title: 21 (2008 film)

text: A race-based controversy arose over the decision to make the majority of the characters White Americans, even though the main players in the book "Bringing Down the House", upon which the film "21" is based, were mainly Asian Americans. However, the real-world MIT blackjack team has not been consistently majority-Asian, and only one of the characters in the book was based on a real person; the rest were composites or fabrications. Ben Kaplan, who is white, stated "While Ben Mezrich has been quoted as saying that Micky Rosa was a composite of myself, J.P. Massar, and John Chang, the fact is there is little, if anything, that resembles either of us except that he started and ran the team and was focused on running the team as a business". The lead role was given to London-born Jim Sturgess, who required a dialect coach to speak with an American accent.


title: 21 (2008 film)

text: Jeff Ma, who was the real-life inspiration for the character Ben Campbell and served as a consultant on the film, was attacked as being a "race traitor" on several blogs for not insisting that his character be Asian-American. In response, Ma said, "I'm not sure they understand how little control I had in the movie-making process; I didn't get to cast it." Ma said that the controversy was "overblown" and that the important aspect is that a talented actor would portray him. Ma, who is Chinese American, told "USA Today", "I would have been a lot more insulted if they had chosen someone who was Japanese or Korean, just to have an Asian playing me." He also says that major Ben Campbell plot elements, such as his father's death and the romance between him and Kate Bosworth's character, were fabrications and not based on anything that happened in Ma's life.


title: 21 (2008 film)

text: Nick Rogers of "The Enterprise" wrote, "The real-life students mostly were Asian-Americans, but "21" whitewashes its cast and disappointingly lumps its only Asian-American actors (Aaron Yoo and Liza Lapira) into one-note designations as the team's kleptomaniac and a slot-playing 'loser.'"


title: 21 (2008 film)

text: The Media Action Network for Asian Americans (MANAA) reported on their web site: "After the 'white-washing' issue was raised on "Entertainment Weekly"s web site, ["21"] producer Dana Brunetti wrote: "Believe me, I would have LOVED to cast Asians in the lead roles, but the truth is, we didn't have access to any bankable Asian-American actors that we wanted."


title: 21 (2008 film)

text: In pre-production, the producers and the book's original writers predicted that the Vegas casinos would be unhelpful, as a film that told viewers the basics of card counting might hurt their bottom line. A featurette included with the DVD completely and accurately describes the "Hi-Lo" system used by the MIT Blackjack Club and by Rosa's team in the film.


title: 21 (2008 film)

text: The writers of the film were told by the producers that MGM Studios would finance the film, though all "MGM" casinos (including one used by the real MIT Blackjack Team) are owned by MGM Resorts International and are no longer related to MGM Studios. As another DVD featurette reveals, the casinos (including MGM Resorts) saw the film as an attention-getter; people who saw it would be encouraged to go to Vegas and play. The film withheld critical strategy details (such as the conversion from the "running count" to a "true count"), and most beginning card counters underestimate the number and value of the mistakes they make.


title: Masjid al-Haram

text: Masjid al-Haram (), also known as the Great Mosque of Mecca, is a mosque that surrounds the Kaaba in Mecca, in the Mecca Province of Saudi Arabia. It is a site of pilgrimage in the Hajj, which every Muslim must do at least once in their lives if able, and is also the main phase for the ʿUmrah, the lesser pilgrimage that can be undertaken any time of the year. The rites of both pilgrimages include circumambulating the Kaaba within the mosque. The Great Mosque includes other important significant sites, including the Black Stone, the Zamzam Well, Maqam Ibrahim, and the hills of Safa and Marwa.


title: Masjid al-Haram

text: The great Mosque contends with the Mosque of the Companions in the Eritrean city of Massawa and Quba Mosque in Medina as the oldest mosque. According to Islamic tradition, Islam as a religion precedes Muhammad, representing previous prophets such as Abraham. Abraham is credited by Muslims with having built the "Kaaba" in Mecca, and consequently its sanctuary, which according to the Muslim view is seen as the first mosque that ever existed. According to other scholars, Islam started during the lifetime of Muhammad in the 7th century CE, and so did architectural components such as the mosque. In that case, either the Mosque of the Companions or Quba Mosque would be the first mosque that was built in the history of Islam.


title: Masjid al-Haram

text: According to Islamic doctrine in the Quran, Abraham together with his son Ishmael raised the foundations of a house, which has been identified by commentators as the "Kaaba". God showed Abraham the exact site which was previously built by Adam, very near to what is now the Well of Zamzam, where Abraham and Ishmael began work on the construction of the "Kaaba". After Abraham had built the "Kaaba", an angel brought to him the Black Stone, a celestial stone that, according to tradition, had fallen from Heaven on the nearby hill Abu Qubays. The Black Stone is believed by Islamic scholars to be the only remnant of the original structure made by Abraham.


title: Masjid al-Haram

text: After placing the Black Stone in the Eastern corner of the Kaaba, Abraham received a revelation, in which God told the aged prophet that he should now go and proclaim the pilgrimage to mankind, so that men may come both from Arabia and from lands far away, on camel and on foot.


title: Masjid al-Haram

text: Upon Muhammad's victorious return to Mecca in 630 CE, he broke the idols in and around the Kaaba, similar to what, according to the Quran, Abraham did in his homeland. Thus ended polytheistic use of the Kaaba, and began monotheistic rule over it and its sanctuary.


title: Masjid al-Haram

text: The first major renovation to the mosque took place in 692 on the orders of Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan. Before this renovation, which included the mosque's outer walls being raised and decoration added to the ceiling, the mosque was a small open area with the Kaaba at the center. By the end of the 8th century, the mosque's old wooden columns had been replaced with marble columns and the wings of the prayer hall had been extended on both sides along with the addition of a minaret on the orders of Al-Walid I. The spread of Islam in the Middle East and the influx of pilgrims required an almost complete rebuilding of the site which included adding more marble and three more minarets.


title: Masjid al-Haram

text: In 1570, Sultan Selim II commissioned the chief architect Mimar Sinan to renovate the mosque. This renovation resulted in the replacement of the flat roof with domes decorated with calligraphy internally, and the placement of new support columns which are acknowledged as the earliest architectural features of the present mosque. These features are the oldest surviving parts of the building.


title: Masjid al-Haram

text: During heavy rains and flash floods in 1621 and 1629, the walls of the Kaaba and the mosque suffered extensive damage. In 1629, during the reign of Sultan Murad IV, the mosque was renovated. In the renovation of the mosque, a new stone arcade was added, three more minarets (bringing the total to seven) were built, and the marble flooring was retiled. This was the unaltered state of the mosque for nearly three centuries.


title: Masjid al-Haram

text: The first major renovation under the Saudi kings was done between 1955 and 1973. In this renovation, four more minarets were added, the ceiling was refurnished, and the floor was replaced with artificial stone and marble. The Mas'a gallery (As-Safa and Al-Marwah) is included in the Mosque, via roofing and enclosures. During this renovation many of the historical features built by the Ottomans, particularly the support columns, were demolished.


title: Masjid al-Haram

text: On 20 November 1979, the Great Mosque was seized by extremist insurgents who called for the overthrow of the Saudi dynasty. They took hostages and in the ensuing siege hundreds were killed. These events came as a shock to the Islamic world, as violence is strictly forbidden within the mosque.


title: Masjid al-Haram

text: The second Saudi renovations under King Fahd, added a new wing and an outdoor prayer area to the mosque. The new wing, which is also for prayers, is reached through the King Fahd Gate. This extension was performed between 1982 and 1988.


title: Masjid al-Haram

text: 1987 to 2005 saw the building of more minarets, the erecting of a King's residence overlooking the mosque and more prayer area in and around the mosque itself. These developments took place simultaneously with those in Arafat, Mina and Muzdalifah. This extension also added 18 more gates, three domes corresponding in position to each gate and the installation of nearly 500 marble columns. Other modern developments added heated floors, air conditioning, escalators and a drainage system.


title: Masjid al-Haram

text: In 2008, the Saudi government under King Abdullah Ibn Abdulaziz announced an expansion of the mosque, involving the expropriation of land to the north and northwest of the mosque covering . At that time, the mosque covered an area of including indoor and outdoor praying spaces. 40 billion riyals (US$10.6 billion) was allocated for the expansion project.


title: Masjid al-Haram

text: In August 2011, the government under King Abdullah announced further details of the expansion. It would cover an area of and accommodate 1.2 million worshippers, including a multi-level extension on the north side of the complex, new stairways and tunnels, a gate named after King Abdullah, and two minarets, bringing the total number of minarets to eleven. The circumambulation areas (Mataf) around the Kaaba would be expanded and all closed spaces receive air conditioning. After completion, it would raise the mosque's capacity from 770,000 to over 2.5 million worshippers. His successor, King Salman launched five megaprojects as part of the overall King Abdullah Expansion Project in July 2015, covering an area of . The project was carried out by the Saudi Binladin Group. In 2012, the Abraj Al Bait complex was completed along with the 601 meter tall Makkah Royal Clock Tower.


title: Masjid al-Haram

text: On 11 September 2015, at least 111 people died and 394 were injured when a crane collapsed onto the mosque. Construction work was suspended after the incident, and remained on hold due to financial issues during the 2010s oil glut. Development was eventually restarted two years later in September 2017.


title: Masjid al-Haram

text: On 5 March 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the mosque began to be closed at night and the Umrah pilgrimage was suspended to limit attendance. The resumption of Umrah service began on 4 October 2020 with the first phase of a gradual resumption that was limited to Saudi citizens and expatriates from within the Kingdom at a rate of 30 per cent. Only 10,000 people were given Hajj visas in 2020 while 60,000 people were given visas in 2021.


title: Masjid al-Haram

text: The Great Mosque is the main setting for the Hajj and Umrah pilgrimages that occur in the month of Dhu al-Hijja in the Islamic calendar and at any time of the year, respectively. The Hajj pilgrimage is one of the Pillars of Islam, required of all able-bodied Muslims who can afford the trip. In recent times, over 5 million Muslims perform the Hajj every year.


title: Masjid al-Haram

text: There has been some controversy that the expansion projects of the mosque and Mecca itself are causing harm to early Islamic heritage. Many ancient buildings, some more than a thousand years old, have been demolished to make room for the expansion. Some examples are:


title: The Happening (2008 film)

text: The Happening is a 2008 thriller film written, directed, and produced by M. Night Shyamalan. It stars Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, John Leguizamo, and Betty Buckley and revolves around an inexplicable natural disaster causing mass suicides. The film premiered in New York City on June 10, 2008, and was theatrically released in the United States by 20th Century Fox on June 13. It was panned by critics and grossed $163 million worldwide.


