title: Ciro Immobile

text: On 13 August 2017, Immobile scored the opening two goals of the Supercoppa Italiana; Lazio won with a final score of 3–2 over Juventus. On 10 September, in Lazio's third match of the season, he scored a hat-trick and got an assist in a 4–1 home win over Milan. On 21 October, Immobile extended with Lazio until 2022. On 6 January 2018, Immobile scored four goals in the first half away to SPAL, the first Lazio player to score multiple hat-tricks in a season in 16 years; Lazio eventually won the match 5–2. On 22 February 2018, Immobile scored a hat-trick in the Europa League round of 32 second leg home to Steaua București in a 5–1 win, which allowed Lazio to qualify, 5–2 on aggregate, to the round of 16. On 31 March 2018, Immobile scored twice in Lazio's 6–2 home win over Benevento, his 36th goal of the season, breaking Giorgio Chinaglia's previous record for most goals scored by a Lazio player in a single season, by two goals. Immobile ended the season with 29 goals in 33 appearances, winning the "Capocannoniere" jointly with Inter's Mauro Icardi.


title: Ciro Immobile

text: On 3 November 2019, he scored his 100th goal for Lazio in a 2–1 away win over Milan. On 26 July 2020, Immobile scored a hat-trick in a 5–1 win against Hellas Verona. Immobile finished the season with 36 goals, winning the "Capocannoniere" and equaling Gino Rossetti and Gonzalo Higuaín's all-time record for most goals in a Serie A season. He also won the European Golden Shoe for the first time in his career, becoming the first Italian player or player from Serie A to win the award since Francesco Totti in 2007. Moreover, he set a new record for most penalties scored in a single Serie A season, with 14.


title: Ciro Immobile

text: On 31 August 2020, Immobile signed a five-year contract extension with Lazio. On 20 October 2020, he scored a goal in a 3–1 win over his former club Borussia Dortmund in the 2020–21 UEFA Champions League. On 12 May 2021, Immobile scored the only goal of a 1–0 home win over Parma in Serie A; this was his 150th goal for Lazio across all competitions.


title: Ciro Immobile

text: On 30 October 2021, the Italian striker netted his 159th career goal for the Biancocelesti in a 2–1 win victory over Atalanta, drawing level with Silvio Piola’s all-time club goal record. On 4 November 2021, Immobile scored against Marseille in the UEFA Europa League to become Lazio's all-time leading goalscorer, surpassing Silvio Piola, with 160. With this goal, the Italian striker also became the club's all-time top scorer in the Europa League (11); he surpassed former striker Pierluigi Casiraghi, who had scored 10 times in the competition for Lazio. On 7 November 2021 against Salernitana (3-0 victory), Immobile became the first Lazio player to score 10+ goals in six consecutive Serie A seasons. On 6 January 2022 against Empoli (3-3 draw), Immobile became just the fourth player in Serie A history to score 15 goals in the league in seven separate seasons. On 5 March 2022 against Cagliari (3-0 victory), Immobile made his 200th appearance for Lazio in Serie A. In addition, with his goal against the Rossoblu, he matched Silvio Piola's goal record with Lazio in Serie A (143) and became the third player to ever score 20 or more Serie A goals in six different seasons. On 16 April 2022 against Torino (1-1 draw), Immobile scored his 180th Serie A goal, matching Sampdoria veteran Fabio Quagliarella at 13th in the league's all-time top scorers list. In addition, he became the first Italian player in Serie A history to score at least 25 goals in three separate league campaigns and reached 30+ goals in all competitions for a third time in his career. On 24 April 2022 against Milan (2-1 defeat), Immobile scored to become just the fourth player in Europe's top five leagues to score more than 25 goals in a league season at least three times since the 2016–17 season, joining Robert Lewandowski, Lionel Messi, and Cristiano Ronaldo.


title: Ciro Immobile

text: On 2 March 2014, he received his first call-up to the senior national team by Cesare Prandelli, for a friendly match against Spain three days later. He made his debut as a substitute for Alessio Cerci after 69 minutes as Spain eventually won 1–0.


title: Ciro Immobile

text: On 13 May 2014, Immobile was named in Italy's provisional 30-man squad for the 2014 FIFA World Cup, and on 1 June he was named in the final 23-man squad. On 8 June, he scored a hat-trick in Italy's final World Cup warm-up match, a 5–3 unofficial win over Brazilian club side Fluminense. Immobile made his competitive debut in Italy's opening 2–1 win over England in Manaus on 14 June, playing the last 17 minutes in place of Mario Balotelli who scored the Italian winner. He scored his first official international goal in the third minute of a 2–0 friendly victory against the Netherlands on 4 September 2014.


title: Ciro Immobile

text: In June 2021, he was included in Italy's squad for UEFA Euro 2020 by manager Roberto Mancini. In the opening match of the tournament on 11 June, he scored Italy's second goal and assisted Insigne for his team's final goal in a 3–0 win over Turkey. In the following group match on 16 June, he scored Italy's third goal in a 3–0 win over Switzerland. In the semi-final against Spain on 6 July, he assisted the opening goal scored in the second half by Federico Chiesa, of a 1–1 draw, before being substituted by Domenico Berardi; after extra-time, Italy advanced to the final of the tournament following a 4–2 penalty shoot-out victory. On 11 July, Immobile won the European Championship with Italy following a 3–2 penalty shoot-out victory over England at Wembley Stadium in the final, after a 1–1 draw in extra-time; Immobile started the match, but was once again replaced by Berardi during the second half of regulation time. After the game during celebration, Immobile gained notoriety when he slid on the pitch with his team and his pants fell down, which revealed his underpants.


title: Ciro Immobile

text: Although primarily a main striker, Immobile is capable of playing anywhere along the front-line. A quick forward, Immobile is primarily known for his offensive movement off the ball, as well as his ability to make attacking runs and exploit spaces. He will often drift wide, from a central position, when making forward runs, allowing him to ghost in behind the defensive line where he can cut in to shoot, usually into the far post. His main characteristics are his eye for goal and finishing ability with either foot, as well as his physical attributes; he also possesses solid technique, and is effective in the air. In addition to his offensive capabilities and goalscoring ability, he is also a hard-working player, known for his willingness to chase down the ball and press opponents when not in possession; he also possesses good link-up play, which enables him to provide assists for teammates, in addition to scoring goals himself. He is also an accurate penalty taker. His goalscoring record and efficiency has earned him the nickname "King Ciro" with the Lazio supporters.


title: Ciro Immobile

text: In June 2013, Immobile welcomed a daughter with long-time girlfriend, Jessica Melena. In May 2014, Immobile and Melena married.


title: Billie Jean

text: "Billie Jean" is a song by American singer Michael Jackson, released by Epic Records on January 2, 1983, as the second single from his sixth studio album, "Thriller" (1982). It was written and composed by Jackson and produced by Jackson and Quincy Jones. "Billie Jean" blends post-disco, rhythm and blues, funk and dance-pop. The lyrics describe a woman, Billie Jean, who claims that the narrator is the father of her newborn son, which he denies. Jackson said the lyrics were based on groupies' claims about his older brothers when he toured with them as the Jackson 5.


title: Billie Jean

text: "Billie Jean" reached number one on the "Billboard" Hot 100, topped the "Billboard" Hot Black Singles chart within three weeks, and became Jackson's fastest-rising number one single since "ABC", "The Love You Save" and "I'll Be There" in 1970, all of which he recorded as a member of the Jackson 5. "Billboard" ranked it as the No. 2 song for 1983. "Billie Jean" is certified Diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The song has sold over 14 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling singles of all time. It was also a number one hit in the UK, Canada, France, Switzerland and Belgium, and reached the top ten in many other countries. "Billie Jean" was one of the best-selling singles of 1983, helping "Thriller" become the best-selling album of all time, and became Jackson's best-selling solo single.


title: Billie Jean

text: Jackson's performance of "Billie Jean" on the TV special "" won acclaim and was nominated for an Emmy Award. It introduced a number of Jackson's signatures, including the moonwalk, black sequined jacket, and high-water pants, and was widely imitated. The "Billie Jean" music video, directed by Steve Barron, was the first video by a black artist to be aired in heavy rotation on MTV. Along with the other videos produced for "Thriller", it helped establish MTV's cultural importance and make music videos an integral part of popular music marketing. The spare, bass-driven arrangement of "Billie Jean" helped pioneer what one critic called "sleek, post-soul pop music". It also introduced a more paranoid lyrical style for Jackson, a trademark of his later music.


title: Billie Jean

text: "Billie Jean" was awarded honors including two Grammy Awards and an American Music Award. In a list compiled by "Rolling Stone" and MTV in 2000, the song was ranked as the sixth greatest pop song since 1963. "Rolling Stone" placed it at number 58 on its list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in 2004, and at number 44 in its 2021 update of the list. The song was also included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll. Frequently listed in magazine polls of the best songs ever made, "Billie Jean" was named the greatest dance record of all time by BBC Radio 2 listeners.


title: Billie Jean

text: Jackson said that "Billie Jean" was based on groupies he and his brothers encountered while they performed as the Jackson 5. "They would hang around backstage doors, and any band that would come to town they would have a relationship with, and I think I wrote this out of experience with my brothers when I was little. There were a lot of Billie Jeans out there. Every girl claimed that their son was related to one of my brothers."


title: Billie Jean

text: According to Jackson's biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli, "Billie Jean" was inspired by letters Jackson received in 1981 from a woman claiming he was the father of one of her twins. Jackson, who regularly received letters of this kind, had never met the woman and ignored those claims. However, she continued to send letters stating that she loved him and wanted to be with him, asking how he could ignore his own flesh and blood. The letters disturbed him to the extent that he suffered nightmares.


title: Billie Jean

text: Eventually, Jackson received a parcel containing a photograph of the fan, a gun, and a letter instructing him to die at a particular time. The fan would do the same once she had killed "their" baby, so they could be together in the "next life". The Jacksons later discovered that the fan had been sent to a psychiatric hospital.


title: Billie Jean

text: Jackson said he felt "Billie Jean" would be a success as he was writing it: "A musician knows hit material. Everything has to feel in place. It fulfills you and it makes you feel good. That's how I felt about 'Billie Jean'. I knew it was going to be big when I was writing it." He explained that, hearing it in his head while in his car, he was so absorbed that he did not realize his car had caught fire until a passing motorcyclist informed him.


