title: Sarasvati River

text: Rajesh Kocchar further notes that, even if the Sutlej and the Yamuna had drained into the Ghaggar during Rigvedic, it still would not fit the Rigvedic descriptions because "the snow-fed Satluj and Yamuna would strengthen lower Ghaggar. Upper Ghaggar would still be as puny as it is today."


title: Sarasvati River

text: An alternative suggestion for the identity of the early Rigvedic Sarasvati River is the Helmand River and its tributary Arghandab in the Arachosia region in Afghanistan, separated from the watershed of the Indus by the Sanglakh Range. The Helmand historically besides Avestan "Haetumant" bore the name "Haraxvaiti", which is the Avestan form cognate to Sanskrit "Sarasvati". The Avesta extols the Helmand in similar terms to those used in the Rigveda with respect to the Sarasvati: "The bountiful, glorious Haetumant swelling its white waves rolling down its copious flood". However unlike the Rigvedic Sarasvati, Helmand river never attained the status of a deity despite the praises in the Avesta.


title: Sarasvati River

text: The identification of the "Sarasvati" river with the "Helmand" river was first proposed by Thomas (1886), followed by Alfred Hillebrandt a couple of years thereafter. However, in the same year, geologist R.D. Oldham, refuted this Afghan Sarasvatī thesis. Indologist A.B. Keith (1879–1944) also did not subscribe to this theory and stated that there is no conclusive evidence to identify the Sarasvati with the Helmand river.


title: Sarasvati River

text: According to Konrad Klaus (1989), the geographic situation of the Sarasvati and the Helmand rivers are similar. Both flow into terminal lakes: The Helmand flows into a swamp on the Iranian plateau (the extended wetland and lake system of Hamun-i-Helmand). This matches the Rigvedic description of the Sarasvati flowing to the "samudra", which according to him at that time meant 'confluence', 'lake', 'heavenly lake', 'ocean'; the current meaning of 'terrestrial ocean' was not even felt in the Pali Canon.


title: Sarasvati River

text: Rajesh Kocchar, after a detailed analysis of the Vedic texts and geological environments of the rivers, concludes that there are two Sarasvati rivers mentioned in the Rigveda. The early Rigvedic Sarasvati, which he calls "Naditama Sarasvati", is described in suktas 2.41, 7.36, etc. of the family books of the Rigveda, and drains into a "samudra". The description of the "Naditama Sarasvati" in the Rigveda matches the physical features of the Helmand River in Afghanistan, more precisely its tributary the Harut River, whose older name was "Haraxatī" in Avestan. The later Rigvedic Sarasvati, which he calls "Vinasana Sarasvati", is described in the Rigvedic Nadistuti sukta (10.75), which was composed centuries later, after an eastward migration of the bearers of the Rigvedic culture to the western Gangetic plain some 600 km to the east. The Sarasvati by this time had become a mythical "disappeared" river, and the name was transferred to the Ghaggar which disappeared in the desert. The later Rigvedic Sarasvati is only in the post-Rigvedic Brahmanas said to disappear in the sands. According to Kocchar the Ganga and Yamuna were small streams in the vicinity of the Harut River. When the Vedic people moved east into Punjab, they named the new rivers they encountered after the old rivers they knew from Helmand, and the "Vinasana Sarasvati" may correspond with the Ghaggar-Hakra river.


title: Sarasvati River

text: Romila Thapar (2004) declares the identification of the Ghaggar with the Sarasvati controversial. Furthermore, the early references to the Sarasvati could be the Haraxvati plain in Afghanistan. The identification with the Ghaggar is problematic, as the Sarasvati is said to cut its way through high mountains, which is not the landscape of the Ghaggar.


title: Sarasvati River

text: The Vedic description of the goddess Sarasvati as a mighty river, and the Vedic and Puranic statements about the drying-up and diving-under of the Sarasvati, have been used by some as a reference point for a revised dating of the Vedic culture. Some see these descriptions as a mighty river as evidence for an earlier dating of the Rigveda, identifying the Vedic culture with the Harappan culture, which flourished at the time that the Gaggar-Hakra had not dried up, and rejecting the Indo-Aryan migrations theory, which postulates a migration at 1500 BCE.


title: Sarasvati River

text: Michel Danino places the composition of the Vedas therefor in the third millennium BCE, a millennium earlier than the conventional dates. Danino notes that accepting the Rigveda accounts as a mighty river as factual descriptions, and dating the drying up late in the third millennium, are incompatible. According to Danino, this suggests that the Vedic people were present in northern India in the third millennium BCE, a conclusion which is controversial amongst professional archaeologists. Danino states that there is an absence of "any intrusive material culture in the Northwest during the second millennium BCE," a biological continuity in the skeletal remains, and a cultural continuity. Danino then states that if the "testimony of the Sarasvati is added to this, the simplest and most natural conclusion is that the Vedic culture was present in the region in the third millennium."


title: Sarasvati River

text: Danino acknowledges that this asks for "studying its tentacular ramifications into linguistics, archaeoastronomy, anthropology and genetics, besides a few other fields".


title: Sarasvati River

text: The Indus Valley Civilisation is sometimes called the "Sarasvati culture", "Sarasvati Civilization", "Indus Ghaggar-Hakra civilisation," "Indus-Sarasvati Civilization," or "Sindhu-Sarasvati Civilization" by Hindutva revisionists, referring to the Sarasvati river mentioned in the Vedas, and equating the Vedic culture with the Indus Valley Civilisation. In this view, the Harappan civilisation flourished predominantly on the banks of the Ghaggar-Hakra, not the Indus. For example, Danino notes that his proposed dating of the Vedas to the third millennium BCE coincides with the mature phase of the Indus Valley civilisation, and that it is "tempting" to equate the Indus Valley and Vedic cultures.


title: Sarasvati River

text: Romila Thapar points out that an alleged equation of the Indus Valley civilization and the carriers of Vedic culture stays in stark contrast to not only linguistic, but also archeological evidence. She notes that the essential characteristics of Indus valley urbanism, such as planned cities, complex fortifications, elaborate drainage systems, the use of mud and fire bricks, monumental buildings, extensive craft activity, are completely absent in the Rigveda. Similarly the Rigveda lacks a conceptual familiarity with key aspects of organized urban life (e.g. non-kin labour, facets or items of an exchange system or complex weights and measures) and doesn't mention objects found in great numbers at Indus Valley civilization sites like terracotta figurines, sculptural representation of human bodies or seals.


title: Sarasvati River

text: Hetalben Sindhav notes that claims of a large number of Ghaggar-Hakra sites are politically motivated and exaggerated. While the Indus remained an active river, the Ghaggar-Hakra dried-up, leaving many sites undisturbed. Sidhav further notes that the Ghaggar-Hakra was a tributary of the Indus, so the proposed Sarasvati nomenclatura is redundant. According to archaeologist Shereen Ratnagar, many Ghaggar-Hakra sites in India are actually those of local cultures; some sites display contact with Harappan civilization, but only a few are fully developed Harappan ones. Moreover, around 90% of the Indus script seals and inscribed objects discovered were found at sites in Pakistan along the Indus river, while other places accounting only for the remaining 10%.


title: Sarasvati River

text: In 2015, Reuters reported that "members of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh believe that proof of the physical existence of the Vedic river would bolster their concept of a golden age of Hindu India, before invasions by Muslims and Christians." The Bharatiya Janata Party Government had therefore ordered archaeologists to search for the river.


title: Sarasvati River

text: According to the government of Indian state of Haryana, research and satellite imagery of the region has confirmed to have found the lost river when water was detected during digging of the dry river bed at Yamunanagar. Surveys and satellite photographs confirm that there was once a great river that rose in the Himalayas, entered the plains of Haryana, flowed through the Thar-Cholistan desert of Rajasthan and eastern Sindh (running roughly parallel to the Indus) and then reached the sea in the Rann of Kutchh in Gujarat. The strange marshy landscape of the Rann of Kutchh is partly due to the fact that it was once the estuary of a great river.


title: Sarasvati River

text: The government constituted Saraswati Heritage Development Board (SHDB) had conducted a trial run on 30 July 2016 filling the river bed with 100 cusecs of water which was pumped into a dug-up channel from tubewells at Uncha Chandna village in Yamunanagar. The water is expected to fill the channel until Kurukshetra, a distance of 40 kilometres. Once confirmed that there is no obstructions in the flow of the water, the government proposes to flow in another 100 cusecs after a fortnight. At that time, there were also plans to build three dams on the river route to keep it flowing perennially.


title: Sarasvati River

text: In 2021, the Chief Minister of the State of Haryana stated that over 70 organizations were involved with researching the Saraswati River's heritage, and that the river "is still flowing underground from Adi Badri and up to Kutch in Gujarat."


title: Sarasvati River

text: The Saraswati revival project seeks to build channels and dams along the route of the lost river, and develop it as a tourist and pilgrimage circuit.


title: The Last Battle

text: The Last Battle is a high fantasy novel for children by C. S. Lewis, published by The Bodley Head in 1956. It was the seventh and final novel in "The Chronicles of Narnia" (1950–1956). Like the other novels in the series, it was illustrated by Pauline Baynes and her work has been retained in many later editions.


title: The Last Battle

text: "The Last Battle" is set almost entirely in the Narnia world and the English children who participate arrive only in the middle of the narrative. The novel is set some 200 Narnian years after "The Silver Chair" and about 2500 years (and 49 Earth years) since the creation of the world narrated in "The Magician's Nephew". A false Aslan is set up in the north-western borderlands and conflict between true and false Narnians merges with that between Narnia and Calormen, whose people worship Tash. It concludes with termination of the world by Aslan, after a "last battle" that is practically lost.


title: The Last Battle

text: Lewis and "The Last Battle" won the annual Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's best children's book by a British subject. The author wrote to illustrator Baynes, "is it not rather 'our' medal? I'm sure the illustrations were taken into account as well as the text."


title: The Last Battle

text: In the western regions of Narnia, the clever and greedy ape Shift persuades the naive donkey Puzzle to wear a lion's skin (an echo from Aesop's story of The Ass in the Lion's Skin) and introduces him to the other Narnians as the Great Lion Aslan. Shift, posing as Aslan's spokesman, uses Aslan's name to persuade the Narnians to cut down the trees for lumber. Shift pockets the profits and garners support from the Calormenes – led by Rishda Tarkaan – by claiming that Aslan is another name for Tash, a bloodthirsty deity worshipped by the Calormenes. Those who question Shift's words are invited into a large stable where "Tashlan" is said to reside, only to be stealthily murdered by one of Rishda's men.


