title: Jewish Autonomous Oblast

text: Eventually, Birobidzhan, in what is now the JAO, was chosen by the Soviet leadership as the site for the Jewish region. The choice of this area was a surprise to Komzet; the area had been chosen for military and economic reasons. This area was often infiltrated by China, while Japan also wanted Russia to lose the provinces of the Soviet Far East. At the time, there were only about 30,000 inhabitants in the area, mostly descendants of Trans-Baikal Cossacks resettled there by tsarist authorities, Koreans, Kazakhs, and the Tungusic peoples. The Soviet government wanted to increase settlement in the remote Soviet Far East, especially along the vulnerable border with China. General Pavel Sudoplatov writes about the government's rationale behind picking the area in the Far East: "The establishment of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast in Birobidzhan in 1928 was ordered by Stalin only as an effort to strengthen the Far Eastern border region with an outpost, not as a favour to the Jews. The area was constantly penetrated by Chinese and White Russian resistance groups, and the idea was to shield the territory by establishing a settlement whose inhabitants would be hostile to white Russian émigrés, especially the Cossacks. The status of this region was defined shrewdly as an autonomous district, not an autonomous republic, which meant that no local legislature, high court, or government post of ministerial rank was permitted. It was an autonomous area, but a bare frontier, not a political center."


title: Jewish Autonomous Oblast

text: On 28 March 1928, the Presidium of the General Executive Committee of the USSR passed the decree "On the attaching for Komzet of free territory near the Amur River in the Far East for settlement of the working Jews." The decree meant "a possibility of establishment of a Jewish administrative territorial unit on the territory of said region".


title: Jewish Autonomous Oblast

text: Birobidzhan had a harsh geography and climate: it was mountainous, covered with virgin forests of oak, pine and cedar, and also swamplands, and any new settlers would have to build their lives from scratch. To make colonization more enticing, the Soviet government allowed private land ownership. This led to many non-Jews settling in the oblast to get a free farm.


title: Jewish Autonomous Oblast

text: In the spring of 1928, 654 Jews arrived to settle in the area; however, by October 1928, 49.7% of them had left because of the severe conditions. In the summer of 1928, there were torrential rains that flooded the crops and an outbreak of anthrax that killed the cattle.


title: Jewish Autonomous Oblast

text: On 7 May 1934, the Presidium of the General Executive Committee accepted the decree on its transformation into the Jewish Autonomous Region within the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. In 1938, with the formation of the Khabarovsk Territory, the Jewish Autonomous Region (JAR) was included in its structure.


title: Jewish Autonomous Oblast

text: In the 1930s, a Soviet promotional campaign was created to entice more Jewish settlers to move there. The campaign partly incorporated the standard Soviet promotional tools of the era, including posters and Yiddish-language novels describing a socialist utopia there. In one instance, leaflets promoting Birobidzhan were dropped from an airplane over a Jewish neighborhood in Belarus. In another instance, a government-produced Yiddish film called "Seekers of Happiness" told the story of a Jewish family from the United States making a new life for itself in Birobidzhan.


title: Jewish Autonomous Oblast

text: Early Jewish settlements included Valdgeym, dating from 1928, which included the first collective farm established in the oblast, Amurzet, which was the center of Jewish settlement south of Birobidzhan from 1929 to 1939, and Smidovich.


title: Jewish Autonomous Oblast

text: The Organization for Jewish Colonisation in the Soviet Union, a Jewish Communist organization in North America, successfully encouraged the immigration of some US residents, such as the family of the future spy George Koval, which arrived in 1932. Some 1,200 non-Soviet Jews chose to settle in Birobidzhan.


title: Jewish Autonomous Oblast

text: As the Jewish population grew, so did the impact of Yiddish culture on the region. The settlers established a Yiddish newspaper, the "Birobidzhaner Shtern"; a theatre troupe was created; and streets being built in the new city were named after prominent Yiddish authors such as Sholom Aleichem and I. L. Peretz.


title: Jewish Autonomous Oblast

text: The Jewish population of JAO reached a pre-war peak of 20,000 in 1937. According to the 1939 population census, 17,695 Jews lived in the region (16% of the total population).


title: Jewish Autonomous Oblast

text: After the war ended in 1945, there was renewed interest in the idea of Birobidzhan as a potential home for Jewish refugees. The Jewish population in the region peaked at around 46,000–50,000 Jews in 1948, around 25% of the entire population of the JAO.


title: Jewish Autonomous Oblast

text: The census of 1959 found that the Jewish population of the JAO had declined by approximately 50%, down to 14,269 persons.


title: Jewish Autonomous Oblast

text: A synagogue was opened at the end of World War II, but it closed in the mid-1960s after a fire left it severely damaged.


title: Jewish Autonomous Oblast

text: In 1987, the Soviet government led by Mikhail Gorbachev pardoned many political prisoners and told the American Jewish community that it would allow the emigration of 11,000 refuseniks. According to the 1989 Soviet Census, there were 8,887 Jews living in the JAO, or 4% of the total JAO population of 214,085.


title: Jewish Autonomous Oblast

text: In 1991, after the breakup of the Soviet Union, the Jewish Autonomous Oblast became the federal subject of Russia and thus was not anymore subordinated to Khabarovsk Krai. However, by that time, most of the Jews had emigrated from the Soviet Union and the remaining Jews constituted fewer than 2% of the local population. In early 1996, 872 people, or 20% of the Jewish population at that time, emigrated to Tel Aviv via chartered flights. As of 2002, 2,357 Jews were living in the JAO. A 2004 article stated that the number of Jews in the region "was now growing". As of 2005, Amurzet had a small active Jewish community. An April 2007 article in "The Jerusalem Post" claimed that the Jewish population had grown to about 4,000. The article cited Mordechai Scheiner, the Chief Rabbi of the JAO from 2002 to 2011, who said that, at the time the article was published, Jewish culture was enjoying a religious and cultural resurgence. By 2010, according to data provided by the Russian Census Bureau, there were only approximately 1,600 people of Jewish descent remaining in the JAO (1% of the total population), while ethnic Russians made up 93% of the JAO population.


title: Jewish Autonomous Oblast

text: According to an article published in 2000, Birobidzhan has several state-run schools that teach Yiddish, a Yiddish school for religious instruction and a kindergarten. The five- to seven-year-olds spend two lessons a week learning to speak Yiddish, as well as being taught Jewish songs, dance, and traditions. A 2006 article in "The Washington Times" stated that Yiddish is taught in the schools, a Yiddish radio station is in operation, and the "Birobidzhaner Shtern" newspaper includes a section in Yiddish.


title: Jewish Autonomous Oblast

text: In 2002, "L'Chayim, Comrade Stalin!", a documentary on Stalin's creation of the Jewish Autonomous Region and its settlement, was released by The Cinema Guild. In addition to being a history of the creation of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, the film features scenes of contemporary Birobidzhan and interviews with Jewish residents.


title: Jewish Autonomous Oblast

text: According to an article published in 2010, Yiddish is the language of instruction in only one of Birobidzhan's 14 public schools. Two schools, representing a quarter of the city's students, offer compulsory Yiddish classes for children aged 6 to 10.


title: Jewish Autonomous Oblast

text: As of 2012, the "Birobidzhaner Shtern" continues to publish 2 or 3 pages per week in Yiddish and one local elementary school still teaches Yiddish.


title: Jewish Autonomous Oblast

text: According to a 2012 article, "only a very small minority, mostly seniors, speak Yiddish", a new Chabad-sponsored synagogue opened at 14a Sholom-Aleichem Street, and Sholem Aleichem Amur State University offers a Yiddish course.


title: Jewish Autonomous Oblast

text: According to a 2015 article, kosher meat arrives by train from Moscow every few weeks, a Sunday school functions, and there is also a minyan on Friday night and Shabbat.


title: Jewish Autonomous Oblast

text: A November 2017 article in "The Guardian", titled, "Revival of a Soviet Zion: Birobidzhan celebrates its Jewish heritage", examined the current status of the city and suggested that, even though the Jewish Autonomous Region in Russia's far east is now barely 1% Jewish, officials hope to woo back people who left after Soviet collapse.


title: Jewish Autonomous Oblast

text: In 2013, there were proposals to merge the JAO with Khabarovsk Krai or with Amur Oblast. The proposals led to protests, and were rejected by residents, as well as the Jewish community of Russia. There were also questions as to whether a merger would be allowed pursuant to the Constitution of Russia and whether a merger would require a national referendum.


title: Jewish Autonomous Oblast

text: The northern and western section of the oblast is mountainous, with the Lesser Khingan and the Bureya Range, among others. At Mount Studencheskaya, located in the Bureya Range, is the highest point of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast. The southern and eastern section is part of the Amur valley, with only a few small residual ridges.


title: Jewish Autonomous Oblast

text: The territory has a monsoonal/anticyclonic climate, with warm, wet, humid summers due to the influence of the East Asian monsoon, and cold, dry, windy conditions prevailing in the winter months courtesy of the Siberian high-pressure system.


title: Jewish Autonomous Oblast

text: The Jewish Autonomous Oblast is divided into five districts, including Birobidzhan, a town which has district status; the oblast has one other town and a further 11 urban-type settlements.


title: Jewish Autonomous Oblast

text: The Jewish Autonomous Oblast is part of the Far Eastern Economic Region; it has well-developed industry and agriculture and a dense transportation network. Its status as a free economic zone increases the opportunities for economic development. The oblast's rich mineral and building and finishing material resources are in great demand on the Russian market. Nonferrous metallurgy, engineering, metalworking, and the building material, forest, woodworking, light, and food industries are the most highly developed industrial sectors.


title: Jewish Autonomous Oblast

text: Agriculture is the Jewish Autonomous Oblast's main economic sector owing to fertile soils and a moist climate.


title: Jewish Autonomous Oblast

text: The largest companies in the region include Kimkano - Sutarsky Mining and Processing Plant (with revenues of $ million in 2017), Teploozersky Cement Plant ($ million) and Brider Trading House ($ million).


title: Jewish Autonomous Oblast

text: The region's well-developed transportation network consists of of railways, including the Trans-Siberian Railway; of waterways along the Amur and Tunguska rivers; and of roads, including of paved roads. The most important road is the Khabarovsk-Birobidzhan-Obluchye-A.