title: Billie Jean

text: Jackson disagreed with the producer, Quincy Jones, about the song. According to some reports, Jones felt it was too weak to be included on "Thriller", but Jones has denied this. Jones disliked the demo and did not care for the bassline, and wanted to cut Jackson's 29-second introduction. Jackson, however, insisted that it be kept. According to Jones, he conceded when Jackson said it made him want to dance: "And when Michael Jackson tells you, 'That's what makes me want to dance', well, the rest of us just have to shut up."


title: Billie Jean

text: Jones also wanted to change the title to "Not My Lover", as he believed that people would think the song referred the tennis player Billie Jean King. Jackson refused to change the title and asked Jones to give him co-producing credits for the track, as he felt that the finished product sounded close to his demo. In addition, Jackson wanted extra royalties. Jones granted him neither and the two fell out for several days.


title: Billie Jean

text: Jones had Jackson sing his vocal overdubs through a six-foot cardboard tube. Jackson's lead vocal was performed in one take; he had received vocal training every morning throughout the production of the song. Jazz saxophonist Tom Scott played the lyricon, an electronic wind instrument. Bassist Louis Johnson played his part on every bass guitar he owned, before Jackson settled for a Yamaha bass.


title: Billie Jean

text: Engineer Bruce Swedien mixed the song 91 times—unusual for Swedien, who usually mixed a song just once. The mixes grew progressively worse, and Jones asked Swedien to listen again to the second mix, which was much better. The second mix was the final version. Instructed by Jones to create a drum sound with "sonic personality" that no one had heard before, Swedien constructed a platform for the drum kit with special elements including a flat piece of wood between the snare and hi-hat. He said: "There aren't many pieces of music where you can hear the first three or four notes of the drums, and immediately tell what the piece of music is. But I think that is the case with 'Billie Jean'—and that I attribute to sonic personality."


title: Billie Jean

text: "Billie Jean" blends post-disco, rhythm and blues, funk, and dance-pop. The song opens with a standard drum beat along with a standard hi-hat, and joined two bars later with a shaker. After two more bars, a repetitive bassline enters. Each time it passes through the tonic, the note is doubled by a distorted synth bass. This accompaniment is followed by a repetitive three-note synth, played staccato with a deep reverb. The defining chord progression is then established. Jackson's quiet vocals enter, accompanied by a finger-snap, which comes and goes during the verses, as the rhythm and chord progression repeats. Greg Phillinganes, who played keys, said of the song: "'Billie Jean' is hot on every level. It's hot rhythmically. It's hot sonically, because the instrumentation is so minimal, you can really hear everything. It's hot melodically ... lyrically [and] vocally. It affects you physically, emotionally, even spiritually."


title: Billie Jean

text: According to Jones, Jackson "stole" notes from the Jon and Vangelis song "State of Independence"; Jones had produced Donna Summer's cover of the song, and Jackson had sung backing vocals. According to Jon Anderson, "They took the riff and made it funky for 'Billie Jean' ... So that's kinda cool, that cross-pollination in music." According to Daryl Hall of Hall & Oates, Jackson told him he had taken the "Billie Jean" groove from their 1981 track "I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)". Hall told him "Oh Michael, what do I care? You did it very differently."


title: Billie Jean

text: According to "Inside the Hits", the lyrics refer to the commotion created by Billie Jean on a dance floor. She entices the crowd with a seductive come-on before luring the narrator to her bedroom, through the fragrance of her perfume. Jackson's vocal range spanned from a high baritone to a falsetto and he usually wrote melodies to show this range. However, in the verses of "Billie Jean", his vocals range from a tenor to a low falsetto. A four-note falsetto is showcased in the chorus and, during the last line, Jackson peaks at a full octave. The song has a tempo of 117 beats per minute and is in the key of F minor. Following the first chorus, a cello-like synth eases in at the beginnings of both the third, and later, the fourth, verses. Upon the announcement that the baby's eyes resemble the narrator's, a voice laments, "oh no". This is met with Jackson's signature falsetto "hee hee". The bridge debuts the strings, and holds a pedal tone tonic with the exception of two lines and a chord leading into the chorus. Violins are then played, followed by a four-note minor guitar part. During the guitar part, vocal shouts, screams and laughs are added. Throughout this, the chord progression remains unaltered and is laced with Jackson's vocal hiccups. All the musical and vocal elements are then brought together in the final chorus. In the fade, Jackson repeats the narrator's denial of fathering Billie Jean's child.


title: Billie Jean

text: On November 30, 1982, "Thriller" was released to critical and commercial success. On January 2, 1983, "Billie Jean" was released as the album's second single; it follows Jackson's successful duet with Paul McCartney on "The Girl Is Mine". The song reached number one on the "Billboard" Hot 100 on March 5, 1983. "Billboard" ranked it as the No. 2 song for 1983. "Billie Jean" topped the R&B chart within three weeks, and became Jackson's fastest-rising number one single since "ABC", "The Love You Save" and "I'll Be There" in 1970, which he recorded as a member of the Jackson 5. It remained at number one for nine weeks on the R&B chart, being preceded by the Gap Band's "Outstanding", before the single was eventually succeeded by George Clinton's "Atomic Dog". "Billie Jean" peaked at number 9 on the Adult Contemporary chart. It was also number one in the UK Singles Chart. "Billie Jean" and "Thriller" topped both the singles and album charts in the same week. This occurred on both sides of the Atlantic simultaneously, a feat very few acts have ever achieved. The song was the third best-selling single of 1983 in the US and ninth in the UK. "Billie Jean" also reached number one in Canada, Switzerland and Belgium, and the top ten in Austria, Italy, New Zealand, Norway and Sweden.


title: Billie Jean

text: In a "Rolling Stone" review, Christopher Connelly described "Billie Jean" as a "lean, insistent funk number whose message couldn't be more blunt: 'She says I am the one/But the kid is not my son'". He added that the track was a "sad, almost mournful song, but a thumping resolve underlies [Jackson's] feelings". "Blender" stated that the song was "one of the most sonically eccentric, psychologically fraught, downright bizarre things ever to land on Top 40 radio". They added that it was "frighteningly stark, with a pulsing, cat-on-the-prowl bass figure, whip-crack downbeat and eerie multi-tracked vocals ricocheting in the vast spaces between keyboards and strings". Overall, the magazine described the track as "a five-minute-long nervous breakdown, set to a beat". "Stylus" said of the song, "It's one of the best representations of film noir in pop music, ending with no resolution except a single mother and selfish, careless scumball." In a review of "Thriller 25", AllMusic observed that "Billie Jean" was "startling" in its "futuristic funk". The track also won praise from Jackson biographers. Nelson George stated that Jerry Hey's string arrangement added danger to "Billie Jean", while J. Randy Taraborrelli added that it was "dark and sparse" by Quincy Jones' production standards.


title: Billie Jean

text: "Billie Jean" has been recognized with numerous awards and honors. At the 1984 Grammy Awards the song earned Jackson two of a record eight awards; Best R&B Song and Best R&B Male Vocal Performance. It won the Billboard Music Award for favorite dance/disco 12" LP, and the magazine's 1980's poll named "Billie Jean" as the "Black Single of the Decade". The American Music Awards recognized the track as the Favorite Pop/Rock Single, while "Cash Box" honored the song with the awards for Top Pop Single and Top Black Single. The track was recognized with the Top International Single award by the Canadian Black Music Awards and awarded the Black Gold Award for Single of the Year. "Billie Jean" has also been awarded for its sales. It won the National Association of Recording Merchandisers Gift of Music award for best-selling single in 1984. By 1989, the standard format single was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, for shipments of at least one million units. The digital sales of "Billie Jean" were certified gold in 2005, for shipments of at least 500,000 units. In May 2014, a viral video of a high school-aged teenager imitating Jackson's "Motown 25" performance of the song helped the song re-enter the Billboard Hot 100 at number 14, with much of its chart performance was 95% credited to streams of the viral video. On August 29, 2022, the digital sales of "Billie Jean" were certified Diamond in US.


title: Billie Jean

text: "Billie Jean" enters the "Billboard" Global 200 chart where it peaked at 137 on the issue date January 15, 2022.


title: Billie Jean

text: MTV initially refused to air the video for "Billie Jean", as the network's executives felt black music did not fit into "rock"-centered network. Walter Yetnikoff, the president of Jackson's record company CBS Records, was enraged by their refusal to play the video in spite of Jackson's success as a musical artist. Yetnikoff threatened to go public with MTV's stance on racial discrimination: "I said to MTV, 'I'm pulling everything we have off the air, all our product. I'm not going to give you any more videos. And I'm going to go public and fucking tell them about the fact you don't want to play music by a black guy.'" MTV relented and the "Billie Jean" music video debuted on March 10, 1983. After the video was aired in heavy rotation, "Thriller" went on to sell an additional 10 million copies. It was one of the first videos by a black artist to be aired regularly by the channel.


title: Billie Jean

text: Directed by Steve Barron, the video shows a photographer who follows Jackson. The paparazzo never catches him, and when photographed Jackson fails to materialize on the developed picture. He dances to Billie Jean's hotel room and as he walks along a sidewalk, each tile lights up at his touch. After he performs a quick spin, Jackson jumps and lands, freeze framed, on his toes. Upon arrival at the hotel, Jackson climbs the staircase to Billie Jean's room. Each step lights up as he touches it and a burnt out "Hotel" sign illuminates as he passes. The paparazzo then arrives at the scene and watches as Jackson vanishes under the covers of Billie Jean's bed. Trailed by the police, the paparazzo is then arrested for spying on Billie Jean. As the paparazzo is led away, he drops a tiger-print cloth – the one that Jackson produces and uses to polish his shoe earlier in the video. (On both occasions, the cloth briefly transforms into a tiger cub). Once the street is empty the paving tiles again light up in sequence, reversing Jackson's earlier progress.


title: Billie Jean

text: Jackson sported a new look for the video; Jackson's clothes, a black leather suit with a pink shirt and a red bow tie, were copied by children around the US. Imitation became so severe that, despite pupil protests, Bound Brook High School didn't allow students to wear a single white glove like Jackson had on during the performance of "Billie Jean" at "".


title: Billie Jean

text: The short film was inducted into the Music Video Producers Hall of Fame in 1992. In a 2005 poll of 31 pop stars, video directors, agents, and journalists conducted by telecommunications company 3, the music video was ranked fifth in their "Top 20 Music Videos Ever". The video was also ranked as the 35th greatest music video in a list compiled by MTV and "TV Guide" at the millennium. On June 10, 2021, "Billie Jean" became the first 1980s clip by solo artist to reach 1 billion views on YouTube.


