title: Bremerhaven

text: Due to its unique geographic situation, Bremerhaven suffers from a few transportational difficulties. The city has been connected to the autobahn network since the late 1970s. The A 27 runs north–south, east of the city, connecting Bremerhaven to Bremen and Cuxhaven. Road connections to Hamburg, however, are poor. The Bundesstraße 71 and secondary roads therefore carry most of the heavy lorry traffic. A proposed solution is the construction of the A 22, the so-called "Küstenautobahn" (or "coastal motorway"), which would link Bremerhaven to Hamburg and Wilhelmshaven/Oldenburg (using the Weser tunnel). Roads leading to the overseas port are regularly overloaded with freight traffic, and solutions are presently being discussed, including a deep-cut road favoured by the city government and various interest groups.


title: Bremerhaven

text: Bremerhaven has three active passenger rail stations, Bremerhaven Hauptbahnhof in the city centre, Bremerhaven-Lehe north of the centre and Bremerhaven-Wulsdorf in the southern part of the city. A fourth station, Bremerhaven-Speckenbüttel near the border to Langen has been out of service since 1988, though it might reopen when the Bremen S-Bahn scheme becomes operational. Bremerhaven's central station lost its last long-distance train in 2001. Now only regional connections to Bremen, Cuxhaven, Osnabrück and Hannover are available. The railways in Bremerhaven, however, still carry a heavy load of freight traffic, mostly new cars, containers and food.


title: Bremerhaven

text: In the heyday, 1949, there were 6 lines. The last line was the 2 from the north of the city to the main train station. The tram was shut down on July 30, 1982.


title: Bremerhaven

text: Bremerhaven has 2020 a bus network with 19 bus lines operated by BREMERHAVEN BUS. Two of the bus lines are night lines that only go on weekends. In addition, there is the so-called "Schnellbus-Line S", which serves selected stops and is therefore faster. BREMERHAVEN BUS operates up to 87 regular buses through the company "Verkehrsgesellschaft Bremerhaven AG (VGB)". There are numerous regional buses operated by other companies that depart from Bremerhaven Central Station, to Bad Bederkesa, Beverstedt, Hagen, Nordholz and Otterndorf. In addition, Bremerhaven is also served by buses from Flixbus.


title: Bremerhaven

text: Bremerhaven has only a few historical buildings, and the high street and city centre are almost entirely post-war. The main attractions for tourists are found at the "Havenwelten" and include an attraction about climate change, the , the German Emigration Center (since August 8, 2005) and the German Maritime Museum ("Deutsches Schiffahrtsmuseum") by Hans Scharoun from 1975, featuring the Hansekogge, a vintage cog dating from 1380, excavated in Bremen in 1962, and the historical harbour ("Museumshafen") with a number of museum ships, such as the Type XXI U-boat "Wilhelm Bauer" (a museum of its own), the "Seute Deern" (a wooden three-masted sailing vessel), and the salvage tug "Seefalke" from 1924. The "Bremerhaven Zoo" reopened on 27 March 2004, after a lengthy renovation. It features Arctic wildlife, both terrestrial and marine. The latest addition is the "Klimahaus" from 2009, simulating travel adventure along the 8th line of longitude and dealing with climate issues. Two gazebos can be found on top of the "Atlantic Hotel Sail City" and the Radar Tower. Another tourist spot is the "Fischereihafen" (fishing port) in Geestemünde which also houses an aquarium (the Atlanticum). The Lloyd Werft shipyard is renowned for building and renovating large cruise liners, for example "Norway".


title: Bremerhaven

text: Every five years Sail Bremerhaven is held, a large sailing convention that attracts tall ships from all over the world. The last time it was held was in 2015 with over 270 vessels and 3,500 crew members. In 2011 Bremerhaven set the record for the largest ever parade of boats, with 327 vessels in the parade. This record was broken in 2012 by the Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant, with 1,000 boats.


title: Bremerhaven

text: The passenger terminal "Columbuskaje", built at the Weser bank in 1927 to avoid time-absorbing locking, has been transferred into a cruise terminal (Columbus Cruise Center Bremerhaven/CCCB). Also three marinas are available, the latest accessible through a new lock at "Neuer Hafen".


title: Bremerhaven

text: Bremerhaven has a city council with 49 members. It also elects 15 members of the Bürgerschaft of Bremen.


title: Bremerhaven

text: The Fischtown Pinguins, also known as REV Bremerhaven, are a professional ice hockey team in the DEL, Germany's top ice hockey league.


title: Bremerhaven

text: Eisbären Bremerhaven (Polar Bears), founded 2001, is a basketball team playing in the German second-tier level league ProA.


title: Bremerhaven

text: The American Football team is the Bremerhaven Seahawks which play in the German Regio Nord of the 3rd League. The Seahawks are the second oldest team in Germany.


title: Bremerhaven

text: Local association football clubs are Leher TS, SFL Bremerhaven and until 2012 FC Bremerhaven. TSV Wulsdorf and OSC Bremerhaven also have a football teams but as part of a multi-sport club.


title: Bremerhaven

text: Bremerhaven is home to the Alfred Wegener Institute, a national research institute which is concerned with maritime sciences and climate and keeps a number of research vessels, amongst them the heavy research icebreaker RV Polarstern. It also runs the Neumayer-Station III in the Antarctic.


title: Bremerhaven

text: The Fraunhofer Society maintains research laboratories in Bremerhaven for development and testing of Wind Power components.


title: Bremerhaven

text: The (Hochschule Bremerhaven) was founded in 1975 and is expanding since with more than 3.000 students in 2009. The university is attended by a large number of overseas students from all over the world. Among the courses offered are Process Engineering, Information Technology and the BA Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Leadership programme, the first programme modelled after the Finnisch Team Academy format in a German language higher education institution.


title: Bremerhaven

text: The three roads connecting the city of Bremerhaven to the Autobahn 27 consequently are named after the original three twin towns:


title: Bremerhaven

text: In addition to that, there are also streets which earlier had been named after Szczecin (Stettiner Straße) and Kaliningrad (Königsberger Straße).


title: Devin Duvernay

text: Devin Duvernay (born September 12, 1997) is an American football wide receiver for the Baltimore Ravens of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at Texas and was drafted by the Ravens in the third round of the 2020 NFL Draft.


title: Devin Duvernay

text: Duvernay attended Sachse High School in Sachse, Texas. During his high school football career, he had 170 receptions for 2,906 yards and 36 touchdowns. He also holds the school record for longest kickoff return touchdown with 109 yards, a feat he accomplished as a sophomore. He played in the 2016 Under Armour All-America Game. Duvernay originally committed to Baylor University to play college football but switched to the University of Texas at Austin.


title: Devin Duvernay

text: As a true freshman at Texas in 2016, Duvernay played in all 12 games with two starts. He had 20 receptions for 412 yards and three touchdowns. As a sophomore in 2017, he played in all 13 games recording nine receptions for 124 yards. As a junior in 2018, he started all 14 games. For the season, he had 41 receptions for 546 yards and four touchdowns. Duvernay returned to Texas his senior year in 2019 as the number one receiver compiling 1,386 yards receiving as well as nine touchdowns on 106 receptions.


title: Devin Duvernay

text: Duvernay was drafted by the Baltimore Ravens in the third round with the 92nd overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft.


title: Devin Duvernay

text: Duvernay made his NFL debut in Week 1 against the Cleveland Browns and recorded a 12-yard reception in the 38–6 victory. In Week 3 against the Kansas City Chiefs, he recorded a 93-yard kickoff return for his first career touchdown in the 20–34 loss. In Week 5 against the Cincinnati Bengals, he had a 42-yard rush on a jet sweep to go along with two catches for 17 yards as the Ravens won 27–3. He had three catches for a season-high 45 yards in a 17–23 Week 10 loss to the New England Patriots.


title: Devin Duvernay

text: Duvernay had a slightly more active role at the beginning of the 2021 season due to injuries to Miles Boykin and Rashod Bateman. In Week 2 against the Kansas City Chiefs, Duvernay recovered a fumble by teammate Ty'Son Williams at the Kansas City two yard line and scored a touchdown. The Ravens would win 36–35. The next week against the Detroit Lions, he had first career receiving touchdown on a 19-yard reception in a 19–17 win. In Week 9 against the Minnesota Vikings, Duvernay recorded his second receiving touchdown on a five-yard reception that he caught one-handed. The Ravens would win 34–31 in overtime. Duvernay was selected to his first pro bowl as a return specialist at the end of the season.


title: Devin Duvernay

text: The trade of Marquise Brown during the offseason setup Duvernay to be a full-time starter at wide receiver along with Rashod Bateman. He recorded his first multi-touchdown game of his career in 24–9 win Week 1 over the New York Jets, finishing the game with four receptions for 54 yards and two touchdowns. The next week against the Miami Dolphins, he returned the opening kickoff 103 yards for a touchdown. He also had two receptions for 42 yards, but the Ravens would lose, 38–42.


title: Devin Duvernay

text: Duvernay is the cousin of Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray as well as having a twin brother named Donovan who also played college football at Texas as a defensive back. Donovan transferred to Northwestern State University for his senior season.


title: Muntinlupa

text: Muntinlupa, officially the City of Muntinlupa (), is a 1st class highly urbanized city in the National Capital Region of the Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 543,445 people.


title: Muntinlupa

text: It is classified as a highly urbanized city, it is bordered on the north by Taguig; to the northwest by Parañaque; by Las Piñas to the west; to the southwest by Bacoor; by San Pedro and Laguna de Bay to the east, the largest lake in the country. It is given the nickname "Emerald City" by the tourism establishment and also known as the "Gateway to Calabarzon" as it is the southernmost city of the National Capital Region.


title: Muntinlupa

text: Muntinlupa is known as the location of the national insular penitentiary, the New Bilibid Prison, where the country's most dangerous criminals are incarcerated, as well as the location of Ayala Alabang Village, one of the country's biggest and most expensive residential communities, where many of the wealthy and famous live.