title: Jewish Autonomous Oblast

text: mur Region highway with ferry service across the Amur. The Birobidzhan Yuzhniy Airfield, in the center of the region, connects Birobidzhan with Khabarovsk and outlying district centers.


title: Jewish Autonomous Oblast

text: The Tongjiang-Nizhneleninskoye railway bridge is a long, $355 million bridge that will link Nizhneleninskoye in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast with Tongjiang in the Heilongjiang Province of China. The bridge opened in 2021 and is expected to transport more than of cargo and 1.5 million passengers per year.


title: Jewish Autonomous Oblast

text: The population of JAO has declined by almost 20% since 1989, with the numbers recorded being and The 2010 Census reported the largest group to be the 160,185 ethnic Russians (93%), followed by 4,871 ethnic Ukrainians (3%), and 1,628 ethnic Jews (1%). Additionally, 3,832 people were registered from administrative databases, and could not declare an ethnicity. It is estimated that the proportion of ethnicities in this group is the same as that of the declared group.


title: Jewish Autonomous Oblast

text: In 2012, there were 2445 births (14.0 per 1000), and 2636 deaths (15.1 per 1000). The total fertility rate has seen an upward trend since 2009, rising from 1.67 to 1.96 children per adult.


title: Jewish Autonomous Oblast

text: The Jewish Autonomous Oblast has one of the lowest life expectancy rates in Russia. This statistics varies noticeably from year to year due to small number of population in the region.


title: Jewish Autonomous Oblast

text: Yiddish is taught in three of the region's schools, but the community is almost exclusively Russian-speaking.


title: Jewish Autonomous Oblast

text: According to a 2012 survey, 23% of the population of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast adhere to Russian Orthodoxy, 6% are Orthodox Christians of other church jurisdictions or Orthodox believers who are not members of any church, and 9% are unaffiliated or generic Christians. Judaism is practiced by only 0.2% of the population. In addition, 35% of the population identify as "spiritual but not religious", 22% profess atheism, and 5% follow other religions or declined to answer the question. This is one of the least religious regions in Russia.


title: Jewish Autonomous Oblast

text: Archbishop Ephraim (Prosyanka) (2015) is the head of the Russian Orthodox Eparchy (Diocese) of Birobidzhan (established 2002).


title: Jewish Autonomous Oblast

text: JAO and its history have been portrayed in the documentary film "L'Chayim, Comrade Stalin!". The film tells the story of Stalin's creation of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast and its partial settlement by thousands of Russian- and Yiddish-speaking Jews and was released in 2002. As well as relating the history of the creation of the proposed Jewish homeland, the film features scenes of life in contemporary Birobidzhan and interviews with Jewish residents.


title: Assassination

text: Assassination is the murder of a prominent or important person, such as a head of state, head of government, politician, world leader, member of a royal family or CEO. The murder of a celebrity, activist, or artist, though they may not have a direct role in matters of the state, may also sometimes be considered an assassination. An assassination may be prompted by political and military motives, or done for financial gain, to avenge a grievance, from a desire to acquire fame or notoriety, or because of a military, security, insurgent or secret police group's command to carry out the assassination. Acts of assassination have been performed since ancient times. A person who carries out an assassination is called an assassin or hitman.


title: Assassination

text: The word "assassin" may be derived from "asasiyyin" (Arabic: أَسَاسِيِّين, ʾasāsiyyīn) from أَسَاس (ʾasās, "foundation, basis") + ـِيّ (-iyy), meaning "people who are faithful to the foundation [of the faith]."


title: Assassination

text: "Assassin" is often believed to derive from the word "hashshashin" (Arabic: حشّاشين, ħashshāshīyīn), and shares its etymological roots with "hashish" ( or ; from Arabic: ""). It referred to a group of Nizari Ismailis known as the Order of Assassins who worked against various political targets.


title: Assassination

text: Founded by Hassan-i Sabbah, the Assassins were active in the fortress of Alamut in Persia from the 8th to the 14th centuries, and later expanded into a de facto state by acquiring or building many scattered strongholds. The group killed members of the Abbasid, Seljuk, Fatimid, and Christian Crusader elite for political and religious reasons.


title: Assassination

text: Although it is commonly believed that Assassins were under the influence of hashish during their killings or during their indoctrination, there is debate as to whether these claims have merit, with many Eastern writers and an increasing number of Western academics coming to believe that drug-taking was not the key feature behind the name.


title: Assassination

text: The earliest known use of the verb "to assassinate" in printed English was by Matthew Sutcliffe in "A Briefe Replie to a Certaine Odious and Slanderous Libel, Lately Published by a Seditious Jesuite", a pamphlet printed in 1600, five years before it was used in "Macbeth" by William Shakespeare (1605).


title: Assassination

text: Assassination is one of the oldest tools of power politics. It dates back at least as far as recorded history.


title: Assassination

text: In the Old Testament, King Joash of Judah was assassinated by his own servants; Joab assassinated Absalom, King David's son; and King Sennacherib of Assyria was assassinated by his own sons.


title: Assassination

text: Chanakya (–283 BC) wrote about assassinations in detail in his political treatise "Arthashastra". His student Chandragupta Maurya, the founder of the Maurya Empire, later made use of assassinations against some of his enemies. Some famous assassination victims are Philip II of Macedon (336 BC), the father of Alexander the Great, and Roman dictator Julius Caesar (44 BC). Emperors of Rome often met their end in this way, as did many of the Muslim Shia Imams hundreds of years later. Three successive Rashidun caliphs (Umar, Uthman Ibn Affan, and Ali ibn Abi Talib) were assassinated in early civil conflicts between Muslims. The practice was also well known in ancient China, as in Jing Ke's failed assassination of Qin king Ying Zheng in 227 BC. Whilst many assassinations were performed by individuals or small groups, there were also specialized units who used a collective group of people to perform more than one assassination. The earliest were the sicarii in 6 AD, who predated the Middle Eastern Assassins and Japanese shinobis by centuries.


title: Assassination

text: During the 16th and 17th centuries, international lawyers began to voice condemnation of assassinations of leaders. Balthazar Ayala has been described as "the first prominent jurist to condemn the use of assassination in foreign policy". Alberico Gentili condemned assassinations in a 1598 publication where he appealed to the self-interest of leaders: (i) assassinations had adverse short-term consequences by arousing the ire of the assassinated leader's successor, and (ii) assassinations had the adverse long-term consequences of causing disorder and chaos. Hugo Grotius's works on the law of war strictly forbade assassinations, arguing that killing was only permissible on the battlefield. In the modern world, the killing of important people began to become more than a tool in power struggles between rulers themselves and was also used for political symbolism, such as in the propaganda of the deed.


title: Assassination

text: In Japan, a group of assassins called the Four Hitokiri of the Bakumatsu killed a number of people, including Ii Naosuke who was the head of administration for the Tokugawa shogunate, during the Boshin War. Most of the assassinations in Japan were committed with bladed weaponry, a trait that was carried on into modern history. A video-record exists of the assassination of Inejiro Asanuma, using a sword.


title: Assassination

text: In the United States, within 100 years, four presidents—Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, William McKinley and John F. Kennedy—died at the hands of assassins. There have been at least 20 known attempts on U.S. presidents' lives.


title: Assassination

text: In Austria, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, carried out by Gavrilo Princip, a Serbian nationalist, is blamed for igniting World War I. Reinhard Heydrich died after an attack by British-trained Czechoslovak soldiers on behalf of the Czechoslovak government in exile in Operation Anthropoid, and knowledge from decoded transmissions allowed the United States to carry out a targeted attack, killing Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto while he was travelling by plane.


title: Assassination

text: During the 1930s and 1940s, Joseph Stalin's NKVD carried out numerous assassinations outside of the Soviet Union, such as the killings of Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists leader Yevhen Konovalets, Ignace Poretsky, Fourth International secretary Rudolf Klement, Leon Trotsky, and the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM) leadership in Catalonia. India's "Father of the Nation", Mahatma Gandhi, was shot to death on January 30, 1948, by Nathuram Godse.


title: Assassination

text: The African-American civil rights activist, Martin Luther King Jr., was assassinated on April 4, 1968, at the Lorraine Motel (now the National Civil Rights Museum) in Memphis, Tennessee. Three years prior, another African-American civil rights activist, Malcolm X, was assassinated at the Audubon Ballroom on February 21, 1965.


title: Assassination

text: Most major powers repudiated Cold War assassination tactics, but many allege that was merely a smokescreen for political benefit and that covert and illegal training of assassins continues today, with Russia, Israel, the U.S., Argentina, Paraguay, Chile, and other nations accused of engaging in such operations. After the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the new Islamic government of Iran began an international campaign of assassination that lasted into the 1990s. At least 162 killings in 19 countries have been linked to the senior leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The campaign came to an end after the Mykonos restaurant assassinations because a German court publicly implicated senior members of the government and issued arrest warrants for Ali Fallahian, the head of Iranian intelligence. Evidence indicates that Fallahian's personal involvement and individual responsibility for the murders were far more pervasive than his current indictment record represents.


title: Assassination

text: In India, Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv Gandhi (neither of whom was related to Mahatma Gandhi, who had himself been assassinated in 1948), were assassinated in 1984 and 1991 in what were linked to separatist movements in Punjab and northern Sri Lanka, respectively.


title: Assassination

text: In 1994, the assassination of Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira during the Rwandan Civil War sparked the Rwandan genocide.


title: Assassination

text: In Israel, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated on November 4, 1995, by Yigal Amir, who opposed the Oslo Accords. In Lebanon, the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri on February 14, 2005, prompted an investigation by the United Nations. The suggestion in the resulting "Mehlis report" that there was involvement by Syria prompted the Cedar Revolution, which drove Syrian troops out of Lebanon.


title: Assassination

text: Assassination for military purposes has long been espoused: Sun Tzu, writing around 500 BC, argued in favor of using assassination in his book "The Art of War". Nearly 2000 years later, in his book "The Prince", Machiavelli also advises rulers to assassinate enemies whenever possible to prevent them from posing a threat. An army and even a nation might be based upon and around a particularly strong, canny, or charismatic leader, whose loss could paralyze the ability of both to make war.


