title: University of Oslo

text: One of the major changes in the university came during the 1870s when a greater emphasis was placed upon research, the management of the university became more professional, academic subjects were reformed, and the forms of teaching evolved. Classical education came under increasing pressure.


title: University of Oslo

text: When the union with Sweden was dissolved in 1905, the university became important for producing highly educated experts in a society which placed increasing emphasis on ensuring that all its citizens enjoy a life of dignity and security. Education, health services and public administration were among those fields that recruited personnel from the university's graduates.


title: University of Oslo

text: Research changed qualitatively around the turn of the century as new methods, scientific theories and forms of practice changed the nature of research. It was decided that teachers should arrive at their posts as highly qualified academics and continue academic research alongside their role as teachers. Scientific research—whether to launch or test out new theories, to innovate or to pave the way for discoveries across a wide range of disciplines—became part of the increased expectations placed on the university. Developments in society created a need for more and more specialised and practical knowledge, not merely competence in theology or law, for example. The university strove to meet these expectations through increasing academic specialisation.


title: University of Oslo

text: The position of rector was established by Parliament in 1905 following the Dissolution of the Union. Waldemar Christofer Brøgger was Professor of Geology and became the university's first rector. Brøgger vacillated between a certain pessimism and a powerfully energetic attitude regarding how to procure finances for research and fulfill his more general funding objectives. With the establishment of the national research council after World War II, Brøgger's vision was largely fulfilled; research received funding independent of teaching. This coincided with a massive rise in student enrollment during the 1960s, which again made it difficult to balance research with the demands for teaching. In the years leading up to 1940, research was more strongly linked with the growth of the nation, with progress and self-assertion; research was also seen to contribute to Norway's commitment to international academic and cultural development.


title: University of Oslo

text: During the period after World War I, research among Norwegian researchers resulted in two Nobel prizes. The Nobel prize in Economics was awarded to Ragnar Frisch. The Nobel prize in Chemistry was awarded to Odd Hassel. In the field of linguistics, several Norwegian researchers distinguished themselves internationally. Increased research activity during the first half of the 1900s was part of an international development that also included Norway. Student enrollment doubled between 1911 and 1940, and students were recruited from increasingly broad geographical, gender and social bases. The working class was still largely left behind, however.


title: University of Oslo

text: During the German occupation, which lasted from 1940 to 1945, the university rector, Didrik Arup Seip, was imprisoned. The university was then placed under the management of Adolf Hoel, a NS (Norwegian Nazi Party) appointee. A number of students participated in the Norwegian resistance movement; after fire was set in the university auditorium, Reich Commissar Terboven ordered the university closed and the students arrested. A number of students and teachers were detained by the Germans nearly until the end of the war.


title: University of Oslo

text: After WWII, public authorities made loans available to students whose families were unable to provide financial assistance; the State Educational Loan Fund for Young Students was established in 1947. As a result, the post-war years saw a record increase in student numbers. Many of these students had been unable to begin their studies or had seen their studies interrupted because of the war; they could now enroll. For the 1945 autumn semester, 5951 students registered at the university. This represented the highest student enrollment at UiO up to that time. In 1947, the number had risen to more than 6000 students. This represented a 50 per cent increase in the number of students compared to the number enrolled before the war.


title: University of Oslo

text: In no prior period had one decade brought so many changes for the university as the 1960s. The decade represented an unparalleled period of growth. From 1960 to 1970, student enrollment tripled, rising from 5,600 to 16,800. This tremendous influx would have been enough in itself to transform the way the university was perceived, from both the inside and the outside. As it turned out, the changes were even more comprehensive. The university campus at Blindern was expanded, and the number of academic and administrative employees rose. The number of academic positions doubled, from fewer than 500 to around 1,200. The increase in the number of students and staff transformed traditional forms of work and organisation. The expansion of the Blindern complex allowed the accommodation of 7,000 students. The explosive rise in student numbers during the 1960s impacted the Blindern campus in particular. The faculties situated in central Oslo—Law and Medicine—experienced only a doubling in student enrollment during the 1960s, while the number of students in the humanities and social sciences tripled.


title: University of Oslo

text: By 1968, revolutionary political ideas had taken root in earnest among university students. The "Student Uprising" became a turning point in the history of universities throughout the western world. Often, the outlook for students in the 1960s was bleak. More than ever before came from non-academic backgrounds and had few role models. The "University of the Masses" was unable to lift all its students to the "lofty, elite positions" enjoyed by prior generations of academics. Many students dissociated themselves, therefore, from the so-called "establishment" and from the way it functioned. Many were impatient and wanted to use their knowledge to change society. It was thought that academics should stand in solidarity with the underprivileged.


title: University of Oslo

text: The most fundamental change in the student population was the increasing proportion of women students. Throughout the 1970s, the number of women increased until it made up the majority of students. At the same time, the university became a centre for the organised women's liberation movement, which emerged in the 1970s.


title: University of Oslo

text: Up until the millennium, the number of students enrolled at the university rose exponentially. In 1992, UiO implemented a restriction on admissions for all of its faculties for the first time. A large part of the explanation for the high student numbers was thought to be found in the poor job market. In 1996, there were 38,265 students enrolled at UiO. This level was approximately 75 per cent above the average during the 1970s and 1980s. The strong rise in student numbers during the 1990s was attributed partly to the poor labour market.


title: University of Oslo

text: The highest position at the university is Professor, i.e. "full Professor." In Norway, the title "Professor," which is protected by law, is only used for full professors. Before 1990, all professors were appointed for life to their chairs by the King-in-Council, i.e. by the King upon the advice of the Cabinet. The position below Professor was historically Docent (translated as Reader in a UK context and Professor in an American context). In 1985, all Docents became full professors. The most common positions below that are "førsteamanuensis" (translated as Associate Professor), and "amanuensis" or "universitetslektor" (translated as Lecturer or Assistant Professor). At the University of Oslo, almost all new permanent positions are announced at the Associate Professor level; an associate professor may apply for promotion to full professor if he or she holds the necessary competence.


title: University of Oslo

text: Additionally, there are temporary, qualifying positions such as "stipendiat" (Research Fellow) and "postdoktor" (Postdoctoral Fellow).


title: University of Oslo

text: A small number of employees with few or no teaching obligations hold the special research career pathway ranks "researcher", "senior researcher" and "research professor", which correspond to assistant professor, associate professor and professor, respectively.


title: University of Oslo

text: Several other less common academic positions also exist. Historically, only professors had the right to vote and be represented in the governing bodies of the university. Originally, all professors were automatically members of the "Collegium Academicum", the highest governing body of the university, but soon afterwards its membership was limited. Docents were granted the right to vote and be represented in 1939 and other academics and students in 1955. In 1975, the technical-administrative support staff was also granted the right to vote and be represented in certain bodies, as the last group. Formerly by law, and now by tradition, the highest positions, such as Rector or Dean, are only held by professors. They are elected by the academic community (academics and students) and by the technical-administrative support staff, but the votes of the academics carry significantly more weight.


title: University of Oslo

text: The university's research structure consists of eight schools, or "faculties." They are the Faculties of Dentistry, Educational Sciences, Humanities, Law, Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Medicine, Social Sciences and Theology.


title: University of Oslo

text: The university's old campus, strongly influenced by Prussian architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel's neoclassical style, is located in the centre of Oslo near the National Theatre, the Royal Palace and the Parliament. The old campus was then occupied by the Faculty of Law and most of the other faculties have been transferred to the Blindern campus in the suburban West End, erected in the 1930s. The Faculty of Medicine is split between several university hospitals in the Oslo area.


title: University of Oslo

text: The Faculty of Humanities is the University of Oslo's largest faculty, and has approximately 8000 students and 917 employees.


title: University of Oslo

text: The University of Oslo has several units which are not part of one of the faculties, including some interdisciplinary research centres, research centres abroad, the scientific museums, and libraries:


title: University of Oslo

text: Affiliated institutes are independent institutes that have a formal cooperation agreement with and close ties to the University of Oslo. Most of them were established by the University of Oslo, but have been organised as entities formally separate from the university for various reasons.


title: University of Oslo

text: The University of Oslo has a long list of notable academics and alumni, spanning the fields of scholarship covered by the university. The university is home to five Nobel Prize winners and is institutionally tied to some of the most prestigious prizes in the world. The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded in the university's atrium between 1947 and 1989, thus making it the only university to host a Nobel Prize ceremony. Since 2003, the Abel Prize is awarded in the university's atrium.


title: University of Oslo

text: The seal of the University of Oslo features Apollo with the Lyre, and dates from 1835. The seal has been redesigned several times, most recently in 2009.


title: University of Oslo

text: Like all public institutions of higher education in Norway, the university does not charge tuition fees. However, a small fee of (roughly ) per term goes to the student welfare organisation Foundation for Student Life in Oslo, to subsidise kindergartens, health services, housing and cultural initiatives, the weekly newspaper "Universitas" and the radio station Radio Nova.


title: University of Oslo

text: In addition the students are charged a copy and paper fee of (roughly ) for full-time students and (roughly ) for part-time students. Lastly a voluntary sum of (roughly ) is donated to SAIH (Studentenes og Akademikernes Internasjonale Hjelpefond).


title: University of Oslo

text: In 2021, Shanghai Jiao Tong University's Academic Ranking of World Universities ranked UiO 61st worldwide and the best in Norway, while the 2022 Times Higher Education World University Rankings ranked UiO 119th. The 2023 rankings of the QS World University Rankings ranked UiO 101st worldwide, and the 2022 Webometrics Ranking of World Universities ranked UiO 94th worldwide.


title: University of Oslo

text: The 2022 rankings of the Center for World University Rankings (CWUR), which "publishes the only global university ranking that measures the quality of education and training of students as well as the prestige of the faculty members and the quality of their research without relying on surveys and university data submissions", ranked UiO 99th worldwide.


title: University of Oslo

text: The University of Oslo administers the Henrik Steffens Professorship at the Humboldt University of Berlin jointly with the Humboldt University. The professorship was established and is funded by the Norwegian government.


title: University of Oslo

text: Universitet Blindern is a tram stop on the Ullevål Hageby Line and it is near the university. The Blindern metro station, is only near the university.


