title: Tony Soprano

text: Following Gandolfini's death on June 19, 2013, his portrayal of Tony Soprano was praised for its influence on subsequent other TV characters. "TV Guide" columnist Matt Roush stated, "Without Tony, there's no Vic Mackey of "The Shield", no Al Swearengen of "Deadwood", no Don Draper of "Mad Men" (whose creator, Matthew Weiner, honed his craft as a writer on "The Sopranos")." Similar testimonials were included by his co-stars and colleagues; Bryan Cranston stated that his "Breaking Bad" character, Walter White, would not have existed without Tony Soprano. Mark Lawson of "The Guardian" praised Gandolfini for his "towering central performance" as Tony Soprano, writing: ""The Sopranos" was part of a wave of American TV dramas that finally persuaded cineastes and critics who had been snobbish and dismissive about television as a medium to accept the smaller screen as an artistic equivalent of the larger one. Although many of those who watched and wrote about TV had got this message much earlier, the remarkable and sustained range of Gandolfini's portrayal of Tony Soprano played a major part in ending any remaining inferiority complex about the medium."


title: Tony Soprano

text: Gandolfini's son, Michael, was cast in 2019 for the 2021 film "The Many Saints of Newark" to play a young Tony Soprano, as a prequel to the show. Michael, having never watched "The Sopranos", watched through it to prepare for the role, describing it as an intense process.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: A circadian rhythm (), or circadian cycle, is a natural, internal process that regulates the sleep–wake cycle and repeats roughly every 24 hours. It can refer to any process that originates within an organism (i.e., endogenous) and responds to the environment (entrained by the environment). These 24-hour rhythms are driven by a circadian clock, and they have been widely observed in animals, plants, fungi and cyanobacteria.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: The term "circadian" comes from the Latin "circa", meaning "approximately", and "dies", meaning "day". Processes with 24-hour cycles are more generally called diurnal rhythms; diurnal rhythms should not be called circadian rhythms unless they can be confirmed as endogenous, and not environmental.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: Although circadian rhythms are endogenous, they are adjusted to the local environment by external cues called zeitgebers (German for "time givers"), which include light, temperature and redox cycles. In clinical settings, an abnormal circadian rhythm in humans is known as a circadian rhythm sleep disorder.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: While there are multiple mentions of "natural body cycle" in Eastern and Native American cultures, the earliest recorded Western account of a circadian process is credited to Theophrastus, dating from the 4th century BC, probably provided to him by report of Androsthenes, a ship's captain serving under Alexander the Great. In his book, 'Περὶ φυτῶν ἱστορία', or 'Enquiry into plants', Theophrastus describes a "tree with many leaves like the rose, and that this closes at night, but opens at sunrise, and by noon is completely unfolded; and at evening again it closes by degrees and remains shut at night, and the natives say that it goes to sleep." The tree mentioned by him was much later identified as the tamarind tree by the botanist, H Bretzl, in his book on the botanical findings of the Alexandrian campaigns.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: The observation of a circadian or diurnal process in humans is mentioned in Chinese medical texts dated to around the 13th century, including the "Noon and Midnight Manual" and the "Mnemonic Rhyme to Aid in the Selection of Acu-points According to the Diurnal Cycle, the Day of the Month and the Season of the Year".


title: Circadian rhythm

text: In 1729, French scientist Jean-Jacques d'Ortous de Mairan conducted the first experiment designed to distinguish an endogenous clock from responses to daily stimuli. He noted that 24-hour patterns in the movement of the leaves of the plant "Mimosa pudica" persisted, even when the plants were kept in constant darkness.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: In 1896, Patrick and Gilbert observed that during a prolonged period of sleep deprivation, sleepiness increases and decreases with a period of approximately 24 hours. In 1918, J.S. Szymanski showed that animals are capable of maintaining 24-hour activity patterns in the absence of external cues such as light and changes in temperature.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: In the early 20th century, circadian rhythms were noticed in the rhythmic feeding times of bees. Auguste Forel, Ingeborg Beling, and Oskar Wahl conducted numerous experiments to determine whether this rhythm was attributable to an endogenous clock. The existence of circadian rhythm was independently discovered in fruit flies in 1935 by two German zoologists, Hans Kalmus and Erwin Bünning.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: In 1954, an important experiment reported by Colin Pittendrigh demonstrated that eclosion (the process of pupa turning into adult) in "Drosophila pseudoobscura" was a circadian behaviour. He demonstrated that while temperature played a vital role in eclosion rhythm, the period of eclosion was delayed but not stopped when temperature was decreased.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: The term "circadian" was coined by Franz Halberg in 1959. According to Halberg's original definition:


title: Circadian rhythm

text: In 1977, the International Committee on Nomenclature of the International Society for Chronobiology formally adopted the definition:


