title: Tom Wlaschiha

text: Since 1998, he has played mostly supporting roles in numerous German and international TV and film productions. In his first leading role he portrayed Stephan in the 2000 gay milieu study "No One Sleeps".


title: Tom Wlaschiha

text: On stage, Wlaschiha has performed with the Theater "Junge Generation" ("Young Generation") in Dresden from 1996 until 2000, with the Schauspielhaus Zürich in 2002, and with the Schauspiel Frankfurt in 2003.


title: Tom Wlaschiha

text: In August 2011, he was cast as the convict and assassin Jaqen H'ghar in season 2 of the HBO fantasy TV series "Game of Thrones", and reprised his role in seasons 5 and 6, starting in 2015. For his performance in "Game of Thrones" he was nominated for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series by the Screen Actors Guild Awards in 2016. From 2013 to 2015, he starred in the crime series "Crossing Lines" as Kommissar Sebastian Berger, a German police officer.


title: Tom Wlaschiha

text: As a voice actor, Wlaschiha is heard in film dubs, audiobooks and commercials. For some of his international work (e.g., "Game of Thrones"), Wlaschiha dubs himself in German. He voiced Buzz Lightyear in the German dub of "Lightyear".


title: Insomnia

text: Insomnia, also known as sleeplessness, is a sleep disorder in which people have trouble sleeping. They may have difficulty falling asleep, or staying asleep as long as desired. Insomnia is typically followed by daytime sleepiness, low energy, irritability, and a depressed mood. It may result in an increased risk of motor vehicle collisions, as well as problems focusing and learning. Insomnia can be short term, lasting for days or weeks, or long term, lasting more than a month. The concept of the word insomnia has two possibilities: insomnia disorder and insomnia symptoms, and many abstracts of randomized controlled trials and systematic reviews often underreport on which of these two possibilities the word insomnia refers to.


title: Insomnia

text: Insomnia can occur independently or as a result of another problem. Conditions that can result in insomnia include psychological stress, chronic pain, heart failure, hyperthyroidism, heartburn, restless leg syndrome, menopause, certain medications, and drugs such as caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol. Other risk factors include working night shifts and sleep apnea. Diagnosis is based on sleep habits and an examination to look for underlying causes. A sleep study may be done to look for underlying sleep disorders. Screening may be done with two questions: "do you experience difficulty sleeping?" and "do you have difficulty falling or staying asleep?"


title: Insomnia

text: Although their efficacy as first line treatments is not unequivocally established, sleep hygiene and lifestyle changes are typically the first treatment for insomnia. Sleep hygiene includes a consistent bedtime, a quiet and dark room, exposure to sunlight during the day and regular exercise. Cognitive behavioral therapy may be added to this. While sleeping pills may help, they are sometimes associated with injuries, dementia, and addiction. These medications are not recommended for more than four or five weeks. The effectiveness and safety of alternative medicine is unclear.


title: Insomnia

text: Between 10% and 30% of adults have insomnia at any given point in time and up to half of people have insomnia in a given year. About 6% of people have insomnia that is not due to another problem and lasts for more than a month. People over the age of 65 are affected more often than younger people. Females are more often affected than males. Descriptions of insomnia occur at least as far back as ancient Greece.


title: Insomnia

text: Sleep onset insomnia is difficulty falling asleep at the beginning of the night, often a symptom of anxiety disorders. Delayed sleep phase disorder can be misdiagnosed as insomnia, as sleep onset is delayed to much later than normal while awakening spills over into daylight hours.


title: Insomnia

text: It is common for patients who have difficulty falling asleep to also have nocturnal awakenings with difficulty returning to sleep. Two-thirds of these patients wake up in the middle of the night, with more than half having trouble falling back to sleep after a middle-of-the-night awakening.


title: Insomnia

text: Early morning awakening is an awakening occurring earlier (more than 30 minutes) than desired with an inability to go back to sleep, and before total sleep time reaches 6.5 hours. Early morning awakening is often a characteristic of depression. Anxiety symptoms may well lead to insomnia. Some of these symptoms include tension, compulsive worrying about the future, feeling overstimulated, and overanalyzing past events.


title: Insomnia

text: Poor sleep quality can occur as a result of, for example, restless legs, sleep apnea or major depression. Poor sleep quality is defined as the individual not reaching stage 3 or delta sleep which has restorative properties.


title: Insomnia

text: Major depression leads to alterations in the function of the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis, causing excessive release of cortisol which can lead to poor sleep quality.


title: Insomnia

text: Some cases of insomnia are not really insomnia in the traditional sense, because people experiencing sleep state misperception often sleep for a normal amount of time. The problem is that, despite sleeping for multiple hours each night and typically not experiencing significant daytime sleepiness or other symptoms of sleep loss, they do not feel like they have slept very much, if at all. Because their perception of their sleep is incomplete, they incorrectly believe it takes them an abnormally long time to fall asleep, and they underestimate how long they remain asleep.


title: Insomnia

text: Sleep studies using polysomnography have suggested that people who have sleep disruption have elevated nighttime levels of circulating cortisol and adrenocorticotropic hormone. They also have an elevated metabolic rate, which does not occur in people who do not have insomnia but whose sleep is intentionally disrupted during a sleep study. Studies of brain metabolism using positron emission tomography (PET) scans indicate that people with insomnia have higher metabolic rates by night and by day. The question remains whether these changes are the causes or consequences of long-term insomnia.


title: Insomnia

text: Heritability estimates of insomnia vary between 38% in males to 59% in females. A genome-wide association study (GWAS) identified 3 genomic loci and 7 genes that influence the risk of insomnia, and showed that insomnia is highly polygenic. In particular, a strong positive association was observed for the MEIS1 gene in both males and females. This study showed that the genetic architecture of insomnia strongly overlaps with psychiatric disorders and metabolic traits.


title: Insomnia

text: It has been hypothesised that the epigenetics might also influence insomnia through a controlling process of both sleep regulation and brain-stress response having an impact as well on the brain plasticity.


title: Insomnia

text: Alcohol is often used as a form of self-treatment of insomnia to induce sleep. However, alcohol use to induce sleep can be a cause of insomnia. Long-term use of alcohol is associated with a decrease in NREM stage 3 and 4 sleep as well as suppression of REM sleep and REM sleep fragmentation. Frequent moving between sleep stages occurs, with awakenings due to headaches, the need to urinate, dehydration, and excessive sweating. Glutamine rebound also plays a role as when someone is drinking; alcohol inhibits glutamine, one of the body's natural stimulants. When the person stops drinking, the body tries to make up for lost time by producing more glutamine than it needs.


title: Insomnia

text: The increase in glutamine levels stimulates the brain while the drinker is trying to sleep, keeping him/her from reaching the deepest levels of sleep. Stopping chronic alcohol use can also lead to severe insomnia with vivid dreams. During withdrawal REM sleep is typically exaggerated as part of a rebound effect.


title: Insomnia

text: Like alcohol, benzodiazepines, such as alprazolam, clonazepam, lorazepam, and diazepam, are commonly used to treat insomnia in the short-term (both prescribed and self-medicated), but worsen sleep in the long-term. While benzodiazepines can put people to sleep (i.e., inhibit NREM stage 1 and 2 sleep), while asleep, the drugs disrupt sleep architecture: decreasing sleep time, delaying time to REM sleep, and decreasing deep slow-wave sleep (the most restorative part of sleep for both energy and mood).


title: Insomnia

text: Opioid medications such as hydrocodone, oxycodone, and morphine are used for insomnia that is associated with pain due to their analgesic properties and hypnotic effects. Opioids can fragment sleep and decrease REM and stage 2 sleep. By producing analgesia and sedation, opioids may be appropriate in carefully selected patients with pain-associated insomnia. However, dependence on opioids can lead to long-term sleep disturbances.


title: Insomnia

text: Insomnia affects people of all age groups but people in the following groups have a higher chance of acquiring insomnia:


title: Insomnia

text: Two main models exists as to the mechanism of insomnia, cognitive and physiological. The cognitive model suggests rumination and hyperarousal contribute to preventing a person from falling asleep and might lead to an episode of insomnia.


title: Insomnia

text: The physiological model is based upon three major findings in people with insomnia; firstly, increased urinary cortisol and catecholamines have been found suggesting increased activity of the HPA axis and arousal; second, increased global cerebral glucose utilization during wakefulness and NREM sleep in people with insomnia; and lastly, increased full body metabolism and heart rate in those with insomnia. All these findings taken together suggest a dysregulation of the arousal system, cognitive system, and HPA axis all contributing to insomnia. However, it is unknown if the hyperarousal is a result of, or cause of insomnia. Altered levels of the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA have been found, but the results have been inconsistent, and the implications of altered levels of such a ubiquitous neurotransmitter are unknown. Studies on whether insomnia is driven by circadian control over sleep or a wake dependent process have shown inconsistent results, but some literature suggests a dysregulation of the circadian rhythm based on core temperature. Increased beta activity and decreased delta wave activity has been observed on electroencephalograms; however, the implication of this is unknown.


title: Insomnia

text: Around half of post-menopausal women experience sleep disturbances, and generally sleep disturbance is about twice as common in women as men; this appears to be due in part, but not completely, to changes in hormone levels, especially in and post-menopause.


title: Insomnia

text: Changes in sex hormones in both men and women as they age may account in part for increased prevalence of sleep disorders in older people.


title: Insomnia

text: In medicine, insomnia is widely measured using the Athens insomnia scale. It is measured using eight different parameters related to sleep, finally represented as an overall scale which assesses an individual's sleep pattern.


title: Insomnia

text: A qualified sleep specialist should be consulted for the diagnosis of any sleep disorder so the appropriate measures can be taken. Past medical history and a physical examination need to be done to eliminate other conditions that could be the cause of insomnia. After all other conditions are ruled out a comprehensive sleep history should be taken. The sleep history should include sleep habits, medications (prescription and non-prescription), alcohol consumption, nicotine and caffeine intake, co-morbid illnesses, and sleep environment. A sleep diary can be used to keep track of the individual's sleep patterns. The diary should include time to bed, total sleep time, time to sleep onset, number of awakenings, use of medications, time of awakening, and subjective feelings in the morning. The sleep diary can be replaced or validated by the use of out-patient actigraphy for a week or more, using a non-invasive device that measures movement.