title: Assassination

text: For similar and additional reasons, assassination has also sometimes been used in the conduct of foreign policy. The costs and benefits of such actions are difficult to compute. It may not be clear whether the assassinated leader gets replaced with a more or less competent successor, whether the assassination provokes ire in the state in question, whether the assassination leads to souring domestic public opinion, and whether the assassination provokes condemnation from third-parties. One study found that perceptual biases held by leaders often negatively affect decision making in that area, and decisions to go forward with assassinations often reflect the vague hope that any successor might be better.


title: Assassination

text: In both military and foreign policy assassinations, there is the risk that the target could be replaced by an even more competent leader or that such a killing (or a failed attempt) will "martyr" a leader and lead to greater support of their cause by showing the ruthlessness of the assassins. Faced with particularly brilliant leaders, that possibility has in various instances been risked, such as in the attempts to kill the Athenian Alcibiades during the Peloponnesian War. A number of additional examples from World War II show how assassination was used as a tool:


title: Assassination

text: Insurgent groups have often employed assassination as a tool to further their causes. Assassinations provide several functions for such groups: the removal of specific enemies and as propaganda tools to focus the attention of media and politics on their cause.


title: Assassination

text: The Irish Republican Army guerrillas in 1919 to 1921 killed many Royal Irish Constabulary Police intelligence officers during the Irish War of Independence. Michael Collins set up a special unit, the Squad, for that purpose, which had the effect of intimidating many policemen into resigning from the force. The Squad's activities peaked with the killing of 14 British agents in Dublin on Bloody Sunday in 1920.


title: Assassination

text: The tactic was used again by the Provisional IRA during the Troubles in Northern Ireland (1969–1998). Killing Royal Ulster Constabulary officers and assassination of unionist politicians was one of a number of methods used in the Provisional IRA campaign 1969–1997. The IRA also attempted to assassinate British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher by bombing the Conservative Party Conference in a Brighton hotel. Loyalist paramilitaries retaliated by killing Catholics at random and assassinating Irish nationalist politicians.


title: Assassination

text: Basque separatists ETA in Spain assassinated many security and political figures since the late 1960s, notably the president of the government of Spain, Luis Carrero Blanco, 1st Duke of Carrero-Blanco Grandee of Spain, in 1973. In the early 1990s, it also began to target academics, journalists and local politicians who publicly disagreed with it.


title: Assassination

text: The Red Brigades in Italy carried out assassinations of political figures and, to a lesser extent, so did the Red Army Faction in Germany in the 1970s and the 1980s.


title: Assassination

text: In the Vietnam War, communist insurgents routinely assassinated government officials and individual civilians deemed to offend or rival the revolutionary movement. Such attacks, along with widespread military activity by insurgent bands, almost brought the Ngo Dinh Diem regime to collapse before the US intervened.


title: Assassination

text: A major study about assassination attempts in the US in the second half of the 20th century came to the conclusion that most prospective assassins spend copious amounts of time planning and preparing for their attempts. Assassinations are thus rarely "impulsive" actions.


title: Assassination

text: However, about 25% of the actual attackers were found to be delusional, a figure that rose to 60% with "near-lethal approachers" (people apprehended before reaching their targets). That shows that while mental instability plays a role in many modern assassinations, the more delusional attackers are less likely to succeed in their attempts. The report also found that around two-thirds of attackers had previously been arrested, not necessarily for related offenses; 44% had a history of serious depression, and 39% had a history of substance abuse.


title: Assassination

text: With the advent of effective ranged weaponry and later firearms, the position of an assassination target was more precarious. Bodyguards were no longer enough to deter determined killers, who no longer needed to engage directly or even to subvert the guard to kill the leader in question. Moreover, the engagement of targets at greater distances dramatically increased the chances for assassins to survive since they could quickly flee the scene. The first heads of government to be assassinated with a firearm were James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray, the regent of Scotland, in 1570, and William the Silent, the Prince of Orange of the Netherlands, in 1584. Gunpowder and other explosives also allowed the use of bombs or even greater concentrations of explosives for deeds requiring a larger touch.


title: Assassination

text: Explosives, especially the car bomb, become far more common in modern history, with grenades and remote-triggered land mines also used, especially in the Middle East and the Balkans; the initial attempt on Archduke Franz Ferdinand's life was with a grenade. With heavy weapons, the rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) has become a useful tool given the popularity of armored cars (discussed below), and Israeli forces have pioneered the use of aircraft-mounted missiles, as well as the innovative use of explosive devices.


title: Assassination

text: A sniper with a precision rifle is often used in fictional assassinations. However, certain pragmatic difficulties attend long-range shooting, including finding a hidden shooting position with a clear line of sight, detailed advance knowledge of the intended victim's travel plans, the ability to identify the target at long range, and the ability to score a first-round lethal hit at long range, which is usually measured in hundreds of meters. A dedicated sniper rifle is also expensive, often costing thousands of dollars because of the high level of precision machining and handfinishing required to achieve extreme accuracy.


title: Assassination

text: Despite their comparative disadvantages, handguns are more easily concealable and so are much more commonly used than rifles. Of the 74 principal incidents evaluated in a major study about assassination attempts in the US in the second half of the 20th century, 51% were undertaken by a handgun, 30% with a rifle or shotgun, 15% used knives, and 8% explosives (the use of multiple weapons/methods was reported in 16% of all cases).


title: Assassination

text: In the case of state-sponsored assassination, poisoning can be more easily denied. Georgi Markov, a dissident from Bulgaria, was assassinated by ricin poisoning. A tiny pellet containing the poison was injected into his leg through a specially designed umbrella. Widespread allegations involving the Bulgarian government and the KGB have not led to any legal results. However, after the fall of the Soviet Union, it was learned that the KGB had developed an umbrella that could inject ricin pellets into a victim, and two former KGB agents who defected stated that the agency assisted in the murder. The CIA made several attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro, many of the schemes involving poisoning his cigars. In the late 1950s, the KGB assassin Bohdan Stashynsky killed Ukrainian nationalist leaders Lev Rebet and Stepan Bandera with a spray gun that fired a jet of poison gas from a crushed cyanide ampule, making their deaths look like heart attacks. A 2006 case in the UK concerned the assassination of Alexander Litvinenko who was given a lethal dose of radioactive polonium-210, possibly passed to him in aerosol form sprayed directly onto his food. Litvinenko, a former KGB agent, had been granted asylum in the UK in 2000 after he had cited persecution in Russia. Shortly before his death, he issued a statement accusing Russian President Vladimir Putin of involvement in his assassination. Putin, a former KGB officer, denied any involvement in Litvinenko's death.


title: Assassination

text: Targeted killing is the intentional killing by a government or its agents of a civilian or "unlawful combatant" who is not in the government's custody. The target is a person asserted to be taking part in an armed conflict or terrorism, by bearing arms or otherwise, who has thereby lost the immunity from being targeted that he would otherwise have under the Third Geneva Convention. Note that it is a different term and concept from that of "targeted violence", as used by specialists who study violence.


title: Assassination

text: On the other hand, Georgetown University Law Center Professor Gary D. Solis, in his 2010 book "The Law of Armed Conflict: International Humanitarian Law in War", wrote, "Assassinations and targeted killings are very different acts." The use of the term "assassination" is opposed, as it denotes murder (unlawful killing), but the terrorists are targeted in self-defense, which is thus viewed as a killing but not a crime (justifiable homicide). Abraham D. Sofaer, former federal judge for the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, wrote on the subject:


title: Assassination

text: When people call a targeted killing an "assassination", they are attempting to preclude debate on the merits of the action. Assassination is widely defined as murder, and is for that reason prohibited in the United States ... U.S. officials may not kill people merely because their policies are seen as detrimental to our interests... But killings in self-defense are no more "assassinations" in international affairs than they are murders when undertaken by our police forces against domestic killers. Targeted killings in self-defense have been authoritatively determined by the federal government to fall outside the assassination prohibition.


title: Assassination

text: Author and former U.S. Army Captain Matthew J. Morgan argued that "there is a major difference between assassination and targeted killing... targeted killing [is] not synonymous with assassination. Assassination... constitutes an illegal killing." Similarly, Amos Guiora, a professor of law at the University of Utah, wrote, "Targeted killing is... not an assassination." Steve David, Professor of International Relations at Johns Hopkins University, wrote, "There are strong reasons to believe that the Israeli policy of targeted killing is not the same as assassination." Syracuse Law Professor William Banks and GW Law Professor Peter Raven-Hansen wrote, "Targeted killing of terrorists is... not unlawful and would not constitute assassination." Rory Miller writes: "Targeted killing... is not 'assassination.'" Associate Professor Eric Patterson and Teresa Casale wrote, "Perhaps most important is the legal distinction between targeted killing and assassination."


title: Assassination

text: On the other hand, the American Civil Liberties Union also states on its website, "A program of targeted killing far from any battlefield, without charge or trial, violates the constitutional guarantee of due process. It also violates international law, under which lethal force may be used outside armed conflict zones only as a last resort to prevent imminent threats, when non-lethal means are not available. Targeting people who are suspected of terrorism for execution, far from any war zone, turns the whole world into a battlefield."


title: Assassination

text: Yael Stein, the research director of B'Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, also stated in her article "By Any Name Illegal and Immoral: Response to 'Israel's Policy of Targeted Killing'":


title: Assassination

text: The argument that this policy affords the public a sense of revenge and retribution could serve to justify acts both illegal and immoral. Clearly, lawbreakers ought to be punished. Yet, no matter how horrific their deeds, as the targeting of Israeli civilians indeed is, they should be punished according to the law. David's arguments could, in principle, justify the abolition of formal legal systems altogether.


title: Assassination

text: Targeted killing has become a frequent tactic of the United States and Israel in their fight against terrorism. The tactic can raise complex questions and lead to contentious disputes as to the legal basis for its application, who qualifies as an appropriate "hit list" target, and what circumstances must exist before the tactic may be used. Opinions range from people considering it a legal form of self-defense that reduces terrorism to people calling it an extrajudicial killing that lacks due process and leads to further violence. Methods used have included firing Hellfire missiles from Predator or Reaper drones (unmanned, remote-controlled planes), detonating a cell phone bomb, and long-range sniper shooting. Countries such as the US (in Pakistan and Yemen) and Israel (in the West Bank and Gaza) have used targeted killing to eliminate members of groups such as Al-Qaeda and Hamas. In early 2010, with President Obama's approval, Anwar al-Awlaki became the first US citizen to be publicly approved for targeted killing by the Central Intelligence Agency. Awlaki was killed in a drone strike in September 2011.