title: Circadian rhythm

text: Ron Konopka and Seymour Benzer identified the first clock mutation in "Drosophila" in 1971, naming the gene "period" ("per") gene, the first discovered genetic determinant of behavioral rhythmicity. "per" gene was isolated in 1984 by two teams of researchers. Konopka, Jeffrey Hall, Michael Roshbash and their team showed that "per" locus is the centre of the circadian rhythm, and that loss of "per" stops circadian activity. At the same time, Michael W. Young's team reported similar effects of "per", and that the gene covers 7.1-kilobase (kb) interval on the X chromosome and encodes a 4.5-kb poly(A)+ RNA. They went on to discover the key genes and neurones in "Drosophila" circadian system, for which Hall, Rosbash and Young received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2017.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: Joseph Takahashi discovered the first mammalian circadian clock mutation ("clockΔ19") using mice in 1994. However, recent studies show that deletion of "clock" does not lead to a behavioral phenotype (the animals still have normal circadian rhythms), which questions its importance in rhythm generation.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: The first human clock mutation was identified in an extended Utah family by Chris Jones, and genetically characterized by Ying-Hui Fu and Louis Ptacek. Affected individuals are extreme 'morning larks' with 4-hour advanced sleep and other rhythms. This form of familial advanced sleep phase syndrome is caused by a single amino acid change, S662➔G, in the human PER2 protein.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: Circadian rhythms allow organisms to anticipate and prepare for precise and regular environmental changes. They thus enable organisms to make better use of environmental resources (e.g. light and food) compared to those that cannot predict such availability. It has therefore been suggested that circadian rhythms put organisms at a selective advantage in evolutionary terms. However, rhythmicity appears to be as important in regulating and coordinating "internal" metabolic processes, as in coordinating with the "environment". This is suggested by the maintenance (heritability) of circadian rhythms in fruit flies after several hundred generations in constant laboratory conditions, as well as in creatures in constant darkness in the wild, and by the experimental elimination of behavioral—but not physiological—circadian rhythms in quail.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: What drove circadian rhythms to evolve has been an enigmatic question. Previous hypotheses emphasized that photosensitive proteins and circadian rhythms may have originated together in the earliest cells, with the purpose of protecting replicating DNA from high levels of damaging ultraviolet radiation during the daytime. As a result, replication was relegated to the dark. However, evidence for this is lacking: in fact the simplest organisms with a circadian rhythm, the cyanobacteria, do the opposite of this: they divide more in the daytime. Recent studies instead highlight the importance of co-evolution of redox proteins with circadian oscillators in all three domains of life following the Great Oxidation Event approximately 2.3 billion years ago. The current view is that circadian changes in environmental oxygen levels and the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in the presence of daylight are likely to have driven a need to evolve circadian rhythms to preempt, and therefore counteract, damaging redox reactions on a daily basis.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: The simplest known circadian clocks are bacterial circadian rhythms, exemplified by the prokaryote cyanobacteria. Recent research has demonstrated that the circadian clock of "Synechococcus elongatus" can be reconstituted "in vitro" with just the three proteins (KaiA, KaiB, KaiC) of their central oscillator. This clock has been shown to sustain a 22-hour rhythm over several days upon the addition of ATP. Previous explanations of the prokaryotic circadian timekeeper were dependent upon a DNA transcription/translation feedback mechanism.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: A defect in the human homologue of the "Drosophila" "period" gene was identified as a cause of the sleep disorder FASPS (Familial advanced sleep phase syndrome), underscoring the conserved nature of the molecular circadian clock through evolution. Many more genetic components of the biological clock are now known. Their interactions result in an interlocked feedback loop of gene products resulting in periodic fluctuations that the cells of the body interpret as a specific time of the day.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: It is now known that the molecular circadian clock can function within a single cell. That is, it is cell-autonomous. This was shown by Gene Block in isolated mollusk basal retinal neurons (BRNs). At the same time, different cells may communicate with each other resulting in a synchronised output of electrical signaling. These may interface with endocrine glands of the brain to result in periodic release of hormones. The receptors for these hormones may be located far across the body and synchronise the peripheral clocks of various organs. Thus, the information of the time of the day as relayed by the eyes travels to the clock in the brain, and, through that, clocks in the rest of the body may be synchronised. This is how the timing of, for example, sleep/wake, body temperature, thirst, and appetite are coordinately controlled by the biological clock.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: Circadian rhythmicity is present in the sleeping and feeding patterns of animals, including human beings. There are also clear patterns of core body temperature, brain wave activity, hormone production, cell regeneration, and other biological activities. In addition, photoperiodism, the physiological reaction of organisms to the length of day or night, is vital to both plants and animals, and the circadian system plays a role in the measurement and interpretation of day length. Timely prediction of seasonal periods of weather conditions, food availability, or predator activity is crucial for survival of many species. Although not the only parameter, the changing length of the photoperiod (day length) is the most predictive environmental cue for the seasonal timing of physiology and behavior, most notably for timing of migration, hibernation, and reproduction.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: Mutations or deletions of clock genes in mice have demonstrated the importance of body clocks to ensure the proper timing of cellular/metabolic events; clock-mutant mice are hyperphagic and obese, and have altered glucose metabolism. In mice, deletion of the Rev-ErbA alpha clock gene can result in diet-induced obesity and changes the balance between glucose and lipid utilization, predisposing to diabetes. However, it is not clear whether there is a strong association between clock gene polymorphisms in humans and the susceptibility to develop the metabolic syndrome.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: The rhythm is linked to the light–dark cycle. Animals, including humans, kept in total darkness for extended periods eventually function with a free-running rhythm. Their sleep cycle is pushed back or forward each "day", depending on whether their "day", their endogenous period, is shorter or longer than 24 hours. The environmental cues that reset the rhythms each day are called zeitgebers (from the German, "time-givers"). Totally blind subterranean mammals (e.g., blind mole rat "Spalax" sp.) are able to maintain their endogenous clocks in the apparent absence of external stimuli. Although they lack image-forming eyes, their photoreceptors (which detect light) are still functional; they do surface periodically as well.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: Free-running organisms that normally have one or two consolidated sleep episodes will still have them when in an environment shielded from external cues, but the rhythm is not entrained to the 24-hour light–dark cycle in nature. The sleep–wake rhythm may, in these circumstances, become out of phase with other circadian or ultradian rhythms such as metabolic, hormonal, CNS electrical, or neurotransmitter rhythms.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: Recent research has influenced the design of spacecraft environments, as systems that mimic the light–dark cycle have been found to be highly beneficial to astronauts. Light therapy has been trialed as a treatment for sleep disorders.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: Norwegian researchers at the University of Tromsø have shown that some Arctic animals (e.g., ptarmigan, reindeer) show circadian rhythms only in the parts of the year that have daily sunrises and sunsets. In one study of reindeer, animals at 70 degrees North showed circadian rhythms in the autumn, winter and spring, but not in the summer. Reindeer on Svalbard at 78 degrees North showed such rhythms only in autumn and spring. The researchers suspect that other Arctic animals as well may not show circadian rhythms in the constant light of summer and the constant dark of winter.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: A 2006 study in northern Alaska found that day-living ground squirrels and nocturnal porcupines strictly maintain their circadian rhythms through 82 days and nights of sunshine. The researchers speculate that these two rodents notice that the apparent distance between the sun and the horizon is shortest once a day, and thus have a sufficient signal to entrain (adjust) by.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: The navigation of the fall migration of the Eastern North American monarch butterfly ("Danaus plexippus") to their overwintering grounds in central Mexico uses a time-compensated sun compass that depends upon a circadian clock in their antennae. Circadian rhythm is also known to control mating behavior in certain moth species such as "Spodoptera littoralis", where females produce specific pheromone that attracts and resets the male circadian rhythm to induce mating at night.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: Plant circadian rhythms tell the plant what season it is and when to flower for the best chance of attracting pollinators. Behaviors showing rhythms include leaf movement, growth, germination, stomatal/gas exchange, enzyme activity, photosynthetic activity, and fragrance emission, among others. Circadian rhythms occur as a plant entrains to synchronize with the light cycle of its surrounding environment. These rhythms are endogenously generated, self-sustaining and are relatively constant over a range of ambient temperatures. Important features include two interacting transcription-translation feedback loops: proteins containing PAS domains, which facilitate protein-protein interactions; and several photoreceptors that fine-tune the clock to different light conditions. Anticipation of changes in the environment allows appropriate changes in a plant's physiological state, conferring an adaptive advantage. A better understanding of plant circadian rhythms has applications in agriculture, such as helping farmers stagger crop harvests to extend crop availability and securing against massive losses due to weather.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: Light is the signal by which plants synchronize their internal clocks to their environment and is sensed by a wide variety of photoreceptors. Red and blue light are absorbed through several phytochromes and cryptochromes. One phytochrome, phyA, is the main phytochrome in seedlings grown in the dark but rapidly degrades in light to produce Cry1. Phytochromes B–E are more stable with , the main phytochrome in seedlings grown in the light. The cryptochrome (cry) gene is also a light-sensitive component of the circadian clock and is thought to be involved both as a photoreceptor and as part of the clock's endogenous pacemaker mechanism. Cryptochromes 1–2 (involved in blue–UVA) help to maintain the period length in the clock through a whole range of light conditions.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: The central oscillator generates a self-sustaining rhythm and is driven by two interacting feedback loops that are active at different times of day. The morning loop consists of CCA1 (Circadian and Clock-Associated 1) and LHY (Late Elongated Hypocotyl), which encode closely related MYB transcription factors that regulate circadian rhythms in "Arabidopsis", as well as PRR 7 and 9 (Pseudo-Response Regulators.) The evening loop consists of GI (Gigantea) and ELF4, both involved in regulation of flowering time genes. When CCA1 and LHY are overexpressed (under constant light or dark conditions), plants become arrhythmic, and mRNA signals reduce, contributing to a negative feedback loop. Gene expression of CCA1 and LHY oscillates and peaks in the early morning, whereas TOC1 gene expression oscillates and peaks in the early evening. While it was previously hypothesised that these three genes model a negative feedback loop in which over-expressed CCA1 and LHY repress TOC1 and over-expressed TOC1 is a positive regulator of CCA1 and LHY, it was shown in 2012 by Andrew Millar and others that TOC1, in fact, serves as a repressor not only of CCA1, LHY, and PRR7 and 9 in the morning loop but also of GI and ELF4 in the evening loop. This finding and further computational modeling of TOC1 gene functions and interactions suggest a reframing of the plant circadian clock as a triple negative-component repressilator model rather than the positive/negative-element feedback loop characterizing the clock in mammals.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: In 2018, researchers found that the expression of PRR5 and TOC1 hnRNA nascent transcripts follows the same oscillatory pattern as processed mRNA transcripts rhythmically in A.thaliana.LNKs binds to the 5'region of PRR5 and TOC1 and interacts with RNAP II and other transcription factors. Moreover, RVE8-LNKs interaction enables a permissive histone-methylation pattern (H3K4me3) to be modified and the histone-modification itself parallels the oscillation of clock gene expression.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: It has previously been found that matching a plant's circadian rhythm to its external environment's light and dark cycles has the potential to positively affect the plant. Researchers came to this conclusion by performing experiments on three different varieties of "Arabidopsis thaliana". One of these varieties had a normal 24-hour circadian cycle. The other two varieties were mutated, one to have a circadian cycle of more than 27 hours, and one to have a shorter than normal circadian cycle of 20 hours.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: The "Arabidopsis" with the 24-hour circadian cycle was grown in three different environments. One of these environments had a 20-hour light and dark cycle (10 hours of light and 10 hours of dark), the other had a 24-hour light and dark cycle (12 hours of light and 12 hours of dark),and the final environment had a 28-hour light and dark cycle (14 hours of light and 14 hours of dark). The two mutated plants were grown in both an environment that had a 20-hour light and dark cycle and in an environment that had a 28-hour light and dark cycle. It was found that the variety of "Arabidopsis" with a 24-hour circadian rhythm cycle grew best in an environment that also had a 24-hour light and dark cycle. Overall, it was found that all the varieties of "Arabidopsis thaliana" had greater levels of chlorophyll and increased growth in environments whose light and dark cycles matched their circadian rhythm.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: Researchers suggested that a reason for this could be that matching an "Arabidopsis" circadian rhythm to its environment could allow the plant to be better prepared for dawn and dusk, and thus be able to better synchronize its processes. In this study, it was also found that the genes that help to control chlorophyll peaked a few hours after dawn. This appears to be consistent with the proposed phenomenon known as metabolic dawn.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: According to the metabolic dawn hypothesis, sugars produced by photosynthesis have potential to help regulate the circadian rhythm and certain photosynthetic and metabolic pathways. As the sun rises, more light becomes available, which normally allows more photosynthesis to occur. The sugars produced by photosynthesis repress PRR7. This repression of PRR7 then leads to the increased expression of CCA1. On the other hand, decreased photosynthetic sugar levels increase PRR7 expression and decrease CCA1 expression. This feedback loop between CCA1 and PRR7 is what is proposed to cause metabolic dawn.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: The molecular mechanism of circadian rhythm and light perception are best understood in "Drosophila". Clock genes are discovered from "Drosophila", and they act together with the clock neurones. There are two unique rhythms, one during the process of hatching (called eclosion) from the pupa, and the other during mating. The clock neurones are located in distinct clusters in the central brain. The best-understood clock neurones are the large and small lateral ventral neurons (l-LNvs and s-LNvs) of the optic lobe. These neurones produce pigment dispersing factor (PDF), a neuropeptide that acts as a circadian neuromodulator between different clock neurones.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: "Drosophila" circadian rhythm is through a transcription-translation feedback loop. The core clock mechanism consists of two interdependent feedback loops, namely the PER/TIM loop and the CLK/CYC loop. The CLK/CYC loop occurs during the day and initiates the transcription of the "per" and "tim" genes. But their proteins levels remain low until dusk, because during daylight also activates the "doubletime" ("dbt") gene. DBT protein causes phosphorylation and turnover of monomeric PER proteins. TIM is also phosphorylated by shaggy until sunset. After sunset, DBT disappears, so that PER molecules stably bind to TIM. PER/TIM dimer enters the nucleus several at night, and binds to CLK/CYC dimers. Bound PER completely stops the transcriptional activity of CLK and CYC.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: In the early morning, light activates the "cry" gene and its protein CRY causes the breakdown of TIM. Thus PER/TIM dimer dissociates, and the unbound PER becomes unstable. PER undergoes progressive phosphorylation and ultimately degradation. Absence of PER and TIM allows activation of "clk" and "cyc" genes. Thus, the clock is reset to start the next circadian cycle.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: This protein model was developed based on the oscillations of the PER and TIM proteins in the "Drosophila". It is based on its predecessor, the PER model where it was explained how the PER gene and its protein influence the biological clock. The model includes the formation of a nuclear PER-TIM complex which influences the transcription of the PER and the TIM genes (by providing negative feedback) and the multiple phosphorylation of these two proteins. The circadian oscillations of these two proteins seem to synchronise with the light-dark cycle even if they are not necessarily dependent on it. Both PER and TIM proteins are phosphorylated and after they form the PER-TIM nuclear complex they return inside the nucleus to stop the expression of the PER and TIM mRNA. This inhibition lasts as long as the protein, or the mRNA is not degraded. When this happens, the complex releases the inhibition. Here can also be mentioned that the degradation of the TIM protein is sped up by light.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: The primary circadian clock in mammals is located in the suprachiasmatic nucleus (or nuclei) (SCN), a pair of distinct groups of cells located in the hypothalamus. Destruction of the SCN results in the complete absence of a regular sleep–wake rhythm. The SCN receives information about illumination through the eyes. The retina of the eye contains "classical" photoreceptors ("rods" and "cones"), which are used for conventional vision. But the retina also contains specialized ganglion cells that are directly photosensitive, and project directly to the SCN, where they help in the entrainment (synchronization) of this master circadian clock. The proteins involved in the SCN clock are homologous to those found in the fruit fly.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: These cells contain the photopigment melanopsin and their signals follow a pathway called the retinohypothalamic tract, leading to the SCN. If cells from the SCN are removed and cultured, they maintain their own rhythm in the absence of external cues.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: The SCN takes the information on the lengths of the day and night from the retina, interprets it, and passes it on to the pineal gland, a tiny structure shaped like a pine cone and located on the epithalamus. In response, the pineal secretes the hormone melatonin. Secretion of melatonin peaks at night and ebbs during the day and its presence provides information about night-length.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: Several studies have indicated that pineal melatonin feeds back on SCN rhythmicity to modulate circadian patterns of activity and other processes. However, the nature and system-level significance of this feedback are unknown.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: The circadian rhythms of humans can be entrained to slightly shorter and longer periods than the Earth's 24 hours. Researchers at Harvard have shown that human subjects can at least be entrained to a 23.5-hour cycle and a 24.65-hour cycle.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: Early research into circadian rhythms suggested that most people preferred a day closer to 25 hours when isolated from external stimuli like daylight and timekeeping. However, this research was faulty because it failed to shield the participants from artificial light. Although subjects were shielded from time cues (like clocks) and daylight, the researchers were not aware of the phase-delaying effects of indoor electric lights. The subjects were allowed to turn on light when they were awake and to turn it off when they wanted to sleep. Electric light in the evening delayed their circadian phase. A more stringent study conducted in 1999 by Harvard University estimated the natural human rhythm to be closer to 24 hours and 11 minutes: much closer to the solar day. Consistent with this research was a more recent study from 2010, which also identified sex differences, with the circadian period for women being slightly shorter (24.09 hours) than for men (24.19 hours). In this study, women tended to wake up earlier than men and exhibit a greater preference for morning activities than men, although the underlying biological mechanisms for these differences are unknown.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: For temperature studies, subjects must remain awake but calm and semi-reclined in near darkness while their rectal temperatures are taken continuously. Though variation is great among normal chronotypes, the average human adult's temperature reaches its minimum at about 5:00 a.m., about two hours before habitual wake time. Baehr et al. found that, in young adults, the daily body temperature minimum occurred at about 04:00 (4 a.m.) for morning types, but at about 06:00 (6 a.m.) for evening types. This minimum occurred at approximately the middle of the eight-hour sleep period for morning types, but closer to waking in evening types.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: Melatonin is absent from the system or undetectably low during daytime. Its onset in dim light, "dim-light melatonin onset" (DLMO), at roughly 21:00 (9 p.m.) can be measured in the blood or the saliva. Its major metabolite can also be measured in morning urine. Both DLMO and the midpoint (in time) of the presence of the hormone in the blood or saliva have been used as circadian markers. However, newer research indicates that the melatonin "offset" may be the more reliable marker. Benloucif et al. found that melatonin phase markers were more stable and more highly correlated with the timing of sleep than the core temperature minimum. They found that both sleep offset and melatonin offset are more strongly correlated with phase markers than the onset of sleep. In addition, the declining phase of the melatonin levels is more reliable and stable than the termination of melatonin synthesis.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: Other physiological changes that occur according to a circadian rhythm include heart rate and many cellular processes "including oxidative stress, cell metabolism, immune and inflammatory responses, epigenetic modification, hypoxia/hyperoxia response pathways, endoplasmic reticular stress, autophagy, and regulation of the stem cell environment." In a study of young men, it was found that the heart rate reaches its lowest average rate during sleep, and its highest average rate shortly after waking.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: In contradiction to previous studies, it has been found that there is no effect of body temperature on performance on psychological tests. This is likely due to evolutionary pressures for higher cognitive function compared to the other areas of function examined in previous studies.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: More-or-less independent circadian rhythms are found in many organs and cells in the body outside the suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN), the "master clock". Indeed, neuroscientist Joseph Takahashi and colleagues stated in a 2013 article that "almost every cell in the body contains a circadian clock." For example, these clocks, called peripheral oscillators, have been found in the adrenal gland, oesophagus, lungs, liver, pancreas, spleen, thymus, and skin. There is also some evidence that the olfactory bulb and prostate may experience oscillations, at least when cultured.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: Though oscillators in the skin respond to light, a systemic influence has not been proven. In addition, many oscillators, such as liver cells, for example, have been shown to respond to inputs other than light, such as feeding.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: Light resets the biological clock in accordance with the phase response curve (PRC). Depending on the timing, light can advance or delay the circadian rhythm. Both the PRC and the required illuminance vary from species to species, and lower light levels are required to reset the clocks in nocturnal rodents than in humans.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: Various studies on humans have made use of enforced sleep/wake cycles strongly different from 24 hours, such as those conducted by Nathaniel Kleitman in 1938 (28 hours) and Derk-Jan Dijk and Charles Czeisler in the 1990s (20 hours). Because people with a normal (typical) circadian clock cannot entrain to such abnormal day/night rhythms, this is referred to as a forced desynchrony protocol. Under such a protocol, sleep and wake episodes are uncoupled from the body's endogenous circadian period, which allows researchers to assess the effects of circadian phase (i.e., the relative timing of the circadian cycle) on aspects of sleep and wakefulness including sleep latency and other functions - both physiological, behavioral, and cognitive.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: Studies also show that "Cyclosa turbinata" is unique in that its locomotor and web-building activity cause it to have an exceptionally short-period circadian clock, about 19 hours. When "C. turbinata" spiders are placed into chambers with periods of 19, 24, or 29 hours of evenly split light and dark, none of the spiders exhibited decreased longevity in their own circadian clock. These findings suggest that "C. turbinata" do not have the same costs of extreme desynchronization as do other species of animals.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: The leading edge of circadian biology research is translation of basic body clock mechanisms into clinical tools, and this is especially relevant to the treatment of cardiovascular disease. This is leading to the development of an entirely new field of medicine, termed Circadian Medicine. Pioneering research reveals that Circadian Medicine can lead to longer and healthier lives. For example: 1) "Circadian Lighting" or reducing adverse light at night in hospitals may improve patient outcomes post-myocardial infarction (heart attack). 2) "Circadian Chronotherapy" or timing of medications can reduce adverse cardiac remodeling in patients with heart disease. Timing of medical treatment in coordination with the body clock, chronotherapeutics, may also benefit patients with hypertension (high blood pressure) by significantly increasing efficacy and reduce drug toxicity or adverse reactions. 3) "Circadian Pharmacology" or drugs targeting the circadian clock mechanism have been shown experimentally in rodent models to significantly reduce the damage due to heart attacks and prevent heart failure. Importantly, for rational translation of the most promising Circadian Medicine therapies to clinical practice, it is imperative that we understand how it helps treats disease in both biological sexes.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: One of the first studies to determine how disruption of circadian rhythms causes cardiovascular disease was performed in the Tau hamsters, which have a genetic defect in their circadian clock mechanism. When maintained in a 24-hour light-dark cycle that was "out of sync" with their normal 22 circadian mechanism they developed profound cardiovascular and renal disease; however, when the Tau animals were raised for their entire lifespan on a 22-hour daily light-dark cycle they had a healthy cardiovascular system. The adverse effects of circadian misalignment on human physiology has been studied in the laboratory using a misalignment protocol, and by studying shift workers.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: Subsequent studies have shown that maintaining normal sleep and circadian rhythms is important for many aspects of brain and health. A number of studies have also indicated that a power-nap, a short period of sleep during the day, can reduce stress and may improve productivity without any measurable effect on normal circadian rhythms. Circadian rhythms also play a part in the reticular activating system, which is crucial for maintaining a state of consciousness. A reversal in the sleep–wake cycle may be a sign or complication of uremia, azotemia or acute kidney injury. Studies have also helped elucidate how light has a direct effect on human health through its influence on the circadian biology.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: Lighting requirements for circadian regulation are not simply the same as those for vision; planning of indoor lighting in offices and institutions is beginning to take this into account. Animal studies on the effects of light in laboratory conditions have until recently considered light intensity (irradiance) but not color, which can be shown to "act as an essential regulator of biological timing in more natural settings".


