title: University of al-Qarawiyyin

text: A number of annexes are attached around the mosque, serving various functions. The northwestern edge of the building is occupied by latrines. Behind the southern "qibla" wall, to the west of the "mihrab" axis, is the "Jama' al-Gnaiz", which served as a separate oratory reserved for funerary rites. This type of facility was not particularly common in the Islamic world but there are several examples in Fez, including at the Chrabliyine and Bab Guissa Mosques. It was kept separate from the main mosque to preserve the purity of the latter as a regular prayer space, which could be soiled by the presence of a dead body. This oratory dates back to the Almoravid period and also features embellishments such as a muqarnas cupola and a number of ornate archways in varying forms.


title: University of al-Qarawiyyin

text: Behind the southern wall of the mosque and east of the "mihrab" axis is the historic library of the mosque and university. It is sometimes cited as the world's oldest library that remains open. The first purpose-built library structure was added to the mosque by the Marinid sultan Abu Inan Faris in 1349 CE, though it was located at the mosque's northeastern corner instead of to the south. The first structure still exists embedded near the women's section of the mosque, and consists of a square chamber measuring 5.4 meters per side. Its entrance is covered by a wooden screen from the Marinid period which features an inscription carved in cursive Arabic above the doorway recording Abu Inan's foundation of the library.


title: University of al-Qarawiyyin

text: The current library building dates in part from a Saadian construction by Ahmad al-Mansur (late 16th century), who built a chamber called "al-Ahmadiyya" behind the "qibla" wall. Most of the building dates from a major 20th-century expansion commissioned by King Mohammed V that started in 1940. It included the current grand reading room, which measures 23 metres long and features an ornately-painted wooden ceiling, and also added an entrance outside the mosque which made it accessible to non-Muslims. This new library expansion was inaugurated in 1949. The library complex underwent another major restoration in recent years led by Aziza Chaouni and was set to reopen in 2016 or 2017.


title: University of al-Qarawiyyin

text: Some sources, like UNESCO, consider al-Qarawiyyin to be the "oldest university in the world". By comparison, UNESCO describes the University of Bologna (founded in 1088 and usually recognized as the oldest medieval European university) as the "oldest university of the Western world". Some historians and scholars also refer to al-Qarawiyyin as the world's oldest existing university. The claim is also published by the Guinness World Records under its entry for "[o]ldest higher-learning institution, oldest university", where it describes al-Qarawiyyin as the "oldest existing, and continually operating educational institution in the world" while the University of Bologna is described as the "oldest one in Europe". Similarly, the "Encyclopædia Britannica" dates al-Qarawiyyin University's foundation to the mosque's foundation in 859 and generally considers that "universities" existed outside Europe before the advent of the European university model. Other sources also refer to the historical or pre-modern al-Qarawiyyin as a "university" or an "Islamic university".


title: University of al-Qarawiyyin

text: Many scholars consider the term "university" to be applicable only to the educational institutions that initially took form in medieval Christian Europe, and argue that the first universities were located in Western Europe, with those of Paris and Bologna often cited as the earliest examples. The modern Western university model is thus widely argued to descend from this European tradition, even if other models of higher education existed in other parts of the world. Accordingly, some scholars consider that al-Qarawiyyin operated essentially as an Islamic madrasa until after World War II. Jacques Verger says that while the term "university" is occasionally applied by scholars to madrasas and other pre-modern higher learning institutions out of convenience, the European university marked a major disruption between earlier institutions of higher learning and was the earliest true modern university. Many scholars consider that the university was only adopted outside the West, including into the Islamic world, in the course of modernization programs or under European colonial regimes since the beginning of the 19th century. Organization at the pre-modern al-Qarawiyyin differed from European universities and other Muslim institutions at al-Azhar (in Cairo) and al-Zaytouna (in Tunis) in that there was no defined scholastic year, registration was not imposed, study durations were not fixed, and there was no examination to ratify studies. Students were expected to attend courses for a minimum of five years and would receive an "ijazah" if they were proven to have reached a high level of expertise. These scholars date al-Qarawiyyin's transformation into a university to its modern reorganization in 1963. In the wake of these reforms, al-Qarawiyyin was officially renamed "University of Al Quaraouiyine" two years later.


title: University of al-Qarawiyyin

text: Among opposing views, Yahya Pallavicini claims that the university model did not spread in Europe until the 12th century and that it was found throughout the Muslim world from the founding of al-Qarawiyyin in the 9th century until at least European colonialism. Some scholars, noting certain parallels between such madrasas and European medieval universities, have proposed that the latter may have been influenced by the madrasas of the Muslim world, in particular via Islamic Spain and the Emirate of Sicily. Other scholars have questioned this, citing the lack of evidence for an actual transmission from the Islamic world to Christian Europe and highlighting the differences in the structure, methodologies, procedures, curricula and legal status of the madrasa versus the European university.


title: University of al-Qarawiyyin

text: The earliest date of formal teaching at al-Qarawiyyin is also uncertain. The most relevant major historical texts like the "Rawd al-Qirtas" and the "Zahrat al-As" do not provide clear details on the history of teaching at the mosque. In the "Rawd al-Qirtas", Ibn Abi Zar mentions the mosque but not its educational function. Al-Jazna'i, the 14th-century author of the "Zahrat al-As", mentions that teaching had taken place there well before his time, but with no other details. Otherwise, the earliest mentions of "halaqa" for learning and teaching may not have been until the 10th or the 12th century. Moroccan historian Mohammed Al-Manouni believes that it was during the reign of the Almoravids (1040–1147) that the mosque acquired its function as a teaching institution. French historian Évariste Lévi-Provençal dates the beginning of the madrasa and teaching to the later Marinid period (1244–1465). Another Moroccan historian, Abdelhadi Tazi, indicated the earliest evidence of teaching at al-Qarawiyyin in 1121. Upon reviewing the evidence in Abdelhadi Tazi's work, Abdul Latif Tibawi states that:


title: University of al-Qarawiyyin

text: This is considerably later than the beginning of instruction at the al-Azhar under the Fatimids. So it is very difficult to sustain the claim that the University of Qarawiyyin is the "oldest university", and not only in the Muslim world! The mosque school or college did not assume the name of university until 1960 when in a ceremony Muhammad V invested it with that dignified title.


