title: Azealia Banks

text: Banks announced that her next project will be "Fantasea II: The Second Wave", a follow-up to 2012 mixtape "Fantasea". On June 5, 2017, Banks released the song "Chi Chi" intended to be the lead single from "Business & Pleasure," however, it was later demoted to a stand-alone single. On June 26, 2017, Banks released the promotional single, "Escapades", from the upcoming album "Fantasea II: The Second Wave". After a yearlong hiatus from touring, Banks returned to New York City to embark on a with 20 dates across the U.S. and Canada. The tour began on October 4 in Chicago and concluded on October 31 in San Francisco. Banks also performed across Europe in a handful of shows during 2017.


title: Azealia Banks

text: It was announced in 2015 that Banks would make her acting debut as the main character in the RZA-directed musical drama film "Coco" (now known as "Love Beats Rhymes"). The film was officially released on December 1, 2017.


title: Azealia Banks

text: On January 31, 2018, Banks announced that she had signed a US$1 million record deal with Entertainment One. On March 9, 2018, she released "Movin' On Up" to iTunes and other streaming platforms as the second promotional single from "Fantasea II: The Second Wave". The song was previously featured in the 2017 film "Love Beats Rhymes" which Banks starred in. In March 2018, she announced that the first official single from her forthcoming album would be "Anna Wintour". It was released on April 6, 2018, and the official music video for the single was released on May 24, 2018. On July 6, a second single, "Treasure Island", was released. In November, Banks announced on her Instagram account that she would release the Christmas-themed EP "Icy Colors Change" on December 7. A demo of the title track was released in December 2017. The project was released on December 19 after several delays, with a promotional single, "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?", released on December 13. Another promotional single from "Fantasea II: The Second Wave", "Playhouse", was released exclusively on SoundCloud on April 12, 2019. Banks first teased the track back in 2016 by playing the entire song on the live streaming app, Periscope.


title: Azealia Banks

text: Banks would later separate from eOne Music in 2019. Consequently, Banks announced in May of that year that she had been working on a project called "Yung Rapunxel: Pt. II". The title references Banks's debut single off "Broke with Expensive Taste" called "Yung Rapunxel". It was released through SoundCloud on September 11, 2019, before later being taken down. Banks would cover "Elle" Russia in November 2019.


title: Azealia Banks

text: On December 16, 2019, Banks released the promotional singles "Count Contessa" and "Pyrex Princess" on various streaming platforms. "Pyrex Princess" is a song from "Business & Pleasure", previously released on August 22, 2018, before being taken down. "Count Contessa" was previously published on SoundCloud in 2013. A music video for "Count Contessa", directed by Rony Alwin and shot in Bali, Indonesia, was previously released on December 8, 2015.


title: Azealia Banks

text: Throughout the first quarter of 2020, Banks debuted her podcast "Cheapy's Two Cents" and released multiple promotional singles, including "Slow Hands", an Interpol cover previously uploaded in 2012, as well as "Salchichón" being produced by frequent collaborator Onyx. Additionally, Banks released multiple tracks exclusively on her SoundCloud, such as "Diamond Nova", which previously served as the B-side to her 2013 single "ATM Jam", featuring and produced by Pharrell, as well as the Spanglish single, "Nirvana".


title: Azealia Banks

text: On June 9, 2020, Banks released the lead single from her as-yet-unreleased album "Business & Pleasure" titled "Black Madonna" featuring producer Lex Luger. On December 23, 2020, Banks released the promotional single "Mamma Mia" on all platforms, where it was previously released on her SoundCloud account since April 2020. Banks released the single "Six Flags" featuring Slim Dollars on January 7, 2021.


title: Azealia Banks

text: On July 7, 2021, Banks released the single "Fuck Him All Night". A perfume of the same name was launched months later. Banks also announced that she was under new management.


title: Azealia Banks

text: On November 9, 2022, Banks announced that she had officially signed to Parlophone Records, under Warner Music Group.


title: Azealia Banks

text: Banks has said she admires American recording artists Beyoncé and Aaliyah, stating the former "[is] the queen of everything. She's the most remarkable performer and musician. And this is just my humble opinion, but I just think she's better than everyone else making music right now." Banks is inspired by, and has drawn directly upon, black gay culture, such as the film "Paris Is Burning", in her music.


title: Azealia Banks

text: AllMusic characterizes Banks as "a stylish vocalist who combines hardcore hip-hop, indie pop, and dance music". Meanwhile, "The Guardian"s John Robinson considered Banks's style "an appealing blend of Missy Elliott and dance-pop". In regards to her musical style, Banks has frequently been noted for the use of profanity in many of her songs, particularly her reclamation of the word "cunt", examples including her debut single "212", in which she uses the word more than ten times, or other songs such as "Fierce", in which she refers to herself as the "cunt queen". Banks attributes this to her upbringing in Harlem, saying, "...I'm from Harlem. I went to art school; I grew up with the cunts. And that term doesn't come from me! People think I invented it, but I didn't. To be cunty is to be feminine and to be, like, aware of yourself. Nobody's fucking with that inner strength and delicateness. The cunts, the gay men, adore that. My friends would say, 'Oh you need to cunt it up! You're being too banjee.' Banjee means unrefined and rough. You need your cunts: they fix your hair for you and do your makeup. They give you confidence and give you life." She is also known for her often fast-paced rapping, or "flow". In a review of Banks's debut EP "1991", Chris Dart of "Exclaim!" found Banks's rapping speed "remarkable", commenting that she "manages a feat that takes most rappers the better part of a career to master: the perfect marriage of bangin', club-friendly beats and smart, crisply delivered lyrics".


title: Azealia Banks

text: Since writing "212", Banks has adopted an alter ego named "Yung Rapunxel". This alter ego was adapted from Banks referring to herself as Rapunzel, due to a long weave she wore while working at Starbucks as a teenager. Banks discussed this with "Rolling Stone" saying, "Yung Rapunxel is that girl who pisses people off but doesn't really mean to. She's actually a sweetheart! But people are so taken aback that she's so herself; she's not even trying to be unique or different. She literally just lives in her head; she does what she wants to do. So, the lipstick is here for someone who is happy to be themself."


title: Azealia Banks

text: In October 2019, Banks announced that she would perform under the name Azilka () during her tour in the former Soviet Union.


title: Azealia Banks

text: On August 8, 2020, Banks announced that she intended to end her life through euthanasia and document the process on film.


title: Azealia Banks

text: In February 2021, Banks publicly announced her engagement to American artist Ryder Ripps. They made an audio sex tape and sold it using NFT, which was then up for resale for $260 million. In March, Banks announced the end of the relationship.


title: Azealia Banks

text: In July 2016, Banks admitted to lightening her skin due to skin blemishes from her birth control and defended the process of skin bleaching. In December of the same year, she revealed that she had a miscarriage and asked her fans for advice and support.


title: Azealia Banks

text: "BuzzFeed News" wrote Banks "has been frank about her own mental health issues". In 2020, during a plea deal in Manhattan Court to avoid prison time, she was ordered to seek mental health treatment. The British magazine "gal-dem" reported that she has bipolar disorder.


title: Azealia Banks

text: Banks identifies as bisexual. During the few instances where she has discussed her sexuality with the press, she has expressed dissatisfaction with society's labeling of others based on sexual orientation. In an interview with "The New York Times", she stated, "I'm not trying to be, like, the bisexual, lesbian rapper. I don't live on other people's terms."


title: Azealia Banks

text: Banks has been accused of both homophobia and transphobia, with "Out" editors stating she is a bully to the LGBT community rather than an ally. In 2015, she used language that "PinkNews" called homophobic when she called a flight attendant a "fucking faggot" during what they described as an "in-flight meltdown". Later the same month, Banks posted what "Billboard" called a "Twitter tirade" against the LGBT community when she tweeted the "LGBT community are like the gay white KKK's. Get some pink hoods and unicorns and rally down rodeo drive... If I am to be a part of an LGBT community I want to be in it with people who aren't so weak or so easily moved ya know." In 2020, she stated gay men were "appropriating horse culture" by using harnesses, ketamine, and sexual lubricant. The following year, she said trans women are "just gay boys on hormones using male aggression to force their ways into women's spaces."


title: Azealia Banks

text: Banks is known for publicly speaking out on African-American civil rights issues, with a commentator at "Splice Today" describing her as having "that hot New York temper where she will pop off if you cross her the wrong way". In December 2014, she called for over $100 trillion to be paid to African Americans as financial reparations for the enslavement of their ancestors, citing U.S. reparations to Native American communities and the German reparations to Jewish survivors of the Holocaust as precedents. Using Twitter, she urged young African Americans to take an interest in such issues, adding that "We are the children of the people who perished in the name of modern capitalism and we deserve a piece of that fucking pie". She added that reparations could be used to improve educational prospects for black Americans.


title: Azealia Banks

text: In 2016, Banks took to Twitter to express her endorsement of Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, clarifying that "I have no hope for America ... I think Donald Trump is evil like America is evil and in order for America to keep up with itself it needs him ... politicians are inherently evil, I trust the one who is most transparent." She retracted her endorsement of Trump in October 2016, posting on Facebook: "I made a major mistake endorsing toupey-toupee. Women's rights are important and we must protect them." Nonetheless, after Trump won the presidency, she posted, "He is my fucking hero right now. I am elated."


title: Azealia Banks

text: In April 2022, Banks posted an Instagram story repeatedly chastising Ukraine in the 2022 Russian invasion of the country. She claimed, unsubstantiated, that Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelenskyy denied the ability for African exchange students to leave the country. She also claimed without evidence that Ukraine was using their embassies in African countries to recruit mercenaries to fight in Ukraine. Banks stated that Zelenskyy was trying to provoke a global nuclear war and urged Ukraine to surrender. In a previous Instagram story from April 1, she had praised Russia's president Vladimir Putin, calling him her "favorite super villain ever".


title: Azealia Banks

text: Banks has developed a reputation for disputes with several public figures on social media, particularly Twitter, with "Complex" noting that "she gets more attention for her public feuds than she does for her music".


title: Azealia Banks

text: Banks has been involved in altercations with crew and passengers aboard commercial flights, resulting in her being removed from airliners, and she has accused some foreign airlines of racism against her.


title: Azealia Banks

text: In May 2016, Banks posted what several media outlets described as a racist and homophobic rant against Zayn Malik on Twitter, later targeting young actress Skai Jackson. As a result, Banks was dropped by her UK booking agency and an upcoming hip-hop festival, and her Twitter account was suspended. Later Twitter accounts were created then suspended, most recently in 2022.


