title: Alania

text: The wars of Timur in the 14th century inflicted the final blow on Alania and decimated its population. Those who survived being killed or enslaved by the Mongols and Timur's armies, broke up into three groups. One retreated into the foothills and valleys of the central Caucasus and produced the two principal Ossetian groups, Digor and Iron. Another group of Alans migrated with the Kipchaks into Eastern Europe and preserved their language and ethnic identity as the Jassic people until the 15th century. The third group joined the Mongol horde and soon disappeared from history.


title: Alania

text: The nomenclature used by the rulers of Alania is unknown. Where they are mentioned by historical records, they are variously called "lord", "prince", "king", "tsar", and by the Byzantines, "exousiokrator". Notably, the Byzantines never referred to other foreign rulers by this title, using "arkhon" or "exousiastes" instead.


title: Alania

text: In the last years of the Soviet Union, as nationalist movements swept throughout the Caucasus, many intellectuals in the North Ossetian ASSR called for the revival of the name "Alania". A leading Ossetian philologist T. A. Guriev was the main advocate of this idea, insisting that the Ossetians should accept the name of the Alans as their self-designation and rename North Ossetia into Alania. The term "Alania" quickly became popular in Ossetian daily life through the names of various enterprises, a TV channel, political and civic organizations, a publishing house, a soccer team, an airline company, etc. In November 1994, the name of "Alania" was officially added to the republican title (Republic of North Ossetia–Alania).


title: Musashi (novel)

text: The book follows Shinmen Takezō starting after the Battle of Sekigahara. It follows his life after the monk Takuan forces him to reinvent himself as Miyamoto Musashi. He wanders around Japan training young pupils, getting involved in feuds with samurai and martial arts schools, and finding his way through his romantic life.


title: Musashi (novel)

text: It was originally released as a serial in the Japanese newspaper "Asahi Shimbun", between 1935 and 1939. It has been re-released in book format, most of which are collections of several volumes, which compile the many newspaper strips. With an estimated 120 million copies sold, it is one of the best-selling book series in history.


title: Musashi (novel)

text: It is a fictionalized account of the life of Miyamoto Musashi, author of "The Book of Five Rings" and arguably the most renowned Japanese swordsman who ever lived.


title: Musashi (novel)

text: The novel has been translated into English by Charles S. Terry, with a foreword by Edwin O. Reischauer, published by Kodansha International under .


title: Musashi (novel)

text: The long epic (over 900 pages, abridged, in the English version) comprises seven "books" detailing the exploits of Miyamoto Musashi, beginning just after the battle of Sekigahara, following his journeys and the many people who become important in his life, and leading up to his climactic duel with Sasaki Kojiro on Ganryujima (Ganryu or Funa Island). Kojiro's cruelty contrasts with Musashi's reflective and selfless nature.


title: Musashi (novel)

text: Musashi becomes famous during the course of the novel as he searches for both perfection in swordsmanship and in consciousness. Innovating Japanese swordsmanship, he invents the style of simultaneously wielding both the katana and the wakizashi, something unheard of at that time in Japanese history.


title: Musashi (novel)

text: Chance, as well as the characters' very different life decisions, give to the book a philosophical dimension that is revealed in its ending.


title: Up quark

text: The up quark or u quark (symbol: u) is the lightest of all quarks, a type of elementary particle, and a significant constituent of matter. It, along with the down quark, forms the neutrons (one up quark, two down quarks) and protons (two up quarks, one down quark) of atomic nuclei. It is part of the first generation of matter, has an electric charge of + "e" and a bare mass of . Like all quarks, the up quark is an elementary fermion with spin , and experiences all four fundamental interactions: gravitation, electromagnetism, weak interactions, and strong interactions. The antiparticle of the up quark is the up antiquark (sometimes called "antiup quark" or simply "antiup"), which differs from it only in that some of its properties, such as charge have equal magnitude but opposite sign.


title: Up quark

text: Its existence (along with that of the down and strange quarks) was postulated in 1964 by Murray Gell-Mann and George Zweig to explain the Eightfold Way classification scheme of hadrons. The up quark was first observed by experiments at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in 1968.


title: Up quark

text: In the beginnings of particle physics (first half of the 20th century), hadrons such as protons, neutrons and pions were thought to be elementary particles. However, as new hadrons were discovered, the 'particle zoo' grew from a few particles in the early 1930s and 1940s to several dozens of them in the 1950s. The relationships between each of them were unclear until 1961, when Murray Gell-Mann and Yuval Ne'eman (independently of each other) proposed a hadron classification scheme called the Eightfold Way, or in more technical terms, SU(3) flavor symmetry.


title: Up quark

text: This classification scheme organized the hadrons into isospin multiplets, but the physical basis behind it was still unclear. In 1964, Gell-Mann and George Zweig (independently of each other) proposed the quark model, then consisting only of up, down, and strange quarks. However, while the quark model explained the Eightfold Way, no direct evidence of the existence of quarks was found until 1968 at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. Deep inelastic scattering experiments indicated that protons had substructure, and that protons made of three more-fundamental particles explained the data (thus confirming the quark model).


title: Up quark

text: At first people were reluctant to describe the three bodies as quarks, instead preferring Richard Feynman's parton description, but over time the quark theory became accepted (see "November Revolution").


title: Up quark

text: Despite being extremely common, the bare mass of the up quark is not well determined, but probably lies between 1.8 and . Lattice QCD calculations give a more precise value: .


title: Up quark

text: When found in mesons (particles made of one quark and one antiquark) or baryons (particles made of three quarks), the 'effective mass' (or 'dressed' mass) of quarks becomes greater because of the binding energy caused by the gluon field between each quark (see mass–energy equivalence). The bare mass of up quarks is so light, it cannot be straightforwardly calculated because relativistic effects have to be taken into account.


title: Masakatsu Funaki

text: Not only the organization's co-founder and most popular fighter, Funaki was also one of Pancrase's most successful fighters to date, scoring submission victories over numerous MMA champions such as Ken Shamrock, Frank Shamrock, Semmy Schilt, Guy Mezger, Yuki Kondo, Minoru Suzuki, and Bas Rutten through the course of his Pancrase career. He is the only fighter in mixed martial arts to hold wins over both Shamrock brothers and Bas Rutten, and was the first man to win the King of Pancrase title twice.


title: Masakatsu Funaki

text: Funaki is widely considered to be one of the greatest Japanese fighters in mixed martial arts history. Sherdog.com ranked him as the #1 mixed martial artist in the world for the years 1996 and 1997, and also had him ranked as a top 4 pound for pound fighter from 1993 to 1998.


title: Masakatsu Funaki

text: The son of a movie theater owner, Masaharu Funaki was exposed to martial arts films at an early age. He idolized Bruce Lee above all others, but also eagerly watched the films of Sammo Hung and Sonny Chiba. His father would ultimately abandon young Funaki and his family.


title: Masakatsu Funaki

text: Instead of entering high school, he applied to New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW), who sent him to the New Japan dojo. He was in the same class as Keiichi Yamada (better known as Jyushin Thunder Liger), Keiji Mutoh, Shinya Hashimoto, Minoru Suzuki, Masahiro Chono, and Chris Benoit. The New Japan Dojo had a reputation for being particularly harsh on its trainees, both mentally and physically, with the intent of only graduating the very best of each class. However, Funaki stunned the New Japan trainers with his athleticism, timing and natural talent for submission grappling. Along with the former Highschool Wrestler Minoru Suzuki, Funaki formed a strong bond with the dojo's head grappling instructor, Yoshiaki Fujiwara. Funaki debuted as a junior heavyweight at the age of 15; a record for the youngest debut in NJPW.


title: Masakatsu Funaki

text: After debuting for New Japan on March 3, 1985 in a losing effort against three-year veteran Tatsutoshi Goto, Funaki did not receive a push from the promotion, stuck in the junior heavyweight division during a time when NJPW owner Antonio Inoki decided to shift the focus of the company towards the heavyweight division. Funaki did, often teaming with fellow wrestler Akira Nogami have many memorable matches with Yoji Anjo and Tatsuo Nakano belonging to UWF and became the first person to take the Shooting Star Press from Yamada. In 1988, he was sent on a learning excursion to Europe, competing in the Catch Wrestling Association (CWA) in Austria and Germany and for All Star Wrestling (ASW) in England.


title: Masakatsu Funaki

text: When New Japan top draw Akira Maeda became so frustrated with backstage politics that he shoot kicked Riki Choshu and broke his eye socket, and was subsequently suspended for refusing to go on an excursion to Mexico, Maeda left NJPW to form the Newborn UWF promotion. Funaki, seeing an opportunity to shine and showcase his talents, wanted to follow. Maeda negotiated the acquisition of Funaki's contract, along the contracts of friend Minoru Suzuki and mentor Yoshiaki Fujiwara for an undisclosed amount of money.


title: Masakatsu Funaki

text: In Newborn UWF, Funaki became a top draw for the promotion acting as a nemesis to Akira Maeda. When Newborn UWF folded in December 1990, Funaki decided to sign with mentor Fujiwara's new Pro Wrestling Fujiwara Gumi (PWFG) promotion. Funaki left PWFG in 1993 to form the mixed martial arts promotion Pancrase. Around the same time, Funaki was scouted by K-1 executive Kazuyoshi Ishii to compete in their '93 GP tournament, but he declined, having set his sights on MMA.


title: Masakatsu Funaki

text: Funaki's MMA career began when he founded Pancrase along with Minoru Suzuki. Funaki went on to defeat Bas Rutten, Ken Shamrock, Frank Shamrock, Minoru Suzuki, and Guy Mezger, among others. Frank Shamrock said, "Funaki was like a mad scientist. He took the idea of submissions to an even higher level than the rest of the Japanese contingent. He had this insatiable desire to learn more and push his body harder. And as an entertainer he understood the need to entertain."


title: Masakatsu Funaki

text: This realization for the need to entertain often resulted in Funaki (along with Minoru Suzuki) "carrying" some of their opponents during fights. In essence, in order to entertain the crowd, Funaki and Suzuki would occasionally give their opponents opportunities to create drama before finally finishing them off. Josh Barnett said, "when you're that good, you can have a guy thinking he's doing so much better than he expected and have no idea that they're just letting you last like a cat playing with a mouse." Frank Shamrock added, "I know for a fact those guys (Funaki and Suzuki) were light years ahead of everyone else, and they were so good that they would go towards entertainment before they finished a match." However, this did backfire on Funaki on at least one occasion. In a match against Jason DeLucia, Funaki allowed Delucia to catch him in a kneebar in order to create drama and planned on using a rope escape once Delucia had the submission locked in. Unfortunately, Funaki mistakenly allowed himself to get too far from the ropes and was forced to tap out.


