title: Toll road

text: In addition to toll roads, toll bridges and toll tunnels are also used by public authorities to generate funds to repay the cost of building the structures. Some tolls are set aside to pay for future maintenance or enhancement of infrastructure, or are applied as a general fund by local governments, not being earmarked for transport facilities. This is sometimes limited or prohibited by central government legislation. Also, road congestion pricing schemes have been implemented in a limited number of urban areas as a transportation demand management tool to try to reduce traffic congestion and air pollution.


title: Toll road

text: Toll roads have existed for at least the last 2,700 years, as tolls had to be paid by travellers using the Susa–Babylon highway under the regime of Ashurbanipal, who reigned in the seventh century BC.


title: Toll road

text: Aristotle and Pliny refer to tolls in Arabia and other parts of Asia. In India, before the fourth century BC, the Arthashastra notes the use of tolls. Germanic tribes charged tolls to travellers across mountain passes.


title: Toll road

text: Most roads were not freely open to travel on in Europe during the Middle Ages, and the toll was one of many feudal fees paid for rights of usage in everyday life. Some major European "highways", such as the Via Regia and Via Imperii, offered protection to travelers in exchange for paying the royal toll.


title: Toll road

text: Many modern European roads were originally constructed as toll roads in order to recoup the costs of construction and maintenance, and to generate revenue from passing travelers. In 14th-century England, some of the most heavily used roads were repaired with money raised from tolls by pavage grants. Widespread toll roads sometimes restricted traffic so much, by their high tolls, that they interfered with trade and cheap transportation needed to alleviate local famines or shortages.


title: Toll road

text: After significant road construction undertaken by the West African kingdom of Dahomey, toll booths were also established with the function of collecting yearly taxes based on the goods carried by the people of Dahomey and their occupation. In some cases, officials imposed fines for public nuisance before allowing people to pass.


title: Toll road

text: Industrialisation in Europe needed major improvements to the transport infrastructure which included many new or substantially improved roads, financed from tolls. The A5 road in Britain was built to provide a robust transport link between Britain and Ireland and had a toll house every few miles.


title: Toll road

text: In the 20th century, road tolls were introduced in Europe to finance the construction of motorway networks and specific transport infrastructure such as bridges and tunnels. Italy was the first European country to charge motorway tolls, on a motorway section near Milan in 1924. It was followed by Greece, which made users pay for the network of motorways around and between its cities in 1927. Later in the 1950s and 1960s, France, Spain, and Portugal started to build motorways largely with the aid of concessions, allowing rapid development of this infrastructure without massive state debts. Since then, road tolls have been introduced in the majority of the EU member states.


title: Toll road

text: In the United States, prior to the introduction of the Interstate Highway System and the large federal grants supplied to states to build it, many states constructed their first controlled-access highways by floating bonds backed by toll revenues. Starting with the Pennsylvania Turnpike in 1940, and followed by similar roads in New Jersey (New Jersey Turnpike, 1952 and Garden State Parkway, 1954), New York (New York State Thruway, 1954), Massachusetts (Massachusetts Turnpike, 1957), Illinois (Illinois Tollway, 1958), and others, numerous states throughout the 1950s established major toll roads. With the establishment of the Interstate Highway System in the late 1950s, toll road construction in the U.S. slowed down considerably, as the federal government now provided the bulk of funding to construct new freeways, and regulations required that such Interstate highways be free from tolls. Many older toll roads were added to the Interstate System under a grandfather clause that allowed tolls to continue to be collected on toll roads that predated the system. Some of these such as the Connecticut Turnpike and the Richmond–Petersburg Turnpike later removed their tolls when the initial bonds were paid off. Many states, however, have maintained the tolling of these roads as a consistent source of revenue.


title: Toll road

text: As the Interstate Highway System approached completion during the 1980s, states began constructing toll roads again to provide new controlled-access highways which were not part of the original interstate system funding. Houston's outer beltway of interconnected toll roads began in 1983, and many states followed over the last two decades of the 20th century adding new toll roads, including the tollway system around Orlando, Florida, Colorado's E-470, and Georgia State Route 400.


title: Toll road

text: London, in an effort to reduce traffic within the city, instituted the London congestion charge in 2003, effectively making all roads within the centre of the city tolled.


title: Toll road

text: In the United States, as states looked for ways to construct new freeways without federal funding again, to raise revenue for continued road maintenance, and to control congestion, new toll road construction saw significant increases during the first two decades of the 21st century. Spurred on by two innovations, the electronic toll collection system, and the advent of high-occupancy and express lane tolls, many areas of the U.S saw large road building projects in major urban areas. Electronic toll collection, first introduced in the 1980s, reduces operating costs by removing toll collectors from roads. Tolled express lanes, by which certain lanes of a freeway are designated "toll only", increases revenue by allowing a free-to-use highway to collect revenue by allowing drivers to bypass traffic jams by paying a toll.


title: Toll road

text: The E-ZPass system, compatible with many state systems, is the largest ETC system in the U.S., and is used for both fully tolled highways and tolled express lanes. Maryland Route 200 and the Triangle Expressway in North Carolina were the first toll roads built without toll booths, with drivers charged via ETC or by optical license plate recognition and are billed by mail. In addition, many older toll roads are also being upgraded to an all-electronic tolling system, abandoning the hybrid systems they adopted during the late 20th century. These include the Massachusetts Turnpike, one of the oldest American toll roads, which went all-electronic in 2016, and the Pennsylvania Turnpike, America's oldest toll freeway, which went all-electronic in 2020.


title: Toll road

text: Turnpike trusts were established in England and Wales from about 1706 in response to the need for better roads than the few and poorly-maintained tracks then available. Turnpike trusts were set up by individual Acts of Parliament, with powers to collect road tolls to repay loans for building, improving, and maintaining the principal roads in Britain. At their peak, in the 1830s, over 1,000 trusts administered around of turnpike road in England and Wales, taking tolls at almost 8,000 toll-gates.


title: Toll road

text: The trusts were ultimately responsible for the maintenance and improvement of most of the main roads in England and Wales, which were used to distribute agricultural and industrial goods economically. The tolls were a source of revenue for road building and maintenance, paid for by road users and not from general taxation. The turnpike trusts were gradually abolished from the 1870s. Most trusts improved existing roads, but some new roads, usually only short stretches, were also built. Thomas Telford's Holyhead road followed Watling Street from London but was exceptional in creating a largely new route beyond Shrewsbury, and especially beyond Llangollen. Built in the early 19th century, with many toll booths along its length, most of it is now the A5. In the modern day, one major toll road is the M6 Toll, relieving traffic congestion on the M6 in Birmingham. A few notable bridges and tunnels continue as toll roads including the Dartford Crossing and Mersey Gateway bridge.


title: Toll road

text: Some cities in Canada had toll roads in the 19th century. Roads radiating from Toronto required users to pay at toll gates along the street (Yonge Street, Bloor Street, Davenport Road, Kingston Road) and disappeared after 1895.


title: Toll road

text: 19th-century plank roads were usually operated as toll roads. One of the first U.S. motor roads, the Long Island Motor Parkway (which opened on October 10, 1908) was built by William Kissam Vanderbilt II, the great-grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt. The road was closed in 1938 when it was taken over by the state of New York in lieu of back taxes.


title: Toll road

text: The first toll road in St. Petersburg appeared in the 2000s. The Western High-Speed Diameter (WHSD) is a multilane motorway running from the South to the North. The road connects the southwest of the city, including the Sea Port area, with the Ring Road, Vasilievsky Island, Kurortny district and the Scandinavia motorway. The WHSD is divided into three sections: Southern, Central and Northern. The entire stretch of the WHSD was opened for traffic in 2016.


title: Toll road

text: There are 16 toll plazas on the WHSD. Paying toll by transponder is mostly recommended for frequent drivers. The Flow+ toll collection system was implemented on the WHSD. The system was designed for automatic calculation of the driving distance of a vehicle equipped with a transponder. The system does not require constructing toll plazas at each entrance to or exit from the highway. Transponders mounted on vehicles are read by signal receivers installed at the entrance and exit ramps.


title: Toll road

text: Road tolls were levied traditionally for a specific access (e.g. city) or for a specific infrastructure (e.g. roads, bridges). These concepts were widely used until the last century. However, the evolution in technology made it possible to implement road tolling policies based on different concepts. The different charging concepts are designed to suit different requirements regarding purpose of the charge, charging policy, the network to the charge, tariff class differentiation, et cetera:


title: Toll road

text: Some toll roads charge a toll in only one direction. Examples include the Sydney Harbour Bridge, Sydney Harbour Tunnel, and Eastern Distributor (these all charge tolls city-bound) in Australia, in the United States, crossings between Pennsylvania and New Jersey operated by Delaware River Port Authority and crossings between New Jersey and New York operated by Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. This technique is practical where the detour to avoid the toll is large or the toll differences are small.


title: Toll road

text: Traditionally, tolls were paid by hand at a toll gate. Although payments may still be made in cash, it is more common now to pay using an electronic toll collection system. In some places, payment is made using transponders which are affixed to the windscreen.


title: Toll road

text: Three systems of toll roads exist: "open" (with mainline barrier toll plazas); "closed" (with entry/exit tolls); and "open road" (no toll booths, only electronic toll collection gantries at entrances and exits or at strategic locations on the median of the road). Some toll roads use a combination of the three systems.


title: Toll road

text: On an open toll system, all vehicles stop at various locations along the highway to pay a toll. (This is different from "open road tolling", where "no" vehicles stop to pay a toll.) While this may save money from the lack of need to construct toll booths at every exit, it can cause traffic congestion while traffic queues at the mainline toll plazas (toll barriers). It is also possible for motorists to enter an 'open toll road' after one toll barrier and exit before the next one, thus travelling on the toll road toll-free. Most open toll roads have ramp tolls or partial access junctions to prevent this practice, known in the U.S. as "shunpiking".


title: Toll road

text: With a closed toll system, vehicles collect a ticket when entering the highway. In some cases, the ticket displays the toll to be paid on exit. Upon exit, the driver must pay the amount listed for the given exit. Should the ticket be lost, a driver must typically pay the maximum amount possible for travel on that highway. Short toll roads with no intermediate entries or exits may have only one toll plaza at one end, with motorists travelling in either direction paying a flat fee either when they enter or when they exit the toll road. In a variant of the closed toll system, mainline barriers are present at the two endpoints of the toll road, and each interchange has a ramp toll that is paid upon exit or entry. In this case, a motorist pays a flat fee at the ramp toll and another flat fee at the end of the toll road; no ticket is necessary. In addition, with most systems, motorists may pay tolls only with cash or change; debit and credit cards are not accepted. However, some toll roads may have travel plazas with ATMs so motorists can stop and withdraw cash for the tolls.


