title: Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race

text: The traditional restart location was the headquarters of the Iditarod Trail Committee, in Wasilla, but in 2008 the official restart was pushed further north to Willow Lake. In 2003, dwindling snow and poor trail conditions due to a warming climate forced organizers to move the start north to Fairbanks. The mushers depart separated by the same intervals as their arrival at the second checkpoint. In 2015, the official restart had to again be moved north to Fairbanks due to unusually warm temperatures and lack of snow coverage on critical parts of the trail.


title: Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race

text: The first from Willow through the checkpoints at Yentna Station Station to Skwentna is known as "moose alley". The many moose in the area find it difficult to move and forage for food when the ground is thick with snow. As a result, the moose sometimes prefer to use pre-existing trails, causing hazards for the dog teams. In 1985, Susan Butcher lost her chance at becoming the first woman to win the Iditarod when her team made a sharp turn and encountered a pregnant moose. The moose killed two dogs and seriously injured six more in the twenty minutes before Duane "Dewey" Halverson arrived and shot the moose. In 1982, Dick Mackey, Warner Vent, Jerry Austin, and their teams were driven into the forest by a charging moose.


title: Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race

text: Otherwise, the route to Skwentna is easy, over flat lowlands, and well marked by stakes or tripods with reflectors or flags. Most mushers push through the night, and the first teams usually arrive at Skwentna before dawn. Skwentna is a 40-minute hop from Anchorage by air, and dozens of planes land on the airstrip or on the Skwentna River, bringing journalists, photographers, and spectators.


title: Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race

text: From Skwentna, the route follows the Skwentna River into the southern part of the Alaska Range to Finger Lake. The stretch from Finger Lake to Rainy Pass on Puntilla Lake becomes more difficult, as teams follow the narrow Happy River Gorge, where the trail balances on the side of a heavily forested incline. Rainy Pass is the most dangerous check point in the Iditarod. In 1985, Jerry Austin broke a hand and two of his dogs were injured when the sled went out of control and hit a stand of trees. Many others have suffered from this dangerous checkpoint. Rainy Pass is part of the Historic Iditarod Trail, but until 1976 the pass was inaccessible and route detoured through Ptarmigan Pass, also known as Hellsgate, because of the 1964 Good Friday earthquake.


title: Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race

text: From Rainy Pass, the route continues up the mountain, past the tree line to the divide of the Alaska Range, and then passes down into the Alaska Interior. The elevation of the pass is , and some nearby peaks exceed . The valley up the mountains is exposed to blizzards. In 1974, there were several cases of frostbite when the temperature dropped to , and the winds caused the wind chill to drop to . The wind also erases the trail and markers, making the path hard to follow. In 1976, retired colonel Norman Vaughan, who drove a dog team in Richard E. Byrd's 1928 expedition to the South Pole and competed in the only Olympic sled dog race, became lost for five days after leaving Rainy Pass and nearly died.


title: Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race

text: The trail down Dalzell Gorge from the divide is regarded as the worst stretch of the trail. Steep and straight, it drops in elevation in just , and there is little traction so the teams are hard to control. Mushers have to ride the brake most of the way down and use a snow hook for traction. In 1988, rookie Peryll Kyzer fell through an ice bridge into a creek and spent the night wet. The route then follows Tatina River, which is also hazardous: in 1986 Butcher's lead dogs fell through the ice but landed on a second layer of ice instead of falling into the river. In 1997, Ramey Smyth lost the end of his little finger when it hit an overhanging branch while negotiating the gorge.


title: Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race

text: Rohn is the next checkpoint and is located in a spruce forest with no wind and a poor airstrip. The isolation, its location immediately after the rigors of Rainy Pass and before the haul to the next checkpoint, makes it a popular place for mushers to take a 4-8 hour break. From Rohn, the trail follows the south fork of the Kuskokwim River, where freezing water running over a layer of ice (overflow) is a hazard. In 1975, Vaughan was hospitalized for frostbite after running through an overflow. In 1973, Terry Miller and his team were almost drawn into a hole in the river by the powerful current in an overflow but were rescued by Tom Mercer who came back to save them.


title: Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race

text: About from Rohn, the path leaves the river and passes into the Farewell Burn. In 1976, a wildfire burned of spruce. The hazards left after the wildfire force teams to move very slowly and can cause paw injuries. Clumps of sedge or grass which balloon out into a canopy above the ground can support a deceptively thin crust of snow. Fallen timber is also a concern.


title: Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race

text: Nikolai, an Athabaskan settlement on the banks of the Kuskokwim River, is the first Native American village used as a checkpoint, and the arrival of the sled teams is one of the largest social events of the year. The route then follows the south fork of the Kuskokwim to the former mining town of McGrath. According to the 2010 census, it has a population of 401, making it the largest checkpoint in the Interior. McGrath is also notable for being the first site in Alaska to receive mail by aircraft (in 1924), heralding the end of the sled dog era. It still has a good airfield, so journalists are common.


title: Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race

text: Following McGrath is Takotna, formerly a commercial hub during the gold rush. The ghost town of Ophir, named for the reputed source of King Solomon's gold by religious prospectors, is the next checkpoint. By this stage in the race, the front-runners may be several days ahead of those in the back of the pack.


title: Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race

text: After Ophir, the trail diverges into a northern and a southern route, which rejoin at Kaltag. In "even"-numbered years ("e.g." 2016, 2018) the "northern" route is used; in "odd"-numbered years ("e.g." 2017, 2019) the "southern" route is used. During the first few Iditarods only the northern trail was used. In the late 1970s, the southern leg of the route was added. It gave the southern villages a chance to host the Iditarod race and also allowed the route to pass through the trail's namesake, the historical town of Iditarod. The two routes differ by less than .


title: Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race

text: The northern route first passes through Cripple, which is from Anchorage, and from Nome (ITC, "Northern"), making it the middlemost checkpoint. From Cripple, the route passes through Sulatna Crossing to Ruby, on the Yukon River. Ruby is another former gold-rush town which became an Athabaskan village.


title: Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race

text: The southern route first passes through the ghost town of Iditarod, which is the alternate halfway mark, at from Anchorage, and from Nome (ITC, "Southern"). From Iditarod the route goes through the three neighboring Athabaskan villages of Shageluk, Anvik, Grayling, and then on to Eagle Island, Alaska.


title: Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race

text: Ruby and Anvik are on the longest river in Alaska, the Yukon, which is swept by strong winds which can wipe out the trail and drop the windchill below . A greater hazard is the uniformity of this long stretch: suffering from sleep deprivation, many mushers report hallucinations.


title: Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race

text: Both trails meet again in Kaltag, which for hundreds of years has been a gateway between the Athabaskan villages in the Interior and the Iñupiat settlements on the coast of the Bering Sea. The "Kaltag Portage" runs through a pass down to the Iñupiat town of Unalakleet, on the shore of the Bering Sea.


title: Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race

text: In the early years of the Iditarod, the last stretch along the shores of the Norton Sound of the Bering Sea to Nome was a slow, easy trip. Now that the race is more competitive, the last stretch has become one last dash to the finish.


title: Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race

text: According to the 2010 census, the village of Unalakleet has a population of 712, making it the largest Alaska Native town along the Iditarod Trail. The majority of the residents are Iñupiat. The town's name means the "place where the east wind blows". Racers are met by church bells, sirens, and crowds.


title: Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race

text: From Unalakleet, the route passes through the hills to the Iñupiat village of Shaktoolik. The route then passes across the frozen Norton Bay to Koyuk; the markers on the bay are young spruce trees frozen into holes in the ice. The route then swings west along the south shore of Seward Peninsula though the tiny villages of Elim, Golovin and White Mountain.


title: Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race

text: All teams must rest their dogs for at least eight hours at White Mountain, before the final sprint. From White Mountain to Safety is , and from Safety to Nome it is . The last leg is crucial because the lead teams are often within a few hours of each other at this point. The closest race in Iditarod history was in 1978 when the winner and the runner-up were only one second apart. In 1991, the race had been decided by less than an hour seven times, and less than five minutes three times. Numerous races since then have been decided by less than an hour: for example, 2012, 2013, 2014 (in which the finishing times were less than three minutes apart), 2016, and 2019.


title: Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race

text: The official finish line is the Red "Fox" Olson Trail Monument, more commonly known as the "burled arch", in Nome. The original burled arch lasted from 1975 until 2001, when it was destroyed by dry rot and years of inclement weather. The new arch is a spruce log with two distinct burls similar but not identical to the old arch. While the old arch spelled out "End of Iditarod Dog Race", the new arch has an additional word: "End of Iditarod Sled Dog Race".


title: Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race

text: A "Widow's Lamp" is lit and remains hanging on the arch until the last competitor crosses the finish line. The tradition is based on the kerosene lamp lit and hung outside a roadhouse, when a musher carrying goods or mail was en route. The last musher to complete the Iditarod is referred to as the "Red Lantern".


title: Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race

text: On the way to the arch, each musher passes down Front Street and down the fenced-off end stretch. The city's fire siren is sounded as each musher hits the 2-mile mark before the finish line. While the winner of the first race in 1973 completed the competition in just over 20 days, preparation of the trail in advance of the dog sled teams and improvements in dog training have dropped the winning time to under 10 days in every race since 1996.


title: Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race

text: An awards banquet is held the Sunday after the winner's arrival. Brass belt buckles and special patches are given to everyone who completes the race.


title: Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race

text: More than 50 mushers enter each year. Most are from rural South Central Alaska, the Interior, and the "Bush"; few are urban, and only a small percentage are from the Contiguous United States, Canada, or overseas. Some are professionals who make their living by selling dogs, running sled dog tours, giving mushing instruction, and speaking about their Iditarod experiences. Others make money from Iditarod-related advertising contracts or book deals. Some are amateurs who make their living hunting, fishing, trapping, gardening, or with seasonal jobs, though lawyers, surgeons, airline pilots, veterinarians, biologists, and CEOs have competed. American young adult author Gary Paulsen competed in the race a number of times, and wrote about his experiences in non-fiction memoirs. Per rules #1 and #2, only experienced mushers are allowed to compete in the Iditarod.


