title: Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps

text: After this crash and the W Series incident just a day before, drivers from all series were calling for changes to that section of the track. Jack Aitken, who a month earlier suffered a broken collarbone and fractured vertebra after a crash at Raidillon in the 2021 24 Hours of Spa, said "everyone has gotten the picture of what needs changing" on social media, regarding the W Series crash. Guanyu Zhou stated "Eau Rouge corner in Spa needs to making a change," while Pietro Fittipaldi said "they need to do something to Eau Rouge to make it safer.” Carlos Sainz Jr. insisted the "corner maybe needs a bit of fine-tuning still." Sacha Fenestraz, Jake Hughes, Daniel Ricciardo and Toto Wolff all agreed changes need to be made immediately to make the circuit safer.


title: Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps

text: Multiple other incidents have happened at the Eau Rouge/Raidillon section of the circuit. These include crashes for Kevin Magnussen in 2016, where he managed to walk away with only minor injuries; Pietro Fittipaldi in 2018, where he broke his leg and Jack Aitken in 2021, where he broke his collarbone.


title: Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps

text: Ahead of the 2022 FIM EWC 24H Spa EWC Motos race and 2022 F1 Grand Prix, the circuit underwent a major facility and safety facility redevelopment which had been planned since . Extra run-off was added to the Eau Rouge/Raidillon part of the course – changes made in response to several big accidents in recent years at that section of the track, including the fatal accident of Anthoine Hubert during the 2019 Spa-Francorchamps Formula 2 round. In addition, gravel traps were added to six corners on the circuit, these being: La Source, Raidillon, Blanchimont, Les Combes, Stavelot and Pouhon. The track has also been resurfaced for this year's event altering track grip levels, with Max Verstappen the first driver to run a Formula One car around the renovated circuit in a Red Bull RB7. Jarno Zeffelli, head of Dromo Circuit Design, the company who carried out the renovations, revealed twenty possible different iterations of Eau Rouge were evaluated, with the selected iteration chosen with the help of form of ex-Formula One drivers Thierry Boutsen and Emanuele Pirro and fine tuned with simulations for Formula One and GT cars.


title: Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps

text: Besides Formula 1 other races in different motorsports classes are hosted at Spa-Francorchamps. The most notable ones are the GT World Challenge Europe, Formula 2, Formula 3, the RCN, Motorbike Endurance, DTM, and previously the ADAC GT Masters and the WTCC. The most famous long-distance and sports car races are the Spa 24 Hours and the 1000 km Spa. The circuit also hosts a 24-hour 2CV race.


title: Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps

text: The unofficial all-time track record set during a race weekend is 1:41.252, set by Lewis Hamilton in a Mercedes-AMG F1 W11 EQ Performance, during final qualifying for the 2020 Belgian Grand Prix. The official lap record for the current circuit layout is 1:46.286, set by Valtteri Bottas during the 2018 Belgian Grand Prix. The official race lap records of the modern Spa-Francorchamps circuit for several top series have been listed as:


title: Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps

text: As the long-time home of the Belgian Grand Prix and its location within the Ardennes forests it has been a popular backdrop for all kinds of fictional media, from appearances in comics and motion pictures, to regular appearances in dozens of video games going back into the 1980s.


title: Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps

text: The circuit has been used several times in the Tour de France cycling race. In 1980, the circuit was part of an individual time trial stage, won by Bernard Hinault (); while in 1989, several laps of the circuit were completed before the finish of the third stage, which was won by 's Raúl Alcalá. In 2017, the circuit was used as part of the third stage, starting in Verviers, Belgium and ending in Longwy, France.


title: Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps

text: The area of Spa-Francorchamps is often rainy or having cool air temperatures, which has led to Formula One events such as the 1998 14-car pileup on a waterlogged track and the dramatic finish to the 2008 event, when rain fell during the last few laps after an all-dry race. The Royal Meteorological Institute runs weather stations both in Stavelot and in Malmedy, which both show similar oceanic climates with some interior influence. Although temperatures generally often stay above freezing in winter, snowfall is quite common. During summer, temperatures most often remain in the low 20s, with frequent cloud cover and showers. With the World Endurance race running in spring and the Formula One race in late summer, hot temperatures during high-profile events are very rare.


title: ASOS (retailer)

text: ASOS plc ( ) is a British online fashion and cosmetic retailer. The company was founded in 2000 in London, primarily aimed at young adults. The website sells over 850 brands as well as its own range of clothing and accessories, and ships to all 196 countries from fulfilment centres in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Europe.


title: ASOS (retailer)

text: ASOS originally stood for "AsSeenOnScreen" with the tagline "Buy what you see on film and TV" because it exclusively sold imitations of clothing from those mediums (for example, Brad Pitt's red leather jacket from the 1999 film "Fight Club").


title: ASOS (retailer)

text: ASOS' headquarters are in Camden Town, at Greater London House, with additional offices in Berlin and Birmingham. , their main fulfilment centre is in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, where they employ 3,500 workers. The customer care department is based in Leavesden. The Danish company Bestseller A/S, owned by the business magnate Anders Holch Povlsen, is ASOS' largest stakeholder, with a 26% share.


title: ASOS (retailer)

text: ASOS was established on 3 June 2000, by Nick Robertson, Andrew Regan, Quentin Griffiths, and Deborah Thorpe. In 2001, ASOS was admitted to the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) on the London Stock Exchange. In 2003, ASOS shareholders agreed to change the names of AsSeenOnScreen Holdings PLC and AsSeenOnScreen Limited to ASOS plc and ASOS.com Limited. In 2004, the company reported a maiden profit, with sales almost doubling in its first half. In 2004, ASOS introduced their own label for women's clothing.


title: ASOS (retailer)

text: In 2005, the Buncefield Fuel Depot explosion led to the closure of the business for six weeks and £5m of stock was lost. In 2008, ASOS debuted kidswear on its site, however the branded market subsequently suffered declines at the expense of fast-growing own-label kidswear offers. In 2010, ASOS announced it would no longer offer kidswear, to concentrate on its core young adult fashion market.


title: ASOS (retailer)

text: In the final quarter of 2010, ASOS launched three international online shops in Germany, France and the US. In November 2010, ASOS launched its marketplace platform for boutiques, vintage collectors, individuals and designers to trade from virtual market stalls to customers globally.


title: ASOS (retailer)

text: In September 2011, ASOS launched three more sites in Australia, Italy and Spain. In 2012, ASOS opened its first international office in Sydney, Australia, followed by an office in New York. Later on, the company launched its first drama-game show series, called "#DIGIDATING", starring AJ Odudu. It was billed as an Internet dating show with backstage drama.


title: ASOS (retailer)

text: In 2013, ASOS opened its first office outside the South East, in Birmingham. Later in 2013, ASOS recalled belts contaminated with radioactive cobalt-60. ASOS Russia and China were launched in the same year. In 2014, a fire in the Barnsley warehouse prevented them from taking orders for almost three days. During the 2014 Formula One season, ASOS was a sponsor of the McLaren Formula One team. In 2015, ASOS had over 4,000 employees and was the UK's largest independent online and fashion beauty retailer.


title: ASOS (retailer)

text: In September 2016, an investigative report from Buzzfeed News alleged poor working conditions at ASOS' warehouse. However, company spokespersons contended that the isolated complaints reported in the Buzzfeed article were not reflective of the general working conditions there.


title: ASOS (retailer)

text: In April 2019, ASOS informed its clients through email that the company is looking into ways of changing its easy returns policy, after research showed customers were manipulating the easy return process. The company also admitted that the previous return policy was environmentally costly.


title: ASOS (retailer)

text: In April 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, ASOS was accused by some staff and workers unions of ""playing Russian roulette with people’s lives"" by failing to adequately enforce preventative measures in their Grimethorpe, Barnsley site. It was claimed that warehouse staff could not safely operate whilst maintaining social distancing, that the staff felt unsafe and that ASOS's product was not actually essential, thus not meeting the UK Government's recommendation that only essential workplaces remain open. The company refuted these claims, claiming they had sufficiently changed their operation to comply, Barnsley Council also inspected the site and found that the company was complying.


title: ASOS (retailer)

text: In October 2020, ASOS Marketplace announced that it would not be charging commission rates on small business transactions to provide support through the COVID-19 pandemic for sellers.


title: ASOS (retailer)

text: In April 2021, ASOS has partnered with delivery company DPD of DPDgroup to allow shoppers the option to donate unwanted clothing to charity. In June 2021, ASOS launched a partnership with Lush Fresh Handmade Cosmetics.


title: ASOS (retailer)

text: In February 2021, it was announced that ASOS was to acquire the Topshop, Topman, Miss Selfridge, and HIIT brands from collapsed Philip Green's Arcadia Group. On 4 February, the three former Arcadia Group brands became wholly owned subsidiaries of ASOS with 300 head-office staff members from Arcadia and Topshop/Topman Limited.


title: ASOS (retailer)

text: In November 2009, ASOS claimed a ratio of one Twitter follower to eight Facebook fans to 100 active e-mail subscribers. Their 2008 report pointed out that nearly 10% of sales could be directly attributed to email marketing.


title: ASOS (retailer)

text: In 2017, ASOS launched a campaign intended to take full advantage of the Instagram Stories feature, encouraging users to upload videos of purchased ASOS products. 3 million people interacted with the video in the UK. ASOS uses the #AsSeenOnMe hashtag and any use of the hashtag adds the photos to an ASOS online database.


title: ASOS (retailer)

text: On its YouTube channel, ASOS features series such as "How to Style", "Face + Body," and "Sneakers in 60 Seconds", which are hosted by fashion influencers to inspire users' fashion choices.


title: The Commuter (film)

text: The Commuter is a 2018 American action thriller film directed by Jaume Collet-Serra and written by Byron Willinger, Philip de Blasi and Ryan Engle. The film stars Liam Neeson, Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Jonathan Banks, and Sam Neill. It follows a man who is unwittingly recruited into a murder conspiracy after meeting a mysterious woman while on his daily train commute.