title: Azealia Banks

text: In December 2016, Banks posted a series of videos on Instagram detailing her cleanup of a closet in her apartment where she claims to have been practicing witchcraft. She admitted to practicing "three years worth of brujeria". The video appeared to show dried blood, feathers, and the carrion of dead chickens. In January 2021, she received criticism after posting a video on Instagram of her digging up and cooking her dead pet cat. She later said in an interview that she did not eat the cat and exhumed it for taxidermizing purposes.


title: Azealia Banks

text: In January 2019, Banks posted racist remarks about Irish people after performing in Ireland, in which she used ethnic slurs and mocked the Great Famine. That August, she posted racist remarks about Swedish people after performing in Sweden, adding that she "would really love to see someone bomb the shit out of this place".


title: Blaise Pascal

text: Blaise Pascal ( , , ; ; 19 June 1623 – 19 August 1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, and Catholic writer.


title: Blaise Pascal

text: He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen. Pascal's earliest mathematical work was on conic sections; he wrote a significant treatise on the subject of projective geometry at the age of 16. He later corresponded with Pierre de Fermat on probability theory, strongly influencing the development of modern economics and social science. In 1642, while still a teenager, he started some pioneering work on calculating machines (called Pascal's calculators and later Pascalines), establishing him as one of the first two inventors of the mechanical calculator.


title: Blaise Pascal

text: Like his contemporary René Descartes, Pascal was also a pioneer in the natural and applied sciences. Pascal wrote in defense of the scientific method and produced several controversial results. He made important contributions to the study of fluids, and clarified the concepts of pressure and vacuum by generalising the work of Evangelista Torricelli. Following Torricelli and Galileo Galilei, he rebutted the likes of Aristotle and Descartes who insisted that nature abhors a vacuum in 1647.


title: Blaise Pascal

text: In 1646, he and his sister Jacqueline identified with the religious movement within Catholicism known by its detractors as Jansenism. Following a religious experience in late 1654, he began writing influential works on philosophy and theology. His two most famous works date from this period: the "Lettres provinciales" and the "Pensées", the former set in the conflict between Jansenists and Jesuits. The latter contains Pascal's Wager, known in the original as the "Discourse on the Machine", a fideistic probabilistic argument for God's existence. In that year, he also wrote an important treatise on the arithmetical triangle. Between 1658 and 1659, he wrote on the cycloid and its use in calculating the volume of solids.


title: Blaise Pascal

text: Throughout his life, Pascal was in frail health, especially after the age of 18; he died just two months after his 39th birthday.


title: Blaise Pascal

text: Pascal was born in Clermont-Ferrand, which is in France's Auvergne region, by the Massif Central. He lost his mother, Antoinette Begon, at the age of three. His father, Étienne Pascal (1588–1651), who also had an interest in science and mathematics, was a local judge and member of the "Noblesse de Robe". Pascal had two sisters, the younger Jacqueline and the elder Gilberte.


title: Blaise Pascal

text: In 1631, five years after the death of his wife, Étienne Pascal moved with his children to Paris. The newly arrived family soon hired Louise Delfault, a maid who eventually became a key member of the family. Étienne, who never remarried, decided that he alone would educate his children, for they all showed extraordinary intellectual ability, particularly his son Blaise. The young Pascal showed an amazing aptitude for mathematics and science.


title: Blaise Pascal

text: Particularly of interest to Pascal was a work of Desargues on conic sections. Following Desargues' thinking, the 16-year-old Pascal produced, as a means of proof, a short treatise on what was called the "Mystic Hexagram", "Essai pour les coniques" ("Essay on Conics") and sent it—his first serious work of mathematics—to Père Mersenne in Paris; it is known still today as Pascal's theorem. It states that if a hexagon is inscribed in a circle (or conic) then the three intersection points of opposite sides lie on a line (called the Pascal line).


title: Blaise Pascal

text: Pascal's work was so precocious that René Descartes was convinced that Pascal's father had written it. When assured by Mersenne that it was, indeed, the product of the son and not the father, Descartes dismissed it with a sniff: "I do not find it strange that he has offered demonstrations about conics more appropriate than those of the ancients," adding, "but other matters related to this subject can be proposed that would scarcely occur to a 16-year-old child."


title: Blaise Pascal

text: In France at that time offices and positions could be—and were—bought and sold. In 1631, Étienne sold his position as second president of the "Cour des Aides" for 65,665 livres. The money was invested in a government bond which provided, if not a lavish, then certainly a comfortable income which allowed the Pascal family to move to, and enjoy, Paris. But in 1638 Richelieu, desperate for money to carry on the Thirty Years' War, defaulted on the government's bonds. Suddenly Étienne Pascal's worth had dropped from nearly 66,000 livres to less than 7,300.


title: Blaise Pascal

text: Like so many others, Étienne was eventually forced to flee Paris because of his opposition to the fiscal policies of Cardinal Richelieu, leaving his three children in the care of his neighbour Madame Sainctot, a great beauty with an infamous past who kept one of the most glittering and intellectual salons in all France. It was only when Jacqueline performed well in a children's play with Richelieu in attendance that Étienne was pardoned. In time, Étienne was back in good graces with the cardinal and in 1639 had been appointed the king's commissioner of taxes in the city of Rouen—a city whose tax records, thanks to uprisings, were in utter chaos.


title: Blaise Pascal

text: In 1642, in an effort to ease his father's endless, exhausting calculations, and recalculations, of taxes owed and paid (into which work the young Pascal had been recruited), Pascal, not yet 19, constructed a mechanical calculator capable of addition and subtraction, called "Pascal's calculator" or the "Pascaline". Of the eight Pascalines known to have survived, four are held by the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris and one more by the Zwinger museum in Dresden, Germany, exhibit two of his original mechanical calculators.


title: Blaise Pascal

text: Although these machines are pioneering forerunners to a further 400 years of development of mechanical methods of calculation, and in a sense to the later field of computer engineering, the calculator failed to be a great commercial success. Partly because it was still quite cumbersome to use in practice, but probably primarily because it was extraordinarily expensive, the Pascaline became little more than a toy, and a status symbol, for the very rich both in France and elsewhere in Europe. Pascal continued to make improvements to his design through the next decade, and he refers to some 50 machines that were built to his design. He built 20 finished machines over the following 10 years.


title: Blaise Pascal

text: Pascal's development of probability theory was his most influential contribution to mathematics. Originally applied to gambling, today it is extremely important in economics, especially in actuarial science. John Ross writes, "Probability theory and the discoveries following it changed the way we regard uncertainty, risk, decision-making, and an individual's and society's ability to influence the course of future events." However, Pascal and Fermat, though doing important early work in probability theory, did not develop the field very far. Christiaan Huygens, learning of the subject from the correspondence of Pascal and Fermat, wrote the first book on the subject. Later figures who continued the development of the theory include Abraham de Moivre and Pierre-Simon Laplace.


title: Blaise Pascal

text: In 1654, prompted by his friend the Chevalier de Méré, he corresponded with Pierre de Fermat on the subject of gambling problems, and from that collaboration was born the mathematical theory of probabilities. The specific problem was that of two players who want to finish a game early and, given the current circumstances of the game, want to divide the stakes fairly, based on the chance each has of winning the game from that point. From this discussion, the notion of expected value was introduced. Pascal later (in the "Pensées") used a probabilistic argument, Pascal's wager, to justify belief in God and a virtuous life. The work done by Fermat and Pascal into the calculus of probabilities laid important groundwork for Leibniz' formulation of the calculus.


title: Blaise Pascal

text: Pascal's "Traité du triangle arithmétique", written in 1654 but published posthumously in 1665, described a convenient tabular presentation for binomial coefficients which he called the arithmetical triangle, but is now called Pascal's triangle. The triangle can also be represented:


title: Blaise Pascal

text: He defined the numbers in the triangle by recursion: Call the number in the ("m" + 1)th row and ("n" + 1)th column "t". Then "t" = "t" + "t", for "m" = 0, 1, 2, ... and "n" = 0, 1, 2, ... The boundary conditions are "t" = 0, "t" = 0 for "m" = 1, 2, 3, ... and "n" = 1, 2, 3, ... The generator "t" = 1. Pascal concluded with the proof,


title: Blaise Pascal

text: In the same treatise, Pascal gave an explicit statement of the principle of mathematical induction. In 1654, he proved "Pascal's identity" relating the sums of the "p"-th powers of the first "n" positive integers for "p" = 0, 1, 2, ..., "k".


title: Blaise Pascal

text: In 1658, Pascal, while suffering from a toothache, began considering several problems concerning the cycloid. His toothache disappeared, and he took this as a heavenly sign to proceed with his research. Eight days later he had completed his essay and, to publicize the results, proposed a contest.


title: Blaise Pascal

text: Pascal proposed three questions relating to the center of gravity, area and volume of the cycloid, with the winner or winners to receive prizes of 20 and 40 Spanish doubloons. Pascal, Gilles de Roberval and Pierre de Carcavi were the judges, and neither of the two submissions (by John Wallis and Antoine de Lalouvère) were judged to be adequate. While the contest was ongoing, Christopher Wren sent Pascal a proposal for a proof of the rectification of the cycloid; Roberval claimed promptly that he had known of the proof for years. Wallis published Wren's proof (crediting Wren) in Wallis's "Tractus Duo", giving Wren priority for the first published proof.


title: Blaise Pascal

text: Pascal contributed to several fields in physics, most notably the fields of fluid mechanics and pressure. In honour of his scientific contributions, the name "Pascal" has been given to the SI unit of pressure and Pascal's law (an important principle of hydrostatics). He introduced a primitive form of roulette and the roulette wheel in his search for a perpetual motion machine.


title: Blaise Pascal

text: His work in the fields of hydrodynamics and hydrostatics centered on the principles of hydraulic fluids. His inventions include the hydraulic press (using hydraulic pressure to multiply force) and the syringe. He proved that hydrostatic pressure depends not on the weight of the fluid but on the elevation difference. He demonstrated this principle by attaching a thin tube to a barrel full of water and filling the tube with water up to the level of the third floor of a building. This caused the barrel to leak, in what became known as Pascal's barrel experiment.


title: Blaise Pascal

text: By 1647, Pascal had learned of Evangelista Torricelli's experimentation with barometers. Having replicated an experiment that involved placing a tube filled with mercury upside down in a bowl of mercury, Pascal questioned what force kept some mercury in the tube and what filled the space above the mercury in the tube. At the time, most scientists including Descartes believed in a plenum, i. e. some invisible matter filled all of space, rather than a vacuum. "Nature abhors a vacuum." This was based on the Aristotelian notion that everything in motion was a substance, moved by another substance. Furthermore, light passed through the glass tube, suggesting a substance such as aether rather than vacuum filled the space.


