title: China–Russia relations

text: Xi and Putin met on February 4, 2022, during the run up to the 2022 Beijing Olympics during the massive Russian build-up of force on the Ukrainian border, with the two expressing that the two countries are nearly united in their anti-US alignment and that both nations shared "no limits" to their commitments. Western espionage reports said that China had asked Russia to wait to invade Ukraine until after the Beijing Olympics ended on February 20. Shortly before the invasion, Chinese media would repeat Russian statements that Russia's troops were being pulled away from the border with Ukraine.


title: China–Russia relations

text: On February 22, two days prior to the invasion of Ukraine, a leaked post "The Beijing News"' Horizon News on Weibo detailed instructions on how to report on a crisis in Ukraine; the post asked editors to monitor unfavorable comments, to only use tags shared by Chinese state media and stated "Do not post anything unfavorable to Russia or pro-Western. Let me review your words before posting". On February 25, 2022, one day following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Putin told Xi during a phone call that Russia is eager to engage in high-level negotiations with Ukraine, according to China's foreign ministry.


title: China–Russia relations

text: Many social media users in China showed sympathy for Russian narratives due in part to distrust of US foreign policy. Chinese company NetEase has published videos critical of Russia from Chinese in Ukraine and Ukrainians in China.


title: China–Russia relations

text: Following the implementation of international sanctions during the Russo-Ukrainian War, China provided economic relief to Russia. China refused to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine, repeated Russian propaganda about the war, opposed economic sanctions against Russia, and abstained or sided with Russia in UN votes on the war in Ukraine.


title: China–Russia relations

text: As early as February 2022, according to US authorities, Russia asked China for advanced military weaponry, in particular, armed drones for use in their invasion of Ukraine. China and Russia have both denied these allegations.


title: China–Russia relations

text: In 2022, Russia added Taiwan to a list of foreign states and territories that commit "unfriendly actions" against its military invasion of Ukraine, despite Russia recognizing Taiwan as a part of China. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has assured Vladimir Putin of China's support on Russian “sovereignty and security” in May.


title: China–Russia relations

text: In April 2022, in an interview with the Italian newspaper "Corriere della Sera", Russian political scientist Sergey Karaganov, who is considered close to Vladimir Putin, said that Russia "will be more integrated and more dependent on China", further stating that "Chinese are our close allies and friends and the biggest source of Russian strength after Russian people themselves."


title: China–Russia relations

text: Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that China has the economic leverage to pressure Putin to end the war, adding "I’m sure that without the Chinese market for the Russian Federation, Russia would be feeling complete economic isolation. That’s something that China can do – to limit the trade [with Russia] until the war is over." In August 2022, Zelenskyy said that since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Chinese President Xi Jinping had refused all his requests for direct talks with him.


title: China–Russia relations

text: Since 1995, Russians have consistently held positive views of China. As of September 2022, 88% of Russians view China favorably, with only 5% expressing a negative opinion.


title: China–Russia relations

text: According to a 2017 BBC World Service poll, 74% of the Chinese view Russia's influence positively, with 18% expressing a negative view, while 44% of Russians view China's influence positively and 23% negatively.


title: China–Russia relations

text: According to a 2019 survey by the Pew Research Center, 71% of Russians have a favorable view of China, with 18% expressing an unfavorable view. Similarly, a YouGov survey found that 71% of the Chinese think Russia has a positive effect on world affairs, while 15% view it negatively.


title: Cardi B discography

text: American rapper Cardi B has released one studio album, three mixtapes, 38 singles (including 24 as a featured artist), and 17 music videos (as a lead artist). According to the RIAA, she has sold 100 million equivalent units in the United States across albums, singles, and mixtapes, making her the 6th best-selling female digital artist in the country. Her debut album "Invasion of Privacy" was the best selling female rap album of the 2010s according to The Recording Academy. It also became the most streamed female rap album on Spotify history. According to IFPI, "Girls Like You" was the 5th best-selling single of 2018 worldwide, selling 11.9 million units that year alone.


title: Cardi B discography

text: In 2015, she embarked on a musical career, after amassing a large Internet fan base, following her appearances on VH1's "". On March 7, 2016, Cardi B released her first full-length mixtape, "Gangsta Bitch Music, Vol. 1" with KSR Group. On September 12, 2016, KSR Group released the compilation, "Underestimated: The Album", which is a collaboration between KSR Group artists Cardi B, Hood Celebrity, SwiftOnDemand, Cashflow Harlem and Josh X. It was previously released only to attendees of their US tour. On January 20, 2017, Cardi B released her second full-length mixtape as the second installment to her "Gangsta Bitch Music" series, which spawned the single "Bronx Season".


title: Cardi B discography

text: In February 2017, Cardi B signed her first solo major label recording contract with Atlantic Records. Cardi B's first single for Atlantic, titled "Bodak Yellow", proved to be a success, becoming a crossover hit single, when it reached number one on the US "Billboard" Hot 100 chart. On the Hot 100 chart dated October 1, 2017, Cardi B claimed the top spot becoming the first female rapper to do so with a solo song since Lauryn Hill in 1998. On April 6, 2018, Cardi B released her debut studio album "Invasion of Privacy", which topped the US "Billboard" 200, received a triple platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and became the longest-charting album by a female rapper. She became the first female artist to have all tracks from an album certified gold or higher by the RIAA, and the first artist overall to have all the tracks certified platinum or higher. Her single "I Like It", with Bad Bunny and J Balvin, made her the first female rapper with multiple number one songs on the Hot 100, and her collaboration with Maroon 5, "Girls Like You", extended the record, also making her the female rapper with most cumulative weeks at number one. "Bodak Yellow" made Cardi B the first female rapper to have a song certified Diamond by the RIAA, a record which she has since extended to three Diamond-certified songs. Debuting in 2017, she was "Billboard"s 35th Artist of the 2010s. "WAP", the lead single of her second album, became her fourth chart-topper and made her the first female rapper to achieve Hot 100 number one singles in two different decades (2010s and 2020s). "Up", her fifth number one single on the Hot 100, made her the only female rapper to top the chart with multiple solo songs.


title: Cimmerians

text: The Cimmerians (Akkadian: , ; Hebrew: , ; Ancient Greek: , ; Latin: ) were an ancient Eastern Iranian equestrian nomadic people originating in the Caspian steppe, part of whom subsequently migrated into West Asia. Although the Cimmerians were culturally Scythian, they formed an ethnic unit separate from the Scythians proper, to whom the Cimmerians were related and who displaced and replaced the Cimmerians.


title: Cimmerians

text: The Cimmerians themselves left no written records, and most information about them is largely derived from Assyrian records of the 8th to 7th centuries BC and from Graeco-Roman authors from the 5th century BC and later.


title: Cimmerians

text: The English name is derived from Latin , itself derived from the Ancient Greek (), of an ultimately uncertain origin for which there have been various proposals:


title: Cimmerians

text: The Cimmerians were a nomadic Iranian people of the Eurasian Steppe. Archaeologically, there was no difference between the material cultures of the pre-Scythian populations living in the areas corresponding to the Caucasian steppe and the Volga and Don river regions around it, and there were also no other significant differences between the Cimmerians and the Scythians, who were related populations indistinguishable from each other in terms of culture and origins.


title: Cimmerians

text: Other suggestions for the ethnicity for the Cimmerians include the possibility of their being Thracian, or Thracians with an Iranian ruling class, or a separate group closely related to Thracian peoples, as well as a Maeotian origin. However, the proposal of a Thracian origin of the Cimmerians has been criticised as arising from a confusion by Strabo between the Cimmerians and their allies, the Thracian tribe of the Treri.


title: Cimmerians

text: The original homeland of the Cimmerians before they migrated into West Asia was in the steppe situated to the north of the Caspian Sea and to the west of the Volga river until the Cimmerian Bosporus, and some Cimmerians might have nomadised in the Kuban steppe; the Cimmerians thus originally lived in the Caspian and Caucasian steppes, in the area corresponding to present-day Southern Russia. The region of the Pontic Steppe until the Lake Maiōtis was instead inhabited by the Agathyrsi, who were another nomadic Iranian tribe related to the Cimmerians. The later claim by Greek authors that the Cimmerians lived in the Pontic Steppe around the Tyras river was a retroactive invention dating from after the disappearance of the Cimmerians.


title: Cimmerians

text: During the initial phase of their presence in West Asia, the Cimmerians lived in a country which Mesopotamian sources called (), that is the , located around the Kuros river, to the north and north-west of Lake Sevan and the south of the Darial or Klukhor passes, in a region of Transcaucasia to the east of Colchis corresponding to the modern-day Gori, in southern Georgia.


title: Cimmerians

text: The Cimmerians later split into two groups, with a western horde located in Anatolia, and an eastern horde which moved into Mannaea and later Media.


title: Cimmerians

text: The Cimmerians were originally part of a larger group of Central Asian nomadic populations who migrated to the west and formed new tribal groupings in the Pontic and Caspian steppes, with their success at expanding into Eastern Europe happening thanks to the development of mounted nomadic pastoralism and the adoption of effective weapons suited to equestrian warfare by these nomads. The steppe cultures to which the Cimmerians belonged in turn influenced the cultures of Central Europe such as the Hallstatt culture, and the Cimmerians themselves lived in the steppe situated to the north of the Caspian Sea and to the west of the Araxēs river, while the region of the Pontic Steppe until the Lake Maiōtis was instead inhabited by the Agathyrsi, who were another nomadic Iranian tribe related to the Cimmerians.


title: Cimmerians

text: The Cimmerians are first mentioned in the 8th century BC in Homer's as a people living beyond the Oceanus, in a land permanently deprived of sunlight at the edge of the world and close to the entrance of Hades; this mention is poetic and contains no reliable information about the real Cimmerians. Homer's story might however have used as its source the story of the Argonauts, which itself focused on the kingdom of Colchis, on whose eastern borders the Cimmerians were living in the 8th century BC. This corresponds to the 6th century BC records of Aristeas of Proconnesus and the later writings of Herodotus of Halicarnassus, according to whom the Cimmerians lived in the steppe to the immediate north of the Caspian Sea, with the Araxēs river forming their eastern border which separated them from the Scythians, although some tribes of the Scythians, a nomadic Iranian tribe living in Central Asia related to the Cimmerians, nomadised in the Caspian Steppe along the Cimmerians. The Cimmerians thus never formed the mass of the population of the Pontic Steppe, and neither Aristeas nor Hesiod ever recorded them as living in this area.


