title: Michael Carter-Williams

text: Carter-Williams had a subdued freshman season at Syracuse in 2011–12 as he played behind Scoop Jardine, Brandon Triche and Dion Waiters. The season began about how Carter-Williams envisioned with him coming off the bench but solidly in Jim Boeheim's rotation. That niche role gradually eroded, however, as Jardine and Triche solidified their starting roles and Waiters emerged as the best sixth man in the nation. It was a difficult first season for him in which he did not play in games and received sporadic minutes in others. He finished the season averaging 2.7 points, 2.1 rebounds and 10.3 minutes in 26 total games (no starts).


title: Michael Carter-Williams

text: During the 2012 offseason, Carter-Williams worked on his game, from lifting weights daily and drinking protein shakes to try to get stronger, to doing shooting drills every morning and improving his nutrition. His hard work over the offseason translated into Carter-Williams' emergence as a breakout star for Syracuse and one of the best point guards in the nation during the 2012–13 season. He went on to start his first game for Syracuse in the season opener and kept his starting role for the entire season, starting all 40 games. He finished his sophomore season with averages of 11.9 points, 5.0 rebounds, 7.3 assists and 2.7 steals in 35.2 minutes per game. On March 28, 2013, he scored a career high 24 points as he led Syracuse past the No. 1 seed Indiana Hoosiers 61–50 in the NCAA's East Region semi-finals as they advanced to the NCAA's Elite Eight. At the conclusion of the season, he earned Associated Press honorable mention All-American honors, as well as second-team All-Big East honors.


title: Michael Carter-Williams

text: On April 10, 2013, Carter-Williams declared for the NBA draft, forgoing his final two years of college eligibility.


title: Michael Carter-Williams

text: Many draft outlooks ranked Carter-Williams as a top point guard prospect and a top ten prospect overall. Carter-Williams was selected 11th overall in the 2013 NBA draft by the Philadelphia 76ers. Carter-Williams, along with Nerlens Noel, were both officially signed by the 76ers on September 24, 2013. On October 30, 2013, in his NBA debut, he recorded 22 points, 12 assists, 7 rebounds, and 9 steals (the most steals ever made by a rookie on debut) in a 114–110 win over the defending champion Miami Heat. Less than a week later, he had a 26-point, 10 assist performance in a 107–104 win over the Chicago Bulls. He was subsequently named the Player of the Week in only his first week in the NBA, a feat last achieved by Shaquille O'Neal in 1992. On November 9, 2013, Carter-Williams recorded a career-high 13 assists to go with 21 points in a 127–125 double overtime loss to Cleveland.


title: Michael Carter-Williams

text: On December 3, 2013, he recorded his first triple-double with 27 points, 12 rebounds, and 10 assists in 47 minutes in a 126–125 double overtime victory over the Orlando Magic. Rookie Victor Oladipo of the Magic also recorded his first career triple-double in the same game, marking the first and only time in NBA history that two rookies have recorded triple-doubles in the same game. The last time that two players had recorded their first career triple-doubles in the same game was when Detroit Pistons Donnie Butcher and Ray Scott did it on March 14, 1964 (they were not rookies). It was also the first time that two opponents had recorded triple-doubles in the same game since Caron Butler and Baron Davis had done so on November 23, 2007.


title: Michael Carter-Williams

text: Carter-Williams was named the Eastern Conference Rookie of the Month for games played in October and November 2013. He led all rookies in scoring (17.2 ppg), assists (7.3 apg), steals (2.92 spg) and minutes (36.2 mpg) over this stretch. He was again named Eastern Conference Rookie of the Month for games of January 2014. During January he led all rookies in scoring (16.5 ppg), and ranked second in rebounding (5.6 rpg), assists (5.6 apg) and minutes (33.3 mpg). During the month of February, Carter-Williams participated in the BBVA Rising Stars Challenge and the Taco Bell Skills Challenge.


title: Michael Carter-Williams

text: On March 10, 2014, Carter-Williams recorded his second career triple-double with 23 points, 10 assists, and 13 rebounds in a 123–110 loss to the New York Knicks. He became the first rookie in 76ers franchise history to record two triple doubles in a season. Carter-Williams was again named the Eastern Conference Rookie of the month for March 2014. He is the first rookie in 76ers franchise history to be named conference rookie of the month three times. On April 14, 2014, Carter-Williams recorded 21 points and a career high 14 rebounds. The 14 rebounds were the most recorded by a point guard in the 2013–14 NBA season.


title: Michael Carter-Williams

text: Carter-Williams finished his rookie season with averages of 16.7 ppg, 6.2 rpg, and 6.3 apg. He is one of only 3 players in NBA history to average 16 points, 6 rebounds and 6 assists in a rookie season, the other players being Oscar Robertson and Magic Johnson. On May 5, 2014, he was named the 2014 NBA Rookie of the Year, becoming the first rookie drafted 10th or later to win the award since Mark Jackson in 1987.


title: Michael Carter-Williams

text: After undergoing shoulder surgery in May 2014, Carter-Williams subsequently missed the 2014 NBA Summer League and training camp, before later being ruled out for the start of the 2014–15 regular season as well. Despite the injury, the 76ers exercised their third-year team option on Carter-Williams' rookie scale contract on October 31, extending the contract through the 2015–16 season.


title: Michael Carter-Williams

text: Carter-Williams returned from injury on November 13 to make his season debut against the Dallas Mavericks. In 30 minutes off the bench, he recorded a team-high 19 points as well as 8 rebounds and 5 assists in a 123–70 loss. On November 29, 2014, Carter-Williams recorded his third career triple-double with 18 points, 10 rebounds, and a career high 16 assists in a 110–103 loss to the Dallas Mavericks. He went on to record his fourth career triple-double on December 13, 2014, with 16 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists in a 120–115 overtime loss to the Memphis Grizzles. On January 30, he recorded his fifth career triple-double with 17 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists in a 103–94 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves.


title: Michael Carter-Williams

text: On February 19, 2015, Carter-Williams was traded to the Milwaukee Bucks in a three-team deal involving the Phoenix Suns. As part of the deal, Milwaukee also received Tyler Ennis and Miles Plumlee from Phoenix, while Phoenix received Brandon Knight from Milwaukee, and Philadelphia received a future first-round pick from Phoenix via the Los Angeles Lakers. On February 25, he made his debut for the Bucks, recording 7 points and 8 assists as a starter in a 104–88 win over his former team the Philadelphia 76ers. On April 8, he scored a season-high 30 points in a loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers. Five days later, he matched his season-high with 30 points in his first game back in Philadelphia since being traded to lead the Bucks to a 107–97 win over the 76ers.


title: Michael Carter-Williams

text: Carter-Williams began the 2015–16 season strongly for the Bucks, averaging 12.8 points, 6.8 assists, 4.5 rebounds, 1.8 steals and 1.0 blocks over the first four games. He subsequently missed the next five games with an ankle injury, returning to action on November 14. He started in his first 11 games of the season before being moved to the bench on November 29 in favor of Jerryd Bayless after a string of poor performances – between November 14 and November 27, he averaged much lower numbers with 9.1 points, 3.7 assists, and 2.4 rebounds per game. On December 5, he had his best game since the season opener, recording 20 points, 5 assists and 3 rebounds off the bench in a 106–91 win over the New York Knicks. On January 8, he recorded 15 points and a season-high 12 rebounds in a 96–95 win over the Dallas Mavericks. On February 1, he recorded 18 points and a season-high 13 assists in a loss to the Sacramento Kings. On March 7, he was ruled out for the rest of the season with a torn labrum in his left hip.


title: Michael Carter-Williams

text: On October 17, 2016, Carter-Williams was traded to the Chicago Bulls in exchange for Tony Snell. He made his debut for the Bulls in their season opener on October 27, 2016, recording five points, six rebounds and three assists off the bench in a 105–99 win over the Boston Celtics. On November 1, 2016, he was ruled out for four to six weeks after he sustained a bone bruise with no ligament damage to his knee, as well as a left wrist sprain. He returned to the Bulls lineup on December 26, 2016, and finished with one point (0-for-5 from the field) in 19 minutes against the Indiana Pacers. On February 3, 2017, he had a season-best game with 23 points, nine rebounds and six assists as a starter in a 121–117 loss to the Houston Rockets.


title: Michael Carter-Williams

text: On July 7, 2017, Carter-Williams signed with the Charlotte Hornets. On March 9, 2018, he was ruled out for the rest of the season with a posterior labral tear in his left shoulder.


title: Michael Carter-Williams

text: On July 6, 2018, Carter-Williams signed with the Houston Rockets. On December 19, 2018, in a 136–118 win over the Washington Wizards, Carter-Williams hit a 3-pointer late in the fourth quarter to give the Rockets an NBA-record 26th 3-pointer for the game. On January 7, 2019, Carter-Williams was traded, along with cash considerations, to the Chicago Bulls in exchange for a 2020 protected second-round pick. He was immediately waived by the Bulls upon being acquired.


title: Michael Carter-Williams

text: On March 15, 2019, Carter-Williams signed a 10-day contract with the Orlando Magic. He signed a second 10-day contract on March 25. That same day, he recorded a season-high 15 points in a 119–98 win over his former team, the Philadelphia 76ers. On April 4, 2019, the Magic signed Carter-Williams for the remainder of the season and waived Isaiah Briscoe.


title: Michael Carter-Williams

text: On August 23, 2021, Carter-Williams underwent surgery on his left ankle and was ruled out for the start of the 2021–22 season. On February 10, 2022, he was waived without playing a game during the season for the Magic.


title: Michael Carter-Williams

text: Carter-Williams formed NFT company DeFi Crypto Connections with partners Brooks Brown and Austin Greishober in 2021.


title: Michael Carter-Williams

text: Carter-Williams is also involved with youth athletics organization MCW Starz, which was founded by his mother Mandy and step-father Zach, as well as a sports trading card project he founded with MLB prospect Blaze Jordan.


title: Michael Carter-Williams

text: Carter-Williams is the son of Earl Williams and Mandy Zegarowski (née Carter) and step-son of Zach Zegarowski and Rosa Williams. He has a younger sister, Masey, and three younger brothers: Marcus, Max, and Adrian. His parents met while the two were both basketball players at Salem State University in Salem, Massachusetts.


title: Brad Delson

text: Bradford Phillip Delson (born December 1, 1977) is an American musician, best known as the lead guitarist and one of the founding members of the rock band Linkin Park.