title: The Last Battle

text: King Tirian, a descendant of King Caspian X, is warned by Roonwit the Centaur that strange and evil things are happening to Narnia and that the stars portend ominous developments. Tirian and his friend Jewel the Unicorn hear word of the death of the Dryads and rashly set out to confront the danger, instructing Roonwit to gather a small army to join them. Finding two Calormenes abusing a Narnian Talking Horse, Tirian and Jewel kill them both in a blind rage. Ashamed, they give themselves up to "Aslan".


title: The Last Battle

text: Awaiting judgment, Tirian recognizes the farce that Shift has fabricated in league with Rishda and the talking cat Ginger. When he accuses Shift of lying, Tirian is tied to a tree for the night to face judgment the following morning. While the woodland creatures are sympathetic to his suffering, they can't bring themselves to go against "Aslan."


title: The Last Battle

text: Tirian, calling upon Aslan, summons Jill Pole and Eustace Scrubb to Narnia from London. The two friends of Narnia arrive soon afterwards. Eustace and Jill reveal to Tirian that their message was received by Peter and Edmund Pevensie, who went to London to dig up the magic rings from the old house of Professor Kirke, mentioned in the previous story. Eustace and Jill used the rings to travel to Narnia as Peter and Edmund believed they wouldn't work for them since Aslan told them they would not return to Narnia. Tirian gives Eustace and Jill a warm welcome.


title: The Last Battle

text: They release Tirian and eventually rescue Jewel. In the stable, Jill finds Puzzle, who comes to understand his folly and joins Tirian's side. A band of Dwarfs are also rescued, but their faith in Aslan has been shattered and they renounce their allegiance, proclaiming "the Dwarfs are for the Dwarfs". Only one Dwarf named Poggin is still faithful to Aslan and joins the group. Tirian learns that Shift and Rishda have inadvertently summoned the actual Tash to Narnia when he and the others see him travelling north towards the stable.


title: The Last Battle

text: Farsight the Eagle arrives bearing grim news: Roonwit and the Narnian army loyal to Tirian have all been massacred by the Calormenes who have taken Cair Paravel in Tirian's absence. Tirian and his small force advance on the stable to expose the truth of Shift's deception. Ginger, sent in to aid in the deception, runs out in terror, having lost his ability to speak. Emeth, one of Rishda's men and a devout follower of Tash, insists on seeing his god. Rishda tries to dissuade him, but Emeth enters the empty stable. Angry at the deception in the name of Tash, he kills another soldier who was stationed in the stable to murder the rebellious Narnians, but Emeth then disappears.


title: The Last Battle

text: Outside the stable, Tirian's group engages Shift and the Calormenes, but most of the remaining Narnians on either side are all either killed or captured and sacrificed to Tash, by being thrown into the stable. Tirian throws Shift into the stable and Tash devours Shift. The terrified Rishda offers the remaining Narnians as sacrifices to Tash to avoid his wrath. Tirian, left alone and fighting for his life, drags Rishda into the stable and finds himself in a vast and lush plain. Tash seizes Rishda and advances on Tirian, but is stopped by the "Friends of Narnia": Digory Kirke, Polly Plummer, Peter Pevensie and his siblings Edmund and Lucy. Susan is absent as she has ceased to believe in Narnia. Peter orders Tash to return to his realm and Tash vanishes with Rishda in his clutches.


title: The Last Battle

text: The real Aslan appears and praises Tirian for his valiant struggle in defense of Narnia. The faithless Dwarfs are present but cannot see they are in Aslan's country; they perceive themselves to be locked in an actual stable. Aslan demonstrates that, without their faith, even he cannot help them. The Friends ask Aslan to heal Narnia, but he admits that even he cannot undo the evil that has been sown and he brings the world to an end: the vegetation is consumed by dragons, salamanders and giant lizards until they grow old, die, and rot into skeletal structures. Father Time is awoken and calls the stars down from the skies into the sea. The inhabitants of Narnia gather outside the barn to be judged by Aslan. The faithful enter Aslan's country while those who have opposed or deserted him become ordinary animals and vanish in his shadow to an unknown fate that not even the narrator knows where they went. The sea rises to cover Narnia. The land freezes when Father Time puts out the sun after it destroyed the moon. At Aslan's command, King Peter shuts the door on Narnia. Aslan leads the faithful to his country, telling them to go further up and further in. Soon they encounter Emeth; Aslan has accepted his faithful service to Tash because it was good and therefore truly done to Aslan, whereas Tash is served only by evil.


title: The Last Battle

text: Aslan takes the Friends to a "true" version of Narnia, the previous Narnia having been an imperfect and corruptible shadow. As they advance, the Friends meet and reunite with characters from previous adventures who have been dead for centuries; Aslan reveals that the Friends may also stay as they had died in a train accident on Earth. Aslan sheds his lion form, and the series ends with the revelation that this was only the beginning of the true story, "which goes on for ever, and in which every chapter is better than the one before".


title: The Last Battle

text: Floyd C. Gale wrote in "Galaxy Science Fiction" that the book "is a delightful fantastic fable of the type which the English have excelled since—or perhaps because of—Lewis Carroll".


title: 2018–19 UEFA Europa League

text: The 2018–19 UEFA Europa League was the 48th season of Europe's secondary club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 10th season since it was renamed from the UEFA Cup to the UEFA Europa League.


title: 2018–19 UEFA Europa League

text: The final was played at the Olympic Stadium in Baku, Azerbaijan, between English sides Chelsea and Arsenal – which was the first Europa League final to feature two teams from one city. Chelsea defeated Arsenal 4–1 and earned the right to play against Liverpool, the winners of the 2018–19 UEFA Champions League, in the 2019 UEFA Super Cup. As winners, Chelsea would also have been qualified for the 2019–20 UEFA Champions League group stage; however, since they had already qualified after finishing third in the Premier League, the berth reserved was given to the third-placed team of the 2018–19 Ligue 1 (Lyon) – the 5th-ranked association according to next season's access list.


title: 2018–19 UEFA Europa League

text: For the first time, the video assistant referee (VAR) system was used in the competition, where it was implemented in the final.


title: 2018–19 UEFA Europa League

text: As the title holders of the Europa League, Atlético Madrid qualified for the 2018–19 UEFA Champions League, although they had already qualified before the final through their league performance. They were unable to defend their title as they advanced to the Champions League knockout stage, and were eliminated by Juventus in the round of 16.


title: 2018–19 UEFA Europa League

text: On 9 December 2016, UEFA confirmed the reforming plan for the UEFA Champions League for the 2018–2021 cycle, which was announced on 26 August 2016. As per the new regulations, all teams that are eliminated in the UEFA Champions League qualifying rounds will get a second chance in the Europa League.


title: 2018–19 UEFA Europa League

text: 213 teams from all 55 UEFA member associations participated in the 2018–19 UEFA Europa League. The association ranking based on the UEFA country coefficients was used to determine the number of participating teams for each association:


title: 2018–19 UEFA Europa League

text: For the 2018–19 UEFA Europa League, the associations were allocated places according to their 2017 UEFA country coefficients, which took into account their performance in European competitions from 2012–13 to 2016–17.


title: 2018–19 UEFA Europa League

text: Apart from the allocation based on the country coefficients, associations could have additional teams participating in the Champions League, as noted below:


title: 2018–19 UEFA Europa League

text: In the default access list, originally 17 losers from the Champions League first qualifying round were transferred to the Europa League second qualifying round (Champions Path). However, one fewer loser would be transferred since the Champions League title holders already qualified for the group stage via their domestic league. Therefore, only 19 teams entered the Champions Path second qualifying round (one of the losers from the Champions League first qualifying round would be drawn to receive a bye to the third qualifying round).


title: 2018–19 UEFA Europa League

text: In addition, originally three losers from the Champions League second qualifying round (League Path) were transferred to the Europa League third qualifying round (Main Path). However, one fewer loser would be transferred since the Europa League title holders already qualified for the group stage via their domestic league. As a result, the following changes to the access list was made:


title: 2018–19 UEFA Europa League

text: A Europa League place was vacated when a team qualified for both the Champions League and the Europa League, or qualified for the Europa League by more than one method. When a place was vacated, it was redistributed within the national association by the following rules:


title: 2018–19 UEFA Europa League

text: Notably one team that was not playing a national top division took part in the competition; Vaduz (representing Liechtenstein) played in 2017–18 Swiss Challenge League, which is Switzerland's second tier.


title: 2018–19 UEFA Europa League

text: The schedule of the competition was as follows (all draws were held at the UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland, unless stated otherwise).


title: 2018–19 UEFA Europa League

text: Matches in the qualifying (including preliminary and play-off) and knockout rounds could also be played on Tuesdays or Wednesdays instead of the regular Thursdays due to scheduling conflicts.


title: 2018–19 UEFA Europa League

text: From this season, the kick-off times starting from the group stage were slightly changed to 18:55 CET and 21:00 CET. Kick-off times starting from the quarter-finals were 21:00 CEST.


title: 2018–19 UEFA Europa League

text: In the qualifying and play-off rounds, teams are divided into seeded and unseeded teams based on their 2018 UEFA club coefficients (for Main Path), or based on which round they qualified from (for Champions Path), and then drawn into two-legged home-and-away ties.


title: 2018–19 UEFA Europa League

text: In the preliminary round, teams were divided into seeded and unseeded teams based on their 2018 UEFA club coefficients, and then drawn into two-legged home-and-away ties. Teams from the same association could not be drawn against each other. The draw for the preliminary round was held on 12 June 2018. The first legs were played on 26 and 28 June, and the second legs were played on 5 July 2018.


title: 2018–19 UEFA Europa League

text: The draw for the first qualifying round was held on 20 June 2018. The first legs were played on 10, 11 and 12 July, and the second legs were played on 17, 18 and 19 July 2018.


title: 2018–19 UEFA Europa League

text: The second qualifying round is split into two separate sections: Champions Path (for league champions) and Main Path (for cup winners and league non-champions). The draw for the second qualifying round (Champions Path) was held on 19 June, and the draw for the second qualifying round (Main Path) was held on 20 June 2018. The first legs were played on 26 July, and the second legs were played on 31 July, 1 and 2 August 2018.


title: 2018–19 UEFA Europa League

text: The third qualifying round is split into two separate sections: Champions Path (for league champions) and Main Path (for cup winners and league non-champions). The draw for the third qualifying round was held on 23 July 2018. The first legs were played on 7 and 9 August, and the second legs were played on 16 August 2018.