title: Cimmerians

text: The social structure of the Cimmerians, according to Herodotus of Halicarnassus, comprised two groups of roughly equal numbers: the Cimmerians proper, or "commoners", and the "kings" or "royal race" – implying that the ruling classes and lower classes originally constituted two different peoples, who retained distinct identities as late as the end of the 2nd millennium BC. Hence the "kings" may have originated as an element of an Iranian-speaking people (such as the Scythians), who had imposed their rule on a section of the people of the Catacomb culture, who were the Cimmerian "commoners."


title: Cimmerians

text: In the 8th to 7th centuries BC, the Cimmerians were disturbed by a significant movement of the nomads of the Eurasian Steppe: this movement started when the bulk of the Scythians migrated westwards across the Araxēs river, under the pressure of another related Central Asian nomadic Iranian tribe, either the Massagetae or the Issedones, following which the Scythians moved into the Caspian and Caucasian Steppes, assimilated most of the Cimmerians and conquered their territory, while the rest of the Cimmerians were displaced and forced to migrate to the south into West Asia. This displacement of the Cimmerians by the Scythians is attested archaeologically in a disturbance of the Chernogorovka-Novocherkassk culture associated with the Cimmerians.


title: Cimmerians

text: Under Scythian pressure, the Cimmerians migrated to the south into West Asia. The story recounted by Greek authors, according to which the Cimmerian aristocrats, unwilling to leave their lands, killed each other and were buried in a kurgan near the Tyras river, after which only the Cimmerian "commoners" migrated to West Asia, is contradicted by how powerful the Cimmerians were according to Assyrian sources contemporaneous with their presence in West Asia; this story was thus was either a Pontic Greek folk tale which originated after the disappearance of the Cimmerians or a later Scythian legend reflecting the motif of vanished ancient lost peoples which is widespread in folk traditions.


title: Cimmerians

text: The Cimmerians who migrated into West Asia fled through the , Alagir and Darial Gorge passes in the Greater Caucasus mountains, that is through the western Caucasus and Georgia into Kolkhis, where the Cimmerians initially settled during the 720s BC. During this period, Cimmerians lived in a country which Mesopotamian sources called , the , located around the Kuros river, to the north and north-west of Lake Sevan and the south of the Darial or Klukhor passes, in a region of Transcaucasia to the east of Kolkhis corresponding to the modern-day Gori, in southern Georgia. Transcaucasia would remain the Cimmerians' centre of operations during the early phase of their presence in West Asia until the early 660s BC.


title: Cimmerians

text: The Scythians later also expanded to the south, appearing in West Asia forty years after the Cimmerians, although they followed the coast of the Caspian Sea and arrived in the region of present-day Azerbaijan.


title: Cimmerians

text: The inroads of the Cimmerians and the Scythians into West Asia over the course of the 8th to 6th centuries BC would destabilise the political balance which had prevailed in the region between the states of Assyria, Urartu, Mannaea and Elam on one side and the mountain and tribal peoples on the other.


title: Cimmerians

text: The Cimmerians might have defeated attacks by the Urartian kings against Colchis and the nearby areas during the 720s BC.


title: Cimmerians

text: The first mention of the Cimmerians in the records of the Neo-Assyrian Empire was from between 720 and 714 BC, when Assyrian intelligence by the crown prince Sennacherib reported to the king Sargon II that the Cimmerians had attacked Urartu's province of through the territory of the kingdom of Mannaea. A counter-attack against the Cimmerians at in what is now Georgia by the Urartian king Rusa I, during a campaign where Rusa I himself, his commander in chief, as well as thirteen governors united all the armed forces of the kingdom, was however heavily defeated by the Cimmerians, and the governor of the Urartian province of was killed. This defeat weakened Urartu significantly enough that Sargon II was able to successfully attack and defeat it, and Rusa I committed suicide in consequence.


title: Cimmerians

text: During the period corresponding to Sargon II's reign, a section of the Cimmerians moved into the area of the kingdom of Mannaea.


title: Cimmerians

text: The Cimmerians' presence in Anatolia might have started around 709 BC, and the king Midas II of Muški (Phrygia), who had previously been a bitter opponent of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in Anatolia, consequently ended hostilities with the Assyrians after and sent a delegation to Sargon II to attempt to form an alliance against the Cimmerians.


title: Cimmerians

text: In 705 BC, Sargon II died in battle, most likely during a campaign against the Anatolian kingdom of Tabal, or possibly during a battle in which the Cimmerians were participants in either the region of Tabal or in Nedia.


title: Cimmerians

text: After Sargon II's death, his son and successor Sennacherib secured the northwestern Assyrian borders, and the Cimmerians ceased being mentioned in Assyrian records during Sennacherib's reign (from 705 to 681 BC); the Cimmerians would start being mentioned again by the Assyrians only under the reign of Sennacherib's own son and successor, Esarhaddon. During this time, the Cimmerians were allied with the Scythians, and the two groups, in alliance with the Medes, who were an Iranian people of West Asia to whom the Scythians and Cimmerians were distantly related, were threatening the eastern frontier of Urartu during the reign of its king Argishti II. Argishti II's successor, Rusa II, built several fortresses in the east of Urartu's territory, including that of Teishebaini, to monitor and repel attacks by the Cimmerians, the Mannaeans, the Medes, and the Scythians.


title: Cimmerians

text: During the period coinciding with the rule of the Assyrian king Esarhaddon (reigned 681–669 BC), the bulk of the Cimmerians migrated from Transcaucasia into Anatolia, while a smaller group remained in the area near the kingdom of Mannaea where they had been settled since the time of Sargon II, respectively forming a "western" and an "eastern" division of Cimmerians.


title: Cimmerians

text: Between 680/679 and 678/677 BC, the eastern group of Cimmerians allied with the Mannaeans and the Scythian king Išpakaia to attack Assyria, with the Scythians raiding far in the south till the Assyrian province of Zamua. These allied forces were defeated by Esarhaddon, who had become the king of the Neo-Assyrian empire.


title: Cimmerians

text: By 677 BC, the Cimmerians were present on the territory of Mannai, and in 676 BC they were its allies against an Assyrian attack, after which the eastern Cimmerians remained allied to Mannai against Assyria. In the western Iranian plateau, these eastern Cimmerians might have introduced Bronze articles from the Koban culture into the Luristan bronze culture. The Mannaeans, in alliance with the eastern Cimmerians and the Scythians (the latter of whom attacked the borderlands of Assyria from across the territory of the kingdom of Ḫubuškia), were able to expand their territories at the expense of Assyria and capture the fortresses of Šarru-iqbi and Dūr-Ellil. Negotiations between the Assyrians and the Cimmerians appeared to have followed, according to which the Cimmerians promised not to interfere in the relations between Assyria and Mannai, although a Babylonian diviner in Assyrian service warned Esarhaddon not to trust either the Mannaeans or the Cimmerians and advised him to spy on both of them.


title: Cimmerians

text: The eastern Cimmerian group later moved to the south, into Media, with the Scythians as their northern neighbours and occasional allies, and in the mid 670s BC, these eastern Cimmerians were recorded by the Assyrians as a possible threat against the collection of tribute from Media. Around the same time, in alliance with the Scythians, the eastern Cimmerians were menacing the Assyrian provinces of Parsumaš and Bīt Ḫamban, and these joint Cimmerian-Scythian forces together were threatening communication between the Assyrian Empire and its vassal of Ḫubuškia. In 676 BC, Esarhaddon responded by carrying out a military campaign against Mannai during which he killed Išpakaia.


title: Cimmerians

text: By the late 670s BC, the Scythians had become the allies of the Assyrians after Išpakaia's successor, Bartatua, had married a daughter of Esarhaddon, while the eastern Cimmerians remained hostile to Assyria and were allied to Ellipi and the Medes. When Ellipi and the Medes successfully rebelled against Assyria under Kashtariti from 671 to 669 BC, the eastern Cimmerians were allied to them.


title: Cimmerians

text: By the later 7th century BC, the centre of operations of the larger, western, division of the Cimmerians was located in Anatolia.


title: Cimmerians

text: In 679 BC the Cimmerian king Teušpa was defeated and killed by Esarhaddon near Ḫubušna in Cappadocia. Despite this victory, the military operations of the Assyrians were not fully successful and they were not able to firmly occupy the areas around Ḫubušna, nor were they able to secure their borders, and the Assyrian province of Quwê was left vulnerable to invasions from Tabal, Kuzzurak and Ḫilakku; the Cimmerians had thus ended all Assyrian control in Anatolia.


title: Cimmerians

text: An Assyrian contract dating to the same as Esarhaddon's victory over Teušpa records of the existence of a "Cimmerian detachment" in Nineveh, although it is uncertain whether this refers to Cimmerian mercenaries in Assyrian service, or simply of Assyrian soldiers armed in the "Cimmerian-style", that is using Cimmerian bows and horse harnesses.


title: Cimmerians

text: Around 675 BC, the Cimmerians, under their king Tugdammi (the Lugdamis of the Greek authors), in alliance with the Urartian king Rusa II carried out a military campaign to the west, against Muški (Phrygia), Ḫate (the Neo-Hittite state of Melid), and Ḫaliṭu (either the Alizōnes or the Khaldoi); this campaign resulted in the invasion and destruction of Phrygia, whose king Midas II committed suicide. The Cimmerians plundered the Phrygian capital of Gordion, but they neither settled there nor destroyed its fortifications, although they appear to have consequently partially subdued the Phrygians, and an Assyrian oracular text from the later 670s BC mentioned the Cimmerians and the Phrygians, who had possibly been subdued by the Cimmerians, as allies against the Assyrians' newly conquered province of Melid.


title: Cimmerians

text: A document from 673 BC records Rusa II as having recruited a large number of Cimmerian mercenaries, and Cimmerian allies of Rusa II probably participated in a military expedition of his in 672 BC. From 671 to 669 BC, Cimmerians in service of Rusa II attacked the Assyrian province of Šubria near the Urartian border.


title: Cimmerians

text: Between 671 and 670 BC, some Cimmerian divisions were recorded as serving in the Assyrian army, although these divisions might have instead simply referred to the "Cimmerian style" armed Assyrian soldiers.


title: Cimmerians

text: At yet unknown dates, the Cimmerians imposed their rule on Cappadocia, invaded Bithynia, Paphlagonia and the Troad, and took the recently founded Greek colony of Sinope, whose initial settlement was destroyed and whose first founder Habrōn was killed in the invasion, and which was later re-founded by the Greek colonists Kōos and Krētinēs. Along with Sinope, the Greek colony of Cyzicus was also destroyed during these invasions and had to be later re-founded. In the beginning of that decade, the Cimmerians attacked the kingdom of Lydia, which had been filling the power vacuum in Anatolia created by the destruction of Phrygia by establishing itself as a new rising regional power. The Lydian king Gyges, attempting to find help to face the Cimmerian invasions, contacted Esarhaddon's successor who had succeeded him as king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, Ashurbanipal, beginning in 667 BC, and his struggle against Cimmerians soon turned in his favour. Gyges soon defeated the Cimmerians in 665 BC without Assyrian help, and he sent Cimmerian soldiers captured while attacking the Lydian countryside as gifts to Ashurbanipal. According to the Assyrian records describing these events, the Cimmerians already had formed sedentary settlements in Anatolia.


