title: Red dot sight

text: In 1975, the Swedish optics company Aimpoint AB marketed the first "electronic" red dot sight combining a reflecting curved mirror and a light-emitting diode, based on a design by Helsingborg engineer John Arne Ingemund Ekstrand. The sight was called the "Aimpoint Electronic" and had a closed tube design that could be mounted similar to a telescopic sight. The LED could run for 1500 to 3000 hours on mercury batteries. Other manufacturers soon followed with over a dozen offering models today. Newer generation red dot sights were produced with lower power consumption LEDs and power saving electronics, allowing them to run for years without being turned off. In 2000, the U.S. military introduced a red dot sight into field use, the Aimpoint CompM2, designated the "M68 Close Combat Optic".


title: Red dot sight

text: Red dot sight reticle sizes are measured in milliradians (mrad) and minutes of angle (MOA), which both are angular measurements, making them handy units to use in ballistics. Milliradians are handy when using SI units for range and subtensions, and can be calculated by measuring the group size in millimeters (or in centimeters and multiplying by a factor of 10) and dividing by the range measured in meters. Minutes is another convenient measure for shooters using English units, since 1 MOA approximately subtends 1.0472 inches at a distance of 100 yards (91.44 m), which is generally rounded to 1 inch at 100 yards. While MOA sights have traditionally been popular in the U.S., scope sights with mrad adjustments and reticles are now also becoming increasingly popular in the U.S.


title: Red dot sight

text: The most common reticles used today in red dot sights both for handguns and rifles are small dots covering between 0.6 and 1.6 mrad (2 to 5 MOA). The choice of red dot reticle size depends on the user needs. A larger and brighter red dot makes for faster target acquisition, but may obscure the target and thereby inhibit precise aiming, while a smaller and dim dot allows for more precise but slower aiming. The 1.6 mrad (5 MOA) dot is small enough not to obscure most handgun targets, and large enough for most competition shooters to quickly acquire a proper sight picture. Red dots for rifles typically have a smaller dot, often 0.6 to 0.8 mrad (2 to 3 MOA). When red dot sights started to appear at the practical shooting competition circuit in the 1990s, reticle sizes of up to 3, 4.5 or even 6 mrad (10, 15 or 20 MOA) were common in order to compensate for the lack of bright illumination. However, as red dot technology and production quality has advanced, the market trend in all types of sport shooting has gone towards the smaller dots used today.


title: Red dot sight

text: Red dot sights place the target and the reticle on nearly the same optical plane, allowing a single point of focus. This makes them fast-acquisition and easy-to-use sights, allowing the user to keep their attention on the field of view in front of them. They are common in speed shooting sports such as IPSC. Military units and police forces have also adopted them. Red dot sights are also popular among paintball and airsoft players for similar reasons.


title: Red dot sight

text: Because there is no magnification, the shooter need not worry about parallax or eye relief. The long eye relief makes red dot sights appropriate for firearms with heavy recoil that might drive a conventional short eye relief telescopic sight into the shooter's eye. Since dot sights can be mounted at any distance from the shooter's eye with no issues of focus, military rifle mounts usually place the sight in any mechanically-convenient mounting position, such as the carrying handle of the M16 rifle, or on a rail system (typically a Picatinny rail) on top of the rifle. This leaves plenty of room for night vision equipment to be used with the red dot sight.


title: Red dot sight

text: Miniature red dot sights are becoming increasingly popular for use on pistols, both for competition and military applications.


title: Red dot sight

text: A red dot sights can be combined with a red dot magnifier, a small optical telescope mounted behind the sight to provide increased magnification to a shooter's view.


title: Horror game

text: A horror game is a video game genre centered on horror fiction and typically designed to scare the player. Unlike most other video game genres, which are classified by their gameplay, horror games are nearly always based on narrative or visual presentation, and use a variety of gameplay types.


title: Horror game

text: Historically, the classification of video games into genres ignores the narrative themes, which would include science fiction or fantasy games, instead preferring systems based on the style of gameplay or at times, types of game modes or by platform. Horror games is the only narrative-based classification that has generally not followed this pattern, with the narrative genre label used broadly for games designed to scare players. This broad association to the narrative theme of horror games leads to the lack of well-defined subgenres of horror games. Many gameplay-defined genres have numerous games with horror themes, notably the "Castlevania" platform game series uses monsters and creatures borrowed from numerous horror mythos. In such cases, these games are still categorized by their original gameplay genre, the horror aspect considered a literary aspect of the game. However, there are some specific areas in the broad horror game classification that have been identified as unique subgenres in horror.


title: Horror game

text: One of the best-defined and most common types of horror games are survival horror games. These games tend to focus on the survival of the player-character in a horror setting with limited resources, and thus tend to be more geared as an action game or action-adventure game. A common theme of these games is escape or survival from the equivalent of a zombie apocalypse, with weapons, ammunition, and armor limited. The "Resident Evil" series coined the term and serves as the prime example of such games, though key conventions of the subgenre preceded the "Resident Evil" series. Other notable survival horror series include "Alone in the Dark", "Clock Tower", "Fatal Frame" and "Parasite Eve".


title: Horror game

text: Action horror games use action game elements from first person and third-person shooter games alongside the survival horror themes, making them more fast-paced than survival horror games. These grew in popularity following the release of "Resident Evil 4" in 2005 and which persisted in the next two titles, "Resident Evil 5" and "Resident Evil 6", with gameplay that focused more on action-oriented combat than puzzles and problem-solving from previous titles ("Resident Evil 7" returned to the series' survival horror roots). Examples of action horror games include "The House of the Dead" series, the "Dead Space" series, the "Left 4 Dead" series, and "The Last of Us".


title: Horror game

text: Psychological horror games are meant to scare the player through emotional, mental, or psychological states rather than through monsters or other scares. The fear comes from "what is "not seen", rather than what is". These games commonly rely on the player-character's unreliable perceptions or questionable sanity in order to develop the story. Through the use of unreliable narrators, such games may explore the fear of losing one's capacity to think rationally or even to recognize one's own identity. Psychological horror games may not depend as much on action compared with survival horror games, instead giving time for the player to explore and witness events. The "Silent Hill" series, which is also based on survival horror elements, is considered one of the defining psychological horror games. Frictional Games' "Penumbra" and "" series and their standalone game "SOMA" explore ethical and philosophical questions, and the psychology, motivations and fallible sides of their largelly defenceless protagonists, subjected to mysterious events largelly beyond their control. Games with an emphasis on psychological horror may also take advantage of the video game medium to break the fourth wall and appear to affect the player's computer or console directly, such as with "OMORI", "Eternal Darkness" and "Doki Doki Literature Club!" Psychological horror games may still be tied to action-based genres; "" is a third-person shooter but with a psychological horror narrative inspired by works like "Heart of Darkness" and "Apocalypse Now".


title: Horror game

text: Jump scare horror games are designed around moments aimed to immediately surprise or shock the player when they do not expect it, as well as creating a sense of dread while anticipating the next jump scare. While jump scares may be elements in other horror games along with other gameplay aspects, jump scare horror games are generally limited to this type of gameplay mechanism. They are often aimed towards generating reactions from players, which have proven popular to watch over streaming playthroughs of games. "Five Nights at Freddy's" is one example of this style of game.


title: Horror game

text: Some other examples of jump scare horror games include "Dino Crisis", "Outlast", and "Resident Evil".


title: Horror game

text: Reverse horror games involve the player scaring others, rather than the player being scared. Compared to a horror game, the player is instead what would be considered the antagonist. Reverse horror games generally involve assuming the role of a monster or villain. In comparison to the victim, the main character has some sort of advantage over the others, such as enhanced vision, greater strength, or supernatural abilities. Reverse horror games may also derive from an original horror game, developed as a sequel or prequel to the original, intended to display the perspective of the titular antagonist. Examples of reverse horror games include "Carrion" and the asymmetric multiplayer modes in "Dead by Daylight" and "", in which one player controls the monster or the killer that is chasing the other players.


title: Horror game

text: The incorporation of general horror genre themes into video games came early on in the medium, inspired by horror fiction and especially horror films. The earliest rudimentary attempt at a horror video game dates back to as early as 1972, when a "Haunted House" overlay was included with the first video game console, the Magnavox Odyssey, inspired by haunted house fiction. Taito's classic arcade video game "Space Invaders" (1978) has also been cited as a precursor to horror video games, as it involved a survival scenario where an alien invasion slowly descends and increasingly destroys the landscape while menacing sound effects gradually speed up, which created a sense of panic in players when it first released. The text-based adventure games "Mystery House" (1980) and "The Lurking Horror" (1987) incorporated horror elements through their textual descriptions of rooms.


title: Horror game

text: ASCII Corporation's "Nostromo" (1981) for the PC-6001, inspired by the science fiction horror film "Alien" (1979), was a survival horror game that involves escaping from an invisible alien with limited available resources. Another notable early horror video game was "Haunted House" (1982) for the Atari 2600. At that point, video game technology lacked the fidelity to carry the themes of horror in the technology and was instead wrapped more in game manuals and other presentation materials. "3D Monster Maze" (1982) for the Sinclair ZX81, while not containing images tied with horror games, was one of the first games to induce the feeling of suspense and mystery typically associated with the genre.


title: Horror game

text: With more graphical capabilities, games should start to include horror-related imagery, often present in the licensed games based on horror films in the 1980s and 1990s such as "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (1983), "Halloween" (1983) and "Friday the 13th" (1989), as well as games inspired by horror films such as the survival horror "Project Firestart" (1989) inspired by the "Alien" films. Due to limitations of consoles and computers, these horror images were often limited to cutscenes rather than the animated sprites used in the action-based gameplay as to give the fidelity to the details of the horror scene.