title: Masakatsu Funaki

text: Funaki debuted in the main event of Pancrase's first show, taking on apprentice and training partner Ken Shamrock. Although Funaki led the pace of the match earlier with strikes, Shamrock captured his back, took him down and eventually submitted him with an arm triangle choke, winning the fight. The victory elevated Shamrock to star status and launched the MMA career of both men. Masakatsu got his first victory at the next event, showing his submission skills by catching Ryushi Yanagisawa first in a heel hook and later in a kneebar in under two minutes for the victory. He would then face Dutch fighter Cees Bezems, who threw illegal closed-fisted punches during the match. In response, Funaki executed a takedown and submitted him with a top wrist lock; after the tap out, Funaki again locked in the hold as revenge, and had to be restrained by the referee. Funaki closed the first four Pancrase events with a win against Kazuo "Yoshiki" Takahashi, overwhelming him with palm strikes and knees to the face for the KO.


title: Masakatsu Funaki

text: Opening 1994, Funaki faced another Dutch martial arts exponent in the form of Bas Rutten. Masakatsu led him to the ground and sieged Rutten's guard, and after the Dutchman got distracted after an accidental illegal strike, Funaki caught his leg and executed a toehold, making his opponent submit. Later in the year, Funaki got his revenge against Ken Shamrock just days before the latter's participation in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, choking him out with a rear naked choke. In December, Funaki took part in the tournament for the first King of Pancrase title. He submitted Todd Bjornethun at the first round with a sequence of yoko-tomoe-nage into mount to armbar, and then faced Vernon White in a longer match, with Funaki making a wide usage of triangle chokes and sweeps in order to get a top wrist lock. Finally, Funaki faced Ken Shamrock for a third time at the finals, but although Masakatsu was able to fend Ken off for several minutes, he was mounted and submitted with an arm triangle choke, the same hold Shamrock had used in their first match.


title: Masakatsu Funaki

text: In 1995, after taking revenge on Jason DeLucia by defeating him via submission, Funaki was pitted against Frank Shamrock, Ken's adoptive brother and next rising star of the company. Funaki again showed his newfound affinity for working from the bottom, fending Frank off from his guard and catching him in a triangle choke/kimura combination for a rope escape, before finishing him with a toehold. Funaki's next match would be an upset loss to former Shooto fighter Manabu Yamada, in which Yamada flipped over a mount and caught Funaki in a heel hook for the finish. Funaki bounced back against Pancrase rookie Guy Mezger in a back and forth match, which saw Mezger dominating the action with kicks, strikes and pressure until Funaki clamped an achilles lock to get the win.


title: Masakatsu Funaki

text: Funaki's last high level bout in 1995 would be a rematch with Frank Shamrock. Funaki mocked Frank, keeping his hands low and even throwing a flying spinning heel kick in an instance, but he was caught in a choke and forced to spend a rope escape before returning the favor with a triangle armbar. Funaki got the advantage in points with a rolling toehold, but he then was shockingly forced to tap out in a leglock exchange, losing the match. In his biography, Shamrock claims to believe that Funaki took a dive and allowed himself to be defeated in order to build Frank's popularity.


title: Masakatsu Funaki

text: At Pancrase 1996 Anniversary Show, Masakatsu challenged King of Pancrase Bas Rutten in what is considered to be one of the greatest fights in Pancrase history. Funaki came close to finishing the match earlier with an ankle lock, but Rutten miraculously escaped and continued to fight. Funaki made a wide usage of the knee-on-stomach and mount positions to initiate leglock attacks, but the Dutchman countered every time and eventually pushed Masakatsu away from him, after which Funaki threw an illegal kick to Rutten, who was on his knees. Rutten proceeded to knock Funaki down with a palm strike, and then completely broke his nose with a second palm strike. Stunned, Funaki tried to stand up with Rutten, only for Bas to capitalize with his famed striking game. Rutten knocked him down twice with palms and knees, and then landed a lengthy, unanswered string of strikes, until a knee to the face finally downed Funaki.


title: Masakatsu Funaki

text: Funaki departed from Pancrase after a win over Tony Petarra in September 1999 due to accumulated injuries and, according to fellow Pancrase fighter Bas Rutten, being burnt out from the hectic Pancrase schedule.


title: Masakatsu Funaki

text: Despite Funaki's body being very broken down from injuries, he returned for a fight against the legendary Rickson Gracie at Colosseum 2000 held at the Tokyo Dome. The show was almost canceled due to Rickson trying to change the rules to make knees and strikes to the head illegal, but the problems were overcome and the show continued. The event was broadcast to 30 million TV Tokyo viewers. There was no championship title at stake and Rickson got the majority of his demands, with elbows and knees to the head being rendered illegal standing or on the ground.


title: Masakatsu Funaki

text: Funaki walked to the ring in samurai attire with a samurai sword which garnered a roaring excitement from the Japanese announcers and crowd. Funaki and Rickson clinched to the corner, where Funaki appeared to have secured a guillotine choke. Funaki then took Rickson down, relinquishing the choke as they hit the mat and landing a hammer-fist to Rickson's face before standing up. They traded kicks to no effect, until some well timed kicks from Gracie blew out Funaki's injured knee. They clinched again, but Funaki's injury rendered him unable to wrestle correctly, and he was taken down by the Brazilian grappler, who promptly mounted him. Masakatsu looked stunned while Rickson bloodied his face with ground and pound, and finally Gracie forced his way into a rear-naked choke. Funaki refused to submit to the hold, passing out before the referee intervened.


title: Masakatsu Funaki

text: Funaki then retired from mixed martial arts competition, he had a retirement ceremony in Pancrase in late 2000.


title: Masakatsu Funaki

text: On December 31, 2007, Funaki came out of retirement to fight Kazushi Sakuraba, who had just defeated Funaki's apprentice Katsuyori Shibata. Appropriately, their bout took place in the main event of K-1's year end Dynamite!! show, which garners more TV viewers each year than any other televised mixed martial arts event in Japan. The two fighters exchanged colorful entrances at the arena, Funaki wearing a long robe and mask patterned after the Aomori Nebuta Matsuri during his entrance to the ring.


title: Masakatsu Funaki

text: Once in the match, Sakuraba was able to sneak in a double leg takedown after Funaki committed heavily to a missed right cross. Funaki closed guard around Sakuraba before opening it up to spin for a kneebar, and for a moment Funaki appeared to secure Sakuraba's leg, but he was thwarted by a combination of Sakuraba's submission acumen and their position against the ring ropes. Sakuraba then maneuvered to Funaki's back, only for the Pancrase founder to roll back into the guard position. Breaking away momentarily from the grappling contest, Sakuraba stood up and began to assault Funaki's legs with a series of kicks, which Funaki answered with an upkick of his own, cutting Sakuraba's eye. Kazushi then returned himself to the ground, where Funaki immediately attempted to sweep him, but Sakuraba blocked the attempt and secured a double wristlock, eventually forcing Funaki to submit.


title: Masakatsu Funaki

text: Funaki signed a contract with Fighting and Entertainment Group's MMA promotion, DREAM. On April 28, 2008, Funaki participated in DREAM's first ever Middle-weight Grand Prix. Funaki was matched against Kiyoshi Tamura at the opening round of the Dream 2: Middleweight Grand Prix 2008 First Round in Saitama, Japan. After a hard opening exchange between the two, Funaki was staggered by a punch and pulled guard on Tamura, from where he was pounded to an eventual TKO at 57 seconds of Round 1. This was his first TKO stoppage loss since September 14, 1998, when he was knocked out with a body blow by Semmy Schilt. With the loss, Funaki was eliminated from the Middle-weight Grand Prix.


title: Masakatsu Funaki

text: After losing twice in a row since his comeback to the MMA ring, Funaki was determined to prove that he was still a worthy competitor of the sport and participated again in the promotion's middleweight division. At the Dream 6: Middleweight Grand Prix 2008 Final Round event that took place on September 23, 2008 at the Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan, Funaki was matched with one of his former Pancrase students, "Minowaman" Ikuhisa Minowa. In the opening seconds of the first round of the match, Funaki came at his former charge with a series of kicks, practically forcing Minowa to catch one of the kicks. Funaki capitalized immediately, leaping directly into a heel-hook. Minowa escaped the hold, but Funaki maintained control of his leg and immediately attacked with a heel-hook from the cross-body position, forcing his protege to tap at 52 seconds of the first round.


title: Masakatsu Funaki

text: Masakatsu Funaki was scheduled to face Russian fighter Magomedkhan "Volk Han" Amanulayevich Gamzatkhanov in a fight resembling the Pancrase Hybrid Wrestling format for the Fighting Network Rings (RINGS) organization. The fight ended in a draw, with Volk Han announcing his retirement afterwards.


title: Masakatsu Funaki

text: In August 2007, Funaki and Keiji Mutoh discussed the possibility of Funaki returning to regular professional wrestling in Mutoh's company, All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW). On August 31, 2009, Funaki signed a one-year contract with All Japan, following a tag team victory with Mutoh against Minoru Suzuki and Masahiro Chono.


title: Masakatsu Funaki

text: On January 3, 2010, Funaki and Mutoh won the World Tag Team Championship from Suzuki and Taiyo Kea. On March 21, Funaki defeated Suzuki in a cage match at All Japan's Sumo Hall show.


title: Masakatsu Funaki

text: On January 4, 2012, Funaki made a special appearance for New Japan at Wrestle Kingdom VI in Tokyo Dome, where he teamed with Masayuki Kono to defeat the Seigigun team of Yuji Nagata and Wataru Inoue. During the match, Nagata broke Funaki's orbital bone, sidelining him from in-ring action for an estimated six months. Funaki returned to the ring on June 17, 2012. On July 29, he defeated the man who had injured him, Yuji Nagata, in a grudge match to become the number one contender to the Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship. On August 26 he defeated Jun Akiyama in a match that lasted less than five minutes to become the 45th Triple Crown Heavyweight Champion. He lost the title to Suwama on March 17, 2013. In June 2013, Funaki announced his resignation from All Japan in the aftermath of Nobuo Shiraishi taking over as the new president and Keiji Mutoh leaving the promotion. Funaki's final match for the promotion took place on June 30 and saw him and his Stack of Arms partners Koji Kanemoto and Masayuki Kono, who were also leaving All Japan, lose to Akebono, Osamu Nishimura and Ryota Hama in a six-man tag team match.