title: Muntinlupa

text: There are three plausible origins of the name of the city: First, is its association with the "thin topsoil" in the area; second, residents, purportedly replying to a question by Spaniards in the 16th century what the name of their place was, said “Monte sa Lupa”—apparently mistaking the question for what "card game" they were playing; third, the topographical nature of the area, where the term Monte or mountain was expanded to Muntinlupa or "mountain land". Based on the 1987 Philippine constitution, it is spelled as Muntinglupa, instead of Muntinlupa.


title: Muntinlupa

text: It is bordered on the north by Taguig; to the northwest by Parañaque; by Las Piñas to the west; to the southwest by the city of Bacoor in Cavite; by the city of San Pedro, Laguna; and by Laguna de Bay to the east, the largest lake in the country.


title: Muntinlupa

text: Muntinlupa's terrain is relatively flat to sloping towards the east along the lake. Gentle rolling hills occupy the western part of the city, with elevation increasing up to and above towards its southwest portion.


title: Muntinlupa

text: While majority of the land area in the city is highly urbanized, the NBP Reservation in barangay Poblacion is relatively free of urbanization but there are ongoing discussions to move the national penitentiary to Nueva Ecija.


title: Muntinlupa

text: Alabang is the business district of the city where the tallest structures in the city are located. It used to be the location of Alabang Stock Farm. Land reclamation is also done along the Laguna Lake for further developments in the city. During the dry season, the water level in the lake subsides, exposing the soil that is then used for farming.


title: Muntinlupa

text: The dry season rungs through the months of November to April, while the wet season starts in May and lasts to November. The wet season reaches its peak in the month of August. Maximum rainfall in Muntinlupa usually occurs from the month of June to September. The average annual of rainfall is with a peak of in July and a low in April. The highest temperature occurs during the month of April and May (34 degrees Celsius) while the lowest occurs during the months of January & February (24 degrees Celsius).


title: Muntinlupa

text: The west segment of the Marikina Valley Fault System, the "West Valley Fault (WVF)" cuts through parts of Muntinlupa and moves in a predominantly dextral strike-slip motion. The West Valley Fault is capable of producing large scale earthquakes on its active phases with a magnitude of 7 or higher.


title: Muntinlupa

text: Muntinlupa is composed of a lone congressional district, and two legislative districts which are politically subdivided into nine barangays. The 1st legislative district includes barangays Bayanan, Putatan, Poblacion and Tunasan in the southern half of the city, while the 2nd legislative district are barangays Alabang, Buli, Ayala Alabang, Cupang and Sucat in the northern portion of the city.


title: Muntinlupa

text: Other zip codes include Muntinlupa Central Post Office 1770, Ayala Alabang Village 1780, Pleasant Village 1777, Susana Heights 1774, and Filinvest City 1781.


title: Muntinlupa

text: The barangays of the city is named after the botanical characteristics, topographical features, and historical events that had been observed in the area when it was named. Tunasan from the plant tunas. Putatan got its name from a tree called putat. Cupang is likewise named after the cupang tree. Buli is named after the buri palm. Alabang is named after the river that passes through the barangay. Ayala Alabang was created by Batas Pambansa Bilang 219 and was originally a part of Barangay Alabang. Sucat got its name from the vernacular word "sukat" which means “measurement” since during the Spanish era was always measured.


title: Muntinlupa

text: While Barangays are the administrative divisions of the city, and are legally part of the addresses of establishments and homes, many residents indicate their Subdivision (village) instead of their Barangay.


title: Muntinlupa

text: People from Muntinlupa are referred to as Muntinlupeño as an adaptation from the standard Spanish suffix -(eñ/n)o.


title: Muntinlupa

text: The native language of Muntinlupa is Tagalog, but the majority of the residents can understand and speak English.


title: Muntinlupa

text: People in Muntinlupa are mainly Roman Catholic. Catholic churches in Muntinlupa fall under the jurisdiction of the Diocese of Parañaque, with about 11 parishes within Muntinlupa.


title: Muntinlupa

text: Other religions in Muntinlupa include various Protestant denominations, Iglesia ni Cristo, Members Church of God International, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam.


title: Muntinlupa

text: Barangay Alabang, part of the second district of Muntinlupa, has undergone tremendous growth mainly due to a development boom in the late 1990s. The development of two large-scale commercial real estate projects namely; the Filinvest Corporate City and Ayala Land's Madrigal Business Park, changed the landscape of Muntinlupa from what was once vast fields of cow pasture in the late 1980s, into a supercity that houses new residential, business, industrial and commercial establishments.


title: Muntinlupa

text: The Muntinlupa "Business One-Stop-Shop" is recognized in the 2014 World Cities Summit in Singapore in its effectiveness in reducing the number of steps in acquiring a Business Permit.


title: Muntinlupa

text: Northgate Cyberzone is the information technology park within Filinvest Corporate City in Alabang. The , PEZA registered IT zone is designed, mastered-planned and built around the needs of technology-based companies engaged in Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO), education, learning and firm, software design and multimedia, call centers, e-commerce, banking and financial services, as well as other IT support businesses and the like. It is home to Capital One Philippines Support Services Corp., Convergys Philippines Corp, HSBC Electronic Data Processing (Philippines), Inc., Genpact, Verizon Business and many more.


title: Muntinlupa

text: Kawasaki Motors Philippines Corporation is in charge of production and distribution of Kawasaki Motors in the Philippines. KMPC, having been in the country for over 40 years, is hailed today as one of the top manufacturers in the Philippine motorcycle industry. Amkor Technology is a semiconductor product packaging and test services provider that established its first Philippine plant in Cupang. Pepsi-Cola Products Philippines has a plant located in Tunasan. Zuellig Pharma is also within the city.


title: Muntinlupa

text: Shopping centers in Muntinlupa include Alabang Town Center and Ayala Malls South Park, both owned by Ayala Malls, Festival Alabang owned and operated by Filinvest Development Corporation, Starmall Alabang (formerly known as Metropolis Star Alabang), SM Center Muntinlupa owned by SM Prime Holdings, and Commercenter Alabang.


title: Muntinlupa

text: There are multiple car dealerships located in Muntinlupa and most of them are along the Alabang–Zapote Road in Alabang. Ford Motors Alabang has a five-floor facility covering a floor area of nearly including a 2-floor, 23-vehicle showroom and a 4-floor, and an 80-bay service center. Toyota Alabang also constructed a facility with a showroom, parts warehouse, office & service facilities in a lot. Audi Alabang, Chevrolet Alabang, Chrysler Alabang, Mitsubishi Motors Alabang, Nissan and Suzuki Alabang are also located within the area, most of which are along the Alabang–Zapote Road. Still in Alabang–Zapote Road but located in barangay Ayala Alabang are Hyundai Alabang, Isuzu Alabang and Honda Alabang.


title: Muntinlupa

text: Muntinlupa is governed primarily by the city mayor, the vice mayor and the city councilors. The mayor acts as the chief executive of the city, while the city councilors act as its legislative body. The vice mayor, besides taking on mayoral responsibilities in case of a temporary vacancy, acts as the presiding officer of the city legislature. The legislative body is composed of 16 regular members (8 per district) and representatives from the barangay and the youth council.


title: Muntinlupa

text: "Most Business Friendly City" on 2001, 2002 & 2006 as awarded by the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry


title: Muntinlupa

text: Muntinlupa is the first city in the Philippines to ban the use of plastic bags and Styrofoam for packaging. The Muntinlupa city government encourages to "Bring your own Bag" or "BYOB" when shopping to reduce the use of plastic bags that would otherwise clog the waterways.


title: Muntinlupa

text: ISO Certification on Quality Management System or ISO 9001:2000 has initially been acquired on 2004 and is valid for 3 years. Muntinlupa has re-acquired its ISO Certification on QMS in April 2015, ISO 9001:2008, together with Ospital ng Muntinlupa and Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Muntinlupa as certified by BRS Rim of the World Operations, California.


title: Muntinlupa

text: Designed by Manuel Amorsolo, son of a national artist Fernando Amorsolo, the city seal features the Philippine Eagle, the biggest, the strongest and the highest flying bird of the Philippine Republic, a bird that symbolizes the city's mission to become the Premiere Emerald City of the 21st Century. It is composed of:


title: Muntinlupa

text: Muntinlupa has its official hymn, called "Martsa ng Muntinlupa", composed by Renato Dilig. It was adopted in 1989, during its time as municipality.


title: Muntinlupa

text: Muntinlupa Museum is a five-story structure which is set to contain items of historical value to the city. The exterior is designed to look like a traditional fishtrap.


title: Muntinlupa

text: Muntinlupa City Public Library is located at the recently constructed Plaza Central Building at Muntinlupa Poblacion. Plaza Central was inaugurated on October 6, 2017. It is located at the previous site of the Contessa Building (Old City Hall).


title: Muntinlupa

text: Muntinlupa has 10 swimming pools, 14 billiard halls, 11 tennis courts, 8 resorts, 7 country clubs, 9 Dance/Fitness/Slimming Centers, 41 open basketball courts, 59 covered basketball courts and 11 parks & playgrounds. The Muntinlupa Sports Complex is used for a variety of activities such as concerts, conferences, reunions and graduations, the sports complex has 3,500 seating capacity and has two separate multipurpose rooms. Located on a reclaimed area in Barangay Tunasan, it has an open area which local residents enjoy their morning exercise and leisure time.


title: Muntinlupa

text: Since 2017, the site of Karpos' Wanderland Music and Arts Festival has been hosted annually in Muntinlupa. The location of this venue is in the Filinvest City Events Grounds, situated in the heart of the Alabang district. The event hosts various bands, that range from international to homegrown artists, and live art performances.


title: Muntinlupa

text: Muntinlupa is also home to 19 East, a premier live music venue that features the country's top artists. Gigs usually occur on a daily basis, suggesting that any given day would guarantee customers a lively experience.


title: Muntinlupa

text: The sole distributor of electricity in Metro Manila is the Manila Electric Company, also known as Meralco.