title: Horror game

text: Sega's "Monster Bash" (1982) was a horror-themed arcade action game that depicted classic movie monsters such as Count Dracula, Frankenstein's monster and werewolves. Other horror-themed action games that followed in the late 1980s included Capcom's "Ghosts 'n Goblins" (1985), Konami's "Castlevania" (1986), and Sega's "Ghost House" (1986) and "Kenseiden" (1988), with more violent gory arcade horror games including Exidy's "Chiller" (1986) and Namco's "Splatterhouse" (1988). One of the most well-known "haunted house" themed graphic adventure games was "Maniac Mansion" (1987) by LucasArts. "Sweet Home" (1989) was a survival horror role-playing video game based on the Japanese horror film of the same name. It was Capcom's first survival horror title, directed by Tokuro Fujiwara, who had earlier designed "Ghosts 'n Goblins" and later went on to produce "Resident Evil", which was originally intended to be a remake of "Sweet Home". "Phantasmagoria" (1995) by Roberta Williams was one of the earliest psychological horror games.


title: Horror game

text: "Alone in the Dark" (1992), developed by Infogrames and inspired by H.P. Lovecraft fiction and George Romero zombie films, was one of the first survival horror games to bring a more immersive presentation, using crude 3D figures drawn atop a 2D pre-rendered background, so that players would control their character from a fixed camera angle. This allowed the developers to create the necessary sense of tension throughout the adventure game. "Alone in the Dark" was a global success on personal computers. "Sweet Home" and "Alone in the Dark" went on to inspire Capcom's original "Resident Evil" (1996), which coined the "survival horror" term. It spawned the "Resident Evil" franchise, which defined and popularized survival horror games. Sega's "The House of the Dead" (1996) was an arcade horror shooter game that introduced fast zombies who could run, jump and swim, whereas Konami's "Silent Hill" (1999) defined and popularized psychological horror games.


title: Horror game

text: While horror games were inspired by horror films up until the 1990s, horror games were later influencing horror films by the 2000s. The success of "Resident Evil" and "House of the Dead" sparked a renewed interest in zombie films by the 2000s, influencing hit zombie films such as "28 Days Later" (2002), the "Resident Evil" film series, "Dawn of the Dead" (2004) and "Shaun of the Dead" (2004). The "Resident Evil" and "House of the Dead" games influenced zombie films to move towards a more action-oriented approach with scientific themes and fast-running zombies.


title: Horror game

text: Horror games also benefited from indie game growth in the early 2010s, since outside of established franchises like "Resident Evil", major publishers had shied away from the genre. Series like Frictional Games' "Penumbra" series and "" series, and Red Barrels' "Outlast" series captured the type of gameplay from horror games like "Silent Hill" and "Resident Evil". Parsec Productions' "" took advantage of the popular Slenderman creepypasta, and became one of the first games to gain popularity from viewers watching reactions to online streamers playing the game. The "Five Nights at Freddy's" series by Scott Cawthon also similarly captured popularity through watching streamers' reactions to jump-scares. More recently in the early 2020s, indie horrors games have found a new aesthetic based on emulating the graphic style of older platforms, such as the low-poly graphics of the first PlayStation console or even pixel art, rather than high realism from modern 3D graphics. Besides capturing a sense of nostalgia, developers are able to use retro-inspired graphics on modern hardware to continue to manipulate the player and surprise them beyond the expectations of the visuals, such as giving the player the idea that the game itself is cursed and potentially breaking the fourth wall.


title: Judge Jerry

text: Judge Jerry is an American arbitration-based reality court show presided over by Jerry Springer, who previously hosted "Jerry Springer" from 1991 to 2018. The series began its run in first-run syndication on September 9, 2019, and was distributed by NBCUniversal Syndication Studios.


title: Judge Jerry

text: In February 2020, the series was renewed for a second season. In March 2021, the series was renewed for a third season. In March 2022, the series was canceled after three seasons.


title: Judge Jerry

text: Host Jerry Springer had planned on retiring after his tabloid talk show ended production in 2018. NBCUniversal, which had syndicated that tabloid talk show, was interested in retaining Springer's services and convinced him to take on hosting duties for an arbitration court show, the distributor's first entry into the genre. Springer was intrigued by the opportunity to host a more "grown-up" program and to use his law school education.


title: Judge Jerry

text: The signature "Jerry! Jerry!" chant had been carried over to "Judge Jerry", albeit only during the warm-up and never during the actual proceedings. Cases for "Judge Jerry" were chosen from pending small claims court cases that had already been filed in jurisdictions across the United States; according to Springer, this was to prevent litigants from purposely seeking out the show to earn 15 minutes of fame, a problem that had occasionally come up during the run of "Jerry Springer". In regard to his judicial style, Springer largely played it straight, though he noted: "invariably I crack jokes because I can't help it... even if I have to be stern I'm never going to be mean."


title: Judge Jerry

text: On February 5, 2020, the series was renewed for a second season. On March 23, 2021, the series was renewed for a third season, with the intent of presiding over more outrageous and entertaining cases compared to the previous two years. On March 9, 2022, the series was canceled after three seasons.


title: Judge Jerry

text: The show was filmed in front of a live audience at NBCUniversal's Stamford Media Center in Stamford, Connecticut. The show was taped in sessions of 30 to 35 cases every other week.


title: Sergei Yesenin

text: Sergei Alexandrovich Yesenin (; ( 1895 – 28 December 1925), sometimes spelled as Esenin, was a Russian lyric poet. He is one of the most popular and well-known Russian poets of the 20th century, known for "his lyrical evocations of and nostalgia for the village life of his childhoodno idyll, presented in all its rawness, with an implied curse on urbanisation and industrialisation."


title: Sergei Yesenin

text: Sergei Yesenin was born in Konstantinovo in Ryazan Governorate of the Russian Empire to a peasant family. His father was Alexander Nikitich Yesenin (1873–1931), his mother's name was Tatyana Fyodorovna (nee Titova, 1875–1955).


title: Sergei Yesenin

text: Both his parents spent most of their time looking for work, father in Moscow, mother in Ryazan, so at age two Sergei was moved to the nearby village Matovo, to join Fyodor Alexeyevich and Natalya Yevtikhiyevna Titovs, his relatively well-off maternal grandparents, who essentially raised him.


title: Sergei Yesenin

text: The Titovs had three grown-up sons, and it was they who were Yesenin's early years' companions. "My uncles taught me horse-riding and swimming, one of them... even employed me as hound-dog, when going out to the ponds hunting ducks," he later remembered. He started to read aged five, and at nine began to write poetry, inspired originally by chastushkas and folklore, provided mostly by the grandmother whom he also remembered as a highly religious woman who used to take him to every single monastery she chose to visit. He had two younger sisters, Yekaterina (1905–1977), and Alexandra (1911–1981).


title: Sergei Yesenin

text: In 1904 Yesenin joined the Konstantinovo zemstvo school. In 1909 he graduated from it with an honorary certificate, and went on to study in the local secondary parochial school in Spas-Klepiki. From 1910 onwards, he started to write poetry systematically; eight poems dated that year were later included in his 1925 Collected Works. In all, Yesenin wrote around thirty poems during his school years. He compiled them into what was supposed to be his first book which he titled "Bolnye Dumy" (Sick Thoughts) and tried to publish it in 1912 in Ryazan, but failed.


title: Sergei Yesenin

text: In 1912, with a teacher’s diploma, Yesenin moved to Moscow, where he supported himself working as a proofreader's assistant at Sytin's printing company. The following year he enrolled in Chanyavsky University to study history and philology as an external student, but had to leave it after eighteen months due to lack of funds. In the University he became friends with several aspiring poets, among them Dmitry Semyonovsky, Vasily Nasedkin, Nikolai Kolokolov and Ivan Filipchenko. Yesenin’s first marriage (which lasted three years) was in 1913 to Anna Izryadnova, a co-worker from the publishing house, with whom he had a son, Yuri.


title: Sergei Yesenin

text: 1913 saw Yesenin becoming increasingly interested in Christianity, biblical motives became frequent in his poems. "Grisha, what I am reading at the moment is the Gospel and find a lot of things which for me are new," he wrote to his close childhood friend G. Panfilov. That was also the year when he became involved with the Moscow revolutionary circles: for several months his flat was under secret police surveillance and in September 1913 it was raided and searched.


title: Sergei Yesenin

text: In January 1914, Yesenin's first published poem "Beryoza" (The Birch Tree) appeared in the children's magazine "Mirok" (Small World). More appearances followed in minor magazines such as "Protalinka" and "Mlechny Put". In December 1914 Yesenin quit work "and gave himself to poetry, writing continually," according to his wife. Around this time he became a member of the Surikov Literary and Music circle.


title: Sergei Yesenin

text: In 1915, exasperated with the lack of interest in his work in Moscow, Yesenin moved to Petrograd. He arrived at the city on 8 March and the next day met Alexander Blok at his home, to read him poetry. He received a warm welcome and soon became acquainted with fellow-poets Sergey Gorodetsky, Nikolai Klyuev and Andrei Bely and well known in literary circles. Blok was especially helpful in promoting Yesenin's early literary career, describing him as "a gem of a peasant poet" and his verse as "fresh, pure and resounding", even if "wordy".


title: Sergei Yesenin

text: The same year he joined the Krasa (Beauty) group of peasant poets which included Klyuyev, Gorodetsky, Sergey Klychkov and Alexander Shiryayevets, among others. In his 1925 autobiography Yesenin said that Bely gave him the meaning of form while Blok and Klyuev taught him lyricism. It was Klyuyev who introduced Yesenin to the publisher Averyanov, who in early 1916 released his debut poetry collection "Radunitsa" which featured many of his early spiritual-themed verse. "I would have eagerly relinquished some of my religious poems, large and small, but they make sense as an illustration of poets' progress towards the revolution," he would later write. Yesenin and Klyuyev maintained close and intimate friendship which lasted several years.


title: Sergei Yesenin

text: Later in 1915, Yesenin became a co-founder of the Krasa literary group and published numerous poems in the Petrograd magazines "Russkaya Mysl", "Ezhemesyachny Zhurnal", "Novy Zhurnal Dlya Vsekh", "Golos Zhizni" and "Niva". Among the authors he met later in the year were Maxim Gorky, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Nikolai Gumilyov and Anna Akhmatova; he also visited painter Ilya Repin in his Penaty. Yesenin's rise to fame was meteoric; by the end of the year he became the star of St Petersburg's literary circles and salons. "The city took to him with the delight a gourmet reserves for strawberries in winter. A barrage of praise hit him, excessive and often insincere," Maxim Gorky wrote to Romain Rolland.


