title: Washington Metro rolling stock

text: The fifth order consisted of 192 rail cars from a joint venture of Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles (CAF) of Spain and AAI Corporation of Hunt Valley, Maryland. These cars are numbered 5000–5191, with delivery in 2001. Service introduction of these cars was heavily delayed due to software "glitches" which plagued delivery. At one point, WMATA looked to impose penalties against CAF for the service entry delays.


title: Washington Metro rolling stock

text: The contract consisted of CAF engineering, designing the cars, and managing the project, while AAI performed assembly. These cars were the first Metrorail cars to originally feature three-phase AC traction motors, this time with IGBT inverters. They were also the first to have LED destination signs on the exterior and LED "next stop" indication signs on the interiors. Along with these improvements, they were also the first to have intercar safety barriers (which have since been added to all other rolling stock) and railcar monitoring systems. The 5000-series cars premiered the red, white and blue interior. This interior color scheme has also been used on the 2000/3000-series rehabilitation project and the 6000-series cars from Alstom.


title: Washington Metro rolling stock

text: Another feature was the return of cast steel trucks, which were previously only used on the Rohr cars. This was done as a cost-saving measure, since fabricated trucks take additional time to manufacture due to the machining required.


title: Washington Metro rolling stock

text: The National Transportation Safety Board began an investigation about service life of these cars due to non-revenue service derailments in Metrorail yards and the January 7, 2007, derailment of a revenue train on the Green Line at the station.


title: Washington Metro rolling stock

text: Cars 5066–5067 were involved in the June 2009 Washington Metro train collision, and 5152–5153 were involved in the Mount Vernon Square train derailment. Both cars were not repaired and were used for spare parts.


title: Washington Metro rolling stock

text: The planned midlife rehabilitation of the 5000-series cars was to take place in the late 2010s through the early 2020s. Design specifications were to be drafted in 2017 with the first cars rehabbed in 2022. This series of cars would have been the third series to have automated station announcements and the stainless steel paint scheme, which would have made them compatible with the 7000-series once the rehabilitation process was completed.


title: Washington Metro rolling stock

text: On June 4, 2015, the Federal Transit Administration approved an early decommission of the 5000-series railcars, which were replaced with 7000-series railcars instead of being rehabbed. Retirement process began in 2017, and WMATA announced that the last cars were removed from service on October 12, 2018, although cars were reported still in service up until October 17. After retirement, some cars were used for work service such as on de-icing tracks and on the Silver Line Phase 2 construction, where they tested the tracks on the line and polished the third rail. The cars retained for work service were ultimately retired in spring 2019.


title: Metal Blade Records

text: Metal Blade Records is an American independent record label founded by Brian Slagel in 1982. The US office for Metal Blade is located in Agoura Hills, California. It also has offices in Germany, Japan, Canada, and the UK. The label is distributed in the US by RED Distribution, and in Canada by Sony Music Entertainment. It was distributed by Warner Bros. Records in the United States from 1988 to 1993.


title: Metal Blade Records

text: Metal Blade Records was founded by Brian Slagel, who at the time was a record store employee in suburban Los Angeles, as a way to increase the recognition of local metal bands. The label's first release was a compilation album called "The New Heavy Metal Revue presents Metal Massacre", and included Metallica, Ratt, and Black 'n Blue.


title: Metal Blade Records

text: Metal Blade artists that have appeared on the "Billboard" 200 chart include Goo Goo Dolls, Amon Amarth, Trouble, As I Lay Dying, Behemoth, the Black Dahlia Murder, Cannibal Corpse, Fates Warning (the first Metal Blade band to have achieved this), Lizzy Borden, Anvil, Gwar, King Diamond, Job for a Cowboy, Whitechapel, Armored Saint, The Red Chord, Unearth, Between the Buried and Me, Dirty Rotten Imbeciles, Corrosion of Conformity and Cattle Decapitation.


title: Metal Blade Records

text: From 1985 to 1998, Metal Blade had a sublabel called Death Records, which released recordings by, and signed bands like D.R.I., Corrosion of Conformity, Civilian Terrorists, Mission of Christ, School of Violence, Cryptic Slaughter, The Mentors, Cannibal Corpse, Atheist, Angkor Wat, Loss for Words, Dr. Know, Beyond Possession, and Dark Funeral.


title: Metal Blade Records

text: On January 18, 2017 Metal Blade Records was inducted into the Hall of Heavy Metal History for their large contribution to the Heavy Metal library. Brian was inducted by special guest Kerry King of Slayer. On August 29, 2017, BMG Rights Management published "The Sake of Heaviness: the History of Metal Blade Records", a book on the label's history, co-written by Mark Eglington and the label's founder Brian Slagel.


title: Charles S. Howard

text: Charles Stewart Howard (February 28, 1877 – June 6, 1950) was an American businessman. He made his fortune as an automobile dealer and became a prominent thoroughbred racehorse owner.


title: Charles S. Howard

text: Howard was dubbed one of the most successful Buick salesmen of all time. He bought the soon-to-be-famous horse Seabiscuit. According to Laura Hillenbrand's , Howard's early car dealership in San Francisco was given a boost by the hand of fate; on the day of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, he was one of the few individuals who had operational vehicles in the city, and was thus able to help the rescue effort significantly.


title: Charles S. Howard

text: In 1921, long before he bought Seabiscuit, Charles Howard purchased the Ridgewood Ranch at Willits in Mendocino County. His 15-year-old son, Frankie, died there in 1926 after a truck accident on the property (the elder Howard established the Frank R. Howard Memorial Hospital as a memorial to his son). Used as a secondary residence, by the 1930s Howard had converted part of the ranch into a thoroughbred horse breeding and training center. Although Seabiscuit was the most famous resident at Ridgewood Ranch, Charles Howard owned many horses in his secondary career as a Thoroughbred owner including Kayak II (also Kajak) and Hall of Fame colt Noor, the first of only two horses to defeat two U.S. Triple Crown champions.


title: Charles S. Howard

text: Charles Howard died of a heart attack in 1950 and was buried in the Cypress Lawn Memorial Park in Colma, California. Ridgewood Ranch was sold by his heirs, with some of the horses sent to his son Lindsay's Binglin Stable in Moorpark, California.


title: Psychoville

text: Psychoville is a British psychological horror-thriller black comedy mystery television series created and written by and starring "The League of Gentlemen" members Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton for the BBC. It debuted on BBC Two on 18 June 2009. Pemberton and Shearsmith each play numerous characters, with Dawn French, Jason Tompkins, Daniel Kaluuya and Eileen Atkins in additional starring roles. The first series was followed by a Halloween special, broadcast on 31 October 2010, which saw Imelda Staunton and Jason Watkins added to the main cast. The second series was first broadcast on 5 May 2011 and ended on 6 June. Reece Shearsmith has officially announced that there will not be a third series.


title: Psychoville

text: In February 2020, Shearsmith and Pemberton's follow-up series, "Inside No. 9", crossed over with "Psychoville" and brought back five of the characters for the episode "Death Be Not Proud".


title: Psychoville

text: The series revolves around five different characters from different parts of England: David Sowerbutts (played by Pemberton), a serial killer-obsessed man-child who still lives with his mother Maureen (Shearsmith); Mr. Jelly (Shearsmith), an embittered one-handed children's entertainer; Oscar Lomax (Pemberton), a blind millionaire who collects stuffed toy animals; Joy Aston (French), a midwife who treats a practice doll as if it is her real child; and Robert Greenspan (Tompkins), a panto dwarf in love with his Snow White who believes he has the power of telekinesis. All five are connected by a mysterious blackmailer who has sent them a letter each with the message: "I know what you did".


title: Psychoville

text: The series is named after the title given to "The League of Gentlemen" when the series was sold to Japan and Korea.


title: Psychoville

text: The series features a diverse set of five characters who live in different parts of England, all of whom have been blackmailed by the same individual (referred to in the credits for episode seven as "Black Gloved Man"), who has given them each a letter with the message "I know what you did…" In the second episode, the blackmailer leaves them a second message that reads, "You killed her". In the third episode they receive a videotape showing them in an asylum together (several having previously revealed that they had been institutionalised) performing "Close Every Door" from the musical "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat". It is later disclosed that the institution was called Ravenhill Hospital. In Episodes Five and Six, the characters discover the final message: a key depicting a raven. At least David's letter also contains the message "I'm waiting...".


title: Psychoville

text: Ultimately it is revealed that Joy, Robert, David and Oscar were involved in the death of Nurse Edwina Kenchington (Eileen Atkins), who is the blackmailer's mother. The blackmailer is Dr. Stuart Strachen, a surgeon, who is also known as Mr. Jolly. Jolly blackmailed Jelly whom he blamed most, as he was operating on Jelly's hand (which was later amputated after the operation went wrong) while Kenchington was dying. David knocked her over and Joy pronounced her dead. The group started a fire to cover their tracks, but Kenchington woke up and attempted to escape. Oscar, Joy and Robert prevented her from leaving the room she was trapped in, but she somehow survived and returns to Ravenhill in the final episode looking for her locket. At the end of the series, Mr Jolly blows up part of the asylum with most of the main characters and Kenchington inside and it is revealed that Robert has the locket.


title: Psychoville

text: Series two begins with Mr Jelly, Oscar, and Oscar's assistant Michael, aka "Tealeaf", attending the funeral of Mr Jolly. Afterwards, Jelly is given a box of Jolly's props, which also turns out to contain Strachen's mobile phone and his ID card at Andrews Nanotech. Posing as Mr Jolly, Mr Jelly discovers that Strachen was using his surgical skills to deal in the black market organ trade, and that Kenchington had an account with a cryogenic storage facility where her late father Ehrlichmann's head was kept frozen. Meanwhile, Andrews Nanotech has hired a police detective to retrieve Kenchington's locket by any means necessary. Robert gives the locket to Debbie for safekeeping, but after Robert's death, Debbie gives it away to make-up lady Hattie. Detective Finney tracks down the former Ravenhill patients, questioning, then killing, Joy, Robert, and Oscar, and attempting to kill Mrs Wren. Oscar's friend, toyshop owner Peter Bishop, deduces that Oscar was killed for his connection to Ravenhill. He enlists Tealeaf's help with his investigation and they successfully retrieve the locket from Hattie before Finney can get to it, and contact Mr Jelly, whose own investigations have resulted in him taking possession of Ehrlichmann's frozen head. Bishop kills Tealeaf and travels to London with Mr Jelly to attempt to sell the locket and head to Grace Andrews. It is revealed that the method for restoring a frozen head to life, worked out by Edwina Kenchington, was microscopically engraved on the links of the locket chain, and using this information, Andrews' team is able to bring Erlichmann's head back to life. The head is subsequently destroyed, but the technique has been proven to work. The series ends with the revelation that David Sowerbutts is storing the corpse of his mother Maureen (who has died of cancer) in a bathtub filled with ice, suggesting that she could be resurrected by the same technique.