title: Blaise Pascal

text: Following more experimentation in this vein, in 1647 Pascal produced "Experiences nouvelles touchant le vide" ("New experiments with the vacuum"), which detailed basic rules describing to what degree various liquids could be supported by air pressure. It also provided reasons why it was indeed a vacuum above the column of liquid in a barometer tube. This work was followed by "Récit de la grande expérience de l'équilibre des liqueurs" ("Account of the great experiment on equilibrium in liquids") published in 1648.


title: Blaise Pascal

text: The Torricellian vacuum found that air pressure is equal to the weight of 30 inches of mercury. If air has a finite weight, Earth's atmosphere must have a maximum height. Pascal reasoned that if true, air pressure on a high mountain must be less than at a lower altitude. He lived near the Puy de Dôme mountain, tall, but his health was poor so could not climb it. On 19 September 1648, after many months of Pascal's friendly but insistent prodding, Florin Périer, husband of Pascal's elder sister Gilberte, was finally able to carry out the fact-finding mission vital to Pascal's theory. The account, written by Périer, reads:


title: Blaise Pascal

text: Pascal replicated the experiment in Paris by carrying a barometer up to the top of the bell tower at the church of Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie, a height of about 50 metres. The mercury dropped two lines.


title: Blaise Pascal

text: In a reply to the plenist Estienne Noel, Pascal wrote, echoing contemporary notions of science and falsifiability: "In order to show that a hypothesis is evident, it does not suffice that all the phenomena follow from it; instead, if it leads to something contrary to a single one of the phenomena, that suffices to establish its falsity."


title: Blaise Pascal

text: Blaise Pascal Chairs are given to outstanding international scientists to conduct their research in the Ile de France region.


title: Blaise Pascal

text: In the winter of 1646, Pascal's 58-year-old father broke his hip when he slipped and fell on an icy street of Rouen; given the man's age and the state of medicine in the 17th century, a broken hip could be a very serious condition, perhaps even fatal. Rouen was home to two of the finest doctors in France, Deslandes and de la Bouteillerie. The elder Pascal "would not let anyone other than these men attend him...It was a good choice, for the old man survived and was able to walk again..." But treatment and rehabilitation took three months, during which time La Bouteillerie and Deslandes had become regular visitors.


title: Blaise Pascal

text: Both men were followers of Jean Guillebert, proponent of a splinter group from Catholic teaching known as Jansenism. This still fairly small sect was making surprising inroads into the French Catholic community at that time. It espoused rigorous Augustinism. Blaise spoke with the doctors frequently, and after their successful treatment of his father, borrowed from them works by Jansenist authors. In this period, Pascal experienced a sort of "first conversion" and began to write on theological subjects in the course of the following year.


title: Blaise Pascal

text: Pascal fell away from this initial religious engagement and experienced a few years of what some biographers have called his "worldly period" (1648–54). His father died in 1651 and left his inheritance to Pascal and his sister Jacqueline, for whom Pascal acted as conservator. Jacqueline announced that she would soon become a postulant in the Jansenist convent of Port-Royal. Pascal was deeply affected and very sad, not because of her choice, but because of his chronic poor health; he needed her just as she had needed him.


title: Blaise Pascal

text: By the end of October in 1651, a truce had been reached between brother and sister. In return for a healthy annual stipend, Jacqueline signed over her part of the inheritance to her brother. Gilberte had already been given her inheritance in the form of a dowry. In early January, Jacqueline left for Port-Royal. On that day, according to Gilberte concerning her brother, "He retired very sadly to his rooms without seeing Jacqueline, who was waiting in the little parlor..."


title: Blaise Pascal

text: Pascal formally signed over the whole of his sister's inheritance to Port-Royal, which, to him, "had begun to smell like a cult." With two-thirds of his father's estate now gone, the 29-year-old Pascal was now consigned to genteel poverty.


title: Blaise Pascal

text: For a while, Pascal pursued the life of a bachelor. During visits to his sister at Port-Royal in 1654, he displayed contempt for affairs of the world but was not drawn to God.


title: Blaise Pascal

text: On the 23 of November, 1654, between 10:30 and 12:30 at night, Pascal had an intense religious experience and immediately wrote a brief note to himself which began: "Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and the scholars..." and concluded by quoting Psalm 119:16: "I will not forget thy word. Amen." He seems to have carefully sewn this document into his coat and always transferred it when he changed clothes; a servant discovered it only by chance after his death. This piece is now known as the "Memorial". The story of a carriage accident as having led to the experience described in the "Memorial" is disputed by some scholars.


title: Blaise Pascal

text: His belief and religious commitment revitalized, Pascal visited the older of two convents at Port-Royal for a two-week retreat in January 1655. For the next four years, he regularly travelled between Port-Royal and Paris. It was at this point immediately after his conversion when he began writing his first major literary work on religion, the "Provincial Letters".


title: Blaise Pascal

text: In literature, Pascal is regarded as one of the most important authors of the French Classical Period and is read today as one of the greatest masters of French prose. His use of satire and wit influenced later polemicists.


title: Blaise Pascal

text: Beginning in 1656–57, Pascal published his memorable attack on casuistry, a popular ethical method used by Catholic thinkers in the early modern period (especially the Jesuits, and in particular Antonio Escobar). Pascal denounced casuistry as the mere use of complex reasoning to justify moral laxity and all sorts of sins. The 18-letter series was published between 1656 and 1657 under the pseudonym Louis de Montalte and incensed Louis XIV. The king ordered that the book be shredded and burnt in 1660. In 1661, in the midsts of the formulary controversy, the Jansenist school at Port-Royal was condemned and closed down; those involved with the school had to sign a 1656 papal bull condemning the teachings of Jansen as heretical. The final letter from Pascal, in 1657, had defied Alexander VII himself. Even Pope Alexander, while publicly opposing them, nonetheless was persuaded by Pascal's arguments.


title: Blaise Pascal

text: Aside from their religious influence, the "Provincial Letters" were popular as a literary work. Pascal's use of humor, mockery, and vicious satire in his arguments made the letters ripe for public consumption, and influenced the prose of later French writers like Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.


title: Blaise Pascal

text: It is in the "Provincial Letters" that Pascal made his oft-quoted apology for writing a long letter, as he had not had time to write a shorter one.


title: Blaise Pascal

text: Charles Perrault wrote of the "Letters": "Everything is there—purity of language, nobility of thought, solidity in reasoning, finesse in raillery, and throughout an "agrément" not to be found anywhere else."


title: Blaise Pascal

text: Pascal is arguably best known as a philosopher, considered by some the second greatest French mind behind René Descartes. He was a dualist following Descartes. However, he is also remembered for his opposition to both the rationalism of the likes of Descartes and simultaneous opposition to the main countervailing epistemology, empiricism, preferring fideism.


title: Blaise Pascal

text: He cared above all about the philosophy of religion. Pascalian theology has grown out of his perspective that humans are, according to Wood, "born into a duplicitous world that shapes us into duplicitous subjects and so we find it easy to reject God continually and deceive ourselves about our own sinfulness".


title: Blaise Pascal

text: Pascal's major contribution to the philosophy of mathematics came with his "De l'Esprit géométrique" ("Of the Geometrical Spirit"), originally written as a preface to a geometry textbook for one of the famous Petites écoles de Port-Royal ("Little Schools of Port-Royal"). The work was unpublished until over a century after his death. Here, Pascal looked into the issue of discovering truths, arguing that the ideal of such a method would be to found all propositions on already established truths. At the same time, however, he claimed this was impossible because such established truths would require other truths to back them up—first principles, therefore, cannot be reached. Based on this, Pascal argued that the procedure used in geometry was as perfect as possible, with certain principles assumed and other propositions developed from them. Nevertheless, there was no way to know the assumed principles to be true.


title: Blaise Pascal

text: Pascal also used "De l'Esprit géométrique" to develop a theory of definition. He distinguished between definitions which are conventional labels defined by the writer and definitions which are within the language and understood by everyone because they naturally designate their referent. The second type would be characteristic of the philosophy of essentialism. Pascal claimed that only definitions of the first type were important to science and mathematics, arguing that those fields should adopt the philosophy of formalism as formulated by Descartes.


title: Blaise Pascal

text: In "De l'Art de persuader" ("On the Art of Persuasion"), Pascal looked deeper into geometry's axiomatic method, specifically the question of how people come to be convinced of the axioms upon which later conclusions are based. Pascal agreed with Montaigne that achieving certainty in these axioms and conclusions through human methods is impossible. He asserted that these principles can be grasped only through intuition, and that this fact underscored the necessity for submission to God in searching out truths.


title: Blaise Pascal

text: Pascal's most influential theological work, referred to posthumously as the "Pensées" ("Thoughts") is widely considered to be a masterpiece, and a landmark in "French prose". When commenting on one particular section (Thought #72), Sainte-Beuve praised it as the finest pages in the French language. Will Durant hailed the Pensées as "the most eloquent book in French prose".


title: Blaise Pascal

text: The "Pensées" was not completed before his death. It was to have been a sustained and coherent examination and defense of the Christian faith, with the original title "Apologie de la religion Chrétienne" ("Defense of the Christian Religion"). The first version of the numerous scraps of paper found after his death appeared in print as a book in 1669 titled "Pensées de M. Pascal sur la religion, et sur quelques autres sujets" ("Thoughts of M. Pascal on religion, and on some other subjects") and soon thereafter became a classic.


title: Blaise Pascal

text: One of the "Apologie"s main strategies was to use the contradictory philosophies of Pyrrhonism and Stoicism, personalized by Montaigne on one hand, and Epictetus on the other, in order to bring the unbeliever to such despair and confusion that he would embrace God.


title: Blaise Pascal

text: T. S. Eliot described him during this phase of his life as "a man of the world among ascetics, and an ascetic among men of the world." Pascal's ascetic lifestyle derived from a belief that it was natural and necessary for a person to suffer. In 1659, Pascal fell seriously ill. During his last years, he frequently tried to reject the ministrations of his doctors, saying, "Sickness is the natural state of Christians."


title: Blaise Pascal

text: Louis XIV suppressed the Jansenist movement at Port-Royal in 1661. In response, Pascal wrote one of his final works, "Écrit sur la signature du formulaire" ("Writ on the Signing of the Form"), exhorting the Jansenists not to give in. Later that year, his sister Jacqueline died, which convinced Pascal to cease his polemics on Jansenism. Pascal's last major achievement, returning to his mechanical genius, was inaugurating perhaps the first bus line, the carrosses à cinq sols, moving passengers within Paris in a carriage with many seats. Pascal also designated the operation principles which were later used to plan public transportation: The carriages has a fixed route, fixed price, and left even if there were no passengers. It is widely considered that the idea of public transportation was well ahead of time. The lines were not commercially successful, and the last one closed by 1675.


