población Activa for the first trimester of 2007, the active work force of Castilla–La Mancha numbered 896,513 persons, of whom 827,113 were employed and 69,900 unemployed, giving a workforce density of 55.5 percent of the population and an unemployment rate of 7.7 percent.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: Agriculture and husbandry, still the foundation of the local economy, constitutes 11.6 percent of regional GDP, and employs 9.9 percent of the active workforce.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: Fifty-two percent of the soil of Castilla–La Mancha is considered "dry". Agricultural activities have historically been based on the cultivation of wheat (37.0 percent), grapes (17.2 percent) and olives (6.6 percent). Castilla–La Mancha has some of the most extensive vineyards in Europe, nearly . The vineyards are predominantly, but by no means exclusively, in the west and southwest of La Mancha. In 2005 the region produced of grapes, constituting 53.4 percent of Spain's national production. After grapes, the next most important agricultural product is barley, , 25.0 percent of the national total.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: As of 2014, the region (primarily areas in the provinces of Cuenca and Albacete) was by far the largest producer of garlic in Spain, which was in turn the largest producer country in Europe. Black truffle is produced in areas of the provinces of Guadalajara, Cuenca and Albacete. The overwhelming majority of the saffron produced in Spain (97%) originates from the region.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: The region concentrates the 81% of pistachio-cultivated area in the country, which increased fortyfold in a decade becoming the first European producer and fifth worldwide in the early 2020s.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: In terms of agricultural productivity and income, since Spain's incorporation into the European Union (EU) the primary sector of the regional economy has evolved dynamically. Among the reasons for this are growth rates higher than the national average, as well as increased capitalization fostering specialization and modernization, including the integration an externalization of the sector, whereby activities previously performed on the farm are now performed elsewhere. These changes have been fostered by the regional articulation of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy. Since 1986, subsidies have played a significant role in this sector.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: Animal husbandry plays a lesser, but not negiglible, role in the regional economy. 2005 statistics show 3,430,501 head of sheep, 1,602,576 pigs, 405,778 goats and 309,672 cattle; these last produce of milk each year.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: Apiculture (bee-keeping) is another significant part of the primary sector output, with 190,989 hives as of 4 October 2017.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: Traditionally, Castilla–La Mancha has had little industrial production, due to several factors among which are low population density and a shortage of qualified workers. However, since Spain's incorporation into the EU, there has been much progress. Industry has been growing as a sector of the regional economy at a faster pace than nationally. July 2006 figures show the region as third among the autonomous communities in the rate of growth of the industrial sector. Regional industrial GDP grew 2.8 percent in 2000–2005, compared to 1 percent nationally for the same period.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: The principal industrial areas within the region are Sonseca and its comarca, the Henares Corridor, Puertollano, Talavera de la Reina, La Sagra y Almansa, as well as all of the provincial capitals.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: As throughout Spain in recent decades, the construction sector is one of the strongest. It employs 15.6 percent of the work force and produces 10.1 percent of regional GDP. It is one of the fastest-growing sectors of the economy: growth in 2006 was 13.6 percent. Most of the construction sector, is housing, including a new city of 30,000 inhabitants, Ciudad Valdeluz in Yebes, Guadalajara; 13,000 dwellings in Seseña, Toledo and the Reino de Don Quijote complex in the province of Ciudad Real, with 9,000 dwellings and 4,000 hotel beds.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: As of 2019, the regional defence industry ranks third in Spain after those of Madrid and Andalusia, with a 5.8% share of sales. The bulk of the defence industry lies in cities such as Illescas, Toledo, Cedillo, Valdepeñas, Puertollano, Ciudad Real or Albacete. The Airbus Group is present in Illescas since 1992 and in Albacete (Airbus Helicopters) since 2005.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: Although wind energy and solar energy have been playing increasingly important roles in Castilla–La Mancha, the majority of the energy generated in the region comes from the region's large thermal power stations: the Elcogas Thermal Power Station (owned by Elcogas) and Puertollano Thermal Power Station (owned by E.ON) in Puertollano as well as the Aceca Thermal Power Station in Villaseca de la Sagra (owned by Iberdrola and Unión Fenosa)


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: Existing solar thermal power plants (all using a parabolic trough collector) in the region include Manchasol-1 and Manchasol-2 in Alcázar de San Juan (49.9 and 50 MW respectively), Helios 1 and Helios 2 in Puerto Lápice (50 MW each), Ibersol Ciudad Real in Puertollano (50 MW).