title: Psychoville

text: Shearsmith and Pemberton collaborated with Rob and Neil Gibbons to produce fictional web content to accompany the show including an interactive treasure hunt. Fake websites and promotional websites were created for many of the characters to allow viewers of the programme to get "an overall "Psychoville" experience."


title: Psychoville

text: A new Psychoville Experience was created for series two, with a new interface and a selection of new fictional websites released after each episode. Viewers were asked to find a number each week and input them into a keypad to unlock a 'secret chamber' at the end of the series. The chamber once opened reveals the revived head of the Nazi Doctor Ehrlichmann (Kenchington's father). Five questions are asked and a certain amount correct gets you a free 'freeze and reanimation ticket' from CG Medistore and andrewsnanotech to print out.


title: Psychoville

text: Filming for the series began at locations around London in October 2008, with plans for the show to be broadcast in 2009. In May 2009 it was confirmed that the series would begin on 11 June, although it was later rescheduled to 18 June. In order to promote Psychoville's launch, digital agency Ralph & Co created a customisable viral video, which enabled users to seemingly broadcast their friends' darkest secrets on a digital billboard at London's Piccadilly Circus.


title: Psychoville

text: "Psychoville" won the 2009 British Comedy Award for "Best New British TV Comedy" and the 2011 British Comedy Award for "Best Comedy Drama".


title: Satyendra Kumar Jain

text: Satyendar Kumar Jain is a Cabinet Minister in the Government of Delhi and a politician from Aam Aadmi Party.


title: Satyendra Kumar Jain

text: His portfolio includes Health & Family Welfare, Industries, Home, Power, Water, Urban Development and Irrigation & flood Control. He is currently in his third term as Delhi Health Minister. In his First tenure he served as Health & Family welfare, Gurudwara Elections and Industries Minister from 28 December 2013 to 14 February 2014 and, In his Second tenure he served as Health & Family Welfare, Industries, Home, PWD, Power, Water, Transport, Urban Development and Irrigation & Flood Control from 14 February to 13 February 2020 in the previous AAP Governments. Jain is an architect by profession.


title: Satyendra Kumar Jain

text: Satyendra Jain was born in Village Kirthal, District Baghpat, Uttar Pradesh. He did his schooling from Ramjas School, No.2, Delhi and completed Graduation in Architecture from the Indian Institute of Architects.


title: Satyendra Kumar Jain

text: Jain began his foray into politics after becoming involved with Anna Hazare's movement against corruption.


title: Satyendra Kumar Jain

text: Prior to his involvement with politics Jain worked at the Central Public Works Department (CPWD), later quitting the job to set up an architectural consultancy firm. Jain has also been involved in work with social welfare organizations; he has been involved with Drishti, an organization working to help the visually impaired and SPARSH, an organization dedicated to the empowerment and welfare of the physically and mentally challenged. He served as Health & Family Welfare, Industries, Home, PWD, Power, Water, Urban Development and Irrigation & flood control.


title: Satyendra Kumar Jain

text: In his first tenure as the Member of Legislative Assembly from Shakur Basti Assembly constituency, he served as Health & Family welfare, Gurudwara Elections and Industries Minister, in the First Kejriwal ministry from 28 December 2013 to 14 February 2014.


title: Satyendra Kumar Jain

text: In his second term as MLA after winning the 2015 Assembly elections, he served in the Second Kejriwal ministry as Health & Family Welfare, Industries, Home, PWD, Power, Water, Transport, Urban Development and Irrigation & Flood control from 14 February to 13 February 2020.


title: Satyendra Kumar Jain

text: In 2017, rebel MLA Kapil Mishra left AAP and joined BJP, he made accusations of bribery on Jain. In May 2017 Jain sued Mishra for criminal defamation. Kapil Mishra apologized for his accusations and defamation lawsuit was withdrawn. Later a lawyer used the accusation made by Mishra to file a complaint with the Delhi lokayukta for investigation, no evidence was submitted by the complainant. After the investigation, the Delhi Lokayukta did not find any evidence to support the accusations of bribery and fined the complainant a sum of ₹50,000.


title: Satyendra Kumar Jain

text: Jain was re-elected for the third time in a row from Shakur Basti Assembly Constituency with a margin of 7,592 votes in the 2020 Assembly elections. He is currently in his third term as Delhi Health Minister in the Third Kejriwal ministry. He is presently serving as Minister of Health & Family Welfare, Industries, Home, PWD, Power, Water, Urban Development and Irrigation & flood control, Government of NCT of Delhi.


title: Satyendra Kumar Jain

text: Jain has been accused by the Enforcement Directorate of money laundering after CBI filed a case in 2017. Jain was questioned in 2018 after which there was no major progress in the case.


title: Satyendra Kumar Jain

text: In early 2022, AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal stated that he had information from sources that government agencies were planning to arrest Jain just before the 2022 Punjab Legislative Assembly election. AAP won the Punjab elections. Jain had stated, "They (ED) are welcome to come whenever they want. Even before this, they have raided me twice but all has been in vain. This is all politics and they did it during the last Punjab elections also. ED, CBI all are welcome. I am ready, if they want to arrest me, they can arrest me." In May 2022, ED arrested him in the 2017 case. Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia condemned the arrest and called it a fake case.


title: Satyendra Kumar Jain

text: On 10 October 2022, the Delhi High Court closed all ongoing legal proceedings against Satyendar Jain under the Benami Transaction (Prohibition) Amendment Act. The decision was made after Jain appealed for the same in the High Court in 2017. The said transactions were made between 2011 and March 2016. The laws under which Jain was charged came into effect in November 2016, so they did not apply in his case.


title: Satyendra Kumar Jain

text: He is a cabinet minister in the Third Kejriwal ministry and holds the charge of below listed departments of the Government of Delhi.


title: Satyendra Kumar Jain

text: Jain lived with his family in Saraswati Vihar in North West Delhi, and now lives in a government bungalow in Civil lines. His father was a retired teacher who moved to Delhi after Jain's birth from his hometown Kirthal in Baghpat tehsil, in the state of Uttar Pradesh.


title: Satyendra Kumar Jain

text: In June 2020, all Jain's departments were temporarily taken over by the Deputy C.M. Manish Sisodia, citing his health issues as he himself was battling the COVID-19 virus. However, Jain retained the status of a minister without any department.


title: Satyendra Kumar Jain

text: Earlier, Jain travelled from one hospital to another and was keeping a close look on the circumstances and developments in the hospitals while treating COVID patients.


title: Satyendra Kumar Jain

text: On 20 June 2020 he was administered plasma therapy at the hospital in Saket, and on 24 June it was reported that his condition had improved considerably. On 2 May 2021 his father died due to COVID-19.


title: Tamburlaine

text: Tamburlaine the Great is a play in two parts by Christopher Marlowe. It is loosely based on the life of the Central Asian emperor Timur (Tamerlane/Timur the Lame, d. 1405). Written in 1587 or 1588, the play is a milestone in Elizabethan public drama; it marks a turning away from the clumsy language and loose plotting of the earlier Tudor dramatists, and a new interest in fresh and vivid language, memorable action, and intellectual complexity. Along with Thomas Kyd's "The Spanish Tragedy", it may be considered the first popular success of London's public stage.


title: Tamburlaine

text: Marlowe, generally considered the best of that group of writers known as the University Wits, influenced playwrights well into the Jacobean period, and echoes of the bombast and ambition of "Tamburlaine"s language can be found in English plays all the way to the Puritan closing of the theatres in 1642. While "Tamburlaine" is considered inferior to the great tragedies of the late-Elizabethan and early-Jacobean period, its significance in creating a stock of themes and, especially, in demonstrating the potential of blank verse in drama, is still acknowledged.


title: Tamburlaine

text: Whereas the real Timur was of Turkic-Mongolian ancestry and belonged to the nobility, for dramatic purposes Marlowe depicts him as a Scythian shepherd who rises to the rank of emperor.


title: Tamburlaine

text: Part 1 opens in Persepolis. The Persian emperor, Mycetes, dispatches troops to dispose of Tamburlaine, a Scythian shepherd and, at that point, a nomadic bandit. In the same scene, Mycetes' brother Cosroe plots to overthrow Mycetes and assume the throne.


title: Tamburlaine

text: The scene shifts to Scythia, where Tamburlaine is shown wooing, capturing, and winning Zenocrate, the daughter of the Egyptian king. Confronted by Mycetes' soldiers, he persuades first the soldiers and then Cosroe to join him in a fight against Mycetes. Although he promises Cosroe the Persian throne, Tamburlaine reneges on this promise and, after defeating Mycetes, takes personal control of the Persian Empire.


title: Tamburlaine

text: Now a powerful figure, Tamburlaine turns his attention to Bajazeth, emperor of the Turks. He defeats Bajazeth and his tributary kings, capturing the emperor and his wife Zabina. The victorious Tamburlaine keeps the defeated ruler in a cage and feeds him scraps from his table, releasing Bajazeth only to use him as a footstool. Bajazeth later kills himself on stage by bashing his head against the bars upon hearing of Tamburlaine's next victory. Upon finding his body, Zabina does likewise.


title: Tamburlaine

text: After conquering Africa and naming himself emperor of that continent, Tamburlaine sets his eyes on Damascus, a target which places the Egyptian sultan, his to-be father-in-law, directly in his path. Zenocrate pleads with her future husband to spare her father. He complies, instead making the sultan a tributary king. The play ends with the wedding of Tamburlaine and Zenocrate, who is crowned Empress of Persia.


title: Tamburlaine

text: In Part 2, Tamburlaine grooms his sons to be conquerors in his wake as he continues to attack neighbouring kingdoms. His oldest son, Calyphas, preferring to stay by his mother's side and not risk death, incurs Tamburlaine's wrath. Meanwhile, the son of Bajazeth, Callapine, escapes from Tamburlaine's jail and gathers a group of tributary kings to his side, planning to avenge his father. Callapine and Tamburlaine meet in battle, where Tamburlaine is victorious. But finding that Calyphas remained in his tent during the battle, Tamburlaine kills him in anger. Tamburlaine then forces the defeated kings to pull his chariot to his next battlefield, declaring,


title: Tamburlaine

text: Upon reaching Babylon, which holds out against him, Tamburlaine displays further acts of extravagant savagery. When the governor of the city attempts to save his life in return for revealing the city treasury, Tamburlaine has him hanged from the city walls and shot. He orders the inhabitants—men, women, and children—to be bound and thrown into a nearby lake. Lastly, Tamburlaine scornfully burns a copy of the Qur'an and claims to be greater than God.


title: Tamburlaine

text: In the final act, he becomes ill but manages to defeat one more foe before he dies. He bids his sons to conquer the remainder of the earth as he departs life.