title: The Happening (2008 film)

text: In New York City's Central Park, people begin committing mass suicide. The event is believed to be caused by a bio-terrorist attack using an airborne neurotoxin. The behavior quickly spreads across the Northeastern United States. High school science teacher Elliot Moore and his wife Alma are convinced by Elliot's mathematician colleague Julian to accompany him and his daughter Jess on a train out of Philadelphia. During the trip, the group learns that Boston and Philadelphia have been affected. The train loses all radio contact and stops at a small town. When Julian learns that his wife has left Boston for Princeton, he decides to look for her and entrusts Jess to the Moores. However, Julian arrives to find Princeton has been affected, causing the driver in the car he is riding in to ram into a tree. He survives but commits suicide by slitting his wrist.


title: The Happening (2008 film)

text: Elliot, Alma, and Jess hitch a ride with a nurseryman and his wife. The nurseryman theorizes that plant life has developed a defense mechanism against humans consisting of an airborne toxin that stimulates neurotransmitters and causes humans to kill themselves. The group is later joined by other survivors coming from various directions, and the small crowd chooses to avoid roads and populated areas. When the larger part of the group is affected by the toxin, Elliot suggests the nurseryman was right and that the plants are targeting only large groups of people. He splits their group into smaller pockets and they walk along. The trio ends up with a pair of teenage boys, Josh and Jared, who are later shot and killed by the armed residents of a barricaded house.


title: The Happening (2008 film)

text: Elliot, Alma and Jess wander the countryside and come upon the home of Mrs. Jones, an eccentric and paranoid elder. Jones initially agrees to house the group for the night but is suspicious of them having bad intentions; the next morning, she decides to expel them. In a fury, she leaves the house alone and is affected by the toxin. The shaken Elliot realizes that the plants are now targeting individuals. Left with no option when Mrs. Jones strikes her head into several windows, the trio chooses to die and embraces in the yard only to find themselves unaffected by the toxin. The outbreak has abated as quickly as it began.


title: The Happening (2008 film)

text: Three months later, Elliot and Alma have adjusted to their new life with Jess as their adopted daughter. Alma learns she is pregnant and surprises Elliot with the news. On television, an expert compares the natural event to a red tide and warns that the epidemic may have only been a harbinger of an impending global disaster. In Paris's Luxembourg Gardens, people begin committing mass suicide.


title: The Happening (2008 film)

text: Following the critical and commercial failure of "Lady in the Water" (2006), M. Night Shyamalan struggled to sell his next spec script entitled "The Green Effect". By January 2007, it was reported that several studios had received the screenplay, but none expressed interest enough to purchase it. As a result, Shyamalan began taking notes and collecting ideas from meetings before returning home to Philadelphia to rewrite his script. In March 2007, the film was purchased as "The Happening" by 20th Century Fox, Mark Wahlberg joined the cast, and a theatrical release date was set for June 13, 2008. The film is Shyamalan's first R-rated project, which he produced alongside Sam Mercer and Barry Mendel. The India-based company UTV Motion Pictures also financed half of the film's budget. On March 15, 2007, Shyamalan described "The Happening" as a 1960s paranoia film similar to "The Birds" and "Invasion of the Body Snatchers". Production began in August 2007 in Philadelphia, with filming taking place on Walnut Street, in Rittenhouse Square Park, in Masterman High School, on South Smedley Street, and at the 'G' Lodge in Phoenixville. During post-production, the film score was recorded at the Sony Scoring Stage and composed by James Newton Howard in his sixth collaboration with Shyamalan.


title: The Happening (2008 film)

text: The marketing campaign for "The Happening" was noted for its "aggressive" tactics and "great visuals" that successfully intrigued audiences. According to "Deadline Hollywood", the film was negatively targeted by several media outlets that began rooting for the film's failure, including "USA Today", while also branding Shyamalan as "the hopelessly arrogant has-been". In its opening weekend, the film grossed $30.5 million, including $13 million on its first day and $10.2 million on its second, exceeding expectations and placing third at the box office. Outside the United States and Canada, the film made $32.1 million across 88 international markets in its first three days.


title: The Happening (2008 film)

text: The website's critical consensus reads, ""The Happening" begins with promise, but unfortunately descends into an incoherent and unconvincing trifle." Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "D" on an A+ to F scale.


title: The Happening (2008 film)

text: On June 7, 2008, days before the first few reviews for the film came online, Shyamalan told the "New York Daily News": "We're making an excellent B movie, that's our goal". Some critics enjoyed it because of this. Glenn Whipp said, "Tamping down the self-seriousness in favor of some horrific silliness, M. Night Shyamalan's "The Happening" plays as a genuinely enjoyable B-movie for anyone inclined (or able) to see it that way".


title: The Happening (2008 film)

text: Kirk Honeycutt of "The Hollywood Reporter" said the film lacked "cinematic intrigue and nail-biting tension" and that "the central menace ... does not pan out as any kind of Friday night entertainment". "Variety"’s Justin Chang felt that it "covers territory already over-tilled by countless disaster epics and zombie movies, offering little in the way of suspense, visceral kicks or narrative vitality to warrant the retread". Mick LaSalle wrote in his "San Francisco Chronicle" review that he considered the film entertaining but not scary. He commented, too, on Shyamalan's writing, opining that, "instead of letting his idea breathe and develop and see where it might go, he jumps all over it and prematurely shapes it into a story". James Berardinelli said the film had neither "a sense of atmosphere" nor "strong character development"; he called its environmental message "way-too-obvious and strident," gave it one and a half stars out of a possible four, and concluded his review by saying, ""The Happening" is a movie to walk out of, sleep through, or—best of all—not to bother with." "Time"’s Richard Corliss saw the film as a "dispiriting indication that writer-director M. Night Shyamalan has lost the touch". The "Chicago Tribune"s Michael Phillips thought the film had a workable premise, but found the characters to be "gasbags or forgetful". Joe Morgenstern of "The Wall Street Journal" said that the film was a "woeful clunker of a paranoid thriller" and highlighted its "befuddling infelicities, insistent banalities, shambling pace and pervasive ineptitude".


title: The Happening (2008 film)

text: Stephen King liked the film, stating: "Of Fox's two summer creepshows [the other being ""], give the edge to "The Happening", partly because M. Night Shyamalan really understands fear, partly because this time he's completely let himself go (hence the R rating), and partly because after "Lady in the Water" he had something to prove". Critic Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times", awarding the movie three stars, found it "oddly touching": "It is no doubt too thoughtful for the summer action season, but I appreciate the quietly realistic way Shyamalan finds to tell a story about the possible death of man". William Arnold of the "Seattle Post-Intelligencer" called it "something different—and a pleasant surprise" among that summer's major Hollywood releases, and approved of its taking "the less-is-best approach." "The New York Times"’ Manohla Dargis praised Wahlberg's lead performance, adding that the film "turns out to be a divertingly goofy thriller with an animistic bent, moments of shivery and twitchy suspense". Philipa Hawker of "The Age" gave it 3.5 out of 5 stars, commenting on "the mood of the film: a tantalizing, sometimes frustrating parable about the menaces that human beings might face from unexpected quarters," drawing special attention to "the sound of the breeze and the sight of it ruffling the trees or blowing across the grass — an image of tension that calls to mind Antonioni's "Blowup"". Richard Roeper of the "Chicago Sun-Times" said, "It almost dares you to roll your eyes or laugh at certain scenes that are supposed to be deadly serious. But, you know what, I appreciated this creatively offbeat, daring sci-fi mind-trip". Reviewer Rumsey Taylor said that the film moves forward with "jack-in-the-box suspense, traipsing from one garish death to another in a parade of cartoonish terror," and noted how the film seemed like "Alfred Hitchcock’s "The Birds", only without the birds."


title: The Happening (2008 film)

text: "The Happening" has also attracted academic attention. Joseph J. Foy, professor of politics and popular culture, describes Shyamalan's film as an expression of "post-environmentalism" in which traditional paradigmatic politics are replaced with a call for the world to "embrace a revolutionary reevaluation of wealth and prosperity not in terms of monetary net worth or material possessions, but in terms of overall well-being". Foy praises the highly complex narrative in which Shyamalan weaves contemporary environmental challenges with hard science and social theory to create a "nightmarish future that... may advance the type of dialogue that can truly change the cultural conversation".


title: The Happening (2008 film)

text: Wahlberg offered his own opinion of "The Happening" in 2010, saying that Amy Adams, who was in consideration for the role of Alma Moore, had "dodged the bullet" by not starring in the film. He said, "It was a really bad movie... F**k it. It is what it is... You can’t blame me for not wanting to try to play a science teacher. At least I wasn’t playing a cop or a crook." About Wahlberg's reaction, Shyamalan said he is fine with his opinion: "Since that would be the only case of that happening — no. But really, no. It’s totally his call. However he wants to interpret it."


title: The Happening (2008 film)

text: In 2019, Shyamalan said that he took some responsibility for the way the movie turned out: "I think it's a consistent kind of farce humor. You know, like "The Blob". The campy, 1958 debut of actor Steve McQueen, featuring a mysterious, growing amoeba that takes over a small Pennsylvania town. The key to "The Blob" is that it just never takes itself that seriously. I think I was inconsistent. That's why they couldn't see it."


title: The Happening (2008 film)

text: The film was nominated for four Golden Raspberry Awards: Worst Picture, Worst Actor for Mark Wahlberg (also for "Max Payne"), Worst Director, and Worst Screenplay for M. Night Shyamalan. The film was also nominated for Best Horror Film at the Saturn Awards but lost to "".


title: The Happening (2008 film)

text: "The Happening" came in eighth in a 2010 poll by "Empire" magazine of "50 Worst Movies of All Time", and first in a 2012 poll by "SFX" magazine of "50 Worst Sci-fi & Fantasy Movies That Had No Excuse".