title: University of al-Qarawiyyin

text: A number of well-known philosophers, scholars, and politicians in the history of Morocco and the western Mediterranean have either studied or taught at the Qarawiyyin since its founding.


title: Gabrielle Reece

text: Gabrielle Allyse Reece (born January 6, 1970) is an American professional volleyball player, sports announcer, fashion model and actress.


title: Gabrielle Reece

text: Reece was born in La Jolla, California, and raised in Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, an only child of Terry Glynn and Robert Eduardo Reece. Her father, who was Trinidadian, was killed in a plane crash when Gabrielle was five. She returned to the U.S. mainland for the eleventh grade, attending Keswick Christian School in St. Petersburg, Florida, when she took up sports. She accepted a volleyball scholarship from Florida State University, where she majored in communications, and in volleyball she led the league in kills four times and blocks once. Reece also set two school volleyball records, in solo blocks (240) and total blocks (747), both of which still stand. In 1989, she moved to New York City to pursue more rigorously a parallel career as a sports fashion model and also continue in her pro volleyball career. Florida State University inducted Reece into the Florida State University Athletics Hall of Fame in 1997.


title: Gabrielle Reece

text: After graduation, Reece played on professional volleyball tours for several years. For four consecutive years, Reece was the WBVL skills leader from 1993–1996. She was named the Offensive Player of the Year in 1994–95, and the League blocks leader in 1993. She also competed domestically in the 1999–2000 Olympic Challenge Series, the 1999–2000 FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour, and other competitions.


title: Gabrielle Reece

text: Reece trained in golf for four years hoping to make it onto the LPGA but was unsuccessful. In 2009, she said, "... with young children, I simply didn't have the time for such a demanding game".


title: Gabrielle Reece

text: She appeared in several "Elle" layouts in the late 1980s and early 1990s. She has appeared on the covers of "Outside", "Shape", "Women's Sports & Fitness", "Elle", and "Life". Reece had previously made a cameo appearance as herself on the HBO series "Arliss" in which she angrily reprimanded her agent for even suggesting she accept an offer to pose nude for "Playboy".


title: Gabrielle Reece

text: Reece was prominently featured in the video game , released in 2000 for Game Boy Color, PlayStation, and Windows, where she was both the cover model and a playable character.


title: Gabrielle Reece

text: Reece also produced an infomercial for a health and fitness product, "The Primal System" with fitness expert Paul Chek, and hosted "Insider Training" for Fit TV/Discovery, in which she interviewed professional athletes about their training & conditioning regimens. Reece hosted NBC's "S.T.R.O.N.G." (2016) and along with her husband Laird Hamilton did the series "XPT :The Experience" for Outside TV in 2017.


title: Gabrielle Reece

text: In film, she acted in the sci-fi movie "Gattaca" (1997) and was interviewed in the documentary "Riding Giants" (2004). In scripted television, she guest-starred on the shows " North Shore" (2004) and "8 Simple Rules" (2005). She also appeared as a guest on "Extreme Makeover Home Edition" and "America's Next Top Model" and "The Tyra Banks Show". In 2022, she appeared as herself in an episode of "Billions".


title: Gabrielle Reece

text: In 2008, she released "Gabrielle Reece: Fit & Healthy Prenatal Workouts" with exercise guru Mike Monroe. For 2008, Reece was the spokeswoman for Simply Nutrilite, a line developed by Quixtar.


title: Gabrielle Reece

text: In her April 2013 book titled "My Foot Is Too Big for the Glass Slipper: A Guide to the Less Than Perfect Life", Reece writes that "to truly be feminine means being soft, receptive, and – look out, here it comes – submissive." She went on to further define her point in an April 16 interview on "The Today Show" by saying that she believes women being submissive in relationships is a sign of strength – not weakness. "We don’t worry about (men) having it all, so I don’t know where we got this idea to have it all".


title: Gabrielle Reece

text: Laird Hamilton and Gabrielle Reece are the founders of XPT Life or Extreme Performance Training. In September 2020 Laird Hamilton and Gabrielle Reece brought their Laird Superfood business they founded in 2015 along with Paul Hodge to Wall Street where it is now listed under the trading id LSF.


title: Gabrielle Reece

text: On November 30, 1997, Reece married big-wave surfer Laird Hamilton. They have two daughters: Reece Viola Hamilton and Brody Jo Hamilton. She and Hamilton also are raising Izabela, Hamilton's daughter from his previous marriage to big wave surfer and clothing designer Maria Souza. The Hamilton-Reece family splits time residing in Hawaii and Malibu, California. In the latter, she is known as a member of the "Malibu Mob", a group of celebrity friends and neighbors that includes actor John Cusack, hockey player Chris Chelios, tennis player John McEnroe, and actor John C. McGinley.


title: Simon Kirke

text: Simon Frederick St George Kirke (born 28 July 1949) is an English rock drummer best known as a member of Free and Bad Company. He has been the only continuous member of Bad Company since their inception.


title: Simon Kirke

text: Kirke was born in Lambeth, South London, the son of Olive May ( Pollard) and Vivian Percy Kirke, who married in 1948. Simon's father was from a junior branch of a family of Nottinghamshire landed gentry, and descended on his mother's side from the Gibson-Craig baronets.


title: Simon Kirke

text: Kirke spent his early years living in the countryside of Wales. Leaving school at 17, he returned to London and set about finding a drumming job in the booming blues scene. After a fruitless 22 months he was resigned to returning to the country when he met Paul Kossoff who was playing in a band called Black Cat Bones. Kirke was offered the drumming position in the band, and played with Black Cat Bones for six months.