title: Muntinlupa

text: Water in Muntinlupa is provided by Maynilad Water Services (also known as Maynilad), which also serves western Metro Manila and some parts of Cavite. It is one of the two concessionaires that provide water to Metro Manila in the Philippines; the other one is Manila Water which serves the eastern Metro Manila.


title: Muntinlupa

text: Majority of the land-line connection is provided by phone carrier Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company. Mobile telecommunication services are mostly provided by Globe Telecom, Smart Communications, and Dito Telecommunity.


title: Muntinlupa

text: Muntinlupa can be accessed through private vehicles, buses, jeepneys, taxis, tricycles, and UV Express. Electric vehicles by both private and public sectors operate within the borders of the city.


title: Muntinlupa

text: City buses with routes plying EDSA to Quezon City, Navotas, or Valenzuela serve the two terminals at Alabang, the Alabang Integrated Bus Terminal at Starmall Alabang, and South Station at Filinvest City. Provincial buses to Batangas City, Lucena, Quezon, and Bicol Region also depart from Alabang.


title: Muntinlupa

text: Jeepneys routes to General Mariano Alvarez, Calamba, and Pasay, including express services, also use the terminals at Alabang.


title: Muntinlupa

text: "360 Eco-loop" is Filinvest City's fully integrated electric-powered public transport system operated by Filinvest as the main mode of transportation around Filinvest City. "electric-Jeepney Ride for Free," launched by the City Government of Muntinlupa on March 30, 2015, is composed of an initial fleet of 10 e-jeepneys produced in the Philippines.


title: Muntinlupa

text: Philippine National Railways has 3 stations in the city: Sucat, Alabang, and Muntinlupa (Barangay Poblacion) stations. There used to be a 4th and 5th stations in Barangay Tunasan and Barangay Buli; however, both were discontinued and demolished in 2009. Alabang station is the terminus of the Metro Commuter services; so, only the Provincial Commuter services that goes to Calamba stops in the Muntinlupa station which is currently two northbound trips in the morning and two southbound trips in the evening. Service southward to Alabang has resumed, but limited to Mamatid station in Cabuyao, Laguna.


title: Muntinlupa

text: National highways serving the city include Maharlika Highway, which parallels the South Luzon Expressway and functions as the city's main artery and Alabang-Zapote Road, formerly known as "Real Street". Daang Hari Road, opened in 2003, lies on the boundary with Las Piñas near Ayala Alabang, Katarungan Village, and New Bilibid Prisons.


title: Muntinlupa

text: Expressways passing through Muntinlupa include South Luzon Expressway, a part of the Pan-Philippine Highway (AH26) Luzon route, the elevated


title: Muntinlupa

text: Skyway, and the Muntinlupa–Cavite Expressway. A proposed expressway, Laguna Lakeshore Expressway Dike, is being planned to run along Laguna de Bay from Taguig in Metro Manila to Calamba and Los Baños in Laguna.


title: Muntinlupa

text: Arterial roads serve as the main route from the national roads to the barangays and its residential and commercial areas. Few examples of those roads include Commerce Avenue between Alabang and Ayala Alabang, Corporate Avenue in Filinvest City, Alabang, E. Rodriguez Sr. Avenue in Poblacion, E. Rodriguez Jr. Avenue in Tunasan, San Guillermo Street in Putatan, and Manuel L. Quezon Avenue from Alabang to Sucat and to the Taguig city boundary. The arterial roads are usually narrow, crowded with tricycles, pedestrians, and parked vehicles, and has few or no sidewalks, while a few, like Commerce Avenue, which has wide divided roads with traffic lights and sidewalks.


title: Muntinlupa

text: Muntinlupa has 18 health centers, 1 public hospital, and 8 private hospitals. The sole public hospital of the city is the Ospital ng Muntinlupa while the Asian Hospital and Medical Center and the Medical Center Muntinlupa are among the city's private hospital. The Food and Drug Administration, tasked to ensure the health and safety of food and drugs, has its headquarters located at Alabang, Muntinlupa. The Research Institute for Tropical Medicine a research facility dedicated to infectious and tropical diseases in the Philippines is also based in Muntinlupa.


title: Muntinlupa

text: Schools providing public education in Muntinlupa is administered by Division of City Schools – Muntinlupa, a local division of the Department of Education.


title: Muntinlupa

text: Muntinlupa has 89 child development centers (including day care centers, nursery schools and kindergarten schools), 20 public elementary schools, 8 public high schools, 1 public tertiary school, 1 public vocational/technical school, 88 private schools, 10 private tertiary schools and 9 private vocational/technical schools. The "Iskolar ng Bayan" program has been able to give financial assistance to 3,567 students with an allocated budget of thirteen million pesos. The city search for the Ten Muntinlupa Outstanding Students (MOST) is conducted annually to give recognition and honor to talented and academically excellent students in all public and private high schools of Muntinlupa.


title: Daniel Podence

text: Daniel Castelo Podence (born 21 October 1995) is a Portuguese professional footballer who plays as a winger for club Wolverhampton Wanderers.


title: Daniel Podence

text: He started his career with Sporting CP, appearing in 40 competitive matches and also being loaned to Moreirense, with whom he won the 2017 Taça da Liga. He then joined Olympiacos, winning the 2019–20 Super League Greece. In January 2020, he signed with Wolverhampton Wanderers.


title: Daniel Podence

text: Born in Oeiras, Lisbon, Podence joined Sporting CP's youth system shortly before his 10th birthday, arriving from neighbouring C.F. Os Belenenses. On 3 February 2013, whilst still a junior, he made his senior debut, appearing for the former's reserves in a Segunda Liga match against C.S. Marítimo B after coming on as a late substitute for Bruma.


title: Daniel Podence

text: Podence played his first official game for the first team on 29 December 2014, starting in a 2–0 away win over Vitória S.C. in the final stages of the Taça da Liga. He was then loaned to Moreirense F.C. in a season-long move. He made his debut in the Primeira Liga on 17 September 2016 in a 2–0 loss at G.D. Estoril Praia, scoring his first goal in the competition on 29 October in another away fixture, against C.D. Tondela (a 2–1 victory). On 4 December 2016, his brace helped the hosts to a 3–1 win over C.D. Nacional, and he also made three appearances for the club in the League Cup campaign, which ended with them winning their first-ever trophy.


title: Daniel Podence

text: In late January 2017, Podence was recalled by Sporting manager Jorge Jesus. He terminated his contract on 1 June 2018, following a violent attack on the players by a number of their own supporters.


title: Daniel Podence

text: On 9 July 2018, Podence joined Olympiacos F.C. on a five-year deal. His first competitive appearance took place on 9 August in a 4–0 home victory against FC Luzern in the third qualifying round of the UEFA Europa League, and he scored his first goal later that month in a 1–1 draw at Burnley in the same competition (4–2 aggregate win). He finished his first season in the Super League Greece with eight goals in all competitions, and the team finished in second place.


title: Daniel Podence

text: On 2 September 2019, after a litigation with Sporting, both clubs reached a €7 million settlement. Sixteen days later, in his first match in the group phase of the UEFA Champions League, Podence helped Olympiacos come back from a 2–0 home deficit to a 2–2 draw against Tottenham Hotspur, scoring in the 44th minute after an individual effort.


title: Daniel Podence

text: On 30 January 2020, Podence moved to Wolverhampton Wanderers on a four-and-a-half-year contract for a £16.9 million transfer fee. He made his debut as a substitute, in a 0–0 draw with Manchester United at Old Trafford. His first start was on 27 February in the second leg of the Europa League's round of 32 away to RCD Espanyol, providing two assists in the 3–2 loss.


title: Daniel Podence

text: Podence's first start in the English Premier League was on 12 July 2020, in a 3–0 home defeat of Everton in which he drew the foul that resulted in a penalty (converted by Raúl Jiménez) that put the side 1–0 up at the end of the first half; Sky Sports named him "Player of the match" for his performance. He scored his first league goal the following weekend, with a header to open the scoring against Crystal Palace in an eventual 2–0 home win.


title: Daniel Podence

text: Podence scored his first league goal of the 2020–21 campaign on 30 October 2020, also against Crystal Palace and at Molineux Stadium, in a 2–0 victory. He was BBC Sport's Player of the match in a league game at home to Chelsea on 15 December, in which he scored his team's opening goal as they came from behind to win 2–1.


title: Daniel Podence

text: On 9 January 2022, Podence scored a brace – one in each half – in Wolves's 3–0 home defeat of Sheffield United in the third round of the FA Cup. His first in the domestic league in that season arrived on 20 February, in the 2–1 home win over Leicester City.


title: Daniel Podence

text: Podence scored in his first two appearances for the Portuguese under-21 team, in October 2016 matches against Hungary (3–3) and Liechtenstein (7–1 rout) for the 2017 UEFA European Championship qualifying stage. Selected for the finals in Poland, he repeated the feat in the 4–2 group-phase victory over Macedonia.


title: Daniel Podence

text: In September 2019, Podence was called up to the senior squad for UEFA Euro 2020 qualifiers with Serbia and Lithuania. He made his debut 13 months later, playing 15 minutes in place of João Félix in a 3–0 home win against Sweden in the Nations League.


title: Indifference curve

text: In economics, an indifference curve connects points on a graph representing different quantities of two goods, points between which a consumer is "indifferent". That is, any combinations of two products indicated by the curve will provide the consumer with equal levels of utility, and the consumer has no preference for one combination or bundle of goods over a different combination on the same curve. One can also refer to each point on the indifference curve as rendering the same level of utility (satisfaction) for the consumer. In other words, an indifference curve is the locus of various points showing different combinations of two goods providing equal utility to the consumer. Utility is then a device to represent preferences rather than something from which preferences come. The main use of indifference curves is in the representation of potentially observable demand patterns for individual consumers over commodity bundles.


title: Indifference curve

text: There are infinitely many indifference curves: one passes through each combination. A collection of (selected) indifference curves, illustrated graphically, is referred to as an indifference map. The slope of an indifference curve is called the MRS (marginal rate of substitution), and it indicates how much of good y must be sacrificed to keep the utility constant if good x is increased by one unit. Given a utility function u(x,y), to calculate the MRS, we simply take the partial derivative of the function u with respect to good x and divide it by the partial derivative of the function u with respect to good y. If the marginal rate of substitution is diminishing along an indifference curve, that is the magnitude of the slope is decreasing or becoming less steep, then the preference is convex.