title: Assassination

text: United Nations investigator Ben Emmerson said that US drone strikes may have violated international humanitarian law. "The Intercept" reported, "Between January 2012 and February 2013, U.S. special operations airstrikes [in northeastern Afghanistan] killed more than 200 people. Of those, only 35 were the intended targets."


title: Assassination

text: One of the earliest forms of defense against assassins was employing bodyguards, who act as a shield for the potential target; keep a lookout for potential attackers, sometimes in advance, such as on a parade route; and putting themselves in harm's way, both by simple presence, showing that physical force is available to protect the target, and by shielding the target if any attack occurs. To neutralize an attacker, bodyguards are typically armed as much as legal and practical concerns permit.


title: Assassination

text: Notable examples of bodyguards include the Roman Praetorian Guard or the Ottoman Janissaries, but in both cases, the protectors sometimes became assassins themselves, exploiting their power to make the head of state a virtual hostage or killing the very leaders whom they were supposed to protect. The loyalty of individual bodyguards is an important question as well, especially for leaders who oversee states with strong ethnic or religious divisions. Failure to realize such divided loyalties allowed the assassination of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who was assassinated by two Sikh bodyguards in 1984.


title: Assassination

text: The bodyguard function was often executed by the leader's most loyal warriors, and it was extremely effective throughout most of early human history, which led assassins to attempt stealthy means, such as poison, whose risk was reduced by having another person taste the leader's food first.


title: Assassination

text: Another notable measure is the use of a body double, a person who looks like the leader and pretends to be the leader to draw attention away from the intended target.


title: Assassination

text: With the advent of gunpowder, ranged assassination via bombs or firearms became possible. One of the first reactions was simply to increase the guard, creating what at times might seem a small army trailing every leader. Another was to begin clearing large areas whenever a leader was present to the point that entire sections of a city might be shut down.


title: Assassination

text: As the 20th century dawned, the prevalence and capability of assassins grew quickly, as did measures to protect against them. For the first time, armored cars or limousines were put into service for safer transport, with modern versions virtually invulnerable to small arms fire, smaller bombs and mines. Bulletproof vests also began to be used, but since they were of limited utility, restricting movement and leaving the head unprotected, they tended to be worn only during high-profile public events, if at all.


title: Assassination

text: Access to famous people also became more and more restricted; potential visitors would be forced through numerous different checks before being granted access to the official in question, and as communication became better and information technology more prevalent, it has become all but impossible for a would-be killer to get close enough to the personage at work or in private life to effect an attempt on their life, especially with the common use of metal and bomb detectors.


title: Assassination

text: Most modern assassinations have been committed either during a public performance or during transport, both because of weaker security and security lapses, such as with U.S. President John F. Kennedy and former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, or as part of a coup d'état in which security is either overwhelmed or completely removed, such as with Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba.


title: Assassination

text: The methods used for protection by famous people have sometimes evoked negative reactions by the public, with some resenting the separation from their officials or major figures. One example might be traveling in a car protected by a bubble of clear bulletproof glass, such as the MRAP-like Popemobile of Pope John Paul II, built following an attempt at his life. Politicians often resent the need for separation and sometimes send their bodyguards away from them for personal or publicity reasons. US President William McKinley did so at the public reception in which he was assassinated.


title: Assassination

text: Other potential targets go into seclusion and are rarely heard from or seen in public, such as writer Salman Rushdie. A related form of protection is the use of body doubles, people with similar builds to those they are expected to impersonate. These people are then made up and, in some cases, undergo plastic surgery to look like the target, with the body double then taking the place of the person in high-risk situations. According to Joe R. Reeder, Under Secretary of the Army from 1993 to 1997, Fidel Castro used body doubles.


title: Men in Black 3

text: Men in Black 3 (stylized as MIB³) is a 2012 American science fiction action comedy film directed by Barry Sonnenfeld and starring Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones, and Josh Brolin. It is the third installment in the "Men in Black" film series and the final film in the original trilogy which is loosely based on the comic book series "The Men in Black" by Lowell Cunningham. It was released fifteen years after the original "Men in Black" (1997) and ten years after the first sequel, "Men in Black II" (2002). Sonnenfeld and Steven Spielberg returned as director and executive producer, respectively. In the film, Boris the Animal, an old enemy of Agent K, escapes from prison and travels back in time to kill the younger K in order to allow his species, a ruthless alien race known as Boglodites, to attack Earth. This forces Agent J to go back in time and team up with K's younger self to save his partner and the world. With a budget of over US $215 million, it is not only one of the most expensive films ever made but also the most expensive comedy film made as of 2012.


title: Men in Black 3

text: "Men in Black 3" was released on May 25, 2012 by Columbia Pictures and grossed over $624 million worldwide, making it the 10th highest-grossing film of 2012. Unadjusted for inflation, it is the highest-grossing film in the series. The film also received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised it as an improvement over its predecessor. A standalone sequel in the series, "", was released on June 14, 2019.


title: Men in Black 3

text: In 2012, alien criminal Boris the Animal, the last Boglodite, escapes from a maximum-security prison on the Moon to take revenge on Agent K, who shot off his left arm and captured him in 1969. He confronts K and his partner Agent J, telling the former he is "already dead". K attempts to prevent J from pursuing Boris and refuses to give any exact details about the events of his arrest. Back at MiB Headquarters, J discovers K was responsible not only for capturing Boris but for deploying the "ArcNet", a shield that prevented the Boglodites from conquering Earth, leading to their extinction.


title: Men in Black 3

text: Boris travels back in time to July 16, 1969 to kill the young Agent K, altering history. With only J's memory somehow unaffected, no one else at the Agency understands his inquiries and knowledge regarding K until Agent O, the new Chief of MIB following Zed's death, eventually pieces together J's erratic actions as signs of a fracture in the space-time continuum. With K gone, the ArcNet was never deployed, and present-day Earth is defenseless from a Boglodite invasion.


title: Men in Black 3

text: Knowing from the Agency's records Boris will commit murder at Coney Island on July 15, 1969, J time travels to said date to kill Young Boris. However, he is arrested by young K, who takes him to MiB Headquarters and prepares to neuralyze him, but decides at the last minute to investigate his claims that he traveled from the future to stop Boris. They follow clues, leading them to a bowling alley, and then The Factory, where undercover MiB agent Andy Warhol directs them to Griffin, the last Archanan after the Boglodites destroyed his planet.


title: Men in Black 3

text: Griffin, who can see all possible future timelines and outcomes, senses Boris' coming attack on The Factory, but tells J and K where to meet him so he can give them the ArcNet before he flees. They meet Griffin at Shea Stadium, after which he is captured by Boris. J and K pursue and rescue Griffin, acquiring the ArcNet. Young Boris escapes and Old Boris arrives on the early morning of July 16 and they team up.


title: Men in Black 3

text: After K initially badly takes the news of what Old Boris will do to him, he, J, and Griffin use jetpacks to fly to Cape Canaveral to attach the ArcNet onto the Apollo 11 rocket to deploy it in space, but end up getting arrested by the military. Griffin shows a skeptical colonel the future, revealing to him the importance of their mission, and he assists them in getting to the launch site.


title: Men in Black 3

text: As the agents climb up the rocket's launch tower, they are attacked by both Borises. J uses his time-travel device to evade Old Boris' attacks and knocks him off the launch tower. K shoots off Young Boris' left arm, knocking him off of the tower while also restoring the timeline. K attaches the ArcNet to the rocket and it is deployed successfully when the rocket launches, with Old Boris incinerated by the rocket exhaust.


title: Men in Black 3

text: Young Boris attacks K on the beach leading to the launch site, but the colonel saves K by sacrificing himself. Boris tries to goad K into arresting him so history will repeat itself, but K kills him instead, breaking the cycle. The colonel's young son James arrives and when he inquires about his father, K neuralyzes him and tells him only that his father is a hero. Observing from afar, J realizes that "he" is James and that K has been watching over him his whole life, and him being there was why the space-time fracture did not alter his memory.


title: Men in Black 3

text: With his mission complete, J returns to 2012, where he reconciles with K, who tells him the Boglodites have been extinct for forty years while J implies his new knowledge of the secret K has been hiding to protect him and thanks him. The un-aged Griffin observes this, and breaking the fourth wall, says it is his new favorite moment in human history.


title: Men in Black 3

text: Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Yao Ming, and Tim Burton make uncredited cameo appearances as aliens on the TV monitors. Will Arnett plays Agent J's new partner Agent AA in an uncredited role. Make-up artist Rick Baker has a cameo as the Brain Alien. Chloe Sonnenfeld, the daughter of director Barry Sonnenfeld, plays the flower child who encounters Boris at the carnival.


title: Men in Black 3

text: The film's premise was first proposed to director Barry Sonnenfeld by Will Smith during the filming of "Men in Black II" in 2002, with Smith suggesting that his character, Agent J, travel back in time to save his partner, Agent K, while at the same time exploring Agent K's backstory. Sonnenfeld said the idea "turned out to be a very long process of development, mainly because of the knotting issues of time travel." It was reported that Smith and executives were leery about bringing back Sonnenfeld because of conflicts on the set of "Men in Black II". In a lawsuit filed against his former agents over commissions, Sonnenfeld alleged that Sony considered other directors for "Men in Black 3". Sonnenfeld ultimately convinced all involved that he had a strong vision for the film.


title: Men in Black 3

text: The film was first announced on April 1, 2009, by Sony Pictures Entertainment president Rory Bruer during a Sony ShoWest presentation. By October 2009, Etan Cohen had been hired to write the screenplay. Sonnenfeld read the script and started working on it in January 2010. As of March 2010, Will Smith remained undecided whether to join the film or another, "The City That Sailed". Sonnenfeld in May 2010 confirmed the return of Tommy Lee Jones and Smith. Both had expressed interest in 2008 in reprising their roles. The filmmakers also included Walter F. Parkes and Laurie MacDonald as producers, with Steven Spielberg as executive producer; all were producers of the two previous films.