title: The Commuter (film)

text: The film premiered in New York City on January 8, 2018, and was theatrically released in the United States on January 12, 2018, by Lionsgate, and on January 19, 2018 in the United Kingdom by StudioCanal; it had a select IMAX release. The film grossed $119 million worldwide and received mixed reviews from critics, who called it similar to Neeson and Collet-Serra's previous film, "Non-Stop", but praised Neeson's performance and the genre thrills.


title: The Commuter (film)

text: Michael MacCauley, a former NYPD officer turned insurance agent, takes the same daily train commute on the Hudson Line from Tarrytown to Grand Central Terminal. He is abruptly laid off from his job, endangering his family's financial security. Waiting to reveal his dismissal to his wife and son, he instead confides in Murphy, his ex-partner still on the police force. On the train home, Michael meets a mysterious married woman, Joanna, who proposes a "hypothetical" situation: she asks him to locate "Prynne," the alias of an unknown passenger whom Joanna claims has a stolen item. Joanna tells Michael that he will find $25,000 in the bathroom and be paid a further $75,000 when his task is done. Alluding to Michael being a former cop, she departs, and he finds the $25,000.


title: The Commuter (film)

text: Michael attempts to leave the train with the money, but he is stopped by a young teenager with an envelope containing his wife's wedding ring, which she tells him is a warning. Unable to reach his wife by phone, he discreetly approaches fellow commuter Walt, writing a note on his newspaper to contact the police. Michael leaves Murphy a voicemail describing the situation and receives a call from Joanna threatening him and his family. She tells him the train is rigged with hidden cameras and to look outside, where he sees Walt pushed in front of a moving bus and killed. Joanna points Michael to a GPS tracker in his jacket to plant on Prynne.


title: The Commuter (film)

text: Michael induces a conductor to make random security searches, saying that he has observed suspicious activity by some of the passengers. But when the conductor tries to search a woman's bag, she protests loudly. A man immediately leaves the car, and Michael follows, but the man attacks him, and Michael plants the tracker on him. Murphy calls back and explains that Prynne is a key witness in the supposed suicide of city official Enrique Mendez, leading Michael to realize that Prynne will be killed and that Michael is being set up. In a deserted carriage, Michael discovers the body of the man he planted the tracker on and a badge revealing he was an FBI agent. Joanna calls, chastising Michael for marking the wrong person and warning that another passenger reported his suspicious activities to police, who stop the train to investigate. Michael hides with the corpse underneath the carriage but loses the $25,000.


title: The Commuter (film)

text: Sabotaging the train's air conditioning, he forces the remaining passengers into the last carriage and realizes another passenger, Oliver, killed the FBI agent. Oliver reveals that he received the same instructions for $100,000 but with orders to kill Prynne once Michael identified him. They fight, and Michael throws Oliver out of a window, thereby killing him. "Prynne" is revealed to be a 16-year-old girl named Sofia, who is holding incriminating information on powerful people; the agent was escorting her to witness protection at the train's final stop. Sofia reveals that Enrique, her cousin, was murdered by police officers.


title: The Commuter (film)

text: Joanna calls to force Michael to kill Sofia for the sake of his family, but he refuses, and Joanna detonates explosives to derail the train and kill everyone aboard. Michael saves the passengers by unhooking the final carriage at a curve in the tracks, but a conductor, Sam, is killed. Michael instructs the passengers to block the carriage windows with wet newspapers before a massive police force arrives. Assuming that Michael is holding the train hostage, authorities send Murphy to negotiate with him. Entering the carriage, Murphy unknowingly reveals himself as the rogue cop who killed Enrique, and he and Michael fight hand-to-hand. Michael removes Murphy's electronic ID tag, which identifies him as a "friendly" to the police snipers' thermal vision, resulting in Murphy being mistaken for Michael and shot dead.


title: The Commuter (film)

text: Sofia tells the FBI what she knows, and Michael is exonerated by the other passengers while the FBI rescues his family. His former captain admits that Murphy and other corrupt officers had been under investigation and offers Michael his job back. Michael reveals that he kept the incriminating hard drive Sofia gave him. Some time later, Joanna is on a train back from Chicago when Michael confronts her, showing her his detective's badge and preparing to arrest her.


title: The Commuter (film)

text: In January 2010, Olatunde Osunsanmi boarded the action-thriller film as director for the production company Gold Circle Films, with a screenplay written by Byron Willinger and Philip de Blasi. More than a year later, in August 2011, Julian Jarrold was reported to be directing the film instead. In January 2016, Jaume Collet-Serra closed a deal to direct the film, marking his fourth collaboration with Neeson, and also executive produced through Ombra Films, with partner Juan Sola. The film was produced by StudioCanal and The Picture Company.


title: The Commuter (film)

text: In September 2015, it was announced that Liam Neeson would star in the film. In June 2016, Vera Farmiga joined, in a role described as "a mysterious woman who boards a commuter train and proposes an enticing opportunity to Neeson's character, one that has dire circumstances if he accepts." The project marks the second working collaboration between Farmiga and Collet-Serra, after 2009's psychological thriller "Orphan". On July 13, Sam Neill, Elizabeth McGovern, and Jonathan Banks were added to the principal cast, and in August 2016, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith joined in an undisclosed role. The same month, Patrick Wilson joined the cast as a trusted friend of Neeson's character.


title: The Commuter (film)

text: Principal photography began on July 25, 2016, at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire, England, and continued in New York City. Neeson and McGovern were spotted on the set of the film at Worplesdon railway station in Surrey on September 18, 2016.


title: The Commuter (film)

text: In May 2017, it was reported that Roque Baños would compose the film's score. Varèse Sarabande released the soundtrack album digitally in January 2018, with a physical release following on February 9, 2018.


title: The Commuter (film)

text: In November 2015, Lionsgate pre-bought the domestic distribution rights to the film, in a deal with StudioCanal. "The Commuter" was originally scheduled for release in the United States on October 13, 2017, and was pushed back to January 12, 2018. The film was set for release in the United Kingdom on October 20, 2017 by StudioCanal, and was also pushed back to January 19, 2018, in accordance with the U.S. rescheduling. The film had a limited IMAX release.


title: The Commuter (film)

text: "The Commuter" grossed $36.3 million in the United States and Canada, and $83.6 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $119.9 million.


title: The Commuter (film)

text: In the United States and Canada, "The Commuter" was released alongside the openings of "Proud Mary" and "Paddington 2", and the wide expansion of "The Post", and was projected to gross $12–14 million from 2,892 theaters in its opening weekend. It made $4.5 million on its first day and $13.7 million over the weekend, on par with previous Neeson-Collet-Serra collaborations, finishing third at the box office behind holdover "" and "The Post". It made $6.6 million in its second weekend, dropping 51.8% and finishing 7th.


title: The Commuter (film)

text: Internationally, the film debuted at number two in Germany with $2.6 million. It went on to gross a total of $6.7 million in the country, the biggest market outside the US, as well as $5.6 million in the UK, $5.0 million in France and $2.6 million in Australia.


title: The Commuter (film)

text: On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The site's critics consensus reads, ""The Commuter"s cast is better than its workmanlike script – which helps make this reasonably diverting Liam Neeson action thriller worth the price of a matinee ticket or rental, if not a full-price ticket." Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 56 out of 100, based on 44 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale. Most fans rated the film higher than critics, with many of them praising the cast performances, the mystery elements, and the suspense.


title: Cabal

text: A cabal is a group of people who are united in some close design, usually to promote their private views or interests in an ideology, a state, or another community, often by and usually unbeknownst to those who are outside their group. The use of this term usually carries negative connotations of political purpose, conspiracy and secrecy. It can also refer to a secret plot or a clique, or it may be used as a verb (to form a cabal or secretly conspire).


title: Cabal

text: The term is frequently employed as an antisemitic dog whistle, as evidenced both by its Hebrew origin and by its evocation of centuries-old antisemitic tropes.


title: Cabal

text: The term "cabal" is derived from Kabbalah (a word that has numerous spelling variations), the Jewish mystical and spiritual interpretation of the Hebrew scripture (קַבָּלָה). In Hebrew, it means "reception" or "acceptance", denoting the "sod" (secret) level of Jewish exegesis. In European culture (Christian Cabala, Hermetic Qabalah) it became associated with occult doctrine or a secret.


title: Cabal

text: It came into English via the French "cabale" from the medieval Latin "cabbala", and was known early in the 17th century through usages linked to Charles II and Oliver Cromwell. By the middle of the 17th century, it had developed further to mean some intrigue entered into by a small group and also referred to the group of people so involved, i.e. a semi-secret political clique.


title: Cabal

text: There is a theory that the term took on its present meaning from a group of ministers formed in 1668 - the "Cabal ministry" of King Charles II of England. Members included Sir Thomas Clifford, Lord Arlington, the Duke of Buckingham, Lord Ashley and Lord Lauderdale, whose initial letters coincidentally spelled CABAL, and who were the signatories of the public Treaty of Dover that allied England to France in a prospective war against the Netherlands, and served as a cover for the Secret Treaty of Dover. The theory that the word originated as an acronym from the names of the group of ministers is a folk etymology, although the coincidence was noted at the time and could possibly have popularized its use.


title: Cabal

text: In Dutch, the word "kabaal", also "kabale" or "cabale," was used during the 18th century in the same way. The "Friesche Kabaal" (The Frisian Cabal) denoted the Frisian pro-Orange nobility which supported the "stadholderate", but also had great influence on "stadtholders" Willem IV and Willem V and their regents, and therefore on the matters of state in the Dutch Republic. This influence came to an end when the major Frisian nobles at the court fell out of favor. The word nowadays has the meaning of noise, uproar, racket. It was derived as such from French and mentioned for the first time in 1845.


title: Cabal

text: Followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory use "The Cabal" to refer to what is perceived as a secret worldwide elite organization who, according to proponents, wish to undermine democracy and freedom, and implement their own globalist agendas.


title: Cabal

text: Some anti-democratic movements in Australia, «particularly those that emerged during Canberra’s response to the pandemic, that Scott Morrison’s secret ministerial appointments were evidence of what they said was happening all along – a “secret cabal”».