title: Indifference curve

text: The theory of indifference curves was developed by Francis Ysidro Edgeworth, who explained in his 1881 book the mathematics needed for their drawing; later on, Vilfredo Pareto was the first author to actually draw these curves, in his 1906 book. The theory can be derived from William Stanley Jevons' ordinal utility theory, which posits that individuals can always rank any consumption bundles by order of preference.


title: Indifference curve

text: A graph of indifference curves for several utility levels of an individual consumer is called an indifference map. Points yielding different utility levels are each associated with distinct indifference curves and these indifference curves on the indifference map are like contour lines on a topographical graph. Each point on the curve represents the same elevation. If you move "off" an indifference curve traveling in a northeast direction (assuming positive marginal utility for the goods) you are essentially climbing a mound of utility. The higher you go the greater the level of utility. The non-satiation requirement means that you will never reach the "top," or a "bliss point," a consumption bundle that is preferred to all others.


title: Indifference curve

text: It also implies that the commodities are good rather than bad. Examples of bad commodities can be disease, pollution etc. because we always desire less of such things.


title: Indifference curve

text: Consumer theory uses indifference curves and budget constraints to generate consumer demand curves. For a single consumer, this is a relatively simple process. First, let one good be an example market e.g., carrots, and let the other be a composite of all other goods. budget constraints give a straight line on the indifference map showing all the possible distributions between the two goods; the point of maximum utility is then the point at which an indifference curve is tangent to the budget line (illustrated). This follows from common sense: if the market values a good more than the household, the household will sell it; if the market values a good less than the household, the household will buy it. The process then continues until the market's and household's marginal rates of substitution are equal. Now, if the price of carrots were to change, and the price of all other goods were to remain constant, the gradient of the budget line would also change, leading to a different point of tangency and a different quantity demanded. These price / quantity combinations can then be used to deduce a full demand curve. A line connecting all points of tangency between the indifference curve and the budget constraint is called the expansion path.


title: Indifference curve

text: In Figure 1, the consumer would rather be on "I" than "I", and would rather be on "I" than "I", but does not care where he/she is on a given indifference curve. The slope of an indifference curve (in absolute value), known by economists as the marginal rate of substitution, shows the rate at which consumers are willing to give up one good in exchange for more of the other good. For "most" goods the marginal rate of substitution is not constant so their indifference curves are curved. The curves are convex to the origin, describing the negative substitution effect. As price rises for a fixed money income, the consumer seeks the less expensive substitute at a lower indifference curve. The substitution effect is reinforced through the income effect of lower real income (Beattie-LaFrance). An example of a utility function that generates indifference curves of this kind is the Cobb–Douglas function formula_1. The negative slope of the indifference curve incorporates the willingness of the consumer to make trade offs.


title: Indifference curve

text: If two goods are perfect substitutes then the indifference curves will have a constant slope since the consumer would be willing to switch between at a fixed ratio. The marginal rate of substitution between perfect substitutes is likewise constant. An example of a utility function that is associated with indifference curves like these would be formula_2.


title: Indifference curve

text: If two goods are perfect complements then the indifference curves will be L-shaped. Examples of perfect complements include left shoes compared to right shoes: the consumer is no better off having several right shoes if she has only one left shoe - additional right shoes have zero marginal utility without more left shoes, so bundles of goods differing only in the number of right shoes they include - however many - are equally preferred. The marginal rate of substitution is either zero or infinite. An example of the type of utility function that has an indifference map like that above is the Leontief function: formula_3.


title: Indifference curve

text: The different shapes of the curves imply different responses to a change in price as shown from demand analysis in consumer theory. The results will only be stated here. A price-budget-line change that kept a consumer in equilibrium on the same indifference curve:


title: Indifference curve

text: Choice theory formally represents consumers by a preference relation, and use this representation to derive indifference curves showing combinations of equal preference to the consumer.


title: Indifference curve

text: In the language of the example above, the set formula_4 is made of combinations of apples and bananas. The symbol formula_5 is one such combination, such as 1 apple and 4 bananas and formula_6 is another combination such as 2 apples and 2 bananas.


title: Indifference curve

text: is described as 'formula_5 is weakly preferred to formula_6.' That is, formula_5 is at least as good as formula_6 (in preference satisfaction).


title: Indifference curve

text: is described as 'formula_5 is weakly preferred to formula_6, and formula_6 is weakly preferred to formula_5.' That is, one is "indifferent" to the choice of formula_5 or formula_6, meaning not that they are unwanted but that they are equally good in satisfying preferences.


title: Indifference curve

text: is described as 'formula_5 is weakly preferred to formula_6, but formula_6 is not weakly preferred to formula_5.' One says that 'formula_5 is strictly preferred to formula_6.'


title: Indifference curve

text: The preference relation formula_11 is complete if all pairs formula_33 can be ranked. The relation is a transitive relation if whenever formula_13 and formula_35 then formula_36.


title: Indifference curve

text: For any element formula_37, the corresponding indifference curve, formula_38 is made up of all elements of formula_4 which are indifferent to formula_40. Formally,


title: Indifference curve

text: In the example above, an element formula_5 of the set formula_4 is made of two numbers: The number of apples, call it formula_44 and the number of bananas, call it formula_45


title: Indifference curve

text: In utility theory, the utility function of an agent is a function that ranks "all" pairs of consumption bundles by order of preference ("completeness") such that any set of three or more bundles forms a transitive relation. This means that for each bundle formula_46 there is a unique relation, formula_47, representing the utility (satisfaction) relation associated with formula_46. The relation formula_49 is called the utility function. The range of the function is a set of real numbers. The actual values of the function have no importance. Only the ranking of those values has content for the theory. More precisely, if formula_50, then the bundle formula_46 is described as at least as good as the bundle formula_52. If formula_53, the bundle formula_46 is described as strictly preferred to the bundle formula_52.


title: Indifference curve

text: Consider a particular bundle formula_56 and take the total derivative of formula_47 about this point:


title: Indifference curve

text: where formula_60 is the partial derivative of formula_47 with respect to its first argument, evaluated at formula_46. (Likewise for formula_63)


title: Indifference curve

text: The indifference curve through formula_56 must deliver at each bundle on the curve the same utility level as bundle formula_56. That is, when preferences are represented by a utility function, the indifference curves are the level curves of the utility function. Therefore, if one is to change the quantity of formula_66 by formula_67, without moving off the indifference curve, one must also change the quantity of formula_68 by an amount formula_69 such that, in the end, there is no change in "U":


title: Indifference curve

text: Thus, the ratio of marginal utilities gives the absolute value of the slope of the indifference curve at point formula_56. This ratio is called the marginal rate of substitution between formula_66 and formula_68.


title: Indifference curve

text: If the utility function is of the form formula_75 then the marginal utility of formula_66 is formula_77 and the marginal utility of formula_68 is formula_79. The slope of the indifference curve is, therefore,


title: Indifference curve

text: Observe that the slope does not depend on formula_66 or formula_68: the indifference curves are straight lines.


title: Indifference curve

text: A class of utility functions known as Cobb-Douglas utility functions are very commonly used in economics for two reasons:


title: Indifference curve

text: If the utility function is of the form formula_83 the marginal utility of formula_66 is formula_85 and the marginal utility of formula_68 is formula_87.Where formula_88. The slope of the indifference curve, and therefore the negative of the marginal rate of substitution, is then


title: Indifference curve

text: where formula_91 and formula_92. (The Cobb–Douglas is a special case of the CES utility, with formula_93.) The marginal utilities are given by


title: Indifference curve

text: As used in biology, the indifference curve is a model for how animals 'decide' whether to perform a particular behavior, based on changes in two variables which can increase in intensity, one along the x-axis and the other along the y-axis. For example, the x-axis may measure the quantity of food available while the y-axis measures the risk involved in obtaining it. The indifference curve is drawn to predict the animal's behavior at various levels of risk and food availability.


title: Indifference curve

text: Herbert Hovenkamp (1991) has argued that the presence of an endowment effect has significant implications for law and economics, particularly in regard to welfare economics. He argues that the presence of an endowment effect indicates that a person has no indifference curve (see however Hanemann, 1991) rendering the neoclassical tools of welfare analysis useless, concluding that courts should instead use WTA as a measure of value. Fischel (1995) however, raises the counterpoint that using WTA as a measure of value would deter the development of a nation's infrastructure and economic growth.


title: Indifference curve

text: Austrian economist Murray Rothbard criticised the indifference curve as "never by definition exhibited in action, in actual exchanges, and is therefore unknowable and objectively meaningless."


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: The Soviet Union was established by the Bolsheviks in 1922, in place of the Russian Empire. At the time of the 1917 Revolution, the Russian Orthodox Church was deeply integrated into the autocratic state, enjoying official status. This was a significant factor that contributed to the Bolshevik attitude to religion and the steps they took to control it.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: Thus the USSR became the first state to have as one objective of its official ideology the elimination of existing religion, and the prevention of future implanting of religious belief, with the goal of establishing state atheism ("gosateizm").


