title: 4 (Beyoncé album)

text: Six weeks later, in May 2010, she asked Swivel to work on the entire project. Concerning his working relationship with Beyoncé, he commented, "There was no 'We're doing "this" today.' It was a very kind of open project, where whatever she felt like recording at that time was what we'd work on. It was based on how she felt, her mood, and also her listening to the demos that writers would give us." With Swivel, she experimented with horns, drums, guitars and percussion instruments. Mostly inspired by the "Fela!" sessions, Swivel began to formulate beats using their own recordings and those from "Fela!" The project was moved to KMA Studios for a week and a half because Roc the Mic was not large enough. There they began recording "I Care", "Best Thing I Never Had" and "Rather Die Young", and completed "Party". They recorded the songs "Schoolin' Life", "1+1" and "Start Over" at Jungle City Studios in New York.


title: 4 (Beyoncé album)

text: MSR Studios was the final New York City-based studio used, and where most of "4" was recorded—only "Party" and "I Was Here" were recorded entirely at other studios. At MSR, Beyoncé emphasized the use of live instruments on songs such as "I Care" and "End of Time". Consequently, most of the instruments, including drums, keyboards, guitar and bass work, were recorded there and performed by Jeff Bhasker and Shea Taylor. Beyoncé asked Frank Ocean to write and record "I Miss You" at MSR, saying to "Complex", "[Jay-Z] had a CD playing in the car one Sunday when we were driving to Brooklyn. I noticed his tone, his arrangements, and his storytelling. I immediately reached out to him—literally the next morning. I asked him to fly to New York and work on my record."


title: 4 (Beyoncé album)

text: After listening to each song, Beyoncé would often request the addition of specific instruments, leaving her production team to make the sounds cohesive. Her vocals were recorded through an Avalon Design 737 preamp and compressed in a 1176 Peak Limiter with a 4:1 ratio. After recording the lead vocals for a track, Swivel cut them in different ways and he and Beyoncé picked the best, then recording the backing vocals. Beyoncé composed her own vocal arrangements and harmonies for each song. Her microphones were carefully placed to achieve a blend of sounds with a clear quality. Swivel spoke of her work ethic in an interview for "Sound on Sound":


title: 4 (Beyoncé album)

text: After the move to MSR, Beyoncé and her production team began travelling. In the United Kingdom, they worked at Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios in Wiltshire—particularly using Gabriel's multi-instrument room—to create "Love On Top". Soon after, Beyoncé joined Jay-Z in a Sydney mansion, as he was working on his collaboration album "Watch the Throne" (2011) with Kanye West. There they created a "primitive studio" using a microphone, a rig out and Pro Tools software to record. Sessions were also held in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Honolulu.


title: 4 (Beyoncé album)

text: In February 2011, MTV reported the project was nearing completion. "4" was mixed mostly at MixStar Studios in Virginia and mastered at Sterling Sound in New York City. The audio mastering was delayed by a week following the unexpected recording of "I Was Here". Diane Warren had played the song to Jay-Z during a telephone conversation, leading him to put Warren and Beyoncé in contact. In May 2011, Beyoncé submitted seventy-two songs in preparation for the album's release. According to Swivel, an eclectic range of songs were recorded, including ballads, "weird ethereal things" and 1990s R&B and Afrobeat-inspired songs.


title: 4 (Beyoncé album)

text: The final cut of "4" comprises twelve tracks on the standard edition and eighteen on the deluxe edition—three of which are remixes of "Run the World (Girls)". Critics viewed "4" as a major departure from Beyoncé's previous catalogue, with a distinctive mellower sound. The album consists mostly of mid-tempo R&B songs, with 1970s funk, 1980s pop and 1990s soul influences. The second half was more eclectic, exploring a variety of genres including hard rock, reggae and adult contemporary. "The Guardian" complimented the album's divergence from the "layering [of] Euro-synths on pop-step woomphs" that characterize the music of Beyoncé's contemporaries.


title: 4 (Beyoncé album)

text: The balladry of the first half of "4" combines diverse vocal styles with the use of live instrumentation. "1+1" demonstrates Beyoncé's vocal-flexing over "magnificent guitar bombast" and a soft backing beat, while "Start Over", a mid tempo R&B ballad, uses a futuristic beat with electric elements and synthesizers. "I Miss You", with its "layers of atmospheric keyboards", ambient synthesizers and tinny 808 drums was sung in a half-whisper to exhibit intense emotion. "I Was Here", an understated pop-R&B ballad with indie rock inflections, primarily concerns self-reflection with dramatic vocals.


title: 4 (Beyoncé album)

text: On other songs, Beyoncé explores womanhood. "Best Thing I Never Had", "4"s fourth track, was described as a moment of self-realization and a "female call to arms". With vocals that allude to a "wounded bird turned resilient lioness", the song is built on a "winkly piano riff and beefy bass drums". "Dance for You" conveys a more sexual tone through breathy vocals and blaring electric guitars. It forgoes her typical empowerment themes in favor of sensual imagery and comfort with one's partner. "Run the World (Girls)", a female empowerment anthem reminiscent of Beyoncé's more contemporary work on "I Am... Sasha Fierce", uses an energetic sample of Major Lazer's "Pon de Floor". The song incorporates "layered melodics", most prominently a military marching drumbeat, while Beyoncé's near-chanted delivery encompasses her full vocal range.


title: 4 (Beyoncé album)

text: The tracks "Countdown" and "End of Time" were distinguished by their musical and lyrical experimentalism. "Countdown" was described as "everywhere on the genre map", although predominantly dancehall-led with a "bristling brass arrangement". Its chorus describes a relationship by counting backwards from ten, using a sample from Boyz II Men's "Uhh Ahh". "End of Time"s pulsating, brass sound—reminiscent of a marching-band—was heavily influenced by Afrobeat musician Fela Kuti. Kuti's use of horns and percussion instruments was recreated and combined with elements of electronic music and synthesizers. "Lay Up Under Me" is also built on retro horns, featuring upbeat vocals, a sound Ryan Dombal of "Pitchfork" associated with Michael Jackson's 1979 album "Off the Wall".


title: 4 (Beyoncé album)

text: Other tracks were noted for their retro stylization. "Rather Die Young" is a throwback to 1960s doo-wop and Philadelphia soul, with a slow tempo and modern drums. "Party" achieves a vintage aesthetic through minimalistic production, replete with heavy synthesizers and a 1980s smooth-funk groove. The song is unique for its conversation-like structure, in which Beyoncé and guest-vocalist André 3000 sing verses that allude to socialization at parties. Elements of Prince's style was found on "Schoolin' Life" and "1+1". "Schoolin' Life" is an uptempo funk song, with lyrics that advise the listener to live life to the fullest while cautioning them about the consequences of excess. The chorus of "1+1" was compared to "Purple Rain", with themes of sadness and resentment, the song uses soft background vocals and dense percussion. "Love On Top" was noted for its energetic key changes with a joyful tone, evoking the work of Michael and Janet Jackson. Its retro sound is marked by a melding of horns as well as sweet backing harmonies that are most prominent on its bridge and chorus.


title: 4 (Beyoncé album)

text: In an interview for "Billboard", Beyoncé stated that despite having another concept for the album, she was ultimately influenced by her fans to name the album "4". She described the number four as being "special" to her, as her and Jay-Z's birthday, several other family and friends' birthdays, and her wedding anniversary fall on the fourth day of the month. The cover of the standard edition was revealed on Beyoncé's website on May 18, 2011. Shot on the rooftop of the Hôtel Meurice in Paris, Beyoncé is looking into the distance with her arms raised over her head, wearing smokey eye makeup, thick gold cuffs and a fox-fur stole by cult French designer Alexandre Vauthier, embellished with Swarovski crystals by the Lesage embroidery house. The cover of the deluxe edition was shown on June 16, where Beyoncé is dressed in a tight-fitting blue-purple dress by French designer Maxime Simoens, holding her hands in her hair. For its artwork, she opted for clothing made by lesser-known designers. The promotional and interior-package images for "4" were shot at the same time.


title: 4 (Beyoncé album)

text: On May 18, 2011, "4"s release date in the United States was confirmed on to be June 28. On June 7, the album was leaked onto the Internet in full; Beyoncé's legal representatives issued warnings to infringing websites and leaked tracks were soon removed from such sites. On June 9, Beyoncé responded to the leak through Facebook, commenting, "My music was leaked and while this is not how I wanted to present my new songs, I appreciate the positive response from my fans. When I record music I always think about my fans singing every note and dancing to every beat. I make music to make people happy and I appreciate that everyone has been so anxious to hear my new songs." Following this, reports circulated that Columbia Records executives hoped to cover their assets in fear that the album may be a commercial failure. Rumors had suggested that the label requested from Beyoncé to make changes to the record and reunite Destiny's Child, claims Columbia denied. In August 2013, "NME" reported that Sony Music were suing a 47-year-old man from Gothenburg for US$233,000 concerning the leak of "4". The deluxe version was released simultaneously with the standard edition in several countries. In the United States, it was available exclusively through Target stores.


title: 4 (Beyoncé album)

text: Beyoncé made several appearances on television and in live shows to promote "4". She performed "Run the World (Girls)" for the first time on May 17, 2011, on "Surprise Oprah! A Farewell Spectacular" at the United Center in Chicago. She also performed the song at the 2011 "Billboard" Music Awards. On May 25, "1+1" was made available for download through the iTunes Store in the United States. The same day, "1+1" was performed at the "American Idol" final; she introduced it as her favorite song. In June, she performed at the Palais Nikaia in Nice, Zénith de Lille, and the Galaxie in Amnéville. On June 26, Beyoncé was the closing act at the Glastonbury Festival 2011 in the United Kingdom. She was the first solo female artist to headline the Pyramid stage at the Glastonbury Festival in more than twenty years. A pre-taped performance of "Best Thing I Never Had" and "End of Time" at the Glastonbury Festival was broadcast during the 2011 BET Awards. The following day, Beyoncé's exclusive hour-long interview with Piers Morgan in London was broadcast on "Piers Morgan Tonight". She also appeared on the finale of France's "X Factor" to perform "Run the World" and "Best Thing I Never Had". An MTV television special, "Beyoncé: Year of 4", premiered on June 30, documenting Beyoncé's life during "4"s production.


