title: Roland

text: Roland was turned into a popular and iconic figure of medieval Europe and its minstrel culture. Many tales made him a nephew of Charlemagne and turned his life into an epic tale of the noble Christian killed by hostile forces, which forms part of the medieval Matter of France.


title: Roland

text: The tale of Roland's death is retold in the 11th-century poem "The Song of Roland", where he is equipped with the olifant (a signaling horn) and an unbreakable sword, enchanted by various Christian relics, named Durendal. The "Song" contains a highly romanticized account of the Battle of Roncevaux Pass and Roland's death, setting the tone for later fantastical depiction of Charlemagne's court.


title: Roland

text: It was adapted and modified throughout the Middle Ages, including an influential Latin prose version "Historia Caroli Magni" (latterly known as the "Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle"), which also includes Roland's battle with a Saracen giant named Ferracutus who is only vulnerable at his navel. The story was later adapted in the anonymous Franco-Venetian epic "L'Entrée d'Espagne" ( 1320) and in the 14th-century Italian epic "La Spagna", attributed to the Florentine Sostegno di Zanobi and likely composed between 1350 and 1360.


title: Roland

text: Other texts give further legendary accounts of Roland's life. His friendship with Olivier and his engagement with Olivier's sister Aude are told in "Girart de Vienne" by Bertrand de Bar-sur-Aube. Roland's youth and the acquisition of his horse Veillantif and sword are described in "Aspremont". Roland also appears in "Quatre Fils Aymon", where he is contrasted with Renaud de Montauban against whom he occasionally fights.


title: Roland

text: In the "Divine Comedy" Dante sees Roland, named Orlando as is usual in Italian literature, in the Heaven of Mars together with others who fought for the faith.


title: Roland

text: Roland appears in "Entrée d'Espagne", a 14th-century Franco-Venetian chanson de geste (in which he is transformed into a knight errant, similar to heroes from the Arthurian romances) and "La Spagna", a 14th-century Italian epic.


title: Roland

text: From the 15th century onwards, he appears as a central character in a sequence of Italian verse romances as "Orlando", including "Morgante" by Luigi Pulci, "Orlando Innamorato" by Matteo Maria Boiardo, and "Orlando furioso" by Ludovico Ariosto. (See below for his later history in Italian verse.) The "Orlandino" of Pietro Aretino then waxed satirical about the "cult of personality" of Orlando the hero. The Orlando narrative inspired several composers, amongst whom were Claudio Monteverdi, Jean-Baptiste Lully, Antonio Vivaldi and George Frideric Handel, who composed an Italian-language opera with "Orlando".


title: Roland

text: In Germany, Roland gradually became a symbol of the independence of the growing cities from the local nobility. In the late Middle Ages many cities featured defiant statues of Roland in their marketplaces. The Roland in Wedel was erected in 1450 as symbol of market and Hanseatic justice, and the Roland statue in front of Bremen City Hall (1404) has been listed together with the city hall itself on the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites since 2004.


title: Roland

text: In Aragón there are several placenames related to Roldán or Rolando, including the mountain pass Roland's Breach and the rock formation Salto de Roldán.


title: Roland

text: In Catalonia Roland (or "Rotllà", as it is rendered in Catalan) became a legendary giant. Numerous places in Catalonia (both North and South) have a name related to "Rotllà". In step with the trace left by the character in the whole Pyrenean area, Basque "Errolan" turns up in numerous legends and place-names associated with a mighty giant, usually a heathen, capable of launching huge stones. The Basque word "erraldoi" (giant) stems from "Errol(d)an", as pointed out by the linguist Koldo Mitxelena.


title: Roland

text: Jean Lannes, a Marshal of the First French Empire, was given the nickname "Roland de l'Armée d'Italie," which later became "Roland de la Grande Armée" for his braveness and charisma.


title: Roland

text: A statue of Roland also stands in the city of Rolândia in Brazil. This city was established by German immigrants, many of whom were refugees from Nazi Germany, who named their new home after Roland to represent freedom.


title: Roland

text: The English expression "to give a Roland for an Oliver", meaning either to offer a or "to give as good as one gets", recalls the "Chanson de Roland" and Roland's companion Oliver.


title: Malic acid

text: Malic acid is an organic compound with the molecular formula . It is a dicarboxylic acid that is made by all living organisms, contributes to the sour taste of fruits, and is used as a food additive. Malic acid has two stereoisomeric forms (- and -enantiomers), though only the -isomer exists naturally. The salts and esters of malic acid are known as malates. The malate anion is an intermediate in the citric acid cycle.


title: Malic acid

text: The word 'malic' is derived from Latin 'mālum', meaning 'apple'. The related Latin word , meaning 'apple tree', is used as the name of the genus "Malus", which includes all apples and crabapples; and the origin of other taxonomic classifications such as Maloideae, Malinae, and Maleae.


title: Malic acid

text: -Malic acid is the naturally occurring form, whereas a mixture of - and -malic acid is produced synthetically.


title: Malic acid

text: Malate plays an important role in biochemistry. In the C4 carbon fixation process, malate is a source of CO in the Calvin cycle. In the citric acid cycle, ("S")-malate is an intermediate, formed by the addition of an -OH group on the "si" face of fumarate. It can also be formed from pyruvate via anaplerotic reactions.


title: Malic acid

text: Malate is also synthesized by the carboxylation of phosphoenolpyruvate in the guard cells of plant leaves. Malate, as a double anion, often accompanies potassium cations during the uptake of solutes into the guard cells in order to maintain electrical balance in the cell. The accumulation of these solutes within the guard cell decreases the solute potential, allowing water to enter the cell and promote aperture of the stomata.


title: Malic acid

text: Malic acid was first isolated from apple juice by Carl Wilhelm Scheele in 1785. Antoine Lavoisier in 1787 proposed the name "acide malique", which is derived from the Latin word for apple, "mālum"—as is its genus name "Malus".


title: Malic acid

text: In German it is named "" (or "Apfelsäure") after plural or singular of a sour thing from the apple fruit, but the salt(s) are called "Malat(e)".


title: Malic acid

text: Malic acid is the main acid in many fruits, including apricots, blackberries, blueberries, cherries, grapes, mirabelles, peaches, pears, plums, and quince and is present in lower concentrations in other fruits, such as citrus. It contributes to the sourness of unripe apples. Sour apples contain high proportions of the acid. It is present in grapes and in most wines with concentrations sometimes as high as 5 g/L. It confers a tart taste to wine; the amount decreases with increasing fruit ripeness. The taste of malic acid is very clear and pure in rhubarb, a plant for which it is the primary flavor. It is also the compound responsible for the tart flavor of sumac spice. It is also a component of some artificial vinegar flavors, such as "salt and vinegar" flavored potato chips.


title: Malic acid

text: In citrus, fruits produced in organic farming contain higher levels of malic acid than fruits produced in conventional agriculture.


title: Malic acid

text: The process of malolactic fermentation converts malic acid to much milder lactic acid. Malic acid occurs naturally in all fruits and many vegetables, and is generated in fruit metabolism.


title: Malic acid

text: Malic acid, when added to food products, is denoted by E number E296. It is sometimes used with or in place of the less sour citric acid in sour sweets. These sweets are sometimes labeled with a warning stating that excessive consumption can cause irritation of the mouth. It is approved for use as a food additive in the EU, US and Australia and New Zealand (where it is listed by its INS number 296).


title: Malic acid

text: Racemic malic acid is produced industrially by the double hydration of maleic anhydride. In 2000, American production capacity was 5,000 tons per year. The enantiomers may be separated by chiral resolution of the racemic mixture. "S"-Malic acid is obtained by fermentation of fumaric acid.


title: Malic acid

text: Self-condensation of malic acid in the presence of fuming sulfuric acid gives the pyrone coumalic acid:


title: Malic acid

text: Note that this scheme is incorrect. 4 HO and 2 CO (carbon monoxide, not carbon dioxide) are liberated during the condensation.


title: Malic acid

text: Malic acid was important in the discovery of the Walden inversion and the Walden cycle, in which (−)-malic acid first is converted into (+)-chlorosuccinic acid by action of phosphorus pentachloride. Wet silver oxide then converts the chlorine compound to (+)-malic acid, which then reacts with PCl to the (−)-chlorosuccinic acid. The cycle is completed when silver oxide takes this compound back to (−)-malic acid.


title: Malic acid

text: Soil supplementation with molasses increases microbial synthesis of MA. This is thought to occur naturally as part of soil microbe suppression of disease, so soil amendment with molasses can be used as a crop treatment in horticulture.


title: Lazarus Group

text: Lazarus Group (also known by other monikers such as Guardians of Peace or Whois Team) is a cybercrime group made up of an unknown number of individuals run by the government of North Korea. While not much is known about the Lazarus Group, researchers have attributed many cyberattacks to them between 2010 and 2021. Originally a criminal group, the group has now been designated as an advanced persistent threat due to intended nature, threat, and wide array of methods used when conducting an operation. Names given by cybersecurity organizations include HIDDEN COBRA (used by the United States Department of Homeland Security to refer to malicious cyber activity by the North Korean government in general) and Zinc (by Microsoft).


title: Lazarus Group

text: The Lazarus Group has strong links to North Korea. The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation says that the Lazarus Group is a North Korean "state-sponsored hacking organization". According to North Korean defector Kim Kuk-song, the unit is internally known in North Korea as 414 Liaison Office. North Korea benefits from conducting cyber operations because it can present an asymmetric threat with a small group of operators, especially to South Korea.


title: Lazarus Group

text: The earliest known attack that the group is responsible for is known as "Operation Troy", which took place from 2009 to 2012. This was a cyber-espionage campaign that utilized unsophisticated distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS) techniques to target the South Korean government in Seoul. They were also responsible for attacks in 2011 and 2013. It is possible that they were also behind a 2007 attack targeting South Korea, but that is still uncertain. A notable attack that the group is known for is the 2014 attack on Sony Pictures. The Sony attack used more sophisticated techniques and highlighted how advanced the group has become over time.


title: Lazarus Group

text: The Lazarus Group were reported to have stolen US$12 million from the Banco del Austro in Ecuador and US$1 million from Vietnam's Tien Phong Bank in 2015. They have also targeted banks in Poland and Mexico. The 2016 bank heist included an attack on the Bangladesh Bank, successfully stealing US$81 million and was attributed to the group. In 2017, the Lazarus group was reported to have stolen US$60 million from the Far Eastern International Bank of Taiwan although the actual amount stolen was unclear, and most of the funds were recovered.


