title: Afsharid Iran

text: As Nader moved into the Mughal territories, he was accompanied by his loyal Georgian subject and future king of eastern Georgia, Erekle II, who led a Georgian contingent as a military commander as part of Nader's force. Following the defeat of Mughal forces priorly, he then advanced deeper into India, crossing the river Indus before the end of year. The news of the Persian army's swift and decisive successes against the northern vassal states of the Mughal empire caused much consternation in Delhi, prompting the Mughal ruler, Muhammad Shah, to summon an overwhelming force of some 300,000 men and march this massive host north towards the Persian army.


title: Afsharid Iran

text: Nader Shah crushed the Mughal army in less than three hours at the large Battle of Karnal on 13 February 1739. After this decisive victory, Nader captured Mohammad Shah and entered with him into Delhi. When a rumour broke out that Nader had been assassinated, some of the Indians attacked and killed Persian troops. Nader, furious, reacted by ordering his soldiers to plunder and sack the city. During the course of one day (March 22) 20,000 to 30,000 Indians were killed by the Persian troops, forcing Mohammad Shah to beg Nader for mercy.


title: Afsharid Iran

text: In response, Nader Shah agreed to withdraw, but Mohammad Shah paid the consequence in handing over the keys of his royal treasury, and losing even the Peacock Throne to the Persian emperor. The Peacock Throne thereafter served as a symbol of Persian imperial might. It is estimated that Nadir took away with him treasures worth as much as seven hundred million rupees. Among a trove of other fabulous jewels, Nader also gained the Koh-i-Noor and Darya-ye Noor diamonds (Koh-e-Noor means "Mountain of Light" in Persian, Darya-ye Noor means "Sea of Light").


title: Afsharid Iran

text: The Persian troops left Delhi at the beginning of May 1739, but before they left, he ceded back to Muhammad Shah all territories to the east of the Indus that he had overrun. Nader's soldiers also took with them thousands of elephants, horses and camels, loaded with the booty they had collected. On his return march, the Sikhs came out from the hills and ambushed Nader Shah's troops, taking some of the loot and captives with them. However, the remaining plunder seized from India was so valuable that Nader stopped taxation in Iran for a period of three years following his return. Nader attacked the empire to, perhaps, give his country some breathing space after previous turmoils. His successful campaign and replenishment of funds meant that he could continue his wars against Iran's archrival and neighbour, the Ottoman Empire.


title: Afsharid Iran

text: The Indian campaign was the zenith of Nader's career. After his return from India, Nader fell out with his eldest son Reza Qoli Mirza, who had ruled Persia during his father's absence. Reza had behaved highhandedly and somewhat cruelly but he had kept the peace in Persia. Having heard a rumour that Nader was dead, he had prepared to seize the throne by having the Safavid royal captives, Tahmasp and his nine-year-old son Abbas III, executed. On hearing the news, Reza's wife, who was Tahmasp's sister, committed suicide. Nader was not pleased with the young man's behaviour and humiliated him by removing him from the post of viceroy, but he took him on his expedition to conquer territory in Transoxiana. Nader became increasingly despotic as his health declined markedly. In 1740 he conquered Khanate of Khiva. After the Persians had forced the Uzbek khanate of Bukhara to submit, Nader wanted Reza to marry the khan's elder daughter because she was a descendant of his role model Genghis Khan, but Reza flatly refused and Nader married the girl himself. Nader also conquered Khwarezm on this expedition into Central Asia.


title: Afsharid Iran

text: Nader now decided to punish Daghestan for the death of his brother Ebrahim Qoli on a campaign a few years earlier. In 1741, while Nader was passing through the forest of Mazandaran on his way to fight the Daghestanis, an assassin took a shot at him but Nader was only lightly wounded. He began to suspect his son was behind the attempt and confined him to Tehran. Nader's increasing ill health made his temper ever worse. Perhaps it was his illness that made Nader lose the initiative in his war against the Lezgin tribes of Daghestan. Frustratingly for him, they resorted to guerrilla warfare and the Persians could make little headway against them. Though Nader managed to take most of Dagestan during his campaign, the effective guerrilla warfare as deployed by the Lezgins, but also the Avars and Laks made the Iranian re-conquest of this particular North Caucasian region this time a short lived one; several years later, Nader was forced to withdraw. During the same period, Nader accused his son of being behind the assassination attempt in Mazandaran. Reza angrily protested his innocence, but Nader had him blinded as punishment, although he immediately regretted it. Soon afterwards, Nader started executing the nobles who had witnessed his son's blinding. In his last years, Nader became increasingly paranoid, ordering the assassination of large numbers of suspected enemies.


title: Afsharid Iran

text: With the wealth he gained, Nader started to build a Persian navy. With lumber from Mazandaran and Gilan, he built ships in Bushehr and order to build new artillery in Amol. He also purchased thirty ships in India. He recaptured the island of Bahrain from the Arabs. In 1743, he conquered Oman and its main capital Muscat. In 1743, Nader started another war against the Ottoman Empire. Despite having a huge army at his disposal, in this campaign Nader showed little of his former military brilliance. It ended in 1746 with the signing of a peace treaty, in which the Ottomans agreed to let Nader occupy Najaf.


title: Afsharid Iran

text: The military forces of the Afsharid dynasty of Persia had their origins in the relatively obscure yet bloody inter-factional violence in Khorasan during the collapse of the Safavid state. The small band of warriors under local warlord Nader Qoli of the Turkomen Afshar tribe in north-east Iran were no more than a few hundred men. Yet at the height of Nader's power as the king of kings, Shahanshah, he commanded an army of 375,000 fighting men which constituted the single most powerful military force of its time, led by one of the most talented and successful military leaders of history.


title: Afsharid Iran

text: After the assassination of Nader Shah at the hands of a faction of his officers in 1747, Nader's powerful army fractured as the Afsharid state collapsed and the country plunged into decades of civil war. Although there were numerous Afsharid pretenders to the throne, (amongst many other), who attempted to regain control of the entire country, Persia remained a fractured political entity in turmoil until the campaigns of Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar toward the very end of the eighteenth century reunified the nation.


title: Afsharid Iran

text: After Nader's death in 1747, his nephew Ali Qoli (who may have been involved in the assassination plot) seized the throne and proclaimed himself Adel Shah ("The Just King"). He ordered the execution of all Nader's sons and grandsons, with the exception of the 13-year-old Shahrokh, the son of Reza Qoli. Meanwhile, Nadir's former treasurer, Ahmad Shah Abdali, had declared his independence by founding the Durrani Empire. In the process, the eastern territories were lost and in the following decades became part of Afghanistan, the successor-state to the Durrani Empire. The northern territories, Iran's most integral regions, had a different fate. Erekle II and Teimuraz II, who, in 1744, had been made the kings of Kakheti and Kartli respectively by Nader himself for their loyal service, capitalized on the eruption of instability and declared "de facto" independence. Erekle II assumed control over Kartli after Teimuraz II's death, thus unifying the two as the Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti, becoming the first Georgian ruler in three centuries to preside over a politically unified eastern Georgia, and due to the frantic turn of events in mainland Iran he would be able to remain "de facto" autonomous through the Zand period. Under the successive Qajar dynasty, Iran managed to restore Iranian suzerainty over the Georgian regions, until they would be irrevocably lost in the course of the 19th century, to neighbouring Imperial Russia. Many of the rest of the territories in the Caucasus, comprising modern-day Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Dagestan broke away into various khanates. Until the advent of the Zands and Qajars, its rulers had various forms of autonomy, but stayed vassals and subjects to the Iranian king. Under the early Qajars, these territories in Transcaucasia and Dagestan would all be fully reincorporated into Iran, but eventually permanently lost as well (alongside Georgia), in the course of the 19th century to Imperial Russia through the two Russo-Persian Wars of the 19th century.


title: Afsharid Iran

text: Adil made the mistake of sending his brother Ebrahim to secure the capital Isfahan. Ebrahim decided to set himself up as a rival, defeated Adil in battle, blinded him and took the throne. Adil had reigned for less than a year. Meanwhile, a group of army officers freed Shahrokh from prison in Mashhad and proclaimed him shah in October 1748. Ebrahim was defeated and died in captivity in 1750 and Adil was also put to death at the request of Nader Shah's widow. Shahrokh was briefly deposed in favour of another puppet ruler Soleyman II but, although blinded, Shahrokh was restored to the throne by his supporters. He reigned in Mashhad and from the 1750s his territory was mostly confined to the city and its environs. In 1796 Mohammad Khan Qajar, the founder of the Qajar dynasty, seized Mashhad and tortured Shahrokh to force him to reveal the whereabouts of Nader Shah's treasures. Shahrokh died of his injuries soon after and with him the Afsharid dynasty came to an end. One of Shahrokh's sons, Nader Mirza, revolted in 1797 upon the death of Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar but the revolt was crushed and he was executed in April 1803. Shahrokh's descendants continue into the 21st century under the Afshar Naderi surname.


title: Afsharid Iran

text: The Safavids had introduced Shi'a Islam as the state religion of Iran. Nader was probably brought up as a Shi'a but later espoused the Sunni faith as he gained power and began to push into the Ottoman Empire. He believed that Safavid Shi'ism had intensified the conflict with the Sunni Ottoman Empire. His army was a mix of Shi'a and Sunni (with a notable minority of Christians) and included his own Qizilbash as well as Uzbeks, Afghans, Christian Georgians and Armenians, and others. He wanted Persia to adopt a form of religion that would be more acceptable to Sunnis and suggested that Persia adopt a form of Shi'ism he called "Ja'fari", in honour of the sixth Shi'a imam Ja'far al-Sadiq. He banned certain Shi'a practices which were particularly offensive to Sunnis, such as the cursing of the first three caliphs. Personally, Nader is said to have been indifferent toward religion and the French Jesuit who served as his personal physician reported that it was difficult to know which religion he followed and that many who knew him best said that he had none. Nader hoped that "Ja'farism" would be accepted as a fifth school ("mazhab") of Sunni Islam and that the Ottomans would allow its adherents to go on the hajj, or pilgrimage, to Mecca, which was within their territory. In the subsequent peace negotiations, the Ottomans refused to acknowledge Ja'farism as a fifth "mazhab" but they did allow Persian pilgrims to go on the "hajj". Nader was interested in gaining rights for Persians to go on the "hajj" in part because of revenues from the pilgrimage trade. Nader's other primary aim in his religious reforms was to weaken the Safavids further since Shi'a Islam had always been a major element in support for the dynasty. He had the chief mullah of Persia strangled after he was heard expressing support for the Safavids. Among his reforms was the introduction of what came to be known as the "kolah-e Naderi". This was a hat with four peaks which symbolised the first four caliphs.


title: Afsharid Iran

text: Nader Shah consciously avoided the using the colour green, as green was associated with Shia Islam and the Safavid dynasty.