title: Brad Delson

text: Delson was born and raised in Agoura Hills, California. He attended Agoura High School with his friend, Mike Shinoda. Delson played the trumpet, and later began playing the guitar when he was about nine years old. He enjoyed listening to Guns N' Roses and Metallica. He played in the rock band Relative Degree in 1995 with drummer Rob Bourdon, but the group disbanded after their first live show in 1996.


title: Brad Delson

text: Delson attended UCLA, where he was roommates with bassist Dave Farrell for three years. He majored in communication studies, and later interned for Jeff Blue, then the vice president of A&R for Zomba Music. Blue shared his insight and experience on the music industry with Delson, while also giving him constructive feedback on musical projects. Delson graduated with a bachelor's degree in communication studies from UCLA in 1999. He considered attending law school after graduation but instead pursued a career as a professional musician.


title: Brad Delson

text: Delson, alongside Mike Shinoda and Rob Bourdon, founded Xero, the earliest incarnation of Linkin Park, in 1996. The band later recruited vocalist Mark Wakefield, bassist Dave Farrell, and turntablist Joe Hahn. After Wakefield left Xero, Delson turned to his former boss Jeff Blue from Zomba Music to help find a replacement. Blue introduced the band to Chester Bennington, who successfully auditioned and became the band's full-time vocalist. Blue later became the vice president of A&R for Warner Bros. Records, and helped the band sign a record deal.


title: Brad Delson

text: Delson played guitar on all seven of Linkin Park's albums. He also played bass on "Hybrid Theory" when Farrell temporarily left Linkin Park to tour with another band. After the release of "Hybrid Theory", Delson was closely involved with the production and creative direction of Linkin Park's sound alongside Shinoda. The two co-produced "The Hunting Party" and "One More Light". While working on "The Hunting Party", record producer Rick Rubin encouraged Delson to showcase his guitar playing by including more guitar solos compared to the band's previous albums. Delson commented on the new approach, "On the last few records I certainly played guitar in the studio, but I'd been focusing on other instruments… But these songs are all about rediscovering the guitar and having a lot of fun with it." He also oversaw the band's business operations, including their marketing and finance, alongside bandmates Farrell and Bourdon.


title: Brad Delson

text: Delson and Linkin Park have been on an indefinite hiatus since the sudden death of Chester Bennington in 2017.


title: Brad Delson

text: Delson and Shinoda founded their own record label, Machine Shop Records, in 2001. Delson explained his rationale behind founding his own record label, commenting, "Too many people in the music industry tried to preserve the status quo instead of embracing innovation."


title: Brad Delson

text: Delson's has stated that he "doesn't like to show off", and that he attempts to play his guitar so that it sounds as though it were the keyboard or strings so as to seamlessly fit in with the band's hip-hop- and electronica-style compositions. Delson has also stated that he likes to produce a gritty, "sampled" feel with his sound. Although a self-described "fervent opponent of guitar leads," he started performing solos in the "Minutes to Midnight" era after his bandmates encouraged him to do so. Delson performs guitar solos on the tracks "What I've Done," "In Pieces" and "The Little Things Give You Away." Delson also played many solos on Linkin Park's 6th studio album The Hunting Party.


title: Brad Delson

text: For live shows, Brad has occasionally swapped instruments with Farrell during "Nobody's Listening" and he also plays the piano during the song "Hands Held High." During the "A Thousand Suns Tour" he expanded his live repertoire to include percussion, keyboards and backing vocals. During the 2012 tour promoting "Living Things" he also played keyboards during other songs like "Burn It Down".


title: Brad Delson

text: Delson typically performs while wearing a pair of Shure brand headphones, in order to protect his hearing.


title: Brad Delson

text: To avoid problems with pedals being damaged during live performances, Delson keeps his effect pedals in a rack along with his amplifiers and controls them through a pedalboard onstage. The board also contains a pedal control which allows him to change the settings for his effect pedals.


title: Brad Delson

text: For the first two albums, he used Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifiers and modified Marshall 1959SLP reissue heads live and in the studio, but during the recording of "Minutes to Midnight" Delson decided not to use much of his old equipment to give him a new sound. Delson used several vintage and rare amplifiers such as Soldano SLO's, Marshall JCM 800, Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier, a 1972 50 watt Hiwatt Custom, a Bogner Uberschall, and an extremely rare Bo Diddley amplifier with an onboard tape delay that was probably made for Diddley by Watkins (WEM). During live performances Delson relies on several Randall MTS Modules to recreate the sound from these different amplifiers.


title: Brad Delson

text: In 2014, the Randall rig was eventually phased out for a Fractal Axe-FX II setup, which is run direct into the PA system and a Matrix GT1000FX power amp. The only analog effect pedals being used are a Devi Ever Shoegazer fuzz, Electro-Harmonix H.O.G. and a Boss NS-2 Noise Suppressor.


title: Brad Delson

text: Delson married Elisa Boren in September 2003. The couple bought a home in Los Angeles' Beverleywood neighborhood in 2022.


title: Brad Delson

text: He was the keynote speaker at his alma mater UCLA's College of Letters and Science commencement ceremony on June 12, 2009, in Pauley Pavilion.


title: History of Python

text: The programming language Python was conceived in the late 1980s, and its implementation was started in December 1989 by Guido van Rossum at CWI in the Netherlands as a successor to ABC capable of exception handling and interfacing with the Amoeba operating system. Van Rossum is Python's principal author, and his continuing central role in deciding the direction of Python is reflected in the title given to him by the Python community, "Benevolent Dictator for Life" (BDFL). (However, van Rossum stepped down as leader on July 12, 2018.). Python was named after the BBC TV show "Monty Python's Flying Circus".


title: History of Python

text: Python 2.0 was released on October 16, 2000, with many major new features, including a cycle-detecting garbage collector (in addition to reference counting) for memory management and support for Unicode. However, the most important change was to the development process itself, with a shift to a more transparent and community-backed process.


title: History of Python

text: Python 3.0, a major, backwards-incompatible release, was released on December 3, 2008 after a long period of testing. Many of its major features have also been backported to the backwards-compatible, though now-unsupported, Python 2.6 and 2.7.


title: History of Python

text: In February 1991, Van Rossum published the code (labeled version 0.9.0) to alt.sources. Already present at this stage in development were classes with inheritance, exception handling, functions, and the core datatypes of , , and so on. Also in this initial release was a module system borrowed from Modula-3; Van Rossum describes the module as "one of Python's major programming units". Python's exception model also resembles Modula-3's, with the addition of an clause. In 1994 comp.lang.python, the primary discussion forum for Python, was formed, marking a milestone in the growth of Python's userbase.


title: History of Python

text: Python reached version 1.0 in January 1994. The major new features included in this release were the functional programming tools codice_1, codice_2, codice_3 and codice_4. Van Rossum stated that "Python acquired lambda, reduce(), filter() and map(), courtesy of a Lisp hacker who missed them and submitted working patches".


title: History of Python

text: The last version released while Van Rossum was at CWI was Python 1.2. In 1995, Van Rossum continued his work on Python at the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI) in Reston, Virginia from where he released several versions.


title: History of Python

text: By version 1.4, Python had acquired several new features. Notable among these are the Modula-3 inspired keyword arguments (which are also similar to Common Lisp's keyword arguments) and built-in support for complex numbers. Also included is a basic form of data hiding by name mangling, though this is easily bypassed.


title: History of Python

text: During Van Rossum's stay at CNRI, he launched the Computer Programming for Everybody (CP4E) initiative, intending to make programming more accessible to more people, with a basic "literacy" in programming languages, similar to the basic English literacy and mathematics skills required by most employers. Python served a central role in this: because of its focus on clean syntax, it was already suitable, and CP4E's goals bore similarities to its predecessor, ABC. The project was funded by DARPA. , the CP4E project is inactive, and while Python attempts to be easily learnable and not too arcane in its syntax and semantics, outreach to non-programmers is not an active concern.


title: History of Python

text: In 2000, the Python core development team moved to BeOpen.com to form the BeOpen PythonLabs team, under the direction of early Google alum Domenic Merenda. CNRI requested that a version 1.6 be released, summarizing Python's development up to the point at which the development team left CNRI. Consequently, the release schedules for 1.6 and 2.0 had a significant amount of overlap. Python 2.0 was the only release from BeOpen.com. After Python 2.0 was released by BeOpen.com, Guido van Rossum and the other PythonLabs developers joined Digital Creations.


title: History of Python

text: The Python 1.6 release included a new CNRI license that was substantially longer than the CWI license that had been used for earlier releases. The new license included a clause stating that the license was governed by the laws of the State of Virginia. The Free Software Foundation argued that the choice-of-law clause was incompatible with the GNU General Public License. BeOpen, CNRI and the FSF negotiated a change to Python's free software license that would make it GPL-compatible. Python 1.6.1 is essentially the same as Python 1.6, with a few minor bug fixes, and with the new GPL-compatible license.


title: History of Python

text: Python 2.0, released October 2000, introduced list comprehensions, a feature borrowed from the functional programming languages SETL and Haskell. Python's syntax for this construct is very similar to Haskell's, apart from Haskell's preference for punctuation characters and Python's preference for alphabetic keywords. Python 2.0 also introduced a garbage collector capable of collecting reference cycles.


title: History of Python

text: Python 2.1 was close to Python 1.6.1, as well as Python 2.0. Its license was renamed Python Software Foundation License. All code, documentation and specifications added, from the time of Python 2.1's alpha release on, is owned by the Python Software Foundation (PSF), a non-profit organization formed in 2001, modeled after the Apache Software Foundation. The release included a change to the language specification to support nested scopes, like other statically scoped languages. (The feature was turned off by default, and not required, until Python 2.2.)


title: History of Python

text: Python 2.2 was released in December 2001; a major innovation was the unification of Python's types (types written in C) and classes (types written in Python) into one hierarchy. This single unification made Python's object model purely and consistently object oriented. Also added were generators which were inspired by Icon.


title: History of Python

text: Python 2.5 was released in September 2006 and introduced the statement, which encloses a code block within a context manager (for example, acquiring a lock before the block of code is run and releasing the lock afterwards, or opening a file and then closing it), allowing Resource Acquisition Is Initialization (RAII)-like behavior and replacing a common try/finally idiom.


title: History of Python

text: Python 2.6 was released to coincide with Python 3.0, and included some features from that release, as well as a "warnings" mode that highlighted the use of features that were removed in Python 3.0. Similarly, Python 2.7 coincided with and included features from Python 3.1, which was released on June 26, 2009.