title: Billie Jean

text: Jackson performed "Billie Jean" on the television special "", broadcast on May 15, 1983. The performance is considered a watershed moment in popular culture history. The special was recorded on March 25 as a celebration of Motown Records' twenty-fifth anniversary (Motown was launched in 1959). The event featured many popular Motown acts, past and present. Jackson initially refused an invitation to reunite with the Jackson 5 for a performance, but reconsidered after a visit from Motown founder Berry Gordy, whom Jackson respected. Jackson asked to also perform "Billie Jean", to which Gordy agreed. Following performances by Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson, and Mary Wells, the Jacksons sang a medley of their early 1970s hits. Jermaine Jackson was on stage with the group, marking the first time that the original Jackson 5 lineup had performed together since they left Motown in 1975. After the group performed "I'll Be There", they left Michael alone on stage.


title: Billie Jean

text: Jackson wore black pants, leather penny loafers, a black sequined jacket, and a single white rhinestone glove. He addressed the audience, and then "Billie Jean" started playing. (Jackson lip-synced the entire song, because organizers feared that the evening's backing band could not replicate the sound of the recording.) To begin his performance, Jackson snapped a fedora to his head and struck a pose—his right hand on his hat and his left leg bent. During an instrumental interlude, he executed a move that many believe sealed his status as a pop icon. Jackson glided backwards to perform the moonwalk, before he spun on his heels and landed "en pointe". It was the first time Jackson had performed the moonwalk in public; he had practiced it in his kitchen prior to the show.


title: Billie Jean

text: Many, including Jackson biographer Steve Knopper, have speculated that Jackson's "Billie Jean" costuming and choreography were specifically inspired by a dance routine performed by Bob Fosse in the 1974 musical film "The Little Prince". In that film, Fosse, playing "The Snake", sings the song "A Snake in the Grass" and performs an accompanying dance that Fosse himself choreographed. The dance includes a variety of techniques that seemed to be echoed in Jackson's routine, including trademark Fosse elements such as hip thrusts, bent knees, shoulder isolations, jazz hands and kicks, as well a brief moonwalk. Jackson openly acknowledged Fosse as a dance influence, having told Fosse himself that he had amassed a complete home collection of Fosse's choreography work in film and television, which he watched frequently. However, Jackson never specifically cited the "Snake in the Grass" routine as an inspiration.


title: Billie Jean

text: "Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever" was watched by 50 million people and Jackson's routine earned him an Emmy nomination. With the performance, Jackson reached a new audience and increased the sales of "Thriller", which eventually became the best-selling album of all-time. The day after the show aired, Jackson was called by his childhood idol Fred Astaire, who commended him. Another childhood idol, Sammy Davis Jr., had admired Jackson's black sequined jacket during the performance and later received it as a gift.


title: Billie Jean

text: Jackson stated at the time that he was disappointed in his performance; he had wanted to remain on his toes longer than he had. Jackson subsequently said that "Billie Jean" was one of his favorite songs to perform live, but only when he did not have to do it the way he had on "Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever". "The audience wants a certain thing—I have to do the moonwalk in that spot," he later said. "I'd like to do a different version."


title: Billie Jean

text: In a Top 100 list compiled by VH1 and "Entertainment Weekly" in 2000, Jackson's performance was ranked as the sixth greatest rock 'n' roll TV moment. Five years later, "Entertainment Weekly" named Jackson's "Motown 25" performance as one of the most important pop culture moments in history. "It was a moment that crossed over in a way that no live musical performance ever had. There was a messianic quality to it", "Entertainment Weekly" editor Steve Daly commented. David Moynihan of "NME" wrote in 2009 that "Jackson's status as the world's biggest superstar was confirmed" by the "Motown 25" performance.


title: Billie Jean

text: In 1984, Pepsi sponsored the Jacksons' Victory Tour. In return, Michael and his brothers were to star in two commercials for the company. Jackson had reworked "Billie Jean" for the commercial and titled it "Pepsi Generation". The song was used as the official jingle for the commercials and released as a 7" promo single. The launch of "The Choice of a New Generation" campaign in February 1984 was attended by 1,600 people who were issued with a programme and the 7" single. During the filming of the second commercial, a firework in the rear of the set was prematurely detonated, setting Jackson's hair ablaze. The incident necessitated reconstructive surgery. The commercials were premiered at the Grammy Awards, the same night he collected a record eight awards.


title: Billie Jean

text: Michael Jackson's original version of "Billie Jean" was remixed by Kanye West for "Thriller 25", a 25th anniversary reissue of Jackson's "Thriller". Titled "Billie Jean 2008", the remix garnered a mixed reception; most critics felt that it was impossible to improve upon the original. "Pitchfork Media"s Tom Ewing stated that the remix would have benefited from a guest verse by West, which "might have added dynamics to the mix's clumsy claustrophobia".


title: Billie Jean

text: Mike Joseph, in a review of "Thriller 25" for "PopMatters", described the track listing of the reissue as "pleasant" but that West's "lazy" remix was the only exception. He added, "You've been given the opportunity to remix the most iconic single from one of the most iconic albums of all time, and all you can do is stick a drum machine on top of the song's original arrangement?". Rob Sheffield of "Rolling Stone" disliked the removal of the original bassline, and compared it to "putting Bobby Orr on the ice without a hockey stick". IGN's Todd Gilchrist praised West's remix and stated that it was a "pretty great track". He added, "it almost overplays the track's originally understated drama, his additions enhance the song and demonstrate that in a contemporary context."


title: Billie Jean

text: It was popularly believed that "Billie Jean" was an autobiographical song, referring to someone who claimed Jackson was the father of her child. Based on this theory, Lydia Murdock wrote the song "Superstar", which was a minor hit in 1983, intending this song as a criticism of Jackson's purported denial of paternity.


title: Billie Jean

text: On his "Late Night" program in the 1980s, host David Letterman often played a recording of a song with the word "chair" replacing "kid" to create the mondegreen "the chair is not my son".


title: Billie Jean

text: Frequently listed in magazine polls of the best songs ever made, "Billie Jean" was named the greatest dance record of all time by BBC Radio 2 listeners. In a list compiled by "Rolling Stone" and MTV in 2000, the song was ranked as the sixth greatest pop song since 1963.


title: Billie Jean

text: "Rolling Stone" placed the song at number 58 on its list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in 2004. In the 2021 update of the list it had risen to 44. "Billie Jean" was voted number 2 in "The Nation's Favourite Number 1 Single", a British TV program airing on ITV on 21 July 2012. In a similar poll in 2015 the song was voted by the British public as the nation's second favorite 1980s number one.


title: Billie Jean

text: In an interview, Pharrell Williams stated that "Billie Jean" was one of his favorite songs. "It is hard to say if there is a greater song than 'Billie Jean'. I think there will never be a song like this one again, with this bassline, with this kind of effect, this eternalness, this perfection." When re-released as part of the "" campaign in 2006, "Billie Jean" charted at No. 11 in the UK. It remained in the top 200 for over 40 weeks and was the most successful reissue by some distance. According to "Thriller 25: The Book" (2008), "Billie Jean" is still in heavy rotation; it receives more than 250,000 spins per week in clubs around the world.


title: Billie Jean

text: Canadian group the Sound Bluntz also recorded a cover which peaked at No. 17 on the Australian charts during March 2003. It also reached No. 17 in Belgium, No. 14 in Finland, and No. 53 in the Netherlands.


title: Billie Jean

text: English musician Ian Brown took "Billie Jean" to number 5 on the UK charts in 2000. It was the B-side of "Dolphins Were Monkeys". Brown said, "I love Jackson. I want to do a Jackson EP with 'Thriller', 'Beat It', 'Billie Jean' and 'Rockin' Robin' or 'ABC' on it. Hopefully I'll get it done". Brown later covered "Thriller" on "Golden Gaze", from his second solo album, "Golden Greats".


title: Billie Jean

text: American rock musician Chris Cornell recorded "Billie Jean" for his "Carry On" album in 2007. Cornell said of his cover, "I didn't plan on it. It just sort of happened organically. I changed the music quite a bit, I didn't touch the lyrics." He added, "And it's not a joke. I took a completely different approach to it, musically." Cornell had previously performed the song live in Europe, including an acoustic set in Stockholm, Sweden in September 2006. He later said, "I was getting ready to do some acoustic shows on a promotional tour for "Revelations" and I just wanted to have fun with it." The cover received favorable reviews from critics. MTV noted the "bluesier, more pained and impassioned feel" which stripped away "any pop elements of the original". "Los Angeles Times" described the track as "a grim, spooky take" on Jackson's "Billie Jean", and added that it was "amusing enough, even if it sounds a lot more like Metallica's 'Nothing Else Matters'". The newspaper concluded that "Jacko's mega hit [survived] the stunt translation". In 2008, Cornell's version was performed live by David Cook on the seventh season of "American Idol", and this version charted on "Billboard"s Hot 100 at No. 47.


title: Billie Jean

text: In 2011, Fall Out Boy frontman Patrick Stump covered the song as part of an a cappella medley of Michael Jackson songs, in which he sang all the parts.


title: Billie Jean

text: In 2015, Irish musician EDEN released a remix of "Billie Jean" then separately released a cover of the song with his own vocals.


title: Billie Jean

text: In 1983, Italian studio group Club House recorded what would now be known as a mashup of "Billie Jean" and the 1972 Steely Dan song "Do It Again", titled "Do It Again Medley with Billie Jean". The song was a top ten hit in Belgium, Ireland and the Netherlands. American band Slingshot recorded a note-for-note remake of the song later that same year; this version hit number one on the Billboard Dance/Disco charts.


title: Billie Jean

text: A DJ named Linx created a mashup of "Billie Jean" and the 1987 Eric B. & Rakim song "I Know You Got Soul" from the original recordings, releasing it in 1997 as "Billie Jean (Got Soul)". This mashup peaked at number 34 in Sweden.


title: Billie Jean

text: Scottish bhangra group Tigerstyle's song "Nachna Onda Nei" includes the backing tracks of both "Billie Jean" and "Under Pressure" by Queen and David Bowie, with new vocals by Kaka Bhaniawala. In May 2011, dance act Signature used "Nachna Onda Nei" on "Britain's Got Talent" in their audition and again in their final performance.


title: TNT

text: Trinitrotoluene (), more commonly known as TNT, more specifically 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene, and by its preferred IUPAC name 2-methyl-1,3,5-trinitrobenzene, is a chemical compound with the formula CH(NO)CH. TNT is occasionally used as a reagent in chemical synthesis, but it is best known as an explosive material with convenient handling properties. The explosive yield of TNT is considered to be the standard comparative convention of bombs and asteroid impacts. In chemistry, TNT is used to generate charge transfer salts.