title: Cimmerians

text: Assyrian records in 657 BC of a "bad omen" for the "Westland" might have referred to either another Cimmerian attack on Lydia, or a conquest by Tugdammi of the western possessions of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, possibly Quwê or somewhere in Syria, following their defeat by Gyges. These Cimmerian aggressions worried Ashurbanipal about the security of the north-west border of the Neo-Assyrian Empire enough that he sought answers concerning this situation through divination, and as a result of these Cimmerian conquests, by 657 BC the Assyrian divinatory records were calling the Cimmerian king by the title of (""), a title which in the Mesopotamian worldview could belong to only a single ruler in the world at any given time and was normally held by the King of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. These divinatory texts also assured to Ashurbanipal that he would eventually regain the , that is the world hegemony, captured by the Cimmerians: the , which was considered to rightfully belong to the Assyrian king, had been usurped by the Cimmerians and had to be won back by Assyria. Thus, the Cimmerians had become a force feared by Ashurbanipal, and Tugdammi's successes against Assyria meant that he had become recognised in the ancient Near East as equally powerful as Ashurbanipal. This situation remained unchanged throughout the rest of the 650s BC and the early 640s BC.


title: Cimmerians

text: As the result of these Assyrian setbacks, Gyges could not rely on Assyrian support against the Cimmerians and he ended diplomacy with the Neo-Assyrian Empire, and Ashurbanipal responded to Gyges's disengagement from Assyria by cursing him.


title: Cimmerians

text: The Cimmerians attacked Lydia for a third time in 644 BC: this time, they defeated the Lydians and captured their capital, Sardis, and Gyges died during this attack. Gyges was succeeded by his son Ardys, who resumed diplomatic activity with Assyria; Ashurbanipal, whose Anatolian borders were still in a delicate situation due to the Cimmerians, was himself willing to form alliances with any state in Anatolia which was capable of successfully fighting the Cimmerians.


title: Cimmerians

text: After sacking Sardis, Lygdamis led the Cimmerians into invading the Greek city-states of Ionia and Aeolis on the western coast of Anatolia, which caused the inhabitants of the Batinētis region to flee to the islands of the Aegean Sea, and later Greek writings by Callimachus and Hesychius of Alexandria preserve the record that Lygdamis had destroyed the Artemision of Ephesus. Among the other Greek cities destroyed during these invasions was Magnesia on the Meander.


title: Cimmerians

text: After this third invasion of Lydia and the attack on the Asiatic Greek cities, around 640 BC the Cimmerians moved to Cilicia on the north-west border of the Assyrian empire, where Tugdammi allied with Mugallu, the king of Tabal, against Assyria, during which period the Assyrian records called him a "mountain king and an arrogant Gutian (that is a barbarian) who does not know how to fear the gods." However, after facing a revolt against himself, Tugdamme allied with Assyria and acknowledged Assyrian overlordship, and sent tribute to Ashurbanipal, to whom he swore an oath. Tugdammi soon broke this oath and attacked the Assyrian Empire again, but he fell ill and died in 640 BC, and was succeeded by his son Sandakšatru, who attempted to continue Tugdammi's attacks against Assyria but failed just like his father.


title: Cimmerians

text: By the later part of the 7th century BC, the Cimmerians were nomadising in West Asia together with the Thracian Treri tribe who had migrated across the Thracian Bosporus and invaded Anatolia. In 637 BC, Sandakšatru's Cimmerians participated in another attack on Lydia, this time led by the Treres under their king Kōbos, and in alliance with the Lycians. During this invasion, in the seventh year of the reign of Gyges's son Ardys, the Lydians were defeated again and for a second time Sardis was captured, except for its citadel, and Ardys might have been killed in this attack. Ardys's son and successor, Sadyattes, might possibly also have been killed in another Cimmerian attack on Lydia in .


title: Cimmerians

text: The power of the Cimmerians had eventually dwindled quickly after Tugdammi's death, and soon these Cimmerian attacks on Lydia, with Assyrian approval and in alliance with the Lydians, the Scythians under their king Madyes entered Anatolia, expelled the Treres from Asia Minor, and defeated the Cimmerians so that they no longer constituted a threat again, following which the Scythians extended their domination to Central Anatolia until they were themselves expelled by the Medes from West Asia in the 600s BC. This final defeat of the Cimmerians was carried out by the joint forces of Madyes, who Strabo credits with expelling the Cimmerians from Asia Minor, and of Gyges's great-grandson, the king Alyattes of Lydia, whom Herodotus of Halicarnassus and Polyaenus claim finally defeated the Cimmerians.


title: Cimmerians

text: Following this final defeat, the Cimmerians likely remained in the region of Cappadocia, whose name in Armenian, , may have been derived from the name of the Cimmerians. A group of Cimmerians might also have subsisted for some time in the Troas, around Antandrus, until they were finally defeated by Alyattes of Lydia. The remnants of the Cimmerians were eventually assimilated by the populations of Anatolia, and they completely disappeared from history after their defeat by Madyes and Alyattes.


title: Cimmerians

text: It has been hypothesised that some Cimmerians might have migrated into Eastern, South-east and Central Europe, although such identification is presently considered very uncertain.


title: Cimmerians

text: The inroads of the Cimmerians and the Scythians into West Asia over the course of the 8th to 6th centuries BC had destabilised the political balance which had prevailed in the region between the states of Assyria, Urartu, Mannaea and Elam on one side and the mountain and tribal peoples on the other, resulting in the destruction of these former kingdoms and their replacement by new powers, including the kingdoms of the Medes and of the Lydians.


title: Cimmerians

text: After the end of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the scribes of the Neo-Babylonian Empire which replaced it used the term indiscriminately to refer to all the nomads of the steppes, including both the Pontic Scythians and the Central Asian Saka. The Persian Achaemenids who conquered the Neo-Babylonian Empire continued this tradition of using the name of the Cimmerians to refer to all steppe nomads in the Akkadian language, as attested in the Behistun inscription. The Byzantines from a millennium and onwards later similarly referred to the Huns, Slavs, and other populations as "Scythians."


title: Cimmerians

text: Homer's mention of the Cimmerians as living deprived from sunlight and close to the entrance of Hades influenced later Graeco-Roman authors who, writing centuries after the disappearance of the historical Cimmerians, conceptualised of this people as the one described by Homer, and therefore assigned to them various fantastical locations and histories:


title: Cimmerians

text: The Cimmerians appear in the Hebrew Bible under the name of (), where is closely linked to (), that is to the Scythians.


title: Cimmerians

text: In sources beginning with the Royal Frankish Annals, the Merovingian kings of the Franks traditionally traced their lineage through a pre-Frankish tribe called the (or ), mythologized as a group of "Cimmerians" from the mouth of the Danube river. The historical Sicambri, however, were a Germanic tribe from Gelderland in modern Netherlands and are named for the Sieg river.


title: Cimmerians

text: Early modern historians asserted Cimmerian descent for the Celts or the Germans, arguing from the similarity of to or , noted by 17th-century Celticists. But the word "Welshman" (plural: ) is now accepted by Celtic linguists as being derived from a Brythonic word , meaning "compatriot".


title: Cimmerians

text: According to Georgian national historiography, the Cimmerians, in Georgian known as , played an influential role in the development of the Colchian and Iberian cultures. The modern Georgian word for "hero", , is said to derive from their name.


title: Cimmerians

text: It has also been speculated that the modern Armenian city of Gyumri (Arm. ), founded as Kumayri (Arm. ), derived its name from the Cimmerians who conquered the region and founded a settlement there.


title: Cimmerians

text: The character of Conan the Barbarian, created by Robert E. Howard in a series of fantasy stories published in from 1932, is canonically a Cimmerian: in Howard's fictional Hyborian Age, the Cimmerians are a pre-Celtic people who were the ancestors of the Irish and Scots (Gaels).


title: Cimmerians

text: , a novel by Michael Chabon, includes a chapter describing the (fictional) oldest book in the world, "The Book of Lo", created by ancient Cimmerians.


title: Cimmerians

text: Manau's song "La Tribu de Dana" recounts an imaginary battle between Celts and enemies identified by the narrator as Cimmerians.


title: Cimmerians

text: Archaeologically, the Cimmerians are associated with the Chernogorovka-Novocherkassk Culture of the west Eurasian steppe, which itself showed strong influences originating from the east in Central Asia and Siberia (more specifically from the Karasuk. Arzhan, and Altai cultures), as well as from the Kuban culture of the Caucasus which contributed to its development, although an alternative view is that the Cimmerians instead belonged, materially, to the Early Scythian culture.


title: Cimmerians

text: Cimmerian remains from the period of their presence in Anatolia include a burial from the village of İmirler in the Amasya Province of Turkey which contains typically Early Scythian weapons and horse harnesses. Another Cimmerian burial, located at about 100 km to the east of İmirler and 50 km from Samsun, contained 250 Scythian-type arrowheads.


title: Cimmerians

text: According to the historian Muhammad Dandamayev and the linguist János Harmatta, the Cimmerians spoke a dialect belonging to the Scythian group of Iranian languages, and were able to communicate with Scythians proper without needing interpreters. The Iranologist Ľubomír Novák considers Cimmerian to be a relative of Scythian which exhibited similar features as Scythian, such as the evolution of the sound /d/ into /l/.


title: Cimmerians

text: The recorded personal names of the Cimmerians were either Iranian, reflecting their origins, or Anatolian, reflecting the cultural influence of the native populations of Asia Minor on them after their migration there.


title: Cimmerians

text: Isaac Asimov attempted to trace various place names to Cimmerian origins. He suggested that gave rise to the Turkic toponym (which in turn gave rise to the name "Crimea").


title: Cimmerians

text: A genetic study published in Science Advances in October 2018 examined the remains of three Cimmerians buried between around 1000 and 800 BC. The two samples of Y-DNA extracted belonged to haplogroups R1b1a and Q1a1, while the three samples of mtDNA extracted belonged to haplogroups H9a, C5c and R.


title: Cimmerians

text: Another genetic study published in "Current Biology" in July 2019 examined the remains of three Cimmerians. The two samples of Y-DNA extracted belonged to haplogroups R1a-Z645 and R1a2c-B111, while the three samples of mtDNA extracted belonged to haplogroups H35, U5a1b1 and U2e2.