title: 4 (Beyoncé album)

text: On July 1, Beyoncé appeared on "Good Morning America" as part of its "Summer Concert Series" in New York City. She also projected images from "4" on a number of London's landmarks, including Madame Tussauds and Battersea Power Station. She then traveled to Scotland to perform at the T in the Park Festival on July 9, 2011. The next day, she performed at the Oxegen Festival in Ireland. On July 28, 2011, Beyoncé performed "1+1" and "Best Thing I Never Had" on "The View;" the latter was also performed on "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" the same day. From August 16–19, Beyoncé held the 4 Intimate Nights with Beyoncé concerts at the Roseland Ballroom to a standing room only audience. Subsequently, the "" DVD was released in November. "Love On Top" was sung at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards on August 28, Beyoncé finished the performance by unbuttoning her blazer and rubbing her stomach to confirm her pregnancy. A live performance of "Countdown" recorded in July was broadcast on "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" in November.


title: 4 (Beyoncé album)

text: "4" was Beyoncé' first album that yielded no number-one singles in the United States, as no song from "4" reached the top ten on the "Billboard" Hot 100. "Run the World (Girls)" was released internationally as the lead single from "4" on April 21, 2011. It reached number twenty-nine on the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart and number eleven on the UK Singles Chart. "Best Thing I Never Had" followed on June 1, 2011. It fared much better on national charts, reaching number sixteen in the United States, number five in New Zealand and number three in the United Kingdom.


title: 4 (Beyoncé album)

text: "Party" was released as an urban contemporary single in the United States on August 30, 2011; its remix, featuring J. Cole, was released in the United States, Canada and some European countries on October 24, 2011. "Love On Top" was released in Australia as a contemporary hit radio single in September 2011; it was released in Italy, Belgium and the United States later. It topped the US "Billboard" Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs for seven consecutive weeks. "Countdown" was released in the United States and parts of Europe, beginning October 4, 2011. "I Care" was released exclusively in Italy on March 23, 2012. "End of Time" was released exclusively in the United Kingdom on April 23, 2012.


title: 4 (Beyoncé album)

text: "4" received positive reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 73, based on 36 reviews. Michael Cragg of "The Observer" called it Beyoncé's "most accomplished album yet". "Slant Magazine"s Eric Henderson believed "4" succeeds vocally as an album of mostly intimate and slow-tempo ballads. Mikael Wood of "Spin" magazine applauded its ballads, mid-tempo songs, and evocations of late 1970s and early 1980s pop-soul. In his review for "Rolling Stone", Jody Rosen wrote that Beyoncé eschews contemporary production styles for a more personal and idiosyncratic album. Jon Caramanica of "The New York Times" viewed it as a good showcase for Beyoncé as a torch singer, because she convincingly sings about heartbreak and the strong emotional effect of love. ""Pitchfork"" critic Ryan Dombal found it easygoing, retro-informed, and engaging because it shows "one of the world's biggest stars exploring her talent in ways few could've predicted". AllMusic's Andy Kellman said that the quality of Beyoncé's singing and the songwriting compensate for the assorted arrangement of the songs. "Uncut" viewed it is an exceptional album in spite of occasionally trite lyrics.


title: 4 (Beyoncé album)

text: In a less enthusiastic review, Adam Markovitz of "Entertainment Weekly" said the first half of "4" is marred by boring ballads and the songwriting in general are not on-par with Beyoncé's vocal talent. In his review for "The Guardian", Alexis Petridis was ambivalent towards the album's 1980s influence and argued that, despite well written songs, it is not very consequential. "Time" magazine's Claire Suddath said the songs lack lyrical substance, even though they are performed well. Greg Kot, writing in the "Chicago Tribune", called "4" inconsistent, short, and unfinished. "NME" magazine's Hamish MacBain felt Beyoncé did not progress from her past work and that "even the OK bits here" sounded "uninspired". Tom Hull was more critical and gave the album a "C", lamenting the second half of songs' "overkill production" and believing the first half's ballads show that, while "every soul diva of her generation has dreamed of singing like Aretha Franklin ... only Beyoncé has had the ego to think she's done it."


title: 4 (Beyoncé album)

text: "4" was included on various publication's year-end lists. It was ranked as the best album of the year by "The New Yorker", and came in the runner-up spot on lists produced by "Spin" and Amazon. The album was ranked within the top 10 by MSN, where it came in at number three, "The Guardian" and "MTV", which placed it at number four, and the "Chicago Sun-Times", which placed it at number six. The "BBC" ranked it at number seven, while "The New York Times" listed it as the 10th best album of the year. The album had strong showings on other lists, where it was placed number 13 by "Consequence of Sound", number 18 by "Stereogum", number 25 by "Rolling Stone", number 39 by "Spin", number 10 by "Club Fonograma," number 34 by "Pretty Much Amazing" and number 27 by "Pitchfork". "4" was included in NPR's Top 50 Favorite Albums of 2011, and was ranked at number 26 in the "Pazz & Jop"'s critics poll.


title: 4 (Beyoncé album)

text: It was listed at 37 on "Rolling Stone"s Women Who Rock: 50 Greatest Albums of All Time. "Pitchfork" ranked the album at 39 on their list of the Top 100 Best Albums of the decade thus far, with Kyle Kramer writing that "4" "avoided the trappings of safe, later-career bids, instead setting up the perfect platform for Beyoncé as the pop star, a queen for all the people." The album was included on "Consequence of Sound"'s list of The 10 Best Summer Albums of All Time with Kenneth Partridge writing that "whether she's hopelessly heartbroken or crazy in love, Queen Bey works damn hard to make you feel exactly what she's feeling".


title: 4 (Beyoncé album)

text: "4" was named the greatest R&B album of the decade (2010s) by "Rated R&B", and the second greatest pop album of the decade by "Uproxx". On their ranking of the 200 best albums of the decade, "Pitchfork" listed "4" at number 31. For "BrooklynVegan", it was the 29th best R&B/Rap project of the same period.


title: 4 (Beyoncé album)

text: "4" won R&B Album of the Year at the 2012 "Billboard" Music Awards and received nominations at the 2011 American Music Awards, the 2011 Soul Train Music Awards, the 38th People's Choice Awards, the 43rd NAACP Image Awards and the 2012 Grammis. At the 55th Annual Grammy Awards, "Love On Top" won the Best Traditional R&B Performance Award.


title: 4 (Beyoncé album)

text: In the United States, "4" debuted at number one on the "Billboard" 200, with first-week sales of 310,000 copies. This gave Beyoncé her fourth consecutive solo album to debut at number one on the "Billboard" 200 album chart, making her the second female artist, after Britney Spears, and third artist overall, tied with Spears and DMX to have her first four studio albums debut atop the "Billboard" 200. "4"s first-week sales became Beyoncé's lowest sales start with a studio album to date. Keith Caulfield of "Billboard" magazine noted that the album was not released during the festive season and that Beyoncé was so far lacking a hit single, which could help explain the album's softer entry. It marks the third-largest sales week of the year, after the number-one bows of Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" and Adele's "21". "4" became the ninth numerically titled album to top the chart since 1956. In its second week, the album remained at number one on the "Billboard" 200, despite a 63% sales decrease, selling 115,000 copies. It hence became the first album by Beyoncé to top the "Billboard" 200 albums chart for more than one week; an effort succeeded by her self-titled fifth studio album (2013) that remained there for three weeks. On August 1, 2011, the album was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), having shipped one million copies to retail stores. As of December 2015, it had reached sales of 1.5 million copies in the United States. As of November 2016, it had sold over 5 million copies worldwide. As of August 2022, the album is certified four-times platinum.


title: 4 (Beyoncé album)

text: On its first day of release, "4" sold around 20,000 copies in the United Kingdom. According to the Official Charts Company data, this was more than the combined sales of its three nearest challengers: Adele's "19" (2008) and "21" (2011) and Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" (2011). After a week of sales, "4" debuted atop the UK Albums Chart on July 4, 2011, with first-week sales of 89,211 copies, staying there for a second week with sales of 44,929 copies. By May 2013, it had sold 603,548 copies in the United Kingdom. "4" opened at number two on the Australian ARIA Charts, giving Beyoncé her highest chart debut there. "4" debuted at number three on the Canadian Albums Chart, selling 8,700 copies in its first week. It debuted at number two in France, selling 12,393 copies in its first week. According to the Japanese music charting site Oricon, the album debuted at number ten, selling 18,984 copies for the week ending July 11, 2011.


title: Briseis

text: Briseis (; "Brīsēís", ) ("daughter of Briseus"), also known as Hippodameia (, ), is a significant character in the "Iliad". Her role as a status symbol is at the heart of the dispute between Achilles and Agamemnon that initiates the plot of Homer's epic. She was married to Mynes, a son of the King of Lyrnessus, until Achilles sacked her city and enslaved her shortly before the events of the poem. Being forced to give Briseis to Agamemnon, Achilles refused to reenter the battle.


title: Briseis

text: Briseis receives the same minimal physical description as most other minor characters in the "Iliad". She is described with the standard metrical epithets that the poet uses to describe a great beauty, though her appearance is left entirely up to the audience's imagination. Her beauty is compared to that of the goddesses.


title: Briseis

text: Meanwhile, in the account of Dares the Phrygian (between 1st century BC and 5th century AD), Briseis was illustrated as ". . .beautiful. She was small and blond, with soft yellow hair. Her eyebrows were joined above her lovely eyes. Her body was well-proportioned. She was charming, friendly, modest, ingenuous, and pious."


title: Briseis

text: According to her mythology, Briseis was the daughter of Briseus, though her mother was unnamed. She had three full brothers who died in the sack of Lyrnessus.


title: Briseis

text: When Achilles led the assault on Lyrnessus during the Trojan War, he captured Briseis and slew her parents and brothers. She was subsequently given to Achilles as a war prize to be his concubine. In the Mycenaean Greek society described in the "Iliad", captive women like Briseis were slaves and could be traded amongst the warriors.


title: Briseis

text: According to Book 1 of the "Iliad", when Agamemnon was compelled by Apollo to give up his own slave, Chryseis, he demanded Briseis as compensation. This prompted a quarrel with Achilles that culminated with Briseis' delivery to Agamemnon and Achilles' protracted withdrawal from battle. His absence had disastrous consequences for the Greeks. Despite Agamemnon's grand offers of treasure and women, he did not return to the fray until the death of Patroclus.


title: Briseis

text: Achilles was angry at Agamemnon, and seethed with rage in his tent that Agamemnon dared to insult him by stripping him of the prize that had been awarded to him. When Achilles returned to the fighting to avenge Patroclus' death and Agamemnon returned Briseis to him, Agamemnon swore to Achilles that he had never slept with Briseis.