title: Afsharid Iran

text: The two imperial standards were placed on the right of the square already mentioned: one of them was in stripes of red, blue, and white, and the other of red, blue, white, and yellow, without any other ornament: though the old standards required 12 men to move them, the SHAH lengthened their staffs, and made them yet heavier; he also put new colours of silk upon them, the one red and yellow striped, the other yellow edged with red: they were made of such an enormous size, to prevent their being carried off by the enemy, except by an entire defeat. The regimental colours were a narrow slip of silk, sloped to a point, some were red, some white, and some striped.


title: Afsharid Iran

text: Although based on the writings of Jonas Hanway, we can see that the flags of the army regiments of King Nader were three-eared, but we cannot come to a conclusion about whether the royal flags of that time were three-eared or four-eared.


title: Mujaddid

text: A mujaddid (), is an Islamic term for one who brings "renewal" () to the religion. According to the popular Muslim tradition, it refers to a person who appears at the turn of every century of the Islamic calendar to revive Islam, cleansing it of extraneous elements and restoring it to its pristine purity. In contemporary times, a mujaddid is looked upon as the greatest Muslim of a century.


title: Mujaddid

text: The concept is based on a "hadith" (a saying of Islamic prophet Muhammad), recorded by Abu Dawood, narrated by Abu Hurairah who mentioned that Muhammad said:


title: Mujaddid

text: Ikhtilaf (disagreements) exist among different hadith viewers. Scholars such as Al-Dhahabi and Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani have interpreted that the term mujaddid can also be understood as plural, thus referring to a group of people.


title: Mujaddid

text: While there is no formal mechanism for designating a "mujaddid" in Sunni Islam, there is often a popular consensus. The Shia and Ahmadiyya have their own list of mujaddids.


title: Grünfeld Defence

text: Black offers White the possibility of 4.cxd5, which may be followed by 4...Nxd5 and 5.e4, giving White an imposing central pawn duo. If White does not take the d5-pawn, Black may eventually play ...dxc4, when a White response of e4 again leads to the same pawn structure. In classical opening theory this imposing pawn centre was held to give White a large advantage, but the hypermodern school, which was coming to the fore in the 1920s, held that a large pawn centre could be a liability rather than an asset. The Grünfeld is therefore a key hypermodern opening, showing in stark terms how a large pawn centre can either be a powerful battering ram or a target for attack.


title: Grünfeld Defence

text: The first instance of this opening is in an 1855 game by Moheschunder Bannerjee, an Indian player who had transitioned from Indian chess rules, playing Black against John Cochrane in Calcutta, in May 1855:


title: Grünfeld Defence

text: and White mates in three (19.Nh6+ double check Kh8 20.Qg8+ Rxg8 21.Nf7). Cochrane published a book reporting his games with Moheshchunder and other Indians in 1864.


title: Grünfeld Defence

text: It gained popularity after Ernst Grünfeld introduced it into international play at Vienna 1922, where, in his first game with the defense, he defeated future world champion Alexander Alekhine. Grünfeld usually employed a very classical style. The defence was later adopted by a number of prominent players, including Vasily Smyslov, Viktor Korchnoi, Leonid Stein, and Bobby Fischer. Garry Kasparov often used the defence, including in his World Championship matches against Anatoly Karpov in 1986, 1987 and 1990, and Vladimir Kramnik in 2000. Currently active notable players who employ the opening include Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Loek van Wely, Peter Svidler, Peter Leko, Viswanathan Anand, Luke McShane, Ian Nepomniachtchi and Gata Kamsky. Anand employed it twice in the World Chess Championship 2010. In the World Chess Championship 2012 between Anand and Boris Gelfand, each player used the Grünfeld once with both games ending in draws. Anand faced the Grünfeld against Magnus Carlsen during the first game of the World Chess Championship 2014 and drew in a Rook and Queen ending.


title: Grünfeld Defence

text: The Game of the Century between Donald Byrne and 13-year-old Bobby Fischer on October 17, 1956, featured this opening, although arriving in the Grünfeld via a transposition of moves (using 1.Nf3 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.d4 0-0 5.Bf4 d5).


title: Grünfeld Defence

text: The main line of the Grünfeld, the Exchange Variation ("ECO" codes D85–D89), is defined by the continuation 4. cxd5 Nxd5 5. e4. Now White has an imposing looking centre – and the main continuation 5... Nxc3 6. bxc3 strengthens it still further. Black generally attacks White's centre with ...c5 and ...Bg7, often followed by moves such as ...Qa5, ...cxd4, ...Bg4, and ...Nc6. White often uses their big centre to launch an attack against Black's king. One subvariation, frequently played by Karpov, including four games of his 1987 world championship match against Kasparov in Seville, Spain, is the Seville Variation, after 6...Bg7 7.Bc4 c5 8.Ne2 Nc6 9.Be3 0-0 10.0-0 Bg4 11.f3 Na5 12.Bxf7+, long thought a poor move by theory, as the resultant dark-square weakness had been believed to give Black more than enough compensation for the pawn.


title: Grünfeld Defence

text: White can develop their pieces in a number of ways in the Exchange Variation. For decades, theory held that the correct method of development was with Bc4 and Ne2, often followed by 0-0 and f4–f5, playing for a central breakthrough or kingside attack. It was generally thought that an early Nf3 was weak in the Exchange Variation because it allowed Black too much pressure on the centre with ...Bg4. In the late 1970s, however, Karpov, Kasparov and others found different methods to play the Exchange Variation with White, often involving an early Rb1 to remove the rook from the sensitive a1–h8 diagonal, as well as attempting to hinder the development of Black's queenside. Another, relatively recently developed system involves quickly playing Be3, Qd2, and Rc1 or Rd1 to fortify White's centre, remove White's rook from the diagonal, and possibly enable an early d5 push by White.


title: Grünfeld Defence

text: Vladimir Kramnik and Boris Gelfand are the leading practitioners as White, and Ľubomír Ftáčnik has had many fine results with the black pieces.


title: Grünfeld Defence

text: In bringing more pressure to bear against Black's central outpost on d5, White practically forces ...dxc4, thus gaining a central preponderance; however, in return, their queen will often be exposed as Black's queenside play unfolds in the middlegame. After 5... dxc4 6. Qxc4 0-0 7. e4, Black has several primary options:


title: Grünfeld Defence

text: 7...Na6 (Lodewijk Prins') idea, which Kasparov favoured in several of his World Championship matches against Karpov.


title: Grünfeld Defence

text: In this line, favoured by Yasser Seirawan, after the nearly universal 5...Ne4, White plays 6.Bh4 or 6.cxd5, with Black then opting for either 6...Nxc3 7.bxc3 dxc4 or 6...Nxg5 7.Nxg5 e6. In the latter case, 7...c6 is sometimes tried. 6.Nxd5 grabbing the pawn loses a piece after 6...Nxg5 7.Nxg5 e6. After 6.cxd5 Nxg5 7.Nxg5 e6, White has 8.Qd2 exd5 9.Qe3+, with attacking chances (though the interpolation 8...h6 9.Nf3 exd5 is a significant alternative), or the more usual 8.Nf3 exd5 after which play generally proceeds on lines analogous to the Queen's Gambit Declined, Exchange Variation, with a queenside minority attack by White (b2–b4–b5xc6), as Black aims for their traditional kingside play with ...f7–f5–f4 and, in this case, ...g6–g5.


title: Grünfeld Defence

text: For players who do not wish to take on the complexities of the Exchange Variation, the move 4. Bf4 is generally considered a safer continuation for White. White opts for the initiative on the queenside with a smaller pawn centre. In the main line (D82), play proceeds with 4...Bg7 5.e3 c5 6.dxc5 Qa5, with White's choices at their seventh move being cxd5, Qb3, Qa4, or Rc1. Despite its reputation, in statistical databases this variation shows only a slightly higher percentage of White wins and draws, as opposed to the Exchange variation. The variation is not often met in top-flight play today, its usage having declined significantly since its heyday in the 1930s.


title: Grünfeld Defence

text: In this variation, play may also continue 4.Bf4 Bg7 5.e3 0-0, which is known as the Grünfeld Gambit ("ECO" code D83). White can accept the gambit by playing 6.cxd5 Nxd5 7.Nxd5 Qxd5 8.Bxc7, or decline it with 6.Qb3 or 6.Rc1, to which Black responds with 6...c5.


title: Grünfeld Defence

text: Systems in which White delays the development of his queen's knight to c3 are known as the Neo-Grünfeld Defence ("ECO" code D70–D79); typical move orders are 1.d4 Nf6 2.g3 g6 3.c4 d5 or, more commonly, 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. g3 d5 (the latter is known as the "Kemeri Variation", shown in the diagram).


title: Grünfeld Defence

text: Smyslov vs. Fischer, Herceg Novi Blitz Tournament, 1970: 1.c4 g6 2.g3 Bg7 3.Bg2 Nf6 4.Nf3 0-0 5.0-0 c6 6.d4 d5 7.cxd5 cxd5 8.Nc3 Ne4 9.Qb3 Nc6 10.Be3 Na5 11.Qd1 Nxc3 12.bxc3 b6 13.Ne5 Ba6 14.Re1 Rc8 15.Bd2 e6 16.e4 Bb7 17.exd5 Bxd5 18.Bxd5 Qxd5 19.Qe2 Rfd8 20.Ng4 Nc4 21.Bh6 f5 22.Bxg7 Kxg7 23.Ne3 Nxe3 24.Qxe3 Rc6 25.Rac1 Rdc8 26.c4 Rxc4 27.Rxc4 Rxc4 28.Qxe6 Qxe6 29.Rxe6 Kf7 30.Re3 Rxd4 31.Ra3 a5 32.Rc3 Ke6 33.Kg2 Kd6 34.h4 Ra4 35.Rc2 b5 36.Kf3 b4 37.Ke3 Kd5 38.f3 Ra3+ 39.Kf4 a4 40.g4 fxg4 41.fxg4 b3 42.axb3 axb3 43.Rc7 Ra4+ 44.Kg5 Rb4 45.Rc1 Kd4 46.Kh6 Rb7


title: Anna Belknap

text: Anna C. Belknap is an American actress. She is known for her role as Detective Lindsay Monroe Messer on "".


title: Anna Belknap

text: Belknap was born in Damariscotta, Maine. She is a daughter of David and Louise Belknap. She attended Lincoln Academy in Newcastle, Maine. While attending Middlebury College in Vermont, she gained an interest in acting. She then studied at the American Conservatory Theater, earning a Master of Fine Arts degree.


title: Anna Belknap

text: Belknap's television credits include series regular roles in "Medical Investigation" and "The Handler", a recurring role in "Deadline", and guest-starring roles in "Law & Order", "", and "Without a Trace".


title: Anna Belknap

text: Belknap appeared in the movie "Alchemy" and made her feature film debut in the independent film "The Reality Trap".


title: Anna Belknap

text: Belknap joined the cast of the long-running crime drama "" as Detective Lindsay Monroe in 2005 during the season two's episode, .