title: 2018–19 UEFA Europa League

text: The play-off round is split into two separate sections: Champions Path (for league champions) and Main Path (for cup winners and league non-champions). The draw for the play-off round was held on 6 August 2018. The first legs were played on 23 August, and the second legs were played on 30 August 2018.


title: 2018–19 UEFA Europa League

text: The draw for the group stage was held on 31 August 2018 at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco. The 48 teams were drawn into twelve groups of four, with the restriction that teams from the same association cannot be drawn against each other. For the draw, the teams are seeded into four pots based on their 2018 UEFA club coefficients.


title: 2018–19 UEFA Europa League

text: In each group, teams played against each other home-and-away in a round-robin format. The group winners and runners-up advance to the round of 32 where they are joined by the eight third-placed teams of the 2018–19 UEFA Champions League group stage. The matchdays are 20 September, 4 October, 25 October, 8 November, 29 November, and 13 December 2018.


title: 2018–19 UEFA Europa League

text: A total of 27 national associations were represented in the group stage. Akhisarspor, Chelsea, F91 Dudelange, Jablonec, Rangers, RB Leipzig, Sarpsborg 08, Spartak Moscow and Spartak Trnava made their debut appearances in the UEFA Europa League group stage (although Chelsea, Rangers, RB Leipzig and Spartak Moscow had already competed in the UEFA Europa League knockout phase after a third place in the UEFA Champions League group stage, while Rangers and Spartak Moscow had appeared in the UEFA Cup group stage). Akhisarspor and Sarpsborg 08 made their debuts in any European football. F91 Dudelange were the first team from Luxembourg to play in either the Champions League or Europa League group stage.


title: 2018–19 UEFA Europa League

text: In the knockout phase, teams play against each other over two legs on a home-and-away basis, except for the one-match final.


title: 2018–19 UEFA Europa League

text: The draw for the round of 32 was held on 17 December 2018. The first legs were played on 12 and 14 February, and the second legs were played on 20 and 21 February 2019.


title: 2018–19 UEFA Europa League

text: The draw for the round of 16 was held on 22 February 2019. The first legs were played on 7 March, and the second legs were played on 14 March 2019.


title: 2018–19 UEFA Europa League

text: The draw for the quarter-finals was held on 15 March 2019. The first legs were played on 11 April, the second legs were played on 18 April 2019.


title: 2018–19 UEFA Europa League

text: The draw for the semi-finals was held on 15 March 2019 (after the quarter-final draw). The first legs were played on 2 May, and the second legs were played on 9 May 2019.


title: 2018–19 UEFA Europa League

text: The final was held on 29 May 2019 at the Olympic Stadium in Baku. The "home" team (for administrative purposes) was determined by an additional draw held after the quarter-final and semi-final draws.


title: 2018–19 UEFA Europa League

text: Votes were cast by coaches of the 48 teams in the group stage, together with 55 journalists selected by the European Sports Media (ESM) group, representing each of UEFA's member associations. The coaches were not allowed to vote for players from their own teams. Jury members selected their top three players, with the first receiving five points, the second three and the third one. The shortlist of the top three players was announced on 8 August 2019. The award winner was announced during the 2019–20 UEFA Europa League group stage draw in Monaco on 30 August 2019.


title: Eva Marie

text: Natalie Eva Marie Nelson (born September 19, 1984) is an American actress, fashion designer, model, and professional wrestler. She is best known for her tenures in WWE, from 2013–2017 and 2020–2021, where she performed under the ring name Eva Marie.


title: Eva Marie

text: In 2013, she signed a contract with WWE and was assigned to the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida to begin her training. In July 2013, she made her main roster debut and became the manager of The Bella Twins later that month. She also began starring in WWE's reality television series "Total Divas" as part of the main cast. In mid-2015, she started to wrestle on WWE's developmental brand, NXT. In April 2016, Marie returned to the main roster,<ref name="Raw 29/03/16"></ref> officially becoming a part of the SmackDown brand in July 2016. She left WWE in August 2017. That same year, Marie made her film debut in "Inconceivable". The following years saw her taking on several other projects, which included appearances in multiple television shows and launching a fitness program, in addition to a fashion line, under her NEM brand. After signing a new contract with WWE in late 2020, Marie returned to the promotion in June 2021 on the Raw brand. In November it was reported she had been released during a mass layoff, just as she had been written off TV to resume and focus on her acting career, similarly to her previous exit from the company.


title: Eva Marie

text: Natalie Eva Marie Nelson was born in the San Francisco Bay Area suburb of Walnut Creek, California, the youngest child of Barry and Josie Nelson. Her mother is Mexican, while her father is Italian. She has three older brothers (Nathan, Neal and Nick) and was raised in Concord, California. She wanted to become a professional soccer player, although her plans were put on hold when she suffered an ankle injury in her senior year of high school in 2002. Eva Marie, who played as a striker, recovered and continued playing at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill, California, where she received her associate degree in art.


title: Eva Marie

text: She received Junior College All-American honors and transferred to Arizona State University, although a lack of self-confidence led her to stop playing. She transferred to California State University, Fullerton where the soccer coach persuaded her to play again. However, her National Collegiate Athletic Association eligibility had expired due to their "five-year clock" rule. Eva Marie later said that "I wouldn't have run into that problem if I just believed in myself from the start. Now that I'm older, I know it's so much better to have tried and maybe you fail, then to have never tried at all." She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in business management and a minor in human resource and moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in modeling, acting and promotional work.


title: Eva Marie

text: Eva Marie has said that she came across a casting call for WWE "by chance" and, after impressing talent scouts, won a four-week tryout. She then signed a developmental contract and was assigned to the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida, to begin her training. In May 2013, she joined WWE and E!'s new reality show entitled "Total Divas", that would show behind-the-scenes footage of select WWE Divas and a look into their personal lives. She was also promoted to the main roster, having had just two weeks of formal training, which Eva Marie called a "whirlwind experience" which "changed my life immediately." She dyed her natural brown hair bright red and adopted her ring name. Eva Marie made her main roster debut on the July 1 episode of "Raw", in a backstage segment along with her fellow "Total Divas" co-stars. Eva Marie accompanied Natalya to the ring on the July 4 episode of "Superstars", where she defeated Naomi.<ref name="Superstars7/4/13"></ref>


title: Eva Marie

text: Eva Marie, along with the cast of "Total Divas" appeared on "MizTV" on the July 22 episode of "Raw", where she slapped Jerry Lawler, claiming to make a name for herself and establishing herself as a heel in the process. Upon the debut of "Total Divas" program in July 2013, The Bella Twins began feuding with their co-star on the show, Natalya, with Eva Marie becoming Brie's valet. She also was her partner at Summerslam Axxess in a tag team match against Natalya and Maria Menounos. The cast of "Total Divas" then transitioned into a scripted feud with WWE Divas Champion AJ Lee, who mocked the show and cast, turning both The Bellas and Eva Marie faces in the process. Eva Marie competed in six-woman tag team matches, including when Eva Marie gained an upset victory over Tamina Snuka by pinning her, garnering her first pinfall victory. Continuing their feud into November, the "Total Divas" defeated the "True Divas" (Alicia Fox, Aksana, AJ Lee, Kaitlyn, Rosa Mendes, Tamina Snuka and Summer Rae) in a traditional elimination tag team match at the Survivor Series pay-per-view, and again on the subsequent "Raw".


title: Eva Marie

text: Eva Marie made her return to WWE after a nearly three-month absence on the February 14, 2014 episode of "SmackDown", defeating Alicia Fox in her first singles match on WWE television. The match, however, was cut from the broadcast. After returning in early 2014, Marie began regularly participating in tag team matches, including getting a win over AJ Lee and Tamina Snuka.<ref name="SD3/7/14"></ref> On April 6, Eva Marie made her WrestleMania debut, competing at WrestleMania XXX in the 14–Diva "Vickie Guerrero Invitational match" for the WWE Divas Championship, which was won by the defending champion AJ Lee. In late May, Eva Marie was placed in a feud with the returning Summer Rae, who had cost Eva Marie a tag team match, leading to Eva Marie defeating Summer Rae in her in-ring return after an interference by Fandango and Layla on the May 26 episode of "Raw".


title: Eva Marie

text: Eva Marie was then placed in a feud with Divas Champion AJ Lee, facing AJ in two non-title matches on "SmackDown" and "Raw", which AJ won.<ref name="Raw7/14/14"></ref> In July, Eva Marie turned heel when she became involved in Stephanie McMahon's ongoing storyline with The Bella Twins by regularly participating in handicap match as a part of McMahon's punishment against Nikki, including picking up the win for her team after a DDT. Eva Marie also participated in a staged match which ended in a beat down when Eva Marie and Alicia Fox attacked Nikki. Eva Marie made her first appearance on "NXT" on August 7, where she was defeated by Bayley. She faced Divas Champion AJ Lee in non-title bouts on the August 11 episode of "Raw" and August 15 episode of "SmackDown". She emerged victorious via pinfall and countout, respectively, following distractions by Paige.


title: Eva Marie

text: On November 9, after a month of inactivity, Eva Marie wrote on her Instagram account that she was recovering from an injury. In the "Total Divas" episode "Twin Leaks", which aired on January 18, 2015, this injury was revealed to be a rupture in her breast implants. Eva Marie returned on the March 9 episode of "Raw", accompanying Summer Rae to her match against AJ Lee. She went on another hiatus shortly after in order to train with former WWE Tag Team Champion Brian Kendrick.