title: Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race

text: Mushers are required to participate in three smaller races to qualify for the Iditarod. However, they are allowed to lease dogs to participate in the Iditarod and are not required to take written exams to determine their knowledge of mushing, the dogs they race, or canine first aid. Mushers who have been convicted of a charge of animal neglect, or determined unfit by the Iditarod Trail Committee, are not allowed to compete. The Iditarod Trail Committee once disqualified musher Jerry Riley for alleged dog abuse and Rick Swenson after one of his dogs expired after running through overflow. The Iditarod later reinstated both men and allowed them to race. Rick Swenson is now on the Iditarod's board of directors. Rookie mushers must pre-qualify by finishing an assortment of qualifying races first.


title: Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race

text: , the combined cost of the entry fee, dog maintenance, and transportation was estimated by one musher to be US$20,000 to $30,000. But that figure varies depending upon how many dogs a musher has, what the musher feeds the dogs and how much is spent on housing and handlers. Expenses faced by modern teams include lightweight gear including thousands of booties and quick-change runners, special high-energy dog foods, veterinary care, and breeding costs. According to Athabaskan musher Ken Chase, "the big expenses [for rural Alaskans] are the freight and having to buy dog food". Most modern teams cost $10,000 to $40,000, and the top 10 spend between $80,000 and $100,000 per year. The top finisher won at least $69,000, but that amount has slowly decreased since then, with the 2010 winner receiving only $50,000. Some believe overall interest in the race may be declining, hence the lighter purses and sponsorships. The remaining top thirty finishers won an average of $26,500 each. Mushers make money from their sponsorships, speaking fees, advertising contracts and book deals.


title: Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race

text: The original sled dogs were bred by the Native American Mahlemuit (also known as Kuuvangmiut or Kobuk) people and are one of the earliest domesticated breeds known. They were soon crossbred with Alaskan huskies, hounds, setters, spaniels, German Shepherds, and wolves. As demand for dogs skyrocketed, a black market formed at the end of the 19th century which funneled large dogs of any breed to the gold rush. Siberian Huskies were introduced in the early 20th century and became the most popular racing breed. The original dogs were chosen for strength and stamina, but modern racing dogs are all mixed-breed huskies bred for speed, tough feet, endurance, good attitude, and most importantly the desire to run. Dogs bred for long races weigh from , and those bred for sprinting weigh less, , but the best competitors of both types are interchangeable.


title: Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race

text: Starting in 1984, all dogs are examined by veterinarians/nurses before the start of the race, who check teeth, eyes, tonsils, heart, lungs, joints, and genitals; they look for signs of illegal drugs, improperly healed wounds, and pregnancy. All dogs are identified and tracked by microchip implants and collar tags. On the trails, volunteer veterinarians examine each dog's heart, hydration, appetite, attitude, weight, lungs, and joints at all of the checkpoints, and look for signs of foot and shoulder injuries, respiration problems, dehydration, diarrhea, and exhaustion. When mushers race through checkpoints, the dogs do not get physical exams. Mushers are not allowed to administer drugs that mask the signs of injury, including stimulants, muscle relaxants, sedatives, anti-inflammatories, and anabolic steroids. , the Iditarod claims that no musher has been banned for giving drugs to dogs.


title: Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race

text: Each team is composed of twelve to sixteen dogs, and no more may be added during the race. At least five dogs must be on the towline when crossing the finish line in Nome. Mushers keep a veterinary diary on the trail and are required to have it signed by a veterinarian at each checkpoint. Dogs that become exhausted or injured may be carried in the sled's "basket" to the next "dog-drop" site, where they are transported by the volunteer Iditarod Air Force to the Hiland Mountain Correctional Center at Eagle River where they are taken care of by prison inmates until picked up by handlers or family members, or they are flown to Nome for transport home. According to Iditarod veterinarian Dr. Stuart Nelson, Jr., "Reasons for dropping dogs are numerous. Attitude problems, fatigue, illness, immaturity, injury, being “in heat,” lack of speed and musher strategy, are the more common ones."


title: Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race

text: The dogs are well-conditioned athletes. Training starts in late summer or early fall and intensifies between November and March; competitive teams run before the race. When there is no snow, dog drivers train using wheeled carts or all-terrain vehicles set in neutral. An Alaskan husky in the Iditarod will burn about 9,666 calories each day; on a body-weight basis this rate of caloric burn is 3.5 times that of a human Tour de France cyclist. Similarly the VO max (aerobic capacity) of a typical Iditarod dog is about 240 milligrams of oxygen per kilogram of body weight, which is about three times that of a human Olympic marathon runner.


title: Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race

text: Animal protection activists say that the Iditarod is not a commemoration of the 1925 serum delivery, and that race was originally called the Iditarod Trail Seppala Memorial Race in honor of Leonhard Seppala. Animal protection activists also say that the Iditarod is dog abuse. For example, dogs have died and been injured during the race. The practice of tethering dogs on chains, which is commonly used by mushers in their kennels, at checkpoints and dog drops, is also criticized. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals spokesperson Jennifer O'Connor says, "We're totally opposed to the race for the cruelty issues associated with it". The ASPCA said, "General concerns arise whenever intense competition results in dogs being pushed beyond their endurance or capabilities", according to Vice President Stephen Zawistowski.


title: Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race

text: Iditarod Trail Committee monitors the dogs' health. On May 18, 2007, the Iditarod Trail Committee Board of Directors announced that they had suspended Ramy Brooks for abusing his sled dogs. The suspension was for the 2008 and 2009 races, to be followed by three years probation. Brooks has now retired from dog racing.


title: Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race

text: In 2017 Wells Fargo announced that it would no longer sponsor the race. While it declined to give specific reasons for the withdrawal of funds, Iditarod CEO Stan Hooley told the Associated Press that he believed the decision was connected to the activists' implications of cruelty to dogs.


title: Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race

text: In 2020 several major companies withdrew their sponsorship for the race after pressure from PETA. Exxon announced it would pull its financial support after the 2021 event.


title: Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race

text: Dick Wilmarth won the first race in the year 1973, in 20 days, 0 hours, 49 minutes, and 41 seconds. The fastest winning time was completed by Mitch Seavey with a time of 8 days, 3 hours, 40 minutes, and 13 seconds in 2017. The closest finish between two mushers was in 1978 between Dick Mackey and Rick Swenson. Mackey's win was controversial because while the nose of his lead dog crossed the finish line one second ahead of Swenson's lead dog, Swenson's body crossed the finish line first.


title: Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race

text: The first musher to win four races was Rick Swenson, in 1982. In 1991 he became the first person to win five times and the only musher to win the race in three different decades. Susan Butcher, Doug Swingley, Martin Buser, Jeff King, Lance Mackey, and Dallas Seavey are the only other four-time winners. In 2021 Dallas Seavey became the second person to win five times.


title: Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race

text: Mary Shields was the first woman to complete the race, in 1974 (Finishing 23rd). In 1985 Libby Riddles was the only musher to brave a blizzard, becoming the first woman to win the race. She was featured in "Vogue", and named the Professional Sportswoman of the Year by the Women's Sports Foundation. Susan Butcher withdrew from the same race after two of her dogs were killed by a moose, but she became the second woman to win the race the next year and subsequently won three of the next four races. Butcher was the second musher to win four races and the only musher to finish in either first or second place for five straight years.


title: Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race

text: Doug Swingley of Montana was the first non-Alaskan to win the race, in 1995. Mushers from 14 countries have competed in the Iditarod races, and in 1992 Martin Buser—a Swiss resident of Alaska since 1979—was the first foreigner to win the race. Buser became a naturalized U.S. citizen in a ceremony under the Burled Arch in Nome following the 2002 race. In 2003, Norwegian Robert Sørlie became the first non-resident of the United States to win the race.


title: Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race

text: In 2007 Lance Mackey became the first musher to win both the Yukon Quest and the Iditarod in the same year; a feat he repeated in 2008. Mackey also joined his father and brother, Dick and Rick Mackey as an Iditarod champion. All three Mackeys raced with the bib number 13, and all won their respective titles on their sixth try.


title: Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race

text: The "Golden Harness" is most frequently given to the lead dog or dogs of the winning team in addition to a celebratory cupcake in the shape of an Alaskan Malamute named William. However, it is decided by a vote of the mushers, and in 2008 was given to Babe, the lead dog of Ramey Smyth, the 3rd-place finisher. Babe was almost 11 years old when she finished the race, and it was her ninth Iditarod. The "Rookie of the Year" award is given to the musher who places the best among those finishing their first Iditarod. A red lantern signifying perseverance is awarded to the last musher to cross the finish line. The size of the purse determines how many mushers receive cash prizes. For the 2013 edition of the race, the total purse was US$600,000, to be divided by the top 30 finishers, with every finisher below 30th place receiving $1,049. The champion receives a new pickup truck and $69,000 as of 2015.


title: No quarter

text: The phrase no quarter was generally used during military conflict to imply combatants would not be taken prisoner, but killed.


title: No quarter

text: According to some modern American dictionaries, a person who is given no quarter is "not treated kindly" or "treated in a very harsh way".


title: No quarter

text: The term may originate from an order by the commander of a victorious army that they will not quarter (house) captured enemy combatants. Therefore, none can be taken prisoner and all enemy combatants must be killed. A second derivation, given equal prominence in the "Oxford English Dictionary" ("OED"), is that quarter (n.17) can mean "Relations with, or conduct towards, another" as in Shakespeare's "Othello", Act II, scene iii, line 180, "Friends all ... In quarter, and in termes, like bride and groome". So "no quarter" may also mean refusal to enter into an agreement (relations) with an enemy attempting to surrender. The "OED" mentions a third possible derivation but says "The assertion of De Brieux ("" (1672) 16) that it arose in an agreement between the Dutch and Spanish, by which the ransom of an officer or private was to be a quarter of his pay, is at variance with the sense of the phrases "to give or receive quarter"."


title: No quarter

text: By the 17th century, siege warfare was an exact art, the rules of which were so well understood that wagering on the outcome and duration of a siege became a popular craze; the then enormous sum of £200,000 was alleged to have been bet on the outcome of the Second Siege of Limerick in 1691. Professional honour demanded a defence, but if a garrison surrendered when "a practicable breach" had been made, they were given "quarter". The garrison signaled their intent to surrender by "beating the chamade"; if accepted, they were generally allowed to retain their weapons, and received a safe conduct to the nearest friendly territory. If a garrison continued their defence beyond this point, the surrender was not accepted, hence "no quarter"; the besiegers were then "permitted" to sack the town, and the garrison was often killed.


