title: Social norm

text: Finnemore, Sikkink, Jeffrey W. Legro and others have argued that the robustness (or effectiveness) of norms can be measured by factors such as:


title: Social norm

text: Christina Horne argues that the robustness of a norm is shaped by the degree of support for the actors who sanction deviant behaviors; she refers to norms regulating how to enforce norms as "metanorms." According to Beth G. Simmons and Hyeran Jo, diversity of support for a norm can be a strong indicator of robustness. They add that institutionalization of a norm raises its robustness. It has also been posited that norms that exist within broader clusters of distinct but mutually reinforcing norms may be more robust.


title: Social norm

text: Descriptive norms depict what happens, while injunctive norms describe what "should" happen. Cialdini, Reno, and Kallgren (1990) define a descriptive norm as people's perceptions of what is commonly done in specific situations; it signifies what most people do, without assigning judgment. The absence of trash on the ground in a parking lot, for example, transmits the descriptive norm that most people there do not litter. An Injunctive norm, on the other hand, transmits group approval about a particular behavior; it dictates how an individual "should" behave. Watching another person pick up trash off the ground and throw it out, a group member may pick up on the injunctive norm that he ought to not litter.


title: Social norm

text: Prescriptive norms are unwritten rules that are understood and followed by society and indicate what we should do. Expressing gratitude or writing a Thank You card when someone gives you a gift represents a prescriptive norm in American culture. Proscriptive norms, in contrast, comprise the other end of the same spectrum; they are similarly society's unwritten rules about what one should not do. These norms can vary between cultures; while kissing someone you just met on the cheek is an acceptable greeting in some European countries, this is not acceptable, and thus represents a proscriptive norm in the United States.


title: Social norm

text: Subjective norms are determined by beliefs about the extent to which important others want a person to perform a behavior.When combined with attitude toward behavior, subjective norms shape an individuals intentions.Social influences are conceptualized in terms of the pressure that people perceive from important others to perform, or not to perform, a behavior.Social Psychologist Icek Azjen theorized that subjective norms are determined by the strength of a given normative belief and further weighted by the significance of a social referent, as represented in the following equation: SN ∝ Σ"nm" where (n) is a normative belief and (m) is the motivation to comply with said belief.


title: Social norm

text: Over the last few decades, several theorists have attempted to explain social norms from a more theoretical point of view. By quantifying behavioral expectations graphically or attempting to plot the logic behind adherence, theorists hoped to be able to predict whether or not individuals would conform. The return potential model and game theory provide a slightly more economic conceptualization of norms, suggesting individuals can calculate the cost or benefit behind possible behavioral outcomes. Under these theoretical frameworks, choosing to obey or violate norms becomes a more deliberate, quantifiable decision.


title: Social norm

text: Developed in the 1960s, the return potential model provides a method for plotting and visualizing group norms. In the regular coordinate plane, the amount of behavior exhibited is plotted on the X-axis (label "a" in Figure 1) while the amount of group acceptance or approval gets plotted on the Y-axis ("b" in Figure 1). The graph represents the potential return or positive outcome to an individual for a given behavioral norm. Theoretically, one could plot a point for each increment of behavior how much the group likes or dislikes that action. For example, it may be the case that among first-year graduate students, strong social norms exist around how many daily cups of coffee a student drinks. If the return curve in Figure 1 correctly displays the example social norm, we can see that if someone drinks 0 cups of coffee a day, the group strongly disapproves. The group disapproves of the behavior of any member who drinks fewer than four cups of coffee a day; the group disapproves of drinking more than seven cups, shown by the approval curve dipping back below zero. As seen in this example, the return potential model displays how much group approval one can expect for each increment of behavior.


title: Social norm

text: Another general formal framework that can be used to represent the essential elements of the social situation surrounding a norm is the repeated game of game theory. Rational choice, a branch of game theory, deals with the relations and actions socially committed among rational agents. A norm gives a person a rule of thumb for how they should behave. However, a rational person acts according to the rule only if it is beneficial for them. The situation can be described as follows. A norm gives an expectation of how other people act in a given situation (macro). A person acts optimally given the expectation (micro). For a norm to be stable, people's actions must reconstitute the expectation without change (micro-macro feedback loop). A set of such correct stable expectations is known as a Nash equilibrium. Thus, a stable norm must constitute a Nash equilibrium. In the Nash equilibrium, no one actor has any positive incentive in individually deviating from a certain action. Social norms will be implemented if the actions of that specific norm come into agreement by the support of the Nash equilibrium in the majority of the game theoretical approaches.


title: Social norm

text: From a game-theoretical point of view, there are two explanations for the vast variety of norms that exist throughout the world. One is the difference in games. Different parts of the world may give different environmental contexts and different people may have different values, which may result in a difference in games. The other is equilibrium selection not explicable by the game itself. Equilibrium selection is closely related to coordination. For a simple example, driving is common throughout the world, but in some countries people drive on the right and in other countries people drive on the left (see coordination game). A framework called comparative institutional analysis is proposed to deal with the game theoretical structural understanding of the variety of social norms.


title: Therianthropy

text: Therianthropy is the mythological ability of human beings to metamorphose into animals or hybrids by means of shapeshifting. It is possible that cave drawings found at Les Trois Frères, in France, depict ancient beliefs in the concept.


title: Therianthropy

text: The term "therianthropy" comes from the Greek "theríon" [θηρίον], meaning "wild animal" or "beast" (implicitly mammalian), and "anthrōpos" [ἄνθρωπος], meaning "human being". It was used to refer to animal transformation folklore of Europe as early as 1901. Sometimes the term "zoanthropy" is used instead.


title: Therianthropy

text: Therianthropy was used to describe spiritual beliefs in animal transformation in a 1915 Japanese publication, "A History of the Japanese People from the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era". One source, "The Human Predator", raises the possibility the term may have been used as early as the 16th century in criminal trials of suspected werewolves.


title: Therianthropy

text: Therianthropy refers to the fantastical, or mythological, ability of some humans to change into animals. Therianthropes are said to change forms via shapeshifting. Therianthropy has long existed in mythology, and seems to be depicted in ancient cave drawings such as "The Sorcerer", a pictograph executed at the Palaeolithic cave drawings found in the Pyrénées at the Les Trois Frères, France, archeological site.


title: Therianthropy

text: 'Theriocephaly' (Gr. "animal headedness") refers to beings which have an animal head attached to an anthropomorphic, or human, body; for example, the animal-headed forms of gods depicted in ancient Egyptian religion (such as Ra, Sobek, Anubis).


title: Therianthropy

text: "Shapeshifting" in folklore, mythology and anthropology generally refers to the alteration of physical appearance from that of a human to that of another species. Lycanthropy, the transformation of a human into a wolf (or werewolf), is probably the best known form of therianthropy, followed by cynanthropy (transformation into a dog) and "ailuranthropy" (transformation into a cat). Werehyenas are present in the stories of several African and Eurasian cultures. Ancient Turkic legends from Asia talk of form-changing shamans known as "kurtadams", which translates to "wolfman". Ancient Greeks wrote of "kynanthropy", from κύων "kyōn" (or "dog"), which applied to mythological beings able to alternate between dog form and human form, or who possessed combined dog and human anatomical features.


title: Therianthropy

text: The term existed by at least 1901, when it was applied to stories from China about humans turning into dogs, dogs becoming people, and sexual relations between humans and canines. Anthropologist David Gordon White called Central Asia the "vortex of cynanthropy" because races of dog-men were habitually placed there by ancient writers. The weredog or cynanthrope is also known in Timor. It is described as a human-canine shapeshifter who is capable of transforming other people into animals, even against their will.


title: Therianthropy

text: European folklore features werecats, who can transform into panthers or domestic cats of an enlarged size. African legends describe people who turn into lions or leopards, while Asian werecats are typically depicted as becoming tigers.


title: Therianthropy

text: Some Native American and First Nation legends talk about skin-walkers—people with the supernatural ability to turn into any animal they desire. To do so, however, they first must be wearing a pelt of the specific animal. In the folk religion of Mesoamerica, a "nagual" (or "nahual") is a human being who has the power to magically turn themselves into animal forms—most commonly donkeys, turkeys, and dogs—but can also transform into more powerful jaguars and pumas.


title: Therianthropy

text: Stories of humans descending from animals are found in the oral traditions for many tribal and clan origins. Sometimes the original animals had assumed human form in order to ensure their descendants retained their human shapes; other times the origin story is of a human marrying a normal animal.


title: Therianthropy

text: North American indigenous traditions mingle the ideas of bear ancestors and ursine shapeshifters, with bears often being able to shed their skins to assume human form, marrying human women in this guise. The offspring may be creatures with combined anatomy, they may be very beautiful children with uncanny strength, or they may be shapeshifters themselves.


title: Therianthropy

text: P'an Hu is represented in various Chinese legends as a supernatural dog, a dog-headed man, or a canine shapeshifter that married an emperor's daughter and founded at least one race. When he is depicted as a shapeshifter, all of him can become human except for his head. The race(s) descended from P'an Hu were often characterized by Chinese writers as monsters who combined human and dog anatomy.


title: Therianthropy

text: In Turkic mythology, the wolf is a revered animal. The Turkic legends say the people were descendants of wolves. The legend of Asena is an old Turkic myth that tells of how the Turkic people were created. In the legend, a small Turkic village in northern China is raided by Chinese soldiers, with one baby left behind. An old she-wolf with a sky-blue mane named Asena finds the baby and nurses him. She later gives birth to half-wolf, half-human cubs who are the ancestors of the Turkic people.


title: Therianthropy

text: Ethnologist Ivar Lissner theorised that cave paintings of beings with human and non-human animal features were not physical representations of mythical shapeshifters, but were instead attempts to depict shamans in the process of acquiring the mental and spiritual attributes of various beasts. Religious historian Mircea Eliade has observed that beliefs regarding animal identity and transformation into animals are widespread.