title: TNT

text: TNT was first prepared in 1863 by German chemist Julius Wilbrand and originally used as a yellow dye. Its potential as an explosive was not recognized for three decades, mainly because it was too difficult to detonate because it was less sensitive than alternatives. Its explosive properties were first discovered in 1891 by another German chemist, Carl Häussermann. TNT can be safely poured when liquid into shell cases, and is so insensitive that in 1910 it was exempted from the UK's Explosives Act 1875 and was not considered an explosive for the purposes of manufacture and storage.


title: TNT

text: The German armed forces adopted it as a filling for artillery shells in 1902. TNT-filled armour-piercing shells would explode after they had penetrated the armour of British capital ships, whereas the British Lyddite-filled shells tended to explode upon striking armour, thus expending much of their energy outside the ship. The British started replacing Lyddite with TNT in 1907.


title: TNT

text: The United States Navy continued filling armour-piercing shells with explosive D after some other nations had switched to TNT, but began filling naval mines, bombs, depth charges, and torpedo warheads with burster charges of crude grade B TNT with the color of brown sugar and requiring an explosive booster charge of granular crystallized grade A TNT for detonation. High-explosive shells were filled with grade A TNT, which became preferred for other uses as industrial chemical capacity became available for removing xylene and similar hydrocarbons from the toluene feedstock and other nitrotoluene isomer byproducts from the nitrating reactions.


title: TNT

text: In industry, TNT is produced in a three-step process. First, toluene is nitrated with a mixture of sulfuric and nitric acid to produce mononitrotoluene (MNT). The MNT is separated and then renitrated to dinitrotoluene (DNT). In the final step, the DNT is nitrated to trinitrotoluene (TNT) using an anhydrous mixture of nitric acid and oleum. Nitric acid is consumed by the manufacturing process, but the diluted sulfuric acid can be reconcentrated and reused. After nitration, TNT is stabilized by a process called sulfitation, where the crude TNT is treated with aqueous sodium sulfite solution to remove less stable isomers of TNT and other undesired reaction products. The rinse water from sulfitation is known as red water and is a significant pollutant and waste product of TNT manufacture.


title: TNT

text: Control of nitrogen oxides in feed nitric acid is very important because free nitrogen dioxide can result in oxidation of the methyl group of toluene. This reaction is highly exothermic and carries with it the risk of a runaway reaction leading to an explosion.


title: TNT

text: In the laboratory, 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene is produced by a two-step process. A nitrating mixture of concentrated nitric and sulfuric acids is used to nitrate toluene to a mixture of mono- and di-nitrotoluene isomers, with careful cooling to maintain temperature. The nitrated toluenes are then separated, washed with dilute sodium bicarbonate to remove oxides of nitrogen, and then carefully nitrated with a mixture of fuming nitric acid and sulfuric acid.


title: TNT

text: TNT is one of the most commonly used explosives for military, industrial, and mining applications. TNT has been used in conjunction with hydraulic fracturing (popularly known as fracking), a process used to recover oil and gas from shale formations. The technique involves displacing and detonating nitroglycerin in hydraulically induced fractures followed by wellbore shots using pelletized TNT.


title: TNT

text: TNT is valued partly because of its insensitivity to shock and friction, with reduced risk of accidental detonation compared to more sensitive explosives such as nitroglycerin. TNT melts at 80 °C (176 °F), far below the temperature at which it will spontaneously detonate, allowing it to be poured or safely combined with other explosives. TNT neither absorbs nor dissolves in water, which allows it to be used effectively in wet environments. To detonate, TNT must be triggered by a pressure wave from a starter explosive, called an explosive booster.


title: TNT

text: Although blocks of TNT are available in various sizes (e.g. 250 g, 500 g, 1,000 g), it is more commonly encountered in synergistic explosive blends comprising a variable percentage of TNT plus other ingredients. Examples of explosive blends containing TNT include:


title: TNT

text: The reaction is exothermic but has a high activation energy in the gas phase (~62 kcal/mol). The condensed phases (solid or liquid) show markedly lower activation energies of roughly 35 kcal/mol due to unique bimolecular decomposition routes at elevated densities. Because of the production of carbon, TNT explosions have a sooty appearance. Because TNT has an excess of carbon, explosive mixtures with oxygen-rich compounds can yield more energy per kilogram than TNT alone. During the 20th century, amatol, a mixture of TNT with ammonium nitrate was a widely used military explosive.


title: TNT

text: TNT can be detonated with a high velocity initiator or by efficient concussion. For many years, TNT used to be the reference point for the Figure of Insensitivity. TNT had a rating of exactly 100 on the "F of I" scale. The reference has since been changed to a more sensitive explosive called RDX, which has an F of I rating of 80.


title: TNT

text: The heat of detonation utilized by NIST to define a tonne of TNT equivalent is 1000 cal/g or 1000 kcal/kg, 4.184 MJ/kg or 4.184 GJ/ton. The energy density of TNT is used as a reference point for many other explosives, including nuclear weapons, the energy content of which is measured in equivalent kilotons (~4.184 terajoules or 4.184 TJ or 1.162 GWh) or megatons (~4.184 petajoules or 4.184 PJ or 1.162 TWh) of TNT. The heat of combustion however is 14.5 megajoules per kilogram or 14.5 MJ/kg or 4.027 kWh/kg, which requires that some of the carbon in TNT react with atmospheric oxygen, which does not occur in the initial event.


title: TNT

text: For comparison, gunpowder contains 3 megajoules per kilogram, dynamite contains 7.5 megajoules per kilogram, and gasoline contains 47.2 megajoules per kilogram (though gasoline requires an oxidant, so an optimized gasoline and O mixture contains 10.4 megajoules per kilogram).


title: TNT

text: Various methods can be used to detect TNT, including optical and electrochemical sensors and explosive-sniffing dogs. In 2013, researchers from the Indian Institutes of Technology using noble-metal quantum clusters could detect TNT at the sub-zeptomolar (10 mol/m) level.


title: TNT

text: TNT is poisonous, and skin contact can cause skin irritation, causing the skin to turn a bright yellow-orange color. During the First World War, female munition workers who handled the chemical found that their skin turned bright yellow, which resulted in their acquiring the nickname "canary girls" or simply "canaries".


title: TNT

text: People exposed to TNT over a prolonged period tend to experience anemia and abnormal liver functions. Blood and liver effects, spleen enlargement and other harmful effects on the immune system have also been found in animals that ingested or breathed trinitrotoluene. There is evidence that TNT adversely affects male fertility. TNT is listed as a possible human carcinogen, with carcinogenic effects demonstrated in animal experiments with rats, although effects upon humans so far amount to none (according to IRIS of March 15, 2000). Consumption of TNT produces red urine through the presence of breakdown products and not blood as sometimes believed.


title: TNT

text: Some military testing grounds are contaminated with wastewater from munitions programs, including contamination of surface and subsurface waters which may be colored pink because of the presence of TNT. Such contamination, called "pink water", may be difficult and expensive to remedy.


title: TNT

text: TNT is prone to exudation of dinitrotoluenes and other isomers of trinitrotoluene when projectiles containing TNT are stored at higher temperatures in warmer climates. Exudation of impurities leads to formation of pores and cracks (which in turn cause increased shock sensitivity). Migration of the exudated liquid into the fuze screw thread can form "fire channels", increasing the risk of accidental detonation. Fuze malfunction can also result from the liquid migrating into the fuze mechanism. Calcium silicate is mixed with TNT to mitigate the tendency towards exudation.


title: TNT

text: Pink water and red water are two distinct types of wastewater related to trinitrotoluene. Pink water is produced from equipment washing processes after munitions filling or demilitarization operations, and as such is generally saturated with the maximum amount of TNT that will dissolve in water (about 150 parts per million (ppm).) However it has an indefinite composition that depends on the exact process; in particular, it may also contain cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine (RDX) if the plant uses TNT/RDX mixtures, or HMX if TNT/HMX is used. Red water (also known as "Sellite water") is produced during the process used to purify the crude TNT. It has a complex composition containing more than a dozen aromatic compounds, but the principal components are inorganic salts (sodium sulfate, sodium sulfite, sodium nitrite and sodium nitrate) and sulfonated nitroaromatics.


title: TNT

text: Pink water is actually colorless at the time of generation, whereas red water can be colorless or a very pale red. The color is produced by photolytic reactions under the influence of sunlight. Despite the names, red and pink water are not necessarily different shades; the color depends mainly on the duration of solar exposure. If exposed long enough, "pink" water will become dark brown.


title: TNT

text: Because of the toxicity of TNT, the discharge of pink water to the environment has been prohibited in the US and many other countries for decades, but ground contamination may exist in very old plants. However, RDX and tetryl contamination is usually considered more problematic, as TNT has very low soil mobility. Red water is significantly more toxic and as such it has always been considered hazardous waste. It has traditionally been disposed of by evaporation to dryness (as the toxic components are not volatile), followed by incineration. Much research has been conducted to develop better disposal processes.


title: TNT

text: Because of its suitability in construction and demolition, TNT has become the most widely used explosive and thus its toxicity is the most characterized and reported. Residual TNT from manufacture, storage, and use can pollute water, soil, the atmosphere, and the biosphere.


title: TNT

text: The concentration of TNT in contaminated soil can reach 50 g/kg of soil, where the highest concentrations can be found on or near the surface. In September 2001, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) declared TNT a pollutant whose removal is a priority. The USEPA maintains that TNT levels in soil should not exceed 17.2 grams per kilogram of soil and 0.01 milligrams per litre of water.


title: TNT

text: Dissolution is a measure of the rate that solid TNT in contact with water is dissolved. The relatively low aqueous solubility of TNT causes solid particles to be continuously released to the environment over extended periods of time. Studies have shown that TNT dissolves slower in saline water than in freshwater. However, when salinity is altered, TNT dissolves at the same speed. Because TNT is moderately soluble in water, it can migrate through subsurface soil, and cause groundwater contamination.


title: TNT

text: Adsorption is a measure of the distribution between soluble and sediment adsorbed contaminants following attainment of equilibrium. TNT and its transformation products are known to adsorb to surface soils and sediments, where they undergo reactive transformation or remained stored. The movement or organic contaminants through soils is a function of their ability to associate with the mobile phase (water) and a stationary phase (soil). Materials that associate strongly with soils move slowly through soil.