title: Insomnia

text: Workers who complain of insomnia should not routinely have polysomnography to screen for sleep disorders. This test may be indicated for patients with symptoms in addition to insomnia, including sleep apnea, obesity, a thick neck diameter, or high-risk fullness of the flesh in the oropharynx. Usually, the test is not needed to make a diagnosis, and insomnia especially for working people can often be treated by changing a job schedule to make time for sufficient sleep and by improving sleep hygiene.


title: Insomnia

text: Some patients may need to do an overnight sleep study to determine if insomnia is present. Such a study will commonly involve assessment tools including a polysomnogram and the multiple sleep latency test. Specialists in sleep medicine are qualified to diagnose disorders within the, according to the ICSD, 81 major sleep disorder diagnostic categories. Patients with some disorders, including delayed sleep phase disorder, are often mis-diagnosed with primary insomnia; when a person has trouble getting to sleep and awakening at desired times, but has a normal sleep pattern once asleep, a circadian rhythm disorder is a likely cause.


title: Insomnia

text: In many cases, insomnia is co-morbid with another disease, side-effects from medications, or a psychological problem. Approximately half of all diagnosed insomnia is related to psychiatric disorders. For those who have depression, "insomnia should be regarded as a co-morbid condition, rather than as a secondary one;" insomnia typically predates psychiatric symptoms. "In fact, it is possible that insomnia represents a significant risk for the development of a subsequent psychiatric disorder." Insomnia occurs in between 60% and 80% of people with depression. This may partly be due to treatment used for depression.


title: Insomnia

text: Predominant complaint of dissatisfaction with sleep quantity or quality, associated with one (or more) of the following symptoms:


title: Insomnia

text: Prevention and treatment of insomnia may require a combination of cognitive behavioral therapy, medications, and lifestyle changes.


title: Insomnia

text: Among lifestyle practices, going to sleep and waking up at the same time each day can create a steady pattern which may help to prevent insomnia. Avoidance of vigorous exercise and caffeinated drinks a few hours before going to sleep is recommended, while exercise earlier in the day may be beneficial. Other practices to improve sleep hygiene may include:


title: Insomnia

text: It is recommended to rule out medical and psychological causes before deciding on the treatment for insomnia. Cognitive behavioral therapy is generally the first line treatment once this has been done. It has been found to be effective for chronic insomnia. The beneficial effects, in contrast to those produced by medications, may last well beyond the stopping of therapy.


title: Insomnia

text: Medications have been used mainly to reduce symptoms in insomnia of short duration; their role in the management of chronic insomnia remains unclear. Several different types of medications may be used. Many doctors do not recommend relying on prescription sleeping pills for long-term use. It is also important to identify and treat other medical conditions that may be contributing to insomnia, such as depression, breathing problems, and chronic pain. As of 2022, many people with insomnia were reported as not receiving overall sufficient sleep or treatment for insomnia.


title: Insomnia

text: Non-medication based strategies have comparable efficacy to hypnotic medication for insomnia and they may have longer lasting effects. Hypnotic medication is only recommended for short-term use because dependence with rebound withdrawal effects upon discontinuation or tolerance can develop.


title: Insomnia

text: Non medication based strategies provide long lasting improvements to insomnia and are recommended as a first line and long-term strategy of management. Behavioral sleep medicine (BSM) tries to address insomnia with non-pharmacological treatments. The BSM strategies used to address chronic insomnia include attention to sleep hygiene, stimulus control, behavioral interventions, sleep-restriction therapy, paradoxical intention, patient education, and relaxation therapy. Some examples are keeping a journal, restricting the time spent awake in bed, practicing relaxation techniques, and maintaining a regular sleep schedule and a wake-up time. Behavioral therapy can assist a patient in developing new sleep behaviors to improve sleep quality and consolidation. Behavioral therapy may include, learning healthy sleep habits to promote sleep relaxation, undergoing light therapy to help with worry-reduction strategies and regulating the circadian clock.


title: Insomnia

text: Music may improve insomnia in adults (see music and sleep). EEG biofeedback has demonstrated effectiveness in the treatment of insomnia with improvements in duration as well as quality of sleep. Self-help therapy (defined as a psychological therapy that can be worked through on one's own) may improve sleep quality for adults with insomnia to a small or moderate degree.


title: Insomnia

text: Stimulus control therapy is a treatment for patients who have conditioned themselves to associate the bed, or sleep in general, with a negative response. As stimulus control therapy involves taking steps to control the sleep environment, it is sometimes referred interchangeably with the concept of sleep hygiene. Examples of such environmental modifications include using the bed for sleep and sex only, not for activities such as reading or watching television; waking up at the same time every morning, including on weekends; going to bed only when sleepy and when there is a high likelihood that sleep will occur; leaving the bed and beginning an activity in another location if sleep does not occur in a reasonably brief period of time after getting into bed (commonly ~20 min); reducing the subjective effort and energy expended trying to fall asleep; avoiding exposure to bright light during nighttime hours, and eliminating daytime naps.


title: Insomnia

text: A component of stimulus control therapy is sleep restriction, a technique that aims to match the time spent in bed with actual time spent asleep. This technique involves maintaining a strict sleep-wake schedule, sleeping only at certain times of the day and for specific amounts of time to induce mild sleep deprivation. Complete treatment usually lasts up to 3 weeks and involves making oneself sleep for only a minimum amount of time that they are actually capable of on average, and then, if capable (i.e. when sleep efficiency improves), slowly increasing this amount (~15 min) by going to bed earlier as the body attempts to reset its internal sleep clock. Bright light therapy may be effective for insomnia.


title: Insomnia

text: Paradoxical intention is a cognitive reframing technique where the insomniac, instead of attempting to fall asleep at night, makes every effort to stay awake (i.e. essentially stops trying to fall asleep). One theory that may explain the effectiveness of this method is that by not voluntarily making oneself go to sleep, it relieves the performance anxiety that arises from the need or requirement to fall asleep, which is meant to be a passive act. This technique has been shown to reduce sleep effort and performance anxiety and also lower subjective assessment of sleep-onset latency and overestimation of the sleep deficit (a quality found in many insomniacs).


title: Insomnia

text: Sleep hygiene is a common term for all of the behaviors which relate to the promotion of good sleep. They include habits which provide a good foundation for sleep and help to prevent insomnia. However, sleep hygiene alone may not be adequate to address chronic insomnia. Sleep hygiene recommendations are typically included as one component of cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I). Recommendations include reducing caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol consumption, maximizing the regularity and efficiency of sleep episodes, minimizing medication usage and daytime napping, the promotion of regular exercise, and the facilitation of a positive sleep environment. The creation of a positive sleep environment may also be helpful in reducing the symptoms of insomnia.


title: Insomnia

text: On the other hand, a systematic review by the AASM concluded that clinicians should not prescribe sleep hygiene for insomnia due to the evidence of absence of its efficacy and potential delaying of adequate treatment, recommending instead that effective therapies such as CBT-i should be preferred.


title: Insomnia

text: There is some evidence that cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) is superior in the long-term to benzodiazepines and the nonbenzodiazepines in the treatment and management of insomnia. In this therapy, patients are taught improved sleep habits and relieved of counter-productive assumptions about sleep. Common misconceptions and expectations that can be modified include


title: Insomnia

text: Numerous studies have reported positive outcomes of combining cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia treatment with treatments such as stimulus control and the relaxation therapies. Hypnotic medications are equally effective in the short-term treatment of insomnia, but their effects wear off over time due to tolerance. The effects of CBT-I have sustained and lasting effects on treating insomnia long after therapy has been discontinued. The addition of hypnotic medications with CBT-I adds no benefit in insomnia. The long lasting benefits of a course of CBT-I shows superiority over pharmacological hypnotic drugs. Even in the short term when compared to short-term hypnotic medication such as zolpidem, CBT-I still shows significant superiority. Thus CBT-I is recommended as a first line treatment for insomnia.


title: Insomnia

text: Common forms of CBT-I treatments include stimulus control therapy, sleep restriction, sleep hygiene, improved sleeping environments, relaxation training, paradoxical intention, and biofeedback.


title: Insomnia

text: CBT is the well-accepted form of therapy for insomnia since it has no known adverse effects, whereas taking medications to alleviate insomnia symptoms have been shown to have adverse side effects. Nevertheless, the downside of CBT is that it may take a lot of time and motivation.


title: Insomnia

text: Despite the therapeutic effectiveness and proven success of CBT, treatment availability is significantly limited by a lack of trained clinicians, poor geographical distribution of knowledgeable professionals, and expense. One way to potentially overcome these barriers is to use the Internet to deliver treatment, making this effective intervention more accessible and less costly. The Internet has already become a critical source of health-care and medical information. Although the vast majority of health websites provide general information, there is growing research literature on the development and evaluation of Internet interventions.


title: Insomnia

text: These online programs are typically behaviorally-based treatments that have been operationalized and transformed for delivery via the Internet. They are usually highly structured; automated or human supported; based on effective face-to-face treatment; personalized to the user; interactive; enhanced by graphics, animations, audio, and possibly video; and tailored to provide follow-up and feedback.


title: Insomnia

text: Many people with insomnia use sleeping tablets and other sedatives. In some places medications are prescribed in over 95% of cases. They, however, are a second line treatment. In 2019, the US Food and Drug Administration stated it is going to require warnings for eszopiclone, zaleplon, and zolpidem, due to concerns about serious injuries resulting from abnormal sleep behaviors, including sleepwalking or driving a vehicle while asleep.


title: Insomnia

text: The percentage of adults using a prescription sleep aid increases with age. During 2005–2010, about 4% of U.S. adults aged 20 and over reported that they took prescription sleep aids in the past 30 days. Rates of use were lowest among the youngest age group (those aged 20–39) at about 2%, increased to 6% among those aged 50–59, and reached 7% among those aged 80 and over. More adult women (5%) reported using prescription sleep aids than adult men (3%). Non-Hispanic white adults reported higher use of sleep aids (5%) than non-Hispanic black (3%) and Mexican-American (2%) adults. No difference was shown between non-Hispanic black adults and Mexican-American adults in use of prescription sleep aids.