title: Circadian rhythm

text: Obesity and diabetes are associated with lifestyle and genetic factors. Among those factors, disruption of the circadian clockwork and/or misalignment of the circadian timing system with the external environment (e.g., light–dark cycle) might play a role in the development of metabolic disorders.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: Shift work or chronic jet lag have profound consequences for circadian and metabolic events in the body. Animals that are forced to eat during their resting period show increased body mass and altered expression of clock and metabolic genes. In humans, shift work that favors irregular eating times is associated with altered insulin sensitivity and higher body mass. Shift work also leads to increased metabolic risks for cardio-metabolic syndrome, hypertension, and inflammation.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: Due to the work nature of airline pilots, who often cross several time zones and regions of sunlight and darkness in one day, and spend many hours awake both day and night, they are often unable to maintain sleep patterns that correspond to the natural human circadian rhythm; this situation can easily lead to fatigue. The NTSB cites this as contributing to many accidents, and has conducted several research studies in order to find methods of combating fatigue in pilots.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: Disruption to rhythms usually has a negative effect. Many travelers have experienced the condition known as jet lag, with its associated symptoms of fatigue, disorientation and insomnia.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: A number of other disorders, such as bipolar disorder and some sleep disorders such as delayed sleep phase disorder (DSPD), are associated with irregular or pathological functioning of circadian rhythms.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: Disruption to rhythms in the longer term is believed to have significant adverse health consequences for peripheral organs outside the brain, in particular in the development or exacerbation of cardiovascular disease. Blue LED lighting suppresses melatonin production five times more than the orange-yellow high-pressure sodium (HPS) light; a metal halide lamp, which is white light, suppresses melatonin at a rate more than three times greater than HPS. Depression symptoms from long term nighttime light exposure can be undone by returning to a normal cycle.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: Studies conducted on both animals and humans show major bidirectional relationships between the circadian system and abusive drugs. It is indicated that these abusive drugs affect the central circadian pacemaker. Individuals with substance use disorder display disrupted rhythms. These disrupted rhythms can increase the risk for substance abuse and relapse. It is possible that genetic and/or environmental disturbances to the normal sleep and wake cycle can increase the susceptibility to addiction.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: It is difficult to determine if a disturbance in the circadian rhythm is at fault for an increase in prevalence for substance abuse—or if other environmental factors such as stress are to blame.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: Changes to the circadian rhythm and sleep occur once an individual begins abusing drugs and alcohol. Once an individual chooses to stop using drugs and alcohol, the circadian rhythm continues to be disrupted.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: The stabilization of sleep and the circadian rhythm might possibly help to reduce the vulnerability to addiction and reduce the chances of relapse.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: Circadian rhythms and clock genes expressed in brain regions outside the suprachiasmatic nucleus may significantly influence the effects produced by drugs such as cocaine. Moreover, genetic manipulations of clock genes profoundly affect cocaine's actions.