title: Rose Royce

text: Rose Royce is an American soul and R&B group. They are best known for several hit singles during the 1970s including "Car Wash", "I Wanna Get Next to You", "I'm Going Down", "Wishing on a Star", and "Love Don't Live Here Anymore".


title: Rose Royce

text: The Los Angeles-based group comprised Gwen Dickey (vocals), Henry Garner (drums), Terral "Terry" Santiel (congas), Lequeint "Duke" Jobe (bass), Michael Moore (saxophone), Kenny Copeland (trumpet, lead vocals), Kenji Brown (guitar, lead vocals), Freddie Dunn (trumpet), and Victor Nix (keyboards). The group began in the early 1970s when members of several backup bands from the Watts and Inglewood areas of Los Angeles united under the name Total Concept Unlimited. In 1973, this collective toured England and Japan behind Motown soul star Edwin Starr. Starr introduced them to Norman Whitfield.


title: Rose Royce

text: Whitfield, after a decade at Motown, wanted to start a company of his own. He took the T.C.U. octet under his wing and signed them to his label. The group, now called Magic Wand, began working with Yvonne Fair and became the studio and concert band for The Undisputed Truth. During a tour stop in Miami, Undisputed Truth leader Joe Harris noticed a singer named Gwen Dickey, then a member of a local group called The Jewels. Harris informed Whitfield of his discovery and Dickey was flown to Los Angeles to audition. In Dickey, Whitfield asked Gwen to join the band, and gave her the state name of Rose Norwalt. This was the lineup for the band's debut album.


title: Rose Royce

text: During this time, Whitfield was contacted by film director Michael Schultz, fresh from the success of his first feature, "Cooley High". Schultz offered Whitfield the opportunity to score his next picture, "Car Wash". Whitfield would use the film to launch his new group and began composing music based on script outlines. He and the band visited the film set, soaking up the atmosphere. The band composed the music concurrently with the picture instead of after the fact, which wasn't very common at the time. In the spirit of the soundtrack, the band's name was changed one final time to 'Rose Royce'. The name not only referenced the movie's automotive theme, but it also placed Gwen "Rose" Dickey front and center. Further, it hinted at a touch of class the band strove to bring to 1970s soul-funk.


title: Rose Royce

text: The movie "Car Wash" and the soundtrack were great successes, bringing the group national fame. Whitfield won the Best Music award at the Cannes Film Festival, and the album received the Grammy for Best Motion Picture Score Album of the Year. Released in late 1976, the soundtrack featured three Billboard R&B top ten singles: "Car Wash", "I Wanna Get Next to You", and "I'm Going Down". The first of these was also a number one single on the Billboard popular music chart, and "I Wanna Get Next to You" reached number 10.


title: Rose Royce

text: The group's follow-up album, "Rose Royce II: In Full Bloom", produced two top ten singles, "Do Your Dance" and "Ooh Boy". It also included "Wishing on a Star", which for Rose Royce was a top-10 hit only in the UK; it became notable elsewhere through its cover versions, including The Cover Girls' top ten single in 1992.


title: Rose Royce

text: In 1978, they released their third album, entitled "Rose Royce III: Strikes Again!", and it featured "I'm in Love (And I Love the Feeling)" and "Love Don't Live Here Anymore". Both singles entered the Billboard R&B Top Five. "Love Don't Live Here Anymore" was a number 2 hit in the UK Singles Chart, and would later gain greater exposure through its cover versions, most notably by Madonna in 1984 and 1995.


title: Rose Royce

text: The group followed with a series of modest successes that reached the charts but never gained the status that their previous songs did. Dickey left the group in April 1980 and Rose Royce temporarily disbanded. However, the remaining members regrouped, adjusted the line-up, and kept the group somewhat popular in the UK, where they remained a marquee attraction.


title: Rose Royce

text: Rose Royce was featured in TV One's seasonal series, "Unsung" during the spring of 2010. The story featured the successes and internal bickering of the group. Dickey, Copeland, Jobe, Moore and Garner were the only members of the band who gave interviews throughout the program. Dickey now performs as a solo artist in the UK but mentioned during the interview that she would not mind performing with the group once again. From 2012 to 2013, R&B vocalist Debelah Morgan joined the band as their lead singer for a few shows. Additionally, Bag Raiders and Daft Punk sampled their single "First Come First Served" with the songs "Shooting Stars" and "Too Long" respectively.


title: Rose Royce

text: In addition, Jay-Z recorded his own song, also called "Wishing on a Star", for which Gwen Dickey re-recorded some of her original lyrics and was credited as a featured artist, and the song "Theme from S-Express" by S-Express uses a substantial portion of "Is It Love You're After" as a sample.


title: Karl Polanyi

text: Karl Paul Polanyi (; ; 25 October 1886 – 23 April 1964), was an Austro-Hungarian economic anthropologist and politician, best known for his book "The Great Transformation," which questions the conceptual validity of self-regulating markets.


title: Karl Polanyi

text: In his writings, Polanyi advances the concept of the Double Movement, which refers to the dialectical process of marketization and push for social protection against that marketization. He argues that market-based societies in modern Europe were not inevitable but historically contingent. Polanyi is remembered best as the originator of substantivism, a cultural version of economics, which emphasizes the way economies are embedded in society and culture. This opinion is counter to mainstream economics but is popular in anthropology, economic history, economic sociology and political science.


title: Karl Polanyi

text: Polanyi's approach to the ancient economies has been applied to a variety of cases, such as Pre-Columbian America and ancient Mesopotamia, although its utility to the study of ancient societies in general has been questioned. Polanyi's "The Great Transformation" became a model for historical sociology. His theories eventually became the foundation for the economic democracy movement.


title: Karl Polanyi

text: Polanyi was active in politics, and helped found the National Citizens' Radical Party in 1914, serving as its secretary.


title: Karl Polanyi

text: Polanyi was born into a Jewish family. His younger brother was Michael Polanyi, a philosopher, and his niece was Eva Zeisel, a world-renowned ceramist. He was born in Vienna, at the time the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. His father, Mihály Pollacsek, was a railway entrepreneur. Mihály never changed the name "Pollacsek", and is buried in the Jewish cemetery in Budapest. Mihály died in January 1905, which was an emotional shock to Karl, and he commemorated the anniversary of Mihály's death throughout his life. Karl and Michael Polanyi's mother was Cecília Wohl. The name change to Polanyi (not von Polanyi) was made by Karl and his siblings. Polanyi was well educated despite the ups and downs of his father's fortune, and he immersed himself in Budapest's active intellectual and artistic scene.


title: Karl Polanyi

text: Polanyi founded the radical and influential Galileo Circle while at the University of Budapest, a club which would have far reaching effects on Hungarian intellectual thought. During this time, he was actively engaged with other notable thinkers, such as György Lukács, Oszkár Jászi, and Karl Mannheim. Polanyi graduated from Budapest University in 1912 with a doctorate in Law. In 1914, he helped found the National Citizens' Radical Party of Hungary and served as its secretary.


title: Karl Polanyi

text: Polanyi was a cavalry officer in the Austro-Hungarian Army in World War I, in active service at the Russian Front and hospitalized in Budapest. Polanyi supported the republican government of Mihály Károlyi and its Social Democratic regime. The republic was short-lived, however, and when Béla Kun toppled the Karolyi government to create the Hungarian Soviet Republic Polanyi left for Vienna.


title: Karl Polanyi

text: From 1924 to 1933, he was employed as a senior editor of the prestigious "Der Österreichische Volkswirt" ("The Austrian Economist") magazine. It was at this time that he first began criticizing the Austrian School of economists, who he felt created abstract models which lost sight of the organic, interrelated reality of economic processes. Polanyi himself was attracted to Fabianism and the works of G. D. H. Cole. It was also during this period that Polanyi grew interested in Christian socialism.


title: Karl Polanyi

text: He married the communist revolutionary Ilona Duczyńska, of Polish-Hungarian background. Their daughter Kari Polanyi Levitt carried on the family tradition of economic academic research.


title: Karl Polanyi

text: Polanyi was asked to resign from "Der Oesterreichische Volkswirt" because the liberal publisher of the journal could not keep on a prominent socialist after the accession of Hitler to office in January 1933 and the suspension of the Austrian parliament by the rising tide of clerical fascism in Austria. He left for London in 1933, where he earned a living as a journalist and tutor and obtained a position as a lecturer for the Workers' Educational Association in 1936. His lecture notes contained the research for what later became "The Great Transformation". However, he would not start writing this work until 1940, when he moved to Vermont to take up a position at Bennington College. The book was published in 1944, to great acclaim. In it, Polanyi described the enclosure process in England and the creation of the contemporary economic system at the beginning of the 19th century.


title: Karl Polanyi

text: Polanyi joined the staff of Bennington College in 1940, teaching a series of five timely lectures on the "Present Age of Transformation.". The lectures "The Passing of the 19th Century", "The Trend Towards an Integrated Society", "The Breakdown of the International System", "Is America an Exception" and "Marxism and the Inner History of the Russian Revolution" took place during the early stages of World War II. Polanyi participated in Bennington's Humanism Lecture Series (1941) and Bennington College's Lecture Series (1943) where his topic was "Jean Jacques Rousseau: Or Is a Free Society Possible?"


title: Karl Polanyi

text: After the war, Polanyi received a teaching position at Columbia University (1947–1953). However, his wife, Ilona Duczyńska (1897–1978), had a background as a former communist, which made gaining an entrance visa in the United States impossible. As a result, they moved to Canada, and Polanyi commuted to New York City. In the early 1950s, Polanyi received a large grant from the Ford Foundation to study the economic systems of ancient empires.


title: Karl Polanyi

text: Having described the emergence of the modern economic system, Polanyi now sought to understand how "the economy" emerged as a distinct sphere in the distant past. His seminar at Columbia drew several famous scholars and influenced a generation of teachers, resulting in the 1957 volume "Trade and Market in the Early Empires". Polanyi continued to write in his later years and established a new journal entitled "Coexistence". In Canada he lived in Pickering, Ontario, where he died in 1964.


title: Metropolitans 92

text: Metropolitans 92 is a French professional basketball club that is based in Levallois-Perret, in the Paris metropolitan area. The club currently plays in the LNB Pro A, the highest-tier level in French basketball.