title: Tamburlaine

text: Marlowe chiefly based his work on an abridged translation of Pedro Mexía's 1543 "Silva de varia lección" ("A Miscellany of Several Lessons"). The translation into English via French, executed by Thomas Fortescue under the title "The Forest or Collection of Historyes no lesse profitable than pleasant and necessary", was first published in 1571. Another principal source was Petrus Perondinus's "Vita Magni Tamerlinus"; Marlowe mostly relied on Mexía for the episodes of the play and Perondinus for characterizing Tamburlaine. Most of the minor characters were invented by Marlowe; the historians he drew on mention few names other than Tamburlaine himself (the historical Timur) and Bajazeth (Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I), though Mexía does mention a "Kyng of Persia and his brother" who were the origin of Marlowe's Cosroe and Mycetes – likely based on the historical personages of the warring Muzaffarid brother kings Shah Mansur and Shah Yahya. Marlowe was apparently aware from his sources of Timur's three sons Umar Shaikh Mirza I, Miran Shah, and Shah Rukh, but not their names; in the play they become Calyphas, Amyras, and Celebinus.


title: Tamburlaine

text: The decision to portray Tamburlaine and the Persians as Hellenistic pagans rather than Muslims in the play was apparently made for dramatic purposes and cannot be attributed to a lack of sources on life in the East. For similar reasons, Marlowe departs from his sources in being far more hostile towards Bajazeth and far more sympathetic towards Tamburlaine. Marlowe largely exhausted his historical sources in writing Part I of the play; Part II therefore relies on more extraneous sources and episodes and lacks some of the cohesion of the preceding part.


title: Tamburlaine

text: The play (in both parts) was entered into the Stationers' Register on 14 August 1590. Both parts were published together in a single black letter octavo that same year by the printer Richard Jones; its text is usually referred to as O1. A second edition was issued by Jones in 1592, and a third reprint appeared in 1597, essentially reprinting the text of the first edition. The plays were next published separately in quarto by the bookseller Edward White, "Part 1" in 1605 and "Part 2" in 1606, which reprinted the text of the 1597 printing.


title: Tamburlaine

text: Although Christopher Marlowe was not actually cited as the author in the first printings of the play – no author is named – and the first clear attributions to Marlowe are much later than 1590, scholars attribute the play to Marlowe based on similarities to his other works. Many passages in "Tamburlaine" foreshadow and echo passages from others of his works, and there is a clear parallel between the character development in "Tamburlaine" and that of the majority of Marlowe's other characters. This evidence alone leads scholars to believe with virtual unanimity that Marlowe wrote "Tamburlaine".


title: Tamburlaine

text: The influence of "Tamburlaine" on the drama of the 1590s cannot be overstated. The play exemplified, and in some cases created, many of the typical features of high Elizabethan drama: grandiloquent and often beautiful imagery, hyperbolic expression, and strong characters consumed by overwhelming passions. The first recorded comments on the play are negative. A letter written in 1587 relates the story of a child being killed by the accidental discharge of a firearm during a performance, and the next year Robert Greene, in the course of an attack on Marlowe, condemned the "atheistic Tamburlaine" in the epistle to "Perimedes the Blacksmith". That most playgoers (and playwrights) responded with enthusiasm is amply demonstrated by the proliferation of Asian tyrants and "aspiring minds" in the drama of the 1590s. Marlowe's influence on many characters in Shakespeare's history plays has been noted by, among others, Algernon Swinburne. Stephen Greenblatt considers it likely that "Tamburlaine" was among the first London plays that Shakespeare saw, an experience that directly inspired his early work such as the three Henry VI plays.


title: Tamburlaine

text: By the early years of the 17th century, this hyberbolic language had gone out of style. Shakespeare himself puts a speech from Tamburlaine in the mouth of his play-addled soldier Pistol ("2 Henry IV" II.4.155). In "Timber", Ben Jonson condemned "the Tamerlanes and Tamer-chams of the late age, which had nothing in them but the scenical strutting and furious vociferation to warrant them to the ignorant gapers".


title: Tamburlaine

text: Subsequent ages of critics have not reversed the position advanced by Jonson that the language and events in plays such as "Tamburlaine" are unnatural and ultimately unconvincing. Still, the play was regarded as the text above all others "wherein the whole restless temper of the age finds expression" (Long). Robert Fletcher notes that Marlowe "gained a high degree of flexibility and beauty by avoiding a regularly end-stopped arrangement, by taking pains to secure variety of pause and accent, and by giving his language poetic condensation and suggestiveness" (Fletcher). In his poem on Shakespeare, Jonson mentions "Marlowe's mighty line", a phrase critics have accepted as just, as they have also Jonson's claim that Shakespeare surpassed it. But while Shakespeare is commonly seen to have captured a far greater range of emotions than his contemporary, Marlowe retains a significant place as the first genius of blank verse in English drama.


title: Tamburlaine

text: The play is often linked to Renaissance humanism which idealises the potential of human beings. Tamburlaine's aspiration to immense power raises profound religious questions as he arrogates for himself a role as the "scourge of God" (an epithet originally applied to Attila the Hun). Some readers have linked this stance with the fact that Marlowe was accused of atheism. Others have been more concerned with an anti-Muslim thread of the play, highlighted in a scene in which the main character burns the Qur'an.


title: Tamburlaine

text: Jeff Dailey notes in his article "Christian Underscoring in "Tamburlaine the Great, Part II"" that Marlowe's work is a direct successor to the traditional medieval morality plays, and that, whether or not he was an atheist, he had inherited religious elements of content and allegorical methods of presentation.


title: Tamburlaine

text: The first part of "Tamburlaine" was performed by the Admiral's Men late in 1587, around a year after Marlowe's departure from Cambridge University. Edward Alleyn performed the role of Tamburlaine, and it apparently became one of his signature roles. The play's popularity, significant enough to prompt Marlowe to produce the sequel, led to numerous stagings over the next decade.


title: Tamburlaine

text: The stratification of London audiences in the early Jacobean period changed the fortunes of the play. For the sophisticated audiences of private theatres such as Blackfriars and (by the early 1610s) the Globe Theatre, Tamburlaine's "high astounding terms" were a relic of a simpler dramatic age. Satiric playwrights occasionally mimicked Marlowe's style, as John Marston does in the induction to "Antonio and Mellida".


title: Tamburlaine

text: While it is likely that "Tamburlaine" was still revived in the large playhouses, such as the Red Bull Theatre, that catered to traditional audiences, there is no surviving record of a Renaissance performance after 1595. "Tamburlaine" suffered more from the change in fashion than did Marlowe's other plays like "Doctor Faustus" or "The Jew of Malta" of which there are allusions to performances. Edward Phillips, in his "Theatrum Poetarum" (1675), is so unfamiliar with the play that he attributes its writing to Thomas Newton. A further sign of the obscurity this one-time audience favourite had fallen into is offered by playwright Charles Saunders. Having written his own play in 1681 on Tamburlaine, he was accused by critics of having plagiarised Marlowe's work, to which he replied,


title: Tamburlaine

text: I never heard of any Play on the same Subject, my own was Acted, neither have I since seen it, though it hath been told me, there is a Cock Pit Play going under the name of the "Scythian Shepherd", or "Tamberlain the Great", being a thing, not a Bookseller in London, or scarce the Players themselves, who Acted it formerly cou'd call to remembrance.


title: Tamburlaine

text: Following the Glorious Revolution of 1688, a tradition developed in Ireland of performing the play in Dublin on the anniversary of William of Orange's birthday. This was brought to an end in 1713 when the government banned a performance of the play because it included a controversial prologue including the phrase "No Peace Without Spain".


title: Tamburlaine

text: In 1919, the Yale Dramatic Association staged a "Tamburlaine" which edited and combined both parts of Marlowe's play. A revival of both parts in a condensed form was presented at The Old Vic in September 1951, with Donald Wolfit in the title role. For the Stratford Shakespeare Festival (now the Stratford Festival of Canada) in 1956, Tyrone Guthrie directed another dual version, starring Donald Wolfit, William Shatner, Robert Christie and Louis Negin; it travelled to Broadway, where it failed to impress—Eric Bentley, among others, panned it— although Anthony Quayle, who replaced Wolfit in the title role, received a Tony Award nomination for his performance, as did Guthrie for his direction.


title: Tamburlaine

text: The National Theatre production in 1976 featured Albert Finney in the title role. The production opened the new Olivier Theatre on the South Bank. Peter Hall directed. This production is generally considered the most successful of the rare modern productions. Brian Cox credits a remark from fellow actor Oliver Cotton during the production as resulting in the title of his autobiography "Putting The Rabbit In The Hat" published in 2021.


title: Tamburlaine

text: In 1993 the Royal Shakespeare Company performed an award-winning production of the play, with Antony Sher as Tamburlaine and Tracy Ann Oberman as Olympia.


title: Tamburlaine

text: Jeff Dailey directed both parts of the play, uncut, at the American Theatre of Actors in New York City. He presented Part I in 1997 and Part II in 2003, both in the outdoor theatre located in the courtyard of 314 West 54th Street.


title: Tamburlaine

text: Avery Brooks played the lead role in a production of the play for the Shakespeare Theatre Company. The play ran from 28 October 2007 to 6 January 2008 and was directed by Michael Kahn.


title: Tamburlaine

text: A new production combining Parts I and II ("trimming Marlowe’s two five-act plays to three hours of stage time [with a half-hour intermission]") edited and directed by Michael Boyd opened at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center, Brooklyn, New York on 16 November 2014 with John Douglas Thompson as Tamburlaine, Merritt Janson as Zenocrate/Callapine and a "large, multipurpose ensemble" cast.


title: Tamburlaine

text: A production of Tamburlaine was delivered by the Lazarus Theatre Company in London West End at the Tristan Bates Theatre between 25 August and 12 September 2015.


title: Tamburlaine

text: On 1 November 2014, Tamburlaine opened at Theatre for a New Audience where it won the 2015 Obie Award for John Douglas Thompson's Performance. It closed on 14 January 2015.


title: Tamburlaine

text: In August 2018, the Royal Shakespeare Company began a run of Tamburlaine in Stratford-upon-Avon, England.


title: Tamburlaine

text: While the play has been revived periodically over the past century, the obstacles it presents—a large cast and an actor capable of performing in such a challenging role chief among them—have prevented more widespread performance. In general, the modern playgoer may still echo F. P. Wilson's question, asked at mid-century, "How many of us can boast that we are more than readers of Tamburlaine?"


title: Tamburlaine

text: In November 2005, a production of "Tamburlaine" at the Barbican Arts Centre amended the scene in which Tamburlaine burns the Quran and excoriates the Islamic Prophet Muhammad; instead, he defiles books representing all religious texts. The director, David Farr, stated this was done "to make it very clear that his act was a giant two fingers to the entire theological system, not an piece of Christian triumphalism over the barbarous Turk".