title: Insomnia

text: As an alternative to taking prescription drugs, some evidence shows that an average person seeking short-term help may find relief by taking over-the-counter antihistamines such as diphenhydramine or doxylamine. Diphenhydramine and doxylamine are widely used in nonprescription sleep aids. They are the most effective over-the-counter sedatives currently available, at least in much of Europe, Canada, Australia, and the United States, and are more sedating than some prescription hypnotics. Antihistamine effectiveness for sleep may decrease over time, and anticholinergic side-effects (such as dry mouth) may also be a drawback with these particular drugs. While addiction does not seem to be an issue with this class of drugs, they can induce dependence and rebound effects upon abrupt cessation of use. However, people whose insomnia is caused by restless legs syndrome may have worsened symptoms with antihistamines.


title: Insomnia

text: While insomnia is a common symptom of depression, antidepressants are effective for treating sleep problems whether or not they are associated with depression. While all antidepressants help regulate sleep, some antidepressants, such as amitriptyline, doxepin, mirtazapine, trazodone, and trimipramine, can have an immediate sedative effect, and are prescribed to treat insomnia. Amitriptyline, doxepin, and trimipramine all have antihistaminergic, anticholinergic, antiadrenergic, and antiserotonergic properties, which contribute to both their therapeutic effects and side effect profiles, while mirtazapine's actions are primarily antihistaminergic and antiserotonergic and trazodone's effects are primarily antiadrenergic and antiserotonergic. Mirtazapine is known to decrease sleep latency (i.e., the time it takes to fall asleep), promoting sleep efficiency and increasing the total amount of sleeping time in people with both depression and insomnia.


title: Insomnia

text: Agomelatine, a melatonergic antidepressant with claimed sleep-improving qualities that does not cause daytime drowsiness, is approved for the treatment of depression though not sleep conditions in the European Union and Australia. After trials in the United States, its development for use there was discontinued in October 2011 by Novartis, who had bought the rights to market it there from the European pharmaceutical company Servier.


title: Insomnia

text: A 2018 Cochrane review found the safety of taking antidepressants for insomnia to be uncertain with no evidence supporting long term use.


title: Insomnia

text: Melatonin receptor agonists such as melatonin and ramelteon are used in the treatment of insomnia. The evidence for melatonin in treating insomnia is generally poor. There is low-quality evidence that it may speed the onset of sleep by 6minutes. Ramelteon does not appear to speed the onset of sleep or the amount of sleep a person gets.


title: Insomnia

text: Usage of melatonin as a treatment for insomnia in adults has increased from 0.4% between 1999 and 2000 to nearly 2.1% between 2017 and 2018.


title: Insomnia

text: Most melatonin agonists have not been tested for longitudinal side effects. Prolonged-release melatonin may improve quality of sleep in older people with minimal side effects.


title: Insomnia

text: Studies have also shown that children who are on the autism spectrum or have learning disabilities, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or related neurological diseases can benefit from the use of melatonin. This is because they often have trouble sleeping due to their disorders. For example, children with ADHD tend to have trouble falling asleep because of their hyperactivity and, as a result, tend to be tired during most of the day. Another cause of insomnia in children with ADHD is the use of stimulants used to treat their disorder. Children who have ADHD then, as well as the other disorders mentioned, may be given melatonin before bedtime in order to help them sleep.


title: Insomnia

text: The most commonly used class of hypnotics for insomnia are the benzodiazepines. Benzodiazepines are not significantly better for insomnia than antidepressants. Chronic users of hypnotic medications for insomnia do not have better sleep than chronic insomniacs not taking medications. In fact, chronic users of hypnotic medications have more regular nighttime awakenings than insomniacs not taking hypnotic medications. Many have concluded that these drugs cause an unjustifiable risk to the individual and to public health and lack evidence of long-term effectiveness. It is preferred that hypnotics be prescribed for only a few days at the lowest effective dose and avoided altogether wherever possible, especially in the elderly. Between 1993 and 2010, the prescribing of benzodiazepines to individuals with sleep disorders has decreased from 24% to 11% in the US, coinciding with the first release of nonbenzodiazepines.


title: Insomnia

text: The benzodiazepine and nonbenzodiazepine hypnotic medications also have a number of side-effects such as day time fatigue, motor vehicle crashes and other accidents, cognitive impairments, and falls and fractures. Elderly people are more sensitive to these side-effects. Some benzodiazepines have demonstrated effectiveness in sleep maintenance in the short term but in the longer term benzodiazepines can lead to tolerance, physical dependence, benzodiazepine withdrawal syndrome upon discontinuation, and long-term worsening of sleep, especially after consistent usage over long periods of time. Benzodiazepines, while inducing unconsciousness, actually worsen sleep as – like alcohol – they promote light sleep while decreasing time spent in deep sleep. A further problem is, with regular use of short-acting sleep aids for insomnia, daytime rebound anxiety can emerge. Although there is little evidence for benefit of benzodiazepines in insomnia compared to other treatments and evidence of major harm, prescriptions have continued to increase. This is likely due to their addictive nature, both due to misuse and because – through their rapid action, tolerance and withdrawal they can "trick" insomniacs into thinking they are helping with sleep. There is a general awareness that long-term use of benzodiazepines for insomnia in most people is inappropriate and that a gradual withdrawal is usually beneficial due to the adverse effects associated with the long-term use of benzodiazepines and is recommended whenever possible.


title: Insomnia

text: Benzodiazepines all bind unselectively to the GABA receptor. Some theorize that certain benzodiazepines (hypnotic benzodiazepines) have significantly higher activity at the α subunit of the GABA receptor compared to other benzodiazepines (for example, triazolam and temazepam have significantly higher activity at the α subunit compared to alprazolam and diazepam, making them superior sedative-hypnotics – alprazolam and diazepam, in turn, have higher activity at the α subunit compared to triazolam and temazepam, making them superior anxiolytic agents). Modulation of the α subunit is associated with sedation, motor impairment, respiratory depression, amnesia, ataxia, and reinforcing behavior (drug-seeking behavior). Modulation of the α subunit is associated with anxiolytic activity and disinhibition. For this reason, certain benzodiazepines may be better suited to treat insomnia than others.


title: Insomnia

text: Nonbenzodiazepine or Z-drug sedative–hypnotic drugs, such as zolpidem, zaleplon, zopiclone, and eszopiclone, are a class of hypnotic medications that are similar to benzodiazepines in their mechanism of action, and indicated for mild to moderate insomnia. Their effectiveness at improving time to sleeping is slight, and they have similar—though potentially less severe—side effect profiles compared to benzodiazepines. Prescribing of nonbenzodiazepines has seen a general increase since their initial release on the US market in 1992, from 2.3% in 1993 among individuals with sleep disorders to 13.7% in 2010.


title: Insomnia

text: Orexin receptor antagonists are a more recently introduced class of sleep medications and include suvorexant, lemborexant, and daridorexant, all of which are FDA-approved for treatment of insomnia characterized by difficulties with sleep onset and/or sleep maintenance.


title: Insomnia

text: Certain atypical antipsychotics, particularly quetiapine, olanzapine, and risperidone, are used in the treatment of insomnia. However, while common, use of antipsychotics for this indication is not recommended as the evidence does not demonstrate a benefit, and the risk of adverse effects are significant. A major 2022 systematic review and network meta-analysis of medications for insomnia in adults found that quetiapine did not demonstrate any short-term benefits for insomnia. Some of the more serious adverse effects may also occur at the low doses used, such as dyslipidemia and neutropenia. Such concerns of risks at low doses are supported by Danish observational studies that showed an association of use of low-dose quetiapine (excluding prescriptions filled for tablet strengths >50 mg) with an increased risk of major cardiovascular events as compared to use of Z-drugs, with most of the risk being driven by cardiovascular death. Laboratory data from an unpublished analysis of the same cohort also support the lack of dose-dependency of metabolic side effects, as new use of low-dose quetiapine was associated with a risk of increased fasting triglycerides at 1-year follow-up. Concerns regarding side effects are greater in the elderly.


title: Insomnia

text: Gabapentinoids like gabapentin and pregabalin have sleep-promoting effects but are not commonly used for treatment of insomnia. Gabapentin is not effective in helping alcohol related insomnia.


title: Insomnia

text: Barbiturates, while once used, are no longer recommended for insomnia due to the risk of addiction and other side effects.


title: Insomnia

text: A major systematic review and network meta-analysis of medications for the treatment of insomnia was published in 2022. It found a wide range of effect sizes (standardized mean difference (SMD)) in terms of efficacy for insomnia. The assessed medications included benzodiazepines (SMDs 0.58 to 0.83), Z-drugs (SMDs 0.03 to 0.63), sedative antidepressants and antihistamines (SMDs 0.30 to 0.55), quetiapine (SMD 0.07), orexin receptor antagonists (SMDs 0.23 to 0.44), and melatonin receptor agonists (SMDs 0.00 to 0.13). The certainty of evidence varied and ranged from high to very low depending on the medication. The meta-analysis concluded that the orexin antagonist lemborexant and the Z-drug eszopiclone had the best profiles overall in terms of efficacy, tolerability, and acceptability.


title: Insomnia

text: Herbal products, such as valerian, kava, chamomile, and lavender, have been used to treat insomnia. However, there is no quality evidence that they are effective and safe. The same is true for cannabis and cannabinoids. It is likewise unclear if acupuncture is useful in the treatment of insomnia.


title: Insomnia

text: A survey of 1.1 million residents in the United States found that those that reported sleeping about 7 hours per night had the lowest rates of mortality, whereas those that slept for fewer than 6 hours or more than 8 hours had higher mortality rates. Getting 8.5 or more hours of sleep per night was associated with a 15% higher mortality rate. Severe insomnia – sleeping less than 3.5 hours in women and 4.5 hours in men – is associated with a 15% increase in mortality.