title: Metropolitans 92

text: The club was established in 2007, as Paris-Levallois Basket. Its home arena is the Palais des sports Marcel Cerdan, which has a seating capacity of 4,000 people. Levallois has won two titles thus far, winning the French Federation Cup and the Match des Champions (French Supercup), both in 2013.


title: Metropolitans 92

text: Named after the French Revolution, the club was founded in its current form in 2007, with the merger of Paris Basket Racing, from the city of Paris, and Levallois Sporting Club Basket, from the nearby commune of Levallois-Perret, and started to play with the name of Paris-Levallois Basket. The club retains all of the history and titles of Paris Basket Racing and Levallois Sporting Club Basket.


title: Metropolitans 92

text: Despite beginning in the top-tier level of French basketball, the LNB Pro A, Paris-Levallois was relegated to the French second-tier level LNB Pro B, after finishing second from the bottom in the 2007–08 season. The club returned to the Pro A at the first opportunity, by claiming the league promotion from the Pro B in the 2008–09 season. Since then, the club has played in the top tier of French basketball.


title: Metropolitans 92

text: On 5 July 2017, the club's board of directors agreed to change the name of the club to Levallois Metropolitans. On 4 July 2019, former NBA player Boris Diaw was announced as the club's new president, succeeding Jean-Pierre Aubry.


title: Metropolitans 92

text: In the 2022–23 season, French young star Victor Wembanyama joined the team from ASVEL. Wenbanyama was widely projected to be the number one pick in the 2023 NBA draft. In October, the Metropolitans played exhibition games against the NBA G League Ignite in the United States, giving the club international exposure.


title: Metropolitans 92

text: Metropolitans 92 play their home games at the 4,000 seat Palais des sports Marcel Cerdan. Over the years, the club has also used the 4,200 seat Stade Pierre de Coubertin, as its home venue.


title: Ananya Bhat

text: Ananya Bhat is an Indian playback singer who primarily sings in Kannada and Telugu. Through her singing career, she is the recipient of Filmfare Award for the song "Namma Kaayo Devan", of the film "Rama Rama Re..." at 64th Filmfare Awards South in 2017.


title: Ananya Bhat

text: Born in Ankali, Belagavi district, she was raised in Mysuru, Karnataka. She is currently residing in Bengaluru.


title: Ananya Bhat

text: Bhat is the singer in songs "Garbadhi (solo), Sidila Bharava, Dheera Dheera and Koti Kanasugalu", of the multi-lingual film "". She has recorded songs in all four South-Indian languages and also in Hindi.


title: Ananya Bhat

text: Previously she worked for a playback "Namma Kaayo Devane" in "Rama Rama Re..." (2016). In 2018 she sang "Hold On" & "Mental Ho Jawa" songs in "Tagaru". Out of two the former song "Hold On" gave her the SIIMA 2019 for best female playback singer -Kannada and a Best Playback Singer – Female Nomination at 66th Filmfare Awards South. She also did her Telugu debut singing for "Yettagayya shiva" in "Aatagadharaa Siva" which also garnered her Best Playback Singer – Female Nomination at 66th Filmfare Awards South. She sang "Sojugada Sooju Mallige" a Kannada folk song live at the Mahashivaratri event held by Isha foundation in 2020. Ananya appeared in an episode of "Kannadathi", a Kannada daily soap, as herself.


title: UFC on ESPN: Santos vs. Hill

text: UFC on ESPN: Santos vs. Hill (also known as UFC on ESPN 40 and UFC Vegas 59) was a mixed martial arts event produced by the Ultimate Fighting Championship that took place on August 6, 2022, at the UFC Apex facility in Enterprise, Nevada, part of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Area, United States.


title: UFC on ESPN: Santos vs. Hill

text: A light heavyweight bout between former UFC Light Heavyweight title challenger Thiago Santos and Jamahal Hill headlined the event.


title: UFC on ESPN: Santos vs. Hill

text: Former KSW Women's Flyweight Champion Ariane Lipski and Priscila Cachoeira were expected to meet in a flyweight bout at this event. They were previously scheduled to fight at in November 2019, but Cachoeira withdrew after being suspended for the use of a diuretic. At the weigh-ins, Lipski weighed in at 128.5 pounds, two and a half pounds over the flyweight non-title fight limit. The bout was originally expected to proceed at catchweight with Lipski fined 20% of her purse. However, the fight was removed from the card on the day of the event due to Lipski not being medically cleared, and was postponed one week to .


title: UFC on ESPN: Santos vs. Hill

text: A featherweight bout between Nate Landwehr and Zubaira Tukhugov was expected to take place at the event. However, Tukhugov pulled out of the fight due to alleged visa issues which restricted his travel and was replaced by David Onama at a week later.


title: UFC on ESPN: Santos vs. Hill

text: A welterweight bout between Jason Witt and Josh Quinlan was expected to take place at this event. However, it was pushed back one week to UFC on ESPN: Vera vs. Cruz after Quinlan was pulled for an atypical drug finding: long-term metabolite (or M3 metabolite) of the steroid dehydrochloromethyltestosterone (DHCMT) in his urine sample.


title: UFC on ESPN: Santos vs. Hill

text: With ten finishes in ten bouts, this event ties for a 100 percent finish rate for all bouts in a single UFC event.


title: Seven bowls

text: The seven bowls (, "phialas", sing. φιάλη "phialē"; also translated as cups or vials) are a set of plagues mentioned in Revelation 16. They are recorded as apocalyptic events that were seen in the vision of the Revelation of Jesus Christ, by John of Patmos. Seven angels are given seven bowls of God's wrath, each consisting of judgements full of the wrath of God. These seven bowls of God's wrath are poured out on the wicked and the followers of the Antichrist after the sounding of the seven trumpets.


title: Seven bowls

text: The first bowl is poured out upon the earth, and causes painful sores to break out upon all those bearing the mark of the beast.


title: Seven bowls

text: The second bowl is poured out upon the sea. The sea turns to blood, and every living creature in it dies.


title: Seven bowls

text: The third bowl is poured out upon the rivers and springs of water, and they turn to blood. The "angel of the waters" makes a speech in praise of God's justice, which is echoed by a voice from the altar.


title: Seven bowls

text: The fourth bowl is poured out upon the sun. The sun scorches the people, but they only curse the name of God and do not repent.


title: Seven bowls

text: The fifth bowl is poured out upon the throne of the beast. A thick darkness overwhelms the kingdom of the beast, and the wicked still do not repent.


title: Seven bowls

text: The sixth bowl is poured out upon the river Euphrates. The river dries up to allow "the kings of the east" to cross. Three unclean spirits with the appearance of frogs come, one each, out of the mouths of the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet. These spirits, referred to as unclean (meaning unfit for consumption in Biblical literature), work miracles to gather the nations of the world to battle against the forces of good during the Battle of Armageddon. The vision is interrupted by a voice that says "Behold, I am coming like a thief", and urges believers to stay alert.


title: Seven bowls

text: Other biblical scholars believe that the great eschatological battle is not described in these verses, having already been won at the time of the crucifixion of Jesus.


title: Seven bowls

text: The seventh bowl is poured out into the air. A voice from the throne says: "It is done." There is thunder and lightning, and an earthquake which destroys the cities of the world, and splits "the great city" into three parts. The islands and mountains are destroyed, and hailstones weighing a talent each fall upon the earth. The people continue to curse God.


title: Huell Howser

text: Huell Burnley Howser (October 18, 1945 – January 7, 2013) was an American television personality, actor, producer, writer, singer, and voice artist, best known for hosting, producing, and writing "California's Gold" and his human interest show "Visiting... with Huell Howser", produced by KCET in Los Angeles for California PBS stations. The archive of his video chronicles offers an enhanced understanding of the history, culture, and people of California. He also voiced the Backson in "Winnie the Pooh" (2011).


title: Huell Howser

text: Howser was born in Gallatin, Tennessee, on October 18, 1945, to Harold Chamberlain and Jewell Havens (Burnley) Howser. Howser's first name is a portmanteau of his parents' given names, Harold and Jewell, as Howser explained in the "California's Gold" episode "Smartsville."


title: Huell Howser

text: Howser graduated from the University School of Nashville in 1963, then studied history and political science at the University of Tennessee, where he served as student body president.


title: Huell Howser

text: After serving in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve and on the staff of U.S. Senator Howard Baker, Howser began his television career at WSMV-TV in Nashville, Tennessee, where he produced shows focused on human interest stories, such as "Happy Features" and "The Happy World of Huell Howser". Howser was also a television personality working for the University of Tennessee.


title: Huell Howser

text: After working in New York City as the host of WCBS-TV's "Real Life" show, Howser moved to Los Angeles, California, in 1981 to work as a reporter for KCBS-TV. During 1982 and 1983, he served as weekend host and correspondent for "Entertainment Tonight". In 1983, he joined KCET (then a PBS affiliate) as host and producer of "Videolog", a series of brief human-interest segments running less than 10 minutes each, that aired in between the station's shorter programs to fill up air time. "Videolog" eventually became one of the more popular programs on KCET, and in 1990, the show was expanded to half hour-long episodes. Included in Videolog was lint artist Slater Barron among other topics relevant to Los Angeles and adjacent communities.


title: Huell Howser

text: In 1991, after spending his vacation driving across the Golden State and visiting with all 13 PBS stations in California, "California's Gold" premiered in April of that year. "California's Gold" highlights small towns, landmarks, events, or places of interest throughout California that are not well known to the general public. Howser conducted informal, often impromptu, interviews with locals involved with the sites he visited. He also produced "California's Communities", "California's Golden Fairs", "Downtown", "California's Water", "California's Green", "California's Golden Coast", "California's Golden Parks", "Road Trip", "Visiting... with Huell Howser", "California Missions", "Palm Springs", "Our Neighborhoods", "The Bench", and various specials.


title: Huell Howser

text: "Visiting... with Huell Howser" was a weekly PBS series hosted by Howser that originally aired from 1991 until his retirement in 2012 that focused on "the diverse people, places, and events that make southern California such a unique community." , KCET, and other Southern California PBS continue to rerun this popular series. Episodes can be viewed on demand on the Chapman University, and PBS affiliates' websites.


