title: History of Las Vegas

text: In the 2010s, many analysts agreed that the Las Vegas economy is recovering, with improving conditions in tourism and the housing market for 2013. Prices are rising and there has been a large increase in the million dollar home market, with many new custom homes being built. January 2013 marked the 19th consecutive month with home sales higher than the same month in the previous year. In addition, Las Vegas was named America's Top Turn Around Market for 2012 by Trulia.


title: History of Las Vegas

text: During the late evening of October 1, 2017, Las Vegas became the scene of the deadliest mass shooting committed by a single gunman in the history of the United States. A gunman opened fire on Route 91 Harvest festival-goers from the Mandalay Bay resort, killing 60 and injuring 867.


title: History of Las Vegas

text: The Alpine Motel Apartments fire occurred in downtown Las Vegas in December 2019, killing six people. It is the deadliest fire to occur in city limits.


title: History of Las Vegas

text: The COVID-19 pandemic reached the city in March 2020, having various effects such as business closures and time. This has also led to mass cancellation of events and festivals.


title: History of Las Vegas

text: Due to concerns about climate change in the wake of a 2002 drought, daily water consumption in Las Vegas has been reduced from 314 gallons per resident in 2003 to around 205 gallons in 2015. Despite these conservation efforts, local water consumption remains 30 percent more than in Los Angeles, and over three times that of San Francisco. In June 2017, a heat wave grounded more than 40 airline flights of small aircraft, with American Airlines reducing sales on certain flights and Las Vegas tying its record high at 117 degrees Fahrenheit.


title: Lasse Hallström

text: Lars Sven "Lasse" Hallström (; born 2 June 1946) is a Swedish film director. He first became known for directing almost all the music videos by the pop group ABBA, and subsequently became a feature film director. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director for "My Life as a Dog (Mitt liv som hund)" (1985) and later for "The Cider House Rules" (1999). His other celebrated directorial works include "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" (1993) and "Chocolat" (2000).


title: Lasse Hallström

text: Hallström was born in Stockholm, Sweden. His father Nils Hallström was a dentist and his mother was the writer Karin Lyberg (1907–2000). His maternal grandfather, Ernst Lyberg, was the Minister of Finance in the first cabinet of Carl Gustaf Ekman (1926–1928) and leader of the Liberal Party of Sweden (1930–1933). His father was also enthusiastic about film and made a film called "Sommarstad" in 1939.


title: Lasse Hallström

text: Hallström attended Adolf Fredrik's Music School in Stockholm. He made his directorial debut in 1973, directing the comedy series "Pappas pojkar" for Swedish TV. He frequently collaborated with comic actors Magnus Härenstam and Brasse Brännström during his Swedish period. Between 1974 and 1982, Hallström worked with the Swedish group ABBA on many of their promotional videos and also directed their 1977 film "".


title: Lasse Hallström

text: After the international success of "My Life as a Dog" (1985), for which he was nominated for Academy Awards for writing and directing, Hallström has since worked in Hollywood. His first English-language film was "Once Around", but his first notable English-language success was "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" (1993), starring Johnny Depp and Leonardo DiCaprio. DiCaprio's performance as a mentally impaired youth earned him Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for Best Supporting Actor, and he won that award at the National Board of Review Awards.


title: Lasse Hallström

text: Hallström's ability to elicit award-winning performances from the cast in a variety of stories adapted from novels was further solidified in his films over the next two decades. In 1999, Hallström was nominated for an Academy Award for best director for "The Cider House Rules" (1999). The film earned six additional Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, with Michael Caine winning the Best Supporting Actor award and John Irving winning Best Adapted Screenplay.


title: Lasse Hallström

text: He followed that success the following year by directing "Chocolat" (2000), starring Johnny Depp, Juliette Binoche and Judi Dench. The film was a critical and box-office success, earning Golden Globe, BAFTA and Academy Award nominations, including for the Academy Award for Best Picture. Binoche and Dench won Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress respectively at both the European Film Awards and the Screen Actors' Guild awards.


title: Lasse Hallström

text: His 2001 film "The Shipping News", adapted from a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by E. Annie Proulx and starring Kevin Spacey, Judi Dench, Julianne Moore and Cate Blanchett, won him a directorial Golden Bear award at the Berlin International Film Festival as well as Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations for its lead and supporting actors.


title: Lasse Hallström

text: His 2011 film "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen", based on the 2007 novel of the same name by Paul Torday and starring Ewan McGregor and Emily Blunt, was nominated for three Golden Globe Awards in the Comedy or Musical category, including Best Motion Picture, Best Actor for McGregor, and Best Actress for Blunt. The film was nominated for the European Film Awards People's Choice Award.


title: Lasse Hallström

text: His 2012 film "The Hypnotist" was selected as the Swedish entry for the Best Foreign Language Oscar at the 85th Academy Awards, but it did not make the final shortlist.


title: Lasse Hallström

text: His 2017 film, "A Dog's Purpose", based on the 2010 novel of the same name, is billed as "a celebration of the special connection between humans and their dogs".


title: Lasse Hallström

text: Almost all of ABBA's promotional films were directed and shot by Hallström, with the only (seven total) exceptions being "When I Kissed the Teacher" (1977); "Chiquitita" (1979), which was made by the BBC; "I Have a Dream" (1979); "On and On and On" (1980); "Lay All Your Love on Me" (1981) (Made by recycling material from older videos); "The Day Before You Came" (1982) and "Under Attack" (1982), which were both directed by Kjell Sundvall and Kjell-Åke Andersson. The films for "Knowing Me, Knowing You" (1977), "Happy New Year" (1980) and "One of Us" (1981) all contained substantial scenes shot in Hallström's own Stockholm apartment.


title: Lasse Hallström

text: Hallström married media personality and actress (1941–2005) in 1974, with whom he has one child, Johan (b. 1976). The couple divorced in 1981. In 1990, he met actress Lena Olin; they married on 18 March 1994. The couple currently reside in Bedford, New York, and have two children, Tora (b. 1995) and a child from Lena Olin's first marriage, F. Auguste Rahmberg (b. 1984). They also have a home located in the Stockholm archipelago.


title: Don Warrington

text: Don Warrington MBE (born Donald Williams, 23 May 1951) is a Trinidadian-born British actor. He is best known for playing Philip Smith in the ITV sitcom "Rising Damp" (1974–78), and Commissioner Selwyn Patterson in the BBC detective series "Death in Paradise" (2011–present).


title: Don Warrington

text: Warrington was born in Trinidad, but moved to England with his mother and brother at a young age, while his sister stayed in Trinidad. He was brought up in Newcastle upon Tyne. His father, Basil Kydd, was a Trinidadian politician who died in 1958.


title: Don Warrington

text: Warrington attended Harris College (now the University of Central Lancashire) and trained as an actor at the Drama Centre London. As there was already an actor called Don Williams when he joined Equity, he took the stage surname "Warrington" after Warrington Road, the street he grew up on. He started acting in repertory theatre at the age of 17.


title: Don Warrington

text: Warrington is best known for playing Philip Smith in "Rising Damp", from 1974 to 1978, alongside Leonard Rossiter, Richard Beckinsale, and Frances de la Tour. Warrington also appeared as series regular in the crime drama "C.A.T.S. Eyes", as government contact Nigel Beaumont (1985–1987); in "Impact Earth" (2007) playing General Harris; and in "New Street Law" as Judge Ken Winyard.


title: Don Warrington

text: In 1993 Warrington played television reporter Graham Gaunt in "To Play the King", the second part of the BBC's "House of Cards" trilogy.


title: Don Warrington

text: He has had smaller roles in many programmes including "Red Dwarf", "Lovejoy", "Manchild", and "Diamond Geezer". Warrington portrayed the founder of Time Lord society, Rassilon, in several "Doctor Who" audio plays, and also appeared as the President of an alternative-universe Great Britain in the "Doctor Who" episode "Rise of the Cybermen" (2006). Soon after, he recorded an abridged audio book of the "Doctor Who" novel "The Art of Destruction" by Stephen Cole.


title: Don Warrington

text: He is one of the interviewees on the BBC 2 series "Grumpy Old Men", and he appears in a series of Kenco coffee advertisements in the United Kingdom in which he plays an African coffee plantation owner. He regularly provides voice-overs for both BBC television and radio.


title: Don Warrington

text: Warrington has also appeared in BBC1 sitcom "The Crouches", which aired from 9 September 2003 until 2005. He played Bailey, who was Roly's boss at a London Underground station in South London. Roly was played by Robbie Gee. Warrington played the role of the Hospital Chaplain in "Casualty", assuming the role of Trevor. He also starred in the 2010 film "It's a Wonderful Afterlife".


title: Don Warrington

text: He provided voiceover links, reading out the various methods of contacting the show on the "Chris Evans Breakfast Show" on BBC Radio 2, which was broadcast from 11 January 2010.


title: Don Warrington

text: He also appeared as jazz musician Frederick J. Louden in a BBC radio production of "The Devil's Music", written by Alan Plater. In 2011, Warrington played the father of a suspected terrorist in the last series of the BBC drama "Waking the Dead".


title: Don Warrington

text: His film roles included the movie version of "Rising Damp" (1980), the Kenny Everett horror comedy "Bloodbath at the House of Death" (1983), "The Lion of Africa" (1987), Kenneth Branagh's "Hamlet" (1996), Peter Greenaway's "8½ Women" (1999) and the horror film "Lighthouse" (1999).


title: Don Warrington

text: Warrington is also a theatre actor and has performed with the National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company, Bristol Old Vic and the Royal Exchange, Manchester.


title: Don Warrington

text: In 2013, Warrington played the lead role of Joe Keller, in Talawa Theatre Company's all-black revival of Arthur Miller's tragedy "All My Sons" at the Royal Exchange, Manchester, directed by Michael Buffong – a production that "The Guardian" reviewer called "flawless", giving it a five-star rating.


title: Don Warrington

text: Warrington performed in the lead role of "King Lear" in a 2016 Talawa Theatre Company and Royal Exchange, Manchester production. Mark Shenton wrote in "The Stage" that "Warrington seizes and owns it with magnetic, majestic power" as "one of many virtues in this outstanding production." Claire Allfree in "The Telegraph" wrote: "Lear is the Everest of roles, and Don Warrington ... ascends the cliff face with magnificent authority. He rages around his daughters like a hulking thunder cloud in human form, not just the incarnation of absolute rule but of something more ancient and of the earth."


title: Don Warrington

text: Warrington appeared as George in David Mamet's "Glengarry Glenn Ross" between October 2017 and February 2018 at the Playhouse Theatre alongside Christian Slater, Robert Glenister, Kris Marshall and Daniel Ryan.


title: Don Warrington

text: He appeared as the central protagonist Willy Loman in Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" at the Royal Exchange Theatre from October to November 2018.


title: Don Warrington

text: In 2008, Warrington competed in the sixth series of "Strictly Come Dancing", partnered with the 2005 and 2006 British National Champion in Latin American dance, Lilia Kopylova. After Week 4, Warrington was joint seventh out of the remaining 12 contestants with an average of 24.5 points. In Week 5, he was eliminated, having lost the dance-off against Heather Small, with the first three judges all voting for Small over Warrington.


title: Don Warrington

text: He joined the show to step out of his comfort zone, and he appreciated the opportunity to learn to dance.


title: Sesame oil

text: Sesame oil is an edible vegetable oil derived from sesame seeds. The oil is one of the earliest-known crop-based oils. Worldwide mass modern production is limited due to the inefficient manual harvesting process required to extract the oil. Oil made from raw seeds, which may or may not be cold-pressed, is used as a cooking oil. Oil made from toasted seeds is used for its distinctive nutty aroma and taste, although it may be unsuitable for frying, which makes it taste burnt and bitter.


title: Sesame oil

text: Sesame oil is composed of the following fatty acids: linoleic acid (41% of total), oleic acid (39%), palmitic acid (8%), stearic acid (5%) and others in small amounts.


title: Sesame oil

text: Historically, sesame was cultivated more than 5000 years ago as a drought-tolerant crop which was able to grow where other crops failed. Sesame seeds were one of the first crops processed for oil as well as one of the earliest condiments. Sesame was cultivated during the Indus Valley civilization and was the main oil crop. It was probably exported to Mesopotamia around 2500 BCE.


title: Sesame oil

text: Sesame seeds are protected by a capsule which bursts only when the seeds are completely ripe, a process called dehiscence. The dehiscence time tends to vary, so farmers cut plants by hand and place them together in an upright position to continue ripening, until all the capsules have opened. The discovery of an indehiscent mutant (analogous to nonshattering domestic grains) by Langham in 1943 began the work towards development of a high-yielding, dehiscence-resistant variety. Although researchers have made significant progress in sesame breeding, harvest losses due to dehiscence continue to limit domestic US production.


title: Sesame oil

text: Tanzania remains the largest producer of sesame oil and also dominates the global consumption of this product. The African and Asian regions constitute the fastest-developing sesame oil markets. The steady growth in demand being observed here is in line with rising household income and urbanization, as well as an increase in the use of sesame oil for food products and Asian dishes.


title: Sesame oil

text: While some manufacturers will further refine sesame oil through solvent extraction, neutralization, and bleaching in order to improve its cosmetic aspects, sesame oil derived from quality seeds already possesses a pleasant taste and does not require further purification before it can be consumed. Many consumers prefer unrefined sesame oil due to their belief that the refining process removes important nutrients. Flavor, traditionally an important attribute, was best in oils produced from mild crushing.


title: Sesame oil

text: Sesame oil is one of the more stable natural oils, but can still benefit from refrigeration and from limited exposure to light and high temperatures during extraction, processing, and storage; this minimizes nutrient loss through oxidation and rancidity. Storage in amber-colored or opaque bottles can help to minimize light exposure.


title: Sesame oil

text: Sesame oil is a polyunsaturated (PUFA) semi-drying oil. Commercial sesame oil varies in color from light to deep reddish-yellow depending on the color of the seed processed and the method of milling. Provided that the oil is milled from well-cleaned seed, it can be refined and bleached easily to yield a light-colored limpid oil. Sesame oil is rich in oleic and linoleic acids, which together account for 85% of the total fatty acids. Sesame oil has a relatively high percentage of unsaponifiable matter (1.5-2.3%). In India and in some other European countries, it is obligatory to add sesame oil (5-10%) to margarine and generally to hydrogenated vegetable fats which are commonly used as adulterants for butter or ghee.


title: Sesame oil

text: The market for sesame oil is mainly located in Asia and the Middle East, where the use of domestically-produced sesame oil has been a tradition for centuries. About 65% of the annual US sesame crop is processed into oil, and 35% is used in food.


title: Sesame oil

text: Cold pressed sesame oil is unbleached, unrefined and cold-pressed which has a fresh aroma of sesame. For cooking and dietary purpose, cold-pressed sesame oil is one of the healthiest cooking oil with numerous health benefits.


title: Sesame oil

text: There are many variations in coloration: cold-pressed sesame oil is pale yellow, while Indian sesame oil ("gingelly" or "til" oil) is golden. East Asian sesame oils are commonly made with roasted/toasted sesame seeds, and are dark brown, with a different flavor.


title: Sesame oil

text: Sesame oil is traded in any of the forms described above. Cold-pressed sesame oil is available in Western health shops. Unroasted (but not necessarily cold-pressed) sesame oil is commonly used for cooking in South India, the Middle East, halal markets, and East Asian countries. Toasted sesame oil is used for its flavor.


title: Sesame oil

text: The only essential nutrient having significant content in sesame oil is vitamin K, providing 17% of the Daily Value per 100 grams (ml) consumed supplying 884 calories (table). For fats, sesame oil is approximately equal in monounsaturated fat (oleic acid, 40% of total) and polyunsaturated fat (linoleic acid, 42% of total), together accounting for 80% of the total fat content (table). The remaining oil content is primarily palmitic acid, a saturated fat (about 9% of total, USDA table).


title: Sesame oil

text: Sesame oil made from seeds that have not been toasted is a pale yellow liquid with a pleasant grain-like odor and somewhat nutty taste, and is used as frying oil. Oil made from pressed and toasted sesame seeds is amber-colored and aromatic, and is used as a flavoring agent in the final stages of cooking.


title: Sesame oil

text: Despite sesame oil's high proportion (41%) of polyunsaturated (omega-6) fatty acids, it is least prone, among cooking oils with high smoke points, to turn rancid when kept in the open. This is due to the natural antioxidants, such as sesamol, present in the oil.


title: Sesame oil

text: Light sesame oil has a high smoke point and is suitable for deep-frying. Toasted sesame oil is not suitable, but it can be used to stir fry meats and vegetables, for sautéing, and to make omelettes.


title: Sesame oil

text: Sesame oil is most popular in continental Asia, especially in East Asia and the South Indian states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu, where its widespread use is similar to that of olive oil in the Mediterranean.


title: Sesame oil

text: In Mandaeism, anointing sesame oil, called "misha" () in Mandaic, is used during rituals such as the masbuta (baptism) and masiqta (death mass), both of which are performed by Mandaean priests.


title: Sesame oil

text: As with numerous seed and nut foods, sesame oil may produce an allergic reaction, although the incidence of this effect is rare, estimated at 0.1–0.2% of the population. Reports of sesame allergy are growing in developed countries during the 21st century, with the allergic mechanism from oil exposure expressed as contact dermatitis, possibly resulting from hypersensitivity to lignin-like compounds.


title: Sesame oil

text: Although preliminary research on the potential effect of sesame oil on inflammation and atherosclerosis has been conducted, , there was insufficient quality of the studies to allow any conclusions.


title: Andrzej Żuławski

text: Andrzej Żuławski (; 22 November 1940 – 17 February 2016) was a Polish film director and writer. Żuławski often went against mainstream commercialism in his films, and enjoyed success mostly with European art-house audiences.


title: Andrzej Żuławski

text: In the late 1950s, he studied cinema in France. His second feature, "The Devil" (1972), was banned in communist Poland, and Żuławski went to France. After the success of "" in 1975, he returned to Poland where he spent two years making "On the Silver Globe" (not released until 1988). The work on this film was interrupted and destroyed by the authorities. After that, Żuławski moved to France where he became known for controversial and violent art-house films such as "Possession" (1981). Żuławski is also known for his work with actresses including Romy Schneider, Isabelle Adjani and Sophie Marceau.


title: Andrzej Żuławski

text: His films have received awards at various international film festivals. Żuławski had also written several novels, for example: "Il était Un Verger", "Lity Bór" (a.k.a. "La Forêt Forteresse"), "W Oczach Tygrysa", and "Ogród Miłości".


title: Andrzej Żuławski

text: Andrzej Żuławski was born in Lviv, Ukrainian SSR (formerly known as Lwów). He was an assistant of the filmmaker Andrzej Wajda.


title: Andrzej Żuławski

text: When his second film "The Devil" was banned in Poland, he decided to move to France, where he made "" (1975) with Romy Schneider.


title: Andrzej Żuławski

text: After returning to Poland he worked for two years on a film which the authorities did not allow him to finish ("On the Silver Globe"), based on a book by his great-uncle Jerzy Żuławski. Since then he lived and worked mostly in France, making art films.


title: Andrzej Żuławski

text: Being a maverick who always defied mainstream commercialism, Żuławski enjoyed success mostly with the European art-house audiences. His wild, imaginative, and controversial pictures have received awards at various international film festivals. He also wrote the novels "Il était Un Verger", "Lity Bór" (a.k.a. "La Forêt Forteresse"), W Oczach Tygrysa, and Ogród Miłości.


title: Andrzej Żuławski

text: Żuławski worked many times with composer Andrzej Korzyński, beginning in "The Third Part of the Night" (1971). Their last collaboration was for "Cosmos" (2015), which was also Żuławski's last film.


title: Andrzej Żuławski

text: He had three sons from different relationships. Żuławski's ex-wife was Małgorzata Braunek, who was a Polish film and stage actress. Their son, Xawery, is also a film director.


title: Andrzej Żuławski

text: He was in a relationship with the French actress Sophie Marceau for sixteen years, with whom he made four films over a 15-year period ("L'Amour braque", "My Nights Are More Beautiful Than Your Days", "La Note bleue", "Fidelity"). They had a son Vincent together. They broke up in 2001.


title: Approximations of π

text: Approximations for the mathematical constant pi () in the history of mathematics reached an accuracy within 0.04% of the true value before the beginning of the Common Era. In Chinese mathematics, this was improved to approximations correct to what corresponds to about seven decimal digits by the 5th century.


title: Approximations of π

text: Further progress was not made until the 15th century (through the efforts of Jamshīd al-Kāshī). Early modern mathematicians reached an accuracy of 35 digits by the beginning of the 17th century (Ludolph van Ceulen), and 126 digits by the 19th century (Jurij Vega), surpassing the accuracy required for any conceivable application outside of pure mathematics.


title: Approximations of π

text: The record of manual approximation of is held by William Shanks, who calculated 527 digits correctly in 1853. Since the middle of the 20th century, the approximation of has been the task of electronic digital computers (for a comprehensive account, see Chronology of computation of). On June 8, 2022, the current record was established by Emma Haruka Iwao with Alexander Yee's y-cruncher with 100 trillion digits.


title: Approximations of π

text: The best known approximations to dating to before the Common Era were accurate to two decimal places; this was improved upon in Chinese mathematics in particular by the mid-first millennium, to an accuracy of seven decimal places. After this, no further progress was made until the late medieval period.


title: Approximations of π

text: have claimed that the ancient Egyptians used an approximation of as = 3.142857 (about 0.04% too high) from as early as the Old Kingdom.


title: Approximations of π

text: Babylonian mathematics usually approximated to 3, sufficient for the architectural projects of the time (notably also reflected in the description of Solomon's Temple in the Hebrew Bible). The Babylonians were aware that this was an approximation, and one Old Babylonian mathematical tablet excavated near Susa in 1936 (dated to between the 19th and 17th centuries BCE) gives a better approximation of as = 3.125, about 0.528% below the exact value.


title: Approximations of π

text: At about the same time, the Egyptian Rhind Mathematical Papyrus (dated to the Second Intermediate Period, c. 1600 BCE, although stated to be a copy of an older, Middle Kingdom text) implies an approximation of as ≈ 3.16 (accurate to 0.6 percent) by calculating the area of a circle via approximation with the octagon.


title: Approximations of π

text: Astronomical calculations in the "Shatapatha Brahmana" (c. 6th century BCE) use a fractional approximation of .


title: Approximations of π

text: The Mahabharata (500 BCE - 300 CE) offers an approximation of 3, in the ratios offered in Bhishma Parva verses: 6.12.40-45.


title: Approximations of π

text: In the 3rd century BCE, Archimedes proved the sharp inequalities  <  < , by means of regular 96-gons (accuracies of 2·10 and 4·10, respectively).


title: Approximations of π

text: In the 2nd century CE, Ptolemy used the value , the first known approximation accurate to three decimal places (accuracy 2·10). It is equal to formula_1 which is accurate to two sexagesimal digits.


title: Approximations of π

text: The Chinese mathematician Liu Hui in 263 CE computed to between and by inscribing a 96-gon and 192-gon; the average of these two values is (accuracy 9·10).


title: Approximations of π

text: He also suggested that 3.14 was a good enough approximation for practical purposes. He has also frequently been credited with a later and more accurate result, π ≈ = 3.1416 (accuracy 2·10), although some scholars instead believe that this is due to the later (5th-century) Chinese mathematician Zu Chongzhi.


title: Approximations of π

text: Zu Chongzhi is known to have computed to be between 3.1415926 and 3.1415927, which was correct to seven decimal places. He also gave two other approximations of: π ≈ and π ≈ , which are not as accurate as his decimal result. The latter fraction is the best possible rational approximation of using fewer than five decimal digits in the numerator and denominator. Zu Chongzhi's results surpass the accuracy reached in Hellenistic mathematics, and would remain without improvement for close to a millennium.


title: Approximations of π

text: In Gupta-era India (6th century), mathematician Aryabhata, in his astronomical treatise Āryabhaṭīya stated:


title: Approximations of π

text: Approximating to four decimal places: π ≈ = 3.1416, Aryabhata stated that his result "approximately" ("" "approaching") gave the circumference of a circle. His 15th-century commentator Nilakantha Somayaji (Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics) has argued that the word means not only that this is an approximation, but that the value is incommensurable (irrational).


title: Approximations of π

text: Further progress was not made for nearly a millennium, until the 14th century, when Indian mathematician and astronomer Madhava of Sangamagrama, founder of the Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics, found the Maclaurin series for arctangent, and then two infinite series for . One of them is now known as the Madhava–Leibniz series, based on formula_2


title: Approximations of π

text: It is not known how he came up with this correction. Using this he found an approximation of to 13 decimal places of accuracy when  = 75.


title: Approximations of π

text: Jamshīd al-Kāshī (Kāshānī), a Persian astronomer and mathematician, correctly computed the fractional part of 2 to 9 sexagesimal digits in 1424, and translated this into 16 decimal digits after the decimal point:


title: Approximations of π

text: He achieved this level of accuracy by calculating the perimeter of a regular polygon with 3 × 2 sides.


title: Approximations of π

text: In the second half of the 16th century, the French mathematician François Viète discovered an infinite product that converged on known as Viète's formula.


title: Approximations of π

text: The German-Dutch mathematician Ludolph van Ceulen ("circa" 1600) computed the first 35 decimal places of with a 2-gon. He was so proud of this accomplishment that he had them inscribed on his tombstone.


title: Approximations of π

text: In "Cyclometricus" (1621), Willebrord Snellius demonstrated that the perimeter of the inscribed polygon converges on the circumference twice as fast as does the perimeter of the corresponding circumscribed polygon. This was proved by Christiaan Huygens in 1654. Snellius was able to obtain seven digits of from a 96-sided polygon.


title: Approximations of π

text: In 1789, the Slovene mathematician Jurij Vega calculated the first 140 decimal places for , of which the first 126 were correct, and held the world record for 52 years until 1841, when William Rutherford calculated 208 decimal places, of which the first 152 were correct. Vega improved John Machin's formula from 1706 and his method is still mentioned today.


title: Approximations of π

text: The magnitude of such precision (152 decimal places) can be put into context by the fact that the circumference of the largest known object, the observable universe, can be calculated from its diameter (93billion light-years) to a precision of less than one Planck length (at , the shortest unit of length expected to be directly measurable) using expressed to just 62 decimal places.


title: Approximations of π

text: The English amateur mathematician William Shanks, a man of independent means, calculated to 530 decimal places in January 1853, of which the first 527 were correct (the last few likely being incorrect due to round-off errors). He subsequently expanded his calculation to 607 decimal places in April 1853, but an error introduced right at the 530th decimal place rendered the rest of his calculation erroneous; due to the nature of Machin's formula, the error propagated back to the 528th decimal place, leaving only the first 527 digits correct once again. Twenty years later, Shanks expanded his calculation to 707 decimal places in April 1873. Due to this being an expansion of his previous calculation, all of the new digits were incorrect as well. Shanks was said to have calculated new digits all morning and would then spend all afternoon checking his morning's work. This was the longest expansion of until the advent of the electronic digital computer three-quarters of a century later.


title: Approximations of π

text: In 1910, the Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan found several rapidly converging infinite series of , including


title: Approximations of π

text: which computes a further eight decimal places of with each term in the series. His series are now the basis for the fastest algorithms currently used to calculate . Even using just the first term gives


title: Approximations of π

text: From the mid-20th century onwards, all calculations of have been done with the help of calculators or computers.


title: Approximations of π

text: In 1944, D. F. Ferguson, with the aid of a mechanical desk calculator, found that William Shanks had made a mistake in the 528th decimal place, and that all succeeding digits were incorrect.


title: Approximations of π

text: In the early years of the computer, an expansion of to decimal places was computed by Maryland mathematician Daniel Shanks (no relation to the aforementioned William Shanks) and his team at the United States Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C. In 1961, Shanks and his team used two different power series for calculating the digits of . For one, it was known that any error would produce a value slightly high, and for the other, it was known that any error would produce a value slightly low. And hence, as long as the two series produced the same digits, there was a very high confidence that they were correct. The first 100,265 digits of were published in 1962. The authors outlined what would be needed to calculate to 1 million decimal places and concluded that the task was beyond that day's technology, but would be possible in five to seven years.


title: Approximations of π

text: In 1989, the Chudnovsky brothers computed to over 1 billion decimal places on the supercomputer IBM 3090 using the following variation of Ramanujan's infinite series of :


title: Approximations of π

text: In 1999, Yasumasa Kanada and his team at the University of Tokyo computed to over 200 billion decimal places on the supercomputer HITACHI SR8000/MPP (128 nodes) using another variation of Ramanujan's infinite series of .


title: Approximations of π

text: In November 2002, Yasumasa Kanada and a team of 9 others used the Hitachi SR8000, a 64-node supercomputer with 1 terabyte of main memory, to calculate to roughly 1.24 trillion digits in around 600 hours (25days).


title: Approximations of π

text: Depending on the purpose of a calculation, can be approximated by using fractions for ease of calculation. The most notable such approximations are (relative error of about 4·10) and (relative error of about 8·10).


title: Approximations of π

text: Of some notability are legal or historical texts purportedly "defining " to have some rational value, such as the "Indiana Pi Bill" of 1897, which stated "the ratio of the diameter and circumference is as five-fourths to four" (which would imply "") and a passage in the Hebrew Bible that implies that .


title: Approximations of π

text: The so-called "Indiana Pi Bill" from 1897 has often been characterized as an attempt to "legislate the value of Pi". Rather, the bill dealt with a purported solution to the problem of geometrically "squaring the circle".


title: Approximations of π

text: The bill was nearly passed by the Indiana General Assembly in the U.S., and has been claimed to imply a number of different values for , although the closest it comes to explicitly asserting one is the wording "the ratio of the diameter and circumference is as five-fourths to four", which would make , a discrepancy of nearly 2 percent. A mathematics professor who happened to be present the day the bill was brought up for consideration in the Senate, after it had passed in the House, helped to stop the passage of the bill on its second reading, after which the assembly thoroughly ridiculed it before postponing it indefinitely.


title: Approximations of π

text: It is sometimes claimed that the Hebrew Bible implies that " equals three", based on a passage in and giving measurements for the round basin located in front of the Temple in Jerusalem as having a diameter of 10 cubits and a circumference of 30 cubits.


title: Approximations of π

text: The issue is discussed in the Talmud and in Rabbinic literature. Among the many explanations and comments are these:


title: Approximations of π

text: There is still some debate on this passage in biblical scholarship. Many reconstructions of the basin show a wider brim (or flared lip) extending outward from the bowl itself by several inches to match the description given in In the succeeding verses, the rim is described as "a handbreadth thick; and the brim thereof was wrought like the brim of a cup, like the flower of a lily: it received and held three thousand baths" , which suggests a shape that can be encompassed with a string shorter than the total length of the brim, e.g., a Lilium flower or a Teacup.


title: Approximations of π

text: Archimedes, in his "Measurement of a Circle", created the first algorithm for the calculation of based on the idea that the perimeter of any (convex) polygon inscribed in a circle is less than the circumference of the circle, which, in turn, is less than the perimeter of any circumscribed polygon. He started with inscribed and circumscribed regular hexagons, whose perimeters are readily determined. He then shows how to calculate the perimeters of regular polygons of twice as many sides that are inscribed and circumscribed about the same circle. This is a recursive procedure which would be described today as follows: Let and denote the perimeters of regular polygons of sides that are inscribed and circumscribed about the same circle, respectively. Then,


title: Approximations of π

text: It is not known why Archimedes stopped at a 96-sided polygon; it only takes patience to extend the computations. Heron reports in his "Metrica" (about 60 CE) that Archimedes continued the computation in a now lost book, but then attributes an incorrect value to him.


title: Approximations of π

text: Archimedes uses no trigonometry in this computation and the difficulty in applying the method lies in obtaining good approximations for the square roots that are involved. Trigonometry, in the form of a table of chord lengths in a circle, was probably used by Claudius Ptolemy of Alexandria to obtain the value of given in the "Almagest" (circa 150 CE).


title: Approximations of π

text: Advances in the approximation of (when the methods are known) were made by increasing the number of sides of the polygons used in the computation. A trigonometric improvement by Willebrord Snell (1621) obtains better bounds from a pair of bounds obtained from the polygon method. Thus, more accurate results were obtained from polygons with fewer sides. Viète's formula, published by François Viète in 1593, was derived by Viète using a closely related polygonal method, but with areas rather than perimeters of polygons whose numbers of sides are powers of two.


title: Approximations of π

text: The last major attempt to compute by this method was carried out by Grienberger in 1630 who calculated 39 decimal places of using Snell's refinement.


title: Approximations of π

text: together with the Taylor series expansion of the function arctan("x"). This formula is most easily verified using polar coordinates of complex numbers, producing:


title: Approximations of π

text: Formulae of this kind are known as "Machin-like formulae". Machin's particular formula was used well into the computer era for calculating record numbers of digits of , but more recently other similar formulae have been used as well.


title: Approximations of π

text: For instance, Shanks and his team used the following Machin-like formula in 1961 to compute the first 100,000 digits of :


title: Approximations of π

text: The record as of December 2002 by Yasumasa Kanada of Tokyo University stood at 1,241,100,000,000 digits. The following Machin-like formulae were used for this:


title: Approximations of π

text: Ramanujan's work is the basis for the Chudnovsky algorithm, the fastest algorithms used, as of the turn of the millennium, to calculate .


title: Approximations of π

text: Extremely long decimal expansions of are typically computed with iterative formulae like the Gauss–Legendre algorithm and Borwein's algorithm. The latter, found in 1985 by Jonathan and Peter Borwein, converges extremely quickly:


title: Approximations of π

text: where formula_28, the sequence formula_29 converges quartically to , giving about 100 digits in three steps and over a trillion digits after 20 steps. The Gauss–Legendre algorithm (with time complexity formula_30, using Harvey–Hoeven multiplication algorithm) is asymptotically faster than the Chudnovsky algorithm (with time complexity formula_31) – but which of these algorithms is faster in practice for "small enough" formula_32 depends on technological factors such as memory sizes and access times. For breaking world records, the iterative algorithms are used less commonly than the Chudnovsky algorithm since they are memory-intensive.


title: Approximations of π

text: The first one million digits of and are available from Project Gutenberg. A former calculation record (December 2002) by Yasumasa Kanada of Tokyo University stood at 1.24 trillion digits, which were computed in September 2002 on a 64-node Hitachi supercomputer with 1 terabyte of main memory, which carries out 2 trillion operations per second, nearly twice as many as the computer used for the previous record (206 billion digits). The following Machin-like formulae were used for this:


title: Approximations of π

text: These approximations have so many digits that they are no longer of any practical use, except for testing new supercomputers. Properties like the potential normality of will always depend on the infinite string of digits on the end, not on any finite computation.


title: Approximations of π

text: Historically, base 60 was used for calculations. In this base, can be approximated to eight (decimal) significant figures with the number 3;8,29,44, which is


title: Approximations of π

text: If a circle with radius ' is drawn with its center at the point (0, 0), any point whose distance from the origin is less than ' will fall inside the circle. The Pythagorean theorem gives the distance from any point (, ) to the center:


title: Approximations of π

text: Mathematical "graph paper" is formed by imagining a 1×1 square centered around each cell (, ), where and are integers between − and . Squares whose center resides inside or exactly on the border of the circle can then be counted by testing whether, for each cell (, ),


title: Approximations of π

text: The total number of cells satisfying that condition thus approximates the area of the circle, which then can be used to calculate an approximation of . Closer approximations can be produced by using larger values of .


title: Approximations of π

text: In other words, begin by choosing a value for . Consider all cells (, ) in which both and are integers between − and . Starting at 0, add 1 for each cell whose distance to the origin (0,0) is less than or equal to "". When finished, divide the sum, representing the area of a circle of radius , by to find the approximation of .


title: Approximations of π

text: The 12 cells (0, ±5), (±5, 0), (±3, ±4), (±4, ±3) are "exactly on" the circle, and 69 cells are "completely inside", so the approximate area is 81, and is calculated to be approximately 3.24 because = 3.24. Results for some values of are shown in the table below:


title: Approximations of π

text: For related results see The circle problem: number of points (x,y) in square lattice with x^2 + y^2 <= n.


title: Approximations of π

text: Similarly, the more complex approximations of given below involve repeated calculations of some sort, yielding closer and closer approximations with increasing numbers of calculations.


title: Approximations of π

text: Besides its simple continued fraction representation [3; 7, 15, 1, 292, 1, 1...], which displays no discernible pattern, has many generalized continued fraction representations generated by a simple rule, including these two.


title: Approximations of π

text: The well-known values and are respectively the second and fourth continued fraction approximations to π. (Other representations are available at The Wolfram Functions Site.)


title: Approximations of π

text: is the power series for arctan(x) specialized to  = 1. It converges too slowly to be of practical interest. However, the power series converges much faster for smaller values of formula_81, which leads to formulae where formula_82 arises as the sum of small angles with rational tangents, known as Machin-like formulae.


title: Approximations of π

text: where formula_86 such that formula_87. Approximations can be made by using, for example, the rapidly convergent Euler formula


title: Approximations of π

text: to approximate formula_84 with even more rapid convergence. Convergence in this arctangent formula for formula_84 improves as integer formula_93 increases.


title: Approximations of π

text: where formula_97 is the "n"-th Fibonacci number. However, these two formulae for formula_84 are much slower in convergence because of set of arctangent functions that are involved in computation.


title: Approximations of π

text: The Bailey–Borwein–Plouffe formula (BBP) for calculating was discovered in 1995 by Simon Plouffe. Using math, the formula can compute any particular digit of —returning the hexadecimal value of the digit—without having to compute the intervening digits (digit extraction).


title: Approximations of π

text: In 1996, Simon Plouffe derived an algorithm to extract the th decimal digit of (using base10 math to extract a base10 digit), and which can do so with an improved speed of time. The algorithm requires virtually no memory for the storage of an array or matrix so the one-millionth digit of can be computed using a pocket calculator. However, it would be quite tedious and impractical to do so.


title: Approximations of π

text: The calculation speed of Plouffe's formula was improved to by Fabrice Bellard, who derived an alternative formula (albeit only in base2 math) for computing .


title: Approximations of π

text: Many other expressions for were developed and published by Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan. He worked with mathematician Godfrey Harold Hardy in England for a number of years.


title: Approximations of π

text: Extremely long decimal expansions of are typically computed with the Gauss–Legendre algorithm and Borwein's algorithm; the Salamin–Brent algorithm, which was invented in 1976, has also been used.


title: Approximations of π

text: In 1997, David H. Bailey, Peter Borwein and Simon Plouffe published a paper (Bailey, 1997) on a new formula for as an infinite series:


title: Approximations of π

text: This formula permits one to fairly readily compute the "k"th binary or hexadecimal digit of , without having to compute the preceding "k" − 1 digits. Bailey's website contains the derivation as well as implementations in various programming languages. The PiHex project computed 64 bits around the quadrillionth bit of (which turns out to be 0).


title: Approximations of π

text: This converges extraordinarily rapidly. Ramanujan's work is the basis for the fastest algorithms used, as of the turn of the millennium, to calculate .


title: Approximations of π

text: In 1988, David Chudnovsky and Gregory Chudnovsky found an even faster-converging series (the Chudnovsky algorithm):


title: Approximations of π

text: The speed of various algorithms for computing pi to n correct digits is shown below in descending order of asymptotic complexity. M(n) is the complexity of the multiplication algorithm employed.


title: Approximations of π

text: Pi Hex was a project to compute three specific binary digits of using a distributed network of several hundred computers. In 2000, after two years, the project finished computing the five trillionth (5*10), the forty trillionth, and the quadrillionth (10) bits. All three of them turned out to be 0.


title: Approximations of π

text: Over the years, several programs have been written for calculating to many digits on personal computers.


title: Approximations of π

text: Most computer algebra systems can calculate and other common mathematical constants to any desired precision.


title: Approximations of π

text: Functions for calculating are also included in many general libraries for arbitrary-precision arithmetic, for instance Class Library for Numbers, MPFR and SymPy.


title: Approximations of π

text: Programs designed for calculating may have better performance than general-purpose mathematical software. They typically implement checkpointing and efficient disk swapping to facilitate extremely long-running and memory-expensive computations.


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: Fighting is an established tradition in North American ice hockey, with a long history that involves many levels of amateur and professional play and includes some notable individual fights. Fights may be fought by enforcers, or "goons" ()—players whose role is to fight and intimidate—on a given team, and are governed by a system of unwritten rules that players, coaches, officials, and the media refer to as "the code". Some fights are spontaneous, while others are premeditated by the participants. While officials tolerate fighting during hockey games, they impose a variety of penalties on players who engage in fights.


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: Unique among North American professional team sports, the National Hockey League (NHL) and most minor professional leagues in North America do not eject players outright for fighting (although they may do so for more flagrant violations as part of a fight) but major European and collegiate hockey leagues do, and multi-game suspensions may be added on top of the ejection. Therefore, the vast majority of fights occur in the NHL and other North American professional leagues.


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: Physical play in hockey, consisting of allowed techniques such as checking and prohibited techniques such as elbowing, high-sticking, and cross-checking, is linked to fighting. Although often a target of criticism, it is a considerable draw for the sport, and some fans attend games primarily to see fights. Those who defend fighting in hockey say that it helps deter other types of rough play, allows teams to protect their star players, and creates a sense of solidarity among teammates. The debate over allowing fighting in ice hockey games is ongoing. Despite its potentially negative consequences, such as heavier enforcers (or "heavyweights") knocking each other out, administrators at the professional level have no plans to eliminate fighting from the game, as most players consider it essential. Most fans and players oppose eliminating fights from professional hockey games, but considerable opposition to fighting exists, and efforts to eliminate it continue.


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: Fighting has been a part of ice hockey since the sport's rise in popularity in 19th century Canada. There are a number of theories behind the integration of fighting into the game; the most common is that the relative lack of rules in the early history of hockey encouraged physical intimidation and control. Other theories include the poverty and high crime rates of local Canada in the 19th century. The implementation of some features, such as the blue lines in 1918, actually encouraged fighting due to the increased level of physical play. Creation of the blue lines allowed forward passing, but only in the neutral zone. Therefore, puck handlers played at close quarters and were subject to a great deal of physical play. The emergence of enforcers, who protected the puck handlers and fought when necessary, followed shortly thereafter.


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: In 1922, the NHL introduced Rule 56, which formally regulated fighting, or "fisticuffs" as it was called in the official NHL rulebook. Rather than ejecting players from the game, as was the practice in amateur and collegiate hockey, players would be given a five-minute major penalty. Rule 56 and its language also filtered down to the minor professional and junior leagues in North America. Promoters such as Tex Rickard of Madison Square Garden, who also promoted boxing events, saw financial opportunities in hockey fights and devised marketing campaigns around the rivalries between various team enforcers.


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: In the current NHL rulebook, the archaic reference to "fisticuffs" has been removed; fighting is now governed under Rule 46 in the NHL rulebook. Referees are given considerable latitude in determining what exactly constitutes a fight and what penalties are applicable to the participants. Significant modifications from the original rule involve penalties which can be assessed to a fight participant deemed to have instigated the fight and additional penalties resulting from instigating a fight while wearing a face-shield.


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: Although fighting was rarer from the 1920s through the 1960s, it was often brutal in nature; author Ross Bernstein said of the game's early years that it "was probably more like rugby on skates than it was modern hockey." Star players were also known to fight for themselves during the Original Six era, when fewer teams existed than in later years. However, as the NHL's expansion in the late 1960s created more roster spots and spread star players more widely throughout the league, enforcers (who usually possess limited overall skill sets) became more common. Multiple fights during the era received significant media attention. In an NHL preseason game between the Boston Bruins and St. Louis Blues in 1969, Bruins defenceman Ted Green and Blues left wing Wayne Maki engaged in a bloody stick-swinging fight. The fight, initiated by Maki, resulted in Green sustaining a skull fracture. In 1978, World Hockey Association Birmingham Bulls enforcer Dave Hanson, known for his 11-year professional career, fought Hall of Famer Bobby Hull and in the process got Hull's wig caught in his knuckles. The incident landed Hanson in the news, and irate Winnipeg fans attempted to assault him on his way out of the arena. Hanson appeared in the 1977 movie "Slap Shot", a comedy about hockey violence.


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: The rise of the "Broad Street Bullies" in the 1973–74 and 1974–75 Philadelphia Flyers served as an example for future NHL enforcers. The average number of fights per game rose above 1.0 during the 1980s, peaking at 1.17 in 1983–84. That season, a bench-clearing brawl broke out at the end of the second period of a second-round playoff matchup between the Quebec Nordiques and the Montreal Canadiens. A second bench-clearing brawl erupted before the third period began, provoked by the announcement of penalties; a total of 252 penalty minutes were incurred and 11 players were ejected. This game is commonly referred to as the "Good Friday Massacre".


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: Many teams signed enforcers to protect and fight for smaller offensive stars. Fights in the 1990s included the Brawl in Hockeytown in 1997, in which the Colorado Avalanche and Detroit Red Wings engaged in nine fights, including bouts between Darren McCarty and Claude Lemieux and goaltenders Patrick Roy and Mike Vernon. The following year, a game between the Avalanche and Red Wings involved a fight between goaltenders Chris Osgood and Roy after which they received minor, major, and game misconduct penalties. In 2004, a Philadelphia Flyers – Ottawa Senators game resulted in five consecutive brawls in the closing minutes of the game, including fights between many players who are not known as enforcers and a fight between Flyers goaltender Robert Esche and Senators goaltender Patrick Lalime. The game ended with an NHL record 419 penalty minutes, and an NHL record 20 players were ejected, leaving five players on the team benches. The officials took 90 minutes to sort out the penalties that each team had received.


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: By 2009–10, the number of fights in the NHL declined to .58 per game. A further decrease in the frequency of fighting happened over the next five seasons. The 2014–15 season had 0.32 fights per game, as teams placed a greater emphasis on skating ability and fewer young players became enforcers.


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: Since the 1970s, three rules have curtailed the number and scope of fights in the NHL. In 1971, the league created the "Third Man In" rule which attempts to eliminate the bench-clearing brawl by providing for the ejection of the first player who joins a fight already in progress, unless a match penalty is being assessed to a player already engaged in that fight. Another rule automatically suspends the first player from each team that leaves the bench to join a fight when it is not their shift. In 1992, the "Instigator" rule, which adds an additional two-minute minor penalty to the player who starts a fight, was introduced.


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: Rules of the NHL, the North American junior leagues, and other North American professional minor leagues punish fighting with a five-minute major penalty. What separates these leagues from other major North American sports leagues is that they do not eject players simply for participating in a fight. However, fighting is frequently punishable by ejection in European leagues and in Olympic competition.


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: The rulebooks of the NHL and other professional leagues contain specific rules for fighting. These rules state that at the initiation of a fight, both players must definitely drop their sticks so as not to use them as a weapon. Players must also "drop" or shake off their protective gloves to fight bare-knuckled, as the hard leather and plastic of hockey gloves would increase the effect of landed blows. Players should not remove their own helmet before engaging in a fight due to risk of head injury or else both of the opposing players get an extra two penalty minutes. Players must also heed a referee warning to end a fight once the opponents have been separated. Failure to adhere to any of these rules results in an immediate game misconduct penalty and the possibility of fines and suspension from future games. In the NHL, when a player is fined, his lost pay goes towards the NHL emergency assistance fund. A fined coach's lost pay goes to the NHL Foundation.


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: In the NHL, American Hockey League (AHL), ECHL, Southern Professional Hockey League, and other notable minor leagues, officials punish combatants with five-minute major penalties for fighting (hence the phrase "five for fighting"). A player is automatically ejected and suspended if the player tries to leave the bench to join a fight, or for using weapons of any kind (such as using a skate to kick an opponent, using a stick to hit an opponent, wrapping tape around one's hands, or spitting), as they can cause serious injury. A player who receives two instigator penalties or participates in three fights in a single game is also ejected automatically. Furthermore, his coach can be suspended up to ten games for allowing players to leave the bench to join a fight.


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: A player who commits three major penalties (including fighting) during a game is automatically ejected, suspended, and fined. A player ejected for three major penalties in a game, or for use of weapons, cannot be replaced for five minutes. In 2003, the ECHL added an ejection, fine, and suspension of an additional game for any player charged as an instigator of a fight during the final five minutes of the third period or any overtime. The NHL and AHL adopted the rule in 2005–06, and the NHL includes a fine against the ejected player's head coach. In 2014, the AHL added a major penalty counter. A player who commits ten major penalties for fighting is suspended one game, and will be suspended one game on each such penalty for his 11th to 13th, and two games for his 14th and further penalties. If the opposing fighter is also charged with an instigator penalty, the fighting major will not count towards suspension.


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: In Division I and Division III National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) hockey, the fighters are given a Game Disqualification, which is an ejection from the game and a suspension for as many games as the player has accrued Game Disqualifications during the course of a season. For example, if a player engages in a fight having already received a Game Disqualification earlier in the season, he is ejected from that game and suspended for his team's next two games. This automatic suspension has made fighting in college hockey relatively rare.


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: Fighting is strictly prohibited in European professional hockey leagues and in Olympic ice hockey. The international rules (by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF)) specify in rule 141 – "Fighting" the following penalties (among others):


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: Despite the bans, there have been fights in European leagues. In 2001, a game between the Nottingham Panthers and the Sheffield Steelers in the British Superleague saw "some of the worst scenes of violence seen at a British ice hockey rink". When Sheffield enforcer Dennis Vial crosschecked Nottingham forward Greg Hadden, Panthers enforcer Barry Nieckar subsequently fought with Vial, which eventually escalated into a 36-man bench-clearing brawl. Referee Moray Hanson sent both teams to their locker rooms and delayed the game for 45 minutes while tempers cooled and the officials sorted out the penalties. Eight players and both coaches were ejected, and a British record total of 404 penalty minutes were incurred during the second period. The league handed out 30 games in suspensions to four players and Steelers' coach Mike Blaisdell and a total of £8,400 in fines. Russia's Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) had a bench-clearing brawl between Vityaz Chekhov and Avangard Omsk in 2010. Officials were forced to abandon the game as there were only four players left. Thirty-three players and both teams' coaches were ejected, and a world record total of 707 penalty minutes were incurred during the game. The KHL imposed fines totaling 5.7 million rubles ($191,000), suspended seven players, and counted the game as a 5–0 defeat for both teams, with no points being awarded.


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: The Punch-up in Piestany was a notable instance of fighting in international play. A 1987 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships game between Canada and the Soviet Union was the scene of a bench-clearing brawl that lasted 20 minutes and prompted officials to turn off the arena lights in an attempt to stop it, forcing the IIHF to declare the game null and void. The fighting was particularly dangerous as fighting was a surprise and a custom unknown to the Soviet players, some of whom escalated the fighting beyond what was considered acceptable in North America. Both teams were ejected from the tournament, costing Canada an assured medal, and the Soviet team was barred from the end-of-tournament dinner.


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: The role of "enforcer" on a hockey team is unofficial. Enforcers occasionally play regular shifts like other players, but their primary role is deterring opposing players from rough play. Coaches often send enforcers out when opposing enforcers are on the ice or any time when it is necessary to check excessively physical play by the opposing team. Enforcers, particularly those with questionable playing skills, can be colloquially referred to as goons (a term also occasionally used for a related position, the pest, who may not fight but will agitate an opponent with rough play and goad the opponent into a fight).


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: There are many reasons for fights during a hockey game. Some reasons are related to game play, such as retaliation, momentum-building, intimidation, deterrence, attempting to draw "reaction penalties", and protecting star players. There are also some personal reasons such as retribution for past incidents, bad blood between players, and simple job security for enforcers. Fights often start in response to an opponent's rough play.


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: Of the many reasons for fighting, the foremost is retaliation. When players engage in play that members of the opposing team consider unscrupulous, a fight can ensue. The fight may be between the assailant and the victim, between the assailant and an enforcer from the victim's team, or between opposing enforcers. Fights that occur for retaliation purposes can be in immediate response to an on-ice incident, to incidents from earlier in the game, or to actions from past games. Enforcers who intend to start a fight have to consider their timing due to the Instigator rule. For example, putting the opposing team on a power play due to penalties incurred from fighting is less advisable when the game is close.


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: Enforcers sometimes start fights to build game momentum and provide a psychological advantage over the opposing team. These fights usually involve two enforcers, but may involve any player who is agitating the opposition. This type of fight raises morale on the team of the player who wins, and often excites the home crowd. For that reason, it can also be a gamble to start a fight for momentum; if an enforcer loses the fight, the momentum can swing the wrong way.


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: Intimidation is an important element of a hockey game and some enforcers start fights just to intimidate opposing players in hopes that they will refrain from agitating skilled players. For example, in the late 1950s, Gordie Howe helped establish himself as an enforcer by defeating Lou Fontinato, a notable tough guy who tallied over 1,200 penalty minutes in his career. Fontinato suffered a broken nose from the fight. After that incident, Howe got a lot more space on the ice and was able to score many goals over the span of his career because he intimidated other players. Conversely, games in European professional leagues are known to be less violent than North American games because fighting is discouraged in Europe by ejection and heavy fines. Since the penalties for fighting are so severe, the enforcers are less able to intimidate opposing players with fighting and said players take more liberties on the ice.


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: For teams that face each other frequently, players may fight just to send the message to the opposing players that they will be the target of agitation or aggression in future games. Teams that are losing by a considerable margin often start these fights near the end of the game when they have nothing to lose. Enforcers may start fights with more skilled players to draw what is called a "reaction penalty", an undisciplined reaction to aggressive play on the part of the enforcer. This practice is also known to be difficult due to the Instigator rule.


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: Another reason is the protection of star skaters and defenceless goalies. Fighting within the game can also send a message to players and coaches from other teams that cheap shots, dirty plays, and targeting specific players will not be tolerated and there will be consequences involved. Fighting can provide retribution for a team's player getting targeted or injured. Overall, fighting is sometimes seen as a beneficial policing that the game needs to keep players in line. Over the history of hockey, many enforcers have been signed simply to protect players like Wayne Gretzky, who was protected by Dave Semenko, Marty McSorley, and others, and Brett Hull, who was protected by Kelly Chase and others. Many believe that without players protecting each other, referees would affect the game play by having to call more penalties, and the league would have to suspend players for longer periods.


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: Many young enforcers need to establish their role early in their career to avoid losing their jobs. Due to the farm systems that most professional hockey leagues use, enforcers who get a chance to play at the level above their current one (for example, an AHL player getting a chance to play in an NHL game) need to show other players, coaches, and fans that they are worthy of the enforcer role on the team. Players and coaches enjoy being with enforcers who fight for their teams, not for themselves.


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: There are also times when players and even entire teams carry on personal rivalries that have little to do with individual games; fights frequently occur for no other reason. A rivalry that produced many fights was between the Detroit Red Wings and the Colorado Avalanche during the 1990s.


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: Statistics indicate that fights are detrimental to teams' play, or have inconsequential benefits. Since the 1979–80 season, teams in the bottom three of fighting-related major penalties have finished at the top of the regular-season standings 10 times and have won the Stanley Cup 11 times, while teams in the top three have won the regular season and Stanley Cup only twice each. One statistical analysis calculated that winning a fight benefited a team by about of a win in the standings. Two others showed that fights increase scoring, but do so evenly for both teams so do not significantly affect wins.


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: The Canadian Academy of Sport Medicine announced in "Position Statement" in 1988 that "Fighting does cause injuries, which range from fractures of the hands and face to lacerations and eye injuries. At present, it is an endemic and ritualized blot on the reputation of the North American game."


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: Criticism often arises after single acts of violence committed during fights. For example, on March 21, 2007, Colton Orr of the New York Rangers fought with Todd Fedoruk of the Philadelphia Flyers and ended up knocking Fedoruk unconscious. Fedoruk already had titanium plates in his face from a fight earlier in the season with Derek Boogaard. The resulting media coverage of the incident renewed calls for a fighting ban. Some players acknowledge that there is no harm in discussing the issue; however, most players and administrators continue to insist that fighting stay as a permanent element of organized ice hockey. Some league administrators, such as former NHL senior vice-president and director of hockey operations Colin Campbell, have been circulating the idea of banning fighting in response to incidents such as the Fedoruk–Orr fight.


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: Sports journalists have articulated the idea with increasing frequency that fighting adds nothing to the sport and should be banned. Among the reasons they cite are that it is unsportsmanlike, is a "knee-jerk" reaction that detracts from the skillful aspects of the game, and that it is simply a waste of time. The "Journal of Sport and Social Issues"' Ryan T. Lewinson and Oscar E. Palma believe that fighting shows a lack of discipline on the part of participants, as well as a lack of fairness in certain cases, including when fighters have a size disparity. However, supporters of fighting say it provides a means of security for players, that fighting is a tool players use to keep opposing players in check; essentially allowing players to police which hits and dirty plays are unacceptable.


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: Various politicians and hockey figures have expressed opposition to fighting. In 2012, David Johnston, the Governor General of Canada, said that fighting should not be part of the sport. IIHF president René Fasel has protested against fighting, deeming it "Neanderthal behavior". Wayne Gretzky, considered by many to be the greatest hockey player of all time, has often spoken out against fisticuffs, although he expressed support for fighting in 2004.


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, at a 2007 press conference broadcast on CBC Sports, said, "Fighting has always had a role in the game ... from a player safety standpoint, what happens in fighting is something we need to look at just as we need to look at hits to the head. But we're not looking to have a debate on whether fighting is good or bad or should be part of the game."


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: Community members often become involved in the debate over banning fighting. In December 2006, a school board trustee in London, Ontario, attended a London Knights game and was shocked by the fighting and by the crowd's positive reaction to it. This experience led him to organize an ongoing effort to ban fighting in the Ontario Hockey League, where the Knights compete, by attempting to gain the support of other school boards and by writing letters to OHL administrators. On the advice of its Medical Health Officer, the Middlesex-London Health board has supported recommendations to ban fighting across amateur hockey and to increase disciplinary measures to ensure deterrence.


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: The first known death directly related to a hockey fight occurred when Don Sanderson of the Whitby Dunlops, a top-tier senior amateur team in Ontario's Major League Hockey, died in January 2009, a month after sustaining a head injury during a fight: Sanderson's helmet came off during the fight, and when he fell to the ice, he hit his head. His death renewed calls to ban fighting among critics. In reaction, the league has stated that they are reviewing the players' use of helmets.


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: Fighters such as Bob Probert and Boogaard have been posthumously diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative disease of the brain caused by repeated brain trauma. While the NHL took steps to limit head trauma from blindslide hits, it was criticized for doing nothing to reduce fighting, which consists of repeated deliberate blows to the head. It is unknown whether Boogaard's death was mainly attributed from his repeated head trauma from fighting and hits or from a possible addiction to painkillers while simultaneously abusing alcohol. His brain has been sent to Boston University for further testing.


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: Beginning in the 2016–17 season, the American Hockey League imposed a fighting major counter, similar to the National Basketball Association's unsportsmanlike technical foul counter and soccer's accumulated cards. A player who collects ten major penalties for fighting during the season will be suspended one game, and will be suspended one game for each fighting major for the next three penalties (the 11th, 12th, and 13th fighting majors). A player is suspended two games for his 14th and subsequent major penalty for fighting. If one player involved in the fight is charged with an instigator penalty, the opponent will not have the fighting major count towards suspension. The ECHL added the rule in 2019–20.


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: There are several informal rules governing fighting in ice hockey that players rarely discuss but take quite seriously. The most important aspect of this etiquette is that opposing enforcers must agree to a fight, usually via a verbal or physical exchange on the ice. This agreement helps both players avoid being given an instigator penalty, and helps keep unwilling participants out of fights.


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: Enforcers typically only fight each other, with only the occasional spontaneous fight breaking out between one or two opponents who do not usually fight. There is a high degree of respect among enforcers as well; they will respect a rival who declines a fight because he is playing with injuries, a frequent occurrence, because enforcers consider winning a fight with an injured opponent to be an empty victory. This is also known as granting a "free pass". Enforcer Darren McCarty described fighters as being divided into "heavyweights" and "light heavyweights", and said that players in the latter category "end up dancing with some guys who could end (their) career with a single punch."


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: Long-standing rivalries result in numerous rematches, especially if one of the enforcers has to decline an invitation to fight during a given game. This is one of the reasons that enforcers may fight at the beginning of a game, when nothing obvious has happened to agitate the opponents. On the other hand, it is bad etiquette to try to initiate a fight with an enforcer who is near the end of his shift, since the more rested player will have an obvious advantage.


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: Another important aspect of etiquette is simply fighting fairly and cleanly. Fairness is maintained by not wearing equipment that could injure the opposing fighter, such as face shields, gloves, or masks, and not assaulting referees or linesmen. Finally, whatever the outcome of the fight, etiquette dictates that players who choose to fight win and lose those fights gracefully. Otherwise, they risk losing the respect of their teammates and fans.


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: Sportsmanship is also an important aspect when it comes to fights. While an enforcer may start a fight in response to foul play, it is generally not acceptable to start a fight to retaliate against an opponent who scored fairly.


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: Fighting tactics are governed by several actual rules and enforcers will also adopt informal tactics particular to their style and personality. One tactic adopted by players is known as "going for it", in which the player puts his head down and just throws as many punches as he can, as fast as he can. In the process, that player takes as many punches as he delivers, although some of them are to the hard forehead. Fighters usually must keep one hand on their opponent's jersey since the ice surface makes maintaining balance very difficult. For this reason, the majority of a hockey fight consists of the players holding on with one hand and punching with the other.


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: Other examples include Gordie Howe's tactic of holding the sweater of his opponent right around the armpit of his preferred punching arm so as to impede his movement. Probert, of the Detroit Red Wings and Chicago Blackhawks, was known to allow his opponents to punch until they showed signs of tiring, at which time he would take over and usually dominate the fight. Some consider long-time Buffalo Sabres enforcer Rob Ray to be the reason that hockey jerseys are now equipped with tie-down straps ("fight straps") that prevent their removal; he would always remove his jersey during fights so his opponents would have nothing to grab on to. This is commonly referred to as the "Rob Ray Rule".


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: Throughout a game, the referee and linesmen have a role in preventing fights through the way they are managing the game—calling penalties, breaking up scuffles before they escalate, etc. Despite an official's best efforts, though, fights do occur and once they do, the referee and linesmen have a certain set of responsibilities to follow in order to safely break up the fight. None of these responsibilities are written in the NHL's rule book, but often are guided by "common sense", according to officials.


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: In a single fight situation the linesmen will communicate with each other as to which player they will take during the fight, clear out any sticks, gloves, or other equipment that has been dropped and wait for a safe time to enter the fight, which they will do together. If both players are still standing while the linesmen enter, the linesmen will approach from each side (never from behind), bring their arms over the combatants' arms and wrap them around, pushing downwards and breaking the players apart. If the players have fallen, the linesmen will approach from the side (never over the skates), getting in between the two players. One linesman will use his body to shield the player on the bottom from the other player while his partner will remove the top player from the fight. Most linesmen will allow a fight to run its course for their own safety, but will enter a fight regardless if one player has gained a significant advantage over his opponent. Once the players have been broken up, the linesmen then escort the players off the ice. During this time the referee will keep other players from entering the fight by sending them to a neutral area on the ice and then watching the fight and assessing any other penalties that occur.


title: Fighting in ice hockey

text: In a multiple fight situation the linesmen will normally break up fights together, one fight at a time using the same procedures for a single fight. The linesmen will communicate with each other which fight to break up. In a multiple fight situation the referee will stand in an area of the ice where he/she can have a full view of all the players and will write down—on a pad of paper commonly known as a "riot pad"—the numbers of the players that are involved in the fights, watching for situations that warrant additional penalties, such as players removing opponents' helmets, players participating in a second fight, players leaving a bench to participate in a fight, or third players into a fight. The referee will not normally break up a fight unless the linesmen need assistance, or a fight is occurring where a player has gained a significant advantage over the other player, leading to concerns of significant injury.


title: Zone Rouge

text: The Zone Rouge (English: Red Zone) is a chain of non-contiguous areas throughout northeastern France that the French government isolated after the First World War. The land, which originally covered more than , was deemed too physically and environmentally damaged by conflict for human habitation. Rather than attempt to immediately clean up the former battlefields, the land was allowed to return to nature. Restrictions within the "Zone Rouge" still exist today, although the control areas have been greatly reduced.


title: Zone Rouge

text: The "Zone Rouge" was defined just after the war as "Completely devastated. Damage to properties: 100%. Damage to Agriculture: 100%. Impossible to clean. Human life impossible".


title: Zone Rouge

text: Under French law, activities such as housing, farming, or forestry were temporarily or permanently forbidden in the "Zone Rouge", because of the vast amounts of human and animal remains, and millions of items of unexploded ordnance contaminating the land. Some towns and villages were never permitted to be rebuilt after the war.


title: Zone Rouge

text: The area is saturated with unexploded shells (including many gas shells), grenades, and rusty ammunition. Soils were heavily polluted by lead, mercury, chlorine, arsenic, various dangerous gases, acids, and human and animal remains. The area was also littered with ammunition depots and chemical plants.


title: Zone Rouge

text: Each year, several tons of unexploded shells are recovered. According to the Sécurité Civile agency in charge, at the current rate 300 to 700 more years will be needed to clean the area completely. Some experiments conducted in 2005–06 discovered up to 300 shells per hectare (120 per acre) in the top 15 cm (6 inches) of soil in the worst areas.


title: Zone Rouge

text: Some areas where 99% of all plants still die remain off limits (for example, two small pieces of land close to Ypres and Woëvre), as arsenic constitutes up to 175,907 mg/kg of soil samples, a ratio of 17%.


title: Spirit (band)

text: Spirit was an American rock band founded in 1967 and based in Los Angeles. Their most commercially successful single in the United States was "I Got a Line on You". They were also known for their albums, including their self-titled debut album, "The Family That Plays Together", "Clear", and "Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus".


title: Spirit (band)

text: The original lineup of the group evolved from a Los Angeles band, the Red Roosters, which included Randy California (born Randy Craig Wolfe; guitars, vocals), Mark Andes (bass) and Jay Ferguson (vocals, percussion). With the addition of California's stepfather Ed Cassidy on drums, and keyboard player John Locke, the new band was originally named the "Spirits Rebellious" (after a book by Kahlil Gibran), but the name was soon shortened to Spirit. Before returning to his native state, California previously played with Jimi Hendrix as a member of Jimmy James and the Blue Flames in New York City's Greenwich Village in 1966. Hendrix gave Randy Wolfe the nickname "Randy California" to distinguish him from Randy Palmer, whom Hendrix named "Randy Texas".


title: Spirit (band)

text: Cassidy was recognizable by his shaved head (hence his nickname "Mr. Skin", later the title of a Spirit song) and his fondness for wearing black. Born in 1923, he was about twenty years older than the rest of the group. Although his earlier career was primarily in jazz (including stints with Cannonball Adderley, Gerry Mulligan, Roland Kirk, Thelonious Monk and Lee Konitz), he had served as the founding drummer of Rising Sons, an early blues rock vehicle for Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder.


title: Spirit (band)

text: Early demo recordings by the band were produced by their Topanga Canyon roommate Barry Hansen, later known as the radio host Dr. Demento. In August 1967, the record producer Lou Adler (known for his work with The Mamas & the Papas and The Grass Roots) signed the band to his label, Ode Records. The group's first album, "Spirit", was released in 1968. "Mechanical World" was released as a single (it lists the playing time merely as "very long"). The album was a hit, reaching number 31 on the Billboard 200 and staying on the chart for seven months. The album had jazz influences and used elaborate string arrangements (not found on their subsequent recordings) and is the most overtly psychedelic of their albums. A song from the album, "Fresh Garbage", was included on the CBS sampler album "The Rock Machine Turns You On", released in 1968 in the UK, Europe and South Africa, and was the UK's first introduction to the band.


title: Spirit (band)

text: The band capitalized on the success of their first album with another single, "I Got a Line on You". Released in November 1968, a month before their second album, "The Family That Plays Together", it became their biggest hit single, reaching number 25 on the charts (number 28 in Canada). The album matched its success, reaching number 22. In December, they appeared at the Denver Auditorium, with support band Led Zeppelin, who soon after interpolated parts of Spirit's song "Fresh Garbage" in an extended medley based around their cover of Bob Elgin and Jerry Ragavoy's "As Long as I Have You" (initially popularized by Garnet Mimms) during their early 1969 concerts. Spirit also appeared with Led Zeppelin at two outdoor music festivals in July 1969. Jimmy Page's use of a theremin has been attributed to his seeing Randy California use one that he had mounted to his amplifier. "Guitar World" magazine stated that "California's most enduring legacy may well be the fingerpicked acoustic theme of the song 'Taurus', which Jimmy Page lifted virtually note for note for the introduction to 'Stairway to Heaven'." "The Independent" noted the similarity in 1997. In 2014, Mark Andes and a trust acting on behalf of Randy California filed a copyright infringement suit against Led Zeppelin in an attempt to obtain a writing credit for "Stairway to Heaven". Page denied copying "Taurus", and the suit was unsuccessful. The verdict was overturned on appeal in September 2018. On March 9, 2020, the Ninth Circuit re-instated the original jury verdict.


title: Spirit (band)

text: After the success of their early records, the group was asked by French film director Jacques Demy to record the soundtrack to his film "Model Shop", and they also made a brief appearance in the film. Their third album, "Clear", released in 1969, reached No. 55 on the charts.


title: Spirit (band)

text: After the release of "Clear", the group recorded the song "1984", written by California and produced by the group on their own. After being released in February 1970, it placed at No. 69 on the Billboard charts and No. 66 on the RPM charts. The song would finally see general release on "The Best of Spirit" in 1973.


title: Spirit (band)

text: In 1970, Spirit started working on their fourth LP "Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus". The band chose frequent Neil Young collaborator David Briggs as the producer at the recommendation of the singer-songwriter, an acquaintance from the Topanga Canyon scene. It was a prolific time for the group's writers, and the album was released in late 1970, peaking at No. 63 in early 1971 in the USA, and No. 49 in Canada. The album included Randy California's "Nature's Way", a minor hit (No. 111) which was written in an afternoon during an engagement at the Fillmore West in San Francisco.


title: Spirit (band)

text: Epic also released an early mix of "Animal Zoo" as a single, but it too only made it to No. 97 on the charts. Like The Who's "Tommy" and Pink Floyd's "The Dark Side of the Moon", "Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus" is critically regarded as a landmark of art rock, with a tapestry of literary themes about the fragility of life and the complexity of the human experience, illustrated by recurring lyric "life has just begun", and continued the group's pioneering exploration of environmental issues in their lyrics (cf. "Fresh Garbage"). The album is also notable for its inventive production and the use of a modular Moog synthesizer.


title: Spirit (band)

text: After the group undertook a promotional tour to support the album "Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus", Ferguson and Andes left the group, forming Jo Jo Gunne. California had accused them of plotting to take over the group. Their final gig with Spirit occurred on January 30, 1971, which almost ended with a fist-fight.


title: Spirit (band)

text: John Arliss initially took Andes' place. California was still in the lineup, but he had suffered a head injury from a horse riding accident and was unable to tour. Shortly thereafter, bassist and recent University of Texas School of Law graduate Al Staehely was recruited by Locke and Cassidy to replace Arliss. The trio toured briefly before deciding that they had to add a guitarist to do the music justice. Al's brother, John Christian (Chris) Staehely, auditioned for the band and was quickly brought on board, departing the Texas rock group Krackerjack.


title: Spirit (band)

text: The Staehelys, Cassidy and Locke recorded the 1972 album "Feedback" in Columbia/Epic's Hollywood studios. It was a different turn for the group, showing more of a country rock influence pervading their jazzier tendencies, but it only met with a mild commercial response, also reaching No. 63 in the charts. While the tour for "Feedback" proceeded very well for much of that year, Cassidy and Locke lacked an affinity for roots-based music and soon left the lineup. The Staehely brothers completed the critically successful tour with drummer Stu Perry before dissolving the group in mid-1973 and releasing their own album, "Sta-Hay-Lee".


title: Spirit (band)

text: California, meanwhile, had recorded and issued his first solo album, "Kapt. Kopter and the (Fabulous) Twirly Birds", also on Epic Records in late 1972. Featuring appearances by Noel Redding (as "Clit McTorius"), Leslie Sampson (the drummer from Redding's band Road; as "Henry Manchovitz"), and Cassidy, the album had a hard rock sound. Following a brief tour in support of the album in the Los Angeles area with Cassidy and bassist Larry "Fuzzy" Knight, California toured Europe with this trio under the imprimatur of Spirit amid pressure from booking agents who wanted to capitalize on the band's name and were not interested in his solo work. During this period, a follow-up album ("The Adventures Of Kaptain Kopter And Commander Cassidy In Potato Land") also was recorded with Cassidy. Although Locke made a guest appearance, it was not intended as a Spirit album at the time. California moved to Molokai, Hawaii after Epic rejected the completed album.


title: Spirit (band)

text: In 1973, Epic Records decided to re-issue the group's first and third albums as a two-fer entitled "Spirit" in response to "Sardonicus" continuing to sell well as a catalog item; eventually, "Sardonicus" earned the band's only RIAA gold certification in 1976. That same year, Epic issued "The Best of Spirit" compilation album alongside the "Sardonicus" track "Mr. Skin" as a single. "Mr. Skin" became another minor hit (peaking at No. 92), and the two-fer also hit the charts along with "The Best of Spirit". Cassidy decided to capitalize on the new demand for the group and put together an entirely new group for touring purposes, which lasted throughout the year.


title: Spirit (band)

text: In 1974, Cassidy made it a point to find and re-establish contact with his stepson. He eventually persuaded California to return to the mainland and give the band another shot. Andes worked with the duo for a while, but never intended to stay, as he was in the process of forming the group Firefall at the same time. Andes was replaced by former Frank Zappa sound engineer Barry Keene.


title: Spirit (band)

text: In early 1975, the group was scheduled to open for Ten Years After at a show in Florida, but when the headlining band backed out at the last minute, Spirit was granted permission to take over the theater for the evening. After going around to local radio stations to promote the show and setting a low ($3) ticket price, Spirit managed to sell out the 3,000-seat theater. Using the profits from the show, they blocked out as much time as they could at Studio 70 in Tampa, Florida.


title: Spirit (band)

text: After recording a large amount of material at the studio, manager Marshall Berle (the nephew of Milton Berle) offered the cache of tapes to Mercury Records. On the basis of the material, the group was offered a contract, and a double-album entitled "Spirit of '76" was culled from the material and released in May 1975. The album peaked at No. 147 and garnered some FM airplay, so they quickly followed it up with "Son of Spirit", released early the next year and featuring many songs taken from the same sessions.


title: Spirit (band)

text: For the tour in support of "Son of Spirit", Locke re-joined the group. Eventually, Andes returned to the lineup as well, and though Ferguson declined to participate in the group reunion at first, the band (with the addition of Mark's brother Matt Andes as a second guitarist) recorded an album entitled "Farther Along", released in late 1976.


title: Spirit (band)

text: The album returned the group to the U.S. charts one last time, peaking at No. 179. For a few shows at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, Ferguson re-joined the group. Neil Young created an incident during the final show's encore of "Like a Rolling Stone" when he walked on stage inebriated. California would later claim that he did not recognize Young, but at the time was angry with Young for upstaging what he saw as his own comeback. California moved over in front of Neil and began pushing him backwards, away from the microphone, back past the drumkit and offstage. Young, along with other influential artists including New Hollywood director Hal Ashby, had been visiting the band backstage before they went on, and Locke (a friend of Young) had invited the guitarist to join them in their encore. When Locke saw California pushing Young offstage, he got up from his piano and said that he had had enough and didn't ever want to play with California again, walking off stage. Cassidy initially quelled the situation by leaving his kit and physically pulling both California and Young back onstage to the microphone to close out the song, asking the audience to sing along with them. After finishing the song, the band members argued backstage over what had unfolded leading to the end of the reunion.


title: Spirit (band)

text: Afterwards, California assembled "Future Games: A Magical Kahauna Dream" with Cassidy and limited assistance from session musicians. Although Mercury approved its release in early 1977, the experimental album (which included a Hendrix-influenced cover of "All Along the Watchtower" and underpinned science fiction-based lyrical themes with many samples from "" in a variant of filk) received no promotion, ending what little bit of commercial momentum the group might have regained. It also (initially) ended their contract with Mercury. During this period, Ferguson was having success in his solo career with the hits "Thunder Island" (1977; No. 9) and "Shakedown Cruise" (1979; No. 31).


title: Spirit (band)

text: In a reprise of the "Kapt. Kopter"-era trio, California, Cassidy and Larry "Fuzzy" Knight toured extensively as Spirit throughout 1978; an English leg saw the band headline a triple bill that included post-punk ensemble Alternative TV and The Police. Throughout the tour, California doubled on the foot-controlled Moog Taurus to partially compensate for the lack of a keyboardist. The German TV/radio programme Rockpalast recorded and broadcast Spirit's entire show of March 4/5, 1978, including the encore jam where Dickey Betts joined the band. This trio lineup also recorded a heavily-overdubbed live album (also released in 1978) that was released in slightly different configurations in several countries by different independent labels. It was not a commercial success, and after the tour's end in 1979, California left the group again.


title: Spirit (band)

text: After Spirit's demise, California put together another group with the short-lived intent of restarting his solo career. While in England, a fan presented him with a petition of 5,000 signatures requesting the release of the "Potato Land" album from 1973. Consequently, in 1981, California released an overdubbed selection of tracks from the original album alongside several unrelated songs dating from the late 1970s. Contrary to the intention of the original sessions, it was released under the imprimatur of Spirit in the United States by Rhino Records (a nascent archival label with ties to Dr. Demento) and in Britain by Beggars Banquet Records, a well-regarded independent label specializing in punk rock and its derivations. Surprisingly, it was the only Spirit album other than "Sardonicus" to chart in Britain, peaking at No. 40 in the UK Albums Chart and receiving airplay on BBC Radio 1.


title: Spirit (band)

text: California's second solo album, "Euro-American", was released in 1982 by Beggars Banquet. It featured a lineup including drummer Preston Heyman. During this period, California performed on the second tier at the 1982 Glastonbury Festival. When the power generator failed—allegedly because the operator had fallen asleep stoned and neglected to refill the fuel—Heyman performed a twenty-minute solo while the situation was rectified.