title: Anna Belknap

text: Her stage credits include the Off-Broadway production of "Metamorphoses" at New York's Second Stage Theatre, as well as roles at the Mark Taper Forum, the Old Globe Theatre, the Westport Country Playhouse, and the Williamstown Theatre Festival.


title: Anna Belknap

text: In 2004, Belknap married Eric Siegel, a colleague from the Rude Mechanicals Theater Company in New York. They have two children: Olive and George.


title: Anna Belknap

text: During filming for the show "CSI: NY", an episode describes her being bitten by a cobra. This event was used to reduce her screen time during her first pregnancy (which, unlike her second one, was not written into the show). She also left to go home to Montana in an episode to testify in a trial to cut her screen time. Her second pregnancy was written into several episodes of season five, where her character has a daughter with husband Danny Messer.


title: Anna Belknap

text: Belknap was the recipient of the 2002 San Diego Theater Critics Circle's Craig Noel Award for Outstanding Performance as Marina in the Old Globe Theatre's production of "Pericles" by William Shakespeare.


title: 1984–85 NBA season

text: The 1984–85 NBA season was the 39th season of the National Basketball Association. The season ended with the Los Angeles Lakers winning the NBA Championship, beating the Boston Celtics 4 games to 2 in the NBA Finals.


title: 1984–85 NBA season

text: Teams in bold advanced to the next round. The numbers to the left of each team indicate the team's seeding in its conference, and the numbers to the right indicate the number of games the team won in that round. The division champions are marked by an asterisk. Home court advantage does not necessarily belong to the higher-seeded team, but instead the team with the better regular season record; teams enjoying the home advantage are shown in italics.


title: Laaga Chunari Mein Daag

text: Laaga Chunari Mein Daag – Journey Of A Woman () is a 2007 Indian Hindi-language drama film directed by Pradeep Sarkar and starring Jaya Bachchan, Rani Mukherji, Konkona Sen Sharma, Anupam Kher, Kunal Kapoor and Abhishek Bachchan. Produced by Aditya Chopra, it premiered on 12 October 2007. The film was the first directed by Sarkar under the Yash Raj Films banner.


title: Laaga Chunari Mein Daag

text: Vibhavari "Badki" Sahay and Shubhavari "Chutki" Sahay, are the daughters of Shivshankar Sahay and Savitri Sahay. They live on the banks of the Ganges in Banaras. Life is full of happiness and joy for the two sisters although the family is poor and their house badly needs repairs. Savitri struggles to financially support the family by sewing clothes, and Badki left school before completing 12th standard in order to help Savitri earn more. Both Savitri and Badki are determined to ensure that Chutki completes her education, while Shivshankar spends his days buying lottery tickets and voicing his resentment that Badki was not born a son.


title: Laaga Chunari Mein Daag

text: When Shivshankar falls ill and greedy relatives threaten to sue the family for their house, Badki goes to Mumbai to find work, but she is continuously rejected due to her lack of education and qualifications. She begs her friend Karan to introduce her to his sleazy middle-aged boss, Gupta. Married yet lonely, he offers her a lucrative job on the condition that she physically please him, with sex. She returns to her residence to find out the land lady has evicted her without notice. Homeless and lonely, a desperate Badki contacts Gupta and meets him in a posh hotel room, where they have sex. She feels she has secured her job, only for Gupta to reveal that he had manipulated her for sex; he refuses her the job and throws money at her, offering her a job as his personal escort, leaving her anguished. Feeling defeated and out of options, Badki becomes an escort, taking only wealthy men as clients. Coached by Karan's friend Michelle, Badki learns how to speak English and how to dress modernly and goes by the name "Natasha." Badki lies to her father and Chutki that she found work as an event planner and sends money for Shivshankar's medicines, house repairs, and a family lawyer. Although Savitri knows the truth and is pained by it, she does not dissuade Badki for fear of losing the steady flow of money. Through one of her clients, Badki meets and falls in love with attorney Rohan in Zurich but then leaves him fearing that he would be disgusted by her profession.


title: Laaga Chunari Mein Daag

text: Meanwhile, Chutki completes her MBA and comes to live with Badki in Mumbai. She starts working at an agency and begins a relationship with her boss, creative director Vivaan, who soon proposes to her. While wedding preparations begin in Banaras, Savitri calls Chutki to implore her that Badki not attend the celebrations, for fear of Badki's profession being discovered and bringing shame on the family. Chutki then inadvertently discovers Badki's secret, and while initially upset, she apologizes to Badki for their family's selfishness. Chutki fiercely vows to remain by Badki's side and begs Badki to attend her wedding.


title: Laaga Chunari Mein Daag

text: At Chutki's wedding in Banaras, Badki comes face-to-face with Rohan, who is revealed to be Vivaan's older brother. Old feelings resurface between the two, and Rohan asks Badki to marry him. Badki refuses, feeling that Rohan would never accept her if he knew the truth, and informs her mother of his proposal. Savitri is terrified of the possibility of Chutki's wedding being ruined and blames Badki for coming to Banaras. Chutki, however, rebukes her mother for overlooking Badki's sacrifices for the family and urges Badki to finally put herself first, whatever consequences there might be for Chutki's marriage. Shivshankar overhears this conversation and, along with Savitri, realizes what Badki has suffered for the family's sake. Badki divulges her profession to Rohan, who shocks her by revealing that he knew from the moment they were introduced by her client in Zurich. He explains that he deeply admires her character and the sacrifices she made for her family and wants to marry her. Badki accepts, and the two couples marry in a joint wedding ceremony.


title: Laaga Chunari Mein Daag

text: Saif Ali Khan was initially approached for the role of Rohan that went to Abhishek Bachchan, and Vidya Balan had earlier been offered the role that went to Konkona Sen Sharma.


title: Laaga Chunari Mein Daag

text: "Laaga Chunari Mein Daag" was Jaya Bachchan's first film since Nikhil Advani's "Kal Ho Naa Ho" (2003).


title: Laaga Chunari Mein Daag

text: The production of the film gathered some controversy when a lighting crew-member drowned in the Ganges River. During a shooting session in Varanasi, Mukerji's bodyguards aggressively moved media people and fans away from the film set. A political and media storm followed, as various groups insisted that Mukerji should have stopped the security guards. The actress then apologized to the media, though claiming the media were trying to get too close to both her and Sen Sharma. Some scenes involving Mukerji and Bachchan were shot in Bern, Switzerland and Lucerne, Switzerland.


title: Laaga Chunari Mein Daag

text: The film's soundtrack was released on 10 September 2007. Songs such as "Hum To Aise Hain" and "Kachchi Kaliyaan" featured playback singers such as Sunidhi Chauhan, Shreya Ghoshal and KK. The soundtrack received a 3 out of 5 rating on "indiaFm.com".


title: Laaga Chunari Mein Daag

text: "Laaga Chunari Mein Daag" premiered on 12 October 2007 in Mumbai and was released on the same day in North America.


title: Laaga Chunari Mein Daag

text: In an interview with the filmmaker Pradeep Sarkar, said: "It was a tight budget film made with 150 million and already on the first week it has made 250 million gross worldwide. In what way we are saying that it is not doing well?" asked Sarkar. "Admitting that the film did take a slow start in the domestic market, he's hopeful it will grow on audiences in the weeks ahead, much in the same way that his debut film "Parineeta" (2005) did. "


title: Laaga Chunari Mein Daag

text: The film earned ₹17.5 crore in India and ₹3.17 crore in other territories, for a worldwide total of ₹ 20.67 crore.


title: Laaga Chunari Mein Daag

text: In India, the film received a generally negative critical response, with reviewers criticizing the repetitious and obsolete story line. Raja Sen of Rediff.com said the movie "takes us back to a kind of cinema we thought we were done with. Indian cinema threw off the "dupatta" just a little while ago; let's not shackle it back down". Taran Adarsh from "indiaFM" said it "stands on a shaky script and has all chances of slipping". Martin D'Souza of "Glamsham.com" noted, "this is a big letdown" from the director of the well-received "Parineeta" (2005). "Hindustan Times" wrote that, "This one comes out smelling of mothballs, like a wedding dress stored for decades in an attic trunk. Not surprising, since the plot is vintage 1977 from "Aaina", and the award-winning Marathi film "Doghi" (1995)" (made by Sumitra Bhave with Uttara Baokar, Sadashiv Amrapurkar, Sonali Kulkarni and Renuka Daftardar).


title: Laaga Chunari Mein Daag

text: Critical response in the United States was more mixed. Frank Lovece of "Film Journal International" said that the film put "glossy Bollywood confection" in a historical context, calling it a "good old-fashioned, Douglas Sirk-style women's weepie ... so universal you could substitute Joan Crawford for Rani Mukherji and New York City for Mumbai". Maitland McDonagh of "TV Guide" found the film "breaks no new ground but is solidly entertaining" while David Chute of "L.A. Weekly" said, "The movie works so hard to transform its shocking subject into acceptable material for middlebrow melodrama that it never deals with it". Rachel Saltz of the "New York Times" termed the film, "A fascinating blend of musical, melodrama and feminist fairy tale".


title: The Bridge (Sting album)

text: The Bridge is the fifteenth studio album by British singer-songwriter Sting, released on 19 November 2021 through A&M Records. It is his first rock-oriented album in five years, since "57th & 9th" in 2016. Branford Marsalis who played saxophone and clarinet on Sting's first four solo albums, also played on this one.


title: The Bridge (Sting album)

text: Sting wrote the album "in a year of global pandemic, personal loss, separation, disruption, lockdown and extraordinary social and political turmoil".


title: The Bridge (Sting album)

text: Lakshmi Govindrajan Javeri of "Firstpost" wrote "Sting's new release "The Bridge" has a strong pop-rock vibe that defined his Police and early solo years, but some of its best songs have Celtic and jazz influences." Mark Kennedy of the Associated Press wrote ""The Bridge" is a moody and varied collection in an unmoored time, with nods to Scripture, ancient allegories, and malevolent characters. It's a strong album from a singer-songwriter who sees warning signs ahead." Fiona Shepherd of "The Scotsman" wrote "Sting is also in sprightly mood on "The Bridge", whistling along on the blithe single If It's Love, as decent a pop tune as he has produced in some time. This lockdown production nods to his diverse musical tastes, from mellow roots track The Book of Numbers with its plangent bass twang to the slick soaring saxophone (from Branford Marsalis no less) on Harmony Road to the fiddle flourish of Captain Bateman, which is revisited as a jazzy scat bonus track called Captain Bateman’s Basement." John Shand at "The Sydney Morning Herald" says that the album has Sting "bundling up his established interests in pop, R&B, folk and a dash of jazz – which could also be described as treading musical water", and describes Sting as "an artist who still sounds in his prime." Michael Gallucci of Ultimate Classic Rock describes the album as "Sting's least fussy and most satisfying album in years."


title: Devil's Night

text: Devil's Night is a name associated with October 30, the night before Halloween. It is related to the "Mischief Night" practiced in parts of the United States such as Philadelphia but is chiefly associated with the serious vandalism and arson seen in Detroit, Michigan, from the late 1960s to the 1990s, finally prompting the "Angels' Night" community response.


