text: Despite their Women's World Cup victory, the U.S. team remained in relative obscurity and received a small welcome from several U.S. Soccer Federation officials upon arrival at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. The team were given fewer resources and little attention from the federation as they focused on improving the men's national team in preparation for the 1994 men's World Cup that would be hosted in the United States. The women's team was placed on hiatus after the tournament, only playing twice in 1992, but returned the following year to play in several tournaments hosted in Cyprus, Canada, and the United States, including a second CONCACAF Championship title. The program was still supported better than those of the former Soviet Union, where football was considered a "men's game".


title: United States women's national soccer team

text: The United States played in several friendly tournaments to prepare for the 1995 FIFA Women's World Cup and its qualification campaign. The first was the inaugural staging of the Algarve Cup in Portugal, which saw the team win its two group stage matches but lose 1–0 to Norway in the final. It was followed by a victory in the Chiquita Cup, an exhibition tournament hosted in August on the U.S. East Coast against Germany, China, and Norway. Dorrance resigned from his position as head coach in early August and was replaced by his assistant, Tony DiCicco, a former professional goalkeeper who played in the American Soccer League. DiCicco led the United States to a berth in the Women's World Cup by winning the 1994 CONCACAF Championship, where the team scored 36 goals and conceded only one.


text: In February 1995, the U.S. women's program opened a permanent training and treatment facility in Sanford, Florida, and began a series of warm-up friendlies that were paid for by American company Nike. The team topped their group in the Women's World Cup, despite a 3–3 tie with China in the opening match and losing goalkeeper Briana Scurry to a red card in their second match. The United States proceeded to beat Japan 4–0 in the quarterfinals, but lost 1–0 to eventual champions Norway in the semifinals. The team finished in third place, winning 2–0 in its consolation match against China.


text: The team won the gold medal in the inaugural Olympic women's soccer tournament in the 1996 Summer Olympics, defeating China 2–1 in the final before a crowd of 76,481 fans. An influential victory came in the 1999 World Cup, when the team defeated China 5–4 in a penalty shoot-out following a 0–0 draw after extended time. Julie Foudy, Kristine Lilly, and the rest of the 1999 team started a revolution towards women's team sports in America. With this win they emerged onto the world stage and brought significant media attention to women's soccer and athletics. On July 10, 1999, over 90,000 people (the largest ever for a women's sporting event and one of the largest attendances in the world for a tournament game final) filled the Rose Bowl to watch the United States play China in the Final. After a back and forth game, the score was tied 0–0 at full-time, and remained so after extra time, leading to a penalty kick shootout. With Briana Scurry's save of China's third kick, the score was 4–4 with only Brandi Chastain left to shoot. She scored and won the game for the United States. Chastain dropped to her knees and whipped off her shirt, celebrating in her sports bra, which later made the cover of "Sports Illustrated" and the front pages of newspapers around the country and world. This win influenced many girls to want to play on a soccer team. In the 2000 Summer Olympics, the USWNT were close to defending their gold medal but were controversially defeated by Norway in the final with a golden goal in extra time, which involved an alleged handball in the lead-up.


text: In the 2003 FIFA Women's World Cup, the U.S. defeated Norway 1–0 in the quarterfinals but lost 0–3 to Germany in the semifinals. The team then defeated Canada 3–1 to claim third place. Abby Wambach was the team's top scorer with three goals, while Joy Fawcett and Shannon Boxx made the tournament's all-star team. In the 2004 Olympics, the last major international tournament for Hamm and Foudy, the U.S. earned the gold medal, winning 2–1 over Brazil in the final on an extra time goal by Wambach.


text: At the 2007 FIFA Women's World Cup, the U.S. defeated England 3–0 in the quarterfinals but then suffered its most lopsided loss in team history when it lost to Brazil 0–4 in the semifinals. The U.S. recovered to defeat Norway to take third place. Abby Wambach was the team's leading scorer with 6 goals, and Kristine Lilly was the only American named to the tournament's all-star team.


text: The team won another gold medal in the 2008 Olympics, but interest in the Women's National Team had diminished since their performance in the 1999 World Cup. However, the second women's professional league was created in March 2009, Women's Professional Soccer.


text: In the quarterfinal of the 2011 Women's World Cup in Germany, the U.S. defeated Brazil 5–3 on penalty kicks. Abby Wambach's goal in the 122nd minute to tie the game 2–2 has been voted the greatest goal in U.S. soccer history and the greatest goal in Women's World Cup history. The U.S. then beat France 3–1 in the semifinal, but lost to Japan 3–1 on penalty kicks in the Final after drawing 1–1 in regulation and 2–2 in overtime. Hope Solo was named the tournament's best goalkeeper and Abby Wambach won the silver ball as the tournament's second-best player.


text: In the 2012 Summer Olympics, the U.S. won the gold medal for the fourth time in five Olympics by defeating Japan 2–1 in front of 80,203 fans at Wembley Stadium, a record for a women's soccer game at the Olympics. The United States advanced to face Japan for the gold medal by winning the semifinal against Canada, a 4–3 victory at the end of extra time. The 2012 London Olympics marked the first time the USWNT won every game en route to the gold medal and set an Olympic women's team record of 16 goals scored.


text: The National Women's Soccer League started in 2013, and provided competitive games as well as opportunities to players on the fringes of the squad. The U.S. had a 43-game unbeaten streak that spanned two yearsthe streak began with a 4–0 win over Sweden in the 2012 Algarve Cup, and came to an end after a 1–0 loss against Sweden in the 2014 Algarve Cup.


text: The U.S. defeated Japan 5–2 in the final of the 2015 World Cup, becoming the first team in history to win three Women's World Cup titles. In the 16th minute, Carli Lloyd achieved the fastest hat-trick from kick-off in World Cup history, and Abby Wambach was greeted with a standing ovation for her last World Cup match. Following their 2015 World Cup win, the team was honored with a ticker tape parade in New York City, the first for a women's sports team, and honored by President Barack Obama at the White House. On December 16, 2015, however, a 0–1 loss to China in Wambach's last game meant the team's first home loss since 2004, ending their 104-game home unbeaten streak.


text: In the 2016 Summer Olympics, the U.S. drew against Sweden in the quarterfinal; in the following penalty kick phase, Sweden won the game 4–3. The loss marked the first time that the USWNT did not advance to the gold medal game of the Olympics, and the first time that the USWNT failed to advance to the semifinal round of a major tournament.


text: After the defeat in the 2016 Olympics, the USWNT underwent a year of experimentation which saw them losing three home games. If not for a comeback win against Brazil, the USWNT was on the brink of losing four home games in one year, a low never before seen by the USWNT. 2017 saw the USWNT play 12 games against teams ranked in the top-15 in the world.


text: Throughout 2018, the U.S. would pick up two major tournament wins, winning both the SheBelieves Cup and the Tournament of Nations. The team would enter qualifying for the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup on a 21-game unbeaten streak and dominated the competition, winning all five of its games and the tournament whilst qualifying for the World Cup as well as scoring 18 goals and conceding none. On November 8, 2018, the U.S. earned their 500th victory in team history after a 1–0 victory over Portugal. The start of 2019 saw the U.S. lose an away game to France, 3–1, marking the end of a 28-game unbeaten streak and their first loss since a 1–0 defeat to Australia in July 2017.


text: The USWNT started off their 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup campaign with a 13–0 victory against Thailand, setting a new Women's World Cup goal record. Alex Morgan equaled Michelle Akers' record of scoring five goals in a single World Cup match, while four of her teammates scored their first World Cup goals in their debut at the tournament. The U.S. would win its next match against Chile 3–0 before concluding the group stage with a win of 2–0 over Sweden. The team emerged as the winners of Group F and would go on to face Spain in the Round of 16, whom they would defeat 2–1 thanks to a pair of Megan Rapinoe penalties. The team would achieve identical results in their next two games. With 2–1 victories over France and then England seeing them advance to a record third straight World Cup final, they played against the Netherlands for the title. They beat the Netherlands 2–0 in the final on July 7, 2019, becoming the first team in history to win four Women's World Cup titles.


text: On July 30, 2019, Jill Ellis announced that she would step down as head coach following the conclusion of the team's post-World Cup victory tour on October 6, 2019.


text: The USWNT began the new decade by winning both the 2020 CONCACAF Women's Olympic Qualifying tournament (which qualified the team for the 2020 Summer Olympics) and the 2020 SheBelieves Cup titles.


text: In early March 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the USSF canceled previously scheduled USWNT friendlies against Australia and Brazil. Later that same month, it was announced by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government that the 2020 Summer Olympics were to be postponed until July 2021. The USWNT played their first game in eight months on November 27, 2020, when they took on the Netherlands in a friendly match. Rose Lavelle and Kristie Mewis scored, the team winning the game 2–0.


text: On July 21, 2021, the USWNT lost 3–0 against Sweden in the opening round of group stage at the 2020 Summer Olympics, thus ending a 44-match unbeaten streak. The U.S. would rebound by winning their 2nd match against New Zealand, before concluding the group stage by tying Australia 0–0. The team placed 2nd in the group stage and qualified for the knockout stage. They first faced World Cup runners-up Netherlands who they tied 2–2 before winning the match in a penalty shootout. The USWNT advanced to the semifinals where they faced Canada. However, the team would lose to Canada 1–0 by a penalty scored by Jessie Fleming. They would later face Australia again in the bronze medal match in a rematch of their final group stage game. The U.S. won 4–3, making it the first time the team won the bronze medal.


text: In July 2022, the team competed in the CONCACAF W Championship. The USWNT won its group, outscoring opponents 9–0 in the group stage, and then won the semifinal 3–0 against Costa Rica and the final 1–0 against Canada. It was their ninth CONCACAF championship title. By reaching the semifinal, the team qualified for the 2023 World Cup, and by winning the final, it qualified for both the 2024 Summer Olympics in France and the 2024 CONCACAF W Gold Cup.


text: In November 2022, the USWNT’s 71-game home unbeaten streak ended, after a 1–2 defeat in an exhibition game against Germany.


text: U.S. television coverage for the five Women's World Cups from 1995 to 2011 was provided by ESPN/ABC and Univision, while coverage rights for the three Women's World Cups from 2015 to 2023 were awarded to Fox Sports and Telemundo. In December 2021, a deal was signed to broadcast TV coverage of other USWNT games between TNT and TBS and streaming on HBO Max through the end of 2030. The USWNT games in the 2014 CONCACAF Women's Championship and the 2015 Algarve Cup were broadcast by Fox Sports. NBC will broadcast the Olympic tournament through 2032.