title: Masakatsu Funaki

text: After becoming a freelancer, Funaki returned to All Japan on November 11, 2015, teaming with Kendo Ka Shin to defeat Suwama and Hikaru Sato. Funaki periodically shows up in All Japan for tag team matches but has not expressed a will to contend for titles again.


title: Masakatsu Funaki

text: On July 10, 2013, Funaki was announced as part of Keiji Mutoh's new Wrestle-1 (W-1) promotion. During the promotion's inaugural event on September 8, Funaki teamed with Masayuki Kono in a tag team match, where they were defeated by Katsuyori Shibata and Kazushi Sakuraba. Following the match, Kono turned on Funaki, hitting his mentor with a steel chair. Funaki and Kono faced off in a singles match at Wrestle 1's second show on September 15, where Kono was victorious with help from Kazma Sakamoto and Ryoji Sai. A rematch between the two took place on October 12 and saw Funaki emerge victorious. On March 2 at , Funaki defeated Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) representative Bobby Roode in an interpromotional match, after which he challenged Olympic gold medalist Kurt Angle to a match. At Wrestle-1's July 6 event, Funaki defeated Pro Wrestling Zero1 (Zero1) representative Kohei Sato to win the World Heavyweight Championship. He lost the title back to Sato on September 19. Three days later, Funaki entered the Wrestle-1 Championship tournament, defeating Tajiri in his first round match. The following day, Funaki defeated Akira to advance to the semifinals of the tournament. Prior to the semifinals of the tournament, Funaki entered a storyline, where his former rival Tajiri came to his aid to help him prepare for his match. On October 8, Funaki was eliminated from the tournament in the semifinals by Masayuki Kono, after Tajiri turned on him. In June 2015, it was announced that Funaki would be leaving Wrestle-1 and going freelance following his contract expiring at the end of the month. His final match for the promotion took place on June 20.


title: Masakatsu Funaki

text: Funaki wrestled his first match as a freelancer on August 18, 2015, at a Masahito Kakihara cancer benefit show, where he and Minoru Suzuki defeated Mitsuya Nagai and Takaku Fuke. On September 18, Funaki won his first title since becoming a freelancer, when he defeated Real Japan Pro Wrestling (RJPW) wrestler Super Tiger to win the Legend Championship. He lost the title to Daisuke Sekimoto on December 9, before regaining it on June 23, 2016. On September 10, Funaki lost the Legend Championship to Shinjiro Otani. On January 9, 2017, Funaki and Yukio Sakaguchi defeated Konosuke Takeshita and Mike Bailey at a DDT Pro-Wrestling (DDT) event to win the promotion's KO-D Tag Team Championship. They lost the titles to Danshoku Dino and Yoshihiro Takayama in their third defense on April 29. Funaki Wrestled at NOAH – DESTINATION 2021 BACK TO BUDOKAN! on 2/12/21 in a losing effort versus Kenoh for the GHC National Title.


title: Frank Church

text: Frank Forrester Church III (July 25, 1924 – April 7, 1984) was an American politician and lawyer. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as a United States senator from Idaho from 1957 until his defeat in 1981. As of 2022, he is the longest serving Democratic senator from the state as he is the only Democrat from the state who has served more than two terms in the Senate. He was a prominent figure in American foreign policy, and established a reputation as a member of the party's liberal wing.


title: Frank Church

text: Born and raised in Boise, Idaho, he enrolled at Stanford University in 1942, but left to enlist in the Army. In the army, he served as a military intelligence officer in the China Burma India Theater of World War II. Following the end of the war, he completed his law degree from Stanford Law School, and returned to Boise to practice law. Church became an active Democrat in Idaho, and ran unsuccessfully for a seat in state legislature in 1952. In 1956, he was elected to the United States Senate, after defeating incumbent Herman Welker in the general election, and former Senator Glen Taylor in a closely contested primary election.


title: Frank Church

text: As a senator, he was a protégé of then-senate majority leader Lyndon B. Johnson, being appointed to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. In 1960, Church received national exposure when he gave the keynote speech at the 1960 Democratic National Convention. Considered a strong progressive and environmental legislator, he played a major role in the creation of a system of protected wilderness areas. Church was highly critical of the Vietnam War, despite initially supporting it. Co-authoring the Cooper–Church Amendment of 1970 and the Case–Church Amendment of 1973, both being two legislative efforts to curtail the war. In 1975, he chaired the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, better known as the Church Committee, laying the groundwork for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978.


title: Frank Church

text: In 1976, Church belatedly sought the Democratic nomination for president, and announced his candidacy on March 18, 1976. Although he won primaries in Nebraska, Idaho, Oregon, and Montana, he withdrew in favor of former Georgia governor Jimmy Carter. Church was re-elected continuously to the senate, defeating his Republican opponents in 1962, 1968, and 1974, until his defeat during the Republican wave of 1980. Following the end of his term, he practiced international law in Washington, D.C., specializing in Asian issues. Church was hospitalized for a pancreatic tumor on January 12, 1984, and he died less than three months later at his home in Bethesda, Maryland, on April 7, 1984.


title: Frank Church

text: Frank Forrester Church III was born on July 25, 1924, in Boise, Idaho. He traced his ancestry from the East Coast of the United States, with his grandfather, Frank Forrester Church I, moving to Idaho during the height of the gold rush that followed the end of the Civil War. Church III was the younger of two sons of Frank Forrester Church II and Laura Bilderback Church. His older brother Richard Church became a career officer in the United States Marine Corps, and retired as a colonel. Another branch of the Church family included Rear Admiral Albert T. Church II, as well as Vice Admiral Albert T. Church III, the author of the Church Report.


title: Frank Church

text: His father co-owned a sporting goods store and took the sons on fishing, hunting, and hiking outings in the Idaho mountains. The family was reportedly very Catholic and conservative, with Church attending St. Joseph's School as a youngster, where he went by the nickname "Frosty." In his youth, Church admired senator William Borah, who represented Idaho in the United States Senate from 1907 until 1940. When Borah died in 1940, Church walked by the open coffin in the rotunda of the state capitol. He stated that "Because he was a senator, I wanted to become one, too." Church graduated from Boise High School in 1942, where he served as student body president. As a junior in 1941, he won the American Legion National Oratorical Contest, which resulted in him receiving sufficient funds to provide for his four year enrollment at Stanford University, California, where he joined Theta Xi fraternity.


title: Frank Church

text: Church left university in 1942, at the age of 18, and enlisted in the Army following the Attack on Pearl Harbor. He was called up the following year and attended officer candidate training at Fort Benning in Georgia. He trained at Camp Ritchie, as one of the Ritchie Boys, and was commissioned a lieutenant on his 20th birthday. In the army, he served as a military intelligence officer in the China Burma India Theater. He was inducted to the Infantry Hall of Fame at Fort Benning. Following the end of the war, he was discharged in 1946.


title: Frank Church

text: In June 1947 he married Bethine Clark, daughter of Chase Clark, a former Democratic governor of Idaho and the federal judge for the state. The wedding took place at the secluded Robinson Bar Ranch (), the Clark family's ranch in the mountains east of Stanley (and now owned by singer Carole King, since 1981). The two had a happy marriage and often showed their affection in public. He entered Harvard Law School that fall and after one year, Church transferred to Stanford Law School, when he thought the cold Massachusetts winter was the cause of a pain in his lower back. The pain did not go away and the problem was soon diagnosed as testicular cancer. After one of his testicles and glands in his lower abdomen were removed, Church was given only a few months to live. However, he rebounded from the illness after another doctor started X-ray treatments. This second chance led him to later reflect that "life itself is such a chancy proposition that the only way to live is by taking great chances." In 1950, Church graduated from Stanford Law School and returned to Boise to practice law and teach public speaking at the junior college.


title: Frank Church

text: Frank and Bethine had two sons, Frank Forrester Church IV, who died in 2009, and Chase Clark Church, who lives in Boise. Both boys were named for their grandfathers.


title: Frank Church

text: Following his return to Idaho, he became active in Democratic Party politics, and he became the chairman of the Young Democrats of Idaho. In 1952, he ran for a seat in the then-Republican dominated Idaho state legislature, but lost the election. In 1956, Church ran for the Class-3 senate seat held by senator Herman Welker, who had alienated many Republicans for his opposition to president Dwight D. Eisenhower's programs and his alleged affiliation with McCarthyism. He entered the primary race, which was described as "the most colorful primary in the history of the state". He faced against a number of opponents, including Ricks College professor Claude Burtenshaw, bureaucrat Alvin McCormack, and former senator Glen H. Taylor.


title: Frank Church

text: When the primary came, Church won the nomination, with only 37.75% of the vote, narrowly edging out Taylor by 200 votes. Though Church won the democratic nomination, Taylor refused to concede, and claimed a number of voting irregularities in the canvassing of the primary. During the general election campaign, Church and his campaign hit the road. Church shook around 75,000 hands over the entire course of the campaign. Church also conducted an astute campaign, by contrasting his fitness with that of Welker's. His slogan, "Idaho Will Be Proud of Frank Church", was a major asset to his campaign. Church also campaigned on an internationalist plank, gave mild support to a high Hell's dam, and was conservative on money matters.


title: Frank Church

text: This was in stark contrast to that of Welker's campaign, which campaigned heavily on Anti-Communism, a decision which proved to be a weak political foundation. The Welker campaign also ran on his record, as well as the "Herman letter", which was a letter in which president Eisenhower endorsed Welker's candidacy. Glen Taylor also ran in the general election as a write-in candidate, labeling Church as a candidate of the "corporate interests". Church won the race, defeating both Welker and Taylor, with a plurality of 46,315 voters. This was despite a number of factors which would've inhibited Church's campaign. Including the Republican's fundraising advantage and president Eisenhower's large victory in the presidential election.


title: Frank Church

text: Upon entering the Senate in January 1957, Church made the mistake of voting on a measure against the wishes of Democratic Majority Leader, Lyndon Johnson, and Johnson punished Church by all but ignoring him for the next six months. Church found solace from Republican Minority Leader, William Knowland. However, Church managed to find his way into Johnson's good graces by providing key assistance in getting the Civil Rights Act of 1957 passed. LBJ was so grateful he made the young Idahoan a veritable protégé, rewarding him with plum assignments, such as a seat on the prestigious Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a position which allowed Church to follow in the footsteps of his idol, William Borah. Recently declassified documents show that the young veteran also challenged his mentor, behind closed doors, after the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, making this prescient warning: "In a democracy you cannot expect the people, whose sons are being killed and who will be killed, to exercise their judgment if the truth is concealed from them."