title: Lazarus Group

text: It is not clear who is really behind the group, but media reports have suggested the group has links to North Korea. Kaspersky Lab reported in 2017 that Lazarus tended to concentrate on spying and infiltration cyberattacks whereas a sub-group within their organisation, which Kaspersky called Bluenoroff, specialised in financial cyberattacks. Kaspersky found multiple attacks worldwide and a direct link (IP address) between Bluenoroff and North Korea.


title: Lazarus Group

text: However, Kaspersky also acknowledged that the repetition of the code could be a “false flag” meant to mislead investigators and pin the attack on North Korea, given that the worldwide WannaCry worm cyber attack copied techniques from the NSA as well. This ransomware leverages an NSA exploit known as EternalBlue that a hacker group known as Shadow Brokers made public in April 2017.


title: Lazarus Group

text: The next incident took place on July 4, 2009 and sparked the beginning of "Operation Troy". This attack utilized the Mydoom and Dozer malware to launch a large-scale, but quite unsophisticated, DDoS attack against US and South Korean websites. The volley of attacks struck about three dozen websites and placed the text "Memory of Independence Day" in the master boot record (MBR).


title: Lazarus Group

text: Over time, attacks from this group have grown more sophisticated; their techniques and tools have become better developed and more effective. The March 2011 attack known as "Ten Days of Rain" targeted South Korean media, financial, and critical infrastructure, and consisted of more sophisticated DDoS attacks that originated from compromised computers within South Korea. The attacks continued on March 20, 2013 with DarkSeoul, a wiper attack that targeted three South Korean broadcast companies, financial institutes, and an ISP. At the time, two other groups going by the personas ″NewRomanic Cyber Army Team and WhoIs Team″, took credit for that attack but researchers did not know the Lazarus Group was behind it at the time. Researchers today know the Lazarus Group as a supergroup behind the disruptive attacks.


title: Lazarus Group

text: The Lazarus Group attacks culminated on November 24, 2014. On that day, a Reddit post appeared stating that Sony Pictures had been hacked via unknown means; the perpetrators identified themselves as the "Guardians of Peace". Large amounts of data were stolen and slowly leaked in the days following the attack. An interview with someone claiming to be part of the group stated that they had been siphoning Sony's data for over a year.


title: Lazarus Group

text: The hackers were able to access previously unreleased films, emails, and the personal information of around 4,000 employees.


title: Lazarus Group

text: Under the name ″Operation Blockbuster″, a coalition of security companies, led by Novetta, was able to analyse malware samples found in different cyber-security incidents. Using that data, the team was able to analyse the methods used by the hackers. They linked the Lazarus Group to a number of attacks through a pattern of code re-usage.


title: Lazarus Group

text: Bangladesh Bank cyber heist, was a theft that took place in February 2016. Thirty-five fraudulent instructions were issued by security hackers via the SWIFT network to illegally transfer close to US$1 billion from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York account belonging to Bangladesh Bank, the central bank of Bangladesh. Five of the thirty-five fraudulent instructions were successful in transferring US$101 million, with US$20 million traced to Sri Lanka and US$81 million to the Philippines. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York blocked the remaining thirty transactions, amounting to US$850 million, due to suspicions raised by a misspelled instruction. Cybersecurity experts claimed that the North Korea-based Lazarus Group was behind the attack.


title: Lazarus Group

text: The WannaCry attack was a massive ransomware cyberattack that hit institutions across the globe ranging all the way from the NHS in Britain, to Boeing, and even to Universities in China on the 12th of May, 2017. The attack lasted 7 hours and 19 minutes. Europol estimates it affected nearly 200,000 computers in 150 countries, primarily affecting Russia, India, Ukraine, and Taiwan. This was one of the first attacks to travel via a cryptoworm. Cryptoworms are a recent form of computer virus that can travel between computers using networks, exploiting TCP port 445). To be infected, there is no need to click on a bad link - the malware can spread autonomously, from a computer to a connected printer, and then beyond to adjacent computers, perhaps connected to the wifi, etc. The port 445 vulnerability allowed the malware to move freely across intranets, and infect thousands of computers rapidly. The Wannacry attack was one of the first large scale uses of a cryptoworm.


title: Lazarus Group

text: The virus exploited a vulnerability in the Windows operating system, then encrypted the computer's data in return for a sum of Bitcoin worth roughly $300 to get the key. In order to encourage payment, the ransom demand doubled after three days, and if not paid in a week, the malware deletes the encrypted data files. The malware used a legitimate piece of software called Windows Crypto, made by Microsoft to scramble the files. Once the encryption is completed, the filename has "Wincry" appended, which is the root of the Wannacry name. Wincry was the base of the encryption, but two additional exploits, "EternalBlue" and "DoublePulsar", were used by the malware to make it a cryptoworm. "EternalBlue" automatically spreads the virus through networks, while "DoublePulsar" triggered it to activate on a victim's computer. In other words, "EternalBlue" got the infected link to your computer, and "DoublePulsar" clicked it for you.


title: Lazarus Group

text: Marcus Hutchins brought the attack to an end, when he received a copy of the virus from a friend at a security research company and discovered a "kill switch" hardcoded into the virus. The malware included a periodic check to see if a specific website was running, and would only proceed with encryption if that website didn't exist. Hutchins identified this check, then promptly registered the relevant domain at 3:03 pm UTC. The malware immediately stopped propagating itself and infecting new machines. This was very interesting, and is a clue as to who created the virus. Usually stopping malware takes months of back and forth fighting between the hackers and security experts, so this easy win was unexpected. Another very interesting and unusual aspect of the attack was that the files were not recoverable after paying the ransom: only $160,000 was collected, leading many to believe that the hackers weren't after the money.


title: Lazarus Group

text: The easy kill switch and lack of revenue led many to believe that the attack was state-sponsored; the motive was not financial compensation, but just to cause chaos. After the attack security experts traced the "DoublePulsar" exploit back to the United States NSA where the exploit had been developed as a cyberweapon. The exploit was then stolen by a Russian backed hacking group, "Shadowbrokers", who first tried to auction it off, but after failing to do that simply gave it away for free. The NSA subsequently revealed the vulnerability to Microsoft who issued an update on March 14th 2017,a little under a month before the attack occurred. It wasn't enough. The update wasn't mandatory and the majority of computers with the vulnerability had not resolved the issue by the time May 12th rolled around, leading to the astonishing effectiveness of the attack.


title: Lazarus Group

text: The US Department of Justice and British authorities later attributed the WannaCry attack on the North Korean hacking gang, the Lazarus group.


title: Lazarus Group

text: In 2018, Recorded Future issued a report linking the Lazarus Group to attacks on cryptocurrency Bitcoin and Monero users mostly in South Korea. These attacks were reported to be technically similar to previous attacks using the WannaCry ransomware and the attacks on Sony Pictures. One of the tactics used by Lazarus hackers was to exploit vulnerabilities in Hancom's Hangul, a South Korean word processing software. Another tactic was to use spear-phishing lures containing malware and which were sent to South Korean students and users of cryptocurrency exchanges like Coinlink. If the user opened the malware it stole email addresses and passwords. Coinlink denied their site or users emails and passwords had been hacked. The report concluded that “This late-2017 campaign is a continuation of North Korea’s interest in cryptocurrency, which we now know encompasses a broad range of activities including mining, ransomware, and outright theft...” The report also said that North Korea was using these cryptocurrency attacks to avoid international financial sanctions. North Korean hackers stole US$7 million from Bithumb, a South Korean exchange in February 2017. Youbit, another South Korean Bitcoin exchange company, filed for bankruptcy in December 2017 after 17% of its assets were stolen by cyberattacks following an earlier attack in April 2017. Lazarus and North Korean hackers were blamed for the attacks. Nicehash, a cryptocurrency cloud mining marketplace lost over 4,500 Bitcoin in December 2017. An update about the investigations claimed that the attack is linked to Lazarus Group.


title: Lazarus Group

text: In mid-September 2019, the USA issued a public alert about a new version of malware dubbed "ELECTRICFISH". Since the beginning of 2019, North Korean agents have attempted five major cyber-thefts world-wide, including a successful $49 million theft from an institution in Kuwait.


title: Lazarus Group

text: Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, pharmaceutical companies became major targets for the Lazarus Group. Using spear-phishing techniques, Lazarus Group members posed as health officials and contacted pharmaceutical company employees with malicious links. It is thought that multiple major pharma organizations were targeted, but the only one that has been confirmed was the Angloswedish-owned AstraZeneca. According to a report by Reuters, a wide range of employees were targeted, including many involved in COVID-19 vaccine research. It is unknown what the Lazarus Group's goal was in these attacks, but the likely possibilities include:


title: Lazarus Group

text: AstraZeneca has not commented on the incident and experts do not believe any sensitive data has been compromised as of yet.


title: Lazarus Group

text: The FBI said "Through our investigations we were able to confirm Lazarus Group and APT38, cyber actors associated with [North Korea], are responsible for the theft".


title: Lazarus Group

text: On 14 April 2022, the US Treasury's OFAC placed Lazarus on the SDN List under North Korea Sanctions Regulations section 510.214.


title: Lazarus Group

text: North Korean hackers are sent vocationally to Shenyang, China for special training. They are trained to deploy malware of all types onto computers, computer networks, and servers. Education domestically includes the Kim Chaek University of Technology, Kim Il-sung University and Moranbong University, which picks the brightest students from across the country and puts them through six years of special education.


title: Lazarus Group

text: BlueNorOff (also known as: APT38, Stardust Chollima, BeagleBoyz, NICKEL GLADSTONE) is a financially motivated group that is responsible for the illegal transfers of money via forging orders from SWIFT. BlueNorOff is also called APT38 (by Mandiant) and Stardust Chollima (by Crowdstrike).


title: Lazarus Group

text: According to a 2020 report by the U.S. Army, Bluenoroff has about 1,700 members carrying out financial cybercrime by concentrating on long-term assessment and exploiting enemy network vulnerabilities and systems for financial gain for the regime or to take control of the system. They target financial institutions and cryptocurrency exchanges, including over 16 organizations in at least 13 countries between 2014 and 2021 Bangladesh, India, Mexico, Pakistan, Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey, Chile, and Vietnam. The revenue is believed to go towards the development of missile and nuclear technology.


title: Lazarus Group

text: BlueNorOff's most infamous attack was the 2016 Bangladesh Bank robbery in which they tried to use the SWIFT network to illegally transfer close to US$1 billion from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York account belonging to Bangladesh Bank, the central bank of Bangladesh. After several of the transactions went through (US$20 million traced to Sri Lanka and US$81 million to the Philippines), The Federal Reserve Bank of New York blocked the remaining transactions, due to suspicions raised by a misspelling.