title: Blaise Pascal

text: In 1662, Pascal's illness became more violent, and his emotional condition had severely worsened since his sister's death. Aware that his health was fading quickly, he sought a move to the hospital for incurable diseases, but his doctors declared that he was too unstable to be carried. In Paris on 18 August 1662, Pascal went into convulsions and received extreme unction. He died the next morning, his last words being "May God never abandon me," and was buried in the cemetery of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont.


title: Blaise Pascal

text: An autopsy performed after his death revealed grave problems with his stomach and other organs of his abdomen, along with damage to his brain. Despite the autopsy, the cause of his poor health was never precisely determined, though speculation focuses on tuberculosis, stomach cancer, or a combination of the two. The headaches which affected Pascal are generally attributed to his brain lesion.


title: Blaise Pascal

text: One of the Universities of Clermont-Ferrand, France – Université Blaise Pascal – is named after him. Établissement scolaire français Blaise-Pascal in Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of the Congo is named after Pascal.


title: Blaise Pascal

text: The 1969 Eric Rohmer film "My Night at Maud's" is based on the work of Pascal. Roberto Rossellini directed a filmed biopic, "Blaise Pascal", which originally aired on Italian television in 1971. Pascal was a subject of the first edition of the 1984 BBC Two documentary, "Sea of Faith", presented by Don Cupitt. The chameleon in the film "Tangled" is named for Pascal.


title: Blaise Pascal

text: A programming language is named for Pascal. In 2014, Nvidia announced its new Pascal microarchitecture, which is named for Pascal. The first graphics cards featuring Pascal were released in 2016.


title: Blaise Pascal

text: The 2017 game "" has multiple characters named after famous philosophers; one of these is a sentient pacifistic machine named Pascal, who serves as a major supporting character. Pascal creates a village for machines to live peacefully with the androids they're at war with and acts as a parental figure for other machines trying to adapt to their newly-found individuality.


title: Wheel of the Year

text: The Wheel of the Year is an annual cycle of seasonal festivals, observed by many modern pagans, consisting of the year's chief solar events (solstices and equinoxes) and the midpoints between them. While names for each festival vary among diverse pagan traditions, syncretic treatments often refer to the four solar events as "quarter days", with the four midpoint events as "cross-quarter days". Differing sects of modern paganism also vary regarding the precise timing of each celebration, based on distinctions such as lunar phase and geographic hemisphere.


title: Wheel of the Year

text: Observing the cycle of the seasons has been important to many people, both ancient and modern. Contemporary Pagan festivals that rely on the Wheel are based to varying degrees on folk traditions, regardless of actual historical pagan practices. Among Wiccans, each festival is also referred to as a sabbat (), based on Gerald Gardner's view that the term was passed down from the Middle Ages, when the terminology for Jewish Shabbat was commingled with that of other heretical celebrations. Contemporary conceptions of the Wheel of the Year calendar were largely influenced by mid-20th century British paganism.


title: Wheel of the Year

text: Historical and archaeological evidence suggests ancient pagan and polytheist peoples varied in their cultural observations; Anglo-Saxons celebrated the solstices and equinoxes, while Celts celebrated the seasonal divisions with various fire festivals. In the tenth century Cormac Mac Cárthaigh wrote about "four great fires...lighted up on the four great festivals of the Druids...in February, May, August, and November."


title: Wheel of the Year

text: The contemporary Neopagan festival cycle, prior to being known as the Wheel of the Year, was influenced by works such as "The Golden Bough" by James George Frazer (1890) and "The Witch-Cult in Western Europe" (1921) by Margaret Murray. Frazer claimed that Beltane (the beginning of summer) and Samhain (the beginning of winter) were the most important of the four Gaelic festivals mentioned by Cormac. Murray used records from early modern witch trials, as well as the folklore surrounding European witchcraft, in an attempt to identify the festivals celebrated by a supposedly widespread underground pagan religion that had survived into the early modern period. Murray reports a 1661 trial record from Forfar, Scotland, where the accused witch (Issobell Smyth) is connected with meetings held "every quarter at Candlemas, Rud−day, Lammas, and Hallomas." In "The White Goddess" (1948) Robert Graves claimed that, despite Christianization, the importance of agricultural and social cycles had preserved the "continuity of the ancient British festal system" consisting of eight holidays: "English social life was based on agriculture, grazing, and hunting" implicit in "the popular celebration of the festivals now known as Candlemas, Lady Day, May Day, Midsummer Day, Lammas, Michaelmas, All-Hallowe'en, and Christmas; it was also secretly preserved as religious doctrine in the covens of the anti-Christian witch-cult."


title: Wheel of the Year

text: By the late 1950s the Bricket Wood coven led by Gerald Gardner and the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids led by Ross Nichols had both adopted eight-fold ritual calendars, in order to hold more frequent celebrations. Popular legend holds that Gardner and Nichols developed the calendar during a naturist retreat, where Gardner advocated for celebrating the solstices and equinoxes while Nichols preferred celebrating the four Celtic fire festivals; ultimately they combined the two approaches into a single festival cycle. Though this coordination eventually had the benefit of more closely aligning celebrations between the two early Neopagan groups, Gardner's first published writings omit any mention of the solstices and equinoxes, focusing exclusively on the fire festivals. Gardner initially referred to these as "May eve, August eve, November eve (Hallowe'en), and February eve." Gardner further identified these modern witch festivals with the Gaelic fire festivals Beltene, Lugnasadh, Samhuin, and Brigid (Imbolc). By the mid-1960s, the phrase "Wheel of the Year" had been coined to describe the yearly cycle of witches' holidays.


title: Wheel of the Year

text: Aidan Kelly gave names to the summer solstice (Litha) and equinox holidays (Ostara and Mabon) of Wicca in 1974, which were subsequently promulgated by Timothy Zell through his "Green Egg" magazine. Popularization of these names happened gradually; in her 1978 book "Witchcraft For Tomorrow" influential Wiccan author Doreen Valiente did not use Kelly's holiday names, instead simply identifying the solstices and equinoxes ("Lesser Sabbats") by their seasons. Valiente identified the four "Greater Sabbats", or fire festivals, by the names Candlemas, May Eve, Lammas, and Hallowe'en, though she also identified their Irish counterparts as Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnassadh, and Samhain.


title: Wheel of the Year

text: Due to early Wicca's influence on modern paganism and the syncretic adoption of Anglo-Saxon and Celtic motifs, the most commonly used English festival names for the Wheel of the Year tend to be the Celtic ones introduced by Gardner and the mostly Germanic-derived names introduced by Kelly, even when the celebrations are not based on those cultures. The American Ásatrú movement has adopted, over time, a calendar in which the Heathen major holidays figure alongside many "Days of Remembrance" which celebrate heroes of the Edda and the Sagas, figures of Germanic history, and the Viking Leif Ericson, who explored and settled Vinland (North America). These festivals are not, however, as evenly distributed throughout the year as in Wicca and other Heathen denominations.


title: Wheel of the Year

text: In many traditions of modern pagan cosmology, all things are considered to be cyclical, with time as a perpetual cycle of growth and retreat tied to the Sun's annual death and rebirth. This cycle is also viewed as a micro- and macrocosm of other life cycles in an immeasurable series of cycles composing the Universe. The days that fall on the landmarks of the yearly cycle traditionally mark the beginnings and middles of the four seasons. They are regarded with significance and host to major communal festivals. These eight festivals are the most common times for community celebrations.


title: Wheel of the Year

text: While the "major" festivals are usually the quarter and cross-quarter days, other festivals are also celebrated throughout the year, especially among the non-Wiccan traditions such as those of polytheistic reconstructionism and other ethnic traditions.


title: Wheel of the Year

text: In Wiccan and Wicca-influenced traditions, the festivals, being tied to solar movements, have generally been steeped in solar mythology and symbolism, centered on the life cycles of the sun. Similarly, the Wiccan esbats are traditionally tied to the lunar cycles. Together, they represent the most common celebrations in Wiccan-influenced forms of Neopaganism, especially in contemporary Witchcraft groups.


title: Wheel of the Year

text: Midwinter, known commonly as Yule or within modern Druid traditions as Alban Arthan, has been recognised as a significant turning point in the yearly cycle since the late Stone Age. The ancient megalithic sites of Newgrange and Stonehenge, carefully aligned with the solstice sunrise and sunset, exemplify this. The reversal of the Sun's ebbing presence in the sky symbolizes the rebirth of the solar god and presages the return of fertile seasons. From Germanic to Roman tradition, this is the most important time of celebration.


title: Wheel of the Year

text: Practices vary, but sacrifice offerings, feasting, and gift giving are common elements of Midwinter festivities. Bringing sprigs and wreaths of evergreenery (such as holly, ivy, mistletoe, yew, and pine) into the home and tree decorating are also common during this time.


title: Wheel of the Year

text: The cross-quarter day following Midwinter falls on the first of February and traditionally marks the first stirrings of spring. It aligns with the contemporary observance of Groundhog Day. It is time for purification and spring cleaning in anticipation of the year's new life. In Rome, it was historically a shepherd's holiday, while the Celts associated it with the onset of ewes' lactation, prior to birthing the spring lambs.


title: Wheel of the Year

text: For Celtic pagans, the festival is dedicated to the goddess Brigid, daughter of The Dagda and one of the Tuatha Dé Danann.


title: Wheel of the Year

text: Among Reclaiming tradition Witches, this is the traditional time for pledges and rededications for the coming year and for initiation among Dianic Wiccans.


title: Wheel of the Year

text: Derived from a reconstruction produced by linguist Jacob Grimm of an Old High German form of the Old English goddess name "Ēostre", Ostara marks the vernal equinox in some modern Pagan traditions.


title: Wheel of the Year

text: Known as Alban Eilir to modern Druid traditions, this holiday is the second of three spring celebrations (the midpoint between Imbolc and Beltane), during which light and darkness are again in balance, with light on the rise. It is a time of new beginnings and of life emerging further from the grips of winter.


title: Wheel of the Year

text: Traditionally the first day of summer in Ireland, in Rome the earliest celebrations appeared in pre-Christian times with the festival of Flora, the Roman goddess of flowers, and the Walpurgisnacht celebrations of the Germanic countries.


title: Wheel of the Year

text: Since the Christianisation of Europe, a more secular version of the festival has continued in Europe and America, commonly referred to as May Day. In this form, it is well known for maypole dancing and the crowning of the Queen of the May.


title: Wheel of the Year

text: Celebrated by many pagan traditions, among modern Druids this festival recognizes the power of life in its fullness, the greening of the world, youthfulness and flourishing.


title: Wheel of the Year

text: Midsummer is one of the four solar holidays and is considered the turning point at which summer reaches its height and the sun shines longest. Among the Wiccan sabbats, Midsummer is preceded by Beltane, and followed by Lammas or Lughnasadh.


