title: American Assassin

text: Meanwhile, word comes down through intelligence channels that weapons grade nuclear material has disappeared from a decommissioned Russian nuclear facility. The material in question appears to be heading to Iranian hardliners, who are upset with the Iranian government's nuclear deal with the U.S. While verifying the sale of the nuclear material in Poland the plutonium is intercepted by a third party, who eliminates the sellers before vanishing into the crowd. In Virginia, Hurley sees news reports about the incident in Poland and tentatively identifies the perpetrator as a former Navy SEAL and Orion operative believed to have been killed in action and now going by the code-name "Ghost". Hurley's team is sent into Turkey to intercept the buyer Ghost is working for.


title: American Assassin

text: In Istanbul, Hurley's team is identified, and the attempted intercept of the trigger device fails. Rapp pursues the seller to his apartment, and after killing the man, retrieves his laptop. The information leads the team to Rome, where Orion operatives identify a nuclear physicist needed to craft the nuclear material into a functional nuclear weapon. While in Rome, Rapp uncovers a co-worker, Annika, as a foreign agent for Iran. She explains that she is working for the mainstream Iranian faction which is attempting to stop the hardliners from acquiring nuclear material. During a meeting between Hurley and an Iranian contact, Ghost ambushes them, kills the contact and captures Hurley.


title: American Assassin

text: At the CIA safe house in Rome, Annika is being moved under guard by two Mossad agents when Rapp intercepts the car and frees her. Working together, they locate the subterranean headquarters Ghost is using to build the nuclear device. After infiltrating the tunnels, Rapp locates and frees a badly injured Hurley. Annika is captured by Ghost and used as a hostage, so she kills herself with Ghost's gun to give Rapp a chance to kill Ghost. However, Ghost escapes onto a boat with the nuke. Based on an earlier conversation, Hurley deduces that Ghost intends to make a kamikaze attack against the U.S. Navy's Sixth Fleet. Rapp chases after Ghost's boat, while the Sixth Fleet, alerted to the impending nuclear attack through CIA channels, prepares for the attack.


title: American Assassin

text: Aboard Ghost's boat, Rapp kills Ghost and attempts to divert the boat away from the Sixth Fleet to shield the ships from the blast, before throwing the nuclear weapon into the sea and escaping aboard a Navy rescue helicopter sent by Irene to rescue Hurley. Seconds later the device detonates, creating a massive sink hole and subsequent tsunami that inundates the Sixth Fleet vessels, but the fleet survives the blast.


title: American Assassin

text: In the aftermath of the blast, Hurley is recovering from his injuries and notes that Rapp is on vacation in Dubai, while watching news reports indicating that the Iranian faction which tried to obtain the nuclear weapon will win the presidential election and is blaming the nuclear attack on the CIA. In Dubai, the faction candidate and his escorts enter an elevator in which Rapp is already present, smiling.


title: American Assassin

text: CBS Films acquired the rights to Flynn's book series in 2008. "The New York Times" bestseller "Consent to Kill" was intended to be the first film in a proposed series. "Consent to Kill" was scheduled to be produced by Lorenzo di Bonaventura and Nick Wechsler; the screenplay was written by Jonathan Lemkin. The studio's last few films had performed poorly, causing them to delay the film's production. Antoine Fuqua was originally attached to direct, with names being rumored to play Mitch Rapp including Gerard Butler, Colin Farrell and Matthew Fox. However, being a prequel novel, "American Assassin" provided the opportunity to start at the very beginning of the character Rapp's career instead.


title: American Assassin

text: Jeffrey Nachmanoff replaced Ed Zwick as director on February 12, 2012. At the time, Zwick was also writing the script with Marshall Herskovitz, but another draft was written by Mike Finch in October 2012. A further director and screenwriter change took place with Michael Cuesta and Stephen Schiff, respectively, on board as of March 2016.


title: American Assassin

text: Production needed to start by April 30, 2016, or the rights to the film would have reverted to the Vince Flynn Estate.


title: American Assassin

text: On October 10, 2012, Chris Hemsworth was believed to have been offered $10 million to play the lead, Mitch Rapp. However, a month later, it was revealed Hemsworth had turned down the role due to scheduling issues. On May 10, 2016, after being "courted for months", Dylan O'Brien was cast in the lead role with the "idea that O'Brien's Mitch Rapp is college aged, and the hope is the actor grows as the series progresses."


title: American Assassin

text: Bruce Willis was in talks to star as Stan Hurley in September 2012, but Michael Keaton was cast as Rapp's mentor on March 9, 2016. Taylor Kitsch joined the cast on August 18, 2016, as the "villainous operative."


title: American Assassin

text: On September 7, 2016, Shiva Negar and Sanaa Lathan joined the cast, Negar in a key role as an agent who teams up with Rapp and Hurley, and Lathan as CIA Deputy Director Irene Kennedy, who is to the Flynn novels what M is to James Bond. In the books, Kennedy is white, but "Lathan shone above a large number of actresses who tested for the job as an actress who could grow in the role as her character rises from running strike teams to the heights of power."


title: American Assassin

text: Principal photography took place between September and December 2016 in London, Rome, and Phuket, with additional filming in Valletta Barry (Wales) and Birmingham.


title: American Assassin

text: A first picture of Dylan O'Brien as Mitch Rapp was released on September 12, 2016. On November 2, 2016, production stills of the cast were published.


title: American Assassin

text: A first trailer was shown to exhibitors at the Lionsgate panel in CinemaCon in March 2017. The first poster and teaser trailer were released online in April 2017. On June 20, the red band trailer was released.


title: American Assassin

text: "American Assassin" grossed $36.2 million in the United States and Canada, and $30.9 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $67.2 million, against a production budget of $33 million.


title: American Assassin

text: In North America, the film was released alongside "Mother!", and was projected to gross $12–14 million from 3,154 theaters in its opening weekend. It made $915,000 from Thursday night previews at 2,400 theaters and $5.8 million on its opening day. It went on to debut to $14.8 million, finishing second at the box office, behind holdover "It". In its second weekend, the film made $6.3 million, dropping to 4th.


title: American Assassin

text: On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of based on reviews, and an average rating of . The site's critical consensus reads, ""American Assassin" hits a few easy targets, but without enough style or wit to truly bring its characters to life—or stand out in a crowded field of more compelling spy thrillers." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score 45 out of 100, based on reviews from 30 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale, while comScore reported filmgoers gave it a 67% overall positive and a 43% "definite recommend".


title: American Assassin

text: Matt Zoller Seitz of RogerEbert.com gave the film two-and-a-half out of four stars, mainly criticizing the film's confused disposition towards revenge: "["American Assassin"] keeps telling you that revenge poisons the soul and is generally a bad idea while serving up awesome scenes of Mitch and colleagues killing terrorists... It doesn't take long to figure out where the film's heart lies, and it would've been more honest if it had embraced that impulse from the start." In addition, other negative reviews came from those such as Ed Potton of "The Times", who said "It's just about conceivable that somebody who has never seen a spy thriller might find some enjoyment in "American Assassin"", and Soren Anderson of the "Seattle Times", who wrote, "O'Brien is grimly focused as Rapp, but there isn't a lot of electricity in his performance. He gets the job done, but he's no Matt Damon or Daniel Craig. Their spy-guy shoes remain unfilled."


title: American Assassin

text: Kenneth Turan of the "Los Angeles Times" wrote "'American Assassin' is a serviceable, workman-like thriller that makes the familiar as involving as it's going to get. It demonstrates that even Jason Bourne lite is better than no Bourne at all, if you're in the mood." Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" commended the film, saying "Gorgeously shot by Enrique Chediak, American Assassin may be too slick for its own good, but O'Brien cuts deep enough to make you root for a Rapp franchise." Seitz especially praised Michael Keaton's performance as a Cold War veteran, stating that he was the only actor to have built "an emotionally cohesive, memorable character" despite "material that too often mistakes exposition for psychology." Jamie Righetti of Indiewire concluded that while the film presents a "predictable" script and the "bare minimum of fast action and ass-kicking mandated by [its] formula," paired with "O'Brien's charm and an unquestionably tantalizing ending, it's possible that audiences haven't seen the last of Mitch Rapp."


title: Jack and the Beanstalk

text: "Jack and the Beanstalk" is an English fairy tale. It appeared as "The Story of Jack Spriggins and the Enchanted Bean" in 1734 and as Benjamin Tabart's moralized "The History of Jack and the Bean-Stalk" in 1807. Henry Cole, publishing under pen name Felix Summerly, popularized the tale in "The Home Treasury" (1845), and Joseph Jacobs rewrote it in "English Fairy Tales" (1890). Jacobs' version is most commonly reprinted today, and is believed to be closer to the oral versions than Tabart's because it lacks the moralizing.


title: Jack and the Beanstalk

text: "Jack and the Beanstalk" is the best known of the "Jack tales", a series of stories featuring the archetypal Cornish and English hero and stock character Jack.


title: Jack and the Beanstalk

text: According to researchers at Durham University and Universidade Nova de Lisboa, the story originated more than five millennia ago, based on a wide-spread archaic story form which is now classified by folklorists as ATU 328 "The Boy Who Stole Ogre's Treasure".


title: Jack and the Beanstalk

text: Jack, a poor country boy, trades the family cow for a handful of magic beans, which grow into a massive, towering beanstalk reaching up into the clouds. Jack climbs the beanstalk and finds himself in the castle of an unfriendly giant. The giant senses Jack's presence and cries,


title: Jack and the Beanstalk

text: Outwitting the giant, Jack is able to retrieve many goods once stolen from his family, including a bag of gold, an enchanted goose that lays golden eggs and a magic golden harp that plays and sings by itself. Jack then escapes by chopping down the beanstalk. The giant, who is pursuing him, falls to his death, and Jack and his family prosper.


title: Jack and the Beanstalk

text: "The Story of Jack Spriggins and the Enchanted Bean" was published in London by J. Roberts in the 1734 second edition of "Round About Our Coal-Fire". In 1807, English writer Benjamin Tabart published "The History of Jack and the Bean Stalk", possibly actually edited by William and/or Mary Jane Godwin.


title: Jack and the Beanstalk

text: The story is older than these accounts. According to researchers at Durham University and the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, the tale type (AT 328, "The Boy Steals Ogre's Treasure") to which the Jack story belongs may have had a Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) origin (the same tale also has Proto-Indo-Iranian variants), and so some think that the story would have originated millennia ago (4500 BC to 2500 BC).