title: Huell Howser

text: Articles written by Howser appeared in "Westways", the magazine of the Automobile Club of Southern California.


title: Huell Howser

text: In 1997, he featured prominently as himself alongside Tracey Ullman in character as Ruby Romaine in the "Tracey Takes On..." episode "Hollywood."


title: Huell Howser

text: Howser spearheaded an unsuccessful effort to stop the demolition of buildings designed by Paul Williams at the Long Beach Naval Shipyard.


title: Huell Howser

text: He appeared in "Who Killed the Electric Car?" (2006) in his capacity as a reporter, witnessing the demolition and shredding of a Honda EV Plus.


title: Huell Howser

text: In 2011, Howser voiced the Backson in the post-credits scene of Walt Disney Animation Studios' feature film "Winnie the Pooh".


title: Huell Howser

text: Howser lived in the historic El Royale apartments in Los Angeles, California, in an apartment which had previously been home to character actor William Frawley. Howser also had homes in Palm Springs and Twentynine Palms.


title: Huell Howser

text: Howser mentioned that he was a Methodist during his episode covering the Nevada County Fair on "California's Golden Fairs".


title: Huell Howser

text: In 2003, Howser purchased the Volcano House, situated on a volcanic cinder cone just outside Barstow in Newberry Springs, along with of desert and a man-made lake. In 2010, Howser put the unusual residence on the market for $650,000.


title: Huell Howser

text: In June 2012, "The Panther", a student-run newspaper for Chapman University, announced that Howser had donated the Volcano House to the school. On September 3, 2015, Chapman University sold the Volcano House for $750,000.


title: Huell Howser

text: On November 27, 2012, "The Sacramento Bee" reported that Howser was retiring from making new shows, amid speculation in the television community that he was seriously ill.


title: Huell Howser

text: On January 7, 2013, Howser died at his Palm Springs home, at the age of 67. He had been battling cancer for several years and his death certificate listed metastatic prostate cancer as the cause. Howser's body was cremated and his ashes were scattered at sea off the coast of Los Angeles County.


title: Huell Howser

text: On January 15, 2013, a memorial was held for Howser, who said before his death that he did not want a funeral as he did not want attention.


title: Huell Howser

text: Howser donated his videotaped collection of "California's Gold" episodes, as well as those of his other series, to Chapman University in 2011. He also donated his personal papers, and a large collection of books on California history to the university. The school established the Huell Howser Archives, which, when completed, will offer the public free access to the entire digitized collection of his life's work. The archives can be accessed at Chapman University as well as on the internet. He also gave his extensive art collection, which consists mostly of "found-object" art collected during his travels, to the university, and endowed the California's Gold Scholarship Fund. Upon his death he bequeathed his remaining two homes to the university, the proceeds from the sale of which will be added to the scholarship fund.


title: Huell Howser

text: Testimonials to Howser's unique contribution to the celebration of California history and culture were acknowledged in numerous media sources upon word of his death. Gustavo Arellano, then-editor of the"OC Weekly", called Howser "the greatest Californian since Hiram Johnson," noting that for Howser, "California was the ultimate temple of the American dream." Such an assessment reflects the high regard in which many Californians hold Howser's achievement of a very media savvy and unabashedly enthusiastic promotion of their state's heritage.


title: Huell Howser

text: Howser's enthusiastic style as host of his various travel shows led to him being impersonated and lampooned by comedians and radio personalities, such as Adam Carolla, Dana Gould, Ralph Garman, and James Adomian.


title: Huell Howser

text: Matt Groening has stated he is a fan of Howser and featured him in two episodes of "The Simpsons": "There's Something About Marrying," in which a character named Howell Huser (voiced by Dan Castellaneta) falls off a turnip truck, and "O Brother, Where Bart Thou?," in which the real Howser presents a program similar to Marc Summers' "Unwrapped" television program titled "Under the Wrapper". Howser received a voice credit for the episode. The "Simpsons" episode "A Test Before Trying" commemorated his death with a quick cartoon memorial shot at the end of the episode, stating: "In Memory of Huell Howser, Friend of the Simpsons and a friend of California."


title: Andrew Chan

text: Andrew Chan (; 12 January 1984 – 29 April 2015) was an Australian man who was convicted and executed in Indonesia for drug trafficking as a member of the Bali Nine. In 2005, Chan was arrested at Ngurah Rai International Airport in Denpasar. According to court testimonies of convicted drug mules, Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were the co-ringleaders of the heroin smuggling operation from Indonesia to Australia. After a criminal trial on February 14, 2006, Chan was sentenced to execution by firing squad by the Denpasar District Court.


title: Andrew Chan

text: After lodging an appeal against Chan’s sentence, his appeal was dismissed by the Indonesian Supreme Court on 10 May 2011. His plea for clemency was rejected by the President of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, on 22 January 2015. The execution was carried out on 29 April 2015.


title: Andrew Chan

text: Andrew Chan was born on 12 January 1984 in Sydney, New South Wales, the youngest child of Ken and Helena Chan, both first-generation Cantonese-speaking immigrants from Mainland China. Chan was one of four children, having an older brother and two older sisters. Chan's mother Helena Chan had poor English language skills, and Chan did not speak Cantonese. Chan's older brother Michael translated for him when required.


title: Andrew Chan

text: Chan grew up in Enfield in Sydney, and attended Homebush Boys High School. Both he and Myuran Sukumaran attended the same school, but Sukumaran was four school years above Chan, and they did not meet until 2002, at a mutual friend's house.


title: Andrew Chan

text: Chan was employed at Eurest, a catering company, where he worked as a supervisor. It was reported that Chan had a good reputation at his job and was known to be a punctual and reliable worker. In an interview broadcast on SBS TV's "Dateline" following his sentencing and appeal, Chan stated:


title: Andrew Chan

text: When Chan worked for Eurest, he met Renae Lawrence, Martin Stephens and Matthew Norman. All four would later be convicted of drug trafficking as fellow members of the Bali Nine. Media reports claim that in early October 2004, Chan invited Lawrence to the Enfield home of his parents to celebrate Lawrence's 27 birthday; Chan was living with his parents at this time. Here, Chan allegedly told Lawrence that she was to travel with him to Bali, without being told the detail behind the mission. Lawrence claimed that Chan would cover all air flights and accommodation and that if she disobeyed him or disclosed the nature of their arrangement, he would "send (her) family to the farm". Lawrence claimed that Chan said there would be a reward, should she follow his instructions. It was also reported that she met Myuran Sukumaran around this time.


title: Andrew Chan

text: It was alleged that Chan flew to Bali on October 16, 2004, with Lawrence also arriving in Bali on the same date. Lawrence claimed that Chan was in regular contact with her when she stayed in the Istana Rama Hotel in Kuta, and Chan in Kuta's Hard Rock complex. Media reports stated that Lawrence alleged that on October 22, 2004, Sukumaran strapped packages to the body of both Lawrence and Chan, and with Chan's girlfriend, Grace, boarded a commercial flight to Australia, successfully clearing security, customs and immigration in both Indonesia and Australia. Lawrence claimed that she and Chan were met at the airport, the packages removed, all of them taken to another house, and then Lawrence went home. A few days later Lawrence claimed that Chan handed her an envelope with $10,000 cash.


title: Andrew Chan

text: Lawrence claimed that a similar trip was organized following Chan's orders, where she departed Australia on 5 December 2004. Lawrence claimed that seven others were involved, including Chan, Matthew Norman, and Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen (going by the alias of David). Lawrence claimed that she was again given cash to purchase air flights and accommodation for eight days, staying again at the Istana Rama in Kuta. However, the second delivery was aborted when heroin suppliers failed to deliver "due to a financial matter or someone knowing about the plan the shipment was cancelled".


title: Andrew Chan

text: According to Lawrence, again under Chan's instructions, Lawrence departed Australia on April 6, 2005. The day before, Lawrence, Stephens and Si Yi Chen met with Sukumaran where police allege drug smuggling tools such as sealable plastic bags, medical tape, elastic waist bands and skin tight bike shorts were stuffed into the bags of Lawrence and Stephens. Lawrence claims that she was given cash, whereas Stephens claims that his life was threatened. According to media reports, police records show that during his stay in Bali, Chan was in daily contact with Lawrence, until 13 April, when Chan changed his mobile phone number. On the same day, Chan instructed Lawrence and other members of the Bali Nine to change hotels. The original planned departure date of 14 April from Bali was delayed as Chan suspected Australian and Indonesian police were aware of his plans.


title: Andrew Chan

text: Chan was arrested on April 17, 2005 as he was seated on an Australian Airlines flight waiting to depart Ngurah Rai Airport in Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia, for Sydney. He was arrested carrying three mobile phones and a boarding pass; however, no drugs were found in his possession.


title: Andrew Chan

text: Around the same time as Chan was arrested, Indonesian police arrested four drug mules collectively carrying of heroin concealed on their bodies. Martin Stephens was found to be carrying ; Renae Lawrence was found to be carrying ; Michael Czugaj was found to be carrying and Scott Rush was found to be carrying of heroin. A little later that same day, Indonesian police also arrested Si Yi Chen, Tan Duc Thanh Nguyen, Myuran Sukumaran and Matthew Norman at the Melasti Hotel in Kuta. Indonesian police claim that this latter group were in possession of of heroin and bundles of plastic wrapping, Elastoplast tape, and a set of scales, indicating involvement in a plan to transport drugs to Australia.


title: Andrew Chan

text: Lee Rush, the father of Scott Rush, a fellow member of the Bali Nine, said that he contacted the Australian Federal Police (AFP) prior to the commission of the offence, fearing his son was travelling to Bali and would commit a drug-related crime. Rush Sr. claims then to have received assurances from the AFP that they would tell his son he was under surveillance to dissuade him from going through with the crime before the group's departure from Indonesia. Scott Rush's lawyers said he was never contacted. It was revealed that the AFP alerted Indonesian police that a crime was to be committed approximately two weeks before the arrests, and had commenced an investigation about ten weeks prior to the arrests. When the Bali Nine were arrested, the news of the tipoff became public and there was criticism of the role of the AFP in protecting the interests of Australian citizens. Commenting on the matter at the time, AFP Commissioner Mick Keelty was reported as saying:


title: Andrew Chan

text: Rush took action in the Federal Court of Australia against the AFP for breach of the bilateral treaty between Indonesia and Australia when information was handed by the AFP to the Indonesians. Rush's case claimed that such information should only be released by the Attorney-General. However, the Commonwealth Government maintained that the treaty only applies after a suspect is charged. The application was dismissed by the Federal Court in January 2006.