title: Therianthropy

text: In Melanesian cultures there exists the belief in the "tamaniu" or "atai", which describes the animal counterpart to a person. Specifically among the Solomon Islands in Melanesia, the term "atai" means "soul" in the Mota language and is closely related to the term "ata," meaning a "reflected image" in Maori and "shadow" in Samoan. Terms relating to the "spirit" in these islands such as "figona and vigona" convey a being that has not been in human form The animal counterpart depicted may take the form of an eel, shark, lizard, or some other creature. This creature is considered to be corporeal, and can understand human speech. It shares the same soul as its master. This concept is found in similar legends which have many characteristics typical of shapeshifter tales. Among these characteristics is the theory that death or injury would affect both the human and animal form at once.


title: Therianthropy

text: Among a sampled set of psychiatric patients, the belief of being part animal, or "clinical lycanthropy", is generally associated with severe psychosis, but not always with any specific psychiatric diagnosis or neurological findings. Others regard clinical lycanthropy as a delusion in the sense of the self-disorder found in affective and schizophrenic disorders, or as a symptom of other psychiatric disorders.


title: Therianthropy

text: Therians are individuals who believe or feel that they are non-human animals in a non-biological sense. While therians mainly attribute their experiences of therianthropy to either spirituality or psychology, the way in which they consider their therian identity is not a defining characteristic of therianthropy; as long as a person identifies their sense of self as being that of a non-human animal, they can be considered a therian. The animal which a therian identifies as is known by the community as a "theriotype", and this can refer to either the animal they identify as or, more specifically, their own non-human animal identity. For example, a therian who believes in reincarnation may use the word "theriotype" to refer specifically to their past life or, more generally, to indicate that they are speaking about the animal species they identify as. Therians often use the term "species dysphoria" to describe their feelings of disconnect from their human bodies and their underlying desire to live as their theriotype. The concept of species dysphoria has often been compared to gender dysphoria, in that there is a similar sense of incongruence between the person's physical body and their internal sense of self. Some non-human identifying people oppose this comparison, stating that "they are separate ... identities". Others intentionally parallel the two, highlighting the similarities. Species dysphoria, or species identity disorder, has been proposed as a mental disorder. A now-defunct therian website suggested a criterion for a diagnosis, based on the diagnosis of gender dysphoria. Gerbasi et al. noted the "striking" similarities between species and gender dysphoria, leading them to tentatively suggest a medical diagnosis of species identity disorder. Others have compared species dysphoria with body dysmorphic disorder, terming it "species dysmorphia" instead. A participant in Proctor's paper stated that they would consider it a form of neurodiversity, rather than a medical diagnosis, "unless it had major and negative impact on someone's life". The identity "transspecies" is used by some, furthering the similarities between identifying as a different species and a different gender.


title: Therianthropy

text: In an online community survey of 523 non-human identifying people, 75.1% said they experienced species dysphoria, and 8.2% were unsure. In four surveys of furries (n = 4338/1761/951/1065), depending on the sample between 25% and 44% responded that they consider themselves to be "less than 100% human", compared to 7% of a sample (n = 802) of the general American population.


title: Therianthropy

text: Many therians describe experiences of temporarily feeling more in touch with their theriotype than they do at other times, and this phenomenon is known by the community as "shifting", with the experiences being known as "shifts". Shifts can vary indefinitely in the length of time for which they are experienced, and the intensity with which they are felt. They can also be triggered intentionally, or unintentionally, usually by stimuli relating to a person's theriotype. While shifting is often regarded as a positive experience, the disruption caused by unintentional triggers, and heightened feelings of species-dysphoria, can also lead to therians experiencing shifts as negative experiences too. Shifts are normally experienced in a state of consciousness, although dream shifts (in which a therian might actually believe they have the body of their theriotype) are an exception to this. Some therians attribute their knowledge of their own therianthropic identities to their experiences of shifting. For example, a wolf therian might begin to identify as a wolf after experiencing dreams in which their body takes the form of a wolf.


title: Therianthropy

text: The therian community is generally considered to be a subculture of the otherkin community, which consists of individuals who identify as or connect with any fictional or non-fictional being. However, unlike otherkin, therians do not identify as fictional beings, and the two movements are culturally and historically distinct.


title: Giant huntsman spider

text: The giant huntsman spider (Heteropoda maxima) is a species of the huntsman spider family "Sparassidae" found in Laos. It is considered the world's largest spider by leg span, which can reach up to .


title: Giant huntsman spider

text: The colouration is yellowish-brown with several irregularly distributed dark spots on the rear half. The legs have wide dark bands before the first bend. Like all huntsman spiders, the legs of the giant huntsman spider are long compared to the body, and twist forward in a crab-like fashion.


title: Giant huntsman spider

text: Apart from its size, the "H. maxima" can be distinguished from other species of "Heteropoda" by genital characteristics. On males, the cymbium is at least three times longer than the tegulum. The female is distinguished by a characteristically shaped epigyneal field with two anterior directed bands, and the course of their internal ducts.


title: Giant huntsman spider

text: The giant huntsman spider is the largest member of the family Sparassidae, boasting a leg-span, and body-length. The largest known member of the Sparassidae known prior to the discovery of "H. maxima" was the Australian "Beregama aurea" (L. Koch, 1875) with a body length of about . (Other relatively large members of Sparassidae have been discovered in recent years, including "Cerbalus aravaensis", the largest in the Middle East).


title: Giant huntsman spider

text: "Heteropoda maxima" was first described in 2001 by Peter Jäger, after being discovered in a cave in Laos. Over a thousand new species of plant and animal were found between 1997 and 2007 in the Greater Mekong Subregion.


title: Giant huntsman spider

text: A representative of the World Wide Fund for Nature stated that "some of these species really have no business being recently discovered", suggesting that it is surprising for such a large species to go undiscovered for so long.


title: Giant huntsman spider

text: The giant huntsman spider is found in Laos, and is believed to be a cave dweller because of its pale colour, long legs and special hairs on the second foot of the male. There is no apparent reduction of the eyes, possibly because the species lives near cave entrances.


title: Giant huntsman spider

text: Florian and Diana Schnös discovered cannibalism within the species of giant huntsman spiders in a cave near Vang Vieng in Laos. Female individuals may eat male individuals after mating, a characteristic more commonly associated with the genus "Latrodectus", the "true widows," although it is considered normal spider behavior.


title: Robert Graysmith

text: Robert Graysmith (born Robert Gray Smith; September 17, 1942) is an American true crime author and former cartoonist. He is known for his work on the Zodiac killer case.


title: Robert Graysmith

text: Graysmith worked as a political cartoonist for the "San Francisco Chronicle" in 1969, when the Zodiac killer case came to prominence. He attempted to decode letters written by the killer and became obsessed with the case over the next 13 years. Graysmith wrote two books about the case; his 1986 book "Zodiac" was the basis for the 2007 film by the same name. He eventually gave up his career as a cartoonist to write five more books on high-profile crimes, one of which became the basis for the film "Auto Focus" (2002).


title: Robert Graysmith

text: Graysmith was married to Margaret Ann Womack, a nurse, from 1963 to 1973. He then married Melanie Krakower in 1975, but they divorced in 1980. He directly attributes his failed marriage to his intense interest in the Zodiac case.


title: Robert Graysmith

text: The film "Zodiac" (2007), directed by David Fincher, was based on his books and featured Jake Gyllenhaal as Graysmith.


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: The Spring and Autumn period was a period in Chinese history from approximately 770 to 476 BC (or according to some authorities until 403 BC) which corresponds roughly to the first half of the Eastern Zhou period. The period's name derives from the "Spring and Autumn Annals", a chronicle of the state of Lu between 722 and 479 BCE, which tradition associates with Confucius (551–479 BCE).


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: During this period, the Zhou royal authority over the various feudal states eroded as more and more dukes and marquesses obtained "de facto" regional autonomy, defying the king's court in Luoyi and waging wars amongst themselves. The gradual Partition of Jin, one of the most powerful states, marked the end of the Spring and Autumn period and the beginning of the Warring States period.


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: In 771 BCE, a Quanrong invasion in coalition with the states of Zeng and Shen — the latter polity being the fief of the grandfather of the disinherited crown prince Yijiu — destroyed the Western Zhou capital Haojing, killing King You and establishing Yijiu as king at the eastern capital Luoyi (). The event ushered in the Eastern Zhou dynasty, which is divided into the Spring and Autumn and the Warring States periods. During the Spring and Autumn period, China's feudal system of "fengjian" (封建) became largely irrelevant. The Zhou court, having lost its homeland in the Guanzhong region, held nominal power, but had real control over only a small royal demesne centered on Luoyi. During the early part of the Zhou dynasty period, royal relatives and generals had been given control over fiefdoms in an effort to maintain Zhou authority over vast territory. As the power of the Zhou kings waned, these fiefdoms became increasingly independent states.


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: The most important states (known later as the twelve vassals) came together in regular conferences where they decided important matters, such as military expeditions against foreign groups or against offending nobles. During these conferences one vassal ruler was sometimes declared hegemon (; later, ).


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: As the era continued, larger and more powerful states annexed or claimed suzerainty over smaller ones. By the 6th century BCE most small states had disappeared and just a few large and powerful principalities dominated China. Some southern states, such as Chu and Wu, claimed independence from the Zhou, who undertook wars against some of them (Wu and Yue).


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: Amid the interstate power struggles, internal conflict was also rife: six élite landholding families waged war on each other inside Jin, political enemies set about eliminating the Chen family in Qi, and the legitimacy of the rulers was often challenged in civil wars by various royal family members in Qin and Chu. Once all these powerful rulers had firmly established themselves within their respective dominions, the bloodshed focused more fully on interstate conflict in the Warring States period, which began in 403 BCE when the three remaining élite families in Jin—Zhao, Wei, and Han—partitioned the state.


