title: Beatrix Potter

text: The tenant farmer John Cannon and his family agreed to stay on to manage the farm for her while she made physical improvements and learned the techniques of fell farming and of raising livestock, including pigs, cows and chickens; the following year she added sheep. Realising she needed to protect her boundaries, she sought advice from W.H. Heelis & Son, a local firm of solicitors with offices in nearby Hawkshead. With William Heelis acting for her, she bought contiguous pasture, and in 1909 the Castle Farm across the road from Hill Top Farm. She visited Hill Top at every opportunity, and her books written during this period (such as "The Tale of Ginger and Pickles", about the local shop in Near Sawrey and "The Tale of Mrs. Tittlemouse", a wood mouse) reflect her increasing participation in village life and her delight in country living.


title: Beatrix Potter

text: Owning and managing these working farms required routine collaboration with the widely respected William Heelis. By the summer of 1912, Heelis had proposed marriage and Potter had accepted; although she did not immediately tell her parents, who once again disapproved because Heelis was only a country solicitor. Potter and Heelis were married on 15 October 1913 in London at St Mary Abbots in Kensington. The couple moved immediately to Near Sawrey, residing at Castle Cottage, the renovated farmhouse on Castle Farm, which was 34 acres large. Hill Top remained a working farm but was now remodelled to allow for the tenant family and Potter's private studio and workshop. At last her own woman, Potter settled into the partnerships that shaped the rest of her life: her country solicitor husband and his large family, her farms, the Sawrey community and the predictable rounds of country life. "The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck" and "The Tale of Tom Kitten" are representative of Hill Top Farm and her farming life and reflect her happiness with her country life.


title: Beatrix Potter

text: Rupert Potter died in 1914 and, with the outbreak of World War I, Potter, now a wealthy woman, persuaded her mother to move to the Lake District and found a property for her to rent in Sawrey. Finding life in Sawrey dull, Helen Potter soon moved to Lindeth Howe (now a 34-bedroomed hotel), a large house the Potters had previously rented for the summer in Bowness, on the other side of Lake Windermere. Potter continued to write stories for Frederick Warne & Co and fully participated in country life. She established a Nursing Trust for local villages and served on various committees and councils responsible for footpaths and other rural issues.


title: Beatrix Potter

text: Soon after acquiring Hill Top Farm, Potter became keenly interested in the breeding and raising of Herdwick sheep, the indigenous fell sheep. In 1923 she bought a large sheep farm in the Troutbeck Valley called Troutbeck Park Farm, formerly a deer park, restoring its land with thousands of Herdwick sheep. This established her as one of the major Herdwick sheep farmers in the county. She was admired by her shepherds and farm managers for her willingness to experiment with the latest biological remedies for the common diseases of sheep, and for her employment of the best shepherds, sheep breeders, and farm managers.


title: Beatrix Potter

text: By the late 1920s, Potter and her Hill Top farm manager Tom Storey had made a name for their prize-winning Herdwick flock, which took many prizes at the local agricultural shows, where Potter was often asked to serve as a judge. In 1942 she became President-elect of the Herdwick Sheepbreeders' Association, the first time a woman had been elected, but died before taking office.


title: Beatrix Potter

text: Potter had been a disciple of the land conservation and preservation ideals of her long-time friend and mentor, Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley, the first secretary and founding member of the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty. According to the National Trust, "she supported the efforts of the National Trust to preserve not just the places of extraordinary beauty but also those heads of valleys and low grazing lands that would be irreparably ruined by development." Potter was also an authority on the traditional Lakeland crafts and period furniture, as well as local stonework. She restored and preserved the farms that she bought or managed, making sure that each farm house had in it a piece of antique Lakeland furniture. Potter was interested in preserving not only the Herdwick sheep but also the way of life of fell farming. In 1930 the Heelises became partners with the National Trust in buying and managing the fell farms included in the large Monk Coniston Estate.


title: Beatrix Potter

text: The estate was composed of many farms spread over a wide area of north-western Lancashire, including the Tarn Hows. Potter was the "de facto" estate manager for the Trust for seven years until the National Trust could afford to repurchase most of the property from her. Potter's stewardship of these farms earned her full regard, but she was not without her critics, not the least of which were her contemporaries who felt she used her wealth and the position of her husband to acquire properties in advance of their being made public. She was notable in observing the problems of afforestation, preserving the intact grazing lands, and husbanding the quarries and timber on these farms. All her farms were stocked with Herdwick sheep and frequently with Galloway cattle.


title: Beatrix Potter

text: Potter continued to write stories and to draw, although mostly for her own pleasure. Her collection of traditional English nursery rhymes, "Cecily Parsley's Nursery Rhymes", was published in 1922—a full set of Potter's four original watercolour illustrations to the rhyme "This Little Piggy" sold for £60,000 in 2012. Her books in the late 1920s included the semi-autobiographical "The Fairy Caravan", a fanciful tale set in her beloved Troutbeck fells. It was published only in the US during Potter's lifetime, and not until 1952 in the UK. "Sister Anne", Potter's version of the story of Bluebeard, was written for her American readers, but illustrated by Katharine Sturges. A final folktale, "Wag by Wall", was published posthumously by "The Horn Book Magazine" in 1944. Potter was a generous patron of the Girl Guides, whose troupes she allowed to make their summer encampments on her land, and whose company she enjoyed as an older woman.


title: Beatrix Potter

text: Potter and William Heelis enjoyed a happy marriage of thirty years, continuing their farming and preservation efforts throughout the hard days of World War II. Although they were childless, Potter played an important role in William's large family, particularly enjoying her relationship with several nieces whom she helped educate, and giving comfort and aid to her husband's brothers and sisters.


title: Beatrix Potter

text: Potter died of complications from pneumonia and heart disease on 22 December 1943 at Castle Cottage, and her remains were cremated at Carleton Crematorium, Blackpool. She left nearly all her property to the National Trust, including over of land, sixteen farms, cottages and herds of cattle and Herdwick sheep. Hers was the largest gift at that time to the National Trust, and it enabled the preservation of the land now included in the Lake District National Park and the continuation of fell farming. The central office of the National Trust in Swindon was named "Heelis" in 2005 in her memory. William Heelis continued his stewardship of their properties and of her literary and artistic work for the twenty months he survived her. When he died in August 1945, he left the remainder to the National Trust.


title: Beatrix Potter

text: Potter left almost all the original illustrations for her books to the National Trust. The copyright to her stories and merchandise was then given to her publisher Frederick Warne & Co, now a division of the Penguin Group. On 1 January 2014, the copyright expired in the UK and other countries with a 70-years-after-death limit. Hill Top Farm was opened to the public by the National Trust in 1946; her artwork was displayed there until 1985 when it was moved to William Heelis's former law offices in Hawkshead, also owned by the National Trust as the Beatrix Potter Gallery.


title: Beatrix Potter

text: Potter gave her folios of mycological drawings to the Armitt Library and Museum in Ambleside before her death. "The Tale of Peter Rabbit" is owned by Frederick Warne and Company, "The Tailor of Gloucester" by the Tate Gallery, and "The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies" by the British Museum.


title: Beatrix Potter

text: In 1903, Potter created the first Peter Rabbit soft toy and registered him at the Patent Office in London, making Peter the oldest licensed fictional character. Erica Wagner of "The Times" states, "Beatrix Potter was the first to recognise that content—as we now call the stuff that makes up a book or a film—was only the beginning. In 1903, Peter hopped outside his pages to become a patented soft toy, which gave him the distinction of being not only Mr. McGregor‘s mortal enemy, but also becoming the first licensed character". Nicholas Tucker in "The Guardian" writes, "she was the first author to license fictional characters to a range of toys and household objects still on sale today".


title: Beatrix Potter

text: The largest public collection of her letters and drawings is the Leslie Linder Bequest and Leslie Linder Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. (Linder was the collector who—after five years of work—finally transcribed Potter's early journal, originally written in code.) In the United States, the largest public collections are those in the Rare Book Department of the Free Library of Philadelphia, and the Cotsen Children's Library at Princeton University.


title: Beatrix Potter

text: In 2015 a manuscript for an unpublished book was discovered by Jo Hanks, a publisher at Penguin Random House Children's Books, in the Victoria and Albert Museum archive. The book "The Tale of Kitty-in-Boots", with illustrations by Quentin Blake, was published 1 September 2016, to mark the 150th anniversary of Potter's birth. Also in 2016, Peter Rabbit and other Potter characters featured on a series of UK postage stamps issued by the Royal Mail.


title: Beatrix Potter

text: In 2017, "The Art of Beatrix Potter: Sketches, Paintings, and Illustrations" by Emily Zach was published after San Francisco publisher Chronicle Books decided to mark the 150th anniversary of Beatrix Potter's birth by showing that she was "far more than a 19th-century weekend painter. She was an artist of astonishing range."


title: Beatrix Potter

text: In December 2017, the asteroid 13975 Beatrixpotter, discovered by Belgian astronomer Eric Elst in 1992, was named in her memory. In 2022, an exhibition "Beatrix Potter: Drawn to Nature" was held at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Research for the exhibition identified the man's court waistcoat c. 1780s, which inspired Potter's sketch in 'The Tailor of Gloucester'.


title: Beatrix Potter

text: There are many interpretations of Potter's literary work, the sources of her art, and her life and times. These include critical evaluations of her corpus of children's literature and Modernist interpretations of Humphrey Carpenter and Katherine Chandler. Judy Taylor, "That Naughty Rabbit: Beatrix Potter and Peter Rabbit" (rev. 2002) tells the story of the first publication and many editions.


title: Beatrix Potter

text: Potter's country life and her farming have been discussed in the work of Susan Denyer and other authors in the publications of The National Trust, such as "Beatrix Potter at Home in the Lake District" (2004).