title: The Happening (2008 film)

text: In 2016, Ignatiy Vishnevetsky of "The A.V. Club" said that it was "Patterned on the B movies of the early atomic age, the best of which could be sophisticated in everything except premise and acting, the movie swaps out radiation for climate change, but otherwise keeps to the template, complete with an ending in which a man in a suit explains everything that happened, but not really." He further stated "Sometimes, it mimics the goofiness of authentic ’50s B movies; this is one of those cases where the miscasting—namely, Mark Wahlberg as a Philadelphia science teacher who looks and talks like a football coach who’s been forced to sub sex ed—seems at least partly intentional. And yet, even with its non sequitur references to food (tiramisu, hot dogs, “lemon drink,” etc.) and its winks of self-parody (e.g., Wahlberg talking to a plastic plant), "The Happening" is a movie that a lot of people presume is trying and failing to be taken seriously. And maybe it is." He further summarized that "... in "The Happening", everything is premised on the assumption that life is meaningless—a deep anxiety that informs the movie’s abstracted scare scenarios, but is also hidden behind camp. It’s not incoherent, but it’s often hard to read. It’s a genuine curio, not entirely successful, and if you subscribe to the old auteurist line of movies being both expressions and entertainment objects, it’s both too self-consciously silly and too personal to dismiss."


title: The Happening (2008 film)

text: On its 10th year anniversary, Jeff Spry of Syfy said that M. Night Shyamalan's "The Happening" is a better B movie 10 years later. He summarized that ""The Happening" contains some genuinely moving sequences, gruesome slaughter, a few intimate moments that truly resonate, and some laugh-out-loud scenes that defy explanation (see: a confused man is being eaten by hungry lions). While it's overacted in many spots and completely bonkers in others, it's a fascinating mix of eco-didacticism, post 9/11 trauma, spaced-out Zooey Deschanel, Cabbage Patch doll jokes, mood rings, math riddles, hot dog love, and silly, unsophisticated screenwriting based on shaky pseudo-science."


title: The Happening (2008 film)

text: In 2018, Craig Lines of Den of Geek said that "Just about every aspect of "The Happening" is a defiance of expectation. It uses the tropes of classic disaster/survival B-Movies (Shyamalan clearly knows his classics) but inverts them. The pacing of the film, for example, moves in reverse. It starts off quite fraught and slows down further and further as it goes on. By the time it reaches its (anti)climax, it’s become almost motionless with fewer words, longer takes, extended periods of stillness and silence; a vastness you can almost feel." He summarized that "The script here is so carefully constructed, so multi-layered and so rhythmic it’s almost poetry. The fact that much of the dialogue was deemed simply ridiculous by audiences saddens me because every word feels so perfectly in place."


title: The Happening (2008 film)

text: On its 10th year anniversary, Chris Evangelista of Slashfilm noted that the film deserved to be recognized as a B-Movie classic. He said that "It’s time to embrace the movie for what it really is: an intentionally goofy, highly entertaining B-movie that should be celebrated for its own stupid charms rather than mercilessly mocked and scorned."


title: The Happening (2008 film)

text: In 2020, Lindsay Traves of Bloody Disgusting said that it was a deadpan comedy in disguise featuring numerous trope parodies and summarised that ""The Happening" gave us a film that wasn’t about any real killer, but hinted it might be about nationalism, post 9/11 fears and American paranoia. Then it dared us to ask if we should take it seriously."


title: The Happening (2008 film)

text: In 2020, Scott Mendelson of "Forbes" summarized that ""The Happening" is unique unto itself, is rarely boring and has aged well in terms of being a bonkers/original premise delivered with a relatively straight-face (and just a hint of knowing camp). At its core, the Mark Wahlberg/Zooey Deschanel sci-fi chiller is essentially 'What if one of our more genuinely talented directors made a big-budget, R-rated Ed Wood movie?' Shyamalan is nothing if not sincere, and while he’s attempting a modern-day version of a 1950’s sci-fi warning movie, the film is absolutely invested in its mother nature is tired of humanity’s bullshit premise."


title: Taxi (TV series)

text: Taxi is an American sitcom that originally aired on ABC from September 12, 1978, to May 6, 1982, and on NBC from September 30, 1982, to June 15, 1983. The series won 18 Emmy Awards, including three for Outstanding Comedy Series. It focuses on the everyday lives of a handful of New York City taxi drivers and their abusive dispatcher. "Taxi" was produced by the John Charles Walters Company, in association with Paramount Network Television, and was created by James L. Brooks, Stan Daniels, David Davis, and Ed. Weinberger.


title: Taxi (TV series)

text: For most of the run of the show, the ensemble cast consisted of taxi drivers Alex Reiger (Judd Hirsch), Bobby Wheeler (Jeff Conaway), Elaine Nardo (Marilu Henner), Tony Banta (Tony Danza), and "Reverend" Jim Ignatowski (Christopher Lloyd), along with their dispatcher Louie De Palma (Danny DeVito) and mechanic Latka Gravas (Andy Kaufman).


title: Taxi (TV series)

text: The show was a critical and commercial success, having been nominated for 31 Emmy Awards and winning 13, including three straight years winning Outstanding Comedy. It has remained in syndicated reruns ever since the series ended.


title: Taxi (TV series)

text: The show focuses on the employees of the fictional Sunshine Cab Company, and its principal setting is the company's fleet garage in Manhattan. Among the drivers, only Alex Reiger, who is disillusioned with life, considers cab driving his profession. The others view it as a temporary job.


title: Taxi (TV series)

text: Elaine Nardo is a single mother working as a receptionist at an art gallery. Tony Banta is a boxer with a losing record. Bobby Wheeler is a struggling actor. John Burns (written out of the show after the first season) is working his way through college. All take pity on "Reverend Jim" Ignatowski, an aging hippie minister, who is burnt out from drugs, so they help him become a cabbie. The characters also include Latka Gravas, their innocent, wide-eyed mechanic from an unnamed foreign country, and Louie De Palma, the despotic dispatcher.


title: Taxi (TV series)

text: A number of episodes involve a character having an opportunity to realize his dream to move up in the world, only to see it yanked away. Otherwise, the cabbies deal on a daily basis with their unsatisfying lives and with Louie's abusive behavior and contempt (despite being a former cab driver himself). Louie's assistant, Jeff Bennett, is rarely heard from at first, but his role increases in later seasons.


title: Taxi (TV series)

text: Despite the humor of the show, "Taxi" often tackles such dramatic life issues as drug addiction, single parenthood, blindness, obesity, dissociative identity disorder, animal abuse, homosexuality, racism, teenage runaways, divorce, nuclear war, sexual harassment, premenstrual mood disorders, gambling addiction, and grief.


title: Taxi (TV series)

text: Among the many guest stars, Ruth Gordon won an Emmy Award for her guest portrayal of Dee Wilcox in "Sugar Mama" (1979), and Eileen Brennan was nominated for an Emmy for her guest portrayal of Mrs. McKenzie in "Thy Boss's Wife" (1981). Actresses Marcia Wallace and Penny Marshall, psychologist Dr. Joyce Brothers, cookie entrepreneur Wally "Famous" Amos, newscaster Edwin Newman, and ring announcer Jimmy Lennon portrayed themselves in separate episodes.


title: Taxi (TV series)

text: George Wendt and Ted Danson, who appeared in separate episodes, went on to star in primary "Taxi" director Jim Burrows' next series, "Cheers", as did recurring "Taxi" performer Rhea Perlman. Tom Selleck also had a memorable guest appearance, constituting one of the memorable fares of Cab 804 (in "Memories of Cab 804: Part 2"), while Tom Hanks portrayed Reverend Jim's college roommate in the flashback episode "The Road Not Taken, Part 1".


title: Taxi (TV series)

text: WBC world welterweight champion Carlos Palomino appeared in the episode "One-Punch Banta" as himself (season 1, episode 2, original air date September 19, 1978). In that scene Palomino accidentally punches Tony in the face when he failed to pull his punch. Allan Arbus, who portrayed US Army psychiatrist Dr. Sidney Freedman in "M*A*S*H", played his manager in the episode. Football player-turned-actor Bubba Smith appeared in one episode. Martial artist and professional wrestler Gene LeBell played himself in multiple episodes as the referee for Tony Banta's boxing matches.


title: Taxi (TV series)

text: "Taxi" is one of television's most lauded shows. During its run, the sitcom was nominated for 31 Emmy Awards and won 18, including three for Outstanding Comedy Series. It was also nominated for 25 Golden Globes, with four wins (three for Best TV Series – Musical/Comedy). In 1979, it received the Humanitas Prize in the 30 minute category. It was also ranked 48th in TV Guide's 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time. In 1997, two of the show's episodes, "Latka the Playboy" and "Reverend Jim: A Space Odyssey" were respectively ranked #19 and #63 on TV Guide's 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time. In 2013, the series was ranked #35 on TV Guide's 60 Best Series of All Time.


title: Taxi (TV series)

text: "Taxi" was inspired by the non-fiction article "Night-Shifting for the Hip Fleet" by Mark Jacobson, which appeared in the September 22, 1975, issue of "New York" magazine. This article helped suggest the idea for the show to James L. Brooks and David Davis, though nothing from the article was used directly. The article was a profile of several drivers who worked the night shift for a New York cab company.


title: Taxi (TV series)

text: The series was produced on Stage 23 at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles, California, from July 5, 1978, to February 18, 1983.


title: Taxi (TV series)

text: When the series was cancelled by ABC, it seemed for a time that the premium cable television network HBO would pick up the series. When it did not, the series was picked up by NBC, which at first kept it on at its ABC time slot of Thursday 9:30 p.m following the first season of "Cheers". An NBC promo for "Taxi"s move to the network featured Danny DeVito in character as Louie saying "Same time, better station!"


title: Taxi (TV series)

text: The opening titles show a Checker cab driving east across the Queensboro Bridge. The footage originally was intended as a "bridge" between scenes and is only about fifteen seconds long; parts of it are repeated to fill the opening. Driving the vehicle is cast-member Tony Danza. The closing version consisted of a cab driving into the night.


title: Taxi (TV series)

text: Bob James wrote the opening theme, "Angela", which had been intended for a sequence in episode #3 ("Blind Date"). The producers liked this slower, more melancholic tune better than the up-tempo opening theme they had originally chosen ("Touchdown"), and were able to make the switch before the first episode aired. Both songs are on James' 1978 album, "Touchdown".


title: Taxi (TV series)

text: In 1983, James released "The Genie", an LP containing much of the incidental music he had written for "Taxi" during its run.


title: Taxi (TV series)

text: Reruns of "Taxi" began airing in syndication in 1983 on 64 television stations immediately after NBC cancelled the program. It has been airing in syndication every year since. The program also aired on Nick at Nite from 1994 to 2001. "Taxi" currently reruns Sunday nights on MeTV as part of the "Last Laughs" block. Hulu, Amazon Prime, and Paramount Plus have all the seasons, but not all the episodes.