title: Sergei Yesenin

text: On 25 March 1916, Yesenin was drafted for military duty and in April joined a medical train based in Tsarskoye Selo, under the command of colonel D.N. Loman. In 22 July 1916, at a special concert attended by the Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna (the train's patron) and her daughters, Yesenin recited his poems "Rus" and "In Scarlet Fireglow". "The Empress told me my poems were beautiful, but sad. I replied, the same could be said about Russia as a whole," he recalled later. His relationships with Loman soon deteriorated. In October, Yesenin declined the colonel's offer to write (with Klyuyev) and have published a book of pro-monarchist verses, and spent twenty days under arrest as a consequence.


title: Sergei Yesenin

text: In March 1917, Yesenin was sent to the Warrant Officers School but soon deserted Kerensky's army. In August 1917 (having divorced Izryadnova a year earlier) Yesenin married for a second time, to Zinaida Raikh (later an actress and the wife of Vsevolod Meyerhold). They had two children, a daughter Tatyana and a son Konstantin. The parents subsequently quarreled and lived separately for some time prior to their divorce in 1921. Tatyana became a writer and journalist and Konstantin Yesenin would become a well-known soccer statistician.


title: Sergei Yesenin

text: Yesenin supported the February Revolution. "If not for [it], I might have withered away on useless religious symbolism," he wrote later. He greeted the rise of the Bolsheviks too. "In the Revolution I was all on the side of the October, even if perceiving everything in my own peculiar way, from a peasant's standpoint," he remembered in his 1925 autobiography. Later he criticized the Bolshevik rule, in such poems as "The Stern October Has Deceived Me". "I feel very sad now, for we are going through such a period in [our] history when human individuality is being destroyed, and the approaching socialism is totally different from the one I was dreaming of," he wrote in an August 1920 letter to his friend Yevgeniya Livshits. "I never joined the RKP, being further to the left than them," he maintained in his 1922 autobiography.


title: Sergei Yesenin

text: Artistically, the revolutionary years were exciting time for Yesenin. Among the important poems he wrote in 1917–1918 were "Prishestviye" (The Advent), "Preobrazheniye" (Transformation, which gave the title to the 1918 collection), and "Inoniya". In February 1918, after the Sovnarkom issued the "Socialist Homeland is in Danger!" decree-appeal, he joined the esers' military unit. He actively participated in the magazine "Nash Put" (Our Way), as well as the almanacs Skify (Скифы) and Krasny Zvon (in February his large poem "Marfa Posadnitsa" appeared in one of the latter). In September 1918 Yesenin co-founded (with Andrey Bely, Pyotr Oreshin, Lev Povitsky and Sergey Klychkov) the publishing house Трудовая Артель Художников Слова (the Labor Artel of the Artists of the Word) which reissued (in six books) all that he had written by this time.


title: Sergei Yesenin

text: In September 1918, Yesenin became friends with Anatoly Marienhof, with whom he founded the Russian literary movement of imaginism. Describing their group's general appeal, he wrote in 1922: "Prostitutes and bandits are our fans. With them, we are pals. Bolsheviks do not like us due to some kind of misunderstanding." In January 1919, Yesenin signed the Imaginists' Manifest. In February he, Marienhof and Vadim Shershenevich, founded the Imaginists' publishing house. Before that, Yesenin became a member of the Moscow Union of Professional Writers and several months later was elected a member of the All-Russian Union of Poets. Two of his books, "Kobyliyu Korabli" (Mare's Ships) and "Klyuchi Marii" (The Keys of Mary) came out later that year.


title: Sergei Yesenin

text: In July–August 1920, Yesenin toured the Russian South, starting in Rostov-on-Don and ending in Tiflis, Georgia. In November 1920, he met Galina Benislavskaya, his future secretary and close friend. Following an anonymous report, he and two of his Imaginist friends, brothers Alexander and Ruben Kusikovs, were arrested by the Cheka in October but released a week later on the solicitation of his friend Yakov Blumkin. In the course of that year, the publication of three of Yesenin's books were refused by publishing house Goslitizdat. His "Triptych" collection came out through the Skify Publishers in Berlin. Next year saw the collections "Confessions of a Hooligan" (January) and "Treryaditsa" (February) published. The drama in verse "Pygachov" came out in December 1921, to much acclaim.


title: Sergei Yesenin

text: In May 1921, he visited a friend, the poet Alexander Shiryaevets, in Tashkent, giving poetry readings and making a short trip to Samarkand. In the fall of 1921, while visiting the studio of painter Georgi Yakulov, Yesenin met the Paris-based American dancer Isadora Duncan, a woman 18 years his senior. She knew only a dozen words in Russian, and he spoke no foreign languages. Nevertheless, they married on 2 May 1922. Yesenin accompanied his celebrity wife on a tour of Europe and the United States. His marriage to Duncan was brief and in May 1923, he returned to Moscow.


title: Sergei Yesenin

text: In his 1922 autobiography, Yesenin wrote: "Russia's recent nomadic past does not appeal to me, and I am all for civilization. But I dislike America intensely. America is a stinking place where not just art is being murdered, but with it, all the loftiest aspirations of humankind. If it's America that we are looking up to, as [a model for our] future, then I'd rather stay under our greyish skies... We do not have those skyscrapers that's managed to produce up to date nothing but Rockefeller and McCormick, but here Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Pushkin and Lermontov were born."


title: Sergei Yesenin

text: In 1923, Yesenin became romantically involved with the actress Augusta Miklashevskaya to whom he dedicated several poems, among them those of the "Hooligan's Love" cycle. In the same year, he had a son by the poet Nadezhda Volpina. Alexander Esenin-Volpin grew up to become a poet and a prominent activist in the Soviet dissident movement of the 1960s. Since 1972, till his death in 2016, he lived in the United States as a famous mathematician and teacher.


title: Sergei Yesenin

text: As Yesenin's popularity grew, stories began to circulate about his heavy drinking and consequent public outbursts. In autumn 1923, he was arrested in Moscow twice and underwent a series of enquiries from the OGPU secret police. Fellow poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, wrote that, after his return from America, Yesenin became more visible in newspaper police log sections than in poetry.


title: Sergei Yesenin

text: More serious were the accusations of anti-Semitism against Yesenin and three of his close friends, fellow poets, Sergey Klytchkov, Alexei Ganin and Pyotr Oreshin, made by Lev Sosnovsky, a prominent journalist and close Trotsky associate. The foursome retorted with an open letter in "Pravda" and, in December, were cleared by the Writers' Union burlaw court. It was later suggested, though, that Yesenin's departure to the Caucasus in the summer of 1924 might have been a direct result of the harassment by the NKVD. Earlier that year, fourteen writers and poets, including his friend Ganin, were arrested as the alleged members of the (apparently fictitious) Order of the Russian Fascists, then tortured and executed in March without trial.


title: Sergei Yesenin

text: In January–April 1924, Yesenin was arrested and interrogated four times. In February, he entered the Sheremetev hospital, then was moved into the Kremlin clinic in March. Nevertheless, he continued to make public recitals and released several books in the course of the year, including "Moskva Kabatskaya". In August 1924 Yesenin and fellow poet Ivan Gruzinov published a letter in "Pravda", announcing the end of the Imaginists.


title: Sergei Yesenin

text: In early 1925, Yesenin met and married Sophia Andreyevna Tolstaya (1900–1957), a granddaughter of Leo Tolstoy. In May, what proved to be his final large poem "Anna Snegina" came out. During the year, he compiled and edited The Works by Yesenin in three volumes which was published by Gosizdat posthumously.


title: Sergei Yesenin

text: On 28 December 1925, Yesenin was found dead in his room in the Hotel Angleterre in Leningrad. His last poem "Goodbye my friend, goodbye" ("До свиданья, друг мой, до свиданья") according to Wolf Ehrlich was written by him the day before he died. Yesenin complained that there was no ink in the room, and he was forced to write with his blood.


title: Sergei Yesenin

text: According to his biographers, the poet was in a state of depression and committed suicide by hanging.


title: Sergei Yesenin

text: After the funeral in Leningrad, Yesenin's body was transported by train to Moscow, where a farewell for relatives and friends of the deceased was also arranged. He was buried 31 December 1925, in Moscow's Vagankovskoye Cemetery. His grave is marked by a white marble sculpture.


title: Sergei Yesenin

text: There is a theory that Yesenin's death was actually a murder by OGPU agents who staged it to look like suicide. The novel "Yesenin. Story of a Murder" by Vitali Bezrukov, is devoted to that version of Yesenin's death. In 2005, a TV serial, "Sergey Yesenin", based on the novel, was shown on Channel One Russia, with Sergey Bezrukov playing Yesenin. Facts tending to support the assassination hypothesis were cited by Stanislav Kunyaev and Sergey Kunyaev in the final chapter of their biography of Yesenin.


title: Sergei Yesenin

text: Enraged by his death, Mayakovsky composed a poem called "To Sergei Yesenin", where the resigned ending of Yesenin's death poem is countered by these verses: "in this life it is not hard to die, / to mold life is more difficult." In a later lecture on Yesenin, he said that the revolution demanded "that we glorify life." However, Mayakovsky himself would commit suicide in 1930.


title: Sergei Yesenin

text: Yesenin's suicide triggered an epidemic of copycat suicides by his mostly female fans. For example, Galina Benislavskaya, his ex-girlfriend, killed herself by his graveside in December 1926. Although he was one of Russia's most popular poets and had been given an elaborate state funeral, some of his writings were banned by the Kremlin during the reigns of Joseph Stalin and Nikita Khrushchev. Nikolai Bukharin's criticism of Yesenin contributed significantly to the banning.


title: Sergei Yesenin

text: Only in 1966 were most of his works republished. Today Yesenin's poems are taught to Russian schoolchildren; many have been set to music and recorded as popular songs. His early death, coupled with unsympathetic views by some of the literary elite, adoration by ordinary people, and sensational behavior, all contributed to the enduring and near mythical popular image of the Russian poet.


title: Sergei Yesenin

text: Bernd Alois Zimmermann included his poetry in his "Requiem für einen jungen Dichter" ("Requiem for a Young Poet"), completed in 1969.


title: Sergei Yesenin

text: "Anna Snegina" (Yesenin's poem translated into 12 languages; translated into English by Peter Tempest)


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: In classical Islamic law, a concubine was a slave-woman with whom her master engaged in sexual relations. Concubinage was widely accepted by Muslim scholars in pre-modern times. Most modern Muslims, both scholars and laypersons, believe that Islam no longer accepts concubinage and that sexual relations are religiously permissible only within marriage.