title: Beatrix Potter

text: Potter's work as a scientific illustrator and her work in mycology are discussed in Linda Lear's books "Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature" (2006) and "Beatrix Potter: The Extraordinary Life of a Victorian Genius" (2008).


title: Beatrix Potter

text: In 1971, a ballet film was released, "The Tales of Beatrix Potter", directed by Reginald Mills, set to music by John Lanchbery with choreography by Frederick Ashton, and performed in character costume by members of the Royal Ballet and the Royal Opera House orchestra. The ballet of the same name has been performed by other dance companies around the world.


title: Beatrix Potter

text: In 1992, Potter's children's book "The Tale of Benjamin Bunny" was featured in the film "Lorenzo's Oil".


title: Beatrix Potter

text: Potter is also featured in Susan Wittig Albert's series of light mysteries called "The Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter". The first of the eight-book series is "Tale of Hill Top Farm" (2004), which deals with Potter's life in the Lake District and the village of Near Sawrey between 1905 and 1913.


title: Beatrix Potter

text: In 1982, the BBC produced "The Tale of Beatrix Potter". This dramatization of her life was written by John Hawkesworth, directed by Bill Hayes, and starred Holly Aird and Penelope Wilton as the young and adult Potter, respectively. "The World of Peter Rabbit and Friends", a TV series based on nine of her twenty-four stories, starred actress Niamh Cusack as Beatrix Potter.


title: Beatrix Potter

text: In 1993, Weston Woods Studios made an almost hour non-story film called "Beatrix Potter: Artist, Storyteller, and Countrywoman" with narration by Lynn Redgrave. In 2006, Chris Noonan directed "Miss Potter", a biographical film of Potter's life focusing on her early career and romance with her editor Norman Warne. The film stars Renée Zellweger, Ewan McGregor and Emily Watson.


title: Beatrix Potter

text: On 9 February 2018, Columbia Pictures released "Peter Rabbit", directed by Will Gluck, based on the work by Potter. The character Bea, played by Rose Byrne, is a re-imagined version of Potter. A sequel to the film titled "" was released in 2021.


title: Beatrix Potter

text: On 24 December 2020, Sky One premiered "", a made-for-television drama film inspired by the true story of a six-year-old Roald Dahl meeting his idol Potter. Set in 1922, the movie was written by Abigail Wilson, directed by David Kerr and starred Dawn French as Beatrix Potter, Rob Brydon as William Heelis and Jessica Hynes as Sofie Dahl. Filming took place in Wales (the birthland of Dahl, French and Brydon), during the COVID-19 pandemic. This production incorporates live action, stop motion and puppetry. The DVD was released on 26 April 2021.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: On 15 August 2021, Afghanistan's capital city of Kabul was captured by the Taliban after a major insurgent offensive that began in May 2021. This led to the overthrowing of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan under President Ashraf Ghani and the reinstatement of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan under the control of the Taliban.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: The US–Taliban deal, signed on 29 February 2020, is considered one of the most critical factors that caused the collapse of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF). Following the deal, the US dramatically reduced the number of air attacks and deprived the ANSF of a critical edge in fighting the Taliban insurgency.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: Months before the fall, many in the United States Intelligence Community estimated that Kabul would be taken at least six months after the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan was completed. However, beginning in May 2021, even while the withdrawal was occurring, the Taliban was able to take most of Afghanistan's provinces in rapid succession during a major offensive. During this period, estimates for the longevity of the Afghan state declined significantly. Ultimately, US President Joe Biden conceded on 16 August that the collapse "unfold[ed] more quickly than [they] had anticipated".


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: Between 14 August and 31 August 2021, the US and its coalition partners evacuated more than 123,000 people from Afghanistan via airlifts from Kabul's Hamid Karzai International Airport. During the evacuation, the airport remained under NATO and US military control despite the collapse of the central government. Evacuees included foreign diplomatic staff and military personnel, third-country civilians, Afghan allies and vulnerable Afghans such as journalists and human rights activists. The airlift was the largest non-combatant evacuation operation in US military history, with US military personnel transferring 79,000 civilians through the airport and out of Afghanistan over the 18-day mission.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: After the United States' withdrawal on 31 August, a group of about 1,000 people, including US citizens and Afghans holding American visas, were still stranded in Kabul. Two weeks later, secretary of state Antony Blinken, said it was several thousand US residents and one hundred US citizens.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: The US–Taliban deal, also known as the "Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan", was a peace agreement signed by the United States and the Taliban on 29 February 2020 in Doha, Qatar. The deal was meant to bring the war in Afghanistan to an end. Significantly, the deal did not involve the then Afghan government.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: The deal stipulated fighting restrictions for both the US and the Taliban, including the withdrawal of all NATO forces from Afghanistan in return for counter-terrorism commitments from the Taliban. The US agreed to an initial reduction of its force level from 13,000 to 8,600 within 135 days (i.e., by July 2020), followed by a full withdrawal within 14 months (i.e., by 1 May 2021) if the Taliban kept its commitments. The US also committed to closing five military bases within 135 days, and expressed its intent to end economic sanctions on the Taliban by 27 August 2020.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: The deal had a significant impact on the Afghan National Security Forces. US support for the Afghan military was significantly reduced. And according to the terms of the deal, US military aircraft could not attack Taliban groups waiting more than 500 meters away, giving the Taliban an edge in targeting Afghan military units.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: The deal also exacerbated the decline in morale of the Afghan army and police, leading to members bargaining with the Taliban. The Taliban was also able to spread propaganda and disinformation about the agreement, due to a lack of information and secret annexes in the agreement that were unknown even to the then Afghan government. Propaganda aimed to convince local police and military units that the US had already handed over territories to the Taliban, and that they should abandon their positions.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: Weeks before the offensive, in April 2021, the US State Department urged American civilians in Afghanistan to "leave as soon as possible on available commercial flights".


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: On 1 May 2021, the Taliban and allied militant groups began a widespread offensive shortly after a significant portion of US troops withdrew from Afghanistan.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: Following its rapid defeat across the country, the Afghan National Army was left in chaos, with only two units remaining operational by mid-August: the 201st Corps and 111th Division, both based in Kabul. The capital city was left encircled after Taliban forces had captured several significant cities, including Mihtarlam, Sharana, Gardez, Asadabad, as well as other districts in the east.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: Projections for the longevity of the Afghan state declined significantly during the offensive. In July 2021, the US intelligence community concluded that the government of Afghanistan would collapse between six and 12 months after the departure of American troops. An early August assessment estimated that Kabul could hold out for several months. Just five days before the Taliban reached Kabul, another estimate suggested the capital would last "30 to 90 days". Finally, two days before the collapse, an estimate suggested the city would fall within the week.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: The day before the fall, Afghanistan Policy Lab director Timor Sharan told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that "shopping in the city today, I felt people were gripped by a sense of being stuck; stuck in an uncertain future and never able to dream, aspire, think, and believe anymore".


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: On 15 August 2021, the Taliban command instructed its forces to halt their advance at the gates of Kabul, declaring that they would not seize the city by force. Muhammad Nasir Haqqani, a Taliban commander, said that when he arrived at the city's gates, he did not find a single soldier or policemen in sight.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: Locals reported that Taliban fighters were advancing into the urban areas regardless of their official orders.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: The insurgents then captured the Pul-e-Charkhi prison and released all inmates, reportedly including Islamic State – Khorasan Province and Al-Qaeda militants. During the skirmishes, the Taliban were reported to have killed around 150 IS-K militants, including the former chief Mawlawi Zia ul-Haq (also known as Abu Omar Khorasani). Bagram Airfield and the Parwan Detention Facility, which held 5,000 prisoners, also fell to the Taliban.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: When they finally entered Kabul, Taliban fighters faced little to no resistance from the Afghan National Security Forces. The fighters began raising their flag throughout the city and pressuring police to hand over their weaponry.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: During the fall, at least 22 Afghan Air Force planes and 24 helicopters carrying 585 Afghan military personnel fled to Uzbekistan. One Afghan A-29 Super Tucano crashed after crossing the border, with Uzbek authorities issuing conflicting reports on the cause. Two Afghan military planes carrying over 100 soldiers also landed in the Tajikistan city of Bokhtar.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: The Afghan Interior Ministry announced that President Ashraf Ghani would relinquish power and an interim government led by the Taliban would be formed. Afterward, fighting died down, although many civilians remained fearful and holed up in their homes. By late morning on 15 August, Taliban negotiators arrived at the presidential palace to begin a transfer of power. Although negotiations were tense, the government declared its willingness to peacefully surrender Kabul to the rebels, and urged civilians to remain calm. Al Arabiya reported that a transitional government would be formed under the leadership of former minister Ali Jalali, but this was later denied by the Taliban.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: Later that day, President Ghani, Vice President Amrullah Saleh, and members of their family and inner circle quietly fled from Afghanistan. Their own top lieutenants, important government members, and US officials were not informed they would escape until after they had already left.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: At 11:00 p.m. local time, Ghani eventually publicly announced on Facebook that he had fled in an attempt to avoid a bloody battle and that "the Taliban [had] won with the judgment of their swords and guns". In another account, he defended his actions: "Two different factions of the Taliban were closing in from two different directions ... and the possibility of a massive conflict between them that would destroy the city of five million and bring havoc to the people was enormous."