title: Even Stevens

text: Even Stevens is an American comedy television series that originally aired on Disney Channel from June 17, 2000, to June 2, 2003, airing a total of 65 episodes over three seasons. It follows the life of the Stevens, a family living in suburban Sacramento, California, mainly focusing on the clashing personalities of its two younger children, Ren and Louis.


title: Even Stevens

text: The series was produced by Brookwell McNamara Entertainment. It is generally remembered for starring an adolescent Shia LaBeouf, before he achieved mainstream success as an actor. The show also features fast motion photography, which it employs in every episode.


title: Even Stevens

text: The feature-length Disney Channel Original Movie based on the series, "The Even Stevens Movie", premiered on June 13, 2003, and serves as the series finale. The show was cancelled after reaching the 65-episode limit that Disney Channel had at the time.


title: Even Stevens

text: The Stevens family live in Sacramento, California, where the two younger children in the family, Ren and Louis, who have opposing personalities, often clash.


title: Even Stevens

text: The show was originally produced as a show called "Spivey's Kid Brother". A pilot was filmed in July 1999, and was later picked up by Disney Channel as "Even Stevens". In the original pilot (which was repurposed as the flashback sequences in the episode "A Weak First Week"), Disney had to dub out the name "Spivey" to "Stevens". In fact, in the gym class scene, a banner is visible in the background reading, "Home of Spivey and the Wild Wombats."


title: Even Stevens

text: In the theme song of the show, clay animations of Louis and Ren turn their remote controls into lightsabers, alluding to "Star Wars". Prior to this, Ren reads a TV guide with live-action photos of Christy Carlson Romano and Shia LaBeouf on the cover.


title: Even Stevens

text: Lawrence Junior High is apparently a standard three-grade junior high school. Although the show lasted three seasons, the timeline of the show is only two school years, with Louis and his friends remaining in the 7th grade until some point after the middle of the second season. In several third-season episodes there are subtle references to an advance in the timeline that puts Ren and her friends in the 9th grade and Louis in the 8th grade. Ren finally graduates in "The Even Stevens Movie".


title: Even Stevens

text: Shia LaBeouf and Christy Carlson Romano are the only two actors to appear in all 65 episodes of the series.


title: Even Stevens

text: In 2002, the musical episode "Influenza: The Musical" aired as part of the program's second season, which was viewed favourably by the audience and network executives. Several cast members had backgrounds on Broadway as well as professional dance training. McNamara had done musical theatre in high school and directed the episode, while Brookwell cited the "musical episode" as a television convention. Brookwell stated that network executives were initially unsure that a musical episode would be successful and were uninterested in the subgenre, but the idea was ultimately approved. The success of the musical format led to the idea being adopted on Brookwell and McNamara's other comedy series "That's So Raven". It also inspired the development of the television film "High School Musical", which then-president of Disney Channels Worldwide Gary Marsh said would not have been possible if not for the success of the "Even Stevens" episode.


title: Even Stevens

text: The series reran on Disney Channel from June 2, 2003 to September 4, 2006. On July 7, 2007, Disney Channel aired eight episodes as part of their "Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Louis" marathon, to coincide with the release of Shia LaBeouf's film "Transformers".


title: Even Stevens

text: In 2006, Superstation WGN (now NewsNation) acquired the rights to "Even Stevens" and "Lizzie McGuire". It aired on the channel from September 18, 2006 to September 12, 2008, during the week originally airing after each other on weekday afternoons before moving to the late night hours, when both shows' target audiences were generally not awake, with "Stevens" airing Tuesdays and Thursdays and "Lizzie" airing the rest of the week.


title: Even Stevens

text: From 2015 to 2016, "Even Stevens" aired on Freeform for two hours after midnight on Wednesdays as part of the "That's So Throwback" block. In the UK, "Even Stevens" aired on CITV (having previously been shown on CBBC) from 2009 to 2012. The show currently is no longer airing on television.


title: Even Stevens

text: The series released on November 12, 2019 with the launch of Disney+ in the United States. It is currently not available in all territories where the platform has launched due to different distribution rights in many countries.


title: Even Stevens

text: The first season of "Even Stevens" was made available on DVD on Region 4 in Australia and New Zealand. To date, no further seasons have been released on Region 4. Region 1 has not released any season of the series, however, the television film, "The Even Stevens Movie", was made available on DVD (Full Screen only) and VHS on June 28, 2005. In March 2020, the complete series was made available for purchase on iTunes. The series finale film is available on iTunes in non-cropped widescreen.


title: Amber Marshall (actress)

text: Amber Marshall (born June 2, 1988) is a Canadian actress, singer, and equestrian. She has appeared in several television films and series, most notably as Amy Fleming in the long-running CBC/Up TV series "Heartland". For her performance in the series, Marshall won the inaugural Canada's Screen Star Award at the 1st Canadian Screen Awards.


title: Amber Marshall (actress)

text: Marshall was born and raised in London, Ontario. A former veterinary assistant, Marshall has been riding horses since she could walk and says that the two things she loves the most are "acting and horses". Marshall attended Lester B. Pearson School for the Arts, starting to act at the early age of 11; growing up, she went to the Original Kids Theatre Company.


title: Amber Marshall (actress)

text: Marshall made her acting debut in 2000 in a television series called "Super Rupert". The following year, she starred in an episode of "Twice in a Lifetime." She next performed in the television series "Doc" (2002) and "Dark Oracle" (2004), and in the television film "" (2002).


title: Amber Marshall (actress)

text: In 2003, she was nominated for a Los Angeles-based Young Artist Award for Best Performance in a TV Movie, Miniseries or Special for Leading Young Actress for "The Elizabeth Smart Story", a movie-of-the-week based on the true story of the 2002 kidnapping of Utah teenager Elizabeth Smart.


title: Amber Marshall (actress)

text: In 2007, Marshall was cast as Amy Fleming in the forthcoming CBC/Up TV series "Heartland." The series is based on the 25-novel series written by Lauren Brooke. The series premiered on Canadian television in October 2007 and in originally in syndication in the US on The CW Plus group of stations affiliated with The CW network, and then in 2010, it moved to GMC (now Up TV) and its fifteenth season premiered on May 19, 2022 in the US on Up. The series, filmed in High River Alberta, is about a girl named Amy Fleming living in the fictional town of Hudson Alberta. Her family owns a horse ranch called Heartland, where they have a long tradition of healing horses. For her performance in the series, Marshall won the inaugural Canada's Screen Star Award at the 1st annual Canadian Screen Awards. In 2015, "Heartland" surpassed "Street Legal" as the longest-running one-hour scripted drama in the history of Canadian television.


title: Amber Marshall (actress)

text: As of 2016, Marshall lives on a farm ranch outside Calgary, Alberta with her husband Shawn Turner and their animals. Marshall married Shawn, a photographer, on July 27, 2013, after becoming engaged in early 2012.


title: Amber Marshall (actress)

text: In between filming seasons of "Heartland", Marshall helps out at a local veterinary clinic and spends time with her many animals on her farm ranch near Calgary, Alberta. She has horses, dogs, cats, chickens, rabbits and an alpaca. She has also volunteered at a Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre where she took raptor classes, to work with falcons and hawks.


title: Dagger

text: A dagger is a fighting knife with a very sharp point and usually two sharp edges, typically designed or capable of being used as a thrusting or stabbing weapon. Daggers have been used throughout human history for close combat confrontations, and many cultures have used adorned daggers in ritual and ceremonial contexts. The distinctive shape and historic usage of the dagger have made it iconic and symbolic. A dagger in the modern sense is a weapon designed for close-proximity combat or self-defense; due to its use in historic weapon assemblages, it has associations with assassination and murders. Double-edged knives, however, play different sorts of roles in different social contexts.


title: Dagger

text: A wide variety of thrusting knives have been described as daggers, including knives that feature only a single cutting edge, such as the European rondel dagger or the Afghan pesh-kabz, or, in some instances, no cutting edge at all, such as the stiletto of the Renaissance. However, in the last hundred years or so, in most contexts, a dagger has certain definable characteristics, including a short blade with a sharply tapered point, a central spine or fuller, and usually two cutting edges sharpened the full length of the blade, or nearly so. Most daggers also feature a full crossguard to keep the hand from riding forwards onto the sharpened blade edges.


title: Dagger

text: Daggers are primarily weapons, so knife legislation in many places restricts their manufacture, sale, possession, transport, or use.


title: Dagger

text: Copper daggers appeared first in the early Bronze Age, in the 3rd millennium BC, and copper daggers of Early Minoan III (2400–2000 BC) were recovered at Knossos.


title: Dagger

text: In ancient Egypt, daggers were usually made of copper or bronze, while royalty had gold weapons. At least since pre-dynastic Egypt, (c. 3100 BC) daggers were adorned as ceremonial objects with golden hilts and later even more ornate and varied construction. One early silver dagger was recovered with midrib design. The 1924 opening of the tomb of Tutankhamun revealed two daggers, one with a gold blade, and one of smelted iron. It is held that mummies of the Eleventh Dynasty were buried with bronze sabres; and there is a bronze dagger of Thut-mes III. (Eighteenth Dynasty), circa B.C. 1600, and bronze armour, swords and daggers of Mene-ptah II. of the (Nineteenth Dynasty) circa B.C 1300.


title: Dagger

text: Iron production did not begin until 1200 BC, and iron ore was not found in Egypt, making the iron dagger rare, and the context suggests that the iron dagger was valued on a level equal to that of its ceremonial gold counterpart. These facts, and the composition of the dagger had long suggested a meteoritic origin, however, evidence for its meteoritic origin was not entirely conclusive until June 2016 when researchers using x-ray fluorescence spectrometry confirmed similar proportions of metals (Iron, 10% nickel, and 0.6% cobalt) in a meteorite discovered in the area, deposited by an ancient meteor shower.


title: Dagger

text: One of the earliest objects made of smelted iron is a dagger dating to before 2000 BC, found in a context that suggests it was treated as an ornamental object of great value. Found in a Hattic royal tomb dated about 2500 BC, at Alaca Höyük in northern Anatolia, the dagger has a smelted iron blade and a gold handle.


title: Dagger

text: The artisans and blacksmiths of Iberia in what is now southern Spain and southwestern France produced various iron daggers and swords of high quality from the 5th to the 3rd century BC, in ornamentation and patterns influenced by Greek, Punic (Carthaginian), and Phoenician culture. The exceptional purity of Iberian iron and the sophisticated method of forging, which included cold hammering, produced double-edged weapons of excellent quality. One can find technologically advanced designs such as folding knives rusted among the artifacts of many Second Iberian Iron Age cremation burials or in Roman Empire excavations all around Spain and the Mediterranean. Iberian infantrymen carried several types of iron daggers, most of them based on shortened versions of double-edged swords, but the true Iberian dagger had a triangular-shaped blade. Iberian daggers and swords were later adopted by Hannibal and his Carthaginian armies. The Lusitanii, a pre-Celtic people dominating the lands west of Iberia (most of modern Portugal and Extremadura) successfully held off the Roman Empire for many years with a variety of innovative tactics and light weapons, including iron-bladed short spears and daggers modeled after Iberian patterns.