title: Tamburlaine

text: Some groups claimed the altering of this scene was a show of 'political correctness' and pandering to Muslim sensibilities. The director strongly denied this, stating:


title: Tamburlaine

text: One other thing should be made clear. Never in our rehearsal discussions did we receive any pressure from the Muslim community – this was never the question. Never did we receive any pressure from the Young Vic or the Barbican to change any scenes. Never did I receive external pressure of any kind. The decision to focus the play away from anti-Turkish pantomime to an existential epic was artistic, mine alone, and I stand by it.


title: Tamburlaine

text: There have been two adaptations on BBC radio, both of which have combined both parts into one broadcast. The first was on BBC Radio 3 on 26 September 1993 and directed by Michael Fox, starring Michael Pennington as Tamburlaine, Samantha Bond as Zenocrate, Clive Rowe as Theridamas, Louis Hilyer as Techelks, Peter Guinness as Usumcasane, Rudolph Walker as Bajazeth/Orcanes and Timothy Walker as Mycetes/Calyphas. The second adaptation, again on BBC Radio 3, was broadcast on 16 September 2012 and directed by Peter Kavanagh, with Con O'Neill as Tamburlaine, Susie Riddell as Zenocrate, Oliver Ford Davies as Mycetes, Kenneth Cranham as Cosroe, Shaun Prendergast as Techelles, Ewan Bailey as Theridamas and Edward de Souza as the Sultan.


title: Tamburlaine

text: "Klingon Tamburlaine", an unofficial fan production adapted from Christopher Marlowe’s "Tamburlaine the Great", Parts I and II and reset in the "Star Trek" universe, was performed at the Hollywood Fringe Festival in 2019.


title: Authorization

text: Authorization or authorisation (see spelling differences) is the function of specifying access rights/privileges to resources, which is related to general information security and computer security, and to access control in particular. More formally, "to authorize" is to define an access policy. For example, human resources staff are normally authorized to access employee records and this policy is often formalized as access control rules in a computer system. During operation, the system uses the access control rules to decide whether access requests from (authenticated) consumers shall be approved (granted) or disapproved (rejected). Resources include individual files or an item's data, computer programs, computer devices and functionality provided by computer applications. Examples of consumers are computer users, computer software and other hardware on the computer.


title: Authorization

text: Access control in computer systems and networks rely on access policies. The access control process can be divided into the following phases: policy definition phase where access is authorized, and policy enforcement phase where access requests are approved or disapproved. Authorization is the function of the policy definition phase which precedes the policy enforcement phase where access requests are approved or disapproved based on the previously defined authorizations.


title: Authorization

text: Most modern, multi-user operating systems include role-based access control (RBAC) and thereby rely on authorization. Access control also uses authentication to verify the identity of consumers. When a consumer tries to access a resource, the access control process checks that the consumer has been authorized to use that resource. Authorization is the responsibility of an authority, such as a department manager, within the application domain, but is often delegated to a custodian such as a system administrator. Authorizations are expressed as access policies in some types of "policy definition application", e.g. in the form of an access control list or a capability, or a policy administration point e.g. XACML. On the basis of the "principle of least privilege": consumers should only be authorized to access whatever they need to do their jobs. Older and single user operating systems often had weak or non-existent authentication and access control systems.


title: Authorization

text: "Anonymous consumers" or "guests", are consumers that have not been required to authenticate. They often have limited authorization. On a distributed system, it is often desirable to grant access without requiring a unique identity. Familiar examples of access tokens include keys, certificates and tickets: they grant access without proving identity.


title: Authorization

text: Trusted consumers are often authorized for unrestricted access to resources on a system, but must be verified so that the access control system can make the access approval decision. "Partially trusted" and guests will often have restricted authorization in order to protect resources against improper access and usage. The access policy in some operating systems, by default, grant all consumers full access to all resources. Others do the opposite, insisting that the administrator explicitly authorizes a consumer to use each resource.


title: Authorization

text: Even when access is controlled through a combination of authentication and access control lists, the problems of maintaining the authorization data is not trivial, and often represents as much administrative burden as managing authentication credentials. It is often necessary to change or remove a user's authorization: this is done by changing or deleting the corresponding access rules on the system. Using atomic authorization is an alternative to per-system authorization management, where a trusted third party securely distributes authorization information.


title: Authorization

text: In banking, an authorization is a hold placed on a customer's account when a purchase is made using a debit card or credit card.


title: Authorization

text: In publishing, sometimes public lectures and other freely available texts are published without the approval of the author. These are called unauthorized texts. An example is the 2002 " 'The Theory of Everything: The Origin and Fate of the Universe' ", which was collected from Stephen Hawking's lectures and published without his permission as per copyright law.


title: Mapai

text: Mapai (, an acronym for , "Mifleget Poalei Eretz Yisrael", lit. "Workers' Party of the Land of Israel") was a democratic socialist political party in Israel, and was the dominant force in Israeli politics until its merger into the modern-day Israeli Labor Party in 1968. During Mapai's time in office, a wide range of progressive reforms were carried out, as characterised by the establishment of a welfare state, providing minimum income, security, and free (or almost free) access to housing subsidies and health and social services.


title: Mapai

text: The party was founded on 5 January 1930 by the merger of the Hapoel Hatzair founded by A. D. Gordon and the original Ahdut HaAvoda (founded in 1919 from the right, more moderate, wing of the Zionist socialist Poale Zion led by David Ben-Gurion). In the early 1920s the Labor Zionist movement had founded the Histadrut Union, which dominated the Hebrew settlement economy and infrastructure, later making Mapai the dominant political faction in Zionist politics. It was also responsible for the founding of Hashomer and Haganah, the first two armed Jewish groups which secured the people and property of the new and emerging Jewish communities. By the early 1930s, David Ben-Gurion had taken over the party, and had become de facto leader of the Jewish community in Palestine (known as the Yishuv). It was a member of the Labour and Socialist International between 1930 and 1940.


title: Mapai

text: The party was Jewish-only until the late 1960s, with a succession of satellite parties for Israeli Arabs, including the Democratic List of Nazareth, the Democratic List for Israeli Arabs, Agriculture and Development, Progress and Work, Cooperation and Brotherhood, Progress and Development and Cooperation and Development. It supported the policy of subjecting Arab citizens to martial law, which included confining them to the towns of their residence, and allowing them to exit only with a permit granted by the Israeli authorities.


title: Mapai

text: Due to its role in emerging victorious and independent from the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the party won large support in Israel's first elections in 1949, winning 35.7% of the vote (well ahead of second-placed Mapam's 14.7%) and 46 of the 120 seats. Ben-Gurion became Prime Minister and formed a coalition with the United Religious Front, the Progressive Party, the Sephardim and Oriental Communities and the Democratic List of Nazareth (an Israeli Arab party associated with Mapai). A notable piece of legislation enacted during Mapai's first term in office was an educational law in 1949 which introduced compulsory schooling for all children between the ages of 5 to 14. Mapai's years in office also witnessed the passage of the National Insurance Act of 1953 and the Social Welfare Service Law of 1958, which authorised a broad range of social welfare programmes, including special allowances for large families, workers' compensation provisions, maternity insurance, and old age and survivors' pensions.


title: Mapai

text: In the second elections in 1951 Mapai increased its vote to 37.3% (and 47 seats) despite the country's economic problems. Ben-Gurion again formed the government with the support of Mizrachi, Hapoel HaMizrachi, Agudat Yisrael, Poalei Agudat Yisrael and the three Israeli Arab parties associated with Mapai, the Democratic List for Israeli Arabs, Progress and Work and Agriculture and Development. However, he shocked the nation by resigning on 6 December 1953 in order to settle in the small Negev kibbutz of Sde Boker, and was replaced by Moshe Sharett.


title: Mapai

text: The 1955 elections saw a drop in the party's support to 32.2% (and 40 seats), though still well ahead of the second-placed Herut (12.6%). Ben Gurion returned as Prime Minister, and formed a coalition with the National Religious Front (which later changed its name to the National Religious Party), Mapam, Ahdut HaAvoda, and the three Israeli Arab parties, the Democratic List for Israeli Arabs, Progress and Work and Agriculture and Development. Later the Progressive Party was also added.


title: Mapai

text: In contrast to the previous one, the 1959 election saw a surge in support, as the party recorded its best electoral performance, taking 38.2% of the vote and 47 seats. Ben-Gurion again invited the National Religious Party, Mapam, Ahdut HaAvoda, the Progressive Party and the three Israeli Arab parties, Progress and Development, Cooperation and Brotherhood and Agriculture and Development to form the coalition.


title: Mapai

text: The inquiry into the Lavon Affair which brought down the government in 1961 probably contributed to the party's relatively poor performance in the elections in the same year, as it picked up only 34.7% of the vote and 42 seats. Although Ben-Gurion formed a strong coalition with the National Religious Party, Ahdut HaAvoda, Agudat Yisrael Workers, Cooperation and Brotherhood and Progress and Development, two events during the fifth Knesset led to Mapai's reducing dominance.


title: Mapai

text: Firstly, Ben-Gurion resigned as head of the party citing personal reasons, though in reality he was upset at a perceived lack of support from colleagues. He set up a new party, Rafi, taking with him seven other Mapai members. Secondly, the two major right-wing opposition parties, Herut and the Liberal Party had merged into Gahal. This meant by the end of the Knesset session, Mapai had only 34 seats to Gahal's 27.


title: Mapai

text: The party's response to the unprecedented strength of the opposition was to seek support from other parties with similar ideologies. The result was an alliance with Ahdut HaAvoda to form the Labor Alignment before the 1965 election. The new party won 36.7% of the vote and 45 seats, and comfortably beat Gahal (26 seats). On 23 January 1968 Mapai, Ahdut HaAvoda and Rafi merged into the Israeli Labor Party and ceased to exist as individual entities.


title: Mapai

text: Until 1963, the party had no formal rules to govern the selection of its leader. From the party's establishment, David Ben-Gurion was long the unchallenged leader of the party. Even in his brief 1954–1955 retirement (during which Moshe Sharett served as the official party leader), Ben-Gurion was still largely considered the de facto party boss. After Ben-Gurion retired again in 1963, informal consultations by the party's leading figures resulted in an informal consensus to appoint Levi Eshkol as leader, and this choice was ratified by the party's Central Committee. Soon after becoming party leader, Eshkol successfully pushed the party to amend its constitution to state that the party's candidate for the office of prime minister (its leader) would be selected by the party's Central Committee. Thus, when Ben-Gurion unsuccessfully attempted to retake party leadership in 1965, there was a formal leadership election held by a vote of the party's Central Committee.