title: Eva Marie

text: Eva Marie made an appearance on the June 3 episode of "NXT", stating that she was looking forward to competing in the NXT women's division, while the NXT audience was heavily booing her. In a backstage segment with "NXT" general manager William Regal on the June 24 episode of "NXT", Regal said he needed to see some proof that Eva Marie was ready to compete in the women's division. On the July 22 episode of "NXT", Eva Marie defeated Cassie in her in–ring debut. Eva Marie then began competing at "NXT" live events where she ignited a feud with Carmella. This led to a match between the two at the special August 26 episode of "NXT" (taped during the event), which Eva Marie won. Eva Marie then continued her winning streak, defeating the likes of Billie Kay, Carmella, and Liv Morgan. On the November 18 episode of "NXT", Eva Marie challenged Bayley to a match for the NXT Women's Championship, which she received a week later, but was unsuccessful in winning the championship, despite interference from her ally Nia Jax and referee Charles Robinson. Two weeks later on the December 9 episode of "NXT", Eva Marie accompanied Nia Jax to challenge Bayley for the NXT Women's Championship at .<ref name="WWE NXT 12/9/15 results"></ref>


title: Eva Marie

text: On the January 13, 2016, episode of "NXT", Eva Marie competed in a number one contender's battle royal, which was won by Carmella. On the February 10 episode of "NXT", Eva Marie attempted to get her revenge on Carmella by attacking her and Bayley with Nia Jax, until Asuka made the save. Eva Marie and Nia Jax subsequently went on to defeat Bayley and Carmella in a tag team match on the February 24 episode of "NXT". After a brief hiatus, Eva Marie made her return on the April 27 episode of "NXT", losing to the NXT Women's Champion Asuka in a non-title match, on what would be her last match in NXT.<ref name="NXT 27/04/16"></ref>


title: Eva Marie

text: On the March 28 episode of "Raw", Eva Marie made her return to the main roster as a face helping her fellow Total Divas co-stars over an assault against Lana's then-allies; Naomi, Tamina, Emma, and Summer Rae. As a result, a 10-Diva tag team match between the Total Divas team (Brie Bella, Alicia Fox, Natalya, Eva, and Paige) and the newly dubbed team B.A.D. & Blonde (Naomi, Tamina, Lana, Emma, and Rae) was scheduled for the WrestleMania 32 pre-show. At the event on April 3, Eva Marie's team won after Naomi submitted to Brie Bella.


title: Eva Marie

text: Following a hiatus from live television and after being drafted to "SmackDown" as part of the 2016 WWE draft on July 19, Eva Marie made her first appearance for the brand on July 26, where she debuted a new long introductory entrance while confronting the brand female talents, re-establishing herself as a heel. Throughout August, Eva Marie began faking multiple unfortunate events in order to avoid in-ring competition. On August 18, she was suspended for 30 days for violating the company's wellness policy. Eva Marie said that she tested positive for Adderall and had a prescription for the medication, but submitted the paperwork after a WWE deadline. She was replaced by the returning Nikki Bella at SummerSlam on August 21 as part of a six-woman tag team match.


title: Eva Marie

text: By February 10, 2017, Eva Marie had begun pursuing interests outside of wrestling and began removing WWE references from her social media accounts. In July, it was announced that she would not be returning to the seventh season of "Total Divas". On August 4, 2017, Eva Marie announced that she and WWE had parted ways.


title: Eva Marie

text: In October 2020, PWInsider reported that Marie had signed a contract with WWE. On the May 3, 2021 episode of "Raw", a vignette aired advertising her return under a character of a "celebrity who wants to help other people", in which she promoted "the Eva-Lution".


title: Eva Marie

text: After several weeks of vignettes, Marie returned on the June 14 episode of "Raw", originally announced to face Naomi, only for an unnamed protégé to wrestle and defeat Naomi on her behalf. Post-match, Eva Marie announced herself as the winner, establishing herself as a heel. The following week on "Raw", Marie subsequently renamed her protégé as Doudrop, but later that night, an annoyed Doudrop seemingly turned on Marie during a Money in the Bank qualifying tag team match against Asuka and Naomi, which resulted in Marie being pinned by the later. Despite this, the pair kept teaming up in tag team matches in following weeks where they would come out victorious, and Marie continuing to announce herself as the sole winner. This led to an appearance on the backstage segment "Alexa's Playground" with Marie later instructing Doudrop to attack Alexa Bliss on the July 12 episode of "Raw", starting a feud between the three. Eva Marie lost to Alexa Bliss at SummerSlam. The same night, Doudrop turned on her. Marie would then confront and lose to Doudrop in singles matches on "Raw" in the following weeks. Marie's last appearance in WWE, occurred when she was involved in an injury angle on the September 27 edition of "Raw", after being attacked by Shayna Baszler, who had begun using the steel steps to injure her opponents. A report later revealed the injury was a storyline to write her off TV so she could start production on a movie. On November 4, Marie was reportedly released by WWE, as part of a seventh round of layoffs that involved administrative staff and talent.


title: Eva Marie

text: Eva Marie appeared in a Fitness Blowout infomercial. In October, she was a part of the Marino Fitness Campaign and appeared in a Skechers commercial. She appeared on the Sports Illustrated website as the Lovely Lady of the Day in December 2012 and on several magazine covers including "Rukus", "Import Tuner Magazine", and "Glam Fit Magazine". Eva Marie won the 2012 Powertech Model and several fashion competitions. She has modeled for Red Chapter Clothing. Eva Marie has appeared on the Spanish dating show "12 Corazones". She appeared in the September edition of "Maxim" magazine. In 2014, Marie ranked number 83 in "Maxim"'s Hot 100.


title: Eva Marie

text: In 2015, Eva Marie partnered with Bellami Hair to launch her own line of hair extensions, called TestaRossa. In 2016, Eva Marie launched her own fashion line, NEM Fashion. In alignment with its "female empowerment and anti-bullying" missions, the brand gives back to women in need through her NEM Foundation. She then launched Never End Denim, a luxury and size inclusive denim brand in 2017.


title: Eva Marie

text: Eva Marie has appeared in two WWE video games. She made her in-game debut in "WWE 2K16" and last appeared in "WWE 2K17". She was also featured in several other WWE related merchandise, and received her own Mattel doll, a Funko Pop collectible and three action figures. Eva Marie has traveled to Afghanistan, Dubai, and Washington, D.C. to meet with U.S. military and their families, and accepted the "Corporate Leadership Award" at the Soldier Strong Annual Awards on behalf of WWE in November 2015.


title: Eva Marie

text: In 2017, Eva Marie took part in a four-person tournament at the ELEAGUE Street Fighter V Invitational alongside Shaquille O'Neal, Lupe Fiasco and Reggie Bush. She supported the American Cancer Society in the exhibition. She returned in the following edition on behalf of A21. In 2018, she participated in the 50K Charity Challenge Celebrity Basketball Game presented by Monster Energy Outbreak at UCLA.


title: Eva Marie

text: In September 2018, Eva Marie launched a podcast with her husband called "The Natalie Eva Marie Show", with a rotating guest list on PodcastOne. She explained the idea came from having previously created a YouTube channel where she occasionally uploads lifestyle vlogs on various subjects, and needing a platform to discuss certain topics at more length. They launched a workout program NEM Fit on her website the following year.


title: Eva Marie

text: In 2019, Eva Marie appeared as a cast member on the second season of the US version of "Celebrity Big Brother". In April 2019, she was announced as the first ambassador for Monster Energy's Reign brand and was featured in campaigns and hosted sponsored events throughout the year. Later that year, she was also signed as an ambassador for Australian fitness and fashion brand Ryderwear and launched her own "Natalie Eva Marie x Ryderwear" collection in 2020.


title: Eva Marie

text: Eva Marie is married to Jonathan Coyle, a fitness coach, model, actor and business co-owner of NEMfashion. Eva Marie describes herself as an avid San Francisco Giants fan. She struggled with underage alcohol abuse, which was discussed in an episode of "Total Divas". She elaborated further in 2018, admitting to having spent three months in jail for several DUIs prior to joining WWE. Eva Marie got breast implants when she was 20. On January 18, 2015 episode of "Total Divas", one of her implants ruptured, causing silicone to leak into her bloodstream; this required surgery and new implants.


title: Precious metal

text: Chemically, the precious metals tend to be less reactive than most elements (see noble metal). They are usually ductile and have a high lustre. Historically, precious metals were important as currency but are now regarded mainly as investment and industrial raw materials. Gold, silver, platinum, and palladium each have an ISO 4217 currency code.


title: Precious metal

text: The best known precious metals are the coinage metals, which are gold and silver. Although both have industrial uses, they are better known for their uses in art, jewelry, and coinage. Other precious metals include the platinum group metals: ruthenium, rhodium, palladium, osmium, iridium, and platinum, of which platinum is the most widely traded.


title: Precious metal

text: The demand for precious metals is driven not only by their practical use but also by their role as investments and a store of value. Historically, precious metals have commanded much higher prices than common industrial metals.


title: Precious metal

text: A metal is deemed to be "precious" if it is rare. The discovery of new sources of ore or improvements in mining or refining processes may cause the value of a precious metal to diminish. The status of a "precious" metal can also be determined by high demand or market value. Precious metals in bulk form are known as bullion and are traded on commodity markets. Bullion metals may be cast into ingots or minted into coins. The defining attribute of bullion is that it is valued by its mass and purity rather than by a face value as money.


title: Precious metal

text: The level of purity varies from issue to issue. "Three nines" (99.9%) purity is common. The purest mass-produced bullion coins are in the Canadian Gold Maple Leaf series, which go up to 99.999% purity. A 100% pure bullion is nearly impossible: as the percentage of impurities diminishes, it becomes progressively more difficult to purify the metal further. Historically, coins had a certain amount of weight of alloy, with the purity a local standard. The Krugerrand is the first modern example of measuring in "pure gold": it should contain at least 12/11 ounces of at least 11/12 pure gold. Other bullion coins (for example the British Sovereign) show neither the purity nor the fine-gold weight on the coin but are recognized and consistent in their composition. Many coins historically showed a denomination in currency (example: American double eagle: $20).


title: Precious metal

text: Many nations mint bullion coins. Although nominally issued as legal tender, these coins' face value as currency is far below that of their value as bullion. For instance, Canada mints a gold bullion coin (the Gold Maple Leaf) at a face value of $50 containing one troy ounce (31.1035 g) of gold—as of January 2022. The USD to CAD exchange rate averaged 1.129 in July 2009 according to OANDA Historical Exchange Rates. Although the exact moment that the $1075 figure was determined is unknown, it may be considered a reasonable value for the time. Bullion coins' minting by national governments gives them some numismatic value in addition to their bullion value, as well as certifying their purity.


title: Precious metal

text: One of the largest bullion coins in the world was the 10,000-dollar Australian Gold Nugget coin minted in Australia which consists of a full kilogram of 99.9% pure gold. In 2012, the Perth Mint produced a 1-tonne coin of 99.99% pure gold with a face value of $1 million AUD, making it the largest minted coin in the world with a gold value of around $50 million AUD. China has produced coins in very limited quantities (less than 20 pieces minted) that exceed of gold. Austria has minted a coin containing 31 kg of gold (the Vienna Philharmonic Coin minted in 2004 with a face value of 100,000 euro). As a stunt to publicise the 99.999% pure one-ounce Canadian Gold Maple Leaf series, in 2007 the Royal Canadian Mint made a 100 kg 99.999% gold coin, with a face value of $1 million, and now manufactures them to order, but at a substantial premium over the market value of the gold.


