title: Real Genius

text: The CIA has covertly hired Professor Jerry Hathaway at Pacific Technical University to develop the power source for "Crossbow": a laser weapon precise enough to commit illegal political assassinations from outer space. Hathaway uses his position to recruit brilliant students to do the work for him but, aside from his graduate student and toady Kent, does not tell them the reason for their research.


title: Real Genius

text: Hathaway's latest prospect is genius high school student Mitch Taylor. Despite his youth and inexperience, Hathaway makes Mitch the lead on the project due to his innovative and original ideas in the field of laser physics. Mitch is roomed with Chris Knight, another member of the team, a legend in the "National Physics Club" and one of Mitch's idols. Mitch's ideal of Chris is shattered, however, when Chris turns out to be more of a goof-off than a hard-working student. Meanwhile, Hathaway hopes Mitch will encourage Chris to straighten up his act and that their two exceptional minds can develop a proper power source.


title: Real Genius

text: With the deadline quickly approaching, Mitch feels the pressure to complete the project while Chris continues in his carefree attitude. After inviting Mitch to a pool party to blow off steam, Kent reports this to Hathaway, who lambasts Mitch. Mitch breaks down and tearfully calls his parents, telling them he wants to go home. Kent records the call without Mitch's knowledge and later plays the recording over the school's public address system, humiliating Mitch. As Mitch begins packing to leave, Chris explains about the pressures of school and burdens of being highly intelligent by relating the history of former Pacific Tech student Lazlo Hollyfeld. Lazlo cracked under the pressure and disappeared (actually now living in the university's tunnels beneath Chris and Mitch's closet). Chris, fearing the same could happen to him, learned to lighten up and begin enjoying life. Mitch acquiesces to stay and they exact revenge on Kent by disassembling his car and reassembling it in his dorm room.


title: Real Genius

text: Hathaway, angry about the still-incomplete project and Chris's attitude, informs Chris that he intends to fail him in his final course needed for graduation and will give a coveted after-graduation job, originally promised to Chris, to Kent instead, as well as take steps to ensure Chris will never find work in the field of laser physics. Chris is disheartened and Mitch must use Chris's same argument to convince him to stay. The two commit themselves to finishing the 5 megawatt laser and making sure Chris passes Hathaway's final exam.


title: Real Genius

text: Kent sabotages their latest, nearly-successful apparatus. Though Chris knows Kent destroyed the laser, he can do nothing about it and is left to brood over the injustice; this inspires him to come up with a whole new system. The new solution works flawlessly, impressing Hathaway; he congratulates Chris and assures him that he will graduate. Chris and Mitch leave and celebrate, but Lazlo arrives to tell them his suspicions regarding the possible uses of such a laser. Realizing he is right, they return to the lab, but all the laser equipment has already been removed by Hathaway.


title: Real Genius

text: They surreptitiously implant a radio transmitter in Kent's mouth and use it convince him he is speaking to Jesus. Kent divulges the location of the Air Force base where the equipment has been installed on a B-1 bomber. Chris and Mitch sneak onto the airbase and reprogram the coordinates of the target before going to Hathaway's home to set up a small prism. They gather outside Hathaway's home to watch as another school professor and a Congressman arrive, having been told of the test. Kent arrives and, though he was told by Jesus to remain outside, he goes inside. The laser test begins, with the new target being Hathaway's house. A very large bag of popcorn (Hathaway detests popcorn) is heated by the laser refracted by the prism, filling the house entirely and causing it to burst at the seams, with Kent riding a popcorn wave through the front door. Lazlo arrives in an RV—which he has won using mathematics in a blind sweepstakes contest—to tell them he is leaving. Later, Hathaway arrives to see what has become of his house.


title: Real Genius

text: To prepare for "Real Genius", Martha Coolidge spent months researching laser technology and the policies of the CIA, and interviewed dozens of students at Caltech. The screenplay was extensively rewritten, first by Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, later by Coolidge and Peter Torokvei.


title: Real Genius

text: Producer Brian Grazer remembers that when Val Kilmer came in to audition for the role of Chris Knight, he brought candy bars and performed tricks. Kilmer remembered it differently. "The character wasn't polite, so when I shook Grazer's hand and he said, 'Hi, I'm the producer,' I said, 'I'm sorry. You look like you're 12 years old. I like to work with men.'"


title: Real Genius

text: To achieve the house filled with popcorn for the film's climax, the production team popped popcorn continuously for three months. The popcorn was treated with fire retardant so it would not combust and covered so that it would not be eaten by birds and possibly poison them. The popcorn was then shipped to a subdivision under construction in Canyon Country, northwest of Los Angeles, and placed in the house.


title: Real Genius

text: To promote the film, the studio held what it billed as "the world's first computer press conference" with Coolidge and Grazer answering journalists' questions via computer terminals and relayed over the CompuServe computer network.


title: Real Genius

text: The dorm in the film is based on Dabney House at Caltech, and Caltech students served as consultants and played extras in the film.


title: Real Genius

text: "Real Genius" was released on August 9, 1985 in 990 theaters grossing $2.5 million in its first weekend. It went on to make $12,952,019 in North America.


title: Real Genius

text: On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 77% based on 35 reviews with an average rating of 6.7/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "It follows college tropes, but "Real Genius" has an optimistic streak that puts you on Val Kilmer's side all the way." On Metacritic, the film received a score of 71 based on 15 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: Real Genius

text: Colin Greenland reviewed the film for "White Dwarf" #85, and stated that it was "yet another celebration of the anxious wonder of growing up white, middle-class and heterosexual in America. The lovable weirdos squabble in the lab, play hi-tech pranks in the dorm and party in the lecture theatre. Nerds just wanna have fun. Nerds have feelings too. Hug a Nerd today."


title: Real Genius

text: In her review for "The New York Times", Janet Maslin wrote, "the film is best when it takes [the students] seriously, though it does so only intermittently." David Ansen wrote in his review for "Newsweek", "When it's good, the dormitory high jinks feel like the genuine release of teen-age tensions and cruelty. Too bad the story isn't as smart as the kids in it." In her review for the "Washington Post", Rita Kempley wrote, "Many of the scenes, already badly written, fail to fulfill their screwball potential... [D]espite its enthusiastic young cast and its many good intentions, it doesn't quite succeed. I guess there's a leak in the think tank."


title: Real Genius

text: "Chicago Sun Times" film critic Roger Ebert awarded the film three and a half stars out of four, saying that it "contains many pleasures, but one of the best is its conviction that the American campus contains life as we know it." In his review for "The Globe and Mail", Salem Alaton wrote, "Producer Brian Grazer craved a feel-good picture, and she [Martha Coolidge] turned in the summer's best, and she didn't cheat to do it. There's heart in the kookiness. "Real Genius" has real people, real comedy and real fun." Richard Schickel of "Time" praised the film for being "a smart, no-nonsense movie that may actually teach its prime audience a valuable lesson: the best retort to an intolerable situation is not necessarily a food fight. Better results, and more fun, come from rubbing a few brains briskly together."


title: Real Genius

text: In the "MythBusters" episode "Car vs. Rain", first broadcast on June 17, 2009, the "MythBusters" team tried to determine whether the final scene in the film, the destruction of Dr. Hathaway's house with laser-popped popcorn, is actually possible. First they used a ten-watt laser to pop a single kernel wrapped in aluminum foil, showing that popping corn is possible with a laser. Then they tested a scaled-down model of a house. The popcorn was popped through induction heating because a sufficiently large laser was not available. The result was that the popcorn was unable to expand sufficiently to break glass, much less break open a door or move the house off its foundation. Instead, it ceased to expand and then simply charred.


title: Real Genius

text: It was also specifically stated in the program that a five-megawatt laser still did not exist, even in military applications, and that the most powerful military laser they knew of was 100 kilowatts.


title: Real Genius

text: In January 2011, it was further demonstrated on video in a home setting that a kernel of corn directly exposed to laser light from accessible consumer level lasers could be popped as reported by TechCrunch.


title: Real Genius

text: The solid xenon-halogen laser proposed and built by Chris in the latter half of the film, though in the realm of science fiction, was based on a theory of the time. "Real Genius", through consultant Martin A. Gundersen (who played the math professor), was later cited in an academic publication that detailed the scientific basis behind the laser.


title: Real Genius

text: Reports surfaced in September 2014 that a potential television series was in the works. NBC was set to produce the comedy series with Sony TV, Happy Madison and 3 Arts Entertainment. there are no updates on the production.


title: SNK

text: SNK is known for its creation of the Neo Geo family of arcade, home, and handheld game consoles in 1990. The Neo Geo line was halted in 2001 because financial troubles forced SNK Corporation to close in the same year. Anticipating the end of the company, Kawasaki founded Playmore Corporation in 2001, which acquired all of the intellectual property of the first iteration of SNK Corporation. In 2003, Playmore Corporation was renamed to SNK Playmore Corporation. In 2016, SNK dropped the name Playmore from its logo and reintroduced its old slogan, "The Future Is Now", officially changing its corporate name back to SNK.


title: SNK

text: Traditionally, SNK operated primarily as a video game developer, publisher, and hardware manufacturer with a focus on arcade games; however, it has ventured into developing console and PC games. In 2004, SNK started manufacturing pachislot machines, but the company withdrew from the market in 2015. In 2009, the company entered mobile game development. Classic SNK franchises include "Art of Fighting", "Fatal Fury", "Metal Slug", "Samurai Shodown", "The Last Blade", "World Heroes", "Twinkle Star Sprites", and "The King of Fighters".


title: SNK

text: SNK was founded in 1973 as Shin Nihon Kikaku and reorganized in 1978 as a stock company ("kabushiki gaisha") under the name "Shin Nihon Kikaku Corporation". When Eikichi Kawasaki noticed rapid growth in the coin-operated video game market, he expanded Shin Nihon Kikaku to include the development and marketing of stand-alone coin-op games.


title: SNK

text: The company was nicknamed "Shin Nihon Kikaku" in katakana at first, but since 1981 it has been changed to "SNK" by taking the initials from the Roman alphabet (Shin Nihon Kikaku). The English copyright notation was also "SNK CORPORATION". It established itself in Sunnyvale, California, to deliver its own brand of coin-operated games to arcades in North America. SNK chose John Rowe to head its American operation.


title: SNK

text: The first two titles that SNK released were "Ozma Wars" (1979), a vertical space shooter, and "Safari Rally" (1980), a maze game. Game quality improved over time, most notably with "Vanguard" (1981), a side-scrolling space shooter. SNK licensed the game to Centuri for distribution in North America. Centuri started manufacturing and distributing the game by itself when profits exceeded projections. In part due to the success of "Vanguard", SNK began to gain fame and reputation. An American branch opened on October 20, 1981, named SNK Electronics Corporation.