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: Ghani alleged that he did not initially plan to leave the country or even the city. He claims he first planned to take a car to the Ministry of Defense headquarters within Kabul, but the car never arrived. Instead, his national security advisor and chief of presidential security pressured him to escape the city by plane and fly to Khost, still within the country. However, once they were in the air, it was clear that "Khost had fallen and so had Jalalabad." Only then, Ghani alleges, did he realize he was going to leave Afghanistan.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: Kabul's presidential palace, the Arg, was evacuated by helicopters. Meanwhile, Taliban co-founder Abdul Ghani Baradar arrived at Kabul Airport to prepare the takeover of government. At 8:55 p.m. local time, the Taliban claimed to have taken over the Arg, which was left vacated by President Ghani earlier that day. Allegedly, all other palace employees were ordered to leave after Ghani had left. Reporters from Al Jazeera were later allowed into the Arg to interview Taliban militiamen. At approximately 9:12 p.m. local time, it was reported that the Taliban would soon declare the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan from the Arg, returning to the official symbolism of the Taliban government of 1996 to 2001.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: Following the collapse of the central government, a handful of Afghan politicians, including the Speaker of the House of the People Mir Rahman Rahmani, fled the country and traveled to Pakistan. Bismillah Khan Mohammadi, Sarwar Danish, Ahmad Zia Saraj also left Afghanistan.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: The Taliban's advances alarmed many Kabul residents. Some locals, especially women, were fearful for the restoration of Taliban rule and reported feeling betrayed and abandoned by the Ghani government and NATO allies; a minority of residents celebrated the Taliban advance. Zarifa Ghafari, the former mayor of Maidan Shar who was working with the defence ministry in Kabul, told media that "There is no one to help me or my family. I'm just sitting with them and my husband. And they will come for people like me and kill me. I can't leave my family. And anyway, where would I go?"


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: It was reported that sales of burqas (known as "chadaree" in Afghanistan) climbed in the days leading to the Taliban's arrival, with the price of one increasing from to as much as (approximately 0 to $37.25), in fear that the Taliban would re-impose it as mandatory on women and target women who refused. One Kabul woman told "The Guardian" that female students had been evacuated from their university dormitories before the Taliban could reach them, and that university-educated women across the city were hiding their diplomas. Khalida Popal, former captain of the Afghanistan women's national football team, advised the women's national team players to burn their uniforms to avoid reprisals. Shops in the city were noted to have begun painting over and removing advertisements featuring women, and public posters featuring women were vandalized. Residents reported a large increase in food prices. It was reported that a significant number of vendors in Kabul were attempting to liquidate their stocks in hopes of raising enough money to escape the country.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: Concerns were quickly raised about the thousands of refugees who had fled Taliban advances elsewhere in the country and now found themselves stuck in Kabul. In the evening, the National Museum of Afghanistan posted a statement on Facebook stating "huge concern about safety of Museum's Artifacts and goods for Museum Employees". World Health Organization mobile health teams in the city were placed on hold because of safety concerns, and the delivery of medical supplies via the airport was significantly impacted.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: Since the Taliban had seized all border crossings, the Hamid Karzai International Airport remained the only secure route out of Afghanistan for those seeking to escape, as the US military and its NATO partners continued to provide security for the airport and airfield. The streets of Kabul were gridlocked with residents rushing towards the airport, with some abandoning their cars to make their way on foot through the traffic. Residents who had worked with the government and international organisations reported destroying their IDs to avoid being targeted by the Taliban, and many of those fleeing for the airport took no possessions with them. Long queues were reported outside of the airport and foreign embassies, with residents waiting in the heat in the hopes of being able to secure visas or flights out of the country.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: After the fall of Herat on 13 August, the US and UK announced the deployment of 3,000 and 600 of their troops, respectively, to Kabul Airport in order to secure the airlifting of their nationals, embassy staff, and Afghan citizens who worked with coalition forces, out of the country. Between 14 August and 31 August 2021 (when the US military completed its withdrawal from Afghanistan), the US and its coalition partners evacuated more than 123,000 people from Afghanistan via Kabul Airport. Evacuees included foreign diplomatic staff and military personnel, foreign civilians, Afghan allies, and vulnerable Afghans such as journalists and human rights activists. The airlift was the largest non-combatant evacuation mission in US military history, with US military personnel taking 79,000 civilians through the airport and out of Afghanistan over the 18-day mission. The Afghans who were permitted to leave were those with proper credentials; many held Special Immigrant Visas or other US visas. The majority of Afghan applicants for US visas, such as those who had served as interpreters for US forces during the 20-year war, were left behind.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: Those evacuated included about 6,000 Americans, the vast majority of whom were dual US-Afghan citizens. The US government estimated that, at the time of the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan on 30 August 2021, there were "a small number of Americans, under 200 and likely closer to 100, who remain in Afghanistan and want to leave". The State Department had repeatedly urged Americans to leave Afghanistan since as early as March 2021, but some chose to remain in Afghanistan. Diplomatic efforts by the US to evacuate remaining Americans who wish to leave to country continued after the military withdrawal.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: On 26 August, a suicide bombing occurred at Kabul Airport, killing over 180 people and injuring over 150. Among the casualties were 169 Afghan civilians and 13 American troops. Earlier that day an intelligence report indicated that a "very lethal terror attack" was likely to take place at the airport within a few hours. The Islamic State's Afghanistan affiliate (ISIL-KP) claimed responsibility for the attack. According to reports, US reportedly gave Taliban the names of Americans and Afghan allies to evacuate.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: A US drone strike aimed at presumed Islamic State members suspected of planning a suicide bombings at the Kabul airport killed a family of 10 civilians in an adjacent car, including 7 children and an employee of a US aid organization. On September 17, the Pentagon admitted the strike was a mistake.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: Former Afghan president Hamid Karzai pressed publicly for a peaceful transition of power, promising he would remain in Kabul with his daughters. Other figures closely associated with the US-backed Afghan government, including Gul Agha Sherzai, the former governor of Nangahar province, congratulated Taliban on their victory.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: The United States, Germany, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, India, and Sweden evacuated their embassies. Some countries like China, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Turkey, and Qatar said that they do not intend to shut down their embassies. Several governments, including Sweden, Germany, and Finland, announced that they would be suspending development aid to Afghanistan. Other countries, including those with no diplomatic presence in Afghanistan, have either started or hastened efforts to assist their citizens with leaving the country.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: According to North Press, a Syrian news outlet, the morale of jihadist and extremist groups in regions such as Syria and Iraq, including Tahrir al-Sham, had risen dramatically following the fall of Kabul. Colin Clarke, research director at the Soufan Center stated that he was "expecting a heavy wave of propaganda [from jihadist groups], especially with the upcoming 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks". The Taliban takeover was also applauded by the Palestinian militant group Hamas and some far-right supporters in North America and Europe.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: British prime minister Boris Johnson blamed the United States for the Taliban's rapid takeover of Afghanistan. Mikhail Gorbachev, the leader of the Soviet Union who had overseen the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1988, argued that "NATO and the United States should have admitted failure earlier" and that the NATO campaign in Afghanistan was "a failed enterprise from the start" which was founded on "the exaggeration of a threat and poorly defined geopolitical ideas". Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai, who had survived a Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan assassination attempt in Pakistan in 2012, stated that she was in "complete shock" and was "deeply worried about women, minorities and human rights advocates". Afghan author Khaled Hosseini has also shared his concerns over the future of women's rights in Afghanistan, and expressed his hope that the Taliban would not return to the "violence and cruelty" of the 1990s. Human Rights Watch stated that "standing beside Afghan women in their struggle, and finding tools to pressure the Taliban and the political will to do so, is the least—the very least—the international community could do". Amnesty International stated that the situation was "a tragedy that should have been foreseen and averted" and called for governments to "take every necessary measure to ensure the safe passage out of Afghanistan for all those at risk of being targeted by the Taliban".


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: The fall of Afghanistan also had a negative impact on United Kingdom–United States and United States–European Union relations, with the British government leaking to the media complaints of the American government actions. In the UK, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab faced calls to resign after it was revealed he had gone on holiday to Greece just prior to the fall and had refused attempts to contact him as developments occurred. The American government, led by President Joe Biden, also faced significant domestic criticism. Former American presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump, each of whom had overseen significant developments in the War in Afghanistan, also faced criticism. President Biden's approval rating dropped to 41% and only 26% of Americans said they support Biden's handling of the situation in Afghanistan. Some Republicans, including Senators Josh Hawley, Marsha Blackburn, and former Ambassador Nikki Haley, called on Biden to resign. Some American white nationalists and related extremists celebrated the Taliban takeover and American withdrawal on social media. White nationalist Nick Fuentes posted on the Telegram messaging service, "The Taliban is a conservative, religious force, the US is godless and liberal. The defeat of the US government in Afghanistan is unequivocally a positive development". Some experts warned American extremists would use events in Afghanistan to push disinformation, organize and recruit.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: Multiple commentators and public figures described the fall of Kabul and of the Islamic republic as a significant disaster and a failure for NATO. German politician Armin Laschet, minister-president of North Rhine-Westphalia and successor to Angela Merkel as CDU/CSU leader, stated that it was "the biggest debacle that NATO has suffered since its creation and it's a change of era that we are confronted with". British parliamentary Foreign Affairs Select Committee chairman Tom Tugendhat stated that the collapse was "the biggest single policy disaster since Suez". Journalist Nick Turse argued that "without a true reevaluation this time around, the US risks falling into well-worn patterns that may, one day, make the military debacles in Southeast and Southwest Asia look terribly small".


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: Some, however, rejected claims of failure. Addressing the House of Commons on 18 August, British prime minister Boris Johnson argued that the UK had joined "a mission to extirpate al-Qaeda in that country and to do whatever we could to stabilise Afghanistan, in spite of all the difficulties and challenges we knew we would face and we succeeded in that core mission", additionally stating that "what is not true is to say the UK government was unprepared or did not foresee this".


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: The 45th president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, described the execution of the withdrawal of troops as the greatest "humiliation" in the history of his country and stated that he would have first taken out the American civilians and diplomats, then their Afghan collaborators, all the advanced equipment of the Afghan National Army donated by the US army and in last place take out the military, all this with the condition that the Taliban complied with the US–Taliban deal. The former president is also against the interventionist policy of his country, describing it as a "horrible decision" to have intervened in the Middle East and that it has not improved the situation in the last 20 years.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: US intelligence assessments originally concluded Kabul would fall within months or weeks following withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan, though the security situation rapidly deteriorated, leading President Joe Biden to concede on August 16 that "this did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated".