title: Briseis

text: When Odysseus, Ajax, and Phoenix visit Achilles to negotiate her return in book 9, Achilles refers to Briseis as his wife or his bride. He professes to have loved her as much as any man loves his wife, at one point using Menelaus and Helen to complain about the injustice of his "wife" being taken from him. This romanticized, domestic view of their relationship contrasts with book 19, in which Briseis herself speaks. As she laments Patroclus' death, she wonders what will happen to her without his intercession on her behalf, saying that Patroclus promised her he would get Achilles to make her his legal wife instead of his slave.


title: Briseis

text: In book 19 of the "Iliad," Achilles makes a rousing speech to the Achaean soldiers. He publicly declares that he will ignore his anger with Agamemnon and return to battle. During his speech, Achilles says he wishes Briseis were dead, lamenting that she ever came between Agamemnon and himself. This contrasts his own statements in book 9.


title: Briseis

text: She remained with Achilles until his death, which plunged her into great grief. She soon took it upon herself to prepare Achilles for the afterlife. According to Robert Bell, following his death, Briseis "was given to one of Achilles' comrades-at-arms just as his armor had been", after the fall of Troy.


title: Briseis

text: In medieval romances, starting with the "Roman de Troie", Briseis becomes Briseida and is the daughter of Calchas. She loves and is loved by Troilus and then Diomedes. She is later confused with Chryseis and it is under variations of that name that the character is developed further, becoming Shakespeare's Cressida.


title: Gayathrie

text: Gayathrie Shankar (born 2 May 1993) is an Indian actress who appears in Tamil and Malayalam films. Her Tamil film debut was in 2012 with "18 Vayasu", and is best known for her role in "Naduvula Konjam Pakkatha Kaanom" (2012). She had her Malayalam film debut with "Nna Thaan Case Kodu" (2022).


title: Gayathrie

text: The actress's first release was the psychological thriller "18 Vayasu", but was recognized for her work in "Naduvula Konjam Pakkatha Kaanom" alongside Vijay Sethupathi. In 2013 she starred in two films, "Ponmaalai Pozhudhu" and "Mathapoo". She was next seen in "Rummy", a 1980s college love story, opposite Inigo Prabhakaran.


title: Gayathrie

text: The multi-starrer "Ula", was renamed "Chithiram Pesuthuadi 2" and saw a release in 2019. The movie is directed by Rajan Madhav of Muran fame, also starred Radhika Apte, Priya Banerjee, Vidharth and Dwayne Bravo. "Puriyatha Puthir" directed by Ranjit Jeyakodi co-starring with Vijay Sethupathi, released in 2017. "Oru Nalla Naal Paathu Solren" directed by debutant Arumugakumar was a dark comedy starring Vijay Sethupathi, Gautham Karthik and Niharika Konidela. The movie released on 2 February 2018. "Seethakathi" released on 20 December 2018. She worked as an assistant director on Seethakathi, directed by Balaji Tharaneetharan. She also featured in a cameo in Seethakathi. 2018 also saw her foraying into web series. She played Aadhira, in the Amazon Prime exclusive series called "Vella Raja."


title: Gayathrie

text: 2019 saw the release of the much awaited "Super Deluxe", directed by Thiagarajan Kumararaja, starring Vijay Sethupathi, Samantha Akkineni, Fahadh Faasil, Ramya Krishnan, Mysskin among others.


title: Gayathrie

text: In 2022, she starred in Lokesh Kanagaraj's "Vikram", in which she played the wife of Amar, interpreted by Fahadh Faasil along Kamal Haasan and Vijay Sethupathi . The film marks her second collaboration with Faasil after Super Deluxe and eighth collaboration with Vijay Sethupathi. Her long delayed movie, "Maamanithan", directed by Seenu Ramasamy with Vijay Sethupathi was released in the same year.


title: Swedes

text: Swedes () are a North Germanic ethnic group native to the Nordic region, primarily their nation state of Sweden, who share a common ancestry, culture, history and language. They mostly inhabit Sweden and the other Nordic countries, in particular Finland where they are an officially recognized minority, with a substantial diaspora in other countries, especially the United States.


title: Swedes

text: The English term "Swede" has been attested in English since the late 16th century and is of Middle Dutch or Middle Low German origin. In Swedish, the term is "svensk", which is from the name of "svear" (or Swedes), the people who inhabited Svealand in eastern central Sweden, and were listed as "Suiones" in Tacitus' history "Germania" from the first century AD. The term is believed to have been derived from the Proto-Indo-European reflexive pronominal root, , as the Latin "suus". The word must have meant "one's own (tribesmen)". The same root and original meaning is found in the ethnonym of the Germanic tribe Suebi, preserved to this day in the name Swabia.


title: Swedes

text: Like other Scandinavians, Swedes descend from the presumably Indo-European Battle Axe culture and also the Pitted Ware culture. Prior to the first century AD there is no written evidence and historiography is based solely on various forms of archeology. The Proto-Germanic language is thought to have originated in the arrival of the Battle Axe culture in Scandinavia and the Germanic tribal societies of Scandinavia were thereafter surprisingly stable for thousands of years. The merger of the Battle Axe and Pitted Ware cultures eventually gave rise to the Nordic Bronze Age which was followed by the Pre-Roman Iron Age. Like other North Germanic peoples, Swedes likely emerged as a distinct ethnic group during this time.


title: Swedes

text: Swedes enters written proto-history with the "Germania" of Tacitus in 98 AD. In he mentions the Swedes ("Suiones") as a powerful tribe ("distinguished not merely for their arms and men, but for their powerful fleets") with ships that had a prow in both ends (longships). Which kings ("kuningaz") ruled these Suiones is unknown, but Norse mythology presents a long line of legendary and semi-legendary kings going back to the last centuries BC. As for literacy in Sweden itself, the runic script was in use among the south Scandinavian elite by at least the second century AD, but all that has survived from the Roman Period is curt inscriptions on artefacts, mainly of male names, demonstrating that the people of south Scandinavia spoke Proto-Norse at the time, a language ancestral to Swedish and other North Germanic languages.


title: Swedes

text: The migration age in Sweden is marked by the extreme weather events of 535–536 which is believed to have shaken Scandinavian society to its core. As much as 50% of the population of Scandinavia is thought to have died as a result and the emerging Vendel Period shows an increased militarization of society. Several areas with rich burial gifts have been found, including well-preserved boat inhumation graves at Vendel and Valsgärde, and tumuli at Gamla Uppsala. These were used for several generations. Some of the riches were probably acquired through the control of mining districts and the production of iron. The rulers had troops of mounted elite warriors with costly armour. Graves of mounted warriors have been found with stirrups and saddle ornaments of birds of prey in gilded bronze with encrusted garnets. The Sutton Hoo helmet very similar to helmets in Gamla Uppsala, Vendel and Valsgärde shows that the Anglo-Saxon elite had extensive contacts with Swedish elite.


title: Swedes

text: In the sixth century Jordanes named two tribes, which he calls the "Suehans" and the "Suetidi", who lived in Scandza. The Suehans, he says, have very fine horses just as the Thyringi tribe ("alia vero gens ibi moratur Suehans, quae velud Thyringi equis utuntur eximiis"). The Icelander Snorri Sturluson (1179–1241) wrote of the sixth-century Swedish king Adils (Eadgils) that he had the finest horses of his days. The Suehans supplied black fox-skins for the Roman market. Then Jordanes names the "Suetidi" which is considered to be the Latin form of "Svitjod". He writes that the Suetidi are the tallest of men—together with the Dani, who were of the same stock. Later he mentions other Scandinavian tribes as being of the same height.


title: Swedes

text: Originating in semi-legendary Scandza (believed to be somewhere in modern Götaland, Sweden), a Gothic population had crossed the Baltic Sea before the second century AD. They reaching Scythia on the coast of the Black Sea in modern Ukraine, where Goths left their archaeological traces in the Chernyakhov culture. In the fifth and sixth centuries, they became divided as the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, and established powerful successor-states of the Roman Empire in the Iberian peninsula and Italy respectively.


title: Swedes

text: The Swedish Viking Age lasted roughly between the eighth and 11th centuries. During this period, it is believed that the Swedes expanded from eastern Sweden and incorporated the Geats to the south. It is believed that Swedish Vikings and Gutar mainly travelled east and south, going to Finland, the Baltic countries, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine the Black Sea and further as far as Baghdad. Their routes passed through the Dnieper down south to Constantinople, on which they did numerous raids. The Byzantine Emperor Theophilos noticed their great skills in war and invited them to serve as his personal bodyguard, known as the varangian guard. The Swedish Vikings, called "Rus" are also believed to be the founding fathers of Kievan Rus. The Arabic traveller Ibn Fadlan described these Vikings as following: The adventures of these Swedish Vikings are commemorated on many runestones in Sweden, such as the Greece Runestones and the Varangian Runestones. There was also considerable participation in expeditions westwards, which are commemorated on stones such as the England Runestones. The last major Swedish Viking expedition appears to have been the ill-fated expedition of Ingvar the Far-Travelled to Serkland, the region south-east of the Caspian Sea. Its members are commemorated on the Ingvar Runestones, none of which mentions any survivor. What happened to the crew is unknown, but it is believed that they died of sickness.


title: Swedes

text: It is not known when and how the 'kingdom of Sweden' was born, but the list of Swedish monarchs is drawn from the first kings who ruled both Svealand (Sweden) and Götaland (Gothia) as one province with Erik the Victorious. Sweden and Gothia were two separate nations long before that into antiquity. It is not known how long they existed, but "Beowulf" described semi-legendary Swedish-Geatish wars in the sixth century.


title: Swedes

text: During the early stages of the Scandinavian Viking Age, Ystad in Scania and Paviken on Gotland, in present-day Sweden, were flourishing trade centres. Remains of what is believed to have been a large market have been found in Ystad dating from 600 to 700 AD. In Paviken, an important centre of trade in the Baltic region during the ninth and tenth centuries, remains have been found of a large Viking Age harbour with shipbuilding yards and handicraft industries. Between 800 and 1000, trade brought an abundance of silver to Gotland, and according to some scholars, the Gotlanders of this era hoarded more silver than the rest of the population of Scandinavia combined.


title: Swedes

text: St. Ansgar is usually credited for introducing Christianity in 829, but the new religion did not begin to fully replace paganism until the 12th century. During the 11th century, Christianity became the most prevalent religion, and from 1050 Sweden is counted as a Christian nation. The period between 1100 and 1400 was characterized by internal power struggles and competition among the Nordic kingdoms. Swedish kings also began to expand the Swedish-controlled territory in Finland, creating conflicts with the Rus who no longer had any connection with Sweden.