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: After the Zhou capital was sacked by the Marquess of Shen and the Quanrong barbarians, the Zhou moved the capital east from the now desolated Zongzhou in Haojing near modern Xi'an to Wangcheng in the Yellow River Valley. The Zhou royalty was then closer to its main supporters, particularly Jin, and Zheng; the Zhou royal family had much weaker authority and relied on lords from these vassal states for protection, especially during their flight to the eastern capital. In Chengzhou, Prince Yijiu was crowned by his supporters as King Ping. However, with the Zhou domain greatly reduced to Chengzhou and nearby areas, the court could no longer support the six army groups it had in the past; Zhou kings had to request help from powerful vassal states for protection from raids and for resolution of internal power struggles. The Zhou court would never regain its original authority; instead, it was relegated to being merely a figurehead of the feudal states. Though the king "de jure" retained the Mandate of Heaven, the title held little actual power.


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: With the decline of Zhou power, the Yellow River drainage basin was divided into hundreds of small, autonomous states, most of them consisting of a single city, though a handful of multi-city states, particularly those on the periphery, had power and opportunity to expand outward. A total of 148 states are mentioned in the chronicles for this period, 128 of which were absorbed by the four largest states by the end of the period.


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: Shortly after the royal family's move to Chengzhou, a hierarchical alliance system arose where the Zhou king would give the title of hegemon to the leader of the state with the most powerful military; the hegemon was obligated to protect both the weaker Zhou states and the Zhou royalty from the intruding non-Zhou peoples: the Northern Di, the Southern Man, the Eastern Yi, and the Western Rong. This political framework retained the "fēngjiàn" power structure, though interstate and intrastate conflict often led to disregard for feudal customs, respect for the Ji family, and solidarity with other Zhou peoples. The king's prestige legitimized the military leaders of the states, and helped mobilize collective defense of Zhou territory against "barbarians".


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: Over the next two centuries, the four most powerful states—Qin, Jin, Qi and Chu—struggled for power. These multi-city states often used the pretext of aid and protection to intervene and gain suzerainty over the smaller states. During this rapid expansion, interstate relations alternated between low-level warfare and complex diplomacy.


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: Duke Yin of Lu ascended the throne in 722 BCE. From this year on the state of Lu kept an official chronicle, the Spring and Autumn Annals, which along with its commentaries is the standard source for the Spring and Autumn period. Corresponding chronicles are known to have existed in other states as well, but all but the Lu chronicle have been lost.


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: In 717 BCE, Duke Zhuang of Zheng went to the capital for an audience with King Huan. During the encounter the duke felt he was not treated with the respect and etiquette which would have been appropriate, given that Zheng was now the chief protector of the capital. In 715 BCE Zheng also became involved in a border dispute with Lu regarding the Fields of Xu. The fields had been put in the care of Lu by the king for the exclusive purpose of producing royal sacrifices for the sacred Mount Tai. For Zheng to regard the fields as just any other piece of land was an insult to the court.


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: By 707 BCE, relations had soured enough that the king launched a punitive expedition against Zheng. The duke counterattacked and raided Zhou territory, defeating the royal forces in the Battle of Xuge and injuring the king himself. Zheng was the first vassal to openly defy the king, kicking off the centuries of warfare without respect for titles which would characterize the period.


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: The display of Zheng's martial strength was effective until succession problems after Zhuang's death in 701 weakened the state.


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: In 692 BCE, there was a failed assassination attempt against King Zhuang, orchestrated by elements at court.


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: The first hegemon was Duke Huan of Qi (r. 685–643 BCE). With the help of his prime minister, Guan Zhong, Duke Huan reformed Qi to centralize its power structure. The state consisted of 15 "townships" with the duke and two senior ministers each in charge of five; military functions were also united with civil ones. These and related reforms provided the state, already powerful from control of trade crossroads, with a greater ability to mobilize resources than the more loosely organized states.


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: By 667 BCE, Qi had clearly shown its economic and military predominance, and Duke Huan assembled the leaders of Lu, Song, Chen, and Zheng, who elected him as their leader. Soon after, King Hui of Zhou conferred the title of "bà" (hegemon), giving Duke Huan royal authority in military ventures. An important basis for justifying Qi's dominance over the other states was presented in the slogan 'Revere the King, Expel the Barbarians' (尊王攘夷" zun wang rang yi"); the role of subsequent hegemons would also be framed in this way, as the primary defender and supporter of nominal Zhou authority and the existing order. Using this authority, Duke Huan intervened in a power struggle in Lu; protected Yan from encroaching Western Rong nomads (664 BCE); drove off Northern Di nomads after they'd invaded Wey (660 BCE) and Xing (659 BCE), providing the people with provisions and protective garrison units; and led an alliance of eight states to conquer Cai and thereby block the northward expansion of Chu (656 BCE).


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: At his death in 643 BCE, five of Duke Huan's sons contended for the throne, badly weakening the state so that it was no longer regarded as the hegemon. For nearly ten years, no ruler held the title.


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: Duke Xiang of Song attempted to claim the hegemony in the wake of Qi's decline, perhaps driven by a desire to restore the Shang dynasty from which Song had descended. He hosted peace conferences in the same style as Qi had done, and conducted aggressive military campaigns against his rivals. Duke Xiang however met his end when, against the advice of his staff, he attacked the much larger state of Chu. The Song forces were defeated at the battle of Hong in 638 BCE, and the duke himself died in the following year from an injury sustained in the battle. After Xiang's death his successors adopted a more modest foreign policy, better suited to the country's small size.


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: As Duke Xiang was never officially recognized as hegemon by the King of Zhou, not all sources list him as one of the Five Hegemons.


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: When Duke Wen of Jin came to power in 636 BCE, he capitalized on the reforms of his father, Duke Xian (r. 676–651 BCE), who had centralized the state, killed off relatives who might threaten his authority, conquered sixteen smaller states, and even absorbed some Rong and Di peoples to make Jin much more powerful than it had been previously. When he assisted King Xiang in a succession struggle in 635 BCE, Xiang awarded Jin with strategically valuable territory near Chengzhou.


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: Duke Wen of Jin then used his growing power to coordinate a military response with Qi, Qin, and Song against Chu, which had begun encroaching northward after the death of Duke Huán of Qi. With a decisive Chu loss at the Battle of Chengpu (632 BCE), Duke Wen's loyalty to the Zhou king was rewarded at an interstate conference when King Xīang awarded him the title of "bà".


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: After the death of Duke Wen in 628 BCE, a growing tension manifested in interstate violence that turned smaller states, particularly those at the border between Jin and Chu, into sites of constant warfare; Qi and Qin also engaged in numerous interstate skirmishes with Jin or its allies to boost their own power.


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: Duke Mu of Qin had ascended the throne in 659 BCE and forged an alliance with Jin by marrying his daughter to Duke Wen. In 624 BCE, he established hegemony over the western Rong barbarians and became the most powerful lord of the time. However he did not chair any alliance with other states nor was he officially recognized as hegemon by the king. Therefore, not all sources accept him as one of the Five Hegemons.


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: King Zhuang of Chu expanded the borders of Chu well north of the Yangtze River, threatening the Central States in modern Henan. At one point the Chu forces advanced to just outside the royal capital of Zhou, upon which King Zhuang sent a messenger to ask how heavy and bulky the Nine Cauldrons were; implying he might soon arrange to have them moved to his own capital. In the end the Zhou capital was spared, and Chu shifted focus to harassing the nearby state of Zheng. The once-hegemon state of Jin intervened to rescue Zheng from the Chu invaders but were resolutely defeated, which marks the ascension of Chu as the dominant state of the time.


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: Despite his "de facto" hegemony, King Zhuang's self-proclaimed title of "king" was never recognized by the Zhou states. In the Spring and Autumn Annals he is defiantly referred to by the Chu ruler's original title "viscount" (the second-lowest noble rank), even at a time when he dominated most of south China. Later historians however always include him as one of the Five Hegemons.


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: In addition to interstate conflict, internal conflicts between state leaders and local aristocrats also occurred. Eventually the dukes of Lu, Jin, Zheng, Wey and Qi would all become figureheads to powerful aristocratic families.


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: In the case of Jin, the shift happened in 588 BCE when the army was split into six independent divisions, each dominated by a separate noble family: the Zhao, Wei, Han, Fan, Zhi and Zhonghang. The heads of the six families were conferred the titles of viscounts and made ministers, each heading one of the six departments of Zhou dynasty government. From this point on, historians refer to "The Six Ministers" as the true power brokers of Jin.


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: The same happened to Lu in 562 BCE, when the Three Huan divided the army into three parts and established their own separate spheres of influence. The heads of the three families were always among the department heads of Lu.


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: Wu was a "barbarian" state in modern Jiangsu, where the inhabitants sported short hair and tattoos. Although legend ascribed a Chinese origin to the ruling dynasty, Wu did not participate in the politics and wars of China until the last third of the Spring and Autumn period.


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: Their first documented interaction with the Spring and Autumn states was in 584 BCE, when a Wu force attacked the small border state of Tan, causing some alarm in the various Chinese courts. Jin was quick to dispatch an ambassador to the court of the Wu king, Shoumeng. Jin promised to supply Wu with modern military technology and training in exchange for an alliance against Chu, a neighbour of Wu and Jin's nemesis in the struggle for hegemony. King Shoumeng accepted the offer, and Wu would continue to harass Chu for years to come.


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: After a period of increasingly exhausting warfare, Qi, Qin, Jin and Chu met at a disarmament conference in 579 BCE and agreed to declare a truce to limit their military strength. This peace didn't last very long and it soon became apparent that the "bà" role had become outdated; the four major states had each acquired their own spheres of control and the notion of protecting Zhou territory had become less cogent as the control over (and the resulting cultural assimilation of) non-Zhou peoples, as well as Chu's control of some Zhou areas, further blurred an already vague distinction between Zhou and non-Zhou.


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: In addition, new aristocratic houses were founded with loyalties to powerful states, rather than directly to the Zhou kings, though this process slowed down by the end of the seventh century BCE, possibly because territory available for expansion had been largely exhausted. The Zhou kings had also lost much of their prestige so that, when Duke Dao of Jin (r. 572–558 BCE) was recognized as "bà", it carried much less meaning than it had before.