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: Several Afghan officials placed the blame for the collapse at the feet of the Ghani government. Afghan National Reconciliation Council chairman Abdullah Abdullah denounced Ghani's fleeing of the country, stating that "The former president of Afghanistan left Afghanistan, leaving the country in this difficult situation. God should hold him accountable". General Bismillah Khan Mohammadi, former ANA chief of staff and interim minister of defence, tweeted "They tied our hands from behind and sold the country. Curse Ghani and his gang". NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stated that "ultimately, the Afghan political leadership failed to stand up to the Taliban... This failure of the Afghan leadership led to the tragedy we are witnessing today".


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: The imminent collapse of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), and their inability to withstand the Taliban offensive has also been the subject of focus. It has been argued that despite the US investing over $85 billion to train and equip Afghan security forces since 2001, the Afghan forces had proven to be woefully inept, inadequate and poorly-trained to counter the looming insurgency.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: David E. Sanger, a "New York Times" correspondent, analyzed the decision to leave Afghanistan by Joe Biden, and consequently the manner of the fall of Kabul, as the result of four basic assumptions, or miscalculations: that there was enough time before the Afghan government collapsed for the US to withdraw, that the Afghan forces had "the same drive" to win as the Taliban did, that there was "a well-planned system for evacuating the embassy" and Afghans who had helped the US and their families, and that if the Taliban made it to Kabul, that there would be a "bloody block-by-block civil war" taking place in its streets.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: In an article in "The Conversation", William Maley, an emeritus at the Australian National University, compared the fall of Kabul to the 1956 Suez Crisis and its effects on the perception of the United Kingdom as a global power, stating that Biden had "failed the people of Afghanistan and tarnished US credibility around the world", stating that the United States "increasingly appears a fading power internationally". According to Maley, the collapse of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is due to Biden's inexperience in the field of foreign policy, Western lack of understanding of Afghan society, and the legitimization that the Taliban received with the Trump-led US–Taliban deal. He concluded by quoting former British prime minister David Lloyd George, who said in 1940 that "our promissory notes are now rubbish on the market", stating that, as a result of its failures over Afghanistan, the Biden administration is rapidly heading in a similar direction.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: Former American defense secretary Leon Panetta compared the fall of Kabul to the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba in 1961, saying that "President Kennedy took responsibility for what took place. I strongly recommend to President Biden that he take responsibility ... admit the mistakes that were made".


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: The events were compared by many commentators and the public to the Fall of Saigon at the end of Vietnam War in April 1975. A month before the Taliban arrived in Kabul, American president Joe Biden had rejected the comparison, stating that "the Taliban is not the North Vietnamese Army... There's going to be no circumstance for you to see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy of the United States from Afghanistan. It is not at all comparable".


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: Reporters argued that Biden's comments did not age well, as embassy staff burned documents and "helicopters were pictured hovering above the compound, shuttling diplomats to the airport" less than a month later. Rear Admiral Larry Chambers, who had given the order to push helicopters off the during Operation Frequent Wind to make way for more evacuee aircraft from Saigon to land, stated that "what is happening now is worse than what happened in Vietnam", elaborating "[In Vietnam] we tried to get out as many people who worked with us as we could... In Afghanistan, we are abandoning the folks who supported us while we were there".


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: On the day the Taliban entered Kabul, American secretary of state Blinken rejected the comparison to Saigon, stating on an ABC's "This Week" interview that "this is manifestly not Saigon. We went into Afghanistan 20 years ago with one mission in mind, and that was to deal with the people who attacked us on 9/11, and that mission has been successful".


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: Ross Douthat of "The New York Times" compared the 1992 fall of Kabul with the fall in 2021 and remarked that the Soviet-backed Democratic Republic of Afghanistan managed to survive against the Afghan mujahideen for 3 years after the withdrawal of Soviet forces, compared to the few months for the American-backed Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Zamir Kubalov, the Russian envoy for Afghanistan also remarked that the "regime created by the Americans tumbled down even before they left" in comparison to the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: Ibrahim al-Marashi of California State University, San Marcos compared it to the 2014 Northern Iraq offensive, in which IS overran large parts of Iraq and proclaimed a caliphate, arguing that the collapses were caused by the imposition of "rigid, hierarchical American military doctrine" on the Afghan and Iraqi militaries, that the Taliban and Daesh were more cohesive armed groups, and that the NATO-backed Afghan and Iraqi governments had "allowed networks of patronage and corruption to take root". The Iraqi government and army were equally plagued by structural corruption and unknown amount of ghost soldiers.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: Security Council of Russia secretary Nikolai Patrushev compared the situation to Ukraine–United States relations, stating that "a similar situation awaits supporters of the American choice in Ukraine". The collapse led to the Biden administration receiving immense criticism, and has challenged Biden's policy of pro-activeness in aiding US allies.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: State-run media in China compared the situation in Afghanistan to the United States' relations with Taiwan. It questioned the former's commitment to defend the latter if China decides to take control of Taiwan, which it claims to be its province, by force.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: The day after the fall of Kabul, August 16, most of the city's streets had been deserted, save for those leading to the airport, with businesses shuttered and security checkpoints unmanned. Taliban fighters, however, were sighted parading their flag and weapons and taking selfies next to Kabul landmarks. Taliban soldiers were also sighted going door-to-door searching for Afghan government workers and human rights activists. In the days after the fall, some residents reported that the Taliban had re-imposed a ban on women leaving their homes without a male guardian present. Furthermore, multiple female-owned businesses in the city were shut down. Local television stations began to censor foreign and entertainment broadcasts, while state-owned broadcasters stopped broadcasting almost all but Taliban statements and Islamic sermons. The Taliban had also started to remove female journalists from their positions.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: On 17 August, the Taliban held their first official news conference in Kabul, with spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid stating that the Taliban wished to "assure the international community, including the United States that nobody will be harmed in Afghanistan" and that "after consultations that are going to be completed very soon, we will be witnessing the formation of a strong Islamic and inclusive government". On 21 August, Taliban co-founder and political leader Abdul Ghani Baradar arrived in Kabul for the first time in over a decade as the Taliban began internal negotiations on how to govern the country.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: On the evening of 18 August, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced that it had welcomed former president Ghani into the UAE on humanitarian grounds. On 19 August, Ghani released a video denying reports he had carried a large sum of money with him as he fled and that he was negotiating a return to Afghanistan. Other government, military or anti-Taliban officials also fled to India, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: In the days following the fall, American government agencies began erasing public articles and images featuring Afghan civilians from their websites, fearing that the new Taliban government might use those websites to identify and target civilians for reprisals. The American government also announced that it would be freezing $9.5 billion worth of assets belonging to Da Afghanistan Bank, the Afghan central bank, in order to prevent Taliban access to the funds. The International Monetary Fund also announced that it would be denying the Taliban access to special drawing rights. The Western Union and MoneyGram also suspended their financial services in Afghanistan.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: Furthermore, several social media companies, including Facebook and YouTube, announced that they would continue to ban Taliban content from their platforms. Facebook also put a feature in place allowing Afghans to lock their accounts to prevent the Taliban from collecting their information. The Taliban have decried such bans, arguing that it infringes on their right to free speech. A surge in the creation of new, pro-Taliban accounts was reported on Twitter, one of the few social media companies that have not banned the group, in the days after the fall.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: After the fall of Kabul and the Islamic Republic, a surge in refugees trying to escape from the Taliban was to be expected. Therefore, in the days following the toppling of the Islamic Republic, numerous governments announced their plans regarding the number of refugees they were going to take in. After the capture of Kabul, more than 300,000 Afghan civilians who worked for the US were at risk of Taliban retaliation. As a result, an internationally organized airlift was conducted to prevent any harm from befalling these civilians. This operation was spearheaded by the US and on August 31, the mission concluded with more than 123,000 people being escorted out of the country via airlift.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: The endeavor to evacuate all these civilians did not go uncontested, the Taliban did not comply with the airlift and tensions surrounding the airport were very high. On August 26, a suicide attack killed 13 US soldiers and 170 civilians at the international airport. After a couple of months of research, the US military concluded that the assault was done by a lone bomber and could have been prevented. The event was confusing with the US army and Taliban accusing each other of initially opening fire. American retaliation followed soon and three days later, out of fear of a bloody repetition, the US wrongfully targeted a white car with a drone strike, killing 10 civilians including seven children.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: A number of countries refused to grant asylum to Afghans who had been working as embassy guards as many of those guards had been technically employed as contractors. On 19 August, 125 guards of the Embassy of the United Kingdom, Kabul were told by telephone they no longer had jobs and were ineligible for UK protection because they were employed through a contractor, GardaWorld, unlike guards at the US embassy who were evacuated. It was reported on June 16, 2022 that these guards were targeted by the Taliban for beatings alongside Afghans who worked under the British Embassy. Finnish minister of foreign affairs Pekka Haavisto stated that the Finnish embassy guards were "sub-contractors" and could not be included on evacuation lists. The Australian government had initially announced the same for their embassy guards, but backtracked a day later and granted them visas.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: The immense collective action taken to airlift civilians at risk under the rule of the Taliban was not an easy feat and far from finished. The escape from Afghanistan was the first step in an exhausting journey, most civilians had left the country in a panic and did not bring or possess the right documentation. Many civilians were transferred to transit hubs in states like Italy, Germany and Qatar where they await further decisions from resettlement organisations. The process to resettle an enormous group of refugees is very complicated, especially because many of these refugees try to enter the US, with or without the correct visas.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: With the fall of Kabul, former Northern Alliance members and other anti-Taliban forces based in the province Panjshir, led by Ahmad Massoud and former vice president Amrullah Saleh, became the primary organized resistance to the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Afghan embassy in Tajikistan replaced their presidential portrait of Ghani with one of Saleh and submitted a request to Interpol to have arrest warrants issued for Ghani, along with his chief advisor Fazel Mahmood and National Security Advisor Hamdullah Mohib, on charges of having stolen from the Afghan treasury. Massoud has stated his desire to negotiate with the Taliban.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: The conflict between the Taliban and the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan (NRF), formerly known as the Northern Alliance, ostensibly had concluded on September 6, when Taliban fighters took the Panjshir Valley, the final holdout of resistance. However, the NRF has not been wiped out and the resistance to Taliban leadership is still existing, although on a lesser scale than its initial size. On May 7, 2022, the insurgent group claimed they had taken control over three northern districts in Panjshir. The Taliban denied this, saying that these claims were untrue.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: On 17 August, a small protest was held by several women in Kabul demanding equal rights for women, the first reported women's protest against the new government. On 18 August, larger protests also attended by men emerged in three eastern Pashtun-dominated cities: Jalalabad, Khost, and Asadabad, with protestors waving the flag of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, and taking down the Taliban flag. In Jalalabad, the Taliban opened fire, killing three and wounding over a dozen. On 19 August, demonstrations spread to various parts of Kabul, including one large protest near Kabul Airport where cars and people waved the flag of the republic, and another with over 200 people gathered near the presidential palace in Kabul before it was violently dispersed by the Taliban. Protests continued in Khost and Asadabad as well, with the Taliban using violence to disperse protests in both. In Asadabad, protests were reported as swelling to the hundreds. The response of the Taliban came as they fired into the crowd, shooting and killing at least two people.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: During the months after the fall of Kabul, there have been some protests against Taliban decision-making. On December 26, hundreds took to the streets of the Anaba District after the Taliban admittedly killed a man in a misunderstanding. Openly protesting the Taliban does not come without consequences and over the span of multiple weeks at the beginning of 2022, some activists were possibly detained by the Islamic Emirate. On February 12, Afghan women protested against the Taliban and demanded the release of the missing female activists.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: The withdrawal of the US army and most diplomatic international presence has changed the way of life for many Afghan women. At the beginning of September 2021, the focus on a male-dominated society returned, as the new regime appointed only men for the government positions. Besides not being represented by their government, the Taliban has also altered the access to education for females. In various parts of the country, girls were taken out of high school and women were barred from universities due to reasons of "capacity". After six months without education for these Afghan women, the Taliban had promised to reopen the schools in March 2022 but retracted their statement, which resulted in a protest.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: Life has changed for Afghan women as their freedom is being restricted; access to education is hindered, possibilities in employment are limited, there is lesser freedom regarding appearance and basic rights are curtailed.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: A recent study between August and November 2021 was completed by 214 Afghan students with a majority of 73.7% being female. Accurate studies in crisis areas like Afghanistan are difficult to conduct, because it is hard to have a large number of participants and a smaller sample size weakens the results. However, the research presents that 69.7% of participants suffer from depression and 70% from PTSD due to the fall of Kabul and the crisis that came after. Women are affected more than men and the general scores are higher than those of prior studies in Afghanistan.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: Many women in Afghanistan have experienced gender-based violence (GBV) in their lives. Even though it was already in place before the Taliban rule, it has increased since the fall of Kabul. The Taliban have been accused of removing Afghan women from public life, which includes the political, economic and social spheres. An example of the increasing restrictions that affect female health is that women are banned from travelling for more than 72 kilometers without the presence of a mahram, a male guardian. The geographical reduction of their access to health care in combination with the fact that women cannot be examined by males aggravates the problem. The deteriorating humanitarian and economic situation increases the further risk of GBV as there are fewer help services or ways to escape the violence.