title: Dagger

text: During the Roman Empire, legionaries were issued a "pugio" (from the Latin "pugnō", or “fight”), a double-edged iron thrusting dagger with a blade of 7–12 inches. The design and fabrication of the "pugio" was taken directly from Iberian daggers and short swords; the Romans even adopted the triangular-bladed Iberian dagger, which they called the "parazonium". Like the "gladius", the "pugio" was most often used as a thrusting (stabbing weapon). As an extreme close-quarter combat weapon, the "pugio" was the Roman soldier's last line of defense. When not in battle, the "pugio" served as a convenient utility knife.


title: Dagger

text: The term "dagger" appears only in the Late Middle Ages, reflecting the fact that while the dagger had been known in antiquity, it had disappeared during the Early Middle Ages, replaced by the hewing knife or seax.


title: Dagger

text: The dagger reappeared in the 12th century as the "knightly dagger", or more properly cross-hilt or quillon dagger, and was developed into a common arm and tool for civilian use by the late medieval period.


title: Dagger

text: The earliest known depiction of a cross-hilt dagger is the so-called "Guido relief" inside the Grossmünster of Zürich (c. 1120). A number of depictions of the fully developed cross-hilt dagger are found in the Morgan Bible (c. 1240).


title: Dagger

text: Many of these cross-hilt daggers resemble miniature swords, with cross guards and pommels very similar in form to swords of the period. Others, however, are not an exact match to known sword designs, having for example pommel caps, large hollow star shaped pommels on so-called “Burgundian Heraldic daggers” or antenna style cross and pommel, reminiscent of Hallstatt era daggers.


title: Dagger

text: The Old French term "dague" appears to have referred to these weapons in the 13th century, alongside other terms such as "poignal" and "basilard". The Middle English "dagger" is used from the 1380s.


title: Dagger

text: During this time, the dagger was often employed in the role of a secondary defense weapon in close combat. The knightly dagger evolved into the larger baselard knife in the 14th century. During the 14th century, it became fairly common for knights to fight on foot to strengthen the infantry defensive line. This necessitated greater dagger usage. At Agincourt (1415) archers used them to dispatch dismounted knights by thrusting the narrow blades through helmet vents and other apertures. The baselard was considered an intermediate between a short sword and a long dagger, and became popular also as a civilian weapon. Sloane MS. 2593 (c. 1400) records a song satirizing the use of oversized baselard knives as fashion accessories. Weapons of this sort called "anelace", somewhere between a large dagger and a short sword, were much in use in 14th century England as civilians' accoutrements, worn "suspended by a ring from the girdle".


title: Dagger

text: In the Late Middle Ages, knives with blade designs that emphasized thrusting attacks, such as the stiletto, became increasingly popular, and some thrusting knives commonly referred to as 'daggers' ceased to have a cutting edge. This was a response to the deployment of heavy armor, such as maille and plate armour, where cutting attacks were ineffective and focus was on thrusts with narrow blades to punch through mail or aim at armour plate intersections (or the eye slits of the helmet visor). These late medieval thrusting weapons are sometimes classed by the shape of their hilt as either roundel, bollock or ear daggers.


title: Dagger

text: The term "dagger" is coined in this time, as are the Early Modern German equivalents "dolch" ("tolch") and "degen" ("tegen").


title: Dagger

text: In the German school of fencing, Johannes Liechtenauer (Ms. 3227a) and his successors (specifically Andres Lignizer in Cod. 44 A 8) taught fighting with the dagger.


title: Dagger

text: These techniques in some respects resemble modern knife fighting, but emphasized thrusting strokes almost exclusively, instead of slashes and cuts. When used offensively, a standard attack frequently employed the reverse or icepick grip, stabbing downward with the blade to increase thrust and penetrative force. This was done primarily because the blade point frequently had to penetrate or push apart an opponent's steel chain mail or plate armor in order to inflict an injury. The disadvantage of employing the medieval dagger in this manner was that it could easily be blocked by a variety of techniques, most notably by a block with the weaponless arm while simultaneously attacking with a weapon held in the right hand. Another disadvantage was the reduction in effective blade reach to the opponent when using a reverse grip. As the wearing of armor fell out of favor, dagger fighting techniques began to evolve which emphasized the use of the dagger with a conventional or forward grip, while the reverse or icepick grip was retained when attacking an unsuspecting opponent from behind, such as in an assassination.


title: Dagger

text: The dagger was very popular as a fencing and personal defense weapon in 17th- and 18th-century Spain, where it was referred to as the "daga" or "puñal". During the Renaissance Age the dagger was used as part of everyday dress, and daggers were the only weapon commoners were allowed to carry on their person.


title: Dagger

text: In English, the terms "poniard" and "dirk" are loaned during the late 16th to early 17th century, the latter in the spelling "dork, durk" (presumably via Low German, Dutch or Scandinavian "dolk, dolch", ultimately from a West Slavic "tulich"), the modern spelling "dirk" dating to 18th-century Scots.


title: Dagger

text: Beginning with the 17th century, another form of dagger—the plug bayonet and later the socket bayonet—was used to convert muskets and other longarms into spears by mounting them on the barrel. They were periodically used for eating; the arm was also used for a variety of other tasks such as mending boots, house repairs and farm jobs. The final function of the dagger was as an obvious and ostentatious means of enhancing a man's personal apparel, conforming to fashion which dictated that all men carried them.


title: Dagger

text: WW1 trench warfare caused daggers and fighting knives to come back in play. They also replaced the sabres worn by officers, which were too long and clumsy for trench warfare. They were worn with pride as a sign of having served front line duty.


title: Dagger

text: Daggers achieved public notoriety in the 20th century as ornamental uniform regalia during the Fascist dictatorships of Mussolini's Italy and Hitler's Germany. Dress daggers were used by several other countries as well, including Japan, but never to the same extent. As combat equipment they were carried by many infantry and commando forces during the Second World War. British Commando and other elite units were issued an especially slender dagger, the Fairbairn–Sykes fighting knife, developed by William E. Fairbairn and Eric A. Sykes from real-life close-combat experiences gained while serving on the Shanghai Municipal Police Force. The F-S dagger proved very popular with the commandos, who used it primarily for sentry elimination. Some units of the U.S. Marine Corps Raiders in the Pacific were issued a similar fighting dagger, the Marine Raider stiletto, though this modified design proved less than successful when used in the type of knife combat encountered in the Pacific theater due to this version using inferior materials and manufacturing techniques.


title: Dagger

text: During the Vietnam War, the Gerber Mark II, designed by US Army Captain Bud Holzman and Al Mar, was a popular fighting knife pattern that was privately purchased by many U.S. soldiers and marines who served in that war.


title: Dagger

text: Aside from military forces, most daggers are no longer carried openly, but concealed in clothing. One of the more popular forms of the concealable dagger is the "boot knife". The boot knife is nothing more than a shortened dagger that is compact enough to be worn on the lower leg, usually by means of a sheath clipped or strapped to a boot or other footwear.


title: Dagger

text: The dagger is symbolically ambiguous. For some cultures and military organizations the dagger symbolizes courage and daring in combat.


title: Dagger

text: However, daggers may be associated with deception or treachery due to the ease of concealment and surprise that the user


title: Dagger

text: Indeed, many assassinations have been carried out with the use of a dagger, including that of Julius Caesar. A cloak and dagger attack is one in which a deceitful, traitorous, or concealed enemy attacks a person. Some have noted a phallic association between daggers and the succession of royal dynasties in British literature.


title: Dagger

text: In European artwork, daggers were sometimes associated with Hecate, the Ancient Greek goddess of witchcraft.


title: Dagger

text: The social stigma of the dagger originates in its periodic use in the commission of disreputable and murderous attacks, from the 44 BC assassination of Julius Caesar to the use of the stiletto dagger by the Black Hand of early 20th century America. Consequently, it developed a public association with surprise assaults by criminals and murderers intent on stabbing unsuspecting victims. To this day, criminal codes of many nations and some US states specifically ban the carrying of the dagger as a prohibited weapon.


title: Dagger

text: bayonet. Daggers are commonly used as part of the insignias of elite military units or special forces, such as the US Army Airborne Special Operations unit or the Commando Dagger patch for those who have completed the British All Arms Commando Course.


title: Dagger

text: Daggers are a popular form of what is known as the "art knife", due in part to the symmetry of the blade. One of the knives required of an American Bladesmith Society Mastersmith is the construction of an "art knife" or a "European style" dagger.


title: Indian Bank

text: Indian Bank is an Indian public sector bank, established in 1907 and headquartered in Chennai. It serves over 100 million customers with 39,734 employees, 5,721 branches with 5,428 ATMs and Cash deposit machines. Total business of the bank has touched as on 31 March 2022.


title: Indian Bank

text: The bank's Information systems and security processes are certified to meet ISO27001:2013 standard. It has overseas branches in Colombo and Singapore including Foreign Currency Banking Units at Colombo and Jaffna. It has 227 overseas correspondent banks in 75 countries. Since 1978, the Government of India has owned the bank. As per the announcement made by the Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on 30 August 2019, Allahabad Bank merged from 1 April 2020, making Indian Bank now the seventh largest bank in the country.


title: Indian Bank

text: In the last quarter of 1906, Madras (now Chennai) was hit by the worst financial crisis the city was ever to suffer. Of the three best-known British commercial names in 19th-century Madras, one crashed; a second had to be resurrected by a distress sale; and the third had to be bailed out by a benevolent benefactor. Arbuthnot & Co, which failed, was considered the soundest of the three. Parry's (now EID Parry), may have been the earliest of them and Binny and Co.'s founders may have had the oldest associations with Madras, but it was Arbuthnot, established in 1810s, that was the city's strongest commercial organisation in the 19th Century. A key figure in the bankruptcy case for Arbuthnot's was the Madras lawyer, V. Krishnaswamy Iyer who founded the Indian bank which was an offshoot of nationalistic fervour and the Swadeshi movement, when the then British Arbuthnot Bank collapsed and the Indian Bank emerged. Mr V. Krishnaswamy Iyer solicited the support of the Nagarathar Chettiars authored by Mr. Ramasamy Chettiar, who was Annamalai Chettiar's elder brother. Sri V. Krishnaswamy Iyer and Mr. Ramasamy Chettiar were one of the first directors of Indian Bank. Later on in 1915,


title: Indian Bank

text: Mr. Annamalai Chettiar was inducted into the board of the Indian Bank. It commenced operations on 15 August 1907 with its head office in Parry's Building, Parry Corner, Madras.