title: Men in Black 3

text: In June 2010, writer David Koepp was hired to rewrite the Cohen script. A third writer, Jeff Nathanson, was hired in November 2010 to rewrite the segment of the script that takes place in 1969. Nathanson and Koepp, along with producer Spielberg, had previously worked together on the 2008 film "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull", which Spielberg directed.


title: Men in Black 3

text: Special effects artist Rick Baker created the practical aliens and prosthetic makeup for the film, reprising his role from the previous two "Men in Black" films. In designing the look for the alien creatures, Baker used the time travel plot device as a reason to design "retro" looking aliens reminiscent of science fiction B movies of the era, saying, "In 2012 the aliens should look like "Men in Black" aliens and in 1969 they should be retro aliens. Fishbowl space helmets, guys with space suits with ribbed things on it, exposed brains, [and] bug eyes."


title: Men in Black 3

text: Principal photography began on November 16, 2010, even though, "We knew starting the movie that we didn't have a finished second or third act," director Sonnenfeld said in 2012. "Was it responsible? The answer is, if this movie does as well as I think it will, it was genius. If it's a total failure, then it was a really stupid idea." Filming was originally slated to commence on October 18, 2010, and continue until May 2011, in New York City, with shooting starting in 2010 partly in order to take advantage of a New York tax break in which the state rebates 30 percent of production costs incurred there. Filming was ultimately split into two parts, the first taking place from November until about Christmas 2010; the filmmakers announced shooting would begin again in mid-February, but it was delayed until April. Sonnenfeld initially stated he would be shooting in 3D, but later decided to film in 2D and convert to 3D during post-production.


title: Men in Black 3

text: Set photos for the film appeared online on November 17, 2010, showing Smith, Jones, Emma Thompson, and Nicole Scherzinger. Filming was done in April 2011 in the Morris Park section of The Bronx. Parts of Coney Island, in Brooklyn, had parking and filming permits posted for April 24 and May 2–4, 2011, production dates for what the permits titled "MIB". Shooting also took place in Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood, and was scheduled to wrap in June.


title: Men in Black 3

text: For the film, the Ford Taurus SHO was selected as the MIB's official car, replacing the Ford LTD Crown Victoria and Mercedes-Benz E-Class from the first two films. For the 1969 scenes, a 1964 Ford Galaxie was used as the MIB's official car.


title: Men in Black 3

text: This is the first time Frank the Pug was absent in a "Men in Black" movie, as well as Chief Zed, Jack Jeebs, and actor David Cross. Instead Zed is written in the story as having died and been immortalized at MIB Headquarters, and a portrait of Frank can be seen in J's apartment. An advertisement for 'The Incredible Speaking Pug' can be seen as Agent J enters Coney Island during his time in 1969.


title: Men in Black 3

text: Activision released "" on May 22, 2012, for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Nintendo Wii, featuring a never-before-seen MIB agent rather than Agent J or Agent K. Gameloft also developed a mobile phone video game based on the film, released on May 17, 2012, for iOS and Android.


title: Men in Black 3

text: Under distribution by Sony's Columbia Pictures division, the film was theatrically released on May 25, 2012.


title: Men in Black 3

text: The film was released on DVD, Blu-ray, and Blu-ray 3D on November 30, 2012, and additionally as part of a "Men in Black" trilogy box set on Blu-ray. The trilogy was released on 4K UHD Blu-ray on December 5, 2017.


title: Men in Black 3

text: The soundtrack for the film was composed by Danny Elfman and was released on May 29, 2012, four days after the film.


title: Men in Black 3

text: The song "Back in Time" by rapper Pitbull, which was not included on the film's soundtrack album but accompanies the end credits of the film, was released as a single on March 26, 2012. It is the first lead single released to accompany a "Men in Black" film not to be performed by Will Smith.


title: Men in Black 3

text: There were also many songs from the 1960s that feature, including; "2000 Light Years From Home" by The Rolling Stones; "I'm Waiting For The Man" by The Velvet Underground; "Strange Brew" by Cream; and "Pictures of Matchstick Men" by Status Quo.


title: Men in Black 3

text: "MIB 3" grossed $179 million in the US and Canada, and $445 million in other countries, for a worldwide total of $624 million. It had a worldwide opening weekend of $189.9 million, and had the biggest worldwide IMAX Memorial-Day weekend ($12.7 million from 474 theaters), surpassing the previous year's record of "".


title: Men in Black 3

text: In North America, "MIB 3" earned $1.55 million during its midnight run from 2,233 locations. On its opening day, the film debuted at the top of the box office, grossing $17.7 million (including midnight grosses). This was slightly lower than the opening days of its predecessors. During its three-day opening weekend, it topped the box office with $54.6 million, which was higher than the opening weekends of the two previous films. The movie then earned an additional $14.7 million on Memorial Day, bringing its four-day weekend total to $69.3 million. The opening weekend audience was 54 percent male and 56 percent over the age of 25. The film received a B+ at CinemaScore. It remained in first place at the North American box office for one week.


title: Men in Black 3

text: Outside North America, "MIB 3" is the highest-grossing film of the "Men In Black" franchise and the tenth highest-grossing 2012 film. It made $135.3 million on its opening weekend from 85 territories. Its highest-grossing openings were recorded in China ($21.7 million), and Russia and the CIS ($16.9 million). It was in first place at the box office outside North America for two consecutive weekends.


title: Men in Black 3

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 68% based on 251 reviews, with an average rating of 6.1/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "It isn't exactly a persuasive argument for the continuation of the franchisebut "Men in Black III" is better than its predecessor and manages to exceed expectations." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 58 out of 100, based on 38 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale, the same score earned by the first two films.


title: Men in Black 3

text: Roger Ebert gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, in particular praising Brolin's role as the young Agent K, which he cited as an excellent example of good casting. Ebert also praised the "ingenious plot, bizarre monsters, audacious cliff-hanging" and the "virtuoso final sequence." Richard Roeper gave the film 3.5 out of 5 stars while saying, "It's that rare threequel that doesn't suck. Great special effects, surprising amount of heart." A. O. Scott of "The New York Times" also gave it 3.5 out of 5 stars and commented, ""Men in Black 3" arrives in the multiplexes of the world with no particular agenda. Which may be part of the reason that it turns out to be so much fun." Lisa Schwarzbaum of "Entertainment Weekly" noted, "Sonnenfeld and Cohen move their baby along with an integrity and gait that ought to serve as a blueprint for other filmmakers faced with the particular challenges of reviving big-ticket and time-dated hunks of pop culture." Rafer Guzman of "Newsday" wrote, "the franchise is no longer the zenith of blockbusterism, and the gooey effects from Hollywood veteran Rick Baker look overly familiar, but "Men in Black 3" remains an amiable comedy with some fondly familiar faces."


title: Men in Black 3

text: Director Paul Thomas Anderson praised the film, saying, "It was [expletive] great. ... The time-travel stuff [made me] cry my eyes out. I'm a sucker for that stuff."


title: Men in Black 3

text: Rene Rodriguez of "The Miami Herald" gave the film 1 out of 4 stars and stated, ""Men in Black 3" is so dull and empty, it's the first movie that has ever made me think 'Thank God this is in 3D.'"


title: Men in Black 3

text: Before its production with different leads, both Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones said that they would "consider" appearing in a .


title: Men in Black 3

text: In July 2012, Columbia chief executive Doug Belgrad said: By early 2013, Oren Uziel had begun writing a "Men in Black 4" screenplay for Sony Pictures.


title: Men in Black 3

text: In September 2015, series producers Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald stated the series would be rebooted as a trilogy, most likely without the involvement of Will Smith.


title: Men in Black 3

text: In December 2014, it was revealed that Sony was planning a crossover between "Men in Black" and "Jump Street". The news was leaked after Sony's system was hacked and then confirmed by the directors of the "Jump Street" films, Chris Miller and Phil Lord, during an interview. James Bobin was announced as director in 2016. On April 13, 2016, the movie was officially announced and revealed to be titled "MIB 23". In 2016, Hill expressed doubts and said the project was unlikely to happen, and that it was too complicated to make it work.


title: Men in Black 3

text: A standalone sequel titled "" was released in June 2019, starring Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson, with Emma Thompson reprising her role.


title: Mescaline

text: Mescaline or mescalin (3,4,5-trimethoxyphenethylamine) is a naturally occurring psychedelic protoalkaloid of the substituted phenethylamine class, known for its hallucinogenic effects comparable to those of LSD and psilocybin.


title: Mescaline

text: It occurs naturally in several species of cacti. It is also found in small amounts in certain members of the bean family, Fabaceae, including "Acacia berlandieri". However those claims concerning "Acacia" species have been challenged and have been unsupported in any additional analysis.


title: Mescaline

text: Peyote has been used for at least 5,700 years by Indigenous peoples of the Americas in Mexico. Europeans noted use of peyote in Native American religious ceremonies upon early contact, notably by the Huichols in Mexico. Other mescaline-containing cacti such as the San Pedro have a long history of use in South America, from Peru to Ecuador. While religious and ceremonial peyote use was widespread in the Aztec empire and northern Mexico at the time of the Spanish conquest, religious persecution confined it to areas near the Pacific coast and up to southwest Texas. However, by 1880, peyote use began to spread north of South-Central America with "a new kind of peyote ceremony" inaugurated by the Kiowa and Comanche people. These religious practices, incorporated legally in the United States in 1920 as the Native American Church, has since spread as far as Saskatchewan, Canada.


title: Mescaline

text: In traditional peyote preparations, the top of the cactus is cut off, leaving the large tap root along with a ring of green photosynthesizing area to grow new heads. These heads are then dried to make disc-shaped buttons. Buttons are chewed to produce the effects or soaked in water to drink. However, the taste of the cactus is bitter, so contemporary users will often grind it into a powder and pour it into capsules to avoid having to taste it. The usual human dosage is 200–400 milligrams of mescaline sulfate or 178–356 milligrams of mescaline hydrochloride. The average peyote button contains about 25 mg mescaline.