title: TNT

text: The association constant for TNT with soil is 2.7 to 11 L/kg of soil. This means that TNT has a one- to tenfold tendency to adhere to soil particulates than not when introduced into the soil. Hydrogen bonding and ion exchange are two suggested mechanisms of adsorption between the nitro functional groups and soil colloids.


title: TNT

text: The number of functional groups on TNT influences the ability to adsorb into soil. Adsorption coefficient values have been shown to increase with an increase in the number of amino groups. Thus, adsorption of the TNT decomposition product 2,4-diamino-6-nitrotoluene (2,4-DANT) was greater than that for 4-amino-2,6-dinitrotoluene (4-ADNT), which was greater than that for TNT. Lower adsorption coefficients for 2,6-DNT compared to 2,4-DNT can be attributed to the steric hindrance of the NO group in the ortho position.


title: TNT

text: Research has shown that in freshwater environments, with high abundances of Ca, the adsorption of TNT and its transformation products to soils and sediments may be lower than observed in a saline environment, dominated by K and Na. Therefore, when considering the adsorption of TNT, the type of soil or sediment and the ionic composition and strength of the ground water are important factors.


title: TNT

text: The association constants for TNT and its degradation products with clays have been determined. Clay minerals have a significant effect on the adsorption of energetic compounds. Soil properties, such as organic carbon content and cation exchange capacity have significant impacts on the adsorption coefficients.


title: TNT

text: Additional studies have shown that the mobility of TNT degradation products is likely to be lower "than TNT in subsurface environments where specific adsorption to clay minerals dominates the sorption process." Thus, the mobility of TNT and its transformation products are dependent on the characteristics of the sorbent. The mobility of TNT in groundwater and soil has been extrapolated from "sorption and desorption isotherm models determined with humic acids, in aquifer sediments, and soils". From these models, it is predicted that TNT has a low retention and transports readily in the environment.


title: TNT

text: Compared to other explosives, TNT has a higher association constant with soil, meaning it adheres more with soil than with water. Conversely, other explosives, such as RDX and HMX with low association constants (ranging from 0.06 to 7.3 L/kg and 0 to 1.6 L/kg respectively) can move more rapidly in water.


title: TNT

text: TNT is a reactive molecule and is particularly prone to react with reduced components of sediments or photodegradation in the presence of sunlight. TNT is thermodynamically and kinetically capable of reacting with a wide number of components of many environmental systems. This includes wholly abiotic reactants, like hydrogen sulfide, Fe, or microbial communities, both oxic and anoxic and photochemical degradation.


title: TNT

text: Soils with high clay contents or small particle sizes and high total organic carbon content have been shown to promote TNT transformation. Possible TNT transformations include reduction of one, two, or three nitro-moieties to amines and coupling of amino transformation products to form dimers. Formation of the two monoamino transformation products, 2-ADNT and 4-ADNT, is energetically favored, and therefore is observed in contaminated soils and ground water. The diamino products are energetically less favorable, and even less likely are the triamino products.


title: TNT

text: The transformation of TNT is significantly enhanced under anaerobic conditions as well as under highly reducing conditions. TNT transformations in soils can occur both biologically and abiotically.


title: TNT

text: Photolysis is a major process that impacts the transformation of energetic compounds. The alteration of a molecule in photolysis occurs by direct absorption of light energy or by the transfer of energy from a photosensitized compound. Phototransformation of TNT "results in the formation of nitrobenzenes, benzaldehydes, azodicarboxylic acids, and nitrophenols, as a result of the oxidation of methyl groups, reduction of nitro groups, and dimer formation."


title: TNT

text: Evidence of the photolysis of TNT has been seen due to the color change to pink of TNT-containing wastewaters when exposed to sunlight. Photolysis is more rapid in river water than in distilled water. Ultimately, photolysis affects the fate of TNT primarily in the aquatic environment but could also affect the fate of TNT in soil when the soil surface is exposed to sunlight.


title: TNT

text: The ligninolytic physiological phase and manganese peroxidase system of fungi can cause a very limited amount of mineralization of TNT in a liquid culture, though not in soil. An organism capable of the remediation of large amounts of TNT in soil has yet to be discovered. Both wild and transgenic plants can phytoremediate explosives from soil and water.


title: Raquel González (wrestler)

text: Victoria González (born January 12, 1991), better known as Raquel González, is an American professional wrestler. She is currently signed to WWE, where she performs on the SmackDown brand under the ring name Raquel Rodriguez. She is a former NXT Women's Champion, two-time NXT Women's Tag Team Champion and WWE Women's Tag Team Champion.


title: Raquel González (wrestler)

text: González is a second generation professional wrestler, following her father Rick González. In 2021, she and, now former tag


title: Raquel González (wrestler)

text: team partner and best friend, Dakota Kai won the inaugural Women's Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic and became the inaugural NXT Women's Tag Team Champions, while González won the NXT Women's Championship.


title: Raquel González (wrestler)

text: Victoria González was born on January 12, 1991, in La Feria, Texas, United States. She is of Mexican descent. A fan of professional wrestling growing up, she cited Madusa and Lita as her inspirations, as well as her father Rick, who was also a wrestler. Through high school and college, González was a basketball player, playing collegiately for the Texas A&M–Kingsville Javelinas. In 2013, she transferred to Sam Houston State University where she continued her collegiate basketball career.


title: Raquel González (wrestler)

text: On October 25, 2016, it was reported that González had signed with WWE and reported to the WWE Performance Center. She made her in-ring debut on January 20, 2017, under her birth name at an NXT live event, where she was unsuccessful winning a 12-woman battle royal. On the May 3 episode of "NXT", González made her first television appearance in a losing effort, where she was eliminated during a battle royal to determine the #1 contender for the NXT Women's Championship. Under the name Reina González, she competed in the inaugural Mae Young Classic tournament, where she was eliminated during the first round by Nicole Savoy, which aired on August 28. González would compete again in the tournament in 2018, where she once again was eliminated in the first round by Kacy Catanzaro.


title: Raquel González (wrestler)

text: On February 16, 2020, at , under the ring name Raquel González, she interfered in a street fight between Dakota Kai and Tegan Nox by slamming Nox through a table, allowing Kai to win the match, establishing herself as a heel in the process. González then became Kai's bodyguard, helping her win her matches. González had her first pay-per-view match on June 7 at , where she, Kai, and Candice LeRae lost to Mia Yim, Nox and Shotzi Blackheart in a six-woman tag team match. Afterwards, González went on a short hiatus, but returned on the August 19 episode of "NXT", helping Kai attack NXT Women's Champion Io Shirai. At NXT TakeOver XXX three days later, after Kai lost to Shirai, Rhea Ripley confronted González, beginning a rivalry between the two. González lost to Ripley on October 28 at . Kai and González aligned with LeRae and Toni Storm in November, resulting in a WarGames match against Blackheart, Ember Moon, Shirai, and Ripley on December 6 at , which González won after pinning Shirai. At on January 6, 2021, she defeated Ripley in a Last Woman Standing match, ending their feud.


title: Raquel González (wrestler)

text: Kai and González took part in the inaugural Women's Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic, defeating Aliyah and Jessi Kamea in the first round, Kacy Catanzaro and Kayden Carter in the semi-finals, and Moon and Blackheart at on February 14 to win the tournament. As a result of their win, they received a match for the WWE Women's Tag Team Championship against champions Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler on March 3; the match ended in controversy, with Jax and Baszler retaining after Baszler submitted Kai despite her not being tagged in. As a result, González and Kai were crowned the inaugural NXT Women's Tag Team Champions the following week, the first title in González's career; however, they would lose the titles 56 minutes later to Blackheart and Moon in their first title defense.


title: Raquel González (wrestler)

text: On April 7, 2021, at the first night of , González defeated Shirai to become the new NXT Women's Champion. On the May 11 episode of "NXT", she made her first successful title defense against Mercedes Martinez. On June 13 at , González retained the title against Ember Moon. On the July 27 episode of "NXT", González was attacked by Kai, turning face for the first time in her career and ending their alliance. This led to a title match between the two at NXT TakeOver 36 on August 22, where González retained and was confronted by Kay Lee Ray.


title: Raquel González (wrestler)

text: On the September 28 episode of "NXT", after retaining the title against Franky Monet, she was attacked by Toxic Attraction (Mandy Rose, Gigi Dolin, and Jacy Jayne). The following week, a Spin the Wheel, Make the Deal match between González and Rose for the title was made for on October 26, where she lost the NXT Women's Championship to Rose in a Trick or Street Fight due to the returning Kai's interference, ending her reign at 202 days. On December 5 at WarGames, González, Cora Jade, Io Shirai and Kay Lee Ray defeated Kai and Toxic Attraction in a WarGames match. At on January 4, 2022, González failed to regain the title in a triple threat match also involving Jade, who Rose pinned to retain the title. González and Jade then took part in the Women's Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic, defeating Valentina Feroz & Yulisa Leon in the first round, but lost to Kai and Wendy Choo in the semi-finals on March 8 at Roadblock.


title: Raquel González (wrestler)

text: On the March 29 episode of "NXT", after Toxic Attraction took out Choo, Dakota Kai attacked the group and was assisted by a returning González, whom Kai embraced afterwards. It was then announced that Kai and González would face Toxic Attraction members Gigi Dolin and Jacy Jayne for the NXT Women's Tag Team Championship during the pre-show of NXT Stand & Deliver on April 2, in which they were successful in winning the titles. Their first title defense was scheduled for the following episode of "NXT", where they lost the titles back to Toxic Attraction due to Mandy Rose’s interference; this was González's final appearance in NXT.


title: Raquel González (wrestler)

text: On the April 8 episode of "SmackDown", González made her main roster debut in a backstage segment under the new ring name Raquel Rodriguez. On the April 29 episode of "SmackDown", she made her in-ring debut for the brand, defeating local competitor Cat Cardoza. On the May 13 episode of "SmackDown", Rodriguez answered Ronda Rousey's open challenge for the SmackDown Women's Championship, but lost. On the June 17 episode of "SmackDown", Rodriguez defeated Shayna Baszler to qualify for the Money in the Bank ladder match on July 2, which was won by Liv Morgan. On the August 5 episode of "SmackDown", Rodriguez competed in a gauntlet match to determine the #1 contender to Morgan's SmackDown Women's Championship, but was the last woman eliminated by Baszler. The following week, she and Aliyah participated in the WWE Women's Tag Team Championship Tournament, defeating Shotzi and Xia Li in the first round, and Natalya and Sonya Deville in the semi-finals. On the August 29 episode of "Raw", Rodriguez and Aliyah defeated Damage CTRL (Dakota Kai and Iyo Sky) in the finals to win the vacant tag titles, making her the first woman to have held the NXT Women's, NXT and WWE Women's Tag Team Championships. On the September 12 episode of "Raw", they lost the titles to Kai and Sky, ending their reign at 14 days. After Shotzi saved Rodriguez from an attack by Damage CTRL, they challenged Kai and Sky for the titles on the October 21 episode of "SmackDown", but were unsuccessful after Bayley distracted Shotzi. On the November 11 episode of "SmackDown", Rodriguez competed in a six-pack challenge to determine the #1 contender to Rousey's SmackDown Women's Championship, which was won by Shotzi.