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: Concubinage was a custom practiced in both pre-Islamic Arabia and the wider Near East and Mediterranean. The Qur'an allowed this custom by requiring that a man not have sexual relations with anyone except for his wife or concubine. Muhammad had a concubine Maria the Copt who had been given to him as a gift by al-Muqawqis with whom he had a son. Some sources say he later freed and married her, while others dispute this. Classical Islamic jurists did not place any limits on how many concubines a man could have. Prostitution of concubines was prohibited. A concubine who gave birth to a child was given the special status of an "umm al-walad"; she could not be sold and was automatically free after her master's death. The children of a concubine were considered free, legitimate and equal in status to the children from a man's wife.


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: With abolition of slavery in the Muslim world, the practice of concubinage came to an end. Many modern Muslims see slavery as contrary to Islamic principles of justice and equality.


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: In the context of Islamic law, a concubine is a man's slave-woman with whom he has a sexual relationship. The classical Arabic term for it is "surriyya", although the terms "jariya", "ama", "mamluka" could also refer to a concubine. Various etymologies of the term are proposed for "surriyya", each relating to an aspect of concubinage:


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: Most Western scholarship translates "surriyya" as "concubine", though some use the term "slave-concubine". Neither the word "surriyya" nor any dedicated term for a concubine or female slave appears in the Qur'an, which only uses the phrase "ma malakat aymanukum" in broad reference to slaves in general.The word ama does appear in the Quran 2:221.


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: Concubinage of female slaves was an accepted practice in the ancient Mediterranean and Near East. Slave concubinage was practiced in the Byzantine empire. However, this practice was banned by Christian clergy. Concubinage in Jewish communities is unclear; slave concubinage is mentioned in Biblical texts, however, the practice appears to have declined before Muhammad. Concubinage was also practiced by wealthy men in pre-Islamic Buddhism and Hinduism.


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: There are similarities and differences in concubinage in Islam and other communities. Whereas in Islam the children of concubines were automatically legitimate this was not necessarily the case in Sassanian Persia or among the Mazdeans. Instead the Sassanian shah chose a chief wife and only her children were legitimate. Similarly, Christians living in Persia did not see the children of slave concubine as legitimate. Concubinage practiced by Romans was generally monogamous, whereas Islam did not place limits on number of concubines. On the other hand, the Islamic practice of freeing the concubine who had borne a child on the death of the master was also found among Persian Christians.


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: In pre-Islamic Arabia concubinage was practiced. The child of a concubine remained a slave unless liberated by the father. The child would also not be considered a member of the tribe unless liberated by the father; pre-Islamic Arab father were reluctant to recognize their children from black concubines. By contrast under Islam recognizing children of concubines as tribe members became mandatory. Bernard Lewis argues that many pre-Islamic Arabs were born of concubines. By contrast, Majied Robinson argues that concubinage was not widely practiced in pre-Islamic Arabia. He argues that large-scale concubinage in the early Umayyad period was rooted neither in pre-Islamic Quraysh traditions, nor in the Qur'an, nor in the practice of Muhammad - rather large scale concubinage was caused by Umayyad desire to have more sons.


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: The Qur'an is considered the ultimate authority of Islam and its verses considered guidance by Muslims. The phrase most commonly used for concubines in the Qur'an is "ma malakat aymanukum" (variants: "aymanuhum",


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: "aymanuhunna", "yaminuka"), appearing 15 times in the Qur'an. The phrase means "those whom your right hands possess." At several instances the term is used in the context of marriage, not concubinage. Some scholars see the term as referring to both male and female slaves, and not just to concubines. Bernard Freamon argues that the term does not have pre-Islamic origins and appears to be a Qur'anic innovation. He further argues that to be held by "the right hands" means to be held in honor in Arabic and Islamic culture. This can also be seen in Quranic verses that refer to those who will enter Paradise as "companions of the right hand."


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: The Qur'an allows men to have sexual relations with their female slaves, but promotes abstinence and marriage as better choices. The Quran regards such slaves as part of the family, though of lower social status than free family members. Verse formed the basis for a later rule that concubines must be freed before their master can marry them. Verse mandates that slaves be allowed to marry. Verse meant that married women could not become concubines even if they were a slave.


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: Verse , addressed to Muhammad, refers to women "possessed by the right hand" as "spoils of war". This verse became the basis of allowing captive women to be distributed as concubines. The Qur'an doesn't mention anything about large scale concubinage, which some Muslims practiced in history.


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: The verses of the Qur'an that refer to concubinage are Meccan, and restrict sexual relations to wives and concubines (, ). The Medinan verses instead promote marriage to free women (), marriage to slaves (, ) and recommend abstinence (, ). Jonathan Brockopp sees this as a chronological progression, where the later ethic appears to limit sexual relations to marriage only. Muhammad Asad believes the Qur'an doesn't recognize concubinage, instead restricting sexual relations to marriage only. He interprets the Qur'anic expression "those whom your right hands possess" as referring to a husband and wife who "rightfully possess" one another by virtue of marriage.


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: Muhammad had no concubines for most of his life when he was married monogamously to Khadija. Muhammad was sent two women as a gift from the Byzantine ruler of Alexandria and he took one of them, Mariyya, as a concubine. According to some sources he later freed her after she bore him a child, and married her. But this is contested by other sources. With regards to Rayhana, some sources indicate she was his concubine while other sources say Muhammad freed her and married her.


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: In one hadith, God promises to double the reward of a man who educates a concubine, frees her and then marries her as his wife. In another hadith, believed also to apply to slave mothers, Muhammad says "‘Whoever separates a mother and her child, God will separate him from his loved ones on the Day of Resurrection."


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: One source of high esteem for concubines was the assertion that Muhammad's tribe descended from Hagar the concubine, whereas it was the Jews who descended from Sarah the wife. In one disputed hadith, Muhammad declares that the son of concubine could be a prophet had the son not died in childhood. However, this hadith is contested by the Sunnis who believe there can be no prophets after Muhammad. Nevertheless it indicates the high esteem granted to children of concubines. Islamic tradition honors the concubines of both Abraham and Muhammad as "Mothers of the Faith".


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: The Sahaba are known to have had intercourse with female prisoners after battles. After the battle against the Banu Mustaliq, a hadith reports that the sahaba took the female captives as concubines and asked Muhammad whether it was permissible to practice "coitus interruptus" with them. Muhammad is believed to have responded in the affirmative. Muhammad then freed and married one of the captives, Juwayriyya bint al-Harith, thus making all the other captives related to Muhammad by marriage. As a result, the sahaba freed their captives as well. The sahaba are similarly known to have had sexual relations with the Hawazin women captured at the Battle of Hunayn. According to Ahmad ibn Hanbal these women had converted to Islam. The female captives were later released.


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: Classical Islamic law attempted to address issues of concubinage and slavery. It main sources were the Qur'an, the sunnah of Muhammad and "ijma" or consensus. Classical jurists were also influenced by the practice of the Byzantines and Sassanians whom the Muslims had recently conquered.


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: A man could obtain as many concubines as he could afford and terminate the relationship at will. The concubine was owed basic obligations and was to be treated humanely. If the concubine had children, she became "umm al-walad", and any children from concubinage were considered equal to those from a marriage.


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: Muslim scholars debated whether it was permissible to have concubines, and if so, how many. The majority of pre-modern Islamic scholars accepted the institution of concubinage. However, some scholars dissented. Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, a Shafi'i scholar, believed the Quran allows sexual relations only with one's wife. The Qaramati sect rejected both concubinage and polygamy as contrary to Islam, as did the Fatimid Al-Hakim. The Zaidiyyah considered concubinage distasteful but did not reject it. Some academics claim that the Kharijis rejected concubinage, but this claim has been disputed.


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: Most scholars did not place any limits on the number of concubines a man could have. However, according to Smith, they did not encourage the practice either. Some later Islamic scholars, especially during Ottoman times, did not approve of "excessively" large harem, seeing it as contrary to human dignity and violating Quranic verse 7:29. While Muhammad and many sahaba had a concubine or two, large scale concubinage would not be practiced until after the Muslim conquests.


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: Umar II, when he became caliph, realized he would no longer have time to spend with his concubines and so he freed some of his concubines and sent them back to their family. On the other hand Hasan is said to have three hundred concubines.


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: According to some scholars, not just free men but even slaves could have concubines. Women were forbidden from taking a male concubine.


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: Concubines in Islamic law were slaves, never a free woman. The only possible sources of acquiring slaves were purchase, capture in war, receiving as gift, or being born into slavery. Of these the most common source was purchase, though in early Islam receiving slaves as part of a tribute was another major source.


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: Not all female slaves could become concubines. There were a number of categories of female slaves with whom sexual relations were prohibited:


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: Concubines in Islamic law had a limited set of rights. According to Brown, this set of rights was comparable to the rights children had in Islamic law.


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: The concubine was owed basic obligations and was to be treated humanely. She had the right to basic maintenance, including food and shelter. She had the right to physical integrity and protection from physical abuse. She had the right to religious observances. She had a limited right to own property.


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: Slave mothers had the right not to be separated from their children. This rule applied until the child turned six. The Hanbali school held that separating other levels of family members (e.g. uncles and aunts) was also prohibited, whereas the Hanafis deemed this strongly discouraged.


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: The rights for a concubine who gave birth to a child were significantly higher (see section on "umm al-walad").


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: The master's ability to have sexual relations with her was one of the defining characteristics of a concubine. A man could not immediately have sexual relations with a concubine. He had to wait one menstrual cycle (known as "istebra") before he could have sexual relations with her. One reason for this was to avoid any doubts of the paternity of a child borne to the concubine. If the concubine was pregnant at the time of acquisition the man had to wait until the concubine gave birth before having sexual relations.