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: Regarding photovoltaic power plants, Picón I, Picón II and Picón III (50 MW each), located in Porzuna, were put into operation in 2019.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: The region is rich in mineral resources, particularly the south, and they have been exploited since Antiquity.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: As of 2018, with 270 active mining sites (only one of them an underground mine), most of the extractive sector is dedicated to aggregates, clays, plasters and other mineral products, accounting for a 10.15% of active sites in Spain.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: Recent mining projects brought forward by the regional government in the province of Ciudad Real, rich in a number of strategic minerals, include those of tungsten (in between Almodóvar del Campo and Abenójar), phosphates (in Fontanarejo), and titanium and zirconium (in between Puebla de Don Rodrigo and Arroba de los Montes), but their final authorisations pend on satisfactory environmental impact statements, and they have also met the opposition from environmental organisations.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: The majority of the regional workforce—55.5 percent—is employed in the service sector, generating 49.8 percent of regional GDP, according to Economic and Social Council of Castilla–La Mancha ("Consejo Económico y Social de Castilla–La Mancha", CES) data for 2006. Although a large sector of the regional economy, it is small by national standards: 67.2 percent of employment in Spain is in the service sector. Counted in the service sector are commerce, tourism, hospitality, finance, public administration, and administration of other services related to culture and leisure.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: The Madrid's urban decongestion has favoured the development of logistics businesses and platforms in Azuqueca de Henares and Illescas, which neighbor the Madrid region.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: In the area of tourism, there has been a great deal of growth, with Castilla–La Mancha becoming in recent decades one of the principal tourist destinations in the Spanish interior. During 2006 the region had more than 2 million tourists (3 percent more than the previous year) for a total of 3,500,000 overnight hotel stays. Rural tourism increased 14 percent in overnight stays in a single year. From 2000 to 2005 the number of hotel beds increased 26.4 percent to 17,245 beds in 254 hotels. In the same period, the number of "casas rurales" (for farm stays) increased 148 percent to 837 and the number of beds in such facilities 175 percent to 5,751.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: The Servicio de Salud de Castilla–La Mancha (SESCAM, "Health Service of Castilla–La Mancha"), part of the Consejería de Salud y Bienestar Social ("Council of Health and Social Welfare") is the entity in charge of health in Castilla–La Mancha. It is an integral part of Spain's National Health System, based on universal coverage, equal access, and public financing.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: For the purposes of healthcare provision, the region is divided in 8 health areas (Albacete, la Mancha Centro, Guadalajara, Ciudad Real, Cuenca, Talavera de la Reina, Toledo, and Puertollano). Those are further subdivided in basic health zones.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: The Junta of Castilla–La Mancha assumed responsibility for education in the autonomous community as of January 1, 2000, directly managing over 1,000 schools, with 22,000 teachers and 318,000 students. In the 2006–2007 school year, the region had 324,904 students below the university level, of whom 17.7 percent were in private schools. In that same year, the region had 1,037 schools and 30,172 schoolteachers; 15.2 percent of the schools were private.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: The decentralized University of Castilla–La Mancha was formally established in 1982 and has operated since 1985.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: There are four main campuses, one each at Albacete, Ciudad Real, Cuenca and Toledo, with classes also offered in Almadén, Talavera de la Reina and Puertollano. The university offers 54 degree programs ("titulaciones"). The province of Guadalajara stands outside the regional university, with its own University of Alcalá offering degrees in education, business, tourism, technical architecture, and nursing. The National University of Distance Education also offers services in the region through five affiliated centers, one in each province: Albacete (with an extension in Almansa), Valdepeñas, Cuenca, Guadalajara, and Talavera de la Reina. Finally, the Menéndez Pelayo International University has a location in Cuenca.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: In the 2005–06 school year, the region had 30,632 students enrolled at universities, down 1.0 percent from the previous year.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: Historically, the region has had other universities, but these no longer exist. The present University of Castilla–La Mancha uses one of the buildings of the Royal University of Toledo (1485–1807). Other former universities in the region were the Royal and Pontifical University of Our Lady of Rosario in Almagro (1550–1807) and the University of San Antonio de Porta Coeli in Sigüenza founded in the 15th century by Cardinal Pedro González de Mendoza and, like the others, closed in the Napoleonic era.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: Castilla–La Mancha has the most kilometers of "autopistas" (a type of limited access highway) and "autovías" dual carriageways, with a total of . The most heavily trafficked of these are the radial routes surrounding Madrid and the routes in and out of the city, but there are also routes within Castilla–La Mancha, and national and international routes that pass through the province, including highways in the International E-road network.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: The regional government put into action a "Plan Regional de Autovías" with the objective that all municipalities with 10,000 or more inhabitants would be connected to an "autovía". If it is completed, 96 percent of the region's population will live within 15 minutes of a high-capacity road. Among the developed projects of this plan are:


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: The "red autonómica"—the road network of the autonomous community—currently extends , of which correspond to the basic network, to the comarcal networks and to local networks.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: Numerous long-distance rail lines ("líneas de largo recorrido") pass through Castilla–La Mancha, most of them radiating out of Madrid. Some of these are high-velocity trains (Alta Velocidad Española AVE):


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: Two local commuter rail lines out of Madrid ("Cercanías Madrid") pass through Castilla–La Mancha. The C-2 line stops in Azuqueca de Henares in the province of Guadalajara and in the city of Guadalajara itself. The C-3 to Aranjuez used to stop at Seseña, but service to that station was discontinued in April 2007.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: Air transport is marginal in the region. Castilla–La Mancha has two airports, the Albacete Airport (no cargo transport and with an insignificant civilian use) and the Ciudad Real Central Airport, which was affected by the 2008 crisis and closed in 2012, although efforts have been pursued to reactivate the latter. Relatively close airports outside the region include those in Madrid, Valencia and Alicante.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: The region hosts several World Heritage Sites: Toledo (since 1986), Cuenca (since 1996) and Almadén (together with the Slovenian town of Idrija under the "Heritage of Mercury. Almadén and Idrija" joint site) since 2012.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: As of 2020, the region features 644 "bienes de interés cultural" (BIC) across the 5 provinces: Albacete (92), Ciudad Real (108), Cuenca (99), Guadalajara (104) and Toledo (238) plus another 3 transcending the provincial borders.


title: Castilla–La Mancha

text: The regional legislation in force concerning the cultural heritage dates from 2013. Restrictions on the modification of historical buildings or the use of metal detectors were introduced then.


title: McVitie's

text: McVitie's () is a British snack food brand owned by United Biscuits. The name derives from the original Scottish biscuit maker, McVitie & Price, Ltd., established in 1830 on Rose Street in Edinburgh, Scotland. The company moved to various sites in the city before completing the St Andrews Biscuit Works factory on Robertson Avenue in the Gorgie district in 1888. The company also established one in Glasgow and two large manufacturing plants south of the border, in Heaton Chapel, Stockport, and Park Royal, London. There are seven McVitie's factories in the UK, with each producing a different types of biscuit; the Harlesden site in north-west London manufactures the chocolate digestives.


title: McVitie's

text: Under United Biscuits McVitie's held a Royal Warrant from Queen Elizabeth II. The best-selling biscuit manufacturer in the United Kingdom, McVitie's produces chocolate digestives, Hobnobs and Rich tea (ranked the three favourite biscuits to dunk into tea), and Jaffa Cakes (the best selling cake in the UK). In 2020, sales of McVitie's biscuits in the UK were more than five times the next two competitors.


title: McVitie's

text: Robert McVitie was born in Dumfries in 1809. He served an apprenticeship with a baker and in 1834 he and his father John McVitie moved to Edinburgh, where John's brother William already lived. They initially lived and worked at 130 Rose Street, just north of Princes Street in the New Town. In 1835 they moved to the adjacent building at 129 Rose Street. It is called a "provision Shop". The following year it is being run by Robert rather than his father. The father left around 1836 to be a mail guard but his uncle William joined him in 1840. In 1843 he opened a second shop at 14 Charlotte Place, just west of Charlotte Square (later renamed Randolph Place).


title: McVitie's

text: McVitie's is first described as a "baker and confectioner" rather than a provision shop in 1856 at 5 Charlotte Place. He utilised the basement area below the shop as the bakery. By 1865 the bakery had moved to 47 London Street at the east end of town and he was living nearby in a flat at 76 Broughton Street.