text: The 1999 World Cup final set the original record for largest U.S. television audience for a women's soccer match, averaging 18 million viewers. It was the most viewed English-language U.S. broadcast of any soccer match until the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup final between the United States and Japan.


text: The 2015 Women's World Cup Final between the United States and Japan was the most watched soccer match—men's or women's—in American broadcast history. It averaged 23 million viewers and higher ratings than the NBA finals and the Stanley Cup finals. The final was also the most watched US-Spanish language broadcast of a FIFA Women's World Cup match in history.


text: Overall, there were over 750 million viewers for the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup, making it the most watched Women's World Cup in history. The FIFA Women's World Cup is now the second-most watched FIFA tournament, with only the men's FIFA World Cup attracting more viewership.


text: A narrative nonfiction book covering the entire history of the team from 1985 to 2019 called "The National Team: The Inside Story of the Women Who Changed Soccer" was named one of "Vanity Fair"'s best books of 2019 and made NPR's 2019 year-end books list. A book about the team's 1999 Women's World Cup campaign, "Girls of Summer: The U.S. Women's Soccer Team and How It Changed the World" was released in 2001 and in 2020 Netflix announced a film based on the book.


text: In 2005, HBO released a documentary called "". In 2013, a documentary about the 1999 World Cup-winning team called "The 99ers" was produced by former player Julie Foudy and ESPN Films.


text: The 1999 World Cup final, in which the United States defeated China, set a world attendance record for a women's sporting event of 90,185 in a sellout at the Rose Bowl in Southern California (until it was broken on March 30, 2022, with 91,553 people at the Camp Nou in Barcelona, Spain in the second-leg of a UEFA Women's Champions League match. The record for Olympic women's soccer attendance was set by the 2012 Olympic final between the USWNT and Japan, with 80,023 spectators at Wembley Stadium.


text: Since 2016, the players of the U.S. team had waged an escalating legal fight with the United States Soccer Federation (USSF) over gender discrimination. Central to their demands was equal pay. The players pointed to their lower paychecks as compared to their male counterparts despite their higher record of success in recent years.


text: In April 2016, five U.S. team players filed a wage-discrimination action against the USSF with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The group consisted of Hope Solo, Carli Lloyd, Alex Morgan, Megan Rapinoe, and Becky Sauerbrunn.


text: One year later, in April 2017, the U.S. team agreed to a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) with the USSF. The agreement stated that the U.S. team players would have an increased base pay and improved match bonuses. These changes could increase their previous pay from $200,000 to $300,000. However, the CBA did not guarantee equal pay compared to the men's team. The CBA's five-year term through 2021 ensured that the next negotiation would not become an issue for the team for the 2019 World Cup and the 2020 Olympics. On top of this CBA, the USSF had agreed to pay the players for two years' worth of unequal per-diem payments.


text: On March 8, 2019, 28 members of the U.S. team filed a gender discrimination lawsuit against the USSF. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, accused the USSF of "institutional gender discrimination." The lawsuit claimed that the discrimination affected not only the amount the players were paid but also their playing, training, and travel conditions. In May 2020, several key parts of the case were dismissed, with federal judge R. Gary Klausner noting that the team had agreed to take higher base compensation and other benefits in their most recent CBA instead of the bonuses received by the men's team.


text: On March 8, 2021, the second anniversary of the team's pay discrimination lawsuit, Congresswomen Doris Matsui and Rosa DeLauro introduced the Give Our Athletes Level Salaries (GOALS) Act to ensure the team members "are paid fair and equitable wages compared to the U.S. Men's team." The GOALS Act threatened to cut federal funding for the 2026 World Cup if the USSF did not comply.


text: On February 22, 2022, the USSF agreed to settle the lawsuit for $24 million, contingent upon the U.S. team agreeing to a new CBA. $22 million would go to the players named in the case, and $2 million would contribute toward players' post-playing career and other women's soccer charitable efforts. On May 18, 2022, the U.S. team agreed to a new CBA that would run through 2028 and would equalize compensation, bonuses, and other work conditions between the women's and the men's national teams friendlies, therefore finalizing the legal settlement.


text: Along with their lawsuit for pay-equity, the US Women's Soccer players have fought FIFA on policies regarding artificial turf. This battle to eliminate the use of turf in major women's games heightened around the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup, hosted by Canada; during this tournament, the US Women played 8 of their 10 games on artificial turf. Prior to the 2015 World Cup, Abby Wambach headed a discrimination lawsuit with other global soccer stars including Marta of Brazil and Homare Sawa of Japan. Due to the tournament's quick approach, the suit was dropped as players were denied an expedited hearing.


text: The following 24 players were named to the squad for the friendlies against Germany on November 10 and 13, 2022.


text: The following is a list of match results in the last 12 months, as well as any future matches that have been scheduled.


text: The women's national team boasts the first six players in the history of the game to have earned 200 caps. These players have since been joined in the 200-cap club by several players from other national teams, as well as by five more Americans: Kate Markgraf, Abby Wambach, Heather O'Reilly, Carli Lloyd and Hope Solo. Kristine Lilly, Carli Lloyd, and Christie Rampone are the only players to earn more than 300 caps.


text: In March 2004, Mia Hamm and Michelle Akers were the only two women and the only two Americans named to the FIFA 100, a list of the 125 greatest living soccer players chosen by Pelé as part of FIFA's centenary observances.


text: Note: The goal record for most scored in a match by a member of the USWNT is five, which has been accomplished by the nine players above.


text: The team has participated in every Olympic tournament through 2020 and reached the gold medal game in each until 2016, when they were eliminated in the quarterfinals on a penalty shootout loss to Sweden.


text: The U.S. team directly qualified for the 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup as hosts of the event. Because of this, they did not participate in the 1998 CONCACAF Championship, which was the qualification tournament for the World Cup.


text: The SheBelieves Cup is a global invitational tournament for national teams in women's soccer hosted in the United States.


text: The Tournament of Nations was a global invitational tournament for national teams in women's soccer hosted in the United States in non-World Cup and non-Olympic years.


text: The Algarve Cup is a global invitational tournament for national teams in women's soccer hosted by the Portuguese Football Federation (FPF). Held annually in the Algarve region of Portugal since 1994, it has been one of the more prestigious women's soccer events other than the Women's World Cup and Olympic tournament, and it has been nicknamed the "Mini FIFA Women's World Cup." Since 2016, the SheBelieves Cup replaced it on the U.S. team's schedule.


title: Alvin and the Chipmunks

text: Alvin and the Chipmunks, originally David Seville and the Chipmunks or simply The Chipmunks, are an American animated virtual band and media franchise first created by Ross Bagdasarian for novelty records in 1958. The group consists of three singing animated anthropomorphic chipmunks named Alvin, Simon, and Theodore who are originally managed by their human adoptive father, David "Dave" Seville.


title: Alvin and the Chipmunks

text: Bagdasarian provided the group's voices by producing sped-up recordings of his own, a technique pioneered on the successful "Witch Doctor". Later in 1958 Bagdasarian released the similarly-engineered "The Chipmunk Song" for which he came up with the chipmunk characters and their human father, attributing the track to them. "David Seville and the Chipmunks" released several more records over the following decade until Bagdasarian's death in 1972. The franchise was revived in 1979 with the characters' voices provided by his son Ross Bagdasarian Jr. and the latter's wife Janice Karman.


title: Alvin and the Chipmunks

text: Through the successful franchise, the Chipmunks have become one of the most successful children's artists of all time. It has garnered two number-one singles on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and won five Grammy Awards, having four Top 10 albums on the "Billboard" 200 and three certified platinum albums. "The Chipmunk Song" became one of the best-selling singles of all time at 5 million physical copies sold.


title: Alvin and the Chipmunks

text: The Chipmunks were first depicted in animated form in "The Alvin Show" (1961). The characters have since featured in several television series and films, as well as other media. In 2019, The Chipmunks received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.


title: Alvin and the Chipmunks

text: In 1958, Ross Bagdasarian Sr. released a novelty song (as David Seville) about being unsuccessful at love until he found a witch doctor who told him how to woo his woman. The song was done by Bagdasarian in his normal voice, except for the "magic" words, done first in Bagdasarian's pitched-up, pre-Chipmunk voice, then in a duet between his pitched-up voice and his normal voice. The words themselves are nonsense: "Oo-ee, oo-ah-ah, ting-tang, walla-walla, bing-bang".


title: Alvin and the Chipmunks

text: The song was a hit, holding number one for three weeks in the Billboard Top 100 chart. Nothing makes any reference to chipmunks, but the song is sometimes included on Chipmunk compilations as if the Chipmunks had provided the voice of the Witch Doctor. Bagdasarian did record a Chipmunks version of ""Witch Doctor"", which appeared on the second Chipmunks album, "Sing Again with the Chipmunks", in 1960. Bagdasarian performed the song "live" (with a pre-recorded track of the pitched-up voice) on "The Ed Sullivan Show".


title: Alvin and the Chipmunks

text: Bagdasarian (again as Seville) recorded a follow-up song, "The Bird on My Head", singing a duet with his own sped-up voice as the bird. It also reached the Top 40, peaking at No. 34. While driving in Sequoia National Park, Bagdasarian saw a chipmunk dash in front of him. That moment inspired him to create his chipmunk characters.


title: Alvin and the Chipmunks

text: The technique was imitated by Sheb Wooley's "The Purple People Eater" and The Big Bopper's "The Purple People Eater Meets the Witch Doctor".


title: Alvin and the Chipmunks

text: After the success of "Witch Doctor", Liberty Records asked Bagdasarian to create another successful novelty record. He then came up with three singing chipmunks who were named, as an inside joke, after executives at Liberty Records. Alvin (named after Al Bennett), Simon (named after Si Waronker), and Theodore (Ted Keep).


title: Alvin and the Chipmunks

text: The Chipmunks first officially appeared on the scene in a novelty record released in late fall 1958 by Bagdasarian. The song, originally listed on the record label (Liberty F-55168) as "The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late)", featured the singing skills of the chipmunk trio. One phrase in the chorus has Alvin wishing for a hula hoop, which was that year's hot new toy. The novelty record was highly successful, selling more than 4 million copies in seven weeks, and it launched the careers of its chipmunk stars. It spent four weeks at Number 1 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart from December 22, 1958, to January 12, 1959, succeeding "To Know Him Is to Love Him" at Number 1 on the same chart by the Teddy Bears, a pop group that featured Phil Spector. It also earned three Grammy Awards and a nomination for Record of the Year. At the height of its popularity, Bagdasarian and three chipmunk hand-puppets appeared on "The Ed Sullivan Show", lip-synching the song. "The Chipmunk Song" appeared on the Chipmunks' debut album, "Let's All Sing with the Chipmunks", in 1959, and was repeated on "Christmas with the Chipmunks", released in 1962. The song also has been included on several compilation albums.