title: Toll road

text: The toll is calculated by the distance travelled on the toll road or the specific exit chosen. In the United States, for instance, the Kansas Turnpike, Ohio Turnpike, New Jersey Turnpike, most of the Indiana Toll Road, New York State Thruway, and Florida's Turnpike currently implement closed systems.


title: Toll road

text: The Union Toll Plaza on the Garden State Parkway was the first ever to use an automated toll collection machine. A plaque commemorating the event includes the first quarter collected at its toll booths.


title: Toll road

text: The first major deployment of an RFID electronic toll collection system in the United States was on the Dallas North Tollway in 1989 by Amtech (see TollTag). The Amtech RFID technology used on the Dallas North Tollway was originally developed at Sandia Labs for use in tagging and tracking livestock. In the same year, the Telepass active transponder RFID system was introduced across Italy. Several US states now use mobile tolling platforms to facilitate use of payment via smartphones.


title: Toll road

text: Highway 407 in the province of Ontario, Canada, has no toll booths, and instead reads a transponder mounted on the windshields of each vehicle using the road (the rear licence plates of vehicles lacking a transponder are photographed when they enter and exit the highway). This made the highway the first all-automated toll highway in the world. A bill is mailed monthly for usage of the 407. Lower charges are levied on frequent 407 users who carry electronic transponders in their vehicles. The approach has not been without controversy: In 2003 the 407 ETR settled a class action with a refund to users.


title: Toll road

text: Throughout most of the East Coast of the United States, E-ZPass (operated under the brand I-Pass in Illinois) is accepted on almost all toll roads. Similar systems include SunPass in Florida, FasTrak in California, Good to Go in Washington state, and ExpressToll in Colorado. The systems use a small radio transponder mounted in or on a customer's vehicle to deduct toll fares from a pre-paid account as the vehicle passes through the toll barrier. This reduces manpower at toll booths and increases traffic flow and fuel efficiency by reducing the need for complete stops to pay tolls at these locations.


title: Toll road

text: By designing a toll gate specifically for electronic collection, it is possible to carry out open-road tolling, where the customer does not need to slow at all when passing through the toll gate. The U.S. state of Texas is using a system that has no toll booths. Drivers without a TollTag have their license plate photographed automatically and the registered owner will receive a monthly bill, at a higher rate than those vehicles with TollTags. A similar variation of automatic collection is the Toll Roads in Orange County, CA, US, wherein all entry or collection points are equipped with high-speed cameras which read license plates and users will have 7 calendar days to pay online using their plate number or else set up an account for automatic debits.


title: Toll road

text: The first all-electronic toll road in the northeastern United States, the InterCounty Connector (Maryland Route 200) was partially opened to traffic in February 2011, and the final segment was completed in November 2014. The first section of another all-electronic toll road, the Triangle Expressway, opened at the beginning of 2012 in North Carolina.


title: Toll road

text: Some toll roads are managed under such systems as the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) system. Private companies build the roads and are given a limited franchise. Ownership is transferred to the government when the franchise expires. This type of arrangement is prevalent in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Indonesia, India, South Korea, Japan, and the Philippines. The BOT system is a fairly new concept that is gaining ground in the United States, with California, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Mississippi, Texas, and Virginia already building and operating toll roads under this scheme. Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Tennessee are also considering the BOT methodology for future highway projects.


title: Toll road

text: The more traditional means of managing toll roads in the United States is through semi-autonomous public authorities. Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia manage their toll roads in this manner. While most of the toll roads in California, Delaware, Florida, Texas, and Virginia are operating under the BOT arrangement, a few of the older toll roads in these states are still operated by public authorities.


title: Toll road

text: In France, some toll roads are operated by private or public companies, with specific taxes collected by the state.


title: European goldfinch

text: The European goldfinch or simply the goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis) is a small passerine bird in the finch family that is native to Europe, North Africa and western and central Asia. It has been introduced to other areas, including Australia, New Zealand and Uruguay.


title: European goldfinch

text: The breeding male has a red face with black markings around the eyes, and a black-and-white head. The back and flanks are buff or chestnut brown. The black wings have a broad yellow bar. The tail is black and the rump is white. Males and females are very similar, but females have a slightly smaller red area on the face.


title: European goldfinch

text: The European goldfinch was one of the birds described and illustrated by Swiss naturalist Conrad Gessner in his "Historiae animalium" of 1555. The first formal description was by Carl Linnaeus in the 10th edition of his "Systema Naturae" published in 1758. He introduced the binomial name, "Fringilla carduelis". "Carduelis" is the Latin word for 'goldfinch'. The European goldfinch is now placed in the genus "Carduelis" that was introduced by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760 by tautonomy based on Linnaeus's specific epithet. Modern molecular genetic studies have shown that the European goldfinch is closely related to the citril finch ("Carduelis citrinella") and the Corsican finch ("Carduelis corsicana").


title: European goldfinch

text: The English word 'goldfinch' was used in the second half of the 14th century by Geoffrey Chaucer in his unfinished "The Cook's Tale": "Gaillard he was as goldfynch in the shawe (Gaily dressed he was as is a goldfinch in the woods)".


title: European goldfinch

text: The subspecies of the European goldfinch are divided into two major groups. These intergrade at their boundary, so the groups are not recognized as distinct species despite their readily distinguishable plumage. Subspecies in the "carduelis" (black-crowned) group occupy the western part of the range and have black crowns; subspecies in the "caniceps" (grey-headed) group occupy the eastern part of the range and have grey heads.


title: European goldfinch

text: The European goldfinch originated in the late Miocene-Pliocene and belongs to the clade of cardueline finches. The citril finch and the Corsican finch are its sister taxa. Their closest relatives are the greenfinches, crossbills and redpolls. The monophyly of the subfamily Carduelinae is suggested in previous studies.


title: European goldfinch

text: The average European goldfinch is long with a wingspan of and a weight of . The sexes are broadly similar, with a red face, black and white head, warm brown upper parts, white underparts with buff flanks and breast patches, and black and yellow wings.


title: European goldfinch

text: On closer inspection, male European goldfinches can often be distinguished by a larger, darker red mask that extends just behind the eye. The shoulder feathers are black, whereas they are brown on the female. In females, the red face does not extend past the eye. The ivory-coloured bill is long and pointed, and the tail is forked. Goldfinches in breeding condition have a white bill, with a greyish or blackish mark at the tip for the rest of the year. Juveniles have a plain head and a greyer back but are unmistakable due to the yellow wing stripe. Birds in central Asia (the "caniceps" group) have a plain grey head behind the red face, lacking the black and white head pattern of European and western Asian birds. Adults moult after the breeding season, with some individuals beginning in July and others not completing their moult until November. After moult birds appear less colourful, until the tips of the newly grown feathers wear away.


title: European goldfinch

text: The song is a pleasant silvery twittering. The call is a melodic ', and the song is a pleasant tinkling medley of trills and twitters, but always including the tri-syllabic call phrase or a '.


title: European goldfinch

text: The European goldfinch is native to Europe, North Africa, and western and central Asia. It is found in open, partially wooded lowlands and is a resident in the milder west of its range, but migrates from colder regions. It will also make local movements, even in the west, to escape bad weather.


title: European goldfinch

text: It was introduced to Bermuda, Canada, the United States, Mexico, Peru, Argentina, Chile, the Falkland Islands, Uruguay, Brazil, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand in the 19th century, and their populations quickly increased and their range expanded greatly. In Australia, they now occur from Brisbane to the Eyre Peninsula, and are also spread throughout New Zealand. In the United States, they have become established in the western Great Lakes region.


title: European goldfinch

text: The nest is built entirely by the female and is generally completed within a week. The male accompanies the female, but does not contribute. The nest is neat and compact and is generally located several metres above the ground, hidden by leaves in the twigs at the end of a swaying branch. It is constructed of mosses and lichens and lined with plant down such as that from thistles. It is attached to the twigs of the tree with spider silk. A deep cup prevents the loss of eggs in windy weather. Beginning within a couple of days after the completion of the nest, the eggs are laid in early morning at daily intervals. The clutch is typically 4-6 eggs, which are whitish with reddish-brown speckles. They have a smooth surface and are slightly glossy. The average size is with a calculated weight of . The eggs are incubated for 11–13 days by the female, who is fed by the male. The chicks are fed by both parents. Initially they receive a mixture of seeds and insects, but as they grow the proportion of insect material decreases. For the first 7–9 days the young are brooded by the female. The nestlings fledge 13–18 days after hatching. The young birds are fed by both parents for a further 7–9 days. The parents typically raise two broods each year and occasionally three.


title: European goldfinch

text: The European goldfinch's preferred food is small seeds such as those from thistles (the Latin name is from "Carduus", a genus of thistles), cornflowers, and teasels, but insects are also taken when feeding young. It also regularly visits bird feeders in winter. In the winter, European goldfinches group together to form flocks of up to 40, occasionally more. European goldfinches are attracted to back gardens in Europe and North America by birdfeeders containing (commercially described as nyjer) seed. This seed of an annual from Africa is small, and high in oils. Special polycarbonate feeders with small oval slits at which the European goldfinches feed are sometimes used.


title: European goldfinch

text: European goldfinches are commonly kept and bred in captivity around the world because of their distinctive appearance and pleasant song. If European goldfinches are kept with domestic canaries, they tend to lose their native song and call in favour of their cagemates' songs. This is considered undesirable, as it detracts from the allure of keeping European goldfinches. In Great Britain during the 19th century, many thousands of European goldfinches were trapped each year to be sold as cage birds. One of the earliest campaigns of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds was directed against this trade. Wildlife conservation attempts to limit bird trapping and the destruction of the open space habitats of European goldfinches.


title: European goldfinch

text: Steglitz, a borough of the German city of Berlin is named after the European goldfinch. The surname Goldspink is based on the Scots word for the European goldfinch.