title: Insomnia

text: With this technique, it is difficult to distinguish lack of sleep caused by a disorder which is also a cause of premature death, versus a disorder which causes a lack of sleep, and the lack of sleep causing premature death. Most of the increase in mortality from severe insomnia was discounted after controlling for associated disorders. After controlling for sleep duration and insomnia, use of sleeping pills was also found to be associated with an increased mortality rate.


title: Insomnia

text: The lowest mortality was seen in individuals who slept between six and a half and seven and a half hours per night. Even sleeping only 4.5 hours per night is associated with very little increase in mortality. Thus, mild to moderate insomnia for most people is associated with increased longevity and severe insomnia is associated only with a very small effect on mortality. It is unclear why sleeping longer than 7.5 hours is associated with excess mortality.


title: Insomnia

text: Between 10% and 30% of adults have insomnia at any given point in time and up to half of people have insomnia in a given year, making it the most common sleep disorder. About 6% of people have insomnia that is not due to another problem and lasts for more than a month. People over the age of 65 are affected more often than younger people. Females are more often affected than males. Insomnia is 40% more common in women than in men.


title: Insomnia

text: There are higher rates of insomnia reported among university students compared to the general population.


title: Insomnia

text: The popular press have published stories about people who supposedly never sleep, such as that of Thái Ngọc and Al Herpin. Horne writes "everybody sleeps and needs to do so," and generally this appears true. However, he also relates from contemporary accounts the case of Paul Kern, who was shot in wartime and then "never slept again" until his death in 1943. Kern appears to be a completely isolated, unique case.


title: ITA Airways

text: Italia Trasporto Aereo S.p.A., trading as ITA Airways, is the state-owned flag carrier airline of Italy. It is fully owned by the Government of Italy via the Ministry of Economy and Finance. The airline flies to over 60 scheduled domestic, European, and a few intercontinental destinations. ITA Airways is a member of the SkyTeam global airline alliance.


title: ITA Airways

text: Italy's flag carrier Alitalia had been in operations since 1946. It was owned by the Italian government until 2009, when it became a private company after reorganizing and merging with the bankrupt Italian airline Air One. Alitalia reorganized again in 2015 after receiving an investment from Etihad Airways, with Air France-KLM Group already owning a minority stake. With multiple failed attempts to make the airline profitable, the airline was placed under extraordinary administration in 2017 just days after Etihad Airways ended its support of Alitalia. On 17 May 2017, after the government ruled out nationalizing the airline, it was officially put on the auction block.


title: ITA Airways

text: After multiple failed negotiations with Delta Air Lines, EasyJet, Italian railway company Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane, and China Eastern Airlines, the Italian government took ownership of the airline in March 2020. The government takeover was due in part to the belief the airline would not be able to survive the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on its own. On 10 October 2020, the Italian government signed a decree to allow the airline to reorganize as Italia Trasporto Aereo S.p.A.


title: ITA Airways

text: On 28 October 2020, it was reported that ITA was expected to buy several assets from Alitalia – Società Aerea Italiana S.p.A., including the brand and the flight codes of Alitalia and Alitalia CityLiner, the IATA ticketing code (055), the MilleMiglia frequent-flyer program, and airport slots at London Heathrow (68 weekly slots in summer and 65 in winter). The transaction was expected to cost €220 million.


title: ITA Airways

text: However, on 8 January 2021, the European Commission sent a letter to the Italian Permanent Representative to the European Union calling for Italy to launch an "open, transparent, non-discriminatory and unconditional tender" to shed Alitalia assets. The letter consisted of 62 requests for clarification, rejecting the idea that the old carrier could sell its assets to the new company with no open bidding. The letter stated that ITA should not retain the Alitalia brand, since the brand is an emblematic indicator of continuity. The European Commission suggested that the combined aviation, ground handling, and maintenance businesses should be sold separately to a third party. It also suggested that slots must be sold, and that the MilleMiglia program in its entirety could not be transferred to the new corporate entity.


title: ITA Airways

text: On 27 August 2021, ITA applied for an Exemption and a Foreign Air Carrier Permit with the United States Department of Transportation. The document noted the airline's intention to start flying to New York City, Boston and Miami in 2021, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. in 2022, and Chicago and San Francisco in 2023. The same document stated that prior to the start of its flight operations, planned for 15 October 2021, ITA would acquire certain assets from Alitalia – Società Aerea Italiana S.p.A., and that ITA would also participate in a public tender to acquire the "Alitalia" brand.


title: ITA Airways

text: On 30 September 2021, ITA announced that it would work with Airbus as a "strategic partner", providing details of its fleet plans. The airline announced a Memorandum of Understanding with Airbus for the purchase of 10 Airbus A330neo, 7 Airbus A220 and 11 Airbus A320neo aircraft, for a total of 28, along with an agreement with Air Lease Corporation to lease an additional 31 new Airbus aircraft, including the Airbus A350-900.


title: ITA Airways

text: On 22 October 2021, former Alitalia employees who had not been rehired protested against ITA. Women at the demonstration shouted slogans wearing only white nightgowns. Company CEO Alfredo Altavilla called the protest "a national shame".


title: ITA Airways

text: ITA officially joined the SkyTeam alliance on 29 October 2021, but for the time being only for one year, until new owners have been found and a long-term strategy has been made.


title: ITA Airways

text: Starting on 2 December 2021, ITA started carrying flights with the Pope starting with Pope Francis, replacing Alitalia for most outbound papal flights. The Pope's flight is often nicknamed "Shepherd One" by the press, while the actual callsign is "Volo Papale" (papal flight, in Italian) followed by a serial number.


title: ITA Airways

text: On 24 January 2022, ITA announced that MSC Group and Lufthansa had expressed an interest in becoming majority owners of the Italian airline, with the Italian Government keeping a minority stake. On 10 March 2022, fellow SkyTeam members Delta Air Lines and the Air France–KLM group also expressed interest in investing in ITA, by teaming up with investment firm Certares. Indigo Partners also expressed interest, leaving a total of three interested parties. After the deadline ended on 23 May 2022, only MSC/Lufthansa and Air France-KLM/Certares bid for ITA. As of 31 August 2022, the Italian government has stated their preference for the Air France-KLM/Certares bid, initiating exclusive talks with the group.


title: ITA Airways

text: ITA is fully owned by the Italian government via the Ministry of Economy and Finance. As such, the airline's corporate offices are located in the ministry.


title: ITA Airways

text: On 15 October 2021, the day flight operations began, ITA Airways' new brand was also presented. Its aircraft livery features a renewed design and new color scheme, with blue for the fuselage and white for the wings, and a white "ITA Airways" logo with part of the letter A in red and the Italian tricolor at the end of the tail. The “Alitalia” brand, though not currently used, was purchased for potential future marketing operations and to prevent its use by competitors.


title: ITA Airways

text: ITA plans to serve 45 destinations (including 21 in Italy) with 61 routes, growing to 74 destinations and 89 routes by 2025.


title: ITA Airways

text: Announced on 30 September 2021, ITA Airways signed an agreement with Airbus with an order for 10 Airbus A330neo, 11 Airbus A320neo and 7 Airbus A220. ITA Airways also announced an agreement with Air Lease Corporation and other aircraft leasing companies to take up 56 aircraft, including the Airbus A220, Airbus A320neo, Airbus A321neo, Airbus A330neo, and Airbus A350.


title: ITA Airways

text: On 15 October 2021, ITA Airways took over 18 A319-100, 25 A320-200, and 6 A330-200 from Alitalia. This is occurred in the wake of Alitalia’s shutdown on 14 October 2021, before the commencement of ITA Airways’s operations on 15 October 2021. These aircraft joining the fleet were in addition to the 2 A320-200 and the 1 A330-200 already under the ITA Airways AOC. This addition of these 49 aircraft brought ITA Airways’s fleet total to 52 aircraft, the planned number for the start of operations.


title: ITA Airways

text: "Volare" is the airline's loyalty program, through which customers accrue points based on miles flown. The European Commission prohibited the airline from buying Alitalia's "MilleMiglia" loyalty program.


title: The Magnificent Seven

text: The Magnificent Seven is a 1960 American Western film directed by John Sturges. The screenplay by William Roberts is a remake – in an Old West–style – of Akira Kurosawa's 1954 Japanese film "Seven Samurai" (itself initially released in the United States as "The Magnificent Seven"). The ensemble cast includes Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn, Brad Dexter, James Coburn, and Horst Buchholz as a group of seven gunfighters, and Eli Wallach as their main antagonist. The seven title characters are hired to protect a small village in Mexico from a group of marauding bandits, led by Wallach.


title: The Magnificent Seven

text: The film was released by United Artists on October 12, 1960. It was both a critical and commercial success, and has been appraised as one of the greatest films of the Western genre. It spawned three sequels, a television series that aired from 1998 to 2000, and a 2016 film remake. Elmer Bernstein's film score was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Score, and is listed on the American Film Institute's list of the top 25 American film scores. In 2013, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".


title: The Magnificent Seven

text: A gang of bandits led by Calvera periodically raids a poor Mexican village for food and supplies. After the latest raid, during which Calvera kills a villager, the village leaders decide they have had enough. On the advice of the village elder, they decide to fight back. Taking their few objects of value, three villagers ride to a town just inside the United States border hoping to barter for weapons. They are impressed by Chris Adams, a veteran Cajun gunslinger, and approach him for advice. Chris suggests they instead hire gunfighters to defend the village, as "men are cheaper than guns." At first agreeing only to help them recruit men, Chris eventually decides to lead the group. Despite the meager pay offered, he finds five willing gunmen.


title: The Magnificent Seven

text: The five other gunmen are the gunfighter Vin Tanner, who has gone broke after a round of gambling and resists local efforts to recruit him as a store clerk; Chris's friend Harry Luck, who assumes Chris is hiding a much bigger reward for the work; the Irish Mexican Bernardo O'Reilly, who has fallen on hard times; Britt, an expert in both knife and gun who joins purely for the challenge involved; and the dapper, on-the-run gunman Lee, plagued by nightmares of fallen enemies and haunted that he has lost his nerve for battle. On their way to the village, they are trailed by the hotheaded Chico, an aspiring gunfighter whose previous attempts to join Chris had been spurned. Impressed by his persistence, Chris invites him into the group.