title: Lazarus Group

text: Malware associated with BlueNorOff include: "DarkComet, Mimikatz, Net, NESTEGG, MACKTRUCK, WANNACRY, WHITEOUT, QUICKCAFE, RAWHIDE, SMOOTHRIDE, TightVNC, SORRYBRUTE, KEYLIME, SNAPSHOT, MAPMAKER, net.exe, sysmon, BOOTWRECK, CLEANTOAD, CLOSESHAVE, DYEPACK, Hermes, TwoPence, ELECTRICFISH, PowerRatankba, PowerSpritz"


title: Lazarus Group

text: Tactics commonly used by BlueNorOff include: phishing, backdoors, Drive-by compromise, Watering hole attack, exploitation of insecure out-of-date versions of Apache Struts 2 to execute code on a system, strategic web compromise, and accessing Linux servers. It's reported that they sometimes work together with criminal hackers.


title: Lazarus Group

text: AndAriel (also spelled Andarial, and also known as: Silent Chollima, Dark Seoul, Rifle, and Wassonite) is logistically characterized by its targeting of South Korea. AndAriel's alternative name is called Silent Chollima due to the stealthy nature of the subgroup. Any organization in South Korea is vulnerable to AndAriel. Targets include government, defense, and any economic symbol.


title: Lazarus Group

text: According to a 2020 report by the U.S. Army, Andarial has about 1,600 members whose mission reconnaissance, assessment of the network vulnerabilities, and mapping the enemy network for potential attack. In addition to South Korea, they also target other governments, infrastructure, and businesses. Attack vectors include: ActiveX, vulnerabilities in South Korean software, watering hole attacks, spear phishing (macro), IT management products (antivirus, PMS), and supply chain (installers and updaters). Malware used include: Aryan, Gh0st RAT, Rifdoor, Phandoor, and Andarat.


title: Lazarus Group

text: In February 2021, the US Department of Justice indicted three members of the Reconnaissance General Bureau, a North Korean military intelligence agency, for having participated in several Lazarus hacking campaigns: Jin Hyok, Jon Chang Hyok and Kim Il. Park Jin Hyok had already been indicted earlier in September 2018. The individuals are not in U.S. custody. A Canadian and two Chinese individuals have also been charged with having acted as money mules and money launderers for the Lazarus group.


title: Lazarus Group

text: The group was the subject of a BBC World Service podcast "The Lazarus Heist" broadcast in 2021. The second season is coming out in mid 2022.


title: FG 42

text: The FG 42 (German: "Fallschirmjägergewehr" 42, "paratrooper rifle 42") is a selective-fire 7.92×57mm Mauser automatic rifle produced in Nazi Germany during World War II. The weapon was developed specifically for the use of the "Fallschirmjäger" airborne infantry in 1942 and was used in very limited numbers until the end of the war.


title: FG 42

text: It combined the characteristics and firepower of a light machine gun in a lightweight form slightly shorter (but considerably bulkier and heavier) than the standard-issue Karabiner 98k bolt-action infantry rifle. Considered one of the most advanced weapon designs of World War II, the FG 42 influenced post-war small arms development, and many features of its design, such as general shape, stock style, gas-rotating bolt operation (itself copied from the Lewis gun) and sheet metal and plastic construction were copied by the US Army when they developed the M60 machine gun.


title: FG 42

text: At the time of the Battle of Crete (Operation Mercury), German "Fallschirmjäger" (parachute infantry) were equipped with the same assortment of small arms as the "Heer", carrying only 9×19mm Parabellum chambered pistols and hand grenades on them during parachute jumps, with 9×19mm Parabellum submachine guns, 7.92×57mm Mauser chambered rifles and crew-served weapons stored separately in containers that were dropped from the wing of the exit craft. The German RZ parachute harness, with one single riser and two straps attached to the body, making the paratrooper land on his hands and knees in a forward roll, did not allow heavier equipment such as rifles and machine guns to be safely carried during jumps. At Crete, long-range rifle and machine gun fire from dug-in Commonwealth defenders inflicted heavy casualties on the outgunned German paratroopers in the early stages of battle as they attempted to retrieve their support weapons from containers scattered all over the battlefield. These combat experiences demonstrated the need for a rifle that could be carried by the paratrooper during a drop.


title: FG 42

text: In 1941, the German Air Force ("Luftwaffe") requested a selective-fire hand-held weapon for the paratroopers; Senior Staff Air Secretary Ossenbach at the "GL/C Erprobungsstelle-6" (GL/C E-6—the "Luftwaffe" Weapons Development Branch at Tarnewitz near Wismar) was approached informally to develop this special new weapon. The Reich Air Ministry ("Reichsluftfahrtministerium" or RLM) sought to develop a universal shoulder-fired automatic rifle that could replace the bolt-action rifle, submachine gun, and light machine gun in the air assault role. The proposed weapon would also simplify logistics and provide greater firepower to the individual paratrooper.


title: FG 42

text: The RLM attempted to initiate a formal weapons development program through the "Heereswaffenamt" (the HWaA, or Army Ordnance Department)—responsible for German small arms development—but conflicting priorities and friction with the Army (the HWaA dismissed the undertaking as unrealistic and offered their G 41(W) semi-automatic rifle instead) led to an independent development by the "Luftwaffe". Plans were laid out to form a central authority for the new program at the Luftwaffe's "Erprobungstelle" coastal testing station at Tarnewitz. The engineers on staff had acquired considerable expertise developing lightweight automatic weapons, having successfully converted the MG 15 aircraft machine gun to a ground configuration. However, due to the high casualties sustained by the paratroopers during Operation Mercury, Hitler changed his mind about the usefulness of airborne assaults and the plans were terminated. Nevertheless, "Luftwaffe" "Reichsmarschall" Hermann Göring privately ordered the continuation of the project.


title: FG 42

text: The RLM went directly to German industry with its plans—the so-called LC-6 specification issued 14 December 1941 mentioned amongst others that the weapon should not exceed in length, should not be significantly heavier than the Karabiner 98k bolt action standard service rifle, should be able to fire single shots from a closed bolt, provide fully automatic fire from an open bolt, feed from detachable 10- or 20-round magazines and be able to mount a bayonet and fire rifle grenades. Despite the introduction of the 7.92×33mm Kurz intermediate cartridge promoted by the "Heer" (developed for the promising MP 43 assault rifle), the "Luftwaffe" favored the long-range potential of the 7.92×57mm Mauser full-power rifle cartridge and this chambering was one of the main design prerequisites.


title: FG 42

text: Six manufacturers were solicited for prototype designs: Gustloff-Werke, Mauser, Johannes Großfuß Metall- und Lackierwarenfabrik, C.G. Hänel, Rheinmetall-Borsig and Heinrich Krieghoff Waffenfabrik. Several contracts were awarded but only a few prototypes are known to have been submitted. Mauser offered a version of the MG 81 (rejected due to excessive weight and its belt-fed operation) while Krieghoff presented a rising-block prototype, which too was quickly dropped. A design credited to Rheinmetall-Borsig's Louis Stange of Sömmerda who had previously worked on the MG 34 proved satisfactory and underwent military trials conducted by the GL/C E-6 test station at Tarnewitz in mid-1942. This early prototype, known under the factory designation Gerät" 450 ("device 450") or Ausführung" "A" ("type A"), was intended to be a pure sheet metal design, using pressed steel in the construction of the receiver, buttstock and corrugated handguard. The proposed system of operation was modeled on that used in World War I Lewis light machine gun, with a gas-operated turning bolt action geared to a spiral (clock-type) recoil spring. The type "A" was never produced beyond model form, but the basic design layout was retained for further development.


title: FG 42

text: With the basic characteristics of the LC-6 accepted, a series of modifications followed. The revised "Ausführung" "B" replaced the sheet metal handguard with a resin-impregnated fiber type that provided protection against heat and a better grip when wet.


title: FG 42

text: These tests exposed several shortcomings, addressed by Stange in April 1942 with the LC-6/II prototype. The prototype was then submitted to a series of endurance tests led by the HWA and further modified to increase functional reliability and durability, resulting in the final LC-6/III prototype variant that was ultimately accepted into production as the FG 42. Fifty rifles were fabricated by Rheinmetall-Borsig for evaluation purposes by the end of 1942.


title: FG 42

text: A pre-series batch of 50 rifles was produced in early 1943 and 6 examples were sent to GL/C E-6 for additional testing. Almost identical to the LC-6/III, these guns differ from later models by using a smooth sheet metal buttstock and an experimental muzzle brake. The weapons experienced serious malfunctions: one rifle suffered a catastrophic failure after firing only 2,100 rounds, a soldier was injured when attempting to fire a rifle grenade and the pressed metal buttstock would deform after launching a small number of rifle grenades.


title: FG 42

text: Several other improvements were made before being authorized for large-scale production. The original Rheinmetall design used chrome-nickel steel heavily in many essential components, a strategic alloy in short supply. When the "Luftwaffe" was finally given permission to produce 3,000 rifles for combat trials, the material specifications were changed to accommodate the use of manganese steel as a substitute. The Heinrich Krieghoff company of Suhl (authors of the previous unsuccessful LC-6 tender) was contracted to manufacture the FG 42 in limited quantity as Rheinmetall did not have the capacity to bring the FG 42 into serial production.


title: FG 42

text: The weapon system underwent continuous development. Its expedited development, remedial changes to the original design and ever-changing "Luftwaffe" requirements resulted in a myriad of variants. Post-war literature typically identifies three versions, however the Germans did not give them separate designations; the "Modell I", "Modell II" and "Modell III" were never officially referenced and period documents simply refer to the weapon as the 'Fallschirmjägergewehr 42' or "FG 42", and the reference was always made to the latest production model.


title: FG 42

text: The weapon saw first operational use during the Gran Sasso raid ("Unternehmen Eiche") in September 1943 when German paratroopers and Waffen-SS commandos rescued Italian dictator Benito Mussolini from his captors – 200 well-equipped Carabinieri guards. However, during the whole airborne operation (which was personally ordered by Hitler) not a single shot was fired.


title: FG 42

text: After approximately 2,000 FG 42s had been produced by Krieghoff, supplies of the manganese steel from which the receivers were forged were diverted to other needs; this meant a redesign was required to use stamped sheet metal in its place. Field reports that the lightweight rifle was not sturdy enough to handle full-power rifle ammunition in cyclic mode made Krieghoff engineers design the Type G. Improvements were: relocating the bipod from the front of the handguard to the muzzle to reduce shot dispersion; changing the pistol grip angle to near vertical; enlarging the handguard and changing the stock from stamped steel to wood to minimize overheating, adding weight to the bolt and lengthen its travel to reduce the cyclic rate of fire. Also a four position gas regulator was fitted, the bolt and recoil spring were changed to wound wire, a case deflector was fitted and the muzzle brake and the bayonet mount was changed. These changes, particularly the pistol grip change and the bipod relocation, are clearly visible on late-model FG 42s. Production models also had a simple flip-out spike bayonet under the barrel hidden by the bipod. In the later version the bayonet was shortened from around to around . There were never enough FG 42s to arm most "Fallschirmjäger" as originally intended, however most were employed in the western front following the events of D-Day, with the particular use of FG-42 during the Battle of Carentan and the Falaise Pocket (nearly a quarter of all FG-42 produced were in the hands of the 2nd Parachute Division).