title: No quarter

text: In some circumstances, the opposing forces would signal their intention to give no quarter by using a red flag (the so called bloody flag). However, the use of a red flag to signal no quarter does not appear to have been universal among combatants.


title: No quarter

text: Black flags have been used to signify that quarter would be given if surrender was prompt; the best known example is the Jolly Roger used by pirates to intimidate a target crew into surrender. By promising quarter, pirates avoided costly and dangerous sea battles which might leave both ships crippled and dozens of critical crew dead or incapacitated.


title: No quarter

text: Other "no quarter" incidents took place during the 1850 to 1864 Taiping Rebellion, and at Tippermuir in 1644, Scots Covenanters used the battle cry "Jesus, and no quarter", signifying they would not take prisoners.


title: No quarter

text: Under international humanitarian law, "it is especially forbidden ... to declare that no quarter will be given". This was established under Article 23 (d) of the 1907 Hague Convention "IV - The Laws and Customs of War on Land". Since a judgment on the law relating to war crimes and crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg Trials in October 1946, the 1907 Hague Convention, including the explicit prohibition to declare that no quarter will be given, are considered to be part of the customary laws of war and are binding on all parties in an international armed conflict.


title: Earthing system

text: An earthing system (UK and IEC) or grounding system (US) connects specific parts of an electric power system with the ground, typically the Earth's conductive surface, for safety and functional purposes. The choice of earthing system can affect the safety and electromagnetic compatibility of the installation. Regulations for earthing systems vary among countries, though most follow the recommendations of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). Regulations may identify special cases for earthing in mines, in patient care areas, or in hazardous areas of industrial plants.


title: Earthing system

text: In addition to electric power systems, other systems may require grounding for safety or function. Tall structures may have lightning rods as part of a system to protect them from lightning strikes. Telegraph lines may use the Earth as one conductor of a circuit, saving the cost of installation of a return wire over a long circuit. Radio antennas may require particular grounding for operation, as well as to control static electricity and provide lightning protection.


title: Earthing system

text: System earthing serves a purpose of electrical safety throughout the system that is not caused by an electrical fault. Its main purpose is to prevent static buildup and to protect against power surges caused by nearby lightning strikes or switching. Static buildup, as induced by friction for example, such as when wind blows onto a radio mast, is dissipated to the Earth. In the event of a surge, a lightning arrester, a surge arrester or a SPD will divert the excess current to the Earth before it reaches an appliance.


title: Earthing system

text: System earthing also allows for equipotential bonding to all metalworks to prevent potential differences between them. Having Earth as a common reference point also keeps the electrical system's potential difference limited to the supply voltage.


title: Earthing system

text: Equipment earthing serves a purpose of electrical safety in an electrical fault. Its main purpose is to prevent equipment damage and the risk of an electric shock. This type of earthing is not an earth connection, technically speaking. When current flows from a line conductor to an earth wire, as is the case when a line conductor makes contact with an earthed surface in a Class I appliance, an automatic disconnection of supply (ADS) device such as a circuit breaker or a RCD will automatically open the circuit to clear the fault.


title: Earthing system

text: Functional earthing serves a purpose other than electrical safety. Example purposes include electromagnetic interference (EMI) filtering in an EMI filter, and the use of the Earth as a return path in a single-wire earth return distribution system.


title: Earthing system

text: In low-voltage networks, which distribute the electric power to the widest class of end users, the main concern for design of earthing systems is safety of consumers who use the electric appliances and their protection against electric shocks. The earthing system, in combination with protective devices such as fuses and residual current devices, must ultimately ensure that a person does not come into contact with a metallic object whose potential relative to the person's potential exceeds a "safe" threshold, typically set at about 50 V.


title: Earthing system

text: In most developed countries, 220 V, 230 V, or 240 V sockets with earthed contacts were introduced either just before or soon after World War II, though with considerable national variation. However in the United States and Canada, where the supply voltage is only 120 V power outlets installed before the mid-1960s generally did not include a ground (earth) pin. In the developing world, local wiring practice may or may not provide a connection to an earth.


title: Earthing system

text: On low voltage electricity networks with a phase to neutral voltage exceeding 240 V to 690 V, which are mostly used in industry, mining equipment and machines rather than publicly accessible networks, the earthing system design is equally important from safety point of view as for domestic users.


title: Earthing system

text: From 1947 to 1996 for ranges (including separate cooktops and ovens) and 1953 to 1996 for clothes dryers, US National Electrical Code allowed the supply neutral wire to be used as the equipment enclosure connection to ground if the circuit originated in the main service panel. This was permitted for plug-in equipment and permanently connected equipment. Normal imbalances in the circuit would create small equipment to ground voltages, a failure of the neutral conductor or connections would allow the equipment to go to full 120 volts to ground, an easily lethal situation. The 1996 and newer editions of the NEC no longer permit this practice. For similar reasons, most countries have now mandated dedicated protective earth connections in consumer wiring that are now almost universal. In the distribution networks, where connections are fewer and less vulnerable, many countries allow the earth and neutral to share a conductor.


title: Earthing system

text: If the fault path between accidentally energized objects and the supply connection has low impedance, the fault current will be so large that the circuit overcurrent protection device (fuse or circuit breaker) will open to clear the ground fault. Where the earthing system does not provide a low-impedance metallic conductor between equipment enclosures and supply return (such as in a TT separately earthed system), fault currents are smaller, and will not necessarily operate the overcurrent protection device. In such case a residual-current device is installed to detect the current leaking to ground and interrupt the circuit.


title: Earthing system

text: International standard IEC 60364 distinguishes three families of earthing arrangements, using the two-letter codes TN, TT, and IT.


title: Earthing system

text: The first letter indicates the connection between earth and the power-supply equipment (generator or transformer):


title: Earthing system

text: The second letter indicates the connection between earth or network and the electrical device being supplied:


title: Earthing system

text: In a TN earthing system, one of the points in the generator or transformer is connected with earth, usually the star point in a three-phase system. The body of the electrical device is connected with earth via this earth connection at the transformer.


title: Earthing system

text: This arrangement is a current standard for residential and industrial electric systems particularly in Europe.


title: Earthing system

text: The conductor that connects the exposed metallic parts of the consumer's electrical installation is called "protective earth" ("PE"; see also: Ground). The conductor that connects to the star point in a three-phase system, or that carries the return current in a single-phase system, is called "neutral" ("N"). Three variants of TN systems are distinguished:


title: Earthing system

text: It is possible to have both TN-S and TN-C-S supplies taken from the same transformer. For example, the sheaths on some underground cables corrode and stop providing good earth connections, and so homes where high resistance "bad earths" are found may be converted to TN-C-S. This is only possible on a network when the neutral is suitably robust against failure, and conversion is not always possible. The PEN must be suitably reinforced against failure, as an open circuit PEN can impress full phase voltage on any exposed metal connected to the system earth downstream of the break. The alternative is to provide a local earth and convert to TT.


title: Earthing system

text: The main attraction of a TN network is the low impedance earth path allows easy automatic disconnection (ADS) on a high current circuit in the case of a line-to-PE short circuit as the same breaker or fuse will operate for either L-N or L-PE faults, and an RCD is not needed to detect earth faults.


title: Earthing system

text: In a TT (Latin: terra-terra) earthing system, the protective earth connection for the consumer is provided by a local earth electrode, (sometimes referred to as the Terra-Firma connection) and there is another independently installed at the generator. There is no 'earth wire' between the two.


title: Earthing system

text: The fault loop impedance is higher, and unless the electrode impedance is very low indeed, a TT installation should always have an RCD (GFCI) as its first isolator.


title: Earthing system

text: The big advantage of the TT earthing system is the reduced conducted interference from other users' connected equipment. TT has always been preferable for special applications like telecommunication sites that benefit from the interference-free earthing. Also, TT networks do not pose any serious risks in the case of a broken neutral. In addition, in locations where power is distributed overhead, earth conductors are not at risk of becoming live should any overhead distribution conductor be fractured by, say, a fallen tree or branch.


title: Earthing system

text: In pre-RCD era, the TT earthing system was unattractive for general use because of the difficulty of arranging reliable automatic disconnection (ADS) in the case of a line-to-PE short circuit (in comparison with TN systems, where the same breaker or fuse will operate for either L-N or L-PE faults). But as residual current devices mitigate this disadvantage, the TT earthing system has become much more attractive providing that all AC power circuits are RCD-protected. In some countries (such as the UK) TT is recommended for situations where a low impedance equipotential zone is impractical to maintain by bonding, where there is significant outdoor wiring, such as supplies to mobile homes and some agricultural settings, or where a high fault current could pose other dangers, such as at fuel depots or marinas.


title: Earthing system

text: The TT earthing system is used throughout Japan, with RCD units in most industrial settings or even at home. This can impose added requirements on variable frequency drives and switched-mode power supplies which often have substantial filters passing high frequency noise to the ground conductor.


title: Earthing system

text: In an IT network (isolé-terre), the electrical distribution system has no connection to earth at all, or it has only a high-impedance connection.


title: Earthing system

text: While the national wiring regulations for buildings of many countries follow the IEC 60364 terminology, in North America (United States and Canada), the term "equipment grounding conductor" refers to equipment grounds and ground wires on branch circuits, and "grounding electrode conductor" is used for conductors bonding an Earth/Ground rod, electrode or similar to a service panel. The "local" Earth/Ground electrode provides "system grounding" at each building where it is installed.


title: Earthing system

text: Australian and New Zealand standards use a modified protective multiple earthing (PME ) system called multiple earthed neutral (MEN). The neutral is grounded (earthed) at each consumer service point thereby effectively bringing the neutral potential difference towards zero along the whole length of LV lines. In the IEC 60364 terminology this is called TN-C-S.


title: Earthing system

text: In the UK and some Commonwealth countries, the term "PNE", meaning phase-neutral-earth is used to indicate that three (or more for non-single-phase connections) conductors are used, i.e., PN-S.