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: In 506 BCE King Helü ascended the throne of Wu. With the help of Wu Zixu and Sun Zi, the author of The Art of War, he launched major offensives against the state of Chu. They prevailed in five battles, one of which was the Battle of Boju, and conquered the capital Ying. However, Chu managed to ask the state of Qin for help, and after being defeated by Qin, the vanguard general of Wu troops, Fugai, a younger brother of Helü, led a rebellion. After beating Fugai, Helü was forced to leave Chu. Fugai later retired to Chu and settled there. King Helü died during an invasion of Yue in 496 BCE. Some sources list him as one of the Five Hegemons.


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: He was succeeded by his son King Fuchai of Wu, who nearly destroyed the Yue state, imprisoning King Goujian of Yue. Subsequently, Fuchai defeated Qi and extended Wu influence into central China.


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: In 499 BCE, the philosopher Confucius was made acting prime minister of Lu. He is traditionally (if improbably) considered the author or editor of the Spring and Autumn annals, from which much of the information for this period is drawn. After only two years he was forced to resign and spent many years wandering between different states before returning to Lu. After returning to Lu he did not resume a political career, preferring to teach. Tradition holds that it was in this time he edited or wrote the Five Classics, including the Spring and Autumn.


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: In 482 BCE, King Fuchai of Wu held an interstate conference to solidify his power base, but Yue captured the Wu capital. Fuchai rushed back but was besieged and died when the city fell in 473 BCE. Yue then concentrated on weaker neighbouring states, rather than the great powers to the north. With help from Wu's enemy Chu, Yue was able to be victorious after several decades of conflict. King Goujian destroyed and annexed Wu in 473 BCE, after which he was recognized as hegemon.


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: The Zuo Commentary, Guoyu and Shiji provide almost no information about Goujian's subsequent reign or policies. What little is said is told from the perspective of other states, such as Duke Ai of Lu trying to enlist Yue's help in a coup against the Three Huan. Sima Qian notes that Goujian reigned on until his death, and that afterwards his descendants—for whom no biographical information is given—continued to rule for six generations before the state was finally absorbed into Chu during the Warring States period.


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: After the great age of Jin power, the Jin dukes began to lose authority over their nobles. A full-scale civil war between 497 and 453 BCE ended with the elimination of most noble lines; the remaining aristocratic families divided Jin into three successor states: Han, Wei, and Zhao. This is the last event recorded in the Zuo Commentary.


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: With the absorption of most of the smaller states in the era, this partitioning left seven major states in the Zhou world: the three fragments of Jin, the three remaining great powers of Qin, Chu and Qi, and the weaker state of Yan near modern Beijing. The partition of Jin, along with the Usurpation of Qi by Tian, marks the beginning of the Warring States period.


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: Ancient sources such as the "Zuo Zhuan" and the eponymous "Chunqiu" record the various diplomatic activities, such as court visits paid by one ruler to another (), meetings of officials or nobles of different states (), missions of friendly inquiries sent by the ruler of one state to another (), emissaries sent from one state to another (), and hunting parties attended by representatives of different states ().


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: Because of Chu's non-Zhou origin, the state was considered semi-barbarian and its rulers—beginning with King Wu in 704 BCE—proclaimed themselves kings in their own right. Chu intrusion into Zhou territory was checked several times by the other states, particularly in the major battles of Chengpu (632 BCE), Bi (595 BCE) and Yanling (575 BCE), which restored the states of Chen and Cai.


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: King Wu abolished the Shang dynasty title "emperor" (di), making the king the highest office of the Zhou dynasty.


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: The ranks had been assigned by King Wu upon the foundation of the dynasty and were usually not revised to reflect changing levels of military strength. In the Spring and Autumn Period this led to contradictory situations such as the relatively insignificant state of Song being a duchy while a great power like Chu was only a viscounty.


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: Some version of the Five Classics existed in Spring and Autumn period, as characters in the Zuo Commentary and Analects frequently quote the Book of Poetry and Book of Documents. On the other hand, the Zuo Commentary depicts some characters actually "composing" poems that would later be included in the received text of the Book of Poetry. In the Analects there are frequent references to "The Rites", but as Classical Chinese does not distinguish book titles from regular nouns it is not possible to know if what is meant is the Etiquette and Ceremonial (known then as the Book of Rites) or just the concept of ritual in general. The existence of the Book of Changes on the other hand is well-attested in the Zuo Commentary, as multiple characters use it for divination and correctly quote the received text.


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: Sima Qian claims that it was Confucius who, towards the close of the Spring and Autumn period, edited the received versions of the Book of Poetry, Book of Documents and Book of Rites, wrote the "Ten Wings" commentary on the Book of Changes and wrote the entirety of the Spring and Autumn Annals. This was long the predominant opinion in China, but modern scholarship considers it unlikely that all five classics could be the product of one man.


title: Spring and Autumn period

text: While many philosophers such as Lao Zi and Sun Zi were active in the Spring and Autumn period, their ideas were probably not put into writing until the following Warring States period.


title: The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall

text: The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall is an open-world action role-playing video game published by Bethesda Softworks. The second game in the "Elder Scrolls" series was released on September 20, 1996, for MS-DOS, following the success of 1994's "". The story follows the player, sent by the Emperor, to free the ghost of King Lysandus from his earthly shackles and discover what happened to a letter sent from the Emperor to the former queen of Daggerfall.


title: The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall

text: Compared to its predecessor, "Arena", the player can now only travel within two provinces in Tamriel: High Rock and Hammerfell. However, "Daggerfall" consists of 15,000 cities, towns, villages, and dungeons for the character to explore. "Arena"s experience-point based system was replaced with a system that rewards the player for utilizing role-playing elements within the game. "Daggerfall" includes more customization options, featuring an improved character generation engine, as well as a GURPS-influenced class creation system, offering players the chance to create their own classes and assign their own skills.


title: The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall

text: The game was a critical and commercial success upon release, surpassing its predecessor in the Game of the Year Awards and going on to win several awards. The game was followed by "" in 2002. In 2009, to commemorate the fifteenth anniversary of the "Elder Scrolls" franchise, "Daggerfall" was made free to download from the Bethesda website.


title: The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall

text: "Daggerfall", like the other games in "The Elder Scrolls" series, takes place on the fictional continent of Tamriel, in which the player can travel between the provinces of High Rock and Hammerfell. Like all "The Elder Scrolls" games, the player does not have to follow questlines or fill specific character roles, allowing the player to play the game how they see fit.


title: The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall

text: The game features over 15,000 cities, towns, villages, and dungeons for the character to explore, which gives the player many options when buying a house. In addition to exploring the world the player can join a number of guilds, orders, and religions; all with unique quests and tasks for the player to do. Joining and contributing to these organizations will allow the player to gain ranks and gain a reputation in the game world, which affects how non-playable characters (NPCs) and other factions view the player. One special feature in "Daggerfall" is the ability for the player to create their own spells using the game's spell-creation system, which is unlocked by joining the Mages Guild; allowing for the player to create custom spells with varying effects, the game will automatically generate the magicka cost of the spell based on the power of effects chosen. Similar to the spell-creation is the ability to enchant equipment. The player can craft or find a variety of equipment. Players also have the ability to become a vampire, werewolf, or wereboar.


title: The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall

text: The combat system uses mouse movement to determine the direction and effect of the weapon swing in melee combat. "Daggerfall" features a wide range of formidable enemies; the strongest being the demonic Daedra, which can make the journey through these realms difficult. In order to finish the game the player must visit at least 6–8 of the 47 explorable areas present in the game.


title: The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall

text: "Daggerfall" is set in the Iliac Bay, between the provinces of High Rock and Hammerfell. The player is sent here at the personal request of the Emperor. He wants the player to do two things: First, the player must free the ghost of King Lysandus from his earthly shackles; Second, the player must discover what happened to a letter from the Emperor to the former queen of Daggerfall. The letter reveals that Lysandus's mother, Nulfaga, knows the location of the Mantella, the key to resurrecting the first Numidium, a powerful brass golem. The emperor wants his spy to force Nulfaga into revealing the location of the Mantella so that the Blades can finish the reconstruction of the Numidium. Through a series of mishaps and confusions the letter fell into the hands of an orc by the name of Gortworg. Not knowing what the Mantella is, Gortworg consults Mannimarco, the King of Worms (the leader of the Necromancers). During this time the Underking, who originally destroyed the first Numidium because of its misuse by Tiber Septim, is recuperating deep within a tomb of High Rock after expending so much energy destroying it the first time. In order for the player to give the Mantella to anyone, the player must kill King Lysandus's murderer and put his ghost to rest. After accomplishing this, the player must steal the totem of Tiber Septim from King Gothryd of Daggerfall, and free the Mantella from its prison in Aetherius. Following this the player has six choices of how to deal with the Mantella.


title: The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall

text: Work on "The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall" began immediately after "Arena"s release in March 1994. The project saw Ted Peterson assigned the role of lead game designer. Originally titled "Mournhold" and set in , the game was eventually relocated to the provinces of High Rock and Hammerfell, in Tamriel's northwest.


title: The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall

text: By mid-1994 "Daggerfall" was the new name. Developers at first planned to connect it with "Arena" and one or two more games as done with "", but "Arena"s experience-point based system was replaced with one that rewards the player for actually role-playing their character. "Daggerfall" features an improved character generation engine, one that includes not only "Arena"s basic class choices, but also a GURPS-influenced class creation system, offering players the chance to create their own classes and assign their own skills.


title: The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall

text: "Daggerfall" was initially developed with an updated 2.5D raycast engine, like the Doom engine, but it was eventually dropped in favor of XnGine, one of the first truly 3D engines. "Daggerfall" realized a gameworld "the size of Great Britain," or approximately 209,331 square kilometers filled with 15,000 towns and a population of 750,000. According to Julian LeFay, "The whole idea with "Daggerfall" was that, like a pen-and-paper role-playing game, you could play for years. You know, keep the same characters, keep on doing stuff."