title: Devil's Night

text: Devil's Night made its way to Detroit in the 1930s and 1940s. Traditionally, city youths engaged in a night of mischievous or petty criminal behavior, usually consisting of minor pranks or acts of mild vandalism (such as egging, soaping or waxing windows and doors, leaving rotten vegetables or flaming bags of canine feces on stoops, or toilet papering trees and shrubs) which caused little or no property damage. By the 1970’s, the concept of Devil’s Night as a phenomenon of a night of mischief and vandalism had spread, in a limited way, to cities around the state of Michigan, around the Midwest, and, in some instances, a few other cities around the country.


title: Devil's Night

text: However, in Detroit in the early 1970s, the vandalism escalated to more destructive acts such as arson. This primarily took place in the inner city, but surrounding suburbs were often affected as well.


title: Devil's Night

text: The crimes became more destructive in Detroit's inner-city neighborhoods, and included hundreds of acts of arson and vandalism every year. The destruction was worst in the mid- to late-1980s, with more than 800 fires set in 1984, and a number in the hundreds for each subsequent year until 2011.


title: Devil's Night

text: Devil's Night arson in Detroit had not declined by the early 1990s. After a brutal Devil's Night in 1994, mayor Dennis Archer promised city residents arson would not be tolerated. In 1995, Detroit city officials organized and established Angels' Night on and around October 29–31. Each year as many as 50,000 volunteers gather to patrol neighborhoods in the city. Many volunteers kept a high profile, patrolling neighborhoods with magnetic-mount flashing amber beacons on their personal vehicles, along with communicating with command centers via CB radios or by cellular phones to report any suspicious activity. Incidences of arson and other crimes declined, a success largely attributed to the Angels' Night volunteers. The drop in reported fires for the year 2008 was credited to the Angels' Night program. That same year, 35,000 signed up to volunteer in the city, according to Daniel Cherrin, spokesperson for Detroit Mayor Ken Cockrel, Jr.


title: Devil's Night

text: As a result of the efforts, the number of fires decreased to near-ordinary levels in the first decade of the 21st century. In 2010, the number of reported fires increased to 169, a 42 percent increase compared to the previous year. However, subsequent years saw the totals again decline to the low 90s for the three-day period. This average of about 32 fires per day is somewhat higher than the expected 26 fires per day through the year. 2015 saw the lowest recorded number of fires with only 52 fires recorded and only 24 considered possibly arson.


title: Devil's Night

text: By the end of the 2010s, the destructive elements of Devil's Night in Detroit had largely ceased to exist. In 2018, formal support of Angels' Night was ended with city resources being instead allocated to host neighborhood Halloween parties. Devil's Night 2018 recorded a total of five structure fires, with only four on the night before. Devil's Night 2021 saw the lowest totals in multiple decades, with only three structure fires recorded.


title: Devil's Night

text: In the 2010s, the decline of Devil's Night fires coincided with an increase in similar arson on the nights surrounding the July 4 Independence Day holiday.


title: Happy hardcore

text: Happy hardcore, also known as 4-beat or happycore, is a subgenre of hardcore dance music or "hard dance". It emerged both from the UK breakbeat hardcore rave scene, and Belgian, German and Dutch hardcore techno scenes in the early 1990s.


title: Happy hardcore

text: The breakbeat hardcore rave scene was beginning to fragment by late 1992 into a number of subsequent breakbeat-based genres: darkcore (tracks embracing dark-themed samples and stabs), hardcore jungle (reggae basslines and influences became prominent), and 4-beat also known as "happy hardcore" where piano rolls and uplifting vocals were still central to the sound. DJs such as Slipmatt, DJ Sy, DJ Seduction, Wishdokta, DJ Dougal, and DJ Vibes continued to play and put out music of this nature throughout 1993/4 – notably Slipmatt through the "SMD" releases, Wishdokta as "Naughty Naughty", and Seduction on the "Impact" label.


title: Happy hardcore

text: In mainland Europe, new beat and hardcore techno from Belgium had spread into Germany and the Netherlands, artists such as Paul Elstak, Marc Trauner, Praga Khan, Human Resource, and Frank De Wulf had both an influence on the early 1990s on the UK rave scene.


title: Happy hardcore

text: Happy hardcore as it had become known was starting to gain popularity alongside jungle during 1994 and 1995, often being hosted at major raves such as Dreamscape and Helter Skelter, and other events held at the Sanctuary Music Arena. Parties hosting this music on the south coast of England included Fusion (Portsmouth), Adrenalin (Southampton), and Tazzmania (Hastings).


title: Happy hardcore

text: A huge part of the spread of both jungle and hardcore in these early days was the creation and sale of cassette tape compilation packs by the rave promoters. These would often contain hours of music recorded live at the rave events and would be sold across the country from independent record shops and via mail order, with the music then finding its way into the car stereo's of the ravers and the Walkman's of their younger siblings in the school yards. In London, the pirate radio station Dream FM would become the primary champion of the genre, and later Eruption FM.


title: Happy hardcore

text: The sound was also changing, tracks increasingly losing their breakbeats towards a stomping distorted 909 4/4 kick drum pattern, with more original vocal leads and stab patterns. DJs and producers that began to come through included Hixxy, Breeze, Force & Styles, DJ Sharkey, and DJ DNA, and tracks that started to define the genre included "Heart of Gold, Pretty Green Eyes, Cloudy Daze, Sunshine after the Rain," "Above the Clouds, Discoland, Love of my Life, Techno Wonderland, and Hardcore Fever". Throughout the mid-late 1990s, the compilation series "Bonkers" would be commercially popular and showcase the latest hardcore music. As a side note; Bonkers only really came into being due to the record label React showing interest in Toy Town, and Hixxy and Sharkey blagging a compilation album deal instead.


title: Happy hardcore

text: In the UK, the scene received its own special on BBC Radio 1 called "John Peel Is Not Enough" (named after a track by CLSM) in 2004. The scene continued to expand, with compilations such as "Clubland X-Treme Hardcore", and an ever youthful audience. In 2009, DJ Kutski hosted a show featuring hard dance and hardcore on Radio 1. After a brief decline after 2009, including the closure of labels, DJs such as Kevin Energy and Sharkey announcing their retirements, the rise of digital labels has helped to both re-energise both classic releases as well as new and upcoming artists including Fracus & Darwin.


title: Happy hardcore

text: Elsewhere at this time, this particular sound had found a new worldwide audience in places such as Australia, Ireland, Poland, Russia, United States, Hong Kong and Japan.


title: Marlon Reis

text: Marlon Reis (born July 1, 1981) is an American animal rights advocate, writer, and first gentleman of Colorado as the husband of 43rd governor of Colorado Jared Polis. He became the first same-sex first gentleman in the United States following the inauguration of Polis as governor on January 8, 2019.


title: Marlon Reis

text: Reis was born in Boulder, Colorado, to a Jewish family from the East Coast. He earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder.


title: Marlon Reis

text: Reis became the first gentleman of Colorado on January 8, 2019, following the inauguration of his partner as governor of Colorado. Polis introduced Reis as the "first-first man" on election night. He served as an unofficial adviser to his partner's gubernatorial campaign for governor. As first gentleman, he has focused on animal rights and welfare, environmental and civil rights, and LGBT rights.


title: Marlon Reis

text: In addition to being first gentleman, Reis is a writer and has published his works in "USA Today", CNN, and "The Washington Post".


title: Marlon Reis

text: Reis met future U.S. representative and Colorado governor Jared Polis in 2002 while finishing his education. He and Polis married in September 2021 following an 18-year relationship. He and Polis have two children, born in 2011 and 2014, respectively. He is the son-in-law of poet Susan Polis Schutz and illustrator Stephen Schutz.


title: Hassa bint Salman Al Saud

text: Hassa bint Salman Al Saud (born 1974) is a Saudi royal and academic. She is the daughter of King Salman.


title: Hassa bint Salman Al Saud

text: Princess Hassa is the only daughter of King Salman. Her mother is Sultana bint Turki Al Sudairi who was King Salman's first wife and first cousin. Her full brothers are Prince Fahd, Prince Sultan, Prince Ahmed, Prince Abdulaziz and Prince Faisal. She is the half-sister of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.


title: Hassa bint Salman Al Saud

text: Although she attended King Abdulaziz University (KAU) in Jeddah for a year during her undergraduate studies, she received her bachelor's degree in English language and literature from King Saud University in Riyadh.


title: Hassa bint Salman Al Saud

text: Hassa bint Salman works a lecturer in the faculty of law and political studies at King Saud University. She has been publicly supportive of her father since he came to the throne in 2015. In 2016 the Princess delivered a keynote address at Al Yamamah University lauding the achievements of Saudi women. She participated in the activities of the Saudi human rights commission. In June 2020 Hassa bint Salman was made the honorary chair of the Saudi Social Responsibility Association.


title: Hassa bint Salman Al Saud

text: In 2016 French magazine "Le Point" first reported that Hassa bint Salman ordered her bodyguard Rani Saïdi to beat a craftsman for taking a picture of her. The craftsman was called to the apartment in the west of Paris to see to a broken bathroom fixture. In the course of taking reference photographs of the scene he accidentally took a picture in which the Princess could be seen reflected in a mirror. The Princess took offense to this and ordered her bodyguard to beat the man and then forced him at gunpoint to apologize and kiss her feet, an act the craftsman found to be extremely humiliating. He had formerly worked on a bathroom in an apartment on Avenue Foch owned by King Salman. The craftsman testified that the Princess said "Kill him, the dog, he doesn’t deserve to live.” In 2018 a French Judge ordered the arrest of Hassa bint Salman Al Saud.


title: Hassa bint Salman Al Saud

text: In September 2019 she was convicted in absentia of armed violence for this incident. She received a 10-month suspended prison sentence and a fine of 10,000 euros. Her bodyguard Rani Saïdi was convicted of violence, sequestration, and theft.


title: Hassa bint Salman Al Saud

text: On 28 May 2021 she wed Fahd bin Saad Al Saud at the Royal Sea Place in Jeddah. Prior to that, she was married to her first cousin once removed, Prince Mamdouh bin Abdul Rahman bin Saud bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the grandson of King Saud, a half-uncle of Hassa.


title: Wawel Dragon

text: According to the earliest account (13th century), a dragon (, "one who swallows whole") plagued the capital city of Kraków established by legendary King Krak (or Krakus, Gracchus, etc.). The man-eating monster was being appeased with a weekly ration of cattle, until finally defeated by the king's sons using decoy cows stuffed with sulfur. But the younger prince ("Krak the younger" or "Krak junior") murdered his elder brother to take sole credit, and was banished afterwards. Consequently Princess Wanda had to succeed the kingdom. Later in a 15th-century chronicle, the prince-names were swapped, with the elder as "Krak junior" and the younger as Lech. It also credited the king himself with masterminding the carcasses full of sulfur and other reagents. A yet later chronicler (Marcin Bielski, 1597) credited the stratagem to a cobbler named Skub (Skuba), adding that the "Dragon's Cave" () lay beneath Wawel Castle (on Wawel Hill on the bank of the Vistula River).