title: Frank Church

text: Church was reelected in 1962, defeating former state representative Jack Hawley. To date, he is the only Idaho Democrat to be popularly elected for more than one term in the Senate.


title: Frank Church

text: In 1967, a recall campaign was waged against Church by Ron Rankin, a Republican county commissioner in Kootenai County in northern Idaho. Rankin unsuccessfully sued Idaho's secretary of state to accept recall petitions. The U.S. District Court for Idaho ruled that the state's recall laws did not apply to U.S. senators and that such a recall would violate the U.S. Constitution. Allan Shepard, Idaho's attorney general at the time, agreed with the court's decision.


title: Frank Church

text: "It must be pointed out that a United States senator is not a state officer but a federal officer whose position is created by Article I, Section I of the United States Constitution," Shepard wrote in a June 17, 1967, opinion for the secretary of state. "There seems to be no provision for canvassing the votes of a recall election of a United States senator." Most commentators at the time believed that the recall attempt strengthened Church politically by allowing him to play the role of political martyr and he was reelected in the next year's election over Republican Congressman George V. Hansen 60% to 40%.


title: Frank Church

text: Church was a key figure in American foreign policy during the 1970s, and served as chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations from 1979 to 1981. Following the instinct that led him to ask questions early on (see above), Church was one of the first senators to publicly oppose the Vietnam War in the 1960s, although he had supported the conflict earlier. He was the co-author of two legislative efforts to curtail the war: the Cooper–Church Amendment of 1970, and the Case–Church Amendment of 1973.


title: Frank Church

text: In September 1970, Church announced on television and in speeches across the country that "the doves had won." Author David F. Schmitz states that Church based his assertion on the fact that two key propositions of the anti-war movement, "A negotiated peace and the withdrawal of American troops," were now official policy. The only debate that remained would be over when to withdraw, not whether to withdraw, and over the meaning of the war. Church concluded:


title: Frank Church

text: Church argued that the opponents of the Vietnam War needed to prevent the corruption of the nation and its institutions. To Church, the anti-war opposition was the "highest concept of patriotism—which is not the patriotism of conformity—but the patriotism of Senator Carl Schurz, a dissenter from an earlier period, who proclaimed: 'Our country right or wrong. When right, to be kept right: when wrong, to be put right."


title: Frank Church

text: Church gained national prominence during his service in the Senate through his chairmanship of the U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities from 1975 through 1976, more commonly known as the Church Committee, which conducted extensive hearings investigating extra-legal FBI and CIA intelligence-gathering and covert operations. The committee investigated CIA drug smuggling activities in the Golden Triangle and secret U.S.-backed wars in Third World countries.


title: Frank Church

text: Together with Senator Sam Ervin's committee inquiries, the Church Committee hearings laid the groundwork for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978.


title: Frank Church

text: Daniel Ellsberg quoted Church as speaking of the NSA as follows: "I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return." More specifically on August 17, 1975 Senator Frank Church stated on NBC's "Meet the Press" without mentioning the name of the NSA about this agency:


title: Frank Church

text: In a secret operation code-named "Project Minaret," the National Security Agency (NSA) monitored the communications of leading Americans, including Senators Church and Howard Baker, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and other prominent U.S. journalists and athletes, who criticized the U.S. war in Vietnam. A review by NSA of the NSA's Minaret program concluded that Minaret was "disreputable if not outright illegal."


title: Frank Church

text: Church is also remembered for his voting record as a strong progressive and environmental legislator, and he played a major role in the creation of the nation's system of protected wilderness areas in the 1960s. In 1964, Church was the floor sponsor of the national Wilderness Act. In 1968, he sponsored the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act and gained passage of a ten-year moratorium on federal plans to transfer water from the Pacific Northwest to California. Working with other members of Congress from northwestern states, Church helped establish the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area along the Oregon-Idaho border, which protected the gorge from dam building. He was also the primary proponent in the establishment of the Sawtooth Wilderness and National Recreation Area in central Idaho in 1972.


title: Frank Church

text: Church also was instrumental in the creation of Idaho's River of No Return Wilderness in 1980, his final year in the Senate. This wilderness comprised the old Idaho Primitive Area, the Salmon River Breaks Primitive Area, plus additional lands. At 2.36 million acres (9,550 km²), over , it is the largest wilderness area in the nation outside of Alaska. It was renamed the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness in 1984, shortly after the diagnosis of his pancreatic cancer. Idaho Senator Jim McClure introduced the measure in the Senate in late February, and


title: Frank Church

text: President Reagan signed the act on March 14, less than four weeks before Frank Church's death on April 7.


title: Frank Church

text: Frank Church was considered a progressive (remarkable considering that he represented one of the most conservative states in the nation), though he was a strong opponent of gun control. He, in 1979, was the first in Congress to disclose and protest the presence of Soviet combat troops in Cuba. According to the Christian Science Monitor, this stance somewhat disarmed his opponent's charge in the 1980 campaign that Church's performance on the Foreign Relations Committee had helped to weaken the US militarily.


title: Frank Church

text: In 1974, Church joined Senator Frank Moss, D-Utah, to sponsor the first legislation to provide federal funding for hospice care programs. The bill did not have widespread support and was not brought to a vote. Congress finally included a hospice benefit in Medicare in 1982.


title: Frank Church

text: In late 1975 and early 1976, a sub-committee of the U.S. Senate led by Church concluded that members of the Lockheed board had paid members of friendly governments to guarantee contracts for military aircraft in a series of illegal bribes and contributions made by Lockheed officials from the late 1950s to the 1970s. In 1976, it was publicly revealed that Lockheed had paid $22 million in bribes to foreign officials in the process of negotiating the sale of aircraft including the F-104 Starfighter, the so-called "Deal of the Century."


title: Frank Church

text: Church also sponsored, along with Pennsylvania Republican John Heinz, the "conscience clause," which prohibited the government from requiring church-affiliated hospitals to perform abortions.


title: Frank Church

text: In 1976, Church belatedly sought the Democratic nomination for president and announced his candidacy on March 18 from rustic Idaho City, his father's birthplace. Although he won primaries in Nebraska, Idaho, Oregon, and Montana, he withdrew in favor of the eventual nominee, former Georgia governor Jimmy Carter. Church remains the only Idahoan to win a major-party presidential primary election following the reforms of the McGovern–Fraser Commission. Prior to the primary elections of 1972, William Borah had won several contests in the 1936 Republican primaries.


title: Frank Church

text: By June, Carter had the nomination sufficiently locked up and could take time to interview potential vice-presidential candidates. The pundits predicted that Church would be tapped to provide balance as an experienced senator with strong liberal credentials. Church promoted himself, persuading friends to intervene with Carter in his behalf. If a quick choice had been required as in past conventions, Carter later recalled, he would probably have chosen Church. But the longer period for deliberation gave Carter time to worry about his compatibility with the publicity-seeking Church, who had a tendency to be long-winded. Instead, Carter invited Senators Edmund Muskie, John Glenn, and Walter Mondale to visit his home in Plains, Georgia, for personal interviews, while Church, Henry M. Jackson, and Adlai Stevenson III would be interviewed at the convention in New York. Of all the potential candidates, Carter found Mondale the most compatible. As a result, Carter selected Mondale as his running mate.


title: Frank Church

text: In the late 1970s, Church was a leading congressional supporter of the Torrijos-Carter Treaties, which proposed to return the Panama Canal to Panama. The scheme proved to be widely unpopular in Idaho, and led to the formation of the ""Anybody But Church"" (ABC) committee, created by the National Conservative Political Action Committee (NCPAC), based in Washington, D.C. ABC and NCPAC had no formal connection with the 1980 Senate campaign of conservative Republican congressman Steve Symms, which permitted them, under former Federal election law, to spend as much as they could raise to defeat Church.


title: Frank Church

text: Church lost his bid for a fifth term to Symms by less than one percent of the vote. His defeat was blamed on the activities of the "Anybody But Church Committee" and the national media's early announcement in Idaho of Republican presidential candidate Ronald Reagan's overwhelming win. These predictions were broadcast before polls closed statewide, specifically in the Pacific Time Zone in the north. Many believed that this caused many Democrats in the more politically moderate Idaho Panhandle to not vote at all. , Church is the last Democrat to represent Idaho in the U.S. Senate.


title: Frank Church

text: Following his 24 years in the Senate, Church practiced international law with the Washington, D.C., firm of Whitman and Ransom, specializing in Asian issues.


title: Frank Church

text: Three years after leaving the Senate, Church was hospitalized for a pancreatic tumor on Less than three months later, he died at his home in Bethesda, Maryland, on April 7 at age 59.


title: Frank Church

text: A memorial service was held at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. and then his body was flown home to Idaho, where he lay in state beneath the rotunda of the Idaho State Capitol. His funeral was held in downtown Boise at the Cathedral of the Rockies on April 12 and televised throughout Idaho. Church was buried at Morris Hill Cemetery near his boyhood hero, Senator William Borah.


title: Frank Church

text: Church received an honorary doctorate from Pennsylvania's Elizabethtown College in 1983 to honor his work for the American people during his career in public office. His papers, originally given to his alma mater Stanford University in 1981, were transferred to Boise State University at his request in 1984.


title: Frank Church

text: , Church remains the last Democrat to serve in the U.S. Senate from Idaho; his final election victory was in 1974, .


title: Frank Church

text: Church was stunned by what the Church Committee learned about the immense operations and electronic monitoring capabilities of the National Security Agency (NSA), an agency whose existence was unknown to most Americans at the time. Church stated in 1975:


title: Frank Church

text: That capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn't matter. There would be no place to hide.


title: Frank Church

text: I don't want to see this country ever go across the bridge... I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.


title: Frank Church

text: Commentators such as Glenn Greenwald have praised Church for his prescient warning regarding this turning around by the NSA to monitor the American people, arguing that the NSA undertook such a turning in the years after the September 11 Attacks.


title: Toto (lottery)

text: Toto (est. in 1968 and stylised as TOTO) is a legalised form of lottery sold in Singapore, known by different names elsewhere. It is held by Singapore Pools, the only legal lottery operator in Singapore. As of April 2015, it was the second most popular type of gambling activity after 4-Digits. Toto can be purchased from any of the Singapore Pools outlets across Singapore. Draws are conducted every Monday and Thursday at 6:30 pm (SG time). In case of the cascade draw, the draw time will change to 9.30 pm. The "live" Toto draw can be viewed at the Singapore Pools Main Branch at 210 Middle Road. The profits from Toto go to the Singapore Totaliser Board (the owner of Singapore Pools) which uses the money for charity and other worthy causes.