title: Indian Bank

text: In 1932 IB opened a branch in Colombo. It opened its second branch in Ceylon in 1935 at Jaffna, but closed it in 1939. IB next opened a branch in Rangoon, Burma, in late 1940s. Then in late 1941 IB opened branches in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Ipoh, and Penang. The exigencies of war forced IB to close its Singapore and Malayan branches with months. The closing of the Singapore branch resulted in little loss to IB; the loss of the branches in Malaya was much more costly.


title: Indian Bank

text: World War II resulted in further financial problems for IB and it was forced in 1942 to close a number of its branches in India, and also its branch in Colombo.


title: Indian Bank

text: After the war, in 1947, it reopened its branch in Colombo. Indian Bank also reopened its branches in Burma, Malayan and Singapore, the last in 1962. The Burmese government nationalised all foreign banks, including Indian Bank's branch, in 1963.


title: Indian Bank

text: The 1960s saw IB expand domestically as it acquired Rayalaseema Bank (est. 1939), Mannargudi Bank (est. 1932), Bank of Alagapuri, Salem Bank (est. 1925), and Trichy United Bank. Trichy United was the result of the 1965 merger of Woraiyur Commercial Bank (est. 1948), the Palakkarai Bank, and the Tennur Bank (est. 3 March 1947). These were all small banks with the result that all the acquisitions added only about 38 branches to IB's network. Trichy United had five branches and its acquisition in 1967 brought the number of IB branches up to 210.


title: Indian Bank

text: Then on 19 July 1969 the Government of India nationalised 14 top banks, including Indian Bank. One consequence of the nationalisation was that the Malaysian branches of nationalised Indian banks were forbidden to continue to operate as branches of the parent. At the time, Indian Bank had three branches, and Indian Overseas Bank, and United Commercial Bank had eight between them. In 1973 the three established United Asian Bank Berhad to amalgamate and take over their Malaysian operations. Post-nationalization, Indian Bank was left with only two foreign branches, one in Colombo and the other in Singapore.


title: Indian Bank

text: International expansion resumed in 1978 with IB becoming a technical adviser to PT Bank Rama in Indonesia, the result of the merger of PT Bank Masyarakat and PT Bank Ramayana. Two years later, IB, Bank of Baroda, and Union Bank of India established IUB International Finance, a licensed deposit taker in Hong Kong. Each of the three banks took an equal share in the joint venture; IB's Chairman became the first Chairman of IUB International Finance. In May 1980s, IB also opened a foreign currency unit at its branch in Colombo.


title: Indian Bank

text: In 1983, ethnic sectarian violence in the form of anti-Tamil riots resulted in the burning of Indian Overseas Bank's branch in Colombo. Indian Bank, which may have had stronger ties to the Sinhalese population, escaped unscathed.


title: Indian Bank

text: In 1990, Indian Bank rescued Bank of Tanjore (Bank of Thanjavur; est. 1901), with its 157 branches, based in Tamil Nadu.


title: Indian Bank

text: A multi-crore scam was exposed in 1992, when then chairman M. Gopalakrishnan lent 13 billion to small corporates and exporters from the south, which the borrowers never repaid.


title: Indian Bank

text: Bank of Baroda bought out its partners in IUB International Finance in Hong Kong in 1998. Apparently this was a response to regulatory changes following Hong Kong's reversion to Chinese control. IUB became Bank of Baroda (Hong Kong), a restricted licence bank.


title: Indian Bank

text: On 30 August 2019, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that Allahabad Bank would be merged with Indian bank. The proposed merger would create the seventh largest public sector bank in the country with assets of . The Union Cabinet approved the merger on 4 March 2020. Indian Bank assumed control of Allahabad Bank on 1 April 2020.


title: Indian Bank

text: 1907- The Bank was incorporated on 5 March 1907 under the Indian Companies Act, 1882 as "Indian Bank Limited" and commenced operations on 15 August 1907.


title: Indian Bank

text: 1962 - The Bank acquired the Royalaseema Bank, the Bank of Alagapuri, the Salem Bank, the Mannargudi Bank and the Trichy United Bank


title: Indian Bank

text: 1969 - The Bank was nationalized. It was appointed as the lead bank for nine districts in the States of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala and the Union Territory of Pondicherry.


title: Indian Bank

text: 1981 - The first regional rural bank sponsored by the Bank, Sri Venkateswara Grameena Bank, was founded


title: Indian Bank

text: 1989 - Indbank Merchant Banking Services was incorporated as a subsidiary of the Bank 1990; Bank of Thanjavur Limited (with 157 branches) was amalgamated


title: Indian Bank

text: 1994 - Indfund Management Limited was established to manage the operations of Indian Bank Mutual Fund


title: Indian Bank

text: 2006-07 - The Bank entered into a strategic alliance with Oriental Bank of Commerce and Corporation Bank


title: Indian Bank

text: 2012 - Scheme of Amalgamation of M/s. lndfund Management Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Bank with Indian Bank, Indian Bank.


title: Indian Bank

text: 2020 - On 1 April 2020 Indian bank and Allahabad bank merged. The oldest Joint Stock Bank in the country, Allahabad Bank was founded on 24 April 1865 by a group of Europeans at Allahabad, at a juncture when organized industries, trade and banking were taking shape in India. Thus, the history of the bank now spreads over three centuries.


title: Ice Poseidon

text: Paul Denino (born September 29, 1994), better known as Ice Poseidon"," is an American internet personality and live streamer, primarily of the video game "Old School RuneScape" and the genre. His peak prominence was in 2017 when his IRL streams became popular. He is best known for his IRL streams, which he describes as "life streaming". "Rolling Stone" named Denino as a "pioneer 'life streamer'."


title: Ice Poseidon

text: Initially a streamer on Twitch, Denino was publicly banned from the platform for being swatted off an airplane at Phoenix airport after a viewer called in a bomb threat under Denino's name. Following several years of streaming on YouTube, Denino moved to Mixer, only for the streaming platform to shut down in July 2020. Denino has returned to streaming on YouTube and continues streaming regularly as of June 2021.


title: Ice Poseidon

text: Denino was a partnered streamer on Twitch. He rose to prominence for his "Old School RuneScape" streams in 2015 playing under the pseudonym "Ice Poseidon", which he created using a random name generator when he was twelve years old. He moved into streaming IRL, beginning by streaming himself playing "Pokémon Go". He was banned multiple times on Twitch. In late December 2016, Twitch announced the launch of the IRL section, allowing Denino to stream without the involvement of gaming for the first time. Denino was banned during the section's launch day because he revealed a phone number on stream. This was his third ban on the platform, this time resulting in a 45-day ban. During the ban, Denino decided to move to California to pursue his Twitch career full-time. He frequently traveled around the country IRL streaming, averaging ten to thirty thousand concurrent viewers.


title: Ice Poseidon

text: He was banned from Twitch on April 28, 2017, after being swatted on American Airlines Flight 458 in Phoenix, where police officers removed Denino and another person. The incident made national news across the US as a hoax bomb threat had been called in by one of Denino's viewers under his name. While this was not the first time he had been swatted during a livestream it was the first on Twitch to lead to a permanent suspension.


title: Ice Poseidon

text: The decision to ban Ice Poseidon from Twitch sparked controversy with some believing his ban was unjustified, including Denino himself. Some members of the community demanded that Twitch undo the ban citing complaints that the Twitch terms of service were too vague and with Denino stating "when you look at the [terms of service], there was no rules saying that you shouldn't leak your location".


title: Ice Poseidon

text: Following his ban from Twitch in spring 2017, Denino took to YouTube, taking most of his fans (the "Purple Army") with him, a rarity for streamers.


title: Ice Poseidon

text: Denino's fanbase is controversial, with some describing the community as 'toxic' due to their frequent use of racial and sexual slurs, and harassment. His community is largely based around his sizeable Discord community and his Reddit subreddit /r/Ice_Poseidon which was initially placed under "quarantine" by Reddit, and subsequently banned in October 2019 along with its community-run sister Subreddit /r/Ice_Poseidon2. Denino admits that it is nearly impossible to hide anything from the "Purple Army".


title: Ice Poseidon

text: Denino quickly became one of the most popular livestreamers in the world focusing primarily on the IRL genre using a mobile broadcasting rig of his own design. His streams are known for their 'edgy' humor and interaction with viewers through text-to-speech and viewers meeting him in public by determining his location, a process known as 'stream sniping'. Denino's openness about his life has led to multiple incidents in public due to viewers calling and harassing nearby store owners by making baseless threats and warning that Denino is a risk in order to provoke violence or have police called on Denino.


title: Ice Poseidon

text: During Denino's trip to Europe, he visited Zurich, Switzerland, and was featured in a tabloid magazine that discussed him being evicted out of multiple hotels for harassment and disobeying filming laws of the country.


title: Ice Poseidon

text: His continual swatting provoked a debate within the streamer community on whether such content should no longer be publicized due to the media contagion effect which may encourage more people to swat him and as a result many Twitch/streamer communities banned the posting of swatting clips.


title: Ice Poseidon

text: On the morning of March 21, 2019, Denino's residence in Los Angeles, was raided by the FBI and his Cx Network subsequently folded in March 2019.


title: Ice Poseidon

text: On August 1, 2019, Denino started streaming on Microsoft's streaming-platform, Mixer. He stated that he was trying out Mixer in comparison to YouTube and that Mixer's community and active staff-support made the community much more welcoming than YouTube. Another reason given for the platform switch was "Youtube has only downgraded their streaming discoverability over the years which sucks for the streamers." On the week of January 20, 2020 to January 24, 2020, Denino hosted Mixer's first 5-day long game show called "Scuffed Brother" featuring other Mixer streamers and partners. The reality event modeled CBS' Big Brother where contestants are locked in a house and compete for money. The event was a success, with the 5 days racking up 500,000,000 sparks from viewer voting and 350,000 views.


title: Ice Poseidon

text: As of June 12, 2020, Ice Poseidon had 39,995 followers and 2,225,145 total views. On June 22, 2020, Mixer announced it was shutting down and partnering with Facebook Gaming.


title: Ice Poseidon

text: From September 2016 Denino was affiliated with the eSports organization NRG Esports as part of their "Old School RuneScape" roster and as a content creator. The sponsorship provided management services through team NRG's Brent Kaskel. In June 2019, Denino announced he was no longer working with Kaskel after allegations of sexual abuse were made against Kaskel. Denino earned about US$60,000 dollars per month through various sponsorships.