title: Wheel of the Year

text: Some Wiccan traditions call the festival "Litha", a name occurring in Bede's "The Reckoning of Time" (', eighth century), which preserves a list of the (then-obsolete) Anglo-Saxon names for the twelve months. ' ("first" or "preceding" ') roughly corresponds to June in the Gregorian calendar, and ' ("following" "") to July. Bede writes that "Litha means "gentle" or "navigable", because in both these months the calm breezes are gentle and they were wont to sail upon the smooth sea".


title: Wheel of the Year

text: Modern Druids celebrate this festival as Alban Hefin. The sun in its greatest strength is greeted and celebrated on this holiday. While it is the time of greatest strength of the solar current, it also marks a turning point, for the sun also begins its time of decline as the wheel of the year turns. Arguably the most important festival of the Druid traditions, due to the great focus on the sun and its light as a symbol of divine inspiration. Druid groups frequently celebrate this event at Stonehenge.


title: Wheel of the Year

text: Lammas or Lughnasadh () is the first of the three Wiccan harvest festivals, the other two being the autumnal equinox (or Mabon) and Samhain. Wiccans mark the holiday by baking a figure of the god in bread and eating it, to symbolise the sanctity and importance of the harvest. Celebrations vary, as not all Pagans are Wiccans. The Irish name Lughnasadh is used in some traditions to designate this holiday. Wiccan celebrations of this holiday are neither generally based on Celtic culture nor centered on the Celtic deity Lugh. This name seems to have been a late adoption among Wiccans. In early versions of Wiccan literature the festival is referred to as "August Eve".


title: Wheel of the Year

text: The name "Lammas" (contraction of "loaf mass") implies it is an agrarian-based festival and feast of thanksgiving for grain and bread, which symbolises the first fruits of the harvest. Christian festivals may incorporate elements from the Pagan Ritual.


title: Wheel of the Year

text: The holiday of the autumnal equinox, "Harvest Home", "Mabon", the "Feast of the Ingathering", ', ', or "" (in Neo-Druid traditions), is a modern Pagan ritual of thanksgiving for the fruits of the earth and a recognition of the need to share them to secure the blessings of the Goddess and the Gods during the coming winter months. The name "Mabon" was coined by Aidan Kelly around 1970 as a reference to , a character from Welsh mythology. Among the sabbats, it is the second of the three Pagan harvest festivals, preceded by Lammas / Lughnasadh and followed by Samhain.


title: Wheel of the Year

text: Samhain () is one of the four "Greater Sabbats" among Wiccans. Samhain is typically considered as a time to celebrate the lives of those who have passed on, and it often involves paying respect to ancestors, family members, elders of the faith, friends, pets, and other loved ones who have died. Aligned with the contemporary observance of Halloween and Day of the Dead, in some traditions the spirits of the departed are invited to attend the festivities. It is seen as a festival of darkness, which is balanced at the opposite point of the Wheel by the festival of Beltane, which is celebrated as a festival of light and fertility.


title: Wheel of the Year

text: Many Neopagans believe that the veil between this world and the afterlife is at its thinnest point of the year at Samhain, making it easier to communicate with those who have departed.


title: Wheel of the Year

text: Some authorities claim the Christian festival of All Hallows Day (All Saints Day) and the preceding evening are appropriations of Samhain by early Christian missionaries to the British Isles.


title: Wheel of the Year

text: In addition to the eight major holidays common to most modern pagans, there are a number of minor holidays during the year to commemorate various events.


title: Wheel of the Year

text: The precise dates on which festivals are celebrated are often flexible. Dates may be on the days of the quarter and cross-quarter days proper, the nearest full moon, the nearest new moon, or the nearest weekend for secular convenience. The festivals were originally celebrated by peoples in the middle latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. Consequently, the traditional times for seasonal celebrations do not agree with the seasons in the Southern Hemisphere or near the equator. Pagans in the Southern Hemisphere often advance these dates by six months to coincide with their own seasons.


title: Wheel of the Year

text: Offerings of food, drink, various objects, etc. have been central in ritual propitiation and veneration for millennia. Modern pagan practice strongly avoids sacrificing animals in favour of grains, herbs, milk, wines, incense, baked goods, minerals, etc. The exception being with ritual feasts including meat, where the inedible parts of the animal are often burned as offerings while the community eats the rest.


title: Wheel of the Year

text: Sacrifices are typically offered to gods and ancestors by burning them. Burying and leaving offerings in the open are also common in certain circumstances. The purpose of offering is to benefit the venerated, show gratitude, and give something back, strengthening the bonds between humans and divine and between members of a community.


title: Wheel of the Year

text: It is a misconception in some quarters of the Neopagan community, influenced by the writings of Robert Graves, that historical Celts had an overarching narrative for the entire cycle of the year. While the various Celtic calendars include "some" cyclical patterns, and a belief in the balance of light and dark, these beliefs vary between the different Celtic cultures. Modern preservationists and revivalists usually observe the four 'fire festivals' of the Gaelic Calendar, and some also observe local festivals that are held on dates of significance in the different Celtic nations.


title: Wheel of the Year

text: Slavic mythology tells of a persisting conflict involving Perun, god of thunder and lightning, and Veles, the "black god" and "horned god" of the underworld. Enmity between the two is initiated by Veles' annual ascent up the world tree in the form of a huge serpent and his ultimate theft of Perun's divine cattle from the heavenly domain. Perun retaliates to this challenge of the divine order by pursuing Veles, attacking with his lightning bolts from the sky. Veles taunts Perun and flees, transforming himself into various animals and hiding behind trees, houses, even people. (Lightning bolts striking down trees or homes were explained as results of this.) In the end Perun overcomes and defeats Veles, returning him to his place in the realm of the dead. Thus the order of the world is maintained.


title: Wheel of the Year

text: The idea that storms and thunder are actually divine battle is pivotal to the changing of the seasons. Dry periods are identified as chaotic results of Veles' thievery. This duality and conflict represents an opposition of the natural principles of earth, water, substance, and chaos (Veles) and of heaven, fire, spirit, order (Perun), not a clash of good and evil. The cosmic battle between the two also echoes the ancient Indo-European narrative of a fight between the sky-borne storm god and chthonic dragon.


title: Wheel of the Year

text: On the "great night" (New Year), two children of Perun are born, Jarilo, god of fertility and vegetation and son of the Moon, and Morana, goddess of nature and death and daughter of the Sun. On the same night, the infant Jarilo is snatched and taken to the underworld, where Veles raises him as his own. At the time of the spring equinox, Jarilo returns across the sea from the world of the dead, bringing with him fertility and spring from the evergreen underworld into the realm of the living. He meets his sister Morana and courts her. With the beginning of summer, the two are married bringing fertility and abundance to Earth, ensuring a bountiful harvest. The union of Perun's kin and Veles' stepson brings peace between two great gods, staving off storms which could damage the harvest. After the harvest, however, Jarilo is unfaithful to his wife and she vengefully slays him, returning him to the underworld and renewing enmity between Perun and Veles. Without her husband, god of fertility and vegetation, Morana – and all of nature with her – withers and freezes in the ensuing winter. She grows into the old and dangerous goddess of darkness and frost, eventually dying by the year's end only to be reborn again with her brother in the new year.


title: Wheel of the Year

text: In Wicca, the narrative of the Wheel of the Year traditionally centers on the sacred marriage of the God and the Goddess and the god/goddess duality. In this cycle, the God is perpetually born from the Goddess at Yule, grows in power at the vernal equinox (as does the Goddess, now in her "maiden aspect"), courts and impregnates the Goddess at Beltane, reaches his peak at the summer solstice, wanes in power at Lammas, passes into the underworld at Samhain (taking with him the fertility of the Goddess/Earth, who is now in her "crone aspect") until he is once again born from Her mother/crone aspect at Yule. The Goddess, in turn, ages and rejuvenates endlessly with the seasons, being courted by and giving birth to the Horned God.


title: Wheel of the Year

text: Many Wiccan, Neo-Druid, and eclectic Neopagans incorporate a narrative of the Holly King and Oak King as rulers of the waning year and the waxing year respectively. These two figures battle endlessly with the turning of the seasons. At the summer solstice, the Holly King defeats the Oak King and commences his reign. After the Autumn equinox the Oak King slowly begins to regain his power as the sun begins to wane. Come the winter solstice the Oak King in turn vanquishes the Holly King.After the spring equinox the sun begins to wax again and the Holly King slowly regains his strength until he once again defeats the Oak King at the summer solstice. The two are ultimately seen as essential parts of a whole, light and dark aspects of the male God, and would not exist without each other.


title: Wheel of the Year

text: The Holly King is often portrayed as a woodsy figure, similar to the modern Santa Claus, dressed in red with sprigs of holly in his hair and the Oak King as a fertility god.


title: Peter Gallagher

text: Peter Killian Gallagher (born August 19, 1955) is an American actor. Since 1980, he has played roles in numerous Hollywood films. He is best known for starring as Sandy Cohen in the television drama series "The O.C." from 2003 to 2007, recurring roles such as Deputy Chief William Dodds on ", " Stacey Koons on the Showtime comedy-drama "Californication", Nick on the Netflix series "Grace & Frankie", and Chuck Cedar in "Mr. Deeds". He also played CIA Director of Clandestine Services (DCS) Arthur Campbell on "Covert Affairs".


title: Peter Gallagher

text: Gallagher was born in New York City. His mother, Mary Ann (née O'Shea), was a bacteriologist, and his father, Thomas Francis Gallagher, Jr., was an advertising executive. Gallagher is the youngest of their three children. He is of Irish Catholic background and was raised in Armonk, New York. Gallagher graduated from Tufts University, where he was active in theater, appearing in such shows as Stephen Sondheim's "Company" and singing with the all-male "a cappella" group the Beelzebubs. He studied acting at the William Esper Studio.


title: Peter Gallagher

text: Gallagher appeared on Broadway with Glenn Close in Tom Stoppard's "The Real Thing" and made his feature film debut in the Taylor Hackford film "The Idolmaker", but first achieved fame for his role in Steven Soderbergh's "sex, lies, and videotape" (1989). He also starred as Sky Masterson in the 1992 Broadway hit revival of "Guys and Dolls".


title: Peter Gallagher

text: Gallagher played a potential career threat to Tim Robbins's studio executive in "The Player" (1992); the comatose fiancé of Sandra Bullock in "While You Were Sleeping" (1995); a real estate salesman having an affair with Annette Bening in "American Beauty" (1999); a media executive in "Mr. Deeds" (2002); and a political reporter exposing media ethics during a presidential debate in "The Last Debate".