title: Mescaline

text: Mescaline was first isolated and identified in 1897 by the German chemist Arthur Heffter and first synthesized in 1919 by Ernst Späth.


title: Mescaline

text: In 1955, English politician Christopher Mayhew took part in an experiment for BBC's "Panorama", in which he ingested 400 mg of mescaline under the supervision of psychiatrist Humphry Osmond. Though the recording was deemed too controversial and ultimately omitted from the show, Mayhew praised the experience, calling it "the most interesting thing I ever did".


title: Mescaline

text: Mescaline has a wide array of suggested medical usage, including treatment of alcoholism and depression, due to these disorders having links to serotonin deficiencies. However, its status as a Schedule I controlled substance in the Convention on Psychotropic Substances limits availability of the drug to researchers. Because of this, very few studies concerning mescaline's activity and potential therapeutic effects in humans have been conducted since the early 1970s.


title: Mescaline

text: Mescaline is biosynthesized from tyrosine which, in turn, is derived from phenylalanine by the enzyme phenylalanine hydroxylase. In "Lophophora williamsii" (Peyote), dopamine converts into mescaline in a biosynthetic pathway involving "m"-"O"-methylation and aromatic hydroxylation.


title: Mescaline

text: Tyrosine and phenylalanine serve as the metabolic precursors to synthesis of mescaline. Tyrosine can either undergo a decarboxylation via tyrosine decarboxylase to generate tyramine and subsequently undergo an oxidation at carbon 3 by a monophenol hydroxylase or first be hydroxylated by tyrosine hydroxylase to form L-DOPA and decarboxylated by DOPA decarboxylase. These create dopamine, which then experiences methylation by a catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) by an "S"-adenosyl methionine (SAM)-dependent mechanism. The resulting intermediate is then oxidized again by a hydroxylase enzyme, likely monophenol hydroxylase again, at carbon 5, and methylated by COMT. The product, methylated at the two meta positions with respect to the alkyl substituent, experiences a final methylation at the 4 carbon by a guaiacol-O-methyltransferase, which also operates by a SAM-dependent mechanism. This final methylation step results in the production of mescaline.


title: Mescaline

text: Phenylalanine serves as a precursor by first being converted to -tyrosine by L-amino acid hydroxylase. Once converted, it follows the same pathway as described above.


title: Mescaline

text: Mescaline was first synthesized in 1919 by Ernst Späth from 3,4,5-trimethoxybenzoyl chloride. Subsequent to this, numerous approaches utilizing different starting materials have been developed. Notable examples include the following:


title: Mescaline

text: Tolerance builds with repeated usage, lasting for a few days. Mescaline causes cross-tolerance with other serotonergic psychedelics such as LSD and psilocybin.


title: Mescaline

text: About half the initial dosage is excreted after 6 hours, but some studies suggest that it is not metabolized at all before excretion. Mescaline appears not to be subject to metabolism by CYP2D6 and between 20% and 50% of mescaline is excreted in the urine unchanged, with the rest being excreted as the deaminated-oxidised-carboxylic acid form of mescaline, a likely result of MAO degradation. The LD of mescaline has been measured in various animals: 212 mg/kg i.p. (mice), 132 mg/kg i.p. (rats), and 328 mg/kg i.p. (guinea pigs). For humans, the LD of mescaline has been reported to be approximately 880 mg/kg.


title: Mescaline

text: Mescaline induces a psychedelic state comparable to those produced by LSD and psilocybin, but with unique characteristics. Subjective effects may include altered thinking processes, an altered sense of time and self-awareness, and closed- and open-eye visual phenomena.


title: Mescaline

text: Prominence of color is distinctive, appearing brilliant and intense. Recurring visual patterns observed during the mescaline experience include stripes, checkerboards, angular spikes, multicolor dots, and very simple fractals that turn very complex. The English writer Aldous Huxley described these self-transforming amorphous shapes as like animated stained glass illuminated from light coming through the eyelids in his autobiographical book "The Doors of Perception" (1954). Like LSD, mescaline induces distortions of form and kaleidoscopic experiences but they manifest more clearly with eyes closed and under low lighting conditions.


title: Mescaline

text: Heinrich Klüver coined the term "cobweb figure" in the 1920s to describe one of the four form constant geometric visual hallucinations experienced in the early stage of a mescaline trip: "Colored threads running together in a revolving center, the whole similar to a cobweb". The other three are the chessboard design, tunnel, and spiral. Klüver wrote that "many 'atypical' visions are upon close inspection nothing but variations of these form-constants."


title: Mescaline

text: As with LSD, synesthesia can occur especially with the help of music. An unusual but unique characteristic of mescaline use is the "geometrization" of three-dimensional objects. The object can appear flattened and distorted, similar to the presentation of a Cubist painting.


title: Mescaline

text: Mescaline elicits a pattern of sympathetic arousal, with the peripheral nervous system being a major target for this substance.


title: Mescaline

text: Mescaline is produced when products of natural mammalian catecholamine-based neuronal signaling such as dopamine and noradrenaline are subjected to additional metabolism via methylation, and mescaline's hallucinogenic properties stem from its structural similarities with these two neurotransmitters. In plants, this compound may be the end-product of a pathway utilizing catecholamines as a method of stress response, similar to how animals may release such compounds and others such as cortisol when stressed. The "in vivo" function of catecholamines in plants has not been investigated, but they may function as antioxidants, as developmental signals, and as integral cell wall components that resist degradation from pathogens. The deactivation of catecholamines via methylation produces alkaloids such as mescaline.<ref name="10.1016/j.plantsci.2006.10.013"></ref>


title: Mescaline

text: In humans, Mescaline acts similarly to other psychedelic agents. It acts as an agonist, binding to and activating the serotonin 5-HT receptor with a high affinity. How activating the 5-HT receptor leads to psychedelia is still unknown, but it is likely that somehow it involves excitation of neurons in the prefrontal cortex. Mescaline is also known to have even greater binding affinity for the serotonin 5-HT receptor.


title: Mescaline

text: Difluoromescaline and trifluoromescaline are more potent than mescaline, as is its amphetamine homologue trimethoxyamphetamine. Escaline and proscaline are also both more potent than mescaline, showing the importance of the 4-position substituent with regard to receptor binding.


title: Mescaline

text: In the United States, mescaline was made illegal in 1970 by the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act, categorized as a Schedule I hallucinogen. The drug is prohibited internationally by the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances. Mescaline is legal only for certain religious groups (such as the Native American Church by the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978) and in scientific and medical research. In 1990, the Supreme Court ruled that the state of Oregon could ban the use of mescaline in Native American religious ceremonies. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) in 1993 allowed the use of peyote in religious ceremony, but in 1997, the Supreme Court ruled that the RFRA is unconstitutional when applied against states. Many states, including the state of Utah, have legalized peyote usage with "sincere religious intent", or within a religious organization, regardless of race.


title: Mescaline

text: While mescaline-containing cacti of the genus "Echinopsis" are technically controlled substances under the Controlled Substances Act, they are commonly sold publicly as ornamental plants.


title: Mescaline

text: In the United Kingdom, mescaline in purified powder form is a Class A drug. However, dried cactus can be bought and sold legally.


title: Mescaline

text: Mescaline is considered a schedule 9 substance in Australia under the Poisons Standard (February 2020). A schedule 9 substance is classified as "Substances with a high potential for causing harm at low exposure and which require special precautions during manufacture, handling or use. These poisons should be available only to specialised or authorised users who have the skills necessary to handle them safely. Special regulations restricting their availability, possession, storage or use may apply."


title: Mescaline

text: The peyote cacti and other mescaline-containing plants such as San Pedro are illegal in Western Australia, Queensland, and the Northern Territory, whilst in other states such as Tasmania, Victoria and New South Wales, they are legal for ornamental and gardening purposes


title: Mescaline

text: In Canada, France, The Netherlands and Germany, mescaline in raw form and dried mescaline-containing cacti are considered an illegal drug. However, anyone may grow and use peyote, or "Lophophora williamsii", as well as "Echinopsis pachanoi" and "Echinopsis peruviana" without restriction, as it is specifically exempt from legislation. In Canada, mescaline is classified as a schedule III drug under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, whereas peyote is exempt.


title: Mescaline

text: In Russia mescaline, its derivatives and mescaline-containing plants are banned as narcotic drugs (Schedule I).


title: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (film)

text: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy () is a 2011 Cold War spy thriller film directed by Tomas Alfredson. The screenplay was written by Bridget O'Connor and Peter Straughan, based on John le Carré's 1974 novel of the same name. The film stars Gary Oldman as George Smiley, with Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, John Hurt, Toby Jones, Mark Strong, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ciarán Hinds, David Dencik and Kathy Burke supporting. It is set in London in the early 1970s and follows the hunt for a Soviet double agent at the top of the British secret service.


title: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (film)

text: The film was produced through the British company Working Title Films and financed by France's StudioCanal. It premiered in competition at the 68th Venice International Film Festival. A critical and commercial success, it was the highest-grossing film at the British box office for three consecutive weeks. It won the BAFTA Award for Best British Film. The film also received three Oscar nominations: Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, and for Oldman, Best Actor.


title: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (film)

text: The novel had previously been adapted into the award-winning 1979 BBC television series of the same name with Alec Guinness playing the lead role of Smiley.


title: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (film)

text: In 1973 "Control", head of British intelligence ("The Circus"), sends Jim Prideaux to Budapest to meet a Hungarian general who has the name of a mole at the top of British Intelligence. Prideaux, realising the meeting is a trap, is shot as he tries to flee. Control and his right-hand man George Smiley are forced to retire, and Control dies soon after. Percy Alleline becomes the new Chief, Bill Haydon his deputy, and Roy Bland and Toby Esterhase his lieutenants. They had already begun receiving Soviet Intelligence from a secret source (Operation "Witchcraft").


title: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (film)

text: Field agent Ricki Tarr warns undersecretary Oliver Lacon that there is a mole at the top of the Circus. Knowing that Control had the same theory, Lacon asks Smiley to investigate, helped by Tarr's boss Peter Guillam and retired Special Branch officer Mendel.


title: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (film)

text: Smiley interviews analyst Connie Sachs, who was sacked for deducing that Soviet cultural attaché Alexei Polyakov was a military officer and suspecting he was running a mole in London.