title: Toto (lottery)

text: Toto was established to control widespread illegal gambling in Singapore during the 1960s. A manual version of Toto was launched on 9 June 1968. In 1981, "snowballing" was introduced. It allowed the top prize to increase from draw to draw. The system entry mode is introduced so multiple bets can be made on a single coupon.


title: Toto (lottery)

text: On 19 May 1986 Toto was offered as a computerised on-line game based on a '5 out-of 49' format. In 1988, the game was changed from a '5 out-of 49' format to a '6 out-of 42' format. On 1 July 1997, Toto's format was changed once again to a '6 out-of 45' format.


title: Toto (lottery)

text: The game introduced several popular draws, including the Toto Millennium Draw (30 December 1999), the Hongbao Draw (10 February 2000) and the Mooncake Draw (6 October 2006).


title: Toto (lottery)

text: On 7 October 2014 Toto was changed to a '6 out-of 49' format. In September 2016, Toto became available online.


title: Toto (lottery)

text: A buyer picks at least six numbers, from 1 to 49. The winning numbers drawn include six numbers plus an additional number. Three or more winning numbers on a ticket matching the seven numbers drawn qualifies the buyer for a cash prize. The prize money escalates with the increase in numbers matched.


title: Toto (lottery)

text: The maximum allowed matching numbers is seven (with the winner winning both group 1 and group 2 of the draw – this can only happen if the person bought a ticket of system 7 and above). Thus, if six numbers on the Toto ticket matches the six numbers drawn (apart from the additional number), the jackpot (Group 1) prize is won.


title: Toto (lottery)

text: The minimum bet amount is S$1.00 per bet ticket. Bets can also be placed by bet amounts. The computer automatically sells the buyer the maximum number of bets for the bet type placed. The balance amount is placed on the next lowest bet type.


title: Toto (lottery)

text: The odds of winning any prize are 1 in 54. 54% of the total Toto sales for each draw goes to the Toto prize pool. The Group 1 prize has a minimum guaranteed amount of $1 million. If there are no winners in one of the groups (excluding Group 5, 6 & 7), the respective group's prize will be snowballed to the next draw. Group 1 prizes can only be snowballed up to 4 draws, thereafter, the prize will be cascaded to Group 2.


title: Elections in North Korea

text: Elections in North Korea are held every four-to-five years for the Supreme People's Assembly (SPA), the country's national legislature, and every four years for Local People's Assemblies.


title: Elections in North Korea

text: All seats are won by the Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland. The founding and ruling Workers' Party of Korea dominates the Front and holds 87.5% of the seats, with 7.4% for the Korean Social Democratic Party, 3.2% for the Chondoist Chongu Party, and 1.9% for independent deputies. According to official reports, turnout is near 100%, and approval of the Democratic Front's candidates is unanimous or nearly so. North Korean elections have been criticized by many as being sham elections.


title: Elections in North Korea

text: In reply to a question put forth by Michael Marshall, Li Chun Sik of North Korea stated at a meeting of the Association of Secretaries General of Parliaments (ASGP) of the Inter-Parliamentary Union:


title: Elections in North Korea

text: Only one candidate appears on each ballot. Elections are ostensibly conducted by secret ballot, and a voter may cross off the candidate's name to vote against them. Voting is mandatory and turnout is habitually near 100%.


title: Elections in North Korea

text: Members of the Supreme People's Assembly are elected to five-year terms, and meet for SPA sessions up to ten days per year. The Supreme People's Assembly elects a standing committee known as the Standing Committee, which exercises legislative functions when the Assembly is not in session which in practice is all but a few days of the year. It also elects the President of the State Affairs Commission, the country's head of state and highest state office, and the premier, the country's "de jure" head of government.


title: Elections in North Korea

text: Local elections have been held since 1999. The people elect representatives to city, county, and provincial people's assemblies in local elections every four years. The number of representatives is determined by the population of each jurisdiction.


title: Elections in North Korea

text: Mayors and governors are not directly elected. Their role is to work with the unelected and more influential city and province party secretaries.


title: Elections in North Korea

text: The elections have been variously described as show elections or a political census. Seats are uncompetitive as all candidates are chosen by the Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland. Because of the near-100% turnout, elections double as unofficial censuses. The "inminban" neighborhood watch-style organization reportedly watches the elections to identify and investigate no-shows.


title: Elections in North Korea

text: In recent elections there have been separate boxes for "no" votes. Voting against the official candidate, or refusing to vote at all, is considered an act of treason, and those who do face the loss of their jobs and housing, along with extra surveillance.


The 2021 UEFA European Under-21 Championship (also known as UEFA Under-21 Euro 2021) was the 23rd edition of the UEFA European Under-21 Championship (26th edition if the Under-23 era is also included), the biennial international youth football championship organised by UEFA for the men's under-21 national teams of Europe. Initially, 12 teams were to play in the tournament, however on 6 February 2019, UEFA's executive committee increased this number to 16. Only players born on or after 1 January 1998 were eligible to participate.


title: 2021 UEFA European Under-21 Championship

text: The tournament was co-hosted by Hungary and Slovenia. It was originally scheduled to take place from 9 to 26 June 2021. However, the tournament was rescheduled following the postponement of UEFA Euro 2020 to June/July 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The new dates were to be decided initially on 27 May 2020, but then postponed to 17 June 2020, where the UEFA Executive Committee meeting discussed the calendar and format of the tournament. On 17 June 2020, UEFA announced the tournament would be played in two stages; the group stage, which took place from 24 to 31 March 2021, and the knockout stage, which took place from 31 May to 6 June 2021. Due to COVID-19 Pandemic the VAR system wasn't used.


text: Hungary and Slovenia were appointed as co-hosts at the UEFA Executive Committee meeting in Dublin, Republic of Ireland on 3 December 2018.


text: All 55 UEFA nations entered the competition, and, unlike the last competition, co-hosts Hungary and Slovenia qualified automatically, and the other 53 teams competed in the qualifying competition to determine the remaining 14 spots in the final tournament. The draw for the qualifying group stage was held on 11 December 2018. The qualifying group stage took place from March 2019 to October 2020, while the play-offs were set to take place in November 2020. The qualifying competition would originally consist of two rounds:


text: However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe which caused the postponement of matches in the qualifying group stage, UEFA announced on 17 June 2020 that the play-offs would be cancelled. Instead, the nine group winners and the five best runners-up (not counting results against the sixth-placed team) qualified for the final tournament.


text: The final draw was held on 10 December 2020, 15:00 CET, at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland. The sixteen teams were drawn into four groups of four teams. The teams were seeded according to their coefficient ranking following the end of the qualifying stage, calculated based on the following:


text: The hosts Hungary and Slovenia were assigned to position A1 and B1 respectively in the draw, while the other fourteen teams were drawn to the other available positions in their group.


text: The provisional schedule was announced in November 2019, with the above eight venues hosting matches. Hungary (Groups A and C) and Slovenia (Groups B and D) would both host two groups, two quarter-finals and one semi-final each, while the final would be played in Slovenia at the Stožice Stadium, Ljubljana.


text: Each national team had to submit a squad of 23 players, three of whom had to be goalkeepers. If a player was injured or ill severely enough to prevent his participation in the tournament before his team's first match, he could be replaced by another player.


text: In the group stage, teams were ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss), and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria were applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (Regulations Articles 18.01 and 18.02):


text: All times are local, CET () for matches between 24 and 27 March 2021, CEST () for matches between 28 and 31 March 2021.


text: In the knockout stage, extra time and a penalty shoot-out were used to decide the winners if necessary.


text: After the tournament the Under-21 Team of the Tournament was selected by the UEFA Technical Observers.


title: Cale Yarborough

text: William Caleb "Cale" Yarborough (born March 27, 1939) is an American former NASCAR Winston Cup Series driver and owner, businessman, and farmer. He is one of only two drivers in NASCAR history to win three consecutive championships, winning in 1976, 1977, and 1978. He was one of the preeminent stock car drivers from the 1960s to the 1980s and also competed in IndyCar events. His fame was such that a special model of the Mercury Cyclone Spoiler II was named after him.


title: Cale Yarborough

text: His 83 wins tie him with Jimmie Johnson for sixth on the all-time NASCAR Cup Series winner's list (behind Bobby Allison and Darrell Waltrip, who are tied for fourth with 84). His 14.82% winning percentage is the ninth best of all-time and third among those with 500 or more starts. Yarborough won the Daytona 500 four times; his first win coming in 1968 for the Wood Brothers, the second in 1977 for Junior Johnson, and back-to-back wins in 1983 and 1984 for Ranier-Lundy Racing. Yarborough is a three-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Driver of the Year Award (1977, 1978, 1979). After retiring, he owned Cale Yarborough Motorsports and several successful agricultural businesses.


title: Cale Yarborough

text: Yarborough was born to Julian and Annie Yarborough in the tiny, unincorporated community of Sardis near Timmonsville, South Carolina, the oldest of three sons. Julian was a tobacco farmer, cotton gin operator, and store owner who was killed in a private airplane crash when Cale was around ten years of age. According to his autobiography "Cale", Yarborough attended the second Southern 500 in 1951 as a young spectator without a ticket. Yarborough was a high school football star at Timmonsville High School and played semi-pro football in Columbia, South Carolina for four seasons and was a Golden Gloves boxer. He made his first attempt in the Southern 500 as a teenager by lying about his age, but he was caught and disqualified by NASCAR. In 1957, Yarborough made his debut as a driver at the Southern 500, driving the No. 30 Pontiac for Bob Weatherly, starting 44th and finishing 42nd after suffering hub problems. He ran for Weatherly two years later, and finished 27th. In 1960, Yarborough ran one race, and had his first career top-fifteen, a fourteenth-place finish at Southern States Fairgrounds. He again ran one race in 1961, finishing 30th in the Southern 500 driving for Julian Buesink. In 1962, Yarborough ran eight races for Buesink, Don Harrison, and Wildcat Williams. He earned his first top-ten at the Daytona 500 Qualifying Race, when he finished tenth.


title: Cale Yarborough

text: Yarborough started 1963 without a full-time ride, but soon signed on to drive the No. 19 Ford for Herman Beam. His best finish was fifth twice, at Myrtle Beach and Savannah Speedway, respectively. He began the next season driving for Beam, but soon left and finished the year with Holman Moody, finishing sixth at North Wilkesboro Speedway, winding up nineteenth in points. The next season, he drove for various owners before picking up his first career win at Valdosta Speedway driving the #06 Ford for Kenny Myler, rising to tenth in the final standings.