title: Peter Gallagher

text: From 2003 to 2007, Gallagher starred as Sandy Cohen, a Jewish public defender and corporate lawyer, on the Fox television show "The O.C.". He hosts an annual award ceremony named "The Sandy Cohen Awards" or "The Sandys", which, in honor of his character on "The O.C.", gives a scholarship to a law school student at UC Berkeley who wants to become a public defender.


title: Peter Gallagher

text: Gallagher released an album titled "7 Days in Memphis" in 2005, on the Sony BMG label. This includes a studio recording of his performance of "Don't Give Up On Me" (originally by Solomon Burke), which was featured in an episode of "The O.C." He also has a video for his single "Still I Long For Your Kiss", in which he starred with his TV-wife Kelly Rowan.


title: Peter Gallagher

text: In 2005, Gallagher received the P.T. Barnum Award from Tufts University for his exceptional work in the field of media and entertainment. In 2007, Gallagher received the "Light on the Hill" award at Tufts University. The award is given to notable alumni from Tufts who have demonstrated ambition, achievement, and active citizenship.


title: Peter Gallagher

text: From February 13 through July 5, 2015, Gallagher starred on Broadway in "On the Twentieth Century" although he missed several performances in late February due to illness.


title: Peter Gallagher

text: In 2020 Gallagher played Mitch Clarke, who had Progressive supranuclear palsy, in a regular role in the first season of "Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist". Though his character died in the season 1 finale, Gallagher appeared in several episodes of the second season and the Christmas special "Zoey's Extraordinary Christmas".


title: Peter Gallagher

text: From 2018 through 2022, Gallagher appeared in 4 seasons of the Netflix series "Grace and Frankie" as Nick, the husband of Jane Fonda's character Grace.


title: Peter Gallagher

text: Gallagher is married to Paula Harwood and has two children, James and Kathryn. His daughter Kathryn is an actress and singer.


title: Languages of Switzerland

text: The four national languages of Switzerland are German, French, Italian, and Romansh. German, French, and Italian maintain equal status as official languages at the national level within the Federal Administration of the Swiss Confederation, while Romansh is used in dealings with people who speak it. Latin is occasionally used in some formal contexts, particularly to denote the country ("Confederatio Helvetica)".


title: Languages of Switzerland

text: In 2020, 62.3% of the population of Switzerland were native speakers of German (either Swiss German or Standard German) at home; 22.8% French (mostly Swiss French, but including some Franco-Provençal dialects); 8% Italian (mostly Swiss Italian, but including Lombard); and 0.5% Romansh. The German region ("Deutschschweiz") is roughly in the east, north, and centre; the French part ("la Romandie") in the west; and the Italian area ("Svizzera italiana") in the south. There remains a small Romansh-speaking native population in Grisons in the east. The cantons of Fribourg, Bern, and Valais are officially bilingual; Grisons is officially trilingual.


title: Languages of Switzerland

text: In 2012, for the first time, respondents could indicate more than one language, causing the percentages to exceed 100%.


title: Languages of Switzerland

text: The German-speaking part of Switzerland (, , , ) constitutes about 65% of Switzerland (North Western Switzerland, Eastern Switzerland, Central Switzerland, most of the Swiss Plateau and the greater part of the Swiss Alps).


title: Languages of Switzerland

text: In seventeen of the Swiss cantons, German is the only official language (Aargau, Appenzell Ausserrhoden, Appenzell Innerrhoden, Basel-Stadt, Basel-Landschaft, Glarus, Luzern, Nidwalden, Obwalden, Schaffhausen, Schwyz, Solothurn, St. Gallen, Thurgau, Uri, Zug, and Zürich).


title: Languages of Switzerland

text: In the cantons of Bern, Fribourg and Valais, French is co-official; in the trilingual canton of Graubünden, more than half of the population speaks German, while the rest speak Romansh or Italian. In each case, all languages are official languages of the respective canton.


title: Languages of Switzerland

text: While the French-speaking Swiss prefer to call themselves "Romands" and their part of the country is the Romandy, the German-speaking Swiss used to (and, colloquially, still do) refer to the French-speaking Swiss as "Welsche", and to their area as "Welschland", which has the same etymology as the English (see "Walha"). In Germany, "Welsch" and "Welschland" refer to Italy; there, the term is antiquated, rarely used, and somewhat disparaging. Research shows that individuals with a French-sounding name in the German-speaking part suffer from social discrimination.


title: Languages of Switzerland

text: Nevertheless, in 2017, 11.1%, or about 920,600 of the Swiss residents speak Standard German ("Hochdeutsch") at home, but this statistic is probably mainly due to German (and Austrian) immigrants.


title: Languages of Switzerland

text: By the Middle Ages, a marked difference had developed within the German-speaking part of Switzerland between the rural cantons (Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden, Glarus, Zug, Appenzell, Schaffhausen) and the city cantons (Lucerne, Berne, Zurich, Solothurn, Fribourg, Basel, St. Gallen), divided by views about trade and commerce. After the Reformation, all cantons were either Catholic or Protestant, and the denominational influences on culture added to the differences. Even today, when all cantons are somewhat denominationally mixed, the different historical denominations can be seen in the mountain villages, where Roman Catholic Central Switzerland abounds with chapels and statues of saints, and the farmhouses in the very similar landscape of the Protestant Bernese Oberland show Bible verses carved on the housefronts instead.


title: Languages of Switzerland

text: In addition to this more widespread notion of Swiss German dialect, there is also Walser German, another Highest Alemannic speech brought by Walser emigrants from Valais.


title: Languages of Switzerland

text: Because the largest part of Switzerland is German-speaking, many French, Italian, and Romansh speakers migrate to the rest of Switzerland, and the children of those non-German-speaking Swiss-born within the rest of Switzerland speak German.


title: Languages of Switzerland

text: Romandy (, , ) is the French-speaking part of Switzerland. It covers the area of the cantons of Geneva, Vaud, Neuchâtel, and Jura as well as the French-speaking parts of the cantons of Bern (German-speaking majority), Valais (French-speaking majority), and Fribourg (French-speaking majority). 1.9 million people (or 24.4% of the Swiss population) live in Romandy.


title: Languages of Switzerland

text: Standard Swiss French and the French of France are highly mutually intelligible, though some differences exist. For example, like most Francophone Belgians, speakers of Swiss French use "septante" (seventy) instead of "soixante-dix" (literally, "sixty ten") and "nonante" (ninety) instead of "quatre-vingt-dix" ("four twenty ten"). In the cantons of Vaud, Valais and Fribourg, speakers use "huitante" (eighty) instead of "quatre-vingts" (four twenties) used in the rest of the French-speaking world; the cantons of Geneva, Bern and Jura use "quatre-vingts". "Sou" is used throughout Romandy for a 5-centime coin, as is "tune" (or "thune") when referring to a 5-Swiss-franc piece.


title: Languages of Switzerland

text: Historically, the vernacular language used by inhabitants of most parts of Romandy was Franco-Provençal. Franco-Provençal (also called Arpitan) is a language sometimes considered to be halfway between the langue d'oïl (the historical language of northern France and ancestor of French) and Occitan (the langue d'oc, spoken in southern France). Standard French and Franco-Provençal/Arpitan, linguistically, are distinct and mutual intelligibility is limited. Increasingly, Franco-Provençal/Arpitan is used only by members of the older generations. In parts of Jura Franc-Comtois dialects are also spoken; these belong to the same Oïl bloc as Standard French.


title: Languages of Switzerland

text: The term "Romandy" does not formally exist in the political system, but is used to distinguish and unify the French-speaking population of Switzerland. The television channel Télévision Suisse Romande (TSR) serves the "Romande" community across Switzerland and worldwide through TV5Monde.


title: Languages of Switzerland

text: Italian Switzerland (, , , ) is the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland, which includes the canton of Ticino and the southern part of Grisons. Italian is also spoken in the Gondo Valley (leading to the Simplon Pass, on the southern part of the watershed) in Valais. The traditional vernacular of this region is the Lombard language, specifically its Ticinese dialect.


title: Languages of Switzerland

text: The linguistic region covers an area of about 3,500 km and has a total population of around 350,000, with the number of Italophones residing in Switzerland being 545,274 (about 7% of the Swiss population).


title: Languages of Switzerland

text: The proportion of Italian-speaking inhabitants had been decreasing since the 1970s, after reaching a high of 12% of the population during the same decade. This was entirely because of the reduced number of immigrants from Italy to Switzerland. However it has increased again during the last decade.


title: Languages of Switzerland

text: Romansh is an official language in the trilingual Canton of Grisons, where the municipalities in turn are free to specify their own official languages.


title: Languages of Switzerland

text: Romansh has been recognized as one of four "national languages" by the Swiss Federal Constitution since 1938. It was also declared an "official language" of the Confederation in 1996, meaning that Romansh speakers may use their language for correspondence with the federal government and expect to receive a Romansh response. Although Romansh is split into several dialects, the federal and cantonal authorities use the standardized version ("Romansh Grischun") exclusively.


title: Languages of Switzerland

text: Romansh speakers remain predominant in the Surselva, the Albula Region, and the Engiadina Bassa/Val Müstair Region.


title: Languages of Switzerland

text: Besides the national languages and the many varieties of Swiss German, several regional Romance languages are spoken natively in Switzerland: Franco-Provençal and Lombard.


title: Languages of Switzerland

text: While learning one of the other national languages at school is important, many Swiss nowadays find it easier to use English as a lingua franca even with other Swiss people of different linguistic backgrounds.


title: Languages of Switzerland

text: To avoid having to translate the name of Switzerland into the four national languages, Latin is used on the coins of the Swiss franc ("Helvetia" or "Confoederatio Helvetica") and on Swiss stamps ("Helvetia"). The country code top-level domain for Switzerland on the internet is .ch, the abbreviation of the Latin name, "Confoederatio Helvetica" (Swiss Confederation); similarly, the International vehicle registration code for Swiss automobiles is "CH". The Federal Palace of Switzerland bears the inscription "".


title: Languages of Switzerland

text: To have a unique name across the country (without favoring German, French or any other language), several Swiss foundations and associations have Latin names, such as Pro Helvetia, Pro Infirmis, Pro Juventute, Pro Natura, Pro Patria, Pro Senectute, Pro Specie Rara, etc.


title: Suzuki

text: Suzuki has over 45,000 employees and has 35 production facilities in 23 countries, and 133 distributors in 192 countries. The worldwide sales volume of automobiles is the world's tenth largest, while domestic sales volume is the third largest in the country.


title: Suzuki

text: In 1909, Michio Suzuki (1887–1982) founded the Suzuki Loom Works in the small seacoast village of Hamamatsu, Japan. Business boomed as Suzuki built weaving looms for Japan's giant silk industry. In 1929, Michio Suzuki invented a new type of weaving machine, which was exported overseas. The company's first 30 years focused on the development and production of these machines.