title: Earthing system

text: A resistance earth system is used for mining in India as per Central Electricity Authority Regulations. Instead of a solid connection of neutral to earth, a neutral grounding resistor (NGR) is used to limit the current to ground to less than 750 mA. Due to the fault current restriction it is safer for gassy mines. Since the earth leakage is restricted, leakage protection devices can be set to less than 750 mA . By comparison, in a solidly earthed system, earth fault current can be as much as the available short-circuit current.


title: Earthing system

text: The neutral earthing resistor is monitored to detect an interrupted ground connection and to shut off power if a fault is detected.


title: Earthing system

text: To avoid accidental shock, current sensing circuits are used at the source to isolate the power when leakage current exceeds a certain limit. Residual-current devices (RCDs, RCCBs or GFCIs) are used for this purpose. Previously, an earth leakage circuit breaker is used. In industrial applications, earth leakage relays are used with separate core balanced current transformers. This protection works in the range of milli-Amps and can be set from 30 mA to 3000 mA.


title: Earthing system

text: A separate pilot wire is run from distribution/ equipment supply system in addition to earth wire, to supervise the continuity of the wire. This is used in the trailing cables of mining machinery. If the earth wire is broken, the pilot wire allows a sensing device at the source end to interrupt power to the machine. This type of circuit is a must for portable heavy electric equipment (like LHD (Load, Haul, Dump machine)) being used in underground mines.


title: Earthing system

text: In high-voltage networks (above 1 kV), which are far less accessible to the general public, the focus of earthing system design is less on safety and more on reliability of supply, reliability of protection, and impact on the equipment in presence of a short circuit. Only the magnitude of phase-to-ground short circuits, which are the most common, is significantly affected with the choice of earthing system, as the current path is mostly closed through the earth. Three-phase HV/MV power transformers, located in distribution substations, are the most common source of supply for distribution networks, and type of grounding of their neutral determines the earthing system.


title: Earthing system

text: In "solid" or "directly" earthed neutral, transformer's star point is directly connected to the ground. In this solution, a low-impedance path is provided for the ground fault current to close and, as result, their magnitudes are comparable with three-phase fault currents. Since the neutral remains at the potential close to the ground, voltages in unaffected phases remain at levels similar to the pre-fault ones; for that reason, this system is regularly used in high-voltage transmission networks, where insulation costs are high.


title: Earthing system

text: To limit short circuit earth fault an additional neutral earthing resistor (NER) is added between the neutral of transformer's star point and earth.


title: Earthing system

text: With low resistance fault current limit is relatively high. In India it is restricted for 50 A for open cast mines according to Central Electricity Authority Regulations, CEAR, 2010, rule 100.


title: Earthing system

text: High resistance grounding system grounds the neutral through a resistance which limits the ground fault current to a value equal to or slightly greater than the capacitive charging current of that system


title: Earthing system

text: In "unearthed", "isolated" or "floating neutral" system, as in the IT system, there is no direct connection of the star point (or any other point in the network) and the ground. As a result, ground fault currents have no path to be closed and thus have negligible magnitudes. However, in practice, the fault current will not be equal to zero: conductors in the circuit — particularly underground cables — have an inherent capacitance towards the earth, which provides a path of relatively high impedance.


title: Earthing system

text: Systems with isolated neutral may continue operation and provide uninterrupted supply even in presence of a ground fault. However, while the fault is present, the potential of other two phases relative to the ground reaches formula_1 of the normal operating voltage, creating additional stress for the insulation; insulation failures may inflict additional ground faults in the system, now with much higher currents.


title: Earthing system

text: Presence of uninterrupted ground fault may pose a significant safety risk: if the current exceeds 4 A – 5 A an electric arc develops, which may be sustained even after the fault is cleared. For that reason, they are chiefly limited to underground and submarine networks, and industrial applications, where the reliability need is high and probability of human contact relatively low. In urban distribution networks with multiple underground feeders, the capacitive current may reach several tens of amperes, posing significant risk for the equipment.


title: Earthing system

text: The benefit of low fault current and continued system operation thereafter is offset by inherent drawback that the fault location is hard to detect.


title: Earthing system

text: According to the IEEE standards, grounding rods are made from material such as copper and steel. For choosing a grounding rod there are several selection criteria such as: corrosion resistance, diameter depending on the fault current, conductivity and others. There are several types derived from copper and steel: copper-bonded, stainless-steel, solid copper, galvanized steel ground. In recent decades, there has been developed chemical grounding rods for low impedance ground containing natural electrolytic salts. and Nano-Carbon Fiber Grounding rods.


title: Earthing system

text: Connectors for earthing installation are a means of communication between the various components of the earthing and lightning protection installations (earthing rods, earthing conductors, current leads, busbars, etc.).


title: Earthing system

text: Soil resistance is a major aspect in the design and calculation of an earthing system/grounding installation. Its resistance depends on the efficiency of the removal of unwanted currents to zero potential (ground). The resistance of a geological material depends on several components: the presence of metal ores, the temperature of the geological layer, the presence of archeological or structural features, the presence of dissolved salts, and contaminants, porosity and permeability. There are several basic methods for measuring soil resistance. The measurement is performed with two, three or four electrodes. The measurement methods are: pole-pole, dipole-dipole, pole-dipole, Wenner method, and the Schlumberger method.


title: The Secret of Monkey Island

text: The Secret of Monkey Island is a 1990 point-and-click graphic adventure game developed and published by Lucasfilm Games. It takes place in a fictional version of the Caribbean during the age of piracy. The player assumes the role of Guybrush Threepwood, a young man who dreams of becoming a pirate, and explores fictional islands while solving puzzles.


title: The Secret of Monkey Island

text: The game was conceived in 1988 by Lucasfilm employee Ron Gilbert, who designed it with Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman. Gilbert's frustrations with contemporary adventure titles led him to make the player character's death almost impossible, which meant that gameplay focused on exploration. The atmosphere was based on that of the Pirates of the Caribbean theme park ride. "The Secret of Monkey Island" was the fifth game built with the SCUMM engine, which was heavily modified to include a more user-friendly interface.


title: The Secret of Monkey Island

text: Critics praised "The Secret of Monkey Island" for its humor, audiovisuals, and gameplay. Several publications list it among the greatest video games of all time. The game spawned a number of sequels, collectively known as the "Monkey Island" series. Gilbert, Schafer and Grossman also led the development of the sequel "". LucasArts released a remake of the original in 2009, which was also well received by the gaming press.


title: The Secret of Monkey Island

text: "The Secret of Monkey Island" is a 2D adventure game played from a third-person perspective. Via a point-and-click interface, the player guides protagonist Guybrush Threepwood through the game's world and interacts with the environment by selecting from twelve verb commands (nine in newer versions) such as "talk to" for communicating with characters and "pick up" for collecting items between commands and the world's objects in order to successfully solve puzzles and thus progress in the game. While conversing with other characters, the player may choose between topics for discussion that are listed in a dialog tree; the game is one of the first to incorporate such a system. The in-game action is frequently interrupted by cutscenes. Like other LucasArts adventure games, "The Secret of Monkey Island" features a design philosophy that makes the player character's death nearly impossible (Guybrush does drown if he stays underwater for more than ten minutes).


title: The Secret of Monkey Island

text: A youth named Guybrush Threepwood arrives on Mêlée Island, hoping to become a pirate. He seeks out the island's pirate leaders, who set him three trials: winning a sword duel against Carla, the island's resident swordmaster; finding a buried treasure; and stealing a valuable idol from the governor's mansion. These quests take Guybrush throughout the island, where he hears of stories of the ghost pirate LeChuck, who apparently died in an expedition to the mysterious Monkey Island, an act that was meant to win the love of the governor, Elaine Marley. Guybrush meets several characters of interest, including a local voodoo priestess, Stan the Used Boat Salesman, Carla the Sword Master, a prisoner named Otis, and Meathook, whose hands have been replaced by hooks.


title: The Secret of Monkey Island

text: Guybrush encounters Elaine and is smitten, and she soon reciprocates. However, as he completes the tasks set for him, the island is raided by LeChuck and his undead crew, who abduct Elaine and retreat to their secret hideout on Monkey Island. Guybrush buys a ship and hires Carla, Otis, and Meathook as crew before setting sail. On Monkey Island, Guybrush discovers a village of cannibals in a dispute with Herman Toothrot, a castaway marooned there. He settles their quarrel, then recovers a magical "voodoo root" from LeChuck's ship for the cannibals, who provide him with a seltzer bottle of "voodoo root elixir" that can destroy ghosts.


title: The Secret of Monkey Island

text: When Guybrush returns to LeChuck's ship with the elixir, he learns that LeChuck has returned to Mêlée Island to marry Elaine at the church. He promptly returns to Mêlée Island and gatecrashes the wedding, only to ruin Elaine's own plan for escape; in the process he loses the elixir. Now confronted with a furious LeChuck, Guybrush is savagely beaten by the ghost pirate in a fight ranging across the island. At the ship emporium, Guybrush finds a bottle of root beer. Substituting it for the lost elixir, he sprays LeChuck, destroying him. Guybrush and Elaine enjoy a romantic moment, watching fireworks caused by LeChuck exploding.


title: The Secret of Monkey Island

text: Ron Gilbert conceived the idea of a pirate adventure game in 1988, after completing "Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders". He first wrote story ideas about pirates while spending the weekend at a friend's house. Gilbert experimented with introductory paragraphs to find a satisfactory idea. His initial story featured unnamed villains that would eventually become LeChuck and Elaine; Guybrush was absent at this point. He pitched it to Lucasfilm Games's staff as a series of short stories. Gilbert's idea was warmly received, but production was postponed because Lucasfilm Games assigned its designers, including Gilbert, to "". Development of "The Last Crusade" was finished in 1989, which allowed Gilbert to begin production of "The Secret of Monkey Island", then known internally under the working title "Mutiny on Monkey Island".