title: Taxi (TV series)

text: In the UK, "Taxi" aired on BBC1 with repeats airing on Paramount Comedy 2 and CBS Drama. As of 2020, the series has been airing weeknights on Decades as part of their “Smart Coms Across The Decades” block. Decades has also aired “Taxi” as a weekend binge.


title: Taxi (TV series)

text: Danny DeVito hosted an episode of "Saturday Night Live" (on NBC) soon after "Taxi" was canceled after the fourth season. During the opening monologue, DeVito read a letter supposedly from his mother asking God to forgive ABC for cancelling the show, adding that "but I'll understand if you don't." A filmed bit had him driving around New York looking morose until inspiration strikes, and he blows up the ABC building. In addition, the "Taxi" cast members were given an opportunity for closure, which up to that point had been denied for them due to the abrupt cancellation. The actors took their "final" bows during DeVito's opening monologue, only to have NBC (which aired "SNL") pick up the show.


title: Taxi (TV series)

text: Decades later, most of the cast returned to play their younger selves and briefly re-enact scenes for the Kaufman biopic "Man on the Moon". Judd Hirsch, Marilu Henner, Jeff Conaway, Carol Kane, Randall Carver, J. Alan Thomas and Christopher Lloyd all reprised their roles. The only two living members of the principal cast who did not were Danny DeVito, who produced and co-starred in the film as Kaufman's manager George Shapiro, and Tony Danza, who at the time of filming was performing in "A View from the Bridge" on Broadway.


title: Taxi (TV series)

text: Several of the cast members (along with cast members from other Judd Hirsch and Bob Newhart vehicles) reunited in different roles for an episode of the Judd Hirsch/Bob Newhart series "George & Leo".


title: Taxi (TV series)

text: All five seasons of "Taxi" have been released from Paramount Home Entertainment. The first three seasons of "Taxi" were released on DVD in Region 1 between 2004 and 2005. It took almost four years until Paramount released "The Fourth Season" on September 22, 2009, and "The (Fifth &) Final Season" on December 22, 2009 (the last two seasons were released through CBS Home Entertainment). As of October 2014, all seasons have been released in Germany (Region 2).


title: Taxi (TV series)

text: On November 11, 2014, CBS Home Entertainment released "Taxi- The Complete Series" on DVD in Region 1. All 114 episodes are featured on a 17-disc collection.


title: Gujarati language

text: Gujarati (; , ) is an Indo-Aryan language native to the Indian state of Gujarat and spoken predominantly by the Gujarati people. Gujarati is descended from Old Gujarati (). In India, it is one of the 22 scheduled languages of the Union. It is also the official language in the state of Gujarat, as well as an official language in the union territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu. As of 2011, Gujarati is the 6th most widely spoken language in India by number of native speakers, spoken by 55.5 million speakers which amounts to about 4.5% of the total Indian population. It is the 26th most widely spoken language in the world by number of native speakers as of 2007.


title: Gujarati language

text: Outside of Gujarat, Gujarati is spoken in many other parts of South Asia by Gujarati migrants, especially in Mumbai and Pakistan (mainly in Karachi). Gujarati is also widely spoken in many countries outside South Asia by the Gujarati diaspora. In North America, Gujarati is one of the fastest-growing and most widely spoken Indian languages in the United States and Canada. In Europe, Gujaratis form the second largest of the British South Asian speech communities, and Gujarati is the fourth most commonly spoken language in the UK's capital London. Gujarati is also spoken in Southeast Africa, particularly in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, and South Africa. Elsewhere, Gujarati is spoken to a lesser extent in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Singapore, Australia, and Middle Eastern countries such as Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.


title: Gujarati language

text: Gujarati (also sometimes spelled "Gujerati", "Gujarathi", "Guzratee", "Guujaratee", "Gujrathi", and "Gujerathi") is a modern Indo-Aryan (IA) language evolved from Sanskrit. The traditional practice is to differentiate the IA languages on the basis of three historical stages:


title: Gujarati language

text: Another view postulates successive family tree splits, in which Gujarati is assumed to have separated from other IA languages in four stages:


title: Gujarati language

text: Old Gujarātī (; 1200 CE–1500 CE), the ancestor of modern Gujarati and Rajasthani, was spoken by the Gurjars, who were residing and ruling in Gujarat, Punjab, Rajputana, and central India. The language was used as literary language as early as the 12th century. Texts of this era display characteristic Gujarati features such as direct/oblique noun forms, postpositions, and auxiliary verbs. It had three genders, as Gujarati does today, and by around the time of 1300 CE, a fairly standardized form of this language emerged. While generally known as Old Gujarati, some scholars prefer the name Old Western Rajasthani, based upon the argument that Gujarati and Rajasthani were not yet distinct. Factoring into this preference was the belief that modern Rajasthani sporadically expressed a neuter gender, based on the incorrect conclusion that the [ũ] that came to be pronounced in some areas for masculine [o] after a nasal consonant was analogous to Gujarati's neuter [ũ]. A formal grammar, "Prakrita Vyakarana", of the precursor to this language, Gurjar Apabhraṃśa, was written by Jain monk and eminent scholar Acharya Hemachandra Suri in the reign of Chaulukya king Jayasimha Siddharaja of Anhilwara (Patan).


title: Gujarati language

text: A major phonological change was the deletion of final "ə", such that the modern language has consonant-final words. Grammatically, a new plural marker of -"o" developed. In literature, the third quarter of the 19th century saw a series of milestones for Gujarati, which previously had verse as its dominant mode of literary composition. In 1920s, the efforts to standardise Gujarati were carried out.


title: Gujarati language

text: Of the approximately 46 million speakers of Gujarati in 1997, roughly 45.5 million resided in India, 150,000 in Uganda, 50,000 in Tanzania, 50,000 in Kenya and roughly 100,000 in Karachi, Pakistan, excluding several hundreds of thousands of Memonis who do not self-identify as Gujarati, but hail from a region within the state of Gujarat. However, Gujarati community leaders in Pakistan claim that there are 3 million Gujarati speakers in Karachi. Elsewhere in Pakistan, Gujarati is also spoken in Lower Punjab. Pakistani Gujarati is probably a dialect of Gamadia.


title: Gujarati language

text: Mahatma Gandhi used Gujarati to serve as a medium of literary expression. He helped to inspire a renewal in its literature, and in 1936 he introduced the current spelling convention at the Gujarati Literary Society's 12th meeting.


title: Gujarati language

text: Some Mauritians and many Réunion islanders are of Gujarati descent and some of them still speak Gujarati.


title: Gujarati language

text: A considerable Gujarati-speaking population exists in North America, especially in the New York City Metropolitan Area and in the Greater Toronto Area, which have over 100,000 speakers and over 75,000 speakers, respectively, but also throughout the major metropolitan areas of the United States and Canada. According to the 2016 census, Gujarati is the fourth most-spoken South Asian language in Toronto after Hindustani, Punjabi and Tamil.


title: Gujarati language

text: The UK has over 200,000 speakers, many of them situated in the London area, especially in North West London, but also in Birmingham, Manchester, and in Leicester, Coventry, Rugby, Bradford and the former mill towns within Lancashire. A portion of these numbers consists of East African Gujaratis who, under increasing discrimination and policies of Africanisation in their newly independent resident countries (especially Uganda, where Idi Amin expelled 50,000 Asians), were left with uncertain futures and citizenships. Most, with British passports, settled in the UK. Gujarati is offered as a GCSE subject for students in the UK.


title: Gujarati language

text: Some Gujarati parents in the diaspora are not comfortable with the possibility that their children will not be fluent in the language. In a study, 80% of Malayali parents felt that "Children would be better off with English", compared to 36% of Kannada parents and only 19% of Gujarati parents.


title: Gujarati language

text: Besides being spoken by the Gujarati people, many non-Gujarati residents of Gujarat also speak it, among them the Kutchis (as a literary language), the Parsis (adopted as a mother tongue), and Hindu Sindhi refugees from Pakistan.


title: Gujarati language

text: Gujarati is one of the twenty-two official languages and fourteen regional languages of India, and one of the minority languages of neighboring Pakistan. It is officially recognised in the state of Gujarat and the union territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu.


title: Gujarati language

text: Gujarati is recognised and taught as a minority language in the states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Tamil Nadu and the union territory of Delhi.


title: Gujarati language

text: According to British historian and philologist William Tisdall, who was an early scholar of Gujarati grammar, three major varieties of Gujarati exist: a standard 'Hindu' dialect, a 'Parsi' dialect and a 'Muslim' dialect.


title: Gujarati language

text: However, Gujarati has undergone contemporary reclassification with respect to the widespread regional differences in vocabulary and phrasing; notwithstanding the number of poorly attested dialects and regional variations in naming.


title: Gujarati language

text: Kutchi is often referred to as a dialect of Gujarati, but most linguists consider it closer to Sindhi. In addition, a mixture between Sindhi, Gujarati, and Kutchi called Memoni is related to Gujarati, albeit distantly.


title: Gujarati language

text: Furthermore, words used by the native languages of areas where the Gujarati people have become a diaspora community, such as East Africa (Swahili), have become loanwords in local dialects of Gujarati.


title: Gujarati language

text: Similar to other Nāgarī writing systems, the Gujarati script is an abugida. It is used to write the Gujarati and Kutchi languages. It is a variant of the Devanāgarī script, differentiated by the loss of the characteristic horizontal line running above the letters and by a small number of modifications in the remaining characters.


title: Gujarati language

text: These are the three general categories of words in modern Indo-Aryan: "tadbhav", "tatsam", and loanwords.


title: Gujarati language

text: "tadbhava", "of the nature of that". Gujarati is a modern Indo-Aryan language descended from Sanskrit (old Indo-Aryan), and this category pertains exactly to that: words of Sanskritic origin that have demonstratively undergone change over the ages, ending up characteristic of modern Indo-Aryan languages specifically as well as in general. Thus the "that" in "of the nature of that" refers to Sanskrit. They tend to be non-technical, everyday, crucial words; part of the spoken vernacular. Below is a table of a few Gujarati "tadbhav" words and their Old Indo-Aryan sources:


title: Gujarati language

text: "tatsama", "same as that". While Sanskrit eventually stopped being spoken vernacularly, in that it changed into Middle Indo-Aryan, it was nonetheless standardised and retained as a literary and liturgical language for long after. This category consists of these borrowed words of (more or less) pure Sanskrit character. They serve to enrich Gujarati and modern Indo-Aryan in its formal, technical, and religious vocabulary. They are recognisable by their Sanskrit inflections and markings; they are thus often treated as a separate grammatical category unto themselves.