title: The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall

text: "Daggerfall", in Peterson's opinion, was little-influenced by contemporary video games, as they simply "weren't very interesting." "I can remember playing the latest "King's Quest," "Doom", and "Sam & Max Hit the Road" while working on it, but I can't say they had any profound impact on the story or design." "Daggerfall"s most profound influences came from whatever analog games and literature Julian LeFay or Ted Peterson happened to be playing or reading at the time, such as Dumas's "The Man in the Iron Mask", which influenced "the quest where the player had to find the missing Prince of Sentinel," and "," which influenced "the idea of vampire tribes throughout the region."


title: The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall

text: "Daggerfall" was completed on August 31, 1996, almost three years after production began. It was released on September 20, within the game's intended release window. Like that of "Arena", "Daggerfall"s release suffered from buggy code. It was patchable code, however, a fact that nonetheless left consumers disgruntled. The yearning to avoid what were, in LeFay's words, "all the stupid patches we had for "Daggerfall"" led to a more cautious release schedule in the future. Ted Peterson left Bethesda following "Daggerfall"s release and went to work for a series of companies in Los Angeles and San Francisco: Film Roman, AnyRiver Entertainment, Activision, and Savage Entertainment.


title: The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall

text: Although "Daggerfall" did not come with official modding tools like later "The Elder Scrolls" releases, enthusiasts for the game developed tools on their own to access the game's content soon after its release; as a result, a number of additional quests, graphical enhancements, and gameplay features were developed by third parties. Notable works include "AndyFall" and "DaedraFall".


title: The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall

text: After the end of official support by Bethesda, some mod makers have repaired bugs in the latest official release of "Daggerfall" with community patches or engine remakes. The "DFQFIX" quest-fix pack and "HackFall" were the most recent attempts at this. "DaggerfallSetup" is a community-made "Daggerfall" installer for modern Windows versions. The aim of this project is to install and easily run a fully patched "Daggerfall" on a modern Windows operating system under usage of the DOSBox emulator. This game installer setup contains many official and unofficial patches and also fan translations for several languages, including French, Russian, Spanish, and German.


title: The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall

text: There are also fan-made game engine rewrite projects for "Daggerfall", which aim for native compatibility with modern operating systems and hardware (as opposed to being run in DOS, or through DOSBox).


title: The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall

text: The "XL Engine" was one of the first attempts, and started in June 2009 as "DaggerXL" before being merged in 2011 with another engine rewrite project called DarkXL to become The XL Engine. The eventual goal of the project was to create an updated playing environment for Daggerfall, Dark Forces, Outlaws, Blood and other classic games. As a result of the merger, a significant amount of the project's development focused on the refactoring of the XL Engine itself. Additional goals – for "Daggerfall" specifically – included the implementation of features that were initially promised for the game, but were not included (or only partially coded in) at the time of its release in 1996. By August 2012, DaggerXL supported character creation, the rendering of all provinces and dungeons, user-definable display resolution (including smoothed terrain and Bloom), and basic gameplay. In April 2018 the XL Engine's source code was released under MIT license on GitHub. On April 23, 2020, the author – luciusDXL – took down the XL Engine website and announced via a post on the project's GitHub that the project was officially dead, and would not resume development in the future, with their involvement ceasing back in 2016. They cited "other 'real life' commitments and a lack of time (and sometimes ability) to continue" as the motivating factors. They also commented that, in the years since, there had been other projects that had achieved everything they wanted to do with XL Engine, and that people should look to those projects instead.


title: The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall

text: "Daggerfall Unity" is another open-source recreation of "Daggerfall". Beginning development in August 2014, it is the most mature Daggerfall project released, and uses the Unity game engine to rewrite the game with updated graphics and mechanics, as well as full mod support through Nexus Mods. It is in active development as of May 2020, with Alpha 0.10.23 being released on May 8, 2020. With the release of the first Alpha in July 2019, it was made available for download on the project's official website. Unlike "DaggerXL", "Daggerfall Unity" is playable from start to finish with all the core features of the original Daggerfall. "Daggerfall Unity" was published to GOG.com with a selection of mods pre-installed on June 15, 2022.


title: The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall

text: For "Daggerfall"s launch on September 20, shipments of around 120,000 copies were delivered to stores. The game surpassed Bethesda's internal estimates and became an immediate hit: more than 100,000 copies were sold within two days of release. As a result, supplies were depleted at many retailers. While a second printing of "Daggerfall" was shipped on September 24, "Next Generation" reported at the time that "this shipment is expected to be considerably smaller than the first due to production limitations." In the United States, the game debuted in fourth place on PC Data's monthly computer game sales chart for September 1996. It secured sixth place the following month, before dropping to position 16 in November. In retrospect, Todd Howard said that "Daggerfall" "did fine" commercially.


title: The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall

text: "Daggerfall" was met with critical acclaim, surpassing its predecessor in Game of the Year Awards. It was named the best computer role-playing game (CRPG) of 1996 by "Computer Gaming World" and "PC Gamer US", and won the Spotlight Award for "Adventure/RPG Game of the Year" from the Game Developers Conference. It was also nominated as the year's best CRPG by GameSpot and "Computer Games Strategy Plus", but lost both awards to "Diablo". The editors of "Computer Gaming World" summarized that the game "is not perfect, but it "is" revolutionary."


title: The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall

text: Reviewing the game in "PC Gamer US", Michael Wolf hailed it as "about as close to reality (or is that fantasy?) as you can get in a computer game". Although he criticized its bugs and writing mistakes, he summarized "Daggerfall" as "one of the most realistic, involved, and impressive RPGs on the market". Prior to the game's release, "Computer Gaming World" ranked it as the eighth top vaporware title in computer game history. The editors wrote, "Featuritis and creeping technology held up this potential jewel for far too long." Despite their frustration with the delay, the publication later awarded the game 4.5/5.


title: The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall

text: In "PC Magazine", Michael E. Ryan called it "revolutionary" and wrote that it "may be the best RPG since Origin's "Ultima IV"". Like Wolf, he found fault with the game's bugs, the number of which he said "shocked" the magazine's staff. Despite these issues, Ryan remarked that the staff became "hopelessly addicted to "Daggerfall"s endless possibilities and game play." A reviewer for "Next Generation" wrote that "Daggerfall" "comes as close as anything ever has" to simulating real life, and that the long wait for the game was "hands down, worth it." James Flynn of "PC Gamer UK" praised the game's size, depth and role-playing mechanics, but qualified that it is "very, very slow" and "as large and detailed as a game could ever become without collapsing under its own weight." He argued that the game's biggest flaw is its visuals, and wrote, "With all the kit available to programmers and artists today, quite how they've managed to produce such an ugly grey look with Spectrumª fonts is a mystery."


title: The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall

text: Andy Backer of "Computer Games Strategy Plus" called "Daggerfall" "a flawed masterpiece", noting that bugs held it back from perfection. However, he wrote that it "may be the best CRPG of all time", as well as "the best CRPG of the year, period". In "PC Zone", Charlie Brooker called the game's core concept of simulating a virtual world "a sound one", and he suggested that "Daggerfall" could have succeeded as a MUD. However, he believed that the game was a failed experiment, as contemporary technology could not generate a sufficiently interesting single-player world. Brooker argued, "What's the point in being able to go where you like and do what you want if none of it's as interesting as real life?"


title: The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall

text: Game Revolution's review of the game described it as "easily the RPG of the year" and "one of the BEST roleplaying games in history (so far)". Writing for GameSpot in 1996, Trent Ward opined that Bethesda "has finally returned to the RPGs of the old school and created an adventure that will take even the most experienced gamer months to unravel." PC Gamer Magazine ranked Daggerfall among their list of 'The Most Ambitious PC Games'.


title: The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall

text: In 1997, the editors of "PC Gamer US" named "Daggerfall" the 50th best game of all time, while those of "PC Gamer UK" placed it a on their list. The former publication hailed it as "a superlative RPG", but again criticized its numerous bugs; the latter called it "so vastly massive that it threatens to collapse under its own gargantuan weight".


title: The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall

text: Media Technology Limited, Bethesda Softworks' parent company, brought a libel suit against U.S. senators Joe Lieberman and Herb Kohl for comments they made about "Daggerfall"s appropriateness for children. Lieberman and Kohl characterized the suit as a publicity stunt intended to boost holiday sales of "Daggerfall".


title: House of Thani

text: The House of Thani () is the ruling family of Qatar, with origins tracing back to the Banu Tamim tribal confederation.


title: House of Thani

text: The Al Thanis can be traced back to Mudar bin Nizar. The tribe were settled at Gebrin oasis in southern Najd (present-day Saudi Arabia) before they moved to Qatar. Around the 17th century, the tribe lived in Ushayqir, a settlement north-east of Riyadh. They settled in Qatar around the 1720s. Their first settlement in Qatar was in the southern town of Sikak, and from there they moved north-west to Zubarah and Al Ruwais. They settled in Doha in the 19th century under their leader Mohammed bin Thani. The group was named after the father of Mohammad, Thani bin Mohammad.


title: House of Thani

text: The family is made of four main factions: Bani Qassim, Bani Ahmed, Bani Jaber, and Bani Thamer. As of the early 1990s, the number of the family members was estimated to be about 20,000.


title: House of Thani

text: The leadership transitions in 1913, 1949, 1960, and 2013 were aII abdications. These abdications were to a nephew in one incident and sons in the others.


title: House of Thani

text: In 1995, many royal family members staged a successful coup against the then King, King Khalifa Al Thani. His son, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani became the King. A few months later, there was a failed coup.


title: House of Thani

text: Over the years, the Qatar government has revoked the nationality of many Qatari citizens. Criticism of the Royals and other government entities can land people in trouble. Many citizens have protested against the government over discriminatory practices.