title: Suzuki

text: Despite the success of his looms, Suzuki believed that his company would benefit from diversification and he began to look at other products. Based on consumer demand, he decided that building a small car would be the most practical new venture. The project began in 1937, and within two years Suzuki had completed several compact prototype cars. These first Suzuki motor vehicles were powered by a then-innovative, liquid-cooled, four-stroke, four-cylinder engine. It had a cast aluminum crankcase and gearbox and generated from a displacement of less than 800cc.


title: Suzuki

text: With the onset of World War II, production plans for Suzuki's new vehicles were halted when the government declared civilian passenger cars a "non-essential commodity." At the conclusion of the war, Suzuki went back to producing looms. Loom production was given a boost when the U.S. government approved the shipping of cotton to Japan. Suzuki's fortunes brightened as orders began to increase from domestic textile manufacturers. But the joy was short-lived as the cotton market collapsed in 1951.


title: Suzuki

text: Faced with this colossal challenge, Suzuki returned to the production of motor vehicles. After the war, the Japanese had a great need for affordable, reliable personal transportation. A number of firms began offering "clip-on" gas-powered engines that could be attached to the typical bicycle. Suzuki's first two-wheeled vehicle was a bicycle fitted with a motor called, the "Power Free." Designed to be inexpensive and simple to build and maintain, the 1952 Power Free had a 36 cc, one horsepower, two-stroke engine. The new double-sprocket gear system enabled the rider to either pedal with the engine assisting, pedal without engine assist, or simply disconnect the pedals and run on engine power alone. The patent office of the new democratic government granted Suzuki a financial subsidy to continue research in motorcycle engineering.


title: Suzuki

text: By 1954, Suzuki was producing 6,000 motorcycles per month and his company had officially changed its name to Suzuki Motor Co., Ltd. Following the success of his first motorcycles, Suzuki created an even more successful automobile: the 1955 Suzuki Suzulight. The Suzulight sold with front-wheel drive, four-wheel independent suspension and rack-and-pinion steering, which were not common on cars until three decades later.


title: Suzuki

text: Volkswagen held a 19.9% non-controlling shareholding in Suzuki between 2009 and 2015. This situation did not last, as Suzuki accused Volkswagen of not sharing promised technology while Volkswagen objected to a deal where Suzuki purchased diesel engines from Fiat. An international arbitration court ordered Volkswagen to sell the stake back to Suzuki. Suzuki paid $3.8bn to complete the stock buy-back in September 2015.


title: Suzuki

text: The company was founded by Michio Suzuki; its current Chairman is Osamu Suzuki, the fourth adopted son-in-law in a row to run the company, Osamu Suzuki, the 91 year old Chairman of Suzuki Motor Corporation, will retire in June 2021, handing over to his son Toshihiro.


title: Suzuki

text: The Suzuki Loom Company started in 1909 as a manufacturer of looms for weaving silk and cotton. Michio Suzuki was intent on making better, more user-friendly looms and, for 30 years his focus was on the development of these machines. Michio's desire to diversify into automotive products was interrupted by World War II. Before it began building four-stroke engines, Suzuki Motor Corp. was known for its two-stroke engines (for motorcycles and autos). After the war, Suzuki made a two-stroke motorized bicycle, but eventually the company would be known for Hayabusa and GSX-R motorcycles, for the QuadRunner, and for dominating racetracks around the world. Even after producing its first car in 1955 the company didn't have an automobile division until 1961. Today Suzuki is among the world's largest automakers, and a major brand name in important markets, including Japan and India, but no longer sells cars in North America.


title: Suzuki

text: Based in Gurgaon, Haryana, Maruti Suzuki India Limited is an Indian automobile manufacturer that is a subsidiary of Japanese automaker Suzuki Motor Corporation. Maruti Suzuki produced 1,133,695 units between 1 April 2011 and 30 March 2012. The Suzuki Motor Corporation owns 54.2% of Maruti Suzuki and the rest is owned by various Indian public and financial institutions. The company was incorporated in 1981 and is listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange and National Stock Exchange of India.


title: Suzuki

text: Maruti Suzuki was born as a Government of India-led company named Maruti Udyog Limited, with Suzuki as a minor partner, to make lower priced cars for middle class Indians. Over the years, the product range has widened and ownership has changed hands as the customer has evolved.


title: Suzuki

text: Maruti Suzuki offers models ranging from the Maruti 800 to the premium sedan Maruti Suzuki Kizashi and luxury SUV Maruti Suzuki Grand Vitara. Maruti 800 was the first model launched by the company in 1983 followed by mini-van Maruti Omni in 1984. Maruti Gypsy, launched in 1985, came into widespread use with the Indian Army and Indian Police Service becoming its primary customers. The short-lived Maruti 1000 was replaced by Maruti Esteem in 1994.


title: Suzuki

text: Maruti Zen, launched in 1993, was the company's second compact car model. The company went on to launch another compact car Maruti Wagon-R followed by Maruti Baleno in 1999. It was later replaced by the Suzuki SX4. The SX4 further was replaced by Ciaz.


title: Suzuki

text: In 2000, Maruti Alto was launched. The Maruti models include Maruti Suzuki Grand Vitara, launched in 2003, Maruti Versa, launched in 2004, Maruti Suzuki Swift, launched in 2005, Maruti Zen Estilo and Maruti Suzuki SX4, launched in 2007.


title: Suzuki

text: On 14 February 2011, Maruti announced that it had achieved one million total accumulated production volume of the Alto. The Alto has reached the million units mark in just seven years and five months since its launch in September 2000. The last half of the million was achieved in 25 months. The Alto became the third car by Maruti Suzuki stable to cross the million units mark, following the Maruti 800 and the Omni.


title: Suzuki

text: In January 2012 at the New Delhi Auto Expo, Maruti presented a new car called the Maruti Suzuki XA Alpha, to commence production in mid-late 2013. Maruti Suzuki unveiled the Vitara Brezza in the Indian Auto Expo 2016 as a contender in the subcompact SUV segment.


title: Suzuki

text: Maruti Exports Limited is Maruti's exporting subsidiary and, as such, does not operate in the domestic Indian market except in its capacity as an exporter for Maruti Suzuki and for the international Suzuki Motor Corporation as well as their other affiliates. The first commercial consignment of 480 cars were sent to Hungary. By sending a consignment of 571 cars to the same country, Maruti crossed the benchmark of 3,000,000 cars. Since its inception export was one of the aspects the government has been keen to encourage.


title: Suzuki

text: American Suzuki headquarters is in Brea, California. The company announced in November 2012 that it would stop selling cars in the United States.


title: Suzuki

text: Through an agreement with General Motors, Suzuki began selling a version of their Suzuki Cultus in the United States as the Chevrolet Sprint in 1985. This model was initially sold as a 3-door hatchback and would be Chevrolet's smallest model.


title: Suzuki

text: The Samurai was also introduced in 1985 for the 1986 model year and was the first car introduced to the United States by the newly created American Suzuki Corp. No other Japanese company sold more cars in the United States in its first year than Suzuki. The Samurai was available as a convertible or hardtop and the company slogan was "Never a Dull Moment". The Samurai was successful until Consumer Reports alleged the Samurai of being susceptible to roll over in a 1988 test. This led to a much publicized 1996 lawsuit, not settled until 2004.


title: Suzuki

text: In 1989, American Suzuki introduced the Swift which was the 2nd generation Suzuki Cultus. The Swift was available as a GTi and GLX hatchback with a 4-door sedan following in 1990. A new small SUV called the Sidekick was also introduced in 1989. 1991 saw the introduction of the 4-door Suzuki Sidekick, the first 4-door mini-SUV in North America. The Swift and Sidekick were cousins to GM's Geo Metro and Geo Tracker and were mostly produced in Ingersoll, Ontario, Canada by Suzuki and GM's joint venture, CAMI. The Swift GT/GTi and 4-door models were imported from Japan. Negative evaluations from Consumer Reports of the Suzuki Samurai led to some temporary setbacks at American Suzuki as annual sales in the following years dropped to below 20,000 units.


title: Suzuki

text: In 1995, American Suzuki introduced the Esteem and redesigned the Swift. The Swift GT was dropped and this version Swift was specific only to North America where it was built at CAMI. These models were the first Suzuki vehicles to be marketed in North America with dual front airbags. A station wagon version of the Esteem was introduced in 1996. Worldwide Suzuki production reached more than 975,000 cars this year.


title: Suzuki

text: Also in 1996, American Suzuki released the 2-door SUV X-90 and a revised Sidekick Sport model with dual airbags, a 1.6 liter engine, 15 inch wheels. The Sidekick was replaced by the Vitara and the Grand Vitara for 1999. The Grand Vitara would be Suzuki's first model with a V6-cylinder engine and available 4-wheel ABS brakes.


title: Suzuki

text: The XL-7 was introduced in 1998 as a stretched version of the Grand Vitara. The XL-7 had a larger 2.7 liter V6-cylinder engine and 3-row seating. This would be Suzuki's largest vehicle to date.


title: Suzuki

text: The Swift was dropped from the model lineup in 2001 and the Esteem was replaced in 2002 by the new Aerio, which was offered as a 4-door sedan and 5-door crossover with 4-wheel drive as an option.


title: Suzuki

text: In 2004, General Motors and Suzuki jointly purchased the bankrupt Daewoo Motors renaming the venture GMDAT. American Suzuki rebadged the compact Daewoo Nubira/Daewoo Lacetti as the Forenza and the mid-size Daewoo Magnus as the Verona. The Forenza gained station wagon and hatchback body style in 2005, with the hatchback sold under the Reno name.


title: Suzuki

text: 2006 was the first year American Suzuki sold more than 100,000 vehicles in the United States. Suzuki redesigned the Grand Vitara in 2006 as well as introduced the all-new SX4 and XL7 in 2007. The Suzuki SX4 is produced as a joint venture with Fiat and the XL7 (notice the shortening of the name from Grand Vitara XL-7) was produced as a joint venture with GM at CAMI Automotive Inc. in Ingersoll. Suzuki put XL7 production on indefinite hiatus in mid-2009 due to low demand and subsequently sold off its share of CAMI back to GM later that year.


title: Suzuki

text: Despite a difficult domestic US automarket, Suzuki kept pace with its 2007 sales numbers in 2008. In 2009 however, Suzuki sales dropped 48.5%, following a 17% sales drop in 2008. Suzuki did not import any 2010 model year street motorcycles into the US, with dealers instead relying on unsold stock from the 2009 model year. New street motorcycle models to the US resumed for the 2011 model year.