title: Cale Yarborough

text: Yarborough drove for Banjo Matthews at the beginning of 1966. Despite two consecutive second-place finishes, he left the team early in the season and ended the year driving the No. 21 Ford for the Wood Brothers. He won two races in 1967 at the Atlanta 500 and the Firecracker 400 for the Wood Brothers, but dropped to 20th in standings because he only ran 17 races. Yarborough also ran the Indianapolis 500 in 1966 and 1967 driving Vollstedt-Fords. After running the season-opening Middle Georgia 500 for Bud Moore Engineering, finishing 21st, Yarborough ran the rest of the season for the Wood Brothers, winning his first Daytona 500 in a duel with Lee Roy Yarbrough, the Firecracker 400, which made him the second driver in history to sweep both Daytona events, and his first Southern 500 garnering a total of six wins that season. Running a limited schedule, he finished seventeenth in points. The next season, he won his third straight Atlanta 500 along with the first NASCAR race at Michigan International Speedway the Motor State 500 and six pole positions.


title: Cale Yarborough

text: In 1969 Ford Motor Company produced a Cale Yarborough Special Edition Mercury Cyclone Spoiler II (and they also produced a Mercury Cyclone Spoiler). It was a white Mercury Cyclone (fastback) in white with a red roof and stripe. The Spoiler II was outfitted with a special aerodynamic front end. This was a limited edition homologation special that was made to satisfy the NASCAR 500-car minimum production regulations. There was only one engine choice available in the Mercury Cyclone Spoiler II, a 351 cubic inch Windsor. (A very similar car was also produced by Mercury in 1969 as a white car with blue trim as the Dan Gurney Special.)


title: Cale Yarborough

text: Yarborough continued to drive a limited schedule for the Wood Brothers in 1970, winning his second consecutive Michigan 400 and the American 500 for the first time along with one of the Daytona 125-mile qualifying races and four poles. At the end of the season, Yarborough was released after Ford withdrew factory support for NASCAR teams. He drove four races in 1971, posting one top-ten in Daytona in the No. 3 Ray Fox-owned Plymouth. He also ran in the Indianapolis 500, finishing 16th in a Gene White owned, Firestone sponsored Mongoose-Ford. The next season, Yarborough ran five NASCAR races, his best finish coming at Michigan driving for James Hylton. He ended the season with two consecutive top-tens driving for Hoss Ellington. He also ran his final Indianapolis 500 in a Bill Daniels sponsored Atlanta-Foyt, finishing 10th. Yarborough mostly focused on driving USAC races in 1971 and 1972. In 1973, Yarborough returned to NASCAR and ran every NASCAR Grand National race in a season for the first time in his career, driving the No. 11 Kar-Kare Chevrolet for Richard Howard. He won four races, including his second Southern 500, the National 500 and the Southeastern 500 at Bristol in which he led every lap, and had nineteen top-tens, finishing second in points.


title: Cale Yarborough

text: In 1974, Yarborough won a career-high ten races, but lost the championship by nearly 600 points. Midway through the season, Yarborough's team was bought by Junior Johnson with Carling sponsorship. Yarborough swept both races at Riverside International Raceway, captured his fourth Atlanta 500, and his second consecutive Southern 500 and third overall. Despite his successful 1974 campaign, the team began 1975 without major sponsorship, and missed three races, before Holly Farms became the team's primary sponsor. He won three races, including sweeping the events at Rockingham, but dropped to ninth in the final standings.


title: Cale Yarborough

text: The next 3 years would be Cale Yarborough's time to shine. In 1976, he won nine races, including four in a row late in the season, along with winning the Firecracker 400, in winning his first career Winston Cup Championship. The 1977 season would be the greatest year in Cale Yarborough's legendary career. Not only that he would go on to repeat his nine-win performance from 1976, but he finished every single race, and did not finish outside of the top-six during the last fourteen races of the season. In just a 30 race schedule for 1977, he scored a total of 5000 points under the Winston Cup points system, earning him his second consecutive championship. He won the title by 386 points over Richard Petty. Yarborough became the first driver in NASCAR history to win the championship and NOT score a single DNF. Bobby Labonte would join Cale and become only the second driver to do the same thing in 2000. As of 2022, they are the only 2 drivers in history to do so. Yarborough led the Winston Cup points standings throughout the entire 1977 season, making him the only driver in NASCAR history to accomplish that feat. However, there was a tie in points after the very 1st race of the season. David Pearson went on to win the race at Riverside. Cale Yarborough finished in 2nd, and he received the bonus points for leading the most laps. Both drivers were scored at 180 points each after Riverside. Technically, back in the Winston Cup points system, the tiebreaker would go to the driver who has the most wins. NASCAR listed Pearson as the points leader because he scored the season's 1st win, but, he was also racing on a part-time schedule. They also listed Yarborough as the points leader because he was racing full-time and competing for the season's championship, and more importantly, defending his championship from 1976. The 1977 season became the only year in NASCAR history to list 2 drivers as the points leader. Another highlight of the season was his second Daytona 500 victory, earning him a cover appearance on Sports Illustrated, the second NASCAR driver so honored. He also scored two victories in IROC IV, finishing second in the standings. In 1978, his team switched to Oldsmobiles and received new sponsorship from 1st National City Travelers Checks. He matched his previous career high of 10 wins from 1974, including leading every lap of the Music City USA 420, his fourth Southern 500 and first Winston 500 at Talladega, and went on to win his third consecutive NASCAR Winston Cup championship (clinching it at the American 500). Cale Yarborough became the very 1st driver in NASCAR history to win 3 consecutive championships. He clinched the 1978 championship with 2 races to go, becoming the 2nd driver to win the title that early in the Winston Cup points system. Richard Petty clinched the 1975 championship with 4 races to go. In IROC V he captured one victory, finishing fourth in the standings.


title: Cale Yarborough

text: Yarborough began the 1979 season with Busch Beer sponsorship and getting into a fight with Donnie and Bobby Allison after the Daytona 500, when Donnie and Yarborough wrecked while racing for the lead on the final lap. This was the first NASCAR 500-mile race to be broadcast on live television in its entirety (through CBS Sports). The confrontation and the exciting race that led up to it are credited with starting the mass growth of NASCAR.


title: Cale Yarborough

text: Yarborough went on to finish fourth in the standings, winning four races, including the Coca-Cola 500 at Pocono Raceway and the National 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, one pole, and finishing third in the IROC VI standings.


title: Cale Yarborough

text: Yarborough won a career-high and modern-era record fourteen poles in 1980, captured six races including sweeping the events at Rockingham, and scoring wins at Bristol, Michigan, Texas and Atlanta. Yarborough barely missed out on his fourth championship in five years, losing the championship to Dale Earnhardt by 19 points. At the end of the season, Yarborough announced he was leaving the Junior Johnson team and would run a part-time schedule for the rest of his career. He was replaced by Darrell Waltrip. Yarborough won 55 races while driving for Johnson from 1973 to 1980, compiling an amazing winning percentage of 26.57 percent.


title: Cale Yarborough

text: Yarborough competed in 18 races in the 1981 season in the No. 27 Valvoline Buick for M.C. Anderson, winning his fourth Firecracker 400 and his fifth Coca-Cola 500 at Atlanta, finishing in the top-ten a total of ten times. Yarborough competed in 16 races in 1982, winning three, including his hometown Southern 500 for the fifth and final time. He also ran the 1981 24 Hours of Le Mans finishing 13 laps before a crash ended the team's efforts.


title: Cale Yarborough

text: In 1983, Anderson closed his operation, and Yarborough moved to the No. 28 Hardee's Chevrolet owned by Ranier-Lundy, competing in 16 events. He won four races, including his third Daytona 500, his sixth Atlanta Coca-Cola 500, and swept both events at Michigan, along with three poles. In 1984 he repeated by winning his fourth Daytona 500, becoming the second driver to score back-to-back wins, the Winston 500 at Talladega, a race that featured 75 lead changes, and the Van Scoy Diamond Mine 500, along with four poles. Yarborough also captured the IROC VIII championship. In 1985 after his team switched to a Ford, he won his first Talladega 500 and scored his final win in the Miller High Life 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. He also finished eighth in the final standings of IROC IX.


title: Cale Yarborough

text: In 1986, Yarborough won his final career pole at the Firecracker 400, and had five top-ten finishes. He scored a victory at Talladega during IROC X and finished third in the standings. In 1987, he left the Ranier-Lundy team and purchased Jack Beebe's Race Hill Farm team. Yarborough took the Hardee's sponsorship and began running the No. 29 Oldsmobile Delta 88 as an owner/driver, posting two top-five finishes. He ran his final season in 1988 in an Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme, entering ten races and posting two ninth-place finishes. He retired at the end of the year.


title: Cale Yarborough

text: In 1972, Yarborough became the first Republican elected to the Florence County Council since Reconstruction. During the 1976 United States presidential election, he campaigned for his longtime friend, Jimmy Carter. That year, Yarborough was reelected to the county council, this time as a Democrat.


title: Cale Yarborough

text: In 1986 Yarborough purchased Jack Beebe's Race Hill Farm team, renaming the team Cale Yarborough Motorsports and running a part-time schedule in 1987 and 1988. During the 1988 season, Yarborough split time in the No. 29 car with Dale Jarrett, who took over full-time in 1989 following Yarborough's retirement.


title: Cale Yarborough

text: For 1990, Jarrett was replaced by Dick Trickle in the renumbered No. 66 car, with backing from Phillips 66. The team won the pole at Dover International Speedway, finishing 24th in points. Multiple drivers raced for Yarborough in 1991, including Trickle, Lake Speed, Dorsey Schroeder, Chuck Bown, and Randy LaJoie. Chad Little, Bobby Hillin, Jr, and Jimmy Hensley would all drive the No. 66 in 1992, with Hensley winning Rookie of the Year honors.


title: Cale Yarborough

text: In 1993, the team switched to the No. 98 with Bojangles' sponsorship and Derrike Cope behind the wheel, finishing 26th in points. Cope began 1994 with sponsorship from Fingerhut, but was replaced by Jeremy Mayfield after struggling.


title: Cale Yarborough

text: RCA became the team's new primary sponsor in 1995, and Mayfield finished 31st in points despite missing four races. In 1996, Mayfield had two top-five finishes and won the pole at Talladega Superspeedway. Towards the end of the season, Mayfield left to drive for Michael Kranefuss, whose previous driver John Andretti moved to the 98, finishing fifth at Martinsville Speedway. Andretti won the team's second pole at Talladega in 1997, and at the 1997 Pepsi 400, he led 113 laps and won Yarborough's only race as a car owner.