title: Circadian rhythm

text: In 2017, Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael W. Young, and Michael Rosbash were awarded Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries of molecular mechanisms controlling the circadian rhythm".


title: Circadian rhythm

text: Circadian rhythms was taken as an example of scientific knowledge being transferred into the public sphere.


title: Madonna–whore complex

text: In psychoanalytic literature, a Madonna–whore complex, also called a Madonna–mistress complex, is the inability to maintain sexual arousal within a committed, loving relationship. First identified by Sigmund Freud, under the rubric of "psychic impotence", this psychological complex is said to develop in men who see women as either saintly Madonnas or debased prostitutes. Men with this behavioral complex desire a sexual partner who has been degraded (the whore) while they cannot desire the respected partner (the Madonna). Freud wrote: "Where such men love they have no desire and where they desire they cannot love." Clinical psychologist Uwe Hartmann, writing in 2009, stated that the complex "is still highly prevalent in today's patients".


title: Madonna–whore complex

text: Freud argued that the Madonna–whore complex was caused by a split between the affectionate and the sexual currents in male desire. Oedipal and castration anxiety fears prohibit the affection felt for past incestuous objects from being attached to women who are sensually desired: "The whole sphere of love in such persons remains divided in the two directions personified in art as sacred and profane (or animal) love". In order to minimize anxiety, the man categorizes women into two groups: women he can admire and women he finds sexually attractive. Whereas the man loves women in the former category, he despises and devalues the latter group. Psychoanalyst Richard Tuch suggests that Freud offered at least one alternative explanation for the Madonna–whore complex: This earlier theory is based not on oedipal-based castration anxiety but on man's primary hatred of women, stimulated by the child's sense that he had been made to experience intolerable frustration and/or narcissistic injury at the hands of his mother. According to this theory, in adulthood the boy-turned-man seeks to avenge these mistreatments through sadistic attacks on women who are stand-ins for mother.


title: Madonna–whore complex

text: It is possible that such a split may be exacerbated when the sufferer is raised by a cold but overprotective mother – a lack of emotional nurturing paradoxically strengthening an incestuous tie. Such a man will often court someone with maternal qualities, hoping to fulfill a need for maternal intimacy unmet in childhood, only for a return of the repressed feelings surrounding the earlier relationship to prevent sexual satisfaction in the new.


title: Madonna–whore complex

text: Another theory claims that the Madonna–whore complex derives from the alleged representations of women as either madonnas or whores in mythology and Christian theology rather than developmental disabilities of individual men.


title: Madonna–whore complex

text: Titian's "Sacred and Profane Love" (1514, the sacred-profane title is from 1693) has several interpretations. The clothed woman has said to be dressed as a bride and as a courtesan. The nude woman seems at first sight to be an allegory of profane love, but 20th-century assessments notice the incense on her hand and the church beyond her.


title: Madonna–whore complex

text: James Joyce widely utilized the Madonna–whore polarity in his novel "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man". His protagonist, Stephen Daedalus, sees girls who he admires as ivory towers, and the repression of his sexual feelings for them eventually leads him to solicit a prostitute. This mortal sin drives Stephen's inner conflict and eventual transformation towards the end of the novel.


title: Madonna–whore complex

text: Alfred Hitchcock used the Madonna–whore dichotomy as an important mode of representing women. In "Vertigo" (1958), for example, Kim Novak portrays two women that the hero cannot reconcile: a virtuous, blonde, sophisticated, sexually repressed "madonna" and a dark-haired, single, sensual "fallen woman".


title: Madonna–whore complex

text: The Martin Scorsese films, "Taxi Driver" and "Raging Bull", feature sexually obsessed protagonists, both played by Robert De Niro, who exhibit the Madonna–whore complex with the women they interact with.


title: Madonna–whore complex

text: The singer Madonna played with both identities, especially in her earlier career. Madonna herself declared: "I have always loved to play cat and mouse with the conventional stereotypes. My "Like a Virgin" album cover is a classic example. People were thinking who was I pretending to be—the Virgin Mary or the whore? These were the two extreme images of women I had known vividly, and remembered from childhood, and I wanted to play with them. I wanted to see if I can merge them together, Virgin Mary and the whore as one and all. The photo was a statement of independence, if you wanna be a virgin, you are welcome. But if you wanna be a whore, it's your fucking right to be so."


title: Oreo

text: Oreo () (stylized as OREO) is a brand of sandwich cookie consisting of two biscuits or cookie pieces with a sweet creme filling. It was introduced by Nabisco on March 6, 1912, and through a series of corporate acquisitions, mergers and splits both Nabisco and the Oreo brand have been owned by Mondelez International since 2012. Oreo cookies are available in over one hundred countries. Many varieties of Oreo cookies have been produced, and limited-edition runs have become popular in the 21st century.


title: Oreo

text: While Oreo is actually an imitation of the Hydrox chocolate cream-centered cookie, which was introduced in 1908, Oreos far outstripped Hydrox in popularity, so much that many think Hydrox is an imitation of Oreo, rather than the other way around. Oreo is the best-selling cookie brand in the United States and, , the best-selling cookie globally.


title: Oreo

text: The origin of the name ""Oreo"" is unknown, but there are many hypotheses, including derivations from the French word "or", meaning "gold", or from the Greek word () meaning "nice" or "attractive". Others believe that the cookie was named Oreo simply because the name was short and easy to pronounce. Another theory, proposed by the food writer Stella Parks, is that the name derives from the Latin "Oreodaphne", a genus of the laurel family. She observes that the original design of the Oreo includes a laurel wreath, and the names of several of Nabisco's cookies at the time of the original Oreo had botanical derivations, including Avena, Lotus, and Helicon (from "Heliconia").


title: Oreo

text: The "Oreo Biscuit" was first developed and produced by the National Biscuit Company (today known as Nabisco) in 1912 at its Chelsea, New York City factory in the present-day Chelsea Market complex, located on Ninth Avenue between 15th and 16th Streets. Today, this same block of Ninth Avenue is known as "Oreo Way". The name Oreo was trademarked on March 14, 1912. It was launched as an imitation of the original Hydrox cookie manufactured by Sunshine company, which was introduced in 1908.


title: Oreo

text: The original design on the face of the Oreo featured a wreath around the edge of the cookie and the name "OREO" in the center. In the United States, they were sold for a pound (454 g) in novelty metal canisters with clear glass tops. The first Oreo was sold on March 6, 1912, to a grocer in Hoboken, New Jersey.


title: Oreo

text: The Oreo Biscuit was renamed in 1921 to "Oreo Sandwich"; in 1948, the name was changed to "Oreo Crème Sandwich"; and in 1974 it became the "Oreo Chocolate Sandwich Cookie", the name that has remained to this day. A new design for the face of the cookie was launched in 1924; the modern-day Oreo design was developed in 1952 by William A. Turnier, incorporating the Nabisco logo. In 1920, a second lemon crème-filled variety of the Oreo was introduced, as an alternative to the white crème-filled variety, but this was discontinued in 1924 and the original flavor was the only version available for the next several decades.


title: Oreo

text: The modern Oreo cookie filling was developed by Nabisco's principal food scientist, Sam Porcello, who retired from Nabisco in 1993. Porcello held five patents directly related to his work on the Oreo; he also created a range of Oreo cookies that were covered in dark chocolate and white chocolate. In the early 1990s, health concerns prompted Nabisco to replace the lard in the crème filling with partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. Oreo cookies are popular with people that have certain dietary restrictions, such as vegans, as the crème filling does not use any animal products. However, there is still a risk of cross-contamination from other dairy-containing products made in the same production areas. In the FAQ section of the Oreo.co.uk website, on the question of whether Oreo cookies are suitable for vegans, their response is "No, OREO have milk as cross contact and therefore they are not suitable for vegans."


title: Oreo

text: In January 2006, Nabisco replaced the trans fat in the Oreo cookie with non-hydrogenated vegetable oil.


title: Oreo

text: In June 2012, Oreo posted an advertisement displaying an Oreo cookie with rainbow-colored crème to celebrate LGBT Pride month; the cookie itself was fictional and was not being manufactured or made available for sale. The advertisement prompted some negative comments from conservatives, but Kraft stood by their promotion, stating that "Kraft Foods has a proud history of celebrating diversity and inclusiveness. We feel the Oreo ad is a fun reflection of our values." This was followed during 2012 by a series of adverts commemorating other holidays and events, including a blue, white, and red crème Oreo to honor Bastille Day, a stream of cookie crumbs marking the appearance of the Delta Aquariids meteor shower, and a cookie with a jagged bite taken out of it to promote Shark Week on Discovery Channel.


title: Oreo

text: When the power went out during Super Bowl XLVII in 2013, the Oreo marketing team tweeted "you can still dunk in the dark" from its social media command center; this was retweeted almost 15,000 times and increased Oreo's count of Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram followers. One commentator remarked that this "solidified the viability and necessity of real-time marketing".