title: Ice Poseidon

text: Denino launched in July 2021 a cryptocurrency he called "CxCoin" with the aim of allowing streamers to "receive support" despite previously admitting in an earlier YouTube stream that he would use cryptocurrency to scam unsuspecting buyers out of their money. In January 2022, Paul admitted to scamming over $500k from his fans in a pump and dump crypto scheme by removing funds from the liquidity pool as well as withdrawing from the pre-sale and marketing wallet. He later denied the project was a scam arguing he did not advertise the project to casual fans and defended his withdrawals from the liquidity pool. The CxCoin website permanently went offline between June 18 and August 30 2022.


title: Ice Poseidon

text: On October 23 2022 it was announced that Denino would face Brandon Buckingham in a boxing on November 19 at the Moody Center, Austin, Texas, US.


title: Gladys Portugues

text: Gladys Portugues (born September 30, 1957) is an American former professional female bodybuilder and actress. As a bodybuilder, she twice placed in the top 10 in the Ms. Olympia contest. She is married to Belgian actor and martial artist Jean-Claude van Damme.


title: Gladys Portugues

text: Portugues has said that she was inspired to start her own bodybuilding and weight training regimen while attending Marymount Manhattan College, when she saw Rachel McLish on television winning the Ms. Olympia title.


title: Gladys Portugues

text: In 1987, at the age of thirty, Portugues married Belgian martial artist and actor Jean-Claude van Varenberg. The couple divorced in 1992, but remarried in 1999. They have two children: Kristopher van Varenberg (born 1987) and Bianca Brigitte (born 1990). Her husband is professionally known as Jean-Claude Van Damme.


title: Lady Jessica

text: Lady Jessica is a fictional character in the "Dune" universe created by Frank Herbert. A main character in the 1965 novel "Dune", Jessica also plays an important role in the later installment "Children of Dune" (1976). The events surrounding Jessica's conception, her birth and her early years with Leto are chronicled in the "Prelude to Dune" prequel trilogy (1999–2001) and the "Caladan Trilogy" (2020–2022) by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. The character is brought back as a ghola in the Herbert/Anderson sequels which conclude the original series, "Hunters of Dune" (2006) and "Sandworms of Dune" (2007).


title: Lady Jessica

text: Lady Jessica was portrayed by Francesca Annis in the 1984 David Lynch film "Dune". Saskia Reeves played the role in the 2000 Sci-Fi Channel TV miniseries "Frank Herbert's Dune", and was succeeded by Alice Krige in the 2003 sequel, "Frank Herbert's Children of Dune". Rebecca Ferguson portrays Jessica in the 2021 Denis Villeneuve film adaptation and its 2023 .


title: Lady Jessica

text: Jessica is described in "Dune" as having "hair like shaded bronze ... and green eyes" as well as an "oval face." This shape is later notable as a marker of Jessica's bloodline. Novelist Brian Herbert, Frank Herbert's son and biographer, said that the character of Lady Jessica is modeled after his mother and Frank Herbert's wife, Beverly Herbert. Brian Herbert wrote:


title: Lady Jessica

text: As "Dune" begins, Jessica is the Bene Gesserit concubine to the Duke Leto Atreides, and mother to his young son and heir Paul. Leto has been granted control of the lucrative planetary fief of Arrakis, and is moving his entire household there from his ocean homeworld of Caladan. Jessica's former instructor, the Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam, is still furious over Jessica's past insubordination—she had been instructed to bear Leto a daughter but had instead intentionally conceived a son—but Mohiam is somewhat intrigued by the potential she sees in 15-year-old Paul. Still, an Atreides daughter is a crucial part of the Bene Gesserit breeding program to eventually produce a super-being they call the Kwisatz Haderach.


title: Lady Jessica

text: Previously managed by House Atreides' longtime enemies, the Harkonnens, Arrakis is an inhospitable desert planet plagued by giant sandworms, and the only known source of melange, the valuable drug at the center of the galactic empire's economy. Leto suspects treachery on the part of Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV, but cannot refuse the assignment. Soon the Baron Harkonnen launches an attack, his forces secretly bolstered by Shaddam's fierce Sardaukar warriors and aided by Leto's own trusted Suk doctor, Wellington Yueh. Coerced by the Baron to save his wife from torture, Yueh disables the shields of the Atreides fortress and delivers a drugged Leto to the Baron, but also provides Leto with a false tooth filled with poison gas. Leto bites down on the tooth in the Baron's presence, but the gas only manages to kill Leto and the Baron's twisted Mentat, Piter De Vries. Jessica is drugged, bound and gagged to prevent her using her powers. The Baron orders that she and Paul be disposed of in the desert. Thanks to supplies left by Yueh, Paul and Lady Jessica escape into the desert and find refuge with the native Fremen. They take advantage of the legends planted there by the Bene Gesserit's Missionaria Protectiva, which practices religious engineering. Jessica casts Paul as the "Lisan al'Gaib", the messiah, and herself as the Reverend Mother who shall bring him, even though she has not yet experienced the Bene Gesserit spice agony that transforms an acolyte into a full Reverend Mother. Jessica is also revealed to be the secret daughter of the Baron Harkonnen himself.


title: Lady Jessica

text: Paul soon molds the Fremen into a massive army with which he hopes to retake the planet from Imperial rule. The Fremen have their own "wild" Reverend Mothers, women who undergo their own version of the spice agony to awaken their Other Memory. Jessica undergoes the ritual of spice agony and replaces the dying Fremen Reverend Mother. But Jessica is pregnant during the ordeal, exposing the fetus to the same awakening of ancestral ego-memories. A child born this way is called an Abomination by the Bene Gesserit, because experiencing this heightened awareness before they have formed a personality of their own makes them vulnerable to eventually being overtaken by one of their ancestral personalities. Jessica's daughter Alia, a full Reverend Mother from birth, is a grown woman in a child's body. Paul's Fremen seize control of Arrakis from Shaddam and the Harkonnens, and Paul accedes to the throne as Emperor.


title: Lady Jessica

text: Paul is the Kwisatz Haderach, and eventually sets the Imperium on a course lasting thousands of years in the person of his son, Leto II. Much to the frustration of the Bene Gesserit, they do not control Paul, and the events of the coming millennia leave Jessica noteworthy as a figure of history who committed a great wrong (according to the Bene Gesserit); in the coming centuries, for a Bene Gesserit to choose her love over the instructions of her order is known as "the Jessica crime."


title: Lady Jessica

text: By the time of "Dune Messiah", Jessica has returned to Caladan, the ancestral home of the Atreides. She has also, by some accounts, returned to the Sisterhood following the death of her Duke, and while she cannot influence Paul, she does act as distant counselor. It is also implied that she and Atreides Weapons Master Gurney Halleck have become lovers.


title: Lady Jessica

text: In "Children of Dune", Jessica returns to Dune to inspect Paul's children, Leto II and Ghanima, to see if they can be returned to the control of the Sisterhood. Leto notes the identity of Jessica's birth mother: Tanidia Nerus. Realizing that Alia is fully possessed, Jessica survives an assassination attempt by Alia and flees to the desert once more, taking refuge with Fremen leader (and old friend) Stilgar in Sietch Tabr. A civil war has divided Arrakis, with Fremen revolting against the transformation of the desert started by Pardot Kynes. Alia's husband, Duncan Idaho, also realizes that Alia is possessed. When Alia instructs Duncan to make her mother disappear, Duncan kidnaps her on the orders of "the Preacher", a mysterious desert figure that some suspect is Paul Atreides, who disappeared into the desert. Duncan takes her to Salusa Secundus, the home of exiled House Corrino and the previous Emperor Shaddam IV. The Preacher has told Jessica, through Duncan, to train the pupil she finds there: Prince Farad'n, Shaddam's grandson. She trains him in the Bene Gesserit way, and at the end of "Children of Dune", he becomes Ghanima's concubine and Leto's Royal Scribe.


title: Lady Jessica

text: When strangers meet, great allowance should be made for differences of custom and training. — The Lady Jessica, from "Wisdom of Arrakis" In "" it is noted that she "lived out her years on Caladan." According to the "Appendix IV: The Almanak en-Ashraf (Selected Excerpts of the Noble Houses)" in "Dune", Lady Jessica dies in the year 10,256 A.G. after 102 years of life.


title: Lady Jessica

text: In the "Prelude to Dune" series, it is revealed that Jessica's mother is in fact Mohiam; according to the authors, this fact was pulled directly from Frank Herbert's working notes for the original "Dune" series. In the storyline, Mohiam blackmails the homosexual Baron Harkonnen into a sexual encounter; when the first daughter she conceives proves genetically undesirable, she is forced to return. At this point the Baron drugs and viciously rapes Mohiam, and in retribution she secretly infects him with the disease that will later leave him horribly obese. The daughter born of this second union is Jessica.


title: Lady Jessica

text: The "Prelude" series also follows Jessica and Leto's relationship from their first meeting through the birth (and subsequent kidnapping and return) of their son Paul. It is indicated that Jessica's choice to bear a son is partially due to her desire to help Leto overcome the devastating loss of his first son, Victor, by his concubine Kailea Vernius.


title: Lady Jessica

text: Lady Jessica was portrayed by Francesca Annis in the 1984 David Lynch film "Dune". Richard Corliss of "Time" praised "the lustrous Francesca Annis ... who whispers her lines with the urgency of erotic revelation. In those moments when Annis is onscreen, "Dune" finds the emotional center that has eluded it in its parade of rococo decor and austere special effects. She reminds us of what movies can achieve when they have a heart as well as a mind."


title: Lady Jessica

text: Saskia Reeves played the role in the 2000 Sci-Fi Channel TV miniseries "Frank Herbert's Dune". In her review of the 2000 miniseries, Emmet Asher-Perrin of "Tor.com" wrote that Reeves "embodies everything that you would expect from Lady Jessica in both bearing and commanding presence."


title: Lady Jessica

text: Reeves's real-life pregnancy forced producers to recast the role with Alice Krige for the 2003 sequel miniseries, "Frank Herbert's Children of Dune". Laura Fries of "Variety" noted, "it's Susan Sarandon [as Farad'n's mother Wensicia] and Alice Krige who steal the thunder as opposing matriarchs of the great royal houses. Although the two never catfight, their ongoing struggle to rule the "Dune" dynasty gives this mini a real kick." Observing that Sarandon and Krige were "clearly relishing their roles", Fries added that "Sarandon makes a formidable enemy, while Krige, traditionally cast as the villain, proves she can work both sides of the moral fence." Asher-Perrin noted of the recast, "While it’s hard not to miss Reeves's elegance, there is an otherworldliness to Krige that suits a Bene Gesserit 'witch' superbly."