title: Swedes

text: Except for the province of Skane, on the southernmost tip of Sweden which was under Danish control during this time, feudalism never developed in Sweden as it did in the rest of Europe. Therefore, the peasantry remained largely a class of free farmers throughout most of Swedish history. Slavery (also called thralldom) was not common in Sweden, and what slavery there was tended to be driven out of existence by the spread of Christianity, the difficulty in obtaining slaves from the lands east of the Baltic Sea, and by the development of cities before the 16th century Indeed, both slavery and serfdom were abolished altogether by a decree of King Magnus Erickson in 1335. Former slaves tended to be absorbed into the peasantry and some became laborers in the towns. Still, Sweden remained a poor and economically backward country in which barter was the means of exchange. For instance, the farmers of the province of Dalsland would transport their butter to the mining districts of Sweden and exchange it there for iron, which they would then take down to the coast and trade the iron for fish they needed for food while the iron would be shipped abroad.


title: Swedes

text: A large number of children inherited the Swedish crown over the course of the kingdom's existence. King Christian II of Denmark ordered a massacre in 1520 of Swedish nobles at Stockholm. This came to be known as the "Stockholm blood bath" and stirred the Swedish nobility to new resistance and, on 6 June (now Sweden's national holiday) in 1523, they made Gustav Vasa their king. This is sometimes considered as the foundation of modern Sweden. Shortly afterwards he rejected Catholicism and led Sweden into the Protestant Reformation. Economically, Gustav Vasa broke the monopoly of the Hanseatic League over Swedish Baltic Sea trade.


title: Swedes

text: The Hanseatic League had been officially formed at Lübeck on the sea coast of Northern Germany in 1356. The Hanseatic League sought civil and commercial privileges from the princes and royalty of the countries and cities along the coasts of the Baltic Sea. In exchange they offered a certain amount of protection. Having their own navy the Hansa were able to sweep the Baltic Sea free of pirates. The privileges obtained by the Hansa included assurances that only Hansa citizens would be allowed to trade from the ports where they were located. They also sought agreement to be free of all customs and taxes. With these concessions, Lübeck merchants flocked to Stockholm, Sweden and soon came to dominate the economic life of that city and made the port city of Stockholm into the leading commercial and industrial city of Sweden. Under the Hanseatic trade two-thirds of Stockholm's imports consisted of textiles and one third of salt. Exports from Sweden consisted of iron and copper.


title: Swedes

text: However, the Swedes began to resent the monopoly trading position of the Hansa (mostly German citizens) and to resent the income they felt they lost to the Hansa. Consequently, when Gustav Vasa or Gustav I broke the monopoly power of the Hanseatic League he was regarded as a hero to the Swedish people. History now views Gustav I as the father of the modern Swedish nation. The foundations laid by Gustav would take time to develop. Furthermore, when Sweden did develop and freed itself from the Hanseatic League and entered its golden era, the fact that the peasantry had traditionally been free meant that more of the economic benefits flowed back to them rather than going to a feudal landowning class. This was not the case in other countries of Europe like Poland where the peasantry was still bound by serfdom and a strong feudalistic land owning system.


title: Swedes

text: During the 17th century Sweden emerged as a European great power. Before the emergence of the Swedish Empire, Sweden was a very poor and scarcely populated country on the fringe of European civilization, with no significant power or reputation. Sweden rose to prominence on a continental scale during the tenure of king Gustavus Adolphus, seizing territories from Russia and Poland–Lithuania in multiple conflicts, including the Thirty Years' War.


title: Swedes

text: During the Thirty Years' War, Sweden conquered approximately half of the Holy Roman states. Gustav Adolphus planned to become the new Holy Roman Emperor, ruling over a united Scandinavia and the Holy Roman states, but he died at the Battle of Lützen in 1632. After the Battle of Nördlingen, Sweden's only significant military defeat of the war, pro-Swedish sentiment among the German states faded. These German provinces excluded themselves from Swedish power one by one, leaving Sweden with only a few northern German territories: Swedish Pomerania, Bremen-Verden and Wismar. The Swedish armies may have destroyed up to 2,000 castles, 18,000 villages and 1,500 towns in Germany, one-third of all German towns.


title: Swedes

text: In the middle of the 17th century Sweden was the third largest country in Europe by land area, only surpassed by Russia and Spain. Sweden reached its largest territorial extent under the rule of Charles X after the treaty of Roskilde in 1658.


title: Swedes

text: The foundation of Sweden's success during this period is credited to Gustav I's major changes on the Swedish economy in the 16th century, and his introduction of Protestantism. In the 17th century, Sweden was engaged in many wars, for example with the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth with both sides competing for territories of today's Baltic states, with the disastrous Battle of Kircholm being one of the highlights. One-third of the Finnish population died in the devastating famine that struck the country in 1696. Famine also hit Sweden, killing roughly 10% of Sweden's population.


title: Swedes

text: The Swedes conducted a series of invasions into the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, known as the Deluge. After more than half a century of almost constant warfare, the Swedish economy had deteriorated. It became the lifetime task of Charles' son, Charles XI, to rebuild the economy and refit the army. His legacy to his son, the coming ruler of Sweden Charles XII, was one of the finest arsenals in the world, a large standing army and a great fleet. Sweden's largest threat at this time, Russia, had a larger army but was far behind in both equipment and training.


title: Swedes

text: After the Battle of Narva in 1700, one of the first battles of the Great Northern War, the Russian army was so severely decimated that Sweden had an open chance to invade Russia. However, Charles did not pursue the Russian army, instead turning against Poland–Lithuania and defeating the Polish king Augustus II and his Saxon allies at the Battle of Kliszow in 1702. This gave Russia time to rebuild and modernize its army.


title: Swedes

text: After the success of invading Poland, Charles decided to make an invasion attempt of Russia which ended in a decisive Russian victory at the Battle of Poltava in 1709. After a long march exposed to cossack raids, Russian Tsar Peter the Great's scorched-earth techniques and the extremely cold winter of 1709, the Swedes stood weakened with a shattered morale and enormously outnumbered against the Russian army at Poltava. The defeat meant the beginning of the end for the Swedish Empire.


title: Swedes

text: Charles XII attempted to invade Norway 1716; however, he was shot dead at Fredriksten fortress in 1718. The Swedes were not militarily defeated at Fredriksten, but the whole structure and organization of the Norwegian campaign fell apart with the king's death, and the army withdrew.


title: Swedes

text: Forced to cede large areas of land in the Treaty of Nystad in 1721, Sweden also lost its place as an empire and as the dominant state on the Baltic Sea. With Sweden's lost influence, Russia emerged as an empire and became one of Europe's dominant nations. As the war finally ended in 1721, Sweden had lost an estimated 200,000 men, 150,000 of those from the area of present-day Sweden and 50,000 from the Finnish part of Sweden.


title: Swedes

text: In the 18th century, Sweden did not have enough resources to maintain its territories outside Scandinavia, and most of them were lost, culminating with the 1809 loss of eastern Sweden to Russia which became the highly autonomous Grand Principality of Finland in Imperial Russia.


title: Swedes

text: In interest of reestablishing Swedish dominance in the Baltic Sea, Sweden allied itself against its traditional ally and benefactor, France, in the Napoleonic Wars. Sweden's role in the Battle of Leipzig gave it the authority to force Denmark-Norway, an ally of France, to cede Norway to the King of Sweden on 14 January 1814 in exchange for northern German provinces, at the Treaty of Kiel. The Norwegian attempts to keep their status as a sovereign state were rejected by the Swedish king, Charles XIII. He launched a military campaign against Norway on 27 July 1814, ending in the Convention of Moss, which forced Norway into a personal union with Sweden under the Swedish crown, which lasted until 1905. The 1814 campaign was the last war in which Sweden participated as a combatant.


title: Swedes

text: There was a significant population increase during the 18th and 19th centuries, which the writer Esaias Tegnér in 1833 attributed to "peace, vaccine, and potatoes". Between 1750 and 1850, the population in Sweden doubled. Sweden was hit by the last natural caused famine in Europe, the Famine of 1867-69 killed thousands in Sweden. According to some scholars, mass emigration to America became the only way to prevent famine and rebellion; over 1% of the population emigrated annually during the 1880s.


title: Swedes

text: Nevertheless, Sweden remained poor, retaining a nearly entirely agricultural economy even as Denmark and Western European countries began to industrialize.


title: Swedes

text: Many looked towards America for a better life during this time. It is believed that between 1850 and 1910 more than one million Swedes moved to the United States.


title: Swedes

text: In the early 20th century, more Swedes lived in Chicago than in Gothenburg (Sweden's second largest city). Most Swedish immigrants moved to the Midwestern United States, with a large population in Minnesota, with a few others moving to other parts of the United States and Canada.


title: Swedes

text: Despite the slow rate of industrialization into the 19th century, many important changes were taking place in the agrarian economy because of innovations and the large population growth. These innovations included government-sponsored programs of enclosure, aggressive exploitation of agricultural lands, and the introduction of new crops such as the potato. Because the Swedish peasantry had never been enserfed as elsewhere in Europe, the Swedish farming culture began to take on a critical role in the Swedish political process, which has continued through modern times with modern Agrarian party (now called the Centre Party). Between 1870 and 1914, Sweden began developing the industrialized economy that exists today.


title: Swedes

text: Strong grassroots movements sprung up in Sweden during the latter half of the 19th century (trade unions, temperance groups, and independent religious groups), creating a strong foundation of democratic principles. In 1889 The Swedish Social Democratic Party was founded. These movements precipitated Sweden's migration into a modern parliamentary democracy, achieved by the time of World War I. As the Industrial Revolution progressed during the 20th century, people gradually began moving into cities to work in factories and became involved in socialist unions. A communist revolution was avoided in 1917, following the re-introduction of parliamentarism, and the country saw comprehensive democratic reforms under the joint Liberal-Social Democrat cabinet of Nils Edén and Hjalmar Branting, with universal and equal suffrage to both houses of parliament enacted for men in 1918 and for women in 1919. The reforms were widely accepted by King Gustaf V, who had previously ousted Karl Staaff's elected Liberal government in the Courtyard Crisis because of differences in defence policy.


title: Swedes

text: Sweden remained officially neutral during World War I and World War II, although its neutrality during World War II has been disputed. Sweden was under German influence for much of the war, as ties to the rest of the world were cut off through blockades. The Swedish government felt that it was in no position to openly contest Germany, and therefore made some concessions. Sweden also supplied steel and machined parts to Germany throughout the war. However, Sweden supported Norwegian resistance, and in 1943 helped rescue Danish Jews from deportation to Nazi concentration camps. Sweden also supported Finland in the Winter War and the Continuation War with volunteers and materiel.