title: Gujarati language

text: Many old tatsam words have changed their meanings or have had their meanings adopted for modern times. પ્રસારણ "prasāraṇ" means "spreading", but now it is used for "broadcasting". In addition to this are neologisms, often being calques. An example is "telephone", which is Greek for "far talk", translated as દુરભાષ "durbhāṣ". Most people, though, just use ફોન "phon" and thus neo-Sanskrit has varying degrees of acceptance.


title: Gujarati language

text: So, while having unique "tadbhav" sets, modern IA languages have a common, higher "tatsam" pool. Also, "tatsam"s and their derived "tadbhav"s can also co-exist in a language; sometimes of no consequence and at other times with differences in meaning:


title: Gujarati language

text: What remains are words of foreign origin ("videśī"), as well as words of local origin that cannot be pegged as belonging to any of the three prior categories ("deśaj"). The former consists mainly of Persian, Arabic, and English, with trace elements of Portuguese and Turkish. While the phenomenon of English loanwords is relatively new, Perso-Arabic has a longer history behind it. Both English and Perso-Arabic influences are quite nationwide phenomena, in a way paralleling "tatsam" as a common vocabulary set or bank. What's more is how, beyond a transposition into general Indo-Aryan, the Perso-Arabic set has also been assimilated in a manner characteristic and relevant to the specific Indo-Aryan language it is being used in, bringing to mind "tadbhav".


title: Gujarati language

text: India was ruled for many centuries by Persian-speaking Muslims, amongst the most notable being the Delhi Sultanate, and the Mughal dynasty. As a consequence Indian languages were changed greatly, with the large scale entry of Persian and its many Arabic loans into the Gujarati lexicon. One fundamental adoption was Persian's conjunction "that", "ke". Also, while "tatsam" or Sanskrit is etymologically continuous to Gujarati, it is essentially of a differing grammar (or language), and that in comparison while Perso-Arabic is etymologically foreign, it has been in certain instances and to varying degrees grammatically indigenised. Owing to centuries of situation and the end of Persian education and power, (1) Perso-Arabic loans are quite unlikely to be thought of or known as loans, and (2) more importantly, these loans have often been Gujarati-ized. "dāvo" – claim, "fāydo" – benefit, "natījo" – result, and "hamlo" – attack, all carry Gujarati's masculine gender marker, "o". "khānũ" – compartment, has the neuter "ũ". Aside from easy slotting with the auxiliary "karvũ", a few words have made a complete transition of verbification: "kabūlvũ" – to admit (fault), "kharīdvũ" – to buy, "kharǎcvũ" – to spend (money), "gujarvũ" – to pass. The last three are definite part and parcel.


title: Gujarati language

text: Below is a table displaying a number of these loans. Currently some of the etymologies are being referenced to an Urdu dictionary so that Gujarati's singular masculine "o" corresponds to Urdu "ā", neuter "ũ" groups into "ā" as Urdu has no neuter gender, and Urdu's Persian "z" is not upheld in Gujarati and corresponds to "j" or "jh". In contrast to modern Persian, the pronunciation of these loans into Gujarati and other Indo-Aryan languages, as well as that of Indian-recited Persian, seems to be in line with Persian spoken in Afghanistan and Central Asia, perhaps 500 years ago.


title: Gujarati language

text: Lastly, Persian, being part of the Indo-Iranian language family as Sanskrit and Gujarati are, met up in some instances with its cognates:


title: Gujarati language

text: With the end of Perso-Arabic inflow, English became the current foreign source of new vocabulary. English had and continues to have a considerable influence over Indian languages. Loanwords include new innovations and concepts, first introduced directly through British colonial rule, and then streaming in on the basis of continued Anglophone dominance in the Republic of India. Besides the category of new ideas is the category of English words that already have Gujarati counterparts which end up replaced or existed alongside with. The major driving force behind this latter category has to be the continuing role of English in modern India as a language of education, prestige, and mobility. In this way, Indian speech can be sprinkled with English words and expressions, even switches to whole sentences. "See Hinglish, Code-switching".


title: Gujarati language

text: In matters of sound, English alveolar consonants map as retroflexes rather than dentals. Two new characters were created in Gujarati to represent English /æ/'s and /ɔ/'s. Levels of Gujarati-ization in sound vary. Some words do not go far beyond this basic transpositional rule, and sound much like their English source, while others differ in ways, one of those ways being the carrying of dentals. "See Indian English".


title: Gujarati language

text: As English loanwords are a relatively new phenomenon, they adhere to English grammar, as "tatsam" words adhere to Sanskrit. That is not to say that the most basic changes have been underway: many English words are pluralised with Gujarati "o" over English "s". Also, with Gujarati having three genders, genderless English words must take one. Though often inexplicable, gender assignment may follow the same basis as it is expressed in Gujarati: vowel type, and the nature of word meaning.


title: Gujarati language

text: The smaller foothold the Portuguese had in wider India had linguistic effects. Gujarati took up a number of words, while elsewhere the influence was great enough to the extent that creole languages came to be ("see Portuguese India, Portuguese-based creole languages in India and Sri Lanka"). Comparatively, the impact of Portuguese has been greater on coastal languages and their loans tend to be closer to the Portuguese originals. The source dialect of these loans imparts an earlier pronunciation of "ch" as an affricate instead of the current standard of .


title: Gujarati language

text: Gujarati is a head-final, or left-branching language. Adjectives precede nouns, direct objects come before verbs, and there are postpositions. The word order of Gujarati is SOV, and there are three genders and two numbers. There are no definite or indefinite articles. A verb is expressed with its verbal root followed by suffixes marking aspect and agreement in what is called a main form, with a possible proceeding auxiliary form derived from "to be", marking tense and mood, and also showing agreement. Causatives (up to double) and passives have a morphological basis.


title: 2022 French legislative election

text: Legislative elections in France were held on 12 and 19 June 2022 to elect the 577 members of the 16th National Assembly of the Fifth French Republic. The elections took place following the 2022 French presidential election, which was held in April 2022. They have been described as the most indecisive legislative elections since the establishment of the five-year presidential term in 2000 and subsequent change of the electoral calendar in 2002.


title: 2022 French legislative election

text: For the first time since 1997, the incumbent president of France does not have an absolute majority in Parliament. As no alliance won a majority, it resulted in a hung parliament for the first time since 1988.


title: 2022 French legislative election

text: The legislative elections were contested between four principal blocs: the centrist presidential majority Ensemble coalition, including Emmanuel Macron's Renaissance, the Democratic Movement, Horizons, as well as their allies; the left-wing New Ecological and Social People's Union (NUPES), encompassing La France Insoumise, the Socialist Party, Ecologist Pole and the French Communist Party, among others; the Union of the Right and Centre (UDC), including The Republicans, the Union of Democrats and Independents, as well as their allies; and the far-right National Rally (RN). The NUPES alliance was formed in the two months following the presidential election, in which the left-wing vote had been fragmented; it consisted of the first French Left alliance since the Plural Left in 1997.


title: 2022 French legislative election

text: In the first round, there was some controversy among the Ministry of the Interior and news media about which bloc finished first, as both the NUPES and Ensemble obtained about 26% of the vote. They were followed by the RN on about 19% and UDC with about 11%. Turnout for the first round was a record-low 47.5%. In the second round, when turnout was higher than that of 2017, Macron's Ensemble coalition secured the most seats (245) but fell 44 seats short of an absolute majority. The NUPES was projected to win 131 (Ministry of the Interior) or 142 seats ("Le Monde"), while the far-right RN became the largest parliamentary opposition as a party (89). The UDC received enough seats (64 or 71) to be a kingmaker in the next government but suffered losses.


title: 2022 French legislative election

text: The results were perceived by political commentators as a severe blow for Macron in the aftermath of the 2022 UEFA Champions League Final chaos. They created potential for political instability and gridlock. Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne offered her resignation on 21 June 2022, but Macron refused to accept it.


title: 2022 French legislative election

text: Talks among the various parties to form a stable majority government began later on 21 June but rapidly failed. On 6 July, Prime Minister Borne presented her minority government policy plan to the Parliament.


title: 2022 French legislative election

text: Following the 2017 French legislative election, the incumbent president Emmanuel Macron's party, La République En Marche! (LREM), and its allies held a majority in the National Assembly (577 seats). The LREM group had 308 deputies, the Democratic Movement and affiliated democrats group had 42 deputies, and Agir ensemble, which was created in November 2017, had 9 deputies. Although a proposal to have part of the French Parliament elected with a proportional representation system was included in Macron's platform in 2017, this election promise was not fulfilled. A similar promise was made by François Hollande during the 2012 presidential election.


title: 2022 French legislative election

text: Macron, from the centrist LREM, had defeated Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Rally, 66–34% in the 2017 French presidential election. The 2022 French presidential election was held on 10 and 24 April. As no candidate won a majority in the first round, a runoff was held, in which Macron defeated Le Pen 58–41% and was reelected as President of France. In the first round, Macron took the lead with 27.9% of votes, while Valérie Pécresse, the candidate for the Republicans, took under 5% of the vote in the first round, the worst result in the history of the party or its Gaullist predecessors. Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, received 1.75% of the vote, the worst in the history of the Socialist Party (PS). With more than 30% of the vote, it was the best result for French far-right figures since the founding of the Fifth French Republic with the 1958 French presidential election. Jean-Luc Mélenchon of La France Insoumise (LFI) came third in the first round with 21.95% of the vote and 1.2% behind second-placed Le Pen, also coming first in the 18–24 and 25–34 age groups, as well in Île-de-France, the most populous region of France.


title: 2022 French legislative election

text: In the context of the legislative election common participation, as the largest French Left force in the presidential election, LFI sought to unite the main left-leaning parties around the banner of the New Ecological and Social People's Union, or NUPES. Discussions were held with Europe Ecology – The Greens, including the Ecologist Pole, as well as the French Communist Party, which joined the coalition on 2–3 May 2022, respectively; the PS reached an agreement to join the coalition on 4 May, which was confirmed by a National Council party vote on 5 May. This resulted in the first wide left-wing alliance since the Plural Left in the 1997 French legislative election.