title: The Secret of Monkey Island

text: Gilbert soon realised that it would be difficult to design the game by himself; he decided to join forces with Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman, both of whom he hired for Lucasfilm. The game's insult sword fighting mechanics were influenced by swashbuckling movies starring Errol Flynn, which Gilbert, Schafer and Grossman often watched for inspiration. They noticed that pirates in those films often taunted their opponents instead of attacking them, which gave the designers the idea to base the game's duels on insults rather than combat. Writer Orson Scott Card helped them write the insults during a visit to Lucasfilm's headquarters at Skywalker Ranch. Many of Gilbert's original gameplay ideas were abandoned during the production process, although he stated that "most of that stuff was left out for a reason".


title: The Secret of Monkey Island

text: The game's plot, as described by Dave Grossman: "It's a story about this young man who comes to an island in search of his life's dream. He's pursuing his career goals and he discovers love in the process and winds up thinking that was actually more important than what he was doing to begin with. You're laughing, but there's actually something deeper going on as well". When work on the plot began, Gilbert discovered that Schafer's and Grossman's writing styles were too different to form a cohesive whole: Grossman's was "very kind of a dry, sarcastic humor" and Schafer's was "just a little more in your face". In reaction, Gilbert assigned them to different characters and story moments depending on what type of comedy was required. Grossman believed that this benefited the game's writing, as he and Schafer "were all funny in slightly different ways, and it worked well together". Schafer and Grossman wrote most of the dialogue while they were programming the game; as a result, much of it was improvised. Some of the dialogue was based on the designers' personal experiences, such as Guybrush's line "I had a feeling in hell there would be mushrooms", which came from Schafer's own hatred of fungi.


title: The Secret of Monkey Island

text: The game's world and characters were designed primarily by Gilbert. After having read Tim Powers' historical fantasy novel "On Stranger Tides", he decided to add paranormal themes to the game's plot. He also cited Powers' book as an influence on the characters, particularly those of Guybrush and LeChuck. Inspiration for the game's ambiance came from Gilbert's favorite childhood amusement park ride, Pirates of the Caribbean. Grossman said that Gilbert always wanted "to step off the ride" and "talk to the people who lived in that world". Near the final stages of the design work, Gilbert introduced several characters who were not directly related to the game's story. He considered this to be an important decision, as the player would need those seemingly minor characters in later parts of the game and would receive a chance to "really interact with them".


title: The Secret of Monkey Island

text: Gilbert, Schafer and Grossman's primary goal was to create a simpler and more accessible gameplay model than those presented in previous Lucasfilm titles. Gilbert had conceived the main designs and puzzles before production began, which resulted in the bulk of the designers' work to flesh out his ideas. He was frustrated by the adventure games that Sierra On-Line was releasing at the time, and later said that "you died any time you did anything wrong". Gilbert considered such gameplay as "a cheap way out for the designer". He had previously applied his design ideas to the 1987 graphic adventure title "Maniac Mansion", but considered he committed a number of mistakes during development, such as dead-end situations that prevented the player from completing the game and poorly implemented triggers for cutscenes. Gilbert aimed to avoid such errors in "The Secret of Monkey Island". The team decided to make it impossible for the player character to die, with one notable exception, which focused gameplay primarily on world exploration. The Sierra game-over screen was parodied, when Guybrush falls off a cliff only to be bounced back up by a "rubber tree". Guybrush can also be killed by drowning, though it is an Easter Egg unlikely to be found without conscientious effort.


title: The Secret of Monkey Island

text: "The Secret of Monkey Island" was the fifth Lucasfilm Games project powered by the SCUMM engine, originally developed for "Maniac Mansion". The company had gradually modified the engine since its creation. For "Maniac Mansion", the developers hard coded verb commands in the SCUMM scripting language. These commands become more abstract in subsequent versions of the engine. The developers carried over the practice of referring to individual segments of the gameworld as "rooms", even though the areas in "Monkey Island" were outdoors. The game uses the same version of the engine used in "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade", with minor changes. A dialogue tree was added, which facilitated conversation options and the sword-fighting puzzles. The developers removed the "What is" option (an input command that describes an on-screen object to the player) in favor of allowing the player to simply highlight the object with the mouse cursor. The game's improved interface became the standard for the company's later titles. The game also introduced logical verb shortcuts, which could be performed with the mouse; for example, clicking on a character defaults to the "talk" action, the most obvious action in the situation. SCUMM's visuals were updated for the game—the original EGA version had a 320x200 pixel resolution rendered in 16 colors. According to artist Steve Purcell, that became a major limitation for the art team; due to a low number of "ghastly" colors, they often chose bizarre tones for backgrounds. They chose black and white for Guybrush's outfit for the same reason. The VGA version of the game later corrected these issues by implementing 256-color support, which allowed for more advanced background and character art. Other platform releases removed the infamous "stump joke" from the game, which was a joke in the EGA version in which the player would examine a tree stump in the forest. Guybrush would exclaim that there is an opening to a system of catacombs and attempt to enter, but this would result in a message stating the player needed to insert disc 22, then 36, then 114 in order to continue. The joke resulted in numerous calls to the LucasArts hotline asking about missing discs. As a result, the joke was removed from later editions and is mentioned as a conversation option for the LucasArts Hint Hotline in the sequel.


title: The Secret of Monkey Island

text: The game's "pirate reggae" music was composed by Lucasfilm Games' in-house musician Michael Land in MIDI format. It was his first project at the company. The game was originally released for floppy disk in 1990, but a CD-ROM version with a high-quality CD soundtrack followed in 1992. The music has remained popular, and has been remixed by the musicians of OverClocked ReMix and by the game's fans.


title: The Secret of Monkey Island

text: "The Secret of Monkey Island" ultimately cost $200,000 to produce, and was developed over nine months.


title: The Secret of Monkey Island

text: LucasArts released a remake with updated audiovisuals titled "The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition" in July 2009 for iPhone, Microsoft Windows, and Xbox 360 exclusively via digital distribution. LucasArts confirmed the game's development on June 1, 2009; rumors appeared several days earlier when the Xbox 360 version of the game received an USK rating. The game was first displayed to the public at the 2009 E3 in June. The remake features hand-drawn visuals with more detail, a remastered musical score, voice work for characters, and a hint system. The developers included the function to switch between 2009 and original audiovisuals at will. The voice actors included Dominic Armato as Guybrush Threepwood and Earl Boen as LeChuck; most had provided voice work in sequels to "The Secret of Monkey Island".


title: The Secret of Monkey Island

text: LucasArts's game producer Craig Derrick and his team conceived the idea of the remake in 2008. After researching the "Monkey Island" series' history, they decided to make "something fresh and new while staying true to the original", which resulted in the idea of "The Secret of Monkey Island" remake. The developers tried to leave much of the original design unchanged. Any changes were intended to achieve the level of immersion desired for the original. To that end, they added details like a pirate ship or pirates talking in the background of scenes. While the team considered the SCUMM interface revolutionary at the time, LucasArts community manager Brooks Brown noted that it is incompatible with an analog stick, which most consoles use. The designers made the cursor contextual to the game objects as the primary interface. Brown had considered updating the reference to advertise "" because "Loom" was not on the market at the time, but concluded that the game would not be the same if such changes were implemented. Prior to the "Special Edition" release, however, LucasArts announced that "Loom", along with other games from its back catalog, would be made available on Steam. Brown stated that the decision to distribute the game online was because "digital downloads have finally gotten going".


title: The Secret of Monkey Island

text: "The Secret of Monkey Island" received positive reviews from critics. According to Gilbert, it "sold well" but was "never a big hit". Grossman later summarized that the game's sales were "north of 100,000, far south of 1 million. Back in those days, a few hundred thousand was a giant smash hit". According to "Next Generation", "The Secret of Monkey Island" was a "relatively minor hit" in the United States, but the game and its sequel became "blockbusters on the PC and the Amiga throughout Europe".


title: The Secret of Monkey Island

text: Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser of "Dragon" praised the designers' attention to detail, and cited the game's humor as a high point. Although they believed that the game was too expensive, they summarized it as "a highly enjoyable graphic adventure replete with interesting puzzles, a fantastic Roland soundtrack, superb VGA graphics, smooth-scrolling animation, and some of the funniest lines ever seen on your computer screen". Duncan MacDonald of "Zero" praised the graphics and found the game "quite amusing". His favorite aspect was the fine-tuned difficulty level, which he believed was "just right", ending his review with "at last an adventure game that's enjoyable rather than frustrating". Paul Glancey of "Computer and Video Games" consider the game superior to Lucasfilm's earlier adventure titles, and wrote that "usually the entertainment you get from an adventure is derived solely from solving puzzles, but the hilarious characters and situations, and the movie-like presentation ... make playing this more like taking part in a comedy film, so it's much more enjoyable". He considered the puzzles to be "brilliantly conceived" and found the game's controls accessible. He summarized it as "utterly enthralling".


title: The Secret of Monkey Island

text: "ACE"s Steve Cooke also found the controls convenient, and he praised the game's atmosphere. He wrote that, "in graphics and sound terms ... "Monkey Island", along with "King's Quest V", is currently at the head of the pack". However, he disliked the designers' running joke of placing "TM" after character and place names, which he thought detracted from the atmosphere. He singled out the game's writing, characters and plot structure as its best elements. "Amiga Power"s Mark Ramshaw wrote "with "The Secret of Monkey Island", the mouse-controlled, graphic-adventure comes of age". He lauded its comedic elements, which he believed were the highlight of the game. The reviewer also praised the control scheme, noting that it allows the player to "more or less forget about the specifics of what [they are] physically doing ... and lose [themselves] in the adventure instead". He noted that the game's plot and visual and aural presentation fit together to create a thick atmosphere, and finished: "Forget all those other milestone adventures ("Zork", "The Hobbit", "" "et al") — for sheer enjoyment and general all-round perfection, "The Secret of Monkey Island" creams 'em all in style". The game, along with its sequel, was ranked the 19th best game of all time by "Amiga Power".