title: Fall of Kabul (2021)

text: In 2022, 15 August was declared a national holiday by the Taliban upon the one-year anniversary of the fall of Kabul.


title: Dawn French

text: Dawn Roma French (born 11 October 1957) is a British actress, comedian, presenter and writer. French is known for writing and starring on the BBC comedy sketch show "French and Saunders" with her best friend and comedy partner, Jennifer Saunders, and played the lead role as Geraldine Granger in the BBC sitcom "The Vicar of Dibley". She has been nominated for seven BAFTA TV Awards and won a BAFTA Fellowship with Saunders in 2009.


title: Dawn French

text: Dawn Roma French was born on 11 October 1957 in Holyhead, Wales, to English parents Felicity Roma ("née" O'Brien; 1934 – 2012) and Denys Vernon French (5 August 1932 – 11 September 1977), who married in their home town of Plymouth in 1953. French has an older brother, Gary. Her father served in the Royal Air Force, stationed at RAF Valley and later RAF Leconfield, where Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother went to tea at French's home when French was three years old. An RAF archive footage of this event was included in French's comedy tour/video "Thirty Million Minutes".


title: Dawn French

text: The RAF partly funded French's private education. When her father was stationed at RAF Faldingworth, French attended Caistor Grammar School for one year. She later attended boarding school at St Dunstan's Abbey School for Girls in Plymouth (since absorbed by Plymouth College), where she was a member of Downton house. After graduating, she spent a year studying at the Spence School in New York, due to a debating scholarship she won whilst attending boarding school.


title: Dawn French

text: French has said that her self-confidence and self-belief stem from her father, who told her how beautiful she was each day. She stated, "He taught me to value myself. He told me that I was beautiful and the most precious thing in his life." Denys had a history of severe depression and made two suicide attempts, but managed to conceal his illness from Dawn and Gary. When French was nineteen years old, her father committed suicide by car exhaust.


title: Dawn French

text: In 1977, French began studying drama at Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, where she met her future comedy partner, Jennifer Saunders. Both came from RAF backgrounds. They had grown up on the same base, even having had the same best friend, although never meeting. Saunders recalled her first perception of French was that she was a "cocky little upstart"; French considered Saunders to be snooty and aloof. The comic duo originally did not like each other as French wanted to become a drama teacher whereas Saunders loathed the idea and thus disliked French for being enthusiastic and confident about the course.


title: Dawn French

text: French and Saunders shared a flat whilst at college and were influenced to do comedy by their flatmates as part of their projects for college. After talking in depth for the first time, they came to be friends. While at college, French broke up with her fiancé, a former Royal Navy officer. After French and Saunders graduated from the Royal Central School, they decided to form a double-act called the Menopause Sisters. Saunders has described the act, which involved wearing tampons in their ears, as "cringeworthy". The manager of the club recalled, "They didn't seem to give a damn. There was no star quality about them at all." French and Saunders came to public attention as members of the Comic Strip, part of the alternative comedy scene in the early 1980s.


title: Dawn French

text: French has had an extensive career on television, debuting on Channel 4's "The Comic Strip Presents" series in an episode called "Five Go Mad in Dorset" in 1982. Each episode presented a self-contained story and, in addition to French and Saunders, showcased Comic Strip performers Peter Richardson, Rik Mayall, Nigel Planer, Robbie Coltrane and Adrian Edmondson. She acted in 27 of the 37 episodes and wrote two of them. One episode featured a parody of spaghetti westerns and another a black and white film about a hopelessly goofy boy. Some of French's first exposure to a wider audience occurred when comedy producer Martin Lewis recorded a "Comic Strip" record album in 1981 which featured sketches by French & Saunders. The album was released on Springtime!/Island Records in September 1981 and presented French and Jennifer Saunders to an audience outside London. In 1985, French starred with Saunders, Tracey Ullman and Ruby Wax in "Girls on Top", which portrayed four eccentric women sharing a flat in London.


title: Dawn French

text: French has co-written and starred in her and Saunders' comedy series, "French & Saunders", which debuted in 1987. On their show, the duo have spoofed many celebrities such as Madonna, Cher, Catherine Zeta-Jones and the Spice Girls. They have also parodied films such as "The Lord of the Rings", "Star Wars" and "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets". After 20 years being on television together, their sketch series "A Bucket o' French & Saunders", began airing on 8 September 2007.


title: Dawn French

text: French and Saunders have also followed separate careers. During French's time starring in "Murder Most Horrid", from 1991 to 1999, she played a different character each week, whether it was the murderer, victim, or both.


title: Dawn French

text: French's biggest solo television role to date has been as the title figure in the long-running BBC comedy "The Vicar of Dibley", which Richard Curtis created for her. The show began in 1994. She stars as Geraldine Granger, a vicar of a small fictional village called Dibley. An audience of 12.3 million watched the final full-length episode to see her character's marriage ceremony. She appeared on "The Vicar of Dibley" with Damian Lewis in a mini-episode made for Comic Relief in 2013. She was nominated for a BAFTA for Best Comedy Performance in the last episode of "The Vicar of Dibley". Repeats of the show on BBC One still attract millions of viewers and it also retains a following amongst PBS viewers in the United States. Although the main series ended in 2007, the show has returned for numerous short special episodes since, the latest four of which aired in December 2020.


title: Dawn French

text: In 1995 she appeared as a talk-show host in a Comic Relief sketch called "Dawn", written by Victoria Wood. The sketch also featured Wood herself, Celia Imrie, Lill Roughley, Anne Reid, Philip Lowrie, Robert Kingswell, Bryan Burdon, Duncan Preston, Jim Broadbent, and Lynda Bellingham.


title: Dawn French

text: In 2002, French appeared in the comedy/drama mini-series "Ted and Alice". In the series, set in the Lake District, French played a tourist information officer who falls in love with an alien. She appeared once in the Saunders led sitcom "Absolutely Fabulous" as TV interviewer Kathy in 1992, a parody of Lorraine Kelly, she reprised that role for "" in 2016 as a more established veteran journalist as Kelly is now. She also appeared in the BBC sitcom "Wild West", with Catherine Tate, in which she played a woman living in Cornwall who is a lesbian, more through lack of choice than any specific natural urge. This series did not meet with as much success as her earlier roles and it ended in 2004 after two years.