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: A man was allowed to practice "coitus interruptus" with his concubine for contraceptive purposes. While a man needed to obtain his wife's permission in order to practice coitus interruptus with his wife, he did not require his concubine's permission to practice coitus interruptus with the concubine.


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: Prostitution of concubines was prohibited. If a concubine committed adultery, her punishment was half of that of a free woman. A case was brought before Umar ibn Khattab incident a man raped a slave-girl; Umar commanded the man to be flogged:


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: Modern scholars have debated on whether the consent of the concubine was important in sexual relations. Tamara Sonn writes that concubines could not be forced into sexual relations. Rabb Intisar also argues that sexual relations with a concubine were subject to both parties' consent. Kecia Ali writes that consent was not required and could not find any classical legal text that requires it. She wrote that a concubine could be sold or married off without her consent. However, this contradicts Islamic law, which requires consent from both parties before marriage, regardless of the woman's status.


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: Other scholars have pointed out that the modern conception of sexual consent only came about since the 1970s, so it makes little sense to project it backwards onto classical Islamic law. Premodern Muslim jurists rather applied the harm principle to judge sexual misconduct, including between a master and concubine. Concubines could complain to judges if they were being sexually abused. According to al-Bahūtī, if a concubine was injured during sex, her master had to set her free.


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: "Umm walad" (mother of child) is a title given to a woman who gave birth to her master's child. In early Islam, Caliph Umar had decreed several rights for a concubine who gave birth:


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: These rules gave more rights to slaves than were given in Roman and Greek laws, where the child of a slave was also considered a slave. By contrast in Islamic law, if either the father or mother was free, the child would be considered as free. This was similar to the rights of slaves in Sassanian Iran. While Muhammad is said to have a child from Maria the Copt (according to some sources his concubine, other sources say his wife), the rules of "umm al-walad" were explicitly stated after his death. The children born of a man's concubine had the exact same status as the children born of the wife. Lineage was determined by the father, not the mother.


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: These rules had a tremendous impact on the nature of slavery in the Muslim world. Children borne to slaves often rose to leadership positions in the family and community. According to one estimate, 34 out 37 Abbasid Caliphate rulers had been borne to a slave. Many notable medieval Muslim rulers, from Central Asia to Zanzibar in Africa, had been borne to a slave.


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: Many Islamic jurists opined that the concubine gains the status of "umm walad" even if she miscarries.


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: Islamic jurists also grappled with the issue of conclusively determining who the father of the concubine's child was. The first option was for the owner to acknowledge his paternity. This was the usual case, and was also done by many Abbasid Caliphs. If the owner denied ever having intercourse with his concubine, she would have to mount a legal defense against him and legal documents from the 14th century have been found to this effect. The third case was when the owner had not made an explicit declaration either way. Maliki jurists granting the concubine the status of "um walad" in this third case. Majority of jurists did not allow the man to deny paternity of the concubine's child, though the Hanafis disagreed.


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: Abu Hanifa and al-Shaybani stated that a concubine's chastity should be protected and she should be established inside the home. Al-Mawardi said that while there was no legal requirement for the concubine to be secluded, this is to be done according to customary practice.


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: Scholars differed from what the awrah of a concubine was, owing to her slave status. It is reported that Umar prohibited female slaves from resembling free women by covering their hair. Some scholars have disputed the authenticity of this report. Later Islamic jurists said that it was preferred that slaves cover their body so as not to cause "fitna" (temptation). According to Ibn Abidin, most Hanafi scholars did not allow a female slave's chest, breasts or back to be exposed. However, according to Pernilla Myrne, Hanafis allowed other men to see and touch a slave's arms, breasts and legs. Ibn Qayyim argued that the dress code of a concubine was different from the dress code of a female slave.


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: The Quran prefers that a man marry his concubine, as opposed to having sexual relations with her as a slave. Marriage between free men and concubines is encouraged.


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: If a man wishes to marry his concubine, he must free her prior to marriage. This was a means of emancipation for concubines. A concubine could also be married off by her master to another man, in which case her master lost the right to have sexual relations with her, although he retained ownership of her. This often happened when the master wished to marry his female slave to a male slave. The master did not need to take the concubine's consent into account when marrying her off. Scholars have pointed out that women's lack of choice in marriage was commonplace in medieval times in the Muslim world and Western Europe.


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: When a concubine is married, according to Javed Ahmad Ghamidi, she must be paid her dowry as this could bring her gradually equal in status to free-women.


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: Both wives and concubines could inherit from a man; however, whereas the wife got a guaranteed inheritance, the concubine's inheritance was dependent on the man's bequest. Court documents from 19th century Cairo show that concubines often ended up with more inheritance than wives.


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: The vast majority of Muslims today do not consider concubinage as acceptable in today's world. According to Smith "the majority of the faithful eventually accepted abolition as religiously legitimate and an Islamic consensus against slavery became dominant", though this continued to be disputed by some literalists.


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: Islamic thinkers have applied a variety of methods to argue against concubinage and slavery. One argument is that Muhammad only temporarily allowed slavery as it was a major socio-economic force that couldn't be immediately abolished. Similar argument was made by Christian abolitionists when asked why Jesus did not condemn slavery.


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: A different argument is that the abolition of slavery is implicit in the Qur'an, yet earlier generations of Muslims did not see it as they were blinded by the social circumstances of their time. Yet another argument is the slavery is not forbidden, but the specific circumstances that made it permissible in the past have ceased to exist; for example, some argue that Muslim countries must adhere to the anti-slavery treaties they have signed.


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: Abolition of slavery in the Muslim world was a process that mainly took place in the 19th and 20th centuries, though there were some early abolitionist precursors among Muslims in Africa. In 1841, the ruler of Tunisia, himself the son of a concubine abolished slavery by decreeing that all slaves requesting freedom must be released. This decree was supported by the Hanafi and Maliki muftis. In 1848, Shia ulema in Najaf allowed the Iranian Shah to declare slavery illegal. In the Indian subcontinent, early anti-slavery views came from Syed Ahmad Khan. Many early Islamic abolition movements were opposed by conservative clergy. For example Egyptian clerics Muhammad Abduh and Rashid Rida were opposed by most of their contemporary jurists. The abolition movement starting in the late 18th century in England and later in other Western countries influenced slavery in Muslim lands both in doctrine and in practice. William Clarence-Smith has argued that "Islamic abolitionism" was indigenous and rooted in Islamic tradition. Ehud R. Toledano disputes this view, arguing there was no indigenous abolitionist narrative in the Muslim world, and that abolition happened due to European pressure. Bernard Freamon argues that it was both European pressure and efforts by Islamic clergy that curbed slavery.


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: Several topics in classical concubinage are debated by Muslims and non-Muslims, often from the perspective of apologetics and criticism.


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: Jonathan Brown argues concubinage in Sharia should be abolished on the basis of consent. Since Sharia prohibits harm in relationships, and since harm is determined based on custom and culture, and since modern culture regards non-consensual relationships as harmful, then it follows that Sharia now prohibits all non-consensual relationships, including concubinage.


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: As mentioned earlier, verse 33:50 was used by Muslims to take female prisoners as "spoils of war" in history and questions arise whether it could be used today. Some have argued that this verse only applied during the time of Muhammad and has not applied since then. Yet Islamic scholars in history have applied this verse. A different argument is that what constitutes "spoils of war" is a matter of custom which can change with time. As customs of war have changed, modern Islamic scholars can apply this verse differently than earlier scholars.


title: Islamic views on concubinage

text: Some modern Muslim argue that the concubinage allowed by Islam bore no resemblance American chattel slavery. The permission to have sexual relations with female captives, they argue, was a way of integrating them and their children into society. But Kecia Ali responds that this argument does not apply to the case of the women from the Banu Mustaliq, with whom the Muslims practiced coitus interruptus, as pregnancy would have spoiled the chance of ransom. Some Muslims then respond by arguing this account cannot be accurate as it contradicts the Islamic legal requirement to wait one menstrual period before having intercourse with slaves. Kecia Ali writes that a hadith of Muhammad indeed prohibits sexual relations before a menstrual period, but cautions that Islamic jurisprudence did not always correlate with Muhammad's example. Mahmoud Abd al-Wahab Fayid argues that concubinage restricted sexual relations to a monogamous relationship between the concubine and her master, therefore preventing the spread of "immorality" in the Muslim community. But Ahmad Sikainga responds that these rules were often disregarded in reality.


title: Terpsichore

text: In Greek mythology, Terpsichore (; , "delight in dancing") is one of the nine Muses and goddess of dance and chorus. She lends her name to the word "terpsichorean" which means "of or relating to dance".


title: Terpsichore

text: Terpsichore is usually depicted sitting down, holding a lyre, accompanying the dancers' choirs with her music. Her name comes from the Greek words τέρπω ("delight") and χoρός ("dance").


title: Terpsichore

text: Tradition portrays Terpsichore as the mother of the Sirens (including Parthenope) by the river-god Achelous. In some accounts, she bore the Thracian king Biston by Ares. By another river-god, Strymon, Terpsichore mothered the Thracian king Rhesus.


title: David Steward

text: David L. Steward (born July 2, 1951) is an American billionaire businessman. He is chairman and founder of World Wide Technology, one of the largest African-American-owned businesses in America.


title: David Steward

text: According to "Forbes", in 2019 Steward was one of 13 black billionaires worldwide. He was ranked 239th on the Forbes 400 list of American billionaires in 2019.


title: David Steward

text: Steward was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Dorothy Elizabeth Massingale (1928 - present), a homemaker, and Harold Lloyd Steward (1925-1999), a mechanic. In 1953, the family moved to Clinton, Missouri. As a child growing up in Clinton, Steward faced poverty and discrimination.


title: David Steward

text: "I vividly remember segregation—separate schools, sitting in the balcony at the movie theater, being barred from the public swimming pool," notes Steward, who was among a small group of African-American high-school students who integrated the public swimming pool in Clinton in 1967.


title: David Steward

text: After graduating from college, Steward worked at Wagner Electric as a production manager (1974–1975), a sales representative at Missouri Pacific Railroad Company (1975–1979), and a senior account executive at Federal Express (1979–1984), where he was recognized as salesman of the year and inducted into the company's hall of fame in 1981. He owned Transportation Business Specialists and Transport Administrative Services in the years leading up to founding World Wide Technology. He is also a founder of Telcobuy, a global technology and supply chain management company.


