title: Hand cannon

text: Although evidence of cannons appears later in the Middle East than Europe, fire lances were described earlier by Hasan al-Rammah between 1240–1280, and appeared in battles between Muslims and Mongols in 1299 and 1303. Hand cannons may have been used in the early 14th century. An Arabic text dating to 1320–1350 describes a type of gunpowder weapon called a "midfa" which uses gunpowder to shoot projectiles out of a tube at the end of a stock. Some scholars consider this a hand cannon while others dispute this claim. The Nasrid army besieging Elche in 1331 made use of "iron pellets shot with fire." According to Paul E. J. Hammer, the Mamluks certainly used cannons by 1342. According to J. Lavin, cannons were used by Moors at the siege of Algeciras in 1343. Shihab al-Din Abu al-Abbas al-Qalqashandi described a metal cannon firing an iron ball between 1365–1376.


title: Hand cannon

text: Cannons are attested to in India starting from 1366. The Joseon kingdom in Korea acquired knowledge of gunpowder from China by 1372 and started producing cannons by 1377. In Southeast Asia Đại Việt soldiers were using hand cannons at the very latest by 1390 when they employed them in killing Champa king Che Bong Nga. Chinese observer recorded the Javanese use of hand cannon for marriage ceremony in 1413 during Zheng He's voyage. Japan was already aware of gunpowder warfare due to the Mongol invasions during the 13th century, but did not acquire a cannon until a monk took one back to Japan from China in 1510, and firearms were not produced until 1543, when the Portuguese introduced matchlocks which were known as tanegashima to the Japanese. The art of firing the hand cannon called "Ōzutsu" (大筒) has remained as a "Ko-budō" martial arts form.


title: Hand cannon

text: The earliest surviving documentary evidence for the use of the hand cannon in the Islamic world are from several Arabic manuscripts dated to the 14th century. The historian Ahmad Y. al-Hassan argues that several 14th-century Arabic manuscripts, one of which was written by Shams al-Din Muhammad al-Ansari al-Dimashqi (1256–1327), report the use of hand cannons by Mamluk-Egyptian forces against the Mongols at the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260. However, Hassan's claim contradicts other historians who claim hand cannons did not appear in the Middle East until the 14th century.


title: Hand cannon

text: Iqtidar Alam Khan argues that it was the Mongols who introduced gunpowder to the Islamic world, and believes cannons only reached Mamluk Egypt in the 1370s. According to Joseph Needham, fire lances or proto-guns were known to Muslims by the late 13th century and early 14th century. However the term "midfa", dated to textual sources from 1342 to 1352, cannot be proven to be true hand-guns or bombards, and contemporary accounts of a metal-barrel cannon in the Islamic world do not occur until 1365. Needham also concludes that in its original form the term "midfa" refers to the tube or cylinder of a naphtha projector (flamethrower), then after the invention of gunpowder it meant the tube of fire lances, and eventually it applied to the cylinder of hand-gun and cannon. Similarly, Tonio Andrade dates the textual appearance of cannon in Middle-Eastern sources to the 1360s. David Ayalon and Gabor Ágoston believe the Mamluks had certainly used siege cannon by the 1360s, but earlier uses of cannon in the Islamic World are vague with a possible appearance in the Emirate of Granada by the 1320s, however evidence is inconclusive.


title: Hand cannon

text: Khan claims that it was invading Mongols who introduced gunpowder to the Islamic world and cites Mamluk antagonism towards early riflemen in their infantry as an example of how gunpowder weapons were not always met with open acceptance in the Middle East. Similarly, the refusal of their Qizilbash forces to use firearms contributed to the Safavid rout at Chaldiran in 1514.


title: Hand cannon

text: Early European hand cannons, such as the "socket-handgonne," were relatively easy to produce; smiths often used brass or bronze when making these early "gonnes". The production of early hand cannons was not uniform; this resulted in complications when loading or using the gunpowder in the hand cannon. Improvements in hand cannon and gunpowder technology — corned powder, shot ammunition, and development of the flash pan — led to the invention of the arquebus in late 15th-century Europe.


title: Hand cannon

text: The hand cannon consists of a barrel, a handle, and sometimes a socket to insert a wooden stock. Extant samples show that some hand cannons also featured a metal extension as a handle.


title: Hand cannon

text: The hand cannon could be held in two hands, but another person is often shown aiding in the ignition process using smoldering wood, coal, red-hot iron rods, or slow-burning matches. The hand cannon could be placed on a rest and held by one hand, while the gunner applied the means of ignition himself.


title: Hand cannon

text: Projectiles used in hand cannons were known to include rocks, pebbles, and arrows. Eventually stone projectiles in the shape of balls became the preferred form of ammunition, and then they were replaced by iron balls from the late 14th to 15th centuries.


title: Hand cannon

text: Later hand cannons have been shown to include a flash pan attached to the barrel and a touch hole drilled through the side wall instead of the top of the barrel. The flash pan had a leather cover and, later on, a hinged metal lid, to keep the priming powder dry until the moment of firing and to prevent premature firing. These features were carried over to subsequent firearms.


title: Abel Tasman

text: Abel Janszoon Tasman (; 160310 October 1659) was a Dutch seafarer, explorer, and merchant, best known for his voyages of 1642 and 1644 in the service of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). He was the first known European explorer to reach New Zealand and the islands of Fiji and Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania).


title: Abel Tasman

text: Abel Tasman was born around 1603 in Lutjegast, a small village in the province of Groningen, in the north of the Netherlands. The oldest available source mentioning him is dated 27 December 1631 when, as a seafarer living in Amsterdam, the 28-year-old became engaged to marry 21-year-old Jannetje Tjaers, of Palmstraat in the Jordaan district of the city.


title: Abel Tasman

text: Employed by the Dutch East India Company (VOC), Tasman sailed from Texel (Netherland) to Batavia, now Jakarta, in 1633 taking the southern Brouwer Route. During this period, Tasman took part in a voyage to Seram Island; the locals had sold spices to other European nationalities than the Dutch. He had a narrow escape from death, when in an incautious landing several of his companions were killed by people of Seram.


title: Abel Tasman

text: In August 1637, Tasman was back in Amsterdam, and the following year he signed on for another ten years and took his wife with him to Batavia. On 25 March 1638 he tried to sell his property in the Jordaan, but the purchase was cancelled.


title: Abel Tasman

text: He was second-in-command of a 1639 exploration expedition in the north Pacific under Matthijs Quast. The fleet included the ships "Engel" and "Gracht" and reached Fort Zeelandia (Dutch Formosa) and Deshima.


title: Abel Tasman

text: In August 1642, the Council of the Indies, consisting of Antonie van Diemen, Cornelis van der Lijn, Joan Maetsuycker, Justus Schouten, Salomon Sweers, Cornelis Witsen, and Pieter Boreel in Batavia dispatched Tasman and Franchoijs Jacobszoon Visscher on a voyage of exploration to little-charted areas east of the Cape of Good Hope, west of Staten Land (near the Cape Horn of South America) and south of the Solomon Islands.


title: Abel Tasman

text: One of the objectives was to obtain knowledge of "all the totally unknown" Provinces of Beach. This was a purported yet non-existent landmass said to have plentiful gold, which had appeared on European maps since the 15th century, as a result of an error in some editions of Marco Polo's works.


title: Abel Tasman

text: In accordance with Visscher's directions, Tasman sailed from Batavia on 14 August 1642 and arrived at Mauritius on 5 September 1642, according to the captain's journal. The reason for this was the crew could be fed well on the island; there was plenty of fresh water and timber to repair the ships. Tasman got the assistance of the governor Adriaan van der Stel.


title: Abel Tasman

text: Because of the prevailing winds, Mauritius was chosen as a turning point. After a four-week stay on the island, both ships left on 8 October using the Roaring Forties to sail east as fast as possible. (No one had gone as far as Pieter Nuyts in 1626/27.) On 7 November, snow and hail influenced the ship's council to alter course to a more north-easterly direction, expecting to arrive one day at the Solomon Islands.


title: Abel Tasman

text: On 24 November 1642, Tasman reached and sighted the west coast of Tasmania, north of Macquarie Harbour. He named his discovery Van Diemen's Land, after Antonio van Diemen, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies.


title: Abel Tasman

text: Proceeding south, Tasman skirted the southern end of Tasmania and turned north-east. He then tried to work his two ships into Adventure Bay on the east coast of South Bruny Island, where he was blown out to sea by a storm. This area he named Storm Bay. Two days later, on 1 December, Tasman anchored to the north of Cape Frederick Hendrick just north of the Forestier Peninsula. On 2 December, two ship's boats under the command of the Pilot, Major Visscher, rowed through the Marion Narrows into Blackman Bay, and across the west to the outflow of Boomer Creek where they gathered some edible "greens". Tasman named Frederick Hendrik Bay, which included the present North Bay, Marion Bay and the inlet Blackman Bay (the name Frederick Henry Bay was mistakenly transferred to its present location by Marion Dufresne in 1772). The next day, an attempt was made to land in North Bay. However, because the sea was too rough, the carpenter swam through the surf and planted the Dutch flag. Tasman then claimed formal possession of the land, on 3 December 1642.


title: Abel Tasman

text: For two more days, he continued to follow the east coast northward to see how far it went. When the land veered to the north-west at Eddystone Point, he tried to keep in with it but his ships were suddenly hit by the Roaring Forties howling through Bass Strait. Tasman was on a mission to find the Southern Continent not more islands, so he abruptly turned away to the east and continued his continent-hunting.


title: Abel Tasman

text: After some exploration, Tasman had intended to proceed in a northerly direction but as the wind was unfavourable he steered east. The expedition endured an extremely rough voyage and in one of his diary entries Tasman credited his compass, claiming it was the only thing that had kept him alive.


title: Abel Tasman

text: On 13 December 1642 they sighted land on the north-west coast of the South Island, New Zealand, becoming the first Europeans to sight New Zealand. Tasman named it "Staten Landt" "in honour of the States General" (Dutch parliament). He wrote, "it is possible that this land joins to the Staten Landt but it is uncertain", referring to Isla de los Estados, a landmass of the same name at the southern tip of South America, encountered by the Dutch navigator Jacob Le Maire in 1616. However, in 1643 Brouwer's expedition to Valdivia found out that Staaten Landt was separated by sea from the hypothetical Southern Land. Tasman continued: "We believe that this is the mainland coast of the unknown Southland." Tasman thought he had found the western side of the long-imagined Terra Australis that stretched across the Pacific to near the southern tip of South America.


title: Abel Tasman

text: After sailing north, then East for five days, the expedition anchored about from the coast off what is now believed to have been Golden Bay. Tasman sent ship's boats to gather water, but one of his boats was attacked by a war party sent by Ngāti Tūmatakōkiri (a Māori iwi (tribe) who settled in the northwest of the island) in a double-hulled waka (canoe) and four of his men were killed with mere (clubs). As Tasman sailed out of the bay he observed 22 waka near the shore, of which "eleven swarming with people came off towards us." The waka approached the "Zeehaen" which fired and hit a man in the largest waka holding a small white flag. Canister shot also hit the side of a waka. Archaeological research has shown the Dutch had tried to land at a major agricultural area, which the Māori may have been trying to protect. Tasman named the area "Murderers' Bay".


title: Abel Tasman

text: The expedition then sailed north, sighting Cook Strait, which it mistook for a bight and named "Zeehaen's Bight". Two names that the expedition gave to landmarks in the far north of New Zealand still endure: Cape Maria van Diemen and Three Kings Islands. ("Kaap Pieter Boreels" was renamed Cape Egmont by Captain James Cook 125 years later.)


title: Abel Tasman

text: En route back to Batavia, Tasman came across the Tongan archipelago on 20 January 1643. While passing the Fiji Islands Tasman's ships came close to being wrecked on the dangerous reefs of the north-eastern part of the Fiji group. He charted the eastern tip of Vanua Levu and Cikobia-i-Lau before making his way back into the open sea.


title: Abel Tasman

text: Tasman left Batavia on 30 January 1644 on his second voyage with three ships ("Limmen", "Zeemeeuw" and the tender "Braek"). He followed the south coast of New Guinea eastwards in an attempt to find a passage to the eastern side of New Holland. However, he missed the Torres Strait between New Guinea and Australia, probably due to the numerous reefs and islands obscuring potential routes, and continued his voyage by following the shore of the Gulf of Carpentaria westwards along the north Australian coast. He mapped the north coast of Australia, making observations on New Holland and its people. He arrived back in Batavia in August 1644.


title: Abel Tasman

text: From the point of view of the Dutch East India Company, Tasman's explorations were a disappointment: he had neither found a promising area for trade nor a useful new shipping route. Although received modestly, the company was upset to a degree that Tasman did not fully explore the lands he found, and decided that a more "persistent explorer" should be chosen for any future expeditions. For over a century, until the era of James Cook, Tasmania and New Zealand were not visited by Europeans – mainland Australia was visited, but usually only by accident.


title: Abel Tasman

text: On 2 November 1644, Abel Tasman was appointed a member of the Council of Justice at Batavia. He went to Sumatra in 1646, and in August 1647 to Siam (now Thailand) with letters from the company to the King. In May 1648, he was in charge of an expedition sent to Manila to try to intercept and loot the Spanish silver ships coming from America, but he had no success and returned to Batavia in January 1649. In November 1649, he was charged and found guilty of having in the previous year hanged one of his men without trial, was suspended from his office of commander, fined, and made to pay compensation to the relatives of the sailor. On 5 January 1651, he was formally reinstated in his rank and spent his remaining years at Batavia. He was in good circumstances, being one of the larger landowners in the town. He died at Batavia on 10 October 1659 and was survived by his second wife and a daughter by his first wife. His property was divided between his wife and his daughter by his first marriage. In his will (dating from 1657), he left 25 guilders to the poor of his village Lutjegast.


title: Abel Tasman

text: Although Tasman's pilot, Frans Visscher, published "Memoir concerning the discovery of the South land" in 1642, Tasman's detailed journal was not published until 1898; however, some of his charts and maps were in general circulation and used by subsequent explorers. The journal signed by Abel Tasman of the 1642 voyage is held at the Dutch National Archives at The Hague.


title: Abel Tasman

text: Tasman's ten-month voyage in 1642–43 had significant consequences. By circumnavigating Australia (albeit at a distance) Tasman proved that the small fifth continent was not joined to any larger sixth continent, such as the long-imagined Southern Continent. Further, Tasman's suggestion that New Zealand was the western side of that Southern Continent was seized upon by many European cartographers who, for the next century, depicted New Zealand as the west coast of a Terra Australis rising gradually from the waters around Tierra del Fuego. This theory was eventually disproved when Captain Cook circumnavigated New Zealand in 1769.


title: Abel Tasman

text: His portrait has been on four New Zealand postage stamp issues, on a 1992 5 NZD coin, and on 1963, 1966 and 1985 Australian postage stamps.


title: Abel Tasman

text: In the Netherlands, many streets are named after him. In Lutjegast, the village he was born, there is a museum dedicated to his life and travels.


title: Abel Tasman

text: Held within the collection of the State Library of New South Wales is the Tasman map, thought to have been drawn by Isaac Gilsemans, or completed under the supervision of Franz Jacobszoon Visscher. The map is also known as the Bonaparte map, as it was once owned by Prince Roland Bonaparte, the great-nephew of Napoleon. The map was completed sometime after 1644 and is based on the original charts drawn during Tasman's first and second voyages. As none of the journals or logs composed during Tasman's second voyage have survived, the Bonaparte map remains as an important contemporary artefact of Tasman's voyage to the northern coast of the Australian continent.


title: Abel Tasman

text: The Tasman map largely reveals the extent of understanding the Dutch had of the Australian continent at the time. The map includes the western and southern coasts of Australia, accidentally encountered by Dutch voyagers as they journeyed by way of the Cape of Good Hope to the VOC headquarters in Batavia. In addition, the map shows the tracks of Tasman's two voyages. Of his second voyage, the map shows the area of the Banda Islands, the southern coast of New Guinea and much of the northern coast of Australia. However, the area of the Torres Strait is shown unexamined; this is despite having been given orders by VOC Council at Batavia to explore the possibility of a channel between New Guinea and the Australian continent.


title: Abel Tasman

text: There is debate as to the origin of the map. It is widely believed that the map was produced in Batavia; however, it has also been argued that the map was produced in Amsterdam. The authorship of the map has also been debated: while the map is commonly attributed to Tasman, it is now thought to have been the result of a collaboration, probably involving Franchoijs Visscher and Isaack Gilsemans, who took part in both of Tasman's voyages. Whether the map was produced in 1644 is also subject to debate, as a VOC company report in December 1644 suggests that at that time no maps showing Tasman's voyages were yet complete.


title: Abel Tasman

text: In 1943, a mosaic version of the map, composed of coloured brass and marble, was inlaid into the vestibule floor of the Mitchell Library in Sydney. The work was commissioned by the Principal Librarian William Ifould, and completed by the Melocco Brothers of Annandale, who also worked on ANZAC War Memorial in Hyde Park and the crypt at St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney.


title: Battle of Pavan Khind

text: Battle of Pävankhind was a rearguard last stand that took place on 13 July 1660, at a mountain pass in the vicinity of fort Vishalgad, near the city of Kolhapur with the Maratha warrior Baji Prabhu Deshpande and Sambhu Singh Jadhav against Siddi Masud of the Bijapur Sultanate. The engagement ended with the destruction of the Maratha forces, and a tactical victory for the Bijapur Sultanate, but failing to achieve a strategic victory.


title: Battle of Pavan Khind

text: In 1660, Shivaji was trapped in the fort of Panhala, under siege and vastly outnumbered by an Adilshah army led by an Abyssinian General called Siddi Masud. Shivaji planned to escape to the Maratha fort of Vishalgad. Two Maratha sardars under the Adilshahi General Siddi Jouhar, namely Suryarao Surve and Jaswantrao Dalvi had also encircled the fort of Vishalgad simultaneously. Shivaji waited for months, planning and depleting the Adilshah's food source.


title: Battle of Pavan Khind

text: Shivaji, Baji Prabhu, and around 600 of their best troops, would dash through the Adilshahi force at night. A man named Shiva Kashid, who resembled Shivaji in appearance, had volunteered to dress like the king and get captured. This bought some additional time due to the confusion over identity, before Siddi Masud realised the error and gave chase.


title: Battle of Pavan Khind

text: Shivaji made his escape on the dark night of 13 July, with his troops and the Adilshah army was in pursuit with an army of 10,000. It was clear that there was no way to shake off the enemy, and that the Marathas would not simultaneously prevail over both the Moghul garrison at Vishalgad and the chasing Adilshahi army.


title: Battle of Pavan Khind

text: The only option was for a section of the Marathas to stay back and fight the larger Adilshahi forces in a rearguard action, while the rest of the Marathas would carry on to their destination. Shivaji decided to split his forces. Baji Prabhu agreed to face the troops of Bijapur with 300 soldiers. Shivaji told Baji Prabhu that he would hear cannons being fired 5 times from Vishalgad, signaling Shivaji’s safety. The strategic position of Ghod Khind (Horse Pass) was chosen for the defence, as it was very narrow and only a few soldiers could pass at any one time.


title: Battle of Pavan Khind

text: Baji Prabhu occupied Ghod Khind, blocking the path of the Adilshah troops. His brother Fulaji Prabhu as well as sardars such as Shambusing Jadhav were present with him. Fulaji Prabhu and Shambusing were killed after a gallant and fierce fight. Baji Prabhu was severely wounded but carried on fighting at his station. The Adilshahi army repeatedly tried to break through the defenses of the pass, but were repeatedly repulsed. The unequal battle raged for hours, with the defenders maintaining their positions, but with rapidly depleting numbers. Only a handful of Marathas survived, and around a thousand soldiers of the Adilshahi army became casualties in attempting to take the pass.


title: Battle of Pavan Khind

text: Five hours after the battle started, the cannon fire announcing Shivaji’s safe return to Vishalgad was heard. Almost three hundred Marathas had been killed. Legend has it that a gravely injured Baji Prabhu continued engaging the enemy and held the pass, only laying down his life once he heard the sound of cannon fire. The handful surviving Marathas then retreated and disappeared in the forest as per the plan.


title: Battle of Pavan Khind

text: Shivaji and his 300 soldiers had to break through the encirclement of Suryarao and Jaswantrao at Vishalgadh. A fierce battle ensued in which Shivaji himself fought wearing Dandpatta in his both hands. Seeing this fight, the commander of Vishalgadh fort sent help to Shivaji enabling him and his troops to reach the fort safely. Shivaji then fired cannons as a signal for Baji Prabhu to retreat.


title: Battle of Pavan Khind

text: The pass, Ghod Khind (Horse Pass) was renamed Pavan Khind (Sacred Pass) in honour of the sacrifice of the 300 Maratha troops and the rest of Shivaji's army was able to escape


title: Bad Education (TV series)

text: Bad Education is a British television sitcom produced by Tiger Aspect Productions for BBC Three. It stars Jack Whitehall as young teacher Alfie Wickers – "the worst teacher ever to grace the British education system" – at the fictional Abbey Grove School, in Hertfordshire.


title: Bad Education (TV series)

text: At the time of the series launch in August 2012, it broke BBC Three's record for the highest viewing figure for a first episode of a comedy, which was previously held by "Horne & Corden", but is now held by "Cuckoo". The second series premiered on BBC iPlayer on 27 August 2013, a week before the television air date of 3 September, as part of BBC Three's plans to premiere all its scripted comedy programmes online. This experiment proved successful, as the first episode of the second series received 1.5 million requests prior to its television airing. A Christmas special aired on 17 December 2013.


title: Bad Education (TV series)

text: The third series of "Bad Education" began transmission on 16 September 2014. Due to its success, the show was later adapted into a film, which was released on 21 August 2015. In late 2014, Whitehall confirmed that the show would not receive a fourth series.


title: Bad Education (TV series)

text: In May 2022, it was announced that the show will return for a special episode on the newly relaunched BBC Three channel to celebrate the show's tenth anniversary. The BBC confirmed that the special is set to be followed by a new six-part series "written by a team of breakthrough writers" following the BBC's plans to invest more money in high-impact comedy programming. The special reunion episode aired on Thursday, 15 December 2022 at 9pm on BBC Three.


title: Bad Education (TV series)

text: The series focuses on Alfred "Alfie" Wickers (Jack Whitehall) – a posh, newly graduated secondary school History teacher at the fictional Abbey Grove School, in Watford or Tring, Hertfordshire. Ever determined to impress his crush, Rosie Gulliver (Sarah Solemani) Alfie makes a repeated effort to appear "cool", performing activities including coaching the school football team, organising a weapons amnesty and fielding a candidate for school elections. Usually, in these efforts, he turns to his class of misfits for help, despite them often being unsupportive. The class include shy Joe (Ethan Lawrence), wannabe hard man Mitchell (Charlie Wernham), paraplegic rude boy Rem Dogg (Jack Binstead), sexually promiscuous Chantelle (Nikki Runeckles), camp Stephen (Layton Williams), intelligent but snooty Jing (Kae Alexander), hot-tempered Cleopatra (Weruche Opia), and school bully Frank (Jack Bence).


title: Bad Education (TV series)

text: At the same time, Alfie finds himself having to cope with the antics of his eccentric, laidback headmaster, Shaquille "Simon" Fraser (Mathew Horne), and meet the expectations of a string of deputy heads: at first ruthless authoritarian Isobel Pickwell (Michelle Gomez), then the cruel yet pathetic Professor Celia "Pro Green" Green (Samantha Spiro), and then his own father, goofy and naïve Martin Wickers (Harry Enfield). It is clarified in the third series that the entire show spans a single academic year.


title: Bad Education (TV series)

text: The first series started airing on 14 August 2012. On 23 August 2012, it was announced that "Bad Education" would have a second series. The second series began airing on BBC Three on 3 September 2013. Part of the second series was filmed at St. Michael's Catholic High School, Finchley, London. "Bad Education" was also partially filmed at the former site of Ashmount Primary School on Hornsey Lane on 12 and 13 May 2013. Some scenes were filmed at the former Salesian College in Battersea, London. Parts of Series 3 were filmed at Ricards Lodge High School in Merton.


title: Bad Education (TV series)

text: On 11 May 2022, the BBC confirmed that the show would return for a one-off special episode to be broadcast on the recently relaunched BBC Three, which would follow the characters Stephen Carmichael (Layton Williams) and Mitchell Harper (Charlie Wernham) becoming teachers, as well as a new six-part series.


title: Bad Education (TV series)

text: A pilot for a U.S. adaptation of "Bad Education", named "An American Education", was ordered by ABC with Whitehall set to reprise his role as Alfie Wickers. The pilot began filming in Los Angeles in January 2014. However, ABC passed on the pilot on 22 May 2014. Whitehall would continue with the original UK series of the show.


title: Bad Education (TV series)

text: On 27 February 2015, Whitehall confirmed that a feature film edition of "Bad Education" was in production. Filming took place in Cornwall with the majority of the main cast all reprising their roles for the film. The film is titled "The Bad Education Movie" and was released on 21 August 2015 in the UK. The film saw ineffectual teacher Alfie Wickers travelling to Cornwall with his students. Entertainment Film Distributors, who also handled the release of the box-office 2011 hit "The Inbetweeners Movie" dealt with the release of the "Bad Education Movie".


title: Bad Education (TV series)

text: The series received mixed reviews from the British press. "The Guardian" called it "in poor taste" and accused Whitehall of "phoning it in". "The Daily Telegraph" gave the show a rating of 2 out of 5, claiming that the show "uses too many stereotypes" and that Whitehall "tends to repeat many jokes" rather than creating new ones. Both the "Daily Mirror" and "The Sun" gave the sitcom a rating of 2 out of 5.


title: Bad Education (TV series)

text: Rotten Tomatoes gave the show 71%; a critic said, "the script is patchy and the story is too silly for its own good but there are enough laughs to make this a hit with the target audience"


title: Gordon, Gino and Fred: Road Trip

text: Gordon Gino and Fred: Road Trip is a British travel and food show that originally aired on the ITV and ITV HD in United Kingdom. In it, chefs Gordon Ramsay, Gino D'Acampo and master maitre d' Fred Sirieix visit various countries and cities, where they explore local culture and cuisine. The first series premiered on 11 October 2018, the second series called "Gordon Gino & Fred: American Road Trip" premiered on 2 April 2020 and the third series called "Gordon Gino & Fred Go Greek" premiered 27 September 2021, to a shortened run of only two episodes.


title: Gordon, Gino and Fred: Road Trip

text: In some countries outside the United Kingdom the first series of the show is known as: "Gordon, Gino & Fred: The Ultimate Road Trip".


title: Gordon, Gino and Fred: Road Trip

text: On 10 December 2020, ITV commissioned a further three series and three Christmas specials of "Gordon Gino and Fred: Road Trip"; series 3 (2021) (6 x 60′), series 4 (2022) (8 x 60′), and series 5 (2023) (8 x 60′).


title: Gordon, Gino and Fred: Road Trip

text: The Fox network has aired a number of compressed, special versions of the show, rebadged under the Gordon Ramsay's Road Trip umbrella. On January 5, 2021, Fox aired a condensed, two-hour compilation of series 2, "American Road Trip", entitled "Gordon Ramsay's American Road Trip". On December 13, 2021, they broadcast a similarly-compressed, two-hour version of series 1, entitled "Gordon Ramsay's Road Trip: European Vacation", and on December 14, a one-hour version of the 2020 Christmas special aired, entitled "Gordon Ramsay's Road Trip: Christmas Vacation". On January 4, 2022, they broadcast "Gordon Ramsay's Road Trip: Greek Vacation", adapted from the third series of the British run.


title: Gordon, Gino and Fred: Road Trip

text: Series 1 of "Gordon, Gino and Fred: Road Trip" (including the Christmas special: "Christmas Road Trip: Three Unwise Men") was released on DVD in the United Kingdom on 4 November 2019. Series 2 DVD was released in the United Kingdom on 22 June 2020.


title: Diet (nutrition)

text: The word diet often implies the use of specific intake of nutrition for health or weight-management reasons (with the two often being related). Although humans are omnivores, each culture and each person holds some food preferences or some food taboos. This may be due to personal tastes or ethical reasons. Individual dietary choices may be more or less healthy.


title: Diet (nutrition)

text: Complete nutrition requires ingestion and absorption of vitamins, minerals, essential amino acids from protein and essential fatty acids from fat-containing food, also food energy in the form of carbohydrate, protein, and fat. Dietary habits and choices play a significant role in the quality of life, health and longevity.


title: Diet (nutrition)

text: A healthy diet can improve and maintain health, which can include aspects of mental and physical health. Specific diets, such as the DASH diet, can be used in treatment and management of chronic conditions.


title: Diet (nutrition)

text: Dietary recommendations exist for many different countries, and they usually emphasise a balanced diet which is culturally appropriate. These recommendation are different from dietary reference values which provide information about the prevention of nutrient deficiencies.


title: Diet (nutrition)

text: Exclusionary diets are diets with certain groups or specific types of food avoided, either due to health considerations or by choice. Many do not eat food from animal sources to varying degrees (e.g. flexitarianism, pescetarianism, vegetarianism, veganism) for health reasons, issues surrounding morality, or to reduce their personal impact on the environment, although some of the public assumptions about which diets have lower impacts are known to be incorrect. People on a balanced vegetarian and vegan diet can get all necessary nutrients, but may need to specifically focus on consumption of nutrients like protein, iron, calcium, zinc, and vitamin B. Raw foodism and intuitive eating are other approaches to dietary choices. Education, income, local availability, and mental health are all major factors for dietary choices.


title: Diet (nutrition)

text: A particular diet may be chosen to promote weight loss or weight gain. Changing a person's dietary intake, or "going on a diet", can change the energy balance and increase or decrease the amount of fat stored by the body. The terms "healthy diet" and "diet for weight management" ("dieting") are often related, as the two promote healthy weight management. If a person is overweight or obese, changing to a diet and lifestyle that allows them to burn more calories than they consume may improve their overall health, possibly preventing diseases that are attributed in part to weight, including heart disease and diabetes. Within the past 10 years, obesity rates have increased by almost 10%.Conversely, if a person is underweight due to illness or malnutrition, they may change their diet to promote weight gain. Intentional changes in weight, though often beneficial, can be potentially harmful to the body if they occur too rapidly. Unintentional rapid weight change can be caused by the body's reaction to some medications, or may be a sign of major medical problems including thyroid issues and cancer among other diseases.


title: Diet (nutrition)

text: An eating disorder is a mental disorder that interferes with normal food consumption. It is defined by abnormal eating habits and thoughts about food that may involve eating much more or much less than needed. Common eating disorders include anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge-eating disorder. Eating disorders affect people of every gender, age, socioeconomic status, and body size.


title: Diet (nutrition)

text: Some cultures and religions have restrictions concerning what foods are acceptable in their diet. For example, only Kosher foods are permitted in Judaism, and Halal foods in Islam. Although Buddhists are generally vegetarians, the practice varies and meat-eating may be permitted depending on the sects. In Hinduism, vegetarianism is the ideal. Jains are strictly vegetarian and in addition to that the consumption of any roots (ex: potatoes, carrots) is not permitted.


title: Diet (nutrition)

text: In Christianity there is no restriction on kinds of animals that can be eaten, though various groups within Christianity have practiced specific dietary restrictions for various reasons. The most common diets used by Christians are Mediterranean and vegetarianism.


title: Levon Aronian

text: Levon Grigori Aronian (; born 6 October 1982) is an Armenian chess grandmaster, who currently plays for the United States Chess Federation. A chess prodigy, he earned the title of grandmaster in 2000, at age 17. Aronian held the No. 2 position in the March 2014 FIDE world chess rankings with a rating of 2830, becoming the fourth-highest rated player in history.


title: Levon Aronian

text: Aronian won the FIDE World Cup in 2005 and 2017. He led the Armenia national team to the gold medals in the Chess Olympiads of 2006 (Turin), 2008 (Dresden) and 2012 (Istanbul) and at the World Team Chess Championship in Ningbo 2011. He won the FIDE Grand Prix 2008–2010, qualifying him for the Candidates Tournament for the World Chess Championship 2012. He was also world champion in Chess960 in 2006 and 2007, in rapid chess in 2009, and in blitz chess in 2010.


title: Levon Aronian

text: Aronian has been the leading Armenian chess player since the early 2000s. His popularity in Armenia has led to him being called a celebrity and a hero. He was named the best sportsman of Armenia in 2005 and was awarded the title of Honoured Master of Sport of the Republic of Armenia in 2009. In 2012, he was awarded the Order of St. Mesrop Mashtots. In 2016, CNN called Aronian the "David Beckham of chess".


title: Levon Aronian

text: Aronian announced his decision to transfer from the Armenian chess federation to the United States federation in late February 2021, citing a decline in government support for the sport as his motivation. The transfer was completed in December 2021.


title: Levon Aronian

text: Aronian was born on 6 October 1982 in Yerevan, Armenia (then part of the Soviet Union), to Seda Avagyan, an Armenian mining engineer, and Grigory Leontievich Aronov, a Russian Jewish physicist from the Vitebsk Region, Belarus. Talking about his background, Aronian stated in an interview, "I feel much more Armenian than Jewish, although there are sides to me which are more Jewish culturally, involving the arts and music." He was taught to play chess by his sister, Lilit, at the age of nine. His first coach was Grandmaster Melikset Khachiyan. An early sign of his ability came when he won the 1994 World Youth Chess Championship (under-12) in Szeged with 8/9, ahead of future luminaries Étienne Bacrot, Ruslan Ponomariov, Francisco Vallejo Pons, and Alexander Grischuk.


title: Levon Aronian

text: Since 2011, Aronian's permanent trainer has been Ashot Nadanian, whom Aronian calls "absolutely irreplaceable".


title: Levon Aronian

text: In 2001, Aronian scored seven out of nine in the Cappelle-la-Grande Open, half a point behind the joint winners Einar Gausel and Vladimir Chuchelov. A few months later, he won the Young Masters tournament at Lausanne.


title: Levon Aronian

text: In 2002, he won the Armenian Chess Championship. In the same year he became World Junior Champion, scoring 10/13 and finishing ahead of Surya Ganguly, Artyom Timofeev, Luke McShane, Bu Xiangzhi, Pentala Harikrishna, and others.


title: Levon Aronian

text: Aronian made his debut at the FIDE World Chess Championship in 2004. In the first round, he played and won against thirteen-year-old Magnus Carlsen, who was also making his debut at the tournament. He progressed to the third round, where he lost to Pavel Smirnov.


title: Levon Aronian

text: Levon Aronian became part of the international elite in 2005, rated tenth in the world by Elo rating. In 2005, he was part of a five-way tie for first place at the Gibtelecom Masters in Gibraltar with Zahar Efimenko, Kiril Georgiev, Alexei Shirov and Emil Sutovsky. He also won the Karabakh 2005 International "A" Tournament. In the Russian Team Championship, he scored five wins, three draws and no losses with an Elo performance rating around 2850. In December he beat Ruslan Ponomariov of Ukraine in the final round to win the World Cup in Khanty Mansiysk, Russia.


title: Levon Aronian

text: In March 2006, Aronian won the annual Linares chess tournament, half a point ahead of Teimour Radjabov and then-World Chess Champion Veselin Topalov. In November 2006 he tied for first in the Tal Memorial chess competition. The April–July 2006 FIDE rating list ranked Aronian the third highest rated player in the world. Armenia won its first ever Chess Olympiad at the 37th Chess Olympiad.


title: Levon Aronian

text: In January 2007, Aronian shared first place at the category 19 Corus chess tournament in Wijk aan Zee along with Veselin Topalov and Radjabov. All three scored 8.5/13. In May 2007, he defeated World Champion Vladimir Kramnik 4–2 in a rapid chess match.


title: Levon Aronian

text: His 2005 World Cup victory qualified him for the Candidates Tournament of the World Chess Championship 2007, scheduled for May–June 2007. In this tournament he played GM Magnus Carlsen, and they tied 3–3 in the initial six games, then 2–2 in rapid chess, and finally Aronian won 2–0 in blitz chess. In the finals, he defeated Shirov 3½–2½. This qualified him for the final stage of the championship, which was played in Mexico. There, he scored six points out of 14, finishing seventh out of eight players.


title: Levon Aronian

text: In January 2008, he won the Corus chess tournament jointly with Magnus Carlsen, scoring 8/13. In March 2008, he won the Melody Amber Blindfold/Rapid tournament held in Nice, France, 2½ points ahead of the nearest competitors. Apart from his first place win in the overall tournament, he also took sole first place in the rapid section of the tournament and shared first place in the Blindfold section with three other chess grandmasters: Kramnik, Morozevich, and Topalov.


title: Levon Aronian

text: In June 2008, Aronian won the Karen Asrian Memorial Rapid chess tournament in Yerevan. At the Second FIDE Grand Prix in Sochi, Aronian defeated Alexander Grischuk in the final and finished at 8½/13 and a performance rating of 2816. Aronian won the 38th Chess Olympiad in Dresden with the Armenia national chess team, winning gold for the second time in a row.


title: Levon Aronian

text: Aronian won the Fourth FIDE Grand Prix in April 2009 with a score of 8½/13, one point ahead of Peter Leko and fellow Armenian Vladimir Akopian. On 2 August 2009, Aronian won the World Rapid Chess Championship. After winning the Bilbao Chess Masters Final in September 2009, his FIDE rating was just four points behind World Champion Viswanathan Anand. In November 2009, he competed in the Mikhail Tal Memorial and finished in fourth place. In December 2009, Aronian was awarded the title of "Honoured Master of Sport of the Republic of Armenia".


title: Levon Aronian

text: Aronian won the FIDE Grand Prix 2008–2010, qualifying him for the Candidates tournament for the World Chess Championship 2012.


title: Levon Aronian

text: In August 2010, he unsuccessfully defended the World Rapid Chess title, losing to eventual champion Gata Kamsky. In September 2010, Aronian played in the preliminary stage of the Bilbao Grand Slam in Shanghai against Vladimir Kramnik, Alexei Shirov, and Wang Hao, but could not qualify for the final tournament after losing to Kramnik.


title: Levon Aronian

text: In November 2010, he shared first at the category XXI Tal Memorial. He also won the 2010 World Blitz Chess Championship in Moscow.


title: Levon Aronian

text: In January 2011, he tied for 3rd with Magnus Carlsen in the 73rd Tata Steel Chess Tournament in Wijk aan Zee. In March 2011, he won the final Melody Amber Blindfold/Rapid tournament for the third time. In November 2011, Aronian played in the Tal Memorial in Moscow in a round robin with ten players. He tied for first with Magnus Carlsen, with both scoring 5½/9.


title: Levon Aronian

text: In January 2012, Aronian competed in the Tata Steel Chess Tournament in Wijk aan Zee; the field included world No. 1 Magnus Carlsen, defending champion Hikaru Nakamura, and former world champion Veselin Topalov, among others. Aronian had a tournament performance rating of 2891, taking first place ahead of Carlsen, Radjabov and Fabiano Caruana.


title: Levon Aronian

text: The Bilbao Chess Masters Final 2012 took place in October, in which Aronian came in third place. In December 2012, Aronian competed in the London Chess Classic, coming in sixth place with one win, 5 draws and 2 losses. Later that month, he won the SportAccord World Mind Games, a blindfold tournament, in Beijing.


title: Levon Aronian

text: In the Tata Steel Chess Tournament in January, Aronian finished second with five wins, one loss and seven draws, in second place behind Carlsen. Aronian finished fourth in the 2013 Candidates Tournament. In the 2013 Alekhine Memorial tournament, Aronian finished first, scoring three wins, one loss and five draws.


title: Levon Aronian

text: Aronian participated in the 2014 Zurich Chess Challenge and tied for second place, along with Fabiano Caruana. He played in the 2014 Candidates Tournament, and finished tied second to last.


title: Levon Aronian

text: Aronian played in the Tata Steel Chess Tournament in Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands. He scored one win, three losses and nine draws, for 5½/13 points. In February 2015, he played in the Grenke Chess Classic in Baden-Baden Germany, scoring 3½/7 points. Later that month, he played in the Zurich Chess Challenge 2015, winning the Blitz tournament with 4/5 points. He scored 4/10 points in the Classical tournament, and scored 3/5 points in the Rapid tournament. He finished 4th overall in the tournament.


title: Levon Aronian

text: Aronian participated in the Grand Chess Tour, a series of three super tournaments (Norway Chess, Sinquefield Cup, and London Chess Classic) in which players try to accumulate the most Grand Chess Tour points through the three tournaments. In Norway Chess, he scored 3 points out of 9 (9th place in the tournament). On 1 September 2015, he won the 3rd Sinquefield Cup, held in Saint Louis Missouri, US, with a +3 score and wins over Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura, and Wesley So. This result put him back up into the world's Top 10.


title: Levon Aronian

text: He played in the Chess World Cup 2015, a knockout chess tournament played in Baku, Azerbaijan. This tournament was one of the last remaining qualifiers for the Chess Candidates Tournament 2016 (winner and runner-up will qualify), which determined the challenger to Magnus Carlsen in the World Chess Championship 2016. He was eliminated in Round 2 by Grandmaster Alexander Areschenko. However, he qualified to play in the Candidates Tournament after he was selected by Armenian billionaire Samvel Karapetyan as the organizer's nominee.


title: Levon Aronian

text: In October 2015, he participated in the World Rapid and Blitz Championship in Berlin, Germany. In the Rapid Championship, he placed 43rd overall, scoring 8½/15 points. In the Blitz, he placed 11th overall, scoring 13½/21 points. Aronian played in the European Chess Club Cup for Team Siberia Novosibirsk. Team Siberia, which also included Vladimir Kramnik, Alexander Grischuk, Li Chao, Wang Yue, Anton Korobov, Dmitry Kokarev, and Dmitry Bocharov, won the event. Aronian scored 5 draws out of the 5 games he played in the event.


title: Levon Aronian

text: In December 2015, Aronian played in the final leg of the Grand Chess Tour, the London Chess Classic. In this tournament, he scored 5/9, with one victory against Veselin Topalov. Overall, he scored 22 Grand Tour Points out of a maximum 39 to earn himself a spot in the top 3 of the overall Tour standings, securing an invitation in the next Grand Chess Tour.


title: Levon Aronian

text: In April 2017, Levon Aronian played in the Grenke Chess Classic in Baden-Baden, Germany. In the 7-round tournament, he scored 5½ points, winning first place, 1½ points ahead of Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana.


title: Levon Aronian

text: On 16 June 2017, Aronian won the fifth edition of the Norway Chess Tournament (with a PR of 2918, and a full point ahead of nearest rivals), beating Magnus Carlsen, Vladimir Kramnik and Sergey Karjakin. In August 2017, Aronian placed joint-fourth out of ten players in the fifth edition of the Sinquefield Cup with a score of 5/9. On 18 August 2017, Aronian won the Saint Louis Rapid & Blitz with a score of 24½/36.


title: Levon Aronian

text: In September 2017, Aronian won the World Cup, and in doing so qualified for the Candidates Tournament for the 2018 World Chess Championship. In November 2017, Aronian won the gold medal for individual performance in the European Team Chess Championship. In the same month, he tied for first with Dmitry Jakovenko in the FIDE Grand Prix in Palma de Mallorca. In December 2017, Aronian took fifth place in the World Blitz Chess Championship in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with a score of 14/21 including wins over Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and defending champion Sergey Karjakin.In January 2018, Aronian won the 16th Annual Gibraltar Chess Festival on tiebreaks, beating runner-up Maxime Vachier-Lagrave 2½–1½, with an overall record of 7½/10. From 31 March to 9 April 2018, Aronian competed in the 5th Grenke Chess Classic. He finished fifth with a score of 5/9. From 28 May to 7 June, he competed in the sixth edition of Norway Chess, placing sixth with 4/8 points.


title: Levon Aronian

text: In August, he competed in the 6th Sinquefield Cup. He tied for first with Carlsen and Caruana on 5½/9, and jointly won the tournament after the trio decided to share the title.


title: Levon Aronian

text: In August 2019, for the second time, Aronian won the Saint Louis Rapid & Blitz tournament. He scored 22/36, with 13 points from the Rapid section and 9 points from the Blitz section. He reached the quarter finals in the Chess World Cup 2019 held in Khanty-Mansiysk. On 10 November, he won the Superbet Rapid & Blitz tournament held in Bucharest.


title: Levon Aronian

text: From 11 to 13 September, Aronian participated in the Chess 9LX 2020 Champions Showdown, where he obtained third place with 5.5/9 points, half a point behind joint leaders Hikaru Nakamura and Magnus Carlsen.


title: Levon Aronian

text: From 5 to 16 October, Aronian participated in the 8th Altibox Norway Chess. He scored a total of 17.5 points, which earned him 3rd place.


title: Levon Aronian

text: In February 2021, Aronian announced in a press release from the Saint Louis Chess Club that he would be switching federations from Armenia to the United States of America on the basis, among other things, of "the state's absolute indifference towards Armenian chess" and the ongoing war between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh. Aronian's official statement regarding this transfer is available on his official Facebook page. By the FIDE rating list at the time of the announcement, in which Aronian was the world number 5, that would make Aronian the US number 2. He left for the USA in September 2021.


title: Levon Aronian

text: On July 4, Aronian won the Goldmoney Asian Rapid chess tournament, beating Vladislav Artemiev in the finals 2-0. Aronian's prize was $30,000.


title: Levon Aronian

text: On 20 and 21 November, Aronian played in the blitz portion of the Tata Steel India Chess Tournament. He clinched first place by defeating GM Arjun Erigaisi in the Armaggedon.


title: Levon Aronian

text: From 26–28 December 2021, Aronian participated in the 2021 FIDE World Rapid Championship, where he ended up in seventh place with 9/13 points after tiebreaks.


title: Levon Aronian

text: He also participated in the World Blitz Chess Championship from 29–30 December, where he scored 14/21 points to obtain 5th place.


title: Levon Aronian

text: Through February and March 2022, Aronian played in the FIDE Grand Prix 2022. In the first leg, he placed first in Pool C with a 4.5/6 result and defeated Leinier Domínguez in the semifinals 1.5/2. He lost to Hikaru Nakamura in the finals with a 1/4 result in classical and rapid time formats. In the third leg, he finished third in Pool A with a result of 3/6, finishing fourth in the standings with 12 points.


title: Levon Aronian

text: In April 2022 he was a participant in the American Cup, winning the elimination bracket and finishing 2nd behind Fabiano Caruana.


title: Levon Aronian

text: In May 2022 he tied for first in the Superbet Chess Classic, losing in tiebreaks to Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, and Wesley So The same month, Aronian tied for second in the Superbet Rapid and Blitz Poland and became the number one ranked Blitz player in the world with a rating of 2850.


title: Levon Aronian

text: Aronian played for Armenia in the Chess Olympiads of 1996, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, and 2012. He took team bronze medal in 2004 and team gold medal in 2006, 2008 and 2012. In the 2010 Chess Olympiad he won the silver medal for his individual performance on board one. In the 2012 Chess Olympiad Aronian won the gold medal on board one. Aronian was a member of the gold medal-winning Armenian team at the World Team Chess Championship in 2011, where he won the silver medal on board one. Aronian again competed for Armenia in the 2013 World Team Chess Championship, where he won the gold medal on board one.


title: Levon Aronian

text: Aronian broke the 2800 rating barrier in the November 2010 FIDE world ranking with a rating of 2801. He is the sixth player to cross the 2800 rating mark, after Garry Kasparov, Vladimir Kramnik, Viswanathan Anand, Veselin Topalov, and Magnus Carlsen. In March 2014 he reached a personal rating record of 2830, which is the fourth-highest rating ever attained, behind only Carlsen, Kasparov, and Caruana.


title: Levon Aronian

text: In 2003 Aronian won the Finet Chess960 open at Mainz; this qualified him for a match against Chess960 World Champion Peter Svidler at Mainz the following year, a match which he lost 4½–3½. He won the Finet Chess960 open tournament again in 2005 which earned him a rematch with Svidler in 2006, and won the match this time 5–3 to become Chess960 World Champion.


title: Levon Aronian

text: In 2007, he successfully defended his title of Chess960 World Champion by beating Viswanathan Anand. He lost the title in 2009 to Hikaru Nakamura.


title: Levon Aronian

text: In 2019 Aronian participated in the Chess960 event The Champions Showdown 9LX. There he faced Hikaru Nakamura in a series of 6 rapid and 14 blitz games. Despite gaining a lead early on, at one point leading with the score 7½–½, he ended up losing 11½–14½.


title: Levon Aronian

text: Viswanathan Anand called Aronian "a very gifted tactician", and said that "He's always looking for various little tricks to solve technical tasks." In 2011, Boris Gelfand described Aronian as "the most striking player around, with the highest creative level, in terms both of openings and original ideas in the middlegame."


title: Levon Aronian

text: In a 2010 conference, Alexei Shirov said: "Levon Aronian is the most successful player with an ultra-aggressive style. He achieves this result thanks to his rare intuition in the sharpest positions." In 2012, Sergey Karjakin, speaking about Aronian's style, made an analogy with football and compared him with Lionel Messi.


title: Levon Aronian

text: As white, Aronian plays mainly 1. d4. According to Anand, "Though he opens with 1. d4, he treats these positions like an e4-player." Aronian is an expert in the Marshall Attack.


title: Levon Aronian

text: In 2012, together with Gabriel Sargissian, Aronian founded a chess school in Yerevan, where the most talented chess players between the ages of 10 and 18 can study.


title: Levon Aronian

text: Levon's mother, Seda Aronova, published a book about her son on 22 November 2013, recounting her memories of his childhood and accomplishments.


title: Levon Aronian

text: He is a jazz fan. His favorite musician is John Coltrane. His favorite classical composers include Bach, Bruckner, Mahler, and Shostakovich.


title: Levon Aronian

text: Levon started dating Filipino-Australian Woman International Master Arianne Caoili in 2008. The two announced their engagement in February 2015 and got married on 30 September 2017 in Yerevan. They had first met at the 1996 World Youth Chess Championships in Las Palmas and began a friendship in 2006, when their mutual friend International Master Alex Wohl reintroduced them in Berlin. On 30 March 2020, Aronian revealed on his Twitter account that Caoili had died. The Australian economist fell ill after seeming to have recovered from serious injuries sustained two weeks earlier in a car crash.


title: Levon Aronian

text: He is currently engaged to Ani Ayvazyan, an international literature major at the American University of Armenia.


title: Hypertrophy

text: Hypertrophy is the increase in the volume of an organ or tissue due to the enlargement of its component cells. It is distinguished from hyperplasia, in which the cells remain approximately the same size but increase in number. Although hypertrophy and hyperplasia are two distinct processes, they frequently occur together, such as in the case of the hormonally-induced proliferation and enlargement of the cells of the uterus during pregnancy.


title: Hypertrophy

text: Eccentric hypertrophy is a type of hypertrophy where the walls and chamber of a hollow organ undergo growth in which the overall size and volume are enlarged. It is applied especially to the left ventricle of heart. Sarcomeres are added in series, as for example in dilated cardiomyopathy (in contrast to hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a type of concentric hypertrophy, where sarcomeres are added in parallel).


title: Bob Pettit

text: Robert Lee Pettit Jr. (born December 12, 1932) is an American former professional basketball player. He played 11 seasons in the NBA, all with the Milwaukee/St. Louis Hawks (1954–1965). In 1956, he became the first recipient of the NBA's Most Valuable Player Award and he won the award again in 1959. He also won the NBA All-Star Game MVP award four times.


title: Bob Pettit

text: The first NBA player to score more than 20,000 points, Pettit was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1970. He is one of four players who was named to all four NBA anniversary teams. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest power forwards of all time.


title: Bob Pettit

text: Pettit's basketball career had humble beginnings, as at Baton Rouge High School, he was cut from the varsity basketball team as both a freshman and sophomore. He played church league basketball as a sophomore and grew five inches in less than a year. His father, sheriff of East Baton Rouge Parish (1932–1936), pushed him to practice in the backyard of the Kemmerly house until he improved his skills. It worked: Pettit became a starter and made the All-City prep team as a junior. As a 6-7 senior, he led Baton Rouge High to its first state championship in over 20 years. Pettit was then selected to play in a North–South all-star game at Murray, Kentucky.


title: Bob Pettit

text: After high school, Pettit had scholarship offers from 14 universities and accepted a scholarship to play at nearby Louisiana State University (LSU). He was a three-time All-Southeastern Conference selection and a two-time All-American as a member of the LSU men's basketball team. (Freshmen were not allowed to play varsity basketball in those days.) During those three years, Pettit averaged 27.8 points per game. He was also a member of the Zeta Zeta Chapter of Delta Kappa Epsilon at LSU.


title: Bob Pettit

text: Pettit made his varsity debut at LSU in 1952. He led the SEC in scoring for his first of three consecutive seasons, averaging 25.5 points per game. He ranked third in the nation in scoring and also averaged 13.1 rebounds per game, helping his team to a 17-7 win–loss record for a second-place finish in the league, and was selected to the All-SEC team.


title: Bob Pettit

text: During his junior year, Pettit helped the Tigers sail through a 23-game regular-season schedule with only one loss (to Tulsa). A clean sweep of SEC Conference opponents became LSU's second SEC Title (their first came in 1935) and the school's first NCAA Final Four. He averaged 24.9 points and 13.9 rebounds per game for the 1953 season. He was honored with selections to both the All-SEC and All-American teams.


title: Bob Pettit

text: Pettit averaged 31.4 points and 17.3 rebounds per game during his senior year and once again led LSU to an SEC Championship and garnered All-SEC and All-American honors. He set a then-SEC scoring record of 60 points against Louisiana College in his second game, and also the SEC record for scoring average, with both records being broken by Pete Maravich. Pettit also was the second player in major-college basketball history to average more than 30 points a game.


title: Bob Pettit

text: In 1954, his number 50 was retired at LSU. He was the first Tiger athlete in any sport to receive this distinction. In 1999, he was named Living Legend for LSU at the SEC Basketball Tournament. He is a member of the LSU Hall of Fame. "Bob Pettit Boulevard" in Baton Rouge, Louisiana is named after him.


title: Bob Pettit

text: In 1954, the Milwaukee Hawks selected Pettit second in the first round of the NBA Draft after the Baltimore Bullets' selection of Frank Selvy. With $100 in the bank, he signed a contract with Hawks owner Ben Kerner for $11,000 – an all-time high for an NBA rookie then. Pettit's awkward ballhandling and a lack of strength to battle NBA bruisers weighing 200 pounds that early in his career, had Hawks coach Red Holzman move him from center, his position at LSU, to forward in his first training camp. "In college I played the standing pivot", he said in a April 1957 issue of SPORT magazine interview. "My back was to the basket. In the pros, I'm always outside. Everything I do is facing the basket now. That was my chief difficulty in adjusting, the fact that I had never played forward before." Though many were skeptical about Pettit making the transition from college to the rough-and-tumble NBA, in 1955 he won the NBA Rookie of the Year Award after averaging 20.4 points and 13.8 rebounds per game. He became the second rookie to win all-NBA honors but the team finished last in the Western Division. After the season, the Hawks moved to St. Louis.


title: Bob Pettit

text: He helped the Hawks improve during their first year in St. Louis by winning 33 games during 1955–56. In his second season, Pettit adjusted his game so that he would get to the free-throw line for easy points for his team and foul trouble for his opponents. Being a phenomenal offensive rebounder and an instinctive scorer, he told basketball historian Terry Pluto that "Offensive rebounds were worth eight to 12 points a night to me. Then I'd get another eight to 10 at the free-throw line. All I had to do was make a few jump shots and I was on my way to a good night." Pettit won his first scoring title with a 25.7 average, and led the league in rebounding (1164 for a 16.2 average). He was also named MVP of the 1956 NBA All-Star Game after scoring 20 points with 24 rebounds and 7 assists; he would win subsequent MVP All-Star Game honors in 1958, 1959, and 1962. He also won his first of two NBA regular season MVP awards (the other was in 1959).


title: Bob Pettit

text: Retooling before the 1956–57 season, the Hawks acquired Ed Macauley and rookie Cliff Hagan from the Boston Celtics for the draft rights to Bill Russell. The team added guard Slater Martin in an early-season deal with the New York Knicks while Alex Hannum arrived a few weeks later after being released by the Fort Wayne Pistons. Hannum became the team's third coach that season by taking over as player-coach with 31 games left on the schedule. Though they posted a 34-38 record in 1956–57, a series of tie-breaking playoff games against the Pistons and a three-game sweep of the Minneapolis Lakers had them in the NBA Finals. In Game 1 of the 1957 NBA Finals at the Boston Garden, Pettit scored 37 points as the Hawks shocked the Bill Russell-led Boston Celtics in double overtime. Pettit won his team the third game in the series with a late basket in St. Louis. His two free throws with six seconds left in Game 7 forced overtime, but Pettit's 39 points and 19 rebounds in 56 minutes weren't enough to win a double-overtime game. Pettit averaged 29.8 points and 16.8 rebounds per game during their 1957 playoff run.


title: Bob Pettit

text: A franchise-record 41 wins and a division crown allowed the Hawks to get back at the Celtics in the 1958 NBA Finals. Pettit led the Hawks to an NBA Championship with a then-playoff record 50 points in the Hawks' 110-109 series-clinching victory in game 6. Pettit’s 50 points stood alone as the most in a Finals close-out victory until it was matched by Giannis Antetokounmpo in 2021. Both teams would later meet in the 1960 and 1961 Finals, with Boston winning each time. For the season, Pettit scored 24.6 ppg and pulled down 17.4 rpg, and earned All-Star Game MVP honors with a performance that included 28 points and 26 rebounds. St. Louis finished at the top of the Western Division in each of the next three seasons. Pettit's league-leading scoring average of 29.2 points per game in the 1958–59 season was an NBA record at the time, and he was named the Sporting News NBA MVP.


title: Bob Pettit

text: In the 1960–61 season, Pettit averaged 27.9 points per game and pulled down 20.3 rebounds per game, making him one of only five players to ever break the 20 rpg barrier. He, along with Wilt Chamberlain and Jerry Lucas, are the only three people who averaged more than twenty points and twenty rebounds in an NBA season. On February 18, 1961, Pettit scored a career-high 57 points and grabbed 28 rebounds in a 141-138 win over the Detroit Pistons.


title: Bob Pettit

text: In the following season, he scored a career-best 31.1 points per game, but the Hawks slipped to fourth place. After missing 30 games because of injuries, Pettit ended his career in 1965 still near the peak of his game. He was the first NBA player to eclipse the 20,000 points mark (20,880 for a 26.4 average). Of the 20,880 points he scored in the NBA, 6,182 of them (nearly 30 percent) came from free throws. His 12,849 rebounds were second-most in league history at the time he retired, and his 16.2 rebounds per game career average remains third only to Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell.


title: Bob Pettit

text: Pettit was an NBA All-Star in each of his 11 seasons, was named to the All-NBA First Team ten times, and was named to the All-NBA Second Team once. Pettit still holds the top two NBA All-Star Game rebounding performances with 26 in 1958 and 27 in 1962, and has the second-highest All-Star Game points per game average with 20.4 (behind only Oscar Robertson). Pettit averaged at least 20 points per game and at least 12 rebounds per game in each of his 11 NBA seasons. He never finished below seventh in the NBA scoring race and no other retired player in NBA history other than Pettit and Alex Groza (who played only two seasons) has averaged "more" than 20 points per game in every season they've played (note: Michael Jordan averaged "exactly" 20 points per game in his final season).


title: Bob Pettit

text: In 1970, Petit was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. He is one of four players who was named to all four NBA anniversary teams (25th, 35th, 50th, 75th), along with Bob Cousy, George Mikan, and Bill Russell.


title: Bob Pettit

text: Pettit worked in the banking industry in Baton Rouge and Metairie for 23 years before entering financial consulting in 1988. In 2006, he retired from Equitas Capital Investors, a financial consulting company that he co-founded.


title: Cyclamen

text: Cyclamen ( or ) is a genus of 23 species of perennial flowering plants in the family Primulaceae. "Cyclamen" species are native to Europe and the Mediterranean Basin east to the Caucasus and Iran, with one species in Somalia. They grow from tubers and are valued for their flowers with upswept petals and variably patterned leaves.


title: Cyclamen

text: It was traditionally classified in the family Primulaceae, was reclassified in the family Myrsinaceae in 2000 and finally, in 2009 with the introduction of the APG III system, was returned to the subfamily Myrsinoideae within the family Primulaceae.


title: Cyclamen

text: "Cyclamen" is Medieval Latin, from earlier Latin "cyclamīnos", from Ancient Greek κυκλάμινος, "kyklā́mīnos" (also "kyklāmī́s"), from κύκλος, "kýklos" "circle", because of the round tuber. In English the species of the genus are commonly called by the genus name.


title: Cyclamen

text: In many languages cyclamen species are colloquially called by a name like the English sowbread or swinebread (because they are said to be eaten by pigs), based on Medieval Latin "panis porcinus": "Saubrot" in German, "pain de pourceau" in French, "pan porcino" in Italian and "varkensbrood" in Dutch.


title: Cyclamen

text: Cyclamen have a tuber, from which the leaves, flowers and roots grow. In most species leaves come up in autumn, grow through the winter and then die in spring, then the plant goes "dormant" through the dry Mediterranean summer.


title: Cyclamen

text: The storage organ of the cyclamen is a round tuber, which develops from the hypocotyl (the stem of a seedling). It is often mistakenly called a corm, but a corm (found in crocuses, for example) has a papery tunic and a basal plate from which the roots grow. The storage organ of the cyclamen has no papery covering and, depending on the species, roots may grow out of any part. It is therefore properly classified as a tuber (somewhat like a potato). The tuber may produce roots from the top, sides or bottom, depending on the species. "Cyclamen persicum" and "Cyclamen coum" root from the bottom; "Cyclamen hederifolium" roots from the top and sides. "Cyclamen graecum" has thick anchor roots on the bottom.


title: Cyclamen

text: The shape of the tuber may be near spherical, as in "Cyclamen coum", or flattened, as in "Cyclamen hederifolium". In some older specimens of "Cyclamen purpurascens" and "Cyclamen rohlfsianum" growing points on the tuber become separated by shoulders of tissue and the tuber becomes misshapen. In most other species the tuber is round in old age.


title: Cyclamen

text: Leaves and flowers sprout from growing points on the top of the tuber. Growing points that have lengthened and become like woody stems are known as floral trunks.


title: Cyclamen

text: The size of the tuber varies depending on species. In "Cyclamen hederifolium" older tubers commonly reach across, but in "Cyclamen parviflorum" tubers do not grow larger than across.


title: Cyclamen

text: Leaves sprout from growing points or floral trunks on top of the tuber. Each leaf grows on its own stem. Leaf stems in early growth may be distinguished from flower stems by the direction their tips curl: tips of leaf stems curl upwards and those of flower stems curl downwards.


title: Cyclamen

text: The shape of the leaves varies among the species and even among different specimens of the same species. "Cyclamen hederifolium" and "Cyclamen repandum" usually have leaves shaped like ivy, with angles and lobes, "Cyclamen coum" has nearly round leaves and "Cyclamen persicum" has heart-shaped leaves with a pointed tip. The leaf margin may be smooth, as in "Cyclamen coum" subsp. "coum", or finely toothed, as in "Cyclamen graecum".


title: Cyclamen

text: The color of the upper side of leaves is variable, even within a species. Most species have leaves variegated in several shades of green and silver, either in an irregular pattern of blotches or an arrowhead or Christmas-tree shape. In cultivation cyclamen, especially species other than "Cyclamen persicum", are selected as often for striking or unusual leaf patterns as for their flowers.


title: Cyclamen

text: Most cyclamen species originate from the Mediterranean, where summers are hot and dry and winters are cool and wet, and are summer-dormant: their leaves sprout in the autumn, remain through the winter and wither the next spring. "Cyclamen purpurascens" and "Cyclamen colchicum", however, originate from cooler regions in mountains and their leaves remain through the summer and wither only after the next year's leaves have developed.


title: Cyclamen

text: Flowering time may be any month of the year, depending on the species. "Cyclamen hederifolium" and "Cyclamen purpurascens" bloom in summer and autumn, "Cyclamen persicum" and "Cyclamen coum" bloom in winter and "Cyclamen repandum" blooms in spring.


title: Cyclamen

text: Each flower is on a stem coming from a growing point on the tuber. In all species the stem is normally bent 150-180° at the tip so that the nose of the flower faces downwards. "Cyclamen hederifolium" 'Stargazer' is an exception: its nose faces upwards. Flowers have 5 petals, bent outwards or up, sometimes twisted, and connected at the base into a cup, and five sepals behind the cup.


title: Cyclamen

text: Petal shape varies depending on species and sometimes within the same species. "Cyclamen repandum" has petals much longer than wide, "Cyclamen coum" has stubby, almost round petals, and "Cyclamen hederifolium" usually has petals with proportions between the two.


title: Cyclamen

text: Petal color may be white, pink or purple, often with darker color on the nose. Many species have a pink form and a white form but a few have only one color, such as "Cyclamen balearicum", which is always white.


title: Cyclamen

text: The dark color on the flower nose varies in shape: "Cyclamen persicum" has a smooth band, "Cyclamen hederifolium" has a streaky V and "Cyclamen coum" has an M-shaped splotch with two white or pink ‘eyes’ beneath.


title: Cyclamen

text: In some species, such as "Cyclamen hederifolium", the petal edges at the nose are curved outwards into "auricles" (Latin for ‘little ears’). Most species, such as "Cyclamen persicum", have no auricles.


title: Cyclamen

text: In most species the style protrudes 1–3 mm out of the nose of the flower but the stamens are inside the flower. In "Cyclamen rohlfsianum", however, the cone of anthers sticks out prominently, about beyond the rim of the corolla, similar to shooting-stars ("Primula" sect. "Dodecatheon").


title: Cyclamen

text: The flower stem coils or bends when the fruit begins to form. The stems of "Cyclamen hederifolium" and "Cyclamen coum" coil starting at the end, "Cyclamen persicum" arches downwards but does not curl, "Cyclamen rohlfsianum" coils start near the tuber and "Cyclamen graecum" coils in both directions, starting in the middle.


title: Cyclamen

text: The fruit is a round pod, which opens by several flaps or teeth at maturity and contains numerous sticky seeds, brown at maturity. Natural seed dispersal is by ants (myrmecochory), which eat the sticky covering and then discard the seeds.


title: Cyclamen

text: A phylogeny of "Cyclamen" published in 2000, with four supported clades approximately corresponding to four subgenera, is shown below. The phylogeny is based on morphology, cytology and DNA-sequences. A few species that were not included in the analysis are placed based on morphology only and are noted with a question mark.


title: Cyclamen

text: A study published in 2004 produced a similar phylogeny in a combined analysis of molecular and morphological data:


title: Cyclamen

text: A comparison of the groups produced in the two studies shows them to be very similar (see the table below). Nevertheless, the authors of the 2004 study declined to produce a subgeneric classification, concluding that more work was needed to align the phylogeny and classification of "Cyclamen", stating that "the publication of formal classifications before adequate data can provide a clear and consistent pattern of information, leads to nomenclatural instability".


title: Cyclamen

text: Cyclamen diversity in the Mediterranean has been studied extensively to understand how the species remain distinct (Debussche et al., 2000, 2002, 2003) and how they have reacted to the dramatic climate changes in the region. Certain climate-change models suggest many species could become extinct in their current range within the next 50 years.


title: Cyclamen

text: In many areas within the native range cyclamen populations have been severely depleted by collection from the wild, often illegally, for the horticultural trade; some species are now endangered as a result. However in a few areas plant-conservation charities have educated local people to control the harvest carefully at a sustainable level, including sowing seed for future crops, both sustaining the wild populations and producing a reliable long-term income. Many cyclamen are also propagated in nurseries without harm to the wild plants.


title: Cyclamen

text: In the sixteenth century, women in their early stages of pregnancy avoided cyclamens in fear of a miscarriage because they were considered to strongly induce childbirth.


title: Cyclamen

text: Cyclamens were used as love-charms, aphrodisiacs, and intoxicant and a small amount would be put in cakes or a cup of wine.


title: Cyclamen

text: Cyclamen are commonly grown for their flowers, both outdoors and indoors in pots. Several species, particularly "Cyclamen hederifolium", are hardy and can be grown outdoors in mild climates such as northwest Europe and the Pacific Northwest of North America.


title: Cyclamen

text: The most frost-hardy species, such as "C. purpurascens", "C. hederifolium", "C. coum" and "C. cilicium", tolerate temperatures down to . "C. hederifolium" has even survived prolonged freezing and temperatures down to . "C. repandum" survives temperatures down to but not prolonged freezing below this temperature. "C. graecum" tolerates frost as low as for a few hours. Others, such as "C. africanum", "C. persicum" and "C. rohlfsianum", tolerate only mild and brief frost.


title: Cyclamen

text: The cyclamen commonly sold by florists is "Cyclamen persicum", which is frost-tender. Selected cyclamen cultivars have white, bright pink, red or purple flowers. While flowering florists' cyclamen should be kept below , with the night-time temperatures preferably . Temperatures above may induce the plant to become dormant.


title: Astrological age

text: An astrological age is a time period in astrological theory which astrologers say, parallels major changes in the development of Earth's inhabitants, particularly relating to culture, society, and politics. There are twelve astrological ages corresponding to the twelve zodiacal signs in western astrology. Advocates believe that when one cycle of the twelve astrological ages, called a Great Year, is completed, another cycle of twelve ages begins. The length of one cycle of twelve ages is 25,772 years.


title: Astrological age

text: Some astrologers believe that during a given age, some events are directly caused or indirectly influenced by the astrological sign associated with that age, while other astrologers believe the different astrological ages do not influence events in any way.


title: Astrological age

text: Astrologers do not agree upon exact dates for the beginning or ending of the ages, with given dates varying by hundreds of years.


title: Astrological age

text: The following table of astrological ages was compiled by Neil Mann, and are based off typical durations cited for each era, as well as developments in human history typically cited as being influenced by the vernal equinox sign thereof. He notes that the supposed influences of the zodiac signs on human history are biased and rely on widely varying dates for the events cited, as well as selective cherry picking of evidence.


title: Astrological age

text: Definitive details on the astrological ages are lacking, and consequently most details available about the astrological ages are disputed. The 20th-century British astrologer Charles Carter stated that "It is probable that there is no branch of Astrology upon which more nonsense has been poured forth than the doctrine of the precession of the equinoxes."


title: Astrological age

text: Neil Spencer in his 2000 book "True as the Stars Above" expressed a similar opinion about the astrological ages. Spencer characterizes the concept as being "fuzzy", "speculative", and the least-defined area of astrological lore. Derek and Julia Parker state that it is impossible to state the exact date for the start of any astrological age and acknowledge that many astrologers believe the Age of Aquarius has arrived while many say the world is at the end of the Age of Pisces.


title: Astrological age

text: Ray Grasse states in "Signs of the Times" that "there is considerable dispute over the exact starting and ending times for the different Great Ages." Paul Wright in "The Great Ages and Other Astrological Cycles" says that much of the uncertainty related to the astrological ages is because many astrologers have a poor understanding of the meaning of the astrological symbolism and "even poorer historical knowledge".


title: Astrological age

text: Though so many issues are contentious or disputed, there are two aspects of the astrological ages that have virtually unanimous consensus—firstly, the theorized link of the astrological ages to the axial precession of the Earth and commonly referred to as "precession of the equinoxes"; secondly, that, due to the nature of the precession of the equinoxes, the progression of the ages proceeds in reverse direction through the zodiacal signs.


title: Astrological age

text: Astrologers use many ways to divide the Great Year into twelve astrological ages. There are two popular methods. One method is to divide the Great Year into twelve astrological ages of approximately equal lengths of around 2156 years per age based on the vernal equinox (also known as "vernal point") moving through the sidereal zodiac. Another method is to significantly vary the duration of each astrological age based on the passage of the vernal equinox measured against the actual zodiacal constellations. Each of those twelve sections of the Great Year can be called either an astrological age, Precessional Age, or a Great Month.


title: Astrological age

text: The method based on the zodiacal constellations has a flaw in that from the reckoning of classical-era astronomer/astrologers like Claudius Ptolemy, many constellations overlap, a problem only eliminated in the past 200 years by the adoption of official constellation boundaries. For example, by 2700 CE the vernal point will have moved into Aquarius, but from a classical-era point of view, the vernal point will also point to Pisces due to the pre-boundary overlap.


title: Astrological age

text: Many astrologers consider the entrance into a new astrological age a gradual transition called a "cusp". For example, Ray Grasse states that an astrological age does not begin at an exact day or year. Paul Wright states that a transition effect does occur at the border of the astrological ages. Consequently, the beginning of any age cannot be defined to a single year or a decade but blend its influences with the previous age for a period of time until the new age can stand in its own right. In Nicholas Campion's "The Book of World Horoscopes" there are six pages listing researchers and their proposed dates for the start of the Age of Aquarius indicating that many researchers believe that each age commences at an exact date.


title: Astrological age

text: Many astrologers find ages too erratic based on either the vernal point moving through the randomly sized zodiacal constellations or sidereal zodiac and, instead, round all astrological ages to exactly 2000 years each. In this approach the ages are usually neatly aligned so that the Aries age is found from 2000 BC to AD 1, Pisces age AD 1 to AD 2000, the Aquarian Age AD 2000 - AD 4000, and so on. This approach is inconsistent with the precession of the equinoxes. Based on precession of the equinoxes, there is a one-degree shift approximately every 72 years, so a 30-degree movement requires 2160 years to complete.


title: Astrological age

text: An established school of thought is that an age is also influenced by the sign opposite to the one of the astrological age. Referring back to the precession of the Equinoxes, as the Sun crosses one constellation in the Northern Hemisphere's spring Equinox (21 March), it will cross the opposite sign in the spring Equinox in the Southern Hemisphere (21 September). For instance, the Age of Pisces is complemented by its opposite astrological sign of Virgo (the Virgin); so a few refer to the Piscean age as the 'Age of Pisces-Virgo'. Adopting this approach, the Age of Aquarius would become the Age of Aquarius-Leo. In his writings Ray Grasse also espouses the link between each sign of the zodiac and its opposite sign.


title: Astrological age

text: The great demarcation point in the history of the astrological ages is around 127 BC when the Greek astronomer-astrologer Hipparchus from observation discovered that the great immovable sphere of fixed stars was not fixed but slowly moving eastwards due to what is now known as precession of the equinoxes. It is possible that some other astronomers before Hipparchus had also noticed the phenomenon, but it is Hipparchus who is credited with this discovery (See "Ancient Mesopotamian religion".)


title: Astrological age

text: Giorgio de Santillana (1902 – 1974) became professor of the History of Science in the School of Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1954, and along with Hertha von Dechend, published "Hamlet's Mill, An Essay on Myth and the Frame of Time" in 1969. It was an attempt to marry science and mythology that had become separated by the ancient Greeks. Santillana and von Dechend believed that the old mythological stories handed down from antiquity were not random fictitious tales but were accurate depictions of celestial cosmology clothed in tales to aid their oral transmission. The chaos, monsters, and violence in ancient myths are representative of the forces that shape each age. They believed that ancient myths are the remains of preliterate astronomy that became lost with the rise of the Greco-Roman civilization.


title: Astrological age

text: Santillana and von Dechend state that ancient myths have no historical basis but a cosmological one based on a primitive form of astrology. They recognized the importance of the heliacally rising constellation as markers for the astrological ages and wrote that knowledge of this phenomenon had been known for thousands of years previously. They state that to understand ancient thinking it is necessary to understand astrology, not the modern sun-sign or horoscopic astrology, but the astrology of ancient times which was the "lingua franca" of ancient times. Gavin White supports the mythological connection between precession of the equinoxes and some ancient star myths.


title: Astrological age

text: They go further and state that our knowledge of the dawn of astrology and its relationship to ancient myths and star names is limited, and only extends back to about 2100 BC, which was during the Renaissance of Sumerian Culture; we are not able, they say, to examine older material on the subject. In "Hamlet's Mill" it is stated that the ancient Greeks knew of three successive destructions that correlate to three ages, and that since the beginning of history the vernal point has moved through Taurus, Aries, and Pisces. Hesiod in "Works and Days" refers to five successive ages. White states that the stars and many constellations were first organized in Mesopotamia region in the 5th millennium BCE but many of these constellations had to be reorganized by the middle of the 3rd millennium BCE due to the shift in the heavens caused by precession of the equinoxes. Some ancient constellations were removed from the sky map, and new constellations were added to better align with the seasons.


title: Astrological age

text: As early as 1811, modern researchers were examining evidence for knowledge of precession of the equinoxes and astrological ages before Hipparchus. Sir William Drummond published "Oedipus Judaicus: Allegory in the Old Testament" in 1811. Drummond expounds on his hypothesis that a greater part of the Hebrew Scriptures are merely allegorical writings that hide the true content. Furthermore, the Orientalists were mainly concerned with astronomy and most of their ancient myths are really disguised astronomical records. Drummond believed that the 49th chapter of Genesis contains prophecies allied to astronomy and that the twelve tribes of Israel represented the 12 zodiacal signs.


title: Astrological age

text: Drummond makes his case that at the time of Abraham, the Amorites first recorded the shift from the Age of Taurus to the Age of Aries as represented by the year commencing with the Ram (Aries) rather than the bull (Taurus). The Book of Joshua indicates that by the time of Moses the equinoxes had already shifted from Taurus to Aries, as Moses had ordained that the civil year should commence with the month of Nisan (Aries) rather than the month of Taurus. The feast of the Passover is probably a celebration of the Age of Aries with the Paschal Lamb representative of Aries, traditionally associated with the symbol of the ram or sheep.


title: Astrological age

text: Drummond also hypothesizes that most number references in ancient texts were coded to hide their real value by multiples of 1,000. For example, in the Old Testament Joshua commanded 30,000 men, and he slew 12,000 inhabitants of the city of Ai. The historian Berosus stated the Babylonians commenced astronomical observations 49,000 years (7 × 7 x 1000) before Alexander the Great. Most early references were related to 7 (Sun, Moon, and five visible planets), 12 (number of zodiacal signs and months per year), 30 (degrees per sign of the zodiac), and higher combinations of these numbers and other numbers associated with astronomical observations and astrology.


title: Astrological age

text: The problem of understanding the exact nature of ancient astrology is that it was only partly documented, leaving the question of the extent of their undocumented astrological knowledge. Michael Baigent in "From the Omens of Babylon: Astrology and Ancient Mesopotamia" suggests that there is evidence that there was probably an older or parallel oral tradition of astrology at the time of publication of Enuma Anu Enlil believed published over the period (1595–1157 BC). The ancient Mesopotamians believed that history repeated itself after a massive cycle of many years.


title: Astrological age

text: In the early post-Hipparchus period, two schools of thought developed about the slow shift of the fixed sphere of stars as discovered by Hipparchus. One school believed that at 1 degree shift per 100 years, the sphere of fixed stars would return to its starting point after 36,000 years. The trepidation school believed that the fixed stars first moved one way, then moved the other way - similar to a giant pendulum. It was believed that the 'swinging' stars first moved 8 degrees one direction, then reversed this 8 degrees travelling the other direction.


title: Astrological age

text: Theon of Alexandria in the 4th century AD includes trepidation when he wrote "Small Commentary to the Handy Tables". In the 5th century AD, the Greek Neoplatonist philosopher Proclus mentions that both theories were being discussed. The Indians around the 5th century AD preferred the trepidation theory but because they had observed the movement of the fixed stars by 25 degrees since ancient times (since around 1325 BC), they considered that trepidation swung back and forth around 27 degrees.


title: Astrological age

text: The significant early exponent of the 'circular 36,000' years method was Ptolemy and, due to the status placed upon Ptolemy by later scholars, the Christian and Muslim astronomers of the Middle Ages accepted the Great Year of 36,000 years rather than trepidation. However some scholars gave credence to both theories based on the addition of another sphere which is represented in the Alfonsine tables produced by the Toledo School of Translators in the 12th and 13th centuries. The Alfonsine tables computed the positions of the sun, moon, and planets relative to the fixed stars. The Italian astronomer Cecco d'Ascoli, professor of astrology at the University of Bologna in the early 14th century, continued to have faith in trepidation but believed it swung 10 degrees in either direction. Copernicus refers to trepidation in "De revolutionibus orbium coelestium" published in 1543.


title: Astrological age

text: Hipparchus' discovery of precession of the equinoxes may have created the Mithraic Mysteries, colloquially also known as Mithraism, a 1st – 4th century neo-Platonic mystery cult of the Roman god Mithras. The near-total lack of written descriptions or scripture necessitates a reconstruction of beliefs and practices from the archaeological evidence, such as that found in Mithraic temples (in modern times called "mithraea"), which were real or artificial caves representing the cosmos. Until the 1970s most scholars followed Franz Cumont in identifying Mithras as a continuation of the Persian god Mithra. Cumont's continuity hypothesis led him to believe that the astrological component was a late and unimportant accretion.


title: Astrological age

text: Cumont's views are no longer followed. Today, the cult and its beliefs are recognized as a synthesis of late-classical Greco-Roman thought, with an astrological component even more astrology-centric than the already Roman beliefs generally were during the early Roman Empire. The details remain debated.


title: Astrological age

text: As far as axial precession is concerned, one scholar of Mithraism, David Ulansey, has interpreted Mithras as a personification of the force responsible for precession. He argues that the cult was a religious response to Hipparchus's discovery of precession, which – from the ancient geocentric perspective – amounted to the discovery that the "entire cosmos" (i.e., the outermost celestial sphere of the fixed stars) was moving in a previously unknown way. Ulansey's analysis is based on the so-called "tauroctony": The image of Mithras killing a bull that was placed at the center of every Mithraic temple. In the standard tauroctony, Mithras and the bull are accompanied by a "dog", a "snake", a "raven", a "scorpion" and two identical young men, with torches.


title: Astrological age

text: According to Ulansey, the tauroctony is a schematic star chart. The bull is Taurus, a constellation of the zodiac. In the astrological age that preceded the time of Hipparchus, the vernal equinox had taken place when the Sun was in the constellation of Taurus, and during that previous epoch the constellations of Canis Minor (The Dog), Hydra (The Snake), Corvus (The Raven), and Scorpius (The Scorpion) – that is, the constellations that correspond to the animals depicted in the tauroctony – all lay on the celestial equator (the location of which is shifted by the precession) and thus had privileged positions in the sky during that epoch. Mithras himself represents the constellation Perseus, which is located directly above Taurus the Bull: The same location occupied by Mithras in the tauroctony image. Mithras' killing of the Bull, by this reasoning, represented the power possessed by this new god to shift the entire cosmic structure, turning the cosmic sphere so that the location of the spring equinox left the constellation of Taurus (a transition symbolized by the killing of the Bull), and the Dog, Snake, Raven, and Scorpion likewise lost their privileged positions on the celestial equator.


title: Astrological age

text: The iconography also contains two torch-bearing twins (Cautes and Cautopates) framing the bull-slaying image – one holding a torch pointing up and the other a torch pointing down. These torch-bearers are sometimes depicted with one of them (torch up) holding or associated with a Bull and a tree with leaves, and the other (torch down) holding or associated with a Scorpion and a tree with fruit. Ulansey interprets these torch-bearers as representing the spring equinox (torch up, tree with leaves, Bull) and the autumn equinox (torch down, tree with fruit, Scorpion) in Taurus and Scorpius respectively, which is where the equinoxes were located during the preceding "Age of Taurus" symbolized in the tauroctony as a whole.


title: Astrological age

text: From this, Ulansey concludes that Mithraic iconography was an "astronomical code" whose secret was the existence of a new cosmic divinity, unknown to those outside the cult, whose fundamental attribute was his ability to shift the structure of the entire cosmos, and thereby to control the astrological forces believed at that time to determine human existence. That gave him the power to grant his devotees success during life and salvation after death (i.e., a safe journey through the planetary spheres and a subsequent immortal existence in the sphere of the stars).


title: Astrological age

text: Though the one degree per hundred years calculated for precession of the equinoxes as defined by Hipparchus and promulgated by Ptolemy was too slow, another rate of precession that was too fast also gained popularity in the 1st millennium AD. By the fourth century AD, Theon of Alexandria assumed a changing rate (trepidation) of one degree per 66 years. The tables of the Shah (Zij-i Shah) originate in the sixth century, but are unfortunately lost, but many later Arabic and Persian astronomers and astrologers refer to them and also use this value.


title: Astrological age

text: These later astronomers-astrologers or sources include: Al-Khwarizmi, Zij al Sindhind or "Star Tables Based on the Indian Calculation Method"(c. 800); "Tabulae probatae" or "az-Zig al-mumtan" (c. 830); Al-Battani, Albategnius, al-Zij (c. 880); and al-Sufi, Azophi (c. 965); Al Biruni (973-1048), "al Canon al Masud" or "The Masʿūdic Canon"; Arabic fixed star catalogue of 1 October 1112 (ed. Paul Kunitzsch); and "Libros del Saber de Astronomía" by Alfonso X of Castile(1252-1284).


title: Astrological age

text: There exists evidence that the modern calendar developed by Dionysius Exiguus in the 6th century AD commencing with the birth of Jesus Christ at AD 1 was influenced by precession of the equinoxes and astrological ages. Dionysius' desire to replace Diocletian years (Diocletian persecuted Christians) with a calendar based on the incarnation of Christ was to prevent people from believing the imminent end of the world. At the time it was believed that the Resurrection and end of the world would occur 500 years after the birth of Jesus. The current Anno Mundi calendar theoretically commenced with the creation of the world based on information in the Old Testament. It was believed that based on the Anno Mundi calendar Jesus was born in the year 5500 (or 5500 years after the world was created) with the year 6000 of the Anno Mundi calendar marking the end of the world.