title: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

text: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands is a third-person tactical shooter video game developed by Ubisoft Paris in collaboration with Ubisoft Bucharest, Ubisoft Reflections, Ubisoft Montpellier, Ubisoft Annecy, Ubisoft Milan and Ubisoft Belgrade, and published by Ubisoft. It was released worldwide on March 7, 2017, for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, as the tenth installment in the "Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon" franchise and is the first game in the "Ghost Recon" series to feature an open world environment.


title: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

text: The game moves away from the futuristic setting introduced in "Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter" and instead features a setting similar to the original "Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon". Ubisoft described it as one of the biggest open world games that they have published, with the game world including a wide variety of environments such as mountains, forests, deserts, and salt flats.


title: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

text: "Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands" received generally mixed to positive reviews from critics. A sequel, "Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint", was released on October 4, 2019.


title: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

text: "Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands" is a tactical cover based shooter game set in an open world environment and played from a third-person perspective with an optional first-person view for gun aiming. Players control members of the Delta Company, First Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group, also known as "Ghosts", a fictional elite special operations unit of the United States Army under the Joint Special Operations Command. It does not feature the futuristic setting used in "" and "", but instead adopts a modern-day setting, similar to the original "Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon". As a result, the equipment featured in the game is based on weapons and gear commonly used by military forces around the world. It features some original equipment, such as drones that can be used to tag enemies and show objectives. These drones have limited abilities until upgraded. The game is the first entry to feature an open world environment, which consists of nine different types of terrain, such as: mountains, forests, desert, salt flats, and also introduces a dynamic weather system as well as a day-night cycle. Completing missions during day-time allows players to spot enemies easily, while completing missions at night grants players a tactical advantage, as the night offers players better concealment and easier infiltration due to some guardsmen being asleep. Players are tasked with making observations before carrying out missions. A variety of vehicles, such as dirt bikes, helicopters and dune buggies are featured in the game. Unlike its predecessors, "Wildlands" features several side-missions.


title: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

text: When completing missions, players can reach the location where the mission starts through a variety of ways. Players can parachute from a helicopter, walk overland, or drive towards their objectives. Players are allowed to use multiple ways to complete objectives, such as utilizing stealth, melee combat, or using long-ranged or short-ranged weapons provided in the game. The game features outposts that can be taken down by players. Players can grab enemies at close range with one hand for defense as human shields, while using the other hand to shoot. Players can gain experience points to level up. The playable character can be customized, and loot found on enemies' corpses can be equipped by player characters. Weapons and gear can be upgraded as well. According to the creative director of the game, the AI of the game is unscripted and has their "own motivations and agendas".


title: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

text: Each of the 21 areas on the map is controlled by a "buchon", who is associated with one of four divisions of the cartel's operations: Influence, Security, Production and Smuggling. Clearing missions in an area and collecting key intel unlocks missions where players can target a "buchon" and eliminate him or her by killing or capturing the target (with some exceptions). Eliminating enough "buchones" in an operations division allows players to target that division's underboss, and eliminating that underboss and all of the "buchones" in an operations division leaves the division head vulnerable. Capturing this division head cripples and destabilizes the division and makes the cartel boss more vulnerable.


title: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

text: It features cooperative multiplayer mode, in which players can be joined by up to three other players to explore the game's world and to complete campaign missions. The game can be played solo, in which the player will be accompanied by three AI teammates, which the player can give orders to, if a player wants a more "lone wolf" playstyle they can be disabled via the settings. A competitive multiplayer mode has been released as part of a free update on October 10, 2017. It features an elimination type of game mode in a timed 4v4 match with revives. Players can level up through multiplayer gameplay which enables them to improve the different class of characters available.


title: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

text: The game takes place in Bolivia in July 2019. The country has become increasingly unstable as a Mexican drug cartel known as the Santa Blanca Cartel gains control of several regions through the country. Led by the brutal and religious cartel boss El Sueño, the cartel gains more power and influence within and outside the country and turns Bolivia into the world's largest producer of cocaine. In an attempt to fight off Santa Blanca's armed occupation in their country, the government of Bolivia establishes La Unidad, an elite special forces group tasked with fighting the Cartel. Both factions eventually establish a truce to prevent more bloodshed after months of brutal fighting, with some of Unidad's personnel secretly working for Santa Blanca. DEA Agent Ricardo "Ricky" Sandoval is sent undercover in Santa Blanca in a joint operation with the CIA to gather intelligence on the Cartel, eventually working for El Sueño himself. The United States is compelled to act when a bomb targets the American embassy in La Paz and Sandoval is executed by the cartel after his cover is blown.


title: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

text: A Ghost Recon fireteam is deployed to Bolivia as part of Operation Kingslayer, a joint operation between the CIA, DEA, and JSOC. The team consists of team leader and support gunner Nomad, vehicle and assault specialist Midas, hacker and tactical engineer Holt, and their sniper Weaver. The Ghosts enter Bolivia with their CIA contact, Karen Bowman, who was also a close friend to Sandoval. They meet Pac Katari, leader of the Kataris 26, the only resistance against Santa Blanca. Pac Katari requests they rescue Amaru, whose ideologies inspired the Kataris 26, from Santa Blanca. The Ghosts, with support from Bowman and the Kataris 26s, are free to tackle the cartel in any way they see fit.


title: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

text: The Ghosts dismantle the cartel piece by piece, targeting their four main operations by attacking drugs production facilities and stockpiles, disrupting smuggling operations, discrediting the cartel in the eyes of corrupt politicians and supporters, and inciting conflict between the cartel's senior figures. The team manage to capture or kill El Sueño's top lieutenants and their key subordinates to further weaken the cartel's grip over the region. El Sueño contacts the team and lures them to a meeting to meet face to face. The Ghosts hesitantly agree, but do not find El Sueño at the agreed location. El Sueño instead calls them via phone to bribe the Ghosts into working for him, though they refuse his offer and instead threaten him.


title: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

text: While dismantling the cartel, the team finds and collects audio tapes of agent Sandoval's reports to Bowman of his time working undercover for El Sueño. Sandoval's reports reveal that he had become deeply troubled by his mission, not only by the crimes he had committed to keep his cover but also by his superiors' reluctance to take action against the cartel. After recovering Sandoval's body from the cartel, Sueno contacts them again to offer them a tape of Sandoval's confession. Upon listening to it, they are disturbed to learn that Sandoval was responsible for the embassy bombing and framed Santa Blanca so that the United States government would be forced intervene in Bolivia. Though Bowman and the team are angered by Sandoval's deception, they decide to continue with the mission as the cartel still poses a threat.


title: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

text: After dismantling half of the cartel, Pac Katari claims his men have located El Sueño, but the Ghosts grow suspicious when they instead find the body of Amaru. Unable to contact Bowman, they find her captured by the Kataris 26 and Pac Katari breaks their alliance, claiming that the rebels must kill El Sueño themselves to avoid being seen as puppets of the United States. The Ghosts rescue Bowman and race to El Sueño's mausoleum to capture him before Pac Katari kills him. After fighting their way through both rebel and cartel opposition, the Ghosts and Bowman surround El Sueño, who has beheaded Katari. Despite his surrendering, Bowman receives a call from her superiors, informing that El Sueño had made a deal with the Department of Justice to give up the heads of other drug cartels in exchange for immunity and witness protection.


title: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

text: How the story ends depends on whether the Ghosts fully dismantled the cartel. If remnants of the cartel remain, Bowman will execute El Sueño, leading to her dismissal from the CIA and her arrest for murdering El Sueño. She expresses no regrets in doing so, fearing that El Sueño would become a dictator with the United States' backing.


title: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

text: The canon ending occurs when the Ghosts have fully dismantled the cartel, Bowman takes El Sueño into protective custody. El Sueño provides further intelligence on other drug cartels, terrorist groups, and arms smugglers. Bowman predicts that when the intelligence runs out, El Sueño will either be extradited by Mexico or cut loose and start a new drug cartel, starting the cycle over again. She and the Ghosts resolve to prepare themselves for the next fight.


title: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

text: Shortly after the game's release, Ubisoft announced plans to release two episodes of downloadable content, each with their own narrative set in Bolivia.


title: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

text: This episode sees the player take on the role of an unnamed Ghost sent undercover into Bolivia by the CIA to identify "El Invisible", the elusive head of Santa Blanca's smuggling network. The Ghost poses as a mercenary for hire and befriends the leaders of the gangs carrying out smuggling operations. Assisting the Ghost is CIA handler Karen Bowman and a local fisherman using the alias Señor Sonrisa, who is a CIA informant. Each gang leader provides clues to El Invisible's identity before the Ghost assassinates them. Eventually, the Ghost's notoriety grows to the point where El Invisible recruits them into Santa Blanca, erasing the Ghost's identity and staging their death. However, El Invisible is aware that the Ghost's true identity and has them imprisoned. The Ghost escapes and with the help from Señor Sonrisa, recovers the handheld device El Invisible uses to run Santa Blanca's smuggling network anonymously and seemingly kills El Invisible. When the device is decrypted, it unleashes a virus that compromises the CIA. The Ghost deduces that Señor Sonrisa is actually El Invisible, and that he orchestrated the operation to escape Santa Blanca, attack the CIA and disappear for good. Unable to explain Señor Sonrisa's motive for attacking them, the CIA spend the next two years tracking him. He is eventually found in Arizona and the Ghost is assigned a mission to kill him. The Ghost makes their way to Señor Sonrisa’s fishing cabin and assassinates him.


title: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

text: The second episode follows the Ghost Recon fireteam on their return to Bolivia. The cocaine trade has collapsed in the aftermath of Operation Kingslayer and with Pac Katari's death, the Kataris 26 have descended into in-fighting. In a bid to restore order, the Bolivian government has tried to rebuild the tactical police unit Unidad with special forces from across Latin America. Now known as "Los Extranjeros", these remnants of Unidad prove to be corrupt and seize control of cocaine production. When Sonsira's data breach in the CIA compromises the identities of every active agent in Bolivia, the Ghosts return to extract the compromised agents. Their mission goes awry when their helicopter is shot down moments after they enter Bolivian airspace. They regroup and rescue a CIA field officer code-named Socrates. As Los Extranjeros are better-armed, trained and organised than Unidad, extracting the compromised agents proves impossible. Socrates instead proposes that the Ghosts target Los Extranjeros' commanders and rebuild the Kataris 26. Their actions prompt Los Extranjeros' commanding officer, Colonel Merlo, to personally take charge of the remaining forces. When Merlo is killed, Los Extranjeros tears itself apart, and evidence of their crimes causes a political scandal that upends the Bolivian government. The Ghosts and Socrates depart, questioning whether this will be enough to change the course of Bolivia's future.