title: 2022 French legislative election

text: Discussion with the Federation of the Republican Left (FGR), which wanted to join NUPES, went unanswered; the FGR then formed alliances with the Radical Party of the Left, which internally rejected integration into NUPES, and the dissident minority in the PS, among the miscellaneous left. Their candidates presented themselves as part of the "secular and republican" left between Macron and Mélenchon. The New Anticapitalist Party announced it would not enter the coalition due to what they called insurmountable ideological differences with the PS, while Lutte Ouvrière announced that the party would run its own slate separate from NUPES, which they believe to be reformist.


title: 2022 French legislative election

text: On 5 May 2022, LREM changed its name to Renaissance, introducing its big tent coalition for the legislative election made up of the presidential majority parties called Ensemble Citoyens (Ensemble). On 16 May, Macron appointed Élisabeth Borne as Prime Minister, replacing Jean Castex. Borne, a member of Renaissance and formerly of the PS, was serving as Macron's Minister of Labour, Employment and Economic Inclusion prior to her appointment as prime minister. She is only the second woman to hold the office.


title: 2022 French legislative election

text: The 577 members of the National Assembly, known as deputies, are elected for five years by a two-round system in single-member constituencies. A candidate who receives an absolute majority of valid votes and a vote total greater than 25% of the registered electorate is elected in the first round. If no candidate reaches this threshold, a runoff election is held between the top two candidates plus any other candidate who received a vote total greater than 12.5% of registered voters. The candidate who receives the most votes in the second round is elected.


title: 2022 French legislative election

text: According to the provisions of the Electoral Code, the election must be held within the sixty days which precede the expiry of the powers of the outgoing National Assembly, attached to the third Tuesday of June, five years after its election, except in the event of dissolution of the National Assembly. The end of the mandate of the Assembly elected in 2017 is set for 21 June 2022. The dates for the legislative elections in mainland France were set for 12 and 19 June. Declarations of candidacy must be submitted no later than 20 May for the first round and 14 June for the second round. French nationals who live abroad were able to vote in the days preceding the ballot.


title: 2022 French legislative election

text: Below are the major parties and alliances contesting the elections, listed by their combined results in the previous elections. According to "Le Journal du dimanche", the elections are mainly contested between three blocs: a left-wing bloc (NUPES), a presidential bloc on the center-right (Ensemble), and a far-right bloc.


title: 2022 French legislative election

text: After the first round, the New Ecological and Social People's Union (NUPES) and Ensemble Citoyens (Ensemble) obtained about 26%. Amid significant losses on the right-wing of the political spectrum for the Republicans (LR) and the Union of the Right and Centre (UDC), results for Emmanuel Macron's Ensemble alliance showed it was now the centre-right, having performed strongly among the traditionally centre-right electorate of UDC. The French far-right achieved mixed results; while the National Rally (RN) achieved 18% and was likely to obtain the necessary seats to form a parliamentary group, Éric Zemmour's Reconquête reached 4%, and both he and the party failed to win a seat, and former RN leader Marine Le Pen had to go through the second round for her seat due to low turnout.


title: 2022 French legislative election

text: In contests between NUPES and RN candidates, officials from Ensemble said they would decide on a "case-by-case basis" on whether or not to support a candidate. Élisabeth Borne, Prime Minister of France, said: "Our position is no vote for RN." At the same time, she expressed support only for NUPES candidates who in her view respect republican values. The first round confirmed that La France Insoumise (LFI) within NUPES and among the French Left, while the centre-left dissidents achieved a much lower numbers of votes like the 2022 French presidential election; of the over 70 dissident candidates, only 15 qualified for the second round.


title: 2022 French legislative election

text: The first round was marked by a record low turnout at 47.5%. Additionally, there was some controversy in the results between the Ministry of the Interior and French news outlets, such as France Info and "Le Monde", in particular on whether NUPES or Ensemble finished first; This was due to disagreements on whether left-wing candidates should be considered within the NUPES framework or not; similar discrepancies also existed for UDC and other alliances. NUPES finished either second (per the Ministry of the Interior) or first (per "Le Monde"), slightly behind or ahead of Ensemble (25.75–25.66% per the Ministry of the Interior and 26.1–25.9% per "Le Monde").


title: 2022 French legislative election

text: The second round had a higher turnout than that in the 2017 French legislative election but did not match that of the first round in 2020. The Ensemble alliance slightly underperforming polls and lost their absolute majority in Parliament, while still winning the most seats. NUPES slightly underperformed from polling but still managed to substantially increase their proportion of seats and was to reported to have won 131 seats per the Ministry of the Interior. RN substantially overperformed polls to win an unprecedented 89 seats and become the largest parliamentary opposition group due to each component party of NUPES intending to form their own parliamentary group, eclipsing the UDC coalition, which received enough seats to be a kingmaker in the next government but lost seats as expected, and was projected to win 75 seats. It was the best performance for the far right in the era of the French Fifth Republic, and the best overall since the late 19th century. Several news outlets, such as Agence France-Presse, gave a different result as to the final seat count, with Ensemble on 247, NUPES on 142, and UDC on 64, respectively, per "Le Monde". This was due to differences as to candidates, particularly in the French overseas constituencies, being classified as members of these alliances or not.


title: 2022 French legislative election

text: The elections resulted in a hung parliament, as Ensemble had only a relative majority (a plurality). It was the first hung parliament since the establishment of the five-year presidential term after the 2000 French constitutional referendum, as well as the first relative majority only since the 1988 French legislative election. The overall results were seen as a disavowal and major blow for Macron, with a risk of political instability and gridlock. Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire called the outcome a "democratic shock", and said that if the other blocs did not cooperate, "this would block our capacity to reform and protect the French". Prime Minister Borne commented: "The result is a risk for our country in view of the challenges we have to face." LR, the leading party of UDC, was thought to be the kingmaker and potentially play a role for Macron to keep his presidential majority; however, Christian Jacob, the president of LR and the leader of UDC, stated that his party would remain in opposition, meaning Macron's party would not remain in control of the legislature. Mélenchon called the results "disappointing" and said that NUPES and the French Left should form a united, single parliamentary group to avoid RN from becoming the largest opposition group in Parliament, which was refused by leaders of Europe Ecology – The Greens (EELV), French Communist Party (PCF), and Socialist Party (PS).


title: 2022 French legislative election

text: Due to the Ensemble's loss of 100+ seats, they were now 44 seats shy of a majority in the National Assembly, and need to find support among other MPs from the left or the right side of politics to help build a working majority government. President Macron asked Prime Minister Borne, who offered her resignation, to stay in office with the same cabinet in an effort to gain time according to analysts to form a stable government, with or without Borne. LFI requested a vote of no confidence to be held on 5 July.


title: 2022 French legislative election

text: Despite not ruling out any deal with any party, it is speculated that Macron and Ensemble are eyeing a deal with UDC. Despite previously stating otherwise, UDC's Jacob confirmed that he would take part in talks with Macron. RN's Le Pen and the leaders of two NUPES parties, Olivier Faure (PS) and Fabien Roussel (PCF), stated that they would take part in talks with Macron. LFI's Mélenchon confirmed that he would not take part in talks.


title: 2022 French legislative election

text: Shortly after the election, a vote of no confidence was tabled by the left-wing NUPES coalition. It was rejected as only left-wing parliamentary groups supported the motion.


title: 2022 French legislative election

text: Prime Minister Borne offered her resignation on 21 June 2022, but President Macron refused to accept it. Talks among the various parties to form a stable majority government began later on 21 June but rapidly failed. On 6 July, Borne presented her minority government policy plan to the Parliament.


title: East Africa

text: East Africa, Eastern Africa, or East of Africa, is the eastern subregion of the African continent. In the United Nations Statistics Division scheme of geographic regions, 10-11-(16*) territories make up Eastern Africa:


title: East Africa

text: Due to the historical Omani Empire and colonial territories of the British East Africa Protectorate and German East Africa, the term "East Africa" is often (especially in the English language) used to specifically refer to the area now comprising the three countries of Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. However, this has never been the convention in many other languages, where the term generally had a wider, strictly geographic context and therefore typically included Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia.


title: East Africa

text: Some parts of East Africa have been renowned for their concentrations of wild animals, such as the "big five": the elephant, buffalo, lion, black rhinoceros, and leopard, though populations have been declining under increased stress in recent times, particularly those of the rhino and elephant.


title: East Africa

text: The geography of East Africa is often stunning and scenic. Shaped by global plate tectonic forces that have created the East African Rift, East Africa is the site of Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya, the two tallest peaks in Africa. It also includes the world's second largest freshwater lake, Lake Victoria, and the world's second deepest lake, Lake Tanganyika.


title: East Africa

text: The climate of East Africa is rather atypical of equatorial regions. Because of a combination of the region's generally high altitude and the rain shadow of the westerly monsoon winds created by the Rwenzori Mountains and Ethiopian Highlands, East Africa is surprisingly cool and dry for its latitude. In fact, on the coast of Somalia, many years can go by without any rain whatsoever. Elsewhere the annual rainfall generally increases towards the south and with altitude, being around at Mogadishu and at Mombasa on the coast, whilst inland it increases from around at Garoowe to over at Moshi near Kilimanjaro. Unusually, most of the rain falls in "two" distinct wet seasons, one centred on April and the other in October or November. This is usually attributed to the passage of the Intertropical Convergence Zone across the region in those months, but it may also be analogous to the autumn monsoon rains of parts of Sri Lanka, Vietnam, and the Brazilian Nordeste.


title: East Africa

text: West of the Rwenzoris and Ethiopian highlands, the rainfall pattern is more typically tropical, with rain throughout the year near the equator and a single wet season in most of the Ethiopian Highlands from June to September – contracting to July and August around Asmara. Annual rainfall here ranges from over on the western slopes to around at Addis Ababa and at Asmara. In the high mountains rainfall can be over .


title: East Africa

text: Rainfall in East Africa is characterised by two main rainfall seasons, the long rains from March–May and the short rains from October- December. Rainfall variability is influenced by both El Niño events and a positive Indian Ocean Dipole. El Nino events tend to increase rainfall except in the northern and western parts of the Ethiopian and Eritrean highlands, where they produce drought and poor Nile floods. Similarly, a positive Indian Ocean Dipole result in warm sea-surface temperatures off the coast of East Africa and lead to increased rainfall over East Africa. Temperatures in East Africa, except on the hot and generally humid coastal belt, are moderate, with maxima of around and minima of at an altitude of . At altitudes of above , frosts are common during the dry season and maxima typically about or less.


title: East Africa

text: The unique geography and apparent suitability for farming made East Africa a target for European exploration, exploitation and colonialization in the nineteenth century. Today, tourism is an important part of the economies of Kenya, Tanzania, Seychelles, and Uganda. The easternmost point of the continent, that is Ras Hafun in Somalia, is of archaeological, historical and economical importance.