title: Simon Kirke

text: Kirke and Paul Kossoff left the band and with Paul Rodgers and Andy Fraser formed Free. Their biggest hit, "All Right Now", was a number one in more than 20 territories and was acknowledged by ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers) in 1990 as having received more than 1,000,000 radio plays in the US by late 1989. In 2000, an award was given to Paul Rodgers by the British music industry when "All Right Now" passed 2,000,000 radio plays in the UK.


title: Simon Kirke

text: By April 1972, Free had reformed with Andy Fraser and Paul Rodgers making peace, and Kossoff appeared to pull it together if only briefly. Kossoff resumed taking drugs during the US tour to support the last album by the original quartet "Free at Last". On the eve of their Japanese tour Fraser fought with Rodgers and once again left the band, to be replaced by Tetsu Yamauchi. Rodgers and Kirke elected to fill in the band bringing John "Rabbit" Bundrick on board as a member of Free for the tour and the last Free album, "Heartbreaker". After the disbanding of Free in 1973, Kirke and Rodgers again teamed up to form Bad Company. They were joined by guitarist Mick Ralphs (Mott the Hoople) and bassist Boz Burrell (King Crimson).


title: Simon Kirke

text: After Bad Company disbanded in 1982, Kirke joined a band called Wildlife. They toured in support of the Michael Schenker Group around this time in the UK. Wildlife's self-titled album was mostly written by Steve and Chris Overland, produced by former Bad Company bandmate Ralphs, and featured Kirke as their drummer (and saxophonist on his self-written song "Charity"). Despite being signed to Led Zeppelin's label, Swan Song Records, and Kirke's high-profile involvement, the album failed to sell. Wildlife's core members, brothers Chris and Steve Overland went on to greater success with the band FM.


title: Simon Kirke

text: Kirke returned to Bad Company when the band reformed in 1986. As well as touring with Ringo Starr's All Star Band on three occasions, he is an accomplished songwriter, releasing "Seven Rays of Hope" in 2005. He toured with Bad Company in 2009. He has been playing with New York City rock band Zeta Vang as a side project.


title: Simon Kirke

text: A governor on the board of NARAS (the Grammy Award Committee), Kirke is on the board of Road Recovery, which helps teenagers recover from addiction. He lives in Manhattan, with his wife, Maria Angelica Kirke, and has three children : Domino, Jemima, and Lola Kirke. He had a son by Marissa Creager, Simon St George Creager, who suffered from severe cerebral palsy, died in 2017 at age 19.


title: Noob Saibot

text: Noob Saibot is a fictional character in the "Mortal Kombat" fighting game franchise by Midway Games and NetherRealm Studios. Initially introduced as a black silhouette of the series' other male ninjas and sharing their special moves, he was given his own unique movement style and appearance in later games. His name is derived from the surnames of "Mortal Kombat" creators Ed Boon and John Tobias spelled backwards.


title: Noob Saibot

text: As Noob Saibot, the character debuted as a hidden opponent in "Mortal Kombat II" (1993) and became playable in the console versions of "Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3" (1996). He is first depicted as an undead wraith and member of the malevolent Brotherhood of the Shadow cult. His backstory was further expanded in "" (2004), where he is revealed as Bi-Han, the elder Sub-Zero from the original 1992 game.


title: Noob Saibot

text: Reception to the character has been generally positive, particularly in regard to his Fatality finishing moves. He has also appeared in various media outside of the games.


title: Noob Saibot

text: The character's name comes from the last names of the creators of the "Mortal Kombat" franchise, Ed Boon and John Tobias, spelled backwards. During his first appearances, Noob Saibot's design was focused around an all-black exterior, with the staff stating "that's what he's all about". They found difficulties in making some versions, without him appearing to look into bondage. For "Mortal Kombat: Deception", Noob Saibot was the first character drawn and designed by Steve Beran. Beran attempted to make him a more distinctive character, focusing less on his all-black exterior. One design depicted him with a hood, but the idea was later moved to the new character Havik. An early alternate outfit depicted Noob Saibot in a black, red and blue outfit with a Japanese translation of "darkness" on the front flap. He was also shown unmasked, but this design ended up being used as Havik's alternate outfit. The use of a two-on-two combat was meant to be introduced in this game as well, but was only used with Noob Saibot and Smoke. Both characters were models for the use of such a concept and were intended to work together in the player's Fatality finishing move. Despite his surname being named after Tobias, Tobias did not know about the character until during the development of "Mortal Kombat 3".


title: Noob Saibot

text: Bi-Han as the original Sub-Zero was introduced in the first "Mortal Kombat" game (1992), in which he participates in the eponymous tournament as he was ordered by the Lin Kuei to kill the host Shang Tsung and take his treasure. Prior to Mortal Kombat, Bi-Han was commissioned by the sorcerer Quan Chi to obtain an amulet. Quan Chi contracted both Bi-Han and Hanzo Hasashi of the rival Shirai Ryu clan to complete this task in order to ensure the amulet’s capture. Early on in the quest, Bi-Han kills Hasashi, who later is resurrected as the undead specter Scorpion. After Bi-Han delivers the amulet to Quan Chi, he is sent back to the Netherrealm by the thunder god Raiden upon learning it is the key to releasing the fallen elder god, Shinnok. Sub-Zero regains the amulet while fighting Shinnok and returns it to Raiden. After Liu Kang defeats Shang Tsung in Mortal Kombat, Bi-Han fails to accomplish his mission, and is killed by Scorpion, who sought to avenge his own death. Following Bi Han’s death, Quan Chi enlists Bi-Han's soul into the undead Noob Saibot.