title: Oreo

text: According to an April 2022 research report published in the journal "Physics of Fluids", it was proven impossible to split the cream filling of an Oreo cookie down the middle. The cream always adheres to one side of the wafer, no matter how quickly the cookie is twisted.


title: Oreo

text: Oreo cookies are distributed worldwide through a variety of sales and marketing channels. As their popularity continues to grow, so too does the amount of distribution that comes with it. According to the Kraft Foods company, the Oreo is the "World's Best Selling Cookie". In March 2012, "Time" magazine reported that Oreo cookies were available in more than 100 countries. Overall, it is estimated that since the Oreo cookie's inception in 1912, over 450 billion Oreos have been produced worldwide.


title: Oreo

text: Oreos were first introduced into Britain through the supermarket chain Sainsbury's. For several years, this was the only supermarket chain in the UK to stock the Oreo until May 2008, when Kraft decided to fully launch the Oreo across the whole of the UK. Its packaging was redesigned into the more familiar British tube design, accompanied by a £4.5M television advertising campaign based around the "twist, lick, dunk" catchphrase. In a 2020 national poll the Oreo was ranked the 16th most popular biscuit in the UK, with McVitie's chocolate digestive topping the list.


title: Oreo

text: In the UK, Kraft partnered with McDonald's to introduce the Oreo McFlurry (which was already on sale in several other countries, including the US) into McDonald's locations across the country during its annual "Great Tastes of America" promotions; in October 2015, the Oreo McFlurry then became a permanent menu item at McDonald's in the UK. An Oreo-flavored "Krushem" drink was also on sale in KFC stores across Britain.


title: Oreo

text: The ingredients of the British Oreo (as listed on the UK Oreo website) are slightly different from those of the US Oreo. Unlike the US version, the British Oreo originally contained whey powder, which was not suitable for people with lactose intolerance. Additionally, as the whey powder was sourced from cheese made with calf rennet, the British version was also unsuitable for vegetarians. On December 6, 2011, Kraft announced that production of Oreo was to start in the UK with their Cadbury Trebor Bassett factory in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, being selected to manufacture Oreo in Britain for the first time. Production began there in May 2013.


title: Oreo

text: Oreo cookies were introduced onto the Indian market by Cadbury India in 2011. In Pakistan, Oreo is manufactured and sold by Continental Biscuits Limited under the LU brand. In Japan, Oreo and other Nabisco products were produced by Yamazaki Baking until Mondelez terminated their licensing deal in favor of moving production to China. A year later, Yamazaki introduced their version of Oreo called "Noir", which is produced at the former Oreo factory in Ibaraki Prefecture.


title: Oreo

text: Most of the Oreo production was once carried out at the Hershey's factory in Hershey, Pennsylvania. By 2017, more than 40 billion Oreo cookies were being produced annually in 18 countries around the world. Oreo cookies for the Asian markets are manufactured in India, Indonesia, Bahrain, and China. Oreo cookies for the European market are made in Spain and at the Cadbury factory in the UK; they are made in Russia (Mondelēz Rus) for consumers in several CIS countries; and those sold in Australia are manufactured in Indonesia, China or Bahrain, depending on the flavor. The version produced in Canada (sold under the Christie's brand) includes coconut oil and is sold exclusively in that region. Manufacture of Oreo biscuits began in Pakistan in early 2014, in collaboration with Mondelez International of the United States and Continental Biscuits Limited (CBL) of Pakistan, at the CBL production plant in Sukkur.


title: Oreo

text: In 2015, Mondelez announced its decision to close some of its American factories and move production to Mexico, prompting the Oreo boycott. In 2016, after production had started in Mexico, the AFL–CIO encouraged the boycott and published consumer guidance to help identify which Mondelez products were made in Mexico.


title: Oreo

text: The ingredients of Oreo cookies have remained largely unchanged from the original, although numerous alternative varieties and flavors have emerged over time. Oreo cookies were made with lard until the mid-1990s, when Nabisco swapped the animal fat with partially hydrogenated vegetable oil due to growing health concerns. The classic Oreo cookie is made using eleven main ingredients:


title: Oreo

text: One six-pack of Oreos contains 270 calories, hence there are 45 calories in one cookie. Of these 45 calories, 27 come from carbohydrates, 16.5 come from fat, and 1.5 calories are provided by protein.


title: Oreo

text: Different Oreo flavors have varying amounts of carbohydrate: the chocolate fudge Oreo contains 13g of total carbohydrates (4% of the recommended daily intake) and 9g of sugars per serving of 3 cookies, while mint Oreos contain 25g of total carbohydrates and 18g of sugars per serving. Oreos contain small amounts of proteins and minerals (iron and sodium are present) but they do not contain any vitamins.


title: Oreo

text: In addition to their traditional design of two chocolate wafers separated by a crème filling, Oreo cookies have been produced in a multitude of different varieties since they were first introduced. This list is only a guide to some of the more notable and popular types; not all are available in every country. The main varieties in the United States are:


title: Oreo

text: Special edition "Double Stuf Oreo" cookies are produced during springtime, and around Halloween and Christmas. These have colored frosting reflecting the current holiday: blue or yellow for springtime; orange for Halloween; and red or green for the Christmas holiday. One side of each seasonal cookie is stamped with an appropriate design; the spring cookies feature flowers, butterflies, etc., while the Halloween editions feature a jack o'lantern, ghost, cat, flock of bats, or broom-riding witch. The 2017 "Halloween Oreo" broke with this tradition, having orange-colored crème filling (albeit with classic vanilla flavor) but carrying no seasonal designs.


title: Oreo

text: In some countries, Oreos come in a variety of flavors that are not familiar to the U.S. market. For example, "Green Tea Oreos" are only available in China and Japan, while "Lemon Ice Oreos" were only ever introduced in Japan or Blueberry Ice Cream available in China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Additionally, there are alfajor Oreo cookies available in Argentina, composed of three Oreo cookies with vanilla filling between each, and covered in chocolate.


title: Oreo

text: Beginning in the early 2010s, Nabisco began releasing limited edition runs of cookies with more exotic flavors. These "limited editions" typically appear in stores for a short period and are then discontinued, although some varieties have since resurfaced, for example: Reese's Oreos returned for a second limited run after they were first introduced for a limited period in 2014; and Birthday Cake Oreos, originally introduced in 2012, have since become permanently available. Some limited editions are only made available at certain retailers.


title: Oreo

text: Limited-edition runs usually feature a crème filling that has been flavored to replicate the taste of a specific fruit or dessert, from familiar flavors such as lemon or mint, to the more specific and unusual flavors of blueberry pie or red velvet cake. They may also incorporate different varieties of cookie wafer, for example Cinnamon-Bun Oreos featured cinnamon-flavored cookies and "frosting-flavored crème". In recent years, some limited editions have paired Oreos with other recognizable confectionery brands, including Reese's, Swedish Fish, and Peeps.


title: Oreo

text: Oreo's six-person team in charge of special flavors is extremely secretive; the company will not disclose even the group's name. The limited-edition flavors largely serve as advertising for Oreo's regular varieties. Oreo cookies was mentioned as one of the strong brands - such as behind family-oriented companies in Forbes.


title: Oreo

text: Oreo cookies, due to their almost-black cookies and white filling, have often been used in popular culture as a metaphor for relations between people of color and white people.


title: Oreo

text: The term "Oreo" has occasionally been used as a racial slur aimed at a person of mixed-race or African-American heritage who is accused of trying to act white. The insult may be levied as an accusation that the person perpetuates the "un-level playing field for blacks", and is based on the implication that the person is like the cookie, "black on the outside and white on the inside". For example, the protagonist of the 1974 novel, "Oreo", was nicknamed Oreo because of a mixed Jewish-American and African-American heritage. Former American president Barack Obama, due to his bi-racial heritage, has been compared to an Oreo by political pundits and television personalities such as John McLaughlin and Rush Limbaugh.


title: Oreo

text: In 2021, the chair of the Lamar County Democrats, Gary O'Connor, compared South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, the only African-American Republican in the United States Senate, to an Oreo after Scott gave the Republican response to Joe Biden's joint address to Congress. Amid fierce criticism, O'Connor apologized for his remarks and offered his resignation, but the Lamar County Democrats chose not to accept his resignation and O'Connor wrote a public letter of apology for his remarks.


title: Oreo

text: In the 1976 movie, "A Star Is Born", Barbra Streisand's character Esther Hoffman is the white central member of The Oreos, a three-girl singing group, between black actresses Venetta Fields and Clydie King.


title: Visigoths

text: The Visigoths (; ) were an early Germanic people who, along with the Ostrogoths, constituted the two major political entities of the Goths within the Roman Empire in late antiquity, or what is known as the Migration Period. The Visigoths emerged from earlier Gothic groups, including a large group of Thervingi, who had moved into the Roman Empire beginning in 376 and had played a major role in defeating the Romans at the Battle of Adrianople in 378. Relations between the Romans and the Visigoths varied, with the two groups making treaties when convenient, and warring with one another when not. Under their first leader, Alaric I, the Visigoths invaded Italy and sacked Rome in August 410. Afterwards, they began settling down, first in southern Gaul and eventually in Hispania, where they founded the Visigothic Kingdom and maintained a presence from the 5th to the 8th centuries AD.


title: Visigoths

text: The Visigoths first settled in southern Gaul as "foederati" to the Romans, a relationship that was established in 418. However, they soon fell out with their Roman hosts (for reasons that are now obscure) and established their own kingdom with its capital at Toulouse. They next extended their authority into Hispania at the expense of the Suebi and Vandals.


title: Visigoths

text: During their governance of Hispania, the Visigoths built several churches that survived, and left many artifacts which have been discovered in increasing numbers by archaeologists in recent years. The Treasure of Guarrazar of votive crowns and crosses are the most spectacular. In 507, however, their rule in Gaul was ended by the Franks under Clovis I, who defeated them in the Battle of Vouillé. After that, the Visigoth kingdom was limited to Hispania, and they never again held territory north of the Pyrenees other than Septimania, where an elite group of Visigoths came to dominate governance, particularly in the Byzantine province of Spania and the Kingdom of the Suebi.