title: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

text: As part of the ongoing effort to support the game, Ubisoft released short-term Special Operations DLC.


title: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

text: The first pack, released in December 2017, features a mission to hunt the Predator. In the expansion, the team investigate several brutal killings in the forested areas of Bolivia, finding several skinned corpses and a crashed alien vessel until encountering the deadly Predator. After a lengthy battle, the team manage to defeat the Predator before it activates its self-destruct, killing itself in a massive explosion. The squad debate informing Bowman of the encounter, but ultimately choose to keep it to themselves. Due to an expiration in licensing rights with 20th Century Fox, the content is no longer available as of December 2020.


title: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

text: The next pack, "Operation Watchman", features a tie-in with fellow Clancy series "Splinter Cell", with actor Michael Ironside reprising the role of Sam Fisher. Fisher is deployed to Bolivia in order to recover sensitive intelligence data from a rogue CIA officer. Fisher has Fourth Echelon contact Bowman and borrow the Ghost team to assist in his mission. Fisher's deployment takes him to a Unidad base in La Cruz, where he infiltrates the base ahead of the Ghost team and assassinates the rogue agent prior to their arrival. Upon greeting Nomad, Fisher hacks into the Unidad servers in order to erase all traces of the sensitive information from Skell Technology while Nomad's team provides backup. While ex-filtrating from the base, Fisher reveals that the intelligence is data on sensitive research and development that could "change the future of warfare". Fisher has a debriefing with Bowman before deploying for his next mission to recover missing nuclear devices.


title: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

text: The 2018 DLC, "Operation Archangel", features characters from another Clancy series, "Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six" – namely, operators from the "Rainbow Six Siege" multiplayer tactical shooter. The team intercepts a distress signal outside the city of Frontera and find a crashed truck surrounded by piles of cash and several dead cartel members. The team reports the massacre to Bowman, who informs them that Rainbow operative Taina "Caveira" Pereira of Brazil's Batalhão de Operações Policiais Especiais (BOPE) has recently gone AWOL from Team Rainbow and is suspected of killing several Santa Blanca gang members. Bowman then introduces the team to a friend of hers, Navy SEAL and fellow Rainbow operative Meghan J. "Valkyrie" Castellano, who requests the team's assistance in locating Caveira. Hoping to stop the rogue operative from potentially starting an international incident, Bowman and the team agree to help bring in Caveira.


title: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

text: The team soon meets a third Rainbow operative, Emmanuelle "Twitch" Pichon of France's GIGN (Groupe d'Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale), who requests the team bring her to the crash site. Their investigation leads them to a cartel outpost where they interrogate a Santa Blanca lieutenant, who reveals that Caveira is after someone named Dengoso. Twitch briefly parts ways with before rendezvousing with them at Dengoso's apartment in the hopes of finding any hints as to why Caveira's after him. A message on Dengoso's answering machine reveals that he is Caveira's younger brother João, and an undercover officer for the Federal Police of Brazil. Sent by his superiors to infiltrate Santa Blanca, Dengoso's cover had recently been blown and he is now being held captive by the cartel at a chemical institute. With Caveira already on her way to Dengoso's location, Twitch and the team catch up to her at the front gates and agree to assist her in rescuing Dengoso from Santa Blanca. The rescue is a success, though tensions rise between Team Rainbow and the Ghosts when Bowman demands Dengoso's cooperation in sharing anything he knows about El Sueno and his operations in Bolivia. Despite Caveira's insistence on leaving immediately with Dengoso, the latter agrees to cooperate with Bowman only with permission from his superiors. Nomad soon breaks the tension between both sides by allowing Dengoso to leave with Team Rainbow, much to Bowman's chagrin.


title: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

text: The winter 2018 DLC, "Operation Silent Spade", released in December 2018 features characters from "". Lieutenant Colonel Scott Mitchell, the team's commanding officer, temporarily reassigns them from Operation Kingslayer for an internal Ghost operation. Having found evidence of Russian Ultranationalist Forces working with Santa Blanca to mine deposits of weapons-grade uranium in Bolivia, Mitchell orders the team to rendezvous with the newest member of the Ghosts, John Kozak at a Unidad base to prevent the Russians from leaving Bolivia with the uranium. The mission is a success, but they soon discover that significant amounts of uranium are still unaccounted for. Nomad contacts Bowman, who leads them to a trainyard where the uranium was transported to. They learn that Santa Blanca plans to detonate a dirty bomb in Barvechos, a city that openly supports the rebels. With Kozak's help, the team attempts to disarm the bomb but is ultimately unable to, forcing them to drive it off a cliff into a mining area. With the bomb dealt with and the uranium accounted for, Mitchell and Kozak depart Bolivia.


title: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

text: Ubisoft announced another update on April 30, 2019, known as "Operation Oracle" featuring Jon Bernthal as Major Cole D. Walker, a Ghost Recon operative who becomes the antagonist of "Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint". The update was released on May 2, 2019. Bowman gives Nomad's team a mission to infiltrate a Unidad facility in a railway tunnel on the Bolivian border. Upon entering the facility, the team find dead Unidad soldiers. Investigating further, they learn that the facility is being used to test drones reverse-engineered from classified Skell-Tech models that the Ghosts use. Nomad's team eventually encounter Cole D. Walker, a fellow Ghost, who has already infiltrated the facility and informs the team that a Skell-Tech engineer named Daniel Rodriguez Arellano has been selling classified information to Unidad and that Bowman is involved. They are attacked by Unidad soldiers and are forced to fight their way out of the facility. Though Walker insists Bowman cannot be trusted, Nomad persuades him to return Daniel to a safehouse to investigate Bowman's activities further. Upon dropping Daniel at the safehouse, Nomad and the team decide to tail Daniel. Eavesdropping on his phone calls, the team learn that Daniel is actually a CIA asset that has been compromised and that Unidad is threatening his family. Walker soon sets up a meet at an airfield where he shows Nomad the bodies of his team, who were killed by drones Daniel gave to Unidad and that Bowman is responsible for their deaths. Walker and Nomad go to a meeting between Bowman and Daniel, but find Unidad have captured Bowman and detained Daniel. Nomad interrogates Daniel who reveals that he sold out Bowman to Unidad to protect his family and Walker executes him. They regroup and infiltrate a nearby Unidad base to rescue Bowman. Escorting her to a safehouse, she claims that Daniel was part of a long-running CIA operation and she was his handler, but never knew the full extent of the mission. Despite their conflicting views on how to handle the situation, Nomad ultimately persuades Walker to trust their judgment on Bowman, as she has never given him a reason to doubt her.


title: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

text: The development of "Wildlands" began in 2012, and was revealed in the end of Ubisoft's E3 2015 press conference. Ubisoft claimed that "Wildlands" would feature the largest open world environment the company has created. In order to create a realistic Bolivian environment, the developers visited Bolivia for two weeks and asked for consultation from local Bolivians. A modified version of the AnvilNext engine for supporting the large open world environments was used for the game.


title: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

text: Ubisoft released a 30-minute prequel short film titled "Ghost Recon Wildlands: War Within the Cartel" on February 16, 2017 on their Twitch channel and later on Amazon Prime. It stars Tip "T.I." Harris and was executive produced by Roberto Orci, Jay Williams, Noam Dromi and Orlando Jones through the production company Legion of Creatives. Avi Youabian directed the short.


title: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

text: As the game was revealed at E3 2015, some critics called the announcement one of the most surprising reveals during E3. "Wildlands" was nominated for IGN's E3 2015 Game of the Show, Best PlayStation 4 Game, Best Xbox One Game and Best PC Game awards, and received one of GameSpot's Best of E3 2015 awards. It was also named the best co-operative and the best shooter by "Game Informer" in their Best of E3 2015 Awards.


title: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

text: The beta of the game was released on Steam and lasted from February 23 to February 27, 2017. On March 1, 2017, Ubisoft revealed that "Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands" beta-phase had attracted more than 6.8 million players, making it its most successful beta to date.


title: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

text: "Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands" received "generally favorable" reviews for the Xbox One version of the game, while the PlayStation 4 and PC versions received "mixed or average" reviews from critics, according to review aggregator Metacritic, selling four million copies in the first six months, alone.


title: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

text: "The Guardian" praised the size of the open world but noted the civilians seem not to bother much about the presence of armored men and, as the reviewer put it, "the warfare being waged around them". However "The Guardian" praised how the villains are written; they are "if not three- then at least two-dimensional characters". "The Guardian"s reviewer appreciated the multiplayer, but wrote "By comparison, solo play can feel a little soulless".


title: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

text: Game Informer's reviewer was impressed by big and varied open world. He praised the thematic diversity of missions, however he writes that most of them boil down to clearing or infiltrating enemy bases.


title: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

text: Both "The Guardian"s and Game Informer's reviewer noted that careful plans can be disrupted by enemy patrols. "The Guardian"s reviewer stated that the shooting which then begins is not much in Tom Clancy's style. "Game Informer"s reviewer wrote: "I appreciated how this x-factor makes you think on your toes, but I came to hate how frequently they [the patrolmen] appeared out of nowhere".


title: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

text: In conclusion "The Guardian" rated the game 3 out of 5 stars and Game Informer rated it 8.25 out of 10.