title: East Africa

text: According to the theory of the recent African origin of modern humans, the predominantly held belief among most archaeologists, East Africa in the area of the African Great Lakes is where anatomically modern humans first appeared. There are differing theories on whether there was a single exodus or several; a multiple dispersal model involves the Southern Dispersal theory. Some researchers have suggested that North Africa was the region of Africa from which modern humans who first trekked out of the continent.


title: East Africa

text: According to both genetic and fossil evidence, it has been posited that archaic Homo sapiens evolved into anatomically modern humans in the Horn of Africa around 200,000 years ago and dispersed from there. The recognition of "Homo sapiens idaltu" and Omo Kibish as anatomically modern humans would justify the description of contemporary humans with the subspecies name Homo sapiens sapiens. Because of their early dating and unique physical characteristics idaltu and kibish represent the immediate ancestors of anatomically modern humans as suggested by the Out-of-Africa theory.


title: East Africa

text: In 2017 finds of modern human remains, dating to ca 300,000 years ago in Jebel Irhoud in Morocco, suggested that modern humans arose earlier and possibly in a larger area of Africa than previously thought.


title: East Africa

text: East Africa is one of the earliest regions where "Homo sapiens" are believed to have lived. Evidence was found in 2018, dating to about 320,000 years ago, at the Kenyan site of Olorgesailie, of the early emergence of modern behaviors associated with "Homo sapiens", including: long-distance trade networks (involving goods such as obsidian), the use of pigments, and the possible making of projectile points. It is observed by the authors of three 2018 studies on the site, that the evidence of these behaviors is approximately contemporary to the earliest known "Homo sapiens" fossil remains from Africa (such as at Jebel Irhoud and Florisbad), and they suggest that complex and modern behaviors had already begun in Africa around the time of the emergence of "Homo sapiens".


title: East Africa

text: In September 2019, scientists reported the computerized determination, based on 260 CT scans, of a virtual skull shape of the last common human ancestor to modern humans/"H. sapiens", representative of the earliest "Homo sapiens", and suggested that "Homo sapiens" arose between 350,000 and 260,000 years ago through a merging of populations in South and East Africa.


title: East Africa

text: The migration route of the "Out of Africa" theory probably occurred in East Africa however through Bab el Mandeb


title: East Africa

text: Today at the Bab-el-Mandeb straits, the Red Sea is about 12 miles (20 kilometres) wide, but 50,000 years ago it was much narrower and sea levels were 70 meters lower. Though the straits were never completely closed, there may have been islands in between which could be reached using simple rafts.


title: East Africa

text: Some of the earliest hominin skeletal remains have been found in the wider region, including fossils discovered in the Awash Valley of Ethiopia, as well as in the Koobi Fora in Kenya and Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania.


title: East Africa

text: The southern part of East Africa was occupied until recent times by Khoisan hunter-gatherers, whereas in the Ethiopian Highlands the donkey and such crop plants as teff allowed the beginning of agriculture around 7,000 B.C. Lowland barriers and diseases carried by the tsetse fly, however, prevented the donkey and agriculture from spreading southwards. Only in quite recent times has agriculture spread to the more humid regions south of the equator, through the spread of cattle, sheep and crops such as millet. Language distributions suggest that this most likely occurred from Sudan into the African Great Lakes region, since the Nilotic languages spoken by these pre-Bantu farmers have their closest relatives in the middle Nile basin.


title: East Africa

text: Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, and the Red Sea coast of Sudan are considered the most likely location of the land known to the Ancient Egyptians as "Punt". The old kingdom's first mention dates to the 25th century BC. The ancient Puntites were a nation of people that had close relations with Pharaonic Egypt during the times of Pharaoh Sahure and Queen Hatshepsut.


title: East Africa

text: The Kingdom of Aksum was a trading empire centered in Eritrea and northern Ethiopia. It existed from approximately 100–940 AD, growing from the proto-Aksumite Iron Age period c. 4th century BC to achieve prominence by the 1st century AD. The kingdom is mentioned in the "Periplus of the Erythraean Sea" as an important market place for ivory, which was exported throughout the ancient world. Aksum was at the time ruled by Zoskales, who also governed the port of Adulis. The Aksumite rulers facilitated trade by minting their own Aksumite currency. The state also established its hegemony over the declining Kingdom of Kush and regularly entered the politics of the kingdoms on the Arabian peninsula, eventually extending its rule over the region with the conquest of the Himyarite Kingdom.


title: East Africa

text: Between 2500 and 3000 years ago, Bantu-speaking peoples began a millennia-long series of migrations eastward from their homeland around southern Cameroon. This Bantu expansion introduced agriculture into much of the African Great Lakes region. During the following fifteen centuries, the Bantu slowly intensified farming and grazing over all suitable regions of East Africa, in the process making contact with Austronesian- and Arabic-speaking settlers on southern coastal areas. The latter also spread Islam to the coastal belt, but most Bantu remained African Traditional Religion adherents.


title: East Africa

text: Over a period of many centuries, most hunting-foraging peoples were displaced and absorbed by incoming Bantu communities, as well as by later Nilotic communities. The Bantu expansion was a long series of physical migrations, a diffusion of language and knowledge out into and in from neighboring populations, and a creation of new societal groups involving inter-marriage among communities and small groups moving to communities and small groups moving to new areas.


title: East Africa

text: After their movements from their original homeland in West Africa, Bantus also encountered in central east Africa peoples of Cushitic origin. As cattle terminology in use amongst the few modern Bantu pastoralist groups suggests, the Bantu migrants would acquire cattle from their new Cushitic neighbors. Linguistic evidence also indicates that Bantus most likely borrowed the custom of milking cattle directly from Cushitic peoples in the area.


title: East Africa

text: On the coastal section of the African Great Lakes region, another mixed Bantu community developed through contact with Muslim Arab and Persian traders, leading to the development of the mixed Arab, Persian and African Swahili City States. The Swahili culture that emerged from these exchanges evinces many Arab and Islamic influences not seen in traditional Bantu culture, as do the many Afro-Arab members of the Bantu Swahili people. With its original speech community centered on the coastal parts of Tanzania (particularly Zanzibar) and Kenya—a seaboard referred to as the Swahili Coast—the Bantu Swahili language contains many Arabic loan-words as a consequence of these interactions.


title: East Africa

text: The earliest Bantu inhabitants of the east coast of Kenya and Tanzania encountered by these later Arab and Persian settlers have been variously identified with the trading settlements of Rhapta, Azania and Menouthias referenced in early Greek and Chinese writings from AD 50 to AD 500, ultimately giving rise to the name for Tanzania. These early writings perhaps document the first wave of Bantu settlers to reach central east Africa during their migration.


title: East Africa

text: Between the 14th and 15th centuries, large African Great Lakes kingdoms and states emerged, such as the Buganda and Karagwe kingdoms of Uganda and Tanzania.


title: East Africa

text: The Portuguese were the first Europeans to explore the region of current-day Kenya, Tanzania, and Mozambique by sea. Vasco da Gama visited Mombasa in 1498. Da Gama's voyage was successful in reaching India, which permitted the Portuguese to trade with the Far East directly by sea. This in turn challenged the older trading networks of mixed land and sea routes, such as the spice trade routes which utilized the Persian Gulf, Red Sea, and camel caravans to reach the eastern Mediterranean.


title: East Africa

text: The Republic of Venice had gained control over much of the trade routes between Europe and Asia. After traditional land routes to India had been closed by the Ottoman Turks, Portugal hoped to use the sea route pioneered by da Gama to break the once Venetian trading monopoly. Portuguese rule in the African Great Lakes region focused mainly on a coastal strip centered around Mombasa. The Portuguese presence in the area officially began after 1505, when flagships under the command of Don Francisco de Almeida conquered Kilwa, an island located in what is now southern Tanzania.


title: East Africa

text: In March 1505, having received from Manuel I of Portugal the appointment of viceroy of the newly conquered territory in India, he set sail from Lisbon in command of a large and powerful fleet, and arrived in July at Quiloa (Kilwa), which yielded to him almost without a struggle. A much more vigorous resistance was offered by the Moors of Mombasa. However, the town was taken and destroyed, and its large treasures went to strengthen the resources of Almeida. Attacks followed on Hoja (now known as Ungwana, located at the mouth of the Tana River), Barawa, Angoche, Pate and other coastal towns until the western Indian Ocean was a safe haven for Portuguese commercial interests. At other places on his way, such as the island of Angediva, near Goa, and Cannanore, the Portuguese built forts, and adopted measures to secure the Portuguese supremacy.


title: East Africa

text: Portugal's main goal on the Swahili coast was to take control of the spice trade from the Arabs. At this stage, the Portuguese presence in East Africa served the purposes of controlling trade within the Indian Ocean and securing the sea routes linking Europe to Asia. Portuguese naval vessels were very disruptive to the commerce of Portugal's enemies within the western Indian Ocean and were able to demand high tariffs on items transported through the sea due to their strategic control of ports and shipping lanes. The construction of Fort Jesus in Mombasa in 1593 was meant to solidify Portuguese hegemony in the region, but their influence was clipped by the British, Dutch and Omani Arab incursions into the Great Lakes region during the 17th century.


title: East Africa

text: The Omani Arabs posed the most direct challenge to Portuguese influence in the African Great Lakes region. They besieged Portuguese fortresses, openly attacked naval vessels and expelled the Portuguese from the Kenyan and Tanzanian coasts by 1730. By this time, the Portuguese Empire had already lost its interest on the spice trade sea route due to the decreasing profitability of that business. The Arabs reclaimed much of the Indian Ocean trade, forcing the Portuguese to retreat south where they remained in Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique) as sole rulers until the 1975 independence of Mozambique.


title: East Africa

text: Omani Arab colonization of the Kenyan and Tanzanian coasts brought the once independent city-states under closer foreign scrutiny and domination than was experienced during the Portuguese period. Like their predecessors, the Omani Arabs were primarily able only to control the coastal areas, not the interior. However, the creation of clove plantations, intensification of the slave trade and relocation of the Omani capital to Zanzibar in 1839 by Seyyid Said had the effect of consolidating the Omani power in the region.