title: Jack and the Beanstalk

text: In some versions of the tale, the giant is unnamed, but many plays based on it name him Blunderbore (one giant of that name appears in the 18th-century tale "Jack the Giant Killer"). In "The Story of Jack Spriggins" the giant is named Gogmagog.


title: Jack and the Beanstalk

text: The giant's catchphrase "Fee-fi-fo-fum! I smell the blood of an Englishman" appears in William Shakespeare's "King Lear" (c. 1606) in the form "Fie, foh, and fum, I smell the blood of a British man" (Act 3, Scene 4), and something similar also appears in "Jack the Giant Killer".


title: Jack and the Beanstalk

text: "Jack and the Beanstalk" is an Aarne-Thompson tale-type 328, The Treasures of the Giant, which includes the Italian "Thirteenth" and the French "How the Dragon Was Tricked" tales. Christine Goldberg argues that the Aarne-Thompson system is inadequate for the tale because the others do not include the beanstalk, which has analogies in other types


title: Jack and the Beanstalk

text: The Brothers Grimm drew an analogy between this tale and a German fairy tale, "The Devil With the Three Golden Hairs". The devil's mother or grandmother acts much like the giant's wife, a female figure protecting the child from the evil male figure.


title: Jack and the Beanstalk

text: The original story portrays a "hero" gaining the sympathy of a man's wife, hiding in his house, robbing him, and finally killing him. In Tabart's moralized version, a fairy woman explains to Jack that the giant had robbed and murdered his father justifying Jack's actions as retribution (Andrew Lang follows this version in the "Red Fairy Book" of 1890).


title: Jack and the Beanstalk

text: Jacobs gave no justification because there was none in the version he had heard as a child and maintained that children know that robbery and murder are wrong without being told in a fairy tale, but did give a subtle retributive tone to it by making reference to the giant's previous meals of stolen oxen and young children.


title: Jack and the Beanstalk

text: Many modern interpretations have followed Tabart and made the giant a villain, terrorizing smaller folk and stealing from them, so that Jack becomes a legitimate protagonist. For example, the 1952 film starring Abbott and Costello the giant is blamed for poverty at the foot of the beanstalk, as he has been stealing food and wealth and the hen that lays golden eggs originally belonged to Jack's family. In other versions, it is implied that the giant had stolen both the hen and the harp from Jack's father. Brian Henson's 2001 TV miniseries "" not only abandons Tabart's additions but vilifies Jack, reflecting Jim Henson's disgust at Jack's unscrupulous actions.


title: Christopher Langan

text: Christopher Michael Langan (born March 25, 1952) is an American horse rancher and autodidact who has been reported to score very highly on IQ tests. Langan's IQ was estimated on ABC's "20/20" to be between 195 and 210, and in 1999 he was described by some journalists as "the smartest man in America" or "in the world".


title: Christopher Langan

text: Langan was born in 1952 in San Francisco, California. His mother, Mary Langan-Hansen ("née" Chappelle, 1932–2014), was the daughter of a wealthy shipping executive but was cut off from her family. Langan's biological father left before he was born, and is said to have died in Mexico. Langan's mother married three more times, and had a son by each husband. Her second husband was murdered, and her third died by suicide. Langan grew up with the fourth husband Jack Langan, who has been described as a "failed journalist" who went on drinking sprees and disappeared from the house, locked the kitchen cabinets so the four boys could not get to the food in them and used a bullwhip as a disciplinary measure. The family was very poor; Langan recalls that they all had only one set of clothes each. The family moved around, living for a while in a teepee on an Indian reservation, then later in Virginia City, Nevada. When the children were in grade school, the family moved to Bozeman, Montana, where Langan spent most of his childhood.


title: Christopher Langan

text: During elementary school, Langan repeatedly skipped grades, and was bullied by his peers. He claims to have been beaten by his stepfather, Jack Langan, who denies this. At age 12, Langan began weight training, which he says was motivated by the desire to fight back against bullies. He eventually ejected his stepfather from the household.


title: Christopher Langan

text: Langan attended high school, but spent his last years engaged mostly in independent study. He did so after his teachers denied his request for more challenging material. According to Langan, he began teaching himself "advanced math, physics, philosophy, Latin, and Greek". According to Cynthia McFadden from ABC's "20/20", he earned a perfect score on the SAT (pre-1995 scale) despite taking a nap during the test.


title: Christopher Langan

text: Langan was offered two full scholarships, one to Reed College in Oregon and the other to the University of Chicago. He chose the former, which he later called "a big mistake". He had a "real case of culture shock" in the unfamiliar urban setting. He lost his scholarship after his mother did not send in the necessary financial information. Langan returned to Bozeman and worked as a Forest Service firefighter for 18 months before enrolling at Montana State University–Bozeman. Faced with financial and transportation problems, and believing that he could teach his professors more than they could teach him, he dropped out. He took a string of labor-intensive jobs for some time, and by his mid-40s had been a construction worker, cowboy, Forest Service Ranger, farmhand, and, for over twenty years, a bouncer on Long Island. He also worked for the technology company Virtual Logistix.


title: Christopher Langan

text: In comparing the lack of academic and life success of Langan to the successes of Robert Oppenheimer, journalist Malcolm Gladwell, in his 2008 book "Outliers", points to the background and social skills of the two men. Oppenheimer was raised in a wealthy cosmopolitan neighborhood in Manhattan. His father was a successful businessman and his mother was an artist, he was educated at the Ethical Culture School and summered in Europe, and studied at Harvard University and subsequently started a PhD at Cambridge University. Gladwell points to an illustrating example: when Oppenheimer tried to poison his tutor at Cambridge, he used his social savvy and his parents used their influence to have Oppenheimer merely sent for psychiatric help without any criminal or academic consequences; in contrast, when Langan's mother missed a deadline for financial aid, Langan lost his scholarship and when Langan tried to convince college administration at Reed College to switch a class to a later time (owing to a broken down car) his request was denied. Langan grew up in poverty and had an unsettled early life filled with abuse, which created a resentment of authority which Gladwell reported Langan still carried during his interview decades after his academic hardships. He had had little or no guidance from his parents or his teachers, and never developed the social skills needed to cope with and overcome his challenges.


title: Christopher Langan

text: In 1999, Langan and others formed a non-profit corporation named the Mega Foundation for those with IQs of 164 or above. In 2004, Langan moved with his wife Gina (), a clinical neuropsychologist, to northern Missouri, where he owns and operates a horse ranch and undertakes activities for his Mega Foundation.


title: Christopher Langan

text: Langan has developed an idea he calls the "Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe" (CTMU) which he maintains "explains the connection between mind and reality, therefore the presence of cognition and universe in the same phrase". He calls his proposal "a true 'Theory of Everything', a cross between John Archibald Wheeler's 'Participatory Universe' and Stephen Hawking's 'Imaginary Time' theory of cosmology" additionally contending that with CTMU he "can prove the existence of God, the soul and an afterlife, using mathematics." Even so, Langan does not belong to any religious denomination, explaining that he "can't afford to let logical approach to theology be prejudiced by religious dogma".


title: Christopher Langan

text: Langan's support of conspiracy theories, including the 9/11 Truther movement (Langan has claimed that the George W. Bush administration staged the 9/11 attacks in order to distract the public from learning about the CTMU) and the white genocide conspiracy theory, as well as his opposition to interracial relationships, have contributed to his gaining a following among members of the alt-right and others on the far right. Journalists have described certain of Langan's Internet posts as containing "thinly veiled" antisemitism and making antisemitic "dog whistles".


title: One Day at a Time (2017 TV series)

text: One Day at a Time is an American sitcom based on the 1975 series of the same title. Executive producer Norman Lear's company, Act III Productions, approached Sony Pictures Television with the idea of reimagining the original series with a Latino family. Lear had previously executive produced the original series. The series was developed by Gloria Calderón Kellett and Mike Royce, with Lear and his producing partner Brent Miller as executive producers.


title: One Day at a Time (2017 TV series)

text: The series features an ensemble cast starring Justina Machado, Todd Grinnell, Isabella Gomez, Marcel Ruiz, Stephen Tobolowsky, and Rita Moreno. The show revolves around a Cuban-American family living in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Echo Park, focusing on a single mother who is an Army veteran dealing with PTSD, her kids and her Cuban mother. The re-imagination of the original CBS sitcom tackles issues like mental illness, immigration, sexism, homophobia, gender identity, and racism that Latin people living in the United States face.


title: One Day at a Time (2017 TV series)

text: The series premiered on Netflix on January 6, 2017; with subsequent seasons premiering on January 26, 2018, and February 8, 2019. Netflix canceled the series on March 14, 2019, but on June 27, 2019, Pop announced that it would revive the series in 2020, making "One Day at a Time" the first original program canceled by Netflix to be revived on a traditional linear network. The fourth season premiered on March 24, 2020, on Pop, with a simulcast on TV Land and Logo TV; the simulcast with TV Land was made permanent shortly thereafter as TV Land's ratings for the premiere were nearly five times that of the episode's premiere on Pop. In March 2020, production on season 4 came to an end due to the COVID-19 pandemic. First-run episodes continued to broadcast through April 28, 2020, with further production and/or broadcast not expected to resume until 2021. Plans were announced the next day to make an animated special, further reported in May 2020 as "The Politics Episode". The episode, co-produced with the Canadian animator Smiley Guy Studios, premiered on June 16, 2020. CBS began airing the season four episodes on October 12, 2020. In November 2020, the series was canceled after the fourth season by Pop, but Sony Pictures TV indicated that it would be shopping the series to other outlets. On December 8, 2020, it was announced that there would be no new episodes, ending the series' run for good.


title: One Day at a Time (2017 TV series)

text: Upon its release, the show received critical acclaim, with critics and journalists praising the writing and the performances of Machado and Moreno. "One Day at a Time" was listed as one of the best television shows of 2017, with numerous critics ranking it as one of the top ten shows of the year. The series received multiple awards and nominations, including four Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Multi-Camera Picture Editing for a Comedy Series and won two in 2019 and 2020. At the 2017 Imagen Foundation Awards, the series won Best Primetime Television Program – Comedy, Best Actress – Television (Machado), Best Supporting Actress – Television (Gomez) and Best Young Actor – Television (Ruiz). Moreno was nominated for a Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. The series has also been nominated three times for a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Comedy Series.