title: FG 42

text: The FG 42 was a select-fire air-cooled weapon and one of the first to incorporate the "straight-line" recoil configuration. This layout, combined with the side magazine, placed both the center of gravity and the position of the shoulder stock nearly in line with the longitudinal axis of the bore, a feature increasing controllability during burst or automatic fire. The operating system was derived from that used in the successful Lewis light machine gun with a gas piston-actuated rotating bolt locking mechanism.


title: FG 42

text: This system used pressurized exhaust gases from the bore and channeled them through a port drilled in the barrel into a gas cylinder located under the barrel. The rapid build-up of propellant gases imparted rearward pressure on a long-stroke piston, driving it backwards, while an extension of the bolt carrier interacted with a helical camming slot machined into the bolt carrier, converting this linear movement into an angular velocity and forcing the bolt into a rotary motion, clearing the locking nuts and unlocking it near the end of the bolt carrier's travel. The weapon was locked into battery by two lugs on the bolt head which recessed into appropriate cavities machined into the receiver walls. Owing to its main intended use by paratroopers, the rear sight (which necessarily was rather high due to the straight stock design) was a flip-up construction. The iron sight line had a sight radius and consisted of an open-pointed-post-type front sight, and a diopter-type rear sight. It was graduated for 7.92×57mm Mauser cartridges from in increments. On later models the post front sight was hooded to reduce glare under unfavourable light conditions and add protection for the post.


title: FG 42

text: The top of the receiver of the FG 42 was specifically machined with a long dovetail type base designed to accept telescopic sight mounts. The scope mount featured locking lever(s) that allowed quick installation and removal of a telescopic sight depending on the specific combat scenario; general combat or in a limited sniping role. The telescopic sights used on the FG 42 were the ZFG42 or ZF4.


title: FG 42

text: The receiver was a sophisticated, machined alloy forging with the magazine housing placed on the left-hand side and the ejection port on the right. Whilst not a true bullpup rifle design the seemingly awkward placement of the magazine housing (horizontally to the side rather than directly beneath the receiver) allowed the bolt mechanism to extend into the buttstock assembly, effectively reducing the overall length of the weapon as the magazine well did not interfere with the location of the pistol grip. The pistol grip was integrated into the trigger group assembly, a separate housing containing the trigger mechanism and fire control components, and was formed from pressed sheet metal during fabrication from two separate halves and then welded together.


title: FG 42

text: The rifle fed from either a 10- or 20-round detachable box magazine or standard 5-round stripper clips into an empty magazine in the gun. The empty weight of the long 10-round magazine is and of the long 20-round magazine .


title: FG 42

text: The FG 42 fired in semi-automatic mode from a closed bolt, accomplished by delaying the release of the firing pin (mounted on the bolt carrier and released by the front sear notch) until after the trigger had been pressed; the short lock time, and little movement in the action during firing translated into greater single-shot accuracy. When operating in the automatic mode, the sear mechanism was designed to fire from an open bolt by simultaneously releasing both the bolt and bolt carrier; and with this mode selected, the bolt would remain open between bursts to provide maximum cooling. This had the advantage of preventing a phenomenon known as "cook off" where the heat of repeated rounds being fired caused a chambered round to overheat and prematurely ignite the powder or primer. The rotating fire selector switch was situated in the trigger group, above the pistol grip on the right side. The charge lever also served as the safety, disabling the sear mechanism when engaged.


title: FG 42

text: The FG 42 was intended to fill a niche in Nazi Germany's arsenal and was produced only in small numbers. It was somewhat well received by paratroopers when tested, but it did have its drawbacks. The FG 42 had a 20-round, or sometimes 10 round, magazine that was mounted on the left side of the rifle. Though a side-mounted magazine was common in submachine guns of the time, the larger magazine with heavier ammunition of a full-powered rifle tended to unbalance the weapon. In addition controllable bursts were difficult. This made full-automatic fire only marginally useful. The FG 42 used a fairly sophisticated muzzle device that did help with recoil and muzzle flash, but made blast and noise much greater than on other similar weapons. The US M14 rifle had similar problems, and attempts were made to upgrade that rifle the same way with an in-line stock and muzzle device.


title: FG 42

text: The American M41 Johnson LMG has many parallels with the contemporary FG 42. Both had in-line stocks, fed from the left side, and both fired from the open bolt in automatic mode and closed bolt in semi-automatic mode. Despite these similarities, there is no evidence that either weapon had any effect on the design of the other. As they were both seeking to solve similar problems, it is reasonable to expect that each weapon's respective engineers approached these problems similarly but independently, unaware of the developments of their counterparts.


title: FG 42

text: It is not easy to determine the significance of the FG 42 in terms of weapons history. With a slightly longer barrel and belt-feeding the weapon would have been an excellent light machine gun. Its designer Louis Stange knew that, he also built a prototype with belt feed.


title: FG 42

text: Some features, such as the details of the gas-operated bolt selection process, were studied by US Army engineers after the war. These, along with some aspects of the MG 42 general-purpose machine gun, are commonly reported to have been incorporated in the similarly troubled M60 general-purpose machine gun. The last known derivatives of the FG 42 were the Swiss Sturmgewehr 52 and M60 machine gun.


title: Docklands Stadium

text: Docklands Stadium, also currently known by naming rights sponsorship as Marvel Stadium, is a multi-purpose sports and entertainment stadium in the Docklands area of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Construction started in October 1997 and was completed in 2000 at a cost of A$460 million. The stadium features a retractable roof and the ground level seating can be converted from oval to rectangular configuration.


title: Docklands Stadium

text: The stadium is primarily used for Australian rules football and was originally built as a replacement for Waverley Park. Offices at the precinct serve as the headquarters of the Australian Football League (AFL) which, since 7 October 2016, has had exclusive ownership of the venue. With a capacity for 53,000 spectators for sports, the stadium is the second-largest in Melbourne and has hosted a number of other sporting events including domestic Twenty20 cricket matches, Melbourne Victory soccer home matches, rugby league and rugby union matches as well as special events and concerts. The precinct is also headquarters for the Seven Network's digital broadcast centre and National Australia Bank.


title: Docklands Stadium

text: The stadium was announced on 31 October 1996 as a more centrally located replacement for the much larger but ageing Waverley Park as a headquarters for the Australian Football League. It was built in the Melbourne Docklands to the immediate west of the CBD, a central but largely deserted industrial area which had just commenced its own urban renewal project. Construction of the stadium by Baulderstone Hornibrook commenced in October 1997 under the working name "Victoria Stadium", and was completed ahead of the 2000 AFL season. The stadium was originally developed by the Docklands Stadium Consortium and thereafter controlled by the Seven Network, the remaining leasehold interest in the stadium was sold to James Fielding Funds Management on 21 June 2006 for A$330 million.


title: Docklands Stadium

text: The stadium, like Waverley Park, was built primarily for Australian rules football, unlike most grounds of a similar size in Australia which were originally designed for cricket then later developed for football. It was the first Australian rules football stadium built with a retractable roof, which throughout its history has usually been closed for night matches and for wet weather day matches, and sometimes also for dry weather day matches. It was also the first stadium in Australia to have movable seating, as all four level-one tiers of the stadium can be moved up to 18 metres forward into a rectangular configuration; despite this being a key feature of the stadium design, it has rarely been used, due to damage to turf, time to deploy the seats, and a reduced capacity since the corner bays of the stadium become unavailable in rectangular configuration.


title: Docklands Stadium

text: Construction was finished only weeks before the first match, and some scheduled pre-season matches were relocated as a result. The first match to be played at the ground was between and , before a crowd of 43,012, on 9 March 2000. Essendon won the match by 94 points, and Michael Long kicked the first goal at the ground. The game was to have been played under the closed roof, but due to technical issues it remained open. Six days later, Barbra Streisand staged venue's first concert. The stadium's third football game, between Western Bulldogs and Brisbane Lions on 19 March, was the first to be played under the roof. On 16 August 2000, the world's first indoor One Day International was held at the venue between Australia and South Africa. The first game played in the rectangular configuration was a Melbourne Storm game in July 2001. The first Soccer match played was in Round 5 2001 of the National Soccer League between South Melbourne FC and Melbourne Knights FC.


title: Docklands Stadium

text: From the beginning, the stadium's playing surface was criticised for its slipperiness, hardness and lack of grass coverage, and the increased risk of injury that this causes to players. Maintaining surface quality remains one of the stadium's biggest challenges. The stadium's orientation and highly built up grandstands mean that the Northern end of the stadium in particular receives only receives 6 weeks of sunlight a year; concerts held at the stadium are also usually placed at the Southern end due to the ability for grass to recover more quickly. The entire surface undergoes regular, expensive replacement during the season with turf grown externally, under contract by HG Turf, whereas the responsibility of laying and managing the turf lies with Docklands Stadium management. Since 2007, elaborate heating and lighting to better allow grass to be grown and managed within the stadium have been in use.


title: Docklands Stadium

text: The venue was damaged by a thunderstorm on the afternoon of 6 March 2010 during the 2010 Victorian storms. The external roof at Gate 2 caved in, causing damage and flooding inside the entertainment area. That evening's preseason match between and was delayed due to WorkSafe inspections, but still went ahead before a small crowd of 5000.


title: Docklands Stadium

text: In 2015, LED electronic advertising was added around the perimeter of the ground on level 1 and 2, as well as a strip synthetic turf around the edge of the fence, outside the boundary line. The synthetic strip was narrowed after Brisbane Lions player Michael Close suffered a season ending ACL injury on the uneven surface during a game in 2015.


title: Docklands Stadium

text: The stadium became unpopular with many of its tenant clubs, especially , and , as high operating costs and the high proportion of gate revenues which were paid back to the stadium meant that clubs earned much lower returns for a game at Docklands than they would have earned from the same attendance at the Melbourne Cricket Ground; and usually had to draw at least 20,000 spectators to break even on a game. Those three clubs all received compensation payments from the AFL to balance the weak deals, and sold occasional home matches to small interstate or international venues for greater financial returns than they could earn at Docklands.