title: Andrew Chan

text: Criminal trials for the accused commenced in the Denpasar District Court on October 11, 2005. Chen, Nguyen, and Norman, all arrested at the Melasti Hotel and earning the numeric epithet, "The Melasti Three", were tried together, with the remaining six defendants, including Chan, tried separately.


title: Andrew Chan

text: In December 2005, it was reported that tensions were building between the Bali Nine drug mules and Sukumaran and Chan. Several days later, lawyers acting for some members of the Bali Nine initially sought the support of the Director of Public Prosecutions to intervene and lay charges for conspiracy to import drugs, so that the nine could be extradited and charged under Australian law. However, the judges hearing the trial matters in Bali called for Australia not to intervene in Indonesia's right to impose capital punishment;. Lawyers acting for Stephens, one of the Bali Nine, claimed that the fairness of his trial was in jeopardy following comments made in the media by Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda that Australians should be prepared for members of the Bali Nine to receive a death sentence, if found guilty.


title: Andrew Chan

text: Giving evidence against Chan, Lawrence testified that she had received threats of harm against herself and her family if she did not proceed with the plan to import heroin into Australia. She claimed before the Denpasar District Court that Chan ordered her to book a flight to Bali and that she did not know why she was ordered to travel. Another drug mule, Rush, also later convicted of drug trafficking, accused Chan of strapping the heroin to his body while wearing rubber gloves.


title: Andrew Chan

text: Throughout his trial, Chan remained silent. During his final plea, reading from a two-page statement, Chan commented:


title: Andrew Chan

text: The Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard, said that the Australian government would oppose any death sentences imposed, saying:


title: Andrew Chan

text: In January 2006, prosecutors called for the death penalty to be handed down on Chan, after earlier calls for the same demand against Sukumaran – the only two calls of death put forward by prosecutors for any of the Bali Nine. Prosecutors told a Bali court there was no reason to show any leniency because Chan helped organise the heroin smuggling operation. Prosecutors also claim Sukumaran and Chan strapped heroin to the bodies of the fellow accused. Indonesian police identified Chan as one of the main players in what they say was a major smuggling ring.


title: Andrew Chan

text: Found guilty of drug trafficking, on 14 February 2006 three judges in the Denpasar District Court sentenced Chan to death by firing squad. In handing down their ruling, they claimed that Chan had not been straightforward in his evidence and had shown no remorse.


title: Andrew Chan

text: Julian McMahon, a Melbourne human rights lawyer who took over the case in 2006 on a pro-bono basis, appealed against the severity of Chan's sentence to the Indonesian Supreme Court. During the appeal hearings it was revealed that Chan has a girlfriend and that the governor of Kerobokan Prison described Chan and Sukumaran as model prisoners and that Chan and Sukumaran have a positive influence on other prisoners. In his final appeal, Chan said "I apologize to the Indonesian people, I also apologize to my family and I realize that my actions have brought shame and suffering to my whole family. If I am pardoned... I hope that one day I will be able to have my own family and work as a pastor so I can give guidance to young people. I can still contribute a great deal during my life. I have lost all my integrity and good will, and brought deep shame and outrageous suffering to my loved ones."


title: Andrew Chan

text: On June 17, 2011, it was announced that the Indonesian Supreme Court had rejected Chan's appeal against his death sentence on May 10, 2011. Indonesian President at that time, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, had the power to grant clemency, although media reports considered this unlikely and expected that Chan would be executed. In October 2014, Joko Widodo ("Jokowi") succeeded Yudhoyono as President. Jokowi holds a hardline position against drugs. In January 2015 the Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott together with the Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Julie Bishop made further representations to Jokowi and Indonesia's Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi for clemency in the commutation of Chan's sentence. Chan's plea for clemency was dismissed. In late January lawyers for Chan and Sukumaran filed an application for a judicial review into their cases; which was rejected by the Denpasar District Court a few days later. Meanwhile, Indonesian officials continued planning for the execution of Chan and Sukumaran: Tony Spontana, a spokesperson for Muhammad Prasetyo, the Attorney General of Indonesia, said that "The applied norm is that the judicial review doesn't stop the execution process, the convicts have received the president's decree which declines their clemency request."


title: Andrew Chan

text: In a final attempt to avert the death penalty, on February 9, lawyers for Chan and Sukumaran launched a rare challenge against the Indonesian president's refusal to grant them pardons; which was dismissed by the Indonesian government a day later.


title: Andrew Chan

text: On February 11, 2015, Indonesian authorities approved the transfer of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran from Kerobokan prison, in preparation for execution.


title: Andrew Chan

text: A candlelight vigil hosted by the Mercy Campaign, entitled Music for Mercy, was held in Sydney's Martin Place on the evening of January 29, 2015, in support of Chan and Sukumaran. The concert featured performances by Archibald Prize artist Ben Quilty, singer-songwriter Megan Washington, Josh Pyke, Kate Miller-Heidke, Paul Mac, Glenn Richards from Augie March, and The Presets' Julian Hamilton; with Andrew Denton, his partner, Jennifer Byrne, and Missy Higgins who recorded video messages of support for Chan and Sukumaran. Amnesty International organised similar vigils in Federation Square, , Adelaide, Canberra, and .


title: Andrew Chan

text: On February 13, Australia's foreign minister, Julie Bishop, raised the potential for a boycott of Bali as a tourism destination should the executions proceed. Former high court judge Michael Kirby stated that he expected a decline in tourism was a potential consequence of executing Chan and Sukumaran. Both Bishop and Tanya Plibersek, Labor's foreign affairs spokeswoman, made pleas for clemency in the Australian parliament. Quilty and Victorian supreme court judge Lex Lasry visited Chan and Sukumaran in Bali.


title: Andrew Chan

text: Chan married Febyanti Herewila, whom he met when she was visiting another prisoner, on 27 April 2015. The prison governor has described Chan and Sukumaran as model prisoners and testified in court that they should not be executed because of the positive influence they have had. In an interview the governor stated that "Chan organises courses in prison, leads the English-language church service and is a mentor to many."


title: Andrew Chan

text: Chan became a Christian while in prison and led the English-language Christian church service. He also started a certificate course at Harvest Bible College. In reconciling his death sentence with his faith in God, Chan said:


title: Andrew Chan

text: By order of the Indonesian government, Chan was executed by firing squad on 29 April 2015 at 12:25 am WIB along with Sukumaran and six other prisoners. Chan and the other seven prisoners refused to be blindfolded. They sang "Amazing Grace" and "10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord)" before being shot by a 12-member firing squad. Amnesty International condemned the executions, describing them as "reprehensible".


The 1998 United States House of Representatives elections were part of the midterm elections held during President Bill Clinton's second term. They were a major disappointment to the Republicans, who were expecting to gain seats due to the embarrassment Clinton suffered during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and the "six-year itch" effect observed in most second-term midterm elections. However, the Republicans lost five seats to the Democrats, but retained a narrow majority in the House. A wave of Republican discontent with Speaker Newt Gingrich prompted him to resign shortly after the election; he was replaced by Congressman Dennis Hastert of Illinois.


title: 1998 United States House of Representatives elections

text: The campaign was marked by Republican attacks on the morality of President Bill Clinton, with Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr having released his report on the Lewinsky scandal and House leaders having initiated an inquiry into whether impeachable offenses had occurred. However, exit polls indicated that most voters opposed impeaching Clinton, and predictions of high Republican or low Democratic turnout due to the scandal failed to materialize. Some speculate that the losses reflected a backlash against the Republicans for attacking the popular Clinton. With the Republicans having lost four House seats and failing to gain any seats in the Senate, it was the first time since 1934 that the non-presidential party failed to gain congressional seats in a midterm election; this would happen again in 2002. It was also the first time since 1822 that the non-presidential party had failed to gain House seats in the midterm election of a president's second term.


title: Maniac Mansion

text: Maniac Mansion is a 1987 graphic adventure video game developed and published by Lucasfilm Games. It follows teenage protagonist Dave Miller as he attempts to rescue his girlfriend Sandy Pantz from a mad scientist, whose mind has been enslaved by a sentient meteor. The player uses a point-and-click interface to guide Dave and two of his six playable friends through the scientist's mansion while solving puzzles and avoiding dangers. Gameplay is non-linear, and the game must be completed in different ways based on the player's choice of characters. Initially released for the Commodore 64 and Apple II, "Maniac Mansion" was Lucasfilm Games' first self-published product.


title: Maniac Mansion

text: The game was conceived in 1985 by Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick, who sought to tell a comedic story based on horror film and B-movie clichés. They mapped out the project as a paper-and-pencil game before coding commenced. While earlier adventure titles had relied on command lines, Gilbert disliked such systems, and he developed "Maniac Mansion"s simpler point-and-click interface as a replacement. To speed up production, he created a game engine called SCUMM, which was used in many later LucasArts titles. After its release, "Maniac Mansion" was ported to several platforms. A port for the Nintendo Entertainment System had to be reworked heavily, in response to Nintendo of America’s concerns that the game was inappropriate for children.


title: Maniac Mansion

text: "Maniac Mansion" was critically acclaimed: reviewers lauded its graphics, cutscenes, animation, and humor. Writer Orson Scott Card praised it as a step toward "computer games [becoming] a valid storytelling art". It influenced numerous graphic adventure titles, and its point-and-click interface became a standard feature in the genre. The game's success solidified Lucasfilm as a serious rival to adventure game studios such as Sierra On-Line. In 1990, "Maniac Mansion" was adapted into a three-season television series of the same name, written by Eugene Levy and starring Joe Flaherty. A sequel to the game, "Day of the Tentacle", was released in 1993.