title: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

text: "EGM" reviewer was critical about the controls: "Aiming feels notably stiff and imprecise, even after aggressive fiddling with the game options" and "vehicle control feels far too loose". The "EGM" reviewer, however, praised array of gadgets, like drone and explosives, as well as support options like mortar strikes and vehicle drop-offs. "Push Square", on the other hand, described the gadgets in the game as "the most uninteresting roster imaginable with even the most exciting – a parachute and mortar bombardment – failing to raise your pulse at all". "Push Square" considered the game has entertaining elements, namely: "a nice mix of stealth and action, a squad at your command, and enemies that'll mostly drop with a burst of bullets" however he felt the game does not "feel like a "Ghost Recon" game". He blamed the open world, which, as he admitted, has "some truly impressive environments", but results in making mission design and enemy AI worse.


title: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

text: "GameStar" praised varied scenery and sharp textures. They called the shooting "convincing" and praised multiplayer, both co-op as well as player vs player. However they criticised writing of the story, the dialogue and characters. In the end they scored the game 85 out of 100.


title: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

text: Destructoid reviewer wrote of missions which are very difficult to complete. USGamer reviewer partly agreed, writing about frustrating missions, but finding solutions for some missions which are "bending the rules of the game by doing something unrealistic, or that simply feels like cheating".


title: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

text: Destructoid reviewer, even though he listed various types of missions in the game, concluded: "Every mission is practically the same, both in terms of structure and context". USGamer agreed, writing: "the deeper I've gotten into the game, the more repetition I've begun to experience in terms of its missions".


title: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

text: Destructoid reviewer criticised the open world, even though he admits the graphics are fine: "Everything feels like a cheap movie set, rather than a detailed, lived-in world. Yes, the lighting is great and the vistas look beautiful, but none of that matters if the sandbox is little more than a stretch of land in between objective markers". Here, USGamer disagreed, writing: "Graphically stunning, absolutely massive, and packing some marvelous views and vistas, the developers at Ubisoft Paris have done an incredible job of creating a fantastic game world in which to play".


title: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

text: USGamer reviewer was amazed by the range of weapons to choose from, including additional accessories. In the end Destructoid gave 2.5 out of 10, and USGamer gave the game 4 out of 5.


title: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

text: In March 2017, the Bolivian government expressed their dissatisfaction over the game's portrayal of their country as a violent narco-state, and filed a formal complaint to the French embassy in La Paz. Bolivia's Interior Minister Carlos Romero stated that the country has the standing to take legal action.


title: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

text: Ubisoft responded with the following statement; ""Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands" is a work of fiction, similar to movies or TV shows. Like all "Tom Clancy's" games from Ubisoft, the game takes place in a modern universe inspired by reality, but the characters, locations and stories are all fantasies created solely for entertainment purposes. Bolivia was chosen as the background of this game based on its magnificent landscapes and rich culture. While the game's premise imagines a different reality than the one that exists in Bolivia today, we do hope that the in-game world comes close to representing the country's beautiful topography, and that players enjoy exploring the diverse and open landscapes it moved us to create."


title: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

text: "Wildlands" was the best-selling retail game in both the UK and the US in March 2017, surpassing competitors including "Horizon Zero Dawn" and "". It was also one of the biggest video game launches in 2017, and it became the fastest-selling title in the "Tom Clancy's" franchise, behind "Tom Clancy's The Division". "Wildlands" was revealed to be the seventh best-selling retail game in 2017 by the NPD Group. More than 15 million players have played the game since its release.


title: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

text: The game was nominated for "Best Co-op Game" at "PC Gamer"s 2017 Game of the Year Awards. It won the award for "Best Cooperative Multiplayer" at "Game Informer"s Best of 2017 Awards, and also won the awards for "Best Setting" (Bolivia), "Best Comeback" in multiplayer, and "Best Cooperative Multiplayer" in their 2017 Shooter of the Year Awards. EGMNow ranked the game 23rd on their list of the 25 Best Games of 2017.


title: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands

text: In early May 2019, "Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint" was announced during a livestream event. It serves as a sequel to 2017's "Wildlands".


title: Rear admiral (United States)

text: A rear admiral in the uniformed services of the United States is either of two different ranks of commissioned officers: one-star flag officers and two-star flag officers. By contrast, in most other countries, the term "rear admiral" refers only to an officer of two-star rank.


title: Rear admiral (United States)

text: Rear admiral (lower half) (abbreviated as RDML), is a one-star flag officer, with the pay grade of O-7 in the United States Navy, the United States Coast Guard, the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Officer Corps.


title: Rear admiral (United States)

text: Rear admiral (lower half) ranks above captain and below rear admiral. Rear admiral (lower half) is equivalent to the rank of brigadier general in the United States Army, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Space Force and equivalent to the rank of commodore in most other navies. In the United States uniformed services, rear admiral (lower half) replaced the rank of commodore in 1985.


title: Rear admiral (United States)

text: Rear admiral (abbreviated as RADM), also sometimes referred to informally as "rear admiral (upper half)", is a two-star flag officer, with the pay grade of O-8 in the United States Navy, the United States Coast Guard, the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Officer Corps and the United States Maritime Service.


title: Rear admiral (United States)

text: Rear admiral ranks above rear admiral (lower half) and below vice admiral. Rear admiral is equivalent to the rank of major general in the U.S. Army, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Space Force. It is the highest permanent rank during peacetime in the uniformed services. All higher ranks are temporary ranks and linked to their specific commands or office and expire with the expiration of their term of command or office.


title: Rear admiral (United States)

text: Before the American Civil War, the U.S. Navy had resisted creating the rank of admiral. Instead, they preferred the term "flag officer", in order to distinguish the rank from the traditions of the European navies. During the American Civil War, the U.S. Congress honored David Farragut's successful assault on the city of New Orleans by creating the rank of rear admiral on July 16, 1862.


title: Rear admiral (United States)

text: During World War II, the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Coast Guard both had a temporary one-star rank of commodore that was used in limited circumstances. By the end of the war, all incumbents had been advanced to the rank of two-star rear admiral and the commodore rank was eliminated in both services. Both the Navy and the Coast Guard divided their rear admirals into "lower half" and full rear admirals, or "upper half", the former being paid at the same rate as a one-star brigadier general in the U.S. Army, U.S. Marine Corps and the newly independent U.S. Air Force. Lower-half rear admirals were eventually promoted to full rear admirals, or upper half status, where they would receive pay equivalent to a two-star major general. However, both categories of rear admiral wore two-star insignia, an issue that was a source of consternation to the other services.


title: Rear admiral (United States)

text: At the same time, the Navy also bestowed the title of commodore on selected U.S. Navy captains who commanded multiple subordinate units, such as destroyer squadrons, submarine squadrons and air wings and air groups not designated as carrier air wings or carrier air groups. Although not flag officers, these officers were entitled to a personal blue and white command pennant containing the initials, acronym abbreviation or numerical designation of their command.


title: Rear admiral (United States)

text: In 1981, expanded commodore from a title to an official permanent grade by creating the one-star rank of commodore admiral. After only 11 months, the rank was reverted to just commodore but kept the one-star insignia. However, this caused issues with the Navy due to the difficulty in discriminating those commodores who were flag officers from commodores who were senior captains in certain command positions. Then in 1985, renamed commodore to the current grade of rear admiral (lower half) effective on November 8, 1985.


title: Rear admiral (United States)

text: Up until 1981 all rear admirals wore two stars on their shoulder boards and rank insignia. Since then, rear admirals (lower half) wear one star while rear admirals wear two; verbal address remains "rear admiral" for both ranks. On correspondence, where the rear admiral's rank is spelled out, the acronym (LH) and (UH) follows the rear admiral's rank title to distinguish between one and two stars.


title: Rear admiral (United States)

text: Beginning around 2001, the Navy, Coast Guard, and NOAA Corps started using the separate rank abbreviations RDML (one star) and RADM (two stars), while the Public Health Service continued to use the abbreviation RADM for both. The Public Health Service formally adopted the RDML abbreviation for the O-7 pay grade in 2022.


title: Rear admiral (United States)

text: As flag officers, the flags flown for rear admirals of the unrestricted line of the U.S. Navy have one or two white, single-point-up stars on blue fields for the lower half or upper half, respectively. The flags of restricted line officers and staff corps officers have blue stars on a white field. All services officially list the two-star grade as rear admiral and not rear admiral (upper half) as stated by and of the U.S. Code of law. However, the four uniformed services will sometimes list the rank as rear admiral (upper half) to help the general public distinguish between the two grades.


title: Rear admiral (United States)

text: Although it exists largely as a maritime training organization, the United States Maritime Service does use the ranks of rear admiral (upper half) and rear admiral (lower half). By law, the Service has the same rank structure as the United States Coast Guard, but its uniforms are more similar to the United States Navy.


title: Rear admiral (United States)

text: By statute, Congress has expressly limited the total number of flag officers that may be on active duty at any given time. The total number of active duty flag officers is capped at 162 for the Regular Navy, augmented by a smaller number of additional flag officers in the Navy Reserve who are either on full-time active duty, temporary active duty, or on the Reserve Active Status List as part-time drilling reservists. Some of these billets are reserved or set by statute. For example, the Deputy Judge Advocate General of the Navy is a two-star rear admiral in the Navy. A newer statute enacted in 2016 lowers the cap on the total number of active duty flag officers in the Department of Defense to 151, effective December 31, 2022.


title: Rear admiral (United States)

text: In the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, at least half of the Assistant Surgeons General are one-star rear admirals and no more than half are two-star rear admirals. The Coast Guard's chief medical officer is also a commissioned corps two-star rear admiral, on assignment to the Coast Guard. Officers serving in certain intelligence positions are not counted against the statutory limit.


title: Rear admiral (United States)

text: For the Navy and the Coast Guard, to be promoted to the permanent grade of rear admiral (lower half) or rear admiral, officers who are eligible for promotion to these ranks are screened by an in-service promotion board composed of other flag officers from their branch of service. This promotion board then generates a list of officers it recommends for promotion to flag rank. This list is then sent to the service secretary and the joint chiefs for review before it can be sent to the President, through the defense secretary, for consideration.