title: Precious metal

text: Gold and silver, and sometimes other precious metals, are often seen as hedges against both inflation and economic downturn. Silver coins have become popular with collectors due to their relative affordability, and, unlike most gold and platinum issues which are valued based upon the markets, silver issues are more often valued as collectibles, far higher than their actual bullion value.


title: Precious metal

text: Initially a precious metal that became common is aluminium. While aluminium is the third most abundant element and most abundant metal in the Earth's crust, it was at first found to be exceedingly difficult to extract the metal from its various non-metallic ores. The great expense of refining the metal made the small available quantity of pure aluminium more valuable than gold. Bars of aluminium were exhibited at the Exposition Universelle of 1855, and Napoleon III's most important guests were given aluminium cutlery, while those less worthy dined with mere silver. In 1884, the pyramidal capstone of the Washington Monument was cast of 100 ounces of pure aluminium. By that time, aluminium was as expensive as silver. The statue of Anteros atop the Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain (1885–1893) in London's Piccadilly Circus is also of cast aluminium. Over time, however, the price of the metal has dropped. The dawn of commercial electric generation in 1882 and the invention of the Hall–Héroult process in 1886 caused the price of aluminium to drop substantially over a short period of time.


title: Geneviève Bujold

text: Geneviève Bujold (; born July 1, 1942) is a Canadian actress. For her portrayal of Anne Boleyn in the period drama film "Anne of the Thousand Days" (1969), Bujold received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. Her other film credits include "The Trojan Women" (1971), "Earthquake" (1974), "Obsession" (1976), "Coma" (1978), "Murder by Decree" (1979), "Tightrope" (1984), "Choose Me" (1984), "Dead Ringers" (1988), "The House of Yes" (1997), and "Still Mine" (2012).


title: Geneviève Bujold

text: She was born in Montreal, Quebec, the daughter of Laurette (née Cavanagh), a maid, and Joseph Firmin Bujold, a bus driver. She is of French Canadian descent, with distant Irish ancestry.


title: Geneviève Bujold

text: Bujold received a strict convent education for twelve years, which she disliked. She was expelled from the convent for reportedly reading "Fanny" by Marcel Pagnol.


title: Geneviève Bujold

text: She entered the Montreal Conservatory of Dramatic Art, where she was trained in the classics of French theatre.


title: Geneviève Bujold

text: Two months before she was to graduate she made her stage debut as Rosine in "Le Barbier de Séville" in 1961 with "Theâtre de Gesù". She quit the school and was rarely out of work, being in demand for radio, stage, TV and film. Bujold made her TV debut with "Le square" (1963), a 60-minute TV film based on a play by Marguerite Duras, co-starring Georges Groulx.


title: Geneviève Bujold

text: She was in episodes of "Jeudi-théâtre" ("Atout... Meurtre") and "Les belles histoires des pays d'en haut" ("La terre de Bidou") and guest starred on "Ti-Jean caribou".


title: Geneviève Bujold

text: Her Canadian feature film debut was in "Amanita Pestilens" (1963). She was then in an international co production "La fleur de l'âge, ou Les adolescentes" (1964) and had a lead role in "La terre à boire" (1964), the first Quebec feature to be privately financed.


title: Geneviève Bujold

text: Bujold starred in two 30 minute shorts, "La fin des étés" (1964) and "Geneviève" (1964). She toured Canada performing plays also worked steadily in radio and was voted actress of the year in Montreal.


title: Geneviève Bujold

text: In 1965, she toured Russia and France with the company of the "Théâtre du Rideau Vert". While in Paris, Bujold was in a play "A House... and a Day" when she was seen by renowned French director Alain Resnais. He selected her for a role in his film "The War Is Over", opposite Yves Montand and Ingrid Thulin.


title: Geneviève Bujold

text: She returned home briefly to appear in "Romeo and Jeannette" by Jean Anouilh alongside Michael Sarrazin, for a Canadian TV show "Festival". Also for that show she did productions of "The Murderer" and "A Doll's House".


title: Geneviève Bujold

text: She stayed in France to make two more films: Philippe de Broca's "King of Hearts" (1966), with Alan Bates, and Louis Malle's "The Thief of Paris" (1967), with Jean-Paul Belmondo. Bujold won the Prix Suzanne as the Discovery of the Year and Elle magazine called her The Girl of the Day. Despite having established herself in France, however, she returned to Canada.


title: Geneviève Bujold

text: Upon her return to Canada, Bujold married film director Paul Almond in 1967. He directed her in "The Puppet Caravan" for "Festival" in 1967. She appeared in Michel Brault's film "Between Salt and Sweet Water" (1967), then went to New York to play the title role in a production of "Saint Joan" (1967) for "Hallmark Hall of Fame" on American TV. Although she said she preferred film most and television least out of all the mediums, she received great acclaim for this including an Emmy nomination.


title: Geneviève Bujold

text: In Canada she starred in "Isabel" (1968), written and directed by Almond. It was one of the first Canadian films to be picked up for distribution by a major Hollywood studio.


title: Geneviève Bujold

text: International recognition came in 1969, when she starred as Anne Boleyn in Charles Jarrott's film "Anne of the Thousand Days", with Richard Burton. Producer Hal B. Wallis cast her after seeing her in "Isabel".


title: Geneviève Bujold

text: For her performance, she received the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama, and received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. It was released by Universal who signed her to a three-picture contract.


title: Geneviève Bujold

text: Back in Canada, she did a second feature with her husband, "The Act of the Heart" (1970), co starring Donald Sutherland, which earned her a Best Actress at the Canadian Film Awards. She wrote and starred in a short film, "Marie-Christine" (1970), directed by Claude Jutra.


title: Geneviève Bujold

text: Wallis and Universal wanted Bujold to star in "Mary, Queen of Scots" (1971) but she refused so they sued her for $450,000.


title: Geneviève Bujold

text: Instead she played the role of Cassandra, a Greek prophet, in Michael Cacoyannis's film version of "The Trojan Women" (1971), opposite Katharine Hepburn, Vanessa Redgrave, and Irene Papas. It was shot in Spain.


title: Geneviève Bujold

text: In Canada, she made "Journey" (1972) with Almond and co-starring John Vernon. Bujold won another Canadian Film Award for Best Actress. She and Almond would divorce in 1974 after multiple separations and reconciliations.


title: Geneviève Bujold

text: She starred in Claude Jutra's "Kamouraska" (1973), based on a novel by Anne Hébert, for which she received her third Canadian Film Award for Best Actress.


title: Geneviève Bujold

text: In the US, she appeared in an adaptation of Jean Anouilh's "Antigone" for PBS's Great Performances in 1974.


title: Geneviève Bujold

text: In 1973, after her marriage to Paul Almond ended, she relocated to Los Angeles. Shortly thereafter, she settled the lawsuit with Universal, agreeing to a three-picture film contract starting with "Earthquake" (1974), with Charlton Heston.


title: Geneviève Bujold

text: Bujold went to France to make "Incorrigible" (1975) with de Broca and Belmondo. For "Hallmark Hall of Fame" and the BBC she appeared in "Caesar and Cleopatra" (1975) alongside Alec Guinness.


title: Geneviève Bujold

text: At Universal Studios, she was the lead in "Swashbuckler" (1976) alongside Robert Shaw. In an interview she said, "Robert Shaw is a man worth knowing."


title: Geneviève Bujold

text: In 1976, she appeared in "Obsession" (1976) directed by Brian De Palma co-starring Cliff Robertson (1976).


title: Geneviève Bujold

text: Bujold made "Alex & the Gypsy" (1976) with Jack Lemmon and "Another Man, Another Chance" (1977), co-starring James Caan (1977) for Claude Lelouch.


title: Geneviève Bujold

text: She was lead with Michael Douglas in the medical thriller "Coma" (1978), directed by Michael Crichton, which was a box office hit.


title: Geneviève Bujold

text: Bujold returned to Canada to play a key role in the Sherlock Holmes film "Murder by Decree" (1979), which won her a Best Supporting Actress Award at the Canadian Film Awards.


title: Geneviève Bujold

text: For Walt Disney she appeared in the fantasy film "The Last Flight of Noah's Ark" (1980) with Elliott Gould and Charles Jarrott, director of "Anne of the Thousand Days". She was directed by Almond once more in the Canadian "Final Assignment" (1980).


title: Geneviève Bujold

text: Bujold starred in a TV movie "Mistress of Paradise" (1981), then supported Christopher Reeve in "Monsignor" (1982), and Clint Eastwood in "Tightrope" (1984).


title: Geneviève Bujold

text: Bujold starred in "Choose Me" (1984), directed and written by Alan Rudolph. She promptly made two more films for Rudolph: "Trouble in Mind" (1985) and "The Moderns" (1988), the latter set in Paris in the 1920s. She was part of his informal company of actors that he repeatedly used in his films, including Keith Carradine.


title: Geneviève Bujold

text: Bujold starred in David Cronenberg's "Dead Ringers" (1988) opposite Jeremy Irons, then made a TV movie "Red Earth, White Earth" (1989). She did "False Identity" (1990) with Stacy Keach.


title: Geneviève Bujold

text: After a long absence from Quebec, she returned to appear in two more films by Michel Brault: "The Paper Wedding" (1989), and "My Friend Max" (1994). In between she went to France to make "Rue du Bac" (1991), and did another film with Almond, "The Dance Goes On" (1991), the latter featuring their son, Matthew (born in 1968). She had support roles in "Oh, What a Night" (1993), and "An Ambush of Ghosts" (1993).


title: Geneviève Bujold

text: In 1994, Bujold was chosen to play Captain Nicole Janeway (subsequently renamed Kathryn Janeway), lead character in the ensemble cast of the American television series "". However, she left the project after just two days of filming, because of the demanding work schedule. Kate Mulgrew was subsequently cast in the role.


title: Geneviève Bujold

text: Bujold had support roles in "The Adventures of Pinocchio" (1995), "The House of Yes" (1997), "Last Night" (1998), "You Can Thank Me Later" (1998), "Eye of the Beholder" (1999), "The Bookfair Murders" (2000), "Children of My Heart" (2001) and "Alex in Wonder" (2001)


title: Geneviève Bujold

text: Bujold was in "Dead Innocent" (1997) and was in a short "Matisse & Picasso: A Gentle Rivalry" (2001).