title: Docklands Stadium

text: The stadium and broader precinct will undergo a $225 million redevelopment, funded by the AFL and Victorian Government, to be constructed between 2021 and 2024. This included two new video screens, which hang underneath the stadium's roof and were installed behind the goal at each end of the stadium ahead of the 2022 AFL season. The rest of the redevelopment will upgrade stadium infrastructure, connect the precinct to the Melbourne CBD and open up access to the Docklands waterfront.


title: Docklands Stadium

text: Under the terms of the agreement governing construction and operation of the venue, in 2025 the AFL was to win ownership of the stadium for a nominal $30 fee; but the AFL Commission opted to purchase exclusive ownership of the stadium earlier than this, in October 2016, for approximately $200 million. This purchase left the stadium's tenant AFL clubs millions of dollars better off, as they and the AFL arranged more favourable tenancy agreements. The stadium was eventually integrated into the AFL structure several years later, ending the independent management of the venue by Melbourne Stadiums Limited.


title: Docklands Stadium

text: The purchase also soon proved critically important to the AFL's finances during the COVID-19 pandemic, when it was able to leverage its ownership of the stadium in obtaining a $500–600 million line of credit to cover cash flow shortages when the 2020 AFL season was suspended.


title: Docklands Stadium

text: The stadium has never operated under the name 'Docklands Stadium', having been covered by naming rights deals throughout its entire operating history. When it opened, the Colonial State Bank paid $32.5 million for 10 years of naming rights, and the stadium opened as Colonial Stadium; the same year, Commonwealth Bank took over the Colonial State Bank and began to discontinue the brand; Commonwealth then sold the balance of the naming rights contract to Telstra for about $50 million, and the stadium's name was changed to Telstra Dome on 1 October 2002. During this time it was colloquially referred to as "The Dome" – a colloquialism used actively by clubs which were sponsored by rival telecommunications companies (such as with 3 and with Optus).


title: Docklands Stadium

text: On 1 March 2009, the naming rights transferred to Etihad Airways, and the venue became known as Etihad Stadium under a five-year deal, which was later extended to ten years, at a cost estimated at between $5–$8 million per year. This once again caused problems as the AFL would not initially recognise the new name due to its deal with rival airline Qantas; the league recognised the new name only after further negotiation between the two parties.


title: Docklands Stadium

text: In September 2018, the stadium was renamed Marvel Stadium after the stadium operators negotiated an eight-year deal with the Walt Disney Company (the parent company of Marvel Entertainment) to change the naming rights and install a Marvel retail store at the venue.


title: Docklands Stadium

text: The ends of the ground, where the AFL goal posts are located, are named after the two leading goalkickers in VFL/AFL history: the northern end is the Lockett End, after Tony Lockett; and the southern end is the Coventry End after Gordon Coventry. Some clubs informally use alternative names during their home games in place of those to honour their own histories.


title: Docklands Stadium

text: All Victorian-based AFL teams, including those not listed here, have played some home games at the ground during its history, owing to a contractual requirement between the AFL and the stadium's original owners to stage at least 46 AFL matches per year until 2013, and 40 matches per year thereafter. and both had deals to play around four home matches per year during the 2000s; and most other clubs still play one or two home matches there per year to make up the numbers.


title: Docklands Stadium

text: In 2020, to mark 20 years of AFL football at the ground, the AFL named the 20 biggest moments and stories involving games played at the stadium in a video. The top 5 were as follows:


title: Docklands Stadium

text: The venue's major summer tenant is Big Bash League side Melbourne Renegades, which has played its home games at the Docklands Stadium since the league's inception in 2011/12. A drop-in pitch is used to facilitate cricket at the venue. At the end of the 2016/17 Big Bash, the stadium was rated the most entertaining venue for T20 cricket in Australia.


title: Docklands Stadium

text: In 2016, Chris Gayle of the Renegades and the West Indies tied the record for the fastest T20 half century (12 balls) during the last round of BBL 5 at the ground against the Adelaide Strikers.


title: Docklands Stadium

text: The first time it was used for Soccer was in 2001 between South Melbourne and Melbourne Knights in the NSL. A-League team Melbourne Victory played home matches at the stadium between 2006/07 and 2020/21. Originally, the plan was that the stadium would only be used for games against its biggest rivals, Sydney FC, in the 2006/07 A-League; but after the success of that game, the club shifted permanently from Olympic Park Stadium to Docklands from the 2006/07 season until the 2009/10 season. This gave the stadium its first major summer tenant. After the opening of the Melbourne Rectangular Stadium in 2010, the club played only high-drawing games and finals at Docklands, with all other games being played at the new stadium; and as of the 2021-22 season, Victory ceased playing home matches at the stadium.


title: Docklands Stadium

text: In the 2001 National Rugby League season, the stadium was the permanent home ground for the Melbourne Storm, but this deal lasted only one year. The club occasionally hosted high-drawing home games and finals at Docklands after that. In 2023, the Storm will play two games at the ground, as their regular home ground AAMI Park will be unavailable in July-August due to the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup.


title: Docklands Stadium

text: Docklands has also hosted interstate and international rugby league games. As Telstra Dome, Docklands hosted its first State of Origin game in 2006 as it hosted the deciding third game. New South Wales arrived looking for a win that would secure their fourth consecutive Origin victory and led 14–4 with 10 minutes to go, but Queensland scored two converted tries in the space of five minutes – first Brent Tate's long-range try after a line break from Johnathan Thurston and then Darren Lockyer intercepting a Brett Hodgson pass inside New South Wales' own half – to win 16-14 for the first of an eventual 8 consecutive Queensland victories.


title: Docklands Stadium

text: As Etihad Stadium, the stadium also hosted Origin games in 2009 and 2012. The 2012 match attracted 56,021, a new record for rugby league at the stadium.


title: Docklands Stadium

text: The stadium has been converted to host several other sporting events. In its early years, the stadium was used for off-season one day international cricket matches, but has also held some summer matches, particularly in 2006 when the Melbourne Cricket Ground was unavailable due to preparations for the 2006 Commonwealth Games. The venue has also hosted international rugby union – including being Melbourne's venue during the 2003 Rugby World Cup – although the Melbourne Rectangular Stadium now hosts most such games. The venue has hosted international basketball, Rugby 7s at the 2006 Commonwealth Games, a 2002 non-televised WWE live event as part of the , the 2015 UFC 193 in front of a then-record UFC attendance of 56,214 fans, a motorcycle speedway event (when it played host to the 2015 Speedway Grand Prix of Australia on a long temporary track), and a controversial international darts event in 2015 in which spectators seated on the arena started throwing chairs and furniture.


title: Docklands Stadium

text: Outside of sporting events, the stadium hosts special events and concerts. RMIT University uses the stadium as the site for its graduation ceremonies annually.


title: Docklands Stadium

text: Docklands Stadium is serviced primarily by trains at Southern Cross Station, which is located on the City Loop and is serviced by all major metropolitan and country train and coach lines. The stadium is located on a public pedestrian concourse adjoining the northern end of the station.


title: Docklands Stadium

text: The stadium also has a 500 vehicle carpark underneath the field which is accessible by the public for event days.


title: Docklands Stadium

text: The venue appeared in the 2007 film "Ghost Rider". Its name, wherever visible, was digitally changed to the "SoBe Dome". It can also be seen in the video for Jessica Mauboy's single "Running Back", as well as some television shows, such as the Seven Network's "City Homicide" and Network Ten's "Rush".


title: Young Guns II

text: Young Guns II is a 1990 American Western film and a sequel to "Young Guns" (1988). It stars Emilio Estevez, Kiefer Sutherland, Lou Diamond Phillips, and Christian Slater, and features William Petersen as Pat Garrett. It was written by John Fusco and directed by Geoff Murphy.


title: Young Guns II

text: It follows the life of Billy the Kid (played by Emilio Estevez), in the years following the Lincoln County War in which Billy was part of "The Regulators" – a group of around six highly skilled gunmen avenging the death of John Tunstall – and the years leading up to Billy's documented death. The film, however, is told by Brushy Bill Roberts, a man who in 1950 appeared claiming to be the real Billy the Kid.


title: Young Guns II

text: While the film takes some creative license, it does show some of the main events leading up to Billy's documented death, including his talks with Governor Lew Wallace, his capture by friend-turned-foe Pat Garrett, his trial, and his subsequent escape in which he killed two deputies.


title: Young Guns II

text: In 1950, attorney Charles Phalen is contacted by an elderly man named "Brushy Bill" Roberts. Brushy Bill tells Phalen that he is dying and wants to receive a pardon that he was promised 70 years before by the governor of New Mexico, claiming that he is really William H. Bonney aka "Billy The Kid", whom "everyone" knows to have been shot and killed by Pat Garrett in 1881. Phalen then asks if Bill has any proof that he is the famous outlaw.


title: Young Guns II

text: Brushy Bill's story begins with the remaining Regulators having gone their separate ways. Billy has become part of a new gang with "Arkansas" Dave Rudabaugh (Slater) and Pat Garrett (Petersen). The New Mexico governor has issued warrants for the arrests of those involved in the Lincoln County Wars, including Billy, Doc Scurlock (Sutherland), and Jose Chavez y Chavez (Phillips), who are dragged into town and imprisoned to await hanging.


title: Young Guns II

text: Meanwhile, Billy meets with the new governor Lew Wallace who agrees to pardon Billy if he testifies against the Dolan-Murphy faction. Billy soon finds out that he was tricked into being arrested with no chance of testifying against his old enemies. After escaping, Billy along with the help of Rudabaugh and Garrett, pose as a lynch mob to spring Doc and Chavez from jail. When the gang successfully escape Lincoln, Billy mentions the Mexican Blackbird (a broken trail only a few others and he know that leads to Mexico). Garrett decides not to go with the gang, and instead, opens a boarding house. Rudabaugh, clearly in competition with Billy, wants to lead the gang. As they make a run for the border along with farmer Hendry William French (Alan Ruck) and 14-year-old Tom O'Folliard (Balthazar Getty), cattle baron John Simpson Chisum (James Coburn) and Governor Wallace approach Garrett to offer him the job as Lincoln County sheriff and $1000 to use whatever resources he needs to hunt Bonney down and kill him. Garrett agrees, and forming a posse, begins his pursuit of the gang. Chisum was approached by Billy earlier in the film, and Chisum refused to help. So, Billy steals some of his cattle to get money they can use to get to Mexico.