title: Wawel Dragon

text: The oldest known telling of the story comes from the 13th-century work attributed to Bishop of Kraków and historian of Poland, Wincenty Kadłubek.


title: Wawel Dragon

text: According to Wincenty Kadłubek's "Polish Chronicle", a dragon appeared during the reign of King Krak (, " ).


title: Wawel Dragon

text: St. Wincenty's original Latin text actually refers to the dragon as holophagus (Polish gloss: ; "one who swallows whole"), which was a neologism he had coined. In Polish translation of the work, the monster is rendered as the "greedily swallowing dragon" ().


title: Wawel Dragon

text: It was a "terrible and cruel beast" dwelling "in the depths [windings/curves] of a certain rock (")" or emended to "a certain cave ()" according to Wincenty.


title: Wawel Dragon

text: The dragon required weekly cattle, or else humans would have been devoured instead. In the hope of killing the dragon, Krak called upon his two sons. They could not, however, defeat the creature by hand, so they came up with a trick. They fed him a cattle skin stuffed with smoldering sulfur, causing his fiery death. After the success, the younger prince (referred to as the "junior Graccus"; var. , i.e. Krak II; ) kills his elder brother blaming the dragon for the death. But his crime was soon revealed, and he got expelled from the country. Afterwards Princess Wanda had to accede the kingship.


title: Wawel Dragon

text: Among later chronicles derived from Wincenty Kadłubek's work, "Chronicle of Greater Poland" (<1296) fails to make mention of the dragon at all, while the (or "Mierzwa Chronicle"; "Kronika Dzierzwy"/"Kronika Mierzwy", 14th century) followed closely after Wincenty. Both these chronicles maintain that Krak, Jr. is the younger prince, and keep the elder brother nameless.


title: Wawel Dragon

text: Jan Długosz's 15th-century chronicle, however, swapped the roles of the princes, claiming that the younger son named Lech was the killer, while the elder son named Krak, Jr. became the victim. The idea for the scheme to slay the dragon ("olophagus") is credited to King Krak himself, not his sons, because the king fears a mass exodus from the city may take place, and he orders to have the carcass stuffed with flammable substances, namely sulfur, tinder (; ), wax, pitch, and tar and set them on fire. The dragon ate the burning meal and died breathing fire just before death. Długosz also adds the detail that the dragon lived in a cave of Mount Wawel upon which King Krak had built his castle. In any case, the fratricide is banished, so their sister Princess Wanda must accede to the throne.


title: Wawel Dragon

text: Later, Marcin Bielski's "Kronika Polska" (1597) gave credit to or Skuba the Cobbler () for designing the plan to defeat the dragon. The story still takes place in Kraków during the reign of King Krak, the city's legendary founder, who is here called "Krok". The dragon required a diet of three calves ("cielęta") or rams ("barany"), something in threes, and would snatch people to sate his hunger. On Skub's advice, King Krok had a calf's skin filled with sulfur, used as bait to the dragon. The dragon was unable to swallow this, and drank water until it died. Afterwards, the shoemaker was rewarded handsomely. Bielski adds, "One can still see his cave under the castle. It is called the Dragon's Cave ("Smocza Jama")".


title: Wawel Dragon

text: The most popular, fairytale version of the Wawel Dragon tale takes place in Kraków during the reign of King Krakus, the city's legendary founder. Each day the evil dragon would beat a path of destruction across the countryside, killing the civilians, pillaging their homes, and devouring their livestock. In many versions of the story, the dragon especially enjoyed eating young maidens.


title: Wawel Dragon

text: Great warriors from near and far fought for the prize and failed. A cobbler's apprentice (named Skuba) accepted the challenge. He stuffed a lamb with sulphur and set it outside the dragon's cave. The dragon ate it and became so thirsty, it turned to the Vistula River and drank until it burst. The cobbler married the King's daughter as promised, and founded the city of Kraków.


title: Wawel Dragon

text: It has also been claimed that the name of the shoemaker is Dratewka in children's literature or storytelling about the Krak legend. However, "Shoemaker Dratewka" () or the "Twine Shoemaker" is the name of the "smok"-slaying protagonist in Maria Kownacka's play "O straszliwym smoku i dzielnym szewczyku, prześlicznej królewnie i królu Gwoździku" ("The terrible Dragon, the brave Shoemaker, the beautiful Princess and King Gwoździk", 1935). The hero of the same name () also appears in fairy tales by .


title: Wawel Dragon

text: Legends of the Wawel dragon have similarities with the biblical story about Daniel and the Babylonian dragon, and in fact, it was stated in the tract from the Dzierzwa/Mierzwa Chronicle that "Krak[us]'s sons killed the local dragon, like Daniel killed the dragon of Babylon".


title: Wawel Dragon

text: The legend of the Kraków dragon may well have ancient, pre-Christian origins. An allusion to the practice of Human sacrifice as part of an older, unknown myth has been suggested by historian . Or perhaps an Indo-European myth of good vs. evil may underlie the legend. The Kraków Dragon may well be interpreted as a symbol of evil has been commented by others


title: Wawel Dragon

text: There might also be some echoes of historical events. According to some historians, the dragon is a symbol of the presence of the Avars on Wawel Hill in the second half of the sixth century, and the victims devoured by the beast symbolize the tribute pulled by them. The dragon may have represented the historical Bolesław II who was responsible for the martyrdom of St. Stanislaus of Szczepanów, bishop of Kraków, according to historian .


title: Wawel Dragon

text: These ideas combined (the mythos may have been overlaid with a historical allegory) has also been described. The legend may be based on an Indo-European ur-myth about a thunder deity vanquishing a great serpent may have been at the base, and the serpent myth was possibly conflated with the cult of St. Stanislaus.


title: Wawel Dragon

text: The Wawel dragon's supposed Dragon's Cave ("Smocza Jama") below Wawel Castle still exists, on the property on the edge of the Vistula River, and can be visited. This particular cave was purportedly first described c. 1190, i.e., in the first account of the legend by Wincenty, though the chronicler merely stated that the beast resided in a "winding of a rock ()", i.e. " a cave ()".


title: Wawel Dragon

text: A metal sculpture of the Wawel Dragon, designed in 1969 by Bronisław Chromy, was placed in front of the Dragon's Cave (Dragon's Den) in 1972. The dragon has seven heads, but frequently people think that it has one head and six forelegs. To the amusement of onlookers, it noisily breathes fire every few minutes, thanks to a natural gas nozzle installed in the sculpture's mouth.


title: Wawel Dragon

text: The Wawel Cathedral features a plaque commemorating the dragon's defeat by Krakus, a Polish prince who, according to the plaque, founded the city and built his palace over the slain dragon's cave.In front of the entrance to the cathedral, there are bones of whales or Pleistocene creatures hanging on a chain, which were found and carried to the cathedral in medieval times as the remains of a dragon. It is believed that the world will come to its end when the bones will fall on the ground.


title: Wawel Dragon

text: The street leading along the banks of the river leading towards the castle is "ulica Smocza", which translates as "Dragon Street".


title: Michael Arrington

text: J. Michael Arrington (born March 13, 1970) is the American founder and former co-editor of TechCrunch, a blog covering the Silicon Valley technology start-up communities and the wider technology field in America and elsewhere. Magazines such as "Wired" and "Forbes" have named Arrington one of the most powerful people on the Internet.


title: Michael Arrington

text: Born in Huntington Beach, California, Arrington grew up in Huntington Beach and Surrey, England. He attended the University of California, Berkeley for his freshman year and graduated from Claremont McKenna College with a major in economics. He went on to Stanford Law School and graduated in 1995. He practiced corporate and securities law at O'Melveny & Myers and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.


title: Michael Arrington

text: Arrington left the practice of law to join RealNames, which failed after raising $100 million. Arrington was co-founder of Achex, an internet payments company, which was sold to First Data Corp for US$32 million and is now the back end of Western Union online. "I made enough to buy a Porsche. Not much more," he said in 2007.


title: Michael Arrington

text: His other entrepreneurial endeavors include co-founding Zip.ca and Pool.com, acting as chief operating officer for Razorgator, and founding Edgeio. He has also served on the board of directors at the startup Foldera, which was designing a software as a service organizational tool.


title: Michael Arrington

text: He identifies as a libertarian, saying, "I just see government as this thing that stops us from doing things."


title: Michael Arrington

text: In 2013, he was accused of physical abuse by an ex-girlfriend. Arrington sued the woman for defamation and she agreed to retract her accusations against him and apologize.


title: Michael Arrington

text: Arrington rose to internet prominence with his Silicon Valley blog, TechCrunch. TechCrunch covers internet startups and news. In early September 2011, Arrington was reported to be no longer employed by TechCrunch but associated with a new investment company, AOL Ventures. Within days, it was being reported that he was no longer associated with AOL Ventures.


title: Michael Arrington

text: In 2011, Arrington founded a venture capital firm called CrunchFund along with M. G. Siegler and Patrick Gallagher. In 2014, CrunchFund invested in BlueFly, an online retailer, which was bought, in May 2013, by affiliates of Clearlake Capital Group for US$13 million. As a result of CrunchFund's investment, former BlueFly CEO Melissa Payner returned to BlueFly.


title: Michael Arrington

text: In July 2008, Arrington started a project called the Crunchpad, over a year before the iPad was released. The Crunchpad was meant to be an affordable tablet computer that catered to a niche between desktop computers and laptops. However, disputes arose between Arrington and the developers he had chosen for the Crunchpad. The developers broke off from Arrington and released the device on their own but it received few sales, and the developers later went bankrupt.


title: Michael Arrington

text: In November 2017, Michael Arrington announced he was starting a $100 million hedge fund. The fund would be denominated in the cryptocurrency XRP, also known as Ripple. It was reported to be the first fund denominated in a cryptocurrency, rather than US dollars or Euros at the time. The fund has invested in more than 50 crypto startups.


title: ShahZaM

text: Shahzeb Khan (born October 8, 1993), better known as ShahZaM, is an American professional "Valorant" player for G2 Esports. He was a former "CS:GO" professional player before announcing that he would be officially making the switch to Riot Games' "Valorant". He would find most of his success in "Valorant" as he went on to win their first international LAN tournament in "Reykjavik, Iceland".


title: ShahZaM

text: Khan was central in uncovering the iBuyPower and NetcodeGuides match fixing scandal, after he issued a statement confirming that the match at issue had been thrown.


title: ShahZaM

text: On May 19, 2016 Echo Fox replaced AWPer Mohamad "m0E" Assad (who was promoted to general manager), picking up ShahZaM as his replacement.


title: ShahZaM

text: On January 17, 2017, ShahZaM and the rest of the Team SoloMid roster were acquired by Misfits Gaming.