title: One Day at a Time (2017 TV series)

text: The series depicts the everyday life of a Cuban-American family with each character finding their own journey. Following the story of Penelope Alvarez, a United States Army Nurse Corps veteran, facing her return to civilian life with a lot of unresolved issues from her time in the Army. She works as a nurse in the office of Dr. Leslie Berkowitz. After her husband's alcoholism due to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from his time in the Army made it, in Penelope's words, 'unsafe to be in the house', she separates from Victor, taking the children with her. With the help of her Cuban mother, Lydia Riera, she raises two children: Elena and Alex. Apart from planning her daughter's quinceañera, Penelope starts dating and finds a love interest. Elena, resistant to have a quinces, starts dating a teenager from her class, to later realize that she is a lesbian. After struggling in ways to tell her family about her sexuality she finally comes out.


title: One Day at a Time (2017 TV series)

text: In the second season, Penelope continues to deal with her PTSD, while getting back into the dating scene. Elena finds a love interest in Syd, who is non-binary. Lydia and Schneider both reveal they are not U.S. citizens, and therefore both take their citizenship tests. Towards the end of the season, Lydia suffers a stroke and begins to hover between life and death, though she ultimately survives.


title: One Day at a Time (2017 TV series)

text: In the third season, Schneider's father comes to visit the building and almost causes the Alvarezes to lose their home. Schneider, a recovering alcoholic, revolts and goes against his father saving the building from turning into a condo, but by doing this, he relapses. Alex is grounded for most of the season for going to Bud-E Fest but gets un-grounded when Penelope finds out how he handled Schneider's relapse. Elena loses her virginity to Syd, and Penelope obtains an MSN degree and becomes a nurse practitioner.


title: One Day at a Time (2017 TV series)

text: In January 2016, it was announced that Netflix was giving the remake of "One Day at a Time" a 13-episode straight-to-series order. It was released on January 6, 2017. The series was renewed for a second season in March 2017; it premiered on January 26, 2018. It was announced in December 2018 that the third season of "One Day at a Time" was set to premiere on February 8, 2019.


title: One Day at a Time (2017 TV series)

text: On March 14, 2019, Netflix announced that the series had been canceled after three seasons. After the cancellation announcement, executive producers Gloria Calderon Kellett and Mike Royce began the search to find the series a potential new home on another streaming service or network, while fans of the series began a campaign using the hashtag #SaveODAAT in hopes of getting the series revived.


title: One Day at a Time (2017 TV series)

text: After the announcement, it was reported that the show's producing studio Sony Pictures Television entered in talks with CBS to air the series on the network's streaming service, CBS All Access. A clause in Netflix's contract with SPT, however, prevents another streaming provider from carrying new episodes of the series for a period of two to three years, effectively limiting the series' distribution options to traditional broadcast and cable networks.


title: One Day at a Time (2017 TV series)

text: On June 27, 2019, it was announced that Sony Pictures Television and CBS Corporation came to terms to continue the series for a fourth season of 13 episodes, which would air on CBS's Pop network in 2020. Pop also acquired linear rights to the show's first three seasons. The fourth season premiered on March 24, 2020, with episodes airing weekly. The premiere episode was simulcast on the ViacomCBS cable networks Pop, TV Land, and Logo (CBS and Viacom had merged in the interim in early December 2019). CBS is also set to air an encore run the fourth season following its completion on Pop. The simulcast with TV Land was made permanent after the fourth season premiere, as it attracted almost five times more viewers on TV Land than on Pop.


title: One Day at a Time (2017 TV series)

text: During the show's fourth season, six new episodes aired in 2020. However, the COVID-19 pandemic prevented the show from airing more new fourth season episodes until at least sometime in 2021. On April 28, 2020, it was revealed that there were plans to film an animated special. The same day, the show aired its last episode for the year 2020 and the show's Twitter account thanked fans with the message: "This isn't goodbye, it's see you later. 💚 We'll be back soon, familia! Thank you for watching with us. 🤗" The animated special, "The Politics Episode", premiered on June 16, 2020.


title: One Day at a Time (2017 TV series)

text: On November 24, 2020, Pop canceled the series after the fourth season, but announced that Sony Pictures TV will be shopping the series for other outlets. However, on December 8 it was revealed that they were unable to find a new home for the series.


title: One Day at a Time (2017 TV series)

text: In December 2020, Kellett and Royce discussed the planned storylines for the unfilmed episodes remaining in season four with "Entertainment Weekly".


title: One Day at a Time (2017 TV series)

text: Rita Moreno was the first actor announced to star in the series as a Cuban-American grandmother. She later revealed that she accepted the offer to portray the role on the condition that her character be "sexual." In February 2016, it was reported that Justina Machado had been cast as Penelope, Moreno's character's daughter. The castings of Stephen Tobolowsky as Dr. Berkowitz, Penelope's boss, and Todd Grinnell as Schneider, a superintendent, were subsequently announced.


title: One Day at a Time (2017 TV series)

text: The program is filmed in Culver City, California at Sony Pictures Studios's Stage 25. Like most Norman Lear sitcoms, it is recorded with a multiple-camera setup in front of a live studio audience. Filming of the second season began in May 2017 and ended in September 2017. Filming for the fourth season of the show started in January 2020 and was intended to finish in May 2020. However, filming was halted in March 2020 due to the coronavirus.


title: One Day at a Time (2017 TV series)

text: The theme song for the original "One Day at a Time" series, "This Is It", which was composed by husband-and-wife songwriters Jeff Barry and Nancy Barry, was re-recorded for the new series, with a new arrangement by Emilio Estefan featuring Cuban instrumentation and lead vocals by Gloria Estefan. When the series' fourth season premiered on Pop, the theme song was excised due to time constraints.


title: One Day at a Time (2017 TV series)

text: The review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 97% approval rating for the first season, based on 34 reviews, with an average rating of 8.1/10. The website's critical consensus reads, ""One Day at a Time" breathes fresh life into the classic Norman Lear original with a lively, sharp, and proudly old-school sitcom bolstered by a surfeit of heart and terrific performances from Rita Moreno and Justina Machado." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 79 out of 100, based on 23 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: One Day at a Time (2017 TV series)

text: Robert Lloyd of the "Los Angeles Times" found the first season to be "lively without being rushed" thanks to the full 30 minute run time. David Wiegand of the "San Francisco Chronicle" added, "The show is nicely written ... and the performances [especially Moreno's] are almost universally engaging". Verne Gay of "Newsday" praised Machado's performance as "flat-out terrific" and called the first season a "congenial, good-hearted, easy going, sentimental, old-fashioned and surprisingly new-fashioned." He added, "There's also a deep emotional core here which refuses to be devalued by the typical (or tired) beat of a multicamera sitcom." Kelly Lawler at "USA Today" noted that Elena's coming-out arc in the first season has drawn special praise from LGBT critics for its "unique, realistic and refreshing take on the subject... the depiction of a young, happy Latina lesbian comes as a hopeful sign for many." Autostraddle's Yvonne Marquez called the arc "mind-blowing", and stated that the show revolutionary because "it centers the family's brownness and provides ample social commentary to deliver a fantastic modern-day sitcom."


title: One Day at a Time (2017 TV series)

text: The second season has a 100% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 29 reviews, with an average rating of 9.55/10. The site's critical consensus reads, ""One Day at a Time" continues its ascent into classic sitcom territory without losing sight of its modern identity." On Metacritic, it has a score of 88 out of 100, based on 6 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".


title: One Day at a Time (2017 TV series)

text: The third season has a 100% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 29 reviews, with an average rating of 8.75/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "As timely and tender as ever, "One Day at a Time"s third season manages to up the comedy ante without losing the intimate family moments that help it hit so close to home." On Metacritic, it has a score of 82 out of 100, based on 9 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".


title: One Day at a Time (2017 TV series)

text: The fourth season has a 100% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 16 reviews, with an average rating of 8.33/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "As layered, loving, and laugh-out-loud funny as ever, "One Day at a Time" successfully does the network shuffle without missing a beat." On Metacritic, it has a score of 84 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".


title: One Day at a Time (2017 TV series)

text: "One Day at a Time" was included on multiple Best/Top TV Shows of 2017 and 2018 lists. The Writers Guild Foundation listed the script of the season two finale ("Not Yet") as one of the best in 2010s film and television. A writer stated that the episode "unfurls like a stage play, allowing each character to talk at length about how they feel", and argued that the screenwriters "[find] hilarity in a scary, tragic family situation [through] sensitively developed characters and the courage to be brutally honest".


title: Virtue ethics

text: Virtue ethics (also aretaic ethics, from Greek ἀρετή ["aretḗ"]) is an approach to ethics that treats the concept of moral virtue as central. Virtue ethics is usually contrasted with two other major approaches in ethics, consequentialism and deontology, which make the goodness of outcomes of an action (consequentialism) and the concept of moral duty (deontology) central. While virtue ethics does not necessarily deny the importance of goodness of states of affairs or moral duties to ethics, it emphasizes moral virtue, and sometimes other concepts, like "eudaimonia", to an extent that other ethical dispositions do not.


title: Virtue ethics

text: In virtue ethics, a virtue is a morally good disposition to think, feel, and act well in some domain of life. Similarly, a vice is a morally bad disposition involving thinking, feeling, and acting badly. Virtues are not everyday habits; they are character traits, in the sense that they are central to someone’s personality and what they are like as a person. A virtue is a trait that makes its possessor a good person, and a vice is one that makes its possessor a bad person.


title: Virtue ethics

text: In ancient Greek and modern eudaimonistic virtue ethics, virtues and vices are complex dispositions that involve both affective and intellectual components. That is, they are dispositions that involve both being able to reason well about what the right thing to do is (see below on "phronesis"), and also to engage our emotions and feelings correctly.


title: Virtue ethics

text: For example, a generous person can reason well about when to help people, and also helps people with pleasure and without conflict. In this, virtuous people are contrasted not only with vicious people (who reason poorly about what to do and are emotionally attached to the wrong things) and the incontinent (who are tempted by their feelings into doing the wrong thing even though they know what is right), but also the continent (whose emotions tempt them toward doing the wrong thing but whose strength of will lets them do what they know is right).