title: Cale Yarborough

text: Despite the win and a 23rd-place points finish, RCA left the sport and Andretti signed with Petty Enterprises. Yarborough signed Greg Sacks to drive his Thorn Apple Valley Ford in 1998, but Sacks suffered a neck injury at Texas Motor Speedway and was unable to race for the rest of the year. Rich Bickle took his place, and had a fourth-place finish at Martinsville. After the season Bickle resigned to drive for Tyler Jet Motorsports and Thorn Apple departed due to financial problems within the organization.


title: Cale Yarborough

text: Due to the lack of financing, Yarborough originally closed his team, but soon reopened and hired Rick Mast as the driver, with car dealer Wayne Burdett joining as a co-owner. Despite having no primary sponsor, Yarborough and his team ran the full schedule, picking up short-term deals with Sonic Drive-In and Hobas Pipe. Soon after, Burdette left the team and the team signed Universal Studios/Woody Woodpecker as its primary sponsor. Mast posted two top-tens and did not have a DNF all season, the second driver since Yarborough to accomplish that feat. Despite rumors of a second team with Mike Ciochetti driving, Mast and Universal both departed following the season. In January 2000, Yarborough closed the team until a buyer could be found.


title: Cale Yarborough

text: He sold the team in the summer of 2000 to Chip MacPherson. Renamed MacPherson Motorsports, the team ran 2 races with drivers Jeff Fuller and Geoffrey Bodine. Both drivers failed to finish the race and finished 41st. Soon afterward, the team disappeared from the Cup circuit.


title: Cale Yarborough

text: Yarborough was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1993, the National Motorsports Press Association Hall of Fame, and the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 1994, the Court of Legends at Charlotte Motor Speedway in 1996 and was named one of NASCAR's 50 Greatest Drivers (1998). In 2009, Yarborough was one of the 25 nominees for the first class to be inducted in the NASCAR Hall of Fame, though he was not selected. In 2010, he was nominated for induction in the second class of the Hall of Fame, and again he failed to make the cut. In 2011, Yarborough finally was elected to the NASCAR HOF. A stretch of South Carolina Highway 403 through Timmonsville is named Cale Yarborough Highway in his honor.


title: Cale Yarborough

text: In high school Yarborough was a halfback, then played four years of semi-pro football and was offered a tryout with the Washington Redskins.


title: Cale Yarborough

text: Yarborough has been married to Betty Jo Thigpen since 1961 and they have three daughters (Julie, Kelley, and B.J.). He has owned Cale Yarborough Honda in Florence, South Carolina for over 25 years. He currently resides in Sardis, SC. Yarborough is not related to fellow NASCAR veteran Lee Roy Yarbrough though they were close friends all their lives.


title: Luke Youngblood

text: Luke Youngblood (born 12 June 1986 in London, England) is an English actor. He is known for playing Ben in "The Story of Tracy Beaker", young Simba in "The Lion King" at several London venues, Lee Jordan in the "Harry Potter" film series, and Magnitude on the NBC comedy series "Community". From 2015 to 2016, he played Sid in the ABC musical comedy series "Galavant".


title: The Birthday Party (play)

text: The Birthday Party (1957) is the first full-length play by Harold Pinter, first published in London by Encore Publishing in 1959. It is one of his best-known and most frequently performed plays.


title: The Birthday Party (play)

text: In the setting of a rundown seaside boarding house, a little birthday party is turned into a nightmare when two sinister strangers arrive unexpectedly. The play has been classified as a comedy of menace, characterised by Pinteresque elements such as ambiguous identity, confusions of time and place, and dark political symbolism.


title: The Birthday Party (play)

text: Pinter began writing "The Birthday Party" in the summer of 1957 while touring in "Doctor in the House". He later said: "I remember writing the big interrogation scene in a dressing room in Leicester."


title: The Birthday Party (play)

text: "The Birthday Party" is about Stanley Webber, an erstwhile piano player who lives in a rundown boarding house run by Meg and Petey Boles, in an English seaside town, "probably on the south coast, not too far from London". Two sinister strangers, Goldberg and McCann, arrive looking for him, supposedly on his birthday, and turn his apparently innocuous birthday party organised by Meg into a nightmare.


title: The Birthday Party (play)

text: While Meg prepares to serve her husband Petey breakfast, Stanley, described as a man "in his late thirties" (23), who is dishevelled and unshaven, enters from upstairs. Alternating between maternal and flirtatious affectation toward Stanley, Meg tells him that "two gentlemen", two new "visitors", will be arriving (30–31); Stanley appears concerned and suspicious at this information. At "[a] sudden knock on the front door", Meg goes offstage while Stanley "listens" at a voice coming "through the letter box," but it is just Lulu carrying in a package delivered for Meg. Right after Meg and Lulu exit, Goldberg and McCann arrive, but Stanley immediately "sidles through the kitchen door and out of the back door" to eavesdrop (38), but they speak only vaguely about "this job" they must do with bureaucratic clichés (41), nevertheless rendering McCann "satisfied" (41). After Meg's new "guests" go up to their room, Stanley enters and Meg gives him the package brought by Lulu containing his birthday present. He opens it to reveal a toy drum.


title: The Birthday Party (play)

text: Stanley encounters McCann and the two talk. McCann is determined to stop Stanley from leaving the house. Stanley's behaviour and speech start to become erratic. He denies the fact that it is his birthday, insists that Meg is mad for saying so, and asks McCann if Goldberg told him why he has been brought to the house. Goldberg enters and sends McCann out to collect some whiskey that he has ordered for the party. When McCann returns, he and Goldberg interrogate Stanley with a series of ambiguous, rhetorical questions, tormenting him to complete collapse. Meg then enters in her party dress, and the party proceeds with a series of toasts in Stanley's honor. Lulu then arrives and engages with Goldberg in romance. The party culminates with a game of blind man's buff, during which McCann further taunts Stanley by breaking his glasses and trapping his foot in the toy drum. Stanley then attacks Meg and, in the blackout that immediately follows, attacks and attempts to rape Lulu. The act ends with Goldberg and McCann backing the maniacally laughing Stanley against a wall.


title: The Birthday Party (play)

text: Paralleling the first scene of the play, Petey is having breakfast, and Meg asks him innocuous questions, with important differences revealing the aftermath of the party. After Meg leaves to do some shopping, Petey begins to express concern to Goldberg about Stanley's condition and Goldberg's intention to take him to an unseen character called Monty. There then follows an exchange between Goldberg and McCann during which Goldberg's usual confident style temporarily abandons him, though he seems to recover after asking McCann to blow in his mouth. Lulu then confronts Goldberg about the way he was the previous night (during unseen events that occurred after the party) but is driven from the house by McCann making unsavoury comments about her character and demanding that she confess her sins to him. McCann then brings in Stanley, with his broken glasses, and he and Goldberg bombard him with a list of his faults and of all the benefits he will obtain by submitting to their influence. When asked for his opinion of what he has to gain, Stanley is unable to answer. They begin to lead him out of the house toward the car waiting to take him to Monty. Petey confronts them one last time but passively backs down as they take Stanley away, "broken", calling out "Stan, don't let them tell you what to do!" (101). After Meg returns from shopping, she notices that "The car's gone" and as Petey remains silent, he continues to withhold his knowledge of Stanley's departure, allowing her to end the play without knowing the truth about Stanley.


title: The Birthday Party (play)

text: "The Birthday Party" has been described (some say "pigeonholed") by Irving Wardle and later critics as a "comedy of menace" and by Martin Esslin as an example of the Theatre of the Absurd. It includes such features as the fluidity and ambiguity of time, place, and identity and the disintegration of language.


title: The Birthday Party (play)

text: Produced by Michael Codron and David Hall, the play had its world première at the Arts Theatre in Cambridge, England on 28 April 1958, where the play was "warmly received". On its pre-London tour in Oxford and Wolverhampton, it met with a "positive reception" as "the most enthralling experience the Grand Theatre has given us in many months."


title: The Birthday Party (play)

text: On 19 May 1958, the production had its London début at the Lyric Opera House, Hammersmith (now the Lyric Hammersmith). It was a commercial and, mostly, a critical failure, instigating "bewildered hysteria" and closing after only eight performances. The weekend after it had already closed, Harold Hobson's belated rave review, "The Screw Turns Again", appeared in "The Sunday Times", rescuing its critical reputation and enabling it to become one of the classics of the modern stage.


title: The Birthday Party (play)

text: From 8 to 24 May 2008, the Lyric celebrated the play's 50th anniversary with a revival, directed by David Farr, as well as related events. They included a gala performance and reception, hosted by Harold Pinter, on 19 May 2008, exactly fifty years after its London première.


title: The Birthday Party (play)

text: Like many of Pinter's other plays, very little of the expository information in "The Birthday Party" is verifiable; it is contradicted by the characters and otherwise ambiguous, and, therefore, one cannot take what they say at face value. For example, in Act One, Stanley describes his career, saying "I've played the piano all over the world," reduces that immediately to "All over the country," and then, after a pause, undercuts both statements by saying "I once gave a concert."


title: The Birthday Party (play)

text: While the title and the dialogue refer to Meg's planning a party to celebrate Stanley's birthday: "It's your birthday, Stan. I was going to keep it a secret until tonight," even that fact is dubious, as Stanley denies that it is his birthday: "This isn't my birthday, Meg" (48), telling Goldberg and McCann: "Anyway, this isn't my birthday...No, it's not until next month," adding, in response to McCann's saying "Not according to the lady [Meg]," "Her? She's crazy. Round the bend" (53).


title: The Birthday Party (play)

text: Although Meg claims that her house is a boarding house, her husband Petey, who was confronted by two men who "wanted to know if we could put them up for a couple of nights" is surprised that Meg already has prepared a room (23) and Stanley (being the only supposed boarder) also responds to what appears to him to be the sudden appearance of Goldberg and McCann as prospective guests on a supposed short holiday, flat out denies that it is a boarding house: "This is a ridiculous house to pick on...Because it's not a boarding house. It never was." (53)


title: The Birthday Party (play)

text: McCann claims to have no knowledge of Stanley or Maidenhead when Stanley asks him "Ever been anywhere near Maidenhead?...There's a Fuller's teashop. I used to have my tea there...and a Boots Library. I seem to connect you with the High Street...A charming town, don't you think?...A quiet, thriving community. I was born and brought up there. I lived well away from the main road" (51); yet Goldberg later names both businesses that Stanley used to frequent connecting Goldberg and possibly also McCann to Maidenhead: "A little Austin, tea in Fuller's a library book from Boots, and I'm satisfied" (70). Of course, both Stanley and Goldberg could just be inventing these apparent reminiscences as they both appear to have invented other details about their lives earlier, and here Goldberg could conveniently be lifting details from Stanley's earlier own mention of them, which he has heard; as Merritt observes, the factual basis for such apparent correspondences in the dialogue uttered by Pinter's characters remains ambiguous and subject to multiple interpretations.