title: The Magnificent Seven

text: Arriving at the village, they work with the villagers to build fortifications and train them to defend themselves. They note the lack of women in the village until Chico stumbles upon Petra and discovers the women were hidden in fear that the gunmen would rape them. The gunmen begin to bond with the villagers, and Petra pursues Chico. When Bernardo points out that the gunmen are being given the choice food, the gunmen share it with the village children.


title: The Magnificent Seven

text: Three of Calvera's men are dispatched to reconnoitre the village; due to a mistake by Chico, the seven are forced to kill all three rather than capture at least one. Some days later Calvera and his bandits arrive in force. The seven and the villagers kill another eight of their cohorts in a shootout and run them out of town. The villagers celebrate, believing Calvera will not return. But Chico infiltrates Calvera's camp and learns that Calvera must return, as his men are short of food.


title: The Magnificent Seven

text: Some fearful villagers thereupon call for the gunfighters to leave. Even some of the seven waver, but Chris insists that they stay, even threatening to kill anyone who suggests giving up the fight. The seven ride out to make a surprise raid on Calvera's camp, but find it abandoned. Returning to the village, they are caught by Calvera and his men, who have colluded with some of the villagers to sneak in and take control. Calvera spares the seven's lives, believing they have learned the simple farmers are not worth fighting for and fearing reprisals from the gunfighters' "friends" across the border. Preparing to depart, Chris and Vin admit they have become emotionally attached to the village. Bernardo likewise gets angry when the boys he befriended call their parents cowards. Chico declares that he hates the villagers; when Chris points out he grew up as a farmer as well, Chico angrily responds that it is men like Calvera and Chris who made the villagers what they are.


title: The Magnificent Seven

text: The seven gunmen are escorted some distance from the village, where their weapons are returned to them. They debate their next move and all but Harry, who believes the effort will be futile and suicidal, agree to return and fight.


title: The Magnificent Seven

text: The gunmen infiltrate the village and a gunfight breaks out. Harry, who has had a change of heart, returns in time to save Chris's life but is himself fatally shot. Harry pleads to know what they were fighting for, and Chris lies about a hidden gold mine to let Harry believe he died for a fortune; Harry smiles before dying. Lee finds the nerve to burst into a house where several villagers are being held, shooting their captors and releasing the prisoners to join the fight, but is gunned down as he leaves the house. Bernardo, shot protecting the boys he befriended, tells them as he dies to see how bravely their fathers fought. Britt dies after shooting at many bandits but exposing himself from cover. Chris shoots Calvera, who asks him, "You came back... to a place like this? Why? A man like you? Why?" He dies without receiving an answer. The remaining bandits take flight.


title: The Magnificent Seven

text: The three surviving gunmen ride out of town. As they stop atop a hill overlooking the village, Chico parts company with them, realizing he wants to stay with Petra. Chris and Vin bid farewell to the village elder, who tells them that only the villagers have really won, whereas the gunslingers are "like the wind, blowing over the land and passing on." As they pass the graves of their fallen comrades, Chris admits, "The Old Man was right. Only the farmers won. We lost. We'll always lose."


title: The Magnificent Seven

text: Lou Morheim acquired rights to remake the film in the US for $2,500. He later signed a deal with Yul Brynner's production company, who bought the rights from Morheim for $10,000 up front plus $1,000 a week as a producer and 5% of the net profits. Anthony Quinn was lined up to star with Brynner as director but later Martin Ritt was appointed as director with Brynner starring.


title: The Magnificent Seven

text: Brynner approached producer Walter Mirisch with the idea of remaking Kurosawa's famous samurai film. However, once Mirisch had acquired the rights and finalized a deal with United Artists, Brynner was sued for breach of contract by Quinn, who claimed that he and Brynner had developed the concept together and had worked out many of the film's details before the two had a falling-out. Quinn ultimately lost his claim because there was nothing in writing.


title: The Magnificent Seven

text: The film's title comes from the initial American localized title of "Seven Samurai", which was initially released under the title "The Magnificent Seven" in the United States in 1955.


title: The Magnificent Seven

text: Script credit was a subject of contention. Associate producer Morheim commissioned Walter Bernstein, a blacklisted scriptwriter, to produce the first draft "faithfully" adapted from the original script written by Shinobu Hashimoto, Hideo Oguni and Akira Kurosawa; when Mirisch and Brynner took over the production, they brought on Walter Newman, whose version "is largely what's onscreen." When Newman was unavailable to be onsite during the film's principal photography in Mexico, William Roberts was hired, in part to make changes required by Mexican censors. When Roberts asked the Writers Guild of America for a co-credit, Newman asked that his name be removed from the credits.


title: The Magnificent Seven

text: Sturges was eager to cast Steve McQueen in the picture, having just worked with him on the 1959 film "Never So Few", but McQueen could not get a release from actor/producer Dick Powell, who controlled McQueen's hit TV series "Wanted Dead or Alive". On the advice of his agent, McQueen, an experienced race car driver, staged a car accident and claimed that he could not work on his series because he had suffered a whiplash injury and had to wear a neck brace. During the interval required for his "recuperation", he was free to appear in "The Magnificent Seven".


title: The Magnificent Seven

text: James Coburn was a great fan of the Japanese film "Seven Samurai", having seen it 15 times, and was hired through the help of co-star and former classmate Robert Vaughn, after the role of the expert knifethrower had been rejected by actors Sterling Hayden and John Ireland.


title: The Magnificent Seven

text: Robert Vaughn, who died on November 11, 2016, was the last surviving member of the seven, and Rosenda Monteros was the last surviving cast member until her death on December 29, 2018.


title: The Magnificent Seven

text: The film was shot by cinematographer Charles Lang in a 35mm anamorphic format using Panavision lenses. Location shooting began on March 1, 1960, in Mexico, where both the village and the U.S. border town were built for the film. The location filming was in Cuernavaca, Durango, and Tepoztlán and at the Churubusco Studios. The first scenes were the first part of the six gunfighters' journey to the Mexican village prior to Chico being brought into the group.


title: The Magnificent Seven

text: During filming there was considerable tension between Brynner and McQueen, who was displeased at his character having only seven lines of dialogue in the original shooting script (Sturges had told McQueen that he would "give him the camera"). To compensate, McQueen took numerous opportunities to upstage Brynner and draw attention to himself, including shielding his eyes with his hat, flipping a coin during one of Brynner's speeches, and rattling his shotgun shells. Brynner would often build up a little mound of earth to make himself look as tall as McQueen, only to have McQueen kick the dirt out of place when he passed by. When newspapers started reporting about a rivalry, Brynner issued a press statement saying, "I never feud with actors. I feud with studios."


title: The Magnificent Seven

text: The film's score is by Elmer Bernstein. Along with the readily recognized main theme and effective support of the story line, the score also contains allusions to twentieth-century symphonic works, such as the reference to Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra, second movement, in the tense quiet scene just before the shootout. The original soundtrack was not released at the time until reused and rerecorded by Bernstein for the soundtrack of "Return of the Seven". Electric guitar cover versions by Al Caiola in the U.S. and John Barry in the U.K. were successful on the popular charts. A vocal theme not written by Bernstein was used in a trailer.


title: The Magnificent Seven

text: In 1994, James Sedares conducted a re-recording of the score performed by The Phoenix Symphony Orchestra, which also included a suite from Bernstein's score for "The Hallelujah Trail", issued by Koch Records; Bernstein himself conducted the Royal Scottish National Orchestra for a performance released by RCA in 1997, but the original film soundtrack was not released until the following year by Rykodisc. (Varèse Sarabande issued this album in 1996, and reissued it in 2004.)


title: The Magnificent Seven

text: At the 33rd Academy Awards, the score was nominated for Best Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture, losing to Ernest Gold's score for "Exodus". In 2005, the score for "The Magnificent Seven" was listed at 8 on the American Film Institute's list of the top 25 American film scores.


title: The Magnificent Seven

text: Bernstein's score has frequently been quoted in the media and popular culture. Starting in 1963, the theme was used in commercials in the U.S. for Marlboro cigarettes for many years. A similar-sounding (but different) tune was used for Victoria Bitter beer in Australia, as was a similar-sounding (but different) tune for the introduction to the National Geographic television show. The theme was included in a scene of the James Bond film "Moonraker".


title: The Magnificent Seven

text: Other uses include in the 2004 documentary film "Fahrenheit 9/11"; in the 2005 film "The Ringer"; in the 2015 film "Hardcore Henry"; as entrance music for the British band James, as well as episodes of "The Simpsons" that had a "Western" theme (mainly in the episode titled "Dude, Where's My Ranch?"). The opening horn riff in Arthur Conley's 1967 hit "Sweet Soul Music" is borrowed from the theme. Canadian band Kon Kan use the opening bars of the theme in their single "I Beg Your Pardon". Celtic Football Club (Glasgow, Scotland) used the theme music whenever Henrik Larsson scored a goal. The 2008 J-pop song "Ōgoe Diamond" by AKB48 also used part of the main theme.


title: The Magnificent Seven

text: The "Cheers" episode "Diane Chambers Day" (season 4, episode 22) revolves around the bar denizens being invited to watch "The Magnificent Seven", and ends with them singing an a cappella version of the theme.


title: The Magnificent Seven

text: The Mick Jones 1980s band Big Audio Dynamite covered the song as "Keep off the Grass" (although this cover was not officially released). In 1995, the KLF also did a drum and bass cover of the main title as "The Magnificent"; it was released under the group alias One World Orchestra on the charity compilation "The Help Album".


title: The Magnificent Seven

text: In 1992, the main theme of "The Magnificent Seven" came into use on a section of the Euro Disneyland Railroad at Disneyland Paris. Portions of the theme play as the train exits the Grand Canyon diorama tunnel behind Phantom Manor, enters Frontierland, and travels along the bank of the Rivers of the Far West.


title: The Magnificent Seven

text: The "Main Title" was used as an intro tune on many nights of Bruce Springsteen's 2012 Wrecking Ball Tour. The theme was played as the E Street Band entered the stage, adding to the dramatic atmosphere in the stadium.


title: The Magnificent Seven

text: The film opened on October 12, 1960, in a thousand theaters across the South and Southwest of the United States.