title: Maniac Mansion

text: "Maniac Mansion" is a graphic adventure game in which the player uses a point-and-click interface to guide characters through a two-dimensional game world and to solve puzzles. Fifteen action commands, such as "Walk To" and "Unlock", may be selected by the player from a menu on the screen's lower half. The player starts the game by choosing two out of six characters to accompany protagonist Dave Miller: Bernard, Jeff, Michael, Razor, Syd, and Wendy. Each character possesses unique abilities: for example, Syd and Razor can play musical instruments, while Bernard can repair appliances. The game may be completed with any combination of characters; but, since many puzzles are solvable only by certain characters, different paths must be taken based on the group's composition. "Maniac Mansion" features cutscenes, a word coined by Ron Gilbert, that interrupt gameplay to advance the story and inform the player about offscreen events.


title: Maniac Mansion

text: The game takes place in the mansion of the fictional Edison family: Dr. Fred, a mad scientist; Nurse Edna, his wife; and their son Weird Ed. Living with the Edisons are two large, disembodied tentacles, one purple and the other green. The intro sequence shows that a sentient meteor crashed near the mansion twenty years earlier; it brainwashed the Edisons and directed Dr. Fred to obtain human brains for use in experiments. The game begins as Dave Miller prepares to enter the mansion to rescue his girlfriend, Sandy Pantz, who had been kidnapped by Dr. Fred. With the exception of the green tentacle, the mansion's inhabitants are hostile, and will throw the player characters into the dungeon—or, in some situations, kill them—if they see them. When a character dies, the player must continue with the remaining of the three selected characters ; the game ends if all characters are killed. "Maniac Mansion" has five possible endings, based on which characters are chosen, which survive, and what the characters accomplish.


title: Maniac Mansion

text: "Maniac Mansion" was conceived in 1985 when Lucasfilm Games employees Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick were assigned to create an original game. Gilbert had been hired the previous year as a programmer for the game "Koronis Rift". He befriended Winnick over their similar tastes in humor, film, and television. Company management provided little oversight in the creation of "Maniac Mansion", a trend to which Gilbert credited the success of several of his games for Lucasfilm.


title: Maniac Mansion

text: Gilbert and Winnick co-wrote and co-designed the project, but they worked separately as well: Gilbert on programming and Winnick on visuals. As both of them enjoyed B horror films, they decided to make a comedy-horror game set in a haunted house. They drew inspiration from a film whose name Winnick could not recall. He described it as "a ridiculous teen horror movie", in which teenagers inside a building were killed one by one without any thought of leaving. This film, combined with clichés from popular horror movies such as "Friday the 13th" and "A Nightmare on Elm Street", became the basis for the game's setting. Early work on the game progressed organically: according to Gilbert, "very little was written down. Gary and I just talked and laughed a lot, and out it came". Lucasfilm Games relocated to the Stable House at Skywalker Ranch during "Maniac Mansion"s conception period, and the ranch's Main House was used as a model for the mansion. Several rooms from the Main House received exact reproductions in the game, such as a library with a spiral staircase and a media room with a large-screen TV and grand piano.


title: Maniac Mansion

text: Story and characters were a primary concern for Gilbert and Winnick. The pair based the game's cast on friends, family members, acquaintances, and stereotypes. For example, Winnick's girlfriend Ray was the inspiration for Razor, while Dave and Wendy were based, respectively, on Gilbert and a fellow Lucasfilm employee named Wendy. According to Winnick, the Edison family was shaped after characters from EC Comics and Warren Publishing magazines. The sentient meteor that brainwashes Dr. Fred was inspired by a segment from the 1982 anthology film "Creepshow". A man-eating plant, similar to that of "Little Shop of Horrors", was included as well. The developers sought to strike a balance between tension and humor with the game's story.


title: Maniac Mansion

text: Initially, Gilbert and Winnick struggled to choose a gameplay genre for "Maniac Mansion". While visiting relatives over Christmas, Gilbert saw his cousin play "King's Quest: Quest for the Crown", an adventure game by Sierra On-Line. Although he was a fan of text adventures, this was Gilbert's first experience with a graphic adventure, and he used the holiday to play the game and familiarize himself with the format. As a result, he decided to develop his and Winnick's ideas into a graphic adventure game.


title: Maniac Mansion

text: "Maniac Mansion"s story and structure were designed before coding commenced. The project's earliest incarnation was a paper-and-pencil board game, in which the mansion's floor plan was used as a game board, and cards represented events and characters. Lines connected the rooms to illustrate pathways by which characters could travel. Strips of cellulose acetate were used to map out the game's puzzles by tracking which items worked together when used by certain characters. Impressed by the map's complexity, Winnick included it in the final game as a poster hung on a wall. Because each character contributes different skills and resources, the pair spent months working on the event combinations that could occur. This extended the game's production time beyond that of previous Lucasfilm Games projects, which almost led to Gilbert's firing. The game's dialogue, written by David Fox, was not created until after programming had begun.


title: Maniac Mansion

text: Gilbert started programming "Maniac Mansion" in 6502 assembly language, but he quickly decided that the project was too large and complex for this method. He decided that a new game engine would have to be created. Its coding language was initially planned to be Lisp-inspired, but Gilbert opted for one similar to C and Yacc. Lucasfilm employee Chip Morningstar contributed the base code for the engine, which Gilbert then built on. Gilbert hoped to create a "system that could be used on many adventure games, cutting down the time it took to make them". "Maniac Mansion"s first six-to-nine months of production were dedicated largely to engine development. The game was developed around the Commodore 64 home computer, an 8-bit system with only 64 KB of memory. The team wanted to include scrolling screens, but as it was normally impossible to scroll bitmap graphics on the Commodore 64, they had to use lower-detail tile graphics. Winnick gave each character a large head made of three stacked sprites to make them recognizable.


title: Maniac Mansion

text: Although Gilbert wrote much of the foundational code for "Maniac Mansion", the majority of the game's events were programmed by Lucasfilm employee David Fox. Fox was between projects and planned to work on the game only for a month, but he remained with the team for six months. With Gilbert, he wrote the characters' dialog and choreographed the action. Winnick's concept art inspired him to add new elements to the game: for example, Fox allowed the player to place a hamster inside the kitchen's microwave.


title: Maniac Mansion

text: The team wanted to avoid punishing the player for applying everyday logic in "Maniac Mansion". Fox noted that one Sierra game features a scene in which the player, without prior warning, may encounter a game over screen simply by picking up a shard of glass. He characterized such game design as "sadistic", and he commented: "I know that in the real world I can successfully pick up a broken piece of mirror without dying". Because of the project's nonlinear puzzle design, the team struggled to prevent no-win scenarios, in which the player unexpectedly became unable to complete the game. As a result of this problem, Gilbert later explained: "We were constantly fighting against the desire just to rip out all the endings and just go with three characters, or even sometimes just one character". Lucasfilm Games had only one playtester, and many dead-ends went undetected as a result. Further playtesting was provided by Gilbert's uncle, to whom Gilbert mailed a floppy disk of the game's latest version each week.


title: Maniac Mansion

text: The "Maniac Mansion" team wanted to retain the structure of a text-based adventure game, but without the standard command-line interface. Gilbert and Winnick were frustrated by the genre's text parsers and frequent game over screens. While in college, Gilbert had enjoyed "Colossal Cave Adventure" and the games of Infocom, but he disliked their lack of visuals. He found the inclusion of graphics in Sierra On-Line games, such as "King's Quest", to be a step in the right direction, but these games still require the player to type, and to guess which commands must be input. In response, Gilbert programmed a point-and-click graphical user interface that displays every possible command. Fox had made a similar attempt to streamline Lucasfilm's earlier "" and he conceived the entirety of "Maniac Mansion"s interface, according to Gilbert. Forty input commands were planned at first, but the number was gradually reduced to 12. Gilbert finished the "Maniac Mansion" engine—which he later named "Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion" (SCUMM)—after roughly one year of work. Although the game was designed for the Commodore 64, the SCUMM engine allowed it to be ported easily to other platforms.


title: Maniac Mansion

text: After 18 to 24 months of development, "Maniac Mansion" debuted at the 1987 Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago. The game was released for the Commodore 64 and Apple II in October 1987. While previous Lucasfilm Games products had been published by outside companies, "Maniac Mansion" was self-published. This became a trend at Lucasfilm. The company hired Ken Macklin, an acquaintance of Winnick's, to design the game's packaging artwork. Gilbert and Winnick collaborated with the marketing department to design the back cover. The two also created an insert that includes hints, a backstory, and jokes. An MS-DOS port was released in early 1988, developed in part by Lucasfilm employees Aric Wilmunder and Brad Taylor. Ports for the Amiga, Atari ST and Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) followed, with the Amiga and Atari ST ports in 1989 and the NES port in 1990. The 16-bit versions of Maniac Mansion featured a copy protection system requiring the user to enter graphical symbols out of a code book included with the game. This was not present in the Commodore 64 and Apple versions due to lack of disk space, so those instead used an on-disk copy protection.


title: Maniac Mansion

text: There were two separate versions of the game developed for the NES. The first port was handled and published by Jaleco only in Japan. Released on June 23, 1988, it featured characters redrawn in a cute art style and generally shrunken rooms. No scrolling is present, leading to rooms larger than a single screen to be displayed via flip-screens. Many of the background details are missing, and instead of a save feature a password, over 100 characters long, is required to save progress.


title: Maniac Mansion

text: In September 1990 Jaleco released an American version of "Maniac Mansion" as the first NES title developed by Lucasfilm Games in cooperation with Realtime Associates. Generally, this port is regarded as being far closer to the original game than the Japanese effort.


title: Maniac Mansion

text: Company management was occupied with other projects, and so the port received little attention until employee Douglas Crockford volunteered to direct it. The team used a modified version of the SCUMM engine called "NES SCUMM" for the port. According to Crockford, "[one] of the main differences between the NES and PCs is that the NES can do certain things much faster". The graphics had to be entirely redrawn to match the NES's display resolution. Tim Schafer, who later designed "Maniac Mansion"s sequel "Day of the Tentacle", received his first professional credit as a playtester for the NES version of "Maniac Mansion".


title: Maniac Mansion

text: During "Maniac Mansion"s development for the Commodore 64, Lucasfilm had censored profanity in the script: for instance, the early line of dialogue "Don't be a shit head" became "Don't be a tuna head". Additional content was removed from the NES version to make it suitable for a younger audience, and to conform with Nintendo's policies. Jaleco USA president Howie Rubin warned Crockford about content to which Nintendo might object, such as the word "kill". After reading the NES Game Standards Policy for himself, Crockford suspected that further elements of "Maniac Mansion" could be problematic, and he sent a list of questionable content to Jaleco. When the company replied that the content was reasonable, Lucasfilm Games submitted "Maniac Mansion" for approval.