title: Alvin and the Chipmunks

text: Bob Rivers did a parody of this song for his 2000 Christmas album "Chipmunks Roasting on an Open Fire" which was titled "The Twisted Chipmunk Song". In the song, the Chipmunks are referred to as Thagadore (Theodore), Squeaky (Simon), and Melvin (Alvin S).


title: Alvin and the Chipmunks

text: The Chipmunks first appeared in comic book form on Dell Comics' Four Color Comics series, issue #1042 (cover-dated Dec. 1959). Alvin, Theodore and Simon were depicted as somewhat realistic, nearly identical anthropomorphic rodents with almond-shaped eyes. When Herb Klynn's Format Films made a deal to develop the Three Chipmunks for animation, the old designs were rejected and new versions of the characters were created. Liberty Records eventually re-issued the early albums with the "new" Chipmunks and it was this new version of the Chipmunks that was used when Alvin's own title was released by Dell in 1962.


title: Alvin and the Chipmunks

text: The first television series to feature the characters was "The Alvin Show". By this period, the Chipmunks looked much like their modern incarnations. Also, an animated portrayal of Seville was a reasonable caricature of Bagdasarian himself. The series ran from 1961 to 1962 and was one of a small number of animated series to be shown in prime time on CBS. It was not a prime-time ratings success and was subsequently canceled after one season. Ratings improved significantly in syndication.


title: Alvin and the Chipmunks

text: In addition to Alvin cartoons, the series also featured the scientist Clyde Crashcup and his assistant Leonardo. Those characters did not feature prominently on any of the later series. Crashcup made a single cameo appearance in "A Chipmunk Christmas", and in an episode of the 1983 TV series. The television series was produced by Format Films for Bagdasarian Film Corporation. Although the series was broadcast in black and white, it was produced and later re-run in color. Twenty-six episodes each were produced for the "Alvin and the Chipmunks" and "Clyde Crashcup" segments, along with 52 musical segments.


title: Alvin and the Chipmunks

text: The final Chipmunks album in the project's original incarnation, "The Chipmunks Go to the Movies", was released in 1969. After the death of Ross Bagdasarian in 1972 from a heart attack, the Chipmunks' careers stalled until NBC showed interest in the original show (the network carried Saturday morning reruns of "The Alvin Show" as a midseason replacement in 1979) and the following year, Excelsior Records released a new album of contemporary songs performed by the Chipmunks. That album, "Chipmunk Punk", featured Bagdasarian's son, Ross Bagdasarian Jr., doing the voices of the characters. That album and the continued reruns of the series proved to be popular enough to warrant further new records as well as new television productions, and in 1981, the Chipmunks and Seville returned to television in the Christmas special "A Chipmunk Christmas", produced by Marvel Productions, which was first broadcast on NBC on December 14 of that year. Next year, two more albums were released ("Chipmunk Rock" and "The Chipmunks Go Hollywood").


title: Alvin and the Chipmunks

text: In 1983, a second animated television series for the group, produced by Ruby-Spears Productions, was released. Titled simply "Alvin and the Chipmunks", the outline of the show closely paralleled the original "Alvin Show". The series lasted eight production seasons until 1990. The first season introduced the Chipettes (three female versions of the Chipmunks): Brittany, Jeanette, and Eleanor with their human guardian, the myopic Miss Beatrice Miller (who arrived for the 1986 season). The show's success led to the release of a soundtrack album in 1984, "Songs from Our TV Shows".


title: Alvin and the Chipmunks

text: After 1988, the show was renamed just "The Chipmunks" to indicate that there were now two groups of them. Also introduced was the boys' "Uncle" Harry, who may or may not have been a relative. The show reflected contemporaneous trends in popular culture; the Chipmunks sang recent hits, and wore contemporary clothing. One "documentary" episode spoofed John Lennon's 1966 infamous comment that the Beatles had become "more popular than Jesus", by recalling how the Chipmunks had fallen in popularity after Alvin boasted they were "bigger than Mickey Mouse!". In 1985, the Chipmunks, along with the Chipettes, were featured in the live stage show, "Alvin and the Chipmunks and the Amazing Computer". In 1987, during the fifth season of the television show, the Chipmunks had their first animated feature film, "The Chipmunk Adventure", directed by Janice Karman and Ross Bagdasarian Jr. and released to theaters by The Samuel Goldwyn Company. The film featured the Chipmunks and the Chipettes in a contest traveling around the world.


title: Alvin and the Chipmunks

text: In the 1988–89 season, the show switched production companies to DIC Entertainment (1988-1990) and Murakami Wolf Swenson (1988), by which time the Chipmunks had truly become anthropomorphized. In 1990, the show switched titles again to "The Chipmunks Go to the Movies". Each episode in this season was a spoof of a Hollywood film, such as "Back to the Future", "King Kong", and others. In addition, several television specials featuring the characters were also released. After the eighth season, the show was canceled again. In 1990, a documentary was produced about the show entitled "Alvin and the Chipmunks/Five Decades with the Chipmunks". In that year, the Chipmunks also teamed up for the only time with other famous cartoon stars (such as Bugs Bunny, Garfield, etc.) for the drug abuse-prevention special "Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue".


title: Alvin and the Chipmunks

text: On January 18, 1991, NBC aired a television special starring the Chipmunks entitled "Rockin' Through the Decades". The same year, it released the album "The Chipmunks Rock the House". In 1992, the group released the country album "Chipmunks in Low Places". Released on September 29, 1992, the album was certified platinum by the RIAA, becoming the group's first platinum record and making it the Chipmunks' best-selling album followed by a greatest hits release and a reissue of 1981's "A Chipmunk Christmas". By 1993, "Urban Chipmunk" was re-released as a compilation album "The Chipmunks' 35th Birthday Party" with a double album, called "The Chipmunks Sing-Alongs".


title: Alvin and the Chipmunks

text: Their fourth Christmas album, "A Very Merry Chipmunk", saw a release in 1994, then "When You Wish Upon a Chipmunk" in 1995, "" peaked in the Top 10 on "Billboard"'s Top Kid Audio.


title: Alvin and the Chipmunks

text: In 1996, Universal Studios purchased the rights to the characters. In 1998, Sony Wonder and Columbia Records released "" and "" on September 21, 1999. The purchase of the rights to the characters by Universal resulted in the Chipmunks' 1999 reappearance, in the form of the direct-to-video movie "Alvin and the Chipmunks Meet Frankenstein", released on September 28, 1999. Five new songs were composed for the film were made available via a soundtrack released by MCA Records. Later that year, "The Chipmunks' Greatest Christmas Hits" was released.


title: Alvin and the Chipmunks

text: The movie was successful enough to spark interest in a sequel, and in 2000, "Alvin and the Chipmunks Meet the Wolfman" appeared. Three new songs were composed for the film, that were also made available on a soundtrack by MCA.


title: Alvin and the Chipmunks

text: Both movies featured the original cast of the second series reprising their roles as the tone was very similar to the series. Universal lost the rights to the characters in 2002 due to a breach of contract with Bagdasarian Productions.


title: Alvin and the Chipmunks

text: On September 17, 2004, Fox 2000 Pictures, Regency Enterprises, and Bagdasarian Productions announced a live-action hybrid film starring "Alvin and the Chipmunks". Tim Hill directed the 2007 CGI/live-action film adaptation, with Justin Long, Matthew Gray Gubler, and Jesse McCartney providing the voices, along with its , , and . Bagdasarian Jr. and Karman continue to perform the singing voices for Alvin, Theodore, and the Chipettes, but Steve Vining did Simon's singing voice. The projects have earned five Grammy awards, an American Music Award, a Golden Reel Award, three Kids' Choice Awards, and Emmy nominations.


title: Alvin and the Chipmunks

text: In 2021, the franchise was announced to be sold to a potential buyer. With Paramount Global reportedly being interested. As of November 2022, updates on the acquisition have not been publicly announced.


title: Alvin and the Chipmunks

text: In the 1980s media, the boys are triplets, as they celebrate their birthday together in "A Chipmunk Reunion" (Alvin stating to be born five minutes before Simon), and they are about 8–9 years. The 1983 series revealed that the boys' mother "Vinnie" is a similarly anthropomorphic chipmunk living in a nearby forest. One year a particularly harsh winter had caused a nut shortage. Vinnie realized that her newborn children would likely not survive the winter, so she anonymously left them on Dave's doorstep. She returned briefly to see what happened years later. Dave and the boys were unaware of their origins until they asked him during an argument over the exact date of their birthday. Vinnie had never revealed herself to him, but the boys investigated and eventually tracked her down.


title: Alvin and the Chipmunks

text: While never mentioned, in the CGI movies and 2015 series, the chipmunks are no longer triplets and celebrate different birthdays; but seem to be around the same school age. In the 2007 feature film, the chipmunks lived in a tree, fending for themselves as their parents had taken off to join a hippie commune and had problems gathering nuts for the winter. Their tree is cut down and carted off to grace the entrance lobby of a city office building, with them in it. They eventually wind up in Dave's home, where they wreak havoc.  After being thrown out, Dave notices how well they can sing, making them famous. They eventually win his heart.


title: Alvin and the Chipmunks

text: The Chipmunks' voices were recorded at half the normal tape speed on audiotape by voice talent (on the 1960s records, generally Ross Bagdasarian Sr.'s own voice overdubbed three times, on the post-1980s records, studio singers) talking or singing at half the normal speaking rate. When the tape was played back at normal speed, they would sound a full octave higher in pitch, at normal tempo. The technique was by no means new to the Chipmunks. For example, the high- and low-pitched characters in "The Wizard of Oz" were achieved by speeding up and slowing down vocal recordings. Also, Mel Blanc's voice characterization for Daffy Duck was Sylvester the Cat's voice sped up to some extent. Now, the same effect is created digitally and in real-time with a pitch shift.


title: Alvin and the Chipmunks

text: However, the extensive use of this technique with the Chipmunks, coupled with their popularity, linked this technique to them. The term "chipmunk-voiced" has entered the American vernacular to describe any artificially high-pitched voice. A similar effect could be obtained in playback by merely taking an LP recorded at 33 RPM and playing it back at 45 or 78 RPM, a trick sometimes tried out by ordinary record listeners. The instrumental portions of the song are sped up as well, however, making it obvious that the music is being played at the wrong speed. Bagdasarian recorded vocals and music at different speeds to combine properly on his recording. Guitarist Les Paul said he visited Bagdasarian's studio in 1958 and helped with the recording.