title: Raquel González (wrestler)

text: During her time in NXT, she performed a one-arm powerbomb as a finishing move called the "Chingona Bomb". The move was renamed to the "Texana Bomb" when she was drafted to the main roster since it was deemed too vulgar.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: In ancient Roman religion and myth, Mars (, ) was the god of war and also an agricultural guardian, a combination characteristic of early Rome. He was the son of Jupiter and Juno, and was pre-eminent among the Roman army's military gods. Most of his festivals were held in March, the month named for him (Latin "Martius"), and in October, which began the season for military campaigning and ended the season for farming.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: Under the influence of Greek culture, Mars was identified with the Greek god Ares, whose myths were reinterpreted in Roman literature and art under the name of Mars. The character and dignity of Mars differed in fundamental ways from that of his Greek counterpart, who is often treated with contempt and revulsion in Greek literature. Mars's altar in the Campus Martius, the area of Rome that took its name from him, was supposed to have been dedicated by Numa, the peace-loving semi-legendary second king of Rome; in Republican times it was a focus of electoral activities. Augustus shifted the focus of Mars' cult to within the pomerium (Rome's ritual boundary), and built a temple to Mars Ultor as a key religious feature of his new forum.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: Unlike Ares, who was viewed primarily as a destructive and destabilizing force, Mars represented military power as a way to secure peace, and was a father "(pater)" of the Roman people. In Rome's mythic genealogy and founding, Mars fathered Romulus and Remus through his rape of Rhea Silvia. His love affair with Venus symbolically reconciled two different traditions of Rome's founding; Venus was the divine mother of the hero Aeneas, celebrated as the Trojan refugee who "founded" Rome several generations before Romulus laid out the city walls.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: The word "Mārs" (genitive "Mārtis"), which in Old Latin and poetic usage also appears as "Māvors" ("Māvortis"), is cognate with Oscan "Māmers" ("Māmertos"). The oldest recorded Latin form, "Mamart-," is likely of foreign origin"." It has been explained as deriving from "Maris," the name of an Etruscan child-god, though this is not universally agreed upon. Scholars have varying views on whether the two gods are related, and if so how. Latin adjectives from the name of Mars are "martius" and "martialis", from which derive English "martial" (as in "martial arts" or "martial law") and personal names such as "Marcus", "Mark" and "Martin".


title: Mars (mythology)

text: Mars may ultimately be a thematic reflex of the Proto-Indo-European god Perkwunos, having originally a thunderer character.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: Like Ares who was the son of Zeus and Hera, Mars is usually considered to be the son of Jupiter and Juno. In Ovid's version of Mars' origin, he was the son of Juno alone. Jupiter had usurped the accepted function of women as mothers when he gave birth to Minerva directly from his forehead (or mind). Juno sought the advice of the goddess Flora on how to do the same. Flora obtained a magic flower (Latin "flos", plural "flores", a masculine word) and tested it on a heifer who became fecund at once. Flora ritually plucked a flower, using her thumb, touched Juno's belly, and impregnated her. Juno withdrew to Thrace and the shore of Marmara for the birth.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: Ovid tells this story in the "Fasti", his long-form poetic work on the Roman calendar. It may explain why the Matronalia, a festival celebrated by married women in honor of Juno as a goddess of childbirth, occurred on the first day of Mars's month, which is also marked on a calendar from late antiquity as the birthday of Mars. In the earliest Roman calendar, March was the first month, and the god would have been born with the new year. Ovid is the only source for the story. He may be presenting a literary myth of his own invention, or an otherwise unknown archaic Italic tradition; either way, in choosing to include the story, he emphasizes that Mars was connected to plant life and was not alienated from female nurture.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: The consort of Mars was Nerio or Neriene, "Valor." She represents the vital force "(vis)", power "(potentia)" and majesty "(maiestas)" of Mars. Her name was regarded as Sabine in origin and is equivalent to Latin "virtus," "manly virtue" (from "vir", "man"). In the early 3rd century BCE, the comic playwright Plautus has a reference to Mars greeting Nerio, his wife. A source from late antiquity says that Mars and Neriene were celebrated together at a festival held on March 23. In the later Roman Empire, Neriene came to be identified with Minerva.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: Nerio probably originates as a divine personification of Mars's power, as such abstractions in Latin are generally feminine. Her name appears with that of Mars in an archaic prayer invoking a series of abstract qualities, each paired with the name of a deity. The influence of Greek mythology and its anthropomorphic gods may have caused Roman writers to treat these pairs as "marriages."


title: Mars (mythology)

text: The union of Venus and Mars held greater appeal for poets and philosophers, and the couple were a frequent subject of art. In Greek myth, the adultery of Ares and Aphrodite had been exposed to ridicule when her husband Hephaestus (whose Roman equivalent was Vulcan) caught them in the act by means of a magical snare. Although not originally part of the Roman tradition, in 217 BCE Venus and Mars were presented as a complementary pair in the "lectisternium", a public banquet at which images of twelve major gods of the Roman state were presented on couches as if present and participating.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: Scenes of Venus and Mars in Roman art often ignore the adulterous implications of their union, and take pleasure in the good-looking couple attended by Cupid or multiple Loves "(amores)". Some scenes may imply marriage, and the relationship was romanticized in funerary or domestic art in which husbands and wives had themselves portrayed as the passionate divine couple.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: The uniting of deities representing Love and War lent itself to allegory, especially since the lovers were the parents of Concordia. The Renaissance philosopher Marsilio Ficino notes that "only Venus dominates Mars, and he never dominates her". In ancient Roman and Renaissance art, Mars is often shown disarmed and relaxed, or even sleeping, but the extramarital nature of their affair can also suggest that this peace is impermanent.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: Virility as a kind of life force "(vis)" or virtue "(virtus)" is an essential characteristic of Mars. As an agricultural guardian, he directs his energies toward creating conditions that allow crops to grow, which may include warding off hostile forces of nature.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: The priesthood of the Arval Brothers called on Mars to drive off "rust" "(lues)", with its double meaning of wheat fungus and the red oxides that affect metal, a threat to both iron farm implements and weaponry. In the surviving text of their hymn, the Arval Brothers invoked Mars as "ferus", "savage" or "feral" like a wild animal.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: Mars's potential for savagery is expressed in his obscure connections to the wild woodlands, and he may even have originated as a god of the wild, beyond the boundaries set by humans, and thus a force to be propitiated. In his book on farming, Cato invokes "Mars Silvanus" for a ritual to be carried out "in silva", in the woods, an uncultivated place that if not held within bounds can threaten to overtake the fields needed for crops. Mars's character as an agricultural god may derive solely from his role as a defender and protector, or may be inseparable from his warrior nature, as the leaping of his armed priests the Salii was meant to quicken the growth of crops.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: It appears that Mars was originally a thunderer or storm deity, which explains some of his mixed traits in regards to fertility. This role was later taken in the Roman pantheon by several other gods, such as Summanus or Jupiter.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: The wild animals most sacred to Mars were the woodpecker, the wolf, and the bear, which in the natural lore of the Romans were said always to inhabit the same foothills and woodlands.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: Plutarch notes that the woodpecker "(picus)" is sacred to Mars because "it is a courageous and spirited bird and has a beak so strong that it can overturn oaks by pecking them until it has reached the inmost part of the tree." As the beak of the "picus Martius" contained the god's power to ward off harm, it was carried as a magic charm to prevent bee stings and leech bites. The bird of Mars also guarded a woodland herb "(paeonia)" used for treatment of the digestive or female reproductive systems; those who sought to harvest it were advised to do so by night, lest the woodpecker jab out their eyes. The "picus Martius" seems to have been a particular species, but authorities differ on which one: perhaps "Picus viridis" or "Dryocopus martius".


title: Mars (mythology)