title: ShahZaM

text: On October 28, 2019, ShahZaM was removed from the active roster of compLexity Gaming. The announcement was made in the wake of Complexity's poor performance during the months prior, including their early elimination from the StarSeries Berlin Major. ShahZaM later communicated on his Twitch stream that the team had struggled in large part due to the relative inexperience of many of the team's members, which included the then 16 year old Owen "oBo" Schlatter. ShahZaM expressed frustration with not being able to focus on his primary role of AWPing due to constantly having to perform in-game duties that on a more experienced roster would have been able to take on.


title: ShahZaM

text: On November 26, 2019, ShahZaM announced his free-agency via Twitter, bringing an official end to his time with CompLexity Gaming. ShahZaM also mentioned his eagerness to find a new team as quickly as possible.


title: ShahZaM

text: On October 6, 2022, ShahZaM was informed live on his Twitch stream that he would not be offered a renewed contract with Sentinels when his current contract expires at the end of the year.


title: East Indiaman

text: East Indiaman was a general name for any sailing ship operating under charter or licence to any of the East India trading companies of the major European trading powers of the 17th through the 19th centuries. The term is used to refer to vessels belonging to the Austrian, Danish, Dutch, English, French, Portuguese, or Swedish companies.


title: East Indiaman

text: In Britain, the East India Company held a monopoly granted to it by Queen Elizabeth I of England in 1600 for all English trade between the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn. This grant was progressively restricted during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, until the monopoly was lost in 1834. English (later British) East Indiamen usually ran between England, the Cape of Good Hope and India, where their primary destinations were the ports of Bombay, Madras and Calcutta. The Indiamen often continued on to China before returning to England via the Cape of Good Hope and Saint Helena. When the company lost its monopoly, the ships of this design were sold off. A smaller, faster ship known as a Blackwall Frigate was built for the trade as the need to carry heavy armaments declined.


title: East Indiaman

text: "East Indiaman" was a general name for any sailing ship operating under charter or licence to any of the East India Companies of the major European trading powers of the 17th to the 19th centuries. They include the Danish, Dutch, English, French, Portuguese and Swedish East India companies.


title: East Indiaman

text: East Indiamen carried both passengers and goods, and were armed to defend themselves against pirates. Initially, the East Indiamen were built to carry as much cargo as possible, rather than for speed of sailing. The British East India Company had a monopoly on trade with India and China, supporting that design.


title: East Indiaman

text: East Indiamen were the largest merchant ships regularly built during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, generally measuring between 1100 and 1400 tons burthen (bm). Two of the largest were the "Earl of Mansfield" and "Lascelles" being built at Deptford in 1795. The Royal Navy purchased both, converted them to 56-gun fourth rates, and renamed them "Weymouth" and "Madras" respectively. They measured 1426 tons (bm) on dimensions of approximately 175 feet overall length of hull, 144 feet keel, 43 feet beam, 17 feet draft.


title: East Indiaman

text: In England, Queen Elizabeth I granted an exclusive right to the trade to the East India Company in 1600, a monopoly which lasted until 1834. The company grew to encompass more than the trade between England and India, but the ships described in this article are the type used in the 17th to the early 19th centuries to carry the trade.


title: East Indiaman

text: During the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars they were often painted to resemble warships; an attacker could not be sure if gunports were real or merely paint, and some Indiamen carried sizable armaments. The Royal Navy acquired several East Indiamen, turning them into fourth rates (e.g., HMS "Weymouth" and HMS "Madras", described above), maintaining the confusion for military ships seeking merchant ships as prizes of war. In some cases the East Indiamen successfully fought off attacks by the French. One of the most celebrated of these incidents occurred in 1804, when a fleet of East Indiamen and other merchant vessels under Commodore Nathaniel Dance successfully fought off a marauding squadron commanded by Admiral Linois in the Indian Ocean in the Battle of Pulo Aura.


title: East Indiaman

text: Due to the need to carry heavy cannon, the hull of the East Indiamen – in common with most warships of the time – was much wider at the waterline than at the upper deck, so that guns carried on the upper deck were closer to the centre-line to aid stability. This is known as tumblehome. The ships normally had two complete decks for accommodation within the hull and a raised poop deck. The poop deck and the deck below it were lit with square-windowed galleries at the stern. To support the weight of the galleries, the hull lines towards the stern were full. Later ships built without this feature tended to sail faster, which put the East Indiamen at a commercial disadvantage once the need for heavy armament passed.


title: East Indiaman

text: According to historian Fernand Braudel, some of the finest and largest Indiamen of the late 18th and early 19th centuries were built in India, making use of Indian shipbuilding techniques and crewed by Indians, their hulls of Indian teak being especially suitable for local waters. These ships were used for the China run. Until the coming of steamships, these Indian-built ships were relied upon almost exclusively by the British in the eastern seas. None sailed to Europe and they were banned from English ports. Many hundreds of Indian-built Indiamen were built for the British, along with other ships, including warships. Notable among them were "Surat Castle" (1791), a 1,000-ton (bm) ship with a crew of 150, "Lowjee Family", of 800 tons (bm) and a crew of 125, and "Shampinder" (1802), of 1,300 tons (bm).


title: East Indiaman

text: Another significant East Indiaman in this period was the 1176-ton (bm) "Warley" that John Perry built at his Blackwall Yard in 1788, and which the Royal Navy bought in 1795 and renamed . In 1803 she was employed as a transport to establish a settlement at Port Phillip in Australia, later shifted to the site of current-day Hobart, Tasmania by an accompanying ship, the "Ocean". French forces captured "Calcutta" in 1805 off the Isles of Scilly. She grounded at the Battle of the Basque Roads in 1809, and was burned by a British boarding party after her French crew had abandoned her.


title: East Indiaman

text: The 1200-ton (bm) "Arniston" was likewise employed by the Royal Navy as a troop transport between England and Ceylon. In 1815, she was wrecked near Cape Agulhas with the loss of 372 lives after a navigation error that was caused by inaccurate dead reckoning and the lack of a marine chronometer with which to calculate her longitude.


title: East Indiaman

text: With the progressive restriction of the monopoly of the British East India Company the desire to build such large armed ships for commercial use waned, and during the late 1830s a smaller, faster ship known as a Blackwall Frigate was built for the premium end of the India and China trades. The last of the East Indiamen was reputed to be the "Java" (1813–1939) that became a coal hulk, then was broken up.


title: East Indiaman

text: A ship named "Lalla Rookh", involved in an incident in November 1850 off Worthing, West Sussex, in which many local men died after their rescue boat capsized, was described as an East Indiaman bringing sugar and rum from Pernambuco, Brazil.


title: East Indiaman

text: The Battle of Pulo Aura is featured in Patrick O'Brian's novel "HMS Surprise", with French Admiral Linois in pursuit of a large fleet of East Indiamen. In the novel, HMS "Surprise" under Captain Aubrey organizes the merchantmen to defeat Linois and his squadron. In history, all the ships that defeated the French squadron were merchantmen.


title: East Indiaman

text: In the Aubrey–Maturin series, East Indiamen are involved in many of the novels, including the second set in the Peace of Amiens, where some of the sailors took positions on East Indiamen. In other of the novels, Aubrey intercepts enemy vessels that interfere with the merchant ships, earning their gratitude.


title: East Indiaman

text: Stuart Turton's second novel "The Devil and the Dark Water" is mostly set on a Dutch Indiaman in 1634.


title: East Indiaman

text: Several East Indiamen have been reconstructed in recent decades. Some of these are (semi) permanently moored and can be visited as part of a museum collection.


title: East Indiaman

text: The 2018 video game Return of the Obra Dinn features an East Indiaman as the fictional vessel, with gameplay requiring players to thoroughly explore a 3D model of the ship and observe its crew's activities.


title: SummerSlam (2010)

text: The 2010 SummerSlam was the 23rd annual SummerSlam professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). It was held for wrestlers from the promotion's Raw and SmackDown brand divisions. The event took place on August 15, 2010, at Staples Center in Los Angeles, California for the second consecutive year.


title: SummerSlam (2010)

text: Six matches were contested at the event. The main events of the evening included: Team WWE defeating The Nexus in a 7-on-7 elimination tag team match, Randy Orton defeating Sheamus via disqualification for the WWE Championship even though Sheamus retained the title, Melina winning the Divas Championship against Alicia Fox, Kane retaining the World Heavyweight Championship against Rey Mysterio. Other matches featured on the show were WWE Intercontinental Champion Dolph Ziggler versus Kofi Kingston, but ended in a no contest while Big Show defeated The Straight Edge Society (CM Punk, Joey Mercury and Luke Gallows) in a three-on-one handicap match.


title: SummerSlam (2010)

text: SummerSlam received 350,000 pay-per-view buys, a decrease on the 369,000 buys garnered by the 2009 event.


title: SummerSlam (2010)

text: SummerSlam is an annual pay-per-view (PPV), produced every summer by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) since 1988. Dubbed "The Biggest Party of the Summer," it is one of the promotion's original four pay-per-views, along with WrestleMania, SummerSlam, and Survivor Series, referred to as the "Big Four". It has since become considered WWE's second biggest event of the year behind WrestleMania. The 2010 event was the 23rd event in the SummerSlam chronology and was scheduled to be held on August 15, 2010, at Staples Center in Los Angeles, California for the second consecutive year. It featured wrestlers from the Raw and SmackDown brands.


title: SummerSlam (2010)

text: Much like the previous year's SummerSlam, WWE promoted the event with its "SummerSlam Axxess" fan convention. The convention was held at the Nokia Plaza in L.A. Live from August 14 to 15. THQ revealed further details of the latest installment of their "WWE SmackDown" series, "WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2011".


title: SummerSlam (2010)

text: The professional wrestling matches at SummerSlam featured professional wrestlers performing as characters in scripted events pre-determined by the hosting promotion, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). Storylines between the characters were produced on WWE's weekly television shows "Raw" and "SmackDown" with the Raw and SmackDown brands—storyline divisions in which WWE assigned its employees to different programs.


title: SummerSlam (2010)

text: The main rivalry heading into SummerSlam from the Raw brand was between the champion Sheamus and Randy Orton over the WWE Championship. On the July 19 episode of "Raw", Orton defeated Edge and Chris Jericho in a triple threat match to become the number one contender for Sheamus' WWE Championship at SummerSlam. On the August 9 episode of "Raw", the anonymous Raw general manager added two stipulations to the match, stating that anyone who interfered in this match would be suspended indefinitely and if Orton lost, he would not receive another match for the championship while Sheamus is champion.