title: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (film)

text: Tarr tells Smiley that in Istanbul Soviet agent Irina wanted to exchange the identity of the mole in return for asylum. Hours after Tarr cabled London that a Soviet defector could identify a double agent, the local station chief was murdered and Irina abducted. Fearing for his life, Tarr went into hiding. Smiley sends Guillam to steal the duty officer's logbook for the night Tarr contacted London. Guillam is unexpectedly brought before Circus leadership and told that Tarr is a traitor. Smiley finds that the logbook pages for the relevant night have been removed, supporting Tarr's story. Smiley is convinced the mole is trying to discredit Tarr.


title: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (film)

text: Smiley tells Guillam that in 1955 he had urged Moscow's spymaster Karla to defect, begging him to "think of his wife" and realised too late that he had revealed his own weak spot: his love for his wife. Former duty officer Jerry Westerby tells Smiley of how Prideaux's shooting sent Control into shock. Westerby left a message with Ann Smiley - Haydon then arrived and took charge. Guillam wonders how Haydon could have learned of the emergency, but Smiley tells him Haydon was having an affair with Ann.


title: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (film)

text: Prideaux, who is in fact alive and now a schoolmaster, tells Smiley that his Budapest mission was to relay the identity of the mole to Control, via one of the code names assigned by Control to each of the members of the Circus suspected to be the mole - “Tinker”, “Tailor”, “Soldier”, “Poorman” and “Beggarman”. He was tortured by the KGB, and saw Irina shot in front of him.


title: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (film)

text: Smiley informs Lacon and the Minister that Operation Witchcraft is a ruse. The service believes Polyakov is bringing it Russian secrets, when in reality the mole is using the meets to send British secrets to Karla. The high quality of Witchcraft's intelligence is designed to lure the CIA into sharing intelligence with Britain, which the mole can then also leak to Karla.


title: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (film)

text: Smiley threatens Esterhase with deportation to obtain the Witchcraft safe house address. Tarr visits the Paris station and informs London that he has vital information. Smiley waits at the safe house for the mole to alert Polyakov that Tarr is about to blow their cover, and arrests Haydon at gunpoint. Haydon later confirms that he seduced Ann on Karla's orders to cloud Smiley's judgement. After Smiley's departure Prideaux shoots and kills Haydon from a distance. Ann returns home, and Smiley returns to the Circus as its Chief.


title: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (film)

text: The project was initiated by Peter Morgan when he wrote a draft of the screenplay, which he offered to Working Title Films to produce. Morgan dropped out as the writer for personal reasons but still served as an executive producer. Following Morgan's departure as writer, Working Title hired Peter Straughan and Bridget O'Connor to redraft the script. Park Chan-wook considered directing the film, but ultimately turned it down. Tomas Alfredson was confirmed to direct on 9 July 2009. The production is his first English language film. The film was backed financially by France's StudioCanal and had a budget corresponding to $21 million. The film is dedicated to O'Connor, who died of cancer during production.


title: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (film)

text: The director cast Gary Oldman in the role of George Smiley, and described the actor as having "a great face" and "the quiet intensity and intelligence that's needed". Many actors were connected to the other roles at various points, but only days before filming started, Oldman was still the only lead actor who officially had been contracted. David Thewlis was in talks for a role early on. Michael Fassbender was in talks at one point to star as Ricki Tarr, but the shooting schedule conflicted with his work on ""; Tom Hardy was cast instead. On 17 September 2010, Mark Strong was confirmed to have joined the cast. Jared Harris was cast but had to drop out because of scheduling conflicts with ""; he was replaced by Toby Jones. John le Carré appears in a cameo as a guest in a party scene.


title: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (film)

text: Principal photography took place between 7 October and 22 December 2010. Studio scenes were shot at a former army barracks in Mill Hill, North London. Blythe House in Kensington Olympia, West London, was used as the exterior for "The Circus." The interior hall of Budapest's "Párizsi Udvar" ("Paris Court") served as the location for the café scene in which Jim Prideaux is shot. Empress Coach Works in Haggerston was used as the location for the Merlin safe house. Other scenes were filmed on Hampstead Heath and in Hampstead Ponds, where Smiley is shown swimming, and in the physics department of Imperial College London.


title: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (film)

text: The events which take place in Czechoslovakia in the novel were moved to Hungary, because of the country's 20% rebate for film productions. The teams filmed in Budapest for five days. Right before Christmas, the team also filmed in Istanbul for nine days. The production reunited Alfredson with cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema and editor Dino Jonsäter, with whom he had made his previous film "Let the Right One In".


title: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (film)

text: The film took six months to edit. The final song in the film, Julio Iglesias' rendition of the French song "La Mer", set against a visual montage of various characters and subplots being resolved as Smiley strides into Circus headquarters to assume command, was chosen because it was something the team thought George Smiley would listen to when he was alone; Alfredson described the song as "everything that the world of MI6 isn't". A scene where Smiley listens to the song was filmed, but eventually cut to avoid giving it too much significance.


title: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (film)

text: Heard at a Circus office party, sung along to by the guests, is "The Second Best Secret Agent in the Whole Wide World", composed by Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen, and performed by Sammy Davis Jr., from the British spy spoof "Licensed to Kill" (1965). At the same office Christmas function, the Circus staff sing the official "State Anthem of the USSR", conducted by a figure dressed as Father Christmas but wearing a Lenin mask.


title: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (film)

text: The film premiered in competition at the 68th Venice International Film Festival on 5 September 2011. StudioCanal UK distributed the film in the United Kingdom, where it was released on 16 September 2011. The US rights were acquired by Universal Pictures, which owns Working Title, and they passed the rights to their subsidiary Focus Features. Focus planned to give the film a wide release in the United States on 9 December 2011 but pushed it to January 2012, when it was given an 800 screen release.


title: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (film)

text: "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" received critical acclaim. Rotten Tomatoes reports an approval rating of 83% based on 229 reviews, with an average rating of 7.80/10. The site's critics' consensus states: ""Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" is a dense puzzle of anxiety, paranoia, and espionage that director Tomas Alfredson pieces together with utmost skill." Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating in the 0–100 range based on reviews from top mainstream critics, calculated an average score of 85 based on 42 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".


title: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (film)

text: Jonathan Romney of "The Independent" wrote, "The script is a brilliant feat of condensation and restructuring: writers Peter Straughan and the late Bridget O'Connor realise the novel is overtly about information and its flow, and reshape its daunting complexity to highlight that". David Gritten of "The Daily Telegraph" declared the film "a triumph" and gave it a five star rating, as did his colleague, Sukhdev Sandhu. Stateside, Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" wrote, "As Alfredson directs the expert script by Peter Straughan and Bridget O'Connor, the film emerges as a tale of loneliness and desperation among men who can never disclose their secret hearts, even to themselves. It's easily one of the year's best films." M. Enois Duarte of "High-Def Digest" also praised the film as a "brilliant display of drama, mystery and suspense, one which regards its audience with intelligence".


title: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (film)

text: Writing in "The Atlantic", le Carré admirer James Parker favourably contrasted Smiley with the James Bond franchise but found this "Tinker Tailor" adaptation "problematic" compared with the 1979 BBC mini-series. He wrote: "To strip down or minimalize le Carré, however, is to sacrifice the almost Tolkienesque grain and depth of his created world: the decades-long backstory, the lingo, the arcana, the liturgical repetitions of names and functions".


title: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (film)

text: Keith Uhlich of "Time Out New York" named "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" the fourth-best film of 2011, calling it "a visually stunning adaptation with a stellar cast." In 2020, Uhlich named it the ninth-best film of the 2010s.


title: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (film)

text: The film topped the British box office chart for three consecutive weeks and earned $80,630,608 worldwide.


title: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (film)

text: While doing press for Working Title's "Les Misérables" film adaptation, producer Eric Fellner stated that fellow producer Tim Bevan was working with writer Straughan and director Alfredson on developing a sequel to "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy". Fellner did not specify whether or not the sequel would be based on "The Honourable Schoolboy" or "Smiley's People", the two remaining Smiley novels in Le Carré's Karla trilogy. While doing press for "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" in 2014, Oldman stated that talk of a sequel, an adaptation of "Smiley's People", had since disappeared; while also stressing that he would still like to see the film produced.


title: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (film)

text: In July 2016, Oldman said that a sequel was in its early stages, stating, "There is a script, but I don't know when we will shoot." It was reported at the time that a script based on "Smiley's People" had been "greenlit" by Working Title Films.


title: Mary McDonnell

text: Mary Eileen McDonnell (born April 28, 1952) is an American film, stage, and television actress. She received Academy Award nominations for her roles as Stands With A Fist in "Dances with Wolves" and May-Alice Culhane in "Passion Fish". McDonnell is well known for her performances as President Laura Roslin in "Battlestar Galactica", First Lady Marilyn Whitmore in "Independence Day", and Rose in "Donnie Darko". She was featured as Captain Sharon Raydor during seasons 5–7 of the TNT series "The Closer" and starred as Commander Sharon Raydor in the spin-off series "Major Crimes" on the same network.


title: Mary McDonnell

text: Mary Eileen McDonnell was born April 28, 1952, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, one of six children born to Eileen (née Mundy) and John "Jack" McDonnell, a computer consultant. She is of Irish descent and was raised Roman Catholic. As a child, McDonnell relocated with her family to Ithaca, New York, where she spent the remainder of her upbringing.


title: Mary McDonnell

text: After graduating from the State University of New York at Fredonia, she attended drama school and joined the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut, where she worked for three months. McDonnell's father died when she was 21 years old.


title: Mary McDonnell

text: McDonnell appeared off-Broadway in two separate productions of "Buried Child" in 1978 and 1979, both times in the role of "Shelly". She won an Obie Award for Best Actress in 1981 for her work in the play "Still Life". On Broadway, she has performed in productions of "Execution of Justice", "The Heidi Chronicles", and "Summer and Smoke".


title: Mary McDonnell

text: After more than 21 years of theater and television work, McDonnell made her film breakthrough in 1990 as the daughter of American settlers raised by Sioux Indians named Stands with a Fist in Kevin Costner's "Dances with Wolves". Portraying the adopted daughter of Graham Greene's character Kicking Bird, McDonnell, then 37, was only 10 months younger than Greene and less than two years younger than Tantoo Cardinal, who played Black Shawl, her adoptive mother. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the role.