title: Noob Saibot

text: Noob Saibot was then first introduced in 1993's "Mortal Kombat II" as a hidden nonplayable opponent whom players fought in a secret battle in the "Goro's Lair" stage from the first game after winning fifty consecutive matches. He was a solid black palette swap of Sub-Zero who fought with increased speed and Scorpion's spear. He returned as a secret character in "Mortal Kombat 3" with the same attributes, but was instead a silhouette of Kano, since there were no human ninjas in the game, and in the Sega Game Gear port, he additionally had Kano's special moves and his "Eye Laser" Fatality. Upon being made playable in the console versions of "UMK3" and the 1996 compilation title "Mortal Kombat Trilogy", Noob Saibot returned as a palette-swap ninja, and one of ten human ninja swaps in the game overall. Although early versions of "Mortal Kombat 4" featured him as a playable character, he was changed back to being hidden in the final arcade release, while his roster spot was filled by Reiko.


title: Noob Saibot

text: In reference to his past as the original Sub-Zero, Noob Saibot's character model is used for Sub-Zero's mirror match costume in the "Versus" mode of "".


title: Noob Saibot

text: Prima Games considered Noob Saibot to be one of the most "overpowered" "Mortal Kombat" characters; they state "he had an unblockable projectile attack, fought side-by-side with Smoke and even had ridiculous zoning in MK9."


title: Noob Saibot

text: Noob Saibot allies with evil Outworld emperor Shao Kahn in "Mortal Kombat 3" and "Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3", but secretly observes the emperor at the behest of the Brotherhood of the Shadow.


title: Noob Saibot

text: In "Mortal Kombat 4", he serves the fallen Elder God Shinnok. "" features Noob Saibot once again as a playable character, this time in the service of Shao Kahn. He leads an offensive against the forces of good and mortally wounds the Shokan prince Goro.


title: Noob Saibot

text: In "", Saibot discovers the deactivated cyborg ninja Smoke deep within Shao Kahn's palace. He reactivates and enslaves him, intending to use his body as the basis for his personal undead cyborg army. In his ending, he is revealed as the resurrected form of Bi-Han, which would carry over to subsequent releases and the 2011 reboot of the continuity.


title: Noob Saibot

text: In the 2005 beat 'em up title "", Shaolin warriors Kung Lao and Liu Kang discover Saibot being pursued by his brother Sub-Zero in the bowels of the Netherrealm.


title: Noob Saibot

text: "" (2006) features Saibot as a playable character. In the game's story mode, he and Smoke invade the Lin Kuei ninja clan's castle and assimilate most of the defending ninja into their own subordinate warriors. They are eventually defeated by the warrior Taven, and Saibot is left in the castle unconscious. Raiden also tries to force him to recall his past identity, but to no avail.


title: Noob Saibot

text: In the 2011 "Mortal Kombat" reboot, which serves as an alternate timeline retelling of the first three games, Raiden receives visions from his future counterpart while attending the Mortal Kombat tournament. After one of the visions reveals Bi-Han's transformation into Saibot, he tries to prevent Scorpion from murdering the first Sub-Zero by offering to ask the Elder Gods to resurrect the Shirai Ryu. This fails when the sorcerer Quan Chi manipulates Scorpion with a vision of Bi-Han murdering his family. After his death, Bi-Han is subsequently resurrected by Quan Chi to serve as one of his undead revenant enforcers. Saibot supports Quan Chi and Shao Kahn, while also keeping in touch with the Cyber Lin Kuei, who had joined the latter's forces as well. Although he first appears during the second Mortal Kombat tournament, he does not receive a significant role until Outworld invades Earthrealm. He is sent to defend Quan Chi's Soulnado from Earthrealm's protectors, only to be defeated by his younger brother, who became the new Sub-Zero, and launched into the Soulnado by Earthrealm warrior Nightwolf, which dissipates the Soulnado and seemingly kills Saibot.


title: Noob Saibot

text: Saibot returns in "Mortal Kombat 11", having mysteriously survived the Soulnado and acquired amplified powers. Hiding in the shadows for years, Quan Chi's death in "Mortal Kombat X" frees Saibot from enslavement. After the keeper of time Kronika, merges the past and present timelines, Noob pledged his allegiance to her in return for a dark clan of his own. He assists a time-displaced Sektor and a cyberized Frost in kidnapping Lin Kuei clansmen and converting them into cyborg warriors before attempting to stop the newly allied Scorpion and Sub-Zero from foiling their plans, only to be defeated and forced to retreat with Sektor's deactivated body. He reappears on Shang Tsung's island to stop Jax and Jacqui Briggs from retrieving Kronika's crown, but is defeated once again. Due to Shang Tsung’s interference in "Aftermath" expansion storyline, Noob instead appears alongside a reluctant present-Jax at a same time where they fought Fujin and Shang Tsung. Noob is defeated by the Wind God in their rematch when they recall their first fight two decades ago. As revealed in Sub-Zero's ending, Sektor corrupted Bi-Han before he became Saibot.


title: Noob Saibot

text: Noob Saibot appeared in the 1997 film "", as a warrior who emerged from Ermac during the latter's fight against Sonya, and was played by stunt performer J. J. Perry, who additionally portrayed Cyrax and Scorpion in the film. He and Ermac team up to assault Sonya with repeated kicks and punches until Jax comes to her aid and kills Noob Saibot with a fatal punch that he lands offscreen.


title: Noob Saibot

text: Noob Saibot (played by Kimball Uddin) made one appearance in the 1998 television series "" as an imprisoned Outworld warrior mistakenly released by Siro and Taja and then recruited by a sorceress to assassinate Kung Lao. He was completely covered in black oil and wielded an Escrima stick.