title: Rear admiral (United States)

text: The president nominates officers to be promoted from this list with the advice of the Secretary of Defense, the service secretary, and if applicable, the service's chief of staff or commandant. The President may nominate any eligible officer who is not on the recommended list if it serves in the interest of the nation, but this is uncommon. The Senate must then confirm the nominee by a majority vote before the officer can be promoted. Once confirmed, a nominee is promoted once he or she assumes an office that requires or allows an officer to hold that rank. For one-star or two-star positions of office that are reserved by statute, the President nominates an officer for appointment to fill that position. For the Navy and the Coast Guard, because the one-star and two-star grades are permanent ranks, the nominee may still be screened by an in-service promotion board to add their input on the nominee before the nomination can be sent to the Senate for approval. For the NOAA Commissioned Officer Corps and the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, one-star and two-star rank are achieved by appointment from the President, or from their department secretary, and do not require senatorial approval.


title: Rear admiral (United States)

text: The standard tour length for most rear admiral positions is three years, but some are set at four or more years by statute. For the Navy, Coast Guard, and NOAA Corps, both grades of rear admiral are permanent ranks and do not expire when the officer vacates a one-star or two-star position. The Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, however, employs permanent promotions in both grades of rear admiral as well as position-linked temporary appointments in both grades (e.g., Assistant Surgeons General). Their temporary ranks expires when those officers vacate certain temporary positions of office designated to bear those ranks.


title: Rear admiral (United States)

text: By tradition in the United States Navy, when an officer is selected or appointed to flag rank, all current Navy flag officers write the selectee a letter congratulating him or her for attaining flag officer status.


title: Rear admiral (United States)

text: Other than voluntary retirement, statute sets a number of mandates for retirement. All one-star officers must retire after five years in grade or 30 years of service, whichever is later, unless they are selected or appointed for promotion or reappointed to grade to serve longer. All two-star officers must retire after five years in grade or 35 years of service, whichever is later, unless appointed for promotion or reappointed to grade to serve longer. Otherwise all flag officers must retire the month after their 64th birthday. However, the Secretary of Defense can defer a flag officer's retirement until the officer's 66th birthday and the President can defer it until the officer's 68th birthday. Flag officers typically retire well in advance of the statutory age and service limits, so as not to impede the upward career mobility of their juniors.


title: Sweet Caroline

text: "Sweet Caroline" is a song written and performed by American singer Neil Diamond and released in May 1969 as a single with the title "Sweet Caroline (Good Times Never Seemed So Good)". It was arranged by Charles Calello, and recorded at American Sound Studio in Memphis, Tennessee.


title: Sweet Caroline

text: Diamond has provided different explanations for the song's origins. In a 2007 interview, Diamond stated the inspiration for his song was John F. Kennedy's daughter, Caroline, who was eleven years old at the time it was released. Diamond sang the song for her at her 50th birthday celebration in 2007. On December 21, 2011, in an interview on CBS's "The Early Show", Diamond said that a magazine cover photo of Caroline as a young child on a horse with her parents created an image in his mind, and the rest of the song came together about five years after seeing the picture. However, in 2014 Diamond said the song was about his then-wife Marcia, but he needed a three-syllable name to fit the melody. The song has proven to be enduringly popular and, as of November 2014, has sold over two million digital downloads in the United States.


title: Sweet Caroline

text: The song reached No. 4 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart the week ending August 16, 1969, and was certified gold by the RIAA on August 18, 1969, for sales of one million singles. "Sweet Caroline" was also the first of fifty-eight entries on the US Easy Listening chart, peaking at No. 3.


title: Sweet Caroline

text: In the autumn of 1969, Diamond performed "Sweet Caroline" on several television shows. It later reached No. 8 on the UK singles chart in March 1971.


title: Sweet Caroline

text: In July 2021, "Sweet Caroline" re-entered the UK Singles Chart again 50 years after its first UK release, following its use by England supporters during Euro 2020. It re-entered the chart at No. 48 on the week ending 15 July and a week later it rose to No. 20.


title: Sweet Caroline

text: "Cash Box" called the song "sensational," highlighting the fact that Diamond's "material and production sound take on a completely different dimension in this love ballad which maintains a warm glow throughout with occasional surges of strength."


title: Sweet Caroline

text: There are three distinct mixes of this song. In the original mono 45 mix, the orchestra and glockenspiel are more prominent than in the stereo version on the "Brother Love's Travelling Salvation Show" LP. The third version was a remix found only on the initial CD release of Diamond's "His 12 Greatest Hits". This version has the orchestra mixed down and has the background vocals mixed up. It has a longer fade as well. A live version of the song is on his "Hot August Night" LP.


title: Sweet Caroline

text: During the COVID-19 pandemic, Diamond changed some of the lyrics to "Hands ... washing hands ... don't touch me ... I won't touch you."


title: Sweet Caroline

text: The National Football League's Carolina Panthers have played the song at all home games in Charlotte since 1996. In 2020, the Panthers played the song to an empty Bank of America Stadium in honor of all front-line workers in the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Sweet Caroline

text: The song has been played at Fenway Park, home of Major League Baseball's Boston Red Sox, since at least 1997, and in the middle of the eighth inning at every game since 2002. On opening night of the 2010 season at Fenway Park, the song was performed live by Diamond himself.


title: Sweet Caroline

text: Since 2008, the University of Pittsburgh has used "Sweet Caroline" as an unofficial school sing-along song by inserting "Let's Go Pitt!" over the instrumental three-beat "Woah oh oh" interval after the title refrain and replacing the repeated phrase "So good" with "Go Pitt!" The song started as a rallying anthem played between the third and fourth quarters of Pittsburgh Panthers football games, but has been adopted for use during other university sports contests, alumni events, and student ceremonies, including graduation commencement ceremonies, and references to the song have appeared on various school merchandise.


title: Sweet Caroline

text: "Sweet Caroline" is sometimes part of the regular rotation of songs during sports events at other universities, and although noted as not as being a tradition specific to or uniquely associated with Pennsylvania State University, out of a speculated concern with the song's lyrics in the wake of the Penn State child sex abuse scandal, the university removed the song from the rotation of music played at football games prior to the 2012 season. However, performances resumed to loud renditions at Penn State football games in September 2013.


title: Sweet Caroline

text: Several days after the Boston Marathon bombing in April 2013, Neil Diamond led the crowd at Fenway Park in a rendition of the song. Sales of the song surged nearly 600 per cent in the week after the bombings, to 19,000 copies, up from 2,800 the week before. Diamond said that he would donate his royalties from those sales to the One Fund Boston charity to help the people affected by the bombings.


title: Sweet Caroline

text: On February 22, 2020, newly crowned WBC and "The Ring" heavyweight world champion Tyson Fury sang the song live in the ring at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas to celebrate his knockout victory against Deontay Wilder following the conclusion of their rematch. Fury had also previously sang "Sweet Caroline" at a press conference ahead of his fight against Francesco Pianeta in 2018.


title: Sweet Caroline

text: The song is used at the Ontario Hockey League's Erie Otters home games, where fans replace the "bum, bum, bum" with "London sucks!" in reference to the rival London Knights.


title: Sweet Caroline

text: The National Hockey League Vancouver Canucks regularly play this song at Rogers Arena, their home rink, during 3rd-period stoppages in play to energize the home crowd.


title: Sweet Caroline

text: Fans of the Northern Ireland national football team adopted the song as an anthem after it was played in the post-match stadium celebrations after defeating England in 2005. It has however been a fan favourite at Windsor Park for 20 years. The song has been used at home games ever since most notably during UEFA Euro 2016. Northern Irish darts player Daryl Gurney began using the song as his walk-on song in 2015 for Professional Darts Corporation events, in tribute to the football team.


title: Sweet Caroline

text: On June 29, 2021, at the Round of 16 of the UEFA Euro 2020 championships, after the England national football team won 2–0 against Germany, England supporters amongst the 40,000 spectators who were present at Wembley Stadium remained and collectively sang the song after the match. The team manager, Gareth Southgate, remarked "So, to be able to send them home feeling as they do tonight, to hear them at the end ... I mean, you can't beat a bit of 'Sweet Caroline', can you? That's a belter, really." During post-match interviews, the team captain, Harry Kane, was visibly moved as he paused to listen to the singing crowd, remarking: "Yeah, it's special. I'm speechless, I don't know what to say." After their 2–1 semi-final win against Denmark, the England players led the crowd through a rendition of the song.


title: Sweet Caroline

text: The song was subsequently adopted by the England women's football team on their run to victory in Euro 2022, being played in the stadiums after each game as England won; Chloe Kelly, who scored the winning goal in the final, was being interviewed pitch side after the win but suddenly ran off with the microphone when the song started playing to sing along with the team.


title: Sweet Caroline

text: Reading started using the song as requested by the players in their first season in the Premiership for the 2006/07 season. According to former player Glenn Little, this was selected as part of a celebration of their record-winning 106-point Championship season. However, it was not until 2015, when Little suggested it should be re-established, that it became a fan favourite. The song was later adopted by supporters of Aston Villa during their Championship game against Stoke City in February 2019, as they battled from an early deficit to obtain a draw. After the game, Aston Villa had 12-game unbeaten run, which enabled them to reach the 2019 English Football League play-offs. Subsequently, they continued to sing the song after they memorably won a pivotal penalty shootout at their cross-city rivals West Bromwich Albion, before eventually winning the play-offs and winning promotion to the Premier League for the 2019–20 season. The club players had later continued their strong association with the song, and sang the song within their dressing room, after a pivotal draw at their final match of the season, to narrowly escape relegation from the Premier League by only one point.


title: Sweet Caroline

text: For cricket in England, the home crowd at Lord's, along with the players of the England cricket team, sang the song after their dramatic boundary count win at the Final of the 2019 Cricket World Cup.


title: Sweet Caroline

text: The song was played in Arthur Ashe Stadium after British tennis player Emma Raducanu won the 2021 US Open Women's singles final.


title: Sweet Caroline

text: On November 15, 2021, the Swiss national football team sang the song after a 4–0 win against Bulgaria in honor to the Northern Ireland national football team, who drew against the Italian national football team, thus permitting the Swiss to qualify directly to the 2022 FIFA World Cup.