title: European goldfinch

text: Because of the thistle seeds it eats, in Christian symbolism the European goldfinch is associated with Christ's Passion and his crown of thorns. The European goldfinch, appearing in pictures of the Madonna and Christ child, represents the foreknowledge Jesus and Mary had of the Crucifixion. Examples include the "Madonna del cardellino" or "Madonna of the Goldfinch", painted by the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael in about 1505–6, in which John the Baptist offers a European goldfinch to Christ in a warning of his future. In Barocci's "Holy Family", a European goldfinch is held in the hand of John the Baptist, who holds it high out of reach of an interested cat. In Cima da Conegliano's "Madonna and Child", a European goldfinch flutters in the hand of the Christ child. It is also an emblem of endurance, fruitfulness, and persistence. Because it symbolizes the Passion, the European goldfinch is considered a "saviour" bird and may be pictured with the common housefly (which represents sin and disease). The European goldfinch is also associated with Saint Jerome and appears in some depictions of him.


title: European goldfinch

text: Antonio Vivaldi composed a Concerto in D major for Flute "Il Gardellino" (RV 428, Op. 10 No. 3), where the singing of the European goldfinch is imitated by a flute. An anonymous Italian Neapolitan poem titled "Il Cardellino" was put to music by Saverio Mercadante and sung by Jose Carreras.


title: European goldfinch

text: European goldfinches, with their "wanton freak" and "yellow flutterings", are among the many natural "luxuries" that delight the speaker of John Keats' poem 'I stood tip-toe upon a little hill...' (1816).


title: European goldfinch

text: In the poem "The Great Hunger" by Patrick Kavanagh, the European goldfinch is one of the rare glimpses of beauty in the life of an elderly Irish farmer:


title: European goldfinch

text: Donna Tartt's novel "The Goldfinch" won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. A turning point in the plot occurs when the narrator, Theo, sees his mother's favourite painting, Carel Fabritius's "The Goldfinch", in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.


title: Anwar El Ghazi

text: Anwar el-Ghazi (Riffian-Berber: ⴰⵏⵡⴰⵔ ⵍⴴⴰⵣⵉ, born 3 May 1995) is a Dutch professional footballer who plays as a winger for PSV and the Netherlands national team. He is of Moroccan descent.


title: Anwar El Ghazi

text: El Ghazi began his football career in the youth ranks of his local club BVV Barendrecht, joining the youth academy of Feyenoord for two seasons. He then joined the ranks of Spartaan '20 before being recruited to Sparta Rotterdam, where he progressed through the academy. In 2013, he joined the Ajax Youth Academy, playing for the A1 selection (under-19), competing in the UEFA Youth League.


title: Anwar El Ghazi

text: El Ghazi was signed by Ajax in July 2013. During the 2014–15 pre-season, he scored 8 goals in 150 minutes of playing time, finishing as Ajax's top pre-season scorer. While Ajax initially intended to send El Ghazi to their reserve team, Jong Ajax, El Ghazi's pre-season prompted Ajax to include him in the first-team squad, following the loan of fellow winger Lesley de Sa to Go Ahead Eagles. El Ghazi made his official debut for Ajax in the 2014 Johan Cruyff Shield against PEC Zwolle, coming on for Ricardo Kishna in the 1–0 loss at home.


title: Anwar El Ghazi

text: El Ghazi made his regular season debut for Ajax in the 2014–15 Eredivisie season opener against Vitesse. The match ended in a 4–1 home victory, with El Ghazi providing the assist for the fourth goal by Lasse Schöne in the 87th minute. On 17 August 2014, El Ghazi scored his first Eredivisie goal in the 3–1 away win against AZ, scoring in the 90th minute. He scored his first UEFA Champions League goal on 22 October 2014 at Camp Nou against Barcelona in the 88th minute of a 3–1 loss. In so doing, he became the first player to score at Camp Nou since the beginning of the 2014–15 season, when Barcelona went five matches at home without conceding a goal.


title: Anwar El Ghazi

text: On 31 January 2017, it was announced El Ghazi had been sold to French Ligue 1 side Lille for a €8 million transfer fee. On 18 February, he scored his first goal for Lille against Caen, which also became the winner (0–1).


title: Anwar El Ghazi

text: On 6 August 2017, on the first matchday of the 2017–18 season, El Ghazi scored Lille's third goal against Nantes. To celebrate, he took off his shirt to reveal a shirt paying tribute to Abdelhak Nouri, his former Ajax teammate who the month before had collapsed and suffered a cardiac arrhythmia attack, which had left him with severe and permanent brain damage and unable to continue as a footballer. During the 2017–18 season, El Ghazi scored four goals and delivered two assists in 27 appearances. The Dutch striker distinguished himself in particular during the match against RC Strasbourg, on 28 January 2018 at home at the Stade Pierre-Mauroy, where he scored the first goal; a header, after an assist by Nicolas Pépé. He then delivered an assist for the Edgar Ié, sealing the win for Lille.


title: Anwar El Ghazi

text: On 18 February 2018, El Ghazi suffered a hamstring injury against Lyon, sidelining him for several weeks. Due to complications, he did not return until the end of the season, where he struggled to establish himself in head coach Christophe Galtier's starting lineup.


title: Anwar El Ghazi

text: On 22 August 2018, El Ghazi signed for Championship club Aston Villa on a season-long loan, with a clause to buy included. He made his debut on 25 August 2018 in a 1–1 draw with Reading, providing an assist by crossing the ball to Ahmed Elmohamady, who scored a header.”


title: Anwar El Ghazi

text: On 28 April 2019, in a heated contest between Aston Villa and Championship playoff rivals Leeds United at Elland Road, El Ghazi was mistakenly shown a red card by referee Stuart Attwell. This occurred after El Ghazi allegedly struck Leeds forward Patrick Bamford during an on pitch brawl following Mateusz Klich's controversial 72nd opening goal for Leeds United following Tyler Roberts' refusal to put the ball out of touch for an injury. The decision was met with controversy from fans and pundits alike, with Aston Villa head coach Dean Smith claiming that after reviewing the footage of the incident reported that he'd be 'amazed' if the red card and subsequent three-game ban weren't overturned after appeal. The red card and ban were later rescinded and on 2 May, Bamford was banned for two games for "successful deception of a match official".


title: Anwar El Ghazi

text: On 27 May 2019, El Ghazi scored Aston Villa's first goal in their 2–1 EFL Championship Play-off final victory over Derby County. In the 44th minute he met an Ahmed Elmohamady cross from the right with an attempted diving header which diverted in off his back. In the second half an El Ghazi shot from just outside the penalty area was blocked by Richard Keogh, looping up for John McGinn to steal in and score with a header, putting Aston Villa 2–0 up in the tie on 59 minutes.


title: Anwar El Ghazi

text: El Ghazi signed for Villa permanently on 10 June 2019 on a four-year contract for an undisclosed fee. He scored 4 goals and contributed 4 assists in his first Premier League season, as Villa narrowly avoided relegation.


title: Anwar El Ghazi

text: On 26 December 2020, El Ghazi scored a goal in the 3–0 home victory over Crystal Palace that would go onto to be voted Aston Villa's goal of the season for the 2020–21 season. It was one of 11 goals scored that season, equalling his best ever goalscoring season with Ajax.


title: Anwar El Ghazi

text: El Ghazi signed for Everton on loan on 13 January 2022. He took the number 34 shirt in honour of former Ajax teammate Abdelhak Nouri.


title: Anwar El Ghazi

text: On 30 August 2022, El Ghazi completed a move to PSV Eindhoven. He made his debut in a 2–1 defeat to Twente on 3 September.


title: Anwar El Ghazi

text: Having dual citizenship, El Ghazi was eligible to represent either the Netherlands or Morocco at senior level. He made his international debut playing for the Netherlands under-18 side in a friendly match against Austria on 15 October 2012, a 2–0 loss.


title: Anwar El Ghazi

text: El Ghazi met Cristiano Ronaldo during the summer break, a player who he looks up to, and asked him whether he should represent the Netherlands or Morocco. Ronaldo advised him to choose the Netherlands because he would have a higher chance to participate in an international tournament, based on their history. Consequently, El Ghazi said he would choose to represent the Netherlands and was subsequently called up for the Netherlands' two final UEFA Euro 2016 qualifying matches, against Kazakhstan on 10 October 2015 and the Czech Republic on 13 October. He was named in the "Oranje"'s starting line-up for both matches as the Dutch defeated Kazakhstan 2–1 but lost to the Czechs 3–2. The Netherlands failed to qualify for the tournament proper after finishing fourth in their qualifying group.


title: Anwar El Ghazi

text: On 14 May 2021, El Ghazi was called up by Frank de Boer and the Netherlands to be part of the provisional squad for the upcoming UEFA Euro 2020 tournament, making it his first call-up to the national team since 2015.


title: Anwar El Ghazi

text: In October 2022 El Ghazi confirmed that he was considering switching to Morocco and that the Royal Moroccan Football Federation was working on the paperwork.


title: Sushant Singh

text: Sushant Singh (born 9 March 1972) is an Indian character actor, television actor, author and presenter known for his works predominantly in Hindi cinema, and Telugu cinema. He made his screen debut in 1998 with Ram Gopal Varma's "Satya". He was then starred in "Jungle" (2000), receiving critical acclaim for portraying slain bandit Durgaa Narayan Chaudhary, winning the IIFA Award and Zee Cine Award for Best Performance in a Negative Role.


title: Sushant Singh

text: He went on to appear in successful period drama's such as "Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar" and "The Legend of Bhagat Singh", establishing himself in Bollywood. He has also starred in Telugu films. He hosted the crime show "Savdhaan India", aired by Life OK and STAR Bharat. He was the "Honorary Secretary" Of "CINTAA" (Cine and Television Artists Association) until May 2020 before resigning due to personal reasons. He has co-authored the book "Queens of Crime" with Kulpreet Yadav.


title: Lilli Palmer

text: Lilli Palmer (; born Lilli Marie Peiser; 24 May 1914 – 27 January 1986) was a German actress and writer. After beginning her career in British films in the 1930s, she would later transition to major Hollywood productions, earning a Golden Globe Award nomination for her performance in "But Not for Me" (1959).


title: Lilli Palmer

text: Other notable roles include in the comedy "The Pleasure of His Company" (1961), the Spanish horror film "The House That Screamed" (1969), and in the miniseries "Peter the Great" (1986), which earned her another Golden Globe Award nomination. For her career in European films, Palmer won the Volpi Cup, and the Deutscher Filmpreis three times.