title: Visigoths

text: In or around 589, the Visigoths under Reccared I converted from Arianism to Nicene Christianity, gradually adopting the culture of their Hispano-Roman subjects. Their legal code, the "Visigothic Code" (completed in 654), abolished the longstanding practice of applying different laws for Romans and Visigoths. Once legal distinctions were no longer being made between "Romani" and "Gothi", they became known collectively as "Hispani".


title: Visigoths

text: In the century that followed, the region was dominated by the Councils of Toledo and the episcopacy, and little else is known about the Visigoths' history. In 711, an invading force of Arabs and Berbers defeated the Visigoths in the Battle of Guadalete. The Visigoth king, Roderic, and many members of their governing elite were killed, and their kingdom rapidly collapsed. This was followed by the subsequent formation of the Kingdom of Asturias in northern Spain and the beginning of the Reconquista by Christian troops under Pelagius.


title: Visigoths

text: They founded the only new cities in western Europe from the fall of the Western half of the Roman Empire until the rise of the Carolingian dynasty. Many Visigothic names are still in use in modern Spanish and Portuguese languages. Their most notable legacy, however, was the "Visigothic Code", which served, among other things, as the basis for court procedure in most of Christian Iberia until the Late Middle Ages, centuries after the demise of the kingdom.


title: Visigoths

text: The Visigoths were never called Visigoths, only Goths, until Cassiodorus used the term, when referring to their loss against Clovis I in 507. Cassiodorus apparently invented the term based on the model of the "Ostrogoths", but using the older name of the Vesi, one of the tribal names which the fifth-century poet Sidonius Apollinaris had already used when referring to the Visigoths. The first part of the Ostrogoth name is related to the word "east", and Jordanes, the medieval writer, later clearly contrasted them in his "Getica", stating that "Visigoths were the Goths of the western country." According to Wolfram, Cassiodorus created this east–west understanding of the Goths, which was a simplification and literary device, while political realities were more complex. Cassiodorus used the term "Goths" to refer only to the Ostrogoths, whom he served, and reserved the geographic reference "Visigoths" for the Gallo-Spanish Goths. The term "Visigoths" was later used by the Visigoths themselves in their communications with the Byzantine Empire, and was still in use in the 7th century.


title: Visigoths

text: Two older tribal names from outside the Roman empire are associated with Visigoths who formed within the empire. The first references to any Gothic tribes by Roman and Greek authors were in the third century, notably including the Thervingi, who were once referred to as Goths by Ammianus Marcellinus. Much less is known of the "Vesi" or "Visi", from whom the term "Visigoth" was derived. Before Sidonius Apollinaris, the Vesi were first mentioned in the "Notitia Dignitatum", a late-4th- or early-5th-century list of Roman military forces. This list also contains the last mention of the "Thervingi" in a classical source.


title: Visigoths

text: Although he did not refer to the Vesi, Tervingi or Greuthungi, Jordanes identified the Visigothic kings from Alaric I to Alaric II as the successors of the fourth-century Tervingian king Athanaric, and the Ostrogoth kings from Theoderic the Great to Theodahad as the heirs of the Greuthungi king Ermanaric. Based on this, many scholars have traditionally treated the terms "Vesi" and "Tervingi" as referring to one distinct tribe, while the terms "Ostrogothi" and "Greuthungi" were used to refer to another.


title: Visigoths

text: Wolfram, who still recently defends the equation of Vesi with the Tervingi, argues that while primary sources occasionally list all four names (as in, for example, "Gruthungi, Austrogothi, Tervingi, Visi"), whenever they mention two different tribes, they always refer either to "the Vesi and the Ostrogothi" or to "the Tervingi and the Greuthungi", and they never pair them up in any other combination. In addition, Wolfram interprets the "Notitia Dignitatum" as equating the Vesi with the Tervingi in a reference to the years 388–391. On the other hand, another recent interpretation of the "Notitia" is that the two names, Vesi and Tervingi, are found in different places in the list, "a clear indication that we are dealing with two different army units, which must also presumably mean that they are, after all, perceived as two different peoples". Peter Heather has written that Wolfram's position is "entirely arguable, but so is the opposite".


title: Visigoths

text: Wolfram believes that "Vesi" and "Ostrogothi" were terms each tribe used to boastfully describe itself and argues that "Tervingi" and "Greuthungi" were geographical identifiers each tribe used to describe the other. This would explain why the latter terms dropped out of use shortly after 400, when the Goths were displaced by the Hunnic invasions. Wolfram believes that the people Zosimus describes were those Tervingi who had remained behind after the Hunnic conquest. For the most part, all of the terms discriminating between different Gothic tribes gradually disappeared after they moved into the Roman Empire.


title: Visigoths

text: Many recent scholars, such as Peter Heather, have concluded that Visigothic group identity emerged only within the Roman Empire. Roger Collins also believes that the Visigothic identity emerged from the Gothic War of 376–382 when a collection of Tervingi, Greuthungi and other "barbarian" contingents banded together in multiethnic "foederati" (Wolfram's "federate armies") under Alaric I in the eastern Balkans, since they had become a multi ethnic group and could no longer claim to be exclusively Tervingian.


title: Visigoths

text: Other names for other Gothic divisions abounded. In 469, the Visigoths were called the "Alaric Goths". The Frankish Table of Nations, probably of Byzantine or Italian origin, referred to one of the two peoples as the "Walagothi", meaning "Roman Goths" (from Germanic *"walhaz", foreign). This probably refers to the Romanized Visigoths after their entry into Spain. Landolfus Sagax, writing in the 10th or 11th century, calls the Visigoths the "Hypogothi".


title: Visigoths

text: The name "Tervingi" may mean "forest people", with the first part of the name related to Gothic "triu", and English "tree". This is supported by evidence that geographic descriptors were commonly used to distinguish people living north of the Black Sea both before and after Gothic settlement there, by evidence of forest-related names among the Tervingi, and by the lack of evidence for an earlier date for the name pair Tervingi–Greuthungi than the late third century. That the name "Tervingi" has pre-Pontic, possibly Scandinavian, origins still has support today.


title: Visigoths

text: The Visigoths are called "Wesi" or "Wisi" by Trebellius Pollio, Claudian and Sidonius Apollinaris. The word is Gothic for "good", implying the "good or worthy people", related to Gothic "iusiza" "better" and a reflex of Indo-European *"wesu" "good", akin to Welsh "gwiw" "excellent", Greek "eus" "good", Sanskrit "vásu-ş" "id.". Jordanes relates the tribe's name to a river, though this is probably a folk etymology or legend like his similar story about the Greuthung name.


title: Visigoths

text: The Visigoths emerged from the Gothic tribes, probably a derivative name for the Gutones, a people believed to have their origins in Scandinavia and who migrated southeastwards into eastern Europe. Such understanding of their origins is largely the result of Gothic traditions and their true genesis as a people is as obscure as that of the Franks and Alamanni. The Visigoths spoke an eastern Germanic language that was distinct by the 4th century. Eventually the Gothic language died as a result of contact with other European people during the Middle Ages.


title: Visigoths

text: Long struggles between the neighboring Vandili and Lugii people with the Goths may have contributed to their earlier exodus into mainland Europe. The vast majority of them settled between the Oder and Vistula rivers until overpopulation (according to Gothic legends or tribal sagas) forced them to move south and east, where they settled just north of the Black Sea. However, this legend is not supported by archaeological evidence so its validity is disputable. Historian Malcolm Todd contends that while this large "en masse" migration is possible, the movement of Gothic peoples south-east was probably the result of warrior bands moving closer to the wealth of Ukraine and the cities of the Black Sea coast. Perhaps what is most notable about the Gothic people in this regard was that by the middle of the third century AD, they were "the most formidable military power beyond the lower Danube frontier".


title: Visigoths

text: Throughout the 3rd and 4th centuries there were numerous conflicts and exchanges of varying types between the Goths and their neighbors. After the Romans withdrew from the territory of Dacia, the local population was subjected to constant invasions by the migratory tribes, among the first being the Goths. In 238, the Goths invaded across the Danube into the Roman province of Moesia, pillaging and exacting payment through hostage taking. During the war with the Persians that year, Goths also appeared in the Roman armies of Gordian III. When subsidies to the Goths were stopped, the Goths organized and in 250 joined a major barbarian invasion led by the Germanic king, Kniva. Success on the battlefield against the Romans inspired additional invasions into the northern Balkans and deeper into Anatolia. Starting in approximately 255, the Goths added a new dimension to their attacks by taking to the sea and invading harbors which brought them into conflict with the Greeks as well. When the city of Pityus fell to the Goths in 256, the Goths were further emboldened. Sometime between 266 and 267, the Goths raided Greece but when they attempted to move into the Bosporus straits to attack Byzantium, they were repulsed. Along with other Germanic tribes, they attacked further into Anatolia, assaulting Crete and Cyprus on the way; shortly thereafter, they pillaged Troy and the temple of Artemis at Ephesus. Throughout the reign of emperor Constantine the Great, the Visigoths continued to conduct raids on Roman territory south of the Danube River. By 332, relations between the Goths and Romans were stabilized by a treaty but this was not to last.


title: Visigoths

text: The Goths remained in Dacia until 376, when one of their leaders, Fritigern, appealed to the Roman emperor Valens to be allowed to settle with his people on the south bank of the Danube. Here, they hoped to find refuge from the Huns. Valens permitted this, as he saw in them "a splendid recruiting ground for his army". However, a famine broke out and Rome was unwilling to supply them with either the food they were promised or the land. Generally, the Goths were abused by the Romans, who began forcing the now starving Goths to trade away their children so as to stave off starvation. Open revolt ensued, leading to 6 years of plundering throughout the Balkans, the death of a Roman Emperor and a disastrous defeat of the Roman army.