title: Maniac Mansion

text: One month later, Nintendo of America was concerned that its content was objectionable, believing it was inappropriate for children, and contacted Lucasfilm Games to request they tone down the inappropriate content, particularly profanity and nudity. Crockford censored this content but attempted to leave the game's essence intact. For example, Nintendo wanted graffiti in one room, which provided an important hint to players, removed from the game. Unable to comply without simultaneously removing the hint, the team simply shortened it. Sexually suggestive and otherwise "graphic" dialogue was edited, including a remark from Dr. Fred about "pretty brains [being] sucked out". The nudity described by Nintendo encompassed a swimsuit calendar, a classical sculpture and a poster of a mummy in a Playmate pose. After a brief fight to keep the sculpture, the team ultimately removed all three. The phrase "NES SCUMM System" in the credits sequence was censored as well.


title: Maniac Mansion

text: Lucasfilm Games re-submitted the edited version of "Maniac Mansion" to Nintendo, which then manufactured 250,000 cartridges. Each cartridge was fitted with a battery-powered back-up to save data. Nintendo announced the port through its official magazine in early 1990, and it provided further coverage later that year. The ability to microwave a hamster remained in the game, which Crockford cited as an example of the censors' contradictory criteria. Nintendo later noticed it, and after the first batch of cartridges was sold, Jaleco was forced to remove the content from future shipments.


title: Maniac Mansion

text: Late in development, Jaleco commissioned Realtime Associates to provide background music, which no previous version of "Maniac Mansion" had featured. Realtime Associates' founder and president David Warhol noted that "video games at that time had to have 'wall to wall' music". He brought in George "The Fat Man" Sanger and his band, along with David Hayes, to compose the score. Their goal was to create songs that suited each character, such as a punk rock theme for Razor, an electronic rock theme for Bernard and a version of Thin Lizzy's "The Boys Are Back in Town" for Dave Miller. Warhol translated their work into NES chiptune music.


title: Maniac Mansion

text: According to Stuart Hunt of "Retro Gamer", "Maniac Mansion" received highly positive reviews from critics. Nevertheless, Ron Gilbert noted that "it wasn't a huge hit" commercially. In 2011, Hunt wrote that "as so often tends to be the way with cult classics, the popularity it saw was slow in coming".


title: Maniac Mansion

text: Keith Farrell of "Compute!'s Gazette" was struck by "Maniac Mansion"s similarity to film, particularly in its use of cutscenes to impart "information or urgency". He lauded the game's graphics, animation and high level of detail. "Commodore User"s Bill Scolding and three reviewers from "Zzap!64" compared the game to "The Rocky Horror Picture Show". Further comparisons were drawn to "Psycho", "Friday the 13th", "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre", "The Addams Family" and "Scooby-Doo". Russ Ceccola of "Commodore Magazine" found the cutscenes to be creative and well made, and he commented that the "characters are distinctively Lucasfilm's, bringing facial expressions and personality to each individual character". In "Compute!", Orson Scott Card praised the game's humor, cinematic storytelling and lack of violence. He called it "compellingly good" and evidence of Lucasfilm's push "to make computer games a valid storytelling art".


title: Maniac Mansion

text: German magazine "Happy-Computer" commended the point-and-click interface and likened it to that of "Uninvited" by ICOM Simulations. The publication highlighted "Maniac Mansion"s graphics, originality, and overall enjoyability: one of the writers called it the best adventure title yet released. "Happy-Computer" later reported that "Maniac Mansion" was the highest-selling video game in West Germany for three consecutive months. The game's humor received praise from "Zzap!64", whose reviewers called the point-and-click controls "tremendous" and the total package "innovative and polished". Shay Addams of "Questbusters: The Adventurer's Newsletter" preferred "Maniac Mansion"s interface to that of "Labyrinth: The Computer Game". He considered the game to be Lucasfilm's best, and he recommended it to Commodore 64 and Apple II users unable to run titles with better visuals, such as those from Sierra On-Line. A writer for "ACE" enjoyed the game's animation and depth, but he noted that fans of text-based adventures would dislike the game's simplicity. "Entertainment Weekly" picked the game as the #20 greatest game available in 1991: "The graphics are merely okay and the music is Nintendo at its tinniest, but Maniac Mansion's plot is enough to overcome these faults. In this command-driven game — adapted from the computer hit — three buddies venture into a sinister haunted mansion and wind up juggling a bunch of wacky story lines".


title: Maniac Mansion

text: Reviewing the MS-DOS and Atari ST ports, a critic from "The Games Machine" called "Maniac Mansion" "an enjoyable romp" that was structurally superior to later LucasArts adventure games. The writer noticed poor pathfinding and disliked the limited audio. Reviewers for "The Deseret News" lauded the audiovisuals and considered the product "wonderful fun". "Computer Gaming World"s Charles Ardai praised the game for attaining "the necessary and precarious balance between laughs and suspense that so many comic horror films and novels lack". Although he faulted the control system's limited options, he hailed it as "one of the most comfortable ever devised". Writing for "VideoGames & Computer Entertainment", Bill Kunkel and Joyce Worley stated that the game's plot and premise were typical of the horror genre, but they praised the interface and execution.


title: Maniac Mansion

text: Reviewing "Maniac Mansion"s Amiga version four years after its release, Simon Byron of "The One Amiga" praised the game for retaining "charm and humour", but suggested that its art direction had become "tacky" compared to more recent titles. Stephen Bradly of "Amiga Format" found the game derivative, but encountered "loads of visual humour" in it, adding: "Strangely, it's quite compelling after a while". Michael Labiner of Germany's "Amiga Joker" considered "Maniac Mansion" to be one of the best adventure games for the system. He noted minor graphical flaws, such as a limited color palette, but he argued that the gameplay made up for such shortcomings. Writing for "Datormagazin" in Sweden, Ingela Palmér commented that the Amiga and Commodore 64 versions of "Maniac Mansion" were nearly identical. She criticized the graphics and gameplay of both releases but felt the game to be highly enjoyable regardless.


title: Maniac Mansion

text: Reviewing the NES release, British magazine "Mean Machines" commended the game's presentation, playability, and replay value. The publication also noted undetailed graphics and "ear-bashing tunes". The magazine's Julian Rignall compared "Maniac Mansion" to the title "Shadowgate", but he preferred the former's controls and lack of "death-without-warning situations". Writers for Germany's "Video Games" referred to the NES version as a "classic". Co-reviewer Heinrich Lenhardt stated that "Maniac Mansion" was unlike any other NES adventure game, and that it was no less enjoyable than its home computer releases. Co-reviewer Winnie Forster found it to be "one of the most original representatives of the [adventure game] genre". In retrospective features, "Edge" magazine called the NES version "somewhat neutered" and "GamesTM" referred to it as "infamous" and "heavily censored".


title: Maniac Mansion

text: Lucasfilm conceived the idea for a television adaptation of "Maniac Mansion", the rights to which were purchased by The Family Channel in 1990. The two companies collaborated with Atlantis Films to produce a sitcom named after the game, which debuted in September of that year. It aired on YTV in Canada and The Family Channel in the United States. Based in part on the video game, the series focuses on the Edison family's life and stars Joe Flaherty as Dr. Fred. Its writing staff was led by Eugene Levy. Gilbert later said that the premise of the series changed during production until it differed heavily from the game's original plot. Upon its debut, the adaptation received positive reviews from "Variety", "Entertainment Weekly" and the "Los Angeles Times". "Time" named it one of the year's best new series. Ken Tucker of "Entertainment Weekly" questioned the decision to air the series on The Family Channel, given Flaherty's subversive humor. Discussing the series in retrospect, Richard Cobbett of "PC Gamer" criticized its generic storylines and lack of relevance to the game. The series lasted for three seasons; sixty-six episodes were filmed.


title: Maniac Mansion

text: In the early 1990s, LucasArts tasked Dave Grossman and Tim Schafer, both of whom had worked on the "Monkey Island" series, with designing a sequel to "Maniac Mansion". Gilbert and Winnick initially assisted with the project's writing. The team included voice acting and more detailed graphics, which Gilbert had originally envisioned for "Maniac Mansion". The first game's nonlinear design was discarded, and the team implemented a Chuck Jones-inspired visual style, alongside numerous puzzles based on time travel. Bernard and the Edison family were retained. The sequel "Day of the Tentacle" was released in 1993, and came with a fully playable copy of "Maniac Mansion" hidden as an Easter egg within the game.


title: Maniac Mansion

text: In 2010, the staff of "GamesTM" dubbed "Maniac Mansion" a "seminal" title that overhauled the gameplay of the graphic adventure genre. Removing the need to guess syntax allowed players to concentrate on the story and puzzles, which created a smoother and more enjoyable experience, according to the magazine. Eurogamer's Kristan Reed agreed: he believed that the design was "infinitely more elegant and intuitive" than its predecessors and that it freed players from "guessing-game frustration". Designer Dave Grossman, who worked on Lucasfilm Games' later "Day of the Tentacle" and "The Secret of Monkey Island", felt that "Maniac Mansion" had revolutionized the adventure game genre. Although 1985's "Uninvited" had featured a point-and-click interface, it was not influential. "Maniac Mansion"s implementation of the concept was widely imitated in other adventure titles. Writing in the game studies journal "Kinephanos", Jonathan Lessard argued that "Maniac Mansion" led a "Casual Revolution" in the late 1980s, which opened the adventure genre to a wider audience. Similarly, Christopher Buecheler of GameSpy called the game a contributor to its genre's subsequent critical adoration and commercial success.