title: Geneviève Bujold

text: Bujold was back in Quebec to star in "Chaos and Desire" (2002), directed by Manon Briand. That year she said "I like doing studio films, independent films. I want to step up to the plate and do it. The role doesn't have to be long, but it has to be essential to the film. And it's got to be truthful to me. I defend my characters. They're like my babies."


title: Geneviève Bujold

text: Bujold's later appearances include "Jericho Mansions" (2003), "Finding Home" (2004), "" (2004), "By the Pricking of My Thumbs" (2005), "Disappearances" (2006), and "Deliver Me" (2006).


title: Geneviève Bujold

text: Bujold was also in "The Trotsky" (2009), "For the Love of God" (2011), and "Northern Borders" (2013).


title: Geneviève Bujold

text: In 2012, Bujold played a woman battling dementia in the sleeper romantic drama "Still Mine". Stephen Holden of "The New York Times" commented: "Ms. Bujold imbues Irene with a starchy tenacity and a sharp sense of humor", while "The Washington Post" called her performance "superb" and "remarkably detailed".


title: Statistical inference

text: Statistical inference is the process of using data analysis to infer properties of an underlying distribution of probability. Inferential statistical analysis infers properties of a population, for example by testing hypotheses and deriving estimates. It is assumed that the observed data set is sampled from a larger population.


title: Statistical inference

text: Inferential statistics can be contrasted with descriptive statistics. Descriptive statistics is solely concerned with properties of the observed data, and it does not rest on the assumption that the data come from a larger population. In machine learning, the term "inference" is sometimes used instead to mean "make a prediction, by evaluating an already trained model"; in this context inferring properties of the model is referred to as "training" or "learning" (rather than "inference"), and using a model for prediction is referred to as "inference" (instead of "prediction"); see also predictive inference.


title: Statistical inference

text: Statistical inference makes propositions about a population, using data drawn from the population with some form of sampling. Given a hypothesis about a population, for which we wish to draw inferences, statistical inference consists of (first) selecting a statistical model of the process that generates the data and (second) deducing propositions from the model.


title: Statistical inference

text: Konishi & Kitagawa state, "The majority of the problems in statistical inference can be considered to be problems related to statistical modeling". Relatedly, Sir David Cox has said, "How [the] translation from subject-matter problem to statistical model is done is often the most critical part of an analysis".


title: Statistical inference

text: The conclusion of a statistical inference is a statistical proposition. Some common forms of statistical proposition are the following:


title: Statistical inference

text: Any statistical inference requires some assumptions. A statistical model is a set of assumptions concerning the generation of the observed data and similar data. Descriptions of statistical models usually emphasize the role of population quantities of interest, about which we wish to draw inference. Descriptive statistics are typically used as a preliminary step before more formal inferences are drawn.


title: Statistical inference

text: Whatever level of assumption is made, correctly calibrated inference, in general, requires these assumptions to be correct; i.e. that the data-generating mechanisms really have been correctly specified.


title: Statistical inference

text: Incorrect assumptions of ' simple' random sampling can invalidate statistical inference. More complex semi- and fully parametric assumptions are also cause for concern. For example, incorrectly assuming the Cox model can in some cases lead to faulty conclusions. Incorrect assumptions of Normality in the population also invalidates some forms of regression-based inference. The use of any parametric model is viewed skeptically by most experts in sampling human populations: "most sampling statisticians, when they deal with confidence intervals at all, limit themselves to statements about [estimators] based on very large samples, where the central limit theorem ensures that these [estimators] will have distributions that are nearly normal." In particular, a normal distribution "would be a totally unrealistic and catastrophically unwise assumption to make if we were dealing with any kind of economic population." Here, the central limit theorem states that the distribution of the sample mean "for very large samples" is approximately normally distributed, if the distribution is not heavy-tailed.


title: Statistical inference

text: Given the difficulty in specifying exact distributions of sample statistics, many methods have been developed for approximating these.


title: Statistical inference

text: With finite samples, approximation results measure how close a limiting distribution approaches the statistic's sample distribution: For example, with 10,000 independent samples the normal distribution approximates (to two digits of accuracy) the distribution of the sample mean for many population distributions, by the Berry–Esseen theorem.


title: Statistical inference

text: Yet for many practical purposes, the normal approximation provides a good approximation to the sample-mean's distribution when there are 10 (or more) independent samples, according to simulation studies and statisticians' experience. Following Kolmogorov's work in the 1950s, advanced statistics uses approximation theory and functional analysis to quantify the error of approximation. In this approach, the metric geometry of probability distributions is studied; this approach quantifies approximation error with, for example, the Kullback–Leibler divergence, Bregman divergence, and the Hellinger distance.


title: Statistical inference

text: With indefinitely large samples, limiting results like the central limit theorem describe the sample statistic's limiting distribution if one exists. Limiting results are not statements about finite samples, and indeed are irrelevant to finite samples. However, the asymptotic theory of limiting distributions is often invoked for work with finite samples. For example, limiting results are often invoked to justify the generalized method of moments and the use of generalized estimating equations, which are popular in econometrics and biostatistics. The magnitude of the difference between the limiting distribution and the true distribution (formally, the 'error' of the approximation) can be assessed using simulation. The heuristic application of limiting results to finite samples is common practice in many applications, especially with low-dimensional models with log-concave likelihoods (such as with one-parameter exponential families).


title: Statistical inference

text: For a given dataset that was produced by a randomization design, the randomization distribution of a statistic (under the null-hypothesis) is defined by evaluating the test statistic for all of the plans that could have been generated by the randomization design. In frequentist inference, the randomization allows inferences to be based on the randomization distribution rather than a subjective model, and this is important especially in survey sampling and design of experiments. Statistical inference from randomized studies is also more straightforward than many other situations. In Bayesian inference, randomization is also of importance: in survey sampling, use of sampling without replacement ensures the exchangeability of the sample with the population; in randomized experiments, randomization warrants a missing at random assumption for covariate information.


title: Statistical inference

text: Many statisticians prefer randomization-based analysis of data that was generated by well-defined randomization procedures. (However, it is true that in fields of science with developed theoretical knowledge and experimental control, randomized experiments may increase the costs of experimentation without improving the quality of inferences.)


title: Statistical inference

text: Similarly, results from randomized experiments are recommended by leading statistical authorities as allowing inferences with greater reliability than do observational studies of the same phenomena.


title: Statistical inference

text: The statistical analysis of a randomized experiment may be based on the randomization scheme stated in the experimental protocol and does not need a subjective model.


title: Statistical inference

text: However, at any time, some hypotheses cannot be tested using objective statistical models, which accurately describe randomized experiments or random samples. In some cases, such randomized studies are uneconomical or unethical.


title: Statistical inference

text: It is standard practice to refer to a statistical model, e.g., a linear or logistic models, when analyzing data from randomized experiments. However, the randomization scheme guides the choice of a statistical model. It is not possible to choose an appropriate model without knowing the randomization scheme. Seriously misleading results can be obtained analyzing data from randomized experiments while ignoring the experimental protocol; common mistakes include forgetting the blocking used in an experiment and confusing repeated measurements on the same experimental unit with independent replicates of the treatment applied to different experimental units.


title: Statistical inference

text: Model-free techniques provide a complement to model-based methods, which employ reductionist strategies of reality-simplification. The former combine, evolve, ensemble and train algorithms dynamically adapting to the contextual affinities of a process and learning the intrinsic characteristics of the observations.


title: Statistical inference

text: In either case, the model-free randomization inference for features of the common conditional distribution formula_6 relies on some regularity conditions, e.g. functional smoothness. For instance, model-free randomization inference for the population feature "conditional mean", formula_7, can be consistently estimated via local averaging or local polynomial fitting, under the assumption that formula_8 is smooth. Also, relying on asymptotic normality or resampling, we can construct confidence intervals for the population feature, in this case, the "conditional mean", formula_8.


title: Statistical inference

text: Different schools of statistical inference have become established. These schools—or "paradigms"—are not mutually exclusive, and methods that work well under one paradigm often have attractive interpretations under other paradigms.


title: Statistical inference

text: Bandyopadhyay & Forster describe four paradigms: The classical (or frequentist) paradigm, the Bayesian paradigm, the likelihoodist paradigm, and the Akaikean-Information Criterion-based paradigm.


title: Statistical inference

text: This paradigm calibrates the plausibility of propositions by considering (notional) repeated sampling of a population distribution to produce datasets similar to the one at hand. By considering the dataset's characteristics under repeated sampling, the frequentist properties of a statistical proposition can be quantified—although in practice this quantification may be challenging.


title: Statistical inference

text: One interpretation of frequentist inference (or classical inference) is that it is applicable only in terms of frequency probability; that is, in terms of repeated sampling from a population. However, the approach of Neyman develops these procedures in terms of pre-experiment probabilities. That is, before undertaking an experiment, one decides on a rule for coming to a conclusion such that the probability of being correct is controlled in a suitable way: such a probability need not have a frequentist or repeated sampling interpretation. In contrast, Bayesian inference works in terms of conditional probabilities (i.e. probabilities conditional on the observed data), compared to the marginal (but conditioned on unknown parameters) probabilities used in the frequentist approach.


title: Statistical inference

text: The frequentist procedures of significance testing and confidence intervals can be constructed without regard to utility functions. However, some elements of frequentist statistics, such as statistical decision theory, do incorporate utility functions. In particular, frequentist developments of optimal inference (such as minimum-variance unbiased estimators, or uniformly most powerful testing) make use of loss functions, which play the role of (negative) utility functions. Loss functions need not be explicitly stated for statistical theorists to prove that a statistical procedure has an optimality property. However, loss-functions are often useful for stating optimality properties: for example, median-unbiased estimators are optimal under absolute value loss functions, in that they minimize expected loss, and least squares estimators are optimal under squared error loss functions, in that they minimize expected loss.


title: Statistical inference

text: While statisticians using frequentist inference must choose for themselves the parameters of interest, and the estimators/test statistic to be used, the absence of obviously explicit utilities and prior distributions has helped frequentist procedures to become widely viewed as 'objective'.


title: Statistical inference

text: The Bayesian calculus describes degrees of belief using the 'language' of probability; beliefs are positive, integrate into one, and obey probability axioms. Bayesian inference uses the available posterior beliefs as the basis for making statistical propositions. There are several different justifications for using the Bayesian approach.


