title: Atlanta Hawks

text: Hope and redemption appeared to be on the horizon for the Hawks beginning in 2007. With the third pick of the NBA draft, they selected Al Horford. Horford nearly averaged a double-double during his rookie season, and was the only unanimous selection to the All-Rookie First Team as well as being runner-up for Rookie of the Year honors. The season started with a victory against the Dallas Mavericks 101–94, sending hope to Hawks fans. The last time they won a season opener was in 1998, also the last time they made the playoffs. For the 2007–08 season, the Atlanta Hawks updated the logos and uniforms that saw navy blue become the primary color, with red relegated to trim color status. This marked the first time in team history that they had used navy blue as one of their colors.


title: Atlanta Hawks

text: A mid-season trade for point guard Mike Bibby boosted the Hawks' playoff hopes. At the time of the trade the Hawks were 22–28; afterwards, they won 15 of their last 32 games to finish 37–45. Although they finished with a losing record, they managed to make the playoffs for the first time since 1999. In the playoffs the Hawks started to show improvement, pushing the eventual NBA Champions, Boston Celtics, to a Game 7 before losing in a blowout in Boston. The Hawks won all three games at Philips Arena, which hosted its first playoff games and earned its first sellout.


title: Atlanta Hawks

text: The 2008–09 season saw the Hawks win 47 games, their first winning season since 1999. With almost an intact lineup from the previous year, the Hawks manage to take a step forward in their development. Again they were pushed to a Game 7 in the first round but capitalized on home-court advantage earning their first playoff series win since 1999 against the Miami Heat. The Hawks were swept by the Cleveland Cavaliers 4–0 in the Conference Semifinals.


title: Atlanta Hawks

text: The 2009–10 season saw the Hawks improve further, winning 53 games, their first 50-win season since 1997–98. Al Horford earned his first All-Star selection, and along with Joe Johnson, this marked the first time since 1998 that the Hawks sent two players to the All-Star Game. The playoffs, however, were a reprise from the previous year. They won a hard-fought seven-game series against the Milwaukee Bucks, but they were swept by the Orlando Magic in the second round, with every game a one-sided contest. After the season, the Hawks dismissed head coach Mike Woodson and was replaced by Larry Drew.


title: Atlanta Hawks

text: The Hawks took a step back in the 2010–11 season, finishing with 44 wins, even though Horford and Johnson were named to the All-Star team. In mid-season the Hawks traded Mike Bibby to the Washington Wizards for Kirk Hinrich, in hopes of bringing a defensive guard to replace the defensively liable Bibby. The Hawks finished the season losing their final six games. In the playoffs the Hawks beat the Magic in six games; however, they subsequently lost to the Chicago Bulls in the Eastern Conference Semifinals in six games.


title: Atlanta Hawks

text: In August 2011, it was announced that California-based businessman Alex Meruelo was buying a majority stake of the Hawks, but in November he backed out of his intentions.


title: Atlanta Hawks

text: In December 2011, the Hawks signed Tracy McGrady, Jerry Stackhouse, Jason Collins, Vladimir Radmanovic, Jannero Pargo, and Willie Green. They also picked up rookies Donald Sloan and 27-year-old Ivan Johnson. Sloan was waived a month later.


title: Atlanta Hawks

text: The Hawks finished the 2011–12 season with the fourth-best record in the Eastern Conference with 40 wins, clinching the playoffs for the fifth straight season. However, the Hawks would be eliminated in the first round by the Boston Celtics in six games, ending the Hawks' three-year streak of advancing to the second round.


title: Atlanta Hawks

text: On June 25, 2012, the Hawks hired San Antonio Spurs Vice President of Basketball Operations Danny Ferry as President of Basketball Operations and General Manager. During the 2012 NBA draft, the Hawks chose guard John Jenkins with the 23rd pick and power forward Mike Scott with the 43rd pick. On July 2, 2012, the Hawks traded leading scorer and All-Star Joe Johnson to the Brooklyn Nets for Jordan Farmar, Anthony Morrow, DeShawn Stevenson, Jordan Williams and Johan Petro, as well as a 2013 first-round pick. That same day, the Hawks traded small forward Marvin Williams to the Utah Jazz for point guard Devin Harris.


title: Atlanta Hawks

text: On January 21, 2013, following Lou Williams' season-ending injury in a game against the Brooklyn Nets, the Hawks signed guard Jannero Pargo to a 10-day contract.


title: Atlanta Hawks

text: On February 21, 2013, the Hawks traded Morrow to the Dallas Mavericks for Dahntay Jones. That same day, the Hawks traded a future 2nd-round pick to the Golden State Warriors in exchange for Jeremy Tyler, who was waived 15 days later.


title: Atlanta Hawks

text: The Hawks ended the 2012–13 season with a 44–38 record, making a playoff appearance for the sixth straight season. However, they were eliminated by the Indiana Pacers in six games in the first round. By the end of the off-season, every player involved in the Johnson and Williams trades just a year earlier were either waived or not brought back. The 2013 free agency period also marked the end of the Josh Smith era for Atlanta as he signed a contract with the Detroit Pistons. Longtime Hawk Zaza Pachulia moved on as well and signed with the Milwaukee Bucks. With half the roster gone, 2012–13 proved to be a roster turnover year, paving a path to success for Mike Budenholzer.


title: Atlanta Hawks

text: On May 28, 2013, the Hawks hired San Antonio Spurs assistant coach Mike Budenholzer as the new head coach.


title: Atlanta Hawks

text: The Hawks entered the 2013 NBA draft with four draft picks. They drafted point guards Dennis Schröder (17th pick) and Shane Larkin (18th pick). They also chose point guard Raulzinho Neto with the 47th pick and small forward James Ennis with the 50th pick. However, the Hawks traded Larkin to the Dallas Mavericks for the draft rights of Mike Muscala and Lucas Nogueira (originally drafted by the Boston Celtics), as well as guard Jared Cunningham. They also traded Ennis's draft rights to the Miami Heat and Neto's to the Utah Jazz for a future second-round pick. The Hawks brought back Kyle Korver with a four-year, $24 million deal and signed power forward Paul Millsap to a two-year, $19 million deal.


title: Atlanta Hawks

text: On December 26, 2013, Horford tore his right pectoral muscle, and on December 30, the Hawks announced that he would undergo surgery the next day and would miss the rest of the season. The Hawks finished 38–44, their first losing season since 2008. However, due to the weakness of the Eastern Conference, they finished as the 8th seed in the playoffs, and just like 2008, the Hawks would not go down easy, as they took the top-seeded Pacers to 7 games in before a 92–80 loss in Game 7.


title: Atlanta Hawks

text: On May 1, 2014, the Hawks unveiled a new secondary logo, which is a modernized version of the 1972–95 "Pac-Man" logo. On July 15, 2014, they acquired defensive specialist Thabo Sefolosha from the Oklahoma City Thunder. On September 7, 2014, Bruce Levenson announced he would sell his share of the team, after self-reporting an inappropriate email he sent in 2012. Some in the African American sports community have defended Levenson, namely Jason Whitlock and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, commenting that Levenson's email had no racist intent, but was motivated by valid business concerns.


title: Atlanta Hawks

text: On January 2, 2015, "The Atlanta Journal-Constitution" reported that the remaining minority owners of Atlanta Hawks, LLC would join Levenson, effectively putting the entire franchise for sale. The sale of the team as well as the operating rights to Philips Arena was handled by Goldman Sachs and Inner Circle Sports LLC. The NBA has stated that the Hawks would remain in Atlanta as a condition of their sale. Additionally, Atlanta mayor Kasim Reed stated that the city might offer incentives for a prospective owner to keep the Hawks in Atlanta for another 30 years. On April 22, 2015, Atlanta Spirit reached a tentative agreement to sell the franchise to a group led by billionaire Tony Ressler (with Grant Hill, Steven Price, Rick Schnall, Sara Blakely, Jesse Itzler and Ressler's wife Jami Gertz holding minority stakes) for $850 million; the sale was approved by the NBA Board of Governors on June 24, 2015.


title: Atlanta Hawks

text: On January 31, 2015, the Hawks became the first NBA team to go 17–0 in a calendar month by beating Portland. The 2015 All-Star Game consisted of four Hawks All-Stars including Jeff Teague, Paul Millsap, Kyle Korver and Al Horford. On March 9, 2015, Kyle Korver and DeMarre Carroll each scored 20 points to help the Hawks become the first NBA team to 50 wins in 2014–15, scoring a season-high in routing the Sacramento Kings 130–105. The Hawks also set a franchise record by going 20-of-36 for three-pointers, breaking the mark of 19 set against the Dallas Mavericks on December 17, 1996. On March 20, 2015, the Hawks clinched their first division title in over two decades and became the first team not based in Florida to win the NBA's Southeast Division; one week later, with a win over Miami as well as a Cleveland loss to Brooklyn, the Hawks clinched the top seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs. The team finished a franchise-best 60–22.


title: Atlanta Hawks

text: In the Eastern Conference first round, the Hawks defeated the Brooklyn Nets in six games. The Hawks then advanced to the Eastern Conference Semifinals to face the Washington Wizards, also defeating them in six games. It was the first time they had advanced past the second round since 1967, their next-to-last year in St. Louis. The Hawks advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time in franchise history, when they lost in four games to the Cleveland Cavaliers.


title: Atlanta Hawks

text: On June 22, 2016, the Hawks traded Jeff Teague to Indiana in a three-team deal, that would give Utah's 12th pick in the 2016 NBA draft to the Hawks. On July 8, 2016, Horford signed a four-year, $113 million contract with the Boston Celtics. On July 12, 2016, Dwight Howard agreed to return home to Atlanta on a three-year, $70 million contract with the Hawks. The Hawks finished the season with a 43–39 record, good enough for the fifth seed. They lost in the First Round to the Washington Wizards in six games.


title: Atlanta Hawks

text: On June 20, 2017, Howard was traded, along with the 31st overall pick in the 2017 NBA draft, to the Charlotte Hornets in exchange for Marco Bellinelli, Miles Plumlee, and the 41st overall pick in the same draft. Two days later, the Hawks selected Wake Forest power forward John Collins with the 19th overall pick. On July 13, 2017, Paul Millsap left the Hawks by signing a multi-year deal with the Denver Nuggets.


title: Atlanta Hawks

text: The loss of Howard and Millsap proved insurmountable for the rebuilding Hawks as they finished with a 24–58 record in the 2017–18 season, last in the Eastern Conference, and missed the playoffs for the first time since the 2006–07 season. On April 25, 2018, the Hawks and head coach Budenholzer had mutually decided to part ways. Budenholzer later signed a deal to coach the Milwaukee Bucks.


title: Atlanta Hawks

text: On May 11, 2018, Lloyd Pierce was hired by the Atlanta Hawks as head coach. On June 21, the Hawks selected Luka Dončić with the third overall pick in the 2018 NBA draft and immediately traded him to the Dallas Mavericks for a 2019 protected first-round pick and the draft rights to Trae Young. The Atlanta Hawks also selected Kevin Huerter with the 19th pick and Omari Spellman with the 30th pick of the 2018 NBA draft. It was speculated that the Hawks general manager, Travis Schlenk, was following the same plan for a rebuild that he had success with in Golden State.


title: Atlanta Hawks

text: In July 2018, the Hawks acquired Jeremy Lin, and traded Dennis Schröder, after he demanded to be traded. Carmelo Anthony was acquired in the trade involving Schröder, but was later waived through a buyout. During the off-season, the team signed Vince Carter and Alex Len among other players. In February 2019, Lin was bought out, and eventually signed with the Toronto Raptors.


title: Atlanta Hawks

text: In the 2019 NBA Draft, the Atlanta Hawks obtained DeAndre Hunter who was drafted with the 4th pick. They also used the 10th pick, that they acquired when they traded Luka Dončić for Trae Young, to acquire Cam Reddish.


title: Atlanta Hawks

text: On January 23, 2020, Trae Young was selected to his first All Star Game. He was voted in as a starter and was the first Hawks player to start in an All Star Game since Dikembe Mutombo in 1998. On February 4, 2020, the Hawks were involved in a four team trade in which they acquired Clint Capela and Nenê. Capela was healing from a foot injury at the time and did not play for that entire season, which was cut short due the NBA's COVID-19 protocols. Nenê was waived by the Hawks on February 6, 2020. Carter retired after the season after spending a record 22 seasons in the NBA.


title: Atlanta Hawks

text: For the 2020–21 season, the Atlanta Hawks made a lot of moves to upgrade their roster. They signed two proven veteran players, Bogdan Bogdanovic at the wing position and Danilo Gallinari at the power forward spot. They also signed Rajon Rondo and Kris Dunn to supply added help in the backcourt.


title: Atlanta Hawks

text: In March 2021, head coach Pierce was fired after the team's 14–20 start to the season and Nate McMillan was named interim head coach. After McMillan took over head coaching duties, the Hawks immediately posted an eight-game win streak, putting them firmly in playoff contention. Under coach McMillan, the Hawks went 27–11 in the regular season, and went on to finish the regular season with a 41–31 record. This was enough for them to earn the fifth best record in the Eastern Conference and the title of Southeast division champions. In the playoffs, they defeated the fourth-seeded Knicks before upsetting the top-seeded 76ers to reach the Eastern Conference Finals, only the second time in 54 years that the franchise has advanced past the second round. They lost to Budenholzer's Bucks in six games. This deep postseason run all but assured that McMillan would have the "interim" tag removed from his title; two days after the Hawks were eliminated, the Hawks announced that McMillan had agreed in principle to a four-year deal as full-time head coach; the deal was finalized on July 7. The 2020–21 Atlanta Hawks have been compared to the 1977–78 Seattle SuperSonics, in that both teams had poor records early on, made a coaching change, surged up the rankings to get better records, and made unexpected deep playoff runs.


title: Atlanta Hawks

text: "List of the last five seasons completed by the Hawks. For the full season-by-season history, see List of Atlanta Hawks seasons."


title: Atlanta Hawks

text: Throughout the club's history, the team has undergone several uniform changes. The Hawks logo has shifted between variations of a full-bodied hawk holding a basketball on its claws and a silhouette of a hawk head (more commonly known as the Pac-Man logo). Red and white have been a part of the team's palette for the most part since the 1950s, but the Hawks also used various accent colors as well. Red, blue and white served as the team's color scheme during the St. Louis and early Atlanta years (1955–70), and they wore red and white uniforms for much of their tenure in St. Louis. The team moved to Atlanta in 1968 and sported baby blue and white uniforms until 1970, when they went with a blue, green and white palette. Starting in 1972, the Hawks wore red and white uniforms with yellow accents, and added black as an accent color in 1992. The color switch coincided with the arrival of the NHL's Atlanta Flames, who wore the same colors and shared the same owner as the Hawks; the now-Calgary Flames even added black a few years after the Hawks made the same tweak. From 2007 to 2015, the Hawks returned to a red, blue and white scheme, adding silver as an accent color.


title: Atlanta Hawks

text: On May 1, 2014, the club adopted a stylized version of the 'Pac-Man' logo that it used from 1972 to 1995. The 'Pac-Man' logo (placed in a roundel) would become the team's primary logo after the conclusion of the team's 2014–15 season. On June 24, 2015, the team unveiled its new home, road and alternate uniforms, along with its updated logos and colors. The new color scheme consisted of Torch Red, Volt Green and Georgia Granite Gray. The team also unveiled its new socks and shoes, in conjunction with the National Basketball Association (NBA)'s new contract for official game socks with Stance. Previously, official game socks were primarily either white or black, depending on a team's preference. The team wore white for home games, Georgia Granite Gray for road games, and Torch Red as an alternate uniform color.


title: Atlanta Hawks

text: As part of the NBA's switch to Nike, the home and road designations were replaced by "Icon", "Association" and "Statement". The Hawks carried over their uniforms that they had worn the previous two seasons. The numbers on the white "Icon" uniform were changed to red with volt green trim; the other two uniforms remained the same.


title: Atlanta Hawks

text: On July 21, 2020, the Hawks unveiled new uniforms with a look similar to the set they wore in the mid-1970s. They also returned to the red, black and yellow color scheme they wore from 1992 to 2007, while adding gray as an accent color.


title: Atlanta Hawks

text: The Hawks also wore special edition "City" uniforms as part of its uniform deal with Nike. In the 2017–18 season, the Hawks wore black uniforms with volt green accents, featuring asymmetrical striping inspired from the team's early 1970s uniforms and futuristic fonts as a nod to the city's hip-hop music scene. In the 2018–19 season, the Hawks wore white uniforms with black and metallic gold trim as a nod to the team's 50th anniversary in Atlanta. During the 2019–20 season, the Hawks wore black uniforms with peach accents as a tribute to Atlanta's Peachtree Street. For 2020–21, the Hawks' "City" uniform paid tribute to civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr., featuring a black base and gold accents. The 2021–22 "City" uniform featured various elements from previous uniforms, including a yellow base from the 2004–07 alternates, the full-bodied hawk logo from the 1995–99 uniform, the "Hawks" script of the 1980s uniforms, the retro "Atlanta" script from the 1970–72 uniforms, and the block numbers and striping of the 1960s uniforms. The Hawks then revisited the peachtree theme in their 2022–23 "City" uniform, once again wearing black uniforms but with white/peach gradients on the striping and numbers, and a script "Atlanta" in white.


title: Atlanta Hawks

text: The Celtics–Hawks rivalry is a rivalry in the Eastern Conference of the National Basketball Association that has lasted for over five decades, although the two teams have played each other since the 1949–50 season, when the then-Tri-Cities Blackhawks joined the NBA as part of the National Basketball League and the Basketball Association of America merger. However, the Blackhawks could not field a truly competitive team until they moved to St. Louis as the St. Louis Hawks after a four-year stopover at Milwaukee. The two teams have faced each other eleven times in the NBA playoffs, four times in the NBA Finals, with the Celtics winning ten of twelve series against the Hawks, including three out of four NBA Finals. While the Hawks have only defeated the Celtics twice out of eleven series in the NBA Playoffs, they still often managed to make their series with the Celtics memorable. The rivalry intensified in 2016 with Hawks All-Star center Al Horford spurning the team and joining the Celtics.


title: Atlanta Hawks

text: The Hawks and the Orlando Magic have an intense rivalry, mostly stemming from playoff competitions and the rising stardom of Dwight Howard and Josh Smith, both from the 2004 NBA draft and who were both raised in Georgia.


title: Atlanta Hawks

text: The two teams faced each other three times in the playoffs in 1996, 2010, and 2011 NBA playoffs. The Magic beat the Hawks in the second round of the 1996 playoffs in five games and swept their 2010 playoff matchup. The Hawks eliminated the Magic 4–2 in the first round of the 2011 playoffs.


title: Atlanta Hawks

text: The Hawks hold the draft rights to the following unsigned draft picks who have been playing outside the NBA. A drafted player, either an international draftee or a college draftee who is not signed by the team that drafted him, is allowed to sign with any non-NBA teams. In this case, the team retains the player's draft rights in the NBA until one year after the player's contract with the non-NBA team ends. This list also includes draft rights that were acquired from trades with other teams.


title: Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi

text: Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated on 30 January 1948 at age 78 in the compound of Birla House (now Gandhi Smriti), a large mansion in central New Delhi. His assassin was Nathuram Vinayak Godse, a Chitpavan Brahmin from Pune, Maharashtra, a Hindu nationalist, a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a right-wing Hindu paramilitary organization as well as a member of the Hindu Mahasabha. Godse considered Gandhi to have been too accommodating to Pakistan during the Partition of India of the previous year.


title: Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi

text: Sometime after 5 p.m., according to witnesses, Gandhi had reached the top of the steps leading to the raised lawn behind Birla House where he had been conducting multi-faith prayer meetings every evening. As Gandhi began to walk toward the dais, Godse stepped out from the crowd flanking Gandhi's path, and fired three bullets into Gandhi's chest and abdomen at point-blank range. Gandhi fell to the ground. He was carried back to his room in Birla House from which a representative emerged sometime later to announce his death.


title: Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi

text: Godse was captured by members of the crowd—the most widely reported of whom was Herbert Reiner Jr, a vice-consul at the American embassy in Delhi—and handed over to the police. The Gandhi murder trial opened in May 1948 in Delhi's historic Red Fort, with Godse the main defendant, and his collaborator Narayan Apte, and six more, deemed co-defendants. The trial was rushed through, the haste sometimes attributed to the home minister Vallabhbhai Patel's desire "to avoid scrutiny for the failure to prevent the assassination." Godse and Apte were sentenced to death on 8 November 1949. Although pleas for commutation were made by Gandhi's two sons, Manilal Gandhi and Ramdas Gandhi, they were turned down by India's prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, deputy prime minister Vallabhbhai Patel and the Governor-General Chakravarti Rajagopalachari. Godse and Apte were hanged in the Ambala jail on 15 November 1949.


title: Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi

text: In early September 1947, Gandhi moved to Delhi to help stem the violent rioting there and in the neighboring province of East Punjab. The rioting had come in the wake of the partition of the British Indian empire, which had accompanied the creation of the new independent dominions of India and Pakistan, and involved large, chaotic transfers of population between them.


title: Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi

text: Nathuram Vinayak Godse, and his assassination accomplices, were residents of the Deccan region. Godse had previously led a civil disobedience movement against Osman Ali Khan, the Muslim ruler of the princely Deccan region dominion of Hyderabad State in British India. Godse joined a protest march in 1938 in Hyderabad, He was arrested for political crimes and served a prison sentence. Once he was out of prison, Godse continued his civil disobedience and worked as a journalist reporting the sufferings of Hindu refugees escaping from Pakistan, and during the various religious riots that erupted in the 1940s.


title: Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi

text: Plans to assassinate Gandhi were initiated by Godse and his accomplices in January of 1948, after India and Pakistan had already started a war over Kashmir, due to Godse's disagreement with Gandhi's philosophy of non-violence towards Muslims. But Gandhi opposed the decision and went on a fast-unto-death on 13January 1948 to pressure the Indian government to release the payment to Pakistan. The Indian government, yielding to Gandhi, reversed its decision. Godse and his colleagues interpreted this sequence of events to be a case of Mahatma Gandhi controlling power and hurting India.


title: Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi

text: On the day Gandhi went on hunger strike, Godse and his colleagues began planning how to assassinate Gandhi. Nathuram Vinayak Godse and Narayan Apte purchased a Beretta M1934. Along with purchasing the pistol, Godse and his accomplices shadowed Gandhi's movements.


title: Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi

text: Gandhi had initially been staying at the Balmiki Temple, near Gole Market in the northern part of New Delhi, and was holding his prayer meetings there. When the temple was requisitioned for sheltering refugees of the partition he moved to Birla House, a large mansion on what was then Albuquerque Road in south-central New Delhi, not far from the diplomatic enclave. Gandhi was living in two unpretentious rooms in the left wing of Birla House, and conducting prayer meetings on a raised lawn behind the mansion.


title: Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi

text: The first attempt to assassinate Gandhi at Birla House occurred on 20January 1948. According to Stanley Wolpert, Nathuram Godse and his colleagues followed Gandhi to a park where he was speaking. One of them threw a grenade away from the crowd. The loud explosion scared the crowd, creating a chaotic stampede of people. Gandhi was left alone on the speakers' platform. The original assassination plan was to throw a second grenade, after the crowds had run away, at the isolated Gandhi. But the alleged accomplice Digambar Badge lost his courage, did not throw the second grenade and ran away with the crowd. All of the assassination plotters ran away, except Madanlal Pahwa who was a Punjabi refugee of the Partition of India. He was arrested. Pahwa was released in 1964.


title: Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi

text: Manu (Mridula) Gandhi, called "Manuben" in Gujarati fashion, was Mahatma Gandhi's great niece (more precisely, a first cousin twice removed). She had come to join Gandhi's entourage during his peace mission to Noakhali in East Bengal, which had been gripped by communal violence. Abha Chatterjee (Abhaben Chatterjee) was a girl adopted by the Gandhis who would later marry Gandhi's nephew, Kanu Gandhi. Both young women were walking with Gandhi when he was assassinated. According to "Last Glimpses Of Bapu", a memoir by Manuben Gandhi published in 1962, Mahatma Gandhi (Bapu) started the day in Birla House by listening to a recitation of the "Bhagavad Gita". He then worked on a Congress constitution he wanted to publish in the "Harijan", had his bath and massage at 8a.m., and reprimanded Manuben to take care of herself since her health was not what it should be for an 18-year-old. Gandhi, aged 78, was weighed after his bath and was . He then ate lunch with Pyarelalji discussing Noakhali riots. After lunch, states Manuben, Gandhi napped. After waking up, he had a meeting with Sardar Dada. Two Kathiawar leaders wanted to meet him, and when Manuben informed Gandhi that they wanted to meet him, Gandhi replied, "Tell them that, if I remain alive, they can talk to me after the prayer on my walk".


title: Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi

text: According to Manuben's memoir, the meeting between Vallabhbhai Patel and Gandhi went past the scheduled time and Gandhi was about ten minutes late to the prayer meeting. He began his walk to the prayer location by walking with Manuben to his right and Abha to his left, holding onto them as walking sticks. A stout young man in khaki dress, wrote Manuben, pushed his way through the crowd bent over and with his hands folded. Manuben thought that the man wanted to touch Gandhi's feet. She pushed the man aside saying, "Bapu is already ten minutes late, why do you embarrass him". Godse pushed her aside so forcibly that she lost her balance and the rosary, notebook, and Gandhi's spitoon she was carrying, fell out of her hands. She recalled that as she bent to the ground to pick up the items she heard four shots, resounding booms, and she saw smoke everywhere. Gandhi's hands were folded, with his lips saying, "Hey Ram...! Hey Ram...!". Abhaben, wrote Manuben, had also fallen down and she saw the assassinated Gandhi in Abhaben's lap.


title: Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi

text: The pistol shots had deafened her, wrote Manuben, the smoke was very thick, and the incident complete within 3 to 4minutes. A crowd of people rushed towards them, according to Manuben. The watch she was carrying showed 5:17p.m. and blood was everywhere on their white clothes. Manuben estimated that it took about ten minutes to carry Gandhi back into the house, and no doctor was available in the meanwhile. They only had a first aid box, but there was no medicine in it for treating Gandhi's wounds. According to Manuben, Gandhi had suffered profuse blood loss. Everyone was crying loudly. In the house, Bhai Saheb had phoned the hospital many times, but was unable to reach any help. He then went to Willingdon Hospital in person, but came back disappointed. Manuben and others read the "Bhagavad Gita" as Gandhi's body lay in the room. Col. Bhargava arrived, and he pronounced Gandhi dead.


title: Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi

text: According to several reports, while the attending crowd was still in shock, Gandhi's assassin Godse was seized by Herbert Reiner Jr, a 32-year-old, newly arrived vice-consul at the American embassy in Delhi. According to an obituary for Reiner published in May 2000 by "The Los Angeles Times", Reiner's role was reported on the front pages of newspapers around the world,


title: Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi

text: According to , on January 30, 1948, Reiner had reached Birla House after work, arriving fifteen minutes before the scheduled start of the prayer meeting at 5 p.m., and finding himself in a relatively small crowd. Although there were some armed guards present, Reiner felt that the security measures were inadequate, especially in view of an attempted bomb explosion at the same location ten days before. By the time Gandhi and his small party reached the garden area a few minutes after five, the crowd had swelled to several hundred, which Reiner described as comprising "schoolboys, girls, sweepers, members of the armed services, businessmen, sadhus, holy men, and even vendors displaying pictures of 'Bapu'". At first, Reiner had been at some distance from the path leading to the dais, but he moved forward, explaining later, "An impulse to see more, and at a closer range, of this Indian leader impelled me to move away from the group in which I had been standing to the edge of the terrace steps".


title: Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi

text: As Gandhi was walking briskly up the steps leading to the lawn, an unidentified man in the crowd spoke up, somewhat insolently in Reiner's recollection, "Gandhiji, you are late". Gandhi slowed down his pace, turned toward the man, and gave him an annoyed look, passing directly in front of Reiner at that moment. But no sooner had Gandhi reached the top of the steps, than another man, a stocky Indian man, in his 30s, and dressed in khaki clothes, stepped out from the crowd and into Gandhi's path. He soon fired several shots up close, at once felling Gandhi. A BBC correspondent Robert Stimson described what happened next in a radio report filed that night: "For a few seconds no one could believe what had happened; every one seemed dazed and numb. And then a young American who had come for prayers rushed forward and seized the shoulders of the man in the khaki coat. That broke the spell. ... Half a dozen people stooped to lift Gandhi. Others hurled themselves upon the attacker. ... He was overpowered and taken away". Others, as well, described how the crowd seemed paralyzed until Reiner's action.


title: Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi

text: Robert Trumbull of "The New York Times", who was an eyewitness, described Reiner's action in a front-page story on January31, 1948, Reiner too had noticed a man in khaki step into the path leading to the dais, but his further view was occluded by a party of associates following Gandhi. He soon heard sounds, though, which in his words were "not loud, not ringing, and not unlike the reports of damp firecrackers ..." and which for a moment made him wonder if some sort of celebration was underway.


title: Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi

text: The details and the role of Reiner in seizing Godse vary by the source. According to Frank Allston, Reiner stated that According to Tunzelmann, Godse was seized and pummeled by Reiner. According to K. L. Gauba, Reiner was the "unsung hero" and had he not acted "Godse would probably have shot his way out". Reiner was standing in the front row, states Pramod Kapoor, and he seized and held Godse until the police arrived, but his name only appeared in some American newspapers. According to Bamzai and Damle, during the assassination trial, the government did not call to the stand American marine Herbert "Tom" Reiner who caught Godse or the nephew of then Congress minister Takthmal Jain of Madhya Bharat ministry (1948), as well as many others.


title: Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi

text: According to some reports, Godse surrendered voluntarily and asked for the police. Yet other reports state he was rushed by the crowd, beaten, arrested, and taken to jail. According to some eyewitnesses and court proceedings, Nathuram Godse was seized immediately by witnesses and an Indian Air Force officer dispossessed him of the pistol. The crowd beat him to a bloodied state. The police wrested him loose from the angry crowd, took him to jail. A FIR was filed by Nandlal Mehta at the Tughlak Road police station at Delhi.


title: Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi

text: The 31 January 1948 issue of "The Guardian", a British newspaper, described Gandhi as walking from the "Birla House to the lawn where his evening prayer meetings were held". Gandhi was a bit late for the prayer, leaning on the shoulders of two grand-nieces. On his way, he was approached by a man [Godse] dressed in a khaki bush jacket and blue trousers. According to one version, stated "The Guardian", Gandhi smiled back and spoke to Godse, then the assailant pulled out a pistol and fired three times, at point-blank range, into Gandhi's chest, stomach and groin. Gandhi died at 5:40pm, about half an hour after he was shot.


title: Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi

text: According to "The Guardian" report, which did not mention Herbert Reiner Jr, Godse "fired a fourth shot, apparently in an effort to kill himself, but a Royal Indian Air Force sergeant standing alongside jolted his arm and wrenched the pistol away. The sergeant wanted to shoot the man but was stopped by the police. An infuriated crowd fell upon the man and beat him with sticks, but he was apprehended by the police and taken to a police station." Godse was questioned by reporters, who in English replied that he was not sorry to have killed Gandhi and awaited his day in court to explain his reasons.


title: Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi

text: Vincent Sheean was another eyewitness and an American reporter who had covered World War II events. He went to India in 1947 and became a disciple of Gandhi. He was with the BBC reporter Bob Stimson in Birla House premises when Gandhi was assassinated. They stood next to each other by the corner of a wall. According to Sheean, Gandhi walked across the grass in their direction, leaning lightly "on two of the girls", and two or three others following them. Gandhi wrapped in a homespun shawl passed them by, states Sheean's eyewitness account, and climbed up four or five steps to the prayer ground. As usual, according to Sheean, "there was a clump of people, some of whom were standing and some of whom had gone on their knees or bent low before him. Bob and I turned to watch-we were perhaps ten feet away from the steps-but the clump of people cut off our view of the Mahatma now: he was so small".


title: Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi

text: Then, states Sheean, he heard "four, dull, dark explosions". Sheean asked Stimson, "what's that?" Stimson replied, "I don't know". It was a confusing place, people were weeping and many things happening, wrote Sheean. "A doctor was found, the police took charge; the body of the Mahatma was carried away; the crowd melted, perhaps urged to do so by the police; I saw none of this." Stimson filed a BBC report, then he and Sheean walked up and down the flower bed for a while. Sheean reported that he later met a "young American from the Embassy" who had never been to a prayer meeting before. Sheean did not take in anything the young American said about the scene, but a week later learned that "it was this young man who had captured the assassin, held him for the Indian police" and after turning the assassin over, it was this young American who searched the crowd for a doctor. He experienced a tribal pride, states Sheean, that even though he was paralyzed and helpless on the day of Gandhi's assassination, "one of his breed had been useful".


title: Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi

text: According to Ashis Nandy, before firing the shots Godse "bowed down to Gandhi to show his respect for the services the Mahatma had rendered the country; he made no attempt to run away and himself shouted for the police". According to Pramod Das, Godse after firing the shots raised his hand with the gun, surrendered and called for the police. According to George Fetherling, Godse did not try to flee, he "stood silently waiting to be arrested but was not approached at first because he was still armed; at last a member of the Indian air force grabbed him by the wrist, and Godse released his weapon". Police, states Fetherling, then "quickly surrounded Godse to prevent the crowd from lynching him". According to Matt Doeden and others, "Godse did not flee the scene, and he voluntarily surrendered himself to the police".


title: Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi

text: According to some accounts, Gandhi died on the spot. In other accounts, such as one prepared by an eyewitness journalist, Gandhi was carried back into the Birla House, into a bedroom, where he died about 30minutes later as one of Gandhi's family members read verses from Hindu scriptures.


title: Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi

text: During the subsequent trial, and in various witness accounts and books written since, the motivation of Godse has been summarized, speculated about and debated. Godse did not deny killing Gandhi, and made a long statement explaining his motivations for the assassination of Gandhi. Some of these motivations were:


title: Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi

text: The assassination was investigated, and many additional people were arrested, charged and tried in a lower court. The case and its appeal attracted considerable media attention, but Godse's statement in his defense to the court was banned immediately by the Indian government. Those convicted were either executed or served their complete sentences.


title: Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi

text: Along with Nathuram Godse many other accomplices were arrested. They were all identified as prominent members of the Hindu Mahasabha – a nationalist organization.


title: Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi

text: Along with Godse and accomplices, police arrested the 65-year-old Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, who they accused of being the mastermind behind the plot.


title: Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi

text: Digambar Badge was alleged to be one of the conspirators and an active participant in the murder plan. After his arrest, he made a statement admitting his own guilt and incriminating his accomplices. He expressed his willingness to appear before a magistrate and repeat his statement; so, he was tendered a conditional pardon and thus he became King's evidence.


title: Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi

text: The trial began on 27May 1948 and ran for eight months before Justice Atma Charan passed his final order on 10February 1949. The prosecution called 149 witnesses, the defense none. The court found all of the defendants except one guilty as charged. Eight men were convicted for the murder conspiracy, and others convicted for violation of the Explosive Substances Act. Savarkar was acquitted and set free. Nathuram Godse and Narayan Apte were sentenced to death by hanging and the remaining six (including Godse's brother, Gopal) were sentenced to life imprisonment.


title: Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi

text: Of those found guilty, all except Godse appealed their conviction and sentence. Godse accepted his death sentence, but appealed the lower court ruling that found him guilty of conspiracy. Godse argued, in his limited appeal to the High Court, that there was no conspiracy, he alone was solely responsible for the assassination, witnesses saw only him kill Gandhi, that all co-accused were innocent and should be released. According to Markovitz, Godse's declarations and expressed motivations during the appeal have been analyzed in contrasting ways. For example, "while Robert Payne, in his detailed account of the trial, dwells on the irrational nature of his statement, Ashis Nandy underlines the deeply rational character of Godse's action, which, in his view, reflected the well-founded fears among upper-caste Hindus of Gandhi's message and its impact on Hindu society."


title: Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi

text: The appeal by the convicted men was heard from 2 May 1949, at Peterhoff, Shimla (Himachal Pradesh) which then housed the Punjab High Court. The High Court confirmed the findings and sentences of the lower court except in the cases of Dattatraya Parchure and Shankar Kistayya who were acquitted of all charges.


title: Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi

text: Professor Claude Markovits, a Senior Research Fellow at the French National Centre for Scientific Research, wrote a 2004 book ("The UnGandhian Gandhi: The Life and Afterlife of the Mahatma") that the trial and execution was rushed, attributing the haste to Vallabhbhai Patel's efforts "to avoid scrutiny for the failure to prevent the assassination."


title: Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi

text: Godse and Apte were sentenced to death on 8November 1949. Pleas for commutation were made by Gandhi's two sons, Manilal Gandhi and Ramdas Gandhi, but these pleas were turned down by India's prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, deputy prime minister Vallabhbhai Patel and the Governor-General Chakravarti Rajagopalachari. Godse and Apte were hanged in Ambala Gaol on 15November 1949. According to the "Almanac of World Crime", at the hanging Apte's neck broke and he died instantly, but "Godse died slowly by the rope"; instead of having his neck snap he choked "to death for fifteen minutes".


title: Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi

text: The Government of India made the assassination trial public. According to Claude Markovits, Godse ... tried to use the courtroom as a political forum by reading a long declaration in which he tried to justify his crime. He accused Gandhi of complacency towards Muslims, blamed him for the sufferings of Partition and generally criticized his subjectivism and pretension to a monopoly of the truth. Although his attacks were met with some echo in high-caste Hindu circles traditionally hostile to Gandhi, he could not create a groundswell of opinion in his favour.


title: Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi

text: Godse later appealed the death sentence verdict in the Appeals Court in Simla, then in Punjab. He made a plea of poverty and requested that he be allowed to appear and defend himself in person. As the request was allowed, Godse became the only accused to appear in person at the appeal. G.D. Khosla, one of the three judges who heard the appeal, later wrote of the Godse statement:


title: Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi

text: The audience was visibly and audibly moved. There was a deep silence when he ceased speaking. Many women were in tears and men were coughing and searching for their handkerchiefs. The silence was accentuated and made deeper by the sound of a[n] occasional subdued sniff or a muffled cough. It seemed to me that I was taking part in some kind of melodrama or a scene out of a Hollywood feature film. ... the audience most certainly thought Godse's performance was the only worth-while part of the lengthy proceedings ... I have no doubt that had the audience of that day been constituted into a jury and entrusted with the task of deciding Godse's appeal, they would have brought in a verdict of 'not guilty' by an overwhelming majority


title: Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi

text: Gandhi's death was mourned around the world. Field Marshal Jan Smuts, former prime minister of South Africa, and once Gandhi's adversary, said,


title: Police ranks and insignia of India

text: Gazetted officers include all the Indian Police Service officers which are Class I officers of the cadre and all State Police Services officers of and above the rank of Deputy Superintendent of Police. All are arranged in a hierarchical order.


title: Police ranks and insignia of India

text: The ranks, posts and designations of all police officers vary from state to state as law and order is a state matter. But, generally the following pattern is observed:


title: Police ranks and insignia of India

text: Law enforcement in India is a state matter. Hence, policing structure varies from state to state. But there is a general structure observed.


title: Police ranks and insignia of India

text: The Ministry of Home Affairs is in overall charge of internal as well as external security and policing and is the controlling authority for the Indian Police Service (IPS). Home Secretary, the administrative head of MHA is an IAS officer in the rank of Secretary to Government of India. The ministry has jurisdiction over the Seven Central Armed Police Forces. The state home ministry gets the charge of the IPS officers in their state.


title: Police ranks and insignia of India

text: The Indian Police Service is not a law enforcement organization, but a professional body of police officers. Police officers may enter the IPS by two different routes:


title: Police ranks and insignia of India

text: Each State Government's Home Department is responsible for its State Police force. Generally the administrative head of the Home Department of a state is an IAS officer in the rank of Additional Chief Secretary or Principal Secretary to State government. However, in many states IPS officers are appointed Home Secretaries.


title: Police ranks and insignia of India

text: Each state police "force" is headed by an IPS officer in the rank of Director General of Police. The head of a state police force has the designation of Director General of Police, and is assisted by one to several Additional or Special DGPs. Each Additional/Special DGP is responsible for a bureau within the state police (Law & Order, Crime, etc.). Some large state police forces, such as the Maharashtra Police, Tamil Nadu Police and Uttar Pradesh Police are generally divided into zones, ranges and commissionerates. However, even some large police forces such as Bihar Police don't have Police Commissionerates. Smaller state police forces, such as the Andaman and Nicobar Police or the Arunachal Pradesh Police, are typically only divided into ranges; however, this system of divisions can vary from force to force. Each range or zone is headed by an officer in the rank of Additional DGP or Inspector General of Police.


title: Police ranks and insignia of India

text: Commissionerates generally encompass major cities that are so designated, such as Kolkata, Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Lucknow, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad etc. Each commissionerate has its own individual police force headed by an IPS officer with the designation of Commissioner of Police (CP). The Commissioner of Police may be of the rank of Additional DGP, ADGP or IGP but can also be in the rank of DIGP. The Commissioner of Police is empowered with the powers of an executive magistrate and functions as such. The Commissioner of Police is assisted by one to several Joint Commissioners of Police, who usually hold the rank of IGP (or Deputy IGP). Each is in charge of a bureau (Law and Order, Crime, etc.), mirroring the organisation of the state police as a whole. Below the JCPs, the organisation is typically as follows:


title: Police ranks and insignia of India

text: However, District Superintendents or Senior Superintendents of Police are not empowered with the powers of an executive magistrate, in Districts these powers, like promulgating Section 144, granting arms licenses, are exercised by the District Magistrate, who is an IAS officer.


title: Police ranks and insignia of India

text: Sub-inspectors (PSIs), the first police officers who may file a charge sheet, often command police stations in rural districts or police outposts or substations; in cities, they operate out of a police station and administer beats ("chowkies"). Sub-inspectors are assisted by assistant sub-inspectors (ASIs), who may also be in charge of "chowkies", under them are head constables (senior constables), who lead teams of constables.


title: Stingray

text: Stingrays are a group of sea rays, which are cartilaginous fish related to sharks. They are classified in the suborder Myliobatoidei of the order Myliobatiformes and consist of eight families: Hexatrygonidae (sixgill stingray), Plesiobatidae (deepwater stingray), Urolophidae (stingarees), Urotrygonidae (round rays), Dasyatidae (whiptail stingrays), Potamotrygonidae (river stingrays), Gymnuridae (butterfly rays) and Myliobatidae (eagle rays).


title: Stingray

text: Stingrays are common in coastal tropical and subtropical marine waters throughout the world. Some species, such as the thorntail stingray ("Dasyatis thetidis"), are found in warmer temperate oceans and others, such as the deepwater stingray ("Plesiobatis daviesi"), are found in the deep ocean. The river stingrays and a number of whiptail stingrays (such as the Niger stingray ("Fontitrygon garouaensis")) are restricted to fresh water. Most myliobatoids are demersal (inhabiting the next-to-lowest zone in the water column), but some, such as the pelagic stingray and the eagle rays, are pelagic.


title: Stingray

text: Stingray species are progressively becoming threatened or vulnerable to extinction, particularly as the consequence of unregulated fishing. As of 2013, 45 species have been listed as vulnerable or endangered by the IUCN. The status of some other species is poorly known, leading to their being listed as data deficient.


title: Stingray

text: The mouth of the stingray is located on the ventral side of the vertebrate. Stingrays exhibit hyostylic jaw suspension, which means that the mandibular arch is only suspended by an articulation with the hyomandibula. This type of suspensions allows for the upper jaw to have high mobility and protrude outward. The teeth are modified placoid scales that are regularly shed and replaced. In general, the teeth have a root implanted within the connective tissue and a visible portion of the tooth, is large and flat, allowing them to crush the bodies of hard shelled prey. Male stingrays display sexual dimorphism by developing cusps, or pointed ends, to some of their teeth. During mating season, some stingray species fully change their tooth morphology which then returns to baseline during non-mating seasons.


title: Stingray

text: Spiracles are small openings that allow some fish and amphibians to breathe. Stingray spiracles are openings just behind its eyes. The respiratory system of stingrays is complicated by having two separate ways to take in water to use the oxygen. Most of the time stingrays take in water using their mouth and then send the water through the gills for gas exchange. This is efficient, but the mouth cannot be used when hunting because the stingrays bury themselves in the ocean sediment and wait for prey to swim by. So the stingray switches to using its spiracles. With the spiracles, they can draw water free from sediment directly into their gills for gas exchange. These alternate ventilation organs are less efficient than the mouth, since spiracles are unable to pull the same volume of water. However, it is enough when the stingray is quietly waiting to ambush its prey.


title: Stingray

text: The flattened bodies of stingrays allow them to effectively conceal themselves in their environments. Stingrays do this by agitating the sand and hiding beneath it. Because their eyes are on top of their bodies and their mouths on the undersides, stingrays cannot see their prey after capture; instead, they use smell and electroreceptors (ampullae of Lorenzini) similar to those of sharks. Stingrays settle on the bottom while feeding, often leaving only their eyes and tails visible. Coral reefs are favorite feeding grounds and are usually shared with sharks during high tide.


title: Stingray

text: During the breeding season, males of various stingray species such as the round stingray ("Urobatis halleri"), may rely on their ampullae of Lorenzini to sense certain electrical signals given off by mature females before potential copulation. When a male is courting a female, he follows her closely, biting at her pectoral disc. He then places one of his two claspers into her valve.


title: Stingray

text: Reproductive ray behaviors are associated with their behavioral endocrinology, for example, in species such as the atlantic stingray ("Hypanus sabinus"), social groups are formed first, then the sexes display complex courtship behaviors that end in pair copulation which is similar to the species "Urobatis halleri." Furthermore, their mating period is one of the longest recorded in elasmobranch fish. Individuals are known to mate for seven months before the females ovulate in March. During this time, the male stingrays experience increased levels of androgen hormones which has been linked to its prolonged mating periods. The behavior expressed among males and females during specific parts of this period involves aggressive social interactions. Frequently, the males trail females with their snout near the female vent then proceed to bite the female on her fins and her body. Although this mating behavior is similar to the species "Urobatis halleri", differences can be seen in the particular actions of "Hypanus sabinus". Seasonal elevated levels of serum androgens coincide with the expressed aggressive behavior, which led to the proposal that androgen steroids start, indorse and maintain aggressive sexual behaviors in the male rays for this species which drives the prolonged mating season. Similarly, concise elevations of serum androgens in females has been connected to increased aggression and improvement in mate choice. When their androgen steroid levels are elevated, they are able to improve their mate choice by quickly fleeing from tenacious males when undergoing ovulation succeeding impregnation. This ability affects the paternity of their offspring by refusing less qualified mates.


title: Stingray

text: Stingrays are ovoviviparous, bearing live young in "litters" of five to thirteen. During this period, the female's behavior transitions to support of her future offspring. Females hold the embryos in the womb without a placenta. Instead, the embryos absorb nutrients from a yolk sac and after the sac is depleted, the mother provides uterine "milk". After birth, the offspring generally disassociate from the mother and swim away, having been born with the instinctual abilities to protect and feed themselves. In a very small number of species, like the giant freshwater stingray ("Urogymnus polylepis"), the mother "cares" for her young by having them swim with her until they are one-third of her size.


title: Stingray

text: At the Sea Life London Aquarium, two female stingrays delivered seven baby stingrays, although the mothers have not been near a male for two years. This suggests some species of rays can store sperm then give birth when they deem conditions to be suitable.


title: Stingray

text: The stingray uses its paired pectoral fins for moving around. This is in contrast to sharks and most other fish, which get most of their swimming power from a single caudal (tail) fin. Stingray pectoral fin locomotion can be divided into two categories, undulatory and oscillatory. Stingrays who use undulatory locomotion have shorter thicker fins for slower motile movements in benthic areas. Longer thinner pectoral fins make for faster speeds in oscillation mobility in pelagic zones. Visually distinguishable oscillation has less than one wave going, opposed to undulation having more than one wave at all times.


title: Stingray

text: Stingrays use a wide range of feeding strategies. Some have specialized jaws that allow them to crush hard mollusk shells, whereas others use external mouth structures called cephalic lobes to guide plankton into their oral cavity. Benthic stingrays (those that reside on the sea floor) are ambush hunters. They wait until prey comes near, then use a strategy called "tenting". With pectoral fins pressed against the substrate, the ray will raise its head, generating a suction force that pulls the prey underneath the body. This form of whole-body suction is analogous to the buccal suction feeding performed by ray-finned fish. Stingrays exhibit a wide range of colors and patterns on their dorsal surface to help them camouflage with the sandy bottom. Some stingrays can even change color over the course of several days to adjust to new habitats. Since their mouths are on the side of their bodies, they catch their prey, then crush and eat with their powerful jaws. Like its shark relatives, the stingray is outfitted with electrical sensors called ampullae of Lorenzini. Located around the stingray's mouth, these organs sense the natural electrical charges of potential prey. Many rays have jaw teeth to enable them to crush mollusks such as clams, oysters and mussels.


title: Stingray

text: Most stingrays feed primarily on mollusks, crustaceans and, occasionally, on small fish. Freshwater stingrays in the Amazon feed on insects and break down their tough exoskeletons with mammal-like chewing motions. Large pelagic rays like the Manta use ram feeding to consume vast quantities of plankton and have been seen swimming in acrobatic patterns through plankton patches.


title: Stingray

text: Stingrays are not usually aggressive and ordinarily attack humans only when provoked, such as when they are accidentally stepped on. Stingrays can have one, two or three blades. Contact with the spinal blade or blades causes local trauma (from the cut itself), pain, swelling, muscle cramps from the venom and, later, may result in infection from bacteria or fungi. The injury is very painful, but rarely life-threatening unless the stinger pierces a vital area. The blade is frequently barbed and usually breaks off in the wound. Surgery may be required to remove the fragments.


title: Stingray

text: Fatal stings are very rare. The death of Steve Irwin in 2006 was only the second recorded in Australian waters since 1945. The stinger penetrated his thoracic wall and pierced his heart, causing massive trauma and bleeding.


title: Stingray

text: The venom of the stingray has been relatively unstudied due to the mixture of venomous tissue secretions cells and mucous membrane cell products that occurs upon secretion from the spinal blade. The spine is covered with the epidermal skin layer. During secretion, the venom penetrates the epidermis and mixes with the mucus to release the venom on its victim. Typically, other venomous organisms create and store their venom in a gland. The stingray is notable in that it stores its venom within tissue cells. The toxins that have been confirmed to be within the venom are cystatins, peroxiredoxin and galectin. Galectin induces cell death in its victims and cystatins inhibit defense enzymes. In humans, these toxins lead to increased blood flow in the superficial capillaries and cell death. Despite the number of cells and toxins that are within the stingray, there is little relative energy required to produce and store the venom.


title: Stingray

text: The venom is produced and stored in the secretory cells of the vertebral column at the mid-distal region. These secretory cells are housed within the ventrolateral grooves of the spine. The cells of both marine and freshwater stingrays are round and contain a great amount of granule-filled cytoplasm. The stinging cells of marine stingrays are located only within these lateral grooves of the stinger. The stinging cells of freshwater stingray branch out beyond the lateral grooves to cover a larger surface area along the entire blade. Due to this large area and an increased number of proteins within the cells, the venom of freshwater stingrays has a greater toxicity than that of marine stingrays.


title: Stingray

text: Rays are edible, and may be caught as food using fishing lines or spears. Stingray recipes can be found in many coastal areas worldwide. For example, in Malaysia and Singapore, stingray is commonly grilled over charcoal, then served with spicy "sambal" sauce. In Goa, and other Indian states, it is sometimes used as part of spicy curries. Generally, the most prized parts of the stingray are the wings, the "cheek" (the area surrounding the eyes), and the liver. The rest of the ray is considered too rubbery to have any culinary uses.


title: Stingray

text: Stingrays are usually very docile and curious, their usual reaction being to flee any disturbance, but they sometimes brush their fins past any new object they encounter. Nevertheless, certain larger species may be more aggressive and should be approached with caution, as the stingray's defensive reflex (use of its venomous stinger) may result in serious injury or death.


title: Stingray

text: The skin of the ray is used as an under layer for the cord or leather wrap (known as "samegawa" in Japanese) on Japanese swords due to its hard, rough texture that keeps the braided wrap from sliding on the handle during use.


title: Stingray

text: Several ethnological sections in museums, such as the British Museum, display arrowheads and spearheads made of stingray stingers, used in Micronesia and elsewhere. Henry de Monfreid stated in his books that before World War II, in the Horn of Africa, whips were made from the tails of big stingrays and these devices inflicted cruel cuts, so in Aden, the British forbade their use on women and slaves. In former Spanish colonies, a stingray is called "raya látigo" ("whip ray").


title: Stingray

text: Some stingray species are commonly seen in public aquarium exhibits and more recently in home aquaria.


title: Stingray

text: Batoids (rays) belong to the ancient lineage of cartilaginous fishes. Fossil denticles (tooth-like scales in the skin) resembling those of today's chondrichthyans date at least as far back as the Ordovician, with the oldest unambiguous fossils of cartilaginous fish dating from the middle Devonian. A clade within this diverse family, the Neoselachii, emerged by the Triassic, with the best-understood neoselachian fossils dating from the Jurassic. The clade is represented today by sharks, sawfish, rays and skates.


title: Stingray

text: Although stingray teeth are rare on sea bottoms compared to the similar shark teeth, scuba divers searching for the latter do encounter the teeth of stingrays. Permineralized stingray teeth have been found in sedimentary deposits around the world, including fossiliferous outcrops in Morocco.


title: Shahada

text: The Shahada (Arabic: ٱلشَّهَادَةُ , "the testimony"), also transliterated as Shahadah, is an Islamic oath and creed, and one of the Five Pillars of Islam and part of the Adhan. It reads: "I bear witness that there is no god but God, and I bear witness that Muhammad is the messenger of God."


title: Shahada

text: The Shahada declares belief in the oneness () of God and the acceptance of Muhammad as God's messenger. Some Shias also include a statement of belief in the of Ali. A single honest recitation of the Shahada is all that is required for a person to become a Muslim according to most traditional schools.


title: Shahada

text: The above two statements are commonly prefaced by the phrase ("I bear witness that"), yielding the full form:


title: Shahada

text: In the English translation – "There is no god but God. Muhammad is the messenger of God." – the first, lower-case occurrence of "god" or "deity" is a translation of the Arabic word , while the capitalized second and third occurrences of "God" are translations of the Arabic word "Allah", meaning "the God".


title: Shahada

text: The noun (), from the verb ( ), from the root () meaning "to observe, witness, testify", translates as "testimony" in both the everyday and the legal senses. The Islamic creed is also called, in the dual form, (, literally "two testimonies"). The expression (, "the Witness") is used in the Quran as one of the "titles of God".


title: Shahada

text: In Sunni Islam, the "Shahada" has two parts: ("There is no deity except God"), and ("Muhammad is the messenger of God"), which are sometimes referred to as the first "Shahada" and the second "Shahada". The first statement of the "Shahada" is also known as the .


title: Shahada

text: In Shia Islam, the "Shahada" also has a third part, a phrase concerning Ali, the first Shia Imam and the fourth Rashidun Caliph of Sunni Islam: ( ), which translates to "Ali is the of God".


title: Shahada

text: In the Quran, the first statement of the "Shahadah" takes the form "lā ʾilāha ʾillā llāh" twice (, ), and "ʾallāhu lā ʾilāha ʾillā huwa" (God, there is no deity but Him) much more often. It appears in the shorter form "lā ʾilāha ʾillā huwa" (There is no deity but Him) in many places. It appears in these forms about 30 times in the Quran, and never attached with the other parts of the "Shahada" in Sunni or Shia Islam or "in conjunction with another name".


title: Shahada

text: Islam's monotheistic nature is reflected in the first sentence of the "Shahada", which declares belief in the oneness of God and that he is the only entity truly worthy of worship. The second sentence of the "Shahada" indicates the means by which God has offered guidance to human beings. The verse reminds Muslims that they accept not only the prophecy of Muhammad but also the long line of prophets who preceded him. While the first part is seen as a cosmic truth, the second is specific to Islam, as it is understood that members of the older Abrahamic religions do not view Muhammad as one of their prophets.


title: Shahada

text: The "Shahada" is a statement of both ritual and worship. In a well-known hadith, Muhammad defines Islam as witnessing that there is no god but God and that Muhammad is God's messenger, giving of alms ("zakat"), performing the ritual prayer, fasting during the month of Ramadan, and making a pilgrimage to the Kaaba: the Five Pillars of Islam are inherent in this declaration of faith.


title: Shahada

text: Recitation of the Shahadah is the most common statement of faith for Muslims. Sunnis, Shia Twelvers, as well as Isma'ilis consider it as one of the Five Pillars of Islam. It is whispered by the father into the ear of a newborn child, and it is whispered into the ear of a dying person. The five canonical daily prayers each include a recitation of the Shahada. Recitation of the Shahada is also the only formal step in conversion to Islam. This occasion often attracts witnesses and sometimes includes a celebration to welcome the converts into their new faith. In accordance with the central importance played by the notion of intention (, "niyyah") in Islamic doctrine, the recitation of the Shahada must reflect understanding of its import and heartfelt sincerity. Intention is what differentiates acts of devotion from mundane acts and a simple reading of the Shahada from invoking it as a ritual activity.


title: Shahada

text: Though the two statements of the Shahada are both present in the Quran (for example, and ), they are not found there side by side as in the Shahada formula, but are present in the Hadiths. Versions of both phrases began to appear in coins and monumental architecture in the late seventh century, which suggests that it had not been officially established as a ritual statement of faith until then. An inscription in the Dome of the Rock (est. 692) in Jerusalem reads: "There is no god but God alone; He has no partner with him; Muhammad is the messenger of God". Another variant appears in coins minted after the reign of Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan, the fifth Umayyad caliph: "Muhammad is the servant of God and His messenger". Although it is not clear when the Shahada first came into common use among Muslims, it is clear that the sentiments it expresses were part of the Quran and Islamic doctrine from the earliest period.


title: Shahada

text: The Shahada has been traditionally recited in the Sufi ceremony of "dhikr" (, "remembrance"), a ritual that resembles mantras found in many other religious traditions. During the ceremony, the "Shahada" may be repeated thousands of times, sometimes in the shortened form of the first phrase where the word 'Allah' ("God") is replaced by 'huwa' ("Him"). The chanting of the Shahada sometimes provides a rhythmic background for singing.


title: Shahada

text: The Shahada appears as an architectural element in Islamic buildings around the world, such as those in Jerusalem, Cairo, and Istanbul.


title: Shahada

text: Late-medieval and Renaissance European art displays a fascination with Middle Eastern motifs in general and the Arabic script in particular, as indicated by its use, without concern for its content, in painting, architecture and book illustrations. In his San Giovenale Triptych, the Italian Renaissance artist Masaccio copied the full Shahada, written backwards, on the halo of the Madonna.


title: Shahada

text: The "Shahada" is found on some Islamic flags. Wahhabis have used the Shahada on their flags since the 18th century. In 1902, Ibn Saud, leader of the House of Saud and the future founder of Saudi Arabia, added a sword to this flag. The modern Flag of Saudi Arabia was introduced in 1973.


title: Shahada

text: The Flag of Somaliland has a horizontal strip of green, white and red with the "Shahada" inscribed in white on the green strip.


title: Shahada

text: The flag of Afghanistan under the Taliban is a white flag with the "Shahada" inscribed in black. The various jihadist black flags used by Islamic insurgents since the 2000s have often followed this example. The "Shahada" written on a green background has been used by supporters of Hamas since about 2000. The 2004 draft constitution of Afghanistan proposed a flag featuring the "Shahada" in white script centered on a red background. In 2006, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant designed its flag using the "Shahada" phrase written in white on black background. The font used is supposedly similar to the font used as seal on the original letters written on Muhammad's behalf.


title: Megami Tensei

text: Megami Tensei, marketed internationally as Shin Megami Tensei (formerly "Revelations"), is a Japanese media franchise created by Aya Nishitani, Kouji "Cozy" Okada, Ginichiro Suzuki, and Kazunari Suzuki. Primarily developed and published by Atlus, and currently owned by Atlus (and Sega, after acquisition), the franchise consists of multiple subseries and covers multiple role-playing genres including tactical role-playing, action role-playing, and massively multiplayer online role-playing. The first two titles in the series were published by Namco (now Bandai Namco), but have been almost always published by Atlus in Japan and North America since the release of "Shin Megami Tensei". For Europe, Atlus publishes the games through third-party companies.


title: Megami Tensei

text: The series was originally based on "Digital Devil Story", a science fiction novel series by Aya Nishitani. The series takes its name from the first book's subtitle. Most "Megami Tensei" titles are stand-alone entries with their own stories and characters. Recurring elements include plot themes, a story shaped by the player's choices, and the ability to fight using and often recruit creatures (demons, Personas) to aid the player in battle. Elements of philosophy, religion, occultism, and science fiction have all been incorporated into the series at different times.


title: Megami Tensei

text: While not maintaining as high a profile as series such as "Final Fantasy" and "Dragon Quest", it is highly popular in Japan and maintains a strong cult following in the West, finding critical and commercial success. The series has become well known for its artistic direction, challenging gameplay, and music, but raised controversy over its mature content, dark themes, and use of Christian religious imagery. Additional media include manga adaptations, anime films, and television series.


title: Megami Tensei

text: In Japan, some games in the series do not use the ""Megami Tensei"" title, such as the "Persona" sub-series. Many of the early games in the series were not localized due to potentially controversial content including religious references, and later due to their age. However, English localizations have used the ""Shin Megami Tensei"" moniker since the release of "" in 2003, until being discarded in overseas territories beginning with "Persona 4 Arena" (2012).


title: Megami Tensei

text: The first installment in the franchise, "", was released on September 11, 1987. The following entries have nearly always been unrelated to each other except in carrying over thematic and gameplay elements. The "Megami Tensei" games, and the later "Shin Megami Tensei" titles form the core of the series, while other subseries such as "Persona", "Devil Children", and "Devil Summoner" are spin-offs marketed as part of the franchise. There are also stand-alone spin-off titles.


title: Megami Tensei

text: Two entries were released for the Famicom: "Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei" in 1987, and "" in 1990. The two titles are unrelated to each other in terms of story, and each introduced the basic gameplay and story mechanics that would come to define the series. Two entries were released for the Super Famicom: "Shin Megami Tensei" in 1992, and "Shin Megami Tensei II" in 1994.


title: Megami Tensei

text: After a nine-year gap, "" was released in 2003 for the PlayStation 2. Its "Maniax Edition" director's cut was released in Japan and North America in 2004, and in Europe in 2005. The numeral was dropped for its North American release, and its title changed to "Shin Megami Tensei: Lucifer's Call" in Europe. The next entry, "", was released for the Nintendo DS in 2009 in Japan and 2010 in North America. "Shin Megami Tensei IV" for the Nintendo 3DS was released in 2013 in Japan and North America, and a year later in Europe as a digital-only release. Another game set in the same universe, "", was released for the 3DS in February 2016 in Japan. "Shin Megami Tensei V" was released on the Nintendo Switch in 2021.


title: Megami Tensei

text: In addition to the main series, there are "Shin Megami Tensei" spin-off games. The first is "Shin Megami Tensei If...", released in the same year and on the same system as "Shin Megami Tensei II". The second, "", was released for the Xbox in 2002. Originally designed as a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), it was later split into a dual single-player and multiplayer package, and the single-player version released first. The online version was delayed and eventually cancelled as the developers could not manage the required online capacities using Xbox Live. A true MMORPG, "", was released for Microsoft Windows in 2007 in Japan, 2008 in North America, and 2009 in Europe. Western service was terminated in 2014 when Marvelous USA, the game's then-handlers, shut down their PC Online game department. Its Japanese service ended in May 2016. A smartphone game, "", was released in 2018.


title: Megami Tensei

text: The "Persona" series is the largest and most popular spin-off from the "Megami Tensei" series. The first entry in the series, "Megami Ibunroku Persona" (originally released overseas as ""), was released in 1996 in Japan and North America. The first "Persona 2" title, "", was released in 1999 in Japan. The second game, "", was released in 2000 in Japan and North America. "Persona 3" was released in 2006 in Japan, 2007 in North America, and 2008 in Europe. Its sequel, "Persona 4", was released in 2008 in Japan and North America, and in 2009 in Europe. A sixth entry in the series, "Persona 5", was released in Japan on September 15, 2016, and was released in North America and Europe on April 4, 2017, to critical acclaim. In addition to the main "Persona" games are spin-offs, so far focused on "Persona 3", "4" and "5": the canon spin-offs "" and "", two fighting games "Persona 4 Arena" and its sequel "Arena Ultimax" as well as the crossover fighting game "", and rhythm games "", "", and "". While "Persona 3" and "4" used the "Shin Megami Tensei" moniker in the West, it was dropped for the "Persona 4 Arena" duology and "Persona 4 Golden" as it would have made the titles too long to be practical.


title: Megami Tensei

text: The "Devil Summoner" subseries began in 1995 with the release of "". It was followed by "" in 1997, which itself is followed by "Soul Hackers 2", released in 2022. Two action role-playing prequels set in 1920s Tokyo were also developed, which revolve around demon summoner Raidou Kuzunoha: "" was released in 2006, and "" was released in 2008.


title: Megami Tensei

text: Aside from "Persona" and "Devil Summoner", there are other spin-off series covering multiple genres. After the release of "Shin Megami Tensei II", Atlus began focusing work on building spin-offs and subseries that would form part of the "Megami Tensei" franchise. Shortly after "Nocturne"s release, a duology titled "" ("Digital Devil Saga: Avatar Tuner" in Japan) was created based around similar systems to "Nocturne", and was also intended as a more accessible gaming experience. Two tactical role-playing games have been developed by Atlus for the DS under the "Devil Survivor" moniker: the original and "". Both have received expanded ports for the 3DS. Other subseries include "", a series aimed at a younger audience and using a pure fantasy setting; "", which was inspired by the popular "Pokémon" series; and "Majin Tensei", a series of strategy games. Two notable stand-alone spin-offs are action spin-off "Jack Bros." and "Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE", a crossover with Intelligent Systems' "Fire Emblem" series.


title: Megami Tensei

text: Several titles in the franchise have received anime and manga adaptations: "Persona 3" received both a four-part theatrical adaptation ("", "", "", ""), and a spin-off series titled "". "Persona 4" received two adaptations: "", based on the original game, and "Persona 4: The Golden Animation", based on its expanded PlayStation Vita port. A live-action television series based on the original "Devil Summoner" was broadcast between 1997 and 1998. "Devil Survivor 2" also received an anime adaptation , while the "Devil Children" series received two anime adaptations. Multiple "Shin Megami Tensei" and "Persona" titles have received manga and CD drama adaptations. Action figures and merchandise related to "Persona" have also been produced.


title: Megami Tensei

text: Despite most games in the series taking place in different continuities, they do share certain elements. One of its defining traits is it being set in a contemporary urban environment, specifically modern-day Tokyo. Post-apocalyptic elements are a recurring feature in settings and narratives. This choice was originally made to set the game apart from other fantasy-based gaming franchises of the time, as modern day Tokyo was rarely seen in games as opposed to versions of it from the past. The "Persona" series takes place exclusively within this setting, spanning a single continuity and mostly focusing on the exploits of a group of young people.


title: Megami Tensei

text: "Shin Megami Tensei II" is one of the notable early exceptions to the series' common setting, as it is set in a science fiction-styled future despite still including fantasy elements. The "Last Bible" series also shifted to a full fantasy setting. Two more recent notable departures were "Strange Journey", which shifted the focus to Antarctica to portray the threat on a global scale, and "Shin Megami Tensei IV", which included a medieval-stage society existing separately from a modern-day Tokyo. The "Devil Summoner" games take the form of modern-day detective stories as opposed to post-apocalyptic settings.


title: Megami Tensei

text: The series title translates as "Reincarnation of the Goddess": this has carried over into the current "Shin Megami Tensei" series, which has been officially translated as "True Goddess Metempsychosis". The word "Metempsychosis" refers to the cycle of reincarnation that ties into many "Megami Tensei" stories. The reborn goddess of the title has multiple meanings: it refers to a female character in each game that could be interpreted as the goddess, and is also representative of the drastic changes a location undergoes during a game. The concept of reincarnation was also included in narratives and gameplay mechanics to tie in with these themes. The series' overarching title has been truncated to ""MegaTen"" by series fans. Originating in Japan, the abbreviation has become a common term for the series among its fans.


title: Megami Tensei

text: The gameplay in the series has become notable for its high difficulty, along with several mechanics that have endured between games. A key element present since the first "Megami Tensei" is the ability to recruit demons to fight alongside the player in battle, alongside the ability to fuse two different demons together to create a more powerful demon. Equivalents to these systems appear in the later "Persona" titles. The game's most recognizable battle system is the Press Turn system, first introduced in "Nocturne". The Press Turn System is a turn-based battle mechanic governing both the player party and enemies, where either party are rewarded an extra turn for striking an enemy's weakness. A Moon Phase System or equivalent, in which phases of the moon or changes in the weather affected the behavior of enemies, is also featured in multiple games.


title: Megami Tensei

text: The layouts of the first two "Megami Tensei" games were noticeably different from later games: "Megami Tensei" used a 3D first-person perspective, while "Megami Tensei II" used a combination of first-person 3D displays for battle and top-down 2D displays for navigation. The change was suggested by staff members who did not want players getting lost in a large 3D environment. The 2D/first person viewpoint continued until "Nocturne", which switched to a third-person perspective. This was done due to a condition similar to car sickness called "3D sickness" with first person shooters in Japan at the time: the developers wanted something for players to focus on. A first-person perspective was reintroduced in "Strange Journey", and incorporated into "IV"s battles along with navigable 3D environments.


title: Megami Tensei

text: Each title focuses on the extraordinary invading the ordinary world, though the two main "Megami Tensei" series focus on different things: "Shin Megami Tensei" focuses more on the main protagonist gaining the power needed to survive in a world ruled over by tyrannical deities, while "Persona" focuses on interpersonal relationships and the psychology of a group of people. The protagonist is generally male within the "Shin Megami Tensei" titles: while a female lead or the ability to choose a lead's gender is not out of the question, some staff feel that "Shin Megami Tensei" lead roles are better suited to a male character. Throughout its lifetime, the series has incorporated elements of Gnosticism, various world mythologies and religions including Christianity and Buddhism, early science fiction, Jungian psychology and archetypes, occultism, punk, and cyberpunk. The science fiction and fantasy elements are brought together and unified through the use of philosophical concepts, enabling a blending of concepts and aesthetics that might normally clash.


title: Megami Tensei

text: The stories of the core "Shin Megami Tensei" titles frequently include fighting against a tyrannical God. The method of story-telling in the series can involve traditional use of cutscenes and spoken dialogue ("Persona", "Digital Devil Saga"), or a text-based minimalist approach that places emphasis on atmosphere ("Nocturne"). A tradition within the core "Shin Megami Tensei" series is to focus on a single playable character as opposed to a group. Alongside other recurring characters is Lucifer, the fallen angel who stands against God and is portrayed in multiple forms to represent his omnipotence. Since "Megami Tensei II", the series has used a morality-based decision system, where the player's actions affect the outcome of the story. In "Megami Tensei II", the alignments were first defined as "Law" (the forces of God) and "Chaos" (the army of Lucifer). In future games, an additional "Neutral" route was included where the player could reject both sides. Selected games have been thematically or otherwise linked to a particular alignment. "Shin Megami Tensei II", due to events prior to the story, focuses on the "Law" alignment. For "Nocturne", all the characters were roughly aligned with "Chaos", which was done both to bring variety to the series and allow the development team more creative freedom. "Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse" is restricted to a "Neutral" alignment while still having multiple endings. The three-tiered alignment was used in "Strange Journey", and continued into "Shin Megami Tensei IV".


title: Megami Tensei

text: The "Megami Tensei" series began life as a media expansion of the "Digital Devil Story" series, a trilogy of science-fantasy novels written by Aya Nishitani during the 1980s. The media expansion was handled by Nishitani and his publisher Tokuma Shoten. The game was developed at Atlus and published by Bandai Namco (then Namco). Although they wanted to incorporate as much of the original story as possible, the limited capabilities of the Famicom made this goal nearly impossible. The series' creators were Kouji Okada (credited as Cozy Okada in English), Ginichiro Suzuki, and Ginichiro's son Kazunari. The game proved popular in Japan, and effectively launched the "Megami Tensei" franchise, with its more ambitious sequel following in 1990. During the development of "Shin Megami Tensei", which was driven by the concept of a Super Famicom game with the company's brand on it, the team slowly decided that they wanted to break the then-current gaming status quo using its aesthetic and content. Despite this attitude, the staff considered "Shin Megami Tensei" to be a remake of "Megami Tensei II". In many of these earlier games, staff members at Atlus had cameos.


title: Megami Tensei

text: The majority of the "Megami Tensei" series is developed by Atlus' R&D Department 1. Other developers have been involved with the series: these include Multimedia Intelligence Transfer ("Last Bible" series), Lancarse ("Strange Journey"), CAVE ("Imagine") and Nex Entertainment ("Nine"), and Arc System Works ("Persona 4 Arena"). Most of the games up to 2003 were handled by Okada, but when he departed to form his own company Gaia, Kazuma Kaneko became the series' creative director. There are two main writers in the franchise: Shogo Isogai and Ryutaro Ito. Ito first worked on "Megami Tensei II", joining the team after development to write the script, along with working with the script and being part of the debug team. Isogai's first work for the series was the script for "Shin Megami Tensei II". The next entry "If..." was also written by Ito, and designed as a departure from the grand scale of previous games, instead being set within a cloistered school environment. His final work for the series was the first "Devil Summoner". Isogai also worked on "Shin Megami Tensei II" and "If...", and later worked on multiple "Devil Summoner" games, "Nocturne" and "Strange Journey". The music for the first five main "Megami Tensei" titles was composed by Tsukasa Masuko. For "Nocturne", Shoji Meguro, who had done work on earlier spin-off titles, was brought in. He later became well known for his work on the "Persona" titles.


title: Megami Tensei

text: The "Shin Megami Tensei" and "Persona" art styles have been defined by two different artists: Kazuma Kaneko and Shigenori Soejima. Kaneko had a long history with the series, having done some work on the original "Megami Tensei" titles. His first prominent work for the series was on "Shin Megami Tensei", who worked on both the sprite art and promotional artwork for the game's characters and demons. He was also responsible for suggesting many of the game's darker features, defining the series' eventual identity. Before designing each demon, Kaneko looks up his chosen subject to get their mythological background, and uses that in their design. Many of Kaneko's demon designs were influenced by both creatures and deities from world mythology, and monsters from popular culture like Godzilla. Alongside working on "Shin Megami Tensei II", "If..." and "Nocturne", he also did character designs for the first three "Persona" games. Kaneko's style has been described as "cold [and] stoic", evolving into that state over time to keep the artwork as close as possible to the in-game render. He states that he mainly does line drawings for the artwork. He starts his artwork with pencil, and then scans them onto a computer so other artists can work on them digitally.


title: Megami Tensei

text: Soejima's first work for the series was as part of the digital coloring team for the first "Devil Summoner". He later had minor roles in artwork and character design in the first "Persona" and "Soul Hackers". He later did the secondary characters for the "Persona 2" duology, and was also part of the team checking over the PlayStation ports of the first three "Shin Megami Tensei" games, as well as minor work on "Nocturne". Soejima was chosen as the lead designer for "Persona 3" by Kaneko, as Kaneko wanted the younger staff members to gain experience. "Persona 3" proved challenging for Soejima as he needed to refine his drawing style and take the expectations of series fans into account. He would go on to design for "Persona 3/FES" and "Portable", "Persona 4", and "Persona 5". Soejima's drawing style is recognized as being lighter-toned than Kaneko's work on the "Shin Megami Tensei" games.


title: Megami Tensei

text: Other designers have also worked on the series. For "Nine", the developers wanted to have a new style to suit the game's original vision, so the characters were designed by animator Yasuomi Umetsu. the new main designer for the series is Masayuki Doi, who had made a name for himself with the "Trauma Center" series; and designed the main characters for "Shin Megami Tensei IV". Inspired in his work by Kaneko's designs, he created the main characters' clothing to be a blend of Japanese and western fashions while incorporating design elements from the "Star Wars" series. After the success of IV, he went on to become the main demon designer for "" and "Shin Megami Tensei V", while still retaining his job as lead character designer For the "Devil Survivor" games, Atlus were aiming to appeal to a wider audience and reinvigorate the "Megami Tensei" franchise, hiring Suzuhito Yasuda as character designer for this purpose. Some monsters in the second "Devil Survivor" were designed by manga artist Mohiro Kitoh.


title: Megami Tensei

text: For a long time, the "Megami Tensei" franchise was not exported to western territories despite there being a recognized market. The original reasons were the heavy religious themes and symbols used, which were considered taboo in western game markets, and Nintendo's strict content guidelines for overseas releases. Later, many of these early works were prevented from coming overseas due to their age, which would have put them at a disadvantage in the modern gaming market. Early entries on the PlayStation were also blocked by Sony of America's then-current approval policies. The first title in the franchise to be localized was "Jack Bros."; the first role-playing game in the franchise to receive an overseas release was the first "Persona" game. This was done to give Atlus' North American branch a flagship RPG franchise that could compete with the likes of "Final Fantasy", "Suikoden" and "Breath of Fire". According to Okada, the naming of creatures and enemies was adjusted from the main series and original Japanese release of "Persona" to make it more acceptable for an overseas audience. Though it managed to establish the franchise overseas, the localization was a taxing task due to a small staff and the need to change multiple aspects to suit a North American audience, including removing references to Japanese culture and changing one character from Japanese to African-American. This, and other changes were fixed in the re-release on the PlayStation Portable. The first "Persona 2" title, "Innocent Sin", needed to be passed over due to shortage of manpower and the fact that development was focused on the second title, "Eternal Punishment".


title: Megami Tensei

text: "Nocturne" was the first release in the "Shin Megami Tensei" series to be released overseas. After the release of "Nocturne", Atlus' overseas branches decided to add the "Shin Megami Tensei" moniker to future releases within the "Megami Tensei" franchise to help market the games. Despite many of the original games not bearing the moniker, it ultimately worked in Atlus' favor as, regardless of title differences, the games chosen for localization were all part of the larger "Megami Tensei" franchise, and using the core "Shin Megami Tensei" moniker kept all the titles under a single banner. Before this decision was made, the series was given the localized title "Revelations", used for the first "Persona" and the first "Last Bible". Later, changes to titles were made to make them less unwieldy, such as with "Raidou Kuzunoha vs. the Soulless Army". Called "Raidō Kuzunoha vs. The Super-Powered Army" in Japan, the title was altered as it sounded "goofy" in English. By the time "Strange Journey" was in development, the franchise had a strong presence overseas, so the team created "Strange Journey" with localization in mind: the two aspects actively linked with this were the game's setting in Antarctica as opposed to modern-day Japan, and the fact that it was not given a numeral. Starting with "Shin Megami Tensei IV", the company decided to actively promote the franchise overseas to North America, Europe and mainland Asia. After 2016, due to Atlus USA's merger with Sega of America, Sega took over North American publishing duties, although the Atlus brand remained intact.


title: Megami Tensei

text: In general, Atlus publishes "Megami Tensei" games in Japan and North America, but as they lack a European branch, they publish titles in the region through third-party companies such as Ghostlight and NIS America. Their latest partnership, after their deal with NIS America ended with the publication of "Odin Sphere Leifthrasir", was with European publishing firm Deep Silver to publish multiple titles in the region, including "Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse" and "Persona 5". Atlus has occasionally published titles digitally in Europe.


title: Megami Tensei

text: Prior to its popularity in the west, the game was a major franchise in Japan, having sold over four million copies by 2003. Excluding the "Persona" series, the "Megami Tensei" series has sold approximately 7.2 million copies by October 2017. By October 2018, the "Megami Tensei" main series has shifted approximately 12.4 million packaged and digital copies (including DL of free-to-play titles) of games worldwide. In addition, the "Persona" sub-series has sold 9.3million copies, bringing total franchise numbers to 21.7million units (including DL of free-to-play titles). Excluding the "Persona" series, the "Megami Tensei" series had supplied 17.7 million copies by 2021, including free-to-play titles.


title: Megami Tensei

text: Japanese website 4Gamer.net referred to the series as one of Japan's biggest role-playing franchises. UGO Networks writer K. Thor Jensen cited the first "Megami Tensei" game as the first successful use of cyberpunk aesthetics in video games, saying that the series' mix of science fiction elements and the occult "create a truly unique fictional cyberpunk world". "Nintendo Power" has noted that Atlus always mixes "familiar gameplay" with surprising settings when creating games for the series, citing "Persona", with its "modern-day horror stories" and "teams of Japanese high-school kids", as the perfect example. The editor also added that "Strange Journey" followed a similar system, calling it a "science-fiction makeover" of the series. In an article about the interaction of Japanese and Western gaming culture, 1UP.com mentioned the "Shin Megami Tensei" subseries alongside Nippon Ichi Software's "Disgaea" series. Kurt Kalata wrote: "[They] may not be big sellers, but they've garnered underground success and attracted thousands of obsessed fans." GameSpot writer Andrew Vestal referred to the series as the third biggest RPG series in Japan after "Final Fantasy" and "Dragon Quest". "IGN" Matt Coleman mentioned "Nocturne" in the article "A History of Console RPGs", referring to its content as "challenging stuff for a genre that used to be all about princess saving and evil cleansing".