title: Xeelee Sequence

text: The Xeelee Sequence (; ) is a series of hard science fiction space opera novels, novellas, and short stories written by British science fiction author Stephen Baxter. The series spans billions of years of fictional history, centering on humanity's future expansion into the universe, its intergalactic war with an enigmatic and supremely powerful Kardashev Type IV alien civilization called the Xeelee (eldritch symbiotes composed of spacetime defects, Bose-Einstein condensates, and baryonic matter), and the Xeelee's own cosmos-spanning war with dark matter entities called Photino Birds. The series features many other species and civilizations that play a prominent role, including the Squeem (a species of group-mind aquatics), the Qax (beings whose biology is based on the complex interactions of convection cells), and the Silver Ghosts (colonies of symbiotic organisms encased in reflective skins). Several stories in the Sequence also deal with humans and posthumans living in extreme conditions, such as at the heart of a neutron star ("Flux"), in a separate universe with considerably stronger gravity ("Raft"), and within eusocial hive societies ("Coalescent").


title: Xeelee Sequence

text: The Xeelee Sequence deals with many concepts stemming from the fringe of theoretical physics and futurology, such as artificial wormholes, time travel, exotic-matter physics, naked singularities, closed timelike curves, multiple universes, hyperadvanced computing and artificial intelligence, faster-than-light travel, spacetime engineering, quantum wave function beings, and the upper echelons of the Kardashev scale. Thematically, the series deals heavily with certain existential and social philosophical issues, such as striving for survival and relevance in a harsh and unknowable universe and the effects of war and militarism on society.


title: Xeelee Sequence

text: As of August 2018, the series is composed of 9 novels and 53 short pieces (short stories and novellas, with most collected in 3 anthologies), all of which fit into a fictional timeline stretching from the Big Bang's singularity of the past to the eventual heat death of the universe and "Timelike Infinity"s singularity of the future. An omnibus edition of the first four Xeelee novels ("Raft", "Timelike Infinity", "Flux", and "Ring"), entitled "Xeelee: An Omnibus", was released in January 2010. In August 2016, the entire series of all novels and stories (up to that date) was released as one volume in e-book format entitled "Xeelee Sequence: The Complete Series". Baxter's "Destiny's Children" series is part of the Xeelee Sequence.


title: Xeelee Sequence

text: Baxter first conceived of the Xeelee while hobby writing a short story in the summer of 1986 (eventually published in "Interzone" as "The Xeelee Flower" the following year). He incorporated powerful off-stage aliens to explain the story's titular artifact, and in pondering the backstory began to flesh out the basics of what would later become the main players and setting of the Sequence: a universe full of intelligent species that live in the shadow of the incomprehensible and god-like Xeelee.


title: Xeelee Sequence

text: The overarching plot of the Xeelee Sequence involves an intergalactic war between humanity and the Xeelee, and a cosmic war between the Xeelee and the Photino Birds, with the latter two being alien species that originated in the early universe. The technologically advanced Xeelee primarily inhabit supermassive black holes, manipulating their event horizons to create preferable living environments, construction materials, tools, and computing devices. The Photino Birds are a dark matter-based species that live in the gravity wells of stars, who are likely not aware of baryonic life forms due to dark matter's weak interactions with normal matter. Due to the inevitable risk of their habitats being destroyed by supernovae and other consequences of stellar evolution, the Photino Birds work to halt nuclear fusion in the cores of stars, prematurely aging them into stable white dwarfs. The resulting dwarfs provide them with suitable habitats for billions of times longer than other types of stars could, but at the expense of other forms of life on nearby planets. The Photino Birds' activities also effectively stop the formation of new black holes due to a lack of Type II supernovae, threatening the existence of the Xeelee and their cosmic projects.


title: Xeelee Sequence

text: After overcoming a series of brutal occupations by extraterrestrial civilizations, humanity expands into the galaxy with an extremely xenophobic and militaristic outlook, with aims to exterminate other species they encounter. Humans eventually become the second-most advanced and widespread civilization in the Milky Way galaxy, after the Xeelee. Unaware of the Photino–Xeelee war and the existential ramifications of what is at stake, humanity come to the (unwarranted) conclusion that the Xeelee are a sinister and destructive threat to their hegemony and security. Through a bitter war of attrition, humans end up containing the Xeelee to the galactic core. Both humans and the Xeelee gain strategic intelligence by using time travel as a war tactic, through the use of closed timelike curves, resulting in a stalemate for thousands of years. Eventually, humanity develops defensive, movable pocket universes to compartmentalize and process information, and an exotic weapon able to damage the ecological stability of the core's supermassive black hole. Minutes after the first successful strike, the Xeelee withdraw from the galaxy, effectively ceding the Milky Way to fully human control. Humanity continued to advance technologically for a hundred thousand years afterwards, then attacked the Xeelee across the Local Group of galaxies. However, despite having annoyed the Xeelee enough to give up activities in the Milky Way, humans, having become an extremely powerful Type III civilization themselves at this point, prove only to be a minor distraction to the Xeelee on the whole, being ultimately unable to meaningfully challenge their dominance across the universe.


title: Xeelee Sequence

text: Although the Xeelee are masters of space and time capable of influencing their own evolution, they are ultimately unsuccessful in stopping the Photino Birds. They instead utilize cosmic strings to build an enormous ring-like structure (which comes to be known as Bolder's Ring, or simply the Ring) to permit easy travel to other universes, allowing them and other species to escape the Photino Birds' destruction of the universe. The Xeelee, despite their unapproachable aloofness and transcendent superiority, appear to be compassionate and charitable toward the younger and less advanced species that inhabit the universe, demonstrating this by doing such things as constructing a specially-made universe suited to the Silver Ghosts, who humans had nearly driven to extinction. Humans are likewise shown compassion by them and allowed to use the Ring to escape, despite their relentless long war against the Xeelee.


title: Xeelee Sequence

text: The novels in chronological order (as opposed to publication order) are given below. Some of the novels contain elements occurring at different points in the timeline. The story anthologies ("Vacuum Diagrams", "Resplendent", and "Xeelee: Endurance") each contain stories taking place across the entire chronology.


title: Xeelee Sequence

text: In 2009, Baxter posted a detailed chronology of the Xeelee Sequence explaining the proper chronological reading order of all the novels, novellas, and short stories up to that year. The timeline was updated in September 2015.


title: Xeelee Sequence

text: When asked directly for a suggested reading order, the author wrote: "I hope that all the books and indeed the stories can be read stand-alone. I'm not a great fan of books that end with cliff-hangers. So you could go in anywhere. One way would be to start with "Vacuum Diagrams", a collection that sets out the overall story of the universe. Then "Timelike Infinity" and "Ring" which tell the story of Michael Poole, then "Raft" and "Flux" which are really incidents against the wider background, and finally "Destiny's Children"."


title: Ring 2

text: "Ring" was originally a novel written by Koji Suzuki; its sequel, "Rasen" (a.k.a. "Spiral"), was also adapted into a film as the sequel to "Ring". Due to the poor response to "Rasen", "Ring 2" was made as a new sequel to "Ring". However it "was" not based on Suzuki's works, thus it ultimately ignores the story of "Rasen".


title: Ring 2

text: "Ring 2" takes place a couple of weeks after the first film, directly continuing the story and features most of the cast from "Ring" reprising their roles.


title: Ring 2

text: After the body of Sadako Yamamura is retrieved from a well, her uncle Takashi is summoned by police to identify her. Detective Omuta explains to Takashi that forensics concluded Sadako may have survived in the well for thirty years. Forensics experts reconstruct her body, giving it to Takashi, who gives his niece a burial at sea, hoping to be free from the guilt he has carried since her mother Shizuko committed suicide because of his actions. The police search for Reiko Asakawa and her son Yoichi following the sudden death of her ex-husband Ryuji Takayama and her father Koichi a week later. Mai Takano, Ryuji's university assistant, investigates his death, visiting Reiko's news office where her colleague Okazaki joins Mai in her search for answers. They find a burnt out videotape in Reiko's apartment, Mai sensing Reiko's father died the same way as Ryuji.


title: Ring 2

text: Investigating the urban legend of the cursed videotape, Okazaki meets a high school student Kanae Sawaguchi, who gives him a copy of the tape but admits she watched it herself. She begs Okazaki to watch the tape before the week is up, but he chickens out and hides his copy in his desk drawer at work.


title: Ring 2

text: Mai and Okazaki go to a mental hospital to speak to Masami Kurahashi, a friend of Reiko's niece Tomoko, but learn she is both mute and has a phobia of televisions, having witnessed Tomoko's death. They meet Doctor Oisho Kawajiri, Masami's doctor, and a paranormal researcher, who is trying to expel the psychic energy within Masami through experimentation. Mai steps out for some air, encountering Masami, whose presence causes Sadako to materialise on a television and terrify the patients. Masami tries to channel her fear into psychic vessel Mai, who realizes Yoichi has been trying to do the same thing.


title: Ring 2

text: Mai finds Yoichi alone in a shopping mall before his mother appears. Mai learns Yoichi has been mute since his father and grandfather's deaths and his psychic abilities intensified, and Reiko asks if Kawajiri can help. Returning to the hospital, Mai discovers that Okazaki has accidentally led the police to Kawajiri, who has informed them of Mai's contact with Reiko. Mai, Okazaki, and Detective Omuta observe Kawajiri's experiment to exorcise the psychic energy from Masami by projecting her mental imagery onto a blank tape. However, it causes the cursed videotape's imagery to appear. Mai destroys the recording. Omuta tortures Mai into revealing Reiko and Yoichi's location, forcing Mai to view Kanae's fear contorted corpse. Overcome with guilt, Mai telepathically tells Yoichi to flee the police station. Yoichi psychically attacks the cops and escapes with Reiko, who is consequentially hit and crushed underneath a truck. Yoichi begins to psychically kill Omuta, but is stopped by Mai as the two run off together. Okazaki attempts to delete his interview with Kanae, only for her ghost to materialise and haunt him.


title: Ring 2

text: Mai and Yoichi travel to Oshima Island and stay in the Yamamura Inn. Yoichi has a nightmare, causing Shizuko's and a young Sadako's ghosts to appear before Mai wards them away. Dr. Kawajiri arrives in the night, offering to exorcise Yoichi as he tried with Masami, with Mai volunteering to act as a conduit to expel Sadako's hatred into a swimming pool, water being able to neutralise the energy. The attempt turns frightening and Sadako's coffin appears in the pool. Takashi jumps in demanding to be taken by Sadako, while Kawajiri dives into the pool carrying electrical equipment, killing themselves alongside their assistant.


title: Ring 2

text: Mai and Yoichi fall into the water, appearing inside the well. Ryuji's ghost appears, absorbing Yoichi's fear, and summons a rope that will guide Mai to safety as long as she doesn't look down. Sadako's ghost appears, scaling the well only to cryptically ask, "Why is it only you were saved?". Mai and Yoichi emerge in the pool, tentatively free of their fear. While Okazaki is institutionalised, a nurse takes a picture of him. As she leaves the room she notices something in the photo, seemingly shocked; behind Okazaki is Kanae's laughing spirit looking for revenge.


title: Ring 2

text: "Ring 2" was released in Japan on January 23, 1999 where it was distributed by Toho. It was released on a double bill with the film "Shikoku". In the Philippines, the film was released as "Ring 2: Call of Evil" on March 5, 2003. The film was released directly to video in the United States on August 23, 2005 by DreamWorks.