title: The Walking Dead (season 2)

text: The second season of "The Walking Dead", an American post-apocalyptic horror television series on AMC, premiered on October 16, 2011, and concluded on March 18, 2012, consisting of 13 episodes. Developed for television by Frank Darabont, the series is based on the eponymous series of comic books by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard. It was executive produced by Darabont, Kirkman, Glen Mazzara, David Alpert, and Gale Anne Hurd, with Mazzara assuming the role of showrunner after Darabont's departure from the series.


title: The Walking Dead (season 2)

text: The season was well received by critics. It won Best Television Presentation at the 38th Saturn Awards and Outstanding Prosthetic Makeup for a Series, Miniseries, Movie, or Special at the 64th Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards. The season finale was viewed by 9 million viewers, making it the highest-rated episode of the series up to that point and the most viewed episode of an original series on AMC in history, up until the premiere of the series' third season, which was watched by 10.9 million viewers.


title: The Walking Dead (season 2)

text: This season adapts material from issues #7–12 of the comic book series and introduces notable comic characters Hershel Greene (Scott Wilson) and his daughter, Maggie (Lauren Cohan). Mainly set at the Greene Family Farm, after the escape and destruction of the CDC, the season continues the story of Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and his group of survivors as they continue to survive in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by flesh-eating zombies, dubbed "walkers". After leaving Atlanta, Rick and the group are stopped on the highway by a threat unlike anything they have seen before. While searching for someone who has gone missing, the group eventually discovers an isolated farm, where tensions arise among members of the main group, and the mysterious and ignorant inhabitants of the farm, whose secrets and motives are unclear. In the midst of events, Rick and the others try to restore order after a terrible discovery as differences begin to openly erupt between Rick and Shane Walsh (Jon Bernthal).


title: The Walking Dead (season 2)

text: After the first season aired, "Deadline Hollywood" reported that series developer and showrunner Frank Darabont had let go the entire writing staff and planned to use only freelance writers for the second season. This turned out to be not entirely accurate, and Robert Kirkman was quoted as saying the changes to the writing staff would not affect the production of the show. In February 2011, it was announced that Glen Mazzara, who had written the first season episode "Wildfire", had been hired again as a writer/executive producer for the second season and will put together a staff of five more writers.


title: The Walking Dead (season 2)

text: At C2E2 members of the cast confirmed that the second season would begin shooting on June 1, 2011, and that Darabont would write the season premiere episode. At the same event, cast members speculated that acclaimed author and long-time Darabont collaborator Stephen King may write an episode. Kirkman later confirmed that along with himself, Darabont and Mazzara the writing staff will consist of Scott M. Gimple, Evan Reilly, Angela Kang and one freelance writer, David Leslie Johnson. Four actors have joined the cast as new characters for season 2—Scott Wilson as Hershel Greene, Lauren Cohan as his daughter Maggie Greene, Pruitt Taylor Vince as Hershel's ranch hand, Otis, and Michael Zegen as Randall.


title: The Walking Dead (season 2)

text: A preview of season 2 was shown during the fourth season premiere of "Breaking Bad" on July 17, 2011 and a full length trailer was released to promote season 2 at the San Diego Comic-Con on July 22, 2011.


title: The Walking Dead (season 2)

text: In July 2011, "Deadline Hollywood" reported that Darabont stepped down from his position as showrunner for the series, amidst rumors that he was unable to adjust to the schedule of running a television series. Executive producer Glen Mazzara succeeded Darabont as showrunner for the series. Darabont's sudden departure further sparked controversy in August when "The Hollywood Reporter" broke a story revealing that Darabont had in fact been fired due to issues of the show's reduced budget and a strained relationship with AMC executives.


title: The Walking Dead (season 2)

text: The premiere aired in an extended 90-minute time slot, similar to the pilot episode. After the first seven episodes aired, the series went on a hiatus and returned on February 12, 2012, with the final six episodes of the season airing until its conclusion on March 18, 2012.


title: The Walking Dead (season 2)

text: "", a six-part web series, premiered on October 3, 2011 on AMC's official website. The web series is directed by special effects makeup artist and co-executive producer Greg Nicotero and tells the origin story of Hannah, also known as "Bicycle Girl", the walker whom Rick Grimes mercy killed in the pilot episode.


title: The Walking Dead (season 2)

text: Following the encore presentation of the second season premiere on October 16, 2011, a live after-show titled "Talking Dead", hosted by Chris Hardwick, premiered. The series airs after encore presentations of "The Walking Dead" on Sunday nights. It features host Chris Hardwick discussing the latest episode with fans, actors, and producers of the show.


title: The Walking Dead (season 2)

text: The second season features eight actors receiving opening credits billing, all returning from the first season; seven are listed as main cast members in the first season, while Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride were promoted from recurring status. While McBride is credited as "Also starring", she is a series regular.


title: The Walking Dead (season 2)

text: The second season of "The Walking Dead" has received positive reviews from critics. On Metacritic, the season holds a score of 80 out of 100, indicating "generally favorable reviews", based on 22 critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the season holds an 80% with an average rating of 8.05 out of 10, based on 24 reviews. The site's critical consensus reads: "The second season of "The Walking Dead" fleshes out the characters while maintaining the grueling tension and gore that made the show a hit." Linda Stasi of the "New York Post" wrote: "You'll be happy to know that at least as far as the first two episodes go ... the show is better than ever – which would have seemed impossible." Robert Bianco of "USA Today" also praised the direction in which the second season was heading stating that the show delivers "edge-of-your-chair tension" and also noting that "what separates this fine series from similar shows is the honesty of its human interactions".


title: The Walking Dead (season 2)

text: Conversely, some critics were less enthused midway through the second season, including Ken Tucker of "Entertainment Weekly" who described the season as "a nighttime soap with occasional appearances by deceased but moving, flesh-rotting, flesh-eating cameo monsters" adding that it "had not been dramatic enough" or had a "tendency ... to botch truly dramatic situations". Nate Rawlings of "Time" magazine criticized the season's pacing, writing: "The first half of this season has been brutally slow." Following the season's finale, Scott Wampler of "Collider" described the second half of the season as "far more intense, more interesting, better written" despite "a helluva lot of water-treading" in the first half. Kevin Yeoman of "Screen Rant" further emphasized this point, writing: "It was with the last half of season 2 – arguably the last four episodes – where the writers succeeded in unshackling themselves from the intermittent monotony brought about by the serial nature of the show."


title: The Walking Dead (season 2)

text: The second season of "The Walking Dead" received three nominations for the 64th Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards, winning Outstanding Prosthetic Makeup for a Series, Miniseries, Movie, or Special (for the episode "What Lies Ahead"), and received nominations for Outstanding Sound Editing for a Series and Outstanding Special Visual Effects (both for the episode "Beside the Dying Fire").


title: The Walking Dead (season 2)

text: The season also won Best Television Presentation, for the second consecutive year, at the 38th Saturn Awards, while Norman Reedus was nominated for Best Supporting Actor on Television. Additionally, the second half of the season was nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Television Series at the 19th Screen Actors Guild Awards.


title: The Walking Dead (season 2)

text: On October 16, 2011, the season two premiere set a new record of 7.3 million viewers. The episode also set new records for the most viewers in the 18-49 and 25-54 demographics, with 4.8 million and 4.2 million viewers respectively, making it the most watched episode of a drama in the history of basic cable television in these measures. The original broadcast and the two subsequent encore presentations of the episode drew a collective total of 11 million viewers. On February 12, 2012, the show's mid-season premiere beat its previous record by attaining 8.1 million viewers, 5.4 million in the 18-49 key demographic, despite airing at the same time as the second most watched Grammy Awards in history. The series once again beat its own record with the airing of the season two finale on March 18, 2012, which received 9 million viewers.


title: The Walking Dead (season 2)

text: The second season was released on DVD and Blu-ray in region 1 on August 28, 2012, in region 2 on August 27, 2012, and in region 4 on June 20, 2012. Special features include eleven featurettes—"All the Guts Inside", "Live or Let Die", "The Meat of the Music", "Fire on Set", "The Ink is Alive", "The Sound of the Effects", "In the Dead Water", "You Could Make a Killing", "She Will Fight", "The Cast on Season 2", and "Extras Wardrobe". Six audio commentaries are also featured, for episodes "What Lies Ahead", "Pretty Much Dead Already", "Nebraska", "Judge, Jury, Executioner", and "Beside the Dying Fire". Also included is the six-part webisode series "", with optional commentary by Greg Nicotero, and 30 minutes of deleted scenes across eight episodes, with optional commentary by Glen Mazzara.


title: The Walking Dead (season 2)

text: The second season was also released in a limited edition Blu-ray packaging, featuring a zombie head with a screwdriver in the zombie's eye socket, a recreation of a scene from the second season premiere. The limited edition packaging was designed by Greg Nicotero and sculpted by McFarlane Toys.


title: Slate

text: Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. Foliation may not correspond to the original sedimentary layering, but instead is in planes perpendicular to the direction of metamorphic compression.


title: Slate

text: The foliation in slate is called "slaty cleavage". It is caused by strong compression causing fine grained clay flakes to regrow in planes perpendicular to the compression. When expertly "cut" by striking parallel to the foliation, with a specialized tool in the quarry, many slates will display a property called fissility, forming smooth flat sheets of stone which have long been used for roofing, floor tiles, and other purposes. Slate is frequently grey in color, especially when seen, en masse, covering roofs. However, slate occurs in a variety of colors even from a single locality; for example, slate from North Wales can be found in many shades of grey, from pale to dark, and may also be purple, green or cyan. Slate is not to be confused with shale, from which it may be formed, or schist.


title: Slate

text: The word "slate" is also used for certain types of object made from slate rock. It may mean a single roofing tile made of slate, or a writing slate. They were traditionally a small, smooth piece of the rock, often framed in wood, used with chalk as a notepad or notice board, and especially for recording charges in pubs and inns. The phrases "clean slate" and "blank slate" come from this usage.