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: Under the doctrine of state atheism in the Soviet Union, there was a "government-sponsored program of conversion to atheism" conducted by Communists. The Communist government targeted religions based on State interests, and while most organized religions were never outlawed, religious property was confiscated, believers were harassed, and religion was ridiculed while atheism was propagated in schools. In 1925 the government founded the League of Militant Atheists to intensify the persecution. Accordingly, personal expressions of religious faith were not in any way privately banned, but a strong sense of social stigma was imposed on them by the official government structures and secular mass media, and it was generally considered unacceptable for members of certain government professions (teachers, state bureaucrats, soldiers) to be openly religious and anti-secular.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: The vast majority of people in the Russian Empire were, at the time of the revolution, religious believers, whereas the communists aimed to break the power of all religious institutions and eventually replace religious belief with atheism. "Science" was counterposed to "religious superstition" in the media and in academic writing. The main religions of pre-revolutionary Russia persisted throughout the entire Soviet period, but they were only tolerated within certain limits. Generally, this meant that believers were free to worship in private and in their respective religious buildings (churches, mosques, synagogues etc.), but public displays of religion outside of such designations were prohibited. In addition, religious institutions were not allowed to express their views in any type of mass media, and many religious buildings were demolished or used for other purposes. In the long run, state atheism failed to convert many people. Religion strengthened underground and was revived to help fight the Second World War. It flourished after the fall of Communism.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: Christians belonged to various denominations: Orthodox (which had the largest number of followers), Catholic, Baptist and various other Protestant denominations. The majority of the Muslims in the Soviet Union were Sunni, with the notable exception of Azerbaijan, which was majority Shia. Judaism also had many followers. Other religions, practiced by a small number of believers, included Buddhism and Shamanism.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: Religion is the opium of the people: this saying of Marx is the cornerstone of the entire ideology of Marxism about religion. All modern religions and churches, all and of every kind of religious organizations are always considered by Marxism as the organs of bourgeois reaction, used for the protection of the exploitation and the stupefaction of the working class.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: Marxist–Leninist atheism has consistently advocated the control, suppression, and elimination of religion. Within about a year of the revolution, the state expropriated all church property, including the churches themselves, and in the period from 1922 to 1926, 28 Russian Orthodox bishops and more than 1,200 priests were killed. Many more were persecuted.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: Orthodox Christians constituted a majority of believers in the Soviet Union. In the late 1980s, three Orthodox churches claimed substantial memberships there: the Russian Orthodox Church, the Georgian Orthodox Church, and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (AOC). They were members of the major confederation of Orthodox churches in the world, generally referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church. The first two functioned openly and were tolerated by the state, but the Ukrainian AOC was not permitted to function openly. Parishes of the Belarusian Autocephalous Orthodox Church reappeared in Belarus only after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, but they did not receive recognition from the Belarusian Exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church, which controls Belarusian eparchies.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: According to both Soviet and Western sources, in the late 1980s the Russian Orthodox Church had over 50 million believers but only about 7,000 registered active churches. Over 4,000 of these churches were located in the Ukrainian Republic (almost half of them in western Ukraine). The distribution of the six monasteries and ten convents of the Russian Orthodox Church was equally disproportionate: only two of the monasteries were located in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, with another two in Ukraine and one each in Belarus and Lithuania. Seven convents were located in Ukraine and one each in Moldova, Estonia, and Latvia.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: The Georgian Orthodox Church, another autocephalous member of Eastern Orthodoxy, was headed by a Georgian patriarch. In the late 1980s it had 15 bishops, 180 priests, 200 parishes, and an estimated 2.5 million followers. In 1811 the Georgian Orthodox Church was incorporated into the Russian Orthodox Church, but it regained its independence in 1917, after the fall of the Tsar. Nevertheless, the Russian Orthodox Church did not officially recognize its independence until 1943.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: The Ukrainian AOC separated from the Russian Orthodox Church in January 1919, when the short-lived Ukrainian state adopted a decree declaring autocephaly of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Its independence was reaffirmed by the Bolsheviks in the Ukrainian Republic, and by 1924 it had 30 bishops, almost 1,500 priests, nearly 1,100 parishes, and between 4 and 6 million members.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: From its inception, the Ukrainian AOC faced the hostility of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Ukrainian Republic. In the late 1920s, Soviet authorities accused it of nationalist tendencies. In 1930 the government forced the church to reorganize as the "Ukrainian Orthodox Church", and few of its parishes survived until 1936. Nevertheless, the Ukrainian AOC continued to function outside the borders of the Soviet Union, and it was revived on Ukrainian territory under the German occupation during World War II. In the late 1980s, some of the Orthodox faithful in the Ukrainian Republic appealed to the Soviet government to reestablish the Ukrainian AOC.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: The Armenian Apostolic Church is an independent Oriental Orthodox church. In the 1980s it had about 4 million adherents – almost the entire population of Armenia. It was permitted 6 bishops, between 50 and 100 priests, and between 20 and 30 churches, and it had one theological seminary and six monasteries.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: Catholics formed a substantial and active religious constituency in the Soviet Union. Their number increased dramatically with the annexation of territories of the Second Polish Republic in 1939 and the Baltic republics in 1940. Catholics in the Soviet Union were divided between those belonging to the Roman/Latin Rite, which was recognized by the government, and those remaining loyal to the Eastern Rite Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, which was banned in 1946.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: The majority of the 5.5 million Roman Rite Catholics in the Soviet Union lived in the Lithuanian, Belarusian, and Latvian republics, with a sprinkling in the Moldavian, Ukrainian, and Russian republics. Following World War II, the most active Roman Rite Catholic Church in the Soviet Union was in the Lithuanian Republic, where the majority of people are Catholics. The Roman Catholic Church there was viewed as an institution that both fostered and defended Lithuanian national interests and values. From 1972 a Catholic underground publication, "The Chronicle of the Catholic Church in Lithuania", supported not only Lithuanians' religious rights but also their national rights.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: Western Ukraine, which included largely the historic region of Galicia, became part of the Soviet Union in 1939. Although Ukrainian, its population was never part of the Russian Empire, but was Eastern Rite Catholic. After the Second World War, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church identified closely with the nationalist aspirations of the region, arousing the hostility of the Soviet government, which was in combat with Ukrainian Insurgency. In 1945, Soviet authorities arrested the church's Metropolitan Josyf Slipyj, nine bishops and hundreds of clergy and leading lay activists, and deported them to forced labor camps in Siberia and elsewhere. The nine bishops and many of the clergy died in prisons, concentration camps, internal exile, or soon after their release during the post-Stalin thaw, but after 18 years of imprisonment and persecution, Metropolitan Slipyj was released when Pope John XXIII intervened on his behalf. Slipyj went to Rome, where he received the title of Major Archbishop of Lviv, and became a cardinal in 1965.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: In 1946 a synod was called in Lviv, where, despite being uncanonical in both Catholic and Orthodox understanding, the Union of Brest was annulled, and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church was officially annexed to the Russian Orthodox Church. St. George's Cathedral in Lviv became the throne of Russian Orthodox Archbishop Makariy.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: For the clergy that joined the Russian Orthodox Church, the Soviet authorities refrained from the large-scale persecution seen elsewhere. In Lviv only one church was closed. In fact, the western dioceses of Lviv-Ternopil and Ivano-Frankivsk were the largest in the USSR. Canon law was also relaxed, allowing the clergy to shave their beards (a practice uncommon in Orthodoxy) and to conduct thr litugy in Ukrainian instead of Slavonic.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: In 1989 the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church was officially re-established after a catacomb period of more than 40 years. There followed conflicts between Orthodox and Catholic Christians regarding the ownership of church buildings, conflicts which continued into the 1990s, after the Independence of Ukraine.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: Protestant communities (particularly Lutherans) first appeared in the Russian Empire in the 16th and 17th centuries in connection with expatriate communities from western Europe. In the 18th century, under Catherine II (the Great), large numbers of German settlers were invited to the Russian Empire, including Mennonites, Lutherans, Reformed and also Roman Catholics. From the 17th to the 19th centuries, various new religious movements emerged from the Russian Orthodox Church (including Molokans, Dukhobors, Khlysts, and to some extent, Subbotniks, and in 19th century Tolstoyan rural communes), and their existence prepared the ground for Protestantism's future spread. The first Baptist communities within the Russian Empire arose in unrelated strains in three widely separated regions of the Russian Empire (Transcaucasia, Ukraine, and St. Petersburg) in the 1860s and 1870s. In the early twentieth century, Pentecostal groups also formed. In the very early years of Soviet power, the Bolsheviks focused their anti-religious efforts on the Russian Orthodox Church and it appeared to take a less hostile position towards the 'sectarians'. Already before Stalin's rise to power, the situation changed, however. And from the start of the 1930s, Protestants - like other religious groups - experienced the full force of Soviet repression. Churches were shut and religious leaders were arrested and convicted, often charged with anti-Soviet activity. One of the leaders of the Pentecostals movement, Ivan Voronaev, was sentenced to death in 1937, for example.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: The Second World War saw a relaxation of church-state relations in the Soviet Union and the Protestant community benefited alongside their Russian Orthodox counterparts. In 1944, the All-Union Council of Evangelical Christians-Baptists was formed, bringing together the two main strands within Soviet Protestantism. Over the following two years, the leaders of the two main Pentecostal branches within the Soviet Union also agreed to join. The immediate post-war period saw the growth of Baptist and Pentecostal congregations and there was a religious revival in these years. Statistics provided by the leaders of the registered church suggest 250,000 baptised members in 1946 rising to 540,000 by 1958. In fact the influence of the Protestantism was much wider than these figures suggest: in addition to the existence of unregistered Baptist and Pentecostal groups, there were also thousands who attended worship without taking baptism. Many Baptist and Pentecostal congregations were in Ukraine. Women significantly outnumbered men in these congregations, though the pastors were male. By 1991, Ukraine had the second largest Baptist community in the world, behind only the United States.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: Although the Soviet state had established the All-Union Council of Evangelical Christians-Baptists in 1944, and encouraged congregations to register, this did not signal the end to the persecution of Christians. Many leaders and ordinary believers of different Protestant communities fell victims to the persecution by Communist government, including imprisonment. Persecution was particularly vicious in the years 1948-53 and again in the early 1960s.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: Despite the Soviet state's attempt to create a single, unified church movement, there were many divisions within the evangelical church. In the early 1960s, a break-away group formed a new movement which called for a spiritual awakening and greater independence from the Soviet state. Leaders of this group (eventually known as the Council of the Church of Evangelical Christians-Baptists) faced particularly persecution. Pentecostals, too, formed their own, underground organisation and were targeted by the state as a result.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: Lutherans, the second largest Protestant group, lived for the most part in the Latvian and Estonian republics. In the 1980s, Lutheran churches in these republics identified to some extent with nationality issues in the two republics. The state's attitude toward Lutherans was generally benign. The Lutheran Church in different regions of the country was persecuted during the Soviet era, and church property was confiscated. Many of its members and pastors were oppressed, and some were forced to emigrate.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: "sects, the teaching and character of activities of which has anti-state and savagely extremist [изуверский] character: Jehovah's Witnesses, Pentecostalists, Adventists-reformists" are not to be registered and were thus banned.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: A number of congregations of Russian Mennonites, Jehovah's Witnesses, and other Christian groups existed in the Soviet Union. Nearly 9,000 Jehovah's Witnesses were deported to Siberia in 1951; the numbers of those who were not deported is unknown. The number of Jehovah's Witnesses increased greatly over this period, with a KGB estimate of around 20,000 in 1968. Russian Mennonites began to emigrate from the Soviet Union in the face of increasing violence and persecution, state restrictions on freedom of religion, and biased allotments of communal farmland. They emigrated to Germany, Britain, the United States, parts of South America, and other regions.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: After the Bolshevik revolution, Islam was for some time (until 1929) treated better than the Russian Orthodox Church, which Bolsheviks regarded as a center of the "reaction", and other religions. In the declaration "Ко всем трудящимся мусульманам России и Востока" ("To All Working Muslims in Russia and the Orient") of November 1917, the Bolshevik government declared the freedom to exercise their religion and customs for Muslims "whose beliefs and customs had been suppressed by the Czars and the Russian oppressors".