title: Swedes

text: Toward the end of the war, Sweden began to play a role in humanitarian efforts and many refugees, among them many Jews from Nazi-occupied Europe, were saved partly because of the Swedish involvement in rescue missions at the internment camps and partly because Sweden served as a haven for refugees, primarily from the Nordic countries and the Baltic states. Nevertheless, internal and external critics have argued that Sweden could have done more to resist the Nazi war effort, even if risking occupation although doing so would likely have resulted in even greater number of casualties and prevented many humanitarian efforts.


title: Swedes

text: Sweden was officially a neutral country and remained outside NATO or Warsaw pact membership during the Cold War, but privately Sweden's leadership had strong ties with the United States and other western governments.


title: Swedes

text: Following the war, Sweden took advantage of an intact industrial base, social stability and its natural resources to expand its industry to supply the rebuilding of Europe. Sweden was part of the Marshall Plan and participated in the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). During most of the post-war era, the country was governed by the Swedish Social Democratic Party largely in cooperation with trade unions and industry. The government actively pursued an internationally competitive manufacturing sector of primarily large corporations.


title: Swedes

text: Sweden, like countries around the globe, entered a period of economic decline and upheaval, following the oil embargoes of 1973–74 and 1978–79. In the 1980s pillars of Swedish industry were massively restructured. Shipbuilding was discontinued, wood pulp was integrated into modernized paper production, the steel industry was concentrated and specialized, and mechanical engineering was robotized.


title: Swedes

text: Between 1970 and 1990 the overall tax burden rose by over 10%, and the growth was low compared to other countries in Western Europe. The marginal income tax for workers reached over 80%. Eventually government spent over half of the country's gross domestic product. Sweden GDP per capita ranking declined during this time.


title: Swedes

text: A bursting real estate bubble caused by inadequate controls on lending combined with an international recession and a policy switch from anti-unemployment policies to anti-inflationary policies resulted in a fiscal crisis in the early 1990s. Sweden's GDP declined by around 5%. In 1992, there was a run on the currency, with the central bank briefly increasing interest to 500%.


title: Swedes

text: The response of the government was to cut spending and institute a multitude of reforms to improve Sweden's competitiveness, among them reducing the welfare state and privatising public services and goods. Much of the political establishment promoted EU membership, and the Swedish referendum passed with 52% in favour of joining the EU on 13 November 1994. Sweden joined the European Union on 1 January 1995.


title: Swedes

text: Sweden remains non-aligned militarily, although it participates in some joint military exercises with NATO and some other countries, in addition to extensive cooperation with other European countries in the area of defence technology and defence industry. Among others, Swedish companies export weapons that are used by the American military in Iraq. Sweden also has a long history of participating in international military operations, including most recently, Afghanistan, where Swedish troops are under NATO command, and in EU sponsored peacekeeping operations in Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Cyprus. Sweden held the chair of the European Union from 1 July to 31 December 2009.


title: Swedes

text: The growth of immigration to Sweden in the post-war era has triggered a debate in Sweden about the nature of "Swedishness" and how immigrants can be integrated in Swedish society. In a report by the Swedish government it has been claimed that Swedishness usually is classified by researchers in five different ways: country of birth (i.e. Sweden), citizenship, consanguinity (i.e. perceived kinship), culture or language; and appearance. It also claims that a mix of these ideas is found in more mundane uses of the word Swedish, in media and ordinary speech and that it should be understood in the light of how national stories of Sweden have been formed over a long period of time.


title: Swedes

text: Sweden's main statistics bureau Statistics Sweden (SCB) does not keep any record of ethnicity, but about 20% of Sweden's population is of foreign background. Some immigrants in Sweden feel that they experience "betweenship" which arises when others ascribe them an identity that they do not hold themselves.


title: Swedes

text: The growing numbers of immigrants has coincided with the rise of the anti-immigration political party Sweden Democrats which expresses concern of a demographic threat, especially the rise of Islam in Sweden. Since the 1990s, polls show that people in Sweden have gradually become more positive to asylum refugees. However, in a poll made in 2019, a majority of Swedes expressed negative sentiments towards asylum seeking refugees. Recently, the Sweden Democrats have become one of the most popular parties in Sweden which has sparked widespread debate about a possible increase of perceived xenophobia and racism in Sweden.


title: Swedes

text: The native language of nearly all Swedes is Swedish ("svenska" ) a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is, to a considerable extent, mutually intelligible with Norwegian and to a lesser extent with spoken Danish (see especially "Classification"). Along with the other North Germanic languages, Swedish is a descendant of Old Norse, the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Era. It is the largest of the North Germanic languages by numbers of speakers.


title: Swedes

text: Standard Swedish, used by most Swedish people, is the national language that evolved from the Central Swedish dialects in the 19th century and was well established by the beginning of the 20th century. While distinct regional varieties descended from the older rural dialects still exist, the spoken and written language is uniform and standardized. Some dialects differ considerably from the standard language in grammar and vocabulary and are not always mutually intelligible with Standard Swedish. These dialects are confined to rural areas and are spoken primarily by small numbers of people with low social mobility. Though not facing imminent extinction, such dialects have been in decline during the past century, despite the fact that they are well researched and their use is often encouraged by local authorities.


title: Swedes

text: According to recent genetic analysis, both mtDNA and Y chromosome polymorphisms showed a noticeable genetic affinity between Swedes and other Germanic ethnic groups. For the global genetic make-up of the Swedish people and other peoples, see and.


title: Swedes

text: Paternally, through their Y-DNA haplogroups, the Swedes are quite diverse and show strongly of Haplogroup I1d1 at over 40% of the population tested in different studies, followed by R1a1a and R1b1a2a1a1 with over 20% each and haplogroup N1c1 with over 5% at different regional variance. The rest are within haplogroups J and E1b1b1 and other less common ones.


title: Swedes

text: Maternally, through their mtDNA haplogroups, the Swedes show very strongly of haplogroup H at 25–30%, followed by haplogroup U at a 10% or more, with haplogroup J and T, K at around 5% each.


title: Swedes

text: The largest area inhabited by Swedes, as well as the earliest known original area inhabited by their linguistic ancestors, is in the country of Sweden, situated on the eastern side of the Scandinavian Peninsula and the islands adjacent to it, situated west of the Baltic Sea in northern Europe. The Swedish-speaking people living in near-coastal areas on the north-eastern and eastern side of the Baltic Sea also have a long history of continuous settlement, which in some of these areas possibly started about a millennium ago. These people include the Swedish-speakers in mainland Finland – speaking a Swedish dialect commonly referred to as Finland Swedish (finlandssvenska which is part of the East-Swedish dialect group) and the almost exclusively Swedish-speaking population of Åland speaking in a manner closer to the adjacent dialects in Sweden than to adjacent dialects of Finland Swedish. Estonia also had an important Swedish minority which persisted for about 650 years on the coast and isles. Smaller groups of historical descendants of 18th–20th-century Swedish emigrants who still retain varying aspects of Swedish identity to this day can be found in the Americas (especially Minnesota and Wisconsin; see Swedish Americans) and in Ukraine.


title: Swedes

text: Currently, Swedes tend to emigrate mostly to the Nordic neighbour countries (Norway, Denmark, Finland), English speaking countries (United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand), Spain, France and Germany.


title: Swedes

text: Historically, the Kingdom of Sweden has been much larger than nowadays, especially during "The Era of Great Power" (Swedish Empire) in 1611–1718. Finland belonged to Sweden until 1809. Since there was no separate Finnish nationality at those times, it is not unusual that sources predating 1809 refer both to Swedes and Finns as "Swedes". This is particularly the case with New Sweden, where some of the Swedish settlers were of Finnish origin.


title: Swedes

text: Questionnaire surveys of Swedish embassies conducted by Swedes Worldwide, a non-profit organization, have shown a steady growth of Swedes living outside Sweden. The 2022 survey indicates an approximate 685,000 Swedes living abroad, up from 660,000 in 2015 and 546,000 in 2011.


title: Federal districts of Russia

text: The federal districts (, "federalnyye okruga") are groupings of the federal subjects of Russia. Federal districts are not mentioned in the nation's constitution, and do not have competences of their own and do not manage regional affairs. They exist solely to monitor consistency between the federal and regional bodies of law, and ensuring governmental control over the civil service, judiciary, and federal agencies, operating in the regions.


title: Federal districts of Russia

text: The federal districts of Russia were established by President Vladimir Putin in 2000 to facilitate the federal government's task of controlling the then 89 federal subjects across the country.


title: Federal districts of Russia

text: On 19 January 2010, the new North Caucasian Federal District split from the Southern Federal District.


title: Federal districts of Russia

text: In March 2014, after the annexation of Crimea, the Crimean Federal District was established. The legality of this annexation is disputed by an overwhelming majority of countries. On 28 July 2016 the Crimean Federal District was abolished and merged into the Southern Federal District in order to improve governance.


title: Federal districts of Russia

text: In November 2018, Buryatia and Zabaykalsky Krai were removed from the Siberian Federal District and added to the Far Eastern Federal District in accordance with a decree issued by Putin. The Administrative Centre of the Far Eastern Federal District relocated from Khabarovsk to Vladivostok in December 2018.


title: The Killing (film)

text: The Killing is a 1956 American film noir directed by Stanley Kubrick and produced by James B. Harris. It was written by Kubrick and Jim Thompson and based on Lionel White's novel "Clean Break". It stars Sterling Hayden, Coleen Gray, and Vince Edwards, and features Marie Windsor, Elisha Cook Jr., Jay C. Flippen and Timothy Carey.


title: The Killing (film)

text: Johnny Clay is a veteran criminal planning one last heist before settling down and marrying Fay. He plans to steal $2 million from the money-counting room of a racetrack during a featured race. Johnny assembles a team consisting of a corrupt cop, a betting window teller to gain access to the backroom, a sharpshooter to shoot the favorite horse during the race to distract the crowd and keep the winnings from being paid out, a wrestler to provide another distraction by provoking a fight at the track bar, and a track bartender.


title: The Killing (film)

text: George Peatty, the teller, tells his wife, Sherry, about the impending robbery. Sherry is bitter at George for not delivering on the promises of wealth he made when they married, so George hopes telling her about the robbery will impress her and keep her from leaving him. Sherry does not believe him at first, but, after learning that the robbery is real, enlists her lover Val Cannon to steal the money from George and his associates.