title: Statistical inference

text: Many informal Bayesian inferences are based on "intuitively reasonable" summaries of the posterior. For example, the posterior mean, median and mode, highest posterior density intervals, and Bayes Factors can all be motivated in this way. While a user's utility function need not be stated for this sort of inference, these summaries do all depend (to some extent) on stated prior beliefs, and are generally viewed as subjective conclusions. (Methods of prior construction which do not require external input have been proposed but not yet fully developed.)


title: Statistical inference

text: Formally, Bayesian inference is calibrated with reference to an explicitly stated utility, or loss function; the 'Bayes rule' is the one which maximizes expected utility, averaged over the posterior uncertainty. Formal Bayesian inference therefore automatically provides optimal decisions in a decision theoretic sense. Given assumptions, data and utility, Bayesian inference can be made for essentially any problem, although not every statistical inference need have a Bayesian interpretation. Analyses which are not formally Bayesian can be (logically) incoherent; a feature of Bayesian procedures which use proper priors (i.e. those integrable to one) is that they are guaranteed to be coherent. Some advocates of Bayesian inference assert that inference "must" take place in this decision-theoretic framework, and that Bayesian inference should not conclude with the evaluation and summarization of posterior beliefs.


title: Statistical inference

text: Likelihoodism approaches statistics by using the likelihood function. Some likelihoodists reject inference, considering statistics as only computing support from evidence. Others, however, propose inference based on the likelihood function, of which the best-known is maximum likelihood estimation.


title: Statistical inference

text: The "Akaike information criterion" (AIC) is an estimator of the relative quality of statistical models for a given set of data. Given a collection of models for the data, AIC estimates the quality of each model, relative to each of the other models. Thus, AIC provides a means for model selection.


title: Statistical inference

text: AIC is founded on information theory: it offers an estimate of the relative information lost when a given model is used to represent the process that generated the data. (In doing so, it deals with the trade-off between the goodness of fit of the model and the simplicity of the model.)


title: Statistical inference

text: The minimum description length (MDL) principle has been developed from ideas in information theory and the theory of Kolmogorov complexity. The (MDL) principle selects statistical models that maximally compress the data; inference proceeds without assuming counterfactual or non-falsifiable "data-generating mechanisms" or probability models for the data, as might be done in frequentist or Bayesian approaches.


title: Statistical inference

text: However, if a "data generating mechanism" does exist in reality, then according to Shannon's source coding theorem it provides the MDL description of the data, on average and asymptotically. In minimizing description length (or descriptive complexity), MDL estimation is similar to maximum likelihood estimation and maximum a posteriori estimation (using maximum-entropy Bayesian priors). However, MDL avoids assuming that the underlying probability model is known; the MDL principle can also be applied without assumptions that e.g. the data arose from independent sampling.


title: Statistical inference

text: The MDL principle has been applied in communication-coding theory in information theory, in linear regression, and in data mining.


title: Statistical inference

text: The evaluation of MDL-based inferential procedures often uses techniques or criteria from computational complexity theory.


title: Statistical inference

text: Fiducial inference was an approach to statistical inference based on fiducial probability, also known as a "fiducial distribution". In subsequent work, this approach has been called ill-defined, extremely limited in applicability, and even fallacious. However this argument is the same as that which shows that a so-called confidence distribution is not a valid probability distribution and, since this has not invalidated the application of confidence intervals, it does not necessarily invalidate conclusions drawn from fiducial arguments. An attempt was made to reinterpret the early work of Fisher's fiducial argument as a special case of an inference theory using Upper and lower probabilities.


title: Statistical inference

text: Developing ideas of Fisher and of Pitman from 1938 to 1939, George A. Barnard developed "structural inference" or "pivotal inference", an approach using invariant probabilities on group families. Barnard reformulated the arguments behind fiducial inference on a restricted class of models on which "fiducial" procedures would be well-defined and useful. Donald A. S. Fraser developed a general theory for structural inference based on group theory and applied this to linear models. The theory formulated by Fraser has close links to decision theory and Bayesian statistics and can provide optimal frequentist decision rules if they exist.


title: Statistical inference

text: Predictive inference is an approach to statistical inference that emphasizes the prediction of future observations based on past observations.


title: Statistical inference

text: Initially, predictive inference was based on "observable" parameters and it was the main purpose of studying probability, but it fell out of favor in the 20th century due to a new parametric approach pioneered by Bruno de Finetti. The approach modeled phenomena as a physical system observed with error (e.g., celestial mechanics). De Finetti's idea of exchangeability—that future observations should behave like past observations—came to the attention of the English-speaking world with the 1974 translation from French of his 1937 paper, and has since been propounded by such statisticians as Seymour Geisser.


title: John Bunyan

text: John Bunyan (; baptised 30 November 162831 August 1688) was an English writer and Puritan preacher best remembered as the author of the Christian allegory "The Pilgrim's Progress," which also became an influential literary model. In addition to "The Pilgrim's Progress", Bunyan wrote nearly sixty titles, many of them expanded sermons.


title: John Bunyan

text: Bunyan came from the village of Elstow, near Bedford. He had some schooling and at the age of sixteen joined the Parliamentary Army during the first stage of the English Civil War. After three years in the army he returned to Elstow and took up the trade of tinker, which he had learned from his father. He became interested in religion after his marriage, attending first the parish church and then joining the Bedford Meeting, a nonconformist group in Bedford, and becoming a preacher. After the restoration of the monarch, when the freedom of nonconformists was curtailed, Bunyan was arrested and spent the next twelve years in prison as he refused to give up preaching. During this time he wrote a spiritual autobiography, "Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners", and began work on his most famous book, "The Pilgrim's Progress", which was not published until some years after his release.


title: John Bunyan

text: Bunyan's later years, in spite of another shorter term of imprisonment, were spent in relative comfort as a popular author and preacher, and pastor of the Bedford Meeting. He died aged 59 after falling ill on a journey to London and is buried in Bunhill Fields. "The Pilgrim's Progress" became one of the most published books in the English language; 1,300 editions having been printed by 1938, 250 years after the author's death.


title: John Bunyan

text: Bunyan is remembered in the Church of England with a Lesser Festival on 30 August. Some other churches of the Anglican Communion, such as the Anglican Church of Australia, honour him on the day of his death (31 August).


title: John Bunyan

text: John Bunyan was born in 1628 to Thomas and Margaret Bunyan at Bunyan's End in the parish of Elstow, Bedfordshire. Bunyan's End is about halfway between the hamlet of Harrowden (one mile south-east of Bedford) and Elstow High Street. Bunyan's date of birth is not known, but he was baptised on 30 November 1628, the baptismal entry in the parish register reading "John the sonne of Thomas Bunnion Jun., the 30 November". The name Bunyan was spelt in many ways (there are 34 variants in Bedfordshire Record Office) and probably had its origins in the Norman-French name Buignon. There had been Bunyans in Bedfordshire since at least 1199.


title: John Bunyan

text: Bunyan's father was a brazier or tinker who travelled around the area mending pots and pans, and his grandfather had been a chapman or small trader. The Bunyans had owned land and properties in Elstow, so Bunyan's origins were not quite as humble as one might assume from his autobiographical work "Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners" where he wrote that his father's house was "of that rank that is meanest and most despised in the country".


title: John Bunyan

text: As a child Bunyan learned his father's trade of tinker and was given some schooling but it is not known which school he attended. In "Grace Abounding" Bunyan recorded few details of his upbringing, but he did note how he picked up the habit of swearing (from his father), suffered from nightmares, and read the popular stories of the day in cheap chap-books. In the summer of 1644 Bunyan lost both his mother and his sister Margaret. That autumn, shortly before or after his sixteenth birthday, Bunyan enlisted in the Parliamentary army when an edict demanded 225 recruits from the town of Bedford. There are few details available about his military service, which took place during the first stage of the English Civil War. A muster roll for the garrison of Newport Pagnell shows him as private "John Bunnian". In "Grace Abounding", he recounted an incident from this time, as evidence of the grace of God:


title: John Bunyan

text: When I was a Souldier, I, with others, were drawn out to go to such a place to besiege it; But when I was just ready to go, one of the company desired to go in my room, to which, when I had consented, he took my place; and coming to the siege, as he stood Sentinel, he was shot into the head with a Musket bullet and died.


title: John Bunyan

text: Bunyan's army service provided him with a knowledge of military language which he then used in his book "The Holy War", and also exposed him to the ideas of the various religious sects and radical groups he came across in Newport Pagnell. The garrison town also gave him opportunities to indulge in the sort of behaviour he would later confess to in "Grace Abounding": "So that until I came to the state of Marriage, I was the very ringleader of all the Youth that kept me company, in all manner of vice and ungodliness". Bunyan spent nearly three years in the army, leaving in 1647 to return to Elstow and his trade as a tinker. His father had remarried and had more children and Bunyan moved from Bunyan's End to a cottage in Elstow High Street.


title: John Bunyan

text: Within two years of leaving the army, Bunyan married. The name of his wife and the exact date of his marriage are not known, but Bunyan did recall that his wife, a pious young woman, brought with her into the marriage two books that she had inherited from her father: Arthur Dent's "Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven" and Lewis Bayly's "Practice of Piety". He also recalled that, apart from these two books, the newly-weds possessed little: "not having so much household-stuff as a Dish or a Spoon betwixt us both". The couple's first daughter, Mary, was born in 1650, and it soon became apparent that she was blind. They would have three more children, Elizabeth, Thomas and John.


title: John Bunyan

text: By his own account, Bunyan had as a youth enjoyed bell-ringing, dancing and playing games including on Sunday, which was forbidden by the Puritans, who held a particularly high view of Sunday, called the Lord's Day. One Sunday the vicar of Elstow preached a sermon against Sabbath breaking, and Bunyan took this sermon to heart. That afternoon, as he was playing tip-cat (a game in which a small piece of wood is hit with a bat) on Elstow village green, he heard a voice from the heavens "Wilt thou leave thy sins, and go to Heaven? Or have thy sins, and go to Hell?" The next few years were a time of intense spiritual conflict for Bunyan as he struggled with his doubts and fears over religion and guilt over what he saw as his state of sin. He described how he developed a fear of bell-ringing: "I would go to the steeple-house and look on, though I durst not ring . . . but quickly after I began to think how if one of the bells should fall?" He was later unable even to approach the steeple door of the church "for fear the steeple should fall upon my head."