title: Virtue ethics

text: “Phronesis” (φρόνησις; prudence, practical virtue or practical wisdom) is an acquired trait that enables its possessor to identify the thing to do in any given situation. Unlike theoretical wisdom, practical reason results in action or decision. As John McDowell puts it, practical wisdom involves a "perceptual sensitivity" to what a situation requires.


title: Virtue ethics

text: "Eudaimonia" (εὐδαιμονία) is a state variously translated from Greek as 'well-being', 'happiness', 'blessedness', and in the context of virtue ethics, 'human flourishing'. "Eudaimonia" in this sense is not a subjective, but an objective, state. It characterizes the well-lived life. According to Aristotle, the most prominent exponent of "eudaimonia" in the Western philosophical tradition, "eudaimonia" is the proper goal of human life. It consists of exercising the characteristic human quality—reason—as the soul's most proper and nourishing activity. In his "Nicomachean Ethics", Aristotle, like Plato before him, argued that the pursuit of "eudaimonia" is an "activity of the soul in accordance with perfect virtue", which further could only properly be exercised in the characteristic human community—the "polis" or city-state.


title: Virtue ethics

text: Although "eudaimonia" was first popularized by Aristotle, it now belongs to the tradition of virtue theories generally. For the virtue theorist, "eudaimonia" describes that state achieved by the person who lives the proper human life, an outcome that can be reached by practicing the virtues. A virtue is a habit or quality that allows the bearer to succeed at his, her, or its purpose. The virtue of a knife, for example, is sharpness; among the virtues of a racehorse is speed. Thus, to identify the virtues for human beings, one must have an account of what is the human purpose.


title: Virtue ethics

text: Virtue ethics began with Socrates, and was subsequently developed further by Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics. Virtue ethics refers to a collection of normative ethical philosophies that place an emphasis on being rather than doing. Another way to say this is that in virtue ethics, morality stems from the identity or character of the individual, rather than being a reflection of the actions (or consequences thereof) of the individual. Today, there is debate among various adherents of virtue ethics concerning what specific virtues are morally praiseworthy. However, most theorists agree that morality comes as a result of intrinsic virtues. Intrinsic virtues are the common link that unites the disparate normative philosophies into the field known as virtue ethics. Plato and Aristotle's treatment of virtues are not the same. Plato believes virtue is effectively an end to be sought, for which a friend might be a useful means. Aristotle states that the virtues function more as means to safeguard human relations, particularly authentic friendship, without which one's quest for happiness is frustrated.


title: Virtue ethics

text: Discussion of what were known as the four cardinal virtues—wisdom, justice, fortitude, and temperance—can be found in Plato's "Republic". The virtues also figure prominently in Aristotle's moral theory found in Nicomachean Ethics. Virtue theory was inserted into the study of history by moralistic historians such as Livy, Plutarch, and Tacitus. The Greek idea of the virtues was passed on in Roman philosophy through Cicero and later incorporated into Christian moral theology by St. Ambrose of Milan. During the scholastic period, the most comprehensive consideration of the virtues from a theological perspective was provided by St. Thomas Aquinas in his "Summa Theologiae" and his "Commentaries on the Nicomachean Ethics". After the Reformation, Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics continued to be the main authority for the discipline of ethics at Protestant universities until the late seventeenth century, with over fifty Protestant commentaries published on the Nicomachean Ethics before 1682.


title: Virtue ethics

text: Though the tradition receded into the background of European philosophical thought in these past few centuries, the term "virtue" remained current during this period, and in fact appears prominently in the tradition of classical republicanism or classical liberalism. This tradition was prominent in the intellectual life of 16th-century Italy, as well as 17th- and 18th-century Britain and America; indeed the term "virtue" appears frequently in the work of Niccolò Machiavelli, David Hume, the republicans of the English Civil War period, the 18th-century English Whigs, and the prominent figures among the Scottish Enlightenment and the American Founding Fathers.


title: Virtue ethics

text: Although some Enlightenment philosophers (e.g. Hume) continued to emphasise the virtues, with the ascendancy of utilitarianism and deontology, virtue theory moved to the margins of Western philosophy. The contemporary revival of virtue theory is frequently traced to the philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe's 1958 essay "Modern Moral Philosophy". Following this:


title: Virtue ethics

text: The aretaic turn in moral philosophy is paralleled by analogous developments in other philosophical disciplines. One of these is epistemology, where a distinctive virtue epistemology has been developed by Linda Zagzebski and others. In political theory, there has been discussion of "virtue politics", and in legal theory, there is a small but growing body of literature on virtue jurisprudence. The aretaic turn also exists in American constitutional theory, where proponents argue for an emphasis on virtue and vice of constitutional adjudicators.


title: Virtue ethics

text: Aretaic approaches to morality, epistemology, and jurisprudence have been the subject of intense debates. One criticism that is frequently made focuses on the problem of guidance; opponents, such as Robert Louden in his article "Some Vices of Virtue Ethics", question whether the idea of a virtuous moral actor, believer, or judge can provide the guidance necessary for action, belief formation, or the decision of legal disputes.


title: Virtue ethics

text: There are several lists of particular virtues. Socrates argued that virtue is knowledge, which suggests that there is really only one virtue. The Stoics concurred, claiming the four cardinal virtues were only aspects of true virtue. John McDowell is a recent defender of this conception. He argues that virtue is a "perceptual capacity" to identify how one ought to act, and that all particular virtues are merely "specialized sensitivities" to a range of reasons for acting.


title: Virtue ethics

text: Aristotle identifies approximately eighteen virtues that enable a person to perform their human function well. He distinguished virtues pertaining to emotion and desire from those relating to the mind. The first he calls "moral" virtues, and the second intellectual virtues (though both are "moral" in the modern sense of the word).


title: Virtue ethics

text: Aristotle suggested that each moral virtue was a mean (see golden mean) between two corresponding vices, one of excess and one of deficiency. Each intellectual virtue is a mental skill or habit by which the mind arrives at truth, affirming what is or denying what is not. In the "Nicomachean Ethics" he discusses about 11 moral virtues:


title: Virtue ethics

text: Aristotle's list is not the only list, however. As Alasdair MacIntyre observed in "After Virtue", thinkers as diverse as: Homer, the authors of the New Testament, Thomas Aquinas, and Benjamin Franklin have all proposed lists.


title: Virtue ethics

text: Regarding what are the most important virtues, Aristotle proposed the following nine: wisdom; prudence; justice; fortitude; courage; liberality; magnificence; magnanimity; temperance. In contrast, philosopher Walter Kaufmann proposed as the four cardinal virtues: ambition/humility; love; courage; and honesty. Since reflection on which virtues strike a person as the most important is a historically and culturally contingent judgement, these lists can not be merely descriptive.


title: Virtue ethics

text: As another example, regarding virtues once supposedly applicable to women, many would have once considered a virtuous woman to be quiet, servile, and industrious. This conception of female virtue no longer holds true in many modern societies. Proponents of virtue theory sometimes respond to this objection by arguing that a central feature of a virtue is its "universal applicability". In other words, any character trait defined as a virtue must reasonably be universally regarded as a virtue for all sentient beings. According to this view, it is inconsistent to claim for example servility as a female virtue, while at the same time not proposing it as a male one.


title: Virtue ethics

text: Other proponents of virtue theory, notably Alasdair MacIntyre, respond to this objection by arguing that any account of the virtues must indeed be generated out of the community in which those virtues are to be practiced: the very word "ethics" implies "ethos". That is to say that the virtues are, and necessarily must be, grounded in a particular time and place. What counts as a virtue in 4th-century Athens would be a ludicrous guide to proper behaviour in 21st-century Toronto and vice versa. To take this view does not necessarily commit one to the argument that accounts of the virtues must therefore be static: moral activity—that is, attempts to contemplate and practice the virtues—can provide the cultural resources that allow people to change, albeit slowly, the ethos of their own societies. MacIntyre appears to take this position in his seminal work on virtue ethics, "After Virtue". One might cite (though MacIntyre does not) the rapid emergence of abolitionist thought in the slave-holding societies of the 18th-century Atlantic world as an example of this sort of change: over a relatively short period of time, perhaps 1760 to 1800, in Britain, France, and British America, slave-holding, previously thought to be morally neutral or even virtuous, rapidly became seen as vicious among wide swathes of society. While the emergence of abolitionist thought derived from many sources, the work of David Brion Davis, among others, has established that one source was the rapid, internal evolution of moral theory among certain sectors of these societies, notably the Quakers.


title: Virtue ethics

text: Another objection to virtue theory is that the school does not focus on what "sorts of actions" are morally permitted and which ones are not, but rather on what sort of qualities someone ought to foster in order to become a good person. In other words, while some virtue theorists may not condemn, for example, murder as an inherently immoral or impermissible sort of action, they may argue that someone who commits a murder is severely lacking in several important virtues, such as compassion and fairness. Still, antagonists of the theory often object that this particular feature of the theory makes virtue ethics useless as a universal norm of acceptable conduct suitable as a base for legislation. Some virtue theorists concede this point, but respond by opposing the very notion of legitimate legislative authority instead, effectively advocating some form of anarchism as the political ideal. Others argue that laws should be made by virtuous legislators. Still, others argue that it is possible to base a judicial system on the moral notion of virtues rather than rules.


title: Virtue ethics

text: Some virtue theorists might respond to this overall objection with the notion of a "bad act" also being an act characteristic of vice. That is to say that those acts that do not aim at virtue, or stray from virtue, would constitute our conception of "bad behavior". Although not all virtue ethicists agree to this notion, this is one way the virtue ethicist can re-introduce the concept of the "morally impermissible". One could raise an objection with Foot that she is committing an argument from ignorance by postulating that what is not virtuous is unvirtuous. In other words, just because an action or person 'lacks of evidence' for virtue does not, all else constant, imply that said action or person is unvirtuous.


title: Virtue ethics

text: Martha Nussbaum has suggested that while virtue ethics is often considered to be anti-Enlightenment, "suspicious of theory and respectful of the wisdom embodied in local practices", it is actually neither fundamentally distinct from, nor does it qualify as a rival approach to deontology and utilitarianism. She argues that philosophers from these two Enlightenment traditions often include theories of virtue. She pointed out that Kant's "Doctrine of Virtue" (in "The Metaphysics of Morals") "covers most of the same topics as do classical Greek theories", "that he offers a general account of virtue, in terms of the strength of the will in overcoming wayward and selfish inclinations; that he offers detailed analyses of standard virtues such as courage and self-control, and of vices, such as avarice, mendacity, servility, and pride; that, although in general, he portrays inclination as inimical to virtue, he also recognizes that sympathetic inclinations offer crucial support to virtue, and urges their deliberate cultivation."