title: Dawn French

text: French played a major role in "Jam & Jerusalem" as a woman called Rosie who has dissociative identity disorder and with it an alter ego called "Margaret". She co-starred alongside Sue Johnston, Jennifer Saunders (who also created and wrote the series) and Joanna Lumley. She made a guest appearance in "Little Britain" as Vicky Pollard's mother. French also appeared in a special version of "Little Britain Live" which featured several celebrity guests and was shown by the BBC as part of Comic Relief. She played the part of a lesbian barmaid in a sketch with Daffyd Thomas.


title: Dawn French

text: In 2006, French appeared in "Agatha Christie's Marple" in the 2006 episode "Sleeping Murder". She appeared as Caroline Arless in the BBC television drama "Lark Rise to Candleford" in 2008. Talking about her role, she has stated, "I'm quite a vibrant character. She's quite extreme, in that she drinks too much, laughs too much and sings too much. But she loves her family very much; it's just that she goes over the top sometimes."


title: Dawn French

text: In late 2010, French starred in "Roger & Val Have Just Got In" with actor Alfred Molina, which aired for two series.


title: Dawn French

text: French appeared in "Little Crackers", short comedy films which were broadcast over Christmas in 2010.


title: Dawn French

text: French appeared as a special guest on Michael Bublé's "Home For Christmas" in December 2011. In July 2012, she was a judge in ITV's "Superstar" live shows. In March 2013, it was announced that French would replace Brian McFadden on the judging panel of Nine Network's "Australia's Got Talent" alongside Kyle Sandilands, Geri Halliwell (who replaced Dannii Minogue) and Timomatic who is the additional fourth judge. French departed the show after one series and was replaced by Kelly Osbourne.


title: Dawn French

text: From 2016 until 2019 French starred in three series of "Delicious" on Sky 1, co-starring as a talented cook who is having an affair with her celebrity chef ex-husband (Iain Glen) who has remarried and started a successful hotel business with his new wife (Emilia Fox) in Cornwall.


title: Dawn French

text: In 2021, French appeared as a celebrity guest judge on the second series of "RuPaul's Drag Race UK", where she judged the final five contestants, Lawrence Chaney, Bimini Bon-Boulash, Tayce, Ellie Diamond and A'Whora, on their comedy stand-up routines.


title: Dawn French

text: In 1996 French appeared in "The Adventures of Pinocchio" as "The Baker's Wife" alongside Martin Landau and star Jonathan Taylor Thomas. French played The Fat Lady in the film adaptation of "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban", replacing Elizabeth Spriggs, who played the character in the first film of the series. French's then-husband, Lenny Henry, provided the voice of the Shrunken Head in the same film, though they shared no screen time. In 2005 French provided the voice for the character Mrs. Beaver in Disney and Walden Media's film adaptation of C.S. Lewis' "." In 2010, French lent her voice to the role of Angie the Elephant in the English dub of the German-British environmental animated film "Animals United".


title: Dawn French

text: She has also taken roles in the theatre. French has appeared in plays such as "A Midsummer Night's Dream", "My Brilliant Divorce," and "Smaller," the latter of which she played a schoolteacher caring for her disabled mother. January 2007 saw French performing as the Duchesse de Crackentorp at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London, in "The Daughter of the Regiment" ("La fille du régiment") by Gaetano Donizetti starring Natalie Dessay and Juan Diego Flórez. French returned to Covent Garden and "La Fille du règiment" in the 2010 revival.


title: Dawn French

text: In 2014, French toured an autobiographical one woman show "30 Million Minutes" in the UK and Oceania. The title is based on the amount of minutes she had been alive at the time of producing the show.


title: Dawn French

text: In 2022, she toured the UK with a further show titled "Dawn French is a Huge Tw*t". In late 2022 it was announced that she would continue touring the UK with the same show in autumn 2023.


title: Dawn French

text: French was chosen as the face of Terry's Chocolate Orange, until August 2007, when she was dropped. She has also been in advertisements for the Churchill Insurance Company.


title: Dawn French

text: In 2019, French provided her voice for numerous Station idents for Greatest Hits Radio. This was produced in partnership with Bespoke Music.


title: Dawn French

text: In 2021, French was chosen to play the voice of a fairy lady for the Christmas food advertisements for leading retailer Marks and Spencers alongside Tom Holland voicing the company's mascot Percy Pig (who came to life for the first time in 29 years). In the main advert French as the fairy drops her magic wand onto a box covered in Percy pig wrappings, the lid opens and Percy pops out of the box. Throughout the rest of the advertisement she shows Percy all of the items which the retailer was selling for Christmas food.


title: Dawn French

text: She later reprised the role for the 2022 M&S Christmas advert, playing alongside Jennifer Saunders voicing a sidekick called ‘Duckie’. The pair, in the main advert, go on a journey to fill Duckie with ‘some festive cheer’ while showing off the M&S Food Christmas range for 2022.


title: Dawn French

text: French has also written a best-selling epistolary autobiography, which she has titled "Dear Fatty". French was paid a £1.5 million advance for the book, which was released in 2008. On an appearance on "The Paul O'Grady Show" on 6 October 2008, French said that "Fatty" is her nickname for Jennifer Saunders, as a joke about her own size. French said that she became great friends with Saunders well before they started working together, which was "over 30 years ago". The book consists of letters to the different people who have been in her life. In 2017, "Me. You. A Diary", French's second non-fiction book, was released. She has also written four novels – "A Tiny Bit Marvellous" (2010), "Oh Dear Silvia" (2012), "According to Yes" (2015) and "Because of You" (2020).


title: Dawn French

text: In 1986 she appeared in Kate Bush's music video "Experiment IV" alongside Hugh Laurie, Richard Vernon and Peter Vaughan.


title: Dawn French

text: French has appeared in the videos for Alison Moyet's songs "Love Letters" (which also featured Saunders) in 1987 and "Whispering Your Name" in 1994.


title: Dawn French

text: She also appeared in two Comic Relief music videos. In 1989 she joined Jennifer Saunders and Kathy Burke to form Lananeeneenoonoo and, along with Bananarama, they created a charity single to raise money for Comic Relief. It was a cover version of The Beatles song "Help!", and was released on the London Records label, entering the UK Singles Chart on 25 February 1989 and reaching a high of #3. It remained in the chart for nine weeks.


title: Dawn French

text: French, Saunders and Burke returned for Comic Relief in 1997 as "The Sugar Lumps," along with Llewella Gideon and Lulu, to parody The Spice Girls, with whom they performed a version of "Who Do You Think You Are?".


title: Dawn French

text: French met comedian Lenny Henry on the alternative comedy circuit. The couple married on 20 October 1984 in Covent Garden, London. They adopted a daughter, Billie. French has stated that Billie has always known that she was adopted, but once took out an injunction when a biographer came close to revealing the identity of Billie's biological mother. When faced with a question about how she and Henry would feel if Billie wanted to find out about her birth mother, French commented, "Whatever she wants to do when she's 18, we'll support her. What I do worry about is anyone else making the decision for her."


title: Dawn French

text: During the 2010 UK general election campaign, French was cited as a supporter of the Labour Party. She supported Keir Starmer during the 2020 Labour Party leadership election.


title: Dawn French

text: On 6 April 2010, French and Henry announced they were separating after 25 years of marriage. It was reported that the separation was amicable. They had decided to separate in October the previous year but left announcing it until some months later, as they were still in discussion over the separation. Their divorce was finalised later that year.


title: Dawn French

text: French began dating charity executive Mark Bignell in 2011. On 22 April 2013, it was reported that they had just married. The couple resided in Fowey, Cornwall, in a mansion overlooking Readymoney Cove. The Grade II-listed building dates back to the 19th century.


title: Dawn French

text: In May 2021 it was announced that French had sold her Fowey property, and moved to an 1868 Gothic revival property in Calstock.


title: Dawn French

text: French and Saunders won the honorary Golden Rose of Montreux award in 2002 and in 2003, she was listed in "The Observer" as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy. In a 2006 poll consisting of 4,000 people, French was named as the most admired female celebrity amongst women in Britain.


title: Dawn French

text: In February 2013 she was assessed as one of the 100 most powerful women in the United Kingdom by "Woman's Hour" on BBC Radio 4.


title: Paul Schrader

text: Paul Joseph Schrader (; born July 22, 1946) is an American screenwriter, film director, and film critic. He first received widespread recognition through his screenplay for Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver" (1976). He later continued his collaboration with Scorsese, writing or co-writing "Raging Bull" (1980), "The Last Temptation of Christ" (1988), and "Bringing Out the Dead" (1999). Schrader has also directed 24 films, including "Blue Collar" (1978), "Hardcore" (1979), "American Gigolo" (1980), "Cat People" (1982), "" (1985), "Light Sleeper" (1992), "Affliction" (1997), and "First Reformed" (2017); the latter earned him his first Academy Award nomination. Schrader's work is known for its frequent depiction of alienated men struggling through existential crises, a premise he dubbed "God’s lonely man."


title: Paul Schrader

text: Raised in a strict Calvinist family, Schrader attended seminary at Calvin College before electing to pursue film studies at UCLA on the encouragement of film critic Pauline Kael. He then worked as a film scholar and critic, publishing the book "Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer" (1972) before making the transition to screenwriting in 1974. The success of "Taxi Driver" in 1976 brought greater attention to his work, and Schrader began directing his own films beginning with "Blue Collar" (co-written with his brother, Leonard Schrader). His three most recent films have been described by Schrader as a loose trilogy: "First Reformed" (2017), "The Card Counter" (2021), and "Master Gardener" (2022).


title: Paul Schrader

text: Schrader was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the son of Joan ("née" Fisher) and Charles A. Schrader, an executive. Schrader's family attended the Calvinist Christian Reformed Church. Schrader's mother was of Dutch descent, the daughter of emigrants from Friesland, while Schrader's paternal grandfather was from a German family that had come to the U.S. through Canada.