title: History of Python

text: Parallel 2.x and 3.x releases then ceased, and Python 2.7 was the last release in the 2.x series. In November 2014, it was announced that Python 2.7 would be supported until 2020, but users were encouraged to move to Python 3 as soon as possible. Python 2.7 support ended on January 1, 2020, along with code freeze of 2.7 development branch. A final release, 2.7.18, occurred on April 20, 2020, and included fixes for critical bugs and release blockers. This marked the end-of-life of Python 2.


title: History of Python

text: Python 3.0 (also called "Python 3000" or "Py3K") was released on December 3, 2008. It was designed to rectify fundamental design flaws in the languagethe changes required could not be implemented while retaining full backwards compatibility with the 2.x series, which necessitated a new major version number. The guiding principle of Python 3 was: "reduce feature duplication by removing old ways of doing things".


title: History of Python

text: Python 3.0 was developed with the same philosophy as in prior versions. However, as Python had accumulated new and redundant ways to program the same task, Python 3.0 had an emphasis on removing duplicative constructs and modules, in keeping with the Zen of Python: "There should be one— and preferably only one —obvious way to do it".


title: History of Python

text: Nonetheless, Python 3.0 remained a multi-paradigm language. Coders could still follow object-oriented, structured, and functional programming paradigms, among others, but within such broad choices, the details were intended to be more obvious in Python 3.0 than they were in Python 2.x.


title: History of Python

text: Python 3.0 broke backward compatibility, and much Python 2 code does not run unmodified on Python 3. Python's dynamic typing combined with the plans to change the semantics of certain methods of dictionaries, for example, made perfect mechanical translation from Python 2.x to Python 3.0 very difficult. A tool called "2to3" does the parts of translation that can be done automatically. At this, 2to3 appeared to be fairly successful, though an early review noted that there were aspects of translation that such a tool would never be able to handle. Prior to the roll-out of Python 3, projects requiring compatibility with both the 2.x and 3.x series were recommended to have one source (for the 2.x series), and produce releases for the Python 3.x platform using 2to3. Edits to the Python 3.x code were discouraged for so long as the code needed to run on Python 2.x. This is no longer recommended; as of 2012 the preferred approach was to create a single code base that can run under both Python 2 and 3 using compatibility modules.


title: History of Python

text: Subsequent releases in the Python 3.x series have included additional, substantial new features; all ongoing development of the language is done in the 3.x series.


title: M1917 Browning machine gun

text: The M1917 Browning machine gun is a heavy machine gun used by the United States armed forces in World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War; it has also been used by other nations. It was a crew-served, belt-fed, water-cooled machine gun that served alongside the much lighter air-cooled Browning M1919. It was used at the battalion level, and often mounted on vehicles (such as a jeep). There were two main iterations: the M1917, which was used in World War I and the M1917A1, which was used thereafter. The M1917, which was used on some aircraft as well as in a ground role, had a cyclic rate of 450 rounds per minute. The M1917A1 had a cyclic rate of 450 to 600 rounds per minute.


title: M1917 Browning machine gun

text: In 1900, John Moses Browning filed a patent for a recoil-powered automatic gun. Browning did not work on the gun again until 1910, when he built a water-cooled prototype of the 1900 design. Although the gun worked well, Browning improved the design slightly. Browning replaced side ejection with bottom ejection, added a buffer for smoother operation, replaced the hammer with a two piece firing pin, and some other minor improvements. The basic design of the gun was still the 1900 design.


title: M1917 Browning machine gun

text: The Browning is a water-cooled heavy machine gun, though some experimental versions were made that did not use a water jacket; the air-cooled M1919 was later developed as a medium machine gun. Unlike many other early machine guns, the M1917 had nothing to do with Maxim's toggle lock design. At , it was much lighter than contemporary Maxim type guns such as the first German "Maschinengewehr" 08 (08/15 model: ) and the British Vickers machine gun, while still being highly reliable. The only similarities with the Maxim or Vickers are the principles of recoil operation, T-slot breechblock, "pull-out" belt feed, water cooling, and forward ejection. Its sliding-block locking mechanism saved weight and complexity, and was used in many previous Browning designs. The belt fed left-to-right, and the cartridges were stacked closer together than Maxim/Vickers (patterns copied by most guns later).


title: M1917 Browning machine gun

text: The Army Ordnance Department showed little interest in machine guns until war was declared in April 1917. At that time, the U.S. arsenal included only 1,100 machine guns, and most of those were outmoded. The government asked several designers to submit weapons. Browning arranged a test at the Springfield Armory in May 1917. In the first test, the weapon fired 20,000 rounds with only a few malfunctions mostly related to poorly loaded cloth belts. The reliability was exceptional, so Browning fired another 20,000 rounds through the weapon with one broken part: a broken sear at about 39,500. The Ordnance Board was impressed, but was unconvinced that the same level of performance could be achieved in a production model. Consequently, Browning used a second gun that not only duplicated the original trial, but it also fired continuously for 48 minutes and 12 seconds (over 21,000 rounds).


title: M1917 Browning machine gun

text: The Army adopted the weapon as its principal heavy machine gun, utilizing the M1906 .30-06 cartridge with a 150-grain, flat-base bullet. Unfortunately, production was a problem. Several manufacturers started producing the gun, but they had to set up the assembly lines and tooling. By 30 June 1918, Westinghouse had made only 2,500 and Remington had made only 1,600. By the time of the Armistice, Westinghouse had made 30,150, Remington 12,000, and Colt 600.


title: M1917 Browning machine gun

text: Until the start of World War I, the Army had used a variety of older machine guns, like the M1895 Colt–Browning machine gun "Potato Digger" (which Browning had also designed) and weapons like the Maxim Gun, the Benet–Mercie M1909, and the Hotchkiss M1914 machine gun. Although the Model 1917 was intended to be the principal US Army heavy machine gun in the war, the Army was, in fact, forced to purchase many foreign weapons—the French-produced Hotchkiss 8 mm machine gun was actually the most common heavy machine gun used by the American Expeditionary Force.


title: M1917 Browning machine gun

text: In 1926, the Browning's rear sight was revised to incorporate scales for both the new M1 Ball (172-grain boat-tail bullet) and the M1906 (150-grain flat-base bullet) ammunition. With M1 ball, the M1917 had a maximum range of about ; with M2 ammunition, about . The rear sight had a battle sight as well as a raised leaf-type sight suitable for employment against either ground or air targets.


title: M1917 Browning machine gun

text: The M1917 saw limited service in the later days of World War I. Because of production delays, only about 1,200 Model 1917s saw combat in the conflict, and then only in the last 2½ months of the war. Some arrived too late for combat service. For example, the 6th Machine Gun Battalion, fighting as part of the Second Division did not exchange their Hotchkiss M1914 machine guns for Browning M1917 machine guns until 14 November, three days after the armistice. The U.S. equipped about a third of the divisions sent to France; the others were equipped equally with Hotchkiss machine guns bought from the French or the British Vickers machine guns built by Colt in the US. Where the Model 1917 did see action, its rate of fire and reliability were highly effective. The M1917 weapon system was inferior to the Vickers and Hotchkiss guns in indirect fire applications because the British and French cartridges had about 50 percent longer range than the .30-06 service cartridge used in World War I.


title: M1917 Browning machine gun

text: The Model 1917A1 was again used in the Second World War, and was primarily used with the M2 ball, tracer, and armor-piercing ammunition introduced just prior to the outbreak of hostilities. Some were supplied to the UK for use by the Home Guard since all production of the .303 Vickers were needed to resupply the equipment abandoned during the Fall of France. The M1917's weight and bulk meant that it was generally employed as a fixed defense or as a battalion or regimental support weapon. At the battle of Momote Airstrip in the Admiralties, the US Army's 5th Cavalry machine gunners killed several hundred Japanese in one night using their M1917 Brownings; one gun was left in position after the battle as a memorial to the desperate struggle.


title: M1917 Browning machine gun

text: The Model 1917 was called to service again in the Korean War. On at least one occasion, U.S. soldiers in the Korean War urinated on the gun when water-cooling had failed in the frigid temperatures of the Korean winter. The Model 1917 was slowly phased out of military service in the late-1960s in favor of the much lighter M60 machine gun chambered in the new 7.62 mm NATO cartridge.


title: M1917 Browning machine gun

text: Many of the 1917s were given to South Vietnam. The last ones in regular US service were on the machine gun infiltration course at Fort Benning, Georgia, where their sustained-fire capability was an advantage in long nights of shooting over the heads of low-crawling trainees. The gun did continue to see service in some Third World armies well into the latter half of the 20th century. Some are still in use today by irregular military forces because the water cooled barrel allows for long periods of sustained fire.


title: M1917 Browning machine gun

text: The machine gun used a wooden ammunition chest that carried 250 rounds. The early M1917 model had an angled corner and a leather strap handle on top. The later M1917A1 model had a square corner and a cloth strap handle on top.


title: M1917 Browning machine gun

text: The wooden ammunition belt chest was replaced during WWII by the expendable metal box ammunition M1 adopted 6 May 1942. On 20 June 1945, a modified version known as the M1A1 was adopted. The M1A1 had a spring-loaded catch to fasten it to the M1917A1 tripod more securely and provide a better watertight seal. In the late-1940s the M19 box replaced the earlier metal M1 and M1A1 boxes, and a modified version known as the M19A1 appeared in the early-1950s and continues in use today.


title: M1917 Browning machine gun

text: The original gun suffered from a weakness related to the design of the receiver. Under field conditions, the bottom plates, which were dovetailed into the gun's two side plates, tore out. An early fix was to attach a roughly horseshoe-shaped steel bracket around the rearmost part of the receiver. A later fix was to rivet "stirrups" (right-angled steel pieces) to the bottom and side plates. The stirrup fix became the standard reinforcement until a more permanent fix for the problem was developed. Another reported problem was bulging in the side plates, which was probably caused by stresses put into the side plates when hammering the dovetails closed. The 1917 also had a simple sliding safety that blocked the trigger when moved to the far right position. These were removed as part of post-war refurbishment.