title: Visigoths

text: The Battle of Adrianople in 378 was the decisive moment of the war. The Roman forces were slaughtered and the Emperor Valens was killed during the fighting. Precisely how Valens fell remains uncertain but Gothic legend tells of how the emperor was taken to a farmhouse, which was set on fire above his head, a tale made more popular by its symbolic representation of a heretical emperor receiving hell's torment. Many of Rome's leading officers and some of their most elite fighting men died during the battle which struck a major blow to Roman prestige and the Empire's military capabilities. Adrianople shocked the Roman world and eventually forced the Romans to negotiate with and settle the tribe within the empire's boundaries, a development with far-reaching consequences for the eventual fall of Rome. Fourth-century Roman soldier and historian Ammianus Marcellinus ended his chronology of Roman history with this battle.


title: Visigoths

text: Despite the severe consequences for Rome, Adrianople was not nearly as productive overall for the Visigoths and their gains were short-lived. Still confined to a small and relatively impoverished province of the Empire, another Roman army was being gathered against them, an army which also had amid its ranks other disaffected Goths. Intense campaigns against the Visigoths followed their victory at Adrianople for upwards of three years. Approach routes across the Danube provinces were effectively sealed off by concerted Roman efforts, and while there was no decisive victory to claim, it was essentially a Roman triumph ending in a treaty in 382. The treaty struck with the Goths was to be the first "foedus" on imperial Roman soil. It required these semi-autonomous Germanic tribes to raise troops for the Roman army in exchange for arable land and freedom from Roman legal structures within the Empire.


title: Visigoths

text: The new emperor, Theodosius I, made peace with the rebels, and this peace held essentially unbroken until Theodosius died in 395. In that year, the Visigoths' most famous king, Alaric I, made a bid for the throne, but controversy and intrigue erupted between the East and West, as General Stilicho tried to maintain his position in the empire. Theodosius was succeeded by his incompetent sons: Arcadius in the east and Honorius in the west. In 397, Alaric was named military commander of the eastern Illyrian prefecture by Arcadius.


title: Visigoths

text: Over the next 15 years, an uneasy peace was broken by occasional conflicts between Alaric and the powerful Germanic generals who commanded the Roman armies in the east and west, wielding the real power of the empire. Finally, after the western general Stilicho was executed by Honorius in 408 and the Roman legions massacred the families of thousands of barbarian soldiers who were trying to assimilate into the Roman empire, Alaric decided to march on Rome. After two defeats in Northern Italy and a siege of Rome ended by a negotiated pay-off, Alaric was cheated by another Roman faction. He resolved to cut the city off by capturing its port. On August 24, 410, however, Alaric's troops entered Rome through the Salarian Gate, and sacked the city. However, Rome, while still the official capital, was no longer the "de facto" seat of the government of the Western Roman Empire. From the late 370s up to 402, Milan was the seat of government, but after the siege of Milan the Imperial Court moved to Ravenna in 402. Honorius visited Rome often, and after his death in 423 the emperors resided mostly there. Rome's fall severely shook the Empire's confidence, especially in the West. Loaded with booty, Alaric and the Visigoths extracted as much as they could with the intention of leaving Italy from Basilicata to northern Africa. Alaric died before the disembarkation and was buried supposedly near the ruins of Croton. He was succeeded by his wife's brother.


title: Visigoths

text: The Visigothic Kingdom was a Western European power in the 5th to 8th centuries, created first in Gaul, when the Romans lost their control of the western half of their empire and then in Hispania until 711. For a brief period, the Visigoths controlled the strongest kingdom in Western Europe. In response to the invasion of Roman Hispania of 409 by the Vandals, Alans and Suebi, Honorius, the emperor in the West, enlisted the aid of the Visigoths to regain control of the territory. From 408 to 410 the Visigoths caused so much damage to Rome and the immediate periphery that nearly a decade later, the provinces in and around the city were only able to contribute one-seventh of their previous tax shares.


title: Visigoths

text: In 418, Honorius rewarded his Visigothic federates by giving them land in Gallia Aquitania on which to settle after they had attacked the four tribes—Suebi, Asding and Siling Vandals, as well as Alans—who had crossed the Rhine near Mogontiacum (modern Mainz) the last day of 406 and eventually were invited into Spain by a Roman usurper in the autumn of 409 (the latter two tribes were devastated). This was probably done under "hospitalitas", the rules for billeting army soldiers. The settlement formed the nucleus of the future Visigothic kingdom that would eventually expand across the Pyrenees and onto the Iberian peninsula. That Visigothic settlement proved paramount to Europe's future as had it not been for the Visigothic warriors who fought side by side with the Roman troops under general Flavius Aetius, it is perhaps possible that Attila would have seized control of Gaul, rather than the Romans being able to retain dominance.


title: Visigoths

text: The Visigoths' second great king, Euric, unified the various quarreling factions among the Visigoths and, in 475, concluded the peace treaty with the emperor Julius Nepos. In the treaty the emperor was called a friend ("amicus") to the Visigoths, while requiring them to address him as lord ("dominus"). Though the emperor did not legally recognize Gothic sovereignty, according to some views under this treaty the Visigothic kingdom became an independent kingdom. Between 471 and 476, Euric captured most of southern Gaul. According to historian J. B. Bury, Euric was probably the "greatest of the Visigothic kings" for he managed to secure territorial gains denied to his predecessors and even acquired access to the Mediterranean Sea. At his death, the Visigoths were the most powerful of the successor states to the Western Roman Empire and were at the very height of their power. Not only had Euric secured significant territory, he and his son, Alaric II, who succeeded him, adopted Roman administrative and bureaucratic governance, including Rome's tax gathering policies and legal codes.


title: Visigoths

text: At this point, the Visigoths were also the dominant power in the Iberian Peninsula, quickly crushing the Alans and forcing the Vandals into north Africa. By 500, the Visigothic Kingdom, centred at Toulouse, controlled Aquitania and Gallia Narbonensis and most of Hispania with the exception of the Kingdom of the Suebi in the northwest and small areas controlled by the Basques and Cantabrians. Any survey of western Europe taken during this moment would have led one to conclude that the very future of Europe itself "depended on the Visigoths". However, in 507, the Franks under Clovis I defeated the Visigoths in the Battle of Vouillé and wrested control of Aquitaine. King Alaric II was killed in battle. French national myths romanticize this moment as the time when a previously divided Gaul morphed into the united kingdom of Francia under Clovis.


title: Visigoths

text: Visigothic power throughout Gaul was not lost in its entirety due to the support from the powerful Ostrogothic king in Italy, Theodoric the Great, whose forces pushed Clovis I and his armies out of Visigothic territories. Theodoric the Great's assistance was not some expression of ethnic altruism, but formed part of his plan to extend his power across Spain and its associated lands.


title: Visigoths

text: After Alaric II's death, Visigothic nobles spirited his heir, the child-king Amalaric, first to Narbonne, which was the last Gothic outpost in Gaul, and further across the Pyrenees into Hispania. The center of Visigothic rule shifted first to Barcelona, then inland and south to Toledo. From 511 to 526, the Visigoths were ruled by Theoderic the Great of the Ostrogoths as "de jure" regent for the young Amalaric. Theodoric's death in 526, however, enabled the Visigoths to restore their royal line and re-partition the Visigothic kingdom through Amalaric, who incidentally, was more than just Alaric II's son; he was also the grandson of Theodoric the Great through his daughter Theodegotho. Amalaric reigned independently for five years. Following Amalaric's assassination in 531, another Ostrogothic ruler, Theudis took his place. For the next seventeen years, Theudis held the Visigothic throne.


title: Visigoths

text: Sometime in 549, the Visigoth Athanagild sought military assistance from Justinian I and while this aide helped Athanagild win his wars, the Romans had much more in mind. Granada and southernmost Baetica were lost to representatives of the Byzantine Empire (to form the province of Spania) who had been invited in to help settle this Visigothic dynastic struggle, but who stayed on, as a hoped-for spearhead to a "Reconquest" of the far west envisaged by emperor Justinian I. Imperial Roman armies took advantage of Visigothic rivalries and established a government at Córdoba.


title: Visigoths

text: The last Arian Visigothic king, Liuvigild, conquered most of the northern regions (Cantabria) in 574, the Suevic kingdom in 584, and regained part of the southern areas lost to the Byzantines, which King Suintila recovered in 624. Suintila reigned until 631. Only one historical source was written between the years 625 through 711, which comes from Julian of Toledo and only deals with the years 672 and 673. Wamba was the king of the Visigoths from 672 to 680. During his reign, the Visigothic kingdom encompassed all of Hispania and part of southern Gaul known as Septimania. Wamba was succeeded by King Ervig, whose rule lasted until 687. Collins observes that "Ervig proclaimed Egica as his chosen successor" on 14 November 687. In 700, Egica's son Wittiza followed him on the throne according to the "Chronica Regum Visigothorum".


title: Visigoths

text: The kingdom survived until 711, when King Roderic (Rodrigo) was killed while opposing an invasion from the south by the Umayyad Caliphate in the Battle of Guadalete. This marked the beginning of the Umayyad conquest of Hispania, when most of Spain came under Islamic rule in the early 8th century.


title: Visigoths

text: A Visigothic nobleman, Pelayo, is credited with beginning the Christian "Reconquista" of Iberia in 718, when he defeated the Umayyad forces in the Battle of Covadonga and established the Kingdom of Asturias in the northern part of the peninsula. According to Joseph F. O'Callaghan, the remnants of the Hispano-Gothic aristocracy still played an important role in the society of Hispania. At the end of Visigothic rule, the assimilation of Hispano-Romans and Visigoths was occurring at a fast pace. Their nobility had begun to think of themselves as constituting one people, the "gens Gothorum" or the "Hispani". An unknown number of them fled and took refuge in Asturias or Septimania. In Asturias they supported Pelagius's uprising, and joining with the indigenous leaders, formed a new aristocracy. The population of the mountain region consisted of native Astures, Galicians, Cantabri, Basques and other groups unassimilated into Hispano-Gothic society. Other Visigoths who refused to adopt the Muslim faith or live under their rule, fled north to the kingdom of the Franks, and Visigoths played key roles in the empire of Charlemagne a few generations later. In the early years of the Emirate of Córdoba, a group of Visigoths who remained under Muslim dominance constituted the personal bodyguard of the Emir, al-Haras.