title: The Magnificent Seven

text: In the United States and Canada, the film earned in theatrical rentals and was a box office disappointment, but proved to be such a smash hit in Europe that it ultimately made a profit. The overseas rental was almost three times as much as in the U.S. with a total of $7.5 million, giving it worldwide rentals of $9.75 million.


title: The Magnificent Seven

text: In Western Europe, the film sold tickets in Italy, 7,037,826 tickets in France, and 7.7million tickets in the United Kingdom, becoming one of the top 100 highest-grossing films in the United Kingdom and in France. It was also successful in Germany. In the Soviet Union (where Brynner was originally from), the film sold 67million tickets, becoming the highest-grossing Hollywood film ever in the Soviet Union (where it was among only a handful of Hollywood films to become blockbusters there). In South Korea, it sold 80,870 tickets in Seoul City, and it was also successful in Japan. This adds up to a total of at least 89,118,696 tickets sold in overseas territories.


title: The Magnificent Seven

text: Contemporary reviews were mixed to positive. Howard Thompson of "The New York Times" called the film a "pallid, pretentious and overlong reflection of the Japanese original"; according to Thompson, "don't expect anything like the ice-cold suspense, the superb juxtaposition of revealing human vignettes and especially the pile-driver tempo of the first "Seven"." According to "Variety", "Until the women and children arrive on the scene about two-thirds of the way through, "The Magnificent Seven" is a rip-roaring rootin' tootin' western with lots of bite and tang and old-fashioned abandon. The last third is downhill, a long and cluttered anti-climax in which "The Magnificent Seven" grow slightly too magnificent for comfort." Richard L. Coe of "The Washington Post" called the film "rough, tough, funny and splashy most of the way. There's a serious dip the final third, but Keith's newcomer offers shrewd, vastly enjoyable performances." "Harrison's Reports" praised the film as "A superb Western, well acted and crammed full of action, human interest, pathos, suspense, plus some romance and humor." A positive review from Charles Stinson in the "Los Angeles Times" praised the dialogue as "by turns, virile, rowdily funny and then, abruptly, not always predictably, it is pensive, even gentle. John Sturges' direction is superbly staccato; making a knife-sharp use of pauses and silences, it brings out both the humor and melancholy, the humanity as well as the evil inherent in the situation." "The Monthly Film Bulletin" called the casting of Yul Brynner and Horst Buchholz "curious" and thought Chico's decision to stay put was "the film's most completely unbelievable contrivance," but still thought that "the film manages to be both impressive and likeable." Akira Kurosawa, for his part, was reportedly so impressed by the film that he presented John Sturges with a sword.


title: The Magnificent Seven

text: The film has grown greatly in esteem since its release, in no small part due to its cast (several of whom were to go on to become superstars over the decade following its release) and its music score, but also due to the quality of the script. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval score of 89% based on 44 reviews, with an average rating of 8.00/10. The consensus reads, ""The Magnificent Seven" transplants "Seven Samurai" into the Old West with a terrific cast of Hollywood stars—and without losing any of the story's thematic richness." It is the second most shown film in U.S. television history, behind only "The Wizard of Oz". The film is also ranked 79 on the AFI's list of American cinema's 100 most-thrilling films.


title: The Magnificent Seven

text: Three sequels were eventually made: "Return of the Seven" (1966), "Guns of the Magnificent Seven" (1969), and "The Magnificent Seven Ride!" (1972). None were as successful as the original film.


title: The Magnificent Seven

text: The film also inspired a television series, "The Magnificent Seven", which ran from 1998 to 2000. Robert Vaughn was a recurring guest star, a judge who hires the seven to protect the town in which his widowed daughter-in-law and his grandson live.


title: The Magnificent Seven

text: The 1980 science fiction film "Battle Beyond the Stars" was a remake of "The Magnificent Seven" set in space. A group of mercenaries, including ones played by George Peppard (as a character known only as "Space Cowboy") and Robert Vaughn (playing essentially the same character as in "The Magnificent Seven") defend farmers from space raiders on the planet Akir, home of the Akira (named after "Seven Samurai" director Akira Kurosawa).


title: The Magnificent Seven

text: "The Magnificent Seven", a remake of the film with the same title, was released in 2016, directed by Antoine Fuqua and starred Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D'Onofrio, Lee Byung-hun, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Martin Sensmeier and Peter Sarsgaard.


title: Michael Wincott

text: Michael Anthony Claudio Wincott (born January 21, 1958) is a Canadian actor. His deep, raspy voice has often led to his being cast in villainous roles.


title: Michael Wincott

text: Some of his best-known roles include Guy of Gisborne in "" (1991); Top Dollar, the main antagonist in "The Crow" (1994); music mogul Philo Gant in "Strange Days" (1995); mercenary Frank Elgyn in "" (1997); and hacker Adrian Cross on the TV miniseries "" (2014).


title: Michael Wincott

text: Wincott was born in Toronto and grew up in an east end suburb. His father is English while his mother was from Piacenza, Italy. Wincott also has two brothers, one of whom is actor and martial artist Jeff Wincott, a star of the late 80s TV series "Night Heat".


title: Michael Wincott

text: In a 2014 interview with "L'Uomo Vogue" (the Italian edition of "Men's Vogue") Wincott said he fell in love with cinema as a young child and took drama classes in High School. He was educated at the Victoria University, a college of the University of Toronto then in 1982 he enrolled at the Juilliard School in New York City, graduating in 1986. Wincott credited director Des McAnuff, as well as his father, with encouraging him to enroll at the prestigious acting school.


title: Michael Wincott

text: In 1976, Wincott starred in his first film, titled "Earthbound", as Cole Buckley, a troubled teenager living in a small Saskatchewan town. Actors Kate Reid and Gerard Parkes played his parents in the film. The film aired on CBC-TV's "Front Row Centre" series in January 1977.


title: Michael Wincott

text: In 1979 Wincott starred in the Canadian adventure drama film "Wild Horse Hank" alongside Linda Blair. In 1981 he appeared in the Canadian drama film "Circle of Two" starring Richard Burton. He also appeared on two episodes of the Canadian TV Series "The Littlest Hobo" in 1979 and 1981.


title: Michael Wincott

text: After graduating from Juilliard, Wincott was cast in the 1987 film "The Sicilian" in the role of Corporal Silvestro Canio. That same year he was also cast in the Eric Bogosian play "Talk Radio" as a stoned heavy metal fan named Kent. The following year Wincott appeared in Oliver Stone's film based on the play. In the 1980s he also appeared on such American TV series as "Miami Vice", "Crime Story" and "The Equalizer", as well as Canadian police drama series "Night Heat"—a series starring his brother Jeff.


title: Michael Wincott

text: Wincott's stage performances include the off-Broadway productions "Road" (1988) starring Joan Cusack and Kevin Bacon, and the Sam Shepard play "States of Shock" (1991) starring John Malkovich. He also appeared on Broadway starring in the play "Serious Money" (1988) alongside Kate Nelligan, Alec Baldwin and John Pankow, as well as appearing in "The Secret Rapture" (1989) starring Blair Brown.


title: Michael Wincott

text: Wincott again worked with Oliver Stone in 1989, appearing in the film "Born on the Fourth of July" as a bedridden Vietnam veteran, then yet again in 1991 in the film "The Doors" where he played the role of Paul Rothchild, the producer of The Doors' first five albums. In 1991 he also played the part of Guy of Gisborne in "", a henchman of the Sheriff of Nottingham (Alan Rickman) who is also the Sheriff's cousin in the film.


title: Michael Wincott

text: In 1993 he appeared in the film "Romeo Is Bleeding" as Sal, a mafioso, and also played the part of Rochefort in the Disney film "The Three Musketeers" starring Kiefer Sutherland, Charlie Sheen and Chris O'Donnell. The following year Wincott starred as kingpin Top Dollar opposite Brandon Lee in "The Crow". In 1995 he appeared in "Dead Man" with Johnny Depp. He played poet Rene Ricard in the 1996 biographical film "Basquiat". He also played the role of mercenary Frank Elgyn in the 1997 film "Alien Resurrection".


title: Michael Wincott

text: Wincott starred as a psychopathic kidnapper opposite Morgan Freeman in the 2001 film "Along Came a Spider". The following year he played Armand Dorleac, a sadistic prison warden in the 2002 film version of "The Count of Monte Cristo" starring Jim Caviezel. In 2004 he played Julius Bicke, the brother of Samuel J. Bicke (played by Sean Penn) in "The Assassination of Richard Nixon". In 2006 Wincott appeared in the western film "Seraphim Falls" starring Pierce Brosnan and Liam Neeson. He also appeared in "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" and "What Just Happened" in 2007 and 2008 respectively.


title: Michael Wincott

text: In 2009 he starred in "A Lonely Place for Dying" as CIA project manager Anthony Greenglass. In early 2012 he was cast as notorious serial killer Ed Gein in the biographical drama film "Hitchcock".


title: Michael Wincott

text: In 2014 Wincott played hacker Adrian Cross in the miniseries "". The following year he starred in the Canadian western drama film "Forsaken" alongside Kiefer and Donald Sutherland. In 2016 he also played the role of Old Bill in two episodes in season 1 of the science fiction western TV series "Westworld".


title: Michael Wincott

text: In 2017 he appeared in the MTG drama series "Veni Vidi Vici". The Swedish series stars Danish actor Thomas Bo Larsen and centers around the porn industry. Wincott plays the part of Georgina, a transgender former porn director. The show was selected as one of the top new European series at the MIPDrama Screenings held annually in Cannes. The series was also streamed on Hulu in 2017. Wincott starred in Jordan Peele's 2022 thriller, "Nope", as Antlers Holst, a renowned cinematographer. In preparation for the role, Wincott shadowed the film's director of photography, Hoyte van Hoytema.


title: Michael Wincott

text: Wincott has also lent his voice to several characters in video games and animated features: In 2002 he provided the voice of Scroop, a malevolent spider/crab-like creature in the Disney animated film "Treasure Planet"; he also provided the voice of Scroop in the accompanying Sony PlayStation video game of the same name. In 2004 he provided the voice for the Prophet of Truth in the video game "Halo 2". He also provided the voice of Mr. Big in the 2005 re-launch of the video game "Narc". In 2012 he provided the voices for several video game characters: Jules Merit in the game "Syndicate", Griffin in the interactive graphic novel "Infex", and Death in the game "Darksiders II".