title: The Secret of Monkey Island

text: Writing for "The One", Paul Presley stated that "Lucasfilm appears to have taken all of the elements that worked in its previous releases and, not only incorporated them into this tale of scurvy swashbuckling, but even improved on them in the process!" Like the other reviewers, he praised its controls. He also lauded its "hilarious storyline, strong characters and ... intriguing setting", but complained about graphical slowdowns. Nick Clarkson of "Amiga Computing" cited the game's graphics as "flawless", noting that "the characters are superbly animated and the backdrops simply ooze atmosphere". He highly praised its sound effects and music, and believed that its controls "couldn't be simpler". The staff of "Amiga Action" wrote that the "attention to detail and the finely tuned gameplay cannot be faulted". They called the graphics "stunning throughout", and believed that, when they were combined with the "excellent Caribbean tunes", the result is a game filled with character and atmosphere. They ended by stating that "there is absolutely no excuse for not owning this game". "Computer Gaming World" said that ""Monkey Island" offers up LucasArt's famous humor at its best ... For an adventure you'll long remember, raise your cup of grog".


title: The Secret of Monkey Island

text: "The Secret of Monkey Island" has featured regularly in lists of "top" games, such as "Computer Gaming World's" Hall of Fame and IGN's Video Game Hall of Fame. In 1991, "PC Format" placed "The Secret of Monkey Island" on its list of the 50 best computer games of all time, calling it "genuinely funny". In 1996, "Computer Gaming World" ranked it as the 19th best game of all time, writing: "Who could ever forget the insult-driven duel system or the identity of the mysterious Swordmaster?". In 2004, readers of "Retro Gamer" voted it as the 33rd top retro game. IGN named "The Secret of Monkey Island" one of the ten best LucasArts adventure games in 2009, and ranked the Xbox Live Arcade version as the 20th best title of all time for that platform in 2010. In 2017, "The Secret of Monkey Island" ranked 78th in the "Scientifically Proven Best Video Games of All Time", a statistical meta-analysis compiled by Warp Zoned of 44 "top games" lists published between 1995 and 2016.


title: The Secret of Monkey Island

text: Like the original release, "The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition" received positive reviews from critics. Sean Ely of "GamePro" praised its updated audio, and said that the new graphics "blow the old clunker visuals ... out of the water". He cited its script, humor, plot, puzzles and balanced difficulty level as high points, and finished, ""The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition" is impressive, hilarious and downright worth your money". Daemon Hatfield of IGN wrote: "Almost 20 years after its release, ["The Secret of Monkey Island"] remains a blast to play". He called the new graphics "slick, if a little generic", and noted that the "original graphics have a certain charm to them that the fancy pants new visuals just don't", but he enjoyed the redone music, the new hint function, and the added sound effects and voice acting. He summarized it as "one of the best times you'll ever have pointing and clicking", and noted that "few games are this funny". Justin Calvert of GameSpot noted that "the Special Edition looks much better and is the only way to play if you want to hear ... what characters are saying, whereas the original game's interface is less clunky". However, he wrote that "the voice work is such a great addition to the game that it's difficult to go back to the original edition". He praised its humor, writing, puzzles and characters, and he believed that it had aged well. Eurogamer's Dan Whitehead wrote: "Purists like me will almost certainly find something to grumble about over the span of the game, but the overall impact of the redesign is undeniably for the better". He preferred the original game's Guybrush design, and believed that the new control system was "rather less intuitive" than the old one. He finished by stating that "few games can stand the test of time with such confidence".


title: The Secret of Monkey Island

text: "The Secret of Monkey Island" spawned five sequels. The first, "", was released in 1991 and focuses on LeChuck's return. Six years later, LucasArts released "The Curse of Monkey Island", which features a new visual design. In 2000, the company released "Escape from Monkey Island", which uses the GrimE engine of "Grim Fandango" to produce 3D graphics. The next title, "Tales of Monkey Island" released in 2009, is a series of five episodic chapters. The most recent title, "Return to Monkey Island", was released in 2022 and revisits several locations and characters from the first game.


title: The Secret of Monkey Island

text: Elements of the game have appeared elsewhere in popular culture. The original version was selected as one of five for the exhibition "The Art of Video Games" in the Smithsonian American Art Museum in 2011. A fictive drink recipe in the game for grog was mistakenly reported as real in 2009 by Argentinian news channel C5N, which urged teenagers against consuming the dangerous "Grog XD" drink. In "Tales of Monkey Island", Guybrush refers to this news story while pushing the Grog XD button on a Grog machine.


title: The Secret of Monkey Island

text: In a celebration of the game's 30th anniversary, Ron Gilbert shared secrets from its original source code during a video conversation with the Video Games History Foundation. These included early character prototypes, unused animations and alternative game environments.


The 1840 United States presidential election was the 14th quadrennial presidential election, held from Friday, October 30 to Wednesday, December 2, 1840. Economic recovery from the Panic of 1837 was incomplete, and Whig nominee William Henry Harrison defeated incumbent President Martin Van Buren of the Democratic Party. The election marked the first of two Whig victories in presidential elections.


title: 1840 United States presidential election

text: In 1839, the Whigs held a national convention for the first time. The 1839 Whig National Convention saw 1836 nominee William Henry Harrison defeat former Secretary of State Henry Clay and General Winfield Scott. Van Buren faced little opposition at the 1840 Democratic National Convention, but controversial Vice President Richard Mentor Johnson was not re-nominated. The Democrats thus became the only major party since 1800 to fail to select a vice presidential nominee. This election saw the third rematch in presidential history.


text: Referencing vice presidential nominee John Tyler and Harrison's participation in the Battle of Tippecanoe, the Whigs campaigned on the slogan of "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too." With Van Buren weakened by economic woes, Harrison won a popular majority and 234 of 294 electoral votes. Voter participation surged as white male suffrage became nearly universal, and a contemporary record of 42.4% of the voting age population voted for Harrison. Van Buren's loss made him the third president, and the first outside the Adams family, to lose re-election.


text: The Whigs did not enjoy the benefits of victory. The 67-year-old Harrison, the oldest U.S. president elected until Ronald Reagan won the 1980 election, died a little more than a month after inauguration. Harrison was succeeded by John Tyler, who unexpectedly proved not to be a Whig. While Tyler had been a staunch supporter of Clay at the convention, he was a former Democrat, a passionate supporter of states' rights, and effectively an independent. As President, Tyler blocked the Whigs' legislative agenda and was expelled from the Whig Party, subsequently the second independent (after Washington) to serve as president. This is the only election where the Whigs won a majority of the vote, and the last time a non-Democratic or Republican candidate has done so.


text: The first national convention of the Whig Party was called for by members of the party in Congress and it was attended by almost 250 delegates in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Henry Clay, William Henry Harrison, and Winfield Scott ran for the party's presidential nomination. The delegations of each state balloted separately before meeting together with the other representatives of the states. Clay initially led on the first ballot, but Harrison won on the final ballot with 148 votes compared to Clay's 90 votes and Scott's 16 votes after supporters from Scott switched to Harrison. John Tyler was selected as a fractional and geographical balance to Harrison.


text: Democratic members of the New Hampshire General Court made a call for the 1840 Democratic National Convention which was held in Baltimore, Maryland in May 1840. Delegates from twenty-two states attended the convention, but the sizes of the delegations varied with New Jersey having fifty-nine delegates to cast its eight votes while Massachusetts only had one delegate to cast its fourteen votes.


text: A committee was formed to make recommendations for the nominations and the committee supported Van Buren for renomination which was approved by acclamation. However, the vice-presidential nomination was left vacant due to opposition to Vice President Richard M. Johnson's personal life.


text: After the negative views of Freemasonry among a large segment of the public began to wane in the mid 1830s, the Anti-Masonic Party disintegrated. Many leaders began to move to the Whig party. Remaining leaders met in September 1837 in Washington, and agreed to maintain the party. The third Anti-Masonic Party National Convention was held in Philadelphia on November 13–14, 1838. By this time, the party had been almost entirely supplanted by the Whigs. The delegates unanimously voted to nominate William Henry Harrison for president (who the party had supported for president the previous election along with Francis Granger for vice president) and Daniel Webster for vice president. However, when the Whig National Convention nominated Harrison with John Tyler as his running mate, the Anti-Masonic Party did not make an alternate nomination and ceased to function and was fully absorbed into the Whigs by 1840.


text: James G. Birney, Myron Holley, Joshua Leavitt, and Gerrit Smith proposed the creation of an anti-slavery party. In July 1839, two resolutions proposed by Holley at the American Anti-Slavery Society's meeting in Cleveland, called for the creation of an abolitionist party. They failed. Nevetheless the supporters nominated Birney and Francis Julius LeMoyne as a presidential ticket at a meeting in Warsaw, New York. However, Birney declined the presidential nomination as he preferred a nomination to be made by a regular body of abolitionists and LeyMoyne also declined the vice-presidential nomination. Smith and Holley made a call for an abolitionist nominating convention to be held on April 1, 1840, in Albany, New York. 121 delegates attended the delegation and selected a presidential ticket of Birney and Thomas Earle. which was accepted. It took the name Liberty Party.


text: Birney was unable to campaign during the election as he was in England until November. The Liberty Party received opposition from followers of William Lloyd Garrison and abolitionist Whigs. The Liberty Party received 7,453 votes.


text: In the wake of the Panic of 1837, Van Buren was widely unpopular, and Harrison, following Andrew Jackson's strategy, ran as a war hero and man of the people while presenting Van Buren as a wealthy snob living in luxury at the public expense. Although Harrison was comfortably wealthy and well educated, his "log cabin" image caught fire, sweeping all sections of the country.


text: Harrison avoided campaigning on the issues, with his Whig Party attracting a broad coalition with few common ideals. The Whig strategy overall was to win the election by avoiding discussion of difficult national issues such as slavery or the national bank and concentrate instead on exploiting dissatisfaction over the failed policies of the Van Buren administration with colorful campaigning techniques.


text: Harrison was the first president to campaign actively for office. He did so with the slogan "Tippecanoe and Tyler too". Tippecanoe referred to Harrison's military victory over a group of Shawnee Native Americans at a river in Indiana called Tippecanoe in 1811. For their part, Democrats laughed at Harrison for being too old for the presidency, and referred to him as "Granny", hinting that he was senile. Said one Democratic newspaper: "Give him a barrel of hard cider, and ... a pension of two thousand [dollars] a year ... and ... he will sit the remainder of his days in his log cabin."