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: In the second half of 1920s and in 1930s, state repressions, suppression and atheist propaganda against all religions increased. E.g. in 1930, out of the 12,000 mosques in Tatarstan, more than 10,000 were closed, from 90 to 97% mullahs and muezzins were deprived of the right to exercise their profession.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: During the Great Patriotic War, the restrictions on religion were erased somewhat. In 1943 the Spiritual Administration of the Muslims of Central Asia and Kazakhstan was established. In 1949, 415 registered mosques functioned in the Soviet Union.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: In the late 1980s, Islam had the second largest following in the Soviet Union: between 45 and 50 million people identified themselves as Muslims. But the Soviet Union had only about 500 working mosques, a fraction of the number in prerevolutionary Russia, and Soviet law forbade Islamic religious activity outside working mosques and Islamic schools.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: All working mosques, religious schools, and Islamic publications were supervised by four "spiritual directorates" established by Soviet authorities to provide government control. The Spiritual Directorate for Central Asia and Kazakhstan, the Spiritual Directorate for the European Soviet Union and Siberia, and the Spiritual Directorate for the Northern Caucasus and Dagestan oversaw the religious life of Sunni Muslims. The Spiritual Directorate for Transcaucasia dealt with both Sunni Muslims and Shia Muslims. The overwhelming majority of the Muslims were Sunnis.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: Soviet Muslims differed linguistically and culturally from each other, speaking about fifteen Turkic languages, ten Iranian languages, and thirty Caucasian languages. Hence, communication between different Muslim groups was difficult. In 1989 Russian often served as a lingua franca among some educated Muslims.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: Culturally, some Muslim groups had highly developed urban traditions, whereas others were recently nomadic. Some lived in industrialized environments, others in isolated mountainous regions. In sum, Muslims were not a homogeneous group with a common national identity and heritage, although they shared the same religion and the same country.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: In the late 1980s, unofficial Muslim congregations, meeting in tea houses and private homes with their own mullahs, greatly outnumbered those in the officially sanctioned mosques. The unofficial mullahs were either self-taught or informally trained by other mullahs. In the late 1980s, unofficial Islam appeared to split into fundamentalist congregations and groups that emphasized Sufism.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: Soviet policy toward religion was based on the ideology of Marxism-Leninism, which made atheism the official doctrine of the Communist Party. However, "the Soviet law and administrative practice through most of the 1920s extended some tolerance to religion and forbade the arbitrary closing or destruction of some functioning churches", and each successive Soviet constitution granted freedom of belief. As the founder of the Soviet state, Lenin, put it:


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: Religion is the opium of the people: this saying of Marx is the cornerstone of the entire ideology of Marxism about religion. All modern religions and churches, all and of every kind of religious organizations are always considered by Marxism as the organs of bourgeois reaction, used for the protection of the exploitation and the stupefaction of the working class.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: Marxism-Leninism advocates the suppression and ultimately the disappearance of religious beliefs, considering them to be "unscientific" and "superstitious". In the 1920s and 1930s, such organizations as the League of the Militant Godless were active in anti-religious propaganda. Atheism was the norm in schools, communist organizations (such as the Young Pioneer Organization), and the media.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: The state's efforts to eradicate religion in the Soviet Union, however, varied over the years with respect to particular religions and were affected by higher state interests. In 1923, a New York Times correspondent saw Christians observing Easter peacefully in Moscow despite violent anti-religious actions in previous years. Official policies and practices not only varied with time, but also differed in their application from one nationality to another and from one religion to another.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: In 1929, with the onset of the Cultural Revolution in the Soviet Union and an upsurge of radical militancy in the Party and Komsomol, a powerful "hard line" in favor of mass closing of churches and arrests of priests became dominant and evidently won Stalin's approval. Secret "hard line" instructions were issued to local party organizations, but not published. When the anti-religious drive inflamed the anger of the rural population, not to mention that of the Pope and other Western church spokesmen, the state was able to back off from a policy that it had never publicly endorsed anyway.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: Although all Soviet leaders had the same long-range goal of developing a cohesive Soviet people, they pursued different policies to achieve it. For the Soviet government, questions of nationality and religion were always closely linked. Therefore, their attitude toward religion also varied from a total ban on some religions to official support of others.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: In theory, the Soviet Constitution described the state's position regarding nationalities and religions. It stated that every Soviet citizen also had a particular nationality, and every Soviet passport carried these two entries. The constitution granted a large degree of local autonomy, but this autonomy was subordinated to central authority. In addition, because local and central administrative structures were often not clearly divided, local autonomy was further weakened. Although under the Constitution all nationalities were equal, in practice they were not treated so. Only fifteen nationalities had union republic status, which granted them, in principle, many rights, including the right to secede from the union.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: Twenty-two nationalities lived in autonomous republics with a degree of local self-government and representation in the Council of Nationalities in the Supreme Soviet. Eighteen more nationalities had territorial enclaves (autonomous oblasts and autonomous okrugs) but had very few powers of self-government. The remaining nationalities had no right of self-government at all. Joseph Stalin's 1913 definition of a nation as "a historically constituted and stable community of people formed on the basis of common language, territory, economic life, and psychological makeup revealed in a common culture" was retained by Soviet authorities throughout the 1980s. However, in granting nationalities union republic status, three additional factors were considered: a population of at least 1 million, territorial compactness, and location on the borders of the Soviet Union.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: Although Lenin believed that eventually all nationalities would merge into one, he insisted that the Soviet Union be established as a federation of formally equal nations. In the 1920s, genuine cultural concessions were granted to the nationalities. Communist elites of various nationalities were permitted to flourish and to have considerable self-government. National cultures, religions, and languages were not merely tolerated but, in areas with Muslim populations, encouraged.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: Demographic changes in the 1960s and 1970s whittled down the overall Russian majority, but they also caused two nationalities (the Kazakhs and Kirgiz) to become minorities in their own republics at the time of the 1979 census, and considerably reduced the majority of the titular nationalities in other republics. This situation led Leonid Brezhnev to declare at the 24th Communist Party Congress in 1971 that the process of creating a unified Soviet people had been completed, and proposals were made to abolish the federative system and replace it with a single state. In the 1970s, however, a broad movement of national dissent began to spread throughout the Soviet Union. It manifestated itself in many ways: Jews insisted on their right to emigrate to Israel; Crimean Tatars demanded to be allowed to return to Crimea; Lithuanians called for the restoration of the rights of the Catholic Church; and Helsinki Watch groups were established in the Georgian, Lithuanian, and Ukrainian republics. Petitions, literature, and occasional public demonstrations voiced public demands for the human rights of all nationalities. By the end of the 1970s, however, massive and concerted efforts by the KGB had largely suppressed the national dissent movement. Nevertheless, Brezhnev had learned his lesson. Proposals to dismantle the federative system were abandoned in favour of a policy of drawing the nationalities together more gradually.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: Soviet officials identified religion closely with nationality. The implementation of policy toward a particular religion, therefore, depended on the state's perception of the bond between that religion and the nationality practicing it, the size of the religious community, the extent to which the religion accepted outside authority, and the nationality's willingness to subordinate itself to political authority. Thus the smaller the religious community and the more closely it identified with a particular nationality, the tighter were the state's policies, especially if the religion also recognized a foreign authority such as the pope.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: As for the Russian Orthodox Church, Soviet authorities sought to control it and, in times of national crisis, to exploit it for the state's own purposes; but their ultimate goal was to eliminate it. During the first five years of Soviet power, the Bolsheviks executed 28 Russian Orthodox bishops and over 1,200 Russian Orthodox priests. Many others were imprisoned or exiled. Believers were harassed and persecuted. Most seminaries were closed, and the publication of most religious material was prohibited. By 1941 only 500 churches remained open out of about 54,000 in existence prior to World War I.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: Such crackdowns related to many people's dissatisfaction with the church in pre-revolutionary Russia. The close ties between the church and the state led to the perception of the church as corrupt and greedy by many members of the intelligentsia. Many peasants, while highly religious, also viewed the church unfavorably. Respect for religion did not extend to the local priests. The church owned a significant portion of Russia's land, and this was a bone of contention – land ownership was a big factor in the Russian Revolution of 1917.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: The Nazi attack on the Soviet Union in 1941 induced Stalin to enlist the Russian Orthodox Church as an ally to arouse Russian patriotism against foreign aggression. Russian Orthodox religious life experienced a revival: thousands of churches were reopened; there were 22,000 by the time Nikita Khrushchev came to power. The state permitted religious publications, and church membership grew.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: During the final years of Joseph Stalin's rule, there was once again a tightening of anti-religious measurements. In April 1948, Council for Religious Affairs sent out an instruction to its local commissioners to halt the registration of new religious communities and from that point churches were no longer opened. The "Knowledge Society", which was established a year earlier, was engaged in educational activities and again began to publish anti-religious literature.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: Khrushchev reversed the government's policy of cooperation with the Russian Orthodox Church. Although it remained officially sanctioned, in 1959 Khrushchev launched an antireligious campaign that was continued in a less stringent manner by his successor, Leonid Brezhnev. By 1975 the number of active Russian Orthodox churches was reduced to 7,000. Some of the most prominent members of the Russian Orthodox hierarchy and some activists were jailed or forced to leave the church. Their place was taken by docile clergy who were obedient to the state and who were sometimes infiltrated by KGB agents, making the Russian Orthodox Church useful to the government. It espoused and propagated Soviet foreign policy and furthered the russification of non-Russian Christians, such as Orthodox Ukrainians and Belarusians.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: The state applied a different policy toward the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church and the Belarusian Autocephalous Orthodox Church. Viewed by the government as very nationalistic, both were suppressed, first at the end of the 1920s and again in 1944 after they had renewed themselves under German occupation. The leadership of both churches was decimated; large numbers of priests were shot or sent to labor camps, and members of their congregations were harassed and persecuted.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: The Georgian Orthodox Church was subject to a somewhat different policy and fared far worse than the Russian Orthodox Church. During World War II, however, it was allowed greater autonomy in running its affairs in return for calling its members to support the war effort, although it did not achieve the kind of accommodation with the authorities that the Russian Orthodox Church had. The government reimposed tight control over it after the war. Out of some 2,100 churches in 1917, only 200 were still open in the 1980s, and it was forbidden to serve its adherents outside the Georgian Republic. In many cases, the government forced the Georgian Orthodox Church to conduct services in Old Church Slavonic instead of in the Georgian language.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: The Soviet government's policies toward the Catholic Church were strongly influenced by Soviet Catholics' recognition of an outside authority as head of their church. As a result of World War II, millions of Catholics (including Greco-Catholics) became Soviet citizens and were subjected to new repression. Also, in the three republics where most of the Catholics lived, the Lithuanian SSR, the Byelorussian SSR and the Ukrainian SSR, Catholicism and nationalism were closely linked. Although the Roman Catholic Church was tolerated in Lithuania, large numbers of the clergy were imprisoned, many seminaries were closed, and police agents infiltrated the remainder. The anti-Catholic campaign in Lithuania abated after Stalin's death, but harsh measures against the church were resumed in 1957 and continued through the Brezhnev era.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: Soviet policy was particularly harsh toward the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church. Ukrainian Greek-Catholics came under Soviet rule in 1939, when western Ukraine was incorporated into the Soviet Union as part of the Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact. Although the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church was permitted to function, it was almost immediately subjected to intense harassment. Retreating before the German army in 1941, Soviet authorities arrested large numbers of Ukrainian Greek Catholic priests, who were either killed or deported to Siberia. After the Red Army reoccupied western Ukraine in 1944, the Soviet state liquidated the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church by arresting its metropolitan, all of its bishops, hundreds of clergy, and the more active church members, killing some and sending the rest to labor camps. At the same time, Soviet authorities forced the remaining clergy to abrogate the union with Rome and subordinate themselves to the Russian Orthodox Church.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: Before World War II, there were fewer Protestants in the Soviet Union than adherents of other faiths, but they showed remarkable growth since then. In 1944 the Soviet government established the All-Union Council of Evangelical Christian Baptists (now the Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists of Russia) to gain some control over the various Protestant denominations. Many congregations refused to join this body, however, and others that initially joined it subsequently left. All found that the state, through the council, was interfering in church life.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: A number of congregations of Russian Mennonites, Jehovah's Witnesses, and other Christian groups faced varying levels of persecution under Soviet rule.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: Jehovah's Witnesses were banned from practicing their religion. Under Operation North, the personal property of over eight-thousand members was confiscated, and they (along with underage children) were exiled to Siberia from 1951 until repeal in 1965. All were asked to sign a declaration of resignation as a Jehovah's Witness in order to not be deported. There is no existing record of any having signed this declaration. While in Siberia, some men, women, and children were forced to work as lumberjacks for a fixed wage. Victims reported living conditions to be very poor. From 1951 to 1991, Jehovah's Witnesses within and outside Siberia were incarcerated – and then rearrested after serving their terms. Some were forced to work in concentration camps, others forcibly enrolled in Marxist reeducation programs. KGB officials infiltrated the Jehovah's Witnesses organization in the Soviet Union, mostly to seek out hidden caches of theological literature. Soviet propaganda films depicted Jehovah's Witnesses as a cult, extremist, and engaging in mind control. Jehovah's Witnesses were legalized in the Soviet Union in 1991; victims were given social benefits equivalent to those of war veterans.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: Early in the Bolshevik period, predominantly before the end of the Russian Civil War and the emergence of the Soviet Union, Russian Mennonite communities were harassed; several Mennonites were killed or imprisoned, and women were raped. Anarcho-Communist Nestor Makhno was responsible for most of the bloodshed, which caused the normally pacifist Mennonites to take up arms in defensive militia units. This marked the beginning of a mass exodus of Mennonites to Germany, the United States, and elsewhere. Mennonites were branded as "kulaks" by the Soviets. Their colonies' farms were collectivized under the Soviet Union's communal farming policy. Being predominantly German settlers, the Russian Mennonites in World War II saw the German forces invading Russia as liberators. Many were allowed passage to Germany as "Volksdeutsche". Soviet officials began exiling Mennonite settlers in the eastern part of Russia to Siberia. After the war, the remaining Russian Mennonites were branded as Nazi conspirators and exiled to Kazakhstan and Siberia, sometimes being imprisoned or forced to work in concentration camps. In the 1990s the Russian government gave the Mennonites in Kazakhstan and Siberia the opportunity to emigrate.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: Soviet policy toward Islam was affected, on the one hand by the large Muslim population, its close ties to national cultures, and its tendency to accept Soviet authority, and on the other hand by its susceptibility to foreign influence. Although actively encouraging atheism, Soviet authorities permitted some limited religious activity in all the Muslim republics, under the auspices of the regional branches of the Spiritual Administration of the Muslims of Central Asia and Kazakhstan. Mosques functioned in most large cities of the Central Asian republics, the Caucasus, Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Crimea, the Azerbaijan Republic, and elsewhere, but their number decreased from 25,000 in 1917 to 500 in the 1970s. Under Stalinist rule, Soviet authorities cracked down on Muslim clergy, closing many mosques or turning them into warehouses. In 1989, as part of the general relaxation of restrictions on religions, some additional Muslim religious associations were registered, and some of the mosques that had been closed by the government were returned to Muslim communities. The government also announced plans to permit the training of limited numbers of Muslim religious leaders in two- and five-year courses in Ufa and Baku, respectively.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: Lenin publicly condemned anti-Semitism, the government however was hostile toward Judaism from the beginning. In 1919 the Soviet authorities abolished Jewish community councils, which were traditionally responsible for maintaining synagogues. They created a special Jewish section of the party, whose tasks included propaganda against Jewish clergy and religion. To offset Jewish national and religious aspirations, and to reflect the Jewish national movement's role in the socialist movement of the Russian Empire (for example, Trotsky was first a member of the Jewish Bund, not the Social Democratic Labour Party), an alternative to the Land of Israel was established in 1934.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: The Jewish Autonomous Oblast, created in 1928 by Stalin, with Birobidzhan in the Russian Far East as its administrative center, was to become a "Soviet Zion". Yiddish, rather than "reactionary" Hebrew, would be the national language, and proletarian socialist literature and arts would replace Judaism as the quintessence of its culture. Despite a massive domestic and international state propaganda campaign, the Jewish population there never reached 30% (as of 2003 it was only about 1.2%). The experiment ended in the mid-1930s, during Stalin's first campaign of purges. Jewish leaders were arrested and executed, and Yiddish schools were shut down. Further persecutions and purges followed.


title: Religion in the Soviet Union

text: The training of rabbis became impossible until the early 1940s, and until the late 1980s only one Yiddish periodical was published. Because of its identification with Zionism, Hebrew was taught only in schools for diplomats. Most of the 5,000 synagogues functioning prior to the Bolshevik Revolution were closed under Stalin, and others were closed under Khrushchev. The practice of Judaism became very difficult, intensifying the desire of Jews to leave the Soviet Union.


title: Battle of the Planets

text: Battle of the Planets is an American adaptation of the Japanese anime series "Science Ninja Team Gatchaman" (1972). Of the 105 original "Gatchaman" episodes, 85 were used in the "Battle of the Planets" adaptation, produced by Sandy Frank Entertainment. The adaptation was generally faithful to the plot and character development of the original "Gatchaman" series, but significant additions and reductions were made in order to increase appeal to the North American television market of the late 1970s, as well as avoid controversy from parents; these included the removal of elements of graphic violence and profanity.


title: Battle of the Planets

text: It was the most successful anime series in the United States during the 1970s, airing on 100 network affiliates during after-school hours by 1979. As of June 2013, Sentai Filmworks have licensed the "Gatchaman" franchise. An oft-delayed CGI film based on the franchise, "Gatchaman", last slated for a 2011 release from Warner Bros., was officially canceled in June 2011. However, a live-action "Gatchaman" feature film was released in Japan in August 2013. As of 2018, the series has been made available for streaming on Hidive.


title: Battle of the Planets

text: In April 1977 Sandy Frank attended the MIP-TV conference in Cannes. It was here Frank first encountered the Japanese animation "Gatchaman" from producer Tatsunoko Production run by the Yoshida brothers. Frank committed to release the series in the U.S. after he saw the success of "Star Wars" in May 1977. "Battle of the Planets" is the title of the American adaptation of this series created by Frank. Frank authorized new footage and hired writers to add dialogue to fit the look of the animation, without reference to original scripts. Of the 105 original "Gatchaman" episodes, 85 were used in the "Battle of the Planets" adaptation produced by Sandy Frank Entertainment in 1978.