title: The Birthday Party (play)

text: Shifting identities (cf. "the theme of identity") makes the past ambiguous: Goldberg is called "Nat," but in his stories of the past he says that he was called "Simey" (73) and also "Benny" (92), and he refers to McCann as both "Dermot" (in talking to Petey [87]) and "Seamus" (in talking to McCann [93]). Given such contradictions, these characters' actual names and thus identities remain unclear. According to John Russell Brown (94), "Falsehoods are important for Pinter's dialogue, not least when they can be detected only by careful reference from one scene to another...Some of the more blatant lies are so casually delivered that the audience is encouraged to look for more than is going to be disclosed. This is a part of Pinter's two-pronged tactic of awakening the audience's desire for verification and repeatedly disappointing this desire" (Brown 94).


title: The Birthday Party (play)

text: Although Stanley, just before the lights go out during the birthday party, begins to strangle Meg (78), she has no memory of that the next morning, quite possibly because she had drunk too much (71–74); oblivious to the fact that Goldberg and McCann have removed Stanley from the house – Petey keeps that information from her when she inquires, "Is he still in bed?" by answering "Yes, he's...still asleep"––she ends the play focusing on herself and romanticising her role in the party, "I was the belle of the ball...I know I was” (102). For some, Petey’s final reply only makes dramatic sense if the framework of the whole play is in Meg’s mind, that her invention of Stan was necessary in an empty marriage, and what the audience has seen was a tragic possibility - no doubt to be followed by another narrative when her Stan arrives.


title: The Birthday Party (play)

text: While on tour with L. du Garde's "A Horse! A Horse!", Pinter found himself in Eastbourne without a place to stay. He met a stranger in a pub who said "I can take you to some digs but I wouldn't recommend them exactly," and then led Pinter to the house where he stayed. Pinter told his official biographer Michael Billington, I went to these digs and found, in short, a very big woman who was the landlady and a little man, the landlord. There was no one else there, apart from a solitary lodger, and the digs were really quite filthy...I slept in the attic with this man I'd met in the pub...we shared the attic and there was a sofa over my bed...propped up so I was looking at this sofa from which hairs and dust fell continuously. And I said to the man, "What are you doing here?" And he said, "Oh well I used to be...I'm a pianist. I used to play in the concert-party here and I gave that up."...The woman was really quite a voracious character, always tousled his head and tickled him and goosed him and wouldn't leave him alone at all. And when I asked him why he stayed, he said, "There's nowhere else to go."


title: The Birthday Party (play)

text: According to Billington, "The lonely lodger, the ravenous landlady, the quiescent husband: these figures, eventually to become Stanley, Meg, and Petey, sound like figures in a Donald McGill seaside postcard" ("Harold Pinter" 76).


title: The Birthday Party (play)

text: Goldberg and McCann "represent not only the West's most autocratic religions, but its two most persecuted races" (Billington, "Harold Pinter" 80).


title: The Birthday Party (play)

text: Goldberg goes by many names, sometimes Nat, but when talking about his past he mentions that he was called by the names "Simey" and also "Benny". He seems to idolise his Uncle Barney as he mentions him many times during the play. Goldberg is portrayed as a Jewish man which is reinforced by his typically Jewish name and his appropriate use of Yiddish words.


title: The Birthday Party (play)

text: McCann is an unfrocked priest and has two names. Petey refers to him as Dermot but Goldberg calls him Seamus. The sarcasm in the following exchange evokes some distance in their relationship:


title: The Birthday Party (play)

text: Stanley Webber — "a palpably Jewish name, incidentally — is a man who shores up his precarious sense of self through fantasy, bluff, violence and his own manipulative form of power-play. His treatment of Meg initially is rough, playful, teasing...but once she makes the fateful, mood-changing revelation —'I've got to get things ready for the two gentlemen'—he's as dangerous as a cornered animal" (Billington, "Harold Pinter" 78).


title: The Birthday Party (play)

text: Lulu is a woman in her twenties whom Stanley "tries vainly to rape" (Billington, "Harold Pinter" 112) during the titular birthday party at the end of Act II.


title: The Birthday Party (play)

text: According to Pinter's official biographer, Michael Billington, in "Harold Pinter", echoing Pinter's own retrospective view of it, "The Birthday Party" is "a deeply political play about the individual's imperative need for resistance," yet, according to Billington, though he "doubts whether this was conscious on Pinter's part," it is also "a private, obsessive work about time past; about some vanished world, either real or idealised, into which all but one of the characters readily escapes..From the very outset, the defining quality of a Pinter play is not so much fear and menace –– though they are undoubtedly present –– as a yearning for some lost Eden as a refuge from the uncertain, miasmic present" (82).


title: The Birthday Party (play)

text: As quoted by Arnold P. Hinchliffe, Polish critic Grzegorz Sinko points out that in "The Birthday Party" "we see the destruction of the victim from the victim's own point of view:


title: The Birthday Party (play)

text: "One feels like saying that the two executioners, Goldberg and McCann, stand for all the principles of the state and social conformism. Goldberg refers to his 'job' in a typically Kafka-esque official language which deprives the crimes of all sense and reality"...[Of Stanley's removal, Sinko adds:] "Maybe Stanley will meet his death there or maybe he will only receive a conformist brainwashing after which he is promised...many other gifts of civilization..."


title: The Birthday Party (play)

text: In an interview with Mel Gussow, which is about the 1988 Classic Stage Company production of "The Birthday Party", later paired with "Mountain Language" in a 1989 CSC production, in both of which David Strathairn played Stanley, Gussow asked Pinter: ""The Birthday Party" has the same story as "One for the Road"?"


title: The Birthday Party (play)

text: In the original interview first published in "The New York Times" on 30 December 1988, Gussow quotes Pinter as stating: "The character of the old man, Petey, says one of the most important lines I've ever written. As Stanley is taken away, Petey says, 'Stan, don't let them tell you what to do.' I've lived that line all my damn life. Never more than now."


title: The Birthday Party (play)

text: In responding to Gussow's question, Pinter refers to all three plays when he replies: "It's the destruction of an individual, the independent voice of an individual. I believe that is precisely what the United States is doing to Nicaragua. It's a horrifying act. If you see child abuse, you recognize it and you're horrified. If you do it yourself, you apparently don't know what you're doing."


title: The Birthday Party (play)

text: As Bob Bows observes in his review of the 2008 Germinal Stage Denver production, whereas at first " 'The Birthday Party' appears to be a straightforward story of a former working pianist now holed up in a decrepit boarding house," in this play as in his other plays, "behind the surface symbolism...in the silence between the characters and their words, Pinter opens the door to another world, cogent and familiar: the part we hide from ourselves"; ultimately, "Whether we take Goldberg and McCann to be the devil and his agent or simply their earthly emissaries, the puppeteers of the church-state apparatus, or some variation thereof, Pinter's metaphor of a bizarre party bookended by birth and death is a compelling take on this blink-of-an-eye we call life."


title: The Birthday Party (play)

text: Classic Stage Company (CSC Repertory Theatre), New York City, directed by Carey Perloff; first production from 12 April to 22 May 1988; second production in a double bill with the American première of "Mountain Language", from 31 October to 23 December 1989).


title: The Birthday Party (play)

text: American Repertory Theater (ART), Loeb Drama Center, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, directed by Joanne Akalaitis, from 6 to 27 March 2004.


title: The Birthday Party (play)

text: Northwest High School Theatre Department, Vernon Solomon Performing Arts Center, Northwest High School, Ft. Worth, Texas, directed by Alva Hascall, fall 2005


title: The Birthday Party (play)

text: Lyric Hammersmith, London, UK, directed by David Farr, from 8 May to 24 May 2008 (Lee); "Cast include[d]: Sian Brooke; Sheila Hancock; Lloyd Hutchinson; Justin Salinger; Alan Williams; Nicholas Woodeson" (revival website).


title: The Birthday Party (play)

text: "L'Anniversaire" ("The Birthday Party"), adapted and directed by Michel Fagadau, at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Paris, through 26 March 2009.


title: The Birthday Party (play)

text: Kansas City Actors Theatre (KCAT) presents "The Birthday Party," directed by Bruce Roach, in repertory with three Pinter one-acts, "The Collection," "The Lover" and "Night," 16 Aug. – 11 September 2011.


title: The Birthday Party (play)

text: Teatro La Plaza, Lima, Perú, presents "La fiesta de cumpleaños"(The Birthday Party) directed by Chela de Ferrari


title: The Birthday Party (play)

text: Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Chicago directed by Austin Pendleton 24 January – 28 April 2013. The cast included Ian Barford as Stanley, John Mahoney as Petey, and Moira Harris as Meg.


title: The Birthday Party (play)

text: The play was revived by Ian Rickson at the Harold Pinter Theatre, London starring Toby Jones (who reprised the role of Stanley after his 2016 performance for BBC Radio 3), Stephen Mangan, Zoe Wanamaker and Pearl Mackie, 9 January - 14 April 2018.


title: Guy Henry (actor)

text: Guy Henry (born 17 October 1960) is an English actor whose roles include Henrik Hanssen in "Holby City", Pius Thicknesse in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1" and "Part 2", Gaius Cassius Longinus in "Rome" and Grand Moff Tarkin in "Rogue One".


title: Guy Henry (actor)

text: Henry was born on 17 October 1960 in London. He attended Homefield School and then Brockenhurst College in Hampshire where he took A levels. He trained at RADA (1979–81). In 1982, he took the title role in ITV's "" series, playing Holmes as a teenager (though Henry was by then nearly 22).


title: Guy Henry (actor)

text: In February 2015, Henry was announced as a public supporter of Chapel Lane Theatre Company based in Stratford-Upon-Avon.


title: Guy Henry (actor)

text: Henry first appeared on stage as a footman in amateur dramatic society Highcliffe Charity Players' production of Cinderella at age 11. He is now the president of HCP and continues to support their productions.


title: Guy Henry (actor)

text: He has also worked with Cheek by Jowl, Theatre Set Up and the National Theatre (including Turgenev in Tom Stoppard's "The Coast of Utopia" in 2002).