title: Young Guns II

text: Billy and the gang soon come to the town of White Oaks, where they meet with former companion, Jane Greathouse (Jenny Wright), who runs a local bordello. Later that night, the town lynch mob comes for the gang and is intent on a hanging. Deputy Carlisle tries to negotiate a deal, "the Indian" (Chavez) for a safe ride out. Billy refuses the offer and pushes the deputy out the door, who is then accidentally killed by the lynch mob. Garrett soon tracks Billy to the bordello, but is too late. In response to rebuffs by Jane, Garrett uses his newfound power as Lincoln County sheriff to declare her bordello a "house of sin", and burns it down. Jane decides to strip naked to humiliate the townsfolk and leave town. Meanwhile, Billy and his gang are continuously tracked by Garrett's posse, narrowly evading capture, but Tom (being mistaken for Billy) is soon shot dead by Garrett. As they hide out, Billy admits that the Mexican Blackbird does not exist; it was just a ruse to get the gang back together and to keep riding. Doc is angered and tries to leave for home, but he is shot by one of Garrett's men and sacrifices himself to enable his friends to escape an ambush.


title: Young Guns II

text: Billy the Kid is soon brought back into Lincoln by Garrett and is sentenced to death by hanging. He is then visited by Jane Greathouse, who arranges to leave a pistol in an outhouse. Billy uses the pistol to kill two guards and escapes to Old Fort Sumner. By the time he arrives, Dave has abandoned the group to make his way to Mexico, and Chavez is dying from a bullet wound he sustained during the ambush that killed Doc. During the night, Garrett finds Billy unarmed. Billy asks Garrett to let him run to Mexico and tell the authorities that he killed him. Garrett declines because he believes Billy would not be able to resist coming back to the United States (which would lead to Garrett's death for lying). Billy turns around, forcing Garrett to have to shoot him in the back, which he does not. In the morning, a fake burial is staged for Billy, and Garrett's horse is seen being taken by an unknown figure (implied to be Billy). Brushy Bill admits he never stole a horse from someone he did not like, and further admits he did not just like Garrett, he loved him. Phalen, convinced that Brushy Bill is Billy the Kid, agrees to help him.


title: Young Guns II

text: The epilogue reveals that Arkansas Dave was beheaded once he reached Mexico to discourage more outlaws from crossing the border; Garrett's book detailing his pursuit of Billy was a dismal failure and he is eventually shot and killed in 1908; Brushy Bill met with the governor of New Mexico, but despite corroboration from several surviving friends of the Kid, he was discredited and died less than a month later; whether or not Brushy Bill was Billy the Kid remains a mystery. The final shot shows Billy pointing his gun at an off-screen target, saying to the target "I'll make you famous".


title: Young Guns II

text: Additionally, Jon Bon Jovi briefly appears in a nonspeaking role as a bandit who attempts escaping during the prison scene.


title: Young Guns II

text: Screenwriter-producer John Fusco culled much of Billy's dialogue from actual newspaper interviews and reports between 1879–1881. Fusco also appears as the "Branded Man" in the prison pit escape scene alongside Jon Bon Jovi. The cattle brand on Fusco's face reads J.C. for cattle rancher John Chisum.


title: Young Guns II

text: John Chisum, played by James Coburn, in the film convinces Pat Garrett to accept a job as the new Lincoln County Sheriff. Coburn himself played Garrett in Sam Peckinpah's "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" (1973).


title: Young Guns II

text: The historical Josiah "Doc" Scurlock lived to the age of 80 and died a respectable man in Eastland, Texas in 1929. The film's original screenplay accurately portrays Scurlock as heading to Texas with his bride. It has been reported that Kiefer Sutherland, faced with scheduling conflicts, refused to return to the Young Guns franchise unless his character died in the movie's "Stinking Springs Shoot Out". Writer John Fusco fought against this demand but ultimately rewrote the scene to accommodate Sutherland's schedule.


title: Young Guns II

text: Similarly, José Chavez y Chavez's death in the movie is also an inaccurate portrayal. The real Chavez y Chavez also lived to be an old man and passed away at the age of 72 in 1924. In both Young Guns I and II, he fights mainly with knives but historical records show that he was as skilled a gunman as the others.


title: Young Guns II

text: Although Tom O'Folliard was indeed shot by Pat Garrett, he was not from Pennsylvania and nor was he a young boy. He was played by a 14-year-old Balthazar Getty in the film but in real life he was 20–21 years old when he died.


title: Young Guns II

text: Emilio Estevez originally approached Jon Bon Jovi to ask him for permission to include the song "Wanted Dead Or Alive" on the soundtrack. Bon Jovi didn't feel the song's lyrics were appropriate; however, he was inspired by the project and resolved to write a new song for the film that would be more in keeping with the period and setting. He quickly wrote the song "Blaze of Glory", and performed it on acoustic guitar in the Utah desert for Estevez and John Fusco. "Blaze of Glory" went on to reach No. 1 on the "Billboard" Hot 100. Jon Bon Jovi would go on to name his debut solo album "Blaze of Glory" (released as "Young Guns II: Blaze Of Glory" in the UK), which included the eponymous single as well as other songs from and inspired by the film.


title: Young Guns II

text: Jon Bon Jovi also made a cameo appearance in the film, as one of the prisoners in the pit with Doc and Chavez (he can be seen 28 minutes and 8 seconds into the movie).


title: Young Guns II

text: The film's original score was composed and conducted by Alan Silvestri, who provided string arrangements for the song "Santa Fe" and has one brief track on "Blaze Of Glory". On September 19, 2011 Intrada Records issued Silvestri's score on its own CD.


title: Young Guns II

text: On July 20, 2018, Rusted Wave released a limited edition of 1000 double LP vinyl pressing of Alan Silvertri's score cut at 45 RPM.


title: Young Guns II

text: "Young Guns II" opened on August 1, 1990 in the United States in 1,770 theaters, accumulating $8,017,438 over its opening weekend. It finished third for the weekend, behind "Ghost" (in its fourth week) and "Presumed Innocent" (in its second week). The film went on to gross $44,143,410 in the United States and Canada. Internationally it grossed $15 million for a worldwide total of $59 million. The film was also successful on video rental.


title: Young Guns II

text: "Young Guns II" received mostly negative reviews by critics when it was first released. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has received a 28% approval rating by critics based on 25 reviews. Metacritic gave the film a score of 47 out of 100, based on 18 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A-" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Young Guns II

text: "Los Angeles Times" said it was “Full of sound, gunfire, fury and scorchingly beautiful landscapes, "Young Guns II" generates more sheer visual excitement than any Western since Peckinpah and Leone were in their last '70s prime.” Roger Ebert, who gave "Young Guns II" 2 stars out of 4 stars, stated that "the screenplay feels unfinished, the direction is ambling, but the performances are interesting." Chris Hicks from "Deseret News" gave the film 2 out of 4 stars, stating "Young Guns II" was "sumptuously shot, very well-acted and full of potential."


title: Young Guns II

text: In January 2021, a sequel was teased by screen writer John Fusco who shared a mock poster for "Young Guns 3: Alias Billy the Kid". In March, Estevez told "Collider" people were interested in seeing him play the character again and that a third film is "definitely in the works."


title: Young Guns II

text: In September 2021, more information came out about "", including that Lou Diamond Phillips and Christian Slater would return to the franchise.


title: Cerulean

text: The first recorded use of "cerulean" as a colour name in English was in 1590. The word is derived from the Latin word "caeruleus", "dark blue, blue, or blue-green", which in turn probably derives from "caerulum", diminutive of "caelum", "heaven, sky".


title: Cerulean

text: "Cerulean blue" is the name of a pigment. The pigment was discovered in the late eighteenth century and designated as cerulean blue in the nineteenth century.


title: Cerulean

text: The primary chemical constituent of the pigment is cobalt(II) stannate (). The precise hue of the pigment is dependent on a variable silicate component.


title: Cerulean

text: The pigment Cerulean blue was discovered in 1789 by the Swiss chemist Albrecht Höpfner. Subsequently, there was a limited German production under the name of "Cölinblau". It was in 1860 first marketed in the United Kingdom by colourman George Rowney, as "coeruleum". Other nineteenth century English pigment names included "ceruleum blue" and "corruleum blue".


title: Cerulean

text: When the cerulean blue pigment (see the adjacent colour box) was discovered, it became a useful addition to Prussian blue, cobalt blue, and synthetic ultramarine, which already had superseded the prior blue and blue‑ish pigments. The pigment is very expensive.


title: Cerulean

text: "Pigments through the ages" shows a "Painted swatch of cerulean blue" to represent the actual cobalt stannate pigment. See also painted swatch and crystals of cerulean blue at ColourLex.


title: Cerulean

text: It is particularly valuable for artistic painting of skies because of its hue, its permanence, and its opaqueness. Berthe Morisot painted the blue coat of the woman in her "Summer's Day", 1879 in cerulean blue in conjunction with artificial ultramarine and cobalt blue.


title: Cerulean

text: Today, cobalt chromate is sometimes marketed under the cerulean blue name but is darker and greener than the cobalt stannate version. The chromate makes excellent turquoise colours and is identified by "Rex Art" and some other manufacturers as "cobalt turquoise".


title: Cerulean

text: Pantone, in a press release, declared the pale hue of cerulean at right, which they call "cerulean", as the "colour of the millennium".


title: Cerulean

text: The source of this colour is the "Pantone Textile Paper eXtended (TPX)" colour list, colour #15-4020 TPX—Cerulean.


title: Cerulean

text: "Cerulean frost" is one of the colours in the special set of metallic coloured Crayola crayons called Silver Swirls, the colours of which were formulated by Crayola in 1990.


title: Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic

text: The Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic was one of the transcontinental constituent republics of the Soviet Union (USSR) from 1936 to 1991 in northern Central Asia. It was created on 5 December 1936 from the Kazakh ASSR, an autonomous republic of the Russian SFSR.


title: Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic

text: At in area, it was the second-largest republic in the USSR, after the Russian SFSR. Its capital was Alma-Ata (today known as Almaty). During its existence as a Soviet Socialist Republic, it was ruled by the Communist Party of the Kazakh SSR (QKP).


title: Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic

text: On 25 October 1990, the Supreme Soviet of the Kazakh SSR declared its sovereignty on its soil. QKP first secretary Nursultan Nazarbayev was elected president in April of that year – a role he remained in until 2019.


title: Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic

text: The Kazakh SSR was renamed the Republic of Kazakhstan on 10 December 1991, which declared its independence six days later, as the last republic to secede from the USSR on 16 December 1991. The Soviet Union was officially disbanded on 26 December 1991 by the Soviet of the Republics. The Republic of Kazakhstan, the legal successor to the Kazakh SSR, was admitted to the United Nations on 2 March 1992.


title: Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic

text: The republic was named after the Kazakh people, Turkic-speaking former nomads who sustained a powerful khanate in the region before Russian and later Soviet domination. The Soviet Union's spaceport, now known as the Baikonur Cosmodrome, was located in this republic at Tyuratam, and the secret town of Leninsk (now known as Baikonur) was constructed to accommodate its personnel.