title: Battle of the Planets

text: "Battle of the Planets" cast five young people as G-Force, consisting of Mark, Jason, Princess, Keyop, and Tiny. G-Force protects Earth from the planet Spectra and other attacks from beyond space. The most prominent field commander of the Spectra forces was a villainous, masked individual known as Zoltar. Zoltar would receive his orders directly from a being he would refer to as the "Luminous One". The Luminous One would appear as a ghost-like, disembodied, floating head. Who, or what, this being actually was, is never explained in any detail throughout the series.


title: Battle of the Planets

text: The main ship of the G-Force team was called the "Phoenix", which could carry, transport, and deploy four smaller vehicles, each operated by one team member. The four vehicles included a futuristic race car with various hidden weapons driven by Jason; this vehicle was concealed within the Phoenix's nosecone. The "galacti-cycle", a futuristic motorcycle Princess rode, was stored within the left-wing capsule of the Phoenix. Keyop's "Space Bubble", an all-terrain, tank-like vehicle capable of VTOL as well as being a submersible craft, was held in the right storage capsule of the Phoenix. And lastly, a futuristic jet fighter Mark pilots was stored in the top rear section of the Phoenix command island structure, and which used its tail fin to make up the center tail fin of the Phoenix. The fifth crew member, Tiny, was assigned to pilot the "Phoenix" rather than one of the detachable craft.


title: Battle of the Planets

text: A regularly featured plot device was the transformation of the Phoenix into a flaming bird-shaped craft able to handle virtually any exceptional situation by functioning as a sort of giant, super blowtorch called the Fiery Phoenix. The "Phoenix" primary weapon was a supply of rockets called "TBX missiles" in the series. It also occasionally flaunted a powerful solar-powered energy blaster, although the team had the misfortune of choosing very cloudy days to use it.


title: Battle of the Planets

text: The G-Force team themselves would use a combination of martial arts skills, ninja-like weapons, and their "cerebonic" powers to dispatch hordes of enemy soldiers and overcome other obstacles. Their bird-like costumes include wing-like capes that could fan out and function nearly identically to parachutes and/or wingsuits, enabling the G-Force members to drift or glide down to safety from heights that would otherwise prove fatal.


title: Battle of the Planets

text: The G-Force members stay in contact through a wrist-band communicator device which also serves as a way for them to change or "transmute" instantly into their G-Force uniforms or back into their civilian clothes. Other weapons seen displayed by various team members include Mark's sonic boomerang, a bird-shaped boomerang with razor-sharp wings; Jason's and Tiny's multi-purpose gadget guns, which can be outfitted with grappling hook and line, drill bits, etc.; and Keyop's and Princess's yo-yo bombs, which could be used as bolas, darts, and explosive devices. Other weapons include feathers with a sharpened steel quill that could be used as deadly throwing darts and mini-grenades shaped like ball bearings with spike studs.


title: Battle of the Planets

text: In 1986, "Gatchaman" was re-worked in the US as "" by Turner, with a good deal of the original content edited out of "Battle of the Planets" put back into the show. It followed the plot of the original "Gatchaman" much more faithfully than "Battle of the Planets" because of this. Missing was Hoyt Curtin's original score. New voice acting was used.


title: Battle of the Planets

text: The two Japanese follow-up series, "Gatchaman II" and "Gatchaman Fighter", were combined into 65 episodes and released as the Saban-produced show "Eagle Riders". All 65 episodes aired in Australia, but in the United States, only 13 episodes were aired.


title: Battle of the Planets

text: The "Battle of the Planets" adaptation differs significantly from "Gatchaman". The difference is due to heavy editing made to make the show appealing to the audience in the United States by removing controversial elements (i.e. graphic violence, profanity, nudity and transgender characters) while adding elements reminiscent of the feature film "Star Wars", which was popular at the time. In fact, the name "Battle of the Planets" was an attempt to associate itself with the popularity of "Star Wars". While the original "Gatchaman" was earthbound, dark-toned, and environmentally themed, the adaptation morphed it into a child-friendly outer space show with robot characters, although some environmental themes were kept, and this is also why the other planets to which G-Force traveled on missions looked very much like Earth. Setting, violence, objectionable language, and most character fatalities were altered or eliminated by cutting scenes, dubbing, and explanatory voice-overs (for instance, claiming that the city had been evacuated before a battle scene that would show the incidental destruction of buildings and houses, as well as explaining away the destruction of the Earth armies and air forces as being robot tanks and fighter planes).


title: Battle of the Planets

text: One of the most notable changes in the "BotP" adaptation involves the character Keyop (Jinpei in "Gatchaman"), who picked up a bizarre verbal tic of stuttering, chirping, and burbling every time he started to speak. There was a longstanding fan rumor that this was done because the original character spoke using much profanity and that Keyop's excess mouth motion would cover up deleting the words. This was not true, as demonstrated by the existence of an unedited "Gatchaman" version released by ADV Films in the US, in which Keyop rarely, if ever, used profanity. The in-story explanation for Keyop's unique manner of speech is that he is an artificial life form with a speech impediment because of slightly defective genetic engineering.


title: Battle of the Planets

text: The main villain, known as Zoltar in "BotP", had an unusual background due to the hermaphroditic nature of the original Berg Katse character. In an episode where Katse's female half was featured ("BotP" title: "The Galaxy Girls"), she was introduced as a separate character, Zoltar's sister, for "BotP". (A hint of her actual nature was retained in the name she used when masquerading as a human, Mala Latroz—"Latroz" is an anagram of "Zoltar.")


title: Battle of the Planets

text: To compensate for the other differences, a robot named 7-Zark-7—who watched over G-Force from their base, Center Neptune—performed explanatory voiceovers and light comic relief, which not only padded the time lost from editing but also filled in the gaps in the storyline. This device bears the influence of contemporary "Star Wars" film, with 7-Zark-7 having a visual appearance not dissimilar from R2-D2, and a somewhat camp personality in the style of C-3PO. Notionally, 7-Zark-7 ran the undersea monitoring station Center Neptune, from where he received information regarding incoming threats to Earth and relayed that information to G-Force. Zark and other added characters, such as 1-Rover-1, Zark's robotic dog (who could hover from one side of the control room to the other by spinning his tail like a propeller, Muttley-style) and Susan (the early-warning computer whose sultry feminine voice often sent Zark into ecstasy) added to the cartoon's youth appeal. Some additional footage was also animated showing G-Force members Mark and Princess (using their "Gatchaman" model sheets) interacting with Zark, as well putting an image of Mark on a video screen in the control room, helping his addition blend more smoothly into the existing "Gatchaman" footage (although there is a clear difference in quality between the Zark and the "Gatchaman" animation).


title: Battle of the Planets

text: Apart from the pilot episode, "Battle of the Planets" featured a generic end credits sequence which only credited the regular cast, Alan Young, Casey Kasem, Janet Waldo, Ronnie Schell, Keye Luke and Alan Dinehart. But in addition to the regulars, several uncredited 'guest' performers voiced secondary characters in many of the episodes. These included Takayo Fischer, William Woodson (who was also the announcer for the opening titles, episode previews and trailers), Frank Maxwell, Edward Andrews, Wendy Young (daughter of Alan Young), and David Jolliffe (who also voiced Jason in the pilot.) The pilot episode featured a different end credits sequence which also credited Jolliffe, William Woodson and Alan Oppenheimer. It is unclear which character Oppenheimer voiced in the episode (it may have been Gorok, the episode's villain; or it may have been Chief Anderson, who was cut from the final version of the episode), and he never worked on the series again.


title: Battle of the Planets

text: A TV movie called "Battle of the Planets: The Movie" was made by Gallerie International Films and Sandy Frank Film Syndication. David Bret Egen was the voice of 7-Zark-7. The movie was combined from several episodes to form a new storyline that contained violence as well as deaths. It was considered for an uncut remake of "Battle of The Planets", but was scrapped when plans changed. Sandy Frank began focusing efforts on arranging an uncut dub of "Gatchaman" instead.


title: Battle of the Planets

text: "Battle of the Planets" was also released in comic book form, originally by Gold Key Comics, but later revamped by Top Cow Productions. Among the Top Cow comic books was "Battle of the Planets: Princess", written by David Wohl with art by Wilson Tortosa, released in 2002. A "Battle of the Planets" comic strip ran in the British "TV Comic". The "TV Comic" issues which feature the "Battle of the Planets" strip run from #1530 (17 April 1981) to #1671 (30 December 1983). "TV Comic" also reprinted some of the Gold Key stories for two "Battle of the Planets" holiday specials and one "TV Comic" holiday special. There was also a "Battle of the Planets Annual" which reprinted some of the Gold Key stories.


title: Battle of the Planets

text: According to "Wizard" magazine, "Battle of the Planets" is considered to be one of the 100 greatest animated shows.


title: Battle of the Planets

text: "Battle of the Planets: Phoenix Ninjas" (working title) was a planned animated reboot that would have been produced by Nelvana, d-rights and Tatsunoko. Aimed at 6- to 11-year-old boys, the project was conceived when d-rights expressed interest in Nelvana rebooting the franchise after the success the three saw with the second generation of "". There has been no new information on the project since 2016 and it appears to be scrapped.


title: Battle of the Planets

text: It was announced at the San Diego Comic Con in July 2019 that Joe and Anthony Russo are producing a live-action "Battle of the Planets" film through their production company, AGBO, with the possibility of directing. On July 22, 2021, it was announced the Russo Brothers have brought Daniel Casey as the film's scriptwriter. In a video interview with AP Entertainment on July 1, 2022, Joe Russo said they are still working on the movie.


title: Blake Masters

text: Blake Gates Masters (born August 5, 1986) is an American venture capitalist and political candidate. Frequently referred to as a protégé of businessman Peter Thiel, Masters co-wrote "Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future" with Thiel in 2014, based on notes Masters had taken at Stanford Law School in 2012. He was later chief operating officer of Thiel's investment firm, Thiel Capital, and also president of the Thiel Foundation.