title: M1917 Browning machine gun

text: In the 1930s, the Ordnance Department developed a new bottom plate, which had side flanges that came up on both sides of the receiver and were attached by rivets. This fixed the problem of the original bottom plates, and became standard for all M1917- and M1919-series machine guns. While the US Arsenal at Rock Island was the leader in converting the existing stocks of M1917-series guns over to 1917A1 configuration, other arsenals took part. In addition, the rear sights were updated for the new ammunition and were changed to yards from meters, and also did away with the World War I multiple-aperture disk on the rear sight. The top covers also had a stronger feed pawl pivot arm installed, so the gun could handle the stress of pulling an ammunition belt from the ground. Rock Island Arsenal also developed an all-steel water jacket that went into production around 1943; this was stronger than the earlier brass-capped jackets. These steel components were interchangeable with the earlier brass ones to allow for repair of worn or damaged water jacket components.


title: M1917 Browning machine gun

text: Other changes were implemented, some during the war, but not all M1917s received these updates. Beginning in 1938, the pivot in the top cover was replaced with a new one that would become standard on all M1919-series guns. While the World War I–pattern top cover hinge pin appears to have been retained on most converted M1917s, the later-production M1917A1s had a positive locking top cover hinge pin that allowed the top cover to remain open, lessening the chance of it dropping closed on one's hands while working on the gun—this became the standard on all M1919-series guns.


title: M1917 Browning machine gun

text: Air-cooled aircraft version of the M1917. Developed during the First World War, the M1918 arrived too late, but became the dominant weapon of its type in US service until the development of the M1919. It features a heavier barrel, but lighter barrel jacket as compared to the M1917. A sub-variant, the M1918M1, was developed as a flexible version of the fixed M1918.


title: M1917 Browning machine gun

text: The M1917 pattern has been used in countries the world over in a variety of forms. In certain cases a new designation was applied by the user nation.


title: M1917 Browning machine gun

text: From 1930, Belgian Fabrique Nationale produced air-cooled and water-cooled versions of the M1917, chambered in various calibers for domestic and export use.


title: M1917 Browning machine gun

text: Kulspruta m/14-29 was the Swedish designation for the licensed M1917A1, produced by Carl Gustafs Gevärsfaktori in Eskilstuna, for infantry support. The main differences was that it was chambered in the standard caliber 6.5×55mm, had spade-grips and used the cooling jacket and tripod of the m/14 (Schwarzlose) tripod, the machine gun the Ksp m/14-29 replaced. The reason for adoption of the Browning was cost: 50 machine guns using the Browning mechanism could be made for the same price as 30 Schwarzlose, which was discovered during the manufacture of Kulspruta m/22.


title: M1917 Browning machine gun

text: The 6.5mm bullet was found to be too light for long-range fire support and anti-aircraft use, so in 1932 the heavier 8×63mm patron m/32 cartridge was developed. As this resulted in a heavier recoil, a spring-loaded cradle replaced the backplate with a heavily spring-loaded buffer that acted as an extension of the standard Browning recoil buffer. This also replaced the regular spade-grips with the ones integrated in the cradle. The cradle, now part of the weapon, would then be hooked onto a tripod m/36. This tripod featured, beside a 5×25 power optical sight, advanced elevation and traverse controls. The unprecedented recoil control and steadiness of the tripod made Dolf Goldsmith remark that this arrangement “was undoubtedly the most accurate long-range rifle-caliber machine gun ever made”.<ref name="Swedish Kulspruta m/36">Swedish Kulspruta m/36, forgottenweapons.com</ref> For anti-aircraft purposes, a double cradle was made to hold a matching pair of m/36s. The right gun, lacking sights altogether, was fed from the right, while the left gun, with iron sights complemented with an AA sight ring, was fed from left. The cocking handles were located between the guns, while safeties and triggers were individual for left and right. The special AA tripod had elongated legs and chains to either secure the tripod or hang weights on it for extra stability. These double cradles were also used as standard defense, mounted on a ring on the cab roof, on terrain vehicles and armored troop carriers like Terrängbil m/42 KP. The latter was used with good effect in the Congo Crisis in the early-1960s. Until 1966, the m/14-29 and m/36 machine guns could use both the 6.5mm and the 8 mm ammunition. Converting between the two was a matter of changing barrels, cartridge stops, and bolts.


title: M1917 Browning machine gun

text: In 1966, most were converted to 7.62×51mm NATO. Some old models were retained in training use to use up the stores of obsolete ammunition. After the stocks were expended in the 1970s, all guns were re-barreled to 7.62mm NATO. The weapons were finally taken out of service in the 1995.


title: M1917 Browning machine gun

text: The Ckm wz.30 was an unlicensed Polish-built modification of the Colt Model of 1924 chambered in 7.92×57mm Mauser. The modifications included new iron sights (V-notch rather than loophole), lengthened butt handle, lengthened barrel, simplified rifle lock for easier exchange of used-up barrels and better handling, mounting adapted for both anti-personnel and AA fire and sights and grips adapted to suit both purposes. Roughly 8,000 were built by Państwowa Fabryka Karabinów.


title: M1917 Browning machine gun

text: Norwegian designation for the Colt MG 38 (mentioned in the following section) in , used as the standard heavy machine gun and anti-aircraft weapon for the Norwegian Army from 1929 to 1940. The M/29 replaced the Hotchkiss M1914 machine gun in Norwegian service. In all, 1,800 M/29s were in Norwegian service by the time of the 9 April 1940 German invasion. The M/29 saw service in the 1940 Norwegian Campaign, often deployed as the only heavy weapon of Norwegian front line units.


title: M1917 Browning machine gun

text: A simplified, air-cooled version of the weapon, the Model 1919, was adopted after World War I and saw action in World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Congo crisis.


title: Punjab Kings

text: Punjab Kings (PBKS) are a franchise cricket team based in Mohali, Punjab, that plays in the Indian Premier League (IPL). Established in 2008 as the Kings XI Punjab (KXIP), the franchise is jointly owned by Mohit Burman, Ness Wadia, Preity Zinta and Karan Paul. The team plays its home matches at the PCA Stadium, Mohali. Since 2010, they also have been playing some of their home games at either Dharamsala or Indore. Apart from the 2014 season when they topped the league table and finished runners-up, the team has made only one other playoff appearance in 13 seasons.


title: Punjab Kings

text: The Punjab Kings played in the now-defunct Champions League Twenty20 once, in 2014 as the Kings XI Punjab and finished as semi-finalists. The team name was changed to Punjab Kings in February 2021.


title: Punjab Kings

text: In 2007, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) created the cricket tournament the Indian Premier League, based on the Twenty20 format of the game. Franchises for eight cities were made available in an auction held in Mumbai on 20 February 2008. The team representing Punjab was bought by the Dabur group's Mohit Burman (46%), the Wadia group's Ness Wadia (23%), Preity Zinta (23%), and Saptarshi Dey of the Dey & Dey Group (minor stake). The group paid a total of $76 million to acquire the franchise.


title: Punjab Kings

text: As the Kings XI Punjab, the franchise's catchment areas were the regions of Kashmir, Jammu, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana—evident from the letter sequence "K J H P H" in the banner of the team's logo.


title: Punjab Kings

text: Following the controversy surrounding the BCCI and Lalit Modi in 2010, the Indian Premier League announced on 10 October 2010 that it had terminated the franchise contracts of Kings XI Punjab and the Rajasthan Royals. The teams announced that they would take legal action to remain in the Indian Premier League. Initially, the team tried to negotiate a solution with the league, but when one could not be reached, they decided to file a case in Mumbai High Court accusing the IPL of getting rid of the two teams so that when the bidding process would start for the 2012 IPL season, the contract would be given to a more lucrative bidder.


title: Punjab Kings

text: On 17 February 2021, Kings XI Punjab was renamed to Punjab Kings, ahead of the 2021 Indian Premier League. Ness Wadia explained the reason for changing the franchise name was to "relook at things" and rebrand after 13 seasons of IPL. He expressed his disappointment over the franchise for "not being able to win a title" and expected them to "start afresh" after a name change. He added that the name change had been planned two years ago and COVID-19 had just delayed the announcement.


title: Punjab Kings

text: The 2008 tournament got off to a slow start for the Kings XI Punjab, with the team losing their first two games. However, 94 runs by Kumar Sangakkara helped them to win the third game. Despite the absence of Brett Lee and Simon Katich (who were committed to tour the West Indies with Australia), the team found its groove. Powered by their balanced bowling line-up and effective top order, the team won nine of its next 10 matches, clinching a berth in the semi-final, where their run in the tournament came to an end with a comprehensive nine-wicket loss to the Chennai Super Kings.


title: Punjab Kings

text: Shaun Marsh was arguably KXIP's star player in the inaugural IPL. The opener from Western Australia was overlooked in the IPL player auctions and was signed by the franchise on 9 April. He finished the tournament as the Orange Cap holder—the award for the player with the most runs across the competition—with an average of 68.44 and a strike rate of 139.68 in 11 innings. Marsh managed to hit one century and five half-centuries across the course of the tournament.


title: Punjab Kings

text: Finishing as semi-finalists in 2008, Kings XI Punjab started with ambitions to win the trophy. These were supported by their new sponsors Emirates. With two available slots to fill, the Kings XI Punjab made bids on Jerome Taylor and Yusuf Abdulla at the second IPL auction.


title: Punjab Kings

text: The team took a hit as most of their Australian cricketers were unavailable. The team lacked available pace bowlers after Jerome Taylor backed out at the last minute with an injury.


title: Punjab Kings

text: The team lost badly to the Delhi Daredevils and the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), however, they returned to form by beating the Royal Challengers, the Rajasthan Royals and the Mumbai Indians. Then the team witnessed a roller-coaster ride in their next eight matches with four wins and four losses. The team's semi-final hopes were crushed after losing to the Chennai Super Kings in their last match.


title: Punjab Kings

text: Kings XI Punjab lost six matches to the Kolkata Knight Riders, the Delhi Daredevils, the Royal Challengers Bangalore, the Deccan Chargers, the Rajasthan Royals and the Mumbai Indians but managed to win a match against Chennai Super Kings when the scores were level and the match went to a Super Over. Kings XI Punjab were boosted by the return of Brett Lee against Kolkata, but he was not at his best. Shaun Marsh returned in the match against the Mumbai Indians. In spite of his good performance, which included a half century, the team lost the match. They ended the 2010 IPL in the last position.


title: Punjab Kings

text: The 2011 IPL season looked promising when they brought a full strength team with Michael Bevan as coach and Adam Gilchrist appointed as the captain.


title: Punjab Kings

text: Kings XI Punjab missed out on the playoffs by two points (or one victory). This meant they finished fifth in the points table.