title: Lady Jessica

text: Rebecca Ferguson portrays Jessica in the 2021 Denis Villeneuve film "Dune" and its 2023 sequel "". Ferguson explained, "She's a mother, she's a concubine, she’s a soldier. Denis was very respectful of Frank's work in the book, [but] the quality of the arcs for much of the women have been brought up to a new level. There were some shifts he did, and they are beautifully portrayed now."


title: Lady Jessica

text: A line of "Dune" action figures from toy company LJN was released to lackluster sales in 1984. Styled after David Lynch's film, the collection featured figures of various characters. A figure of Lady Jessica previewed in LJN's catalog was never produced.


title: Rodman Flender

text: Flender was born and raised in a Jewish family in New York City, the son of Enid (née Rodman), a former Broadway dancer, and Harold Flender (1924—1975), a writer and screenwriter. Flender's early acting roles included Mischa in the Broadway production of "Zalmen or the Madness of God" and Charles Francis Adams in the PBS series "The Adams Chronicles". He graduated from the drama department of New York's High School of Performing Arts and studied acting at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in London, United Kingdom. He received his undergraduate degree at Harvard University, where he wrote for "The Harvard Lampoon". Flender majored in Visual and Environmental Studies and studied documentary filmmaking with Ed Pincus and Ross McElwee, who inspired him with an enthusiasm for the documentaries.


title: Rodman Flender

text: Independent filmmaker Roger Corman hired Flender out of college to run the advertising department of his Concorde-New Horizons Films. With his goal toward directing, Flender moved into production and was Corman's Vice President of Production for two years. He produced or co-produced titles including "Body Chemistry", "Streets", and "Full Fathom Five". Flender made his feature directing debut with the Corman-produced thriller "The Unborn", which received favorable reviews. Flender next wrote and directed "In The Heat of Passion," also for Roger Corman.


title: Rodman Flender

text: Over the next decade, Flender's feature directing credits included "Leprechaun 2" for Trimark, and the Columbia Pictures release "Idle Hands". Flender became a busy director of television episodes and pilots. TV credits include multiple episodes of the comedies "The Office" and "Ugly Betty"; dramas that include "Chicago Hope", "Gilmore Girls" and "The O.C."; and horror with HBO's "Tales From The Crypt". As a writer, Flender's credits include "Tales From The Crypt" and the feature film "Roger Corman’s Dracula Rising".


title: Rodman Flender

text: In 1998, he began filming a musical portrait of the Boston-based rock band The Upper Crust, and directed "Dawson's Creek" episode "The Scare", a parody of "Scream". Developments within the band led Flender to continue shooting on and off for the next five years. The resulting documentary, "Let Them Eat Rock", played film festivals in 2005 and 2006 to mostly positive notices. Following the 2010 Tonight Show conflict, Flender joined Conan O'Brien (whom he knew since their days at Harvard) on the road, as part of the Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour, and filmed the ongoings behind-the-scenes, onstage and between shows. The documentary, titled "Conan O'Brien Can't Stop", was released in select theatres on June 24, 2011, which Roger Ebert featured on his list of best documentaries of 2011.


title: Rodman Flender

text: With the documentary completed, Flender returned to directing television in multiple genres, including episodes of the comedies "Suburgatory" and "Super Fun Night" in 2014, the drama "Finding Carter" and multiple episodes of the thriller "Scream" in 2015 and 2016. Flender directed two episodes of the 2016-2017 science fiction series "People of Earth" and returned to character-based drama in 2019, directing Kirsten Dunst in the Showtime original series "On Becoming a God in Central Florida".


title: Rodman Flender

text: Rodman Flender completed his next feature film in 2019, when he mixed romantic comedy, horror and the road movie with "Eat, Brains, Love". It premiered at the London FrightFest Film Festival to positive reviews and won Best Picture at the 2019 Screamfest Horror Film Festival. In 2022, footage from "The Scare" was incorporated into the Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett film "Scream".


title: Rodman Flender

text: He is married to American writer and producer Amy Lippman. His nephew is Academy Award-nominated actor Timothée Chalamet. His son is Haskell Flender. Haskell also attended Harvard University and was a member of the Harvard Lampoon.


title: Grog

text: The word originally referred to rum diluted with water (and later on long sea voyages, also added the juice of limes or lemons), which British Vice-Admiral Edward Vernon introduced into the naval squadron he commanded in the West Indies on 21 August 1740. Vernon wore a coat of grogram cloth and was nicknamed "Old Grogram" or "Old Grog". The "Merriam–Webster Collegiate Dictionary", which agrees with this story of the word's origin, states that the word "grog" was first used in this sense in 1770, though other sources cite 1749. In modern times, the term "grog" has had a variety of meanings in a number of different cultures, but is most commonly used in Australia and New Zealand where it is a slang word for alcohol.


title: Grog

text: During the early modern period (1500–1800), sailors required significant quantities of fresh water on extended voyages. Since desalinating sea water was not practical, fresh water was taken aboard in casks, but quickly developed algae and became slimy. Stagnant water was sweetened with beer or wine to make it palatable, which involved more casks and was subject to spoilage. As longer voyages became more common, the storage of the sailors' substantial daily ration of water plus beer or wine became a problem.


title: Grog

text: Following England's conquest of Jamaica in 1655, of rum gradually replaced beer and brandy as the drink of choice. Given to the sailor straight, this caused additional problems, as some sailors saved the rum rations for several days to drink all at once. To minimise the subsequent illness and disciplinary problems the rum was mixed with water, which both diluted its effects and accelerated its spoilage, preventing hoarding of the allowance. In 1740, British Vice-Admiral Edward Vernon ordered that the daily rum issue of of rum be mixed with of water, a water-to-rum ratio of 4:1, with half issued before noon and the remainder after the end of the working day; this procedure became part of the official regulations of the Royal Navy in 1756 and continued until 1970.


title: Grog

text: Some writers have said that Vernon also added citrus juice to prevent spoilage and that it was found to prevent scurvy. This is not the case and is based on a misreading of Vernon's order in which, having instructed his captains to dilute the sailors' daily allowance of rum with water, he says that those members of the crew "which ... are good husbandmen may from the saving of their salt provisions and bread, purchase sugar and limes to make it more palatable to them." Lime juice was not needed to combat scurvy, which was a disease of long ocean voyagesnot of squadrons operating among islands where there was an abundance of fruits and fresh foodstuffsand was thought by the medical establishment at the time to be due to poor digestion and internal putrefaction. Standard medical remedies focussed on "gingering up" the system by imbibing a variety of (ineffective) fizzy or fermenting drinks. Until an official daily issue of lemon juice was introduced into the Royal Navy in 1795, scurvy continued to be a debilitating disease which destroyed men and disabled ships and whole fleets. Seamen and surgeons knew from practical experience that citrus juice cured scurvy, but were unaware of the reason: vitamin C was only discovered in 1912. In 1795, in defiance of medical opinion, the Admiralty introduced lemon juice and sugar as a regular part of the naval diet. When a few years later Spain allied itself with France and lemons became unobtainable, West Indian limes were substituted. It was from this time that British obtained the nickname "limeys".


title: Grog

text: The name "grog" probably came from the nickname of Admiral Vernon, who was known as "Old Grog" because he wore a grogram cloak. The term was in use by 1749, during Vernon's lifetime. A biographer of Daniel Defoe has suggested that the derivation from "Old Grog" is wrong because Defoe used the term in 1718, but this is based on an erroneous citation of Defoe's work, which actually used the word "ginger".


title: Grog

text: Until the grog ration was discontinued in 1970, Royal Navy rum was 95.5 proof, or 54.6% alcohol by volume; the usual ration was , diluted 2:1 with water (3:1 until World War II). Extra rum rations were provided for special celebrations, like Trafalgar Day, and sailors might share their ration with the cook or with a messmate celebrating a birthday. Until the early 20th century, weaker "six water grog" (rum diluted with water at a 6:1 ratio) was sometimes issued as a punishment to sailors found guilty of drunkenness or neglect.


title: Grog

text: Over time the distribution of the rum ration acquired a fixed form. At 11:00am, the boatswain's mate piped "Up spirits", the signal for the petty officer of the day to climb to the quarterdeck and collect the keys to the spirit room from an officer, the ship's cooper, and a detachment of Royal Marines. In procession, they unlocked the door of the spirit room, and witnessed the pumping into a keg of one-eighth pint of rum for every rating and petty officer on the ship aged 20 or more and not under punishment. Two marines lifted the keg to the deck, standing guard while a file of cooks from the petty officers' messes held out their jugs. The sergeant of marines poured the ration under direction of the chief steward, who announced the number of drinking men present in each petty officer's mess. The rest of the rum was mixed in a tub with two parts water, becoming the grog provided to the ratings.


title: Grog

text: At noon, the boatswain's mate piped "Muster for Rum", and the cooks from each mess presented with tin buckets. The sergeant of marines ladled out the authorised number of tots (half-pints) supervised by the petty officer of the day. The few tots of grog remaining in the tub ("plushers"), if any, were poured into the drains (scuppers), visibly running into the sea.


title: Grog

text: The petty officers were served first, and entitled to take their rum undiluted. The ratings often drank their grog in one long gulp when they finished their work around noon.


title: Grog

text: The practice of serving grog twice a day carried over into the Continental Navy and the U.S. Navy. Robert Smith, then Secretary of the Navy, experimented with substituting native rye whiskey for the rum. Finding the American sailors preferred it, he made the change permanent. It is said his sailors followed the practice of their British antecedents and took to calling it "Bob Smith" instead of grog.


title: Grog

text: Unlike their Navy counterparts, American merchant seamen were not encouraged to partake of grog. In his 1848 testimony before a parliamentary committee, Robert Minturn of Grinnell, Minturn & Co "stated that teetotalism not only was encouraged by American ship-owners, but actually earned a bonus from underwriters, who offered a return of ten percent of the insurance premium upon voyages performed without the consumption of spirits ... The sailors were allowed plenty of hot coffee, night or day, in heavy weather, but grog was unknown on board American merchant ships."


title: Grog

text: The American Navy ended the rum ration on 1 September 1862. The temperance movements of the late 19th century began to change the attitude toward drink in Britain, and the days of grog slowly came to an end. In 1850 the size of the tot was halved to per day. The issue of grog to officers ended in 1881, and to warrant officers in 1918. On 28 January 1970, the "Great Rum Debate" took place in the House of Commons, and on 31 July 1970, later called "Black Tot Day", the practice finally ended, although all ratings received an allowance of an extra can of beer each day as compensation.


title: Grog

text: In the early stages of British settlement in Australia, the word "grog" entered common usage, to describe diluted, adulterated, and sub-standard rum, obtainable from sly-grog shops. In the early decades of the Australian colonies such beverages were often the only alcohol available to the working class. Eventually in Australia and New Zealand the word grog came to be used as a slang collective term for alcohol, such as going to the "grog shop" to buy grog.