title: David Steward

text: In 1990, Steward founded World Wide Technology, a systems integrator. In 1993, WWT concentrated its focus on the implementation of enterprise wide imaging, conversion services, and telecommunication networks.


title: David Steward

text: In 1999 World Wide Technology spun off its telecommunications division to form Telcobuy.com. Sales for the two companies continued to grow, although revenues slipped in 2002 as World Wide Technology felt the impact of the technology recession. In 2003 combined reported revenues passed $1 billion, and Steward formed World Wide Technology Holding Company as the parent company for the two firms.


title: David Steward

text: World Wide Technology's 2018 revenue is estimated to be greater than $11 billion, which would rank it as one of St. Louis' largest private companies.


title: David Steward

text: Steward has served on committees and boards that include: Civic Progress of St. Louis; the St. Louis Regional Chamber and Growth Association; Missouri Technology Corporation, appointed by the Governor of Missouri; Webster University; BJC Health System; First Banks, Inc.; St. Louis Science Center; United Way of Greater St. Louis; The Greater St. Louis Area Council of Boy Scouts of America and Harris-Stowe State College African-American Business Leadership Council. In 2011, Steward was appointed to the Board of Curators, University of Missouri by Governor Jay Nixon, although he resigned before his term was through.


title: John Charles Daly

text: John Charles Patrick Croghan Daly (February 20, 1914 – February 24, 1991) was a South African–born American journalist, host, radio and television personality, ABC News executive, TV anchor, and game show host, best known for his work on the CBS panel game show "What's My Line?"


title: John Charles Daly

text: Daly was the first national correspondent to report the attack on Pearl Harbor and the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt. During World War II, Daly covered front-line news from Europe and North Africa.


title: John Charles Daly

text: The younger of two brothers, Daly was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, where his American father worked as a geologist. While in Johannesburg, Daly attended Marist Brothers College. After his father died of a tropical fever, Daly's mother moved the family to Boston, Massachusetts. At that time, John was 11 years old, and attended the Tilton School where he later served on its board of directors for many years, contributing to the construction or restoration of many buildings on campus. He did his post-secondary education at a junior college and graduated from Boston College. Daly worked for a time in a wool factory and a transit company in Washington, D.C. before becoming a reporter for NBC Radio and, later, CBS.


title: John Charles Daly

text: Daly began his broadcasting career as a reporter for NBC Radio and then WJSV (now WTOP), the local CBS Radio Network affiliate in Washington, D.C., as CBS' White House correspondent. He appears on the famous "One Day in Radio" tapes of September 21, 1939, in which WJSV preserved its entire broadcast day for posterity.


title: John Charles Daly

text: While covering the Roosevelt White House, Daly became known to the national CBS audience as the network announcer for many of the President's speeches. In late 1941, Daly transferred to New York City, where he became anchor of "The World Today". During World War II, he covered the news from London as well as the North African and Italian fronts. Daly was a war correspondent in 1943 in Italy during Gen. George S. Patton's infamous "slapping incidents." After the war, he was a lead reporter on CBS Radio's news/entertainment program "CBS Is There" (later revived for television as the Walter Cronkite hosted series "You Are There"), which recreated the great events of history as if CBS correspondents were on the scene.


title: John Charles Daly

text: As a reporter for the CBS radio network, Daly was the voice of two historic announcements. He was the first national correspondent to deliver the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor on Sunday, December 7, 1941, and he was also the first to relay the wire service report of the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt on April 12, 1945, interrupting the program "Wilderness Road" to deliver the news. Those bulletins have been preserved on historical record album retrospectives and radio and television documentaries.


title: John Charles Daly

text: In July, 1959, along with the Associated Press writer John Scali, Daly reported from Moscow on the infamous "Kitchen Debate" between First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev and Vice President Richard M. Nixon.


title: John Charles Daly

text: Daly's first foray into television was as a panelist on the game show "Celebrity Time". This led to a job in 1950 as the host and moderator on a new panel show produced by Goodson–Todman, "What's My Line?" The show lasted 17 years, with Daly hosting all but four episodes of the weekly series.


title: John Charles Daly

text: In 1954–55, in addition to his duties with "What's My Line?", Daly also hosted the final year of the NBC Television game show "Who Said That?", in which celebrities tried to determine the speaker of quotations taken from recent news reports.


title: John Charles Daly

text: Each "What's My Line?" panelist introduced the next in line at the start of the show. On Fred Allen's death in 1956, Random House book publisher co-founder and humorist Bennett Cerf became the anchor panelist who would usually introduce Daly. Cerf usually prefaced his introduction with a pun or joke that over time became a pun or joke at Daly's expense. Daly would then often fire back his own retort. Cerf and Daly enjoyed a friendly feud from across the stage for the remainder of the history of the program. The mystery guest on the final CBS program (aired September 3, 1967) was Daly himself. Daly had received many letters over the years asking him to fill that role; until the finale he never could, because Daly served as the "emergency mystery guest", in case the scheduled celebrity failed to show on the live program.


title: John Charles Daly

text: According to producer Gil Fates, Daly was resistant to changes that would have appealed to a younger audience but might have diminished the show's dignity. For example, Daly usually referred to the panelists formally, such as "Mr. Cerf." The producers, Fates said, were unable to challenge Daly for fear of losing him as the show's moderator. The series spawned a brief radio version in 1952 that was also hosted by Daly. The series also inspired a multitude of concurrent international versions and a syndicated U.S. revival in 1968 in which Daly did not participate. He was a vice president at ABC during the 1950s. He did hosting duties on "Who Said That?", "It's News to Me", "We Take Your Word", and "Open Hearing." Daly was a narrator on "The Voice of Firestone" starting in 1958.


title: John Charles Daly

text: He also had several television and movie guest appearances from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s, including an uncredited role in "Bye Bye Birdie" (as the reporter announcing the title character's induction into the Army) and as the narrator, in a mock documentary style, on the premiere episode of the rural comedy series "Green Acres". In 1949 he starred in the short-lived CBS Television newspaper drama "The Front Page", where it was thought that his presence and journalistic experience would give the series more authenticity.


title: John Charles Daly

text: During the 1950s, Daly became the vice president in charge of news, special events, and public affairs, religious programs and sports for ABC and won three Peabody Awards. From 1953 to 1960, he anchored ABC News broadcasts and was the face of the network's news division, even though "What's My Line?" was then on competing CBS. In addition, he provided the voice of a Conelrad radio announcer on the May 18, 1954 broadcast of The Motorola Television Hour on ABC titled "Atomic Attack", which showcases a story about a family in a New York City suburb dealing with the aftermath of an H-bomb attack fifty miles away. At the time, this was a very rare instance of a television personality working on two different US broadcast TV networks simultaneously. (Daly did not work for CBS but for the producers of "What's My Line?", Goodson-Todman Productions. He also filled in occasionally on NBC's "The Today Show", making Daly one of the few people to work simultaneously on all "three" networks.)


title: John Charles Daly

text: One of his most memorable days as host of NBC's "Today Show" was when Harpo Marx was a guest promoting his book "Harpo Speaks". Marx caused chaos on-camera for Daly. Daly became completely convulsed in laughter during the live telecast on the NBC network.


title: John Charles Daly

text: Although the Harpo Marx segment was preserved via kinescope, and so were most live telecasts of "What's My Line?", all of Daly's 15-minute live newscasts for the ABC network were lost due to wiping.


title: John Charles Daly

text: Daly's closing line on the ABC newscasts was "Good night, and a good tomorrow." He resigned from ABC on November 16, 1960, after the network preempted the first hour of 1960 presidential election night coverage to show Bugs Bunny cartoons and "The Rifleman" from 7:30 to 8:30 pm while CBS and NBC were covering returns from the Kennedy–Nixon presidential election and other important vote counts. In an accompanying article on the same page, however, it was stated that the reason for his resignation was the decision of the then-president of ABC, Leonard Goldenson, to bring in Time Inc. to co-produce documentaries that had previously been under Daly's direction for the network.


title: John Charles Daly

text: Daly continued on "What's My Line?" until 1967. In the 1962–63 season, the program was in competition with Howard K. Smith's "News and Comment" program on ABC News. A former CBS correspondent, Smith switched networks early in 1961, by which time Daly had already resigned from ABC. Smith later took over Daly's former role as anchor of ABC Evening News. In May 1967, during the final year of "What's My Line?", it was announced that Daly would become the director of the Voice of America after the show ended. He assumed the position on September 20, 1967, but lasted only until June 6, 1968, when he resigned over a claim that Leonard H. Marks, his superior at the U.S. Information Agency, had been making personnel changes behind Daly's back.


title: John Charles Daly

text: From December 1968 to January 1969, Daly hosted the arts and humanities program "Critique" on NET. Funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Old Dominion Foundation (later the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation), and the Louis Calder Foundation (paper industry leader), “Critique” was originally scheduled for 26 weekly programs. However, Daly resigned after only five programs because the producing station of the program, Newark, New Jersey-licensed WNDT, declined to delete a remark by WCBS radio reporter David Goldman that Daly considered obscene from a taped program in the series titled "Huui, Huui," an opening production of the New York Shakespeare Festival Public Theater. The most notable and last guest on a "Critique" program hosted by Daly was Bronx-born singer/songwriter/pianist Laura Nyro, probably recorded on December 4, 1968, and originally broadcast on January 1, 1969, in which she performed demos of "And When I Die," "The Man Who Sends Me Home," "Captain Saint Lucifer," "Mercy on Broadway," "You Don't Love Me When I Cry," and "Save the Country," and also featured an interview with her manager David Geffen. Following Daly's resignation, only one more episode of "Critique" was produced and broadcast, an April 1969 episode featuring The Doors as the musical guests.


title: John Charles Daly

text: Daly did not host the syndicated version of "What's My Line?", although he did co-host a 25th-anniversary program about the show for ABC in 1975. Daly was a member of the Peabody Awards Board of Jurors from 1966 to 1982. He was a frequent forum moderator for the conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute throughout the 1980s.