title: Lilli Palmer

text: Palmer, who took her surname from an English actress she admired, was one of three daughters born to , a German Jewish surgeon, and Rose Lissman (or Lissmann), an Austrian Jewish stage actress in Posen, Prussia, Germany (Poznań, Poland).


title: Lilli Palmer

text: When Lilli was four her family moved to Berlin-Charlottenburg. She was a junior table tennis champion as a young girl.


title: Lilli Palmer

text: In France, she appeared in an operetta at the Moulin Rouge, and then to London, where she began her film career. While performing in cabarets, she attracted the attention of British talent scouts and was offered a contract by the Gaumont Film Company. She made her screen debut in "Crime Unlimited" (1935) and appeared in numerous British films for the next decade.


title: Lilli Palmer

text: She married actor Rex Harrison on 25 January 1943, and followed him to Hollywood in 1945. She signed with Warner Brothers and appeared in several films, notably "Cloak and Dagger" (1946) and "Body and Soul" (1947).


title: Lilli Palmer

text: Harrison and Palmer appeared together in the hit Broadway play "Bell, Book and Candle" in the early 1950s. They also appeared in the 1951 British melodrama "The Long Dark Hall", and later starred in the film version of "The Four Poster" (1952), which was based on the award-winning Broadway play of the same name, written by Jan de Hartog. She won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress in 1953 for "The Four Poster".


title: Lilli Palmer

text: Palmer returned to Germany in 1954, where she played roles in many films and television productions. She also continued to play both leading and supporting parts in the U.S. and abroad. In 1957, she won the Deutscher Filmpreis for Best Actress for her portrayal of Anna Anderson in "The Story of Anastasia", called "Is Anna Anderson Anastasia?" in the UK. In 1958, she played the role of a teacher opposite Romy Schneider in "Mädchen in Uniform" ("Girls in Uniform"), the remake of the 1931 film of the same title.


title: Lilli Palmer

text: She starred opposite William Holden in "The Counterfeit Traitor" (1962), an espionage thriller based on fact, and opposite Robert Taylor in another true Second World War story, Disney's "Miracle of the White Stallions" (1963). On the small screen, in 1974 she starred as Manouche Roget in the six-part television drama series "The Zoo Gang", about a group of former underground freedom fighters from the Second World War, with Brian Keith, Sir John Mills and Barry Morse.


title: Lilli Palmer

text: Palmer published a memoir, "Change Lobsters and Dance", in 1975. Reminiscences by Vivian Matalon and Noël Coward (Matalon directed Palmer in the premiere production of Coward's trilogy "Suite in Three Keys" in 1966) suggest that Palmer was not always the patient and reasonable person she represented herself as being in this autobiography. She wrote a full-length work of fiction presented as a novel rather than a memoir, "The Red Raven", in 1978.


title: Lilli Palmer

text: Palmer's first marriage was to Rex Harrison in 1943. They divorced amicably in 1957, so that he could marry ailing actress Kay Kendall before her untimely death. Palmer agreed since she was already involved with her future husband, Carlos Thompson.


title: Lilli Palmer

text: Palmer was married to Argentine actor Carlos Thompson from 1957 until her death in Los Angeles from abdominal cancer in 1986 at the age of 71. She was survived by her husband, son, sisters, and her ex-husband.


title: Lilli Palmer

text: Palmer is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California. A portion of the ashes of her first husband, Rex Harrison, were scattered on her grave.


title: Famous for being famous

text: Famous for being famous is a term for someone who attains celebrity status for no clearly identifiable reason (as opposed to fame based on achievement, skill, or talent) and appears to generate their own fame, or someone who achieves fame through a family or relationship association with an existing celebrity.


title: Famous for being famous

text: The term originates from an analysis of the media-dominated world called "" (1961), by historian and social theorist Daniel J. Boorstin. In it, he defined the celebrity as "a person who is known for his well-knownness". He further argued that the graphic revolution in journalism and other forms of communication had severed fame from greatness, and that this severance hastened the decay of fame into mere notoriety. Over the years, the phrase has been glossed as "a celebrity is someone who is famous for being famous".


title: Famous for being famous

text: The British journalist Malcolm Muggeridge may have been the first to use the actual phrase in the introduction to his book "Muggeridge Through The Microphone" (1967) in which he wrote:In the past if someone was famous or notorious, it was for something—as a writer or an actor or a criminal; for some talent or distinction or abomination. Today one is famous for being famous. People who come up to one in the street or in public places to claim recognition nearly always say: "I've seen you on the telly!"


title: Famous for being famous

text: Neal Gabler more recently refined the definition of celebrity to distinguish those who have gained recognition for having done virtually nothing of significance—a phenomenon he dubbed the "Zsa Zsa Factor" in honor of Zsa Zsa Gabor, who parlayed her marriage to actor George Sanders into a brief movie career and the movie career into a much more enduring celebrity. He goes on to define the celebrity as "human entertainment", by which he means a person who provides entertainment by the very process of living.


title: Famous for being famous

text: This topic is also known in German-speaking countries. Terms like "Schickeria" or "Adabei" characterize the media, which on the one hand are also understood critically but on the other hand are an important editorial topic that electronic quality media do not want to do without today for commercial reasons. People's reporting is fundamentally an important area of journalism that functions according to its own rules, especially in the print medium, and according to journalist Norman Schenz is characterized as "We no longer just write about an event, we tell stories".


title: Famous for being famous

text: "The Washington Post" writer Amy Argetsinger coined the term famesque to define actors, singers, or athletes whose fame is mostly (if not entirely) due to one's physical attractiveness and/or personal life, rather than actual talent and (if any) successful career accomplishments. Argetsinger argued, "The famesque of 2009 are descended from that dawn-of-TV creation, the Famous for Being Famous. Turn on a talk show or "Hollywood Squares" and there'd be Zsa Zsa Gabor, Joyce Brothers, Charles Nelson Reilly, so friendly and familiar and—what was it they did again?" She also used actress Sienna Miller as a modern-day example; "Miller became famesque by dating and then really famesque when he cheated on her with the nanny—to the point that she was the one who made Balthazar Getty famesque (even though he's the one with the hit TV series, "Brothers & Sisters") when he reportedly ran off from his wife with her for a while."


title: Famous for being famous

text: Celebutante is a portmanteau of the words "celebrity" and "debutante". The male equivalent is sometimes spelled celebutant. The term has been used to describe heiresses like Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie in entertainment journalism. In 2016 Time magazine described the Kardashian-Jenner sisters as ubiquitous celebutantes for being the highest earning reality stars. Also during an interview in 2011 with the Kardashian family, interviewer Barbara Walters said, ""You are all often described as 'famous for being famous'. You don't really act, you don’t sing, you don’t dance. You don't have any - forgive me - any talent.""


title: Famous for being famous

text: The term has been traced back to a 1939 Walter Winchell society column in which he used the word to describe prominent society debutante Brenda Frazier, who was a traditional "high-society" debutante from a noted family, but whose debut attracted an unprecedented wave of media attention. The word appeared again in a 1985 "Newsweek" article about New York City's clubland celebrities, focusing on the lifestyles of writer James St. James, Lisa Edelstein and Dianne Brill, who was crowned "Queen of the Night" by Andy Warhol.


title: Luci Baines Johnson

text: Luci Baines Johnson (born July 2, 1947) is an American businesswoman and philanthropist. She is the younger daughter of U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson and his wife, former First Lady Lady Bird Johnson.


title: Luci Baines Johnson

text: Born in Washington, D.C., Johnson has an older sister Lynda Bird. Johnson's first name was originally spelled "Lucy"; she changed the spelling in her teens as a rebellion towards her parents. As her parents both had the initials LBJ, they named their two daughters to have these initials also. Although her father was a member of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), her mother was an Episcopalian, and she and her older sister, Lynda Bird, were raised as Episcopalians. Johnson converted to Roman Catholicism at the age of eighteen, when she requested and received conditional baptism. Johnson had been baptized with water and in the name of the Trinity at five months old by an Episcopal priest in Austin, Texas. Her rebaptism caused protests from leading figures in the Episcopal Church, which made headlines, as the Roman Catholic teaching does not require converts who are already baptized to receive baptism a second time.


title: Luci Baines Johnson

text: She was sixteen when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas on November 22, 1963. Johnson heard of the assassination while attending a Spanish class at the National Cathedral School. She was unaware whether her father had been injured as well but realized he had been sworn in as the 36th President of the United States when Secret Service agents showed up on her school campus a few hours later. She later attended Georgetown University School of Nursing and Health Studies but dropped out in 1966 as the school prohibited married students (Johnson married her first husband in August 1966). In 1966, she learned to cook from Zephyr Wright, the White House chef for the Johnson family.


title: Luci Baines Johnson

text: Since 1993, Johnson has been the Chairman of the Board and manager of LBJ Asset Management Partners, a family office, as well as Chairman of the Board of BusinesSuites, a national operator of executive suites, which she co-founded with her husband in 1989. She received a BLS in Communication from St. Edward's University in 1997.


title: Luci Baines Johnson

text: She is on the board of directors of the LBJ Foundation and has served on multiple civic boards, raising funds for The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center and the American Heart Association, acting as trustee of Boston University, and as a member of the advisory board of the Center for Battered Women.


title: Luci Baines Johnson

text: In 2018, she attended the state funeral of George H. W. Bush alongside her husband Ian Turpin, her sister Lynda Bird Johnson Robb and brother-in-law Charles Robb.


title: Luci Baines Johnson

text: On August 6, 1966, Johnson married Air National Guardsman Patrick John "Pat" Nugent in front of 700 guests at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. The wedding was broadcast on television (drawing 55 million viewers) and was featured on the August 19, 1966, cover of "Life" magazine.


title: Luci Baines Johnson

text: They had four children: Patrick Lyndon (born 1967), a lawyer and a pilot in San Antonio; Nicole Marie (born 1970); Rebekah Johnson (born 1974); and Claudia Taylor Nugent (born 1976). The couple later divorced, and the marriage was annulled by the Catholic Church in August 1979.


title: Luci Baines Johnson

text: On March 3, 1984, she married Ian J. Turpin (born 1944), a Scottish-born Canadian financier; he is president of LBJ Asset Management Partners at LBJ Ranch. Through that marriage, she has a stepson.