text: Whigs took advantage of this quip and declared that Harrison was "the log cabin and hard cider candidate", a man of the common people from the rough-and-tumble West. They depicted Harrison's opponent, President Martin Van Buren, as a wealthy snob who was out of touch with the people. In fact, it was Harrison who came from a family of wealthy planters, while Van Buren's father was a tavernkeeper. Harrison however moved to the frontier and for years lived in a log cabin, while Van Buren had been a well-paid government official.


text: Nonetheless, the election was held during the worst economic depression in the nation's history, and voters blamed Van Buren, seeing him as unsympathetic to struggling citizens. Harrison campaigned vigorously and won.


text: Harrison won the support of western settlers and eastern bankers alike. The extent of Van Buren's unpopularity was evident in Harrison's victories in New York, the president's home state, and in Tennessee, where Andrew Jackson himself had come out of retirement to stump for his former vice-president.


text: Few Americans were surprised when Van Buren lost in the electoral vote by 234 to 60, but many were amazed by the closeness of the popular vote: of 2.41 million votes cast, Van Buren lost by only 146,500, and a shift of 20,000 votes to Van Buren in Michigan, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania would have left the electoral college in a 147–147 tie, forcing a contingent election in the House of Representatives.


text: Of the 1,179 counties/independent cities making returns, Harrison won in 699 (59.29%) while Van Buren carried 477 (40.46%). Three counties (0.25%) in the South split evenly between Harrison and Van Buren.


text: Harrison's victory won him precious little time as chief executive of the United States. After giving the longest inauguration speech in U.S. history (lasting about 1 hour and 45 minutes, in cold weather and rain), Harrison served only one month as president before dying of pneumonia on April 4, 1841. This was also the first election in US history in which a candidate won more than a million popular votes.


text: This was the last election where Indiana voted for the Whigs. It was also the only election where the Whigs won Maine, Michigan, and Mississippi. The election was also the last time that Mississippi voted against the Democrats until 1872, the last in which Indiana did so until 1860, and the last in which Maine and Michigan did so until 1856. This is the only election in American history in which Alabama and Mississippi voted for different candidates.


text: The 1840 presidential election was the only U.S. presidential election in which four people who either had been or would become a U.S. President (Van Buren, Harrison, Tyler, and Polk) received at least one vote in the Electoral College.


text: Source: Data from Walter Dean Burnham, "Presidential ballots, 1836–1892" (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1955) pp 247–257.


text: In the film "Amistad", Van Buren (played by Nigel Hawthorne) is seen campaigning for re-election. These scenes have been criticized for their historical inaccuracy.


title: Reema Lagoo

text: Reema Lagoo (born Nayan Bhadbhade; 21 June 1958 – 18 May 2017) was an Indian theatre and screen actress known for her work in Hindi and Marathi cinema. She began her acting career in the Marathi theatre, after which she became a household name for playing motherly roles in the 1990s and early 2000s. She became a household name after her roles in the 90s classic TV sitcoms "Shriman Shrimati" (as Kokila Kulkarni) and as Devaki Verma starring opposite Supriya Pilgaonkar in "Tu Tu Main Main".


title: Reema Lagoo

text: Lagoo's career as an actor began as a child, influenced by her mother, who was a Marathi stage and film actress. She appeared in five films including "Masterji", directed by Durga Khote. Her senior career continued in Marathi stage after a long gap following work as a child artiste. It began with her coming to Mumbai and appearing in P. L. Deshpande's play, an adaptation of "My Fair Lady". However, she received wider recognition with roles in television serials, Hindi and Marathi films. She debuted in films in 1979 with the Marathi film "Sinhasan".


title: Reema Lagoo

text: She went on to play supporting roles with some of the biggest names in the Hindi film industry, mostly as the mother of the lead characters. She first rose to prominence with the Hindi film "Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak" (1988) where she played Juhi Chawla's mother. She was seen in a controversial role in Aruna Raje's "Rihaee" (1988). She then starred in the blockbuster film "Maine Pyar Kiya" (1989) as Salman Khan's mother and then in "Saajan" (1991), also a superhit success at the box office. She starred in action drama and crime thriller "Gumrah" (1993) as Sridevi's mother, "Jai Kishen" (1994) as Akshay Kumar's mother and "Rangeela" (1995) as Urmila Matondkar's mother. Her "Gumrah" (1993) was seventh-highest grosser of the year at the box office, "Jai Kishen" (1994) was a commercial success (declared 'semihit'). "Rangeela" (1995) was highest grosser of the year at the box office.


title: Reema Lagoo

text: Most prominently, she has starred in some of the biggest hits in the Bollywood industry including the "Hum Aapke Hain Koun..!" (1994), "Yeh Dillagi" (1994), "Dilwale" (1994), "Rangeela" (1995), "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai" (1998), "Kal Ho Naa Ho" (2003), "Hum Saath-Saath Hain" (1999) "" (1999) In this role that won her a fourth Filmfare Award for best supporting actress, Lagoo played mother to gangster Sanjay Dutt. She has been credited in the media as a coming of a "new-age mother" in Hindi cinema.


title: Reema Lagoo

text: Though mostly playing a middle-aged mother in films, she has also played other roles earlier in her career. She played the role of a dancer in "Aakrosh" (1980) and a cold-hearted businesswoman in "Yeh Dillagi" (1994).


title: Reema Lagoo

text: Lagoo also had a notable presence in Marathi cinema. She was awarded the Maharashtra State Film Award for Best Actress for her performance in the 2002 film "Reshamgaath". Her role in "Janma" (2011), which she referred to as "one of the best roles in her career", received praise. Recognising her contribution to Marathi cinema, she was awarded the V Shantaram Award by the Government of Maharashtra.


title: Reema Lagoo

text: Lagoo also had a fairly successful career as a television actor in both Hindi and Marathi languages. She debuted on television in 1985 with the Hindi series "Khandaan". Her roles in "Shriman Shrimati" as Kokila Kulkarni and as Devaki Verma starring opposite Supriya Pilgaonkar in "Tu Tu Main Main" were her most successful shows, with the latter winning her the Indian Telly Award for Best Actress in a Comic Role.


title: Reema Lagoo

text: Reema Lagoo was born on 21 June 1958 as Nayan Bhadbhade. Her mother was Marathi stage actress Mandakini Bhadbhade famed for the drama "Lekure udand Jaahalee". Lagoo's acting abilities were noted when she was a student at the Huzurpaga HHCP High School in Pune. She took to acting professionally after completing her secondary education. Starting 1979, she was employed with Union Bank of India for ten years in Bombay (now Mumbai), when, alongside appearances in television and films, she participated in the inter-bank cultural events.


title: Reema Lagoo

text: She met Vivek Lagoo, her future colleague in the bank and stage actor, in 1976 and married him in 1978. Upon marriage, she adopted the name Reema Lagoo. Described by Vivek as "an understanding to restructure our lives", they separated later. The couple's daughter Mrunmayee is also an actress and theatre director.


title: Reema Lagoo

text: Lagoo had been shooting for the television series "Naamkarann" till 7 p.m. (IST) on 17 May 2017. After she complained of chest pain later that night, she was taken to Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital in Mumbai at 1 a.m. (IST). She died at 3:15 a.m. (IST) from cardiac arrest. At the time of death, she was described as being "perfectly fine" and having "no health issues". Her funeral was performed by her daughter in Oshiwara crematorium, in Mumbai.


title: Mavis Leno

text: Mavis Elizabeth Nicholson Leno (born September 5, 1946) is an American philanthropist and wife of Jay Leno, the former host of "The Tonight Show".


title: Mavis Leno

text: A leading feminist in California, in the United States as a whole, and internationally, Leno keeps a low profile in comparison to her husband, choosing instead to work behind the scenes of the non-profit, politically charged groups she supports and runs.


title: Mavis Leno

text: Leno has been the chair of the Feminist Majority Foundation's Campaign to Stop Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan since 1997. In 1999, Leno and her husband donated $100,000 to the organization, to further the cause of educating the public about the plight of Afghan women under the Taliban. The organization successfully protested the construction of an oil pipeline through Afghanistan, which could potentially have brought in billions of dollars to the Taliban. According to Melissa Rossi, Leno was a driving force in changing the opinion of U.S. President Bill Clinton and the executives of the now defunct oil company Unocal Corporation concerning the Taliban, after Leno had shed light on the group's treatment of women.


title: Mark Selby

text: Mark Anthony Selby (born 19 June 1983) is an English professional snooker player who is a four-time World Snooker Champion. Ranked world number one on multiple occasions, he has won a total of 21 ranking titles, placing him eighth on the all-time list of ranking tournament winners. In addition to his four world titles, he has won the Masters three times and the UK Championship twice for a total of nine Triple Crown titles, putting him on a par with John Higgins and behind only Ronnie O’Sullivan (21), Stephen Hendry (18) and Steve Davis (15).


title: Mark Selby

text: After winning the England Under-15 Championship in 1998, Selby turned professional in 1999, aged 16. He made his Crucible debut in 2005 and reached his first World Championship final in 2007, when he was runner-up to John Higgins. He won his first major title at the 2008 Masters and his first ranking title at the 2008 Welsh Open. Between 2014 and 2017, he won the World Championship three times in four years. He has been world number one on multiple occasions; he first reached the top of the rankings in September 2011, and held the position for more than four years continuously between February 2015 and March 2019. He has compiled more than 700 century breaks in professional competition, including four maximum breaks.


title: Mark Selby

text: Selby is also a pool player; he was the 2006 World Eight-ball Pool Federation champion and runner-up at the Chinese Eight-ball World Championship in 2015, making him the only man to have been world champion in both snooker and pool.


title: Mark Selby

text: A winner of the England under-15 championship in 1998, Selby joined the professional tour a year later at the age of 16 in 1999. In early 2002, he reached the semi-finals of the China Open, despite leaving his hotel room at 2 a.m. instead of 2 p.m. for one of his matches because of jetlag. In April 2003, aged 19, he reached his first ranking final at the Scottish Open, where he finished runner-up to David Gray, earning himself a place in the top 32 for the first time. He progressed to the final round of qualifying at the World Snooker Championships in both 2002 and 2003, but failed to qualify for the knockout stages at the Crucible Theatre on both occasions.