title: John Charles Daly

text: At his alma mater, the Tilton School, there is an award named for Daly given to "persons whose pursuit of excellence and deep commitment as a member of the school family resembles that of John Daly's involvement with Tilton: continuous and widely known expressions of support in word and deed, inspiring others to reach goals that common experience dictates are impossible."


title: John Charles Daly

text: Every year during Alumni Weekend Tilton School recognizes outstanding alumni during School Meeting on Saturday. Four awards for consideration are Alumnus of the Year, George L. Plimpton Award, John Charles Daly Award, and Artist Hall of Fame.


title: John Charles Daly

text: He married twice, first to Margaret Griswell Neal in January 1937. The marriage resulted in two sons, John Neal Daly and John Charles Daly III, and a daughter Helene Grant "Bunsy" Daly. It ended in divorce in April 1959.


title: John Charles Daly

text: On December 22, 1960, Daly married Virginia Warren, daughter of then–chief justice Earl Warren, in San Francisco. They were married for more than 30 years, until Daly's death. Their marriage yielded three children: John Warren Daly, John Earl Jameson Daly, and Nina Elisabeth Daly.


title: John Charles Daly

text: Daly died of cardiac arrest at his home in Chevy Chase, Maryland, on February 24, 1991, four days after his 77th birthday.


title: P-500 Bazalt

text: The P-500 "Bazalt (; ) is a turbojet-powered, supersonic cruise missile used by the Soviet and Russian navies. Its GRAU designation is 4K80 and its NATO reporting name is SS-N-12 "Sandbox, its upgraded version being the P-1000 Vulkan AShM SLCM.


title: P-500 Bazalt

text: Developed by OKB-52 MAP (later NPO Mashinostroyeniye), it entered service to replace the SS-N-3 Shaddock. The P-500 Bazalt was first deployed in 1975 on the , and was later added to both the and the s. A version of the P-500 Bazalt with improved guidance and engines is used on the s. The sixteen launchers dominate the decks of the class.


title: P-500 Bazalt

text: The P-500 Bazalt has a 550 km range and a payload of 1,000 kg, which allows it to carry a 350 kt nuclear or a 950 kg semi-armor-piercing high-explosive warhead. The P-500 Bazalt uses active radar homing for terminal guidance, and can receive mid-course correction from the Tupolev Tu-95RTs Bear D, the Kamov Ka-25K Hormone B and the Kamov Ka-31.


title: P-500 Bazalt

text: The missiles were intended to be used in salvos – a submarine could launch eight in rapid succession, maintaining control of each through a separate datalink. In flight the group could co-ordinate their actions. One would fly to a higher altitude and use its active radar to search for targets, forwarding this data to the other missiles which remained at low altitude.


title: P-500 Bazalt

text: The missiles were programmed so that half of a salvo would head for a carrier target, with the rest dividing between other ships. If the high-flying missile was shot down, another from the salvo would automatically pop up to take its place. All of the missiles would switch to active radar for the terminal phase of the attack.


title: P-500 Bazalt

text: An improved version of the P-500 was installed on three Echo II submarines towards the end of the Cold War. The P-1000 Vulkan (GRAU 3M70) presumably has the same firing range and maximum speed with the P-500 Bazalt (range 800 km). The missile weight was increased by 1–2 tons. The missile has a turbojet engine and a starting powder accelerator. High-altitude flight regimes are presumably the same as that of the P-500.


title: P-500 Bazalt

text: The P-1000 was ordered on 15 May 1979 from NPO Mashinostroyeniya Chelomey. It first flew in July 1982 and was accepted for service on 18 December 1987. It was installed on three Echo II submarines of the Northern Fleet between 1987 and 1993. The conversion of two units of the Pacific Fleet, the K-10 and K-34, was abandoned due to lack of funds.


title: P-500 Bazalt

text: Of the submarines that did receive the P-1000, the K-1 was decommissioned after a reactor accident in 1989, the K-35 was stricken in 1993 and the K-22 in 1995. The P-1000 has been installed on the "Slava"-class cruiser "Varyag", and some sources reported P-1000 missiles on her sister ship "Moskva".


title: P-500 Bazalt

text: The P-700 Granit (NATO reporting name SS-N-19 "Shipwreck") was partially based on the SS-N-12, but with a significantly modified airframe. The avionics, however, are very similar.


title: Dare (song)

text: "Dare" (stylised as "DARE" and " (DARE)") is a song by British virtual band Gorillaz, taken as the second single from their second studio album, "Demon Days". The track features Happy Mondays and Black Grape frontman Shaun Ryder and is also sung by Rosie Wilson (also known as Roses Gabor) with backing vocals from Damon Albarn. It peaked at number one on the UK Singles Chart in September 2005, becoming the band's only UK number one. "Dare" additionally reached the top 10 in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Iceland, Ireland, New Zealand, and Scotland.


title: Dare (song)

text: The CD single of "Dare" was released in the United Kingdom on 29 August 2005. It reached number one in the United Kingdom on 4 September 2005. On the US "Billboard" Hot 100, it peaked at number 87 on 14 January 2006 and number eight on the Modern Rock Tracks chart on 4 March 2006.


title: Dare (song)

text: For this song, English vocalist Roses Gabor (birth name Rosemary "Rosie" Wilson) took over the role of Noodle from Miho Hatori, who had previously sung as the character on the first Gorillaz album.


title: Dare (song)

text: Chris Evans stated at the 2006 Brit Awards that the song was originally to have been called "It's There", but was changed due to Shaun Ryder's strong Mancunian accent making it sound like he was saying "It's dare." In a 2017 interview with Chris Moyles on Radio X Ryder confirmed his version of events, that it was him requesting a change to his headphone level, "it's going up, it's going up, it's there!".


title: Dare (song)

text: In 2016, vocals of the song were interpolated in Friction's song "Dare (Hold It Down)". In 2017, the song was featured in an episode of the British soap opera "EastEnders". The song was also featured in the video game "Just Dance".


title: Dare (song)

text: The music video for "Dare" included an appearance by Shaun Ryder (of Happy Mondays and Black Grape fame, at the request of Damon Albarn) as a giant disembodied head kept alive by machinery in Noodle's wardrobe. In a departure for the band, the song is mostly performed in the video by Noodle, with 2-D, Russel, and Murdoc only appearing in short cameos in the video; 2-D is seen listening into Noodle's room by pressing his ear to the floor, Russel is shown seated on a toilet reading a newspaper directly below Noodle's room and Murdoc appears at the end of the video lying in bed with Shaun Ryder, who wakes up, apparently having dreamt up the entire sequence of the video. A voice beside him growls, "go back to sleep, honey," revealing the voice to belong to Murdoc, after which it is further revealed to be another nightmare. That time, it was actually dreamt by Murdoc, who also wakes up bolt upright in his own bed gasping and panting.


title: Dare (song)

text: In the commentary, Noodle claims that Murdoc initially protested her doing the entire video by herself, but she countered that she wrote the song and she had seen him show off too much in the "Feel Good Inc." music video. Additionally, Noodle adds that Murdoc was asleep in his Winnebago for the entirety of the shoot up until the final scene.


title: Dare (song)

text: The video was directed by Jamie Hewlett and Pete Candeland. The video was leaked a few days prior to its 17 July 2005 release on the official Gorillaz website. The video was later recalled from other websites and the final scene was tweaked slightly; Murdoc's Confederate Naval Jack flag was replaced with that of the Jolly Roger. (The version with the Naval Jack is played in some countries, including Canada.)


title: Dare (song)

text: This video calls back to classic horror movies. In the very beginning of the video we see Gorillaz' 'reject false icons' statue, which one may recognize as Pazuzu, the figurine from "The Exorcist" and son of the devil. Crows are flying around the building, in a tribute to Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds". Shaun Ryder is depicted as a Frankenstein-like monster who is brought to life as the music begins. Amongst the contraptions that are part of the life support system appear to be two Atari joysticks and a Speak & Spell from the early 1980s. Ryder's head being kept alive is a reference to the movie "The Brain That Wouldn't Die". The tube attached to Ryder's cheek switches from side to side as a tribute to the goofs commonly made in early horror movies. When we see Russel sitting on the toilet, he is holding a newspaper with a headline that reads "CANNIBAL MASSAKREN", the Danish title of "Cannibal Holocaust". The zoom on Noodle's eye at the end of the video is taken directly from "Ringu" and its American remake, "The Ring".


title: A Field in England

text: A Field in England is a 2013 British historical psychological horror film directed by Ben Wheatley. The film, shot in black-and-white, is set during the mid-17th-century English Civil War. The film was released on 2013 on multiple platforms simultaneously, including cinemas, home media and video on demand. It was also broadcast on Film4 on the day of its release.


title: A Field in England

text: During a battle of the English Civil War, an alchemist's assistant named Whitehead flees from the strict Commander Trower. Whitehead is saved by a rough soldier named Cutler, who kills Trower before he can apprehend Whitehead. Whitehead then meets two army deserters, the veteran Jacob and the witless Friend. The four leave the battleground in search of an ale house that Cutler claims is nearby. Cutler instead leads them to a field with many mushrooms growing in it, where he cooks a meal with some mushrooms and encourages the others to eat, which they share—save for Whitehead who is fasting. Following their meal they haul an Irishman, the Wizard O'Neill, seemingly out of the ground using a rope wrapped around a strangely carved wooden post buried in the ground. O'Neill is a rival alchemist for whom Cutler works; and who had stolen documents from Whitehead's master, which Whitehead is trying to recover. O'Neill quickly asserts authority over the group and tells them of a treasure hidden somewhere in the field.


title: A Field in England

text: The group goes to O'Neill's camp, where O'Neill sodomizes Whitehead into subservience to use him as a human divining rod. After using Whitehead to locate the treasure, which it turns out is near the camp, O'Neill orders Jacob and Friend to dig for it while he leaves Cutler to supervise, and goes to sleep in a tent. Jacob soon succumbs to the influence of the hallucinogenic mushrooms, and after several hours of digging he attacks Friend. Cutler laughs and urinates on them, and when Jacob attempts to attack him, Cutler accidentally shoots Friend. Whitehead is unable to save him, and Friend dies, telling Jacob to deliver a message to his wife, telling her that he hates her. Cutler is forced to finish digging by himself, while Jacob lies down in the undergrowth, and Whitehead deposits Friend's corpse in a thicket.