title: Sweet Caroline

text: The song is also played before the main event of Matchroom Sports boxing cards in the UK and sometimes overseas.


title: Sweet Caroline

text: In 2019, "Sweet Caroline" was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".


title: Sweet Caroline

text: Austrian singer DJ Ötzi released a version of the song in 2009 through UMG. His version reached number 19 on the German Singles Chart, staying for 18 weeks in the German charts. It also peaked at number 18 on the Austrian charts. The song was also included in the "Hotel Engel (Gold Edition)".


title: R. Madhavan filmography

text: R. Madhavan is an Indian actor known for his work predominantly in Tamil and Hindi films, and also in few Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada films. He began his acting career in the early 1990s by featuring in Hindi soap operas like "Banegi Apni Baat", "Sea Hawks", "Ghar Jamai" and "Saaya". In 2000, Madhavan gained recognition in Tamil cinema by playing the lead role in Mani Ratnam's romantic drama film "Alaipayuthey". He followed this with appearances in two commercially successful Tamil films, Gautham Vasudev Menon's directorial debut "Minnale" (2001) and Madras Talkies' "Dumm Dumm Dumm" (2001), as well as his first Hindi film in a leading role, "Rehnaa Hai Terre Dil Mein" (2001).


title: R. Madhavan filmography

text: In the early 2000s, Madhavan worked on Tamil films including "Kannathil Muthamittal" (2002), "Run" (2002), "Anbe Sivam" (2003) and "Aaytha Ezhuthu" (2004). Madhavan also simultaneously pursued a career in the Hindi film industry, by appearing in supporting roles in films including Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra's "Rang De Basanti" (2006), Mani Ratnam's biopic "Guru" (2007) and Rajkumar Hirani's "3 Idiots" (2009), which became the highest-grossing Indian film of all time upon release at the time. Other Tamil productions that Madhavan worked on during the late 2000s included "Evano Oruvan" (2007), which he also produced, and the horror film "Yavarum Nalam" (2009).


title: R. Madhavan filmography

text: After appearing in "Tanu Weds Manu" (2011) and "Vettai" (2012), Madhavan took an extended break from signing new film projects. His comeback films, the romantic-comedy "Tanu Weds Manu Returns" (2015), the bilingual sports drama "Irudhi Suttru" (2016) and the crime film "Vikram Vedha" (2017) all performed well at the box office. His performance as a boorish boxing coach in "Irudhi Suttru" fetched him Best Actor awards at the Filmfare, IIFA and SIIMA award ceremonies.


title: Edward Jenner

text: Edward Jenner, (17 May 1749 – 26 January 1823) was a British physician and scientist who pioneered the concept of vaccines, and created the smallpox vaccine, the world's first vaccine. The terms "vaccine" and "vaccination" are derived from "Variolae vaccinae" ('pustules of the cow'), the term devised by Jenner to denote cowpox. He used it in 1798 in the title of his "Inquiry into the Variolae vaccinae known as the Cow Pox", in which he described the protective effect of cowpox against smallpox.


title: Edward Jenner

text: In the West, Jenner is often called "the father of immunology", and his work is said to have saved "more lives than any other man". In Jenner's time, smallpox killed around 10% of global population, with the number as high as 20% in towns and cities where infection spread more easily. In 1821, he was appointed physician to King George IV, and was also made mayor of Berkeley and justice of the peace. A member of the Royal Society. In the field of zoology, he was among the first modern scholars to describe the brood parasitism of the cuckoo (Aristotle also noted this behaviour in his "History of Animals"). In 2002, Jenner was named in the BBC's list of the 100 Greatest Britons.


title: Edward Jenner

text: Edward Jenner was born on 17 May 1749 in Berkeley, Gloucestershire, England as the eighth of nine children. His father, the Reverend Stephen Jenner, was the vicar of Berkeley, so Jenner received a strong basic education.


title: Edward Jenner

text: When he was young, he went to school in Wotton-under-Edge at Katherine Lady Berkeley's School and in Cirencester. During this time, he was inoculated (by variolation) for smallpox, which had a lifelong effect upon his general health. At the age of 14, he was apprenticed for seven years to Daniel Ludlow, a surgeon of Chipping Sodbury, South Gloucestershire, where he gained most of the experience needed to become a surgeon himself.


title: Edward Jenner

text: In 1770, aged 21, Jenner became apprenticed in surgery and anatomy under surgeon John Hunter and others at St George's Hospital, London. William Osler records that Hunter gave Jenner William Harvey's advice, well known in medical circles (and characteristic of the Age of Enlightenment), "Don't think; try." Hunter remained in correspondence with Jenner over natural history and proposed him for the Royal Society. Returning to his native countryside by 1773, Jenner became a successful family doctor and surgeon, practising on dedicated premises at Berkeley. In 1792, "with twenty years' experience of general practice and surgery, Jenner obtained the degree of MD from the University of St Andrews".


title: Edward Jenner

text: Jenner and others formed the Fleece Medical Society or Gloucestershire Medical Society, so called because it met in the parlour of the Fleece Inn, Rodborough, Gloucestershire. Members dined together and read papers on medical subjects. Jenner contributed papers on angina pectoris, ophthalmia, and cardiac valvular disease and commented on cowpox. He also belonged to a similar society which met in Alveston, near Bristol.


title: Edward Jenner

text: He became a master mason on 30 December 1802, in Lodge of Faith and Friendship #449. From 1812 to 1813, he served as worshipful master of Royal Berkeley Lodge of Faith and Friendship.


title: Edward Jenner

text: Edward Jenner was elected fellow of the Royal Society in 1788, following his publication of a careful study of the previously misunderstood life of the nested cuckoo, a study that combined observation, experiment, and dissection.


title: Edward Jenner

text: Jenner described how the newly hatched cuckoo pushed its host's eggs and fledgling chicks out of the nest (contrary to existing belief that the adult cuckoo did it). Having observed this behaviour, Jenner demonstrated an anatomical adaptation for itthe baby cuckoo has a depression in its back, not present after 12 days of life, that enables it to cup eggs and other chicks. The adult does not remain long enough in the area to perform this task. Jenner's findings were published in "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society" in 1788.


title: Edward Jenner

text: "The singularity of its shape is well adapted to these purposes; for, different from other newly hatched birds, its back from the scapula downwards is very broad, with a considerable depression in the middle. This depression seems formed by nature for the design of giving a more secure lodgement to the egg of the Hedge-sparrow, or its young one, when the young Cuckoo is employed in removing either of them from the nest. When it is about twelve days old, this cavity is quite filled up, and then the back assumes the shape of nestling birds in general." Jenner's nephew assisted in the study. He was born on 30 June 1737.


title: Edward Jenner

text: Jenner's understanding of the cuckoo's behaviour was not entirely believed until the artist Jemima Blackburn, a keen observer of birdlife, saw a blind nestling pushing out a host's egg. Blackburn's description and illustration were enough to convince Charles Darwin to revise a later edition of "On the Origin of Species".


title: Edward Jenner

text: Jenner's interest in zoology played a large role in his first experiment with inoculation. Not only did he have a profound understanding of human anatomy due to his medical training, but he also understood animal biology and its role in human-animal trans-species boundaries in disease transmission. At the time, there was no way of knowing how important this connection would be to the history and discovery of vaccinations. We see this connection now; many present-day vaccinations include animal parts from cows, rabbits, and chicken eggs, which can be attributed to the work of Jenner and his cowpox/smallpox vaccination.


title: Edward Jenner

text: Jenner married Catherine Kingscote (who died in 1815 from tuberculosis) in March 1788. He might have met her while he and other fellows were experimenting with balloons. Jenner's trial balloon descended into Kingscote Park, Gloucestershire, owned by Catherine's father Anthony Kingscote. They had three children: Edward Robert (1789–1810), Robert Fitzharding (1792–1854) and Catherine (1794–1833).


title: Edward Jenner

text: He earned his MD from the University of St Andrews in 1792. He is credited with advancing the understanding of angina pectoris. In his correspondence with Heberden, he wrote: "How much the heart must suffer from the coronary arteries not being able to perform their functions".


title: Edward Jenner

text: Inoculation was already pioneered in Asian and African medicine and was a standard practice but involved serious risks, one of which was the fear that those inoculated would then transfer the disease to those around them due to their becoming carriers of the disease. In 1721, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu had imported variolation to Britain after having observed it in Istanbul. While Johnnie Notions had great success with his self-devised inoculation (and was reputed not to have lost a single patient), his method's practice was limited to the Shetland Isles. Voltaire wrote that at this time 60% of the population caught smallpox and 20% of the population died from it. Voltaire also states that the Circassians used the inoculation from times immemorial, and the custom may have been borrowed by the Turks from the Circassians. In 1766, Daniel Bernoulli analysed smallpox morbidity and mortality data to demonstrate the efficacy of inoculation.


title: Edward Jenner

text: By 1768, English physician John Fewster had realised that prior infection with cowpox rendered a person immune to smallpox. In the years following 1770, at least five investigators in England and Germany (Sevel, Jensen, Jesty 1774, Rendell, Plett 1791) successfully tested in humans a cowpox vaccine against smallpox. For example, Dorset farmer Benjamin Jesty successfully vaccinated and presumably induced immunity with cowpox in his wife and two children during a smallpox epidemic in 1774, but it was not until Jenner's work that the procedure became widely understood. Jenner may have been aware of Jesty's procedures and success. A similar observation was later made in France by Jacques Antoine Rabaut-Pommier in 1780.


title: Edward Jenner

text: Noting the common observation that milkmaids were generally immune to smallpox, Jenner postulated that the pus in the blisters that milkmaids received from cowpox (a disease similar to smallpox, but much less virulent) protected them from smallpox.


title: Edward Jenner

text: On 14 May 1796, Jenner tested his hypothesis by inoculating James Phipps, an eight-year-old boy who was the son of Jenner's gardener. He scraped pus from cowpox blisters on the hands of Sarah Nelmes, a milkmaid who had caught cowpox from a cow called Blossom, whose hide now hangs on the wall of the St. George's Medical School library (now in Tooting). Phipps was the 17th case described in Jenner's first paper on vaccination.