title: Slate

text: Slate is a fine-grained metamorphic rock that shows no obvious compositional layering, but can easily be split into thin slabs and plates. It is usually formed by low-grade regional metamorphism of mudrock. This mild degree of metamorphism produces a rock in which the individual mineral crystals remain microscopic in size, producing a characteristic slaty cleavage in which fresh cleavage surfaces appear dull. This is in contrast to the silky cleaved surfaces of phyllite, which is the next higher grade of metamorphic rock derived from mudstone. The direction of cleavage is independent of any sedimentary structures in the original mudrock, reflecting instead the direction of regional compression.


title: Slate

text: Slaty cleavage is continuous, meaning that the individual cleavage planes are too closely spaced to be discernible in hand samples. The texture of the slate is totally dominated by these pervasive cleavage planes. Under the microscope, the slate is found to consist of very thin lenses of quartz and feldspar (QF-domains) separated by layers of mica (M-domains). These are typically less than 100 microns thick.


title: Slate

text: The process of conversion of mudrock to slate involves a loss of up to 50% of the volume of the mudrock as it is compacted. Grains of platy minerals, such as clay minerals, are rotated to form parallel layers perpendicular to the direction of compaction, which begins to impart cleavage to the rock. Slaty cleavage is fully developed as the clay minerals begin to be converted to chlorite and mica. Organic carbon in the rock is converted to graphite.


title: Slate

text: Slate is mainly composed of the minerals quartz, illite, and chlorite, which account for up to 95% of the composition of the slate. The most important accessory minerals are iron oxides (such as hematite and magnetite), iron sulfides (such as pyrite), and carbonate minerals. Feldspar may be present as albite or, less commonly, orthoclase. Occasionally, as in the purple slates of North Wales, ferrous (iron(II)) reduction spheres form around iron nuclei, leaving a light green spotted texture. These spheres are sometimes deformed by a subsequent applied stress field to ovoids, which appear as ellipses when viewed on a cleavage plane of the specimen. However, there is evidence that reduced spots may also form after deformation and acquire an elliptical shape from preferential infiltration along the cleavage direction, so caution is required in using reduction ellipsoids to estimate deformation.


title: Slate

text: Before the mid-19th century, the terms "slate", "shale" and "schist" were not sharply distinguished. In the context of underground coal mining in the United States, the term slate was commonly used to refer to shale well into the 20th century. For example, "roof slate" referred to shale above a coal seam, and "draw slate" referred to shale that fell from the mine roof as the coal was removed.


title: Slate

text: The British Geological Survey recommends that the term "slate" be used in scientific writings only when very little else is known about the rock that would allow a more definite classification. For example, if the characteristics of the rock show definitely that it was formed by metamorphosis of shale, it will be described in scientific writings as a metashale. If its origin is uncertain, but the rock is known to be rich in mica, it will be described as a pelite.


title: Slate

text: Slate can be made into roofing slates, a type of roof shingle, or more specifically a type of roof tile, which are installed by a slater. Slate has two lines of breakability – cleavage and grain – which make it possible to split the stone into thin sheets. When broken, slate retains a natural appearance while remaining relatively flat and easy to stack. A series of "slate booms" occurred in Europe from the 1870s until the First World War following improvements in railway, road and waterway transportation systems.


title: Slate

text: Slate is particularly suitable as a roofing material as it has an extremely low water absorption index of less than 0.4%, making the material resistant to frost damage. Natural slate, which requires only minimal processing, has an embodied energy that compares favorably with other roofing materials.


title: Slate

text: Natural slate is used by building professionals as a result of its beauty and durability. Slate is incredibly durable and can last several hundred years, often with little or no maintenance. Natural slate is also fire resistant and energy efficient.


title: Slate

text: Slate roof tiles are usually fixed (fastened) either with nails, or with hooks as is common with Spanish slate. In the UK, fixing is typically with double nails onto timber battens (England and Wales) or nailed directly onto timber sarking boards (Scotland and Northern Ireland). Nails were traditionally of copper, although there are modern alloy and stainless steel alternatives. Both these methods, if used properly, provide a long-lasting weathertight roof with a lifespan of around 60–125 years.


title: Slate

text: Slate tiles are often used for interior and exterior flooring, stairs, walkways and wall cladding. Tiles are installed and set on mortar and grouted along the edges. Chemical sealants are often used on tiles to improve durability and appearance, increase stain resistance, reduce efflorescence, and increase or reduce surface smoothness. Tiles are often sold gauged, meaning that the back surface is ground for ease of installation. Slate flooring can be slippery when used in external locations subject to rain. Slate tiles were used in 19th century UK building construction (apart from roofs) and in slate quarrying areas such as Blaenau Ffestiniog and Bethesda, Wales there are still many buildings wholly constructed of slate. Slates can also be set into walls to provide a rudimentary damp-proof membrane. Small offcuts are used as shims to level floor joists. In areas where slate is plentiful it is also used in pieces of various sizes for building walls and hedges, sometimes combined with other kinds of stone. In modern homes slate is often used as table coasters.


title: Slate

text: Because it is a good electrical insulator and fireproof, it was used to construct early-20th-century electric switchboards and relay controls for large electric motors. Due to its thermal stability and chemical inertness, slate has been used for laboratory bench tops and for billiard table tops.


title: Slate

text: Slate was used by earlier cultures as whetstone to hone knives, but whetstones are nowadays more typically made of quartz.


title: Slate

text: In 18th- and 19th-century schools, slate was extensively used for blackboards and individual writing slates, for which slate or chalk pencils were used.


title: Slate

text: In areas where it is available, high-quality slate is used for tombstones and commemorative tablets. In some cases slate was used by the ancient Maya civilization to fashion stelae.


title: Slate

text: Slate was the traditional material of choice for black Go stones in Japan. It is now considered to be a luxury.


title: Slate

text: Most slate in Europe today comes from Spain, the world's largest producer and exporter of natural slate, and 90 percent of Europe's natural slate used for roofing originates from the slate industry there.


title: Slate

text: Lesser slate-producing regions in Europe include Wales (with a museum at Llanberis), Cornwall (famously the village of Delabole), Cumbria (see Burlington Slate Quarries, Honister Slate Mine and Skiddaw Slate) and, formerly in the West Highlands of Scotland, around Ballachulish and the Slate Islands in the United Kingdom. Parts of France (Anjou, Loire Valley, Ardennes, Brittany, Savoie) and Belgium (Ardennes), Liguria in northern Italy, especially between the town of Lavagna (which means "chalkboard" in Italian) and Fontanabuona valley; Portugal especially around Valongo in the north of the country.


title: Slate

text: Germany's Moselle River region, Hunsrück (with a former mine open as a museum at Fell), Eifel, Westerwald, Thuringia and north Bavaria; and Alta, Norway (actually schist, not a true slate). Some of the slate from Wales and Cumbria is colored slate (non-blue): purple and formerly green in Wales and green in Cumbria.


title: Slate

text: Slate is abundant in Brazil, the world's second-biggest producer of slate, around Papagaios in Minas Gerais, which extracts 95 percent of Brazil's slate. However, not all "slate" products from Brazil are entitled to bear the CE mark.


title: Slate

text: Slate is produced on the east coast of Newfoundland, in Eastern Pennsylvania, Buckingham County, Virginia, and the Slate Valley of Vermont and New York, where colored slate is mined in the Granville, New York area. Pennsylvania slate is widely used in the manufacture of turkey calls used for hunting turkeys in the U.S. The tones produced from the slate (when scratched with various species of wood strikers) imitates almost exactly the calls of all four species of wild turkey in North America: eastern, Rio Grande, Osceola and Merriam's.


title: Slate

text: A major slating operation existed in Monson, Maine during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, where the slate is usually dark purple to blackish, and many local structures are still roofed with slate tiles. The roof of St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York was made of Monson slate, as is the headstone of John F. Kennedy.


title: Slate

text: China has vast slate deposits; in recent years its export of finished and unfinished slate has increased.


title: Slate

text: Deposits of slate exist throughout the Australian continent, with large reserves quarried in the Adelaide Hills (Willunga and Kanmantoo) and the Mid North (Mintaro and Spalding).


title: Slate

text: Because slate was formed in low heat and pressure, compared to a number of other metamorphic rocks, some fossils can be found in slate; sometimes even microscopic remains of delicate organisms can be found in slate.


title: Julie Adams

text: Julie Adams (born Betty May Adams; October 17, 1926 – February 3, 2019) was an American actress, billed as Julia Adams toward the beginning of her career, primarily known for her numerous television guest roles. She starred in a number of films in the 1950s, including "Bend of the River" (1952), opposite James Stewart; and "Creature from the Black Lagoon" (1954). On television, she was known for her roles as Paula Denning on the 1980s soap opera "Capitol," and Eve Simpson on "Murder, She Wrote".


title: Julie Adams

text: Julie Adams was born as Betty May Adams on October 17, 1926, in Waterloo, Iowa, the daughter of Arkansas-born parents Esther Gertrude (Beckett) and Ralph Adams, who was a cotton buyer. Her family moved a great deal; the longest she lived in one town was eight years in Blytheville, Arkansas. In 1946, at the age of 19, she was crowned "Miss Little Rock" and then moved to Hollywood, California to pursue her acting career. Adams worked as a part-time secretary and began her film career in B movie westerns.


title: Julie Adams

text: She used her real name until 1949, when she began working for Universal-International, the same studio where she met future stars such as James Best, Piper Laurie, Rock Hudson and Tony Curtis. She then became "Julia" and eventually "Julie". In 1954, she explained the latter change, "The studio picked Julia, but I never have felt comfortable with it. I just like the name Julie better, and the studio has given me permission to make the change."


title: Julie Adams

text: Her first movie role was a minor part in "Red, Hot and Blue" (1949), followed by a leading role in the Lippert western "The Dalton Gang" (1949). Adams was featured as the beautiful ichthyologist Kay Lawrence in the science-fiction film "Creature from the Black Lagoon" (1954).