title: Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic

text: Established on 26 August 1920, it was initially called Kirghiz ASSR (Kirghiz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic) and was a part of the Russian SFSR. On 15–19 April 1925, it was renamed Kazak ASSR (subsequently Kazakh ASSR) and on 5 December 1936 it was elevated to the status of a Union-level republic, Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic.


title: Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic

text: On 19 February 1925 Filipp Goloshchyokin was appointed First Secretary of the Communist Party in the newly created Kazakh Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic. From 1925 to 1933 he ran the Kazakh ASSR with virtually no outside interference. He played a prominent part in the construction of the Turkestan-Siberia railway, which was constructed to open up Kazakhstan's mineral wealth.


title: Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic

text: After Joseph Stalin ordered the forced collectivization of agriculture throughout the Soviet Union, Goloshchyokin ordered that Kazakhstan's largely nomadic population was to be forced to settle in collective farms. This caused the deadly Kazakh famine of 1930–1933 in Kazakhstan which killed between 1 and 2 million people.


title: Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic

text: In 1937 the first major deportation of an ethnic group in the Soviet Union began, the removal of the Korean population from the Russian Far East to Kazakhstan. Over 170,000 people were forcibly relocated.


title: Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic

text: Over one million political prisoners from various parts of the Soviet Union passed through the Karaganda Corrective Labor Camp (KarLag) between 1931 and 1959, with an unknown number of deaths.


title: Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic

text: During the 1950s and 1960s, Soviet citizens were urged to settle in the Virgin Lands of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic. The influx of immigrants, mostly Russians, skewed the ethnic mixture and enabled non-Kazakhs to outnumber natives. As a result, the use of the Kazakh language declined but has started to experience a revival since independence, both as a result of its resurging popularity in law and business and the growing proportion of Kazakhs. The other nationalities included Ukrainians, Germans, Jews, Belarusians, Koreans and others; Germans at the time of independence formed about 8% of the population, the largest concentration of Germans in the entire Soviet Union. Kazakh independence has caused many of these newcomers to emigrate.


title: Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic

text: Following the dismissal of Dinmukhamed Konayev, the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan by the last Soviet general secretary, Mikhail Gorbachev, riots broke out for four days between 16 and 19 December 1986 known as Jeltoqsan by student demonstrators in Brezhnev Square in the capital city, Alma-Ata. Approximately 168–200 civilians were killed in the uprising. The events then spilled over to Shymkent, Pavlodar, Karaganda and Taldykorgan.


title: Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic

text: On 25 March 1990, Kazakhstan held its first elections with Nursultan Nazarbayev, the chairman of the Supreme Soviet elected as its first president. Later that year on 25 October, it then declared sovereignty. The republic participated in a referendum to preserve the union in a different entity with 94.1% voted in favour. It did not happen when hardline communists in Moscow took control of the government in August. Nazarbayev then condemned the failed coup.


title: Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic

text: As a result of those events, the Kazakh SSR was renamed to the Republic of Kazakhstan on 10 December 1991. It declared independence on December 16 (the fifth anniversary of Jeltoqsan), becoming the last Soviet constituency to secede. Its capital was the site of the Alma-Ata Protocol on 21 December 1991 that dissolved the Soviet Union and formed the Commonwealth of Independent States in its place which Kazakhstan joined. The Soviet Union officially ceased to exist as a sovereign state on 26 December 1991 and Kazakhstan became an internationally recognised independent state.


title: Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic

text: According to the 1897 census, the earliest census taken in the region, Kazakhs constituted 81.7% of the total population (3,392,751 people) within the territory of contemporary Kazakhstan. The Russian population in Kazakhstan was 454,402, or 10.95% of total population; there were 79,573 Ukrainians (1.91%); 55,984 Tatars (1.34%); 55,815 Uyghurs (1.34%); 29,564 Uzbeks (0.7%); 11,911 Moldovans (0.28%); 4,888 Dungans (0.11%); 2,883 Turkmens; 2,613 Germans; 2,528 Bashkirs; 1,651 Jews; and 1,254 Poles.


title: Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic

text: The most significant factors that shaped the ethnic composition of the population of Kazakhstan were the 1920s and 1930s famines. According to different estimates of the effects of the Kazakh famine of 1930–1933, up to 40% of Kazakhs (indigenous ethnic group) either died of starvation or fled the territory. Official government census data report the contraction of Kazakh population from 3.6 million in 1926, to 2.3 million in 1939.


title: Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic

text: After the war, the Virgin Lands Campaign was started in 1953. This was led by Nikita Khrushchev, with the goal of developing the vast lands of the republic and helping to boost Soviet agricultural yields. However it did not work as promised, the campaign was eventually abandoned in the 1960s.


title: Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic

text: In the early days of the Soviet Union, Kazakh culture was both developed and restrained, and later many Kazakh cultural figures were imprisoned, exiled, or killed in Joseph Stalin's purges. However, after the Stalinist era, Nikita Khrushchev's efforts to reinvigorate internationalism and furtherly weaken Kazakh culture were controversial in the Kazakh SSR. Kazakhs viewed his internationalist goals as a call for "Russification".


title: Terry Dubrow

text: Terry J. Dubrow (born September 14, 1958) is an American plastic surgeon and television personality. He is known for his work on "The Swan" and for co-hosting "Botched" and its spin-off series "Botched by Nature" with Paul Nassif. He also appears on "The Real Housewives of Orange County" with his wife, Heather. In 2015, Dubrow appeared on "Good Work", a plastic surgery-themed talk show, together with co-hosts RuPaul and Sandra Vergara. Dubrow also performed the plastic surgery procedures on "Bridalplasty", a reality series which premiered in 2011 and featured a group of women who competed in order to win a wedding and transformative plastic surgery procedure.


title: Terry Dubrow

text: Terry Dubrow was born to Laura and Alvin Dubrow. His family is of Ashkenazi Jewish heritage. He was raised in Los Angeles with his older brother Kevin, who was the lead singer for the popular metal band Quiet Riot for the majority of that band's existence, until his death in 2007. He married actress and "Real Housewives of Orange County" star Heather Dubrow (née Kent) in 1999. They have four children.


title: Terry Dubrow

text: Dubrow received his medical degree from the University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine and also holds a master's degree from Yale University. He went on to complete a residency in general surgery and was chief resident at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and he completed his fellowship in plastic and reconstructive surgery at the UCLA Medical Center. Dubrow is board certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery, and a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons.


title: Terry Dubrow

text: Dubrow and his wife promote a fad diet known as the "Dubrow Diet," based on a form of intermittent fasting. He also has a constant presence on the shopping network ShopHQ, usually selling health products.


title: Terry Dubrow

text: "Dr. and Mrs. Guinea Pig Present The Only Guide You'll Ever Need to the Best Anti-Aging Treatments". Ghost Mountain Books. ISBN 1939457556 (2016)


title: Terry Dubrow

text: "The Dubrow Diet: Interval Eating to Lose Weight and Feel Ageless". Ghost Mountain Books. ISBN 978-1939457714 (2018)


title: Terry Dubrow

text: "The Dubrow Keto Fusion Diet: The Ultimate Plan for Interval Eating and Sustainable Fat Burning." William Morrow Books. ISBN 0062984322 (2020)


title: One Piece (season 9)

text: The ninth season of the "One Piece" anime series was directed by Kōnosuke Uda and produced by Toei Animation. Like the rest of the series, it follows the adventures of Monkey D. Luffy and his Straw Hat Pirates from Eiichirō Oda's "One Piece" manga series. The majority of the season covers the story arc, which adapts Oda's manga from the end of the 39th through the 45th volumes. Between Enies Lobby episodes there is the five episode arc and three episodes covering the . "Ice Hunter" deals with the Straw Hats taking on the Atchino Family to retrieve their flag. The final episode is stand-alone storyline featuring Chopperman.


title: One Piece (season 9)

text: Having crossed the yearly occurring storm called on the prototype sea train , piloted by sea train conductor , the Straw Hats, including Usopp, disguised as his alternate ego, the sharpshooting superhero Sogeking, and their allies, the , the foremen, and the sumo-wrestling frog , assault the government's stronghold island Enies Lobby to reclaim their comrades Franky and Nico Robin from the secret assassination group Cipher Pol No. 9 (CP9). Afterwards, they avoid annihilation by the dreaded military operation . And once back on the city island , the Straw Hats add Franky to their crew and acquire a new ship, the . Lastly, they encounter a group of bounty hunters, called the Atchino Family.


title: One Piece (season 9)

text: Each episode of "Straw Hat Theatre & Straw Pirate Tales" features a 21-minute recap of the Straw Hats' backstories and 3-minute "omake" adaptation of a short comic by Oda which was originally published in the "One Piece Log" fan magazine. The "Historical Drama "Boss Luffy"" episodes are sequels to the fourth "One Piece" television special which take place in Grand Jipang.


title: One Piece (season 9)

text: The season initially ran from May 21, 2006, through December 23, 2007 on Fuji Television. Since then, nineteen DVD compilations, each containing three episodes of the "Enies Lobby" arc, were released by Avex Mode between January 9, 2008 and July 1, 2009. A 20th DVD, containing two episodes, was released on August 5, 2009. A 21st DVD, containing four episodes, was released on September 2, 2009. The special arc was released on a single DVD on May 23, 2008. In July 2012, Funimation announced they had acquired this season as part of their own US "Season Five".


title: One Piece (season 9)

text: The season uses six pieces of theme music: four opening themes and two ending themes. The opening theme for the first part of the "Enies Lobby" arc is "Brand New World" by D-51 for the first fifteen episodes; the special arc of five episodes open with , sung by the voice actors of the first seven Straw Hat Pirates; the second part of the "Enies Lobby" arc uses "Crazy Rainbow" by Tackey & Tsubasa, up to episode 325, and "Jungle P" by 5050, until the end of the season. The two ending themes are "Adventure World" by Delicatessen, used in the first 15 episodes of the "Enies Lobby" arc, and "Family", also sung by the Straw Hats' voice actors, which was used to end the episodes of the special arc. All episodes of the second part of the "Enies Lobby" arc and after have since aired without an ending theme.


title: One Piece (season 9)

text: In North America, this season was recategorized as ""Season Five"" for its DVD release by Funimation Entertainment. The Australian "Season Five" sets were renamed "Collection 22" through "27".


title: Kabukichō

text: Kabukichō (, , ) is an entertainment district in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan. Kabuki-chō is the location of many host and hostess clubs, love hotels, shops, restaurants, and nightclubs, and is often called the "Sleepless Town" (, , ). Shinjuku Golden Gai, famous for its plethora of small bars, is part of Kabuki-cho.