title: Punjab Kings

text: Kings XI Punjab failed to qualify for the play-offs, but batsman David Miller played one of the innings of the tournament in the 51st match against the Royal Challengers Bangalore, as he smashed 101 off 38 deliveries and included eight fours and seven sixes. Coming in at no. 5 when Kings XI Punjab was struggling with only 51 runs in the scoreboard in the eighth over and chasing a target of 190, Miller rectified the game and led Punjab to a six-wicket win with two overs remaining. Adam Gilchrist retired at the end of the season.


title: Punjab Kings

text: Australia's T20I captain George Bailey was leading the squad for the seventh season. Other buys featured the likes of Virender Sehwag, Glenn Maxwell and Mitchell Johnson. Kings XI Punjab began the tournament by winning their first five games which were held outside India in UAE due to the general elections. The stand out player was Glenn Maxwell with his unorthodox and powerful hitting, scoring 95, 89 and 95 in his first three innings with a strike rate of over 200 who got equal contribution from South African David Miller, both of them making the side look invincible. There were many innings from the veteran Indian batsman Virender Sehwag and young star Manan Vohra which made the middle order batting easy and allowed the team to qualify for the playoffs. Due to a 122 run knock from Virender Sehwag against the Chennai Super Kings in the semifinal, KXIP made their way to the final. There they faced the Kolkata Knight Riders where they batted first and set a good target of 199 owing to Wriddhiman Saha's 115. However, due to Manish Pandey's 94 off 50 balls and his teammates' consistently high strike rate, including Piyush Chawla's 13 off five balls, KKR were able to win the final by three wickets in the final over of the match.


title: Punjab Kings

text: Kings XI Punjab qualified for the 2014 Champions League Twenty20 as they finished runners-up in the 2014 IPL. They were placed in Group B along with the Hobart Hurricanes (Australia), the Barbados Tridents (West Indies), the Cape Cobras (South Africa) and the Northern Knights (New Zealand).


title: Punjab Kings

text: Kings XI's first match was in their home stadium, the PCA Stadium, Mohali where they beat Hobart Hurricanes by five wickets, overhauling Hobart's 144–6 in 17.4 overs. Thisara Perera was named the Man Of The Match with 2–17 and 35. Glenn Maxwell top scored in the game with 43. They also won the second match beating the Barbados Tridents by four wickets. They won their third match of the competition against the Northern Knights and qualified for the semi finals. They continued to win their final group match against the Cape Cobras but were knocked out of the tournament at the semi-final stage with a disappointing defeat against their IPL rivals the Chennai Super Kings, who went on to win the tournament.


title: Punjab Kings

text: George Bailey continued to lead the side during the 2015 season. The team won just three of the 14 games and finished eighth in the league. David Miller finished the season as top scorer with 357 runs and Anureet Singh finished the season as the top wicket taker with 15 wickets.


title: Punjab Kings

text: David Miller and Murali Vijay captained the team in the first and second half of the 2016 season respectively. The team finished eighth once again with only four wins. Murali Vijay was the top scorer with 453 runs and Sandeep Sharma was the top wicket taker with 15 wickets.


title: Punjab Kings

text: Virender Sehwag joined as head coach as the team looked to recover from two back-to-back last-place finishes in the league. Glenn Maxwell was appointed as the captain. Eoin Morgan, Darren Sammy and Hashim Amla joined the likes of David Miller in the team. The team missed out on a place in the play-offs by a last game defeat to the Rising Pune Supergiant and ended the season in fifth, winning seven out of their 14 games. Hashim Amla finished the season as top scorer with 420 runs including two centuries, and Sandeep Sharma was the top wicket taker with 17 wickets.


title: Punjab Kings

text: The Kings XI Punjab squad for the 2018 IPL season included internationals such as: Ravichandran Ashwin, Yuvraj Singh, KL Rahul, Aaron Finch and Chris Gayle. Ashwin was appointed as captain and Brad Hodge as coach. The Tournament started well with KL Rahul scoring a fine fifty off 14 balls to guide KXIP home against Daredevils. Riding on KL Rahul and Chris Gayle's red hot form at the top and Andrew Tye and Mujeeb Ur Rahman with the ball, the team went on to win 5 out of their first six games, eventually becoming favourites to the title. Their weakness in Indian core was however exposed as they could manage just one win in the next eight and ultimately not being qualified for the playoffs despite a dream start from the beginning.


title: Punjab Kings

text: Franchises confirmed the names of retained players for the 12th season of Indian Premier League. KXIP retained the following players for the 2019 season: KL Rahul, Chris Gayle, Andrew Tye, Mayank Agarwal, Ankit Rajpoot, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Karun Nair, David Miller and Ravichandran Ashwin. On the auction day (18 December 2018), KXIP snapped up new 13 players: Varun Chakaravarthy, Sam Curran, Mohammed Shami, Prabhsimran Singh, Nicholas Pooran, Moises Henriques, Hardus Viljoen, Darshan Nalkande, Sarfaraz Khan, Arshdeep Singh, Agnivesh Ayachi, Harpreet Brar, and Murugan Ashwin. Kings XI Punjab ended up in sixth position in the league table. KL Rahul was the highest run scorer for the team with 593 runs in 14 matches.


title: Punjab Kings

text: Kings XI Punjab released Varun Chakravarthy, Andrew Tye, Sam Curran, Prabhsimran Singh (who was rebought), David Miller, Moises Henriques and Agnivesh Ayachi from their 2020 roster. They have bought Glenn Maxwell, Deepak Hooda, James Neesham, Prabhsimran Singh, Chris Jordan, Tanjinder Dhillon, Ravi Bishnoi, Ishan Porel, Sheldon Cottrell for their 2020 squad. The retained players include KL Rahul, Karun Nair, Mohammed Shami, Nicholas Pooran, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Chris Gayle, Mandeep Singh, Mayank Agarwal, Hardus Viljoen, Darshan Nalkande, Sarfaraz Khan, Arshdeep Singh, Harpreet Brar and Murugan Ashwin. They also transferred their former skipper R Ashwin to Delhi Capitals and Rajasthan Royals traded their all rounder Krishnappa Gowtham to Kings XI Punjab successfully.


title: Punjab Kings

text: On 20 September, the Kings XI started their season campaign. KL Rahul, the Kings' new captain, elected to field first. This thrilling match ended in a tie. Delhi started with a win in the tournament, defeating Punjab's team in the Super Over. Delhi scored 157-runs for the loss of 8 wickets in 20 overs. The team had lost early wickets, but Marcus Stoinis' brilliant innings helped the Delhi Capitals to build a 157-run target. In response to 158 runs, Punjab also scored 157-runs in 20 overs on Mayank Agarwal's knock of 89 runs.


title: Punjab Kings

text: On 24 September, Kings XI Punjab won their first match of the season defeating Royal Challengers Bangalore by 97-runs. KL Rahul lost the toss and was put to bat. Rahul and Mayank Agarwal build the Kings XI innings with a 57-run stand for the first wicket. Rahul scored 132 off 69 balls with 14 fours and 7 sixes and helped the Kings XI finish the innings at 206/3 in 20 overs. Chasing a target of 207, the Royal Challengers had lost three wickets in a first four overs. Kings XI's new ball pair of Sheldon Cottrell and Mohammed Shami continued their good work from the first match and Royal Challengers were eventually bowled out for 109. Rahul became the fastest Indian batsman to complete 2000 runs in IPL. However, they were ousted against Rajasthan Royals who successfully chased down 223 and then continued to lose five matches. The losing streak was broken when Punjab defeated Bangalore for 2nd time and then defeated Mumbai Indians in the Super Over and continued to win three more matches against Delhi, Hyderabad and Kolkata. However, they lost two matches at the end of the tournament. Their last match was against Chennai Super Kings who won comprehensively by 9 wickets, therefore knocking Punjab out of the tournament. They finished the season at the 6th place. KL Rahul was again the highest scorer for the team with 670 runs, while Mohammed Shami topped the bowling charts for the franchise, with 20 wickets from 14 matches.


title: Sphere of influence

text: In the field of international relations, a sphere of influence (SOI) is a spatial region or concept division over which a state or organization has a level of cultural, economic, military or political exclusivity.


title: Sphere of influence

text: While there may be a formal alliance or other treaty obligations between the influenced and influencer, such formal arrangements are not necessary and the influence can often be more of an example of soft power. Similarly, a formal alliance does not necessarily mean that one country lies within another's sphere of influence. High levels of exclusivity have historically been associated with higher levels of conflict.


title: Sphere of influence

text: In more extreme cases, a country within the "sphere of influence" of another may become a subsidiary of that state and serve in effect as a satellite state or "de facto" colony. This was the case with the Soviet Union and its Eastern Bloc after World War II. The system of spheres of influence by which powerful nations intervene in the affairs of others continues to the present. It is often analyzed in terms of superpowers, great powers, and/or middle powers.


title: Sphere of influence

text: Sometimes portions of a single country can fall into two distinct spheres of influence. In the 19th century, the buffer states of Iran and Thailand, lying between the empires of Britain, France and Russia, were divided between the spheres of influence of those three international powers. Likewise, after World War II, Germany was divided into four occupation zones, three of which later consolidated into West Germany and the remaining one became East Germany, the former a member of NATO and the latter a member of the Warsaw Pact.


title: Sphere of influence

text: The term is also used to describe non-political situations, e.g., a shopping mall is said to have a 'sphere of influence' that designates the geographical area where it dominates the retail trade.


title: Sphere of influence

text: Many powerful states in past centuries had subordinate tributary states, whose native dynasty acknowledged the suzerainty of the great power.


title: Sphere of influence

text: Many areas of the world are joined by a cultural influence inherited from a previous sphere of influence, even if they are no longer under political control. Examples include Anglosphere, Arab World, Persosphere, Eurosphere, Francophonie, Françafrique, Germanosphere, Indosphere, Hispanidad, Latin Europe/Latin America, Lusophonie, Turkosphere, Sinosphere, Slavisphere, Malay world, Post-Soviet States and many others.


title: Sphere of influence

text: Alexander Hamilton, first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, aimed for the United States to establish a sphere of influence in North America. Hamilton, writing in the Federalist Papers, harboured ambitions for the US to rise to world power status and gain the strength to expel European powers from the Americas, taking on the mantle of regional dominance among American nations, although most of the New World were European colonies during that period.


title: Sphere of influence

text: This doctrine, dubbed the 'Monroe Doctrine', was formalized under President James Monroe, who asserted that the New World was to be established as a Sphere of influence, removed from European encroachment. As the U.S. emerged as a world power, few nations dared to trespass on this sphere. (A notable exception occurred with the Soviet Union and the Cuban Missile Crisis.)