title: Luci Baines Johnson

text: In April 2010, Johnson was diagnosed with Guillain–Barré syndrome (also known as Landry's paralysis), an autoimmune disorder affecting the peripheral nervous system. She was flown to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, to begin treatment. Johnson returned to Austin in May 2010. Her doctor called her case "less severe than usual," and she experienced a full recovery.


title: Mike Tyson vs. Roy Jones Jr.

text: Mike Tyson vs. Roy Jones Jr., billed as "Lockdown Knockdown", was an exhibition boxing match between former undisputed heavyweight world champion Mike Tyson and former four-division world champion Roy Jones Jr. The bout took place at Staples Center in Los Angeles on November 28, 2020, and was sanctioned by the California State Athletic Commission (CSAC). With three former WBC champions acting as judges, the result was scored as a controversial split draw.


title: Mike Tyson vs. Roy Jones Jr.

text: In September 2006, a year after his retirement, Tyson announced that he would embark on a world tour of exhibition fights billed as "Mike Tyson's World Tour" in a bid to overcome the debt he was in at the time. His first bout lasted for four rounds and took place at the Chevrolet Centre in Youngstown, Ohio, on October 20, 2006, against former professional boxer and Tyson's sparring partner Corey Sanders. With 6,000 fans in attendance, the fight failed to live up to expectations and saw the crowd often booing with displeasure. This would be the only exhibition fight of the tour to take place.


title: Mike Tyson vs. Roy Jones Jr.

text: Tyson first mentioned the idea of returning to exhibition fights in a YouTube interview with rapper T.I. in April 2020, saying, "I want to go to the gym and get in shape to be able to box three or four-round exhibitions for some charities and stuff." He further teased a potential return to the ring a few weeks later, posting two short videos online of himself training on his Instagram account, and declaring "I'm back" at the end of the second video. Later that month, he said during a Facebook live stream, "Anything's possible. I feel unstoppable now. The gods of war have reawakened me, ignited my ego, and want me to go to war again. I feel like I'm [young] again." Mixed Martial Arts coach Rafael Cordeiro was selected to be Trainer and Cornerman to Tyson for the exhibition bout.


title: Mike Tyson vs. Roy Jones Jr.

text: Jones' last bout of his 29-year-long career took place on February 8, 2018, in which he defeated Scott Sigmon via unanimous decision at the Bay Center In Pensacola, Florida. Jones announced his retirement after the bout, but left the door open for a return against UFC fighter Anderson Silva, saying, "Dana, I know you're listening. I know Anderson's suspended. But that's the only other fight Roy Jones will return to the ring for. Other than that, chapter's closed."


title: Mike Tyson vs. Roy Jones Jr.

text: Following his Instagram videos and Facebook live stream, Tyson was contacted by Australian boxing promoter Brian Amatruda with an offer of $1 million to face one of three boxers in an exhibition fight: former Australian rules football player Barry Hall, former rugby league player Paul Gallen, or former rugby league player Sonny Bill Williams. According to celebrity agent Max Markson, who was acting as the middleman between Amatruda and Tyson's team, "Mike read the story in the "Daily Mail" that he would be fighting a rugby player. He has said he would not do that as it would be an insult to boxing. He says if he does get back into the ring, it will be with a real boxer."


title: Mike Tyson vs. Roy Jones Jr.

text: Other offers came from Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship (BKFC) president David Feldman for $20 million to fight an opponent of Tyson's choosing, providing that opponent be under contract with the BKFC, and from Boston Boxing Promotions president Peter Czymor for $1.1 million to face former opponent Peter McNeeley, whom Tyson had previously defeated by disqualification in 1995.


title: Mike Tyson vs. Roy Jones Jr.

text: Six days after Tyson posted his training videos, Evander Holyfield posted his own video with the caption: "Are you ready? The moment you've all been waiting for... The Champ is back." In an interview with BoxingScene.com, Holyfield expressed his desire to face Tyson in the ring, saying, "I've already done what I wanted to do in my career, and have been the best that I could be. If it wasn't for charity, I wouldn't fight Tyson, I don't look at it as being a winner in this fight. This is a charity event helping our foundations. The thing is knowing what you're doing it for."


title: Mike Tyson vs. Roy Jones Jr.

text: Tyson declined all traditional promoter cash offers and instead partnered with emerging venture creation company Eros Innovations, which had recently been founded by media executive and former movie studio STX Entertainment President Sophie Watts, to launch Mike Tyson's Legends Only League. The goal of the sports venture is to provide infrastructure and support to legendary athletes of all sports to compete in global one-off events. Legends Only League exclusively owns all upcoming Tyson fights.


title: Mike Tyson vs. Roy Jones Jr.

text: After two months of negotiations between Tyson's Legends Only League and Holyfield failed to finalize a deal between the two fighters, it was announced on July 23, 2020, that Jones had signed a contract to face Tyson, with the exhibition initially scheduled to take place on September 12 at the Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California, alongside other boxers appearing on the undercard. Mike Tyson's Legends Only League announced that the event would include multiple high-profile boxers and musical performers to maximize the audience of the event, and that it would be produced by Sophie Watts and Kiki Tyson, with Mike Tyson, Azim Spicer and Watts’ business partner Johnny Ryan handling the boxing. Undercards included social media star Jake Paul fighting NBA All-Star Slam Dunk Champion Nate Robinson. Musical acts included YG, French Montana, Snoop Dogg, Swae Lee, Wiz Khalifa, and Saint Jhn.


title: Mike Tyson vs. Roy Jones Jr.

text: In Summer 2020, the League struck a deal with Triller for the emerging social media platform to license the broadcasting rights to the event. Distribution deals were also made with leading pay-per-view platform InDemand and digital pay-per-view platform Fite.tv to air the event in North America. International broadcasting partners included BT Sport in the United Kingdom and Tencent Sports in mainland China.


title: Mike Tyson vs. Roy Jones Jr.

text: In August, it was announced that the date of the event had been pushed back to November 28, 2020, in order to maximize the revenue for the event. At a press conference hosted by Triller on October 29, it was announced that the fight would take place at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. The event was officially sanctioned by the California State Athletic Commission (CSAC). Both fighters were required to submit CSAC medical tests for fighters over 40, and the referee was under specific instructions to stop the match if it goes beyond "the boundaries of a competitive boxing exhibition". The rules for the fight included eight two-minute rounds as well as 12 oz gloves, as opposed to the more traditional 10 oz gloves worn in heavyweight boxing matches.


title: Mike Tyson vs. Roy Jones Jr.

text: The fight was a split draw and the three former WBC Champion judges scored the fight as follows: Chad Dawson (76–76 draw), Christy Martin (79–73 for Tyson), and Vinny Pazienza (76–80 for Jones). Compubox numbers showed that Tyson outlanded Jones by a wide margin, and sportswriter Dan Rafael described Pazienza's scorecard as 'pure insanity'.


title: Mike Tyson vs. Roy Jones Jr.

text: YouTuber Jake Paul faced former NBA player and three-time NBA Slam Dunk Contest champion Nate Robinson in the co-main event. For the first round, Paul forced the action, with Robinson often running to Paul and engaging a clinch. Robinson was dropped late in the first round, and subsequently appeared disoriented in the ring and in his corner. In the second round, he continued to rush forward and was dropped twice by Paul, with the second causing Robinson to fall face first to the canvas, unconscious. Paul was declared the winner by KO at 1:24 of the second round. In his post-fight interviews, he proceeded to call out Mixed Martial Arts fighters Conor McGregor and Dillon Danis.


title: Mike Tyson vs. Roy Jones Jr.

text: Opening the Main Card, Badou Jack faced undefeated fighter Blake McKernan. Jack controlled the fight, winning 80–72 on all three judges' scorecards. McKernan received praise for his toughness and ability to withstand Jack's punishment.


title: Mike Tyson vs. Roy Jones Jr.

text: The 3-hour Tyson-Jones event took place with no audience and was universally well received by the press, with the New York Times declaring that, “these fights actually look great,” and commenting on the “surprisingly good production value.” CBS Sports wrote that, “the show itself, from start to finish, was surprisingly entertaining throughout.”


title: Mike Tyson vs. Roy Jones Jr.

text: The fight was noted on social media for the commentary provided by rapper Snoop Dogg, who some pundits described as having "won" the night through his colorful commentary and reactions. At one point Snoop described Tyson and Jones as "like two of my uncles fighting at the barbecue"; he also began singing a hymn during the undercard fight between Jake Paul and Nate Robinson, when an overwhelmed Robinson began stumbling in the ring.


title: Mike Tyson vs. Roy Jones Jr.

text: The fight was also very successful on pay-per-view (PPV), surpassing expectations. The event garnered over buys to become the biggest Boxing pay-per-view event of 2020 and raking in over $80 million in pay-per-view revenue alone.


title: The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974 film)

text: The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (also known as The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3) is a 1974 American crime drama film directed by Joseph Sargent, produced by Gabriel Katzka and Edgar J. Scherick, and starring Walter Matthau, Robert Shaw, Martin Balsam, and Héctor Elizondo. Peter Stone adapted the screenplay from the 1973 novel of the same name written by Morton Freedgood under the pen name John Godey.


text: The title is derived from the train's radio call sign, which is based upon where and when the train began its run; in this case, the train originated at the Pelham Bay Park station in the Bronx at 1:23 p.m. For several years after the film was released, the New York City Transit Authority would not schedule any train to leave Pelham Bay Park station at 1:23.


text: The film received critical acclaim and holds a rating of 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 41 reviews. Several critics called it one of 1974's finest films, and it was a box office success. As in the novel, the film follows a group of criminals taking the passengers hostage inside a New York City Subway car for ransom. Musically, it features "one of the best and most inventive thriller scores of the 1970s". It was remade in 1998 as a television film and was again remade in 2009 as a theatrical film.


text: In New York City, four men wearing similar disguises and carrying concealed weapons board the same downtown 6 train, Pelham 1-2-3, at different stations. Using the codenames Mr. Blue, Mr. Green, Mr. Grey, and Mr. Brown, they take 18 people, including the conductor and an undercover police officer, hostage in the first car.


text: Communicating over the radio with New York City Transit Police lieutenant Zachary Garber, Blue demands a $1 million ransom to be delivered exactly within one hour or he will kill one hostage for every minute it is late. Green sneezes periodically, to which Garber always responds, "Gesundheit". Garber, Lt. Patrone and others cooperate while speculating about the hijackers' escape plan. Garber surmises that one hijacker must be a former motorman since they were able to uncouple the head car and park it down the tunnel below 28th Street.