title: Edward Jenner

text: Jenner inoculated Phipps in both arms that day, subsequently producing in Phipps a fever and some uneasiness, but no full-blown infection. Later, he injected Phipps with variolous material, the routine method of immunization at that time. No disease followed. The boy was later challenged with variolous material and again showed no sign of infection. No unexpected side effects occurred, and neither Phipps nor any other recipients underwent any future 'breakthrough' cases.


title: Edward Jenner

text: Donald Hopkins has written, "Jenner's unique contribution was not that he inoculated a few persons with cowpox, but that he then proved [by subsequent challenges] that they were immune to smallpox. Moreover, he demonstrated that the protective cowpox pus could be effectively inoculated from person to person, not just directly from cattle." Jenner successfully tested his hypothesis on 23 additional subjects.


title: Edward Jenner

text: Jenner continued his research and reported it to the Royal Society, which did not publish the initial paper. After revisions and further investigations, he published his findings on the 23 cases, including his 11-month-old son Robert. Some of his conclusions were correct, some erroneous; modern microbiological and microscopic methods would make his studies easier to reproduce. The medical establishment deliberated at length over his findings before accepting them. Eventually, vaccination was accepted, and in 1840, the British government banned variolationthe use of smallpox to induce immunityand provided vaccination using cowpox free of charge ("see" Vaccination Act).


title: Edward Jenner

text: The success of his discovery soon spread around Europe and was used "en masse" in the Spanish Balmis Expedition (1803–1806), a three-year-long mission to the Americas, the Philippines, Macao, China, led by Francisco Javier de Balmis with the aim of giving thousands the smallpox vaccine. The expedition was successful, and Jenner wrote: "I don't imagine the annals of history furnish an example of philanthropy so noble, so extensive as this". Napoleon, who at the time was at war with Britain, had all his French troops vaccinated, awarded Jenner a medal, and at the request of Jenner, he released two English prisoners of war and permitted their return home. Napoleon remarked he could not "refuse anything to one of the greatest benefactors of mankind".


title: Edward Jenner

text: Jenner's continuing work on vaccination prevented him from continuing his ordinary medical practice. He was supported by his colleagues and the King in petitioning Parliament, and was granted £10,000 in 1802 for his work on vaccination. In 1807, he was granted another £20,000 after the Royal College of Physicians confirmed the widespread efficacy of vaccination.


title: Edward Jenner

text: Jenner was later elected a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1802, a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1804, and a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1806. In 1803 in London, he became president of the Jennerian Society, concerned with promoting vaccination to eradicate smallpox. The Jennerian ceased operations in 1809. Jenner became a member of the Medical and Chirurgical Society on its founding in 1805 (now the Royal Society of Medicine) and presented several papers there. In 1808, with government aid, the National Vaccine Establishment was founded, but Jenner felt dishonoured by the men selected to run it and resigned his directorship.


title: Edward Jenner

text: Returning to London in 1811, Jenner observed a significant number of cases of smallpox after vaccination. He found that in these cases the severity of the illness was notably diminished by previous vaccination. In 1821, he was appointed physician extraordinary to King George IV, and was also made mayor of Berkeley and magistrate (justice of the peace). He continued to investigate natural history, and in 1823, the last year of his life, he presented his "Observations on the Migration of Birds" to the Royal Society.


title: Edward Jenner

text: Jenner was found in a state of apoplexy on 25 January 1823, with his right side paralysed. He did not recover and died the next day of an apparent stroke, his second, on 26 January 1823, aged 73. He was buried in the family vault at the Church of St Mary, Berkeley.


title: Edward Jenner

text: Neither fanatic nor lax, Jenner was a Christian who in his personal correspondence showed himself quite spiritual. Some days before his death, he stated to a friend: "I am not surprised that men are not grateful to me; but I wonder that they are not grateful to God for the good which He has made me the instrument of conveying to my fellow creatures".


title: Edward Jenner

text: In 1980, the World Health Organization declared smallpox an eradicated disease. This was the result of coordinated public health efforts, but vaccination was an essential component. Although the disease was declared eradicated, some pus samples still remain in laboratories in Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta in the US, and in State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology VECTOR in Koltsovo, Novosibirsk Oblast, Russia.


title: Edward Jenner

text: Jenner's vaccine laid the foundation for contemporary discoveries in immunology. In 2002, Jenner was named in the BBC's list of the 100 Greatest Britons following a UK-wide vote. Commemorated on postage stamps issued by the Royal Mail, in 1999 he featured in their World Changers issue along with Charles Darwin, Michael Faraday and Alan Turing. The lunar crater Jenner is named in his honour. Jenner was recognized in the TV show ""The Walking Dead"". In "TS-19", a CDC scientist is named Edwin Jenner.


title: Directed acyclic graph

text: In mathematics, particularly graph theory, and computer science, a directed acyclic graph (DAG) is a directed graph with no directed cycles. That is, it consists of vertices and edges (also called "arcs"), with each edge directed from one vertex to another, such that following those directions will never form a closed loop. A directed graph is a DAG if and only if it can be topologically ordered, by arranging the vertices as a linear ordering that is consistent with all edge directions. DAGs have numerous scientific and computational applications, ranging from biology (evolution, family trees, epidemiology) to information science (citation networks) to computation (scheduling).


title: Directed acyclic graph

text: A graph is formed by vertices and by edges connecting pairs of vertices, where the vertices can be any kind of object that is connected in pairs by edges. In the case of a directed graph, each edge has an orientation, from one vertex to another vertex. A path in a directed graph is a sequence of edges having the property that the ending vertex of each edge in the sequence is the same as the starting vertex of the next edge in the sequence; a path forms a cycle if the starting vertex of its first edge equals the ending vertex of its last edge. A directed acyclic graph is a directed graph that has no cycles.


title: Directed acyclic graph

text: A vertex of a directed graph is said to be reachable from another vertex when there exists a path that starts at and ends at . As a special case, every vertex is considered to be reachable from itself (by a path with zero edges). If a vertex can reach itself via a nontrivial path (a path with one or more edges), then that path is a cycle, so another way to define directed acyclic graphs is that they are the graphs in which no vertex can reach itself via a nontrivial path.


title: Directed acyclic graph

text: The reachability relation of a DAG can be formalized as a partial order on the vertices of the DAG. In this partial order, two vertices and are ordered as exactly when there exists a directed path from to in the DAG; that is, when can reach (or is reachable from ). However, different DAGs may give rise to the same reachability relation and the same partial order. For example, a DAG with two edges and has the same reachability relation as the DAG with three edges , , and . Both of these DAGs produce the same partial order, in which the vertices are ordered as .


title: Directed acyclic graph

text: The transitive closure of a DAG is the graph with the most edges that has the same reachability relation as the DAG. It has an edge for every pair of vertices (, ) in the reachability relation of the DAG, and may therefore be thought of as a direct translation of the reachability relation into graph-theoretic terms. The same method of translating partial orders into DAGs works more generally: for every finite partially ordered set , the graph that has a vertex for every element of and an edge for every pair of elements in is automatically a transitively closed DAG, and has as its reachability relation. In this way, every finite partially ordered set can be represented as a DAG.


title: Directed acyclic graph

text: The transitive reduction of a DAG is the graph with the fewest edges that has the same reachability relation as the DAG. It has an edge for every pair of vertices (, ) in the covering relation of the reachability relation of the DAG. It is a subgraph of the DAG, formed by discarding the edges for which the DAG also contains a longer directed path from to .


title: Directed acyclic graph

text: Like the transitive closure, the transitive reduction is uniquely defined for DAGs. In contrast, for a directed graph that is not acyclic, there can be more than one minimal subgraph with the same reachability relation. Transitive reductions are useful in visualizing the partial orders they represent, because they have fewer edges than other graphs representing the same orders and therefore lead to simpler graph drawings. A Hasse diagram of a partial order is a drawing of the transitive reduction in which the orientation of every edge is shown by placing the starting vertex of the edge in a lower position than its ending vertex.


title: Directed acyclic graph

text: A topological ordering of a directed graph is an ordering of its vertices into a sequence, such that for every edge the start vertex of the edge occurs earlier in the sequence than the ending vertex of the edge. A graph that has a topological ordering cannot have any cycles, because the edge into the earliest vertex of a cycle would have to be oriented the wrong way. Therefore, every graph with a topological ordering is acyclic. Conversely, every directed acyclic graph has at least one topological ordering. The existence of a topological ordering can therefore be used as an equivalent definition of a directed acyclic graphs: they are exactly the graphs that have topological orderings.


title: Directed acyclic graph

text: In general, this ordering is not unique; a DAG has a unique topological ordering if and only if it has a directed path containing all the vertices, in which case the ordering is the same as the order in which the vertices appear in the path.


title: Directed acyclic graph

text: The family of topological orderings of a DAG is the same as the family of linear extensions of the reachability relation for the DAG, so any two graphs representing the same partial order have the same set of topological orders.


title: Directed acyclic graph

text: The number of DAGs on labeled vertices, for (without restrictions on the order in which these numbers appear in a topological ordering of the DAG) is


title: Directed acyclic graph

text: Eric W. Weisstein conjectured, and proved, that the same numbers count the (0,1) matrices for which all eigenvalues are positive real numbers. The proof is bijective: a matrix is an adjacency matrix of a DAG if and only if is a (0,1) matrix with all eigenvalues positive, where denotes the identity matrix. Because a DAG cannot have self-loops, its adjacency matrix must have a zero diagonal, so adding preserves the property that all matrix coefficients are 0 or 1.


title: Directed acyclic graph

text: A "multitree" (also called a "strongly unambiguous graph" or a "mangrove") is a DAG in which there is at most one directed path between any two vertices. Equivalently, it is a DAG in which the subgraph reachable from any vertex induces an undirected tree.


title: Directed acyclic graph

text: A "polytree" (also called a "directed tree") is a multitree formed by orienting the edges of an undirected tree.


title: Directed acyclic graph

text: An "arborescence" is a polytree formed by orienting the edges of an undirected tree away from a particular vertex, called the "root" of the arborescence.