title: Alvin and the Chipmunks

text: The technique was used extensively in the British puppet show "Pinky and Perky", which predated the Chipmunks. The sound was frequently imitated in comedy records, notably "Transistor Radio" by Benny Hill, "Bridget the Midget" by Ray Stevens, "The Laughing Gnome" by David Bowie, and on several tracks on Joe Meek and the Blue Men's album "I Hear a New World". The technique also appears in the "Yeah! You!" line of the Coasters' song "Charlie Brown". Prince used the technique on several of his songs, as well as Frank Zappa on "We're Only in It for the Money" and on the instrumental album "Hot Rats", among others. The early production style of hip-hop artist Kanye West involved sped-up, high-pitch vocal samples from classic soul records incorporated with his own (additional) instrumentation. Due in part to the acclaim of his debut album "The College Dropout", such sampling techniques subsequently became much copied by a myriad of other hip-hop producers. In the early 1990s rave scene, many breakbeat hardcore productions would utilize the same studio tricks, often taking a cappella from house records and speeding them up to fit the faster tempo. Vocals in songs that used this method would typically be referred to as "chipmunk vocals".


title: Alvin and the Chipmunks

text: The Chipmunks made their first guest appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show" on December 13, 1959, when they performed "The Chipmunk Song".


title: Alvin and the Chipmunks

text: In 1968, the Chipmunks appeared in an Italian commercial TV program "Carosello", in their sponsorship of Prealpi, a cheese-maker in Varese, Italy.


title: Alvin and the Chipmunks

text: The Chipmunks appeared in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade twice; 1983 and 1986. In the 1983 parade, they performed "Tomorrow". In 1986, they performed "The Girls of Rock and Roll" with The Chipettes as a way to promote their film, "The Chipmunk Adventure", which was released six months later.


title: Alvin and the Chipmunks

text: The Chipmunks performed with Canned Heat on the band's interpretation of "The Chipmunk Song", which is sufficiently derivative of the Chipmunk's 1958 hit that Ross Bagdasarian Sr. gets sole writing credit. It was featured as the flip-side of the band's Christmas Blues single released in late 2009.


title: Alvin and the Chipmunks

text: The Chipmunks made a guest appearance on Xuxa in 1993, where they performed "Country Pride" from their album, "Chipmunks in Low Places".


title: Alvin and the Chipmunks

text: They also appeared on the FOX NFL Sunday intro (which premiered on December 20, 2009) with the cameo character, Digger (the mascot for NASCAR on Fox).


title: Alvin and the Chipmunks

text: The Chipmunks made an appearance at a Los Angeles Dodgers preseason game on April 3, 2010, when the Dodgers squared off against their rivals, the Los Angeles Angels. The group performed, "America the Beautiful" with a group of children prior to the game. Also, Simon Seville wore a wig of Manny Ramirez's dreadlocks. Ross Bagdasarian Jr. made the opening ceremonial pitch for that game.


title: Alvin and the Chipmunks

text: The Chipmunks made multiple appearances on ads for Food Safety to help kids learn safe food practices.


title: Alvin and the Chipmunks

text: There were five Grammy Awards, an American Music Award, a Golden Reel Award, three Kids Choice Awards in total, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.


title: Garret Dillahunt

text: Garret Lee Dillahunt (born November 24, 1964) is an American actor. He is best known for his work in television, including the roles Burt Chance on the Fox sitcom "Raising Hope", for which he was nominated for the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Actor in a Comedy Series, Jack McCall and Francis Wolcott in "Deadwood", and John Dorie in "Fear the Walking Dead" (2018–2021). He has also appeared in "The 4400", "ER", "", "Justified", and "The Mindy Project" (2015–2017). He starred in the Amazon Studios drama series "Hand of God" (2014–2017).


title: Garret Dillahunt

text: In film, Dillahunt has played supporting roles in "No Country for Old Men", "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford", "Winter's Bone", "Looper", and "12 Years a Slave".


title: Garret Dillahunt

text: Dillahunt was born in Castro Valley, California, and grew up in Selah, Washington. He was born into a family of three boys, with two brothers: Brett and Eric; Eric died in 1981 in Yakima, Washington, after the car he was travelling in as a passenger, whose driver was drunk and speeding at the time, veered off the road. His brother Brett is a teacher.


title: Garret Dillahunt

text: Dillahunt graduated from the University of Washington with a B.A. in journalism and from New York University's Graduate Acting Program with an M.F.A. in acting.


title: Garret Dillahunt

text: After spending years on and off Broadway, Dillahunt began pursuing television and film roles. He appeared as a regular in several short lived series on ABC and Showtime, and landed guest spots on TV shows such as "The X-Files" and "NYPD Blue" among others, before playing two distinctly different characters on the HBO series "Deadwood": Jack McCall in 2004 and Francis Wolcott in 2005 (Dillahunt returned in an uncredited role as a townsman in the 2019 "" movie). He later had a recurring role on USA Network's "The 4400".


title: Garret Dillahunt

text: Dillahunt portrayed Steve Curtis for three seasons on "ER" (2005–06). Later roles included Dr. Michael Smith on HBO's "John from Cincinnati"; Cromartie, John Henry and George Laszlo on FOX's ""; Roman Nevikov, a Russian gangster, on NBC's "Life"; and Mason Turner, a paralyzed serial killer on "Criminal Minds". He played Simon Escher in the "Burn Notice" third-season finale airing March 4, 2010 on USA, later reprising the role in the show's fourth and seventh seasons.


title: Garret Dillahunt

text: Dillahunt appeared in such films as "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford", "No Country for Old Men", "The Road", "Winter's Bone", "The Last House On The Left", "TalhotBlonde", and the indie horror film, "Burning Bright".


title: Garret Dillahunt

text: From 2010 to 2014, Dillahunt co-starred as Burt Chance on the Fox comedy "Raising Hope". He began a recurring role on "The Mindy Project" in 2015 and on "The Guest Book" in 2017.


title: Garret Dillahunt

text: Dillahunt starred in the 2018 action film "Braven" directed by Lin Oeding. Dillahunt played Kassen, the leader of a group of mercenaries and drug runners who retrieve the drug stash and plan to kill Joe Braven and his family. He joined the regular cast of the fourth season of "Fear the Walking Dead" as John Dorie.


title: Borax

text: Borax is a salt (ionic compound), a hydrated borate of sodium, with chemical formula often written . It is a colorless crystalline solid, that dissolves in water to make a basic solution. It is commonly available in powder or granular form, and has many industrial and household uses, including as a pesticide, as a metal soldering flux, as a component of glass, enamel, and pottery glazes, for tanning of skins and hides, for artificial aging of wood, as a preservative against wood fungus, and as a pharmaceutic alkalizer. In chemical laboratories, it is used as a buffering agent.


title: Borax

text: The compound is often called sodium tetraborate decahydrate, but that name is not consistent with its structure. The anion is not tetraborate but tetrahydroxy tetraborate , so the more correct formula should be . Informally, the product is often called sodium borate decahydrate or just sodium borate.


title: Borax

text: The terms tincal "tinkle" and tincar "tinker" refer to native borax, historically mined from dry lake beds in various parts of Asia.


title: Borax

text: Borax was first discovered in dry lake beds in Tibet. Native tincal from Tibet, Persia, and other parts of Asia was traded via the Silk Road to the Arabian Peninsula in the 8th century AD.


title: Borax

text: Borax first came into common use in the late 19th century when Francis Marion Smith's Pacific Coast Borax Company began to market and popularize a large variety of applications under the 20 Mule Team Borax trademark, named for the method by which borax was originally hauled out of the California and Nevada deserts.


title: Borax

text: The English word "borax" is Latinized: the Middle English form was "boras", from Old French "boras, bourras". That may have been from Medieval Latin "baurach" (another English spelling), "borac(-/um/em), borax", along with Spanish "borrax" (> "borraj") and Italian "borrace", in the 9th century.


title: Borax

text: The words "tincal" and "tincar" were adopted into English in the 17th century from Malay "tingkal" and from Urdu/Persian Arabic "tinkār/tankār"; thus the two forms in English. These all appear to be related to the Sanskrit टांकण "ṭānkaṇa".


title: Borax

text: The term "borax" properly refers to the so called decahydrate , more correctly written . However, the term may be applied also to the related compounds


title: Borax

text: Borax pentahydrate has the formula , more properly It is a colorless solid with density is 1.880 kg/m that crystallizes from water solutions above 60.8 °C in the rhombohedral crystal system. It occurs naturally as the mineral tinkhanite. It can be obtained by heating the decahydrate above 61 °C.


title: Borax

text: Borax dihydrate has the formula , more properly . It can be obtained by heating the decahydrate or pentahydrate to above 116-120 °C.


title: Borax

text: Anhydrous borax is sodium tetraborate proper, with formula . It can be obtained by heating any hydrate to 300 °C. It has one amorphous (glassy) form and three crystalline forms -- α, β, and γ, with melting points of 1015, 993 and 936 K respectively. α-Na2B4O7 is the stable form.


title: Borax

text: From the chemical perspective, borax contains the [BO(OH)] ion. In this structure, there are two four-coordinate boron centers and two three-coordinate boron centers.


title: Borax

text: The crystalline decahydrate is a proton conductor at temperatures above 21 °C. Conductivity is maximum along the "b" axis.


title: Borax

text: Borax is also easily converted to boric acid and other borates, which have many applications. Its reaction with hydrochloric acid to form boric acid is:


title: Borax

text: Molten borax dissolves many metal oxides to form glasses. This property is important for its uses in metallurgy and for the borax bead test of qualitative chemical analysis.


title: Borax

text: Naturally occurring borax (known by the trade name Rasorite–46 in the United States and many other countries) is refined by a process of recrystallization.


title: Borax

text: Borax is used in control solutions because it is toxic to ants. Because it is slow-acting, worker ants will carry the borax to their nests and poison the rest of the colony.


title: Borax

text: Borax is used in various household laundry and cleaning products, including the 20 Mule Team Borax laundry booster, Boraxo powdered hand soap, and some tooth bleaching formulas.


title: Borax

text: Borate ions (commonly supplied as boric acid) are used in biochemical and chemical laboratories to make buffers, e.g. for polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of DNA and RNA, such as TBE buffer (borate buffered tris-hydroxymethylaminomethonium) or the newer SB buffer or BBS buffer (borate buffered saline) in coating procedures. Borate buffers (usually at pH 8) are also used as preferential equilibration solution in dimethyl pimelimidate (DMP) based crosslinking reactions.