title: Noob Saibot

text: Noob Saibot was ranked twelfth in UGO Networks' 2012 ranking of the top fifty series characters. ""Mortal Kombat" is all about the secrets and hidden characters—starting with Reptile and continuing with Smoke ... our favorite is the ludicrously-named Noob Saibot." "Den of Geek" placed him eighth in their 2015 ranking of the series' 73 playable characters. "Noob Saibot represents the dark sickness that comes from the cycle of violence. As explained in the reboot, by giving into his thirst for vengeance, Scorpion unleashed something horrible onto the world.", and ranked Noob as the 4th best altered fighting game characters. "Complex" listed him as the fifth-most underrated series character in 2012. ""MK" is known for having some of the best secrets to ever be hidden in a videogame." Noob Saibot joined the series' other male ninjas in being ranked third on "GamePro"'s 2009 list of the best palette-swapped video game characters, but "Game Informer", in 2010, was not high on seeing these same characters, aside from Scorpion and Sub-Zero, in any future series installments. The "Trilogy" version of the character was included in GameSpy's 2009 selection of unbalanced fighting game characters. "Noob Saibot has the 'Disabler.' It's a fireball ... which stuns you, which is as broken as it's possible for a fighting move to get without becoming allergic to electricity."


title: Noob Saibot

text: Noob Saibot's "Make a Wish" Fatality from the 2011 "Mortal Kombat" reboot, in which he and a shadow clone of himself rip their defeated opponent in half from the crotch upward by pulling their legs apart, received much critical attention due to its graphic content. In July 2011, Jon Stewart of "The Daily Show" played a video of the finisher while he explained the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling that the ESRB could regulate video games without government intervention. Kirk Hamilton of "Paste" commented, "Not only did [Stewart] pick a scene from what is arguably the most ridiculously violent game on the market, he also picked the most gory and painful-looking fatality." "Complex" ranked the Fatality as the series' best in 2013. Michael McWhertor from "Kotaku" called it a "highlight" of the game, and though the finisher was not included in the site's 2013 feature "The Most Gruesome Video Game Deaths," it served as its introduction. "It's so ridiculous it stands out despite "Mortal Kombat's" already high level of gore." Robert Workman of Prima Games ranked it ninth in his 2014 countdown of the "Mortal Kombat" series' top fifty Fatalities. "FHM" included it among the reboot's nine "most brutal" finishers.


title: Obeah

text: Obeah, or Obayi, is an ancestrally inherited tradition of Akan witches of Ghana, Ivory Coast, and Togo and their descendants in the African diaspora of the Caribbean. Inheritors of the tradition are referred to as "obayifo" (Akan/Ghana-region spiritual practitioners) and its priests as "bayi komfo" and "bonsam komfo", which translates to "obeah priest/priestess".


title: Obeah

text: According to historians, Obeah (sometimes also spelled "Obi", "Obeya", or "Obia") is a system of spiritual healing and justice-making practices brought over by enslaved West Africans to the West Indies. Obeah is said to be difficult to define, as it is believed by some to not be a single, unified set of practices, since the word "Obeah" was historically not often used to describe one's own practices.


title: Obeah

text: Obeah is the justice-seeking arm of the Akan religion, and, in its original, traditional form (as opposed to its Caribbean form), is similar to other African diaspora religions such as Palo, Haitian Vodou, Santería, and Hoodoo in that it includes communication with ancestors and spirits and healing rituals. Nevertheless, Caribbean obeah differs from religions like Vodou and Santeria in that there is no explicit canon of gods or deities that is worshipped, and the practice is generally an individual action rather than part of a collective ceremony or offering. Traditional obeah, however, does have a specified set of deities, namely the Abosom and the Abonsam.


title: Obeah

text: Variants of Obeah are practiced in the Caribbean nations of the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Turks and Caicos Islands, Trinidad and Tobago,


title: Obeah

text: In parts of the Caribbean where Obeah developed, enslaved people were taken from a variety of African nations with differing spiritual practices and religions. It is from these arrivals and their spiritualisms that the Caribbean form of Obeah originates. The origins of the word "Obeah" have been contested in the academic community for nearly a century; there is not a widely accepted consensus on what region or language the word derives from, and there are politics behind every hypothesis. Orlando Patterson promoted an Akan-Twi etymology, suggesting that the word came from communities in the Gold Coast.


title: Obeah

text: In British colonial communities, aside from referring to the set of spiritual practices, “Obeah” also came to refer to a physical object, such as a talisman or charm, that was used for evil magical purposes. The item was referred to as an Obeah-item (e.g. an 'obeah ring' or an 'obeah-stick', translated as: "ring used for witchcraft" or "stick used for witchcraft" respectively). Obeah incorporated various beliefs from the religions of later migrants to the colonies where it was present. Obeah also influenced other religions in the Caribbean, e.g. Christianity, which incorporated some Obeah beliefs.


title: Obeah

text: Patterson and other proponents of the Akan-Twi hypothesis argued that the word was derived from "obayifo", a word associated with malevolent magic by Ashanti priests which means a person who possesses "witch power".


title: Obeah

text: The first time in Jamaican history the term "obeah" was used in the colonial literature was in reference to Nanny of the Maroons, an Akan woman, considered the ancestor of the Windward Maroon community and celebrated for her role in winning the First Maroon War and securing a land treaty in 1740. Nanny was described as an old 'witch' and a 'Hagg' by English soldier Philip Thicknesse in his memoirs. Obeah has also received a great deal of attention for its role in Tacky's Rebellion (also an Akan), the 1760 conflict that spurred the passage of the first Jamaican anti-Obeah law. The term "Myal" was first recorded by Edward Long in 1774 when describing a ritual dance done by Jamaican slaves. At first the practices of Obeah and Myal were not considered different. Over time "Myal-men" involved in spirit affairs involved themselves with Jamaican Native Baptist churches, bringing Myal rituals into the churches. Over time these Myal influenced churches began preaching the importance of baptisms and the eradication of Obeah, thus formally separating the two traditions.


title: Obeah

text: Despite its associations with a number of Akan slaves and rebellions, the origin of Obeah has been criticised by several writers who hold that an Igbo origin is more likely. According to W. E. B. Du Bois Institute database, he traces Obeah to the "Dibia" or "Obia" () traditions of the Igbo people. Specialists in Obia (also spelled "Obea") were known as "Ndi Obia" () and practised the same activities as the Obeah men and women of the Caribbean like predicting the future and manufacturing charms. Among the Igbo there were oracles known as "Obiạ" which were said to be able to talk. Parts of the Caribbean where Obeah was most active imported a large number of its slaves from the Igbo-dominated Bight of Biafra. This interpretation is also favored by Kenneth Bilby, arguing that “dibia’ connotes a neutral “master of knowledge and wisdom.”