title: Civilization

text: A civilization (or civilisation) is any complex society characterized by the development of a state, social stratification, urbanization, and symbolic systems of communication beyond natural spoken language (namely, a writing system).


title: Civilization

text: Civilizations are intimately associated with additional characteristics such as centralization, the domestication of plant and animal species (including humans), specialization of labour, culturally-ingrained ideologies of progress, monumental architecture, taxation, societal dependence upon farming, and expansionism.


title: Civilization

text: Historically, a civilization has often been understood as a larger and "more advanced" culture, in implied contrast to smaller, supposedly less advanced cultures. In this broad sense, a civilization contrasts with non-centralized tribal societies, including the cultures of nomadic pastoralists, Neolithic societies or hunter-gatherers; however, sometimes it also contrasts with the cultures found within civilizations themselves. Civilizations are organized densely-populated settlements divided into hierarchical social classes with a ruling elite and subordinate urban and rural populations, which engage in intensive agriculture, mining, small-scale manufacture and trade. Civilization concentrates power, extending human control over the rest of nature, including over other human beings.


title: Civilization

text: Civilization, as its etymology suggests, is a concept originally associated with towns and cities. The earliest emergence of civilizations is generally connected with the final stages of the Neolithic Revolution in West Asia, culminating in the relatively rapid process of urban revolution and state-formation, a political development associated with the appearance of a governing elite.


title: Civilization

text: The English word "civilization" comes from the 16th-century French "civilisé" ("civilized"), from Latin "civilis" ("civil"), related to "civis" ("citizen") and "civitas" ("city"). The fundamental treatise is Norbert Elias's "The Civilizing Process" (1939), which traces social mores from medieval courtly society to the Early Modern period. In "The Philosophy of Civilization" (1923), Albert Schweitzer outlines two opinions: one purely material and the other material and ethical. He said that the world crisis was from humanity losing the ethical idea of civilization, "the sum total of all progress made by man in every sphere of action and from every point of view in so far as the progress helps towards the spiritual perfecting of individuals as the progress of all progress".


title: Civilization

text: Related words like "civility" developed in the mid-16th century. The abstract noun "civilization", meaning "civilized condition", came in the 1760s, again from French. The first known use in French is in 1757, by Victor de Riqueti, marquis de Mirabeau, and the first use in English is attributed to Adam Ferguson, who in his 1767 "Essay on the History of Civil Society" wrote, "Not only the individual advances from infancy to manhood but the species itself from rudeness to civilisation". The word was therefore opposed to barbarism or rudeness, in the active pursuit of progress characteristic of the Age of Enlightenment.


title: Civilization

text: In the late 1700s and early 1800s, during the French Revolution, "civilization" was used in the singular, never in the plural, and meant the progress of humanity as a whole. This is still the case in French. The use of "civilizations" as a countable noun was in occasional use in the 19th century, but has become much more common in the later 20th century, sometimes just meaning culture (itself in origin an uncountable noun, made countable in the context of ethnography). Only in this generalized sense does it become possible to speak of a "medieval civilization", which in Elias's sense would have been an oxymoron.


title: Civilization

text: Already in the 18th century, civilization was not always seen as an improvement. One historically important distinction between culture and civilization is from the writings of Rousseau, particularly his work about education, "". Here, civilization, being more rational and socially driven, is not fully in accord with human nature, and "human wholeness is achievable only through the recovery of or approximation to an original discursive or prerational natural unity" (see noble savage). From this, a new approach was developed, especially in Germany, first by Johann Gottfried Herder and later by philosophers such as Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. This sees cultures as natural organisms, not defined by "conscious, rational, deliberative acts", but a kind of pre-rational "folk spirit". Civilization, in contrast, though more rational and more successful in material progress, is unnatural and leads to "vices of social life" such as guile, hypocrisy, envy and avarice. In World War II, Leo Strauss, having fled Germany, argued in New York that this opinion of civilization was behind Nazism and German militarism and nihilism.


title: Civilization

text: Social scientists such as V. Gordon Childe have named a number of traits that distinguish a civilization from other kinds of society. Civilizations have been distinguished by their means of subsistence, types of livelihood, settlement patterns, forms of government, social stratification, economic systems, literacy and other cultural traits. Andrew Nikiforuk argues that "civilizations relied on shackled human muscle. It took the energy of slaves to plant crops, clothe emperors, and build cities" and considers slavery to be a common feature of pre-modern civilizations.


title: Civilization

text: All civilizations have depended on agriculture for subsistence, with the possible exception of some early civilizations in Peru which may have depended upon maritime resources.


title: Civilization

text: The traditional "surplus model" postulates that cereal farming results in accumulated storage and a surplus of food, particularly when people use intensive agricultural techniques such as artificial fertilization, irrigation and crop rotation. It is possible but more difficult to accumulate horticultural production, and so civilizations based on horticultural gardening have been very rare. Grain surpluses have been especially important because grain can be stored for a long time.


title: Civilization

text: A research from the Journal of Political Economy contradicts the surplus model. It postulates that horticultural gardening was more productive than cereal farming. However, only cereal farming produced civilization because of the appropriability of yearly harvest. Rural populations that could only grow cereals could be taxed allowing for a taxing elite and urban development. This also had a negative effect on rural population, increasing relative agricultural output per farmer. Farming efficiency created food surplus and sustained the food surplus through decreasing rural population growth in favour of urban growth. Suitability of highly productive roots and tubers was in fact a curse of plenty, which prevented the emergence of states and impeded economic development.


title: Civilization

text: A surplus of food permits some people to do things besides producing food for a living: early civilizations included soldiers, artisans, priests and priestesses, and other people with specialized careers. A surplus of food results in a division of labour and a more diverse range of human activity, a defining trait of civilizations. However, in some places hunter-gatherers have had access to food surpluses, such as among some of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest and perhaps during the Mesolithic Natufian culture. It is possible that food surpluses and relatively large scale social organization and division of labour predates plant and animal domestication.


title: Civilization

text: Civilizations have distinctly different settlement patterns from other societies. The word "civilization" is sometimes defined as ""'living in cities"'". Non-farmers tend to gather in cities to work and to trade.


title: Civilization

text: Compared with other societies, civilizations have a more complex political structure, namely the state. State societies are more stratified


title: Civilization

text: Economically, civilizations display more complex patterns of ownership and exchange than less organized societies. Living in one place allows people to accumulate more personal possessions than nomadic people. Some people also acquire landed property, or private ownership of the land. Because a percentage of people in civilizations do not grow their own food, they must trade their goods and services for food in a market system, or receive food through the levy of tribute, redistributive taxation, tariffs or tithes from the food producing segment of the population. Early human cultures functioned through a gift economy supplemented by limited barter systems. By the early Iron Age, contemporary civilizations developed money as a medium of exchange for increasingly complex transactions. In a village, the potter makes a pot for the brewer and the brewer compensates the potter by giving him a certain amount of beer. In a city, the potter may need a new roof, the roofer may need new shoes, the cobbler may need new horseshoes, the blacksmith may need a new coat and the tanner may need a new pot. These people may not be personally acquainted with one another and their needs may not occur all at the same time. A monetary system is a way of organizing these obligations to ensure that they are fulfilled. From the days of the earliest monetarized civilizations, monopolistic controls of monetary systems have benefited the social and political elites.


title: Civilization

text: The transition from simpler to more complex economies does not necessarily mean an improvement in the living standards of the populace. For example, although the Middle Ages is often portrayed as an era of decline from the Roman Empire, studies have shown that the average stature of males in the Middle Ages (c. 500 to 1500 CE) was greater than it was for males during the preceding Roman Empire and the succeeding Early Modern Period (c. 1500 to 1800 CE). Also, the Plains Indians of North America in the 19th century were taller than their "civilized" American and European counterparts. The average stature of a population is a good measurement of the adequacy of its access to necessities, especially food, and its freedom from disease.


title: Civilization

text: Writing, developed first by people in Sumer, is considered a hallmark of civilization and "appears to accompany the rise of complex administrative bureaucracies or the conquest state". Traders and bureaucrats relied on writing to keep accurate records. Like money, the writing was necessitated by the size of the population of a city and the complexity of its commerce among people who are not all personally acquainted with each other. However, writing is not always necessary for civilization, as shown by the Inca civilization of the Andes, which did not use writing at all but except for a complex recording system consisting of knotted strings of different lengths and colors: the "Quipus", and still functioned as a civilized society.


title: Civilization

text: Aided by their division of labour and central government planning, civilizations have developed many other diverse cultural traits. These include organized religion, development in the arts, and countless new advances in science and technology.


title: Civilization

text: Throughout history, successful civilizations have spread, taking over more and more territory, and assimilating more and more previously uncivilized people. Nevertheless, some tribes or people remain uncivilized even to this day. These cultures are called by some "primitive", a term that is regarded by others as pejorative. "Primitive" implies in some way that a culture is "first" (Latin = "primus"), that it has not changed since the dawn of humanity, though this has been demonstrated not to be true. Specifically, as all of today's cultures are contemporaries, today's so-called primitive cultures are in no way antecedent to those we consider civilized. Anthropologists today use the term "non-literate" to describe these peoples.


title: Civilization

text: Civilization has been spread by colonization, invasion, religious conversion, the extension of bureaucratic control and trade, and by introducing agriculture and writing to non-literate peoples. Some non-civilized people may willingly adapt to civilized behaviour. But civilization is also spread by the technical, material and social dominance that civilization engenders.


title: Civilization

text: Assessments of what level of civilization a polity has reached are based on comparisons of the relative importance of agricultural as opposed to trading or manufacturing capacities, the territorial extensions of its power, the complexity of its division of labour, and the carrying capacity of its urban centres. Secondary elements include a developed transportation system, writing, standardized measurement, currency, contractual and tort-based legal systems, art, architecture, mathematics, scientific understanding, metallurgy, political structures, and organized religion.