text: Conversations between the hijackers reveal that Blue is a former British Army Colonel and was a mercenary in Africa; Green was a motorman caught in a drug bust; and Blue does not trust Grey, who was ousted from the mafia for being erratic. Just then, Grey shoots and kills a supervisor sent from Grand Central as he approaches the stalled train.


text: The ransom is transported uptown in a speeding police car that crashes well before it reaches 28th Street. As the deadline is reached, Garber bluffs Blue by claiming that the money has reached the station entrance and just has to be walked down the tunnel to the train. Meanwhile a police motorcycle arrives with the ransom. As two patrolmen carry the money down the tunnel, one of many police snipers in the tunnel shoots at Brown, and the hijackers exchange gunfire with the police. In retaliation, Blue kills the conductor.


text: The money is delivered and divided among the hijackers. Blue orders Garber to restore power to the subway line, set the signals to green all the way to South Ferry, and clear the police from stations along the route. Before the process is complete, however, Green moves the train farther south. When Garber becomes alarmed, Blue explains that he wanted more distance from the police inside the tunnel.


text: The hijackers override the dead-man's switch so that the train will run without anyone at the controls. Garber joins Inspector Daniels above ground where the train stopped. The hijackers set the train in motion and get off. As the hijackers walk to the tunnel's emergency exit, the undercover officer jumps off the train and hides between the rails. Unaware that the hijackers have left the train, Garber and Daniels drive south above the train's route. With no one at the controls, the train gains speed.


text: The hijackers collect their disguises and weapons for disposal, but Grey refuses to surrender his gun, resulting in a stand-off with Blue, who shoots him dead. The undercover officer shoots and kills Brown and exchanges fire with Blue, while Green escapes through the emergency exit onto the street.


text: Garber, contemplating the train's last suspicious movement, concludes that the hijackers bypassed the dead-man feature and are no longer on board. He returns to where the train had stopped, enters the same emergency exit from street level, and confronts Blue as he is about to kill the undercover officer. With no escape, Blue deliberately places his foot against the third rail and electrocutes himself.


text: Meanwhile, Pelham 1-2-3 hurtles through the southbound tunnel. When it enters the South Ferry loop, its speed triggers the automatic safeties. It screeches to a halt, leaving the hostages bruised but safe.


text: Since none of the three dead hijackers was a motorman, Garber surmises that the lone survivor must be. Working their way through a list of recently discharged motormen, Garber and Patrone knock on the door of Harold Longman (Green). After hastily hiding the loot, Longman lets them in, bluffs his way through their interrogation, and complains indignantly about being suspected. Garber vows to return with a search warrant. As Garber closes the apartment door behind him, Longman sneezes, and Garber reflexively says "Gesundheit", as he had over the radio. Garber re-opens the door and gives Longman a knowing, caustic stare.


text: Godey's novel was published in February 1973 by Putnam, but Palomar Productions had secured the film rights, and Dell had bought the paperback rights months earlier in September 1972. The paperback rights sold for $450,000.


text: Godey (Morton Freedgood) was a "subway buff". The novel and the film came out during the so-called "Golden Age" of skyjacking in the United States from 1968 through 1979. Additionally, New York City was edging toward a financial crisis; crime had risen citywide (as depicted in the contemporaneous film "Death Wish"); and the subway was perceived as neither safe nor reliable.


text: At first, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority refused to cooperate with the filmmakers. Godey's novel was more detailed about how the hijackers would accomplish their goal and recognized that the caper's success did not rely solely on defeating the "deadman feature" in the motorman's cab. Screenwriter Stone, however, made a fictional override mechanism the linchpin of the script. Director Sargent explained, "We're making a movie, not a handbook on subway hijacking ... I must admit the seriousness of 'Pelham' never occurred to me until we got the initial TA reaction. They thought it potentially a stimulant—not to hardened professional criminals like the ones in our movie, but to kooks. Cold professionals can see the absurdities of the plot right off, but kooks don't reason it out. That's why they're kooks. Yes, we gladly gave in about the 'deadman feature'. Any responsible filmmaker would if he stumbled onto something that could spread into a new form of madness."


text: For several years after the film was released, the New York City Transit Authority would not schedule any train to leave Pelham Bay Park station at 1:23. Although this policy was eventually rescinded, dispatchers have generally avoided scheduling a Pelham train at 1:23 p.m. or a.m.


text: Sargent said, "It's important that we don't be too plausible. We're counting on the film's style and charm and comedy to say, subliminally at least, 'Don't take us too seriously.'" (The credits have a disclaimer that the Transit Authority did not give advice or information for use in the film.)


text: After eight weeks of negotiations, and through the influence of Mayor John Lindsay, the MTA relented, but required that the producers take out $20 million in insurance policies, including special "kook coverage" in case the movie inspired a real-life hijacking. This was in addition to a $250,000 fee for use of the track, station, subway cars, and TA personnel.


text: The TA also insisted that no graffiti appear in the film. "New Yorkers are going to hoot when they see our spotless subway cars", Sargent said. "But the TA was adamant on that score. They said to show graffiti would be to glorify it. We argued that it was artistically expressive. But we got nowhere. They said the graffiti fad would be dead by the time the movie got out. I really doubt that." (Mayor Lindsay had first announced his intention to remove graffiti from subway trains in 1972, but the last graffiti-covered car was not removed from service until 1989.)


text: Other changes included beefing up Matthau's role. In the novel, Garber is the equivalent of the Patrone character in the film. "I like the piece", Matthau said. "It moves swiftly and stays interesting right down to the wire. That's the reason I wanted to do it. The TA inspector I play is really a supporting role—they built it up a bit when I expressed interest in it—but it's still secondary." In the novel, Inspector Daniels confronts Mr. Blue in the tunnel during the climax. Additionally, screenwriter Peter Stone gave the hijackers their color code names, with hats whose colors matched their code names, and the Longman character his telltale cold.


text: Filming began on November 23, 1973, and was completed in late April 1974. The budget was $3.8 million.


text: Production began with scenes inside the subway tunnel. These were filmed over the course of eight weeks on the local tracks of the IND Fulton Street Line at the abandoned Court Street in Brooklyn. Closed to the public in 1946, it became a filming location and later home to the New York Transit Museum. (Among other films, the Court Street station was used for "The French Connection", "Death Wish", and the 2009 remake of "Pelham".)


text: The production company set up chess boards, card tables, and ping pong tables along the Court Street platform for cast and crew recreation between set-ups. Robert Shaw apparently beat all comers in ping pong.


text: Although this was an abandoned spur of track, passing A, E, and GG trains rumbled through adjacent tracks on their regular schedules. Dialogue that was marred by the noise was later post-dubbed. The third rail, which carries 600 volts of direct current, was shut off, and three protective bars were placed against the rail, but the cast and crew were told to treat it as if it were still live. "Those TA people ... are super careful", Sargent said. "They anticipate everything. By the fifth week we were dancing our way through those tunnels like nobody's business. They were expecting that, too. That's when they told us of the fatalities in the tunnels. They're mostly old-timers. The young guys still have a healthy fear of the place."


text: "There was one scene where Robert Shaw was to step on the third rail", Sargent recalled. "When we were rehearsing the scene, Shaw accidentally stubbed his toe and the sparks from his special-effects boot flew everywhere. He turned white as a sheet. We had eight weeks of that. I think we got out just in time. It was like coal mining."


text: According to a notation on IMDb, the crew wore surgical masks during the tunnel scenes. Shaw's biographer, John French, reported: "There were rats everywhere and every time someone jumped from the train, or tripped over the lines, clouds of black dust rose into the air, making it impossible to shoot until it had settled."


text: Matthau, who had one scene in the tunnel, said, "There are bacteria down there that haven't been discovered yet. And bugs. Big ugly bugs from the planet Uranus. They all settled in the New York subway tunnels. I saw one bug mug a guy. I wasn't down there a long time—but long enough to develop the strangest cold I ever had. It stayed in my nose for five days, then went to my throat. Finally I woke up one morning with no voice at all, and they had to shut down for the day."


text: According to "Backstage", the filmmakers were the first to utilize a "flash" process developed by Movielab to bring out detail when shooting with low light in the tunnel. The process reportedly increased film speed by two stops. It allowed the filmmakers to use fewer lights and generators and cut five days out of the schedule.


text: At least two different R22 trains portrayed Pelham 1-2-3. As it enters 28th Street station, the head car is labeled 7339. However, in an early scene at Grand Central, 7339 is seen on the express track across the platform. Later, after being cut from the rest of the train, the head car is labeled 7434. R22 cars first went into service in April 1957, and the vast majority of the 450 cars were scrapped in 1987.


text: After two months in the tunnel, production moved to Filmways Studios at 246 East 127th Street in East Harlem, where a replica of the Transit Authority's Brooklyn control center was constructed. Built around 1920 as Cosmopolitan Studios, the facility was leased in 1928 by MGM for sound production and purchased by Filmways in 1959. Among later films shot there were "Butterfield 8", "The Godfather", "The Wiz", and "Manhattan". The building was demolished in the 1980s.


text: The exterior street scenes above the hijacked subway train were filmed at the subway entrance at 28th and Park Avenue South in Manhattan. The mayor's residence, Gracie Mansion, was used for exteriors. Wave Hill, a nineteenth-century mansion overlooking the Hudson in Riverdale, Bronx, was used for the interior scenes set in Gracie Mansion.


text: The Jerry Fielding and Don Ellis sounding score, composed and conducted by David Shire, "layers explosive horn arrangements and serpentine keyboard riffs over a rhythm section that pits hard-grooving basslines against constantly shifting but always insistent layers of percussion". Shire used the 12-tone composition method to create unusual, somewhat dissonant melodic elements. The soundtrack album was the first CD release by "Film Score Monthly" and was later released by Retrograde Records. The end titles contain a more expansive arrangement of the theme, courtesy of Shire's wife at the time, Talia Shire, who suggested that he end the score with a more traditional ode to New York.


text: The film was well received by critics. "Variety" called it "a good action caper" but "the major liability is Peter Stone's screenplay, which develops little interest in either Matthau or Shaw's gang, nor the innocent hostages" which are "simply stereotyped baggage". While the trade paper complained that the Mayor was "played for silly laughs", it called Shaw "superb in another versatile characterization".


text: "BoxOffice" thought that "some of the excitement has been lost" translating the novel to the screen, but "there is entertainment value in Peter Stone's screenplay".


text: Nora Sayre of "The New York Times" thought it captured the mood of New York and New Yorkers. "Throughout there's a skillful balance between the vulnerability of New Yorkers and the drastic, provocative sense of comedy that thrives all over our sidewalks. And the hijacking seems like a perfectly probable event for this town. (Perhaps the only element of fantasy is the implication that the city's departments could function so smoothly together). Meanwhile, the movie adds up to a fine piece of reporting—and it's the only action picture I've seen this year that has a rousing plot."


text: The film was one of several released that year that gave New York a bad image, including "Law and Disorder", "Death Wish", "Serpico", and "The Super Cops". Vincent Canby, another "New York Times" critic, wrote, "New York is a mess, say these films. It's run by fools. Its citizens are at the mercy of its criminals who, as often as not, are protected by an unholy alliance of civil libertarians and crooked cops. The air is foul. The traffic impossible. Services are diminishing and the morale is such that ordering a cup of coffee in a diner can turn into a request for a fat lip." But "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three", "compared to the general run of New York City films, is practically a tonic, a good-humored, often witty suspense melodrama in which the representatives of law and decency triumph without bending the rules."


text: "The Boston Globe" called it "fast, funny and fairly terrifying", and "a nerve-racking ride", and appreciated the "wry humor" of Stone's script. It tapped into a darker reality: "A short time ago subways were safe; today some of them are full of the dark rage of asylums. And who really is to say a Pelham-type incident is out of the question?"


text: Charles Champlin of the "Los Angeles Times" called it "coarse-textured and effective, a cartoon-vivid melodrama and not, it's nice to know, a case study of psychopathic behavior. 'Pelham' is in fact the best to date of the new multiple-jeopardy capers, fresh, lively and suspenseful... . There are some marvelously managed scenes in the subway tunnels and on teeming platforms and at the barricaded street-level entrances. The subway nerve center is fascinating, and indeed one of the pleasures of the film is its glimpse of how things work... . The violence is handled with restraint; the dangers are mixed with raucous humor and what stays clear is that the aim is swift entertainment."


text: Roger Ebert's contemporary review gave the film 3 out of a possible 4 stars. He praised the film's "unforced realism", and the supporting characters who elevated what could have been a predictable crime thriller: "we care about the people not the plot mechanics. And what could have been formula trash turns out to be fairly classy trash, after all."


text: Gene Siskel also gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, describing it as a "solid new thriller laced with equal amounts of tension and comedy."


text: The film holds a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes based on 41 reviews and a weighted average of 8.2/10. The site's consensus reads: "Breezy, thrilling, and quite funny, "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three" sees Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw pitted against each other in effortlessly high form".


text: In 1998, the film was remade as a television film with the same title, with Edward James Olmos in the Matthau role and Vincent D'Onofrio replacing Shaw as the senior hijacker. Although not particularly well received by critics or viewers, this version was reportedly more faithful to the book, though it revised the setting with new technologies.. It was filmed in Toronto, Ontario and is jokingly referred as “The Taking of Bloor Street 123”.


text: Another remake set in a post 9/11 New York City directed by Tony Scott and starring Denzel Washington and John Travolta, was released in 2009 to mixed reviews.


title: Book of Judges

text: The Book of Judges (, "") is the seventh book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. In the narrative of the Hebrew Bible, it covers the time between the conquest described in the Book of Joshua and the establishment of a kingdom in the Books of Samuel, during which biblical judges served as temporary leaders. The stories follow a consistent pattern: the people are unfaithful to Yahweh; he therefore delivers them into the hands of their enemies; the people repent and entreat Yahweh for mercy, which he sends in the form of a leader or champion (a "judge"; see "shophet"); the judge delivers the Israelites from oppression and they prosper, but soon they fall again into unfaithfulness and the cycle is repeated. Scholars consider many of the stories in Judges to be the oldest in the Deuteronomistic history, with their major redaction dated to the 8th century BCE and with materials such as the Song of Deborah dating from much earlier.


title: Book of Judges

text: Judges can be divided into three major sections: a double prologue (chapters 1:1–3:6), a main body (3:7–16:31), and a double epilogue (17–21).


title: Book of Judges

text: The book opens with the Israelites in the land that God has promised to them, but worshiping "foreign gods" instead of Yahweh, the God of Israel, and with the Canaanites still present everywhere. Chapters 1:1–2:5 are thus a confession of failure, while chapters 2:6–3:6 are a major summary and reflection from the Deuteronomists.


title: Book of Judges

text: Once peace is regained, Israel does right and receives Yahweh's blessings for a time, but relapses later into doing evil and repeats the pattern above.


title: Book of Judges

text: Judges follows the Book of Joshua and opens with a reference to Joshua's death. The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges suggests that "the death of Joshua may be regarded as marking the division between the period of conquest and the period of occupation", the latter being the focus of the Book of Judges. The Israelites meet, probably at the sanctuary at Gilgal or at Shechem, and ask the Lord who should be first (in order of time, not of rank) to secure the land they are to occupy.


title: Book of Judges

text: The main text gives accounts of six major judges and their struggles against the oppressive kings of surrounding nations, as well as the story of Abimelech, an Israelite leader (a judge [shofet] in the sense of "chieftain") who oppresses his own people. The cyclical pattern set out in the prologue is readily apparent at the beginning, but as the stories progress it begins to disintegrate, mirroring the disintegration of the world of the Israelites. Although some scholars consider the stories not to be presented in chronological order, the judges in the order in which they appear in the text are:


title: Book of Judges

text: There are also brief glosses on six minor judges: Shamgar (Judges 3:31; after Ehud), Tola and Jair (10:1–5), Ibzan, Elon, and Abdon (12:8–15; after Jephthah). Some scholars have inferred that the minor judges were actual adjudicators, whereas the major judges were leaders and did not actually make legal judgements. The only major judge described as making legal judgments is Deborah (4:4).


title: Book of Judges

text: By the end of Judges, Yahweh's treasures are used to make idolatrous images, the Levites (priests) become corrupt, the tribe of Dan conquers a remote village instead of the Canaanite cities, and the tribes of Israel make war on the tribe of Benjamin, their own kinsmen. The book concludes with two appendices, stories which do not feature a specific judge:


title: Book of Judges

text: Despite their appearance at the end of the book, certain characters (like Jonathan, the grandson of Moses) and idioms present in the epilogue show that the events therein "must have taken place… early in the period of the judges."


title: Book of Judges

text: Judges contains a chronology of its events, assigning a number of years to each interval of judgment and peace. It is overtly schematic and was likely introduced at a later period.


title: Book of Judges

text: Four of the Dead Sea Scrolls feature parts of Judges: 1QJudg, found in Qumran Cave 1; 4QJudg and 4QJudg, found in Qumran Cave 4; and XJudges, a fragment discovered in 2001.


title: Book of Judges

text: The earliest complete surviving copy of the Book of Judges in Hebrew is in the Aleppo Codex (10th century CE).


title: Book of Judges

text: The Septuagint (Greek translation) is found in early manuscripts such as the Codex Colberto-Sarravianus (c. AD 400; contains many lacunae) and the Fragment of Leipzig (c. AD 500).


title: Book of Judges

text: The basic source for Judges was a collection of loosely connected stories about tribal heroes who saved the people in battle. This original "book of saviours" made up of the stories of Ehud, Jael and parts of Gideon, had already been enlarged and transformed into "wars of Yahweh" before being given the final Deuteronomistic revision. In the 20th century, the first part of the prologue (chapters 1:1–2:5) and the two parts of the epilogue (17–21) were commonly seen as miscellaneous collections of fragments tacked onto the main text, and the second part of the prologue (2:6–3:6) as an introduction composed expressly for the book. More recently, this view has been challenged, and there is an increasing willingness to see Judges as the work of a single individual, working by carefully selecting, reworking and positioning the source material to introduce and conclude his themes.


title: Book of Judges

text: A statement repeated throughout the epilogue, "In those days there was no king in Israel" implies a date in the monarchic period for the redaction (editing) of Judges. Twice, this statement is accompanied with the statement "every man did that which was right in his own eyes", implying that the redactor is pro-monarchy, and the epilogue, in which the tribe of Judah is assigned a leadership role, implies that this redaction took place in Judah.


title: Book of Judges

text: Since the second half of the 20th century most scholars have agreed with Martin Noth's thesis that the books of Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings form parts of a single work. Noth maintained that the history was written in the early Exilic period (6th century BCE) in order to demonstrate how Israel's history was worked out in accordance with the theology expressed in the book of Deuteronomy (which thus provides the name "Deuteronomistic"). Noth believed that this history was the work of a single author, living in the mid-6th century BCE, selecting, editing and composing from his sources to produce a coherent work. Frank Moore Cross later proposed that an early version of the history was composed in Jerusalem in Josiah's time (late 7th century BCE); this first version, Dtr1, was then revised and expanded to create a second edition, that identified by Noth, and which Cross labelled Dtr2.


title: Book of Judges

text: Scholars agree that the Deuteronomists' hand can be seen in Judges through the book's cyclical nature: the Israelites fall into idolatry, God punishes them for their sins with oppression by foreign peoples, the Israelites cry out to God for help, and God sends a judge to deliver them from the foreign oppression. After a period of peace, the cycle recurs. Scholars also suggest that the Deuteronomists also included the humorous and sometimes disparaging commentary found in the book such as the story of the tribe of Ephraim who could not pronounce the word ""shibboleth"" correctly (12:5–6).


title: Book of Judges

text: The essence of Deuteronomistic theology is that Israel has entered into a covenant (a treaty, a binding agreement) with the God Yahweh, under which they agree to accept Yahweh as their God (hence the phrase "God of Israel") and Yahweh promises them a land where they can live in peace and prosperity. Deuteronomy contains the laws by which Israel is to live in the promised land, Joshua chronicles the conquest of Canaan, the promised land, and its allotment among the tribes, Judges describes the settlement of the land, Samuel the consolidation of the land and people under David, and Kings the destruction of kingship and loss of the land. The final tragedy described in Kings is the result of Israel's failure to uphold its part of the covenant: faithfulness to Yahweh brings success, economic, military and political, but unfaithfulness brings defeat and oppression.