title: Suzuki

text: In November 2012, Suzuki announced that its US division would file for bankruptcy and would stop selling automobiles in the United States. It plans to continue to sell motorcycles, ATVs, and marine products in the US. In ten months of 2012, Suzuki only sold 21,188 automobiles in the US. The combination of a strong yen and Suzuki's own limited offering of models has been blamed for the downturn.


title: Suzuki

text: Following the terms of the joint-venture agreement between Suzuki Motor Corporation of Japan (SMC) and Pakistan Automobile Corporation (PACO), Pak Suzuki Motor Company Limited (PSMCL) was incorporated as a public limited company in August 1983.


title: Suzuki

text: The new company assumed the assets including production facilities of Awami Autos Limited. PSMCL started commercial operations in January 1984 with the primary objective of passenger cars, pick ups, vans and 4x4 vehicles.


title: Suzuki

text: The groundbreaking ceremony of the company's green field automobile plant at Bin Qasim was performed by the then Prime Minister of Pakistan in early 1989.


title: Suzuki

text: On completion of first phase of this plant in early 1990, in-house assembly Suzuki engines started. The new plant was completed in 1992, and Suzuki production was transferred to new plant – and three-box 1,300 cc Margalla car was also added to its range of production.


title: Suzuki

text: In September 1992 the company was privatized and placed directly under the Japanese Management. At the time of privatization SMC increased its equity from 25% to 40% Subsequently, SMC progressively increased its equity to 73.09% by 31 December 2001.


title: Suzuki

text: The Bin Qasim Plant further expanded its production capacity to 50,000 vehicles per year in July 1994 and 300,000 vehicles had been manufactured at this plant by December 2003.


title: Suzuki

text: In 2013, Suzuki Canada announced that it would follow the US division and stop selling automobiles in Canada after the 2014 model year. Suzuki Canada will continue to provide parts and services to vehicles through dealer network, as well as selling motorcycles, ATV and outboard motors.


title: Suzuki

text: "Suzuki GB PLC" are the manufacturer's agent and distributor of automobiles, motorcycles, ATV's and Marine engines in the United Kingdom with a head office based in Milton Keynes. A wholly owned subsidiary of the "Suzuki Motor Corporation" operates as "Suzuki Cars (Ireland) Limited" in Ireland.


title: Suzuki

text: "PT Suzuki Indomobil Motor" (formerly "PT Indomobil Suzuki International" until December 2008) is a joint venture between Suzuki Motor Corporation and the Indomobil Group. The company is located in Jakarta, Indonesia and specialized in manufacturing Suzuki vehicles for the local market. A separate company, "PT Suzuki Indomobil Sales (SIS)", previously "PT Indomobil Niaga International", handled sales and marketing of Suzuki automobiles and motorcycles.


title: Suzuki

text: Suzuki has done its first activities on the Indonesian market in 1970 about its import firm PT. Indohero Steel & Engineering Company. Six years later they were built the manufacturing facility in Jakarta which is the oldest part of the Indomobil Group.


title: Suzuki

text: Their first product was the ST20 Carry (introduced in 1978), it saw extensive use as an Angkot. Nicknamed "Trungtung", it was built until at least 1983. This is an onomatopoetic word for the sound made by the Carry's two-stroke engine.


title: Suzuki

text: In 2011, the company invested $800 million for producing Low Cost Green Car (LCGC) in Indonesia. In 2013, Suzuki opened another plant in Cikarang with a total investment of $1 billion. The plant manufactured Ertiga MPV for both domestic and export markets and K10B engine for Karimun Wagon R.


title: Suzuki

text: "Suzuki Motorcycle India, Private Limited (SMIL)" is the wholly owned Indian subsidiary of Suzuki, Japan. The company has a manufacturing plant at Gurgaon, Haryana having the annual capacity of 5,40,000 units.


title: Suzuki

text: Suzuki started manufacturing motorcycles in 1952, the first models being motorized bicycles. From 1955 to 1976 the company manufactured motorcycles with two-stroke engines only, the biggest two-stroke model being the water-cooled triple-cylinder G2F5.


title: Suzuki

text: A large factor in Suzuki's success in two-stroke competition was the East German Grand Prix racer Ernst Degner, who defected to the West in 1961, bringing with him expertise in two-stroke engines from the East German manufacturer MZ. The secrets Degner brought with him were three crucial technologies: the boost port, the expansion chamber, and the rotary valve. Walter Kaaden of MZ was the first engineer to combine these three crucial technologies.


title: Suzuki

text: Suzuki hired Degner, and he won the 50 cc class FIM road racing World Championship for them in the 1962 season. Suzuki became the first Japanese manufacturer to win a motocross world championship when Joel Robert won the 1970 250 cc title. In the 1970s, Suzuki established themselves in the motorcycle racing world with Barry Sheene Marco Lucchinelli1981 Franco Uncini1982 winning world championships in the premier 500cc class.


title: Suzuki

text: In 1976 Suzuki introduced its first motorcycles since the Colleda COX of the 1950s with four-stroke engines, the GS400 and GS750.


title: Suzuki

text: In 1994, Suzuki partnered with Nanjing Jincheng Machinery to create a Chinese motorcycle manufacturer and exporter called Jincheng Suzuki.


title: Suzuki

text: Suzuki continued to compete in MotoGP and last won the title in the 2000 season. From 2006 to 2011, the team was sponsored by Rizla and was known as Rizla Suzuki MotoGP team. On 18 November 2011, Suzuki announced that the GP racing was suspended, partly due to natural disasters and recession, until 2014. Suzuki returned to MotoGP in 2015.


title: Suzuki

text: The next few years in MotoGP were rather experimental for Suzuki, with some spotty success; but in 2020, on Suzuki's 100th anniversary, Spanish rider Joan Mir surprised the world by cinching the 2020 MotoGP World Championship, Suzuki's first GP conquest since Kenny Roberts Jr's World Championship win in 2000.


title: Suzuki

text: In addition Suzuki have recorded a total of 94 victories at the Isle of Man TT Races. Suzuki have also taken the runner up spot in the various race categories 100 times and a total 92 third places.


title: Suzuki

text: They were the title sponsor of the 2008 to 2020 edition of the ASEAN Football Championship (as the AFF Suzuki Cup), English League Two club Milton Keynes Dons, Italian Serie A club Torino and Polish Ekstraklasa club Korona Kielce.


title: Hanlon's razor

text: Hanlon's razor is an adage or rule of thumb that states "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." Known in several other forms, it is a philosophical razor that suggests a way of eliminating unlikely explanations for human behavior. It is probably named after Robert J. Hanlon, who submitted the statement to "Murphy's Law Book Two" (1980). Similar statements have been recorded since at least the 18th century.


title: Hanlon's razor

text: A similar quotation appears in Robert A. Heinlein's novella "Logic of Empire" (1941). The character "Doc" in Heinlein's story described the "devil theory" fallacy, explaining, "You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity."


title: Hanlon's razor

text: The quotation as such was a submission credited in print to Robert J. Hanlon of Scranton, Pennsylvania, for a compilation of various jokes related to Murphy's law that were published in Arthur Bloch's "Murphy's Law Book Two: More Reasons Why Things Go Wrong!" (1980). It is unknown whether Hanlon knew of Heinlein's story or whether he independently constructed the phrase.


title: Hanlon's razor

text: Hanlon's razor became well-known after its inclusion in the "Jargon File", a glossary of computer programmer slang, since 1990.


title: Hanlon's razor

text: Later that same year, the "Jargon File" editors noted lack of knowledge about the term's derivation and the existence of a similar epigram by William James. In 1996, the "Jargon File" entry on Hanlon's Razor noted the existence of


title: Hanlon's razor

text: the phrase in Heinlein's novella, with speculation that Hanlon's Razor might be a corruption of "Heinlein's Razor". The link to Murphy's law was described in a pair of 2001 blog entries by Quentin Stafford-Fraser, citing emails from Joseph E. Bigler. Subsequently, in 2002, the "Jargon File" entry noted the same.


title: Hanlon's razor

text: Earlier attributions to the idea go back to at least the 18th century. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote in the first entry of his influential epistolary novel "The Sorrows of Young Werther" (1774, first English translation 1779): "[...] " ('[...] misunderstandings and lethargy perhaps produce more wrong in the world than deceit and malice do. At least the latter two are certainly rarer.') A similar quote is also misattributed to Napoleon. Andrew Roberts, in , quotes from Churchill's correspondence with King George VI in February 1943 regarding disagreements with Charles De Gaulle: His 'insolence ... may be founded on stupidity rather than malice.


title: Harpoon (missile)

text: manufactured by McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing Defense, Space & Security). The AGM-84E Standoff Land Attack Missile (SLAM) and later AGM-84H/K SLAM-ER (Standoff Land Attack Missile – Expanded Response) are cruise missile variants.


title: Harpoon (missile)

text: The regular Harpoon uses active radar homing and flies just above the water to evade defenses. The missile can be launched from:


title: Harpoon (missile)

text: In 1965, the United States Navy began studies for a missile in the range class for use against surfaced submarines. The name Harpoon was assigned to the project. The sinking of the Israeli destroyer in 1967 by a Soviet-built Styx anti-ship missile shocked senior United States Navy officers, who until then had not been appreciative of the threat posed by anti-ship missiles. In 1970 Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Elmo Zumwalt accelerated the development of Harpoon as part of his "Project Sixty" initiative, hoping to add much-needed striking power to U.S. surface warships such as the .


title: Harpoon (missile)

text: The Harpoon has also been adapted for carriage on several aircraft, including the P-3 Orion, the P-8 Poseidon, the AV-8B Harrier II, the F/A-18 Hornet and the U.S. Air Force B-52H bombers. The Harpoon was purchased by many nations, including India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, the United Arab Emirates and most NATO countries.


title: Harpoon (missile)

text: The Royal Australian Air Force can fire AGM-84-series missiles from its F/A-18F Super Hornets. AP-3C Orion, and P-8 Poseidon aircraft, and previously from the now retired F-111C/Gs and F/A-18A/B Hornets. The Royal Australian Navy deploys the Harpoon on major surface combatants and in the s. The Spanish Air Force and the Chilean Navy are also AGM-84D customers, and they deploy the missiles on surface ships, and F/A-18s, F-16s, and P-3 Orion aircraft. The British Royal Navy deploys the Harpoon on several types of surface ships.


title: Harpoon (missile)

text: The Royal Canadian Navy carries Harpoon Block II missiles on its s. The Royal New Zealand Air Force is looking at adding the capability of carrying a stand-off missile, probably Harpoon or AGM-65 Maverick, on its six P-3 Orion patrol planes once they have all been upgraded to P3K2 standard.