title: Mary McDonnell

text: McDonnell's role in "Passion Fish" (1992) brought her another Academy Award nomination, this time for Best Actress in a Leading Role. Her other notable films include "Grand Canyon" (1991), "Sneakers" (1992), "Independence Day" (1996), and "Donnie Darko" (2001). McDonnell also starred with Patrick Swayze in the 1988 movie, "Tiger Warsaw". In 1997, she played the judge in the film "12 Angry Men".


title: Mary McDonnell

text: On television, McDonnell had her first regular part in 1980 on the soap opera "As the World Turns". She starred in 1984 on the short-lived CBS medical comedy "E/R". Coincidentally, she guest-starred in 2001 on the NBC medical series of the same name "ER". She was nominated for an Emmy Award for her role on the show as Eleanor Carter. She played Dr. Virginia Dixon, a surgeon with Asperger syndrome for three episodes of "Grey's Anatomy" in 2008 and 2009.


title: Mary McDonnell

text: In 2003, McDonnell starred in the miniseries " Battlestar Galactica" as Laura Roslin. The miniseries led to the weekly series, with McDonnell's reprising her Laura Roslin role. The series ended in March 2009. McDonnell received worldwide recognition for her performance in the show, part of which was shown when she was invited to the United Nations for a retrospective and discussion with Edward James Olmos (Admiral Adama).


title: Mary McDonnell

text: McDonnell took part in a special session entitled "Battlestar Galactica" at the 2009 World Science Festival. The session also included Michael Hogan, as well as scientists Nick Bostrom and Kevin Warwick.


title: Mary McDonnell

text: In 2011, she appeared in the role of Kate Roberts, the mother of Emma Roberts's character in "Scream 4".


title: Mary McDonnell

text: From 2009 to 2012, McDonnell had a recurring role in "The Closer" as Capt. Sharon Raydor, a police captain in the Force Investigation Division, who often butts heads with Kyra Sedgwick's Golden Globe and Emmy award-winning character. McDonnell received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series in 2011 for the role.


title: Mary McDonnell

text: After "The Closer" wrapped up its final season 2012, McDonnell's character continued as the lead in the spin-off, "Major Crimes", which debuted August 13, 2012 and finally finished in January 2018.


title: Mary McDonnell

text: McDonnell was married to actor Randle Mell. They have two children, Michael and Olivia. The couple separated in December 2021.


title: Total War (video game series)

text: Total War is a series of strategy games developed by British developer Creative Assembly for personal computers. They combine turn-based strategy and resource management with real-time tactical control of battles. Rather uniquely for real-time strategy games, flanking manoeuvers and formations factor heavily into gameplay. The first of the series, "", was released in June 2000. The most recent major game released was "" on February 17, 2022. As of October 2022, the series has sold over 40.4 million copies.


title: Total War (video game series)

text: Released in June 2000, "Shogun: Total War" is the first game in the series. The game is set in feudal Japan. The single-player game includes interactive videos that represented possible decisions by the player, such as converting to Christianity. The original "Shogun" was not a mainstream product, but attracted a dedicated fan base. An expansion pack, "The Mongol Invasion", was released with the original in the "Warlord Edition".


title: Total War (video game series)

text: "Medieval: Total War" was released in August 2002. Using the same game engine as "Shogun", the game takes players to medieval Europe. The expansion pack is called "Viking Invasion", and the combined edition is called the "Battle Collection". It was one of the best-selling games in the "Total War" series.


title: Total War (video game series)

text: Released in 2004", Rome: Total War" is set in the Roman Republic. This was the first game to encompass what would become one of the most fundamental additions to the "Total War" series, free map movement as opposed to earlier versions where all movement was province-based. The game also featured the first 3D map. The first expansion pack, "", was released on 27 September 2005. "Rome: Total War Gold Edition", which combined the fully patched versions of the original game and its first expansion into one DVD (instead of the original game's three CD-ROMs), was released on 14 February 2006. A CD-ROM version (a total of four CDs) was also produced. A Mac version of "Rome: Total War Gold Edition", developed by Feral Interactive, was released 12 February 2010. A second expansion pack, "", was released on 19 June 2006. A compilation of the original game and the two expansions, "Rome: Total War Anthology", was released on 16 March 2007. The series has also spawned several popular mods such as "Europa Barbarorum" and "" each of which seeks to create more historically accurate settings. This game was also added to mobile, offering a simplified version of the original game. "Rome: Total War" has won many strategy gaming awards for its realistic campaign and battlefield animation and interface. was released on 29 April 2021 by Feral Interactive.


title: Total War (video game series)

text: "Medieval II: Total War", a sequel to "Medieval: Total War", was released on 10 November 2006 in Europe and on 14 November in North America. The game includes much more detailed characters and features the Age of Discovery (and colonisation of the Americas) and the Mongol and Timurid invasions. An expansion pack, "", was announced on 30 March 2007. It was released on 28 August 2007. The "Gold Edition" of the game, containing the original game and the expansion pack, was released on 1 February 2008. The "Kingdoms" expansion pack contained 4 campaigns: the Britannia Campaign, set in the British Isles in 1258, during the reign of Henry III of England; the Crusades Campaign, set in the Middle East in 1174; the Teutonic Campaign, set in the Baltic region of Eastern Europe in 1250; and the Americas Campaign, set in the New World in 1521, during the decline of the Aztec and Maya civilisations.


title: Total War (video game series)

text: "Empire: Total War" was announced on 22 August 2007 by Sega and had been secretly in development since the release of "Barbarian Invasion". Players choose an 18th-century faction and set out to achieve domination over the known world through military force, diplomacy, espionage and economics. For the first time in a "Total War" game, players have the ability to play real-time 3D naval battles. Also a feature that had been developed in the game was the decentralisation of provinces, adding greater realism in that many features, from production to technological advancement, would occur outside of the capital of the province. "Empire: Total War" was released on 3 March 2009 in North America and 4 March in Europe. The expansion pack, "Empire: Total War: Warpath", was released in October 2009. "Warpath" is set in the Americas where it is possible to control one of five different Native American nations. While the game was critically acclaimed due to its innovative game play, the game has been subject to most of the criticism of the "Total War" series by many critics and fans after its release due to bugs; Sega claims nearly all issues have been resolved. The issues have been explained by Creative Assembly several months after the game's release. It was the first in the series to use Valve's Steamworks DRM and achievements system, thereby requiring Steam to be played.


title: Total War (video game series)

text: "Napoleon: Total War" was released in North America on 23 February 2010, and in Europe on 26 February. The game focuses on the politics and major military campaigns of the French Revolutionary Wars in the late 18th century and the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century. "Napoleon" was released with several editions: the "Standard Edition" (as well as a limited edition version of the "Standard Edition"), "Imperial Edition", and the "Emperor's Edition" (available in Australia and New Zealand only). Players assume the role of Napoleon Bonaparte or one of his major rivals on a turn-based campaign map and engage in the subsequent battles in real-time. As with its predecessor, "Empire: Total War", which included a special episodic United States story line, "Napoleon" features three separate campaigns that follow the general's early Italian and Egyptian campaigns as well as the European campaign and the Battle of Waterloo.


title: Total War (video game series)

text: In the grand campaign, "Campaigns of the Coalition", the player plays as Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, or Russia in a map that spans Europe. There is also a second campaign available as DLC, the "Peninsular campaign", in which the player vies for control of the Iberian peninsula. The campaign is playable as either France, Spain, or Great Britain. "Napoleon: Total War Gold Edition" premiered for Macs on 3 June 2013.


title: Total War (video game series)

text: On 2 June 2010 Creative Assembly released a full preview of "Total War: Shogun 2" set in the middle of the 16th century in Medieval Japan during a period of isolation and military conflict called Sengoku Jidai (the warring states period). The new battle engine supports up to 56,000 soldiers in a single battle, making them significantly larger than in "Napoleon". "Shogun 2" is the first game of the series to feature the franchise's name appearing as the primary title in an effort to increase brand awareness. The game was released on 15 March 2011.


title: Total War (video game series)

text: "Total War: Shogun 2: Fall of the Samurai" is a stand-alone expansion to "Total War: Shogun 2" released in March 2012. The game explores the conflict between the Imperial throne and the last Shogun around the time of the Boshin War in 19th-century Japan, 300 years after the events of the original game in a clash of traditional Samurai culture with the power of modern weaponry. There are six new playable clans (Satsuma, Tosa, and Choshu, Imperial and Aizu, Nagaoka, and Jozai Shogunate) plus four DLC clans (Tsu, Saga, Obama, and Sendai), supporting either the Imperial throne or the Tokugawa Shogunate. Also portrayed in a limited role are Britain, United States, and France, with each of whom trade deals can be struck (given the proper infrastructure) and from whom marines can be recruited. A new feature is the land and sea unit interactions which includes the ability to call in offshore artillery support barrages, coastal gun emplacements that target enemy ships, and the ability to call in campaign map bombardments – bombarding armies and cities in adjacent coastal areas of the campaign map. Other new features are railway networks, ironclad warships, improved siege battle mechanics (with upgradable tower defences, each with their own specialty), new agent types, the ability to control two armies on the battle map at the same time, a third-person shooter for torpedo gunboats, coastal batteries, Gatling guns and cannons, and a multiplayer overhaul.


title: Total War (video game series)

text: On 2 July 2012, Creative Assembly announced "Total War: Rome II" with a live-action trailer that features different scenes with the theme "How far will you go for Rome?". Work on the title began during the development of "Total War: Shogun 2". Creative Assembly announced that the game would have a bigger map than its predecessor, "go more to the east", have many new game features, and new camera views in-battle, allowing the player to see the battle from almost every angle. They further claimed that the game was developed using a new programming system, which allows it to achieve better graphical quality, including dynamic facial expressions. The game was released on 3 September 2013. This title hit record high pre-order sales for Creative Assembly, with the Greek States Culture Pack unlocking Sparta, Athens, and Epirus in the campaign as a pre-order bonus. The initial release suffered from significant performance issues as well as having many bugs that severely affected gameplay.