title: Paul Schrader

text: His early life was based upon the religion's strict principles and parental education. He did not see a film until he was seventeen years old, when he was able to sneak away from home. In an interview he stated that "The Absent-Minded Professor" was the first film he saw. In his own words, he was "very unimpressed" by it, while "Wild in the Country", which he saw some time later, had quite some effect on him. Schrader attributes his intellectual rather than emotional approach towards movies and movie-making to his having no adolescent movie memories.


title: Paul Schrader

text: Schrader earned his B.A. in philosophy with a minor in theology from Calvin College, but decided against becoming a minister. He then earned an M.A. in film studies at the UCLA Film School upon the recommendation of Pauline Kael, who encouraged him to be a film critic.


title: Paul Schrader

text: Schrader first became a film critic, writing for the "Los Angeles Free Press" and later for "Cinema" magazine. His book "Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer", which examines the similarities between Robert Bresson, Yasujirō Ozu, and Carl Theodor Dreyer, was published in 1972. Other film-makers who made a lasting impression on Schrader are John Ford, Jean Renoir, Roberto Rossellini, Alfred Hitchcock, and Sam Peckinpah. Renoir's "The Rules of the Game" he called the "quintessential movie" which represents "all of the cinema".


title: Paul Schrader

text: In 1974, Schrader and his brother Leonard co-wrote "The Yakuza", a film set in the Japanese crime world. The script became the subject of a bidding war, eventually selling for $325,000. The film was directed by Sydney Pollack and starred Robert Mitchum. Robert Towne, best known for "Chinatown", also received a credit for his rewrite.


title: Paul Schrader

text: Although "The Yakuza" failed commercially, it brought Schrader to the attention of the new generation of Hollywood directors. In 1975, he wrote the script for "Obsession" for Brian De Palma. Schrader wrote an early draft of Steven Spielberg's "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (1977), but Spielberg disliked the script, calling it "terribly guilt-ridden," and opted for something lighter. He also wrote an early draft of "Rolling Thunder" (1977), which the film's producers had reworked without his participation. He disapproved of the final film.


title: Paul Schrader

text: Schrader's script about an obsessed New York City taxi driver became Martin Scorsese's film "Taxi Driver", which was nominated for the Oscar for Best Picture and won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Besides "Taxi Driver" (1976), Scorsese also drew on scripts by Schrader for the boxing tale "Raging Bull" (1980), co-written with Mardik Martin, "The Last Temptation of Christ" (1988), and "Bringing Out the Dead" (1999).


title: Paul Schrader

text: Thanks partly to critical acclaim for "Taxi Driver", Schrader was able to direct his first feature, "Blue Collar" (1978), co-written with his brother Leonard. "Blue Collar" features Richard Pryor, Harvey Keitel, and Yaphet Kotto as car factory workers attempting to escape their socio-economic rut through theft and blackmail. He has described the film as difficult to make, because of the artistic and personal tensions between him and the cast. During principal photography he suffered an on-set mental collapse which led him to seriously reconsider his career. John Milius acted as executive producer on the following year's "Hardcore," again written by Schrader, a film with many autobiographical parallels in his depiction of the Calvinist milieu of Grand Rapids, and in the character of George C. Scott, which was based on Schrader's father.


title: Paul Schrader

text: Among Paul Schrader's films in the 1980s were "American Gigolo" starring Richard Gere (1980), his "Cat People" (1982) a remake of the 1942 film "Cat People", and "" (1985). Inspired by Japanese writer Yukio Mishima, the film interweaves episodes from Mishima's life with dramatizations of segments from his books. "Mishima" was nominated for the top prize (the Palme d'Or) at the Cannes Film Festival. Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas served as executive producers.


title: Paul Schrader

text: Schrader also directed "Patty Hearst" (1988), about the kidnapping and transformation of the Hearst Corporation heiress. In 1987, he was a member of the jury at the 37th Berlin International Film Festival.


title: Paul Schrader

text: His 1990s work included the travelers-in-Venice tale "The Comfort of Strangers" (1990), adapted by Harold Pinter from the Ian McEwan novel, and "Light Sleeper" (1992), a sympathetic study of a drug dealer vying for a normal life. In 2005 Schrader described "Light Sleeper" as his "most personal" film. In 1997 he made "Touch" (1997), based on an Elmore Leonard novel about a young man seemingly able to cure the sick by the laying on of hands.


title: Paul Schrader

text: In 1998, Schrader won critical acclaim for the drama "Affliction". The film tells the story of a troubled small town policeman (Nick Nolte) who becomes obsessed with solving the mystery behind a fatal hunting accident. Schrader's script was based on the novel by Russell Banks. The film was nominated for multiple awards including two Academy Awards for acting (for Nolte and James Coburn). The same year, Schrader received the Austin Film Festival's Distinguished Screenwriter Award.


title: Paul Schrader

text: In 1999, Schrader received the Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement from the Writers Guild of America.


title: Paul Schrader

text: In 2002, he directed the acclaimed biopic "Auto Focus", based on the life and murder of "Hogan's Heroes" actor Bob Crane.


title: Paul Schrader

text: In 2003, Schrader made entertainment headlines after being fired from "The Exorcist: Dominion", a prequel film to the horror classic "The Exorcist" from 1973. The film's production companies Morgan Creek Productions and Warner Bros. Pictures greatly disliked the film Schrader had made. Director Renny Harlin was hired to then re-shoot nearly the entire film, which was released as "" on August 20, 2004 to disastrously negative reviews and embarrassing box office receipts. Warner Bros. and Morgan Creek put over $80 million into the endeavor and Harlin's film only made back $41 million domestically. Schrader's version of the film eventually premiered at the Brussels International Festival of Fantastic Film on March 18, 2005 as "Exorcist: The Original Prequel". Due to extreme interest in Schrader's version from critics and cinephiles alike, Warner Bros. agreed to give the film a limited theatrical release later that year under the title "". The film was only shown on 110 screens around the United States and made just $251,000. The critics liked Schrader's version much better than Harlin's. However, Schrader's film ultimately met with a generally negative reaction.


title: Paul Schrader

text: After that, Schrader filmed "The Walker" (2007), starring Woody Harrelson as a male escort caught up in a political murder enquiry, and the Israeli-set "Adam Resurrected" (2008), which stars Jeff Goldblum and Willem Dafoe.


title: Paul Schrader

text: Schrader headed the International Jury of the 2007 Berlin International Film Festival, and in 2011 became a jury member for the ongoing Filmaka short film contest. On July 2, 2009, Schrader was awarded the inaugural Lifetime Achievement in Screenwriting award at the ScreenLit Festival in Nottingham, England. Several of his films were shown at the festival, including "Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters", which followed the presentation of the award by director Shane Meadows.


title: Paul Schrader

text: After five years of trying and failing to find funding to make feature films, Schrader returned with "The Canyons" (2013) an erotic dramatic thriller written by Bret Easton Ellis and starring Lindsay Lohan and adult-film star James Deen. The film gained notability as it was one of the first films to use the website Kickstarter to crowd-source its funding. Schrader also used the website Let It Cast to have unknown actors submit their audition tapes over the internet. American Apparel stepped in to provide some wardrobe for the film. The film gained media coverage due to Lohan's notorious on-set behavior, as well as the film's unusual production route. The film was ultimately made for just $250,000 and had a limited theatrical release from IFC Films on August 2, 2013. The film was poorly received by general critics and audiences. The film only made $56,000 in theaters but found later success when released on various Video on Demand platforms.


title: Paul Schrader

text: In 2014, Schrader directed "The Dying of the Light", an espionage thriller starring Nicolas Cage as a government agent suffering from a deadly disease, Anton Yelchin and Irène Jacob. In post-production Schrader was denied final cut by the film's producers. The film was negatively received by many film critics and was a box-office bomb. Schrader later recut "Dying of the Light" into the separate, more experimental work "Dark", which received more positive reviews.


title: Paul Schrader

text: Schrader's dramatic thriller "First Reformed", starring Ethan Hawke, premiered at the 2017 Venice Film Festival and received critical acclaim. Schrader received his first Academy Award nomination for the film in the category Best Original Screenplay.


title: Paul Schrader

text: In 2021, Schrader directed the crime drama film "The Card Counter", starring Oscar Isaac and Tiffany Haddish. The film also premiered at the 2021 Venice Film Festival and was widely lauded by critics.


title: Paul Schrader

text: Schrader's new film, "Master Gardener", is a crime thriller starring Joel Edgerton and Sigourney Weaver. It is set to premier at the 2022 Venice Film Festival.


title: Paul Schrader

text: Schrader has written two stage plays, "Berlinale" and "Cleopatra Club". The latter saw its premiere at the Powerhouse Theater in Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1995 and its foreign language debut in Vienna in 2011.


title: Paul Schrader

text: A recurring theme in Schrader's films is the protagonist on a self-destructive path, or undertaking actions which work against himself, deliberately or subconsciously. The finale often bears an element of redemption, preceded by a painful sacrifice or cathartic act of violence.


title: Paul Schrader

text: Schrader has repeatedly referred to "Taxi Driver", "American Gigolo", "Light Sleeper", "The Canyons", "The Walker", "First Reformed", and "The Card Counter" as "a man in a room" stories. The protagonist in each film changes from an angry, then narcissistic, later anxious character, to a person who hides behind a mask of superficiality.


title: Paul Schrader

text: Although many of his films or scripts are based on real-life biographies "(Raging Bull", "Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters", "Patty Hearst", "Auto Focus)", Schrader confessed having problems with biographical films due to their altering of actual events, which he tried to prevent by imposing structures and stylization.


title: Paul Schrader

text: Schrader battled a severe cocaine addiction, which contributed to his divorce from his first wife, art director Jeannine Oppewall. He then moved from Los Angeles to Japan in hopes of getting his life on track, finally quitting drugs around 1990. His second marriage is to actress Mary Beth Hurt, who has appeared in smaller roles in a variety of his films. Together they have two children, a daughter and a son.