title: Virtue ethics

text: Nussbaum also points to considerations of virtue by utilitarians such as Henry Sidgwick ("The Methods of Ethics"), Jeremy Bentham ("The Principles of Morals and Legislation"), and John Stuart Mill, who writes of moral development as part of an argument for the moral equality of women ("The Subjection of Women"). She argues that contemporary virtue ethicists such as Alasdair MacIntyre, Bernard Williams, Philippa Foot, and John McDowell have few points of agreement and that the common core of their work does not represent a break from Kant.


title: Virtue ethics

text: Immanuel Kant's position on virtue ethics is contested. Those who argue that Kantian deontology conflicts with virtue ethics include Alasdair MacIntyre, Philippa Foot, and Bernard Williams. In the "Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals" and the "Critique of Practical Reason", Immanuel Kant offers many different criticisms of ethical frameworks and against moral theories before him. Kant rarely mentioned Aristotle by name but did not exclude his moral philosophy of virtue ethics from his critique. Many Kantian arguments against Virtue Ethics claim that Virtue Ethics is inconsistent, or sometimes that it isn't a real moral theory at all.


title: Virtue ethics

text: Kantian arguments often come from the notion that Virtue Ethics does not provide enough significance to the idea of "duty" which Kant spent most of his time writing about.


title: Virtue ethics

text: Robert B. Louden criticizes virtue ethics on the basis that it promotes a form of unsustainable utopianism. Trying to come to a single set of virtues is immensely difficult in contemporary societies as, according to Louden, they contain "more ethnic, religious, and class groups than did the moral community which Aristotle theorized about" with each of these groups having "not only its own interests but its own set of virtues as well". Louden notes in passing that MacIntyre, a supporter of virtue-based ethics, has grappled with this in "After Virtue" but that ethics cannot dispense with building rules around acts and rely only on discussing the moral character of persons.


title: Virtue ethics

text: Virtue ethics can be contrasted to deontological ethics and consequentialist ethics by an examination of the other two (the three being together the most predominant contemporary normative ethical theories).


title: Virtue ethics

text: Deontological ethics, sometimes referred to as duty ethics, places the emphasis on adhering to ethical principles or duties. How these duties are defined, however, is often a point of contention and debate in deontological ethics. One of the predominant rule schemes utilized by deontologists is the Divine Command Theory. Deontology also depends upon meta-ethical realism, in that it postulates the existence of moral absolutes that make an action moral, regardless of circumstances. For more information on deontological ethics refer to the work of Immanuel Kant.


title: Virtue ethics

text: The next predominant school of thought in normative ethics is consequentialism. While deontology places the emphasis on doing one's duty, which is established by some kind of moral imperative (in other words, the emphasis is on obedience to some higher moral absolute), consequentialism bases the morality of an action upon the consequences of the outcome. Instead of saying that one has a moral duty to abstain from murder, a consequentialist would say that we should abstain from murder because it causes undesirable effects. The main contention here is what outcomes should/can be identified as objectively desirable. The Greatest Happiness Principle of John Stuart Mill is one of the most commonly adopted criteria. Mill asserts that our determinant of the desirability of an action is the net amount of happiness it brings, the number of people it brings it to, and the duration of the happiness. He also tries to delineate classes of happiness, some being preferable to others, but there is a great deal of difficulty in classifying such concepts.


title: Virtue ethics

text: Virtue ethics differs from both deontology and consequentialism as it focuses on being over doing. A virtue ethicist identifies virtues, desirable characteristics, that the moral or virtuous person embodies. Possessing these virtues is what makes one moral, and one's actions are a mere reflection of one's inner morality. To the virtue philosopher, action cannot be used as a demarcation of morality, because a virtue encompasses more than just a simple selection of action. Instead, it is about a way of being that would cause the person exhibiting the virtue to make a certain "virtuous" choice consistently in each situation. There is a great deal of disagreement within virtue ethics over what are virtues and what are not. There are also difficulties in identifying what is the "virtuous" action to take in all circumstances, and how to define a virtue.


title: Virtue ethics

text: Consequentialist and deontological theories often still employ the term "virtue", but in a restricted sense, namely as a tendency or disposition to adhere to the system's principles or rules. These very different senses of what constitutes virtue, hidden behind the same word, are a potential source of confusion. This disagreement over the meaning of virtue points to a larger conflict between virtue theory and its philosophical rivals. A system of virtue theory is only intelligible if it is teleological: that is, if it includes an account of the purpose ("telos") of human life, or in popular language, the meaning of life. Obviously, strong claims about the purpose of human life, or of what the good life for human beings is, will be highly controversial. Virtue theory's necessary commitment to a teleological account of human life thus puts the tradition in sharp tension with other dominant approaches to normative ethics, which, because they focus on actions, do not bear this burden.


title: Virtue ethics

text: Virtue ethics mainly deals with the honesty and morality of a person. It states that practicing good habits such as honesty, generosity makes a moral and virtuous person. It guides a person without specific rules for resolving the ethical complexity.


title: Virtue ethics

text: Virtue theory emphasises Aristotle's belief in the polis as the acme of political organisation, and the role of the virtues in enabling human beings to flourish in that environment. Classical republicanism in contrast emphasises Tacitus' concern that power and luxury can corrupt individuals and destroy liberty, as Tacitus perceived in the transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire; virtue for classical republicans is a shield against this sort of corruption and a means to preserve the good life one has, rather than a means by which to achieve the good life one does not yet have. Another way to put the distinction between the two traditions is that virtue ethics relies on Aristotle's fundamental distinction between the human-being-as-he-is from the human-being-as-he-should-be, while classical republicanism relies on the Tacitean distinction of the risk-of-becoming.


title: Virtue ethics

text: Within the field of social ethics, Deirdre McCloskey argues that virtue ethics can provide a basis for a balanced approach to understanding capitalism and capitalist societies.


title: Virtue ethics

text: Within the field of philosophy of education, James Page argues that virtue ethics can provide a rationale and foundation for peace education.


title: Virtue ethics

text: Thomas Alured Faunce has argued that whistleblowing in the healthcare setting would be more respected within clinical governance pathways if it had a firmer academic foundation in virtue ethics. He called for whistleblowing to be expressly supported in the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights. Barry Schwartz argues that "practical wisdom" is an antidote to much of the inefficient and inhumane bureaucracy of modern health care systems.


title: Virtue ethics

text: In her book "Technology and the Virtues", Shannon Vallor proposed a series of 'technomoral' virtues that people need to cultivate in order to flourish in our socio-technological world: Honesty (Respecting Truth), Self-control (Becoming the Author of Our Desires), Humility (Knowing What We Do Not Know), Justice (Upholding Rightness), Courage (Intelligent Fear and Hope), Empathy (Compassionate Concern for Others), Care (Loving Service to Others), Civility (Making Common Cause), Flexibility (Skillful Adaptation to Change), Perspective (Holding on to the Moral Whole), and Magnanimity (Moral Leadership and Nobility of Spirit).


title: Alicante

text: Alicante () is a city and municipality in the Valencian Community, Spain. It is the capital of the province of Alicante and a historic Mediterranean port. The population of the city was 337,482 , the second-largest in the Valencian Community.


title: Alicante

text: The name of the city echoes the Arabic name "Laqant" () or "al-Laqant" (), which in turn reflects the Latin "Lucentum" and Greek root "Leuké" (or "Leuka"), meaning "white".


title: Alicante

text: The area around Alicante has been inhabited for over 7000 years. The first tribes of hunter-gatherers moved down gradually from Central Europe between 5000 and 3000 BC. Some of the earliest settlements were made on the slopes of Mount Benacantil. By 1000 BC Greek and Phoenician traders had begun to visit the eastern coast of Spain, establishing small trading ports and introducing the native Iberian tribes to the alphabet, iron, and the pottery wheel. The Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca established the fortified settlement of "Akra Leuké" (Greek: , meaning "White Mountain" or "White Point"), in the mid-230s BC, which is generally presumed to have been on the site of modern Alicante.


title: Alicante

text: Although the Carthaginians conquered much of the land around Alicante, the Romans would eventually rule Hispania Tarraconensis for over 700 years. By the 5th century AD, Rome was in decline and the Roman predecessor town of Alicante, known as "Lucentum" (Latin), was more or less under the control of the Visigothic warlord Theudimer and thereafter under Visigothic rule from 400 to 700 A.D. The Goths did not put up much resistance to the Arab conquest of "Medina Laqant" at the beginning of the 8th century. The Moors ruled southern and eastern Spain until the 13th century "Reconquista" (Reconquest). Alicante was conquered again in 1247 by the Castilian king Alfonso X, but later passed to the Kingdom of Valencia in 1296 with King James II of Aragon. It gained the status of Royal Village ("Vila Reial") with representation in the medieval Valencian Parliament ("Corts Valencianes").


title: Alicante

text: After several decades of being the battlefield where the Kingdom of Castile and the Crown of Aragon clashed, Alicante became a major Mediterranean trading station exporting rice, wine, olive oil, oranges, and wool. But between 1609 and 1614 King Felipe III expelled thousands of Moriscos who had remained in Valencia after the Reconquista, due to their cooperation with Barbary pirates who continually attacked coastal cities and caused much harm to trade. This act cost the region dearly; with so many skilled artisans and agricultural labourers gone, the feudal nobility found itself sliding into bankruptcy.


title: Alicante

text: Conditions worsened in the early 18th century; after the War of Spanish Succession, Alicante went into a long, slow decline, surviving through the 18th and 19th centuries by making shoes and growing agricultural produce such as oranges and almonds, and thanks to its fisheries. The end of the 19th century witnessed a sharp recovery of the local economy with increasing international trade and the growth of the city harbour leading to increased exports of several products (particularly during World War I when Spain was a neutral country).