title: SNK

text: In April 1986, Shin Nihon Kikaku Corporation officially became SNK Corporation. In November 1986, SNK Electronics Corporation, the US branch, became SNK Corporation of America and moved to Sunnyvale, California. In March 1988, SNK staff moved to a building in Suita, Osaka, Japan.


title: SNK

text: At this point, the Japanese operations of SNK Corporation had shifted their focus solely toward developing and licensing video games for arcade use and later for early consoles. Between 1979 and 1986, SNK produced 23 stand-alone arcade games. Highlights from this period include "Mad Crasher" (1984), "Alpha Mission" (1985), and "Athena" (1986), a game that gained a large following when it was ported to the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1987. SNK's most successful game from this time was "Ikari Warriors", released in 1986. It was so popular that it was licensed and ported to the Atari 2600, Atari 7800, Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Apple II, ZX Spectrum, and NES. After "Ikari Warriors", SNK released two sequels: "Victory Road" and "Ikari III: The Rescue".


title: SNK

text: At the time, Japan was affected by the video game crash of 1983. The console manufacturer Nintendo remained in business throughout and after the crash. SNK became a third-party licensee for Nintendo's Famicom (alternative name for the NES) system in 1985. It opened a second branch in the US, called SNK Home Entertainment, based in Torrance, California. The branch handled the North American distribution and marketing of the company's products for home consoles. John Rowe had already left the company to form Tradewest, which went on to market the "Ikari Warriors" series in North America. Paul Jacobs took over Rowe's position over both halves of SNK America. He is known for having helped launch the company's Neo Geo system outside of Asia.


title: SNK

text: In response to strong sales of the company's NES ports, SNK began to dabble in the development of original software designed specifically for the NES console. Two games came out of this effort: "Baseball Stars" (1989) and "Crystalis" (1990; known as "God Slayer" in Japan). In 1989, two home video game consoles were released in North America: the Sega Genesis, and NEC and Hudson Soft's TurboGrafx-16. Nintendo followed suit with a new system in 1991, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (Super NES, SNES). SNK as a whole did not become involved in the "system wars" of the early 1990s. Instead, it refocused its efforts on arcades. Other third parties, such as Romstar and Takara, were left to license and port SNK's properties to the various home consoles of the time with help from SNK's American home entertainment division. With console ports mainly handled outside the company, it moved on to developing SNK-branded arcade equipment. SNK also licensed Tiger Electronics to market handheld electronic games from some of its brands.


title: SNK

text: In 1988, SNK created the idea of a modular cabinet for arcades. Up to that point, arcade cabinets typically contained only one game. When an arcade operator wanted to switch or replace that game, it would have to completely remove the internals of the existing cabinet or exchange the entire setup for another game. SNK's new system, called the Neo Geo MVS (short for Multi Video System), featured multiple games in a single cabinet and used a cartridge-based storage mechanism. The system debuted in 1990 and could contain one, two, four, or six separate games in a single cabinet. To swap in a new game, all the operator had to do was remove one cartridge and exchange it for another. The MVS was an immediate success. It greatly shortened the setup time needed for each game, minimized floor space for cabinets, and reduced costs for new cartridges to US$500—less than half of what a traditional arcade unit cost at the time.


title: SNK

text: SNK wanted to bring arcade games to people's homes without making CPU and memory performance compromises that typical home consoles were forced to make. In 1990, the Neo Geo family was created. The company released a home version of the MVS, a single cartridge unit called the Neo Geo Advanced Entertainment System (Neo Geo AES). Initially, the AES was only available for rent or for use in hotel settings, but SNK quickly began selling the system through stores when customer response indicated that people were willing to spend money on home versions. Several franchises of games derived from it, including "Sengoku", "The King of Fighters", "The Last Blade", "Super Sidekicks", "Art of Fighting", "Metal Slug", "Burning Fight", "Savage Reign", "Samurai Shodown", and "Fatal Fury". The "King of Fighters", "Samurai Shodown", and "Metal Slug" series were continued on later consoles. SNK also helped publish third-party Neo Geo games such as ADK's "World Heroes" and "Aggressors of Dark Kombat", Visco's "Breakers" and "Ganryu", Noise Factory's "Rage of the Dragons" and "Sengoku 3", Sunsoft's "" and "Waku Waku 7", Sammy's "Viewpoint", NMK's "Zed Blade", Psikyo's "Strikers 1945 Plus", Aiky/Taito's "Pochi and Nyaa", Paon/Eleven/Gavaking's "Nightmare in the Dark", Face's "Money Puzzle Exchanger", Data East's "Spinmaster" and "Street Slam", and Technōs Japan's "Double Dragon" and "Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer". During this time, SNK also released stand-alone arcade games, some of which were ported to home consoles, including "Vanguard", "Alpha Mission", "Athena", "Ikari Warriors", "Psycho Soldier", "Touch Down Fever", "Time Soldiers", "", "Beast Busters", and "Street Smart".


title: SNK

text: Compared to other consoles at the time, the Neo Geo AES had much better graphics and sound; It debuted at $599 (), sold with two joystick controllers and a game (either "Baseball Stars Professional" or "NAM-1975"). Within a few months of the system's introduction in North America, SNK increased the cost to $649 and changed the pack-in game to "Magician Lord". Alternatively, the console could be bought for $399 with one control stick and without an accompanying game. Other games cost at least $200 each. Joystick controllers contained the same four-button layout as the arcade MVS cabinet. The quality of AES games varied. Some, such as the "Super Sidekicks" series, were all-new creations, while others were updated versions of earlier successes, such as "Baseball Stars Professional". SNK games were graphically bold and bright. Games such as "" and the famous "Metal Slug" series were distinctive and instantly recognizable, contributing to the system's success in arcades.


title: SNK

text: SNK also produced the Neo Geo CD home console, the Hyper Neo-Geo 64 arcade system, and two handheld game consoles, the Neo Geo Pocket and Pocket Color. Several more famous franchise titles, originally created for the MVS and AES systems, have been ported to other consoles such as the Genesis, Saturn and Dreamcast; SNES; PlayStation and PlayStation 2; Xbox; and Wii.


title: SNK

text: The Neo Geo Pocket was SNK's original handheld system. It was released in Japan in late 1998 and featured a monochrome (one-color) display. Because its sales were fewer than the expected number, it was discontinued in 1999 in favor of the Neo Geo Pocket Color, which was later released in North America and Europe. In 2001, the Neo Geo family ended. It was briefly revived 11 years later with the Neo Geo X.


title: SNK

text: In 1999, SNK opened the Neo Geo World Tokyo Bayside amusement park as part of the Palette Town entertainment complex in Odaiba, Tokyo equipped with attractions such as Ferris wheels and roller coasters. A large-scale tie-in was established with the Fujisankei Communications Group, owners of the nearby television station Fuji TV, and was frequently promoted in various media.


title: SNK

text: However, by the late 1990s, the 2D fighting game boom, which had been behind much of SNK's recent success, had come to an end, and both the Neo Geo CD and Hyper Neo Geo 64 failed to meet sales expectations. At the same time, the Neo Geo Pocket, while initially selling well, began to fall behind in the market after the release of the Game Boy Color, and Neo Geo World Tokyo Bayside quickly lost attendance after the re-opening of Yokohama Cosmo World a few months later, with the park considered to be a massive failure. In addition, the arcade game magazine "Gamest", one of the biggest promoters of SNK titles, ceased publication after its publisher Shinseisha declared bankruptcy in 1999.


title: SNK

text: SNK had focused on the booming arcade industry for the 1990s, but as interest in arcades fell in favor of home and portable consoles going into the 2000s, they were unable to adjust to the changing market, with their recent hardware releases selling poorly and attempts to diversify into new markets such as amusement parks failing. SNK tried to develop more titles for the home console market, such as Shinsetsu Samurai Spirits Bushidō Retsuden, , Koudelka, and Cool Cool Toon, but as none of them sold well it left the company's financial situation in a dire state.


title: SNK

text: In January 2000, SNK's poor financial status led to its acquisition by Aruze, a company known for its pachinko machines and the parent company of its competitor SETA. Instead of developing video games using SNK's intellectual properties, Aruze manufactured pachinko machines that featured popular series such as "King of Fighters". SNK saw little success in the video game market.


title: SNK

text: The same year, Capcom agreed to create a series of fighting games featuring both companies' fighting game characters. The "Capcom vs. SNK" games were a success, however most of the profits went to Capcom because it developed and published the games. SNK released "" and "" on the Neo Geo Pocket Color. Combined, the two games sold around 50,000 copies.


title: SNK

text: SNK closed all American operations on June 13, 2000. The company sold rights to distribution in North America for MVS arcade systems and Neo Print photo systems. It licensed North American localizations of some console releases to outside companies.


title: SNK

text: With low morale and an unclear future, many of the company's employees left their jobs. Some joined rivals Capcom and Arc System Works, and others moved on to found the developer Dimps. Kawasaki, along with five other former SNK executives, funded the formation of BrezzaSoft, which continued to develop Neo Geo games such as "The King of Fighters 2001". Eyeing the end of the company, founder Eikichi Kawasaki left SNK along with other executives to found a company named Playmore on August 1, 2001.


title: SNK

text: On April 2, 2001, SNK applied to the Osaka District Court for application of the Civil Rehabilitation Law. The application was accepted, and revitalization proccedings were once underway, and the head office returned to Suity City, Osaka Prefecture.


title: SNK

text: On October 30, 2001, the Osaka District Court declared to SNK bankruptcy and went bankrupt, SNK filed for bankruptcy and placed the intellectual property rights for its franchises up for auction. Licenses for SNK's game production and development rights to its franchises were sold to several other companies. These included BrezzaSoft, which produced "The King of Fighters" franchise between 2001 and 2002, and Mega Enterprise, which produced "Metal Slug 4".


title: SNK

text: To regain control of SNK, Kawasaki's new company, Playmore, successfully bid for and was awarded SNK's intellectual property rights on October 30, 2001. The company then began to bolster its assets and re-hire former SNK employees.


title: SNK

text: To re-establish its presence in the gaming market, Playmore acquired BrezzaSoft and its former SNK developers, as well as Japan-based Neo Geo developer Noise Factory. Sun Amusement, a Japanese commercial games distributor, was acquired by SNK to provide the company with an arcade distribution outlet in Japan. International offices were established in South Korea, Hong Kong, and the United States under the name SNK NeoGeo for commercial and, later, consumer gaming distribution. All of the acquired entities were consolidated into SNK Playmore on July 7, 2003 when Playmore regained rights to use the name SNK from Aruze. In the same year, SNK purchased ADK shortly after it filed for bankruptcy. Previously, ADK was a third-party company that had been heavily associated with SNK since the late 1980s. SNK Playmore's operations in Japan already largely resembled the original company: SNK employed many employees who left after its bankruptcy filing and occupied its former building.


title: SNK

text: In October 2002, Kawasaki sued Aruze for copyright infringement, claiming 6.2 billion Japanese yen (US$) in damages. He cited that Aruze had continued to use SNK's intellectual properties after Playmore re-acquired them. A preliminary decision in January 2004 by the Osaka District Court favored SNK Playmore, awarding it 5.64 billion yen (US$).


title: SNK

text: In the fall and winter of 2003, SNK Playmore obtained an injunction against a group of four different companies, causing hundreds of AES cartridges to be seized. In the following year, SNK Playmore struck a compromise with two of the companies. The two were allowed to sell AES cartridges, under the conditions that the cartridges would not be modified again and that any legitimate materials would be returned to SNK Playmore.


title: SNK

text: Within the same year, SNK Playmore would discontinue the AES system, preferring to publish video games in cooperation with Sammy. Using its arcade board Atomiswave, SNK Playmore gained a more secure and modern platform for new arcade releases. In 2004, SNK Playmore officially became licensed to manufacture pachislot machines (Japanese slot machines played in pachinko parlors). The company released its first two machines that year: "Metal Slug" and "Dragon Gal". Pachislots would be more heavily featured in SNK Playmore's product lineup for the next decade.


title: SNK

text: In September 2006 at the Tokyo Game Show (TGS), SNK Playmore announced that it had ceased producing games on the Atomiswave, favoring Taito's Type X2 arcade platform. To counter the decline in the commercial gaming industry, the company shifted some of its development focus to consumer games, including original games for the PlayStation 2, Nintendo DS, mobile phones, and other platforms. Games continue to be ported to the PlayStation 2, mostly in Europe because Sony Computer Entertainment of America (SCEA) did not approve most SNK Playmore games, and more rarely to the Xbox. In Japan, SNK Playmore released the "NeoGeo Online Collection" for the PlayStation 2, which contained some of its older games. It featured emulations, and online play was available through the KDDI matching service. The company also released original titles based on existing franchises such as "Metal Slug" and the "" series.


title: SNK

text: In 2007, SNK Playmore USA released its first game on the Xbox Live Arcade, titled "Fatal Fury Special". SNK Playmore also began supporting Nintendo's Virtual Console service on the Wii in the US with "Fatal Fury", "Art of Fighting", and "World Heroes". In 2007, "The King of Fighters XI" and "Neo Geo Battle Coliseum" were released. SNK Playmore also released its first adult-themed game franchise, "Doki Doki Majo Shinpan!", the first for any handheld console. In 2009, the company released "The King of Fighters XII", which was not well-received by the public and critics alike due to polemic changes in the game's graphics and structure. In 2010, SNK Playmore released a sequel, "The King of Fighters XIII", which was considered a much better game than its immediate predecessor. It either won or was nominated to multiple Game of the Year awards.


title: SNK

text: SNK has developed a great number of mobile games since 2009. It has licensed its characters for Chinese and other Asian games, mostly mobile.


title: SNK

text: In December 2012, SNK Playmore released the Neo Geo X, a relaunched mobile Neo Geo console. On October 2, 2013, SNK Playmore terminated its licensing agreement with the console's manufacturer, Tommo, effectively ending production of the Neo Geo X less than a year after its release. Tommo disputed the termination, stating that its contract was extended until 2016 and that it performed every obligation of the licensing agreement.


title: SNK

text: In June 2013, the VIGAMUS, a museum of video games in Rome, hosted an event dedicated to the history of SNK, tracing back the origins of the company and explaining the evolution of its games. Yamamoto Kei, Kiyoji Tomita, and Ogura Eisuke participated at the event and were interviewed. Ogura also drew two original illustrations to exhibit at the museum.


title: SNK

text: In March 2015, Leyou Technologies Holdings submitted a disclosure of interest document to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, highlighting a "possible investment in a renowned Japanese video game developer". Later in August, it was announced that Chinese web and mobile game giant 37Games, and asset management firm Orient Securities had formed a joint venture to invest in Ledo Millennium, a subsidiary of Leyou. Through Ledo, the venture acquired Kawasaki's 81.25% stake in SNK Playmore for $63.5 million. The reason given for the acquisition was to gain rights to SNK Playmore's intellectual property, and further develop them by following Marvel Entertainment's approach to mass media. The joint venture planned to integrate games, comics, film, and television in a media franchise.


title: SNK

text: With the purchase completed, SNK Playmore signaled a shift in the company's strategy, which had previously been focused more on the production of pachislot and mobile games than its traditional area, console and arcade games. In 2015, SNK Playmore announced that it was withdrawing from the pachislot market, choosing instead to focus on console and mobile gaming, as well as character licensing using its popular characters such as Mai Shiranui, Ukyou Tachibana, Nakoruru, and Haohmaru. Additionally, all of the aforementioned characters made their appearance as guest characters in a mobile multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA), "Wangzhe Rongyao", roughly translated to English as "Honor of Kings", which is the world highest-grossing game of all time as well as the most downloaded mobile app globally.


title: SNK

text: On April 25, 2016, SNK officially dropped the "Playmore" name from its corporate logo and reintroduced its old slogan, "The Future Is Now", to signify "a return to SNK's rich gaming history". A legal name change from SNK Playmore Corporation to SNK Corporation followed on December 1, 2016, to more firmly establish SNK Playmore as the successor to the old SNK brand and legacy. "The King of Fighters XIV", the first entry in its series in more than half a decade, was released in 2016. In July 2018, SNK released the NEOGEO Mini, a miniature console based on the design of the company's Japanese arcade machines. It was pre-loaded with forty classic Neo Geo games.


title: SNK

text: In June 2019, the 12th entry in the "Samurai Shodown" series was released for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, followed by an arcade version in October and a Nintendo Switch version later in the year.


title: SNK

text: On September 4, 2019, Nintendo announced that "Fatal Fury" protagonist and "The King of Fighters" character Terry Bogard would be added as a downloadable, playable character to "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate", with a planned release in November 2019. Terry was made available on November 6, alongside a "The King of Fighters"-based stage and 50 songs from various SNK series.


title: SNK

text: In November 2020, the MiSK Foundation, a non-profit organization owned by the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed Bin Salman, acquired a 33.3% share of SNK through its subsidiary, Electronic Game Development Company (EGDC), with the intention to acquire a further 17.7% share at a later time as to gain controlling interest in the company. In February 2022, EGDC's ownership share was increased to 96.18%.


title: Hallie Eisenberg

text: Hallie Kate Eisenberg (born August 2, 1992) is an American former child actress, best known for being "The Pepsi Girl" in a series of Pepsi commercials, as Marie Alweather in "Paulie", and her role as Erika Tansy in "How to Eat Fried Worms".


title: Hallie Eisenberg

text: Eisenberg was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, the daughter of Amy and Barry Eisenberg, who ran a hospital and later became a college professor. She has two siblings: actor Jesse Eisenberg, the Academy Award-nominated star of "The Social Network", and Kerry. Hallie was named after the character Hallie O'Fallon in the film "All I Want for Christmas", portrayed by Thora Birch. Eisenberg attended American University, in Washington, DC. She was brought up in a secular Jewish family.


title: Hallie Eisenberg

text: In the late 1990s and early 2000s, she was "The Pepsi Girl" in a series of Pepsi commercials. She made her film debut in the children's film "Paulie", playing the young owner of the title parrot. After appearing in a few made-for-television films, she had supporting parts in 1999's "The Insider" and "Bicentennial Man".


title: Hallie Eisenberg

text: In 2000, Eisenberg co-starred with Minnie Driver in the feature film "Beautiful", which received generally negative reviews. She also starred as Helen Keller in a television remake of "The Miracle Worker".


title: Hallie Eisenberg

text: In 2004, she played opposite Jeff Daniels and Patricia Heaton in the television remake of "The Goodbye Girl". In 2006, Eisenberg appeared in "How to Eat Fried Worms", the New Line Cinema adaptation of Thomas Rockwell's book of the same name. In 2007, she co starred in the independent feature film "P.J." alongside John Heard, Vincent Pastore and Robert Picardo.


title: Hallie Eisenberg

text: Eisenberg made her Broadway debut in Roundabout Theatre's production of Clare Boothe Luce's play "The Women". In 2010, she halted her film career to attend college.


title: Masahiro Sakurai

text: Formerly an employee of HAL Laboratory, he left the company in 2003 and in 2005 with his wife Michiko Sakurai (also ex-HAL Laboratory), they founded Sora Ltd., a shell company that works on a freelance basis on several projects. He was also an author of a weekly column for "Famitsu" magazine for decades until the 2020s, and has done voice acting work in some of his games, most notably providing the voice of King Dedede in "" and the "Super Smash Bros." series.


title: Masahiro Sakurai

text: Masahiro Sakurai was born on August 3, 1970, in Musashimurayama, Tokyo, Japan. One of Sakurai's earliest experiences in the video game industry began when he worked for HAL Laboratory, where he created the character Kirby at age 19 and directed his first title, "Kirby's Dream Land".


title: Masahiro Sakurai

text: Sakurai left HAL on August 5, 2003, after growing tired of the sequelization passively forced by HAL, ending his work on the "Kirby" series. "It was tough for me to see that every time I made a new game, people automatically assumed that a sequel was coming," Sakurai commented, in an interview with Nintendo Dream, two weeks after he resigned from HAL. He explained that, "even if it's a sequel, lots of people have to give their all to make a game, but some people think the sequel process happens naturally".


title: Masahiro Sakurai

text: Soon after, Sakurai began working on a project with Q Entertainment, along with Tetsuya Mizuguchi. This collaboration resulted in "Meteos" in 2005, a puzzle game for the Nintendo DS. On September 30, 2005, Sakurai announced that he had formed his own company, Sora Ltd. Two titles were announced to be in development but no information on the titles had been divulged. As for the future of the "Super Smash Bros." series, Nintendo and HAL Laboratory's President Satoru Iwata, during Nintendo's E3 2005 press conference, promised an online iteration of the game would come to Nintendo's video game console Wii.


title: Masahiro Sakurai

text: In issue #885 of "Famitsu" magazine, Sakurai revealed that he would be serving as a director and game designer on "Super Smash Bros. Brawl" for the Wii. "Super Smash Bros. Brawl" was released in 2008, after personnel borrowed from 19 different developer studios assisted in development. Sakurai had been updating daily the "Super Smash Bros Brawl" website called the Smash Bros. Dojo. Starting a year previous the release, he revealed "Brawl" secrets and gameplay content through the site. The Smash Bros. Dojo had regular updates from May 22, 2007, to April 14, 2008.


title: Masahiro Sakurai

text: On the final day of updates, it was revealed that Sakurai provided the voice for King Dedede in "" as well as Dedede in "Super Smash Bros. Brawl". He and his company, Sora Ltd. alongside Nintendo, started a first-party studio, Project Sora, which was 72% owned by Nintendo and 28% owned by Sora Ltd. It was revealed at E3 2010 that Sakurai and Project Sora were working on "" for the Nintendo 3DS. Project Sora was closed and ended development on June 30, 2012. At E3 2011, Nintendo announced that Sakurai was working on "Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS" and "Wii U". Sakurai began development of the title upon the release of "Kid Icarus: Uprising" in March 2012.


title: Masahiro Sakurai

text: In February 2013, Sakurai was diagnosed with calcific tendinitis near his right shoulder, which caused him substantial pain whenever he moved his arm. He mentioned that this could effectively slow down his work, as he does some of his game testing himself. Sakurai's wife, Michiko, has worked on the graphical user interface for many of his games, including "Kirby Air Ride", "Meteos", and the "Super Smash Bros." series.


title: Masahiro Sakurai

text: In a January 2015 column in "Weekly Famitsu", Sakurai alluded to the possibility of retirement, expressing doubt that he would be able to continue making games if his career continued to be as stressful as it was. In December 2015, Sakurai once again stated that he was not sure if there would be another game in the "Smash Bros." series, prior to "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate" being released in 2018 with Sakurai once again as director.


title: Masahiro Sakurai

text: On March 14, 2022, Sakurai was awarded Best Creator by "Weekly Famitsu". Sakurai also announced that he is working on a new project not related to game production.


title: Masahiro Sakurai

text: On August 23, 2022, Sakurai launched his own YouTube channel in both English and Japanese, titled "Masahiro Sakurai on Creating Games". According to Sakurai, the channel's videos will be focused on "topics like game development and what makes games fun", as well as discussing his history as a game designer and director. He also stated that the channel was founded because he wanted to reach more people with his lessons after being asked to lecture at schools. Sakurai additionally noted that other venues for game design lessons from game developers, such as the Game Developer's Conference, focused on more advanced, technical details, rather than more basic principles. Less than 24 hours after its launch, the English edition of his channel gained over 200,000 subscribers. Since then, he has discussed topics such as "risk and reward", frame rates, lighting, and more.


title: Kings of Israel and Judah

text: This article is an overview of the kings of the United Kingdom of Israel as well as those of its successor states and classical period kingdoms ruled by the Hasmonean dynasty and Herodian dynasty.


title: Kings of Israel and Judah

text: The Hebrew Bible describes a succession of kings of a United Kingdom of Israel, and then of divided kingdoms, Israel and Judah.


title: Kings of Israel and Judah

text: In contemporary scholarship, the united monarchy is debated, due to a lack of archaeological evidence for it. It is generally accepted that a "House of David" existed, but some scholars believe that David could have only been the king or chieftain of Judah, which was likely small, and that the northern kingdom was a separate development. There are some dissenters to this view, including those who support the traditional narrative, and those support the united monarchy's existence but believe that the Bible contains theological exaggerations.


title: Kings of Israel and Judah

text: According to the Bible, the Tribes of Israel lived as a confederation under "ad hoc" charismatic leaders called judges. In around 1020 BCE, under extreme threat from foreign peoples, the tribes united to form the first United Kingdom of Israel. Samuel anointed Saul from the Tribe of Benjamin as the first king.


title: Kings of Israel and Judah

text: After Rehoboam reigned three years, the United Kingdom of Israel was divided in two – the northern Kingdom of Israel under Jeroboam, with its capital, first in Shechem, then Penuel, Tirzah, and finally Samaria, and ruled by a series of dynasties beginning with Jeroboam; and the southern Kingdom of Judah with its capital still in Jerusalem and ruled by the House of David. Under Hezekiah's rule in the Kingdom of Judah, the Neo-Assyrian Empire conquered and destroyed the northern kingdom 722 BCE leaving only the southern kingdom of Judah.


title: Adana

text: Adana (; ; ) is a major city in southern Turkey. It is situated on the Seyhan River, inland from the Mediterranean Sea. The administrative seat of Adana province, it has a population of 2.26 million.


title: Adana

text: Adana lies in the heart of Cilicia, which was once one of the most important regions of the classical world. Home to six million people, Cilicia is an important agricultural area, owing to the large fertile plain of Çukurova.


title: Adana

text: Twenty-first century Adana is a centre for regional trade, healthcare, and public and private services. Agriculture and logistics are important parts of the economy.


title: Adana

text: Adana Şakirpaşa Airport is close to the city centre, and the town is connected to Tarsus and Mersin by TCDD train.


title: Adana

text: One theory holds that the city name originates from a hypothetical Indo-European term; "a danu" (). Many river names in Europe were derived from the same Proto-Indo-European root: Danube, Don, Dnieper and Donets. The first mention of Adana came in Hittite tablets of around 2000 BC. In existence fir at least four millennia, Adana is one of the oldest continuously used place names and has had only pronunciation changes despite changing political control.


title: Adana

text: Greco-Roman legend suggests that the name of Adana originates from "Adanus", the son of the Greek god Uranus, who founded the city next to the river with his brother "Sarus", whose name was given to the river An older legend, in Accadian, Sumerian, Babylonian, Assyrian and Hittite mythologies, attributes the name to the storm and rain god, Adad, who lived in the surrounding forests. Hittite manuscripts found in the area reported the legend. The locals had great admiration for the god and called the region Uru Adaniyya (English: Adana region) in his honour. The city inhabitants were called Danuna.


title: Adana

text: In Homer's "Iliad", the city is mentioned as Adana. For a brief period during the Hellenistic era, it was known as Ἀντιόχεια τῆς Κιλικίας () and as Ἀντιόχεια ἡ πρὸς Σάρον (). On some cuneiforms tablets, the city name was given as Quwê, while some other sources call it Coa which could be the place where Solomon obtained his horses according to the Bible (I Kings 10:28; II Chronicles 1:16).


title: Adana

text: It is also sometimes suggested that the name is related to the Danaoi, the name for Greeks of the Trojan War in Homer and Thucydides.


title: Adana

text: According to Ali Cevad's Memalik-i Osmaniye Coğrafya Lügat (English: Ottoman Geographical Dictionary), Muslims of Adana attributed the city's name to Ebu Süleym Ezene, who was appointed as Wali by Abbasid Caliph Harun al-Rashid. Other Ottoman and Islamic resources also mention the city as "Edene", "Azana" and "Batana".


title: Adana

text: Adana is considered to be the oldest city of Cilicia, with a history going back for eight millennia, making it one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. The history of the Tepebağ tumulus dates back to the Neolithic, to around 6000 B.C., the time of the first human settlements. A place called "Adana" is mentioned by name in the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh.


title: Adana

text: The first people known to have lived in Adana and the surrounding area were the Luwians. They controlled the Mediterranean coast of Anatolia roughly from 3000 BC to around 1600 BC. Then the Hittites took over the region which came to be known as Kizzuwatna. Inhabited by Luwians and Hurrians, Kizzuwatna had an autonomous governance under Hittite protection, but they had a brief period of independence from the 1500s to 1420s BC. According to the Hittite inscription of Kava, found in Hattusa (Boğazkale), Kizzuwatna was ruling Adana, under the protection of the Hittites, by 1335 BC. From with the collapse of the Hittite Empire around 1191–1189 BC, native Denyen sea peoples took control of Adana and the plain until around 900 BC.Then Neo-Hittite states were founded in the region with the Quwê state centred on Adana. Quwê and other states were protected by the Neo-Assyrian Empire, though they had periods of independence too. After the Greek migration into Cilicia in the 8th century BC, the region was unified under the rule of the Mopsos dynasty and Adana was established as the capital. Bilingual inscriptions of the ninth and eighth centuries found in Mopsuestia (modern Yakapınar) were written in hieroglyphic Luwian and Phoenician. Assyrians took control of the regions several times before their collapse in 612 BC.


title: Adana

text: Cilicians founded the Kingdom of Cilicia in 612 BC with the help of Syennesis I. The kingdom was independent until the invasion of the Achaemenid Empire in 549 BC, then became an autonomous satrapy of the Achaemenids until 401 BC. The uncertain loyalty of Syennessis during the rebellion of Cyrus the Younger led Artaxerxes II to abolish the Syennesis administration and replace it with a centrally appointed satrap. Archaeological remains of a procession reveal the existence of Persian nobility in Adana.


title: Adana

text: Alexander the Great entered Cilicia through the Cilician Gates in 333 BC. After defeating the Persians at the Battle of Issus, he installed his own satrap, Balacrus, to oversee the region's administration. His death in 323 BC marked the beginning of the Hellenistic era, as Greek replaced Luwian as the language of the region. After a short time under Ptolemaic dominion, the Seleucid Empire took control of the region in 312 BC. Adanan locals adopted a Greek name - "Antioch on Sarus -" for the city to demonstrate their loyalty to the Seleucid dynasty. The adopted name and the motifs illustrating the personification of the city seated above the river-god "Sarus" on the city's coins, suggest a special appreciation of the rivers which were a strong part of the Cilician identity. The Seleucids ruled Adana for more than two centuries until they were weakened by a civil war which led them to offer allegiance to Tigranes II, the King of Armenia who conquered a vast part of the Levant. Cilicia became a vassal state of the Kingdom of Armenia in 83 BC and new settlements were founded by Armenians in the region.


title: Adana

text: The Roman general Pompey took over the whole of Cilicia and organised it as a Roman province in 64BC. Adana was of relatively minor importance during this period, while nearby Tarsus and Anazarbus were more important metropolises. During the era of Pompey, the city was used as a prison for the pirates who frequently ravaged the Cilician coast and disrupted trade. A bridge over the Sarus (Taşköprü) was built in the early 2nd century, and for several centuries thereafter, the city was a waystation on a Roman military road leading to the East.


title: Adana

text: In the early period of Roman rule, Zoroastrianism that had been introduced to the region by Persians was still observed in Cilicia as was Judaism which attracted many sympathisers. As home to some of the earliest Christian missionary efforts, Cilicia welcomed Christianity more easily than some other provinces.


title: Adana

text: After the permanent partitioning of the Roman Empire in 395 AD, the Adana area became a part of the Byzantine Empire, and was probably developed during the time of Julian the Apostate. With the construction of large bridges, roads, government buildings, irrigation and plantations, Adana and Cilicia became the most developed and important regional trade centres.


title: Adana

text: Adana became a Christian bishopric, a suffragan of the metropolitan see of Tarsus, but was raised to the rank of an autocephalous archdiocese after 680, the year in which its bishop appeared as a simple bishop at the Third Council of Constantinople, but before its listing in a 10th-century "Notitiae Episcopatuum" as an archdiocese. The Bishop Paulinus participated in the First Council of Nicaea in 325. Piso was among the Arianism-inclined bishops at the Council of Sardica (344) who withdrew and set up their own council at Philippopolis; he later returned to orthodoxy and signed the profession of Nicene faith at a synod in Antioch in 363. Cyriacus was at the First Council of Constantinople in 381. Anatolius is mentioned in a letter of Saint John Chrysostom. Cyrillus was at the Council of Ephesus in 431 and at a synod in Tarsus in 434. Philippus took part in the Council of Chalcedon in 451 and was a signatory of the joint letter of the bishops of Cilicia Prima to Byzantine Emperor Leo I the Thracian in 458 protesting at the murder of Proterius of Alexandria. Ioannes participated in the Third Council of Constantinople in 680. No longer a residential bishopric, Adana is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see.


title: Adana

text: At the Battle of Sarus in April 625, Heraclius defeated the Sasanian Shahrbaraz forces that were stationed on the east bank of the river, after a fearless charge across the bridge built by the Emperor Justinian (now Taşköprü). The Byzantines defended the region from the encroaching Islamic Caliphates throughout the 7th century CE, but it was finally conquered in 704 by the Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik. Under Umayyad rule, Cilicia became a no man's land frontier between Byzantine Christian and Arab Muslim forces. In 746, profiting from the unstable conditions in the Umayyad Caliphate, the Byzantine Emperor Constantine V took control of Adana. The Abbasid Caliphate took over rule of the region from the Byzantines after Al-Mansur became caliph in 756. Under Abbasid rule, Muslims started settling in Cilicia for the first time Abandoned for more than fifty years, Adana was garrisoned and re-settled from 758 to 760. So that it could form a thughūr on the Byzantine frontier, Cilicia was colonised by the Turkic Sayābija tribe from Khorasan. The city saw rapid economic and cultural growth during the reigns of Harun al-Rashid and Al-Amin. Abbasid rule continued for more than two centuries until the Byzantines retook control of Adana in 965. The city became part of the Seleucia theme. After the great Byzantine defeat at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, the emperor Romanos IV Diogenes was removed from the throne by a coup. He then gathered an army to regain power but was defeated and had to retreat to Adana. There he was forced to surrender after receiving assurances of his personal safety.


title: Adana

text: Suleiman ibn Qutulmish, the founder of the Anatolian Seljuk Sultanate, annexed Adana in his campaign in 1084. During the Crusades, Cilicia had been criss-crossed by invading armies until it was eventually captured by the forces of the Armenian Principality of Cilicia in 1132, under its king, Leo I. It was retaken by Byzantine forces in 1137, but the Armenians regained it again in around 1170. During the Armenian era, Adana developed into a centre for handicrafts and international trade. It was the centre of a large trading network from Asia Minor to North Africa, the Near East and India. Venetian and Genoese merchants frequented the city to sell goods imported through the port at Ayas. In 1268, the devastating Cilicia earthquake destroyed much of the city and eighty years later, in 1348, the Black Death reached the region and caused severe depopulation. Adana remained part of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia until 1359, when the city was ceded to the Türkmen supporting the Mamluk Sultanate who marched into Cilicia and captured the plain. Wealthier Armenians then fled to Cyprus.


title: Adana

text: The Mamluks built garrisons in Tarsus, Ayas and Sarvandikar (Savranda), and left the administration of the plain of Adana to Yüreğir Turks who had already formed a Mamluk authorised "Türkmen Emirate" in the Camili area, just southeast of Adana, in 1352. The Emir, Ramazan Bey, designated Adana his capital, and led the Yüreğir Turks as they settled the city. The Ramadanid Emirate, was "de facto" independent throughout the 15th century as a result of being a thughūr in Ottoman-Mamluk relations. In 1517, Selim I incorporated the emirate into the Ottoman Empire after his conquest of the Mamluk state.The Ramadanid Beys held onto the administration of the new Ottoman Sanjak of Adana in a hereditary manner until 1608.


title: Adana

text: The Ottomans terminated the Ramadanid administration in 1608 after the Celali rebellions and began direct rule from Constantinople through an appointed Vali. In late 1832, the Vali of Egypt, Muhammad Ali Pasha, invaded Syria, and reached Cilicia. The Convention of Kütahya signed on 14 May 1833 ceded Cilicia to the "de facto" independent Egypt. At that time, the Sanjak of Adana's population of 68,934 had hardly any urban services. The first neighbourhood (Verâ-yı Cisr) east of the river was founded and Alawites were brought from Syria to work in the flourishing agricultural lands. İbrahim Paşa, the son of Muhammad Ali Paşa, demolished Adana Castle and the city walls in 1836. He built the first canals for irrigation and transportation and also built a water system for the residential areas of the town, including wheels that raised the water of the river for public fountains. After the Oriental crisis, the Convention of Alexandria signed on 27 November 1840 required the return of Cilicia to Ottoman sovereignty.


title: Adana

text: The American Civil War that broke out in 1861 interrupted the flow of cotton to Europe and European cotton traders turned their attentions to fertile Cilicia. Adana had developed as a hub for cotton trading and had become one of the most prosperous Ottoman cities. New Armenian, Turkish, Greek, Chaldean, Jewish and Alawite neighbourhoods were founded around what had been a walled city. The Adana–Mersin railway line opened in 1886, connecting Adana to international ports through the port in Mersin.


title: Adana

text: By the turn of the 20th century, further migration attracted by large-scale industrialisation grew Adana's population to over 107,000: That population was made up of 62,250 Muslims (Turks, Alawites, Circassians, Kurds), 30,000 Armenians, 8,000 Chaldeans, 5,000 Greeks, 1,250 Assyrians, 500 Arab Christians and 200 internationals.


title: Adana

text: In the early 20th century the local economy thrived and the Armenian population doubled as people fled the Hamidian massacres. When the revolution of July 1908 brought about the end of Abdulhamid II's autocratic rule, the Armenian community felt empowered to imagine an autonomous Cilicia. The CUP's post-revolution mismanagement of the vilayets caused the pro-diversity Vali Bahri Pasha to be removed from office in late 1908. He was replaced by the weak Cevad Bey. Taking advantage of this, Bağdadizade Abdülkadir (later Paksoy), the local leader of the Cemiyet-i Muhammediye, took almost complete control of the local government and led an action plan to "punish" Armenians throughout Cilicia. Rumours of an upcoming Armenian attack, raised tension in the Turkish neighbourhoods. As soon as news of the countercoup reached Cilicia, enraged members of the Cemiyet-i Muhammediye and dissatisfied peasants left out of work by mechanisation flocked to the city on market day. After staying overnight in the city, the groups and their local supporters started attacking Armenian shops on the morning of 14 April 1909. Later in the day the attacks were also directed at Armenian dwellings and spread to the rest of Cilicia. Armed Armenians defended themselves and the clashes lasted until April 17.


title: Adana

text: After a week of silence, 850 soldiers from regiments of the Ottoman Army arrived in the city on April 25. Shots were fired at the campground and a rumour immediately spread that the Armenians had opened fire from a church tower. Without even investigating the rumour, the military commander Mustafa Remzi Pasha directed soldiers and bashi-bazouks towards the Armenian quarters and for three days they shot people, destroyed buildings and burned down Christian neighbourhoods. The pogroms of 25–27 April were on a much greater scale than the clashes of 14–17 April, and almost all the casualties were Christian.


title: Adana

text: The Adana massacre of April 1909 resulted in the deaths of 18,839 Armenians, 1250 Greeks, 850 Assyrians, 422 Chaldeans and 620 Muslims. Adding in the roughly 2500 Hadjinian and other seasonal workers who disappeared, the death toll in the entire Vilayet is estimated to have been around 25,500. Over the summer 2000 children died of dysentery and a few thousand adults died of injuries or from epidemics. The massacre orphaned 3500 children and caused heavy destruction of Christian properties. Cevad Bey and Mustafa Remzi Pasha were sacked and given light sentences for abuse of power, and on 8 August 1909, Djemal Pasha was appointed the new Vali. He quickly rebuilt relations with the surviving Armenian community and gathered financial support to found a new neighbourhood for Armenians called "Çarçabuk" (now Döşeme). He also ordered the construction of two orphanages and the restoration of destroyed buildings.


title: Adana

text: The Cilicia section of the Berlin–Baghdad railway had opened in 1912, connecting Adana to the Middle East. Within a few years, the city had re-gained its momentum and by the turn of 1915, the Armenian population numbered up to 30,000, not far short of the figure from before 1909.


title: Adana

text: Early in May 1915, Vali Ismail Hakkı Bey received an order from Constantinople (now İstanbul) to deport the Armenians of Adana. The Vali was able to delay the deportations and let the Armenians sell their movable assets to acquire money for the journey. The first convoy of deportees consisting of more than 4000 Armenians left the city on May 20. The Catholicos of Cilicia, Sahak II, wrote a letter to Djemal Pasha, the then Syria-Cilicia General Vali to prevent further deportations and the chief secretary Kerovpe Papazian met the pasha in Aley in Lebanon in early June and delivered the message of the Catholicos. Djemal Pasha immediately wired the Vali ordering him not to deport more Armenians. As a result of his efforts, the Adana Armenians earned a stay of execution for the summer, while the rest of the Cilician Armenians were being deported and hundreds of thousands of exhausted Armenian deportees from Western Anatolia were passing through the city. Armenian intellectuals Rupen Zartarian, Sarkis Minassian, Nazaret Daghavarian, Harutiun Jangülian, and Karekin Khajag, who were deported from Constantinople on April 24th, were kept in custody in the Vilayet offices for a few days. They failed to be able to arrange a meeting with the Catholicos at the Cathedral, their last attempt at survival. Later in June, two prominent leaders, Krikor Zohrab and Vartkes Serengülian, were also kept in the city during their final journey towards Diyarbakır.


title: Adana

text: The Minister of the Interior, Talaat Pasha, wanted to end the exemption of Adana Armenians and sent his second in command, Ali Munif, to the city in mid-August to order the resumption of the deportations. Ali Munif immediately deported 250 families who were accused of insurrection. Before the remaining Armenians were deported, the Vali again arranged for them to sell their assets. As almost a third of the city's residents were selling their belongings, the city must have seemed like the site of a massive clearance sale. The deportation of 5000 Armenian families in eight convoys started on 2 September 1915 and continued until the end of October. One thousand craftsmen, state officers and army personnel and their families were exempted from deportation. Unlike the deportees of other Vilayets, many of Adana's Armenians were sent to Damascus and further south, thereby avoiding the death camps of Deir ez-Zor, at the request of Djemal Pasha. During the course of the Armenian genocide, the death rate of the roughly 25,000 Armenians deported from Adana in 1915 was a lot lower than that of deportees from other regions for three main reasons: there werer no reports of direct killings in and around the city; many were deported to the Damascus area; and some had money to keep them going.


title: Adana

text: The Armistice of Mudros, signed on 30 October 1918, ended Ottoman participation in World War I. The terms of the armistice ceded control of Cilicia to France. In December the French government sent four battalions of the Armenian Legion to take over Adana and oversee the repatriation of more than 170,000 Armenians to Cilicia. Returning Armenians negotiated with France to establish an autonomous "State of Cilicia" and Mihran Damadian, the chief negotiator for the Armenians, signed a provisional "Constitution of Cilicia" in 1919. Pre-war life resumed with the re-opening of churches, schools, cultural centres and businesses.


title: Adana

text: However, the French forces were spread thinly across Cilicia and the villages to which people returned came under attack from the Turkish Kuva-yi Milliye. The sosts and difficulties associated with the repatriation process, and growing Arab nationalism within the Syria mandate forced the French High Commissioners to meet with the Turkish leader, Mustafa Kemal Pasha, several times in late 1919 and early 1920, resulting in a halt to the deployment of extra forces to Cilicia. A truce arranged on 28 May 1920 between the French and the Kemalists, led the French forces to retreat south of the Mersin-Osmaniye railroad. The subsequent evacuation of thousands of Armenians from Sis and its environs and their migration to Adana raised the number of Armenians in the city to more than 100,000. Throughout June, the Armenian Legion, along with repatriated Armenians and Assyrians, committed vengeful acts against the Turks, killing hundreds around Kahyaoğlu, Kocavezir, Camili and İncirlik. On 10 July 1920, to ease the overpopulation south of the railroad, a Franco-Armenian operation forced the local Turkish population to escape north. Roughly 40,000 Turks from Adana and around fled to the countryside and to the mountains north, an event known as the "Kaç Kaç" incident, which lasted for four days and claimed hundreds of lives. The Turkish Cilician Society () and national defence associations then met at a congress in Pozantı on 5 August 1920 to re-establish Turkish rule over Cilicia. On the same day, Mihran Damadian declared the autonomy of Cilicia by coming to an agreement with the city's Christian communities. However, the French government did not recognise its autonomy, expelled the community leaders and disbanded the Armenian Legion in September.


title: Adana

text: As the political environment changed, the French abandoned all claims to Cilicia, which they had originally hoped to attach to their mandate over Syria. On 9 March 1921, the Cilicia Peace Treaty was signed between France and the Turkish Grand National Assembly. However, it did not achieve its intended goals and was replaced by the Treaty of Ankara, signed on 20 October 1921. Under the terms of this agreement, France recognised the end of the Cilicia War and agreed to withdraw provided that the Christian communities' rights were protected. Those Armenians who were not satisfied with such guarantees rushed to Mersin port and Dörtyol, and had evacuated their homeland of two millennia by December 1921. The French troops together with the remaining Armenian volunteers then withdrew from the city on 5 January 1922.


title: Adana

text: In 1922, up to 10,000 local Greeks moved to Greece before the policy of Greco-Turkish population exchange took effect. Among the 172,000 Armenians in the Adana area just before the Cilicia Evacuation, 80,000 took refuge in Syria or Lebanon while up 10,000 of them migrated to Cyprus, Izmir and Istanbul. The remained 82,000 or so Armenians most likely remained in the Adana area and assimilated into Turkish/Muslim society. Armenians who settled in Lebanon founded the "Nor Adana" (English: New Adana) neighbourhood within the mostly Armenian town of Bourj Hammoud, north-east of Beirut. From the 1920s onwards, around 60 percent of Cilician Armenians moved to Argentina. An informal census of 1941 revealed that 70 percent of all the Armenian Argentines in Buenos Aires had Adana origins.


title: Adana

text: On 15 April 1923, just before the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne, the Turkish government enacted the "Law of Abandoned Properties" which confiscated the properties of Armenians and Greeks who were not present there. Adana became one of the cities with the most confiscated property, which meant that muhacirs (immigrants) from the Balkans and Crete, as well as migrants from Kayseri and Darende were resettled in the Armenian and Greek neighbourhoods, with more modest pieces of land, houses and workshops distributed to them. The large farms, factories, stores and mansions were granted to Kayseri notables (e.g. Nuh Naci Yazgan, Nuri Has, Mustafa Özgür) and to local nationalists (e.g. Sefa Özler, Ali Münif) as promised at the Sivas Congress by Mustafa Kemal (later Atatürk). Within a decade, the city experienced drastic demographic change, socially and economically, and turned into an almost entirely Muslim/Turkish city. The remaining Jews and Christians were hammered by the burden of the Wealth Tax in 1942, causing most to leave Adana, selling their properties at way below their actual value to families like the Sabancıs, who built their wealth on such confiscated or undervalued properties.


title: Adana

text: On 27 June 1998 the city was hit by a 6.2 magnitude earthquake (1998 Adana–Ceyhan earthquake) which killed 145 and left 1500 people wounded and many thousand homeless in the city centre and in Ceyhan district. The economic loss was estimated at about US$1 billion.


title: Adana

text: Adana is located on the 37th parallel north on the northeastern edge of the Mediterranean, where it serves as the gateway to the Cilician plain. This large stretch of flat, fertile land lies southeast of the Taurus Mountains. Heading west across Cilicia from Adana, the road from Tarsus enters the foothills of the Taurus Mountains, eventually reaching an altitude of nearly . It passes through the famous Cilician Gates, a rocky pass through which countless armies have travelled and continues north to the Anatolian plain.


title: Adana

text: The Seyhan River (formerly called the Sarus) that passes through Adana occasionally flooded the city until embankments were built in the 1900s. To the north of the city is the Seyhan reservoir. The Seyhan Dam, completed in 1956, was constructed for hydroelectric power and to irrigate the lower Çukurova plain. Two irrigation channels in the city flow to the plain, passing through the city centre from east to west. There is another canal for irrigating the Yüreğir plain to the southeast of the city.


title: Adana

text: Adana has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate (Csa) under the Köppen classification, and a dry-hot summer subtropical climate (Csa) under the Trewartha classification. Winters are mild and wet. Frost does occasionally occur at night almost every winter, but snow is a very rare phenomenon. Summers are long, hot, humid and dry. During heatwaves, the temperature often reaches or exceeds . The highest recorded temperature was on 8 July 1978 at . The lowest recorded temperature was .


title: Adana

text: Adana Metropolitan Municipality covers an area of around the City Hall. Four levels of government are involved in the administration of the city; national, provincial, metropolitan and district municipalities.The Government of Turkey in Ankara holds most of the power: health, education, the police and many other city-related services are administered by Ankara through an appointed Governor. The national government is also the lawmaker, adjudicator and auditor of all the other levels of government and the neighbourhood administration. The semi-democratic provincial governing body, the Adana Province Special Administration, has minor powers, dealing mainly with construction and the maintenance of primary schools, daycares and other state buildings plus some social services. Municipal governance is run via a two-tier structure: the Metropolitan Municipality forms the upper tier and the district municipalities form the lower tier. The Metropolitan Municipality takes care of construction and the maintenance of major roads and parks, and operates local transit and fire services. The district municipalities are responsible for neighbourhood streets, parks, garbage collections and cemetery services. The district municipalities are further divided into neighbourhoods (mahalle) administrations, the smallest administrative units of the city.


title: Adana

text: Adana Municipality was incorporated in 1871 though the city continued to be governed under the muhtesip system until 1877 by the first mayor Gözlüklü Süleyman Efendi. Modern municipal governance began with the second mayor Kirkor Bezdikyan and his successor Sinyor Artin. Roads were widened and paved with cobblestones, drainage canals and trenches were cut, and the first municipal regulations were put into effect. After the founding of the republic in 1923, major infrastructure projects were carried out and the first planned neighbourhoods were built to the north of the city. Turhan Cemal Beriker served as mayor and governor from 1926 to 1938. With the completion of the Seyhan Dam in 1956, the city saw explosive growth and the then prime minister Adnan Menderes showed special interest in Adana, initiating large-scale infrastructure projects like citywide underground sewer systems and rezoning residential areas. Since 1984, the cityscape has seen great change with the revitalisation of the Seyhan river and the construction of large parks and boulevards.


title: Adana

text: Metropolitan Municipality Law was introduced in 1989 when municipal governance was split between the metropolitan municipality and the district municipalities. Adana Municipality became the Metropolitan Municipality and two new district municipalities - Seyhan and Yüreğir - were founded. Karaisalı was annexed to the city in 2006, while the Çukurova and Sarıçam districts were founded in 2008 by partitioning the Seyhan and Yüreğir districts. On 3 February 2012, Karataş Municipal Council agreed to amalgamate with Adana, hence Karataş will become the city's sixth district after the transition process is complete.


title: Adana

text: The Metropolitan Municipality consists of three organs: the Metropolitan Council, the Mayor and the Encümen or Executive Committee. Each district municipal council elects one-fifth of their members to represent it at the metropolitan council. Thus, the metropolitan council consists of 35 councillors, ten from Seyhan district, eight from Yüreğir, eight from Çukurova, six from Sarıçam, two from Karaisalı and the metropolitan mayor who is elected directly by the voters. The executive committee consists of ten members, five being metropolitan councillors and the other five directors at the metropolitan hall who are appointed by the metropolitan mayor.


title: Adana

text: The City of Adana consists of the urban areas of the four metropolitan districts; Seyhan, Yüreğir, Çukurova and Sarıçam. Seyhan district is fully within the city limits whereas the Yüreğir, Çukurova and Sarıçam districts have rural areas outside the city.


title: Adana

text: Seyhan district, west of the Seyhan River, is the city's cultural and business centre. The D-400 state road (also called Turhan Cemal Beriker Boulevard within the city limits) divides the district into north and south. Seyhan north of the D-400 is the most economically developed part of the city. Hotels, cultural centres, commercial and public buildings line the D-400. The Old Town to the south of the D-400 is the shopping district with a mixture of traditional and modern shops. South of the old town is a low-income residential area.


title: Adana

text: Çukurova district is a modern residential district that lies north of Seyhan district and south of the Seyhan Reservoir. It was planned in the mid-1980s to direct the urban sprawl towards land north of the city. Called New Adana, the project consisted of 200,000 homes including villas along the lake shore and high-rise apartment blocks along the wide, newly opened boulevards of Turgut Özal, Süleyman Demirel and Kenan Evren.


title: Adana

text: Yüreğir district, east of the river, consists mainly of large-scale industry and low-income residential areas. With the construction of new bridges over the river and the extension of the metro line, Yüreğir became increasingly important, with the Adana Court of Justice re-locating to the district and a 47.5-hectare health campus planned for the Kazım Karabekir neighbourhood. An extensive urban redevelopment plan will also convert the Sinanpaşa, Yavuzlar, Köprülü and Kışla neighbourhoods into modern residential areas.


title: Adana

text: The district of Sarıçam lies north and east of Yüreğir and consists of former municipalities that were amalgamated into the City of Adana in 2008. Some of the city's larger institutions are in Sarıçam such as Çukurova University, the İncirlik Air Base and the Organised Industrial Region.


title: Adana

text: Individual neighbourhoods (mahalle) are administrative units within the district municipalities and are administered by the muhtar (headman) and the Neighborhood Seniors Council. Although elected by the neighbourhood residents, the muhtar is not granted any powers but functions as an administrator of the national government. The muhtar can raise neighbourhood issues with the district municipality and has a seat at the Adana City Assembly, an umbrella organisation for the coordination of public institutions in the city. Even though neighbourhood administrations cannot provide social services nor provide funding to increase the involvement of residents in local issues, many residents still identify strongly with their neighbourhoods.


title: Adana

text: There are a total of 254 neighbourhoods in the city. Seyhan has 99 neighbourhoods, 69 of them in the urban area and 30 in the neighbourhoods of the former municipalities and the former villages that were converted into neighbourhoods. Yüreğir has 99 neighbourhoods, 38 in the urban area and 61 in the rural. There are 29 neighbourhoods in Sarıçam, 16 neighbourhoods in Çukurova and 11 in Karaisalı district. A neighbourhood population can range from 150 to 63,000. Some neighbourhoods, especially in the Çukurova district, are very large—almost the size of a town—making access to muhtars difficult.


title: Adana

text: Tepebağ, Kayalıbağ, Kuruköprü, Ulucami, Sarıyakup and Alidede are the historical neighbourhoods of Adana. The planned neighbourhoods of the Republican era - Reşatbey, Cemalpaşa, Kurtuluş and Çınarlı - form the core of the city's cultural life. Güzelyalı, Karslılar and Kurttepe are scenic neighbourhoods overlooking the Seyhan reservoir.


title: Adana

text: A major centre for grain and cotton production in the Ottoman period, Adana was one of Turkey's first industrialised cities and is now one of its most economically developed cities. A mid-size trading city until the mid-1800s, the city attracted European traders after the United States, a major cotton supplier, became embroiled in its Civil War. Cilician farmers exported agricultural products for the first time and started building up capital. By the start of the 20th century, factories, almost all of them processing cotton, began to operate here but most were shut down and the economy almost ground to a standstill in 1915 after the genocide of Armenians who ran most of the city's businesses. The coming of the Republic accelerated industrialisation as closed plants were re-activated and state-owned plants opened. With the construction of the Seyhan Dam and improvements in agricultural techniques, there was an explosive growth in agricultural production during the 1950s. Large-scale industry grew up along the D-400 highway and the Karataş road. A service industry, especially banking, developed during this period. Rapid economic growth continued until the mid-1980s and movie makers were attracted to the region.


title: Adana

text: Extensive neo-liberal policies adopted by then Prime Minister Turgut Özal to centralise Turkey's economy caused almost all the Adana-based companies to move their headquarters to Istanbul. The decline in cotton planting raised the cost of raw material for manufacturing, and the city saw a wave of plant closures starting from the mid-1990s. Young professionals fled the city, contributing to Adana's unenviable status as the country's top brain drain city. Financial and human capital flight from Adana has continued to increase since 2002 due to the government's neo-liberal centralisation policies similar to Özal's. In 2010, unemployment in the city reached a record 19.1 percent. After 20 years of stagnation, Adana's economy is starting to pick up again with investments in the tourism and service industries, and the wholesale and retail sectors, and the city is being re-shaped as a regional centre.


title: Adana

text: Adana was named among the 25 "European Regions of the Future" for 2006/2007 by "Foreign Direct Investment" magazine. Chosen alongside Kocaeli, Adana scored the highest points for cost effectiveness against Kocaeli's points for infrastructure development, while the two towns tied for points in the categories of human resources and quality of life.


title: Adana

text: A leading commercial centre in southern Turkey, Adana hosts the regional headquarters of many corporate and public institutions. TÜYAP Exhibition and Congress Center hosts fairs and business conferences, and is currently the main meeting point for businesses in Çukurova. The academic oriented 2000-seater Alper Akınoğlu Congress Center is expected to open in 2012 at Çukurova University campus.


title: Adana

text: The Adana Chamber of Commerce (ATO) was founded in 1894 to guide and regulate the cotton trade and it is one of the oldest of its kind in Turkey. Today the Chamber has more than 25,000 member companies, and furthers the interests of businesses and advocates on their behalf. The Adana Commodity Exchange, founded in 1913, functions mainly to organise the trade in agricultural produce and livestock. It is located opposite the Metropolitan Theatre.


title: Adana

text: The designation of the coastal areas of Ceyhan and Yumurtalık districts as Energy-specific Industrial Areas has made Adana an attraction for hotel building. Current 5-star hotels of the city, Hilton, Seyhan and Sürmeli will be complemented by Sheraton and Türkmen hotels on the river bank, Ramada and Divan hotels in the city center, Anemon hotel at the west end which are all currently under construction.


title: Adana

text: Adana is the marketing and distribution centre for the Çukurova agricultural region, where cotton, wheat, corn, soy bean, barley, grapes and citrus fruits are produced in great quantities. Adana's farmers produce half of Turkey's corn and soy beans. Thirty-four percent of Turkey's peanuts and 29 percent of Turkey's oranges are harvested in Adana. Most of the local farming and agricultural-based companies have their offices in Adana. Producer co-operatives play a significant role in the city's economy. Çukobirlik, Turkey's largest co-operative producer, has 36,064 members in ten provinces and does everything from planting to the marketing of cotton, peanuts, soybeans, sunflowers and canola.


title: Adana

text: The Adana Agriculture Fair is the region's largest fair attracting more than 100,000 visitors from twenty nations. It hosts agriculture, livestock, poultry and dairy businesses. A Greenhouse and Gardening Fair takes place at the same time as the Agriculture Fair which is organised on a 3.5-hectare area of the TÜYAP Exhibition Center every October.


title: Adana

text: Adana's large-scale industry is mostly centred on agriculture. Food processing and fabricating metal products are major industries, making up 27 percent of Adana's manufacturing, but furniture and rubber/plastic product manufacturing plants are also numerous. , Adana has eleven companies in Turkey's top 500 industrial firms. The largest company in Adana, Temsa Global, an automotive manufacturer, has more than 2500 employees and manufactures 4000 buses annually. Marsan-Adana is the largest margarine and plant oil factory in Turkey. Advansa Sasa is Europe's largest polyester manufacturer employing 2650. The Organised Industrial Region of Adana covers an area of 1225 hectare with 300 plants, most of them medium-scale.


title: Adana

text: Two-thirds of Adana's residents live west of the Seyhan River, where the city was first founded. East of the river urban sprawl has been restricted by large institutions such as Çukurova University and the Incirlik Air Base.


title: Adana

text: According to Evliya Çelebi, during the 17th century, the town was mostly composed of Turkomans but also included Arabs, Greeks, Armenians, and Jews.


title: Adana

text: An Ottoman tax register from 1526 records sixteen Turkish and one Armenian residential area. During the 17th century more Armenians and Greeks settled in the city. Population growth slowed between 1885 and 1927 because of the Adana Massacre and the Armenian genocide, with earlier numbers only being rebuilt rather than increased by refugees brought in from the Balkans and Crete as part of the Population Exchange of 1923.


title: Adana

text: The demographics of the city changed significantly in the 1990s after the massive migration of Kurds, many of them having been forced to leave their villages in the southeast at the peak of the . The Conos, a tribe of Romani people of Romania, settled in Adana during the Balkan Wars; today they mainly live around the Sinanpaşa neighbourhood. Around 8,000 Romani people live in Adana Province. There is also a sizeable community of migrants from the Balkans and Caucasia, who settled in Adana before and during the Balkan Wars.


title: Adana

text: There were 172,000 Armenians in the Adana area in 1921, just before the Cilicia Evacuation. Around 82,000 of them were not sent into exile which explains why they remained in Adana and assimilated into Turkish society. Ten thousand to 15,000 of the descendants, who are known as Crypto-Armenians, still practise their Armenian/Christian culture behind closed doors. There are also many descendants of the Armenian children given to orphanages or to Muslim families for fostering in 1909 and 1915. Altogether, Adana may have the largest number of assimilated Armenians in contemporary Turkey. Adana is home to a community of around 2,000 British and Americans serving at NATO's Incirlik Air Base. Before 2003, the community numbered up to 22,000 but it declined after many troops were stationed in Iraq.


title: Adana

text: As with other cities on the Mediterranean and Aegean coasts, Adana has a strong secularist population. Amongst the people of faith, the majority of Turks, most of the Kurds and some of the Arabs are Sunni Muslim. Adana is also a stronghold of Alevism, many Alevis having moved to the city from Kahramanmaraş after the Maraş Massacre of 1978. Most of the Arabs of Adana are Alawites and often confused with Alevis. Alawite Arabs are known locally as Nusayri or "Fellah". Adana also has a tiny community of Roman Catholics and a few Jewish families.


title: Adana

text: The first traces of settlement in the quarter of Tepebağ, can be traced to the Neolithic Age. The quarter is next to the Taşköprü stone bridge and on a hill which gave it its name Tepebağ, meaning 'garden on the hill'. The city administration has launched a campaign to preserve the Ottoman houses near the river. A house where Atatürk stayed on Seyhan Caddesi now houses the Atatürk Museum.


title: Adana

text: Adana's golden age for architecture was the late 15th and 16th centuries when the Ramadanid principality chose it as their capital. The city grew rapidly during that period with many new neighbourhoods and most of the historical landmarks being built during this period. Thus Mamluk and Seljukid styles of architecture are dominant in Adana's architectural history. Taşköprü is the only remaining landmark from the Roman-Byzantine era, while a few public buildings were built during Ottoman rule.


title: Adana

text: The Ulu Cami, a külliye built in 1541 during the Ramadanid era, is the most interesting medieval mosque to survive in Adana along with its medrese and türbe. The mosque is made from black and white marble with decorative window surrounds and is famous for the 16th century Iznik tiles lining the interior. The minaret features unique Mamluk decoration and an orthogonal floor plan.


title: Adana

text: The Yağ Camii was originally built as the Church of St. James, then converted into a mosque by Ramazanoğlu Halil Bey in 1501. His successor Piri Mehmet Paşa added its minaret in 1525 and its medrese in 1558. It is in the Seljukid Grand Mosque style and has an attractive gate made of yellow stone.


title: Adana

text: The Yeni Camii (New Mosque) was built in 1724 by Abdülrezzak Antaki, and is still known to some as the Antaki Mosque. The influence of Mamluk architecture is visible. A rectangular building, it has interesting stonework on its south walls.


title: Adana

text: The Alemdar Mescidi, Şeyh Zülfi Mescidi, Kızıldağ Ramazanoğlu Mosque and Hasan Aga Camii (a 16th-century wooden mosque constructed without using nails) are also of historic value.


title: Adana

text: The huge and prominent Sabancı Merkez Camii (Sabancı Central Mosque) on the west bank of the Seyhan river is Adana's most visited mosque and one of the largest mosques in the Middle East. Built following Ottoman architectural traditions, the mosque was opened in 1998 to accommodate up to 28,500 worshippers. It has six minarets, four of them 99 meters high. Its dome has a diameter of 32 meters and is 54 meters above the prayer hall. Near the Seyhan Bridge, the mosque is visible over a wide area.


title: Adana

text: Adana Archaeological Museum originally opened in 1924 as one of Turkey's first ten museums. It moved to the west corner of Seyhan Bridge in 1972. The museum exhibits archeological works from all over the Çukurova. Notable exhibits include two statues of Augustus, the Achilles Sarcophagus depicting the Trojan War and statues found in the ancient cities of Magarsus and Augusta. In 2019 it moved to a completely new location in an abandoned textiles factory.A mosaic from Misis (Yaprakpınar) depicting Noah and twenty-three birds that he took into the Ark during the Flood has been moved into the new museum which also exhibits works excavated from the Misis Tumulus.


title: Adana

text: Adana Ethnography Museum opened inside a converted church in 1983. The courtyard contains the epitaphs and gravestones of Adana's leading figures of the 17th century. The interios exhibits clothing, jewellery and weaponry of Yörük (nomadic) villagers.


title: Adana

text: The Atatürk Museum focuses on the War of Independence and the first years of Republic in a mansion where Atatürk stayed during his trips to Adana.


title: Adana

text: Other museums, several of them in restored historic buildings, include the Karacaoğlan Museum of Literature, the Adana Museum of Cinema, the Yeşiloba Martyrs' Museum, the Mehmet Baltacı Museum of Photography and the Adana Urban Museum.


title: Adana

text: The State Fine Arts Gallery opened in the Sabancı Cultural Centre in 1982. Other public art galleries include the 75.Yıl Art Gallery in Atatürk Park, the Adana City Hall Art Gallery and the Art Gallery in the Seyhan Cultural Centre.


title: Adana

text: Of the bridges crossing the Seyhan river within the city, the most notable is the Taşköprü, a 2nd-century Roman bridge. Currently used by pedestrians and cyclists, it was, until 2007, the oldest bridge in the world to be open to motorised vehicles. Demirköprü is a railway bridge that was built in 1912 as part of the Berlin-Baghdad Railway project. Regülatör bridge, at the southern section of the city, is a road bridge as well as a regulator for the river water. There are also three footbridges, Seyhan and Mustafakemalpaşa road bridges, the bridge of the metro and the bridge of the motorway spanning the river.


title: Adana

text: The Çarşı Hamam ("Turkish bath of the Bazaar") was built in 1529 by Ramazanoğlu Piri Pasha and is Adana's largest hamam. It is has five domes and the interior is faced with marble. At the time it was built, water used to be brought from the Seyhan River using a sequence of canals and water wheels.


title: Adana

text: The Irmak Hamam ("Turkish bath of the River"), next to the Seyhan District Hall, was built in 1494 by Ramazanoğlu Halil Bey over the ruins of an ancient Roman bath. Its water comes from the river. Other historical hamams in the city are Mestenzade Bath and Yeni Bath.


title: Adana

text: Nineteenth century Adana had four churches, two Armenian, one Greek Orthodox and one Roman Catholic. The Roman Catholic Saint Paul Church (Bebekli Kilise) was built in 1870 and is in the old town, close to 5 Ocak Square. It currently serves the Roman Catholic and Protestant communities..


title: Adana

text: The Agios Nikolaos (St Nicholas) Greek Orthodox Church was built in 1845 in the Kuruköprü area but was converted into a museum in 1950. It was reconsecrated as a church in 2015 and renamed the Kuruköprü Monumental Church.


title: Adana

text: The Armenian Church on Ali Münif Street, midway between the Yağ Camii and the Büyük Saat, was converted into a branch of the Ziraat Bank during the Republican Era. Surp Asdvadzadzin Armenian Apostolic Church on Abidinpaşa Street, which was in service until 1915, was used as a movie theatre until 1970 then demolished by the government. The Central Bank (Merkez Bankası) regional headquarters was built in its place.


title: Adana

text: Adana has many parks and gardens. Owing to the warm climate, they are open all year round without the need for winter maintenance.


title: Adana

text: Paths along both banks of the Seyhan river track the city from the south end to the Seyhan Reservoir. The path then joins up with the wide sidewalks of Adnan Menderes Boulevard which follows the southern shores of the Seyhan Reservoir, thereby extending the path to the west end of the reservoir. The most scenic stretch is Dilberler Sekisi on the west bank between the old and new dams. A path along the north side of the Grand Canal goes from the east end to the west end of the city, crossing the Seyhan river. Once completed, the network of paths within the city will cover almost , connecting several parks.


title: Adana

text: The Merkez Park (Central Park) is a 33-hectare urban park on both banks of the Seyhan river, just north of the Sabancı Merkez Mosque. With a 2100-seater amphitheatre, a Chinese Garden, a Rowing Club and two cafes, it is the city's main recreational area.


title: Adana

text: The Süleyman Demirel Arboretum is a large botanical garden containing collections of woody plants intended partly for scientific study by Çukurova University researchers. The arboretum is also used for recreational purposes by city residents. 512 species of plants can be found in the arboretum.


title: Adana

text: Atatürk Park is a 4.7-hectare city park built during the first years of the Republic in the central commercial district of the city. The park holds a statue of Atatürk and hosts public ceremonies.


title: Adana

text: Çobandede Park is a 16.5-hectare park on a hill overlooking the Seyhan Reservoir. It contains the tomb of Çoban Dede, a wise man from Karslı Village.


title: Adana

text: The Yaşar Kemal Woods serves as a hiking area on the eastern bank of the Seyhan river opposite Dilberler Sekisi. It is dedicated to the Çukurova-born writer Yaşar Kemal.


title: Adana

text: Çatalan Woods is a large recreational area between the Çatalan and Seyhan reservoirs in the Karaisalı district north of the city.


title: Adana

text: The Büyük Saat ("Great Clock Tower"), built by the governor of Adana in 1882, is Turkey's tallest clock tower, rising high. It was damaged during the French occupation, but was rebuilt in 1935, and its image appears on the city's coat of arms. The Kazancılar Çarşısı (Cauldron-makers Bazaar) grew up around the Büyük Saat.


title: Adana

text: Ramazanoğlu Hall was built in 1495 during the reign of Halil Bey. A three-story building, made of stone and brick, it is one of the oldest houses to survive in Turkey. The existing hall was the Harem section of the property where the Ramadanid family lived. Unfortunately, the Selamlık section, which contained the government offices, has been lost.


title: Adana

text: One of the defining features of Adana is its agriculture-based life and the agriculture-based industrial culture associated with it. However, developments in industrial life, improvements in transportation, the effects of mass communication and large-scale migration have affected Adana's culture. As in other Turkish cities, the culture in different sections of the city is often very different from that in other areas.


title: Adana

text: Adana's cuisine is influenced mainly by Yörük (Nomad), Arabic and Armenian cookery. Spicy, sour and fatty dishes made of meat (usually lamb) and bulghur are common. In almost every home, bulghur and flour, red pepper, spices, tahini, a chopping block and a pastry board can be found. The bulghur used in cooking is made from a dark coloured hard wheat specific to Adana.


title: Adana

text: The Adana kebab, simply called "kebap" locally, is made from minced meat and is the most popular dining choice in the city. Since it can be found in all kebab restaurants in Turkey and in most Turkish restaurants around the world, the Adana name is still associated with the kebab for many people.


title: Adana

text: Adana kebab is usually served with an onion salad, green salad or a well-chopped tomato salad. Rakı or şalgam (turnip juice) usually accompany it.


title: Adana

text: There are many salads typical to Adana. Radish salad with tahini is very popular and is found only in the Çukurova region. Şalgam and pickle juice are the preferred drinks for winter with aşlama (licorice juice) replacing them in summer.


title: Adana

text: A sweet called Seker Sucugu (Sweet Sausage) originated in Adana where it was invented by Sir Duran O. during the First World War, around 1915.


title: Adana

text: Alongside tomato paste, pepper paste is used in almost every dish. The city is also famous for its "Şırdan" a kind of sausage stuffed with rice and eaten with cumin; for "paça", boiled sheep's feet; and for "bicibici" (pronounced as bee-jee-bee-jee) made from jellied starch, rose water and sugar and served with crushed ice especially in the summer. The city also offers a number of famous desserts, such as "Halka Tatlı", a round-shaped dessert, and "Taş Kadayıf", a bow-shaped dessert. Several types of fruit, including the apricot, are native to this area.


title: Adana

text: The Çukurova State Symphony Orchestra performed its first concert in 1992 and now performs twice weekly from October to May at the Metropolitan Theatre Hall. The orchestra consists of thirty-nine musicians and conducts regular tours in Turkey and abroad.


title: Adana

text: The Adana State Theatre opened its doors in 1981 at the Sabancı Cultural Centre and performs regularly from October to May. The Adana Town Theatre was founded in 1880 by governor Ziya Paşa to be the city's first theatre. In 1926, it moved to the newly built Community Centre and currently performs weekly at the Metropolitan Theatre Hall and in the Ramazanoğlu Centre. The Seyhan Town Theatre and Seyhan Folkloric Dances hold weekly events in the Theatre Hall of Seyhan Cultural Centre.


title: Adana

text: Several amphitheaters host performances from April to November. The Mimar Sinan Amphitheatre, the largest in Adana, can accommodate 8,000 spectators and hosts concerts and movies. It is located at the west bank of the Seyhan River. The 2,100-seater Merkez Park Amphitheater, 3,000-seater Çukurova University Amphitheater and the Doğal Park Amphitheater in Çukurova District also host plays, concerts and movies. Some historic buildings have also been restored and converted into cultural centres. The 515-year-old Ramazanoğlu Hall and 130-year-old former high school for girls (now called the Adana Centre for Arts and Culture) serve as cultural centres hosting art exhibitions and cultural events


title: Adana

text: The Altın Koza International Film Festival is one of Turkey's foremost film festivals, taking place since 1969. At the same time the Long Film Contest, the International Student Film Contest and the Mediterranean Cultures Film Contest are held.


title: Adana

text: The International Sabancı Theatre Festival has been held every April since 1999. The opening show was staged on the Seyhan River and the Taşköprü by the Italian ensemble Studio Festi. The "Water Symphony" show was greeted with great enthusiasm.


title: Adana

text: An Orange Blossom Carnival is held every April, inspired by the scent of the city's orange-tree-lined streets. The carnival parade of 2015 attracted more than 90.000 people—the highest ever attendance at an outdoor event in Adana.