title: Sphere of influence

text: As of 2018, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson continued to refer to the Monroe Doctrine to tout the United States as the region's preferred trade partner over other nations such as China.


title: Sphere of influence

text: For Siam (Thailand), Britain and France signed an agreement in 1904 whereby the British recognised a French sphere of influence to the east of the River Menam's (Chao Phraya River) basin; in turn, the French recognised British influence over the territory to the west of the Menam basin and west of the Gulf of Thailand. Both parties disclaimed any idea of annexing Siamese territory.


title: Sphere of influence

text: In the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907, Britain and Russia divided Persia (Iran) into spheres of influence, with the Russians gaining recognition for influence over most of northern Iran, and Britain establishing a zone in the Southeast.


title: Sphere of influence

text: In China, during the mid 19th and 20th centuries (known in China as the "century of humiliation"), Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and Japan held special powers over large swaths of Chinese territory based on securing "nonalienation commitments" for their "spheres of interest"; only the United States was unable to participate due to their involvement in the Spanish–American War. These spheres of influence were acquired by forcing the Qing government to sign "unequal treaties" and long-term leases.


title: Sphere of influence

text: In early 1895, the French laid claim to a sphere in Southwest China. By December 1897, German Kaiser Wilhelm II declared his intent to seize territory in China, precipitating the scramble to demarcate zones of influence in China. The Germans acquired, in Shandong province, exclusive control over developmental loans, mining, and railway ownership, while Russia gained a sphere over all territory north of the Great Wall, in addition to the previous tax exemption for trade in Mongolia and Xinjiang, economic powers similar to Germany's over Fengtian, Jilin, and Heilongjiang provinces. France gained a sphere over Yunnan, as well as most of Guangxi and Guangdong provinces; Japan over Fujian province; and the British over the whole Yangtze River valley (defined as all provinces adjoining the Yangtze river as well as Henan and Zhejiang provinces), parts of Guangdong and Guangxi provinces, and part of Tibet. Only Italy's request for Zhejiang province was declined by the Chinese government. These do not include the lease and concession territories where the foreign powers had full authority.


title: Sphere of influence

text: The Russian government militarily occupied their zone, imposed their law and schools, seized mining and logging privileges, settled their citizens, and even established their municipal administration on several cities, the latter without Chinese consent.


title: Sphere of influence

text: The powers (and the United States) might have their own courts, post offices, commercial institutions, railroads, and gunboats in what was on paper Chinese territory. However, the foreign powers and their control in some cases could have been exaggerated; the local government persistently restricted further encroachment. The system ended after the Second World War.


title: Sphere of influence

text: On September 6, 1899, U.S. Secretary of State John Hay sent notes to the major powers (France, Germany, Britain, Italy, Japan, and Russia), asking them to declare formally that they would uphold Chinese territorial and administrative integrity and would not interfere with the free use of the treaty ports within their spheres of influence in China, as the United States felt threatened by other powers' much larger spheres of influence in China and worried that it might lose access to the Chinese market should the country be officially partitioned. Although treaties made after 1900 refer to this "Open Door Policy", competition among the various powers for special concessions within China for railroad rights, mining rights, loans, foreign trade ports, and so forth, continued unabated, with the US itself contradicting the policy by agreeing to recognise the Japanese sphere in the Lansing-Ishii Agreement.


title: Sphere of influence

text: In 1910, the great powers, Britain, France, Germany, United States, and later, Russia and Japan, ignored the Open Door Policy to form a banking consortium, consisting of national banking groups backed by respective governments, through which all foreign loans to China were monopolised, granting the powers political influence over China and reducing economic competition between foreigners. This organisation controlled the majority of Chinese tax revenue in a "trust", utilising a small portion to bolster the rule of Chinese warlord Yuan Shikai to great effect. The renewed consortium of UK, France, Japan and the U.S. in 1920 effectively vetoed all developmental loans to China, exerting control over the Chinese government by aiming to control all railroads, ports and highways in China. The Consortium helped to contain the political and financial conflict between parties and states over the loans, while imposing foreign control on China's finances during the period of revolutionary upheaval, which the Consortium also helped to precipitate.


title: Sphere of influence

text: For another example, during the height of its existence in World War II, the Japanese Empire had quite a large sphere of influence. The Japanese government directly governed events in Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan, and parts of Mainland China. The "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" could thus be quite easily drawn on a map of the Pacific Ocean as a large "bubble" surrounding the islands of Japan and the Asian and Pacific nations it controlled.


title: Sphere of influence

text: According to a secret protocol attached to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 (revealed only after Germany's defeat in 1945), Northern and Eastern Europe were divided into Nazi and Soviet spheres of influence:


title: Sphere of influence

text: Another clause of the treaty stipulated that Bessarabia, then part of Romania, would join the Moldovan ASSR and become the Moldovan SSR under the control of Moscow. The Soviet invasion of Bukovina on 28 June 1940 violated the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, as it went beyond the Soviet sphere of influence as agreed with the Axis. The USSR continued to deny the existence of the Pact's protocols until after the dissolution of the Soviet Union when the Russian government fully acknowledged the existence and authenticity of the secret protocols.


title: Sphere of influence

text: From 1941 and the German attack on the Soviet Union, the Allied Coalition operated on the unwritten assumption that the Western Powers and the Soviet Union had each its own sphere of influence. The presumption of the US-British and Soviet unrestricted rights in their respective spheres began to cause difficulties as the Nazi-controlled territory shrank and the allied powers successively liberated other states.


title: Sphere of influence

text: The wartime spheres lacked a practical definition and it had never been determined if a dominant allied power was entitled to unilateral decisions only in the area of military activity, or could also force its will regarding political, social and economic future of other states. This overly informal system backfired during the late stages of the war and afterward, when it turned out that the Soviets and the Western Allies had very different ideas concerning the administration and future development of the liberated regions and of Germany itself.


title: Sphere of influence

text: During the Cold War, the Soviet sphere of influence was said to include: the Baltic states, Central Europe, some countries in Eastern Europe, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam, North Korea, and—until the Sino-Soviet split and Tito–Stalin split—the People's Republic of China and the People's Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, among other countries at various times. Meanwhile, United States was considered to have a sphere of influence over Western Europe, Oceania, Japan, and South Korea, among other places.


title: Sphere of influence

text: However, the level of control exerted in these spheres varied and was not absolute. For instance, France and the United Kingdom were able to act independently to invade (with Israel) the Suez Canal (they were later forced to withdraw by joint U.S. and Soviet pressure). Later, France was also able to withdraw from the military arm of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Cuba, as another example, often took positions that put it at odds with its Soviet ally, including momentary alliances with China, economic reorganizations, and providing support for insurgencies in Africa and the Americas without prior approval from the Soviet Union.


title: Sphere of influence

text: With the end of the Cold War, the Eastern Bloc fell apart, effectively ending the Soviet sphere of influence. Then in 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to exist, replaced by the Russian Federation and several other ex-Soviet Republics who became independent states.


title: Sphere of influence

text: Following the fall of the Soviet Union, the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States that became independent in 1991, were portrayed as part of the Russian Federation's 'sphere of influence', according to a statement by Boris Yeltsin, dated September 1994.


title: Sphere of influence

text: According to Ulrich Speck, writing for "Carnegie Europe", "After the breakup of the Soviet Union, the West's focus was on Russia. Western nations implicitly treated the post-Soviet countries (besides the Baltic states) as Russia's sphere of influence."


title: Sphere of influence

text: In 1997, NATO and Russia signed the "Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security", stating the "aim of creating in Europe a common space of security and stability, without dividing lines or spheres of influence limiting the sovereignty of any state."


title: Sphere of influence

text: On August 31, 2008, Russian president Dmitri Medvedev stated five principles of foreign policy, including the claim of a privileged sphere of influence that comprised "the border region, but not only". In 2009, Russia asserted that the European Union desires a sphere of influence and that the Eastern Partnership is "an attempt to extend" it. In March that year, Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt stated that the "Eastern Partnership is not about spheres of influence. The difference is that these countries themselves opted to join."


title: Sphere of influence

text: Following the 2008 Russo-Georgian War, Václav Havel and other former central and eastern European leaders signed an open letter stating that Russia had "violated the core principles of the Helsinki Final Act, the Charter of Paris ... all in the name of defending a sphere of influence on its borders." In April 2014, NATO stated that, contrary to the "Founding Act",Russia now appears to be attempting to recreate a sphere of influence by seizing a part of Ukraine, maintaining large numbers of forces on its borders, and demanding, as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recently stated, that "Ukraine cannot be part of any bloc."Criticising Russia in November 2014, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that "old thinking about spheres of influence, which runs roughshod over international law" put the "entire European peace order into question." In January 2017, British Prime Minister Theresa May said, "We should not jeopardise the freedoms that President Reagan and Mrs Thatcher brought to Eastern Europe by accepting President Putin's claim that it is now in his sphere of influence."


title: Sphere of influence

text: In corporate terms, the sphere of influence of a business, organization, or group can show its power and influence in the decisions of other businesses/organizations/groups. The influence shows in several ways, such as in size, frequency of visits, etc. In most cases, a company described as "bigger" has a larger sphere of influence.


title: Sphere of influence

text: For example, the software company Microsoft has a large sphere of influence in the market of operating systems; any entity wishing to sell a software product may weigh up compatibility with Microsoft's products as part of a marketing plan. In another example, retailers wishing to make the most profits must ensure they open their stores in the correct location. This is also true for shopping centers that, to reap the most profits, must be able to attract customers to their vicinity.


title: Sphere of influence

text: There is no defined scale measuring such spheres of influence. However, one can evaluate the spheres of influence of two shopping centers by seeing how far people are prepared to travel to each shopping center, how much time they spend in its vicinity, how often they visit, the order of goods available, etc.


title: Sphere of influence

text: Corporations have significant influence on the regulations and regulators that monitor them. During the Gilded Age in the United States, corruption was rampant as business leaders spent significant amounts of money ensuring that government did not regulate their activities. Wall Street spent a record $2 billion trying to influence the 2016 United States elections.


title: Torres del Paine National Park

text: Torres del Paine National Park () is a national park encompassing mountains, glaciers, lakes, and rivers in southern Chilean Patagonia. The Cordillera del Paine is the centerpiece of the park. It lies in a transition area between the Magellanic subpolar forests and the Patagonian Steppes. The park is located north of Puerto Natales and north of Punta Arenas. The park borders Bernardo O'Higgins National Park to the west and the Los Glaciares National Park to the north in Argentine territory. "Paine" means "blue" in the native Tehuelche (Aonikenk) language and is pronounced "PIE-neh", while "Torres" means "towers". It was established as a National Park in 1959.