title: Mark Selby

text: From late 2005, Selby was managed by former snooker professional and fellow Leicester resident Mukesh Parmar. He progressed to the main draw of the 2005 World Championship, losing 5–10 to John Higgins in the first round. He then faced Higgins in the first round again at the 2006 World Championship, this time defeating the reigning Grand Prix and Masters champion 10–4, before being eliminated in the second round by Mark Williams.


title: Mark Selby

text: Selby reached the final of the 2007 World Championship, where he was defeated 13–18 by Higgins. He beat Stephen Lee 10–7 in the first round, after winning eight successive from 0–5 behind to lead 8–5. He defeated former World Champion Peter Ebdon 13–8 in the second round, with five centuries (three of them consecutive) to reach the quarter-finals, where he beat Ali Carter 13–12, from 11–8 ahead and 11–12 behind, in a third-round match that lasted well over nine hours. He won his semi-final match 17–16 against Shaun Murphy, after trailing 14–16, in another deciding frame that he took with a 64 break. John Higgins led 12–4 after the second session of the final, but Selby won all six frames played in the third session on Monday afternoon before time ran out due to the length of the frames; he was therefore only 10–12 behind entering the final session, and closed to within one frame at 13–14 before eventually losing the match.


title: Mark Selby

text: Higgins pointed out in his victory speech that Selby was "the most improved player on the tour". Selby's performance in the 2006–07 season earned him a place in the top 16 for the first time for the 2007–08 season, where he was ranked 11th. His victories over Lee, Ebdon, Carter, and Murphy at the 2007 World Championship also won Selby the inaugural 888.com Silver Chip award for outstanding performance, awarded by the Snooker Writers' Association.


title: Mark Selby

text: He had a strong run in the 2007 UK Championship, reaching the semi-finals where he met the eventual winner of the event, Ronnie O'Sullivan. Selby led 7–5, but fell 7–8 behind before levelling the match at 8–8; however, O'Sullivan made a 147 break in the deciding frame to win the match 9–8.


title: Mark Selby

text: On 20 January 2008, Selby won his first major tournament: the Masters at Wembley Arena in London. En route to the final, he had edged out Stephen Hendry, Stephen Maguire and Ken Doherty, all on a 6–5 scoreline. In the final against Stephen Lee, after leading 5–3 at the break, Selby took control and reeled off five consecutive frames (eight in a row overall, from 2–3 behind) to achieve a decisive 10–3 victory. He produced a high standard of play in the final, compiling four century breaks in total; his final-frame effort, a total clearance of 141, equalled the highest break of the tournament.


title: Mark Selby

text: Selby claimed his first world ranking title at the Welsh Open on 17 February 2008, winning a close-fought final 9–8 against O'Sullivan after recovering from 5–8 behind. However, he could not reproduce his Crucible success from the previous season; despite going into the 2008 World Championship as one of the bookmakers' favourites for the title, Selby was defeated 8–10 in the first round by Mark King.


title: Mark Selby

text: In the Welsh Open quarter-finals the following year, he was handed a writ by a member of the audience, supposedly his former manager George Barmby. Selby commented that all he could think about was the envelope that had been given to him before he was defeated 3–5 by Anthony Hamilton. He reached the final of the Masters again where he was runner-up to O'Sullivan, losing the match 8–10 after leading 7–5, and also reached the quarter-finals of the 2009 World Championship, losing 12–13 to Higgins, who went on to win his third world title.


title: Mark Selby

text: Selby recovered from 4–8 behind to beat Jamie Cope 9–8 in the first round of the 2009 UK Championship, but lost in the quarter-finals 3–9 to O'Sullivan. On 17 January 2010, he won his second Masters title, having reached the final for the third time in as many years, in a repeat of the previous year's final where he had lost to O'Sullivan. This time, after falling behind 6–9, with O'Sullivan needing one more frame for another victory, Selby took the next four frames to win the championship 10–9. He came within reach of his second World Championship final in 2010, losing in the semi-finals 14–17 to Graeme Dott, despite pulling up to 10–11 and 13–14.


title: Mark Selby

text: In July 2010, Selby won the Six-red World Championship in Bangkok, with an 8–6 victory over Ricky Walden in the final. At the 2011 China Open, he beat Tian Pengfei, Robert Milkins, Ali Carter, and home favourite Ding Junhui, but was defeated 8–10 by Judd Trump in the final. At the 2011 World Championship, he set the record for the most century breaks compiled in a world championship match when he made six in his second-round tie with Hendry. This was also a record for a best-of-25-frames match and took Selby's century tally for the season to 54, setting a new record for the most centuries compiled by one player in a single season.


title: Mark Selby

text: Selby started the season by winning the non-ranking Wuxi Classic with a 9–7 victory over Ali Carter. He won his second ranking event at the Shanghai Masters, where he defeated Mark Williams 10–9 in the final, winning the last three frames from 7–9 behind. With this victory, Selby replaced Williams as world number one, moving to the top of the world rankings for the first time in his career.


title: Mark Selby

text: He also won the minor-ranking PTC Event 4 (the 2011 edition of the Paul Hunter Classic); having edged out Ronnie O'Sullivan 4–3 in the semi-finals, he achieved a 4–0 whitewash over Mark Davis in the final. Selby eventually finished fifth on the PTC Order of Merit and therefore qualified to the last 16 of the PTC Grand Final. He beat Ding Junhui 4–1, before losing 0–4 to eventual winner Stephen Lee in the quarter-finals.


title: Mark Selby

text: Selby progressed to the quarter-finals of the Masters in January, where he lost 2–6 to Shaun Murphy; he was defeated by Murphy again the following month, in the quarter-finals of the German Masters, losing the match 3–5. After reaching the final of the Welsh Open, where he lost 6–9 to Ding, he met Murphy for the third time in the space of less than six weeks, in the quarter-finals of the World Open, this time achieving a 5–0 whitewash. However, he then suffered a 5–6 semi-final defeat against Mark Allen, despite having built up a 5–2 lead.


title: Mark Selby

text: Selby withdrew from the second round of the China Open because of a neck injury. His decision to withdraw was also a precautionary measure to make sure he was ready for the upcoming World Championship. He played Barry Hawkins in the first round and was defeated 3–10. After the match, Selby admitted that he had only managed nine hours of practice in preparation for the tournament and there were certain shots that he was physically unable to play. Despite this disappointment, he finished the season still as world number one.


title: Mark Selby

text: Selby announced he felt "90 per cent fit" just before the start of the season, as he continued his recovery from the disc bulge in his neck. His first event was the Wuxi Classic where he played Barry Hawkins in the last 32; having been eliminated from the World Championship by Hawkins two months earlier, Selby this time won 5–2, and then whitewashed Jamie Cope 5–0 to set up a quarter-final match with in-form Stuart Bingham, but lost in the deciding frame 4–5.<ref name="2012/13"></ref> He won seven matches in a row to reach the quarter-finals of the Six-red World Championship, where he was defeated 5–7 by Judd Trump. He then suffered a shock 3–5 first-round defeat to Jamie Burnett in the Australian Goldfields Open.


title: Mark Selby

text: Selby lost his world number one ranking on 2 November 2012, when Trump claimed the top spot by reaching the final of the inaugural International Championship in China. However, just five weeks later, Selby regained the top ranking position by winning the UK Championship, for his third ranking title and most significant of his career to that date. He defeated Michael White 6–3, Ryan Day 6–4 after trailing 0–3, and Neil Robertson 6–4 from 0–4 behind, to reach the semi-finals. He then defeated Mark Davis 9–4 to progress to the final, where he beat Shaun Murphy 10–6 to win the tournament.


title: Mark Selby

text: Selby also participated at the Players Tour Championship. He successfully defended his Paul Hunter Classic title with a 4–1 win over Joe Swail in the final. He then lost in the final of the Antwerp Open 1–4 against Mark Allen, and won the Munich Open by defeating Graeme Dott 3–4 in the final. He then finished number one on the Order of Merit, and qualified for the Finals, where he lost 3–4 against Jack Lisowski.


title: Mark Selby

text: Selby then won his third Masters title, beating Bingham 6–5 from 1–5 behind in the first round, Mark Williams 6–1 in the quarter-finals, and Dott 6–5 from 1–4 behind in the semi-finals. He then defeated defending champion Neil Robertson 10–6 in the final. He reached the quarter-finals of the German Masters, but lost 1–5 against Hawkins. He lost in the last 32 of the Welsh Open 0–4 against Joe Perry, and lost his number one position to Trump. Selby then reached the quarter-finals of the World Open, but lost 3–5 against Robertson.


title: Mark Selby

text: At the China Open, Selby became only the fourth player in history to miss the final black on a 147 attempt, and only the second – after Ken Doherty – to do so in a televised match, in a 5–1 defeat of Mark King. He then reached the final by defeating Ricky Walden 5–2, Williams 5–1 and Murphy 6–2, but lost 6–10 against Robertson. After the event he regained the number one spot from Trump. He finished off the season at the World Championship, where he beat Matthew Selt 10–4 in the first round, before losing 10–13 to Hawkins in the second round.


title: Mark Selby

text: In the first ranking event of the season, Selby was subjected to a 3–5 defeat to Andrew Pagett in the qualifying rounds of the Wuxi Classic in China. The tournament was the first to use a new format requiring the top 16 players to compete in the qualifying rounds at most ranking events. In minor-ranking tournaments, he was runner-up at the Yixing Open, losing 1–4 to Joe Perry, and at the Rotterdam Open, where he lost 3–4 to Mark Williams. He won the Antwerp Open in November, defeating Ronnie O'Sullivan 4–3 in the final.


title: Mark Selby

text: Having won the UK Championship and Masters in the previous season, Selby qualified to take part in the first edition of the revived Champion of Champions competition, where he lost to Stuart Bingham in the semi-finals 4–6. Defending his title at the UK Championship in December, Selby compiled snooker's 100th officially recognised maximum break in professional competition, in the seventh frame of his semi-final against Ricky Walden. He received £55,000 for the achievement, in addition to the tournament's highest break prize of £4,000. The next day, he lost 7–10 to world number one Neil Robertson in the final, having been ahead 5–1 and 6–3, missing his chance to regain the top position in the world rankings.