title: Visigoths

text: During their long reign in Spain, the Visigoths were responsible for the only new cities founded in Western Europe between the 5th and 8th centuries. It is certain (through contemporary Spanish accounts) that they founded four: Reccopolis, Victoriacum (modern Vitoria-Gasteiz, though perhaps Iruña-Veleia), Luceo and Olite. There is also a possible 5th city ascribed to them by a later Arabic source: "Baiyara" (perhaps modern Montoro). All of these cities were founded for military purposes and three of them in celebration of victory. Despite the fact that the Visigoths reigned in Spain for upwards of 250 years, there are few remnants of the Gothic language borrowed into Spanish.


title: Visigoths

text: The Visigoths as heirs of the Roman empire lost their language and intermarried with the Hispano-Roman population of Spain.


title: Visigoths

text: A genetic study published in "Science" in March 2019 examined the remains of eight Visigoths buried at in the 6th century. These individuals displayed genetic links to northern and central Europe.


title: Visigoths

text: The Visigothic Code of Law (Latin: "Forum Iudicum)," also called "Liber Iudiciorum" ( English: Book of the Judges) and "Lex Visigothorum" (English: Law of the Visigoths), is a set of laws first promulgated by king Chindasuinth (642–653 AD) which had been part of aristocratic oral tradition, was set in writing in the year 654 and survives in two separate codices preserved at el Escorial (Spain). It goes into more detail than a modern constitution commonly does and reveals a great deal about Visigothic social structure. The code abolished the old tradition of having different laws for Romans ("leges romanae") and Visigoths ("leges barbarorum"), and under which all the subjects of the Visigothic kingdom ceased being "romani" and "gothi" and instead became "hispani". All the kingdom's subjects were under the same jurisdiction, which eliminated social and legal differences and facilitated greater assimilation of the various population groups. The Visigothic Code marks the transition from Roman law to Germanic law.


title: Visigoths

text: One of the greatest contributions of the Visigoths to family law was their protection of the property rights of married women, which was continued by Spanish law and ultimately evolved into the community property system now in force throughout the majority of western Europe.


title: Visigoths

text: Before the Middle Ages, the Visigoths, as well as other Germanic peoples, followed what is now referred to as Germanic paganism. While the Germanic peoples were slowly converted to Christianity by varying means, many elements of the pre-Christian culture and indigenous beliefs remained firmly in place after the conversion process, particularly in the more rural and distant regions.


title: Visigoths

text: The Visigoths, Ostrogoths and Vandals were Christianized while they were still outside the bounds of the Roman Empire; however, they converted to Arianism rather than to the Nicene version (Trinitarianism) followed by most Romans, who considered them heretics. There was a religious gulf between the Visigoths, who had for a long time adhered to Arianism, and their Catholic subjects in Hispania. There were also deep sectarian splits among the Catholic population of the peninsula which contributed to the toleration of the Arian Visigoths on the peninsula. The Visigoths scorned to interfere among Catholics but were interested in decorum and public order. King Liuvigild (568–586), attempted to restore political unity between the Visigothic-Arian elite and the Hispano-Roman Nicene Catholic population through a doctrinal settlement of compromise on matters of faith, but this failed. Sources indicate that the Iberian Visigoths maintained their Christian Arianism, especially the Visigothic elite until the end of Liuvigild's reign. When Reccared I converted to Catholicism, he sought to unify the kingdom under a single faith.


title: Visigoths

text: While the Visigoths retained their Arian faith, the Jews were well tolerated. Previous Roman and Byzantine law determined their status, and it already sharply discriminated against them, but royal jurisdiction was in any case quite limited: local lords and populations related to Jews as they saw fit. We read of rabbis being asked by non-Jews to bless their fields, for example. Historian Jane Gerber relates that some of the Jews "held ranking posts in the government or the army; others were recruited and organized for garrison service; still others continued to hold senatorial rank". In general, then, they were well respected and well treated by the Visigothic kings, that is, until their transition from Arianism to Catholicism. Conversion to Catholicism across Visigothic society reduced much of the friction between the Visigoths and the Hispano-Roman population. However, the Visigothic conversion negatively impacted the Jews, who came under scrutiny for their religious practices.


title: Visigoths

text: King Reccared convened the Third Council of Toledo to settle religious disputations related to the religious conversion from Arianism to Catholicism. The discriminatory laws passed at this Council seem not to have been universally enforced, however, as indicated by several more Councils of Toledo that repeated these laws and extended their stringency. These entered canon law and became legal precedents in other parts of Europe as well. The culmination of this process occurred under King Sisibut, who officially decreed a forced Christian conversion upon all Jews residing in Spain. This mandate apparently achieved only partial success: similar decrees were repeated by later kings as central power was consolidated. These laws either prescribed forcible baptism of the Jews or forbade circumcision, Jewish rites, and the observance of the Sabbath and other festivals. Throughout the 7th century the Jews were persecuted for religious reasons, had their property confiscated, were subjected to ruinous taxes, forbidden to trade and, at times, dragged to the baptismal font. Many were obliged to accept Christianity but continued privately to observe the Jewish religion and practices. The decree of 613 set off a century of difficulty for Spanish Jewry, which was only ended by the Muslim conquest.


title: Visigoths

text: The political aspects of the imposition of Church power cannot be ignored in these matters. With the conversion of the Visigothic kings to Chalcedonian Christianity, the bishops increased their power, until, at the Fourth Council of Toledo in 633, they selected a king from among the royal family, a practice previously reserved for nobles. This was the same synod that spoke out against those who had been baptized but had relapsed into Judaism. As far as the Visigoths were concerned, the time for religious pluralism "was past". By the end of the 7th century, Catholic conversion made the Visigoths less distinguishable from the indigenous Roman citizens of the Iberian peninsula; when the last Visigothic strongholds fell to the Muslim armies, whose subsequent invasions transformed Spain from the beginning of the 8th century, their Gothic identity faded.


title: Visigoths

text: In the eighth through 11th centuries, the "muwallad" clan of the Banu Qasi claimed descent from the Visigothic Count Cassius.


title: Visigoths

text: During their governance of Hispania, the Visigoths built several churches in the basilical or cruciform style that survive, including the churches of San Pedro de la Nave in El Campillo, Santa María de Melque in San Martín de Montalbán, Santa Lucía del Trampal in Alcuéscar, Santa Comba in Bande, and Santa María de Lara in Quintanilla de las Viñas. The Visigothic crypt (the Crypt of San Antolín) in the Palencia Cathedral is a Visigothic chapel from the mid-7th century, built during the reign of Wamba to preserve the remains of the martyr Saint Antoninus of Pamiers, a Visigothic-Gallic nobleman brought from Narbonne to Visigothic Hispania in 672 or 673 by Wamba himself. These are the only remains of the Visigothic cathedral of Palencia.


title: Visigoths

text: Reccopolis, located near the tiny modern village of Zorita de los Canes in the province of Guadalajara, Castile-La Mancha, Spain, is an archaeological site of one of at least four cities founded in Hispania by the Visigoths. It is the only city in Western Europe to have been founded between the 5th and 8th centuries. The city's construction was ordered by the Visigothic king Liuvigild to honor his son Reccared and to serve as Reccared's seat as co-king in the Visigothic province of Celtiberia, to the west of Carpetania, where the main capital, Toledo, lay.


title: Visigoths

text: In Spain, an important collection of Visigothic metalwork was found in Guadamur, in the Province of Toledo, known as the Treasure of Guarrazar. This archeological find is composed of twenty-six votive crowns and gold crosses from the royal workshop in Toledo, with signs of Byzantine influence. According to Spanish archaeologists, this treasure represents the high point of Visigothic goldsmithery. The two most important votive crowns are those of Recceswinth and of Suintila, displayed in the National Archaeological Museum of Madrid; both are made of gold, encrusted with sapphires, pearls and other precious stones.


title: Visigoths

text: The discoverer of the second lot gave Spanish Queen Elizabeth II some of the pieces that she still had in her possession, including the crown of Suintila, this crown was stolen in 1921 and never recovered. There are several other small crowns and many votive crosses in the treasure.


title: Visigoths

text: These findings, along with others from some neighbouring sites and with the archaeological excavation of the Spanish Ministry of Public Works and the Royal Spanish Academy of History (April 1859), formed a group consisting of:


title: Visigoths

text: The aquiliform (eagle-shaped) fibulae that have been discovered in necropolises such as Duratón, Madrona or Castiltierra (cities of Segovia), are an unmistakable example of the Visigothic presence in Spain. These fibulae were used individually or in pairs, as clasps or pins in gold, bronze and glass to join clothes, showing the work of the goldsmiths of Visigothic Hispania.


title: Visigoths

text: The Visigothic belt buckles, a symbol of rank and status characteristic of Visigothic women's clothing, are also notable as works of goldsmithery. Some pieces contain exceptional Byzantine-style lapis lazuli inlays and are generally rectangular in shape, with copper alloy, garnets and glass.


title: MI6

text: The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 (Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligence in support of the UK's national security. SIS is one of the British intelligence agencies and the Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service ("C") is directly accountable to the Foreign Secretary.


title: MI6

text: Formed in 1909 as the foreign section of the Secret Service Bureau, the section grew greatly during the First World War officially adopting its current name around 1920. The name "MI6" (meaning Military Intelligence, Section 6) originated as a convenient label during the Second World War, when SIS was known by many names. It is still commonly used today. The existence of SIS was not officially acknowledged until 1994. That year the Intelligence Services Act 1994 (ISA) was introduced to Parliament, to place the organisation on a statutory footing for the first time. It provides the legal basis for its operations. Today, SIS is subject to public oversight by the Investigatory Powers Tribunal and the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament.


title: MI6

text: The stated priority roles of SIS are counter-terrorism, counter-proliferation, providing intelligence in support of cyber security, and supporting stability overseas to disrupt terrorism and other criminal activities. Unlike its main sister agencies, Security Service (MI5) and Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), SIS works exclusively in foreign intelligence gathering; the ISA allows it to carry out operations only against persons outside the British Islands. Some of SIS's actions since the 2000s have attracted significant controversy, such as its alleged complicity in acts of enhanced interrogation techniques and extraordinary rendition.


title: MI6

text: Since 1994, SIS headquarters have been in the SIS Building in London, on the South Bank of the River Thames.