title: A Field in England

text: Cutler eventually nears reaching the treasure, attracting the attention of O'Neill, who discovers Jacob and Whitehead gone. Reaching where Friend's corpse is, O'Neill pursues Whitehead, who ingests a considerable quantity of mushrooms, heightening his awareness but suffering a hallucinatory experience, wherein he conjures a violent wind to blow away the camp's tent. Cutler discovers that the "treasure" is just a skull, which he shoots in anger. Jacob comes back to join Whitehead in escaping from O'Neill.


title: A Field in England

text: Cutler angrily berates O'Neill, blaming him for trusting Whitehead and lying to him about the alehouse—which was simply a ploy to entice Jacob and Friend—and abuses him. O'Neill promptly kills Cutler and then pursues Whitehead and Jacob, who scavenge Cutler's weapons and return to the overturned camp. As they are preparing for an attack, Friend appears alive and reveals their location to O'Neill. As Jacob throws Friend to the ground to stop him, O'Neill shoots Jacob in the gut, but Jacob returns fire breaking O'Neill's leg. Jacob dies from his injuries, after he and Whitehead surmise that the treasure was the friendship they shared. Friend brandishes Cutler's pike and charges O'Neill, but O'Neill kills him with his last shot. Whitehead takes advantage of the situation to finally kill O'Neill by shooting him in the back of the head.


title: A Field in England

text: Whitehead buries his friends' corpses in the hole and leaves the field. Wearing O'Neill's clothes, he gathers his master's stolen documents and returns to the hedgerow where he first met Cutler, Jacob and Friend, from which battle sounds are rising. After he wades through the hedge, he sees Friend, Jacob and himself standing together.


title: A Field in England

text: "A Field in England" is directed by Ben Wheatley and based on a screenplay by Amy Jump. Wheatley became interested in the film's historical setting of the English Civil War when he filmed a documentary about the Sealed Knot, a historical reenactment society. In his research, Wheatley also learned about the use of hallucinogens during the 17th century. He said, "People were grinding mushrooms into dust and blowing it into people's faces and then doing magic tricks." Wheatley sought funding to produce the film, which he had planned for years. The film was ultimately developed and financed by Film4.0, a division of Film4 that serves as an innovation hub. "Variety" reported that the film was described as "a psychedelic trip into magic and madness". Wheatley said "A Field in England" combines "the more psychedelic elements" from his previous films "Kill List" and "Sightseers" and "weaves in our take on historical drama" with the English Civil War.


title: A Field in England

text: The film was shot in black-and-white. "The Observer" said the style was part of a resurgence with films like "The Artist", "Much Ado About Nothing", "Frances Ha" and "Nebraska". Wheatley said he and cinematographer Laurie Rose made a spontaneous decision to film in black-and-white. Wheatley and Rose watched "Culloden" and other films by Peter Watkins, as well as arthouse films from the 1960s and 1970s, to explore the style. The pair experimented with camera tests before filming "A Field in England" and committed to the "unfussy" style. With a production budget of £300,000, filming began in late September 2012. It took place in the countryside outside Guildford in Surrey. Filming lasted for .


title: A Field in England

text: "A Field in England" screened in competition at the 48th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival on 2013, where it won the Special Jury Prize. It was released in the United Kingdom on 2013 through several platforms simultaneously. "The Hollywood Reporter" said, ""A Field in England" will mark the first time a homegrown title has been released simultaneously in theaters, on DVD, free TV and video-on-demand." The film had received funding from the BFI Distribution Fund New Models strand, "which supports experimental release models". Film4 and its arms 4DVD and Film4 Channel collaborated with distributor Picturehouse Entertainment and with the BFI Distribution Fund for the rollout. Wheatley compared the multi-platform release to how the band Radiohead released its album "In Rainbows" for free.


title: A Field in England

text: Drafthouse Films acquired the rights to distribute the film in North America. It partnered with Cinedigm in September 2013, and they released the film on 6 February 2014 on various platforms and formats.


title: A Field in England

text: For the cinema release of "A Field in England" in the UK, Weltons Brewery brewed a limited-edition ale to give to cinema-goers. The beer had the tagline "Open Up and Let the Devil In" to tie into the use of hallucinogens in the film. The ale was bottled with yeast, which required a slow pour to ensure "continuous secondary fermentation" for the beer to be fresh.


title: A Field in England

text: The film received positive reviews. On film aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, it has a "Certified Fresh" 86% rating, with an average score of 7.2/10, based on reviews from 67 critics. The site's consensus reads, "Recklessly assembled and occasionally compelling in spite of itself, "A Field In England" showcases a singularly brilliant voice in British cinema". It has a score of 73/100 (indicating "generally favorable reviews") on Metacritic, based on reviews from 19 critics. Peter Bradshaw of "The Guardian" wrote that "A Field in England" was a "grisly and visceral" film that was "exposed to the elements, shivering with fever and discomfort". Bradshaw said that Wheatley has "cleverly alighted on the one period that suits his stripped-down visuals and subversive instincts perfectly". Jonathan Romney of "The Independent" wrote that the film was Wheatley's "most unclassifiable yet, blending historical drama, 1960s psychedelia and formal experimentation". He said, "Flawed as it is, "A Field in England" is some achievement, drumming up an earthly inferno out of next to nothing—dirt and wind, a patch of land, some blokes with scraggy beards. The result, in a minor-key fashion, is a blast—"Apocalypse Now" among the hedgerows."


title: A Field in England

text: Stephen Dalton, reviewing for "The Hollywood Reporter", said, "A strikingly original historical thriller spiced with occult mysticism and mind-warping hallucinations, British director Ben Wheatley's fourth feature has all the midnight-movie intensity of a future cult classic." Dalton noted flaws in the film but said that beside them, "A Field in England" is a rich, strange, hauntingly intense work from a highly original writer-director team." Peter Debruge of "Variety" called "A Field in England" "a defiantly unclassifiable cross-genre experiment ... that simultaneously reinvents and regurgitates low-budget British cinema as it goes". Debruge said of the director's approach, "Clearly, Wheatley is bored with the paint-by-numbers approach of his horror contemporaries, but has swung so far in the opposite direction here, the result feels almost amateurishly avant garde at times, guilty of the sort of indulgences one barely tolerates in student films."


title: A Field in England

text: "The Guardian"s Peter Bradshaw said "A Field in England" had "a more literary screenplay" than "the improv feel" of Wheatley's previous films. Bradshaw compared the writing to that of Dennis Potter and Edward Bond. He also found the British tone similar to the films "Straw Dogs" and "Withnail and I". "The Independent"s Romney said, "The screenplay contains much juicy period dialogue, although the gist is often lost amid hectic cuts, drunken camera moves and the men's habit of grabbing each other by the throat." For Romney, "the sharpest moments of clarity" in the narrative came in the dialogue. "The Hollywood Reporter"s Dalton wrote, "One of the film's pleasures is its rich dialogue—a ripe blend of Shakespearean finery, salty swearing and lowbrow toilet humor." The trade paper noted, "Jump sets up some interesting tensions between Christian faith and Pagan witchcraft, science and sorcery, soldiers and scholars."


title: A Field in England

text: "The Guardian" wrote that "the monochrome images" were similar to those of the 1975 film "Winstanley". "The Independent" said the photography had "furious visual panache and ... ominous, often abstract beauty". "The Hollywood Reporter" commended the "terrific" cinematography of "ravishing monochrome vistas punctuated by extreme close-ups of plants, animals, insects and tormented human faces". "Variety" wrote, "The commitment to monochrome brings out a beauty largely absent in previous collaborations with d.p. Laurie Rose, though his handheld style and axis-breaking setups often disorient—and not necessarily in ways that help the psychic imbalance the pic means to achieve."


title: A Field in England

text: "The Guardian" wrote, "Smiley is a great O'Neil, scary and commanding, while Shearsmith's Whitehead is hilariously submissive." It added about Shearsmith's role, "His performance here is equal to and better than the 'gothic' characters he has created on television." "Variety" also commended Shearsmith's performance as leaving "the strongest impression". The trade paper expressed disappointment at a general lack of character development, "Although Wheatley and Jump have gotten away with eliminating exposition and traditional character detail in the past, it's frustratingly difficult to follow what this motley group is searching for, much less to distinguish between the various personalities."


title: A Field in England

text: Ben Wheatley and Amy Jump edited the film together. "Variety" said the editors "hypnotize the audience by cutting back and forth between shots of the various characters, folding and mirroring the images into disconcerting hallucinations". "The Independent" wrote that the editors' "big firework display" was that of a psychedelic experience, which was "a stroboscopic pandemonium of mirror images, flash cuts, bursts of light".


title: A Field in England

text: "The Hollywood Reporter" said, "Sound designer Martin Pavey and composer Jim Williams also deserve special mention for underpinning these ostensibly calm pastoral scenes with a constant undertow of clanging, churning menace." "The Independent" commended Pavey's work, "Everything floats unmoored, dialogue has the same sonic status as the wind or the eerie music."


title: Barbara McClintock

text: Barbara McClintock (June 16, 1902 – September 2, 1992) was an American scientist and cytogeneticist who was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. McClintock received her PhD in botany from Cornell University in 1927. There she started her career as the leader of the development of maize cytogenetics, the focus of her research for the rest of her life. From the late 1920s, McClintock studied chromosomes and how they change during reproduction in maize. She developed the technique for visualizing maize chromosomes and used microscopic analysis to demonstrate many fundamental genetic ideas. One of those ideas was the notion of genetic recombination by crossing-over during meiosis—a mechanism by which chromosomes exchange information. She produced the first genetic map for maize, linking regions of the chromosome to physical traits. She demonstrated the role of the telomere and centromere, regions of the chromosome that are important in the conservation of genetic information. She was recognized as among the best in the field, awarded prestigious fellowships, and elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1944.


title: Barbara McClintock

text: During the 1940s and 1950s, McClintock discovered transposition and used it to demonstrate that genes are responsible for turning physical characteristics on and off. She developed theories to explain the suppression and expression of genetic information from one generation of maize plants to the next. Due to skepticism of her research and its implications, she stopped publishing her data in 1953.