title: Borax

text: Borax alone does not have a high affinity for the "hardness cations", although it has been used for water-softening. Its chemical equation for "water-softening" is given below:


title: Borax

text: The sodium ions introduced do not make water ‘hard’. This method is suitable for removing both temporary and permanent types of hardness.


title: Borax

text: Borax is also a good flux for "pre-tinning" tungsten with zinc — making the tungsten soft-solderable. Borax is often used as a flux for forge welding.


title: Borax

text: In artisanal gold mining, borax is sometimes used as part of a process known as the borax method (as a flux) meant to eliminate the need for toxic mercury in the gold extraction process, although it cannot directly replace mercury. Borax was reportedly used by gold miners in parts of the Philippines in the 1900s. There is evidence that, in addition to reducing the environmental impact, this method achieves better gold recovery for suitable ores and is less expensive. This borax method is used in northern Luzon in the Philippines, but miners have been reluctant to adopt it elsewhere for reasons that are not well understood. The method has also been promoted in Bolivia and Tanzania.


title: Borax

text: A rubbery polymer sometimes called Slime, Flubber, 'gluep' or 'glurch' (or erroneously called Silly Putty, which is based on silicone polymers), can be made by cross-linking polyvinyl alcohol with borax. Making flubber from polyvinyl acetate-based glues, such as Elmer's Glue, and borax is a common elementary-science demonstration.


title: Borax

text: Borax, given the E number "E285", is used as a food additive, but is banned in some countries, such as Australia, China,Thailand and the United States. As a consequence, certain foods, such as caviar, produced for sale in the United States contain higher levels of salt to assist preservation.


title: Borax

text: In addition to its use as a preservative, borax imparts a firm, rubbery texture to food. In China, borax ( or ) has been found in foods including wheat and rice noodles named In Indonesia, it is a common, but forbidden, additive to such foods as noodles, bakso (meatballs), and steamed rice.


title: Borax

text: When consumed with boric acid, numerous studies have demonstrated an inverse correlation between borax and various types of cancers. Boric acid and borax are low in toxicity for acute oral exposures, at approximately the same acute toxicity as salt. The average dose for asymptomatic ingestion cases, which accounts for 88% of all ingestions, is around 0.9 grams. However, the range of reported asymptomatic doses is wide, from 0.01 to 88.8 g.


title: Borax

text: Borax, sodium tetraborate decahydrate, according to one study, is not acutely toxic. Its (median lethal dose) score is tested at 2.66 g/kg in rats, meaning that a significant dose of the chemical is needed to cause severe symptoms or death. The lethal dose is not necessarily the same for humans. On pesticide information websites it is listed as a non-lethal compound and of no hazardous concerns.


title: Borax

text: Borax has been in use as an insecticide in the United States with various restrictions since 1946. All restrictions were removed in February 1986 due to the low toxicity of borax, as reported in two EPA documents relating to boric acid and borax.


title: Borax

text: Although it cited inconclusive data, a re-evaluation in 2006 by the EPA still found that "There were no signs of toxicity observed during the study and no evidence of cytotoxicity to the target organ." In the reevaluation, a study of toxicity due to overexposure was checked and the findings were that "The residential handler inhalation risks due to boric acid and its sodium salts as active ingredients are not a risk concern and do not exceed the level of concern..." but that there could be some risk of irritation to children inhaling it if used as a powder for cleaning rugs.


title: Borax

text: Overexposure to borax dust can cause respiratory irritation, while no skin irritation is known to exist due to external borax exposure. Ingestion may cause gastrointestinal distress including nausea, persistent vomiting, abdominal pain, and diarrhea. Effects on the vascular system and human brain include headaches and lethargy, but are less frequent. In severe cases, a "beefy" red rash affecting the palms, soles, buttocks and scrotum has occurred.


title: Borax

text: The Indonesian Directorate of Consumer Protection warns of the risk of liver cancer with high consumption of borax over a period of 5–10 years.


title: Borax

text: Borax was added to the Substance of Very High Concern (SVHC) candidate list on December 16, 2010. The SVHC candidate list is part of the EU Regulations on the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals 2006 (REACH), and the addition was based on the revised classification of borax as "toxic for reproduction" category 1B under the CLP Regulations. Substances and mixtures imported into the EU which contain borax are now required to be labelled with the warnings "May damage fertility" and "May damage the unborn child". It was proposed for addition to REACH Annex XIV by the ECHA on July 1, 2015. If this recommendation is approved, all imports and uses of borax in the EU will have to be authorized by the ECHA.


title: Borax

text: Review of the boron toxicity (as boric acid and borates) published 2012 in "Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health" concluded: "It clearly appears that human B [boron] exposures, even in the highest exposed cohorts, are too low to reach the blood (and target tissue) concentrations that would be required to exert adverse effects on reproductive functions."


title: Borax

text: A draft risk assessment released by Health Canada in July 2016 has found that overexposure to boric acid has the potential to cause developmental and reproductive health effects. Since people are already exposed to boric acid naturally through their diets and water, Health Canada advised that exposure from other sources should be reduced as much as possible, especially for children and pregnant women. The concern is not with any one product, but rather multiple exposures from a variety of sources. With this in mind, the department also announced that registrations for certain pesticides that contain boric acid, which are commonly used in homes, will have their registrations cancelled and be phased out of the marketplace. As well, new, more protective label directions are being introduced for other boric acid pesticides that continue to be registered in Canada (for example, enclosed bait stations and spot treatments using gel formulations).


title: Azazel

text: In the Bible, the name Azazel (; "ʿAzāʾzēl"; ) appears in association with the scapegoat rite; the name represents a desolate place where a scapegoat bearing the sins of the Jews during Yom Kippur was sent. During the end of the Second Temple period, his association as a fallen angel responsible for introducing humans to forbidden knowledge emerged due to Hellenization, Christian narrative, and interpretation exemplified in the Book of Enoch. His role as a fallen angel partly remains in Christian and Islamic traditions.


title: Azazel

text: In the Hebrew Bible, the term is used three times in Leviticus 16, where two male goats were to be sacrificed to Yahweh and one of the two was selected by lot, for Yahweh is seen as speaking through the lots. One goat is selected by lot and sent into the wilderness , "for Azazel". This goat was then cast out in the desert as part of Yom Kippur. The scapegoat ritual can be traced back to 24th century BC Ebla, from where it spread throughout the ancient Near East.


title: Azazel

text: In older English versions, such as the King James Version, the phrase "la-azazel" is translated as "as a scapegoat"; however, in most modern English Bible translations, it is represented as a name in the text:


title: Azazel

text: A b'raita, apparently interpreting "azazel" as "az" (rugged) + "el" (of God), understands it to refer to the rugged and rough mountain cliff from which the goat was cast down.


title: Azazel

text: Gesenius also thought the term referred to the object, and emended the name to עזלזל "utter removal," theoretically the name of a demon"." However, neither this demon nor the root עזל (comp. אזל) are attested.


title: Azazel

text: עז (ez) also generically means goat and אזל (azal) means to be gone, used up, or exhausted and the contraction could simply mean 'the goat that is expended'.


title: Azazel

text: The translators of the Greek Septuagint understood the Hebrew term as meaning "the sent away" (apparently reading either עז אזל "goat which leaves" or "the mighty sent" or עזלזל v.s.), and read:


title: Azazel

text: Following the Septuagint, the Latin Vulgate, Martin Luther and the King James Version also give readings such as Young's Literal Translation: "And Aaron hath given lots over the two goats, one lot for Jehovah, and one lot for a goat of departure'".


title: Azazel

text: According to the Peshitta, Azazel is rendered Za-za-e'il "strong one against/of God". Pesher on the Periods A (4Q180) reads, " . . . on Azazel (some read "Uzael") and the angels . . ." If the name is in fact Azazel's, it is spelled עזזאל, equivalent to the Peshitta's version. Targum Neofiti reads עזזל, without the aleph.


title: Azazel

text: The Mishnah (Yoma 39a) follows the Hebrew Bible text; two goats were procured, similar in respect of appearance, height, cost, and time of selection. Having one of these on his right and the other on his left, the high priest, who was assisted in this rite by two subordinates, put both his hands into a wooden case, and took out two labels, one inscribed "for Yahweh" and the other "for Azazel". The high priest then laid his hands with the labels upon the two goats and said, "A sin-offering to Yahweh" (thus speaking the Tetragrammaton); and the two men accompanying him replied, "Blessed be the name of His glorious kingdom for ever and ever." He then fastened a scarlet woolen thread to the head of the goat "for Azazel"; and laying his hands upon it again, recited the following confession of sin and prayer for forgiveness: "O Lord, I have acted iniquitously, trespassed, sinned before Thee: I, my household, and the sons of Aaron Thy holy ones. O Lord, forgive the iniquities, transgressions, and sins that I, my household, and Aaron's children, Thy holy people, committed before Thee, as is written in the law of Moses, Thy servant, 'for on this day He will forgive you, to cleanse you from all your sins before the Lord; ye shall be clean.'"


title: Azazel

text: This prayer was responded to by the congregation present. A man was selected, preferably a priest, to take the goat to the precipice in the wilderness; and he was accompanied part of the way by the most eminent men of Jerusalem. Ten booths had been constructed at intervals along the road leading from Jerusalem to the steep mountain. At each one of these the man leading the goat was formally offered food and drink, which he, however, refused. When he reached the tenth booth those who accompanied him proceeded no further, but watched the ceremony from a distance. When he came to the precipice he divided the scarlet thread into two parts, one of which he tied to the rock and the other to the goat's horns, and then pushed the goat down (Yoma vi. 1–8). The cliff was so high and rugged that before the goat had traversed half the distance to the plain below, its limbs were utterly shattered. Men were stationed at intervals along the way, and as soon as the goat was thrown down the precipice, they signaled to one another by means of kerchiefs or flags, until the information reached the high priest, whereat he proceeded with the other parts of the ritual.


title: Azazel

text: The scarlet thread is symbolically referenced in ; and the Talmud states (ib. 39a) that during the forty years that Simeon the Just was High Priest of Israel, the thread actually turned white as soon as the goat was thrown over the precipice: a sign that the sins of the people were forgiven. In later times the change to white was not invariable: a proof of the people's moral and spiritual deterioration, that was gradually on the increase, until forty years before the destruction of the Second Temple, when the change of color was no longer observed (l.c. 39b).


title: Azazel

text: The medieval scholar Nahmanides (1194–1270) identified the Hebrew text as also referring to a demon, and identified this "Azazel" with Samael. However, he did not see the sending of the goat as honoring Azazel as a deity, but as a symbolic expression of the idea that the people's sins and their evil consequences were to be sent back to the spirit of desolation and ruin, the source of all impurity. The very fact that the two goats were presented before God, before the one was sacrificed and the other sent into the wilderness, was proof that Azazel was not ranked alongside God, but regarded simply as the personification of wickedness in contrast with the righteous government of God.