title: Alicante

text: During the early 20th century, Alicante was a minor capital that took profit from the benefit of Spain's neutrality during World War I, and that provided new opportunities for local industry and agriculture. The Rif War in the 1920s saw numerous "alicantinos" drafted to fight in the long and bloody campaigns in the former Spanish protectorate (northern Morocco) against the Rif rebels. The political unrest of the late 1920s led to the victory of Republican candidates in local council elections throughout the country, and the abdication of King Alfonso XIII. The proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic was much celebrated in the city on 14 April 1931. The Spanish Civil War broke out on 17 July 1936. Alicante was the last city loyal to the Republican government to be occupied by General Franco's troops on 1 April 1939, and its harbour saw the last Republican government officials fleeing the country. Vicious air bombings were targeted on Alicante during the three years of civil conflict, most notably the bombing by the Italian "Aviazione Legionaria" of the Mercado ("Mercat") on 25 May 1938 in which more than 300 civilians perished.


title: Alicante

text: From 1954 onwards many "pied-noirs" settled in the city (as many as 30,000, although other sources decrease the amount tenfold). Alicante had fostered strong links with Oran in the past, and a notable share of the population of the latter city during the French colonial period had ancestry in the province of Alicante. The immigration process accelerated after the independence of Algeria in 1962.


title: Alicante

text: The late 1950s and early 1960s saw the onset of a lasting transformation of the city by the tourist industry. Large buildings and complexes rose in nearby Albufereta, e.g. El Barco, and Playa de San Juan ("Platja de Sant Joan"), with the benign climate being the biggest draw to attract prospective buyers and tourists who kept the hotels reasonably busy. New construction benefited the whole economy, as the development of the tourism sector also spawned new businesses such as restaurants, bars, and other tourist-oriented enterprises. Also, the old airfield at Rabassa was closed and air traffic moved to the new El Altet Airport, which made a more convenient and modern facility for charter flights bringing tourists from northern European countries.


title: Alicante

text: When Franco died in 1975, his successor Juan Carlos I played his part as the living symbol of the transition of Spain to a democratic constitutional monarchy. The governments of regional communities were given constitutional status as "nationalities", and their governments were given more autonomy, including that of the Valencian region, the "Generalitat Valenciana".


title: Alicante

text: The Port of Alicante has been reinventing itself since the industrial decline the city suffered in the 1980s (with most mercantile traffic lost to Valencia's harbour). In recent years, the Port Authority has established it as one of the most important ports in Spain for cruises, with 72 calls to port made by cruise ships in 2007 bringing some 80,000 passengers and 30,000 crew to the city each year. The moves to develop the port for more tourism have been welcomed by the city and its residents, but the latest plans to develop an industrial estate in the port have caused great controversy.


title: Alicante

text: Alicante is located in the southeast of the Iberian Peninsula, on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Some orographic features rise over the largely flat terrain where the city is built on including the Cap de l'Horta, the Serra Grossa, the Tossal and the Benacantil hills.


title: Alicante

text: Located in an arid territory, Alicante lacks any meaningful permanent water stream. There are however several stream beds correspondent to intermittent "ramblas". There was a swamp area in the northeast of the municipality, "l'Albufereta", yet it was dried up in 1928.


title: Alicante

text: The municipality has two exclaves in the mainland: Monnegre (between the municipalities of San Vicente del Raspeig, Mutxamel, Busot and Xixona), and Cabeçó d'Or; the latter comprises part of the namesake Cabeçó d'Or mountain (including the summit, 1209 metres above sea level). The small island of Tabarca, 8 nautical miles to the south of the city, also belongs to the municipality.


title: Alicante

text: The foot of the main staircase of the City Hall Building ("Ayuntamiento") is the zero point ("cota cero"), used as the point of reference for measuring the height above or below sea level of any point in Spain, due to the marginal tidal variations of the Mediterranean sea at Alicante.


title: Alicante

text: Until the global recession which started in 2008, Alicante was one of the fastest-growing cities in Spain. The boom depended partly on tourism directed to the beaches of the Costa Blanca and particularly on the second residence-construction boom which started in the 1960s and revived again by the late 1990s. Services and public administration also play a major role in the city's economy. The construction boom has raised many environmental concerns and both the local autonomous government and city council are under scrutiny by the European Union. The construction surge was the subject of hot debates among politicians and citizens alike. The latest of many public battles concerns the plans of the Port Authority of Alicante to construct an industrial estate on reclaimed land in front of the city's coastal strip, in breach of local, national, and European regulations. (See Port of Alicante for details).


title: Alicante

text: The city serves as the headquarters of the European Union Intellectual Property Office and a sizeable population of European public workers live there.


title: Alicante

text: The campus of the University of Alicante lies in San Vicente del Raspeig, bordering the city of Alicante to the north. More than 25,000 students attend the university.


title: Alicante

text: Between 2005 and 2012 Ciudad de la Luz ("Ciutat de la Llum"), one of the largest film studios in Europe, had its base in Alicante. The studio shot Spanish and international movies such as "Asterix at the Olympic Games" by Frédéric Forestier and Thomas Langmann, and "Manolete" by Menno Meyjes. It was shut down in 2012 for violating European competition law.


title: Alicante

text: Luis Barcala of the People's Party has been the mayor of Alicante since 19 April 2018. He became mayor after the resignation of Gabriel Echávarri, when the councillor Nerea Belmonte defected from Guanyar Alacant and refused to support the Socialist Party replacement candidate Eva Montesinos.


title: Alicante

text: Gabriel Echávarri of the Socialist Party (PSOE) was the mayor of the city from 13 June 2015 until April 2018, following the municipal elections on 24 May 2015. He was supported by the votes from his group (6), plus those from leftist parties Guanyar Alacant (6) and Compromís (3), as well as from the centre-right party Ciudadanos (6). The People's Party ("Partido Popular", PP), with only 8 elected seats, lost the majority. On April he resigned due to various judicial issues and was temporarily substituted by the councillor Eva Montesinos.


title: Alicante

text: In the previous municipal elections of May 2011, Sonia Castedo of People's Party won the elections with an absolute majority, but resigned in December 2014 due to her involvement in several corruption scandals, at present being under investigation. Her fellow party member Miguel Valor went on to become mayor up until Echávarri's election.


title: Alicante

text: Alicante has mild winter temperatures, hot summers, and little rain, concentrated in equinoctial periods. Like much of the Province of Alicante itself, the city has a hot semi-arid climate ("BSh") according to the Köppen climate classification. Daily variations in temperature are generally small because of the stabilising influence of the sea, although occasional periods of westerly wind can produce temperature changes of or more. Seasonal temperature variations are also relatively small, meaning that winters are mild and summers are hot.


title: Alicante

text: The average rainfall is per year. The cold drop means that September and October are the wettest months. Rarely, the rainfall can be torrential, reaching over in a 24-hour period, leading to severe flooding. Because of this irregularity, only 35 rainy days are observed on average per year, and the annual number of sunshine hours is 2,851.


title: Alicante

text: The record maximum temperature of was observed on 13 August 2022. The record minimum temperature of was recorded on 12 February 1956. The worst flooding in modern history occurred on 30 September 1997 when of rain fell within six hours. Temperatures below are very rare; the last recorded snowfall occurred in 1926. Alicante enjoys one of the sunniest and warmest winter daytime temperatures in mainland Europe.


title: Alicante

text: The official population of Alicante in 2020 was 337,482 inhabitants and 768,194 in the metropolitan area "Alicante-Elche". As of 2020, about 20–25% of the population is foreign, most of them immigrants from North Africa, South America and Eastern Europe. Leading by Algeria (9,258), Colombia (8,525), Morocco (5,696), Argentina (5,583), Ecuador (3,800) and Venezuela (3,698) who have arrived in the previous 20 years. There are also important amounts of immigrants from other countries such as Russia (3,012), France (2,460), Ukraine (2,277), Romania (1,858), China (1,833), Cuba, (1,628), Brazil (1,231), Italy (1,164), Uruguay (1,061) and Paraguay, Bolivia, Germany, United Kingdom and Dominican Republic. There is an estimation of additional thousands coming from countries outside the EU (mostly from the African continent) that are under illegal alien status and therefore are not accounted for in official population figures. The real percentage of foreign residents is higher, since the Alicante metropolitan area is home to many Northern European retirees who are officially still residents of their own countries. A sizable number of semi-permanent residents are Spanish nationals who officially still live in Madrid, Castilla y León, the Basque country, or other areas of Spain.


title: Alicante

text: Alicante Airport outranks its Valencian counterpart, being among the busiest airports in Spain after Madrid, Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca and Málaga. It is connected with Madrid and Barcelona by frequent Iberia and Vueling flights, and with many Western European cities through carriers such as Ryanair, Easyjet and Jet2.com. There are also regular flights to Algeria and Russia.


title: Alicante

text: Alicante railway station is used by Cercanías Murcia/Alicante commuter rail services linking Alicante with suburbs and Murcia. Long-range Renfe trains run frequently to Madrid, Barcelona, and Valencia. In 2013, the Madrid–Levante high-speed rail network was extended to Alicante station, allowing AVE high-speed rail services to link to Madrid via Villena AV, Albacete-Los Llanos and Cuenca-Fernando Zóbel.


title: Alicante

text: Alicante Tram connects the city with outlying settlements along Costa Blanca. , electric tram-trains run up to Benidorm, and diesel trains go further to Dénia.


title: Alicante

text: The city has regular ferry services to the Balearic Islands and Algeria. The city is strongly fortified, with a spacious harbour.


title: Alicante

text: Amongst the most notable features of the city are the Castle of Santa Bárbara and the port of Alicante. The latter was the subject of bitter controversy in 2006–2007 as residents battled, successfully, to keep it from being changed into an industrial estate.


title: Alicante

text: The Santa Bárbara castle is situated on Mount Benacantil, overlooking the city. The tower ("La Torreta") at the top, is the oldest part of the castle, while part of the lowest zone and the walls were constructed later in the 18th century.


title: Alicante

text: The promenade "Explanada de España", lined by palm trees, is paved with 6.5 million marble floor tiles creating a wavy form, and is one of the most lovely promenades in Spain. The Promenade extends from the Port of Alicante to the Gran Vía and ends at the famous statue of Mark Hersch. For the people of Alicante, the promenade is the meeting place for the traditional Spanish "paseo", or stroll along the waterfront in the evenings, and a venue for outdoor musical concerts. At the end of the promenade is a monument by the artist Bañuls of the 19th century.