title: The Killing (film)

text: The heist is successful, although the sharpshooter is shot and killed by a security guard. The conspirators gather at the apartment where they are to meet Johnny and divide the money. Before Johnny arrives, Val appears with an associate to hold them up. A shootout ensues and a badly wounded George emerges as the only man standing. He goes home and shoots Sherry before collapsing.


title: The Killing (film)

text: Arriving at the apartment, Johnny sees George staggering in the street and knows that something is wrong. He buys the biggest suitcase he can find and struggles to stuff all the money in. At the airport, Johnny and Fay must check the oversized bag as regular luggage. Johnny reluctantly complies. While the couple waits to board the plane, the suitcase falls off a baggage cart onto the runway and breaks open, its loose banknotes swept away by the gusts from the aircraft's propellers.


title: The Killing (film)

text: Fay and Johnny seek to flee, but are unable to hail a cab before the police are alerted to them. Fay urges Johnny to escape. He refuses, calmly accepting the futility. Muttering "What's the difference?", he is approached by two officers seeking to arrest him.


title: The Killing (film)

text: While playing chess in Washington Square, Kubrick met producer James B. Harris, who was looking for a young new talent to produce for, having sold his film distribution company. Harris considered Kubrick "the most intelligent, most creative person [he had] ever come in contact with", and the two formed the Harris-Kubrick Pictures Corporation in 1955. Harris purchased the rights to Lionel White's novel "Clean Break" for $10,000, beating United Artists, which was interested in the film as a vehicle for Frank Sinatra. At Kubrick's suggestion they hired hardboiled fiction novelist Jim Thompson to write the script. United Artists told the pair that it would help finance the picture if Harris and Kubrick could find a high-profile actor to star. They signed Sterling Hayden, who agreed to accept $40,000. But Hayden wasn't a big enough star for UA, which wound up providing only $200,000 for the film; Harris financed the rest using $80,000 of his own money and a $50,000 loan from his father. The film was the first of three on which Harris and Kubrick collaborated as producer and director over less than ten years. Working titles for the film were "Clean Break" and "Bed of Fear". It was the last feature film completely filmed by Kubrick in the United States (interiors for "Spartacus" were shot on Universal's Hollywood sound stages, but its battle exteriors were shot in Spain).


title: The Killing (film)

text: Three members of the cast—Hayden, Ted de Corsia and Timothy Carey—had appeared together the previous year in the low-budget noir film "Crime Wave". The art director, Ruth Sobotka, was Kubrick's wife at the time. Kubrick and Harris moved from New York to L.A. to shoot the picture, and Kubrick went unpaid during the shooting, surviving on loans from Harris. In addition to Hayden, Kubrick cast actors from "films noirs" he liked, such as Timothy Carey, Ted de Corsia, Elisha Cook Jr. and Marie Windsor. He chose former professional wrestler and old chess friend Kola Kwariani to play an aging, chess-playing grappler. The Hollywood cinematographers' union told Kubrick that he could not be both director and cinematographer, so veteran cinematographer Lucien Ballard was hired to shoot the picture. He and Kubrick often clashed during filming. On one occasion Kubrick favored a long tracking shot, with the camera close to the actors with a 25mm wide-angle lens to provide slight distortion of the image, but Ballard moved it further away and began using a 50mm lens. Kubrick sternly ordered him to put the camera back or he would be fired.


title: The Killing (film)

text: Without a proper release across the U.S., "The Killing" performed poorly at the box office. In spite of a last-minute promotion as a second feature to "Bandido!", it failed to turn a profit. But it garnered critical acclaim, landing on several critics' top-ten lists for 1956. "Time" wrongly predicted that it would "make a killing at the cash booths"—asserting that Kubrick "has shown more audacity with dialogue and camera than Hollywood has seen since the obstreperous Orson Welles went riding out of town on an exhibitors' poll"—as the film recorded a loss of $130,000. "New York Times" film critic A. H. Weiler wrote, "Though "The Killing" is composed of familiar ingredients and it calls for fuller explanations, it evolves as a fairly diverting melodrama. ... Aficionados of the sport of kings will discover that Mr. Kubrick's cameras have captured some colorful shots of the ponies at Bay Meadows track. Other observers should find "The Killing" an engrossing little adventure."


title: The Killing (film)

text: "Variety" liked the acting and wrote, "This story of a $2 million race track holdup and steps leading up to the robbery, occasionally told in a documentary style which at first tends to be somewhat confusing, soon settles into a tense and suspenseful vein which carries through to an unexpected and ironic windup ... Hayden socks over a restrained characterization, and Cook is a particular standout. Windsor is particularly good, as she digs the plan out of her husband and reveals it to her boyfriend." Kubrick and Harris thought the positive critical reception had made their presence known in Hollywood, but Max Youngstein of United Artists still considered them "not far from the bottom" of the pool of new talent at the time. Dore Schary of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was impressed with the film, and offered the duo $75,000 to write, direct and produce another, which became "Paths of Glory".


title: The Killing (film)

text: Rotten Tomatoes rates "The Killing" 96% fresh, based on 45 reviews with an average score of 8.6/10. The consensus reads, "An expertly crafted noir with more on its mind than stylishly staged violence, "The Killing" establishes Stanley Kubrick as a filmmaker of uncommon vision and control." It has gained a cult following, among other Kubrick films. For example, Eddie Muller placed the film 15th among his top 25 favorite "noir" films, saying, "If you believe that a good script is a succession of great scenes, you can't do better than this. Hey, that scene was so good, let's do it again from somebody else's perspective".


title: The Killing (film)

text: In 1998, Jonathan Rosenbaum of the "Chicago Reader" included the film in his unranked list of the best American films not included on the AFI Top 100.


title: The Killing (film)

text: In 1999, film critic Mike Emery wrote, "Kubrick's camerawork was well on the way to finding the fluid style of his later work, and the sparse, low-budget circumstances give the film a raw, urgent sort of look. As good as the story and direction are, though, the true strength of "The Killing" lies in the characters and characterizations." The same year, director Peter Bogdanovich wrote in "The New York Times" that while "The Killing" did not make money, it, along with "Paths of Glory", established "Kubrick's reputation as a budding genius among critics and studio executives."


title: The Killing (film)

text: On January 9, 2012, Roger Ebert added "The Killing" to his list of "Great Movies". In his opening remarks, Ebert writes, "Stanley Kubrick considered "The Killing" (1956) to be his first mature feature, after a couple of short warm-ups. He was 28 when it was released, having already been an obsessed chess player, a photographer for "Look" magazine and a director of "March of Time" newsreels. It's tempting to search here for themes and a style he would return to in his later masterpieces, but few directors seemed so determined to make every one of his films an individual, free-standing work. Seeing it without his credit, would you guess it was by Kubrick? Would you connect "Dr. Strangelove" with "Barry Lyndon"?"


title: The Killing (film)

text: A digitally restored version of "The Killing" was released on DVD and Blu-ray by The Criterion Collection, which also included "Killer's Kiss" as a bonus feature. On July 26, 2022, Kino Lorber (under the KL Studio Classics line) released a 4k Ultra HD Blu-ray edition of the film from a new remaster of the original negatives with new audio commentary by film historian Alan K. Rode.


title: Robert Stroud

text: Robert Franklin Stroud (January 28, 1890 – November 21, 1963), known as the "Birdman of Alcatraz", was a convicted murderer, American federal prisoner and author who has been cited as one of the most notorious criminals in the United States. During his time at Leavenworth Penitentiary, he reared and sold birds and became a respected ornithologist. From 1942 to 1959, he was incarcerated at Alcatraz, where regulations did not allow him to keep birds. Stroud was never released from the federal prison system; he was imprisoned from 1909 to his death in 1963.


title: Robert Stroud

text: Born in Seattle, Washington, Stroud ran away from his abusive father at the age of 13. By the time he was 18, he had become a pimp in the Alaska Territory. In January 1909, he shot and killed a bartender who attacked his mistress, a crime for which he was sentenced to 12 years in the federal penitentiary on McNeil Island in Puget Sound. Stroud gained a reputation as a dangerous inmate who frequently had confrontations with fellow inmates and staff. In 1916, he stabbed and killed a guard. Stroud was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death by hanging, but after several trials, his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in solitary confinement.


title: Robert Stroud

text: In 1920, while in solitary confinement at the federal penitentiary of Leavenworth, Stroud discovered a nest with three injured sparrows in the prison yard. He cared for them and within a few years had acquired a collection of about 300 canaries. He began extensive research into birds after being granted equipment by a prison-reforming warden. Stroud wrote "Diseases of Canaries", which was smuggled out of Leavenworth and published in 1933, as well as a later edition (1943). He made important contributions to avian pathology, most notably a cure for the hemorrhagic septicemia family of diseases, gaining much respect and some level of sympathy among ornithologists and farmers. Stroud ran a successful business from inside prison, but his activities infuriated the prison staff. He was transferred to Alcatraz in 1942 after it was discovered that he had been secretly making alcohol by using some of the equipment in his cell.


title: Robert Stroud

text: Stroud began serving a 17-year term at Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary on December 19, 1942, and became inmate No. 594. In 1943, he was assessed by psychiatrist Romney M. Ritchey, who diagnosed him as a psychopath, with an I.Q. of 112. Stripped of his birds and equipment, he wrote a history of the penal system.


title: Robert Stroud

text: For all the negative reports written about Robert Stroud and his behavior, in what came to be called The Battle of Alcatraz in May 1946, he made efforts to protect other inmates. Then fifty-six years old, Stroud climbed over the third tier railing and lowered himself to the second tier, then dropped onto the floor of D Block. In what seemed to be a valiant move, he started closing the front solid steel doors of the six isolation cells to protect the helpless men. Stroud yelled to the Warden, explaining that there were no firearms in D Block and that those involved in violence had retreated to another section of the prison. He made it clear that many innocent men would die if the guards continued to fire into D Block.


title: Robert Stroud

text: In 1959, Stroud was transferred to the Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri, where he remained until his death on November 21, 1963, the day before the Assassination of John F. Kennedy.


title: Robert Stroud

text: Stroud was born in Seattle, the eldest child of Elizabeth Jane (née McCartney, 1860–1938) and Benjamin Franklin Stroud. His mother had two daughters from a previous marriage. His father was an abusive alcoholic, and Stroud ran away from home at the age of 13.