title: Torres del Paine National Park

text: Torres del Paine National Park is part of the "Sistema Nacional de Áreas Silvestres Protegidas del Estado de Chile" (National System of Protected Forested Areas of Chile). In 2013, it measured approximately . It is one of the largest and most visited parks in Chile. The park averages around 252,000 visitors a year, of which 54% are foreign tourists, who come from many countries all over the world. It is also part of the End of the World Route, a tourist scenic route.


title: Torres del Paine National Park

text: The park is one of the 11 protected areas of the Magallanes Region and Chilean Antarctica (together with four national parks, three national reserves, and three national monuments). Together, the protected forested areas comprise about 51% of the land of the region ().


title: Torres del Paine National Park

text: The Torres del Paine are the distinctive three granite peaks of the Paine mountain range or Paine Massif. From left to right they are known as Torres d'Agostini, Torres Central and Torres Monzino. They extend up to above sea level and are joined by the Cuernos del Paine. The area also boasts valleys, rivers such as the Paine, lakes, and glaciers. The well-known lakes include Grey, Pehoé, Nordenskiöld, and Sarmiento. The glaciers, including Grey, Pingo, and Tyndall, belong to the Southern Patagonia Ice Field.


title: Torres del Paine National Park

text: Lady Florence Dixie, in her book published in 1880, gave one of the first descriptions of the area and referred to the three towers as "Cleopatra's Needles". She and her party are sometimes credited as being the first "foreign tourists" to visit the area that is now called Torres del Paine National Park.


title: Torres del Paine National Park

text: Several European scientists and explorers visited the area in the following decades, including Otto Nordenskiöld, Carl Skottsberg, and Alberto María de Agostini. Gunther Plüschow was the first person to fly over the Paine massif.


title: Torres del Paine National Park

text: The park was established on 13 May 1959 as "Parque Nacional de Turismo Lago Grey" (Grey Lake National Tourism Park) and was given its present name in 1970.


title: Torres del Paine National Park

text: In 1976, British mountaineer John Garner and two Torres del Paine rangers, Pepe Alarcon and Oscar Guineo pioneered the Circuit trail which circles the Paine massif.


title: Torres del Paine National Park

text: In 1977, Guido Monzino donated 12,000 hectares (30,000 acres) to the Chilean Government when its definitive limits were established. The park was designated a World Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO in 1978.


title: Torres del Paine National Park

text: In 1985, a tourist started a fire that burned about of the park. The blaze affected the areas east and south around Lake Pehoé.


title: Torres del Paine National Park

text: In February 2005, an accidental fire started by a Czech backpacker, which lasted for about ten days, destroyed of the park, including about 2 km² of native forest. The Czech government offered aid after the fire and donated 1 million to reforestation efforts.


title: Torres del Paine National Park

text: In late December 2011 through January 2012, an Israeli backpacker was found guilty of having started a fire after being caught by a park ranger when lighting up some paper roll in a forbidden area. This burned about of the reserve, destroying about 36 km² of native forest and affecting most of the areas around Lake Pehoé and the western areas around Lake Sarmiento, but moving away from the Cordillera del Paine, the park's centerpiece.


title: Torres del Paine National Park

text: Nevertheless, recent paleoenvironmental studies performed within the Park indicate that fires have been frequent phenomena at least during the last 12,800 years.


title: Torres del Paine National Park

text: According to the Köppen climate classification, the park lies in the “temperate climate of cold rain without a dry season." The meteorological conditions of the park are variable due to the complex orography.


title: Torres del Paine National Park

text: The park is famous for its strong winds. The windiest months are November - January, which coincides with the peak tourism season.


title: Torres del Paine National Park

text: The zone is characterized by cool summers, with temperatures lower than during the warmest month (January). Winter is relatively cold, with an average high temperature in July of , and an average low of .


title: Torres del Paine National Park

text: The rainiest months are March and April, with a monthly average rainfall of 80  mm. This represents double the July–October (winter) rainfall, which are the drier months. A study of the exact chemical components of the precipitation in the park has been carried out.


title: Torres del Paine National Park

text: The park possesses a large drainage network, which consists of numerous rivers, streams, lakes, ponds, and cascades that come from the Southern Patagonia Ice Field and flow towards the southeast until the Última Esperanza Sound that bathes the coasts of the city of Puerto Natales. The courses of water come from a longitudinal profile and are very turbulent with brusque changes in course, generated by waterfalls and rapids.


title: Torres del Paine National Park

text: The Southern Patagonian Ice Field takes up the entire western side of the park. The Southern Patagonian Ice Field feeds four main glaciers; they are from north to south the glaciers: Dickson, Grey, Zapata, and Tyndall. This last glacier is rapidly receding. The largest is Glacier Grey. It is divided into two arms, because of the appearance of a peninsula of ice, commonly called the Island or Nunatak, that becomes apparent a little more with each year that passes. The eastern arm measures about 1.2  km while the western has a width of around 3.6  km. The longitude of the glacier in its path towards the interior of the park is 15  km.


title: Torres del Paine National Park

text: Studies of the glaciers in the park have given scientists a clearer picture of the epochs of the earth, or what happened after the last glacial age.


title: Torres del Paine National Park

text: The landscape of the park is dominated by the Paine massif, which is an eastern spur of the Andes located on the east side of the Grey Glacier, rising dramatically above the Patagonian steppe. Small valleys separate the granite spires and mountains of the massif. These are: "Valle del Francés" (French Valley), "Valle Bader", "Valle Ascencio", and "Valle del Silencio" (Silence Valley).


title: Torres del Paine National Park

text: The head of French Valley is a cirque formed by tall cliffs. The colossal walls of "Cerro Cota 2000" and "Cerro Catedral" punctuate the western region of the Valley. Cerro Cota 2000 is named for its elevation; its highest contour line is about . Cerro Catedral is named so because its east face resembles a cathedral's facade. To the north stands the granite arête called "Aleta de Tiburón" (English: Shark's Fin). To the east, from north to south, lie the peaks "Fortaleza" (Fortress), "La Espada" (The Sword), "La Hoja" (The Blade), "La Máscara" (The Mummer), "Cuerno Norte" (North Horn), and "Cuerno Principal" (Main Horn).


title: Torres del Paine National Park

text: In the Valley of Silence, the gigantic granite walls of "Cerro Fortaleza" and "Cerro Escudo" (Shield Mountain) stand face to face with the western faces of the "Torres del Paine". Ascencio Valley is the normal route to reach the Torres del Paine lookout, which is located at the bank of a milky green tarn. The highest mountain of the group is "Paine Grande", whose height was measured in 2011 using GPS and found to be .


title: Torres del Paine National Park

text: The Southern Patagonian Ice Field mantles a great portion of the park. Glaciers include the Dickson, the Grey, and the Tyndall.


title: Torres del Paine National Park

text: Among the lakes are the Dickson Lake, Nordenskjöld Lake, Lake Pehoé, Grey Lake, Sarmiento Lake, and Del Toro Lake. Only a portion of the latter is within the borders of the park. All are vividly colored, most due to rock flour suspended in their waters. The main river flowing through the park is Paine River. Most of the rivers and lakes of the park drain into Última Esperanza Sound via Serrano River.


title: Torres del Paine National Park

text: Much of the geology of the Paine Massif area consists of Cretaceous sedimentary rocks that have been intruded by a Miocene-aged laccolith. Orogenic and erosional processes have shaped the present-day topography, and glacial erosion is mainly responsible for the sculpturing of the massif in the last tens of thousands of years. A good example of the latter is the "Cuernos del Paine", whose central bands of exposed granite contrast strongly with the dark aspect of their tops, which are remnants of a heavily eroded sedimentary stratum. In the case of "Las Torres", what once was their overlying sedimentary rock layer has been completely eroded away, leaving behind the more resistant granite.


title: Torres del Paine National Park

text: In June 2014, scientists uncovered fossils of at least 46 ancient specimens of nearly complete skeletons of dolphin-like creatures called Ichthyosaurs which lived between 245 and 90 million years ago. The finding came after melting glaciers revealed new rock faces beneath.


title: Torres del Paine National Park

text: During the last glacial period glacier extent in the area peaked about 48,000 years ago, much earlier than for the more northern locations of Chiloé and Llanquihue. During the late Pleistocene and early Holocene a series of proglacial lakes existed in the Torres del Paine area. The last of these lakes, the Great Tehuelche Paleolake, covered what is now Sarmiento and Del Toro lakes plus a large area to east making Cazador Range a peninsula. The Great Tehuelche Paleolake vanished after being drained about 7,113 years before present. Ancient lake terraces marks the level attained by these lakes albeit great uncertainty exists regarding their evolution.


title: Torres del Paine National Park

text: In respect of it being 'a world class site for the study of structurally controlled emplacement and construction of shallow bimodal laccoliths', the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) included 'The Miocene Torres del Paine intrusive complex' in its assemblage of 100 'geological heritage sites' around the world in a listing published in October 2022. The organisation defines an IUGS Geological Heritage Site as 'a key place with geological elements and/or processes of international scientific relevance, used as a reference, and/or with a substantial contribution to the development of geological sciences through history.'


title: Torres del Paine National Park

text: The last study of significant scope carried out concerning the flora of the park was realized by Pisano in 1974. This study examined four biotic zones that made up the territory of the park, determined by their vegetational type.


title: Torres del Paine National Park

text: Torres del Paine National Park is adorned with beautiful vegetation, including the evergreen "Embothrium coccineum", which produces vivid red flowers grouped in corymbs, and "Calceolaria uniflora", of striking shape and colors.


title: Torres del Paine National Park

text: In the park 85 non-native plant species have been recorded, of which 75 are of European origin and 31 are considered to be invasive.


title: Torres del Paine National Park

text: The park contains four vegetation zones: Patagonian steppe, Pre-Andean shrubland, Magellanic subpolar forests and Andean Desert. The vegetation of the Patagonian steppe is dominated by Fescue species (mainly "Festuca gracillima"), which are resistant to harsh winds and weather conditions that are typical of the Patagonian region. Some of the dominant plant species of the Pre-Andean shrubland are "Mulinum spinosum" (a cushion plant) and "Escallonia rubra", which are frequently associated with other species, including "Anathrophyllun desideratum" and "Berberis buxifolia". The Magellanic deciduous forest is home to various species of trees such as the "Nothofagus pumilio" and "Nothofagus antarctica". Above the tree line in the Andean Desert, "Escallonia rubra", "Empetrum rubrum", and "Senecio skottsbergii" take the place of "Nothofagus pumilio" trees.