title: Alicante

text: "Barrio de la Santa Cruz" is a colourful quarter of the old city, situated southwest of Santa Bárbara castle. Its small houses climb up the hill leading to the walls and the castle, through narrow streets decorated with flags and tubs of flowers.


title: Alicante

text: "L'Ereta Park" is situated on the foothills of Mount Benacantil. It runs from the Santa Bárbara castle down to the old part of Alicante and consists of several levels, routes, decks, and rest stops which offer a panoramic view overlooking the city.


title: Alicante

text: "El Palmeral Park" is one of the favourite parks of Alicante's citizens. It includes walking trails, children's playgrounds, ponds and brooks, picnic tables, and an auditorium for concerts.


title: Alicante

text: Just a few kilometers from Alicante on the Mediterranean Sea lies Tabarca island. What was once a haven for Barbary pirates is now a beautiful tourist attraction.


title: Alicante

text: There are a dozen museums in Alicante. On exhibition at the Archaeological Museum of Alicante (MARQ) are local artifacts dating from 100,000 years ago until the early 20th century. The collection is divided into different rooms representing three divisions of archaeological methodology: ground, urban and underwater archaeology, with dioramas, audiovisual and interactive zones. The archaeological museum won the European Museum of the Year Award in 2004. Gravina Museum of Fine Arts presents several paintings and sculptures from the 16th century to the 19th century. Asegurada Museum of Contemporary Art houses a major collection of twentieth-century art, composed mainly of works donated by Eusebio Sempere.


title: Alicante

text: The most important festival, the "Bonfires of Saint John" ("Hogueras de San Juan" / "Fogueres de Sant Joan"), takes place during the summer solstice. This is followed a week later by five nights of firework and pyrotechnic contests between companies on the urban beach "Playa del Postiguet". Another well-known festival is "Moors and Christians" ("Moros y Cristianos") in Altozano or "San Blas" district. Overall, the city boasts a year-round nightlife for the enjoyment of tourists, residents, and a large student population of the University of Alicante. The nightlife social scene tends to shift to nearby Playa de San Juan during the summer months.


title: Alicante

text: Every summer in Alicante, a two-month-long programme of music, theatre and dance is staged in the Paseo del Puerto.


title: Alicante

text: Alicante had two football teams, but now has only one, Hércules CF, which currently competes in the Second Division B - Group 3. The other team, Alicante CF, which played in the Third Division was dissolved in 2014 due to economic problems. Hércules CF is well known as it played in La Liga (the Spanish Premier Division) during the 1996/1997 season and again in 2010/2011 and has had many famous players such as David Trezeguet, Royston Drenthe and Nelson Valdez. Hércules is also known for its victory over Barcelona in 1997 which led to Real Madrid winning the league. Home games are played at the 30,000-capacity José Rico Pérez Stadium.


title: Alicante

text: Basketball club (HLA Alicante) Lucentum Alicante participates in the Spanish basketball league. It plays in the Centro de Tecnificación de Alicante.


title: Alicante

text: Alicante serves as headquarters and the starting point of the Volvo Ocean Race, a yacht race around the world. The latest race sailed in October 2017.


title: Philip Rivers

text: Philip Michael Rivers (born December 8, 1981) is an American former football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 17 seasons, primarily with the Chargers franchise. He played college football at NC State and was selected fourth overall in the 2004 NFL Draft by the New York Giants, who traded him to the San Diego Chargers during the draft. Rivers was a member of the Chargers for 16 seasons and played his final season for the Indianapolis Colts.


title: Philip Rivers

text: After spending his first two seasons as a backup, Rivers served as the Chargers' starting quarterback from 2006 to 2019. During his tenure, he was named to eight Pro Bowls while leading the team to six postseason appearances and four division titles. Rivers also helped the franchise win their first playoff game since 1994 and reach the AFC Championship Game in the 2007 season. With the Colts in 2020, he reached the playoffs a seventh time. He was less successful in the postseason, however, and never made a Super Bowl appearance.


title: Philip Rivers

text: Rivers retired fifth all-time in passing yards and touchdowns, which are the most of quarterbacks without Super Bowl appearances. He is also second all-time in consecutive regular season starts by a quarterback, having started every regular season game between 2006 and 2020. Rivers is considered among the greatest quarterbacks to have never played in a Super Bowl.


title: Philip Rivers

text: Rivers was born in Decatur, Alabama, where his father, Steve, was the head coach of Decatur High's football team and his mother, Joan, was a teacher. As part of a fifth-grade project, he had to make a poster about his dreams and aspirations. On the poster, he pasted his face over that of a Minnesota Vikings player who had appeared on a cover of "Sports Illustrated". Rivers' first start in an official game came in the seventh grade, in 1994. He has worn the number 17 jersey since the ninth grade, in honor of his father, who wore the same number in high school. After his dad got the head coaching job, Rivers played high school football at Athens High School in nearby Athens.


title: Philip Rivers

text: As Rivers' senior season unfolded, he established himself as the best prep passer in the state. Although he had offers from Auburn and Alabama, neither projected him as a starting quarterback. Rivers rejected them in order to go to a program where he would have more playing time. The first college to seriously recruit Rivers as a quarterback was North Carolina State. Joe Pate convinced Rivers and his parents to consider graduating from high school in December 1999.


title: Philip Rivers

text: After high school, Rivers attended North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he played for coach Chuck Amato's Wolfpack football team. Rivers enrolled in January and suited up for his first practice as a college quarterback in the spring of 2000.


title: Philip Rivers

text: As a freshman in 2000, Rivers led NC State to an 8–4 record, including a win against Minnesota in the MicronPC Bowl. Four of the Wolfpack's victories were comebacks. In his debut, a 38–31 double-overtime win over Arkansas State, he passed for 397 yards and three touchdowns. He directed a 74-yard game-tying drive as time expired. A week later, he threw for 401 yards in a 41–38 win against Indiana. The performance was highlighted by a timely 47-yard pass to future first round pick Koren Robinson with under a minute to go. Against Duke, NC State trailed 31–28 late in the fourth quarter when Rivers scored a rushing touchdown on a seven-yard run. Rivers threw for a season-high 413 yards to go along with three touchdowns and one interception For the season, Rivers passed for 3,054 yards and 25 touchdowns. He broke a half-dozen school passing marks, was ACC Rookie of the Week a record eight times, and earned honors as the conference Freshman of the Year. For the first time since Roman Gabriel ran the Wolfpack offense in the early 1960s, NC State had an All-American caliber quarterback.


title: Philip Rivers

text: As a sophomore in 2001, Rivers connected for 2,586 yards and 16 touchdowns. His 65.2 percent completion mark led the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). The Wolfpack finished the 2001 campaign at 7–4 and made a return trip to the Tangerine Bowl. The quarterback had a good game against Pitt in a 34–19 loss, passing for 189 yards and a touchdown.


title: Philip Rivers

text: In 2002, Rivers led the Wolfpack to victories in their first nine games, which led to a number #10 ranking in the AP Poll. It was the best start in the school's history. The season took a disappointing turn however when they lost three consecutive ACC contests, but NC State defeated Florida State by a score of 17–7 in their season finale, and received an invitation to play against Notre Dame in the Gator Bowl. Once again, Rivers delivered an MVP performance in the most important game of the year, pacing the Wolfpack to a dominating 28–6 win over Notre Dame. In the victory, Rivers was 23-of-37 for 228 passing yards and two passing touchdowns. The game would set up a remarkable year for Rivers in 2003.


title: Philip Rivers

text: As a senior in 2003, Rivers threw for 4,491 yards and 34 touchdowns in 12 games, capping his career as the most productive and durable quarterback in ACC history.


title: Philip Rivers

text: In the 2003 season, Rivers passed for over 300 yards eight times and 400 yards four times to go along with 29 touchdowns in the regular season. He led the ACC in passing attempts, completions, yards, and touchdowns. NC State finished with a 7–5 record to qualify for a bowl game.


title: Philip Rivers

text: Rivers's time at NC State had a positive ending, leading the Wolfpack to a 56–26 win over Kansas in his third Tangerine Bowl. In the victory, he threw for a career-high 475 yards and five touchdowns. Philip earned his second straight bowl MVP award. At the end of the season, Rivers was named ACC Player of the Year for the 2003 football season and ACC Athlete of the Year for 2003–04. He was considered a Heisman candidate during the season, but he was not invited to the Heisman Trophy presentation, where he finished in seventh place.


title: Philip Rivers

text: During his collegiate career, Rivers shattered almost every NC State and ACC passing record. He started 51 straight games and completed a conference record 1,147 passes in 1,710 tries, with 95 touchdowns. His career culminated with an NCAA record 51st consecutive college start. The Wolfpack went to four consecutive bowl games under the leadership of Rivers, winning three of them. Rivers finished his career at NC State with 13,484 passing yards, 13th all-time among Division I quarterbacks (he finished in second place at the end of his collegiate career). He also threw 95 touchdown passes, which tied him for eighth all-time with Kliff Kingsbury and Brady Quinn. Rivers' number was retired before his final home game at North Carolina State.


title: Philip Rivers

text: Rivers was projected to be an early first-round pick in the 2004 NFL Draft. However, despite Rivers' record of success in college and high accuracy (72 completion percentage for his senior season), questions about his lack of arm strength and his unorthodox side-arm throwing motion were concerns for some NFL general managers. The pre-draft consensus was that Rivers could be selected by the Pittsburgh Steelers with the 11th pick. The San Diego Chargers coveted Eli Manning and wanted to select him with their first round pick, which was also the first overall pick of the draft. However, after Manning indicated before the draft that he would not sign with them, Rivers was their first alternative because the Chargers head coach at the time, Marty Schottenheimer, had coached him at the Senior Bowl and he liked what he saw. The Chargers agreed to a draft day deal with the New York Giants. San Diego selected Manning first, then traded him to New York for Rivers, taken by the Giants fourth, plus draft picks later used by the Chargers on future Pro Bowlers Shawne Merriman and Nate Kaeding.


title: Philip Rivers

text: Rivers was one of 17 quarterbacks taken in the 2004 NFL Draft, along with Manning and the Steelers' Ben Roethlisberger. All three would enjoy lengthy and successful careers with the teams that signed them and have been compared favorably to the 1983 NFL Draft, which included Hall of Fame quarterbacks John Elway, Jim Kelly, and Dan Marino. Unlike Manning and Roethlisberger, who each have two championship titles, Rivers did not reach the Super Bowl during his career. Nevertheless, he is the highest in touchdowns, completion percentage, TD–INT ratio, passer rating, and Pro Bowl honors of the three. He also retired with the most passing yards and pass completions. After his retirement, Roethlisberger surpassed him in passing yards.