title: Azazel

text: Maimonides (1134–1204) says that as sins cannot be taken off one's head and transferred elsewhere, the ritual is symbolic, enabling the penitent to discard his sins: “These ceremonies are of a symbolic character and serve to impress man with a certain idea and to lead him to repent, as if to say, ‘We have freed ourselves of our previous deeds, cast them behind our backs and removed them from us as far as possible’.”


title: Azazel

text: The rite, resembling, on one hand, the sending off of the basket with the woman embodying wickedness to the land of Shinar in the vision of Zechariah (), and, on the other, the letting loose of the living bird into the open field in the case of the leper healed from the plague (), was, indeed, viewed by the people of Jerusalem as a means of ridding themselves of the sins of the year. So would the crowd, called Babylonians or Alexandrians, pull the goat's hair to make it hasten forth, carrying the burden of sins away with it (Yoma vi. 4, 66b; "Epistle of Barnabas," vii.), and the arrival of the shattered animal at the bottom of the valley of the rock of Bet Ḥadudo, twelve miles away from the city, was signalized by the waving of shawls to the people of Jerusalem, who celebrated the event with boisterous hilarity and amid dancing on the hills (Yoma vi. 6, 8; Ta'an. iv. 8). Evidently the figure of Azazel was an object of general fear and awe rather than, as has been conjectured, a foreign product or the invention of a late lawgiver. More as a demon of the desert, it seems to have been closely interwoven with the mountainous region of Jerusalem.


title: Azazel

text: The Vulgate contains no mention of "Azazel" but only of caper emissarius, or "emissary goat", apparently reading עז אזל "goat which leaves":


title: Azazel

text: English versions, such as the King James Version, followed the Septuagint and Vulgate in understanding the term as relating to a goat. The modern English Standard Version provides the footnote "16:8 The meaning of Azazel is uncertain; possibly the name of a place or a demon, traditionally a scapegoat; also verses 10, 26". Most scholars accept the indication of some kind of demon or deity, however Judit M. Blair notes that this is an argument without supporting contemporary text evidence.


title: Azazel

text: Ida Zatelli (1998) has suggested that the Hebrew ritual parallels pagan practice of sending a scapegoat into the desert on the occasion of a royal wedding found in two ritual texts in archives at Ebla (24th C. BC). A she-goat with a silver bracelet hung from her neck was driven forth into the wasteland of 'Alini' by the community. There is no mention of an "Azazel".


title: Azazel

text: According to "The Expositor's Bible Commentary", Azazel is the Hebrew word for scapegoat. This is the only place that the Hebrew word is found in the whole Hebrew Old Testament. It says that the Book of Enoch, (extra-biblical Jewish theological literature, dated around 200 B.C.) is full of demonology and reference to fallen angels. The EBC (Vol 2) says that this text uses late Aramaic forms for these names which indicates that The Book of Enoch most likely relies upon the Hebrew Leviticus text rather than the Leviticus text being reliant upon the Book of Enoch.


title: Azazel

text: Azazel is occasionally mentioned as "Azaziʿil" in Mandaean scriptures. In the "Right Ginza", Azaziʿil is the name of an uthra (celestial being or angel).


title: Azazel

text: In Islam, Azazel appears in relation to the story of Harut and Marut, a pair of angels mentioned in the Quran. Although not explained by the Quran itself, Muslim exegetes, such as Al-Kalbi and Al-Tha`labi, usually linked the reason of their abode to a narration related to the Watchers known from 3 Enoch. Just as in 3 Enoch, angels complained about humans iniquity, whereupon God offered a test, that the angels might choose three among them to descend to earth, endowed with bodily desires, and prove that they would do better than humans under the same conditions. Accordingly, they choose Aza, Azzaya and Azazel. However, Azazel repented his decision and God allowed him to turn back to heaven. The other two angels failed the test and their names were changed to Harut and Marut. They ended up on earth, introducing men to illicit magic.


title: Azazel

text: In the Dead Sea Scrolls, the name Azazel occurs in the line 6 of 4Q203, "The Book of Giants", which is a part of the Enochic literature found at Qumran. Despite the expectation of Brandt (1889) to date no evidence has surfaced of Azazel as a demon or god prior to the earliest Jewish sources among the Dead Sea Scrolls.


title: Azazel

text: The Book of Enoch brings Azazel into connection with the Biblical story of the fall of the angels, located on Mount Hermon, a gathering-place of demons of old. Here, Azazel is one of the leaders of the rebellious Watchers in the time preceding the Flood; he taught men the art of warfare, of making swords, knives, shields, and coats of mail, and taught women the art of deception by ornamenting the body, dyeing the hair, and painting the face and the eyebrows, and also revealed to the people the secrets of witchcraft and corrupted their manners, leading them into wickedness and impurity until at last he was, at Yahweh's command, bound hand and foot by the archangel Raphael and chained to the rough and jagged rocks of [Ha] Dudael (= Beth Ḥadudo), where he is to abide in utter darkness until the great Day of Judgment, when he will be cast into the fire to be consumed forever.


title: Azazel

text: According to the Book of Enoch, Azazel (here spelled "‘ăzā’zyēl") was one of the chief Grigori, a group of fallen angels who married women. Many believe that this same story (without any mention of Azazel) is told in the Book of Genesis 6:2–4:


title: Azazel

text: These "sons of God" have often been thought of as fallen angels, and are sometimes equated with the Nephilim. (On the other hand, it has also been argued that the phrase refers only to pious men, or else that it should be translated "sons of the rulers".)


title: Azazel

text: Enoch portrays Azazel as responsible for teaching people to make weapons and cosmetics, for which he was cast out of heaven. The Book of Enoch 8:1–3a reads, "And Azazel taught men to make swords and knives and shields and breastplates; and made known to them the metals [of the earth] and the art of working them; and bracelets and ornaments; and the use of antimony and the beautifying of the eyelids; and all kinds of costly stones and all colouring tinctures. And there arose much godlessness, and they committed fornication, and they were led astray and became corrupt in all their ways." The corruption brought on by Azazel and the Grigori degrades the human race, and the four archangels (Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel) “saw much blood being shed upon the earth and all lawlessness being wrought upon the earth […] The souls of men [made] their suit, saying, "Bring our cause before the Most High; […] Thou seest what Azazel hath done, who hath taught all unrighteousness on earth and revealed the eternal secrets which were in heaven, which men were striving to learn." God sees the sin brought about by Azazel and has Raphael “bind Azazel hand and foot and cast him into the darkness: and make an opening in the desert – which is in Dudael – and cast him therein. And place upon him rough and jagged rocks, and cover him with darkness, and let him abide there forever, and cover his face that he may not see light.” Azazel's fate is foretold near the end of Enoch 2:8, where God says, “On the day of the great judgement he shall be cast into the fire.” He will be delivered to the angels of punishments (Satan).


title: Azazel

text: Several scholars have previously discerned that some details of Azazel's punishment are reminiscent of the scapegoat rite. Thus, Lester Grabbe points to a number of parallels between the Azazel narrative in Enoch and the wording of Leviticus 16, including "the similarity of the names Asael and Azazel; the punishment in the desert; the placing of sin on Asael/Azazel; the resultant healing of the land." Daniel Stökl also observes that "the punishment of the demon resembles the treatment of the goat in aspects of geography, action, time and purpose." Thus, the place of Asael's punishment designated in Enoch as Dudael is reminiscent of the rabbinic terminology used for the designation of the ravine of the scapegoat in later rabbinic interpretations of the Yom Kippur ritual. Stökl remarks that "the name of place of judgment ("Dudael") is conspicuously similar in both traditions and can likely be traced to a common origin."


title: Azazel

text: Azazel in 1 Enoch has been compared to Greek Titan Prometheus. He might be a demonized counterpart of a heavenly creature, who provided knowledge for people to make weapons, thus causing bloodshed and injustice. The latter might be identified with Greek kings and generals, who suppressed the Jews with military forces, but learned how to make their weapons by this specific expelled creature.


title: Azazel

text: In the fifth-century 3 Enoch, Azazel is one of the three angels (Azza [Shemhazai] and Uzza [Ouza] are the other two) who opposed Enoch's high rank when he became the angel Metatron. Whilst they were fallen at this time they were still in Heaven, but Metatron held a dislike for them, and had them cast out.


title: Azazel

text: In the extra-canonical text the Apocalypse of Abraham (c.1st CE), Azazel appears as an unclean bird who came down upon the sacrifice which Abraham prepared. (This is in reference to Genesis 15:11: "Birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away" [NIV]).


title: Azazel

text: The text also associates Azazel with the serpent and hell. In Chapter 23, verse 7, it is described as having seven heads, 14 faces, "hands and feet like a man's [and] on his back six wings on the right and six on the left."


title: Azazel

text: Abraham says that the wicked will "putrefy in the belly of the crafty worm Azazel, and be burned by the fire of Azazel's tongue" (Abr. 31:5), and earlier says to Azazel himself, "May you be the firebrand of the furnace of the earth! Go, Azazel, into the untrodden parts of the earth. For your heritage is over those who are with you" (Abr. 14:5–6).


title: Azazel

text: Here there is the idea that God's heritage (the created world) is largely under the dominion of evil – i.e., it is "shared with Azazel" (Abr. 20:5), again identifying him with the devil, who was called "the prince of this world" by Jesus. ( niv)


title: Republic of Crimea

text: The Republic of Crimea is Russia's claimed territorial administration in the Crimean Peninsula (abbr. "Crimea"), excluding Sevastopol, which Russia classifies as an independent city on the peninsula. Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, in a series of events that was condemned and unrecognized by most of the international community, with a few countries supporting Russia's position.


title: Republic of Crimea

text: Ukraine's administration in Crimea is the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, which has effectively been a government in exile since 2014. Similarly to Russia, Ukraine also classifies Sevastopol as an independent city on the peninsula, which effectively means that the Russian and Ukrainian administrations in Crimea claim the exact same extent of territory.


title: Republic of Crimea

text: Sevastopol is the largest city in Crimea. The capital city of both the Russian and Ukrainian administrations in the rest of Crimea is Simferopol, which is the second-largest city in Crimea.