title: Ring 2

text: It was the second highest-grossing Japanese film of 1999 (after ""), earning a distribution income (rentals) of upon its theatrical release. "Ring 2" grossed a total Japanese box office revenue of ().


title: Ring 2

text: In South Korea, the film sold 128,521 tickets. In France, the film sold 22,263 tickets, bringing the film's total overseas box office to 150,784 ticket sales.


title: Ring 2

text: In the United Kingdom, it was watched by 360,000 viewers on television during the first half of 2005, making it the seventh most-watched foreign-language film on UK television during that period. The original "Ring" also drew 390,000 viewers on UK television during the same period, adding up to a combined 750,000 UK television viewership for both "Ring" films during the first half of 2005.


title: Ring 2

text: "Variety" referred to the film as a "very different beast" than the "Ring", with "less atmosphere and more genre shocks". The review stated that the film "notably fails to build on the first movie's wonderfully nasty final scene" and is "progressively more conventional with no special visual style or under-the-skins frissons".


title: Ring 2

text: As a result of the film's popularity, one of the film's cast members, Kyoko Fukada (role of Kanae Sawaguchi), was offered a recording contract with Pony Canyon (the label that handled the releases of the film's soundtrack and its accompanying single), and her debut single was released by Pony Canyon on May 19, 1999.


title: Mercedes-Benz CL-Class (C216)

text: The Mercedes-Benz C216 is the last generation for the grand tourer with name Mercedes-Benz CL-Class. It replaced the C215 platform. In 2014 it was replaced by the C217 S-Class Coupe.


title: Mercedes-Benz CL-Class (C216)

text: Like its predecessors, the C216 has no B-pillar interrupting the sleek curve of the side windows. The C216 body was designed by Gorden Wagener and Peter Pfeiffer.


title: Mercedes-Benz CL-Class (C216)

text: The chassis is based on the W221 S-Class. The two-door coupé weighs , heavier than the equivalent S saloon, and rides on a full-size 116.3-inch wheelbase (albeit 8.2 inches less than the long wheelbase S-Class, which is the only S-Class sold in the U.S.). Despite its large size, rear seat legroom is limited in keeping in the tradition of 2+2 luxury coupés, though CL has more rear passenger space than its rivals. The CL's boot is as large as that of the Audi A8 flagship saloon.


title: Mercedes-Benz CL-Class (C216)

text: The vehicle was unveiled in the 2006 Paris Motor Show, followed by the 28th Bangkok International Motor Show (in right-handed drive configuration).


title: Mercedes-Benz CL-Class (C216)

text: The vehicle went on sale in Early-July 2006 in Europe (UK arrival spring 2007). Early models included CL 500 with 7G-TRONIC transmission, CL 600 with five-speed automatic transmission.


title: Mercedes-Benz CL-Class (C216)

text: The CL 65 AMG is a version of the CL 600 with increased engine power to at 4,800-5,100 rpm and at 2,000-4,000 rpm, vented and cross-drilled 15.4 inches front and 14.8 inches rear brake discs, frame-type sliding rear brake calipers, 255/35 ZR 20 front and 275/35 ZR 20 rear tires, forged 20-inch AMG twin-spoke wheels (8.5 inches front and 9.5 in the rear), special AMG spring struts with firmer damping, reworked ESP stability control and ASR traction control.


title: Mercedes-Benz CL-Class (C216)

text: The "40th Anniversary" edition CL 65 AMG is a limited (40 units) version of the CL 65 AMG commemorating the 40th anniversary of AMG, designed by the specialists of the AMG PERFORMANCE STUDIO. It included exclusive AMG Alubeam (Liquid Metal) body paint (from Vision GST and SL 400 CDI), AMG two-bar front grille, large under-bumper air intakes, air outlets on the front fenders and round fog lights, rear apron with a black air diffuser insert and twin V12-design tailpipes, two-tone EXCLUSIVE PASSION Nappa leather seats with new AMG V12 diamond pattern stitching, embossed V12 logos in the front head restraints, color-coordinated Alcantara roof lining, nappa leather upholstery at airbag unit of the AMG ergonomic sports steering wheel, carbon fiber interior trim, "40th Anniversary" lettering on the center console and a "One Out of 40" badge on the handrest of the COMAND controller.


title: Mercedes-Benz CL-Class (C216)

text: The 2008 model year Mercedes-Benz CL 65 AMG was unveiled in the 2007 New York International Auto Show.


title: Mercedes-Benz CL-Class (C216)

text: It is a version of the 2009 model year CL 500 and CL 500 4MATIC commemorating the 100th birthday of the Mercedes three-pointed star and the Benz emblem, when on 24 June 1909 Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft officially registered the design of the Mercedes star, and on 6 August Benz & Cie. registered the letters "Benz", enclosed by a laurel wreath, as a trademark with the Imperial Patent Office. Changes include historic trademarks dating from 1909 in gilded plate brass, which are inset into the centre console; designo metallic graphite body colour, AMG Sports package, exclusive high-sheen 20-inch 5 twin-spoke AMG light-alloy wheels in titanium grey, 255/35 R 20 front and 275/35 R 20 rear tyres, partly hand-stitched designo aniline leather with contrasting seams in a light sand colour, wood/leather steering wheel, interior trim in shining black piano lacquer, anthracite Alcantara roof lining and black floor mats with AMG lettering and sand-coloured edging.


title: Mercedes-Benz CL-Class (C216)

text: It is a limited version of the 2010 model year CL 550 4MATIC based on the CL 500 4MATIC model "Trademark Centenary", with 255/35 R 20 tires, Sahara Beige leather interior upholstery, an SD card slot in the center console, a USB interface in the glove compartment, a universal Media Interface for connecting mobile audio devices and all components of the Premium 2 package.


title: Mercedes-Benz CL-Class (C216)

text: AMG bodystyling (includes front bumper with enlarged air intakes, chrome-ringed circular fog lamps, two slanted struts and a smooth transition to the prominent wheel arches, AMG side skirts, AMG rear apron, rear bumper with its black insert and chrome trim strip flanked by tailpipes on either side), AMG light-alloy wheels (includes 19-inch five-spoke wheels (8.5/9.5-wide) with embossed AMG lettering, high-sheen rim flange and spokes, 255/40 (front) and 275/40 (rear) tyres) went on sale in September 2006, for CL 500 and CL 600.


title: Mercedes-Benz CL-Class (C216)

text: The Pre-Safe Brake world premiere on the CL-Class C216 with the first partial autonomous braking (40%, or up to 0.4g deceleration) if the driver does not react to the BAS Plus warnings and the system detects a severe danger of an accident. If the driver then immediately applied the brakes, the maximum braking force was available and – depending on the situation – the accident could be averted at the last moment. If an accident was unavoidable, the PRE-SAFE brakes reduced the impact severity and, in turn, the risk of injury to the vehicle occupants.


title: Mercedes-Benz CL-Class (C216)

text: The Distronic Plus adaptive cruise control is able to bring the car to a complete stop, and accelerate again to the pre-set speed, to keep a pre-set distance away from the car ahead of it. Also introduced active infrared Night View Assist enables drivers to view the conditions in front of the car despite the dark surroundings. Intelligent Light System headlights with five light modes, including active light function.


title: Mercedes-Benz CL-Class (C216)

text: In 2007 it added the first Mercedes-Benz Blind Spot Assist system (includes six short-range radar sensors in the front and rear bumpers). This was available as option for CL-Class.


title: Mercedes-Benz CL-Class (C216)

text: AMG Sports package for 2009 CL-Class (including a front apron with large air intakes, rear apron with a black insert and integrated rectangular tailpipe trim in polished stainless steel, AMG side sill panels, 19-inch AMG light-alloy wheels in with a five-spoke design and wide-base 255/40 (front) and 275/40 (rear) tyres (optional 20-inch AMG light-alloy wheels in a twin-spoke design with 255/35 and 275/35 tyres), perforated brake discs and silver-painted brake callipers with Mercedes-Benz lettering (V8/V12 engine models), wood trim and wood/leather steering wheel in black ash, velour floor mats with AMG lettering, sports pedals in brushed stainless steel with rubber studs) was available for CL 500 and CL 500 4MATIC beginning in June 2009.


title: Mercedes-Benz CL-Class (C216)

text: From 2009, Mercedes-Benz has only been offering the CL 550 in 4Matic in US/Canada, as a strategy to increase sales in snowy regions. While all the systems are the same, the suspension has been degraded from ABC to Airmatic, as 4Matic is not compatible with ABC. The CL 600 and CL 65 AMG remained the same rear-wheel drive variants.


title: Mercedes-Benz CL-Class (C216)

text: As part of Mercedes-Benz CL-Class launch, Mercedes-Benz Accessories GMBH released accessories for the CL-Class vehicles, including leather wallet and business card case in black nappa based on the trim in the CL's cockpit, ash timber pens and umbrella handle based on the wood trim found in the car's cockpit, driving gloves and instrumentation-inspired wristwatch, keyring and money clip with the MB logo, and a diecast model car made by AUTOart. The accessories were available beginning in September 2006.


title: Mercedes-Benz CL-Class (C216)

text: The vehicle was unveiled in the 2010 Goodwood Festival of Speed, followed by the 2010 Paris Motor Show.


title: Mercedes-Benz CL-Class (C216)

text: US models arrived at Mercedes-Benz dealerships in November 2010 as 2011 model year vehicles. Early models include CL 550 4MATIC, CL 63 AMG.


title: Mercedes-Benz CL-Class (C216)

text: It is a version of the CL 500 BlueEFFICIENCY with AMG 5.5-litre V8 biturbo engine rated at 5,500 rpm and at 2,000-4,500 rpm, AMG SPEEDSHIFT MCT 7-speed sports transmission, improved fuel efficiency over previous CL 63 AMG, newly designed AMG bodystyling, "V8 Biturbo" lettering on the mudguards, AMG triple-spoke light-alloy wheels in titanium grey and with a high-sheen finish, 255/40 and 275/40 R 19 tyres, AMG sports steering wheel with silver-coloured aluminium shift paddles and specially shaped grip area covered with perforated nappa leather, "AMG V8 Biturbo" start screen in the AMG instrument cluster, optional SPLITVIEW for COMAND multimedia system, Direct-Steer system, Torque Vectoring Brake, crosswind stabilization, AMG high-performance braking system, optional Active Lane Keeping Assist and Active Blind-Spot Assist.


title: Mercedes-Benz CL-Class (C216)

text: Other options include designo products (including exclusive paint finishes, leather upholstery, trim elements and steering wheels), designo Selection.