title: Philip Rivers

text: In August 2004, Rivers signed a six-year, $40.5 million contract with the San Diego Chargers that included $14.5 million in signing bonuses. However, due to a protracted contract negotiation with the San Diego Chargers, Rivers only reported to the team during the last week of training camp, and incumbent Drew Brees retained his starting job. Rivers began the season as the Chargers' third quarterback option, behind Doug Flutie, and ahead of the fourth quarterback on the depth chart, Cleo Lemon. Unfortunately for Rivers, Brees went on to have a then-career year and was named to the NFL Pro Bowl while winning the NFL Comeback Player of the Year Award. Rivers received very limited playing time, playing in only two games. He only threw passes in the second half of the last game of the 2004 season, a victory over the Kansas City Chiefs, by which time the Chargers had already clinched a home playoff spot and the AFC West division title. In the victory, he threw his first touchdown pass to fellow rookie Malcom Floyd. He was not on the active roster for San Diego's playoff loss to the New York Jets.


title: Philip Rivers

text: Rivers was promoted to second on the Chargers quarterback depth chart after Flutie was released. Rivers was unable to beat out Brees for the starting quarterback job in the Chargers' 2005 training camp and preseason. In the Chargers' final game of the 2005 season, at home in Qualcomm Stadium, Rivers entered the game after Brees dislocated his right shoulder late in the second quarter due to a hit from Denver Broncos safety John Lynch. Rivers completed 12 of 22 passing attempts for 115 yards with one interception and two fumbles. The Chargers lost to Denver, 23–7. However, Rivers led the Chargers on their only scoring drive that game, which culminated in a four-yard touchdown run by running back LaDainian Tomlinson.


title: Philip Rivers

text: After the 2005 season, Brees was not re-signed (partly due to the injury suffered in the Denver game) by the Chargers. Instead he signed a large contract that included sizeable guaranteed money with the New Orleans Saints, during the 2006 free agency period. Many doubted the Chargers' decision to change quarterbacks as they were a Super Bowl contender, believing that Rivers' inexperience would hinder them. Rivers was named the Chargers' starter going into training camp. Expectations were high for Rivers due to the large amount of talent on the Chargers' offense and the performance of his peers from the 2004 draft (Eli Manning and Ben Roethlisberger) as starters.


title: Philip Rivers

text: Football Outsiders projected that Rivers would become an NFL star before the 2006 season due to his spectacular completion percentage in college (72% as a senior). After just five NFL starts, Rivers was named the second best NFL quarterback under 25 years of age by "Sports Illustrated".


title: Philip Rivers

text: On September 11, 2006, Rivers made his first NFL start against the Oakland Raiders. Rivers managed the game well despite only passing 11 times, but completed 8 passes, one for a touchdown, in a 27–0 rout of the Raiders. After his first game, Rivers led the league in quarterback rating with 133.9.


title: Philip Rivers

text: The fifth week of the season, the reigning Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers came to town, and Bill Cowher's defensive game plan revolved around stopping running back LaDainian Tomlinson. This game marked a turning point for Rivers, who, aided by head coach Marty Schottenheimer's opening of the playbook, led the team in a come-from-behind victory, throwing 24-of-37 for 242 yards and two touchdowns, winning 23–13.


title: Philip Rivers

text: On November 12, 2006, Rivers had the best game of his short career and led the Chargers to an improbable comeback on the road against the Cincinnati Bengals. Down 28–7 at halftime, Rivers led the Chargers on six drives culminating in touchdowns. After driving in for the Chargers first touchdown after halftime, Nick Hardwick, the Chargers' center, reminisced about Rivers, mimicking his southern drawl, "He's yelling 'Y'all don't think we're out of this' to the Bengals. When he said that, I said, 'Shoot, I guess we ain't out of this. Right on.'" He threw for 337 yards and three touchdown passes, while LaDainian Tomlinson scored three of their four rushing touchdowns. San Diego outscored Cincinnati 42–13 in the second half, winning the game 49–41, matching the biggest comeback in 23 years for the Chargers.


title: Philip Rivers

text: The following week, against what was considered at the time to be a strong Denver Broncos defense, the Chargers became the first team in NFL history to win back-to-back road games after trailing by 17 or more points and also the first team to win four straight when allowing at least 27 points in each game. Rivers led several 4th quarter comebacks in 2006, and posted the league's highest 4th quarter quarterback rating. His performance over the season led to his selection to the 2007 Pro Bowl. After a 14–2 season the Chargers had home field advantage and were set to play the New England Patriots in the of the playoffs. However, the Patriots won that game 24–21, and Schottenheimer was fired amid conflicts with team president Dean Spanos.


title: Philip Rivers

text: Norv Turner took over as head coach of the Chargers in 2007. After a 1–3 start, the Chargers turned their season around, finishing 11–5 and winning the AFC West for the second straight year. Rivers finished the season with 3,152 passing yards, 21 touchdowns, and 15 interceptions.


title: Philip Rivers

text: The Chargers won their first two playoff games since the 1994 season, beating the Tennessee Titans in the and the Indianapolis Colts in the before falling to the New England Patriots in the 21–12. In the 2007 AFC Championship Game, Rivers' was lauded by his teammates and the press for playing the entire game with a torn anterior cruciate ligament, which later required surgery and was ranked among the "NFL Top 10 Gutsiest Performances". Chris Harry of the "Orlando Sentinel" said "I don't think anyone will ever accuse Philip Rivers of being soft." Kevin Acee of "The San Diego Union-Tribune" said, "To go out there and put his knee, and ultimately his career, on the line. It has to go down as one of the gutsiest performances."


title: Philip Rivers

text: In 2008, Rivers led the NFL in multiple categories including touchdown passes (34), passer rating (105.5), yards per pass attempt (8.4), and adjusted yards per attempt (8.8). In Week 2, against the Denver Broncos, he had a season-high 377 passing yards, three touchdowns, and one interception in the 39–38 loss. On December 28, 2008, Rivers set the Chargers team record for touchdown passes in a season with 34, a record previously held by Dan Fouts, who had 33 in 1981. After a 4–8 start, Rivers threw 11 touchdown passes and one interception to win the final four games of the season, winning the AFC West division on a season-finale 52–21 tie-breaking win over the Denver Broncos. On January 3, 2009, in the , the San Diego Chargers defeated the Indianapolis Colts to advance to the AFC Divisional Playoff. Rivers led the Chargers down the field down three points with under two minutes left. He set up Nate Kaeding for a game-tying field goal that would lead to overtime, where the Chargers would go on to win 23–17, thanks to a Darren Sproles touchdown. In the 35–24 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers, Rivers played well, throwing for over 300 yards and three touchdowns, but was sacked four times and threw an interception. They possessed the ball for only 17 seconds during the third quarter and had only 15 yards rushing.


title: Philip Rivers

text: On August 24, 2009, Rivers signed a six-year, $92 million contract extension with the Chargers, with approximately $38 million guaranteed. Rivers was voted into his second career Pro Bowl on December 29. He ended the season with a passer rating of 104.4, the third highest in the NFL, after passing for 4,254 yards, 28 touchdowns, and only nine interceptions. For the second consecutive year, he led the NFL in yards per attempt (8.8) and adjusted yards per attempt (9.1). He led the Chargers to the second seed in the AFC with a 13–3 record, tied for second best in the NFL. In the , Rivers was 27–40 for 298 yards while rushing and throwing for a touchdown and was intercepted twice in the 17–14 loss to the New York Jets.


title: Philip Rivers

text: Rivers led the league in passing yards, throwing for a career-high 4,710 yards. The Chargers started off the year slowly again at 3–5 and finished a disappointing 9–7 and their four-year reign as AFC West champions ended while they missed the playoffs. In Week 3, against the Seattle Seahawks, Rivers threw for 455 yards and two passing touchdowns in a losing effort 20–27. These 455 yards broke the franchise single-game record for most passing yardage, previously held by Dan Fouts, who had 444 in 1982. Rivers recorded 431 and threw two passing touchdowns, but lost to the Oakland Raiders in Week 5. In Week 8, Rivers threw for 305 yards, with two passing touchdowns and one interception in a 33–25 win against the Tennessee Titans, extending his active player-leading streak to 21 games with a touchdown thrown and giving him the record for most passing yards (2,649) ever after 8 games, passing Fouts' previous record (2,580). Rivers threw for four passing touchdowns, two to backup tight end Randy McMichael and the other two to rookie receiver Seyi Ajirotutu in a comeback 29–23 victory over the Houston Texans. The Chargers' top receivers Gates (torn plantar fascia), Vincent Jackson (suspended), Malcom Floyd (hamstring), and Legedu Naanee (hamstring) did not play in the game. Rivers lost his first ever game in December, a 13–28 loss at home against the Raiders. Rivers was invited to the 2011 Pro Bowl, his fourth invite overall, and started in place of an injured Tom Brady. It was the first time he played in a Pro Bowl, twice missing previous games due to injury and once for the birth of his child in the 2010 Pro Bowl. Rivers was named the quarterback in the 2010 NFL Alumni Player of the Year Awards over Brady, who was unanimously named The Associated Press 2010 Most Valuable Player. He was ranked 26th by his fellow players on the NFL Top 100 Players of 2011.


title: Philip Rivers

text: Entering the 2011 season, Nick Canepa of the "San Diego Union-Tribune" called Rivers a "better quarterback" than Fouts, a first-ballot Hall of Fame quarterback. Canepa cited Rivers "[completing] passes to an astounding 17 different receivers" in 2010, amid the injuries to Chargers receivers, and his then 55–25 record as a starter compared to 86–84–1 for Fouts. He also noted, "Fouts made more mistakes than Rivers." Rivers had completed 63.7 percent of his 2,455 passes with 58 interceptions and a 97.2 passer rating, while Fouts was successful on 58.8 percent of his 5,604 attempts with 242 interceptions and an 80.2 rating. Rivers had never thrown more than two interceptions in a game, including seven playoff games. His passer rating was the highest in league history, and he had the second-best touchdown-to-interception ratio of all-time (136/58).