title: Robert Stroud

text: By the time he was 18, Stroud had made his way to Cordova, Alaska, where he met 36-year-old Kitty O'Brien, a prostitute and dance-hall entertainer, for whom he pimped in Juneau. On January 18, 1909, while he was away at work, an acquaintance, barman F. K. "Charlie" von Dahmer, allegedly failed to pay O'Brien for her services and beat her, tearing a locket from her neck that contained a picture of her daughter. Upon discovering the incident, Stroud confronted von Dahmer, and a struggle resulted in the latter's death from a gunshot wound. Stroud went to the police station, and surrendered himself and the gun. According to police reports, Stroud knocked von Dahmer unconscious and then shot him at point-blank range.


title: Robert Stroud

text: Stroud's mother retained a lawyer, but he was found guilty of manslaughter on August 23, 1909, and sentenced to 12 years in the federal penitentiary at McNeil Island, Washington, in Puget Sound. As Alaska was then a United States territory without its own judiciary, Stroud's case was handled in the federal system.


title: Robert Stroud

text: Known as Prisoner #1853, Stroud was one of the most violent prisoners at McNeil Island, frequently feuding with fellow inmates and staff, and was also prone to many different physical ailments. Stroud reportedly stabbed a fellow prisoner who reported him for stealing food from the kitchen. He also assaulted a hospital orderly who reported him to prison administration for attempting to obtain morphine through threats and intimidation. He also reportedly stabbed another inmate who was involved in the attempt to smuggle the narcotics.


title: Robert Stroud

text: On September 5, 1912, Stroud was sentenced to an additional six months for the attacks, and was transferred from McNeil Island to the federal penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas. On March 26, 1916, Stroud was reprimanded by cafeteria guard Andrew F. Turner for a minor rule violation that would have annulled Stroud's visitation privilege to meet his younger brother, whom he had not seen in 8 years. With a 6-inch shiv, Stroud fatally stabbed Turner through the heart.


title: Robert Stroud

text: Stroud was convicted of first-degree murder for the stabbing and sentenced to death by hanging by the judge, a sentence that was overturned by the court of appeals. He was convicted in a second trial on May 28, 1917, but after receiving a life sentence, the Solicitor General John W. Davis voluntarily submitted a "confessed error" because he wanted Stroud to receive the death penalty. Stroud was tried a third time in May 1918, and on June 28, he was again sentenced to death by hanging.


title: Robert Stroud

text: Stroud's mother appealed to President Woodrow Wilson, and the execution was halted on April 15, 1920, eight days before it was to be carried out. Stroud's sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. Leavenworth's warden, T. W. Morgan, strongly opposed the decision, given Stroud's reputation for violence. Morgan persuaded the President to stipulate that since Stroud was originally sentenced to await his death sentence in solitary confinement, those conditions should prevail until the halted execution could be carried out. President Wilson's Attorney General, Alexander Mitchell Palmer, saw to it that Stroud would spend the rest of his life in solitary confinement.


title: Robert Stroud

text: While at Leavenworth in 1920, Stroud found a nest with three injured sparrows in the prison yard, and raised them to adulthood. Prisoners were sometimes allowed to buy canaries, and Stroud had started to add to his collection. He occupied his time raising and caring for his birds, which he could sell for supplies and to help support his mother. According to Stroud, he used a "razor blade and nail for tools" and made his first bird cage out of wooden crates.


title: Robert Stroud

text: Soon thereafter, Leavenworth's administration changed, and William Biddle took over as warden. Impressed with the possibility of presenting Leavenworth as a progressive rehabilitation penitentiary, Biddle furnished Stroud with cages, chemicals, and stationery to conduct his ornithological activities. Visitors were shown Stroud's aviary, and many purchased his canaries.


title: Robert Stroud

text: Over the years, he raised nearly 300 canaries in his cells. He also wrote two books, the 60,000-word treatise "Diseases of Canaries" (1933), which was smuggled out of Leavenworth, and a later edition, "Stroud's Digest on the Diseases of Birds" (1943), with updated, specific information. He made several important contributions to avian pathology, most notably a cure for the hemorrhagic septicemia family of diseases. He gained respect and also some level of sympathy in the bird-loving field.


title: Robert Stroud

text: Stroud's activities created problems for the prison management. According to regulations, each letter sent or received at the prison had to be read, copied, and approved. Stroud was so involved in his business that this alone required a full-time prison secretary. Additionally, most of the time, his birds were permitted to fly freely within his cells, and because of the great number of birds he kept, his cell was filthy.


title: Robert Stroud

text: In 1931, an attempt to force Stroud to discontinue his business and get rid of his birds failed after Stroud and one of his mail correspondents, a bird researcher from Indiana named Della Mae Jones, made his story known to newspapers and magazines. A massive letter campaign and a 50,000-signature petition sent to President Herbert Hoover resulted in Stroud being permitted to keep his birds. Despite prison overcrowding, he was even given a second cell to house them. However, his letter-writing privileges were greatly curtailed. Jones and Stroud grew so close that she moved to Kansas in 1931, and started a business with him, selling his avian medicines.


title: Robert Stroud

text: Prison officials, fed up with Stroud's activities and their attendant publicity, intensified their efforts to transfer him from Leavenworth. Stroud discovered a Kansas law that forbade the transfer of prisoners married in Kansas. To this end, he married Jones by proxy, which infuriated the prison's administrators, who would not allow him to correspond with his wife.


title: Robert Stroud

text: Prison officials were not the only ones perturbed with Stroud's marriage; his mother was also incensed. They had a close relationship, but Elizabeth Stroud strongly disapproved of the marriage to Jones, believing women were nothing but trouble for her son. Whereas previously she had been a strong advocate for her son, helping him with legal battles, she now argued against his application for parole, and became a major obstacle in his attempts to be released from the prison system. She moved away from Leavenworth and refused any further contact with him. She died in 1937.


title: Robert Stroud

text: In 1933, Stroud advertised in a publication that he had not received any royalties from the sales of "Diseases of Canaries". In retaliation, the publisher complained to the warden, and, as a result, proceedings were initiated to transfer Stroud to Alcatraz, where he would not be permitted to keep his birds. In the end Stroud was able to keep both his birds and canary-selling business at Leavenworth.


title: Robert Stroud

text: Stroud mostly avoided trouble for several more years, until it came to light that some of the equipment Stroud had requested for his lab was in fact being used as a home-made distillery to manufacture alcohol. Officials finally had the wedge they needed to drive Stroud out. Citing his "dangerous tendencies" and longstanding concerns about the sanitary conditions of his cell, they initiated proceedings to send him to Alcatraz.


title: Robert Stroud

text: On December 16, 1942, Stroud was transferred to Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, and became inmate No. 594. He reportedly was not informed in advance that he was to leave Leavenworth and his beloved birds, and was given just 10 minutes' notice of his departure. His birds and equipment were sent to his brother as Alcatraz's strict policies meant that he was unable to continue his avocation. He spent six years in segregation and another 11 confined to the hospital wing at the penitentiary.


title: Robert Stroud

text: In 1943, he was assessed by psychiatrist Romney M. Ritchey, who diagnosed him as a psychopath, with an I.Q. of 112 (his initial report in 1942 based on Leavenworth states that he had an I.Q. of 116). While there, he wrote two manuscripts: "Bobbie", an autobiography, and "Looking Outward: A History of the U.S. Prison System from Colonial Times to the Formation of the Bureau of Prisons". A judge ruled that Stroud had the right to write and keep such manuscripts, but upheld the warden's decision to ban their publication. After Stroud's death, the transcripts were delivered to his lawyer, Richard English.


title: Robert Stroud

text: Rumors of Stroud's homosexuality were noted at Alcatraz. According to Donald Hurley, whose father was a guard at Alcatraz, "Whenever Stroud was around anyone, which was seldom, he was watched very closely, as prison officials were very aware of his overt homosexual tendencies." In an interview with Hurley for his book, a former inmate heard Stroud was always in 'dog block' (solitary confinement) or later in the hospital because he was a 'wolf' (aggressive homosexual) who had a bad temper."


title: Robert Stroud

text: In February 1963 Stroud met and talked with actor Burt Lancaster, who portrayed him in "The Birdman of Alcatraz". Stroud never got to see the film or read the book it was based on but did share one of the problems that prevented parole, that he was an "admitted homosexual." Lancaster quoted Stroud as saying, "Let's face it, I am 73 years old. Does that answer your question about whether I would be a dangerous homosexual?"


title: Robert Stroud

text: During his 17-year term at Alcatraz, Stroud was allowed access to the prison library, and began studying law. Occasionally, he was permitted to play chess with one of the guards. Stroud began petitioning the government that his long prison term amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. In 1959, with his health failing, Stroud was transferred to the Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri. However, his attempts to be released were unsuccessful.


title: Robert Stroud

text: On November 21, 1963, Robert Stroud died at the Springfield Medical Center at the age of 73, having been incarcerated for the last 54 years of his life, of which 42 were spent in solitary confinement. He was interred in the old Masonic Cemetery near Metropolis, Illinois, after a private funeral ceremony at Aikins-Farmer Funeral Home on November 25.


title: Robert Stroud

text: Stroud is considered to be one of the most notorious criminals in American history. Robert Niemi states that Stroud had a "superior intellect," and became a "first-rate ornithologist and author," but was an "extremely dangerous and menacing psychopath, disliked and distrusted by his jailers and fellow inmates."


title: Robert Stroud

text: However, by his last years, Stroud's behavior had improved and he was viewed more favorably; Judge Becker considered Stroud to be modest, no longer a danger to society, and as having a genuine love for birds. Given his level of notoriety, the crimes he committed were unremarkable, especially as the assaults he committed had a clear cause. Carl Sifakais considers Stroud to have been a "brilliant self-taught expert on birds, and possibly the best-known example of self-improvement and rehabilitation in the U.S. prison system."


title: Robert Stroud

text: Because of Stroud's contributions to the field of ornithology, he gained a large following of thousands of bird breeders and poultry raisers who demanded his release, and for many years a "Committee to Release Robert F. Stroud" campaigned to have Stroud released from prison. However, because Stroud had killed a federal officer, his punishment in solitary confinement remained intact. In 1963, Richard M. English, a young lawyer who had campaigned for John F. Kennedy in California, took to the cause of securing Stroud's release. He met with former President Harry S. Truman to enlist support, but Truman declined. He also met with senior Kennedy-administration officials who were studying the subject.


title: Robert Stroud

text: English took the last photo of Stroud, in which he is shown with a green visor. The warden of the prison attempted to have English prosecuted for bringing something into the prison he did not take out: unexposed film. The authorities declined to take any action. Upon Stroud's death, his personal property, including original manuscripts, was delivered to English, as his last legal representative, who later turned over some of the possessions to the Audubon Society.