text: The woodpecker was revered by the Latin peoples, who abstained from eating its flesh. It was one of the most important birds in Roman and Italic augury, the practice of reading the will of the gods through watching the sky for signs. The mythological figure named Picus had powers of augury that he retained when he was transformed into a woodpecker; in one tradition, Picus was the son of Mars. The Umbrian cognate "peiqu" also means "woodpecker," and the Italic Picenes were supposed to have derived their name from the "picus" who served as their guide animal during a ritual migration "(ver sacrum)" undertaken as a rite of Mars. In the territory of the Aequi, another Italic people, Mars had an oracle of great antiquity where the prophecies were supposed to be spoken by a woodpecker perched on a wooden column.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: Mars's association with the wolf is familiar from what may be the most famous of Roman myths, the story of how a she-wolf "(lupa)" suckled his infant sons when they were exposed by order of King Amulius, who feared them because he had usurped the throne from their grandfather, Numitor. The woodpecker also brought nourishment to the twins.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: The wolf appears elsewhere in Roman art and literature in masculine form as the animal of Mars. A statue group that stood along the Appian Way showed Mars in the company of wolves. At the Battle of Sentinum in 295 BCE, the appearance of the wolf of Mars "(Martius lupus)" was a sign that Roman victory was to come.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: In Roman Gaul, the goose was associated with the Celtic forms of Mars, and archaeologists have found geese buried alongside warriors in graves. The goose was considered a bellicose animal because it is easily provoked to aggression.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: Ancient Greek and Roman religion distinguished between animals that were sacred to a deity and those that were prescribed as the correct sacrificial offerings for the god. Wild animals might be viewed as already belonging to the god to whom they were sacred, or at least not owned by human beings and therefore not theirs to give. Since sacrificial meat was eaten at a banquet after the gods received their portion – mainly the entrails "(exta)" – it follows that the animals sacrificed were most often, though not always, domestic animals normally part of the Roman diet. Gods often received castrated male animals as sacrifices, and the goddesses female victims; Mars, however, regularly received intact males. Mars did receive oxen under a few of his cult titles, such as Mars Grabovius, but the usual offering was the bull, singly, in multiples, or in combination with other animals.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: The two most distinctive animal sacrifices made to Mars were the "suovetaurilia", a triple offering of a pig "(sus)", ram "(ovis)" and bull "(taurus)", and the October Horse, the only horse sacrifice known to have been carried out in ancient Rome and a rare instance of a victim the Romans considered inedible.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: The earliest center in Rome for cultivating Mars as a deity was the Altar of Mars "(Ara Martis)" in the Campus Martius ("Field of Mars") outside the sacred boundary of Rome "(pomerium)". The Romans thought that this altar had been established by the semi-legendary Numa Pompilius, the peace-loving successor of Romulus. According to Roman tradition, the Campus Martius had been consecrated to Mars by their ancestors to serve as horse pasturage and an equestrian training ground for youths. During the Roman Republic (509–27 BCE), the Campus was a largely open expanse. No temple was built at the altar, but from 193 BCE a covered walkway connected it to the Porta Fontinalis, near the office and archives of the Roman censors. Newly elected censors placed their curule chairs by the altar, and when they had finished conducting the census, the citizens were collectively purified with a suovetaurilia there. A frieze from the so-called "Altar" of Domitius Ahenobarbus is thought to depict the census, and may show Mars himself standing by the altar as the procession of victims advances.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: The main Temple of Mars "(Aedes Martis)" in the Republican period also lay outside the sacred boundary and was devoted to the god's warrior aspect. It was built to fulfill a vow "(votum)" made by a Titus Quinctius in 388 BCE during the Gallic siege of Rome. The founding day "(dies natalis)" was commemorated on June 1, and the temple is attested by several inscriptions and literary sources. The sculpture group of Mars and the wolves was displayed there. Soldiers sometimes assembled at the temple before heading off to war, and it was the point of departure for a major parade of Roman cavalry held annually on July 15.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: A temple to Mars in the Circus Flaminius was built around 133 BCE, funded by Decimus Junius Brutus Callaicus from war booty. It housed a colossal statue of Mars and a nude Venus.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: The Campus Martius continued to provide venues for equestrian events such as chariot racing during the Imperial period, but under the first emperor Augustus it underwent a major program of urban renewal, marked by monumental architecture. The Altar of Augustan Peace "(Ara Pacis Augustae)" was located there, as was the Obelisk of Montecitorio, imported from Egypt to form the pointer "(gnomon)" of the Solarium Augusti, a giant sundial. With its public gardens, the Campus became one of the most attractive places in the city to visit.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: Augustus made the centrepiece of his new forum a large Temple to Mars Ultor, a manifestation of Mars he cultivated as the avenger "(ultor)" of the murder of Julius Caesar and of the military disaster suffered at the Battle of Carrhae. When the legionary standards lost to the Parthians were recovered, they were housed in the new temple. The date of the temple's dedication on May 12 was aligned with the heliacal setting of the constellation Scorpio, the sign of war. The date continued to be marked with circus games as late as the mid-4th century AD.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: A large statue of Mars was part of the short-lived Arch of Nero, which was built in 62 CE but dismantled after Nero's suicide and disgrace "(damnatio memoriae)".


title: Mars (mythology)

text: In Roman art, Mars is depicted as either bearded and mature, or young and clean-shaven. Even nude or seminude, he often wears a helmet or carries a spear as emblems of his warrior nature. Mars was among the deities to appear on the earliest Roman coinage in the late 4th and early 3rd century BCE.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: On the Altar of Peace "(Ara Pacis)", built in the last years of the 1st century BCE, Mars is a mature man with a "handsome, classicizing" face, and a short curly beard and moustache. His helmet is a plumed neo-Attic-type. He wears a military cloak "(paludamentum)" and a cuirass ornamented with a gorgoneion. Although the relief is somewhat damaged at this spot, he appears to hold a spear garlanded in laurel, symbolizing a peace that is won by military victory. The 1st-century statue of Mars found in the Forum of Nerva (pictured at top) is similar. In this guise, Mars is presented as the dignified ancestor of the Roman people. The panel of the "Ara Pacis" on which he appears would have faced the Campus Martius, reminding viewers that Mars was the god whose altar Numa established there, that is, the god of Rome's oldest civic and military institutions.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: Particularly in works of art influenced by the Greek tradition, Mars may be portrayed in a manner that resembles Ares, youthful, beardless, and often nude. In the Renaissance, Mars's nudity was thought to represent his lack of fear in facing danger.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: The spear is the instrument of Mars in the same way that Jupiter wields the lightning bolt, Neptune the trident, and Saturn the scythe or sickle. A relic or fetish called the spear of Mars was kept in a "sacrarium" at the Regia, the former residence of the Kings of Rome. The spear was said to move, tremble or vibrate at impending war or other danger to the state, as was reported to occur before the assassination of Julius Caesar. When Mars is pictured as a peace-bringer, his spear is wreathed with laurel or other vegetation, as on the Ara Pacis or a coin of Aemilianus.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: The high priest of Mars in Roman public religion was the Flamen Martialis, who was one of the three major priests in the fifteen-member college of flamens. Mars was also served by the Salii, a twelve-member priesthood of patrician youths who dressed as archaic warriors and danced in procession around the city in March. Both priesthoods extend to the earliest periods of Roman history, and patrician birth was required.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: The festivals of Mars cluster in his namesake month of March (Latin: "Martius"), with a few observances in October, the beginning and end of the season for military campaigning and agriculture. Festivals with horse racing took place in the Campus Martius. Some festivals in March retained characteristics of new year festivals, since "Martius" was originally the first month of the Roman calendar.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: Mars was also honored by chariot races at the Robigalia and Consualia, though these festivals are not primarily dedicated to him. From 217 BCE onward, Mars was among the gods honored at the lectisternium, a banquet given for deities who were present as images.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: Roman hymns "(carmina)" are rarely preserved, but Mars is invoked in two. The Arval Brothers, or "Brothers of the Fields," chanted a hymn to Mars while performing their three-step dance. The "Carmen Saliare" was sung by Mars's priests the Salii while they moved twelve sacred shields "(ancilia)" throughout the city in a procession. In the 1st century AD, Quintilian remarks that the language of the Salian hymn was so archaic that it was no longer fully understood.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: Mars gave his name to the third month in the Roman calendar, "Martius", from which English "March" derives. In the most ancient Roman calendar, "Martius" was the first month. The planet Mars was named for him, and in some allegorical and philosophical writings, the planet and the god are endowed with shared characteristics. In many languages, Tuesday is named for the planet Mars or the god of war: In Latin, "martis dies" ("Mars's Day"), survived in Romance languages as "marte" (Portuguese), "martes" (Spanish), "mardi" (French), "martedì" (Italian), "marți" (Romanian), and "dimarts" (Catalan). In Irish (Gaelic), the day is "An Mháirt", while in Albanian it is "e Marta". The English word "Tuesday" derives from Old English "Tiwesdæg" and means "Tiw's Day", "Tiw" being the Old English form of the Proto-Germanic war god *Tîwaz, or Týr in Norse.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: In Classical Roman religion, Mars was invoked under several titles, and the first Roman emperor Augustus thoroughly integrated Mars into Imperial cult. The 4th-century Latin historian Ammianus Marcellinus treats Mars as one of several classical Roman deities who remained "cultic realities" up to his own time. Mars, and specifically Mars Ultor, was among the gods who received sacrifices from Julian, the only emperor to reject Christianity after the conversion of Constantine I. In 363 AD, in preparation for the Siege of Ctesiphon, Julian sacrificed ten "very fine" bulls to Mars Ultor. The tenth bull violated ritual protocol by attempting to break free, and when killed and examined, produced ill omens, among the many that were read at the end of Julian's reign. As represented by Ammianus, Julian swore never to make sacrifice to Mars again—a vow kept with his death a month later.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: Gradivus was one of the gods by whom a general or soldiers might swear an oath to be valorous in battle. His temple outside the Porta Capena was where armies gathered. The archaic priesthood of Mars Gradivus was the "Salii", the "leaping priests" who danced ritually in armor as a prelude to war. His cult title is most often taken to mean "the Strider" or "the Marching God," from "gradus", "step, march."


title: Mars (mythology)

text: The poet Statius addresses him as "the most implacable of the gods," but Valerius Maximus concludes his history by invoking Mars Gradivus as "author and support of the name 'Roman'": Gradivus is asked – along with Capitoline Jupiter and Vesta, as the keeper of Rome's perpetual flame – to "guard, preserve, and protect" the state of Rome, the peace, and the "princeps" (the emperor Tiberius at the time).


title: Mars (mythology)

text: A source from Late Antiquity says that the wife of Gradivus was Nereia, the daughter of Nereus, and that he loved her passionately.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: Mars Quirinus was the protector of the Quirites ("citizens" or "civilians") as divided into "curiae" (citizen assemblies), whose oaths were required to make a treaty. As a guarantor of treaties, Mars Quirinus is thus a god of peace: "When he rampages, Mars is called "Gradivus", but when he's at peace "Quirinus"."