title: Civilization

text: Traditionally, polities that managed to achieve notable military, ideological and economic power defined themselves as "civilized" as opposed to other societies or human groupings outside their sphere of influence – calling the latter barbarians, savages, and primitives.


title: Civilization

text: "Civilization" can also refer to the culture of a complex society, not just the society itself. Every society, civilization or not, has a specific set of ideas and customs, and a certain set of manufactures and arts that make it unique. Civilizations tend to develop intricate cultures, including a state-based decision making apparatus, a literature, professional art, architecture, organized religion and complex customs of education, coercion and control associated with maintaining the elite.


title: Civilization

text: The intricate culture associated with civilization has a tendency to spread to and influence other cultures, sometimes assimilating them into the civilization (a classic example being Chinese civilization and its influence on nearby civilizations such as Korea, Japan and Vietnam). Many civilizations are actually large cultural spheres containing many nations and regions. The civilization in which someone lives is that person's broadest cultural identity.


title: Civilization

text: It is precisely the protection of this cultural identity that is becoming increasingly important nationally and internationally. According to international law, the United Nations and UNESCO try to set up and enforce relevant rules. The aim is to preserve the cultural heritage of humanity and also the cultural identity, especially in the case of war and armed conflict. According to Karl von Habsburg, President of Blue Shield International, the destruction of cultural assets is also part of psychological warfare. The target of the attack is often the opponent's cultural identity, which is why symbolic cultural assets become a main target. It is also intended to destroy the particularly sensitive cultural memory (museums, archives, monuments, etc.), the grown cultural diversity, and the economic basis (such as tourism) of a state, region or community.


title: Civilization

text: Many historians have focused on these broad cultural spheres and have treated civilizations as discrete units. Early twentieth-century philosopher Oswald Spengler, uses the German word "Kultur", "culture", for what many call a "civilization". Spengler believed a civilization's coherence is based on a single primary cultural symbol. Cultures experience cycles of birth, life, decline, and death, often supplanted by a potent new culture, formed around a compelling new cultural symbol. Spengler states civilization is the beginning of the decline of a culture as "the most external and artificial states of which a species of developed humanity is capable".


title: Civilization

text: This "unified culture" concept of civilization also influenced the theories of historian Arnold J. Toynbee in the mid-twentieth century. Toynbee explored civilization processes in his multi-volume "A Study of History", which traced the rise and, in most cases, the decline of 21 civilizations and five "arrested civilizations". Civilizations generally declined and fell, according to Toynbee, because of the failure of a "creative minority", through moral or religious decline, to meet some important challenge, rather than mere economic or environmental causes.


title: Civilization

text: Samuel P. Huntington defines civilization as "the highest cultural grouping of people and the broadest level of cultural identity people have short of that which distinguishes humans from other species".


title: Civilization

text: Another group of theorists, making use of systems theory, looks at a civilization as a complex system, i.e., a framework by which a group of objects can be analysed that work in concert to produce some result. Civilizations can be seen as networks of cities that emerge from pre-urban cultures and are defined by the economic, political, military, diplomatic, social and cultural interactions among them. Any organization is a complex social system and a civilization is a large organization. Systems theory helps guard against superficial and misleading analogies in the study and description of civilizations.


title: Civilization

text: Systems theorists look at many types of relations between cities, including economic relations, cultural exchanges and political/diplomatic/military relations. These spheres often occur on different scales. For example, trade networks were, until the nineteenth century, much larger than either cultural spheres or political spheres. Extensive trade routes, including the Silk Road through Central Asia and Indian Ocean sea routes linking the Roman Empire, Persian Empire, India and China, were well established 2000 years ago when these civilizations scarcely shared any political, diplomatic, military, or cultural relations. The first evidence of such long-distance trade is in the ancient world. During the Uruk period, Guillermo Algaze has argued that trade relations connected Egypt, Mesopotamia, Iran and Afghanistan. Resin found later in the Royal Cemetery at Ur is suggested was traded northwards from Mozambique.


title: Civilization

text: Many theorists argue that the entire world has already become integrated into a single "world system", a process known as globalization. Different civilizations and societies all over the globe are economically, politically, and even culturally interdependent in many ways. There is debate over when this integration began, and what sort of integration – cultural, technological, economic, political, or military-diplomatic – is the key indicator in determining the extent of a civilization. David Wilkinson has proposed that economic and military-diplomatic integration of the Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations resulted in the creation of what he calls the "Central Civilization" around 1500 BCE. Central Civilization later expanded to include the entire Middle East and Europe, and then expanded to a global scale with European colonization, integrating the Americas, Australia, China and Japan by the nineteenth century. According to Wilkinson, civilizations can be culturally heterogeneous, like the Central Civilization, or homogeneous, like the Japanese civilization. What Huntington calls the "clash of civilizations" might be characterized by Wilkinson as a clash of cultural spheres within a single global civilization. Others point to the Crusading movement as the first step in globalization. The more conventional viewpoint is that networks of societies have expanded and shrunk since ancient times, and that the current globalized economy and culture is a product of recent European colonialism.


title: Civilization

text: The notion of human history as a succession of "civilizations" is an entirely modern one. In the European Age of Discovery, emerging Modernity was put into stark contrast with the Neolithic and Mesolithic stage of the cultures of many of the peoples they encountered.


title: Civilization

text: The term "civilization" as it is now most commonly understood, a complex state with centralization, social stratification and specialization of labour, corresponds to early empires that arise in the Fertile Crescent in the Early Bronze Age, around roughly 3000 BC.


title: Civilization

text: Gordon Childe defined the emergence of civilization as the result of two successive revolutions: the Neolithic Revolution, triggering the development of settled communities, and the Urban Revolution.


title: Civilization

text: At first, the Neolithic was associated with shifting subsistence cultivation, where continuous farming led to the depletion of soil fertility resulting in the requirement to cultivate fields further and further removed from the settlement, eventually compelling the settlement itself to move. In major semi-arid river valleys, annual flooding renewed soil fertility every year, with the result that population densities could rise significantly.


title: Civilization

text: This encouraged a secondary products revolution in which people used domesticated animals not just for meat, but also for milk, wool, manure and pulling ploughs and carts – a development that spread through the Eurasian Oecumene.


title: Civilization

text: The earlier neolithic technology and lifestyle were established first in Western Asia (for example at Göbekli Tepe, from about 9,130 BCE), and later in the Yellow River and Yangtze basins in China (for example the Peiligang and Pengtoushan cultures), and later spread.


title: Civilization

text: Mesopotamia is the site of the earliest developments of the Neolithic Revolution from around 10,000 BCE, with civilizations developing from 7,400 years ago. This area has been identified as having "inspired some of the most important developments in human history including the invention of the wheel, the planting of the first cereal crops, the building of the earliest cities and the development of the written cursive script".


title: Civilization

text: Similar pre-civilized "neolithic revolutions" also began independently from 7,000 BCE in northwestern South America (the Norte Chico civilization) and Mesoamerica. The Black Sea area is a cradle of the European civilization. The site of Solnitsata (5500 BC - 4200 BC) is believed to be the oldest town in Europe - prehistoric fortified (walled) stone settlement (prehistoric city). The first gold artifacts in the world appear from the 4th millennium BC, such as those found in a burial site from 4569 to 4340 BC and one of the most important archaeological sites in world prehistory – the Varna Necropolis near Lake Varna in Bulgaria, thought to be the earliest "well-dated" find of gold artifacts.


title: Civilization

text: The 8.2 Kiloyear Arid Event and the 5.9 Kiloyear Interpluvial saw the drying out of semiarid regions and a major spread of deserts. This climate change shifted the cost-benefit ratio of endemic violence between communities, which saw the abandonment of unwalled village communities and the appearance of walled cities, associated with the first civilizations.


title: Civilization

text: This "urban revolution" marked the beginning of the accumulation of transferable surpluses, which helped economies and cities develop. It was associated with the state monopoly of violence, the appearance of a soldier class and endemic warfare, the rapid development of hierarchies, and the appearance of human sacrifice.


title: Civilization

text: The civilized urban revolution in turn was dependent upon the development of sedentism, the domestication of grains, plants and animals, the permanence of settlements and development of lifestyles that facilitated economies of scale and accumulation of surplus production by certain social sectors. The transition from "complex cultures" to "civilizations", while still disputed, seems to be associated with the development of state structures, in which power was further monopolized by an elite ruling class who practiced human sacrifice.


title: Civilization

text: Towards the end of the Neolithic period, various elitist Chalcolithic civilizations began to rise in various "cradles" from around 3600 BCE beginning with Mesopotamia, expanding into large-scale kingdoms and empires in the course of the Bronze Age (Akkadian Empire, Old Kingdom of Egypt, Neo-Sumerian Empire, Old Assyrian Empire, Babylonian Empire, Hittite Empire, and to some degree the territorial expansions of the Elamites, Hurrians, Amorites and Ebla).


title: Civilization

text: A later development took place independently in the Pre-Columbian Americas. Urbanization in the Norte Chico civilization in coastal Peru emerged about 3200 BCE; the oldest known Mayan city, located in Guatemala, dates to about 750 BCE. and Teotihuacan in Mexico was one of the largest cities in the world in 350 CE with a population of about 125,000.


title: Civilization

text: The Bronze Age collapse was followed by the Iron Age around 1200 BCE, during which a number of new civilizations emerged, culminating in a period from the 8th to the 3rd century BCE which Karl Jaspers termed the Axial Age, presented as a critical transitional phase leading to classical civilization.


title: Civilization

text: A major technological and cultural transition to modernity began approximately 1500 CE in Western Europe, and from this beginning new approaches to science and law spread rapidly around the world, incorporating earlier cultures into the technological and industrial society of the present.


title: Civilization

text: Civilizations are traditionally understood as ending in one of two ways; either through incorporation into another expanding civilization (e.g. As Ancient Egypt was incorporated into Hellenistic Greek, and subsequently Roman civilizations), or by collapsing and reverting to a simpler form of living, as happens in so-called Dark Ages.


title: Civilization

text: There have been many explanations put forward for the collapse of civilization. Some focus on historical examples, and others on general theory.