title: Obeah

text: In another hypothesis, the Efik language is the root of Obeah where the word "obeah" comes from the Efik "ubio" meaning 'a bad omen'. Melville Herskovits endorsed a different Efik origin, arguing that obeah was a corruption of an Efik word for “doctor” or the corruption of the Bahumono word for "native doctor".


title: Obeah

text: The earliest known mention of Obeah comes from Barbados in 1710 from letters written by Thomas Walduck. He writes in part, that an Obia Negro can torment another by sending uncountable pains in different parts of their Body, lameness, madness, loss of speech, lose the use of all their limbs without any pain.


title: Obeah

text: The term 'Obeah' is first found in documents from the early 18th century, as in its connection to Nanny of the Maroons. Colonial sources referred to the spiritual powers attributed to her in a number of derogatory ways, ranging from referring to her as “the rebel’s old obeah woman” to characterizing her as “unsexed” and more bloodthirsty than Maroon men. Maroon oral traditions discuss her feats of "science" in rich detail. She is said to have used her obeah powers to kill British soldiers in Nanny's Pot, a boiling pot without a flame below it that soldiers would lean into and fall in, to quickly grow food for her starving forces, and to catch British bullets and either fire them back or attack the soldiers with a machete.


title: Obeah

text: The Jamaican Assembly passed a number of draconian laws to regulate the slaves in the aftermath of Tacky's War, including the banning of obeah. During the rebellion, Tacky is said to have consulted an Obeahman who prepared for his forces a substance that would make them immune to bullets, which boosted their confidence in executing the rebellion.


title: Obeah

text: In 1787, a letter written to "The Times" referred to "Obiu-women" interpreting the wishes of the dead at the funeral of a murdered slave in Jamaica: a footnote explained the term as meaning "Wise-women". The practice of obeah with regards to healing led to the Jamaican 18th and 19th century traditions of "doctresses", such as Grace Donne (who nursed her lover, Simon Taylor (sugar planter)), Sarah Adams, Cubah Cornwallis, Mary Seacole, and Mrs Grant (who was the mother of Mary Seacole). These doctresses practised the use of hygiene and the applications of herbs decades before they were adopted by European doctors and nurses.


title: Obeah

text: A continuing source of anxiety related to Obeah was the belief that practitioners were skilled in using poisons, as mentioned in Matthew Lewis's "Journal of a West India Proprietor". Many Jamaicans accused women of such poisonings; one case Lewis discussed was that of a young woman named Minetta who was brought to trial for attempting to poison her master. Lewis and others often characterized the women they accused of poisonings as being manipulated by Obeahmen, who they contended actually provided the women with the materials for poisonings. The laws forbidding Obeah reflected this fear: an anti-Obeah law passed in Barbados in 1818 specifically forbade the possession of "any poison, or any noxious or destructive substance". A doctor who examined the medicine chest of an Obeah man arrested in Jamaica in 1866 identified white arsenic as one of the powders in it, but could not identify the others. The unnamed correspondent reporting this affirmed "The Jamaica herbal is an extensive one, and comprises some highly poisonous juices, of which the Obeah men have a perfect knowledge."


title: Obeah

text: During the mid 19th century the appearance of a comet in the sky became the focal point of an outbreak of religious fanatical millennialism among the Myal men of Jamaica. Spiritualism was at that time sweeping the English-speaking nations as well, and it readily appealed to those in the Afro-Caribbean diaspora, as spirit contact, especially with the dead, is an essential part of many African religions.


title: Obeah

text: During the conflict between Myal and Obeah, the Myal men positioned themselves as the "good" opponents to "evil" Obeah. They claimed that Obeah men stole people's shadows, and they set themselves up as the helpers of those who wished to have their shadows restored. Myal men contacted spirits in order to expose the evil works they ascribed to the Obeah men, and led public parades which resulted in crowd-hysteria that engendered violent antagonism against Obeah men. The public "discovery" of buried Obeah charms, presumed to be of evil intent, led on more than one occasion to violence against the rival Obeah practitioners. Such conflicts between supposedly “good” and “evil” spiritual work could sometimes be found within plantation communities. In one 1821 case brought before court in Berbice, an enslaved woman named Madalon allegedly died as a result of being accused of malevolent obeah that caused the drivers at Op Hoop Van Beter plantation to fall ill. The man implicated in her death, a spiritual worker named Willem, conducted an illegal Minje Mama dance to divine the source of the Obeah, and after she was chosen as the suspect, she was tortured to death.


title: Obeah

text: Trinidad and Tobago Obeah includes the unique practice of the Moko-Jumbie, or stilt dancer. "Moko" was a common word for Ibibio slaves. In the Trinidad and Tobago Obeah tradition, a Douen is a child who has died before being baptized and is said to be forced to walk the earth at night forever in English-speaking regions of the Caribbean. Jewelry is made from deadly toxic red and black seeds called jumbies, jumbie eyes or jumbie beads (seeds of "Abrus precatorius") in the Caribbean and South America.


title: Obeah

text: In contrast, the moko-jumbie of Trinidad and Tobago is brightly colored, dances in the daylight and is very much alive. The moko-jumbie also represents the flip side of spiritual darkness, as stilt-dancing is most popular around holy days and Carnival.


title: Obeah

text: Currently, the Bahamian Penal Code (Chapter 84: Sections 232–234) allows for up to 3 months of incarceration for practicing obeah. Interestingly, suspicion of possessing an instrument of obeah (vials, blood, bone, images) in a courtroom can result in immediate search without warrant and a fine if such an item is found.