title: Mars (mythology)

text: The deified Romulus was identified with Mars Quirinus. In the Capitoline Triad of Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus, however, Mars and Quirinus were two separate deities, though not perhaps in origin. Each of the three had his own flamen (specialized priest), but the functions of the Flamen Martialis and Flamen Quirinalis are hard to distinguish.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: Mars is invoked as "Grabovius" in the Iguvine Tablets, bronze tablets written in Umbrian that record ritual protocols for carrying out public ceremonies on behalf of the city and community of Iguvium. The same title is given to Jupiter and to the Umbrian deity Vofionus. This triad has been compared to the Archaic Triad, with Vofionus equivalent to Quirinus. Tables I and VI describe a complex ritual that took place at the three gates of the city. After the auspices were taken, two groups of three victims were sacrificed at each gate. Mars Grabovius received three oxen.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: "Father Mars" or "Mars the Father" is the form in which the god is invoked in the agricultural prayer of Cato, and he appears with this title in several other literary texts and inscriptions. "Mars Pater" is among the several gods invoked in the ritual of "devotio", by means of which a general sacrificed himself and the lives of the enemy to secure a Roman victory.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: Father Mars is the regular recipient of the "suovetaurilia", the sacrifice of a pig "(sus)", ram "(ovis)" and bull "(taurus)", or often a bull alone. To "Mars Pater" other epithets were sometimes appended, such as "Mars Pater Victor" ("Father Mars the Victorious"), to whom the Roman army sacrificed a bull on March 1.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: Although "pater" and "mater" were fairly common as honorifics for a deity, any special claim for Mars as father of the Roman people lies in the mythic genealogy that makes him the divine father of Romulus and Remus.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: In the section of his farming book that offers recipes and medical preparations, Cato describes a "votum" to promote the health of cattle:


title: Mars (mythology)

text: Make an offering to Mars Silvanus in the forest "(in silva)" during the daytime for each head of cattle: 3 pounds of meal, 4½ pounds of bacon, 4½ pounds of meat, and 3 pints of wine. You may place the viands in one vessel, and the wine likewise in one vessel. Either a slave or a free man may make this offering. After the ceremony is over, consume the offering on the spot at once. A woman may not take part in this offering or see how it is performed. You may vow the vow every year if you wish.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: That "Mars Silvanus" is a single entity has been doubted. Invocations of deities are often list-like, without connecting words, and the phrase should perhaps be understood as "Mars and Silvanus". Women were explicitly excluded from some cult practices of Silvanus, but not necessarily of Mars. William Warde Fowler, however, thought that the wild god of the wood Silvanus may have been "an emanation or offshoot" of Mars.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: Augustus created the cult of "Mars the Avenger" to mark two occasions: his defeat of the assassins of Caesar at Philippi in 42 BCE, and the negotiated return of the Roman battle standards that had been lost to the Parthians at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BCE. The god is depicted wearing a cuirass and helmet and standing in a "martial pose," leaning on a lance he holds in his right hand. He holds a shield in his left hand. The goddess Ultio, a divine personification of vengeance, had an altar and golden statue in his temple.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: The Temple of Mars Ultor, dedicated in 2 BCE in the center of the Forum of Augustus, gave the god a new place of honor. Some rituals previously conducted within the cult of Capitoline Jupiter were transferred to the new temple, which became the point of departure for magistrates as they left for military campaigns abroad. Augustus required the Senate to meet at the temple when deliberating questions of war and peace. The temple also became the site at which sacrifice was made to conclude the rite of passage of young men assuming the "toga virilis" ("man's toga") around age 14.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: On various Imperial holidays, Mars Ultor was the first god to receive a sacrifice, followed by the Genius of the emperor. An inscription from the 2nd century records a vow to offer Mars Ultor a bull with gilded horns.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: "Augustus" or "Augusta" was appended far and wide, "on monuments great and small," to the name of gods or goddesses, including Mars. The honorific marks the affiliation of a deity with Imperial cult. In Hispania, many of the statues and dedications to Mars Augustus were presented by members of the priesthood or sodality called the "Sodales Augustales". These vows "(vota)" were usually fulfilled within a sanctuary of Imperial cult, or in a temple or precinct ("templum") consecrated specifically to Mars. As with other deities invoked as "Augustus", altars to Mars Augustus might be set up to further the well-being ("salus") of the emperor, but some inscriptions suggest personal devotion. An inscription in the Alps records the gratitude of a slave who dedicated a statue to Mars Augustus as "conservator corporis sui", the preserver of his own body, said to have been vowed "ex iussu numinis ipsius", "by the order of the "numen" himself".


title: Mars (mythology)

text: "Mars Augustus" appears in inscriptions at sites throughout the Empire, such as Hispania Baetica, Saguntum, and Emerita (Lusitania) in Roman Spain; Leptis Magna (with a date of 6–7 AD) in present-day Libya; and Sarmizegetusa in the province of Dacia.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: In addition to his cult titles at Rome, Mars appears in a large number of inscriptions in the provinces of the Roman Empire, and more rarely in literary texts, identified with a local deity by means of an epithet. Mars appears with great frequency in Gaul among the Continental Celts, as well as in Roman Spain and Britain. In Celtic settings, he is often invoked as a healer. The inscriptions indicate that Mars's ability to dispel the enemy on the battlefield was transferred to the sick person's struggle against illness; healing is expressed in terms of warding off and rescue.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: "Mars Balearicus" is a name used in modern scholarship for small bronze warrior figures from Majorca (one of the Balearic Islands) that are interpreted as representing the local Mars cult. These statuettes have been found within talayotic sanctuaries with extensive evidence of burnt offerings. "Mars" is fashioned as a lean, athletic nude lifting a lance and wearing a helmet, often conical; the genitals are perhaps semi-erect in some examples.


title: Mars (mythology)

text: Other bronzes at the sites represent the heads or horns of bulls, but the bones in the ash layers indicate that sheep, goats, and pigs were the sacrificial victims. Bronze horse-hooves were found in one sanctuary. Another site held an imported statue of Imhotep, the legendary Egyptian physician. These sacred precincts were still in active use when the Roman occupation began in 123 BCE. They seem to have been astronomically oriented toward the rising or setting of the constellation Centaurus.


title: Voyager Golden Record

text: The Voyager Golden Records are two phonograph records that were included aboard both Voyager spacecraft launched in 1977. The records contain sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth, and are intended for any intelligent extraterrestrial life form who may find them. The records are a time capsule.


title: Voyager Golden Record

text: Although neither Voyager spacecraft is heading toward any particular star, "Voyager 1" will pass within 1.6 light-years' distance of the star Gliese 445, currently in the constellation Camelopardalis, in about 40,000 years.


title: Voyager Golden Record

text: Carl Sagan noted that "The spacecraft will be encountered and the record played only if there are advanced space-faring civilizations in interstellar space, but the launching of this 'bottle' into the cosmic 'ocean' says something very hopeful about life on this planet."


title: Voyager Golden Record

text: The "Voyager 1" probe is currently the farthest human-made object from Earth. Both "Voyager 1" and "Voyager 2" have reached interstellar space, the region between stars where the galactic plasma is present. Like their predecessors "Pioneer 10" and "11", which featured a simple plaque, both "Voyager 1" and "Voyager 2" were launched by NASA with a message aboard—a kind of time capsule, intended to communicate to extraterrestrials a story of the world of humans on Earth.


title: Voyager Golden Record

text: The contents of the record were selected for NASA by a committee chaired by Carl Sagan of Cornell University. The selection of content for the record took almost a year. Sagan and his associates assembled 115 images and a variety of natural sounds, such as those made by surf, wind, thunder and animals (including the songs of birds and whales). To this they added audio content to represent humanity: spoken greetings in 55 ancient and modern languages, including a spoken greeting in English by U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim and a greeting by Sagan's six-year-old son, Nick; other human sounds, like footsteps and laughter (Sagan's); the inspirational message "Per aspera ad astra" in Morse code; and musical selections from different cultures and eras. The record also includes a printed message from U.S. president Jimmy Carter.


title: Voyager Golden Record

text: The collection of images includes many photographs and diagrams both in black and white, and color. The first images are of scientific interest, showing mathematical and physical quantities, the Solar System and its planets, DNA, and human anatomy and reproduction. Care was taken to include not only pictures of humanity, but also some of animals, insects, plants and landscapes. Images of humanity depict a broad range of cultures. These images show food, architecture, and humans in portraits as well as going about their day-to-day lives. Many pictures are annotated with one or more indications of scales of time, size, or mass. Some images contain indications of chemical composition. All measures used on the pictures are defined in the first few images using physical references that are likely to be consistent anywhere in the universe.


title: Voyager Golden Record

text: The musical selection is also varied, featuring works by composers such as J.S. Bach (interpreted by Glenn Gould), Mozart, Beethoven (played by the Budapest String Quartet), and Stravinsky. The disc also includes music by Guan Pinghu, Blind Willie Johnson, Chuck Berry, Kesarbai Kerkar, Valya Balkanska, and electronic composer Laurie Spiegel, as well as Azerbaijani folk music (Mugham) by oboe player Kamil Jalilov. The inclusion of Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" was controversial, with some claiming that rock music was "adolescent", to which Sagan replied, "There are a lot of adolescents on the planet." The selection of music for the record was completed by a team composed of Carl Sagan as project director, Linda Salzman Sagan, Frank Drake, Alan Lomax, Ann Druyan as creative director, artist Jon Lomberg, ethnomusicologist Robert E. Brown, Timothy Ferris as producer, and Jimmy Iovine as sound engineer. It also included the sounds of humpbacked whales from the 1970 album by Roger Payne, "Songs of the Humpback Whale".


title: Voyager Golden Record

text: The Golden Record also carries an hour-long recording of the brainwaves of Ann Druyan. During the recording of the brainwaves, Druyan thought of many topics, including Earth's history, civilizations and the problems they face, and what it was like to fall in love.


title: Voyager Golden Record

text: After NASA had received criticism over the nudity on the Pioneer plaque (line drawings of a naked man and woman), the agency chose not to allow Sagan and his colleagues to include a photograph of a nude man and woman on the record. Instead, only a silhouette of the couple was included. However, the record does contain "Diagram of vertebrate evolution", by Jon Lomberg, with drawings of an anatomically correct naked male and naked female, showing external organs. The person waving on the diagram was also changed: on the Pioneer plaque, the man is waving, while on the "Vertebrate evolution" image, the woman is waving.


title: Voyager Golden Record

text: The 115 images are encoded in analogue form and composed of 512 vertical lines. The remainder of the record is audio, designed to be played at revolutions per minute.


title: Voyager Golden Record

text: Jimmy Iovine, who was still early in his career as a music producer, served as sound engineer for the project at the recommendation of John Lennon, who was contacted to contribute but was unable to take part.


title: Voyager Golden Record

text: Sagan's team wanted to include the Beatles song "Here Comes the Sun" on the record, but the record company EMI, which held the copyrights, declined. In the 1978 book "Murmurs of Earth", the failure to secure permission for the song is cited as one of the legal challenges faced by the team compiling the Voyager Golden Record. In the book, Sagan said that the Beatles favoured the idea, but "[they] did not own the copyright, and the legal status of the piece seemed too murky to risk." When asked about the obstacle presented by EMI with regard to "Here Comes the Sun", despite the artists' wishes, Ann Druyan said in 2015: "Yeah, that was one of those cases of having to see the tragedy of our planet. Here's a chance to send a piece of music into the distant future and distant time, and to give it this kind of immortality, and they're worried about money ... we got this telegram [from EMI] saying that it will be $50,000 per record for two records, and the entire Voyager record cost $18,000 to produce." However, this was denied in 2017 by Timothy Ferris; in his recollection, "Here Comes the Sun" was never considered for inclusion.


title: Voyager Golden Record

text: In July 2015, NASA uploaded the audio contents of the record to the audio streaming service SoundCloud.