title: Republic of Crimea

text: The origins of the Russian historical claim to Crimea, which would culminate in the 2014 annexation of the territory, date to the 18th century, when the Russian Empire, under the Empress Catherine the Great, annexed the peninsula for the first time, in April 1783. While ostensibly recognised by the Ottoman Empire in December that year, the annexation sowed tensions which ultimately contributed to the outbreak of Russo-Turkish war of 1787–1792, in which the Ottoman Empire attempted to reverse it, but to no avail: the 1792 Treaty of Jassy, which formally ended the war, reaffirmed the 1783 annexation again. From 1802, Crimea constituted a southern part of the Taurida Governorate of the Russian Empire until the collapse thereof in 1917. During the Russian Civil War (1917–1921) Crimea changed hands multiple times, being "inter alia" the last territory held by the White Russian government in the European part of Russia in 1920, and finally became an autonomous republic within Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) in 1921.


title: Republic of Crimea

text: During World War II, in 1944, the central Soviet authorities deported the Crimean Tatars for alleged collaboration with the Nazi occupation regime; in 1945, the region was stripped of its autonomy status.


title: Republic of Crimea

text: In 1954, the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet transferred the region from the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, another constituent republic of the USSR, then a highly centralised state, wherein borders between constituent republics was a technical issue of administration, despite the fact that Ukraine was a separate member of the UN. The Crimean Tatars were allowed to return to Crimea in the mid-1980s under perestroika.


title: Republic of Crimea

text: With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Crimea became part of the newly independent Ukraine, which led to tensions between Russia and Ukraine. With the Black Sea Fleet based on the peninsula, worries of armed skirmishes were occasionally raised. Crimean Tatars began returning from exile and resettling in Crimea. Ukraine restored Crimea's autonomous status in 1991. Crimea's autonomous status was re-affirmed in 1996 with the ratification of Ukraine's current constitution, which designated Crimea as the "Autonomous Republic of Crimea", but also an "inseparable constituent part of Ukraine".


title: Republic of Crimea

text: In January 1991 the Crimean sovereignty referendum re-established the Crimean ASSR. On 26 February 1992, the Crimean parliament renamed the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic "the Republic of Crimea" and subsequently declared conditional independence on 5 May 1992. That independence was never confirmed by referendum amid opposition from the government of Ukraine and on 21 September 1994 the Ukrainian Parliament renamed the Republic of Crimea as the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. On 17 March 1995, the Ukrainian parliament abolished the Crimean Constitution of 1992 and all the laws and decrees contradicting those enacted by Kyiv, ending Crimea's brief existence as a post-Soviet republic.


title: Republic of Crimea

text: Following the ratification of the May 1997 Russian–Ukrainian Friendship Treaty, the 1998 Constitution of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea designated the region as the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. In 2006, anti-NATO protests broke out on the peninsula. In September 2008, the Ukrainian Foreign Minister Volodymyr Ohryzko accused Russia of giving out Russian passports to the population in Crimea. On 24 August 2009, anti-Ukrainian demonstrations were held in Crimea by ethnic Russian residents. Sergei Tsekov (of the Russian Bloc and then deputy speaker of the Crimean parliament) said then that he hoped that Russia would treat Crimea the same way as it had treated South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The 2010 Ukrainian–Russian Naval Base for Natural Gas treaty extended Russia's lease on naval facilities in Crimea until 2042, with optional five-year renewals.


title: Republic of Crimea

text: In February 2014, following the 2014 Ukrainian revolution that ousted the Ukrainian President, Viktor Yanukovych, the Russian leadership decided to "start working on returning Crimea to Russia" (i.e. envisaged the annexation of peninsula), and after a takeover of Crimea by Russian armed forces without insignias and pro-Russian separatists, the territory within weeks came under Russian effective control.


title: Republic of Crimea

text: To facilitate the annexation politically, the Crimean parliament and the Sevastopol City Council announced on 6 March, in violation of the Ukrainian Constitution, a referendum on the issue of joining Russia, to be held on 16 March. The upcoming vote allowed citizens to vote on whether Crimea should apply to join Russia as a federal subject of the Russian Federation, or restore the 1992 Crimean constitution and Crimea's status as a part of Ukraine. The available choices did not include keeping the status quo of Crimea and Sevastopol as they were at the time the referendum was held.


title: Republic of Crimea

text: On 11 March 2014, the Crimean parliament and the Sevastopol City Council jointly issued a letter of intent to unilaterally declare independence from Ukraine in the event of a 'Yes' vote in the upcoming referendum, citing the "Kosovo precedent" in the lead part. The envisaged process was so designed to allow Russia to claim that "it did not annex Crimea from Ukraine, rather the Republic of Crimea exercised its sovereign powers in seeking a merge with Russia".


title: Republic of Crimea

text: On 16 March 2014, according to the organizers of Crimean status referendum, a large majority (reported as 96.77% of the 81.36% of the population of Crimea who voted) voted in favour of independence of Crimea from Ukraine and joining Russia as a federal subject. The referendum was not recognized by most of the international community and the reported results were disputed by numerous independent observers. The BBC reported that most of the Crimean Tatars that they interviewed were boycotting the vote. Reports from the UN criticised the circumstances surrounding the referendum, especially the presence of paramilitaries, self-defence groups and unidentifiable soldiers. The European Union, Canada, Japan and the United States condemned the vote as illegal. After the referendum, Crimean lawmakers formally voted both to secede from Ukraine and applied for their admission into Russia. The Sevastopol City Council, however, requested the port's separate admission as a federal city. On the same day Russia formally approved the draft treaty on absorption of the self-proclaimed Republic of Crimea, and on 18 March 2014 the political process of annexation was formally concluded, with the self-proclaimed independent Republic of Crimea signing a treaty of accession to the Russian Federation. The accession was granted but separately for each the former regions that composed it: one accession for the Autonomous Republic of Crimea as the "Republic of Crimea"—the same name as the short-lived self-proclaimed independent republic—and another accession for Sevastopol as a federal city. A post-annexation transition period, during which Russian authorities were to resolve the issues of integration of the new subjects "in the economic, financial, credit and legal system of the Russian Federation", was set to last until 1 January 2015.


title: Republic of Crimea

text: The change of status of Crimea was only recognised internationally by a few states with most regarding the action as illegal. Ukraine refused to accept the annexation, however the Ukrainian military began to withdraw from Crimea on 19 March, and by 26 March, Russia had acquired complete military control of Crimea, so the annexation was essentially complete.


title: Republic of Crimea

text: The post-annexation integration process started within days. On 24 March, the Russian ruble went into official circulation with parallel circulation of the Ukrainian hryvnia permitted until 1 January 2016, however, taxes and fees were to be paid in rubles only, and the wages of employees at budget-receiving organisations were to be paid out in rubles as well. On 29 March, the clocks in Crimea were moved forward to Moscow time.Also on 31 March, the Russian Foreign Ministry declared that foreign citizens visiting Crimea needed to apply for a visa to the Russian Federation at one of Russian diplomatic missions or its consulates.


title: Republic of Crimea

text: On 3 April 2014, Moscow sent a diplomatic note to Ukraine on terminating the actions of agreements concerning the deployment of the Russian Federation's Black Sea Fleet on the territory of Ukraine. As part of the agreements, Russia used to pay the Ukrainian government $530 million annually for the base, and wrote off nearly $100 million of Kyiv's debt for the right to use Ukrainian waters. Ukraine also received a discount of $100 on each 1,000 cubic meters of natural gas imported from Russia, which was provided for by cutting export duties on the gas, money that would have gone into the Russian state budget. The Kremlin explained that because the base was no longer located in Ukraine, the discount was no longer legally justifiable. Crimea and the city of Sevastopol became part of Russia's Southern Military District.


title: Republic of Crimea

text: On 11 April 2014, the parliament of Crimea approved a new constitution, with 88 out of 100 lawmakers voting in favor of its adoption. The new constitution confirms the Republic of Crimea as a democratic state within the Russian Federation and declares both territories united and inseparable. The Crimean parliament would become smaller and have 75 members instead of the current 100. According to the Kommersant newspaper, the authorities, including the State Council chair Vladimir Konstantinov, unofficially promised that certain quotas would be reserved for Crimean Tatars in various government bodies. On the same day, a new revision of the Russian Constitution was officially published, with the Republic of Crimea and the federal city of Sevastopol included in the list of federal subjects of the Russian Federation.


title: Republic of Crimea

text: On 12 April 2014, the Constitution of the Republic of Crimea, adopted at the session of the State Council on 11 April, entered into legal force. The constitution was published by the Krymskiye Izvestiya newspaper, becoming law on the publication date, the State Council of Crimea said. The Constitution consists of 10 chapters and 95 articles; its main regulations are analogous to the articles of the Constitution of the Russian Federation. The text proclaims the Republic of Crimea is a democratic, legal state within the Russian Federation and an equal subject of the Russian Federation. The source of power in the Crimean Republic is its people, which constitutes to the multinational nation of the Russian Federation. It is noted that the supreme direct manifestation of the power of the people is referendum and free elections; seizure of power and appropriation of power authorization are unacceptable.


title: Republic of Crimea

text: On 1 June 2014, Crimea officially switched over to the Russian ruble as its only form of legal tender.


title: Republic of Crimea

text: On 7 May 2015, Crimea switched its phone codes (Ukrainian number system) to the Russian number system.


title: Republic of Crimea

text: In July 2015, Russian Prime Minister, Dmitry Medvedev, declared that Crimea had been fully integrated into Russia, similar statements were also expressed at the Russian Security Council.


title: Republic of Crimea

text: In July 2016, Crimea ceased to be a separate federal district of the Russian Federation and was included into the Southern federal district instead.


title: Republic of Crimea

text: Russia has since the annexation supported large migration into Crimea, and the Office of the Federal State Statistics Service in Crimea and Sevastopol records as of 2021 since 2014 205,559 Russians have moved to Crimea. Ukrainian Ministry and Crimean Human Rights Group say the real number could unofficially be many times higher.


title: Republic of Crimea

text: On 31 March 2014, the Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev announced a series of programmes aimed at swiftly incorporating the territory into Russia's economy and infrastructure. The creation of a new Ministry of Crimean Affairs was announced too. After 2014 the Russian government invested heavily in the peninsula's infrastructure—repairing roads, modernizing hospitals and building the Crimean Bridge that links the peninsula to the Russian mainland.


title: Republic of Crimea

text: In 2017 the Russian government also began modernising the Simferopol International Airport, which opened its new terminal in April 2018.


title: Republic of Crimea

text: Russia provides electricity to Crimea via a cable beneath the Kerch Strait. In June 2018 there was a full electrical outage for all of Crimea, but the power grid company Rosseti reported to have fixed the outage in approximately one hour.


title: Republic of Crimea

text: On 28 December 2018, Russia completed a high-tech security fence marking the de facto border between Crimea and Ukraine.