title: Maniac Mansion

text: Reed highlighted the "wonderfully ambitious" design of "Maniac Mansion", in reference to its writing, interface, and cast of characters. Game designer Sheri Graner Ray believed the game to challenge "damsel in distress" stereotypes through its inclusion of female protagonists. Conversely, writer Mark Dery argued that the goal of rescuing a kidnapped cheerleader reinforced negative gender roles. The Lucasfilm team built on their experiences from "Maniac Mansion" and became increasingly ambitious in subsequent titles. Gilbert admitted to making mistakes—such as the inclusion of no-win situations—in "Maniac Mansion", and he applied these lessons to future projects. For example, the game relies on timers rather than events to trigger cutscenes, which occasionally results in awkward transitions: Gilbert worked to avoid this flaw with the "Monkey Island" series. Because of "Maniac Mansion"s imperfections, Gilbert considers it his favorite among the games he made.


title: Maniac Mansion

text: According to writers Mike and Sandie Morrison, Lucasfilm Games became "serious competition" in the adventure genre after the release of "Maniac Mansion". The game's success solidified Lucasfilm as one of the leading producers of adventure games: authors Rusel DeMaria and Johnny Wilson described it as a "landmark title" for the company. In their view, "Maniac Mansion"—along with "Space Quest: The Sarien Encounter" and "Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards"—inaugurated a "new era of humor-based adventure games". This belief was shared by Reed, who wrote that "Maniac Mansion" "set in motion a captivating chapter in the history of gaming" that encompassed wit, invention, and style. The SCUMM engine was reused by Lucasfilm in eleven later titles; improvements were made to its code with each game. Over time, rival adventure game developers adopted this paradigm in their own software. "GamesTM" attributed the change to a desire to streamline production and create enjoyable games. Following his 1992 departure from LucasArts—a conglomeration of Lucasfilm Games, ILM and Skywalker Sound formed in 1990—Gilbert used SCUMM to create adventure games and "Backyard Sports" titles for Humongous Entertainment.


title: Maniac Mansion

text: In 2011, Richard Cobbett summarized "Maniac Mansion" as "one of the most intricate and important adventure games ever made". "Retro Gamer" ranked it as one of the ten best Commodore 64 games in 2006, and IGN later named it one of the ten best LucasArts adventure games. Seven years after the NES version's debut, "Nintendo Power" named it the 61st best game ever. The publication dubbed it the 16th best NES title in 2008. The game's uniqueness and clever writing were praised by "Nintendo Power": in 2010, the magazine's Chris Hoffman stated that the game is "unlike anything else out there — a point-and-click adventure with an awesome sense of humor and multiple solutions to almost every puzzle". In its retrospective coverage, "Nintendo Power" several times noted the ability to microwave a hamster, which the staff considered to be an iconic scene. In March 2012, "Retro Gamer" listed the hamster incident as one of the "100 Classic Gaming Moments".


title: Maniac Mansion

text: "Maniac Mansion" enthusiasts have drawn fan art of its characters, participated in tentacle-themed cosplay and produced a trailer for a fictitious film adaptation of the game. German fan Sascha Borisow created a fan game remake, titled "Maniac Mansion Deluxe", with enhanced audio and visuals. He used the Adventure Game Studio engine to develop the project, which he distributed free of charge on the Internet. By the end of 2004, the remake had over 200,000 downloads. A remake with three-dimensional graphics called "Meteor Mess" was created by the German developer Vampyr Games, and, as of 2011, another group in Germany produced one with art direction similar to that of "Day of the Tentacle". Fans have created an episodic series of games based on "Maniac Mansion" as well. Gilbert has said that he would like to see an official remake, similar in its graphics and gameplay to "The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition" and "Monkey Island 2 Special Edition: LeChuck's Revenge". He also expressed doubts about its potential quality, in light of George Lucas's enhanced remakes of the original "Star Wars" trilogy. In December 2017, Disney, which gained rights to the LucasArts games following its acquisition of Lucasfilm, published "Maniac Mansion" running atop the ScummVM virtual machine to various digital storefronts.


title: French wine

text: French wine is produced all throughout France, in quantities between 50 and 60 million hectolitres per year, or 7–8 billion bottles. France is one of the largest wine producers in the world, along with Italian, Spanish, and American wine-producing regions. French wine traces its history to the 6th century BCE, with many of France's regions dating their wine-making history to Roman times. The wines produced range from expensive wines sold internationally to modest wines usually only seen within France such as the Margnat wines of the post war period.


title: French wine

text: Two concepts central to the better French wines are the notion of "terroir", which links the style of the wines to the locations where the grapes are grown and the wine is made, and the "Appellation d'origine contrôlée" (AOC) system, replaced by the Appellation d'Origine Protégée (AOP) system in 2012. Appellation rules closely define which grape varieties and winemaking practices are approved for classification in each of France's several hundred geographically defined appellations, which can cover regions, villages or vineyards.


title: French wine

text: France is the source of many grape varieties (such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Pinot noir, Sauvignon blanc, Syrah) that are now planted throughout the world, as well as wine-making practices and styles of wine that have been adopted in other producing countries. Although some producers have benefited in recent years from rising prices and increased demand for prestige wines from Burgundy and Bordeaux, competition from New World wines has contributed to a decline in the domestic and international consumption of French wine.


title: French wine

text: French wine originated in the 6th century BCE, with the colonization of Southern Gaul by Greek settlers. Viticulture soon flourished with the founding of the Greek colony of Marseille. Wine has been around for thousands of years in the countries on the Mediterranean but France has made it a part of their civilization and has considered wine-making as art for over two thousand years. The Gauls knew how to cultivate the vine and how to prune it. Pruning creates an important distinction in the difference between wild vines and wine-producing grapes. Before long, the wines produced in Gaul were popular all around the world. The Roman Empire licensed regions in the south to produce wines. St. Martin of Tours (316–397) spread Christianity and planted vineyards. During the Middle Ages, monks maintained vineyards and, more importantly, conserved wine-making knowledge and skills during that often turbulent period. Monasteries had the resources, security and inventiveness to produce a steady supply of wine for Mass and profit. The best vineyards were owned by the monasteries and their wine was considered to be superior. The nobility developed extensive vineyards but the French Revolution led to the confiscation of many vineyards.


title: French wine

text: The advance of the French wine industry stopped abruptly as first Mildew and then Phylloxera spread throughout the country and the rest of Europe, leaving vineyards desolate. Then came an economic downturn in Europe followed by two world wars and the French wine industry was depressed for decades. Competition threatened French brands such as Champagne and Bordeaux. This resulted in the establishment in 1935 of the "Appellation d'origine contrôlée" to protect French interests. Large investments, the economic revival after World War II and a new generation of "Vignerons" yielded results in the 1970s and the following decades, creating the modern French wine industry.


title: French wine

text: In 1935, laws were passed to control the quality of French wine. The "Appellation d'origine contrôlée" system was established, which is governed by a powerful oversight board ("Institut national des appellations d'origine", INAO). France has one of the oldest systems for protected designation of origin for wine in the world and strict laws concerning winemaking and production and many European systems are modeled after it. The word "appellation" has been put to use by other countries, sometimes in a much looser meaning. As European Union wine laws have been modeled after those of the French, this trend is likely to continue with further EU expansion.


title: French wine

text: French law divides wine into four categories, two falling under the European Union Table Wine category and two the "Quality Wines Produced in Specified Regions" (QWPSR) designation. The categories and their shares of the total French production for the 2005 vintage, excluding wine destined for Cognac, Armagnac and other brandies, were


title: French wine

text: The total French production for the 2005 vintage was 43.9 million hl (plus an additional 9.4 million hl destined for various brandies) of which 28.3% was white and 71.7% was red or rosé. The proportion of white wine is slightly higher for the higher categories, with 34.3% of the AOC wine being white. In years with less favourable vintage conditions than 2005, the proportion of AOC wine tends to be a little lower. The proportion of "Vin de table" has decreased considerably over the last decades, while the proportion of AOC has increased somewhat and "Vin de Pays" has increased considerably. In 2005 there were 472 wine AOCs in France.


title: French wine

text: The wine classification system of France was revised in 2006, with a new system fully introduced by 2012. The new system consists of three categories rather than four, since there will be no category corresponding to VDQS from 2012. The new categories are:


title: French wine

text: The largest changes will be in the Vin de France category, and to VDQS wines, which either need to qualify as AOP wines or be downgraded to an IGP category. For the former AOC wines, the move to AOP will only mean minor changes to the terminology of the label, while the actual names of the appellations themselves will remain unchanged. While no new wines have been marketed under the old designations from 2012, bottles already in the distribution chain will not be relabelled.


title: French wine

text: All common styles of wine – red, rosé, white (dry, semi-sweet and sweet), sparkling and fortified – are produced in France. In most of these styles, the French production ranges from cheap and simple versions to some of the world's most famous and expensive examples. An exception is French fortified wines, which tend to be relatively unknown outside France.


title: French wine

text: In many respects, French wines have more of a regional than a national identity, as evidenced by different grape varieties, production methods and different classification systems in the various regions. Quality levels and prices vary enormously, and some wines are made for immediate consumption while other are meant for long-time cellaring.


title: French wine

text: If there is one thing that most French wines have in common, it is that most styles have developed as wines meant to accompany food, be it a quick baguette, a simple bistro meal, or a full-fledged multi-course menu. Since the French tradition is to serve wine with food, wines have seldom been developed or styled as "bar wines" for drinking on their own, or to impress in tastings when young.


title: French wine

text: Numerous grape varieties are cultivated in France, including both internationally well-known and obscure local varieties. In fact, most of the so-called "international varieties" are of French origin, or became known and spread because of their cultivation in France. Since French appellation rules generally restrict wines from each region, district or appellation to a small number of allowed grape varieties, there are in principle no varieties that are commonly planted throughout all of France.


title: French wine

text: Most varieties of grape are primarily associated with a certain region, such as Cabernet Sauvignon in Bordeaux and Syrah in Rhône, although there are some varieties that are found in two or more regions, such as Chardonnay in Bourgogne (including Chablis) and Champagne, and Sauvignon blanc in Loire and Bordeaux. As an example of the rules, although climatic conditions would appear to be favorable, no Cabernet Sauvignon wines are produced in Rhône, Riesling wines in Loire, or Chardonnay wines in Bordeaux. (If such wines were produced, they would have to be declassified to Vin de Pays or French table wine. They would not be allowed to display any appellation name or even region of origin.)


title: French wine

text: Traditionally, many French wines have been blended from several grape varieties. Varietal white wines have been, and are still, more common than varietal red wines.