title: Julie Adams

text: She co-starred in 1950s films opposite some of Hollywood's top leading men, including with James Stewart in 1952's "Bend of the River", with Rock Hudson in "The Lawless Breed" (1953) and "One Desire" (1955), with Tyrone Power in "The Mississippi Gambler" (1953), with Glenn Ford in "The Man from the Alamo" (1953), with Charlton Heston in "The Private War of Major Benson" (1955), with Dan Duryea in "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue" (1957) and with Joel McCrea in "The Gunfight at Dodge City" (1959).


title: Julie Adams

text: Adams co-starred with Rory Calhoun, known for his role in "How to Marry a Millionaire" (1953), in the film "The Looters" (1955), the story of a plane crash in the Rocky Mountains. Part of the picture was filmed about Tarryall Creek at what is now Eleven Mile State Park in Park County in central Colorado. The advertising poster reads: "Five desperate men ... and a girl who didn't care ... trapped on a mountain of gale-lashed rock!"


title: Julie Adams

text: She also starred in 1957's "Four Girls in Town", a romantic comedy about four young women competing for the leading role in a new movie, featuring an international cast. She appeared with Elvis Presley in the musical-comedy "Tickle Me" (1965). Adams thought highly of her co-star, noting: "Despite his status as a superstar singer and stage performer, Elvis took his acting very seriously. He was always prepared, and did a good job in the roles he was given. When he did his musical numbers in "Tickle Me", sometimes walking from table to table in a nightclub set, he did them perfectly in one take."


title: Julie Adams

text: On television, Adams appeared on "The Andy Griffith Show" portraying Mary Simpson, a county nurse and romantic interest of Sheriff Andy Taylor in a 1962 episode. She also made four guest appearances on "Perry Mason", perhaps the most notable being the 1963 episode, "The Case of the Deadly Verdict," when she played Janice Barton, Mason's only convicted client during the show's nine-year run on CBS. In 1963, she starred in "The Case Of Lovers Leap.” In 1964, she played Janice Blake in "The Case of the Missing Button." In 1965, she played the role of defendant Pat Kean in "The Case of the Fatal Fortune." Adams appeared on "The Rifleman" as a dubious vixen and romantic interest of lead character Chuck Connors. She guest-starred in five episodes of "77 Sunset Strip," three of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," and two of "Maverick," "The White Widow" and "The Brasada Spur", both with Jack Kelly as Bart Maverick.


title: Julie Adams

text: More guest-star roles in popular television series followed, including "", "The Big Valley", in its classic episode "The Emperor of Rice", "McMillan & Wife", "Police Woman", "The Streets of San Francisco", "The Incredible Hulk", "Cannon", "Quincy, M.E.", and "Cagney & Lacey." Adams co-starred with James Stewart in all 24 episodes of "The Jimmy Stewart Show" on NBC in 1971–1972. Stewart played a professor, and Adams played his wife. She was cast in the recurring role of real estate agent Eve Simpson for ten episodes of CBS's "Murder, She Wrote".


title: Julie Adams

text: Adams joined three other cast members from "Creature from the Black Lagoon" for a 50th anniversary celebration of the film at Creaturefest in November 2003. The festival was held at Wakulla Springs, just south of Tallahassee, Florida, where underwater scenes were filmed in 1953.


title: Julie Adams

text: In August 2012, she was a guest of honor at the Los Angeles Comic Book and Science Fiction Convention held at the Shrine Auditorium. (She attended the same convention in May 2012.) She also appeared at the CineCon Classic Film Festival on August 31, 2012 at the Loews Hollywood Hotel. She was a scheduled guest at The Hollywood Show in Chicago from September 7–9, 2012. An additional book signing was held at Century Books in Pasadena, California, on September 20, 2012. On October 13, 2012, she was back in Berwyn, Illinois for a book signing party.


title: Julie Adams

text: In October 2012, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences selected "Creature from the Black Lagoon" as one of 13 classic horror films to screen to honor the 100th anniversary of Universal Pictures. The film was shown (in 3D format) on October 16 at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills, California. After the screening, Adams appeared on stage for a Q&A session where she shared personal memories of her role in the film, as well as several other career projects on which she had worked.


title: Julie Adams

text: Adams was married to screenwriter Leonard B. Stern from 1951 to 1953. She was then married to actor-director Ray Danton from 1954 until their divorce in 1981. They had two sons: Steven Danton, an assistant director, and Mitchell Danton, an editor.


title: Julie Adams

text: In 1999, Adams received a Golden Boot award for her work in Westerns. She was inducted into the Arkansas Entertainers Hall of Fame in 2000. At CineCon in 2011, Adams was honored with a Film Career Achievement Award. In 2012, she won the Rondo Award for the Monster Kid Hall of Fame at the annual Wonderfest in Louisville, Kentucky.


title: Motor oil

text: Motor oil, engine oil, or engine lubricant is any one of various substances used for the lubrication of internal combustion engines. They typically consist of base oils enhanced with various additives, particularly antiwear additives, detergents, dispersants, and, for multi-grade oils, viscosity index improvers. The main function of motor oil is to reduce friction and wear on moving parts and to clean the engine from sludge (one of the functions of dispersants) and varnish (detergents). It also neutralizes acids that originate from fuel and from oxidation of the lubricant (detergents), improves sealing of piston rings, and cools the engine by carrying heat away from moving parts.


title: Motor oil

text: In addition to the aforementioned basic constituents, almost all lubricating oils contain corrosion and oxidation inhibitors. Motor oil may be composed of only a lubricant base stock in the case of non-detergent oil, or a lubricant base stock plus additives to improve the oil's detergency, extreme pressure performance, and ability to inhibit corrosion of engine parts.


title: Motor oil

text: Motor oils are blended using base oils composed of petroleum-based hydrocarbons, polyalphaolefins (PAO), or their mixtures in various proportions, sometimes with up to 20% by weight of esters for better dissolution of additives.


title: Motor oil

text: On 6 September 1866, American John Ellis founded the Continuous Oil Refining Company. While studying the possible healing powers of crude oil, Dr. Ellis was disappointed to find no real medicinal value, but was intrigued by its potential lubricating properties. He eventually abandoned the medical practice to devote his time to the development of an all-petroleum, high-viscosity lubricant for steam engines – which at the time were using inefficient combinations of petroleum and animal and vegetable fats. He made his breakthrough when he developed an oil that worked effectively at high temperatures. This meant fewer gummed up valves and corroded cylinders.


title: Motor oil

text: Motor oil is a lubricant used in internal combustion engines, which power cars, motorcycles, lawnmowers, engine-generators, and many other machines. In engines, there are parts which move against each other, and the friction between the parts wastes otherwise useful power by converting kinetic energy into heat. It also wears away those parts, which could lead to lower efficiency and degradation of the engine. Proper lubrication decreases fuel consumption, decreases wasted power, and increases engine longevity.


title: Motor oil

text: Lubricating oil creates a separating film between surfaces of adjacent moving parts to minimize direct contact between them, decreasing frictional heat and reducing wear, thus protecting the engine. In use, motor oil transfers heat through conduction as it flows through the engine. In an engine with a recirculating oil pump, this heat is transferred by means of airflow over the exterior surface of the oil pan, airflow through an oil cooler, and through oil gases evacuated by the positive crankcase ventilation (PCV) system. While modern recirculating pumps are typically provided in passenger cars and other engines of similar or larger in size, total-loss oiling is a design option that remains popular in small and miniature engines.


title: Motor oil

text: In petrol (gasoline) engines, the top piston ring can expose the motor oil to temperatures of . In diesel engines, the top ring can expose the oil to temperatures over . Motor oils with higher viscosity indices thin less at these higher temperatures.


title: Motor oil

text: Coating metal parts with oil also keeps them from being exposed to oxygen, inhibiting oxidation at elevated operating temperatures preventing rust or corrosion. Corrosion inhibitors may also be added to the motor oil. Many motor oils also have detergents and dispersants added to help keep the engine clean and minimize oil sludge build-up. The oil is able to trap soot from combustion in itself, rather than leaving it deposited on the internal surfaces. It is a combination of this and some singeing that turns used oil black after some running.


title: Motor oil

text: Rubbing of metal engine parts inevitably produces some microscopic metallic particles from the wearing of the surfaces. Such particles could circulate in the oil and grind against moving parts, causing wear. Because particles accumulate in the oil, it is typically circulated through an oil filter to remove harmful particles. An oil pump, a vane or gear pump powered by the engine, pumps the oil throughout the engine, including the oil filter. Oil filters can be a "full flow" or "bypass" type.


title: Motor oil

text: In the crankcase of a vehicle engine, motor oil lubricates rotating or sliding surfaces between the crankshaft journal bearings (main bearings and big-end bearings) and rods connecting the pistons to the crankshaft. The oil collects in an oil pan, or sump, at the bottom of the crankcase. In some small engines such as lawn mower engines, dippers on the bottoms of connecting rods dip into the oil at the bottom and splash it around the crankcase as needed to lubricate parts inside. In modern vehicle engines, the oil pump takes oil from the oil pan and sends it through the oil filter into oil galleries, from which the oil lubricates the main bearings holding the crankshaft up at the main journals and camshaft bearings operating the valves. In typical modern vehicles, oil pressure-fed from the oil galleries to the main bearings enters holes in the main journals of the crankshaft.


title: Motor oil

text: From these holes in the main journals, the oil moves through passageways inside the crankshaft to exit holes in the rod journals to lubricate the rod bearings and connecting rods. Some simpler designs relied on these rapidly moving parts to splash and lubricate the contacting surfaces between the piston rings and interior surfaces of the cylinders. However, in modern designs, there are also passageways through the rods which carry oil from the rod bearings to the rod-piston connections and lubricate the contacting surfaces between the piston rings and interior surfaces of the cylinders. This oil film also serves as a seal between the piston rings and cylinder walls to separate the combustion chamber in the cylinder head from the crankcase. The oil then drips back down into the oil pan.