title: Republic of Crimea

text: Once Ukraine lost control of the territory in 2014, it shut off the water supply of the North Crimean Canal which supplies 85% of the peninsula's freshwater needs from the Dnieper river, the nation's main waterway. Development of new sources of water was undertaken, with huge difficulties, to replace closed Ukrainian sources. In 2022, Russia conquered portions of Kherson Oblast, which allowed it to unblock the North Crimean canal by force, resuming water supply into Crimea.


title: Republic of Crimea

text: On 15 April 2014, the Ukrainian Parliament declared Crimea and the city of Sevastopol "occupied territories".


title: Republic of Crimea

text: In 2021, Ukraine launched the Crimea Platform a diplomatic initiative aimed at protecting the rights of Crimean inhabitants and ultimately reversing the illegal annexation of Crimea.


title: Republic of Crimea

text: The State Council of Crimea is a legislative body with a 75-seat parliament. The polling held on 14 September 2014 resulted in United Russia securing 70 of the 75 members elected.


title: Republic of Crimea

text: Justice is administered by courts, as part of the judiciary of Russia. Under Russian law, all decisions delivered by the Crimean branches of the judiciary of Ukraine up to its annexation remain valid. This includes sentences (for "encroaching on Ukraine's territorial integrity and inviolability") for pre-2014 calls for an incorporation of Crimea into Russia.


title: Republic of Crimea

text: The executive power is represented by the Council of Ministers, headed either by the Prime Minister of Crimea or by the Head of the Republic of Crimea. The authority and operation of the State Council and the Council of Ministers of Crimea are determined by the Constitution of the Republic of Crimea and other Crimean laws, as well as by regular decisions carried out by the Council.


title: Republic of Crimea

text: Crimeans who refused to take Russian citizenship are barred from holding government positions or municipal jobs.


title: Republic of Crimea

text: By July 2015, 20,000 Crimeans had renounced their Ukrainian citizenship. From the time of Russia's annexation until October 2016, more than 8,800 Crimean residents received Ukrainian passports.


title: Republic of Crimea

text: The Republic of Crimea continues to use the administrative divisions previously used by the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and is thus subdivided into 25 regions: 14 districts ("raions") and 11 city municipalities ("gorodskoj sovet" or "gorsovet"), officially known as "territories governed by city councils".


title: Republic of Crimea

text: If it were to be considered a part of Russia, then Crimea would be one of two parts of European Russia that had no land connection to the rest of the country, the other being Kaliningrad Oblast on the Baltic Sea. Being a semi-exclave, the peninsula is connected to Russia by a multibillion-dollar road–rail fixed link across the Kerch Strait, dubbed Crimean Bridge by the Russian government. The link is operational for road traffic since 2018, and for rail traffic since 2019 (passenger) and 2020 (freight).


title: Republic of Crimea

text: If Crimea were considered separate from Ukraine, which continues to claim sovereignty over the peninsula, then Ukraine would be the only country with which it shared a land border, with a number of road and rail connections. These crossings have been under the control of Russian troops since at least mid-March 2014.


title: Republic of Crimea

text: The best result in life expectancy the Republic of Crimea had in 2019, it reached 72.71 years. But during two years the COVID-19 pandemic the region had one of the largest summary fall in life expectancy in Russia, and in 2021 it became 69.70 years (65.31 for males and 73.96 for females)


title: Republic of Crimea

text: According to the 2014 Crimean Federal District census, the ethnic makeup of the population of the whole Crimean Federal District at the time comprised the following self-reported groups:


title: Republic of Crimea

text: According to the 2014 census, 84% of Crimean inhabitants named Russian as their native language; 7.9% named Crimean Tatar; 3.7% Tatar and 3.3% Ukrainian. The previous census was held more than decade ago in 2001, when Crimea was still controlled by Ukraine. The Russian occupation led to a strong decline of the ethnic Ukrainian population in the region.


title: Republic of Crimea

text: According to the Republic of Crimea Ministry of Education, Science, and Youth, most primary and secondary school pupils have decided to study in Russian in 2015.


title: Republic of Crimea

text: Its Education Minister Natalia Goncharova announced mid-August 2014 that (since no parents of first-graders wrote an application for learning Ukrainian) Crimea had decided not to form Ukrainian language classes in its primary schools. Goncharova said that since more than a quarter of parents at the Ukrainian gymnasium in Simferopol had written an application to teach children in Ukrainian; this school might have Ukrainian language classes. Goncharova also added that the parents of first-graders had written application for learning the Russian language, and (in areas inhabited by Crimean Tatars) for learning Crimean Tatar. Goncharova stated on 10 October 2014 that at that time Crimea had 20 schools where all subjects were conducted in Ukrainian.


title: Republic of Crimea

text: A report (realised in the summer of 2015) of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) claimed that the Republic of Crimea had the aim to "end the teaching of Ukrainian" by "pressure on school administrations, teachers, parents, and children".


title: Republic of Crimea

text: The majority of the Crimean population adheres to the Russian Orthodox Church, with the Crimean Tatars forming a Sunni Muslim minority, besides smaller Roman Catholic, Ukrainian Greek Catholic, Armenian Apostolic and Jewish minorities. In 2013, Orthodox Christians made up 58% of the Crimean population, followed by Muslims (15%, mainly Tatars) and believers without religion (10%).


title: Republic of Crimea

text: Peninsula economy is based on tourism, agriculture (wines, fruits, wheat, rice and further crops), fishing, pearls, mining and natural resources (mainly iron, titanium, aluminium, manganese, calcite, sandstone, quartz and silicates, amethyst, other), metallurgical and steel industry, shipbuilding and repair, oil gas and petrochemical, chemical industry, electronics and devices machinery, instruments making, glass, electronics and electric parts devices, materials and building.


title: Republic of Crimea

text: In March 2014 Crimean GDP was estimated at $4.3 billion or 0.2% of Russia based on current prices and 0.5% based on purchasing power parity.


title: Republic of Crimea

text: After annexation of the peninsula, Russia doubled payments to about 560,000 pensioners and 200,000 public workers (in Crimea). Those raises were cut back in April 2015.


title: Republic of Crimea

text: In June 2015 The Economist estimated that the average salary in Crimea was about two-thirds of the average salary in Russia. According to Russian statistics by March 2015 the inflation in Crimea was 80%. According to the Crimean authorities local food prices have grown 2.5 times since Russia's annexation. Since then the peninsula now has to import most of its food from Russia.


title: Republic of Crimea

text: After the annexation, Russian Crimean authorities started nationalization of what they called strategically important enterprises, which included not only transportation and energy production enterprises, but also, for example, a wine factory in Massandra. The enterprises which belonged to Russian citizens were nationalized against financial reimbursement, which was, however, much lower than the actual value; those which belonged to Ukrainian citizens, for example, PrivatBank owned by Ihor Kolomoyskyi or Ukrtelecom owned by Rinat Akhmetov, were expropriated without any reimbursement. The future of the nationalized enterprises is decided by the government. Reasons given for this were (among others) "the company helped to finance military operations against Donetsk People's Republic and Lugansk People's Republic" and "the resort complex illegally blocked public access to nearby park lands". The government can nationalise assets considered to have "particular social, cultural, or historical value". In the case of the Zalyv Shipbuilding yard, Crimean "self-defense" forces stormed the company's headquarters to demand nationalization. Head of the Republic Sergey Aksyonov claimed that in at least one case "Employees established control of the enterprise on their own, we just helped them a little". The nationalization of Ihor Kolomoyskyi's assets was, according to Aksyonov, "totally justified due to the fact that he is one of the initiators and financiers of the special anti-terrorist operation in the Eastern Ukraine where Russian citizens are being killed".


title: Republic of Crimea

text: By late October 2014 90% of the heads of Crimean government-owned corporation were fired as part of a supposed anti-corruption campaign, although no charges have been filed against anyone. Human rights activists in the region have described the seizures as lacking a legal basis and dismissed the "anti-corruption" rationale. In June 2015 the Federal Security Service (FSB) started several anti-corruption criminal cases against high ranking Crimean officials. According to Aksyonov the FSB had opened these criminal cases because it was "interested in destabilizing the situation in Crimea".


title: Republic of Crimea

text: On 6 May 2014 the National Bank of Ukraine ordered Ukrainian banks to cease operations in Crimea; the following weeks the Central Bank of Russia closed all Ukrainian banks in the peninsula because "they had failed to meet their obligations to creditors". Eight months after the 21 March 2014 formal annexation of Crimea by Russia it became impossible for clients of Ukrainian banks to access their deposits and most of them did not pay interest (on loans). A "Fund for the Protection of Depositors in Crimea", as part of Russia's Deposit Insurance Agency, was set up by Russia to compensate Crimeans. By 6 November 2014 it paid out more than $500 million to 196,400 depositors; the fund has a limit of about $15,000 per bank account. In July 2015, 25 banks were operating in Crimea while prior to the Russian annexation there were 180 banks.


title: Republic of Crimea

text: While many international businesses left the region, in 2015 only a few Russian companies are reported to have invested in Crimea, fearing sanctions.


title: Republic of Crimea

text: Russia invests significantly in Crimea, according to "The Federal Target Program for the Development of the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol" they plan to invest one trillion Russian rubles (15.3 billion dollars) before 2022 The Russian government claims that those investments are necessary because Ukrainian mismanagement of the Crimean territory caused losses of 2.5 trillion Russian rubles (38.3 billion dollars) to the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol Meanwhile, Ukraine estimates their losses due to Russian annexation of the peninsula to 100 billion dollars.


title: Republic of Crimea

text: A Free Economic Zone has been established in the territory of the Republic of Crimea since 1 January 2015.


title: Republic of Crimea

text: By the end of 2017, the amount of investment in Crimea's free economic zone since early 2015, exceeded 100 billion rubles ($1.69 billion).


title: Republic of Crimea

text: In 2014 about two million tourists holidayed in Crimea, including 300,000 Ukrainians. In 2013 3.5 million Ukrainian and 1.5 million Russian tourists visited Crimea. Tourism is the mainstay of the Crimean economy. In August 2014 Head of the Republic Aksyonov was confident that in 2015 Crimea would welcome "at least five million visitors – I have no doubts about that". Early August 2015 the press service of his government stated that in 2015 2.02 million tourists had visited Crimea (16.5% more than in 2014). They stated in January 2016 (that in 2015) more than 4 million tourists had vacationed in the peninsula. Over 6.4 million tourists visited Crimea in 2018.


title: Republic of Crimea

text: In Crimea Peninsula worked four mobile operators already offers voice and mobile data for 2G, 3G and 4G users.