title: East Africa

text: Arab governance of all the major ports along the Swahili coast continued until British interests aimed particularly at ending the slave trade and creation of a wage-labour system began to put pressure on Omani rule. By the late nineteenth century, the slave trade on the open seas had been completely outlawed by the British and the Omani Arabs had little ability to resist the British navy's ability to enforce the directive. The Omani presence continued in Zanzibar and Pemba until the Zanzibar Revolution in 1964. However, the official Omani Arab presence in Kenya was checked by German and British seizure of key ports and creation of crucial trade alliances with influential local leaders in the 1880s.


title: East Africa

text: Between the 19th and 20th century, East Africa became a theatre of competition between the major imperialistic European nations of the time. The three main colors of the African country were beige, red, and blue. The red stood for the English, blue stood for the French, and the beige stood for Germany during the period of colonialism. During the period of the Scramble for Africa, almost every country in the larger region to varying degrees became part of a European colonial empire.


title: East Africa

text: Portugal had first established a strong presence in southern Mozambique and the Indian Ocean since the 15th century, while during this period their possessions increasingly grew including parts from the present northern Mozambique country, up to Mombasa in present-day Kenya. At Lake Malawi, they finally met the recently created British Protectorate of Nyasaland (nowadays Malawi), which surrounded the homonymous lake on three sides, leaving the Portuguese the control of lake's eastern coast. The British Empire set foot in the region's most exploitable and promising lands acquiring what is today Uganda, and Kenya. The Protectorate of Uganda and the Colony of Kenya were located in a rich farmland area mostly appropriate for the cultivation of cash crops like coffee and tea, as well as for animal husbandry with products produced from cattle and goats, such as goat meat, beef and milk. Moreover, this area had the potential for a significant residential expansion, being suitable for the relocation of a large number of British nationals to the region. Prevailing climatic conditions and the regions' geomorphology allowed the establishment of flourishing European style settlements like Nairobi, Vila Pery, Vila Junqueiro, Porto Amélia, Lourenço Marques and Entebbe.


title: East Africa

text: The French settled the largest island of the Indian Ocean (and the fourth-largest globally), Madagascar, along with a group of smaller islands nearby, namely Réunion and the Comoros. Madagascar became part of the French colonial empire following two military campaigns against the Kingdom of Madagascar, which it initiated after persuading Britain to relinquish its interests in the island in exchange for control of Zanzibar off the coast of Tanganyika, an important island hub of the spices trade. The British also held a number of island colonies in the region, including the extended archipelago of Seychelles and the rich farming island of Mauritius, previously under the French sovereignty.


title: East Africa

text: The German Empire gained control of a large area named German East Africa, comprising present-day Rwanda, Burundi and the mainland part of Tanzania named Tanganyika. In 1922, the British gained a League of Nations mandate over Tanganyika which it administered until Independence was granted to Tanganyika in 1961. Following the Zanzibar Revolution of 1965, the independent state of Tanganyika formed the United Republic of Tanzania by creating a union between the mainland, and the island chain of Zanzibar. Zanzibar is now a semi-autonomous state in a union with the mainland which is collectively and commonly referred to as Tanzania. German East Africa, though very extensive, was not of such strategic importance as the British Crown's colonies to the north: the inhabitation of these lands was difficult and thus limited, mainly due to climatic conditions and the local geomorphology. Italy gained control of various parts of Somalia in the 1880s. The southern three-fourths of Somalia became an Italian protectorate (Italian Somaliland).


title: East Africa

text: Meanwhile, in 1884, a narrow coastal strip of Somaliland came under British control (British Somaliland). This Somaliland protectorate was just opposite the British colony of Aden on the Arabian Peninsula. With these territories secured, Britain was able to serve as gatekeeper of the sea lane leading to British India. In 1890, beginning with the purchase of the small port town of (Asseb) from a local sultan in Eritrea, the Italians colonized all of Eritrea.


title: East Africa

text: In 1895, from bases in Somalia and Eritrea, the Italians launched the First Italo–Ethiopian War against the Orthodox Empire of Ethiopia. By 1896, the war had become a total disaster for the Italians and Ethiopia was able to retain its independence. Ethiopia remained independent until 1936 when, after the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, it became part of Italian East Africa. The Italian occupation of Ethiopia ended in 1941 during World War II as part of the East African Campaign.The French also staked out an East African outpost on the route to French Indochina. Starting in the 1850s, the small protectorate of Djibouti became French Somaliland in 1897.


title: East Africa

text: There are movies that have depicted East Africa in various forms. "7 Days in Entebbe", "The Last King of Scotland", "Out of Africa", "Queen of Katwe", "The Constant Gardener", "Hotel Rwanda", "The Good Lie", and "Captain Phillips" are a few of the critically acclaimed movies. In the video games "Halo 2" and "Halo 3", East Africa is one of the central locations for the campaigns.


title: East Africa

text: In the Horn of Africa and Nile Valley, Afroasiatic languages predominate, including languages of the family's Cushitic (such as Beja, Oromo and Somali), Semitic (such as Amharic, Arabic and Tigrinya), and Omotic (such as Wolaytta) branches.


title: East Africa

text: In the African Great Lakes region, Niger-Congo languages of the Bantu branch are most widely spoken. Among these languages are Kikuyu, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Kisukuma, Luganda and many others. Swahili, with at least 80 million speakers as a first or second language, is an important trade language in the Great Lakes area. It has official status in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda.


title: East Africa

text: Nilotic languages, such as Luo, Kalenjin, Maasai and Nuer, are spoken in lesser numbers, primarily in the African Great Lakes and Nile Valley.


title: East Africa

text: Indo-European languages, such as English, French and Portuguese, remain important in higher institutions in some parts of the larger region.


title: East Africa

text: Eastern Africa had an estimated population of 260 million in 2000. This was projected to reach 890 million by 2050, with an average growth rate of 2.5% per annum. The 2000 population is expected to quintuple over the course of the 21st century, to 1.6 billion as of 2100 (UN estimates as of 2017). In Ethiopia, there is an estimated population of 102 million as of 2016.


title: East Africa

text: Since the end of colonialism, several East African countries were riven with military coups, ethnic violence and oppressive dictators. The region has endured the following post-colonial conflicts:


title: East Africa

text: Kenya has enjoyed relatively stable governance. However, politics have been turbulent at times, including the attempted coup d'état in 1982 and the 2007 election riots.


title: East Africa

text: Tanzania has known stable government since independence although there are significant political and religious tensions resulting from the political union between Tanganyika and Zanzibar in 1964. Zanzibar is a semi-autonomous state in the United Republic of Tanzania.


title: East Africa

text: Tanzania and Uganda fought the Uganda–Tanzania War in 1978–1979, which led to the removal of Uganda's despotic leader Idi Amin.


title: East Africa

text: Burundi, Rwanda, and Uganda have each faced instability and ethnic conflict since independence, most notably the 1994 Rwandan genocide and the 1993 Burundi genocide and subsequent Burundian Civil War. Rwanda and Uganda continue to be involved in related conflicts outside the region.


title: East Africa

text: Djibouti, as well as the Puntland and Somaliland regions of Somalia, have also seen relative stability.


title: East Africa

text: South Sudan peacefully seceded from the Sudan in 2011, six and a half years after a peace agreement ended the Second Sudanese Civil War. South Sudanese independence was nearly derailed by the South Kordofan conflict, particularly a dispute over the status of the Abyei Area, and both Abyei and South Kordofan's Nuba Hills remained a source of tension between Juba and Khartoum .


title: East Africa

text: According to the CIA, as of 2017, the countries in the eastern Africa region have a total population of around 537.9 million inhabitants.


title: Peri Gilpin

text: Peri Gilpin (born Peri Kay Oldham; May 27, 1961) is an American actress. She portrayed Roz Doyle in the television series "Frasier" and Kim Keeler in the ABC Family television drama "Make It or Break It". She is due to reprise the role of Roz in the upcoming revival of "Frasier".


title: Peri Gilpin

text: Gilpin was born in Waco, Texas, as Peri Kay Oldham, daughter of James Franklin Oldham, a broadcaster who became known as Jim O'Brien, and his wife Sandra Jo Hauck. After her parents divorced, her mother married Wes Gilpin in 1969. Gilpin then took her stepfather's surname.


title: Peri Gilpin

text: Gilpin grew up in Dallas, where her family encouraged her acting abilities. After studying at the Dallas Theater Center, she pursued acting at the University of Texas at Austin and the British American Drama Academy in London.


title: Peri Gilpin

text: Gilpin appeared on the TV series "Cheers", playing Holly Matheson in the 21st episode of the 11th season, which aired in April 1993.


title: Peri Gilpin

text: From 1993 until 2004, Gilpin played Roz Doyle in the television series "Frasier", a spin-off of "Cheers", starring Kelsey Grammer as Frasier Crane, the role he had played on "Cheers" since 1984. Along with the principal cast, Gilpin won a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series in 1999.


title: Peri Gilpin

text: In 2009, Gilpin appeared in the ABC Family drama "Make It or Break It", for which she received a Gracie Award in the category of "Outstanding Female Actor in a Supporting Role in a Drama Series".


title: Peri Gilpin

text: Gilpin and "Frasier" co-star Jane Leeves ran a production company, Bristol Cities (named from the cockney rhyming slang), whose projects included a Fox network pilot titled "Minister of Divine", an American remake of the British sitcom "The Vicar of Dibley" with Kirstie Alley (another "Cheers" regular) in a starring role.


title: Peri Gilpin

text: Gilpin is the voice artist for the character Jane Proudfoot in "". She also provided the voices of Desiree in the Nickelodeon animated television series "Danny Phantom", Volcana in "" and "Justice League", Hecate in "Hercules: The Animated Series", and Kate Corrigan in the "Hellboy" animated films. Gilpin also did voice work for several Wells Fargo and Johnsonville Meats TV commercials.


title: Peri Gilpin

text: Gilpin has appeared on the television series "Medium" and "Desperate Housewives". She has a supporting role on the television series "Make It or Break It" and has appeared on "". She starred alongside Teri Polo in the Lifetime movie "For the Love of a Child". In 2012, Gilpin guest-starred with another "Cheers" stalwart, Ted Danson, in "". She also had a recurring role in "Men at Work" on TBS as editor of "Full Steam" magazine. In the second season of "Scorpion", she was introduced as Katherine Cooper, a team superior in homeland security.


title: Peri Gilpin

text: On July 31, 1999, Gilpin married painter Christian Vincent. The couple has twins born to a surrogate mother on May 7, 2004.


title: Peri Gilpin

text: Since her mother's death from leiomyosarcoma in 1997, Gilpin has led efforts for cancer research awareness.