title: Mercedes-Benz CL-Class (C216)

text: It is a version of the CL 600 with increased engine power to at 4,800 rpm and at 2,300-4,300 rpm, reduction in fuel consumption via regenerative braking for battery management of both the on-board electrical system and generator, reduced emissions via new piston rings, a modified oil pump and use of a superior coating on the catalytic converters; AMG SPEEDSHIFT five-speed automatic transmission with three different drive modes, AMG sports suspension based on Active Body Control (ABC) with Torque Vectoring Brake, crosswind stabilisation, loading adjustment system, Direct-Steer system with speed-sensitive power steering, AMG high-performance braking system based on the ADAPTIVE BRAKE system (390 and 365 millimetres diameter ventilated and perforated composite brake discs, double floating front and sliding frame-type rear brake callipers), profiled bonnet, enlarged and more angled radiator grille, Intelligent Light System (ILS) (bi-xenon headlamps with active light function, Adaptive Highbeam Assist and AMG-specific LED daytime driving lights in the front apron), enlarged chrome-trimmed cooling-air intake with horizontal grille slat, V-shape and the lower cross strut with exclusive chrome-look finish, AMG rear apron with a chrome diffuser insert, taillamps with one-piece red-coloured cover plates, reversing headlamps placed next to the licence plate recess, AMG sports exhaust system with two chrome twin tailpipes featuring a V12 design, "V12 BITURBO" lettering on the mudguard, AMG double-spoke forged wheels in titanium grey and with a high-sheen finish, 255/35 R 20 front 275/35 R 20 rear tyres, exclusive PASSION nappa leather upholstery with V12 diamond pattern at seats and door centre panels, Nappa leather upholstery at instrument panel and seatback panels and magazine pockets and parcel shelf, Alcantara roof lining and A and C-pillars, AMG sports seats with alternate upholstery layout and active ventilation and heating and Seat Comfort package (front active multicontour seats with massage and dynamic functions, NECK-PRO luxury head restraints), PRE-SAFE positioning function at front seats, AMG sports steering wheel with silver-coloured aluminium shift paddles and perforated nappa leather in the grip area, COMAND APS multimedia system including Harman Kardon Logic 7 surround sound system with SPLITVIEW, AMG instrument cluster with "AMG V12 BITURBO" start screen and a 360-km/h speedometer scale, a gear indicator including upshift recommendation at AMG main menu, RACETIMER with lap times tracking, exclusive analogue clock with IWC design and high-gloss poplar wood trim elements.


title: Mercedes-Benz CL-Class (C216)

text: It is a version of the CL 500 BlueEFFICIENCY, CL 500 4MATIC BlueEFFICIENCY and CL 600 commemorating 60 years of the S-Class Coupé. Changes include a choice of 3 designo body colours (platinum black metallic, mocha black metallic and matt magno cashmere white), AMG Sports package 20-inch light-alloy wheels in a choice of five-spoke or filigree 10-spoke designs, a "Grand Edition" badge, a choice interior 3 aniline leather upholstery colours (designo aniline leather armagnac, designo aniline leather deep black, designo aniline leather porcelain), full range of CL trim finishes (including black ash and high-gloss burr walnut), Active Body Control (ABC) with crosswind stabilisation, drowsiness detection system ATTENTION ASSIST, PRE-SAFE automatic emergency braking, optional Active Blind Spot Assist, Active Lane Keeping Assist, and Adaptive Highbeam Assist systems.


title: Mercedes-Benz CL-Class (C216)

text: Japan models went on sale in 2012-09-19, which included only CL 550 4MATIC BlueEFFICIENCY Grand Edition, with designo mocha black (17 units) or designo magno cashmere white (matte) (3 units) body colour, designo porcelain (leather) interior, black ash wood interior trim, AMG styling package (front spoiler, side and rear skirt), exclusive design 20-inch 5-spoke aluminium wheels, 'Grand Edition' side emblem and designo floor mats.


title: Mercedes-Benz CL-Class (C216)

text: AMG SPEEDSHIFT MCT 7-speed sports transmission includes Controlled Efficiency ("C") drive mode, Controlled Efficiency stop/start function, "S" (Sport) mode with higher engine speed level in each gear, manual shift mode "M" with 100ms gearshifts and no automatic downshifts, electronic transmission control unit with its integrated 80 MHz processor. The electronic key for selection of the three driving models is located to the left of the COMAND controller.


title: Mercedes-Benz CL-Class (C216)

text: 2011 and 2012 model years of the CL 550 4MATIC and CL 63 AMG were recalled for cracked fuel filter flange leading to fire if an external ignition source is present. The recall campaign was expected to begin in January 2013.


title: International Atomic Time

text: International Atomic Time (abbreviated TAI, from its French name ) is a high-precision atomic coordinate time standard based on the notional passage of proper time on Earth's geoid. TAI is a weighted average of the time kept by over 450 atomic clocks in over 80 national laboratories worldwide. It is a continuous scale of time, without leap seconds, and it is the principal realisation of Terrestrial Time (with a fixed offset of epoch). It is the basis for Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), which is used for civil timekeeping all over the Earth's surface and which has leap seconds.


title: International Atomic Time

text: UTC deviates from TAI by a number of whole seconds. , when another leap second was put into effect, UTC is currently exactly 37 seconds behind TAI. The 37 seconds result from the initial difference of 10 seconds at the start of 1972, plus 27 leap seconds in UTC since 1972.


title: International Atomic Time

text: TAI may be reported using traditional means of specifying days, carried over from non-uniform time standards based on the rotation of the Earth. Specifically, both Julian days and the Gregorian calendar are used. TAI in this form was synchronised with Universal Time at the beginning of 1958, and the two have drifted apart ever since, due primarily to the slowing rotation of the Earth.


title: International Atomic Time

text: TAI is a weighted average of the time kept by over 450 atomic clocks in over 80 national laboratories worldwide. The majority of the clocks involved are caesium clocks; the International System of Units (SI) definition of the second is based on caesium. The clocks are compared using GPS signals and two-way satellite time and frequency transfer. Due to the signal averaging TAI is an order of magnitude more stable than its best constituent clock.


title: International Atomic Time

text: The participating institutions each broadcast, in real time, a frequency signal with timecodes, which is their estimate of TAI. Time codes are usually published in the form of UTC, which differs from TAI by a well-known integer number of seconds. These time scales are denoted in the form "UTC(NPL)" in the UTC form, where "NPL" here identifies the National Physical Laboratory, UK. The TAI form may be denoted "TAI(NPL)". The latter is not to be confused with "TA(NPL)", which denotes an independent atomic time scale, not synchronised to TAI or to anything else.


title: International Atomic Time

text: The clocks at different institutions are regularly compared against each other. The International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM, France), combines these measurements to retrospectively calculate the weighted average that forms the most stable time scale possible. This combined time scale is published monthly in "Circular T", and is the canonical TAI. This time scale is expressed in the form of tables of differences UTC − UTC("k") (equal to TAI − TAI("k")) for each participating institution "k". The same circular also gives tables of TAI − TA("k"), for the various unsynchronised atomic time scales.


title: International Atomic Time

text: Errors in publication may be corrected by issuing a revision of the faulty Circular T or by errata in a subsequent Circular T. Aside from this, once published in Circular T, the TAI scale is not revised. In hindsight, it is possible to discover errors in TAI and to make better estimates of the true proper time scale. Since the published circulars are definitive, better estimates do not create another version of TAI; it is instead considered to be creating a better realisation of Terrestrial Time (TT).


title: International Atomic Time

text: Early atomic time scales consisted of quartz clocks with frequencies calibrated by a single atomic clock; the atomic clocks were not operated continuously. Atomic timekeeping services started experimentally in 1955, using the first caesium atomic clock at the National Physical Laboratory, UK (NPL). It was used as a basis for calibrating the quartz clocks at the Royal Greenwich Observatory and to establish a time scale, called Greenwich Atomic (GA). The United States Naval Observatory began the A.1 scale on 13 September 1956, using an Atomichron commercial atomic clock, followed by the NBS-A scale at the National Bureau of Standards, Boulder, Colorado on 9 October 1957.


title: International Atomic Time

text: The International Time Bureau (BIH) began a time scale, T or AM, in July 1955, using both local caesium clocks and comparisons to distant clocks using the phase of VLF radio signals. The BIH scale, A.1, and NBS-A were defined by an epoch at the beginning of 1958 The procedures used by the BIH evolved, and the name for the time scale changed: "A3" in 1964 and "TA(BIH)" in 1969.


title: International Atomic Time

text: The SI second was defined in terms of the caesium atom in 1967. From 1971 to 1975 the General Conference on Weights and Measures and the International Committee for Weights and Measures made a series of decisions which designated the BIPM time scale International Atomic Time (TAI).


title: International Atomic Time

text: In the 1970s, it became clear that the clocks participating in TAI were ticking at different rates due to gravitational time dilation, and the combined TAI scale, therefore, corresponded to an average of the altitudes of the various clocks. Starting from the Julian Date 2443144.5 (1 January 1977 00:00:00), corrections were applied to the output of all participating clocks, so that TAI would correspond to proper time at the geoid (mean sea level). Because the clocks were, on average, well above sea level, this meant that TAI slowed by about one part in a trillion. The former uncorrected time scale continues to be published under the name "EAL" ("Échelle Atomique Libre", meaning "Free Atomic Scale").


title: International Atomic Time

text: The instant that the gravitational correction started to be applied serves as the epoch for Barycentric Coordinate Time (TCB), Geocentric Coordinate Time (TCG), and Terrestrial Time (TT), which represent three fundamental time scales in the solar system. All three of these time scales were defined to read JD 2443144.5003725 (1 January 1977 00:00:32.184) exactly at that instant. TAI was henceforth a realisation of TT, with the equation TT(TAI) = TAI + 32.184 s.


title: International Atomic Time

text: The continued existence of TAI was questioned in a 2007 letter from the BIPM to the ITU-R which stated, "In the case of a redefinition of UTC without leap seconds, the CCTF would consider discussing the possibility of suppressing TAI, as it would remain parallel to the continuous UTC."


title: International Atomic Time

text: Contrary to TAI, UTC is a discontinuous time scale. It is occasionally adjusted by leap seconds. Between these adjustments, it is composed of segments that are mapped to atomic time by a constant offset. From its beginning in 1961 through December 1971, the adjustments were made regularly in fractional leap seconds so that UTC approximated UT2. Afterward, these adjustments were made only in whole seconds to approximate UT1. This was a compromise arrangement in order to enable a publicly broadcast time scale. The less frequent whole-second adjustments meant that the time scale would be more stable and easier to synchronize internationally. The fact that it continues to approximate UT1 means that tasks such as navigation which require a source of Universal Time continue to be well served by the public broadcast of UTC.


title: Sallekhana

text: Sallekhana (IAST: ), also known as samlehna, santhara, samadhi-marana or sanyasana-marana, is a supplementary vow to the ethical code of conduct of Jainism. It is the religious practice of voluntarily fasting to death by gradually reducing the intake of food and liquids. It is viewed in Jainism as the thinning of human passions and the body, and another means of destroying rebirth-influencing karma by withdrawing all physical and mental activities. It is not considered as a suicide by Jain scholars because it is not an act of passion, nor does it employ poisons or weapons. After the "sallekhana" vow, the ritual preparation and practice can extend into years.