title: Robert Stroud

text: Stroud became the subject of a 1955 book by Thomas E. Gaddis, "Birdman of Alcatraz". Gaddis, who strongly advocated rehabilitation in the prisons, portrayed Stroud in favorable light. This was adapted by Guy Trosper for the 1962 film of the same name, directed by John Frankenheimer. It starred Burt Lancaster as Stroud, Karl Malden as a fictionalized and renamed warden, Thelma Ritter as Stroud's mother and Betty Field as his wife, renamed Stella Johnson in the film. However, former inmates of Alcatraz say that the real Stroud was far more sinister, dangerous and unpleasant than the fictionalized version portrayed in the book and film. One said "he was a vicious killer. I think Burt Lancaster owes us all an apology."


title: Robert Stroud

text: Art Carney played Stroud in the 1980 TV movie "", and Dennis Farina played Stroud in the 1987 TV movie "Six Against the Rock", a dramatization of the Battle of Alcatraz of 1946.


title: Robert Stroud

text: In music, Stroud has been the subject of the instrumental "Birdman of Alcatraz" from "Rick Wakeman's Criminal Record" (1977), a concept album about criminality, and the song "The Birdman" by Our Lady Peace is also about him. Several video games such as "Galerians" and "Team Fortress 2" pay homage to him.


title: King of Thieves (2018 film)

text: King of Thieves is a 2018 British heist film directed by James Marsh. The film is based on the Hatton Garden safe deposit burglary of 2015, and stars Michael Caine, Tom Courtenay, Michael Gambon, Charlie Cox, Jim Broadbent, Paul Whitehouse and Ray Winstone.


title: King of Thieves (2018 film)

text: Brian Reader is a former thief who is now retired. At the funeral ceremony for his wife, Brian sees old friends from his days as a criminal. They briefly discuss their interest in pulling off one more heist, targeting the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit. Shortly after the funeral, Brian and the other thieves meet to plan the robbery in earnest. Nearly all of them are older men, in their 60s and 70s. The only younger man is Basil, an alarms expert who comes by a key to an exterior door of the building containing the Safe Deposit.


title: King of Thieves (2018 film)

text: The thieves decide to execute their heist over the Easter holiday weekend to maximize their time for the break-in and minimize the risk of being discovered. Posing as gas repairmen, they enter the deposit building, deactivate the alarms, and proceed to drill a hole into the wall of the vault. The jack they use to push the cabinet of safety deposit boxes away from the wall breaks, adding a wrinkle to their plan. They all leave, intending to return with a new tool the following day. However, Brian has a change of heart and decides it is too risky to go back.


title: King of Thieves (2018 film)

text: Basil meets with Brian to try and convince him to go back and finish the robbery. Brian refuses, but gives Basil a note listing the safety deposit boxes that contain the most valuable diamonds. In return, Basil promises to give Brian half of his take from the robbery.


title: King of Thieves (2018 film)

text: Basil and the other thieves return to the Safe Deposit with the replacement tool and successfully push the cabinet away from the vault wall, enabling two of them to climb through into the vault. They then use crow bars to break open many of the safety deposit boxes and steal their contents, which add up to more than £14 million in jewels and cash. The thieves put all of the loot into duffel bags and drive away from the scene of the crime.


title: King of Thieves (2018 film)

text: They proceed to the home of one of the robbers to split up the stolen goods. As they begin to discuss the split, Basil realizes that the older thieves were never planning on giving him an equal share. Fearing for his life, he takes several fistfuls of cash and quickly leaves. What the other thieves do not realize until later is that Basil had also taken the high value diamonds from the safety deposit boxes that Brian had written down for him.


title: King of Thieves (2018 film)

text: Meanwhile, the police are alerted to the crime and begin a high-profile investigation. They review all CCTV footage from the area and soon discover a car parked in the area that belonged to one of the thieves. After tracing the car's number-plate to the thief's actual identity, the police are able to tap all of the gang's phones and follow their movements.


title: King of Thieves (2018 film)

text: After learning of the value of the loot, Brian tries to force the group to split with him since he was the one who masterminded the robbery. As the thieves grow increasingly wary and distrustful of one another, they have a number of unguarded conversations that provide the police with evidence of their culpability.


title: King of Thieves (2018 film)

text: By further spying on the gang, the police learn that the group is planning to meet in order to do a final split of the stolen goods. The police move in and arrest the gang at their meeting. Brian, who was not invited to the meeting, is arrested at his home. The only one to escape is Basil as he wore a disguise during the robbery, left shortly after the Easter weekend, and was never a former associate of the older thieves.


title: King of Thieves (2018 film)

text: At the end, the old thieves are in custody and are shown changing into suits for their court appearance. They seem unconcerned about the prospect of returning to jail and appear to have accepted Brian as their unspoken leader once again.


title: King of Thieves (2018 film)

text: The main bulk of the scenes were filmed in central London and around Margate in Kent, including scenes at the Wig and Pen Pub, the Nayland Rock Hotel, Harbour Arm in Margate, outside the Turner Contemporary, and a scene at Margate railway station. Abbott's Cliff in Dover can also be spotted in the train scene where Brian Reader (Michael Caine) travels to Margate.


title: King of Thieves (2018 film)

text: A cover of "The Man" originally by The Killers was released by jazz-pop singer Jamie Cullum as the lead single from the "King of Thieves" soundtrack.


title: King of Thieves (2018 film)

text: On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The site's critical consensus reads, ""King of Thieves" unites an incredible cast for a heist movie brimming with potential -- most of which, sadly, evaporates long before the end credits have started to roll." Metacritic gives it a weighted average score of 48 out 100 based on 16 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


title: King of Thieves (2018 film)

text: "The Guardian" gave the film two stars, saying "We get one or two cool touches. Broadbent is interestingly cast against type as a nasty piece of work, and I liked Winstone laughing with incredulous joy as he clambers into the Aladdin's cave of the strongroom. But what a mess this is: not funny enough to be a comedy, not exciting enough to be a thriller, not interesting or convincing enough to have any documentary value."


title: Friday the 13th Part 2

text: Friday the 13th Part 2 is a 1981 American slasher film produced and directed by Steve Miner in his directorial debut, and written by Ron Kurz. It is the sequel to 1980's "Friday the 13th", and the second installment in the franchise. Adrienne King, Betsy Palmer and Walt Gorney reprise their respective roles from the first film as Alice Hardy, Pamela Voorhees, and Crazy Ralph. Amy Steel and John Furey also star. Taking place five years after the first film, "Part 2" follows a similar premise, with an unknown stalker killing a group of camp counselors at a training camp near Crystal Lake. The film marks the debut of Jason Voorhees as the series' main antagonist.


title: Friday the 13th Part 2

text: Originally, "Friday the 13th Part 2" was intended to be an anthology film based on the Friday the 13th superstition. However, after the popularity of the original film's surprise ending, the filmmakers opted to continue the story and mythology surrounding Camp Crystal Lake, a trend which would be repeated in every film in the franchise.


title: Friday the 13th Part 2

text: Like the original film, "Friday the 13th Part 2" faced opposition from the Motion Picture Association of America, who noted its "accumulative violence" as problematic, resulting in numerous cuts being made to allow an R rating. The film opened theatrically on May 1 in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco on May 1, 1981. "Friday the 13th Part 2" received generally negative reviews, and was less financially successful than the first film, grossing $21.7 million in the U.S. on a budget of $1.25 million. A direct sequel, "Friday the 13th Part III", was released one year later.


title: Friday the 13th Part 2

text: Two months after the murders at Camp Crystal Lake, sole survivor Alice Hardy is recovering from her traumatic experience. In her apartment, when Alice opens the refrigerator to get her cat some food, she finds the severed head of Pamela Voorhees and is murdered with an ice pick to her temple by an unknown intruder.


title: Friday the 13th Part 2

text: Five years later, Paul Holt opens a school for camp counselors on the shore of Crystal Lake. The camp is attended by Sandra, her boyfriend Jeff, Scott, Terry, Mark, Vickie, Ted, and Paul's assistant Ginny, as well as many other trainees. Around the campfire that night, Paul tells the counselors the legend of Jason Voorhees, a boy who drowned at Camp Crystal Lake in 1957, sending his vengeful mother on two killing sprees in 1958 and 1979, until she herself was eventually killed by Alice Hardy in self-defense. According to the legend, Jason survived and is now living in the woods near Crystal Lake; enraged at his mother's death, he will kill anyone he comes across. As Paul finishes the story, a man with a spear scares everyone, but it's revealed to be Ted wearing a mask. Paul reassures everyone that Jason is dead and that Camp Crystal Lake is now condemned and off-limits.


title: Friday the 13th Part 2

text: That night, Crazy Ralph wanders onto the property to warn the group but is garroted from behind a tree by an unseen killer. The following day, Jeff and Sandra sneak off to Camp Crystal Lake and find a dog carcass before getting caught by Deputy Winslow and returned to the camp. Later, Winslow spots a man wearing a burlap sack mask running across the road. Winslow chases him into the woods and finds a shack. The man kills Winslow with a hammer claw.


title: Friday the 13th Part 2

text: Back at camp, Paul offers the others one last night on the town before the training begins. Six stay behind, including Jeff and Sandra, who are forced to stay as punishment for sneaking off. At the bar, Ginny muses that if Jason were still alive and had witnessed his mother's death, it may have left him with no distinction between life and death, or right and wrong. Paul dismisses the idea, proclaiming that Jason is nothing but an urban legend. Meanwhile, the assailant appears at the camp and kills the counselors, one by one. Scott has his throat slit with a machete while caught in a rope trap, and Terry is killed off-screen upon finding Scott's dead body. Mark has a machete slammed into his face and he falls down a flight of stairs as he dies. The killer then moves upstairs and impales Jeff and Sandra with a spear as they have sex, then stabs Vickie to death with a kitchen knife.


title: Friday the 13th Part 2

text: Ted stays behind at the bar while Ginny and Paul return to find the place in disarray. In the dark, the killer ambushes Paul and continues to chase Ginny throughout the camp and into the woods, where she comes across the shack. After barricading herself inside, she finds an altar with Pamela Voorhees' severed head on it, surrounded by a pile of bodies. Realizing that Jason Voorhees is the killer, Ginny puts on Pamela's sweater and tries to psychologically convince Jason that she is his mother. The ruse briefly works, until Jason sees his mother's head on the altar and awakens from the trance. Paul suddenly returns and tries to save Ginny, but Jason incapacitates him. Just as Jason is about to kill Paul with a pickaxe, Ginny picks up a machete and slams it down into Jason's shoulder, seemingly killing him.