title: Obeah

text: In Trinidad, 13 percent of East Indian people were accused of practicing obeah. In Jamaica, there was a lower population of East Indian people, and only 4 percent of the population were accused of obeah. In Jamaica and Trinidad, the belief exists that East Indian descendants practiced obeah because of their spiritual and religious practice of Hinduism. In Trinidad and Tobago, those convicted of practicing obeah would serve six months as a maximum punishment. Minimum punishments included fines or lashes. The lashes were beatings received from whips, and the number received would be reported in documents.


title: Obeah

text: Although 19th-century literature mentions Obeah often, one of the earliest references to Obeah in fiction can be found in 1800, in William Earle's novel "Obi; or, The History of Three-Finger'd Jack", a narrative inspired by true events that was also reinterpreted in several dramatic versions on the London stage in 1800 and following. One of the next major books about Obeah was "Hamel, the Obeah Man" (1827). Several early plantation novels also include Obeah plots. In Marryat's novel "Poor Jack" (1840) a rich young plantation-owner ridicules superstitions held by English sailors but himself believes in Obeah. The 20th century saw less actual Obeah in open practice, but it still continued to make frequent appearances in literature well into the 21st century, for example, in Leone Ross’s 2021 novel "Popisho".


title: Jeep Wrangler (JL)

text: The Jeep Wrangler (JL) is the fourth generation of the Wrangler off-road vehicle, available in two- and four-door bodies. Unveiled at the 2017 Los Angeles Auto Show on November 29, 2017, production of the vehicle began in November 2017.


title: Jeep Wrangler (JL)

text: The 2-door Wrangler and 4-door Wrangler Unlimited feature an exterior design that is reminiscent of the 1997 through 2006 Wrangler (TJ), with a "raked" front grille with seven vertical slots and round headlamps that integrate into the front grille. The designers have moved the traditional Jeep logo off the grille.


title: Jeep Wrangler (JL)

text: The Wrangler has retained a body-on-frame construction and solid axles. The vehicle is offered with three different four-wheel drive systems: Command-Trac, Selec-Trac, and Rock-Trac. Options available on all JL models (except Rubicon) include an anti-spin rear differential. The JL is designed to be more comfortable on-road and has recirculating ball steering with electric power assistance.


title: Jeep Wrangler (JL)

text: The Wrangler is longer overall than before, while the Wrangler Unlimited has grown by . The new Wrangler is roughly lighter than the Wrangler JK. Overhangs increase significantly with the new model having front and rear.


title: Jeep Wrangler (JL)

text: The 3.6 L Pentastar VVT V6 gasoline engine still remains available from the existing Wrangler and Wrangler Unlimited, and is standard on all models, though has been redesigned for improved fuel economy. The engine features an Aisin AL6 six-speed manual transmission as standard equipment, with an 850RE Torqueflite eight-speed automatic transmission being optional. The automatic transmission made its debut in the 2018 Jeep Grand Cherokee (WK2), replacing the older Torqueflite 845RE unit. The eight-speed automatic unit will feature a traditional shifter. The engine performance is unchanged from the previous model at and . This is only offered on Wrangler models sold in North America, Middle East, Australia, and New Zealand.


title: Jeep Wrangler (JL)

text: A 2.0 L turbocharged four-cylinder (Inline-4) FCA Global Medium Engine is available on all models. Paired exclusively with the 850RE Torqueflite eight-speed automatic transmission, the new engine features a mild hybrid system branded as eTorque for improved fuel economy and off-road performance, and produces and combined. This is the only gasoline engine offered in Europe, China, Singapore, and India. In North America, this engine had late availability, and the Wrangler was launched with the existing 3.6 L Pentastar V6 gasoline engine.


title: Jeep Wrangler (JL)

text: A 3.0 L EcoDiesel V6 turbodiesel engine, built by VM Motori, became available in North America in 2020 (same engine already available in the Jeep Grand Cherokee (WK2) and the Ram 1500.) It produces and .


title: Jeep Wrangler (JL)

text: For the rest of the world (except North America) a 2.2 L 16V Multijet II turbo four-cylinder diesel engine producing and with Start&Stop is available.


title: Jeep Wrangler (JL)

text: A plug-in hybrid model called the 4xe was released in 2021. Power and torque ratings are horsepower and of torque. It uses a lithium-ion battery pack that gives it an EPA-estimated range of and an EPA-rated 49 MPGe. It is available in China, Europe, and the United States. For 2022, the 4xe became the only variant of the Wrangler offered in Europe.


title: Jeep Wrangler (JL)

text: A V8 powered version of the Rubicon trim level debuted for the 2021 model year. This trim goes by Rubicon 392 and produces horsepower and of torque from the HEMI V8 also found in Dodge's Scat Pack Charger alongside Jeep's own SRT Grand Cherokee.


title: Jeep Wrangler (JL)

text: There are three updated infotainment systems (Uconnect 3 5.0BT, Uconnect 4 7.0, and Uconnect 4C 8.4N). The different Uconnect infotainment systems supply 5-inch, 7-inch, or 8.4-inch pinch-to-zoom displays.


title: Jeep Wrangler (JL)

text: The base Sport and upgraded Sport S both feature the standard Uconnect 3 5.0BT system, while the uplevel Sahara and Rubicon both feature the Uconnect 4 7.0 system with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, which is also optional on the upgraded Sport S, when equipped with the Electronic Infotainment Group. The Uconnect 4C 8.4N system is only available on the uplevel Sahara and Rubicon models when equipped with the Electronic Infotainment II Group. SiriusXM Satellite Radio is standard on all models aside from the base Sport, where it is available as a standalone option.


title: Jeep Wrangler (JL)

text: An eight-speaker audio system, with dashboard and rear "sound bar" mounted speakers is standard on all models, whereas an optional nine-speaker Alpine premium amplified audio system that adds an all-weather subwoofer, is a standalone option on all models, also included with the Electronic Infotainment Group and Infotainment II Group on Sport S, Sahara, and Rubicon models.