title: Sallekhana

text: "Sallekhana" is a vow available to both Jain ascetics and householders. Historic evidence such as "nishidhi" engravings suggest "sallekhana" was observed by both men and women, including queens, in Jain history. However, in the modern era, death through "sallekhana" has been a relatively uncommon event.


title: Sallekhana

text: There is debate about the practice from a right to life vs right to die and a freedom of religion viewpoint. In 2015, the Rajasthan High Court banned the practice, considering it suicide. In 2016, the Supreme Court of India stayed the decision of the Rajasthan High Court and lifted the ban on "sallekhana".


title: Sallekhana

text: There are Five Great vows prescribed to followers of Jainism; "Ahimsa" (non-violence), "Satya" (not lying), "Asteya" (not stealing), "Brahmacharya" (chastity), and "Aparigraha" (non-possession). A further seven supplementary vows are also prescribed, which include three "Gunavratas" (merit vows) and four "Shiksha vratas" (disciplinary vows). The three "Gunavratas" are: "Digvrata" (limited movements, limiting one's area of activity), "Bhogopabhogaparimana" (limiting use of consumable and non-consumable things), and "Anartha-dandaviramana" (abstain from purposeless sins). The "Shikshavratas" include: "Samayika" (vow to meditate and concentrate for limited periods), "Desavrata" (limiting movement and space of activity for limited periods), "Prosadhopavāsa" (fasting for limited periods), and "Atithi-samvibhag" (offering food to the ascetic).


title: Sallekhana

text: "Sallekhana" is treated as a supplementary to these twelve vows. However, some Jain teachers such as Kundakunda, Devasena, Padmanandin, and Vasunandin have included it under "Shikshavratas".


title: Sallekhana

text: "Sallekhana" () means to properly 'thin out', 'scour out', or 'slender' the passions and the body through gradually abstaining from food and drink. "Sallekhana" is divided into two components: "Kashaya Sallekhana" (slendering of passions) or "Abhayantra Sallekhana" (internal slendering) and "Kaya Sallekhana" (slendering the body) or "Bahya Sallekhana" (external slendering). It is described as "facing death voluntarily through fasting". According to Jain texts, "Sallekhana" leads to "Ahimsa" (non-violence or non-injury), as a person observing "Sallekhana" subjugates the passions, which are the root cause of "Himsa" (injury or violence).


title: Sallekhana

text: While "Sallekhana" is prescribed for both "householders" and ascetics, Jain texts describe conditions when it is appropriate. It should not be observed by a householder without guidance of a Jain ascetic.


title: Sallekhana

text: Sallekhana is always voluntary, undertaken after public declaration, and never assisted with any chemicals or tools. The fasting causes thinning away of body by withdrawing by choice food and water to oneself. As death is imminent, the individual stops all food and water, with full knowledge of colleagues and spiritual counsellor. In some cases, Jains with terminal illness undertake "sallekhana", and in these cases they ask for permission from their spiritual counsellor. For a successful "sallekhana", the death must be with "pure means", voluntary, planned, undertaken with calmness, peace and joy where the person accepts to scour out the body and focuses his or her mind on spiritual matters.


title: Sallekhana

text: "Sallekhana" differs from other forms of ritual deaths recognized in Jainism as appropriate. The other situations consider ritual death to be better for a mendicant than breaking his or her Five Great vows ("Mahavrata"). For example, celibacy is one of the Five vows, and ritual death is considered better than being raped or seduced or if the mendicant community would be defamed. A ritual death under these circumstances by consuming poison is believed to be better and allows for an auspicious rebirth.


title: Sallekhana

text: The duration of the practice can vary from a few days to years. The sixth part of the "Ratnakaranda śrāvakācāra" describes "Sallekhana" and its procedure as follows—


title: Sallekhana

text: Jain texts mention five transgressions ("Atichara") of the vow: the desire to be reborn as a human, the desire to be reborn as a divinity, the desire to continue living, the desire to die quickly, and the desire to live a sensual life in the next life. Other transgressions include: recollection of affection for friends, recollection of the pleasures enjoyed, and longing for the enjoyment of pleasures in the future.


title: Sallekhana

text: The ancient Svetambara Jain text "Acharanga Sutra", dated to about 3rd or 2nd century BCE, describes three forms of "Sallekhana": the "Bhaktapratyakhyana", the "Ingita-marana," and the "Padapopagamana". In "Bhaktapratyakhyana", the person who wants to observe the vow selects an isolated place where he lies on a bed made of straw, does not move his limbs, and avoids food and drink until he dies. In "Ingita-marana", the person sleeps on bare ground. He can sit, stand, walk, or move, but avoids food until he dies. In "Padapopagamana", a person stands "like a tree" without food and drink until he dies.


title: Sallekhana

text: Another variation of "Sallekhana" is "Itvara" which consists of voluntarily restricting oneself in a limited space and then fasting to death.


title: Sallekhana

text: The "Acharanga Sutra" () describes three forms of the practice. Early Svetambara text "Shravakaprajnapti" notes that the practice is not limited to ascetics. The Bhagavati Sūtra (2.1) also describes "Sallekhana" in great detail, as it was observed by Skanda Katyayana, an ascetic of Mahavira. The 4th-century text "Ratnakaranda śrāvakācāra" and the Svetambara text "Nava-pada-prakarana" also provide detailed descriptions. The "Nava-pada-prakarana" mentions seventeen methods of "voluntarily chosen death", of which it approves only three as consistent with the teachings of Jainism. The practice is also mentioned in the 2nd century CE Sangam-era poem "Sirupanchamoolam".


title: Sallekhana

text: The "Panchashaka" makes only a cursory mention of the practice and it is not described in "Dharmabindu" – both texts by Haribhadra (). In the 9th century text "Ādi purāṇa" by Jinasena the three forms are described. "Yashastilaka" by Somadeva (10th century) also describes the practice. Other writers like Vaddaradhane (10th century) and Lalitaghate also describe the "Padapopagamana", one of its forms. Hemchandra () describes it in a short passage despite his detailed coverage of the observances of householders ("Shravakachara").


title: Sallekhana

text: According to "Tattvartha Sutra", "a householder willingly or voluntary adopts "Sallekhana" when death is very near." According to the medieval era Jain text, "Puruşārthasiddhyupāya", both the ascetics and the householder should "court voluntarily death at the end of life", thinking that only sallekhana is a pious death. The "Silappadikaram" (Epic of the Anklet) by the Jain prince-turned-monk, Ilango Adigal, mentions "Sallekhana" by the Jain nun, Kaundi Adigal.


title: Sallekhana

text: In South India, especially Karnataka, a memorial stone or footprint is erected to commemorate the death of person who observed "Sallekhana". This is known as "Nishidhi", "Nishidige" or "Nishadiga". The term is derived from the Sanskrit root "Sid" or "Sad" which means "to attain" or "waste away".


title: Sallekhana

text: These "Nishidhis" detail the names, dates, the duration of the vow, and other austerities performed by the person who observed the vow. The earliest "Nishidhis" (6th to 8th century) mostly have an inscription on the rock without any symbols. This style continued until the 10th century when footprints were added alongside the inscription. After the 11th century, "Nishidhis" are inscribed on slabs or pillars with panels and symbols. These slabs or pillars were frequently erected in "mandapa"s (pillared pavilions), near "basadi" (temples), or sometimes as an inscription on the door frame or pillars of the temple.


title: Sallekhana

text: In Shravanabelgola in Karnataka, ninety-three "Nishidhis" are found ranging from circa 6th century to the 19th century. Fifty-four of them belong to the period circa 6th to the 8th century. It is believed that a large number of "Nishidhis" at Shravanabelgola follow the earlier tradition. Several inscriptions after 600 CE record that Chandragupta Maurya () and his teacher Bhadrabahu observed the vow atop Chandragiri Hill at Sharavnabelagola. Historians such as R. K. Mookerji consider the accounts unproven, but plausible.


title: Sallekhana

text: An undated inscription in old Kannada script is found on the "Nishidhi" from Doddahundi near Tirumakudalu Narasipura in Karnataka. Historians such as J. F. Fleet, I. K. Sarma, and E.P. Rice have dated it to 840 or 869 CE by its textual context. The memorial stone has a unique depiction in frieze of the ritual death ("Sallekhana") of King Ereganga Nitimarga I () of the Western Ganga Dynasty. It was raised by the king's son Satyavakya. In Shravanabelgola, the Kuge Brahmadeva pillar has a "Nishidhi" commemorating Marasimha, another Western Ganga king. An inscription on the pillar in front of Gandhavarna Basadi commemorates Indraraja, the grandson of the Rashtrakuta King Krishna III, who died in 982 after observing the vow.


title: Sallekhana

text: The inscriptions in South India suggest "sallekhana" was originally an ascetic practice which later extended to Jain householders. Its importance as an ideal death in the spiritual life of householders ceased by about the 12th century. The practice was revived in 1955 by the Digambara monk Acharya Santisagara.


title: Sallekhana

text: "Sallekhana" is a respected practice in the Jain community. It has not been a "practical or general goal" among Svetambara Jains for many years. It was revived among Digambara monks. In 1955, Acharya Shantisagar, a Digambara monk took the vow because of his inability to walk without help and his weak eye-sight. In 1999, Acharya Vidyanand, another Digambara monk, took a twelve-year-long vow.


title: Sallekhana

text: Between 1800 and 1992, at least 37 instances of "Sallekhana" are recorded in Jain literature. There were 260 and 90 recorded Sallekhana deaths among Svetambara and Digambara Jains respectively between 1993 and 2003. According to Jitendra Shah, the Director of L D Institute of Indology in Ahmedabad, an average of about 240 Jains practice "Sallekhana" each year in India. Most of them are not recorded or noticed. Statistically, "Sallekhana" is undertaken both by men and women of all economic classes and among the educationally forward Jains. It is observed more often by women than men.


title: Sallekhana

text: Jain texts make a clear distinction between the "Sallekhana" and suicide. Its dualistic theology differentiates between soul and matter. Soul is reborn in the Jain belief based on accumulated karma, how one dies contributes to the karma accumulation, and a pious death reduces the negative karmic attachments. The preparation for "sallekhana" must begin early, much before the approach of death, and when death is imminent, the vow of "Sallekhana" is observed by progressively slenderising the body and the passions.


title: Sallekhana

text: The comparison of "Sallekhana" with suicide is debated since the early time of Jainism. The early Buddhist Tamil epic "Kundalakesi" compared it to suicide. It is refuted in the contemporary Tamil Jain literature such as in "Neelakesi".


title: Sallekhana

text: Professor S. A. Jain cites differences between the motivations behind suicide and those behind Sallekhana to distinguish them: