title: Mycenaean Greece

text: The palatial structures of mainland Greece share a number of common features. The focal point of the socio-political aspect of a Mycenaean palace was the megaron, the throne room. It was laid out around a circular hearth surrounded by four columns. The throne was generally found on the right-hand side upon entering the room, while the interior of the megaron was lavishly decorated, flaunting images designed intentionally to demonstrate the political and religious power of the ruler. Access to the megaron was provided through a court, which was reached from a propylon. The iconography of the palatial chambers is remarkably uniform throughout Greece. For instance, in Pylos and Tiryns the paintings are focused on marine motifs, providing depictions of octopodes, fish and dolphins. Around the megaron a group of courtyards each opened upon several rooms of different dimensions, such as storerooms and workshops, as well as reception halls and living quarters. In general Mycenaean palaces have yielded a wealth of artifacts and fragmentary frescoes.


title: Mycenaean Greece

text: Additional common features are shared by the palaces of Pylos, Mycenae and Tiryns; a large court with colonnades lies directly in front of the central megaron, while a second, but smaller, megaron is also found inside these structures. The staircases in the palace of Pylos indicate that the palaces had two stories. The private quarters of the members of the royal family were presumably located on the second floor.


title: Mycenaean Greece

text: The construction of defensive structures was closely linked to the establishment of the palaces in mainland Greece. The principal Mycenaean centers were well-fortified and usually situated on an elevated terrain, like on the Acropolis of Athens, Tiryns and Mycenae or on coastal plains, in the case of Gla. Mycenaean Greeks in general appreciated the symbolism of war as expressed in defensive architecture, reflected by the visual impressiveness of their fortifications.


title: Mycenaean Greece

text: "Cyclopean" is the term normally applied to the masonry characteristics of Mycenaean fortification systems and describes walls built of large, unworked boulders more than thick and weighing several metric tonnes. They were roughly fitted together without the use of mortar or clay to bind them, though smaller hunks of limestone fill the interstices. Their placement formed a polygonal pattern giving the curtain wall an irregular but imposing appearance. At the top it would have been wide enough for a walkway with a narrow protective parapet on the outer edge and with hoop-like crenellations. The term "Cyclopean" was derived by the latter Greeks of the Classical era who believed that only the mythical giants, the Cyclopes, could have constructed such megalithic structures. On the other hand, cut stone masonry is used only in and around gateways. Another typical feature of Mycenaean megalithic construction was the use of a relieving triangle above a lintel block—an opening, often triangular, designed to reduce the weight over the lintel. The space was filled with some lighter stone.


title: Mycenaean Greece

text: Cyclopean fortifications were typical of Mycenaean walls, especially at the citadels of Mycenae, Tiryns, Argos, Crisa and Athens, while smaller boulders are found in Midea and large limestone slabs are found at Gla. In the Mycenaean settlements found in Epirus and Cyprus, Cyclopean-style walls are also present, as well as in western Anatolia. Besides the citadels, isolated forts were also erected on various strategic locations. The fortification systems also incorporated technical refinements such as secret cisterns, galleries, sally ports and projecting bastions for the protection of gateways. On the other hand, the palace of Pylos, although a major center of power, paradoxically appears to have been left without any defensive walls.


title: Mycenaean Greece

text: Mycenaean domestic architecture originates mainly from earlier Middle Helladic traditions (c. 2000–1650 BC) both in shape, as well as in location of settlement. The observed uniformity in domestic architecture came probably as a result of a shared past among the communities of the Greek mainland rather than as a consequence of cultural expansion of the Mycenaean Koine. Moreover, varying sizes of mudbricks were used in the construction of buildings.


title: Mycenaean Greece

text: Contrary to popular belief, some Mycenaean representative buildings already featured roofs made of fired tiles, as in Gla and Midea.


title: Mycenaean Greece

text: The military nature of the Mycenaean Greeks is evident from the numerous weapons unearthed, the use of warrior and combat representations in contemporary art, and the preserved Greek Linear B records. The Mycenaeans invested in the development of military infrastructure, with military production and logistics being supervised directly from the palatial centers. According to the Linear B records in the palace of Pylos, every rural community (the "damos") was obliged to supply a certain number of men who had to serve in the army. Similar service was also performed by the aristocracy.


title: Mycenaean Greece

text: Mycenaean armies were initially based on heavy infantry, equipped with spears, large shields and on some occasions, armor. Later in the 13th century BC, Mycenaean warfare underwent major changes both in tactics and weaponry and armed units became more uniform and flexible, while weapons became smaller and lighter. The spear remained the main weapon among Mycenaean warriors, while the sword played a secondary role in combat. Other offensive weapons used were bows, maces, axes, slings and javelins. The precise role and contribution of chariots on the battlefield is a matter of dispute due to the lack of sufficient evidence. It appears that chariots were initially used as fighting vehicles during the 16th to 14th centuries BC, while later, in the 13th century BC, their role was limited to battlefield transport.


title: Mycenaean Greece

text: The boar's tusk helmet was the most identifiable piece of Mycenaean armor in use from the beginning to the collapse of Mycenaean culture. It is also known from several depictions in contemporary art in Greece and the Mediterranean. A representative piece of Mycenaean armor is the Dendra panoply (c. 1450–1400 BC) which consisted of a cuirass of a complete set of armor made up of several elements of bronze. In general, most features of the later hoplite panoply of classical Greek antiquity, were already known to Mycenaean Greece. "Figure-of-eight" shields were the most common type of Mycenaean shields. During the Late Mycenaean period, smaller types of shields were adopted, either of completely circular shape, or almost circular with a part cut out from their lower edge.


title: Mycenaean Greece

text: Most of the finest Mycenaean art comes under the immediate suspicion of either being Minoan art actually imported from Crete, or produced on the mainland by Cretan or Cretan-trained artists. This is less true of pottery, although the (very untypical) Mycenaean palace amphora with octopus (NAMA 6725) clearly derives directly from the Minoan "Marine Style", and it ceases to be the case after about 1350 BC. Some works appear to have subjects adjusted to warlike Mycenaean tastes, although the distinctively Minoan subject of bull-leaping also appears. The production of luxury art for, and probably often in, the Minoan palaces was already a well-established tradition when Mycenaean elites became customers, and was perhaps more integrated into Minoan religion and culture than it ever became in Mycenaean Greece.


title: Mycenaean Greece

text: Several important pieces in gold and other metals come from the Gold grave goods at Grave Circles A and B at Mycenae, including the Mask of Agamemnon, Silver Siege Rhyton, Bulls-head rhyton, and gold Nestor's Cup. The chemical compositions of the silver objects indicate that the silver was sourced from several locations. The Theseus Ring, found in Athens, is one of the finest of a number of gold signet rings with tiny multi-figure scenes of high quality, many from the princely Grave Circles A and B at Mycenae. These tend to be regarded as Cretan, as do the carved gemstones also found in elite graves. Though they collected them, the Mycenaean elite did not apparently use Minoan seals for authenticating anything, but treated them as ornaments, at least one prince wearing a collection around his wrists, like modern charm bracelets. Sinclair Hood believed that at the time of the Vaphio burial (c. 1500–1450) "it was broadly speaking possible to classify the finer seals as being of Cretan, the more crudely engraved of mainland manufacture", but that "this criterion no longer applies after the mainland conquest of Crete c. 1450".


title: Mycenaean Greece

text: During the Late Mycenaean period (1400–1200 BC), Mycenaean vessels/pottery exhibited similarities spanning a significant area of the Eastern Mediterranean (i.e., from the Levant to Sicily) and possibly reflecting a form of economic and political union centered at Mycenae. However, the Minoan pottery of Crete during this time remained distinct indicating a degree of autonomy on the island. The Mycenaean Greeks produced in large quantities a variety of diversely-styled vessels such as stirrup jars, large bowls, alabastron, krater and stemmed cups (or kylikes) resembling champagne glasses.


title: Mycenaean Greece

text: Stirrup jars (Linear B: , ; "oil vessel"), specifically, were first invented on the island of Crete during the 16th century BC and used widely by the Mycenaeans from 1400 BC onward for transporting and storing wine and oil; the jars were usually pear-shaped or globular. As for stemmed cups (or kylikes), they evolved from Ephyraean goblets and a large quantity was discovered at a site called the "Potter's Shop" located in Zygouries. Mycenaean drinking vessels such as the stemmed cups contained single decorative motifs such as a shell, an octopus or a flower painted on the side facing away from the drinker. The Mycenaean Greeks also painted entire scenes (called "Pictorial Style") on their vessels depicting warriors, chariots, horses and deities reminiscent of events described in Homer's "Iliad". Other items developed by the Mycenaeans include clay lamps, as well as metallic vessels such as bronze tripod cauldrons (or basins). A few examples of vessels in faience and ivory are also known.


title: Mycenaean Greece

text: The Mycenaean period has not yielded sculpture of any great size. The statuary of the period consists for the most part of small terracotta figurines found at almost every Mycenaean site in mainland Greece—in tombs, in settlement debris, and occasionally in cult contexts (Tiryns, Agios Konstantinos on Methana). The majority of these figurines are female and anthropomorphic or zoomorphic.


title: Mycenaean Greece

text: The female figurines can be subdivided into three groups, which were popular at different periods: the Psi and phi type figurines, and the Tau-type. The earliest are the Phi-type, which look like the Greek letter Phi (their arms give the upper body a rounded shape). The Psi-type looks like the letter Psi (these have outstretched upraised arms). The latest (12th century BC) are the Tau-type; these figurines look like the Greek letter Tau (with folded arms at right angles to the body). Most figurines wear a large polos. They are painted with stripes or zigzags in the same manner as the contemporary pottery and presumably made by the same potters. Their purpose is uncertain, but they may have served as both votive objects and toys: some are found in children's graves but the vast majority of fragments are from domestic rubbish deposits.


title: Mycenaean Greece

text: The presence of many of these figurines on sites where worship took place in the Archaic and Classical periods (approximately 200 below the sanctuary of Athena at Delphi, others at the temple of Aphaea on Aegina, at the sanctuary of Apollo Maleatas above Epidauros and at Amyclae near Sparta), suggests both that many were indeed religious in nature, perhaps as votives, but also that later places of worship may well have first been used in the Mycenaean period.


title: Mycenaean Greece

text: Larger male, female or bovine terracotta wheelmade figures are much rarer. An important group was found in the Temple at Mycenae together with coiled clay snakes, while others have been found at Tiryns and in the East and West Shrines at Phylakopi on the island of Melos.


title: Mycenaean Greece

text: The painting of the Mycenaean age was much influenced by that of Minoan painting, and was probably at least initially by Cretan painters. Their style gradually drifts away from that of Crete, and in late periods greatly reduces in quality. Fragments of wall paintings have been found in or around the palaces (Pylos, Mycenae, Tiryns) and in domestic contexts (Zygouries). The largest complete wall painting depicting three female figures, probably goddesses, was found in the so-called "cult center" at Mycenae. Various subjects are represented: hunting, bull leaping (tauromachy), battle scenes, processions, etc. Some scenes may be part of mythological narratives, but if so their meaning eludes us. Other frescoes include geometric or stylised motifs, also used on painted pottery (see above).


title: Mycenaean Greece

text: The usual form of burial during this period was inhumation (burial in the earth, covered by dirt and stones). The earliest Mycenaean burials were mostly in individual graves in the form of a pit or a stone-lined cist and offerings were limited to pottery and occasional items of jewellery. Groups of pit or cist graves containing elite members of the community were sometimes covered by a tumulus (mound) in the manner established since the Middle Helladic. It has been argued that this form dates back to the Kurgan culture; however, Mycenaean burials are in actuality an indigenous development of mainland Greece with the Shaft Graves housing native rulers. Pit and cist graves remained in use for single burials throughout the Mycenaean period alongside more elaborate family graves. The shaft graves at Mycenae within Grave Circles A and B belonging to the same period represent an alternative manner of grouping elite burials. Next to the deceased were found full sets of weapons, ornate staffs as well as gold and silver cups and other valuable objects which point to their social rank.


title: Mycenaean Greece

text: Beginning also in the Late Helladic period are to be seen communal tombs of rectangular form. Nevertheless, it is difficult to establish whether the different forms of burial represent a social hierarchization, as was formerly thought, with the "tholos" being the tombs of the elite rulers, the individual tombs those of the leisure class, and the communal tombs those of the people. Cremations increased in number over the course of the period, becoming quite numerous in the last phase of the Mycenaean era. The tholos was introduced during the early 15th century BC as the new and more imposing form of elite burial. The most impressive tombs of the Mycenaean era are the monumental royal tombs of Mycenae, undoubtedly intended for the royal family of the city. The most famous is the Treasury of Atreus, a tholos. A total of nine of such tholos tombs are found in the region of Mycenae, while six of them belong to a single period (Late Helladic IIA, c. 1400–1300 BC). It has been argued that different dynasties or factions may have competed through conspicuous burial.


title: Mycenaean Greece

text: With respect to Mycenaean cuisine, skewer trays were discovered in Gla, Mycenae, and Pylos. The so-called "souvlaki trays" (or portable grills) used by the Mycenaean Greeks were rectangular ceramic pans that sat underneath skewers of meat. It is not clear whether these trays would have been placed directly over a fire or if the pans would have held hot coals like a portable barbecue pit.


title: Mycenaean Greece

text: In circa 1600 BC, the Mycenaean Greeks borrowed from the Minoan civilization its syllabic writing system (i.e., Linear A) and developed their own syllabic script known as Linear B. The Linear B script was utilized by the Mycenaean palaces in Greece for administrative purposes where economic transactions were recorded on clay tablets and some pottery in the Mycenaean dialect of the Greek language. The Linear B tablets were first discovered in Crete by English archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans c. 1900 and later deciphered by English architect and cryptographer Michael Ventris in 1952. Ventris's discovery of an archaic Greek dialect in the Linear B tablets demonstrated that Mycenaean Greek was "the oldest known Greek dialect, elements of which survived in Homer's language as a result of a long oral tradition of epic poetry." The written records of every Mycenaean region were similar but the scribes sometimes used words that were probably part of their local dialect. The existence of a common language is probably explained by their shared bureaucratic system and writing script.


title: Mycenaean Greece

text: In the 8th century BC, after the end of the so-called Greek Dark Ages, Greece emerged with a network of myths and legends, the greatest of all being that of the Trojan Epic Cycle. In general, the Greeks of Classical antiquity idealized the Mycenaean period as a glorious period of heroes, closeness of the gods and material wealth. The legends of Homer's Epics were especially and generally accepted as part of the Greek past and it was not until the 19th century that scholars began to question Homer's historicity. At this time, German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann undertook the first modern archaeological excavations in Greece at the site of Mycenae in 1876. Thus, Schliemann set out to prove the historical accuracy of the "Iliad" by identifying the places described by Homer.


title: Mycenaean Greece

text: As part of the Mycenaean heritage that survived, the names of the gods and goddesses of Mycenaean Greece became major figures of the Olympian Pantheon of later antiquity. Moreover, the language of the Mycenaeans offers the first written evidence of Greek, while a significant part of the Mycenaean vocabulary can also be found in modern English.


title: Mycenaean Greece

text: The Mycenaean Greeks were also pioneers in the field of engineering, launching large-scale projects unmatched in Europe until the Roman period, such as fortifications, bridges, culverts, aqueducts, dams and roads suitable for wheeled traffic. They also made several architectural innovations, such as the relieving triangle. They were also responsible for transmitting a wide range of arts and crafts, especially of Minoan origin. The Mycenaean civilization was in general more advanced compared to the Late Bronze Age cultures of the rest of Europe. Several Mycenaean attributes and achievements were borrowed or held in high regard in later periods, so it would be no exaggeration to consider Mycenaean Greece as a cradle of civilization.


title: Mycenaean Greece

text: There are scholars who identify the Sea Peoples who migrated to the Near East as Mycenaean Greeks. In a 2020 study by Polish historian Łukasz Niesiołowski-Spanò, a group of people known from the Bible – the Levites – were linguistically identified with the Greek term "*la-wo" (in later Greek "laoi") - "the people" or "armed men". Niesiołowski-Spanò concluded that the Levites were a group of Mycenaean Greek mercenaries who managed to settle down in Canaan and integrate with the local population, preserving their own group name.


title: Mycenaean Greece

text: In their archaeogenetics study, Lazaridis et al. (2017) concluded that the Minoans and the Mycenaean Greeks were genetically highly similar – but not identical – and that modern Greeks descend from these populations, ultimately proving the genetic continuity between these civilizations and modern Greeks. The same study also stated that at least three-quarters of the DNA of both the Mycenaeans and the Minoans came from the first Neolithic-era farmers that lived in Western Anatolia and the Aegean Sea (Mycenaeans ~74–78%, Minoans ~84–85%) while most of the remainder came from ancient populations related to the Caucasus Hunter-Gatherers and Neolithic Iran (Mycenaeans ~8–17%, Minoans ~14–15%). Unlike the Minoans, the Mycenaeans had also inherited "~4-16% ancestry from a 'northern' ultimate source related to the hunter-gatherers of Eastern Europe and Upper Palaeolithic Siberia, introduced via a proximal source related to either the inhabitants of either the Eurasian steppe or Armenia." Among the Mycenaeans, one male sample was found to belong to Y-DNA J2a1 and mtDNA X2, while three female samples to mtDNA X2, X2d and H respectively.


title: Mycenaean Greece

text: A lecture by David Reich about the upcoming archeogenetic study titled "The Genetic History of the Southern Arc" states in its abstract that:


title: Mycenaean Greece

text: Thus, it is established that Mycenaean elites were genetically the same as Mycenaean commoners, while some Mycenaeans did not have steppe DNA at all.


title: Ian Gibbons (biochemist)

text: Ian Gibbons (March 6, 1946 May 23, 2013) was a British biochemist who was the chief scientist of Theranos. He worked for 30 years in the diagnostic and therapeutic industry before joining Theranos in 2005. In 2013, Gibbons intentionally took an overdose the night before he was required to testify in a lawsuit about the health company's technology. He died of liver failure several days after his suicide attempt. In 2018, Theranos collapsed after it was revealed that the company's blood testing devices had never actually worked.


title: Ian Gibbons (biochemist)

text: Gibbons was born and raised in England. He earned a Bachelor of Arts, Master of Arts, and PhD in biochemistry from the University of Cambridge.


title: Ian Gibbons (biochemist)

text: Gibbons spent 30 years working on diagnostic and therapeutic products at various technology companies, including Biotrack Laboratories. At Biotrack, he worked with Channing Robertson, who later recommended him as the first experienced scientist hired by Theranos. Gibbons, Robertson, and others invented and patented a mechanism at Biotrack to dilute and mix liquid samples, abilities which would become key in Theranos processes.


title: Ian Gibbons (biochemist)

text: Gibbons was brought in by CEO Elizabeth Holmes in 2005 as the company's chief scientist. Gibbons was the first experienced scientist hired, with the title of senior director of assay development.


title: Ian Gibbons (biochemist)

text: As chief scientist, Gibbons often gave the staff informal lectures on biochemistry and the science of blood testing. To ensure product success, Gibbons insisted that blood test results from Theranos developmental devices need to match benchmark results of competitors' commercial analyzers. Theranos's devices often became a source of frustration for Gibbons, as they differed, sometimes significantly, from the benchmarks. His high standards became a source of friction with Theranos engineers and senior management. Senior management warned employees who questioned the accuracy of the technology. As a result of his desperation, Gibbons confided to his wife that "nothing at Theranos is working". Holmes's practice of discouraging communication between departments also troubled Gibbons. The reason given for such information siloing was that the company was operating in stealth mode to protect its trade secrets. However, it prevented effective problem solving and pursuit of common goals between employees.


title: Ian Gibbons (biochemist)

text: With an insider perspective, Gibbons knew of Holmes's lies to employees and outsiders about Theranos's technology and readiness, as well as false demonstrations to clients. Thus, Gibbons no longer trusted Holmes. However, he continued to struggle to make the flawed Theranos technology catch up to the hype.


title: Ian Gibbons (biochemist)

text: In the fall of 2010, Channing Robertson alerted Holmes of Gibbons's complaints and frustrations. Gibbons was subsequently fired. Several of his colleagues lobbied on his behalf, and he was quickly rehired, with reduced responsibilities: as a technical consultant to the chemistry group he had formerly headed.


title: Ian Gibbons (biochemist)

text: In 2011, Gibbons became involved in a patent theft case involving Theranos and Richard Fuisz. The American entrepreneur and inventor had been a former friend and neighbor of Elizabeth Holmes and her family. But the two families had fallen out and Fuisz's offer to help Holmes with her invention had been declined.


title: Ian Gibbons (biochemist)

text: After Fuisz studied publicly available patent information regarding Theranos technology, he filed his own patent for a physician-alert mechanism that could be embedded in a testing device after identifying it was not covered by any Theranos patents. However, without owning this patent, Theranos would have needed a license from Fuisz's patent to cover physician/patient alerts; a highly desirable feature in a medical analyzer. When Theranos discovered that Fuisz had filed his patent, it responded by filing a lawsuit for patent theft alleging he had misused Theranos's existing patent technology.


title: Ian Gibbons (biochemist)

text: While researching his defense to the Theranos lawsuit, Fuisz noted that Gibbons was often named as co-inventor with Holmes on many of Theranos' patents. He also noted there were similarities between Gibbons' Theranos patents and those he had filed while working for a previous employer, Biotrack. In response, Fuisz added Gibbons's name to his list of witnesses to be deposed to answer questions about improper reuse of past work and the identification of Holmes as a co-inventor.


title: Ian Gibbons (biochemist)

text: Gibbons became very nervous and depressed when he learned that he would be subpoenaed to testify. He wanted to avoid being deposed because he was afraid his job depended on his testimony. Gibbons believed that if he told the truth, he would lose his job, and have limited future job prospects due to his age.


title: Ian Gibbons (biochemist)

text: On May 15, 2013, Gibbons was notified that he needed to appear at the Fuisz lawyers' offices on May 17 to give his deposition. After Theranos had been actively discouraging him from testifying, a Theranos lawyer emailed him a draft doctor's note that could be adapted to excuse him. On the evening of May 16, Gibbons took a combination of medication and alcohol. The following morning, he was discovered by his wife on the bathroom floor, unconscious and barely breathing. He died, aged 67, of liver failure in a hospital on May 23, 2013. When his wife called Holmes's office to report his death, Holmes did not return her call. Instead, his wife received an email from a Theranos lawyer requesting she immediately return Gibbons's company laptop and any confidential information he might have had in his possession.


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: Gibran Khalil Gibran (, , , or , ; January 6, 1883 – April 10, 1931), usually referred to in English as Kahlil Gibran ( ), was a Lebanese-American writer, poet and visual artist, also considered a philosopher although he himself rejected the title. He is best known as the author of "The Prophet", which was first published in the United States in 1923 and has since become one of the best-selling books of all time, having been translated into more than 100 languages.


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: Born in a village of the Ottoman-ruled Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate to a Maronite family, the young Gibran immigrated with his mother and siblings to the United States in 1895. As his mother worked as a seamstress, he was enrolled at a school in Boston, where his creative abilities were quickly noticed by a teacher who presented him to photographer and publisher F. Holland Day. Gibran was sent back to his native land by his family at the age of fifteen to enroll at the Collège de la Sagesse in Beirut. Returning to Boston upon his youngest sister's death in 1902, he lost his older half-brother and his mother the following year, seemingly relying afterwards on his remaining sister's income from her work at a dressmaker's shop for some time.


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: In 1904, Gibran's drawings were displayed for the first time at Day's studio in Boston, and his first book in Arabic was published in 1905 in New York City. With the financial help of a newly met benefactress, Mary Haskell, Gibran studied art in Paris from 1908 to 1910. While there, he came in contact with Syrian political thinkers promoting rebellion in Ottoman Syria after the Young Turk Revolution; some of Gibran's writings, voicing the same ideas as well as anti-clericalism, would eventually be banned by the Ottoman authorities. In 1911, Gibran settled in New York, where his first book in English, "The Madman", would be published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1918, with writing of "The Prophet" or "The Earth Gods" also underway. His visual artwork was shown at Montross Gallery in 1914, and at the galleries of M. Knoedler & Co. in 1917. He had also been corresponding remarkably with May Ziadeh since 1912. In 1920, Gibran re-founded the Pen League with fellow Mahjari poets. By the time of his death at the age of 48 from cirrhosis and incipient tuberculosis in one lung, he had achieved literary fame on "both sides of the Atlantic Ocean," and "The Prophet" had already been translated into German and French. His body was transferred to his birth village of Bsharri (in present-day Lebanon), to which he had bequeathed all future royalties on his books, and where a museum dedicated to his works now stands.


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: As worded by Suheil Bushrui and Joe Jenkins, Gibran's life has been described as one "often caught between Nietzschean rebellion, Blakean pantheism and Sufi mysticism." Gibran discussed different themes in his writings, and explored diverse literary forms. Salma Khadra Jayyusi has called him "the single most important influence on Arabic poetry and literature during the first half of [the twentieth] century," and he is still celebrated as a literary hero in Lebanon. At the same time, "most of Gibran's paintings expressed his personal vision, incorporating spiritual and mythological symbolism," with art critic Alice Raphael recognizing in the painter a classicist, whose work owed "more to the findings of Da Vinci than it [did] to any modern insurgent." His "prodigious body of work" has been described as "an artistic legacy to people of all nations."


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: Gibran was born January 6, 1883, in the village of Bsharri in the Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate, Ottoman Syria (modern-day Lebanon). His parents, Khalil Sa'ad Gibran and Kamila Rahmeh, the daughter of a priest, were Maronite Christian. As written by Bushrui and Jenkins, they would set for Gibran an example of tolerance by "refusing to perpetuate religious prejudice and bigotry in their daily lives." Kamila's paternal grandfather had converted from Islam to Christianity. She was thirty when Gibran was born, and Gibran's father, Khalil, was her third husband. Gibran had two younger sisters, Marianna and Sultana, and an older half-brother, Boutros, from one of Kamila's previous marriages. Gibran's family lived in poverty. In 1888, Gibran entered Bsharri's one-class school, which was run by a priest, and there he learnt the rudiments of Arabic, Syriac, and arithmetic.


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: Gibran's father initially worked in an apothecary, but he had gambling debts he was unable to pay. He went to work for a local Ottoman-appointed administrator. In 1891, while acting as a tax collector, he was removed and his staff was investigated. Khalil was imprisoned for embezzlement, and his family's property was confiscated by the authorities. Kamila decided to follow her brother to the United States. Although Khalil was released in 1894, Kamila remained resolved and left for New York on June 25, 1895, taking Boutros, Gibran, Marianna and Sultana with her.


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: Kamila and her children settled in Boston's South End, at the time the second-largest Syrian-Lebanese-American community in the United States. Gibran entered the Josiah Quincy School on September 30, 1895. School officials placed him in a special class for immigrants to learn English. His name was registered using the anglicized spelling 'Ka"h"lil Gibran'. His mother began working as a seamstress peddler, selling lace and linens that she carried from door-to-door. His half-brother Boutros opened a shop. Gibran also enrolled in an art school at Denison House, a nearby settlement house. Through his teachers there, he was introduced to the avant-garde Boston artist, photographer and publisher F. Holland Day, who encouraged and supported Gibran in his creative endeavors. In March 1898, Gibran met Josephine Preston Peabody, eight years his senior, at an exhibition of Day's photographs "in which Gibran's face was a major subject." Gibran would develop a romantic attachment to her. The same year, a publisher used some of Gibran's drawings for book covers.


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: Kamila and Boutros wanted Gibran to absorb more of his own heritage rather than just the Western aesthetic culture he was attracted to. Thus, at the age of 15, Gibran returned to his homeland to study Arabic literature for three years at the Collège de la Sagesse, a Maronite-run institute in Beirut, also learning French. In his final year at the school, Gibran created a student magazine with other students, including Youssef Howayek (who would remain a lifelong friend of his), and he was made the "college poet." Gibran graduated from the school at eighteen with high honors, then went to Paris to learn painting, visiting Greece, Italy, and Spain on his way there from Beirut. On April 2, 1902, Sultana died at the age of 14, from what is believed to have been tuberculosis. Upon learning about it, Gibran returned to Boston, arriving two weeks after Sultana's death. The following year, on March 12, Boutros died of the same disease, with his mother passing from cancer on June 28. Two days later, Peabody "left him without explanation." Marianna supported Gibran and herself by working at a dressmaker's shop.


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: Gibran held his first art exhibition of his drawings in January 1904 in Boston at Day's studio. During this exhibition, Gibran met Mary Haskell, the headmistress of a girls' school in the city, nine years his senior. The two formed a friendship that lasted the rest of Gibran's life. Haskell would spend large sums of money to support Gibran and would also edit all of his English writings. The nature of their romantic relationship remains obscure; while some biographers assert the two were lovers but never married because Haskell's family objected, other evidence suggests that their relationship was never physically consummated. Gibran and Haskell were engaged briefly between 1910 and 1911. According to Joseph P. Ghougassian, Gibran had proposed to her "not knowing how to repay back in gratitude to Miss Haskell," but Haskell called it off, making it "clear to him that she preferred his friendship to any burdensome tie of marriage." Haskell would later marry Jacob Florance Minis in 1926, while remaining Gibran's close friend, patroness and benefactress, and using her influence to advance his career.


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: In 1905, Gibran's first published written work was "A Profile of the Art of Music", in Arabic, by "Al-Mohajer"s printing department in New York. His next work, "Nymphs of the Valley", was published the following year, also in Arabic. On January 27, 1908, Haskell introduced Gibran to her friend writer Charlotte Teller, aged 31, and in February, to Émilie Michel (Micheline), a French teacher at Haskell's school, aged 19. Both Teller and Micheline agreed to pose for Gibran as models and became close friends of his. The same year, Gibran published "Spirits Rebellious" in Arabic, a novel deeply critical of secular and spiritual authority. According to Barbara Young, a late acquaintance of Gibran, "in an incredibly short time it was burned in the market place in Beirut by priestly zealots who pronounced it 'dangerous, revolutionary, and poisonous to youth. The Maronite Patriarchate would let the rumor of his excommunication wander, but would never officially pronounce it.


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: In July 1908, with Haskell's financial support, Gibran went to study art in Paris at the Académie Julian where he joined the "atelier" of Jean-Paul Laurens. Gibran had accepted Haskell's offer partly so as to distance himself from Micheline, "for he knew that this love was contrary to his sense of gratefulness toward Miss Haskell"; however, "to his surprise Micheline came unexpectedly to him in Paris." "She became pregnant, but the pregnancy was ectopic, and she had to have an abortion, probably in France." Micheline had returned to the United States by late October. Gibran would pay her a visit upon her return to Paris in July 1910, but there would be no hint of intimacy left between them.


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: By early February 1909, Gibran had "been working for a few weeks in the studio of Pierre Marcel-Béronneau", and he "used his sympathy towards Béronneau as an excuse to leave the Académie Julian altogether." In December 1909, Gibran started a series of pencil portraits that he would later call "The Temple of Art", featuring "famous men and women artists of the day" and "a few of Gibran's heroes from past times." While in Paris, Gibran also entered into contact with Syrian political dissidents, in whose activities he would attempt to be more involved upon his return to the United States. In June 1910, Gibran visited London with Howayek and Ameen Rihani, whom Gibran had met in Paris. Rihani, who was six years older than Gibran, would be Gibran's role model for a while, and a friend until at least May 1912. Gibran biographer Robin Waterfield argues that, by 1918, "as Gibran's role changed from that of angry young man to that of prophet, Rihani could no longer act as a paradigm". Haskell (in her private journal entry of May 29, 1924) and Howayek also provided hints at an enmity that began between Gibran and Rihani sometime after May 1912.


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: Gibran sailed back to New York City from Boulogne-sur-Mer on the "Nieuw Amsterdam" October 22, 1910, and was back to Boston by November 11. By February 1911, Gibran had joined the Boston branch of a Syrian international organization, the Golden Links Society. He lectured there for several months "in order to promote radicalism in independence and liberty" from Ottoman Syria. At the end of April, Gibran was staying in Teller's vacant flat at 164 Waverly Place in New York City. "Gibran settled in, made himself known to his Syrian friends—especially Amin Rihani, who was now living in New York—and began both to look for a suitable studio and to sample the energy of New York." As Teller returned on May 15, he moved to Rihani's small room at 28 West 9th Street. Gibran then moved to one of the Tenth Street Studio Building's studios for the summer, before changing to another of its studios (number 30, which had a balcony, on the third story) in fall. Gibran would live there until his death, referring to it as "The Hermitage." Over time, however, and "ostensibly often for reasons of health," he would spend "longer and longer periods away from New York, sometimes months at a time [...], staying either with friends in the countryside or with Marianna in Boston or on the Massachusetts coast." His friendships with Teller and Micheline would wane; the last encounter between Gibran and Teller would occur in September 1912, and Gibran would tell Haskell in 1914 that he now found Micheline "repellent."


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: In 1912, "Broken Wings" was published in Arabic by the printing house of the periodical "Meraat-ul-Gharb" in New York. Gibran presented a copy of his book to Lebanese writer May Ziadeh, who lived in Egypt, and asked her to criticize it. As worded by Ghougassian,


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: Gibran and Ziadeh never met. According to Shlomit C. Schuster, "whatever the relationship between Kahlil and May might have been, the letters in "A Self-Portrait" mainly reveal their literary ties. Ziadeh reviewed all of Gibran's books and Gibran replies to these reviews elegantly."


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: In 1913, Gibran started contributing to "Al-Funoon", an Arabic-language magazine that had been recently established by Nasib Arida and Abd al-Masih Haddad. "A Tear and a Smile" was published in Arabic in 1914. In December of the same year, visual artworks by Gibran were shown at the Montross Gallery, catching the attention of American painter Albert Pinkham Ryder. Gibran wrote him a prose poem in January and would become one of the aged man's last visitors. After Ryder's death in 1917, Gibran's poem would be quoted first by Henry McBride in the latter's posthumous tribute to Ryder, then by newspapers across the country, from which would come the first widespread mention of Gibran's name in America. By March 1915, two of Gibran's poems had also been read at the Poetry Society of America, after which Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, the younger sister of Theodore Roosevelt, stood up and called them "destructive and diabolical stuff"; nevertheless, beginning in 1918 Gibran would become a frequent visitor at Robinson's, also meeting her brother.


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: Gibran acted as a secretary of the Syrian–Mount Lebanon Relief Committee, which was formed in June 1916. The same year, Gibran met Lebanese author Mikhail Naimy after Naimy had moved from the University of Washington to New York. Naimy, whom Gibran would nickname "Mischa," had previously made a review of "Broken Wings" in his article "The Dawn of Hope After the Night of Despair", published in "Al-Funoon", and he would become "a close friend and confidant, and later one of Gibran's biographers." In 1917, an exhibition of forty wash drawings was held at Knoedler in New York from January 29 to February 19 and another of thirty such drawings at Doll & Richards, Boston, April 16–28.


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: While most of Gibran's early writings had been in Arabic, most of his work published after 1918 was in English. Such was "The Madman", Gibran's first book published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1918. "The Processions" (in Arabic) and "Twenty Drawings" were published the following year. In 1920, Gibran re-created the Arabic-language New York Pen League with Arida and Haddad (its original founders), Rihani, Naimy, and other Mahjari writers such as Elia Abu Madi. The same year, "The Tempests" was published in Arabic in Cairo, and "The Forerunner" in New York.


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: In a letter of 1921 to Naimy, Gibran reported that doctors had told him to "give up all kinds of work and exertion for six months, and do nothing but eat, drink and rest"; in 1922, Gibran was ordered to "stay away from cities and city life" and had rented a cottage near the sea, planning to move there with Marianna and to remain until "this heart [regained] its orderly course"; this three-month summer in Scituate, he later told Haskell, was a refreshing time, during which he wrote some of "the best Arabic poems" he had ever written.


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: In 1923, "The New and the Marvelous" was published in Arabic in Cairo, whereas "The Prophet" was published in New York. "The Prophet" sold well despite a cool critical reception. At a reading of "The Prophet" organized by rector William Norman Guthrie in St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery, Gibran met poetess Barbara Young, who would occasionally work as his secretary from 1925 until Gibran's death; Young did this work without remuneration. In 1924, Gibran told Haskell that he had been contracted to write ten pieces for "Al-Hilal" in Cairo. In 1925, Gibran participated in the founding of the periodical "The New East".


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: "Sand and Foam" was published in 1926, and "Jesus, the Son of Man" in 1928. At the beginning of 1929, Gibran was diagnosed with an enlarged liver. In a letter dated March 26, he wrote to Naimy that "the rheumatic pains are gone, and the swelling has turned to something opposite". In a telegram dated the same day, he reported being told by the doctors that he "must not work for full year," which was something he found "more painful than illness." The last book published during Gibran's life was "The Earth Gods", on March 14, 1931.


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: Gibran was admitted to St. Vincent's Hospital, Manhattan, on April 10, 1931, where he died the same day, aged forty-eight, after refusing the last rites. The cause of death was reported to be cirrhosis of the liver with incipient tuberculosis in one of his lungs. Waterfield argues that the cirrhosis was contracted through excessive drinking of alcohol and was the only real cause of Gibran's death.


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: Gibran had expressed the wish that he be buried in Lebanon. His body lay temporarily at Mount Benedict Cemetery in Boston, before it was taken on July 23 to Providence, Rhode Island, and from there to Lebanon on the liner "Sinaia". Gibran's body reached Bsharri in August and was deposited in a church near-by until a cousin of Gibran finalized the purchase of the Mar Sarkis Monastery, now the Gibran Museum.


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: All future American royalties to his books were willed to his hometown of Bsharri, to be used for "civic betterment." Gibran had also willed the contents of his studio to Haskell.


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: In 1950, Haskell donated her personal collection of nearly one hundred original works of art by Gibran (including five oils) to the Telfair Museum of Art in Savannah, Georgia. Haskell had been thinking of placing her collection at the Telfair as early as 1914. Her gift to the Telfair is the largest public collection of Gibran's visual art in the country.


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: Gibran explored literary forms as diverse as "poetry, parables, fragments of conversation, short stories, fables, political essays, letters, and aphorisms." Two plays in English and five plays in Arabic were also published posthumously between 1973 and 1993; three unfinished plays written in English towards the end of Gibran's life remain unpublished ("The Banshee", "The Last Unction", and "The Hunchback or the Man Unseen"). Gibran discussed "such themes as religion, justice, free will, science, love, happiness, the soul, the body, and death" in his writings, which were "characterized by innovation breaking with forms of the past, by symbolism, an undying love for his native land, and a sentimental, melancholic yet often oratorical style."


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: About his language in general (both in Arabic and English), Salma Khadra Jayyusi remarks that "because of the spiritual and universal aspect of his general themes, he seems to have chosen a vocabulary less idiomatic than would normally have been chosen by a modern poet conscious of modernism in language." According to Jean Gibran and Kahlil G. Gibran,


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: The poem "You Have Your Language and I Have Mine" (1924) was published in response to criticism of his Arabic language and style.


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: According to Bushrui and Jenkins, an "inexhaustible" source of influence on Gibran was the Bible, especially the King James Version. Gibran's literary oeuvre is also steeped in the Syriac tradition. According to Haskell, Gibran once told her that As worded by Waterfield, "the parables of the New Testament" affected "his parables and homilies" while "the poetry of some of the Old Testament books" affected "his devotional language and incantational rhythms." Annie Salem Otto notes that Gibran avowedly imitated the style of the Bible, whereas other Arabic authors from his time like Rihani unconsciously imitated the Quran.


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: According to Ghougassian, the works of English poet William Blake "played a special role in Gibran's life", and in particular "Gibran agreed with Blake's "apocalyptic vision" of the world as the latter expressed it in his poetry and art." Gibran wrote of Blake as "the God-man," and of his drawings as "so far the profoundest things done in English—and his vision, putting aside his drawings and poems, is the most godly." According to George Nicolas El-Hage,


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: Gibran was also a great admirer of Syrian poet and writer Francis Marrash, whose works Gibran had studied at the Collège de la Sagesse. According to Shmuel Moreh, Gibran's own works echo Marrash's style, including the structure of some of his works and "many of [his] ideas on enslavement, education, women's liberation, truth, the natural goodness of man, and the corrupted morals of society." Bushrui and Jenkins have mentioned Marrash's concept of universal love, in particular, in having left a "profound impression" on Gibran.


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: Another influence on Gibran was American poet Walt Whitman, whom Gibran followed "by pointing up the universality of all men and by delighting in nature. According to El-Hage, the influence of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche "did not appear in Gibran's writings until "The Tempests"." Nevertheless, although Nietzsche's style "no doubt fascinated" him, Gibran was "not the least under his spell":


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: Gibran was for a long time neglected by scholars and critics. Bushrui and John M. Munro have argued that "the failure of serious Western critics to respond to Gibran" resulted from the fact that "his works, though for the most part originally written in English, cannot be comfortably accommodated within the Western literary tradition." According to El-Hage, critics have also "generally failed to understand the poet's conception of imagination and his fluctuating tendencies towards nature."


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: According to Waterfield, "Gibran was confirmed in his aspiration to be a Symbolist painter" after working in Marcel-Béronneau's studio in Paris. Oil paint was Gibran's "preferred medium between 1908 and 1914, but before and after this time he worked primarily with pencil, ink, watercolor and gouache." In a letter to Haskell, Gibran wrote that "among all the English artists Turner is the very greatest." In her diary entry of March 17, 1911, Haskell recorded that Gibran told her he was inspired by J. M. W. Turner's painting "The Slave Ship" (1840) to utilize "raw colors [...] one over another on the canvas [...] instead of killing them first on the palette" in what would become the painting "Rose Sleeves" (1911, Telfair Museums).


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: Gibran created more than seven hundred visual artworks, including the Temple of Art portrait series. His works may be seen at the Gibran Museum in Bsharri; the Telfair Museums in Savannah, Georgia; the Museo Soumaya in Mexico City; in Doha; the Brooklyn Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City; and the Harvard Art Museums. A possible Gibran painting was the subject of a September 2008 episode of the PBS TV series "History Detectives".


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: Besides Christianity, Islam and Sufism, Gibran's mysticism was also influenced by theosophy and Jungian psychology.


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: Around 1911–1912, Gibran met with ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, the leader of the Baháʼí Faith who was visiting the United States, to draw his portrait. The meeting made a strong impression on Gibran. One of Gibran's acquaintances later in life, Juliet Thompson, herself a Baháʼí, reported that Gibran was unable to sleep the night before meeting him. This encounter with ʻAbdu'l-Bahá later inspired Gibran to write "Jesus the Son of Man" that portrays Jesus through the "words of seventy-seven contemporaries who knew him – enemies and friends: Syrians, Romans, Jews, priests, and poets." After the death of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, Gibran gave a talk on religion with Baháʼís and at another event with a viewing of a movie of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, Gibran rose to proclaim in tears an exalted station of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá and left the event weeping.


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: In 1921, Gibran participated in an "interrogatory" meeting on the question "Do We Need a New World Religion to Unite the Old Religions?" at St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery.


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: Nevertheless, Gibran called for the adoption of Arabic as a national language of Syria, considered from a geographic point of view, not as a political entity. When Gibran met ʻAbdu'l-Bahá in 1911–12, who traveled to the United States partly to promote peace, Gibran admired the teachings on peace but argued that "young nations like his own" be freed from Ottoman control. Gibran also wrote the famous "Pity the Nation" poem during these years, posthumously published in "The Garden of the Prophet".


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: On May 26, 1916, Gibran wrote a letter to Mary Haskell that reads: "The famine in Mount Lebanon has been planned and instigated by the Turkish government. Already 80,000 have succumbed to starvation and thousands are dying every single day. The same process happened with the Christian Armenians and applied to the Christians in Mount Lebanon." Gibran dedicated a poem named "Dead Are My People" to the fallen of the famine.


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: When the Ottomans were eventually driven from Syria during World War I, Gibran sketched a euphoric drawing "Free Syria", which was then printed on the special edition cover of the Arabic-language paper "As-Sayeh" ("The Traveler"; founded 1912 in New York by Haddad). Adel Beshara reports that, "in a draft of a play, still kept among his papers, Gibran expressed great hope for national independence and progress. This play, according to Khalil Hawi, 'defines Gibran's belief in Syrian nationalism with great clarity, distinguishing it from both Lebanese and Arab nationalism, and showing us that nationalism lived in his mind, even at this late stage, side by side with internationalism.


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: According to Waterfield, Gibran "was not entirely in favour of socialism (which he believed tends to seek the lowest common denominator, rather than bringing out the best in people)".


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: The popularity of "The Prophet" grew markedly during the 1960s with the American counterculture and then with the flowering of the New Age movements. It has remained popular with these and with the wider population to this day. Since it was first published in 1923, "The Prophet" has never been out of print. It has been translated into more than 100 languages, making it among the top ten most translated books in history. It was one of the best-selling books of the twentieth century in the United States.


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: Elvis Presley referred to Gibran's "The Prophet" for the rest of his life after receiving his first copy as a gift from his girlfriend June Juanico in July 1956. His marked-up copy still exists in Lebanon and another at the Elvis Presley museum in Düsseldorf. A line of poetry from "Sand and Foam" (1926), which reads "Half of what I say is meaningless, but I say it so that the other half may reach you," was used by John Lennon and placed, though in a slightly altered form, into the song "Julia" from the Beatles' 1968 album "The Beatles" (a.k.a. "The White Album").


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: Johnny Cash recorded "The Eye of the Prophet" as an audio cassette book, and Cash can be heard talking about Gibran's work on a track called "Book Review" on his 2003 album "Unearthed". British singer David Bowie mentioned Gibran in the song "The Width of a Circle" from Bowie's 1970 album "The Man Who Sold the World". Bowie used Gibran as a "hip reference," because Gibran's work "A Tear and a Smile" became popular in the hippie counterculture of the 1960s. In 1978 Uruguayan musician Armando Tirelli recorded an album based on "The Prophet". In 2016 Gibran's fable "On Death" from "The Prophet" was composed in Hebrew by Gilad Hochman to the unique setting of soprano, theorbo and percussion, and it premiered in France under the title "River of Silence".


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: In 2018 and Dana Al Fardan devoted their musical "Broken Wings" to Kahlil Gibran's novel of the same name. The world premiere was staged in London's Theatre Royal Haymarket.


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: A number of places, monuments and educational institutions throughout the world are named in honor of Gibran, including the Gibran Museum in Bsharri, the Gibran Memorial Plaque in Copley Square, Boston, the Gibran Khalil Gibran Garden in Beirut, the Kahlil Gibran Memorial Garden in Washington, D.C., the Khalil Gibran International Academy in Brooklyn, and the Khalil Gibran Elementary School in Yonkers, NY.


title: Kahlil Gibran

text: American sculptor Kahlil G. Gibran (1922–2008) was a cousin of Gibran. The Katter political family in Australia was also related to Gibran. He was described in parliament as a cousin of Bob Katter Sr., a long time member of the Australian parliament and one-time Minister for the Army, and through him his son Bob Katter, founder of Katter's Australian Party and former Queensland state minister, and state politician Robbie Katter.


title: 2007 Formula One World Championship

text: The 2007 FIA Formula One World Championship was the 61st season of FIA Formula One motor racing. It featured the 2007 FIA Formula One World Championship, which began on 18 March and ended on 21 October after seventeen events. The Drivers' Championship was won by Ferrari driver Kimi Räikkönen by one point at the final race of the season, making Räikkönen the third Finnish driver to take the title. An appeal by McLaren regarding the legality of some cars in the final race could have altered the championship standings, but on 16 November, the appeal was rejected by the International Court of Appeal, confirming the championship results. Räikkönen entered the final race in third position in the drivers' standings, but emerged as champion after the chequered flag, a feat first accomplished by Giuseppe Farina in .


title: 2007 Formula One World Championship

text: A major talking point of the season had been an espionage controversy involving Ferrari and McLaren, which led to McLaren being excluded from the Constructors' Championship. As a result, Ferrari clinched the championship at the Belgian Grand Prix.


title: 2007 Formula One World Championship

text: Renault, who were the defending Constructors' Champions proved to be uncompetitive with their R27 car taking them to third in the constructors' standings (after McLaren's disqualification from second) and ended up win-less for the first time since 2002 season. Renault achieved one podium during the season, with Heikki Kovalainen finishing second at the rain affected 2007 Japanese Grand Prix.


title: 2007 Formula One World Championship

text: The 2007 season heralded the end of the existing Concorde Agreement between the existing Formula One constructors and Bernie Ecclestone. In particular, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Honda (collectively the Grand Prix Manufacturers' Association) had a number of outstanding disagreements with the FIA and Ecclestone on financial and technical grounds. They had threatened to boycott Formula One from the 2008 season onwards and instead stage their own rival series, before signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) at the 2006 Spanish Grand Prix.


title: 2007 Formula One World Championship

text: 2007 also marked the seventh and final season, since its reintroduction in 2001, in which the use of traction control was permitted in Formula One. Standardised electronic control units (ECUs) were mandated by the FIA from the season onwards, which prohibited teams from using this kind of technology.


title: 2007 Formula One World Championship

text: Honda ran with an "Earth livery" on their "RA107" car. It was the first time since , the year in which sponsorship in the sport became widespread, that a team ran sponsor-free for an entire season. Michelin's withdrawal from F1 at the end of 2006 meant that Bridgestone was the sole tyre supplier for 2007. , this is the last Drivers' Championship won by a Ferrari driver, and is also the last Drivers' Championship win for a Finnish driver.


title: 2007 Formula One World Championship

text: The following teams and drivers participated in the 2007 FIA Formula One World Championship. Drivers' cars are numbered as per the official FIA 2007 entry list. All team details are as per the Formula 1 official website, except where noted. Note that there is no car number 13, as is the historical tradition. All teams competed with tyres supplied by Bridgestone.


title: 2007 Formula One World Championship

text: The 2005 and 2006 World Champion Fernando Alonso switched to McLaren after five years at Renault. Following the retirement of Michael Schumacher and Jacques Villeneuve, Alonso was the only driver on the grid in this season who had previously won a drivers' championship.


title: 2007 Formula One World Championship

text: Juan Pablo Montoya, who was a McLaren driver until the aftermath of the 2006 United States Grand Prix moved to the NASCAR Cup Series for 2007, effectively ending his Formula One career, as announced on 9 July 2006.


title: 2007 Formula One World Championship

text: On 2 August 2006, Williams announced that test and reserve driver Alexander Wurz would step up to a race seat for 2007, replacing Australian Mark Webber. On 7 August 2006, Red Bull Racing announced their 2007 driver line-up of David Coulthard and Mark Webber, displacing Christian Klien. On 7 August 2006, BMW Sauber announced that Jacques Villeneuve's contract had been terminated immediately and for the rest of the season would be replaced by test driver Robert Kubica. Kubica was later announced on 19 October 2006 to retain the race seat for the 2007 season, with Sebastian Vettel remaining as the team's test driver. On 21 December 2006 BMW Sauber announced former Jordan F1 and GP2 driver Timo Glock as their second test driver.


title: 2007 Formula One World Championship

text: On 6 September 2006, Renault confirmed Heikki Kovalainen as the team's replacement for Fernando Alonso. On 10 September 2006, Scuderia Ferrari announced Kimi Räikkönen to replace for the retiring Michael Schumacher.


title: 2007 Formula One World Championship

text: On 15 November 2006, Super Aguri confirmed Anthony Davidson as Sakon Yamamoto's replacement. On 24 November 2006, McLaren confirmed Lewis Hamilton, their junior program driver who won the GP2 Series title that year as their second driver.


title: 2007 Formula One World Championship

text: On 21 December 2006, Spyker confirmed Adrian Sutil as their first driver, replacing WTCC-bound Tiago Monteiro.


title: 2007 Formula One World Championship

text: On 10 July 2007, Spyker announced that Christijan Albers would no longer be driving for the team. The given reason was a failure to pay sponsorship monies due. Markus Winkelhock raced Spyker's second car at the European Grand Prix. On 25 July 2007 Spyker confirmed that the Japanese driver Sakon Yamamoto would compete in the remaining seven Grands Prix for them. On 31 July 2007, Scuderia Toro Rosso replaced Scott Speed with BMW test driver Sebastian Vettel following an alleged physical altercation between Speed and STR Team Principal Franz Tost.


title: 2007 Formula One World Championship

text: On 8 October 2007, Williams driver Alexander Wurz announced his immediate retirement from Formula One racing. Williams test driver Kazuki Nakajima replaced Wurz for the Brazilian Grand Prix.


title: 2007 Formula One World Championship

text: Ferrari technical director, Ross Brawn, was to take a sabbatical year for 2007, after ten seasons at the Italian team since 1997. However, it was later announced that he would leave the team. In , Ross Brawn became Team Principal of the Honda team.


title: 2007 Formula One World Championship

text: McLaren signed a title sponsorship deal with the telecommunications company Vodafone late in 2005. With the loss of Vodafone, Scuderia Ferrari began a sponsorship deal with Alice, a brand of Telecom Italia.


title: 2007 Formula One World Championship

text: Mild Seven confirmed that they would not renew their contract with Renault following its conclusion at the end of 2006 due to current European tobacco laws.


title: 2007 Formula One World Championship

text: British American Tobacco's Lucky Strike and 555 brands ceased to sponsor the Honda team, following which the team ran a sponsorless livery in 2007.


title: 2007 Formula One World Championship

text: Williams changed their engines from Cosworth to Toyota in a three-year deal until 2009. Contrary to speculation at the time, the engines were not rebadged as Lexus.


title: 2007 Formula One World Championship

text: Red Bull officially became an Austrian constructor by receiving an Austrian licence, though continued to operate from the same base in Britain.


title: 2007 Formula One World Championship

text: On 9 September 2006, MF1 Racing was officially sold to a Dutch-Arab consortium owned by Michiel Mol, along with the aid of Spyker Cars. The team was officially renamed Spyker MF1 Team, keeping the "MF1" for the rest of the season due to Concorde Agreement rules. On 30 September 2006, Spyker announced that their engine supplier would be Ferrari.


title: 2007 Formula One World Championship

text: On 16 October 2006, Renault confirmed that the Dutch banking company, ING, would become their main sponsor to replace Mild Seven, which has sponsored the Enstone-based team during the 13 years since 1994. On 20 October 2006, Williams announced AT&T as their new main sponsor. On 24 October 2006, Spyker announced they would change their name from "Spyker MF1 Team" to "Spyker F1" from 2007 onwards, subject to all other teams giving their agreement. On 31 October 2006, Red Bull confirmed their engine situation for 2007. Renault engines were used by Red Bull Racing, while Scuderia Toro Rosso used 2006-spec Ferrari engines.


title: 2007 Formula One World Championship

text: On 15 March 2007, Spyker announced their new title sponsor for the 2007 season: United Arab Emirates airline company Etihad Airways.


title: 2007 Formula One World Championship

text: On 30 September 2006, Cosworth announced that they would temporarily withdraw from Formula One as an engine supplier, citing lack of room for supplying engines for private teams after Williams switched to Toyota engines and Spyker opted for Ferrari engines from 2007 season onwards and thus for the first time since 1962 a Formula One season did not feature Cosworth-powered cars. However the company would return to the sport from 2010 season onwards.


title: 2007 Formula One World Championship

text: On 29 August 2006, The FIA published a provisional calendar for the 2007 FIA Formula One World Championship. The San Marino and European Grands Prix were excluded, although the European round would later make a comeback (see below). The final calendar (above), which confirmed that the San Marino Grand Prix would not return, was released on 18 October 2006.


title: 2007 Formula One World Championship

text: For the first time in nearly half a century, no German Grand Prix was held as a result of the circuits previously hosting a Grand Prix in Germany beginning to alternate in organizing the German Grand Prix. However, the promoter for the Hockenheim race controlled the rights to the descriptor "German Grand Prix" and an agreement could not be reached between them and the Nürburgring circuits for the naming rights. The Nürburgring event therefore retained its usual Grand Prix of Europe title.


title: 2007 Formula One World Championship

text: After twenty years of being hosted at the Honda-owned Suzuka Circuit since 1987, the Japanese Grand Prix moved to Toyota's rebuilt Fuji Speedway, a circuit that F1 had not raced at since .


title: 2007 Formula One World Championship

text: The Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps returned after a one-year absence in 2006 due to track maintenance.


title: 2007 Formula One World Championship

text: Pre-season testing began in November 2006 at the Circuit de Catalunya, with ten of the eleven teams participating in the test sessions. The most notable absentees were Fernando Alonso and Kimi Räikkönen, who were still under contract at Renault and McLaren respectively. Jenson Button was also absent as he had suffered a hairline fracture on his ribs after a go-karting accident in preparations for the November tests. Lewis Hamilton made his first appearance in a McLaren since being confirmed as Alonso's teammate for 2007.


title: 2007 Formula One World Championship

text: Felipe Massa topped the times on the first two days of testing. Massa's testing partner, Luca Badoer, took the fastest time on the third day, although interest was on the fact that double World Champion Mika Häkkinen joined Hamilton and de la Rosa at McLaren for a one-off test, although the Finnish driver was over three seconds slower than Badoer's time, completing 79 laps of the Spanish circuit.


title: 2007 Formula One World Championship

text: The other big story of 2007 was the return to a single tyre supplier (Bridgestone). It was perceived that this accounted for some of the reason why Ferrari led the early tests, although it was claimed by Bridgestone that the 2007 tyre is of a completely new build, thus minimising any real benefit for the 2006 Bridgestone teams (Ferrari, Toyota, Williams, Midland/Spyker and Super Aguri).


title: 2007 Formula One World Championship

text: Toyota was the only team out for the fourth day of testing at Barcelona, as the Japanese works team chose to miss the first day of testing. Both Ralf Schumacher and Jarno Trulli's fastest laps were quicker than Massa and Badoer's times during the previous three sessions. Testing resumed on 6 December at Jerez, with the majority of teams attending the session. Both Ferraris of Massa and Badoer were first and second fastest, with McLaren's Lewis Hamilton making up the top three in third. Hamilton improved on his position the following day by taking the fastest time, a second faster than Renault's Giancarlo Fisichella.


title: 2007 Formula One World Championship

text: Japanese works teams Honda and Toyota topped the times for the next two days of testing: Honda's Rubens Barrichello and Toyota's Franck Montagny were fastest, although Toyota had the Jerez track to themselves when Montagny took the fastest time. Heikki Kovalainen and Pedro de la Rosa took the fastest times on the fourth and fifth day of testing at Jerez. Also of note, on the last day of testing Fernando Alonso made his McLaren testing debut after an agreement with manager Flavio Briatore. This did not call for an end to his agreement (which ended on 31 December).


title: 2007 Formula One World Championship

text: The season started at Albert Park in Australia on 18 March. Kimi Räikkönen led the whole race, and became the fourth driver to win on their debut for Ferrari. Fernando Alonso came second and debutant Lewis Hamilton finished 3rd. Felipe Massa took his first pole of the season in Malaysia but Alonso won his first race with McLaren while Hamilton finished second. Massa led the entire race to win in both Bahrain and Spain, and in both races Hamilton finished second, becoming the first rookie to finish on the podium in more than his first two outings. McLaren dominated Monaco with Alonso winning from Hamilton after the pair had lapped everybody apart from themselves and Felipe Massa, who was not too far from being lapped.


title: 2007 Formula One World Championship

text: The Canadian GP included four safety car periods and one of the biggest crashes of Formula One in that era. The race started off with the second all-McLaren front row with Hamilton taking his first pole position followed by Alonso. Alonso made a mistake in turn 1, losing several places while Hamilton was opening a gap between himself and Nick Heidfeld. On lap 22 the first safety car period began after Adrian Sutil hit the concrete wall. The safety car went into the pits on lap 28 but before the lap could be completed Robert Kubica had a massive accident. He had lost his front wing after hitting Jarno Trulli. He then went wide and hit a bump on the grass that launched him into the air and into a violent impact with the retaining barrier at a peak deceleration of 75G. The safety car was once again deployed and went in on lap 35. Hamilton once again opened up a gap to second-placed Heidfeld until lap 50 when Christijan Albers left a lot of debris on the track after a crash forcing the deployment of the safety car. The race restarted on lap 55 and the safety car was deployed again on lap 56 after Vitantonio Liuzzi hit the so-called 'Wall of Champions'. The safety car period was extended after Jarno Trulli hit the tyre barrier at the exit of the pitlane after trying to catch up with the field. On the restart Hamilton led to the finish to claim his maiden win in his sixth race. The next race at Indianapolis saw Hamilton lead from the start until victory after a 300 km/h side by side battle with Alonso for the lead. Ferrari took their first 1–2 finish of the season in France with Kimi Räikkönen winning from polesitter, Felipe Massa.


title: 2007 Formula One World Championship

text: In Britain Hamilton took his third pole position, going on to finish a distant third behind winner Kimi Räikkönen and Fernando Alonso. Europe (Germany) would see Hamilton's run of nine consecutive podiums come to an end. After a large crash in qualifying he started in 10th in the race. On lap 4 he aquaplaned off the circuit in a torrential rainstorm but the race was stopped. He restarted after his car was pulled out of the gravel but after taking a gamble to change early to dry tyres on a drying track, he spun off several times but recovered to finish 9th, just missing out on the final point.


title: 2007 Formula One World Championship

text: After a qualifying incident between Alonso and Hamilton in which Alonso prevented Hamilton from completing his final flying lap, Alonso was demoted to 6th on the grid at the Hungarian Grand Prix while McLaren was made ineligible for points for the constructors' championship for that race. Hamilton then took victory with Räikkönen coming second. In Turkey Felipe Massa took a dominant victory followed by Räikkönen and Alonso. Hamilton finished fifth after he suffered a tyre failure while running in 3rd. In Italy Alonso won from Hamilton followed by Räikkönen. Following that Grand Prix McLaren was excluded from the constructors' championship after having been found guilty of theft and illegal usage of confidentional technical information of Ferrari. The team did not receive any constructors' points from subsequent races. In Belgium Räikkönen won from Massa and Alonso, thus allowing Ferrari to clinch the world constructors' championship from BMW Sauber following McLaren's exclusion.


title: 2007 Formula One World Championship

text: The Japanese Grand Prix moved to Fuji Speedway. The event was marked by treacherous weather and was started behind the safety car. Lewis Hamilton survived a brush with Robert Kubica to win from Heikki Kovalainen and Kimi Räikkönen. At the last three corners Kubica and Felipe Massa ran side by side in a battle for 6th, while Fernando Alonso aquaplaned and crashed on lap 41 of 67. In China, Hamilton won his 6th pole of the season and led up to lap 28 when he was overtaken by Räikkönen and he then spun off entering the pitlane. The season finale marked the first time since that three drivers had a chance of becoming World Champion at the season finale, and the first time since the inaugural season in that the man who stood in third before the final race went on to win the championship (the driver in 1950 being Giuseppe Farina). Hamilton was the favourite with 107 points followed by Alonso with 103 points and Räikkönen with 100 points. Hamilton started 2nd but dropped to the back of the pack after a gearbox problem. He recovered to 7th but Räikkönen won the race and the championship. The final standings were Räikkönen with 110 points followed by Hamilton and Alonso each with 109 points. Räikkönen's late charge, following worse luck at the start of the season, would narrowly give him the World Drivers' Championship.


title: Madam Secretary (TV series)

text: Madam Secretary (subtitled Madam President for its sixth and final season) is an American political drama television series created by Barbara Hall with Morgan Freeman and Lori McCreary as executive producers. It stars Téa Leoni as Elizabeth McCord, a former CIA analyst and political science professor who becomes the United States Secretary of State. It ran on CBS from September 21, 2014, to December 8, 2019, for a total of 120 episodes aired. The series was renewed for a final 10-episode sixth season in May 2019, which premiered October 6, 2019.


title: Madam Secretary (TV series)

text: The first five seasons of "Madam Secretary" explore Elizabeth McCord's life as the determined United States Secretary of State. She drives international diplomacy, battles office politics, and circumvents protocol if needed as she negotiates worldwide issues. The show also focuses on the characters' personal lives. At the end of the fifth season, McCord announces that she will run for president. As the sixth season begins, the audience learns that she has won the election, and the remainder of the series follows her as America's first female president.


title: Madam Secretary (TV series)

text: In August 2013, it was announced "Madam Secretary" was in development at CBS, co-written by Barbara Hall. "Madam Secretary" is about "the personal and professional life of a maverick female secretary of state, as she drives international diplomacy, wrangles office politics and balances a complex family life."


title: Madam Secretary (TV series)

text: The pilot was directed by David Semel. On May 9, 2014, "Madam Secretary" received a series order at CBS. A preview trailer was released on May 14, 2014. "Madam Secretary" premiered on CBS on September 21, 2014, and on October 27, 2014, CBS picked up the series for a full season of 22 episodes. "Madam Secretary" was renewed for a sixth season on May 9, 2019. On May 15, 2019, it was announced the sixth season would be the series' final season and would comprise 10 episodes. It premiered on October 6, 2019. Filming for the series was completed on November 13, 2019.


title: Madam Secretary (TV series)

text: In January 2014, the pilot was cast with Téa Leoni as Elizabeth McCord, Tim Daly as Henry McCord, Geoffrey Arend as Matt Mahoney, Patina Miller as press coordinator Daisy Grant, Bebe Neuwirth as Elizabeth's chief of staff Nadine Tolliver, Erich Bergen as Blake Moran, Evan Roe as Elizabeth's son, Jason McCord, Katherine Herzer as Elizabeth and Henry's daughter Alison McCord, Željko Ivanek as Russell Jackson, and Wallis Currie-Wood as Elizabeth and Henry's older daughter Stephanie "Stevie" McCord.


title: Madam Secretary (TV series)

text: Bebe Neuwirth left the series after the third episode of the fourth season. Sara Ramirez joined the cast as Kat Sandoval, replacing Bebe Neuwirth as a series regular. Hall said, "She brings a fresh perspective and a fun, energetic quality to the State Department staff."


title: Madam Secretary (TV series)

text: On August 6, 2019, it was revealed that Ramirez would not return as a regular for the sixth and final season. Nearly a month later on September 3, it was revealed that original regulars Arend, Roe, and Herzer, and later additions Keith Carradine and Sebastian Arcelus would also be dropped from the main cast; however, Carradine was expected to make at least one guest appearance, and the others would likely appear according to their work schedules. Additionally, Kevin Rahm, who had recurred as McCord's advisor Michael "Mike B." Barnow since the second half of the first season, would be upgraded to regular status.


title: Madam Secretary (TV series)

text: As of May 15, 2020, all six seasons of "Madam Secretary" are available on Netflix (US). In Finland, "Madam Secretary" premiered on MTV3 on January 1, 2015. The series has been popular in Finland: 9% of Finnish people watched the first episode.


title: Madam Secretary (TV series)

text: "Madam Secretary" has been met with generally positive reviews from TV critics. On Metacritic, the show has a score of 66 out of 100, based on 31 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". On Rotten Tomatoes, the show holds a rating of 67% based on reviews from 52 critics. The site's consensus for the first season reads, "Bolstered by Tea Leoni's strong central performance, "Madam Secretary" is a solid but unspectacular political drama."


title: Madam Secretary (TV series)

text: Three former US Secretaries of State apparently were fans of the series. On April 27, 2022, during a eulogy at the memorial service for Madeleine Albright (Secretary of State from 1997 to 2001), Hillary Clinton (Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013), disclosed that she and Secretaries Albright and Colin Powell (Secretary of State from 2001 to 2005), "loved and actually watched" "Madam Secretary". All three former Secretaries of State made a cameo appearance together on the fifth-season premiere, which aired on October 7, 2018.


title: Madam Secretary (TV series)

text: Three women have served as Secretary of State to date: Madeleine Albright from 1997 to 2001 under Bill Clinton, Condoleezza Rice from 2005 to 2009 under George W. Bush, and Hillary Clinton from 2009 to 2013 under Barack Obama. Shortly after the series' debut, Fox News asked if the show served as a campaign ad supporting Hillary Clinton, but quoted the "Los Angeles Times" saying the lead character was "no Hillary knock-off" and a New York publicist calling the casting of a woman "simple business and smart on CBS' behalf." Conservative activist organization Culture and Media Institute said "The connections in the show between Elizabeth and Hillary are clear, from the blond hair to the pantsuits."


title: Madam Secretary (TV series)

text: When the trailer of the fifteenth episode of the third season titled "Break in Diplomacy" was released showing McCord responding to unwanted sexual advances by fictional Philippine president Datu Andrada by punching Andrada in the face, it became controversial in the Philippines. Viewers thought there were parallels between Andrada and real-life Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who was known for making inappropriate and sexist remarks. The Philippine Embassy in Washington published a statement protesting the negative depiction of the presidential character on its Facebook page.


title: Madam Secretary (TV series)

text: The fourth-season premiere, "News Cycle", led to a protest from East Timor's Minister of State José Ramos-Horta, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. He said, "It is a slander against a country that only shows ignorance and racism." The TV show used the border dispute between Australia and East Timor in the Timor Sea as background story. (The dispute is transferred in the TV show to the South China Sea, although neither Australia nor East Timor borders it.) East Timor is shown as a country controlled by a Mexican drug cartel and used for drug transfer. US Secretary of State McCord is asking China to take measures to prevent the leader of the drug cartel from making a narco-state out of East Timor.


title: Madam Secretary (TV series)

text: In the 4th episode of the first season, "Just Another Normal Day", the director used footage shot in Hoi An, Vietnam but noted the location of Fuling, China. Soon after, it caused the anger of the Vietnamese government and people, because the episode offended Vietnam's sovereignty and territorial integrity. Soon after, the Department of Radio, Television and Electronic Information of the Ministry of Information and Communications of Vietnam ordered a ban on Madam Secretary and asked Netflix to remove the series from the Vietnamese version of Netflix.


title: Chris Parnell

text: Thomas Christopher Parnell (; born February 5, 1967) is an American actor and comedian. He was a cast member on "Saturday Night Live" from 1998 to 2006 and played the role of Dr. Leo Spaceman on "30 Rock". In animation, he voices Cyril Figgis on the FX series "Archer", Jerry Smith on Adult Swim's "Rick and Morty", Doug on FOX's "Family Guy", and the narrator on the PBS Kids series "WordGirl". He also voices "The Progressive Box" in a series of advertisements by the Progressive Corporation.


title: Chris Parnell

text: Parnell was born in Memphis, Tennessee, to a Southern Baptist family. His father, Jack Parnell, was a radio personality in Memphis. He attended the Southern Baptist Educational Center, and graduated from Germantown High School. He decided to pursue acting as a career at age 17 and set his sights on being a theater actor. He attended the University of North Carolina School of the Arts where he received his BFA in Drama. He moved to Houston, Texas after college to do an apprentice actor program for a season at the Alley Theatre, but did not get asked back to join the company. He became temporarily disenchanted with acting, and returned to his hometown and taught high school for a year. He moved to Los Angeles and auditioned for the Groundlings in 1992.


title: Chris Parnell

text: While performing as a company player with the Groundlings for a number of years, Parnell began doing commercials and getting guest roles on various sitcoms, such as "Seinfeld" and "Murphy Brown". He was hired to join the cast of "Saturday Night Live" as a featured player, and debuted on the show on September 26, 1998. He was promoted to repertory player the following season. In the summer of 2001, because of budget cuts and the hiring of four new cast members, Lorne Michaels was required to dismiss two cast members; he chose to lay off Parnell and Jerry Minor over Horatio Sanz, Rachel Dratch, and Maya Rudolph. Parnell was rehired in the middle of the following season.


title: Chris Parnell

text: While on "SNL", Parnell appeared in numerous sketches and commercial parodies, and performed impressions of various celebrities. Among his notable sketches are "Lazy Sunday", a rap video he shot with Andy Samberg, and "More Cowbell". He has performed raps about hosts Jennifer Garner, Britney Spears, Kirsten Dunst, and Ashton Kutcher. On the DVD commentary for the West Coast version of the "30 Rock" episode "Live Show", Tina Fey and Beth McCarthy Miller noted that Parnell was nicknamed "The Ice Man" while working at "SNL", because of his apparent immunity to breaking character, citing the "More Cowbell" sketch in which he was the only actor not to break.


title: Chris Parnell

text: In 2006, Michaels laid off Parnell, as well as Horatio Sanz and Finesse Mitchell, due to budget cuts. This effectively made Parnell the only "SNL" performer to have been released twice by Michaels, although Parnell said in a 2008 interview with "The Sound Of Young America" that he was okay with being let go this time, as he was considering leaving after that season anyway, adding that he probably would have stayed one more season had he been asked back. He had been with "SNL" for eight seasons; at the time only four people (Darrell Hammond, Tim Meadows, Kevin Nealon, and Al Franken) had been cast members longer. He has since made uncredited cameo appearances on the show, including parodying newscasters Tom Brokaw, Jim Lehrer, and Bob Schieffer. Parnell and his former "SNL" castmate Horatio Sanz starred together in "Big Lake", a 2010 sitcom on Comedy Central from executive producers Will Ferrell and Adam McKay.


title: Chris Parnell

text: Parnell voiced Fly in the animated films "Hotel Transylvania" and "Hotel Transylvania 2", and Stan the Fishman in "". He is a series regular on the FX animated series "Archer", and is also known for his guest appearances as Dr. Leo Spaceman on "30 Rock". He provides the voice of the narrator on the PBS children's series "WordGirl". From 2011 to 2014, Parnell co-starred on the ABC comedy series "Suburgatory" where he played the husband of the character played by his former "SNL" castmate Ana Gasteyer. His role started out as recurring in the first season but he was bumped up to a series regular in the second season. The series aired for three seasons on ABC.


title: Chris Parnell

text: Parnell provides the voice of the "Progressive Box" in commercials for Progressive Insurance. Since 2013, Parnell has voiced Jerry Smith (and his alternate reality variants) on the Adult Swim series "Rick and Morty". On March 16, 2018, Parnell was cast in the main role of Wayne on the CBS sitcom "Happy Together".


title: Bane (DC Comics)

text: Bane is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. Created by writer Chuck Dixon and artist Graham Nolan, he made his debut in "Batman: Vengeance of Bane" #1 (January 1993). Bane is usually depicted as a dangerous adversary of the superhero Batman, and belongs to the collective of enemies that make up the Batman's rogues gallery. Possessing a mix of brute strength and exceptional intelligence, Bane is often credited as the only villain to have "broken the bat", defeating him both physically and mentally. He is a son of another of Batman's enemies, King Snake.


title: Bane (DC Comics)

text: Robert Swenson portrayed Bane in the 1997 film "Batman & Robin", while Tom Hardy played him in the 2012 film "The Dark Knight Rises". Bane was also played by Shane West in the final season of the FOX television series "Gotham". IGN's list of the Top 100 Comic Book Villains of All Time ranked Bane as #34.


title: Bane (DC Comics)

text: Chuck Dixon and Graham Nolan created the character for the "" storyline. They developed the concept of Bane after an initial idea by Batman editor Dennis O'Neil.


title: Bane (DC Comics)

text: O'Neil had previously created Bane's birthplace of Santa Prisca in "The Question" and the drug Venom in the storyline of the same name (published in the pages of "Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight" #16–20, and later reprinted as a trade paperback). In the pages of "Azrael", O'Neil introduced Bane's perception of Venom as both an addiction and the weakness responsible for his earlier defeats.


title: Bane (DC Comics)

text: Bane's origin story is established in the storyline "Guttenberg". His father, Edmund Dorrance (better known as King Snake), had been a revolutionary who had escaped Santa Prisca's court system. The corrupt government decreed that his young son would serve out the man's life sentence, and thus Bane spent his childhood and early adult life in prison. Although he was imprisoned, his natural abilities allowed him to develop extraordinary skills within the prison's walls. He read as many books as he could get his hands on, spent most of his spare time body building in the prison's gym, developed his own form of meditation, and learned to fight in the merciless school of prison life. Because of the cultural and supposed geographical location of Santa Prisca, Bane knew how to speak English, Spanish, Portuguese, Persian, Urdu and Latin. Despite his circumstances, he found teachers of various sorts during his incarceration, ranging from hardened convicts to an elderly Jesuit priest, under whose tutelage he apparently received a classical education. Bane murdered this priest upon his return to Santa Prisca years later. He committed his first murder at the age of eight, stabbing a criminal who wanted to use him to gain information about the prison. During his years in prison, Bane carried a teddy bear he called "Osito" ("little bear" in Spanish), whom he considered his only friend. It is revealed that Osito has a hole in his back to hold a knife that Bane used to defend himself.


title: Bane (DC Comics)

text: Bane is tortured by a monstrous, terrifying bat creature that appears in his dreams, thus giving him an intense fear of bats. He ultimately established himself as the "king" of Peña Duro prison and became known as Bane. The prison's controllers took note and eventually forced him to become a test subject for a mysterious drug known as Venom, which had killed all other subjects. The Peña Duro prison Venom experiment nearly killed Bane at first, but he survived and found that the drug vastly increases his physical strength, although he needs to take it every 12 hours (via a system of tubes pumped directly into his brain) or he will suffer debilitating side-effects. Bane escapes Peña Duro, along with several accomplices based on the Fabulous Five (his minions Trogg, Zombie and Angel Vallelunga/Bird, all of whom are named after 1960s rock bands—The Troggs, The Zombies, and The Byrds—and are designed to mimic three of Doc Savage's assistants Monk, Ham, and Renny). His ambition turns to destroying Batman, about whom he had heard stories from Bird. Gotham City fascinates Bane because, like Peña Duro, fear rules Gotham—but it is the fear of Batman. Bane is convinced that Batman is a personification of the demonic bat which had haunted his dreams since childhood. Therefore, Bane believes fate placed Batman on a collision course with him.


title: Bane (DC Comics)

text: During the "Knightfall" storyline, Bane, wanting Batman reduced to his weakest physical and psychological state, uses stolen munitions to destroy the walls of Arkham Asylum—allowing its deranged inmates (including the Joker, Two-Face, the Riddler, the Scarecrow, the Mad Hatter, the Ventriloquist, Firefly, Poison Ivy, Cornelius Stirk, Film Freak and Victor Zsasz) to escape into Gotham City. During this time, Bane murdered Film Freak who acted as the Mad Hatter's mind-controlled assassin, kidnapped and unsuccessfully interrogated Robin who was spying on him, and had a bloody rematch with Killer Croc which ended in a stalemate as they were washed out of the sewer. Consequently, Batman is forced to recapture the escapees, a mission that takes him three months and drives him to the brink of mental and physical collapse. Exhausted, Batman returns to his home in Wayne Manor, only to find Bane waiting for him. Bane attacks Batman and beats him nearly to death, and delivers a brutal final blow in which he raises Batman up and breaks him over one knee, leaving him a paraplegic. Bane thus becomes the only man to have "Broken the Bat". This iconic moment is incorporated in "The Dark Knight Rises", "Robot Chicken"s "DC Comics Special" and alluded to numerous times in the DCAU.


title: Bane (DC Comics)

text: While Bane establishes himself as the new ruler of Gotham's criminal underworld, Bruce Wayne passed the mantle of Batman to Jean-Paul Valley, also known as Azrael. Ignoring Bruce's warnings to stay away from Bane, Azrael attempts to confront the villain in his penthouse suite. Azrael has by now added a set of high-tech, heavy metal gauntlets to the Batsuit, and uses them to shoot sharp projectiles at Bane. However, Bane is able to get the upper hand in the fight after using Venom and taunting Azrael, making him angry enough to lose focus and, thus, give Bane the opportunity to beat him. Nevertheless, Bane sustains deep lacerations in the battle and loses a great deal of blood.


title: Bane (DC Comics)

text: Unable to go to a hospital, Bane increases his Venom intake to temporarily block the pain and buy himself time to defeat the new Batman. A humiliated Azrael returned to the Batcave and builds an advanced combat suit of metal, in place of the traditional Batsuit, with many chambers within the suit that fire razor-sharp weapons. Reduced to little more than a wounded animal fleeing for survival, Bane is no match against the "new" Batman. Bane is finally defeated when Azrael severs the tubes that pump Venom into his bloodstream, causing severe withdrawal. Commissioner James Gordon, Harvey Bullock, and Robin watch in horror as this new Batman tortures a defeated Bane, who begs his adversary to kill him. Azrael denies his innate urge to kill Bane, however, and leaves him humiliated and broken physically and mentally for the police to arrest.


title: Bane (DC Comics)

text: Further following the events of "Knightfall", Bane recovers from his Venom addiction while serving time in Blackgate Prison. He rebuilt his body to its peak and eventually escapes from prison and returns to Gotham, where he fights alongside the original Batman, who has by now recovered and taken his mantle back from Azrael, to take out a criminal ring that is distributing a Venom derivative to street-level thugs. Following a victory over the criminals (and the revelation that behind it is the same doctor that performed the surgery on Bane years earlier in Peña Duro), Bane proclaims that he is "innocent" of his past crimes and urges Batman to stop hunting him. He then leaves Gotham, without fighting Batman, to begin a search for his unknown father.


title: Bane (DC Comics)

text: Bane's search brings him back to Santa Prisca. In search of leads, Bane questions the Jesuit priest who had taught him while he was in Peña Duro. The priest explains that there were four men who could possibly have been his father: a Santa Priscan revolutionary, an American doctor, an English mercenary, and a Swiss banker. While searching for the Swiss man in Rome, Bane encounters Talia al Ghul and the League of Assassins and eventually impresses Ra's al Ghul so much that he chooses Bane to marry Talia and become his heir. Ra's also has discovered Bane's father's identity, but did not reveal this information to him. Ra's al Ghul then launches a plague attack on Gotham in the "Legacy" storyline, with Bane at his side, who is posing as Ra's al Ghul's henchman Ubu. Batman gets his rematch with Bane in "Detective Comics" #701 and finally defeats him in single combat. Disappointed by his protegé's failure, Ra's calls off the engagement to Talia and disowns Bane.