title: John Bunyan

text: During this time Bunyan, whilst on his travels as a tinker, happened to be in Bedford and pass a group of women who were talking about spiritual matters on their doorstep. The women were in fact some of the founding members of the Bedford Free Church (or Bedford Meeting) and Bunyan, who had been attending the parish church of Elstow, was so impressed by their talk that he joined their church. At that time the nonconformist group was meeting in St John's church in Bedford under the leadership of former Royalist army officer John Gifford. At the instigation of other members of the congregation Bunyan began to preach, both in the church and to groups of people in the surrounding countryside. In 1656, having by this time moved his family to St Cuthbert's Street in Bedford, he published his first book, "Gospel Truths Opened", which was inspired by a dispute with Ranters and Quakers.


title: John Bunyan

text: In 1658 Bunyan's wife died, leaving him with four small children, one of them blind. A year later he married an eighteen-year-old woman named Elizabeth.


title: John Bunyan

text: The religious tolerance which had allowed Bunyan the freedom to preach became curtailed with the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. The members of the Bedford Meeting were no longer able to meet in St John's church, which they had been sharing with the Anglican congregation. That November, Bunyan was preaching at Lower Samsell, a farm near the village of Harlington, thirteen miles from Bedford, when he was warned that a warrant was out for his arrest. Deciding not to make an escape, he was arrested and brought before the local magistrate Sir Francis Wingate, at Harlington House. Bunyan was arrested under the Conventicle Act of 1593, which made it an offence to attend a religious gathering other than at the parish church with more than five people outside their family. The offence was punishable by 3 months' imprisonment followed by banishment or execution if the person then failed to promise not to re-offend. The Act had been little used, and Bunyan's arrest was probably due in part to concerns that non-conformist religious meetings were being held as a cover for people plotting against the king (although this was not the case with Bunyan's meetings). The Act of Uniformity, which made it compulsory for preachers to be ordained by an Anglican bishop and for the revised Book of Common Prayer to be used in church services, was still two years away, and the Act of Conventicles, which made it illegal to hold religious meetings of five or more people outside the Church of England was not passed until 1664.


title: John Bunyan

text: The trial of Bunyan took place in January 1661 at the quarter sessions in Bedford, before a group of magistrates under John Kelynge, who would later help to draw up the Act of Uniformity. Bunyan, who had been held in prison since his arrest, was indicted of having "devilishly and perniciousy abstained from coming to church to hear divine service" and having held "several unlawful meetings and conventicles, to the great disturbance and distraction of the good subjects of this kingdom". He was sentenced to three months' imprisonment with transportation to follow if at the end of this time he did not agree to attend the parish church and desist from preaching.


title: John Bunyan

text: As Bunyan refused to agree to give up preaching, his period of imprisonment eventually extended to 12 years and brought great hardship to his family. Elizabeth, who made strenuous attempts to obtain his release, had been pregnant when her husband was arrested and she subsequently gave birth prematurely to a still-born child. Left to bring up four step-children, one of whom was blind, she had to rely on the charity of Bunyan's fellow members of the Bedford Meeting and other supporters and on what little her husband could earn in gaol by making shoelaces. But Bunyan remained resolute: "O I saw in this condition I was a man who was pulling down his house upon the head of his Wife and Children; yet thought I, I must do it, I must do it".


title: John Bunyan

text: Bunyan spent his 12 years' imprisonment in Bedford County Gaol, which stood on the corner of the High Street and Silver Street. There were however occasions when he was allowed out of prison, depending on the gaolers and the mood of the authorities at the time, and he was able to attend the Bedford Meeting and even preach. His daughter Sarah was born during his imprisonment (the other child of his second marriage, Joseph, was born after his release in 1672).


title: John Bunyan

text: In prison, Bunyan had a copy of the Bible and of John Foxe's "Book of Martyrs", as well as writing materials. He also had at times the company of other preachers who had been imprisoned. It was in Bedford Gaol that he wrote "Grace Abounding" and started work on "The Pilgrim's Progress", as well as penning several tracts that may have brought him a little money. In 1671, while still in prison, he was chosen as pastor of the Bedford Meeting. By that time there was a mood of increasing religious toleration in the country and in March 1672 the king issued a declaration of indulgence which suspended penal laws against nonconformists. Thousands of nonconformists were released from prison, amongst them Bunyan and five of his fellow inmates of Bedford Gaol; Bunyan was freed in May 1672 and immediately obtained a licence to preach under the declaration of indulgence.


title: John Bunyan

text: Following his release from prison in 1672 Bunyan probably did not return to his former occupation of a tinker. Instead, he devoted his time to writing and preaching. He continued as pastor of the Bedford Meeting and traveled over Bedfordshire and adjoining counties on horseback to preach, becoming known affectionately as "Bishop Bunyan". His preaching also took him to London, where Lord Mayor Sir John Shorter became a friend and presented him with a silver-mounted walking stick. "The Pilgrim's Progress" was published in 1678 by Nathaniel Ponder and immediately became popular, though probably making more money for its publisher than for its author.


title: John Bunyan

text: Two events marred Bunyan's life during the later 1670s. Firstly he became embroiled in a scandal concerning a young woman called Agnes Beaumont. When going to preach in Gamlingay in 1674 he allowed Beaumont, a member of the Bedford Meeting, to ride pillion on his horse, much to the anger of her father, who then died suddenly. His daughter was initially suspected of poisoning him, though the coroner found he had died of natural causes. In 1676-7 he underwent a second term of imprisonment, probably for refusing to attend the parish church. This second imprisonment lasted six months.


title: John Bunyan

text: In 1688, on his way to London, Bunyan made a detour to Reading, Berkshire, to try and resolve a quarrel between a father and son. Continuing to London to the house of his friend, grocer John Strudwick of Snow Hill in the City of London, he was caught in a storm and fell ill with a fever. He died in Strudwick's house on the morning of 31 August 1688 and was buried in the tomb belonging to Strudwick in Bunhill Fields nonconformist burial ground in London.


title: John Bunyan

text: Bunyan's estate at his death was worth £42 19s 0d (about £5,200 in 2021). His widow Elizabeth died in 1691.


title: John Bunyan

text: Between 1656, when he published his first work, "Some Gospel Truths Opened" (a tract against the Ranters and Quakers—who at the time were somewhat indistinguishable), and his death in 1688, Bunyan published 42 titles. A further two works, including his Last Sermon, were published the following year by George Larkin. In 1692 Southwark comb-maker Charles Doe, who was a friend of Bunyan's in his later years, brought out, with the collaboration of Bunyan's widow, a collection of the author's works, including 12 previously unpublished titles, mostly sermons. Six years later Doe published "The Heavenly Footman" and finally in 1765 "Relation of My Imprisonment" was published, giving a total of 58 published titles.


title: John Bunyan

text: It is the allegory "The Pilgrim's Progress", written during Bunyan's twelve-year imprisonment although not published until 1678 (six years after his release), that made Bunyan's name as an author with its immediate success. It remains the book for which Bunyan is best remembered. The images Bunyan uses in "The Pilgrim's Progress" are reflections of images from his own world: the strait gate is a version of the wicket gate at Elstow Abbey church; the Slough of Despond is a reflection of Squitch Fen, a wet and mossy area near his cottage in Harrowden; the Delectable Mountains are an image of the Chiltern Hills surrounding Bedfordshire. Even his characters, like the Evangelist as influenced by John Gifford, are reflections of real people.


title: John Bunyan

text: Further allegorical works were to follow: "The Life and Death of Mr. Badman" (1680), "The Holy War" (1682), and "Pilgrim's Progress Part II" (1684). "Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners", a spiritual autobiography, was published in 1666, when he was still in prison.


title: John Bunyan

text: There is a small obelisk marking his birthplace in a field beside 'Bumpy Lane', which is in between the village of Elstow and Old Harrowden Lane.


title: John Bunyan

text: In 1874, a bronze statue of John Bunyan, sculpted by Sir Joseph Edgar Boehm, was erected in Bedford. This stands at the south-western corner of St Peter's Green, facing Bedford's High Street. The site was chosen by Boehm for its significance as a crossroads. Bunyan is depicted expounding the Bible, to an invisible congregation, with a broken fetter representing his imprisonment by his left foot. There are three scenes from "The Pilgrim's Progress" on the stone plinth: Christian at the wicket gate; his fight with Apollyon; and losing his burden at the foot of the cross of Jesus. The statue was unveiled by Lady Augusta Stanley, wife of the Dean of Westminster, on Wednesday 10 June 1874. In 1876 the Duke of Bedford gave bronze doors by Frederick Thrupp depicting scenes from "The Pilgrim's Progress" to the John Bunyan Meeting (the former Bedford Meeting which had been renamed in Bunyan's honour, and now houses the John Bunyan Museum).


title: John Bunyan

text: There is another statue of him in Kingsway, London, and there are memorial windows in Westminster Abbey, Southwark Cathedral and various churches, including Elstow Abbey (the parish church of Elstow) and the Bunyan Meeting Free Church in Bedford.


title: John Bunyan

text: Bunyan is remembered in the Church of England with a Lesser Festival on 30 August. Some other churches of the Anglican Communion, such as the Anglican Church of Australia, honour him on the day of his death (31 August).


title: John Bunyan

text: Bunyan is best remembered for "The Pilgrim's Progress", a book which gained immediate popularity. By 1692, four years after the author's death, publisher Charles Doe estimated that 100,000 copies had been printed in England, as well as editions "in France, Holland, New England and Welch". By 1938, 250 years after Bunyan's death, more than 1,300 editions of the book had been printed.


title: John Bunyan

text: During the 18th century Bunyan's unpolished style fell out of favour, but his popularity returned with Romanticism. Many critics deem a turning point in Bunyan scholarship to be when poet Robert Southey wrote a lengthy appreciative biography in 1830 to accompany an edition of "The Pilgrim's Progress". Bunyan's reputation was further enhanced by the evangelical revival and he became a favourite author of the Victorians. The tercentenary of Bunyan's birth, celebrated in 1928, elicited praise from his former adversary, the Church of England. Although popular interest in Bunyan waned during the second half of the twentieth century, academic interest in the writer increased and Oxford University Press brought out a new edition of his works, beginning in 1976. Authors who have been influenced by Bunyan include C. S. Lewis, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Charles Dickens, Louisa May Alcott, George Bernard Shaw, William Thackeray, Charlotte Bronte, Mark Twain, John Steinbeck and Enid Blyton.


title: John Bunyan

text: Bunyan's work, in particular "The Pilgrim's Progress", has reached a wider audience through stage, film, TV, and radio productions. An opera based on "The Pilgrim's Progress" by Ralph Vaughan Williams, which Williams referred to as a 'Morality', was first performed at the Royal Opera House in 1951 as part of the Festival of Britain and revived in 2012 by the English National Opera.