title: Paul Schrader

text: In 2012, Schrader participated in the "Sight & Sound" film polls of that year. Held every ten years to select the greatest films of all time, contemporary directors were asked to select ten films of their choice. Schrader gave the following ten in alphabetical order.


title: Paul Schrader

text: In September 2022, Schrader was hospitalized for COVID-19 and pneumonia which had resulted in "breathing difficulties".


title: Paul Schrader

text: Schrader was raised as a Calvinist but became an Episcopalian after the birth of his children. As of 2018, he attends a Presbyterian church. His films frequently feature religious themes.


title: Main battle tank

text: A main battle tank (MBT), also known as a battle tank or universal tank, is a tank that fills the role of armor-protected direct fire and maneuver in many modern armies. Cold War-era development of more powerful engines, better suspension systems and lighter-weight composite armor allowed the design of a tank that had the firepower of a super-heavy tank, the armor protection of a heavy tank, and the mobility of a light tank, in a package with the weight of a medium tank. Through the 1960s and 1970s, the MBT replaced almost all other types of tanks, leaving only some specialist roles to be filled by lighter designs or other types of armored fighting vehicles.


title: Main battle tank

text: Main battle tanks are a key component of modern armies. Modern MBTs seldom operate alone, as they are organized into armoured units that include the support of infantry, who may accompany the tanks in infantry fighting vehicles. They are also often supported by surveillance or ground-attack aircraft. The average weight of MBTs varies from country to country. The average weight of Western MBTs is usually greater than that of Russian or Chinese MBTs.


title: Main battle tank

text: During World War I, combining tracks, armor, and guns into a functional vehicle pushed the limits of mechanical technology. This limited the specific battlefield capabilities any one tank design could be expected to fulfill. A design might have good speed, armour, or firepower, but not all three together.


title: Main battle tank

text: Facing the deadlock of trench warfare, the first tank designs focused on crossing wide trenches, requiring very long and large vehicles, such as the British Mark I tank and successors; these became known as heavy tanks. Tanks that focused on other combat roles were smaller, like the French Renault FT; these were light tanks or tankettes. Many late-war and inter-war tank designs diverged from these according to new, and mostly untried, concepts for future tank roles and tactics. Each nation tended to create its own list of tank classes with different intended roles, such as "cavalry tanks", "breakthrough tanks", "fast tanks", and "assault tanks". The British maintained cruiser tanks that traded armour for speed and hence manoeuvrability in the attack, and infantry tanks that traded speed for more armour.


title: Main battle tank

text: After years of isolated and divergent development, the various interwar tank concepts were finally tested with the start of World War II. In the chaos of blitzkrieg, tanks designed for a single role often found themselves forced into battlefield situations they were ill-suited for. During the war, limited-role tank designs tended to be replaced by more general-purpose designs, enabled by improving tank technology. Tank classes became mostly based on weight (and the corresponding transport and logistical needs). This led to new definitions of heavy and light tank classes, with medium tanks covering the balance of those between. The German Panzer IV tank, designed before the war as a "heavy" tank for assaulting fixed positions, was redesigned during the war with armour and gun upgrades to allow it to take on anti-tank roles as well, and was reclassified as a medium tank.


title: Main battle tank

text: The second half of World War II saw an increased reliance on general-purpose medium tanks, which became the bulk of the tank combat forces. Generally, these designs massed about 25–30 tonnes, were armed with cannons around 75 mm, and powered by engines in the 400 to 500 hp range. Notable examples include the Soviet T-34 (the most-produced tank to that time) and the US M4 Sherman.


title: Main battle tank

text: Late war tank development placed increased emphasis on armour, armament, and anti-tank capabilities for medium tanks:


title: Main battle tank

text: Britain had continued on the path of parallel development of cruiser tanks and infantry tanks. Development of the Rolls-Royce Meteor engine for the Cromwell tank, combined with efficiency savings elsewhere in the design, almost doubled the horsepower for cruiser tanks. This led to speculation of a "Universal Tank", able to take on the roles of both a cruiser and an infantry tank by combining heavy armour and manoeuvrability.


title: Main battle tank

text: Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery is acknowledged as the main advocate of the British universal tank concept as early as 1943, according to the writings of Giffard Le Quesne Martel, but little progress was made beyond development of the basic Cromwell cruiser tank that eventually led to the Centurion. The Centurion was designed for "mobility and firepower" at the expense of armour, but more engine power permitted more armour protection, so the Centurion could also operate as an infantry tank, doing so well that development of a new universal tank was rendered unnecessary.


title: Main battle tank

text: The Centurion, entering service just as World War II finished, was a multi-role tank that subsequently formed the main armoured element of the British Army of the Rhine, the armed forces of the British Empire and Commonwealth forces, and subsequently many other nations through exports, whose cost was met largely by the US. The introduction of the 84 mm 20-pounder gun in 1948 gave the tank a significant advantage over other tanks of the era, paving the way for a new tank classification, the main battle tank, which gradually superseded previous weight and armament classes.


title: Main battle tank

text: A surplus of effective WWII-era designs in other forces, notably the US and the Soviet Union, led to slower introductions of similar designs on their part. By the early 1950s, these designs were clearly no longer competitive, especially in a world of shaped charge weapons, and new designs rapidly emerged from most armed forces.


title: Main battle tank

text: The concept of the medium tank gradually evolved into the MBT in the 1960s, as it was realized that medium tanks could carry guns (such as the US 90 mm, Soviet 100 mm, and especially the British L7 105 mm) that could penetrate any practical level of armour then existing at long range. Also, the heaviest tanks were unable to use most existing bridges. The World War II concept of heavy tanks, armed with the most powerful guns and heaviest armour, became obsolete because the large tanks were too expensive and just as vulnerable to damage by mines, bombs, rockets, and artillery. Likewise, World War II had shown that lightly armed and armoured tanks were of limited value in most roles. Even reconnaissance vehicles had shown a trend towards heavier weight and greater firepower during World War II; speed was not a substitute for armour and firepower.


title: Main battle tank

text: An increasing variety of anti-tank weapons and the perceived threat of a nuclear war prioritized the need for additional armour. The additional armour prompted the design of even more powerful guns. The main battle tank thus took on the role the British had once called the "universal tank", exemplified by the Centurion, filling almost all battlefield roles. Typical main battle tanks were as well armed as any other vehicle on the battlefield, highly mobile, and well armoured. Yet they were cheap enough to be built in large numbers. The first Soviet main battle tank was the T-64 (the T-54/55 and T-62 were considered "medium" tanks) and the first American nomenclature-designated MBT was the M60 tank.


title: Main battle tank

text: Anti-tank weapons rapidly outpaced armour developments. By the 1960s anti-tank rounds could penetrate a meter of steel so as to make the application of traditional rolled homogeneous armour unpragmatic. The first solution to this problem was the composite armor of Soviet T-64 tank, which included steel-glass-reinforced textolite-steel sandwich in heavily sloped glacis plates, and steel turret with aluminum inserts, which helped to resist both high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) and APDS shells of the era. Later came British Chobham armour. This composite armour used layers of ceramics and other materials to help attenuate the effects of HEAT munitions. Another threat came by way of the widespread use of helicopters in battle. Before the advent of helicopters, armour was heavily concentrated to the front of the tank. This new threat caused designs to distribute armour on all sides of the tank (also having the effect of protecting the vehicle's occupants from nuclear explosion radiation).


title: Main battle tank

text: By the late 1970s, MBTs were manufactured by China, France, West Germany, Britain, India, Italy, Japan, the Soviet Union, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United States.


title: Main battle tank

text: The Soviet Union's war doctrine depended heavily on the main battle tank. Any weapon advancement making the MBT obsolete could have devastated the Soviet Union's fighting capability. The Soviet Union made novel advancements to the weapon systems including mechanical autoloaders and anti-tank guided missiles. Autoloaders were introduced to replace the human loader, permitting the turret to be reduced in size, making the tank smaller and less visible as a target, while missile systems were added to extend the range at which a vehicle could engage a target and thereby enhance the first-round hit probability.


title: Main battle tank

text: The United States's experience in the Vietnam War contributed to the idea among army leadership that the role of the main battle tank could be fulfilled by attack helicopters. During the Vietnam War, helicopters and missiles competed with MBTs for research money.


title: Main battle tank

text: Though the Persian Gulf War reaffirmed the role of main battle tanks, MBTs were outperformed by the attack helicopter. Other strategists considered that the MBT was entirely obsolete in light of the efficacy and speed with which coalition forces neutralized Iraqi armour.


title: Main battle tank

text: In asymmetric warfare, threats such as improvised explosive devices and mines have proven effective against MBTs. In response, nations that face asymmetric warfare, such as Israel, are reducing the size of their tank fleet and procuring more advanced models. Conversely, some insurgent groups like Hezbollah themselves operate main battle tanks, such as the T-72.


title: Main battle tank

text: The United States Army used 1,100 M1 Abrams in the course of the Iraq War. They proved to have an unexpectedly high vulnerability to improvised explosive devices. A relatively new type of remotely detonated mine, the explosively formed penetrator, was used with some success against American armoured vehicles. However, with upgrades to their rear armour, M1s proved to be valuable in urban combat; at the Second Battle of Fallujah the United States Marines brought in two extra companies of M1s. Britain deployed its Challenger 2 tanks to support its operations in southern Iraq.


title: Main battle tank

text: Advanced armour has reduced crew fatalities but has not improved vehicle survivability. Small unmanned turrets on top of the cupolas called remote controlled weapon stations armed with machine guns or mortars provide improved defence and enhance crew survivability. Experimental tanks with unmanned turrets locate crew members in the heavily armoured hull, improving survivability and reducing the vehicle's profile.