title: Book of Judges

text: This is the theme played out in Judges: the people are unfaithful to Yahweh and He therefore delivers them into the hands of their enemies; the people then repent and entreat Yahweh for mercy, which He sends in the form of a judge; the judge delivers the Israelites from oppression, but after a while they fall into unfaithfulness again and the cycle is repeated. Israel's apostasy is repeatedly invoked by the author as the cause of threats to Israel. The oppression of the Israelites is due to their turning to Canaanite gods, breaking the covenant and "doing evil in the sight of the lord".


title: Book of Judges

text: Further themes are also present: the "sovereign freedom of Yahweh" (God does not always do what is expected of him); the "satirisation of foreign kings" (who consistently underestimate Israel and Yahweh); the concept of the "flawed agent" (judges who are not adequate to the task before them) and the disunity of the Israelite community (which gathers pace as the stories succeed one another).


title: Book of Judges

text: The book is as intriguing for the themes it leaves out as for what it includes: the Ark of the Covenant, which is given so much importance in the stories of Moses and Joshua, is almost entirely missing, cooperation between the various tribes is limited, and there is no mention of a central shrine for worship and only limited reference to a High Priest of Israel (the office to which Aaron was appointed at the end of the Exodus story).


title: Book of Judges

text: Although "Judges" probably had a monarchist redaction (see above), the book contains passages and themes that represent anti-monarchist views. One of the major themes of the book is Yahweh's sovereignty and the importance of being loyal to Him and His laws above all other gods and sovereigns. Indeed, the authority of the judges comes not through prominent dynasties nor through elections or appointments, but rather through the Spirit of God. Anti-monarchist theology is most apparent toward the end of the Gideon cycle in which the Israelites beg Gideon to create a dynastic monarchy over them and Gideon refuses. The rest of Gideon's lifetime saw peace in the land, but after Gideon's death, his son Abimelech ruled Shechem as a Machiavellian tyrant guilty for much bloodshed (see chapters 8 and 9). However, the last few chapters of "Judges" (specifically, the stories of Samson, Micah, and Gibeah) highlight the violence and anarchy of decentralized rule.


title: Book of Judges

text: Judges is remarkable for the number of female characters who "play significant roles, active and passive, in the narratives." Rabbi Joseph Telushkin wrote,


title: Dartmoor

text: Dartmoor is an upland area in southern Devon, England. The moorland and surrounding land has been protected by National Park status since 1951. Dartmoor National Park covers .


title: Dartmoor

text: The granite which forms the uplands dates from the Carboniferous Period of geological history. The landscape consists of moorland capped with many exposed granite hilltops known as tors, providing habitats for Dartmoor wildlife. The highest point is High Willhays, above sea level. The entire area is rich in antiquities and archaeology.


title: Dartmoor

text: Dartmoor National Park is managed by the Dartmoor National Park Authority, whose 22 members are drawn from Devon County Council, local district councils and Government.


title: Dartmoor

text: Parts of Dartmoor have been used as military firing ranges for over 200 years. The public is granted extensive land access rights on Dartmoor (including restricted access to the firing ranges) and it is a popular tourist destination.


title: Dartmoor

text: Dartmoor includes the largest area of granite in Britain, with about at the surface, though most of it is under superficial peat deposits. The granite (or more specifically adamellite) was intruded at depth as a pluton into the surrounding sedimentary rocks during the Carboniferous period, probably about 309 million years ago. It is generally accepted that the present surface is not far below the original top of the pluton; evidence for this includes partly digested shale xenoliths, contamination of the granite and the existence of two patches of altered sedimentary rock on top of the granite.


title: Dartmoor

text: A considerable gravity anomaly is associated with the Dartmoor pluton as with other such plutons. Measurement of the anomaly has helped to determine the likely shape and extent of the rock mass at depth.


title: Dartmoor

text: Dartmoor is known for its tors – hills topped with outcrops of bedrock, which in granite country such as this are usually rounded boulder-like formations. More than 160 of the hills of Dartmoor have the word "tor" in their name but quite a number do not. However, this does not appear to relate to whether or not there is an outcrop of rock on their summit. The tors are the focus of an annual event known as the Ten Tors Challenge, when around 2400 people aged between 14 and 19 walk for distances of 56, 72 or 88 km (35, 45 or 55 mi) between ten tors on many differing routes.


title: Dartmoor

text: The highest points on Dartmoor are on the northern moor: High Willhays, , () and Yes Tor, , () The highest points on the southern moor are Ryder's Hill, , (), Snowdon , (), and an unnamed point, at (), between Langcombe Hill and Shell Top. The best-known tor on Dartmoor is Haytor (called Hey Tor by William Crossing), , (). For a more complete list see List of Dartmoor tors and hills.


title: Dartmoor

text: The high ground of Dartmoor forms the catchment area for many of Devon's rivers. As well as shaping the landscape, these have traditionally provided a source of power for moor industries such as tin mining and quarrying.


title: Dartmoor

text: The moor takes its name from the River Dart, which starts as the East Dart and West Dart and then becomes a single river at Dartmeet. It leaves the moor at Buckfastleigh, flowing through Totnes below where it opens up into a long ria, reaching the sea at Dartmouth. Other rivers flowing from Dartmoor include the Teign, the Taw, the Tavy, the Avon, and the Lyd.


title: Dartmoor

text: Some of the rivers in Dartmoor have been dammed to create reservoirs for drinking water, including the River Avon and the South Teign River (Fernworthy Reservoir).


title: Dartmoor

text: Much more rain falls on Dartmoor than in the surrounding lowlands. As much of the national park is covered in thick layers of peat (decaying vegetation), the rain is usually absorbed quickly and distributed slowly, so the moor is rarely dry. In areas where water accumulates, dangerous bogs or mires can result. Some of these, topped with bright green moss, are known to locals as "feather beds" or "quakers", because they can shift (or 'quake') beneath a person's feet. Quakers result from sphagnum moss growing over the water that accumulates in the hollows in the granite.


title: Dartmoor

text: The vegetation of the bogs depends on the type and location. Blanket bog, which forms on the highest land where the rainfall exceeds a year, consists mainly of cotton-grass ("Eriophorum" species), sedges ("Carex" and "Rhynchospora"), "Bog Asphodel" and "Common Tormentil", with "Sphagnum" thriving in the wettest patches. The valley bogs have lush growth of rushes, with sphagnum, cross-leaved heath, sundews and several other species.


title: Dartmoor

text: Some of the bogs on Dartmoor have achieved notoriety. Fox Tor Mires was supposedly the inspiration for Great Grimpen Mire in Conan Doyle's novel "The Hound of the Baskervilles", although there is a waymarked footpath across it. Sabine Baring-Gould, in his "Book of Dartmoor" (1900) related the story of a man who was making his way through Aune Mire at the head of the River Avon when he came upon a top-hat brim down on the surface of the mire. He kicked it, whereupon a voice called out: "What be you a-doin' to my 'at?" The man replied, "Be there now a chap under'n?" "Ees, I reckon," was the reply, "and a hoss under me likewise."


title: Dartmoor

text: Along with the rest of South West England, Dartmoor has a temperate climate which is generally wetter and milder than locations at similar height in the rest of England. At Princetown, near the centre of the moor at a height of , January and February are the coldest months with mean minimum temperatures around . July and August are the warmest months with mean daily maxima not reaching . Compared with Teignmouth, which is on the coast about to the east, the average maximum and minimum temperatures are and lower respectively, and frost is at least five times as frequent. On the highest ground, in the north of the moor, the growing season is less than 175 days – this contrasts with some 300 days along most of the south coast of the county.


title: Dartmoor

text: Rainfall tends to be associated with Atlantic depressions or with convection. In summer, convection caused by solar surface heating sometimes forms shower clouds and a large proportion of rainfall falls from showers and thunderstorms at this time of year. The wettest months are November and December and on the highest parts of the moor the average annual total rainfall is over . This compares with less than in the lower land to the east around the Exe Estuary, which is in the rain shadow of the moor. Due to the influence of the Gulf Stream snowfall is not common, though due to its high altitude it is more vulnerable to snowfall than surrounding regions.


title: Dartmoor

text: Between 1961 and 1990 Met Office data shows that there was an average of 20 days when snow fell on the moor, and over 40 days a year with hail, which is as high as anywhere else in the country. This results when cold polar maritime air that has travelled over a large expanse of warmer ocean is forced to rise over high country.


title: Dartmoor

text: When average temperatures at Princetown between 1961 and 2000 are compared, the average annual temperature in the decade 1990–2000 was up by and the late winter temperature increased by .


title: Dartmoor

text: Because of Dartmoor's height and granite geology, it experiences strong winds and has acidic soils. In consequence it has been subject to very little intensive farming, and all these factors combine to form the basis of the important ecosystems found here. The landscape is one of granite with peat bogs overlying it. While the moors topped with granite tors are the most iconic part of Dartmoor's landscape, only about half of Dartmoor is actually moorland. Equally important for wildlife are the blanket bogs, upland heaths and the oak woodlands which are all of global importance. Dartmoor is a Special Area of Conservation (SAC) with four habitats ("Northern Atlantic wet heaths with Erica tetralix"; "European dry heaths"; "Blanket bog"s and "Old sessile oak woods with Ilex and Blechnum in the British Isles") being listed as primary reasons for the selection of Dartmoor as a SAC. In addition the area has a population of the southern damselfly which is also a primary reason for its selection along with populations of Atlantic salmon and otter being qualifying reasons.


title: Dartmoor

text: Wistman's Wood is one of the old sessile oak woods which contribute to the listing of Dartmoor as a SAC and is possibly a surviving fragment from the earliest Neolithic woodland clearances. It is home to exceptional epiphytic mosses, liverworts and lichens. Nearly 50 species of moss and liverwort are found in the wood along with 120 types of lichen, including Smith's horsehair lichen, speckled sea-storm lichen and pendulous wing-moss. Over 60 species of lichens grow on the exposed surfaces of the granite tors, including granite-speck rim-lichen, purple rock lichen, brown cobblestone lichen and goldspot lichen and many rare lichen grow on rocks exposed by mining which are rich in heavy metals. On the upland heaths heather (ling) and bell heather are common along with western gorse. In dry grassy areas tormentil, heath bedstraw and heath milkwort are all common. Cross-leaved heath and purple moor grass grow in wetter spots and in the boggy areas many different species of sphagnum and other mosses can be found along with liverworts, Hare's-tail Cotton-grass, round-leaved sundew and bog asphodel and in the valley bottoms, many different sedges, bogbean and pale butterwort all grow.