title: Kabukichō

text: The district's name comes from late-1940s plans to build a "kabuki" theater, and although the theater was never built, the name stuck.


title: Kabukichō

text: The area has many movie theaters, and is located near Shinjuku Station, Seibu Shinjuku Station, and several other major railway and subway stations.


title: Kabukichō

text: Originally, the area was known as and was a swamp. After the Meiji Period, the area became a duck sanctuary. As the Yodobashi Purification Plant was built in 1893, the ponds were filled in. In 1920, a girls' school was built there, and the surroundings were developed into a residential area. Prior to World War II, the district was one of the areas open to foreign-born property owners (primarily from Taiwan and Korea), who mainly operated "tsurekomi yado", predecessors to today's love hotels.


title: Kabukichō

text: During the war, a bombing raid on April 13, 1945, razed the area to the ground. After the war, Kihei Suzuki from the Association of Readjustment and Reconstruction of Shinjuku worked with the major landowner, Mohei Minejima to draw up plans for Kiku-za, a "kabuki" theatre, in the area; they believed that performers from the Kabuki-za theatre in Ginza would accept their invitation to perform at Kiku-za. As a result, Hideaki Ishikawa, a regional planner, dubbed the town Kabuki-chō, which was adopted on April 1, 1948. Although the theatre was cancelled due to financial problems, the name remained. The (to the south, in Shibuya), movie theater, Tokyo Ice Skating Rink, and Shinjuku Koma Theater were all completed in 1956, cementing the area's reputation as an entertainment center.


title: Kabukichō

text: Kabuki-chō was quickly redeveloped after the war, mainly due to the efforts of the overseas Chinese in Japan who bought land left unused after the expos and greatly developed them. The "three most renowned overseas Chinese of Kabukicho" include the founder of Humax, Lin Yi-wen, who started his business with a cabaret; Lin Tsai-wang, who built the Fūrin Kaikan; and Lee Ho-chu, owner of the Tokyo Hotel Chinese restaurant. In 2002, it was estimated that 70% of the land in Kabukichō was owned by foreign-born Japanese residents and their descendants. The rise of home video entertainment decreased the demand for live performances and film theaters, and Kabukichō became home to a number of video arcades, discos, and "fuzoku" (businesses offering sexual services).


title: Kabukichō

text: , a freelance portrait photographer who took pictures and sold prints back to his subjects for a modest , documented the citizens of Kabukichō during this transition period in the 1960s and 1970s. Katsumi had apprenticed to a portrait studio in Tokyo shortly after moving there in 1962; he took his street photography portraits at night using a strobe as a side job. In 1971, , a former mattress salesman, opened "Club Ai", the first host club in Kabukichō; at its peak, Aida's company reported  billion in annual revenue.


title: Kabukichō

text: By 1999, the area had been named "Asia's largest adult entertainment district", and tabloids were regularly running candid photographs of drunken Kabukichō patrons fighting and being arrested. However, starting in 2003, joint citizen and police patrols began enforcing business licensing, and the 1948 Businesses Affecting Public Morals Regulation Act was more strictly enforced as well starting in April 2004, forcing adult-themed businesses to start removing customers at midnight in preparation to close by 1 AM. Kabukichō leaders attributed the change in enforcement to Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara and the Tokyo bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics.


title: Kabukichō

text: At present, the Kabukichō district has transformed from a residential area to a world-famous red-light district housing over three thousand bars, nightclubs, love hotels, massage parlours, hostess clubs and the like. Although referred here as a "red light district", there are no red lights in the literal sense with prostitutes in the windows as in Amsterdam.


title: Kabukichō

text: Recently, tourism from China and Korea is on the rise, and so, many tourists can be seen in Kabukichō even during daytime. After several large hotels opened in the district, the Kabukicho Concierge Association was formed to recommend businesses that would be safe for foreign patrons, as the area is notorious for the practice known as "bottakuri", where some businesses add exorbitant hidden fees to bring the final bill well beyond the initial advertised prices.


title: Kabukichō

text: The red gate, near the southwest corner along Yasukuni-Dōri, is often photographed as the main entrance to Kabukichō. Other major entrances, east of Ichibangai-Dori along Yasukuni-Dori, include , where the Kabukichō branch of Don Quijote is; and another neon-lit arch at .


title: Kabukichō

text: The Shinjuku Koma Theater was a landmark in Kabukichō. By 2008, it had moved to its third location; since it opened in 1956, it has hosted concerts and other performances by top stars, including "enka" singers Saburō Kitajima, Kiyoshi Hikawa, and actor Ken Matsudaira. The management announced that they would close after the December 31, 2008 show, and the building was demolished in 2009. The site was redeveloped and the Toho Shinjuku Building was completed there in 2014, including the 12-screen Toho Cinemas Shinjuku theatre and the Hotel Gracery Shinjuku. A "life-size" replica of Godzilla (from the neck up) was added to an outdoor terrace in 2015; it has since become a local landmark.


title: Kabukichō

text: The Tokyu Milano-za movie theater, just west of Cinecity Square, was the largest in Japan when it opened in 1956. The cinema showed many of the latest movies in Japan, including anime films. As well as a cinema, which had four screens at the time of closure, the Tokyu Milano-za complex also had a skate rink when it first opened which was converted into a bowling alley called the Milano Bowl a few years later, a Japanese restaurant (both the bowling alley and the Japanese restaurant closed alongside the cinema), a Chinese restaurant (closed in 2008), a fast food restaurant (Wimpy until the mid 1990s, Mos Burger afterwards; closed in 2011) and a casino. Its last day of operation was December 31, 2014, closing after a screening of the film "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial". A high skyscraper called the Tokyu Kabukicho Tower (which is being developed by the former owners of the Tokyu Milano) is currently being built and is planned to open in Spring 2023


title: Kabukichō

text: In 2004, according to a spokesperson of Metropolitan Tokyo, there were more than 1,000 yakuza members in Kabukichō, and 120 different enterprises under their control.


title: Kabukichō

text: Entering the new millennium, laws were more strictly enforced and patrols became more frequent. In addition, fifty closed-circuit cameras were installed in May 2002 after the Myojo 56 building fire that killed 44; the patrols and cameras reduced criminal activities in Kabukichō, amidst controversy.


title: Kabukichō

text: Private citizens and government agencies launched a joint effort in July 2003, called the Shinjuku Shopping Center Committee to Expel Organized-Crime Groups, with the aim to replace unlicensed and adult-oriented businesses (which were believed to pay protection fees to organized crime groups) with legitimate businesses. In 2004, the police undertook an operation clamping down on illegal clubs and brothels, causing many to go out of business. An amendment to the 1948 Adult Entertainment law made aggressive catching of female patrons by male hosts illegal. Also, the Kabukichō Renaissance organization started in April 2008 to rid Kabukichō of the yakuza; office manager Yoshihisa Shimoda stated "[a]t the end of the day, we want Kabukicho to be clean. We want security, safety and a pleasant environment."


title: Kabukichō

text: In 2011, Tokyo began to enforce the Organised Crime Exclusion Ordinance, which makes it a crime for businesses or individuals to deal with the Yakuza. Although the punishment for violating the ordinance ranges up to one year in prison and a fine of , it is intended to provide an excuse for refusing to make protection payments.


title: Kabukichō

text: "Bottakuri" is a form of bait-and-switch, where patrons are attracted by a low advertised price but then charged numerous hidden fees. In one instance, a group of nine was lured into a bar under the promise the all-inclusive cost was ; the hostesses inside consumed 172 drinks and the final bill was . The staff at the bar allegedly threatened the patrons to ensure payment. In 2015, there were 1,052 reported cases of "bottakuri" in the first four months of the year alone, particularly targeting foreign tourists from China and Korea, prompting a crackdown that began in May; in July, there were only 45 reported cases of "bottakuri" and 28 bars had been shut down.


title: Kabukichō

text: In 2007, local businessman Takeshi Aida founded the Shinjuku Kabukicho Host Club Anti-Organized Crime Gang Association to disassociate host and hostess clubs from organized crime, reduce the aggressive "catching" street solicitations, and eliminate the "bottakuri" practice.


title: Kabukichō

text: Kabuki-cho 2-chome and a portion of Kabuki-cho 1-chome is zoned to Ōkubo Elementary School (大久保小学校) and Shinjuku Junior High School (). Another portion of Kabuki-cho 1-chome is zoned to Hanazono Elementary School (花園小学校) and Yotsuya Junior High School (四谷中学校).


title: Under Siege 2: Dark Territory

text: Under Siege 2: Dark Territory is a 1995 American action thriller film directed by Geoff Murphy, starring Steven Seagal as the ex-Navy SEAL, Casey Ryback. Set on board a train traveling through the Rocky Mountains from Denver to Los Angeles, it is the sequel to the 1992 film "Under Siege" also starring Seagal. The title refers to the railroading term that the subject train was travelling through dark territory, a section of railroad track that has no train signals and in which communications between train dispatchers and the railroad engineers were impossible.


title: Under Siege 2: Dark Territory

text: The film was produced by Seagal along with Arnon Milchan and Steve Perry. The film's cast also included Eric Bogosian, Everett McGill, Morris Chestnut, Peter Greene, Kurtwood Smith and Katherine Heigl. In addition to Seagal, Nick Mancuso, Andy Romano, and Dale Dye also reprised their roles from the first film.


title: Under Siege 2: Dark Territory

text: Following his retirement from the United States Navy, Casey Ryback settles in Denver, Colorado, where he starts and runs a restaurant business. When he receives news of the death of his estranged brother, James Ryback, in a plane crash, Casey meets James's daughter, Sarah, whom he will accompany to Los Angeles to attend his funeral. The two board the Grand Continental, a train traveling through the Rocky Mountains from Denver to Los Angeles. On board, they befriend a steward/porter named Bobby Zachs and the train's chefs.


title: Under Siege 2: Dark Territory

text: As the train reaches the Rocky Mountains, a group of terrorists flag it down and murder the engineer and brakeman. The group, led by former U.S. government employee and computer genius Travis Dane and his second-in-command Marcus Penn, cuts the train phone lines and takes passengers and staff hostage, herding them into the last two cars. Casey kills one terrorist, then slips away. Dane worked on Grazer One, a top secret military satellite tectonic weapon for underground targets. The military fired Dane, who later faked his suicide.


title: Under Siege 2: Dark Territory

text: Dane threatens two former Department of Defense colleagues with burning needles in their eyes unless they reveal codes to take over Grazer. Despite their disclosures, after the codes are confirmed to work, they are thrown from the train over a deep valley.