title: SummerSlam (2010)

text: The main rivalry heading into SummerSlam from the SmackDown brand was between the champion Kane and Rey Mysterio over the World Heavyweight Championship. On the May 28 episode of "SmackDown" Kane's storyline brother, The Undertaker defeated Mysterio to qualify for the fatal four-way match for the World Heavyweight Championship at the Fatal 4-Way pay-per view in June. During the match however, The Undertaker suffered a legitimate injury, forcing him to be written out of the match by having him found in a "vegetative state" by Kane over Memorial Day weekend. As a result, Kane accused several wrestlers of incapacitating his brother and attacked them. Mysterio won a battle royal to replace The Undertaker by last eliminating Kane, and went on to defeat the defending champion Jack Swagger, Big Show and CM Punk at Fatal 4-Way to win his second World Heavyweight Championship. At Money in the Bank, Kane won a Money in the Bank ladder match and cashed in his championship opportunity on Mysterio later that night, after Mysterio had defeated Swagger to retain. Kane defeated Mysterio to win his first World Heavyweight Championship. On the July 23 episode of "SmackDown", Mysterio defeated Swagger in a two-out-of-three falls match to earn a rematch against Kane for the World Heavyweight Championship at SummerSlam. On the July 30 episode of "SmackDown", Kane revealed that The Undertaker had disclosed that his attacker was Mysterio, and vowed to get revenge.


title: SummerSlam (2010)

text: Another main rivalry from Raw featured The Nexus, a stable consisting of former "NXT" 'rookies' led by the season's winner Wade Barrett, against 'Team WWE', led by John Cena. The Nexus made their debut as a collective unit on the June 7 episode of "Raw", attacking Cena, CM Punk, and members of the ringside crew, on the pretext of demanding guaranteed WWE contracts for all of them. The following week on "Raw", the then-General Manager Bret Hart refused and as a result, The Nexus attacked and incapacitated him, forcing WWE Chairman Vince McMahon to appoint a new, anonymous General Manager, who ultimately signed all members of The Nexus to the show. The Nexus continued to frequently attack various WWE wrestlers, crew, and legends to display their dominance, although they focused mainly on Cena, costing him the WWE Championship twice at Fatal 4-Way and Money in the Bank. On the July 19 episode of "Raw", Cena confronted The Nexus, who offered him a place in their stable, which he refused and instead revealed that he had assembled a team, christened 'Team WWE' (consisting of Cena himself, Edge, Chris Jericho, John Morrison, R-Truth, The Great Khali, and Bret Hart), to face The Nexus in a seven-on-seven tag team match at SummerSlam. On the July 26 episode of "Raw", the anonymous general manager changed the match to an elimination format. Following dissension on Cena's team in the next few weeks, Edge and Jericho left the SummerSlam match on the August 2 episode of "Raw". They rejoined the following week, however, when The Nexus tried to attack the members of Team WWE and Edge and Jericho. On the same episode, Khali was attacked by The Nexus, removing him from the match at SummerSlam. The Miz offered his services to the team as Khali's substitute, ultimately saying that he would reveal his final decision at SummerSlam itself.


title: SummerSlam (2010)

text: Another rivalry from the SmackDown brand pitted Big Show against The Straight Edge Society, a stable preaching the hardlined straight edge lifestyle, led by CM Punk and consisting of Luke Gallows, Joey Mercury and Serena. In May, at the Over the Limit pay-per-view, Punk lost a match to Rey Mysterio, forcing Punk to have his head shaved bald as a result of the stipulation. In order to conceal his baldness, Punk started wearing a mask until Big Show forcibly removed it on the July 16 episode of "SmackDown". In attempt to avenge Punk's humiliation, the Straight Edge Society's masked "mystery man" faced Big Show in a match, but had his own mask removed during the match, revealing him to be Joey Mercury. On the July 30 episode of "SmackDown", the Straight Edge Society attacked Big Show and repeatedly stomped his right hand into the steel ring steps. The following week, it was announced that the Straight Edge Society would be facing Big Show in a three-on-one handicap match at SummerSlam.


title: SummerSlam (2010)

text: Another rivalry from the Raw brand was between the champion Alicia Fox and Melina over the WWE Divas Championship. In December 2009, Melina tore her ACL at a live event, which caused her to vacate the Divas Championship. At Fatal 4-Way in June, Fox won the title in a fatal four-way match against Maryse, Gail Kim and defending champion Eve, and retained the championship against Eve at Money in the Bank. On the August 2 episode of "Raw", Melina made her return and attacked Fox. The following week on "Raw", Melina defeated Fox in a non-title match and was rewarded with a title opportunity at the Divas Championship at SummerSlam.


title: SummerSlam (2010)

text: The actual pay-per-view opened with Dolph Ziggler defending the WWE Intercontinental Championship against Kofi Kingston. The match ended in a no-contest after The Nexus attacked both competitors.


title: SummerSlam (2010)

text: Next, Alicia Fox defended the Divas Championship against Melina. Melina executed a snapmare driver on Fox to win the title. Post match, co-Women's Champions LayCool (Layla and Michelle McCool) attacked Melina.


title: SummerSlam (2010)

text: After that, The Straight Edge Society (CM Punk, Joey Mercury and Luke Gallows) faced Big Show in a handicap match. In the end, Big Show delivered a KO Punch to Gallows and delivered a chokeslam to Mercury onto Gallows, pinning Mercury to win the match.


title: SummerSlam (2010)

text: In the fourth match, Sheamus faced Randy Orton for the WWE Championship in a last chance match, with the stipulations being that anyone who interfered in the match will be suspended indefinitely along with if Orton lost, he would never get another shot at the title as long as Sheamus is champion. In the climax, Sheamus performed a Brogue Kick on Orton for a near-fall. Sheamus retrieved a steel chair and fought with the referee over the chair, resulting in Orton winning by disqualification. After the match, Orton attacked Sheamus with a low-blow and performed an RKO on the broadcast table on Sheamus.


title: SummerSlam (2010)

text: In the fifth match, Kane faced Rey Mysterio for the World Heavyweight Championship. The match ended when Kane performed a chokeslam on Mysterio to retain the title. After the match, Kane attempted to put Mysterio in a casket, but The Undertaker was revealed to be inside the casket. Kane delivered a Tombstone Piledriver to Undertaker.


title: SummerSlam (2010)

text: In the main event, The Nexus faced Team WWE in a 7-on-7 elimination tag team match. Before the match started, Daniel Bryan was announced as the seventh member of Team WWE. In the climax of the match, after every other member of Team WWE had been eliminated, Barrett delivered a DDT to Cena onto the concrete floor and scored a near-fall. Cena eliminated Gabriel after Gabriel missed a 450º splash. Cena then eliminated Barrett with the STF, giving his team the win.


title: SummerSlam (2010)

text: Overall, the event received mixed-to-negative reviews from critics, who praised the quality of the main event match (although panning the finish) while panning the remainder of the event.


title: SummerSlam (2010)

text: Bleacher Report's Andre Harrison rated the event 5 out of 10, calling it a "one match show" (referring to the 7-on-7 tag team match as the only good match in the event), although stating that "WWE dropped the ball huge" on the finish. 411mania.com rated the event 2.75 out of 5.


title: SummerSlam (2010)

text: The next night on "Raw", the anonymous general manager of Raw announced that members of The Nexus would face off against members of Team WWE in a series of matches throughout the evening. In order to find the "weak links" of the group, The Nexus' leader, Wade Barrett, declared that anyone in The Nexus who lost their match would be excommunicated from the group. Ultimately, each Nexus member won their match except for Darren Young, who lost to John Cena by submission. After the match, the remaining six members brutally attacked Young, symbolizing his banishment from The Nexus.


title: SummerSlam (2010)

text: According to Chris Jericho and Edge, the original plan steered toward a victory for The Nexus. However, John Cena asked for the finish to be changed, which Jericho felt affected The Nexus' momentum. Nexus members Heath Slater and Darren Young have shared similar sentiments.


title: SummerSlam (2010)

text: In April 2011, the promotion ceased using its full name with the "WWE" abbreviation becoming an orphaned initialism.


title: UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying

text: The UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying tournament was a football competition that was played from September 2014 to November 2015 to determine the 23 UEFA member men's national teams joining the automatically qualified host team France in the UEFA Euro 2016 final tournament.


title: UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying

text: A total of 53 national teams participated in this qualifying process, with Gibraltar taking part for the first time. The draw took place at the Palais des Congrès Acropolis, Nice, on 23 February 2014.


title: UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying

text: All UEFA member associations were eligible to compete in the qualifying competition, with the host team France qualifying directly to the finals tournament. The other 53 teams were drawn into eight groups of six teams (Groups A–H) and one group of five teams (Group I). The group winners, runners-up, and the best third-placed team (with the results against the sixth-placed team discarded) directly qualified to the finals. The eight remaining third-placed teams contested two-legged play-offs to determine the last four qualifiers for the finals.


title: UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying

text: Sides were seeded according to the UEFA national team coefficient rankings, which were announced along with the draw procedure and final tournament match schedule after the 23–24 January Executive Committee meeting in Nyon. For the qualifying group stage, the teams were seeded into six pots (Pots 1–5 with 9 teams and Pot 6 with 8 teams) for the qualifying group stage draw according to the UEFA national team coefficient rankings, with the title holders (Spain) automatically seeded into Pot 1. Each nation's coefficient was generated by calculating:


title: UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying

text: UEFA stated that nations with the largest markets in terms of contribution to the European Qualifiers revenue would be drawn into one of the groups containing six teams. They included England, Spain, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. UEFA also stated in their regulations that "the teams drawn into the group of five teams will have France added to their group for the purpose of playing centralised friendlies".


title: UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying

text: For the play-offs the four ties were determined by draw, including the order of the two legs of each tie. The teams were seeded for the play-off draw according to the UEFA national team coefficient rankings updated after the completion of the group stage. Each nation's coefficient was generated by calculating:


title: UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying

text: If two or more teams were equal on points on completion of the group matches, the following tie-breaking criteria were applied:


title: UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying

text: To determine the best third-placed team, the results against the teams in sixth place were discarded. The following criteria were applied:


title: UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying

text: For each play-off tie, the team that scored more goals on aggregate over the two legs qualified for the final tournament. If the aggregate score was level, the away goals rule was applied, i.e., the team that scored more goals away from home over the two legs advanced. If away goals were also equal, then thirty minutes of extra time was played, divided into two fifteen-minutes halves. The away goals rule was again applied after extra time, i.e., if there were goals scored during extra time and the aggregate score was still level, the visiting team advanced by virtue of more away goals scored. If no goals were scored during extra time, the tie was decided by penalty shoot-out.


title: UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying

text: This was the first qualifying tournament after UEFA announced centralised rights deals for both UEFA Euro and FIFA World Cup qualifying. UEFA had proposed the "Week of Football" concept for the scheduling of qualifying matches:


title: UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying

text: Unlike previous qualifying campaigns where group fixtures were determined by negotiation between the national federations, UEFA themselves decided each group's fixture list, released the same day as the draw.


title: UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying

text: The draw took place at the Palais des Congrès Acropolis, Nice, on 23 February 2014, 12:00 CET. Groups A–H each contain one team from each of Pots 1–6, while Group I contains one team from each of Pots 1–5. For television rights reasons, England, Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands were drawn into groups of six teams. Before the draw UEFA confirmed that, for political reasons, Armenia would not be drawn against Azerbaijan (due to the dispute concerning territory of Nagorno-Karabakh) and Gibraltar would not be drawn against Spain (due to the disputed status of Gibraltar). France (Coeff: 30,992; Rank: 11) were partnered with the five-team Group I, which enabled the 2016 tournament hosts to play friendlies against these countries on their 'spare' dates. These friendlies did not count in the qualifying group standings.