title: Torres del Paine National Park

text: Guanacos are one of the most common mammals found in the park. Other mammals include foxes and pumas. It is also home to the endangered Chilean Huemul. The puma's predation on guanacos in the park has been studied.


title: Torres del Paine National Park

text: The park contains breeding populations of 15 bird of prey species and two others are likely reproducing here. Among them are Andean condor, black-chested buzzard-eagle, rufous-tailed hawk, cinereous harrier, chimango caracara, magellanic horned owl, austral pygmy-owl, to name but a few. Other birds occurring in the park include the Chilean flamingo, Darwin's rhea, coscoroba swan, black-necked swan, Magellanic woodpecker, Magellan goose, and black-faced ibis.


title: Torres del Paine National Park

text: The national park has over 252,000 visitors per year. It is a popular hiking destination in Chile. There are clearly marked paths and many "refugios" which provide shelter and basic services. Hikers can opt for a day trip to see the towers, French Valley or Glacier Grey or a multi-day trek. Multi-day treks include the popular "W" route, which takes about three to five days, and the full circuit or "O" route, which typically takes 7 to 9 days. The Refugio locations also have campsites and tent for hire. Cooking with the camp stove is not permitted except in Refugio locations. Camping is only allowed at specified campsites and wood fires are prohibited throughout the park. Since October 2016, it is mandatory to book campsites or refugios before entering the park. For less adventurous visitors, there are several hotels located in and around the park.


title: Torres del Paine National Park

text: A good time to visit Torres del Paine is between October and April because there is less rain. But, during high season the entrance fee is more expensive than between May and September. Some of Torres del Paine National Park attractions are Paine horns which are a group of mountains 2000 meters high in the middle of the W trek. There is a view of Pingo Lake from de Grey Glacier.


title: Torres del Paine National Park

text: Hikers are not allowed to stray from the paths in the national park. The visitor impact on the park has been scientifically measured.


title: Torres del Paine National Park

text: Visiting the park is recommended between September and April, during the southern spring, summer, and early autumn. During summer, daylight hours are long given the southern latitude. Outside of this time frame, the weather becomes extreme for the majority of the public. During the southern winter, daylight dwindles to only 8 hours a day.


title: Torres del Paine National Park

text: The park can be reached by Chile Route 9, which is paved and connects Punta Arenas and Puerto Natales and continues as an asphalt road for 100  km and then becomes a gravel road. In the winter using tire chains is recommended due to unstable climatic conditions. The park can also be reached through maritime and aerial routes. There are buses that leave from Puerto Natales.


title: Follow the Leader (Korn album)

text: Follow the Leader (stylized as FOLLOW The LEADEЯ) is the third studio album by American nu metal band Korn. The album was released on August 18, 1998, through Immortal/Epic. This was their first album not produced by Ross Robinson. Instead, it was produced by Steve Thompson and Toby Wright.


title: Follow the Leader (Korn album)

text: The album peaked at number one on four charts, including the "Billboard" 200 with 268,000 units sold in its first week of release, "Follow the Leader" is the band's most commercially–successful album, being certified five-times Platinum by the RIAA. Its singles, "Got the Life" and "Freak on a Leash", both charted on more than three charts, and their music videos are considered to be the first music videos retired from MTV, most notably the MTV show "Total Request Live". The album generally received positive reviews by critics and sold around 14 million copies worldwide. Korn was praised by AllMusic saying the album is "an effective follow-up to their first two alt-metal landmarks."


title: Follow the Leader (Korn album)

text: The Family Values Tour promoted the album, along with its five singles. The song "Freak on a Leash" was nominated for nine MTV Video Music Awards, and won for the Best Rock Video award, as well as Best Editing. The music video for "Freak on a Leash" won Best Short Form Music Video at the 2000 Grammy Awards.


title: Follow the Leader (Korn album)

text: By early 1998, Korn returned to the studio to record "Follow the Leader". Even though Korn was impressed by the work Ross Robinson had done on their previous albums, they decided to work with Steve Thompson and Toby Wright. Robinson did, however, work with singer Jonathan Davis as a vocal coach for the album. According to Wright, Robinson went to extreme lengths to agitate Davis in the vocal booth, including punching him in the back repeatedly. Korn implemented a live streaming department on their website in March 1998, called Korn TV, which aired the After-School Special series. Using RealMedia software, fans could access it every Thursday from 7:30 pm to 8:30 pm Eastern time. Korn's After-School Special featured guest appearances such as Sugar Ray, Limp Bizkit, Deftones, Steve Vai, 311, and the Pharcyde. The band was shown making the record on Korn TV. Korn exposed themselves making the album to let their fans see what they were doing in the studio and behind the scenes. "Follow the Leader" features numerous guest vocalists, including Ice Cube on "Children of the Korn", Tre Hardson of the Pharcyde on "Cameltosis" and Limp Bizkit's Fred Durst on "All in the Family". The songs for the album were written and copyrighted in 1997, with the exception of "Children of the Korn", "All in the Family" and "Cameltosis", which are copyrighted from 1998.


title: Follow the Leader (Korn album)

text: In a 2013 interview, the band revealed that they partied heavily during the production of "Follow the Leader", with massive amounts of alcohol, drugs, and women in the studio. Davis explained further, saying that while recording the vocals for "It's On", there were "people getting blowjobs right behind me, there was girls banging each other in front of me, people getting boned in the closet right behind me, it was the craziest shit I've ever seen in my life and I sang that song." According to Davis, he only agreed to begin tracking vocals when producer Toby Wright met his demands for an eight-ball (a one-eighth ounce of cocaine).


title: Follow the Leader (Korn album)

text: The artwork for "Follow the Leader" was done by Todd McFarlane Entertainment, with McFarlane and fellow Image Comics artists Greg Capullo (penciller) and Brian Haberlin (colorist) doing the album cover, and designer Brent Ashe handling the graphics work. According to drummer David Silveria, the band got interested in McFarlane after hearing that "Todd had actually referred to us as 'the Doors of the 90's, leading to them recording a song for "Spawn", a film based on a comic book by McFarlane, and eventually approaching the artist to make an album cover for them. The cover art depicts a child hopscotching toward the edge of a cliff and a gathering of kids waiting to follow, a concept that began with bassist Reginald "Fieldy" Arvizu and sketched by a friend of Davis before being submitted to McFarlane. It marked the third straight Korn cover featuring children in a disturbing context, which Davis explained by saying that "Children are always scared when they're all happy and stuff. They're the most beautiful thing in the world, but when you see it in our artwork, the way we've placed it, it's just kinda fuckin' weird." The "Freak on a Leash" music video features animated segments by McFarlane featuring this cover art.


title: Follow the Leader (Korn album)

text: Korn embarked on a promotional tour for the upcoming album across North America, which began on August 17, 1998, at Tower Records in Los Angeles and ended in early September. Named Korn Kampaign, it was inspired by the styles of political campaigns and press conferences, but instead, these were aimed at fans.


title: Follow the Leader (Korn album)

text: "Follow the Leader" was released on August 18, 1998, through Immortal/Epic. "Follow the Leader" is recognized as Korn's mainstream breakthrough, and the album that launched nu metal into the mainstream.


title: Follow the Leader (Korn album)

text: In the fall of 1998, Korn started the Family Values Tour. According to Arvizu, the tour name was due to "so many of their friends who were like family to us played in bands". The Family Values Tour featured the unveiling of a steel cage to the rear of the stage called the Korn Kage, holding radio contest winners. The idea of the Korn Kage came originally from Arvizu. The tour started on September 22, 1998, ending on October 31, 1998. The tour grossed $6.5 million (6,500,000 in 1999), with an average gross of $240,000 per show and an average attendance per show at 9,000. Korn maintained a generally low ticket price, usually no more than thirty dollars. Korn toured with the band Limp Bizkit, as well as Ice Cube, Orgy, Incubus, and Rammstein. The tour was considered to be a major success, and promoted "Follow the Leader" to sales that were considered to have "skyrocketed". However, unlike all their other tours, they opted not to play in Europe for this cycle.


title: Follow the Leader (Korn album)

text: The album was also promoted through Concrete Marketing's Concrete Corner program with Jim Rose of Jim Rose Circus as the pitchman. The promotion saw 100,000 copies of a compilation CD featuring tracks of breakthrough artists approved by Korn, as well as a previously unreleased Korn track, being shrink-wrapped to the album at participating stores and given away for free with each purchase of the album. Band artists (at the time) featured on this CD included Kid Rock, Orgy, Powerman 5000 and Limp Bizkit. The album had five singles issued: "All in the Family", "Got the Life", "Freak on a Leash", "Children of the Korn", and "B.B.K."


title: Follow the Leader (Korn album)

text: In January 1999, Korn participated in the Australian tour of the Big Day Out festival. To continue promoting "Follow the Leader", Korn launched a co-headlining US tour with Rob Zombie and Videodrone as the opening act that began on February 26, 1999, through mid-April. The tour was decided between Korn and Zombie as a reconciliation after a dispute due to the latter's non-participation in the Family Values Tour 1998. The tour was named Rock Is Dead and converged with the dates of Marilyn Manson's tour of the same name. In addition, a larger Korn Kage was included onstage, and the tour featured Davis beginning to wear a kilt in live performances. During this tour, Korn's members switched places to perform "Earache My Eye"; guitarists James "Munky" Shaffer and Brian "Head" Welch swapped sides while Davis played the drums and Silveria the bass, and Arvizu took the microphone to sing. Korn and Zombie's Rock Is Dead Tour was a commercial and critical success.


title: Follow the Leader (Korn album)

text: "Follow the Leader" is seventy minutes and eight seconds long. "AllMusic" said, "They write songs, but those wind up not being nearly as memorable as their lurching metallic hip-hop grind." "Entertainment Weekly" commented that "Follow the Leader" was Korn's "gimmick", while saying the album had "steely riffs" and "stomping beats". Tower Records said the album "combines streamlined metal with ominous industrial touches and an undercurrent of hip-hop rhythm," and also said it was an "urban nightmare". The album is considered to be nu metal, but also spans other genres such as alternative metal and rap rock.