title: UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying

text: Teams in bold eventually qualified for the final tournament, teams in bold italic qualified for the final tournament through the play-offs, and teams in "italic" participated in the play-offs but did not qualify for the final tournament.


title: UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying

text: The highest ranked third-placed team from the groups directly qualified for the tournament, while the remainder entered the play-offs. As Group I contained five teams and the rest contained six, matches against any sixth-placed team in each group were not included in this ranking. As a result, a total of eight matches played by each team count toward the purpose of the third-placed ranking table.


title: UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying

text: Turkey became the best third-placed team, after winning against Iceland in its last match, while at the same time Kazakhstan beat Latvia to finish fifth in Group A.


title: UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying

text: The eight remaining third-placed teams contested two-legged play-offs to determine the last four qualifiers for the finals. The teams were seeded for the play-off draw according to the UEFA national team coefficient rankings updated after the completion of the qualifying group stage. The draw for the play-offs was held on 18 October 2015, 11:20 CEST, at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon.


title: UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying

text: The first legs were played on 12–14 November, and the second legs were played on 15–17 November 2015. The four play-off winners (Ukraine, Sweden, Republic of Ireland and Hungary) qualified for the final tournament.


title: UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying

text: UEFA unveiled the branding for the qualifiers on 15 April 2013. It shows a national jersey inside a heart, and represents Europe, honour and ambition. The same branding was also used for the European qualifiers for the 2018 World Cup.


title: Fake Love (BTS song)

text: "Fake Love" is a song recorded in Korean and Japanese by South Korean band BTS. It was written by "Hitman" Bang, RM, and Pdogg, with the latter as producer. The Korean version was released through Big Hit Entertainment on May 18, 2018, as the lead single from the band's third album "" (2018). Columbia Records serviced the song to US contemporary hit radio on June 12, 2018, as a single in the country. A remix, titled "Rocking Vibe", was released on June 4, 2018, and appears on the band's third compilation album, "" (2018). The Japanese version of the song was released for digital download and streaming on October 16, 2018, by Universal Music Japan as a single album that included the remix and "Airplane Pt. 2", both also in Japanese. "Fake Love" is an emo hip hop, grunge-rock, rap-rock and electropop song which relies on rock instrumentals. The lyrics talk about the love that was once believed to be destiny, but turned out fake at the end.


title: Fake Love (BTS song)

text: The song received generally positive reviews from critics who praised its dark production, eclectic sound, and the band's vocal delivery. It received several accolades, including the Song of the Year and Best Pop Song at the 2019 Korean Music Awards, and appeared on the decade-end lists of "NME" and "Consequence of Sound". Commercially, the Korean version of "Fake Love" debuted at number one on the Gaon Digital Chart and number ten on the US "Billboard" Hot 100, becoming the band's first top-ten single in the US. The Japanese version debuted and peaked at number one on the Oricon Singles Chart, becoming the 12th best-selling single of 2018 in Japan. It was certified] platinum for both streaming and digital download sales by the Korea Music Content Association (KMCA) and double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ).


title: Fake Love (BTS song)

text: Two music videos, for the original and the remix, were directed by YongSeok Choi. Premiering on May 18, 2018, the first video follows the story-line of BTS' fictional narrative universe and depicts the band dancing on various sets. The second video, an extended version of the first, was released on June 1, 2018, and has some additional footage. The debut performance of "Fake Love" at the 2018 "Billboard" Music Awards received positive reviews from critics. BTS later promoted the song with televised live performances on several South Korean music programs in 2018, including "M! Countdown", "Music Bank", and "Inkigayo". It was also included on the setlist of their Love Yourself World Tour (2018–19).


title: Fake Love (BTS song)

text: BTS embarked on their extended three-part series "Love Yourself" with the release of their fifth extended play "" in 2017. On April 16, 2018, the band announced the sequel of "Her" in the form of their third Korean-language studio album, "". "Fake Love" was confirmed to be a part of "Love Yourself: Tear", when the band shared the track-listing of the album. On May 14 of that year, it was announced as the first single from the album. The song was written by "Hitman" Bang, RM and its producer Pdogg. It was engineered by Pdogg and Jeong Wooyeong, while mixing was handled by James F. Reynolds at Schmuzik Studios. Backing vocals for the track was provided by band member Jungkook alongside Supreme Boi. BTS recorded the song at Big Hit Studios in Seoul, South Korea.


title: Fake Love (BTS song)

text: Talking about the song, RM explained in a V Live broadcast that among all songs on the album, "Fake Love" was most difficult to work on. The main foundation of it was created by him, while the rest of the song-making process was handled by Pdogg and "Hitman" Bang. He also shared a demo version of the track during the broadcast, which he felt was "completely different" and "more depressing and deeper" than the recorded one. Speaking about how the song was conceived, he said:


title: Fake Love (BTS song)

text: "Fake Love" was released for digital download and streaming in various countries by Big Hit Entertainment on May 18, 2018, as the lead single from "Love Yourself: Tear". On June 12 of that year, Columbia Records serviced the song to contemporary hit radio in the United States as a single in that country. A "Rocking Vibe" remix version of the track was recorded and issued digitally on June 4, 2018. It was subsequently included on the band's third compilation album, "" (2018). The remix has identical songwriting credits to the original version with the addition of Slow Rabbit serving as producer. A Japanese version of the song was made available for digital purchase on October 16, 2018, by Universal Music Japan as the band's ninth Japanese-language single album, together with the Japanese versions of the remix and previously released Korean track "Airplane Pt. 2" (2018). It was also released as a four-version CD single in Japan on November 7, 2018, with a regular edition and three different limited editions: A, B and C. All four editions contain Japanese versions of the original and remix of "Fake Love", "Airplane Pt. 2", and a "stadium" remix of their 2018 Korean single, "Idol". In addition, edition A includes a DVD containing the music videos for "Fake Love" and "Airplane Pt. 2". Edition B also comes with a DVD that contains behind the scenes footage of the music video for "Airplane Pt. 2" and the making of album jacket photos, while C contains a 36-page photobook. The lyrics for the Japanese version were written by KM-Markit. It was later included as the eighth track on the band's fourth Japanese-language studio album, "" (2020).


title: Fake Love (BTS song)

text: "Fake Love" is a emo hip hop, grunge-rock, rap-rock and electropop song with elements of pop-rock, trap and adult contemporary music. It is composed in time in the key of D minor, with a moderate tempo of 78 beats per minute, and runs for 4:02. Though the song keeps up with the band's signature hip hop sound, it employs a dark production consisting of thumping trap beats, "gritty guitars", "ambient synth quirks" and "doomy bass." The song primarily relies on rock instrumentation which includes electric guitar, drums, keyboards, and synthesizers. The drums have a repeating kick and snare sequence, which remains constant throughout the song. The verses are led by both arpeggiated and rhythm guitars.


title: Fake Love (BTS song)

text: The song makes use of dissonant and dark chord progressions and contains a "tense" chorus which is boosted by heavy bass. It features a "tenacious" and "blocky" bassline, which was compared to that of Atlanta hip-hop. The opening verse uses a "serpentine" delivery characterized by "breathy" vocals while the refrain is accompanied by "wailing" vocals from band. The song features "anguished" singing blending "warm" melodies and "dreamy, echoing" verses with "brusque" raps. The staccato-driven rapped verses follow the triplet flow saturating hip hop. The remix version adds "dynamic" electronic and acoustic string instruments over the original melody, introducing rock vibes to the song. The latter is also composed in the same key as the original recording, but with a moderately fast tempo of 155 beats per minute.


title: Fake Love (BTS song)

text: Lyrically, the song talks about love that was once believed to be destiny, but turned out fake at the end and reflects the theme of the entire "Love Yourself" series — "that any love wherein one does not love oneself is not real." It also recounts the emptiness that comes to a person who has invested too much in a relationship, only to lose one's own identity in the process through lyrics such as, "I even became quite unsure of who I was / Try babbling into the mirror, who the heck are you?" The lyrics further reference to the notion of holding onto a toxic relationship: "I grew a flower that can't be bloomed in a dream that can't come true." Lines like "Mold a pretty lie for you" and "Try to erase myself and make me your doll" suggest themes of "hiding depression" and "pressure" to maintain relationships despite struggling with mental health. During the chorus, the band chant the titular phrase singing, "I'm so sick of this fake love" admitting "disenchantment."


title: Fake Love (BTS song)

text: "Fake Love" received generally positive reviews from critics. Jeff Benjamin of "Paper" praised the track's sound and the band's vocal delivery, writing that the song "might very well be the best representation of the pop excellence BTS brings to music." In "The Korea Herald", Dam-young Hong wrote that the musical style "offers an overwhelming sense of darkness and maturity" to the song. She also appreciated its lyrical content, writing that the "poetic refrains" used throughout it "adds to the song's ineffable sensitivity." Hyun-su Yim, also of "The Korea Herald", praised the song for "brilliantly" capturing the "genre-bending" and "emotion-heavy" musical essence of BTS. Rhian Daly of "NME" commended the "dark" production and labelled the song "beautifully gloomy," adding that the track is an "early instance of BTS tackling the idea of one's persona." "IZM"s Do-heon Kim compared the song to the band's previous tracks "I Need U" (2015) and "Blood Sweat & Tears" (2016), and praised the blend of "aggressive" guitar riff, "tensed synth samples," and "dreamy sounds" in the production which recreates "depression and anxiety" that is expressed through the "emotive" lyrics of the song. Markos Papadatos of "Digital Journal" said the song was "sonically and lyrically powerful" and "embodies the emotions of saying goodbye in a raw yet sincere fashion." He called the lyrics "exceptional".


title: Fake Love (BTS song)

text: "Fake Love" was positively reviewed by the writers of "Rolling Stone", who likened the guitar line to that of '80s rock band, Def Leppard and stated that the track "is an impressive fusion, simultaneously bruised and bruising." In a separate review, music critic Elias Leight of the same publication viewed the song as "a jolt of angst-ridden, arena-ready rap-rock." Jess Lau of "The 405" wrote that the song displayed significant growth in the band's sound and deemed it as the strongest track on "Love Yourself: Tear". Writing for "Spin", Blanca Méndez stated that the song "turns dark and marries the drama of "Wings" with the angst of their 2015 album ""." Dan Weiss of "Consequence of Sound" deemed it as a "breathy anthem-ballad," while "Idolator"s Mike Nied called the song "mega-infectious." Reviewing for "Vulture", Kim Youngdae and Park T.K. opined that the song's music was "carefully selected to amplify" the central message of the album. They further wrote, "the tension between electric guitar and a hip-hop beat creates a sense of dark resolve, unique among contemporary K-Pop and even among BTS's other music."