title: Jeep Wrangler (JL)

text: All three infotainment systems include a fully integrated and federally mandated rear-view backup camera as standard equipment. The camera is mounted to the spare tire and can be disconnected when the tire is removed.


title: Jeep Wrangler (JL)

text: Rear passengers now get a 115 V AC household-style power outlet, as well as rear USB charging ports on Wrangler Unlimited models.


title: Jeep Wrangler (JL)

text: The interior design was inspired by the 1954–1983 Jeep CJ-5 and 1987–1995 Wrangler (YJ) models. The majority of the interior switchgear in the JL is unique to the JL, except for some parts which are shared with other Chrysler products.


title: Jeep Wrangler (JL)

text: The power window controls remain in the center of the instrument panel, and the front woofers remain in the lower corners of the instrument panel. There is a new three-spoke, retro-inspired steering wheel, and a color instrument cluster display screen is available on upper-level trims.


title: Jeep Wrangler (JL)

text: Standard cloth seating surfaces are standard on Sport and Sport "S", while upgraded Premium Cloth seating surfaces are standard on Sahara and Rubicon models (the upgraded seats include either 'SAHARA' or 'RUBICON' embroidery on the front seat backrests, depending on model). Luxury leather-trimmed seating surfaces are standard on the MOAB and 392 trim level, and optional only on Sahara and Rubicon models (the front seat backrests are also embroidered with either the 'SAHARA', 'MOAB', 'RUBICON', or 'RUBICON 392' logos, depending on model). Interior colors are either Black or Heritage Tan for cloth-equipped models, or Black or Saddle on leather-equipped models. All models can be equipped with heated front seats and a heated leather-wrapped steering wheel. Rubicon models equipped with the Black interior include exclusive red stitching on the seats and steering wheel, while Moab models feature contrasting gray stitching, and the 392 has bronze stitching. Black Katzkin leather-trimmed seating surfaces are available as a Mopar dealer-installed accessory option for all trim levels, in either standard or perforated trim.


title: Jeep Wrangler (JL)

text: Cloth-equipped models include a real metal dashboard surface (Silver-painted on Sport, Sport "S", and Sahara models, and Red-painted on some Rubicon models, dependent on the exterior color choice). Leather-equipped Sahara and MOAB include an interior color-keyed stitched vinyl dashboard.


title: Jeep Wrangler (JL)

text: Safety improvements include standard side-impact airbags and strengthened B-pillars. Driver-assist safety features are located in the Active Safety group.


title: Jeep Wrangler (JL)

text: The JL has a lowered beltline with larger windows for better outward visibility. The rear spare tire has been moved down to increase rear visibility. LED front headlamps and rear tail lamps are available, as are daytime running lamps (DRL's) on the front fenders. A blind spot monitor is built directly into the taillight housing.


title: Jeep Wrangler (JL)

text: In 2020, a 4-door JL Wrangler Unlimited overturned upon impact with the rigid barrier during the IIHS's 40-mph small overlap test. When the vehicle struck the barrier, the front axle tucked underneath the Wrangler's structure, causing the vehicle to ride over its own axle and land on its side. While the Wrangler's structure had minimal intrusion and the dummy had minor injury readings, the IIHS concluded that the risk of a passenger being ejected from the vehicle was too high and gave the Wrangler a "Marginal" rating. Despite claims from Jeep that the JL Wrangler's structure was modified to prevent the same outcome, the vehicle overturned again during a retest for the 2022 model, despite some minor suspension changes, resulting in another "Marginal" rating.


title: Jeep Wrangler (JL)

text: Production of the Wrangler Unlimited began in November 2017, while two-door Wrangler production will commence in early 2018. As with its predecessors, the JL is produced at Jeep's Toledo Complex in Toledo, Ohio, and also was produced alongside its predecessor, the Wrangler JK, which remained in production until April 27, 2018. The simultaneous sales were to ensure that dealerships could meet demand. The 2018 Wrangler JK was virtually unchanged from the 2017 model, and a Wrangler JK decal on the front fenders distinguished the outgoing model from its successor. The plant which produced the JK will temporarily close as it receives a retooling for the upcoming Wrangler-based Jeep Gladiator.


title: Jeep Wrangler (JL)

text: FCA announced that the Toledo Machining Plant would assemble the power electronics module and components for the Jeep Wrangler Plug-in Hybrid which was intended to be launched in 2020, but was actually presented in 2021.


title: Jeep Wrangler (JL)

text: Before the JL's actual debut at the 2017 Los Angeles Auto Show, the song Believer by Imagine Dragons was used in the opening. In the teaser, it uses 7 letters that are narrowed to represent the 7 vertical slots and 2 circles on the left and right to depict the front fascia.


title: Jeep Wrangler (JL)

text: A debut television advertisement for the 2018 Wrangler JL, entitled "Jeep Jurassic", first aired during Super Bowl LII. The ad is a reenactment of the classic Tyrannosaurus rex chase scene from the 1993 movie Jurassic Park. However, instead of a 1992 Wrangler (YJ) Sahara Edition, Jeff Goldblum, who played Ian Malcom in the movie, drives a silver two-door 2018 Wrangler JL Rubicon with red accents. The commercial ends with Goldblum seated in the driver's seat of the aforementioned Jeep in a showroom, where a Jeep saleswoman asks if he would like to take the JL for a test drive, to which Goldblum replies that he has.


title: Jeep Wrangler (JL)

text: The all-new 2020 Jeep Gladiator was introduced at the 2018 Los Angeles Auto Show on November 28, 2018. Based on the Wrangler JL, the Gladiator features exterior and interior styling cues similar to the Wrangler Unlimited, seating for five passengers, and a five-foot pickup bed.


title: Madrigal

text: A madrigal is a form of secular vocal music most typical of the Renaissance (15th–16th c.) and early Baroque (1600–1750) periods, although revisited by some later European composers. The polyphonic madrigal is unaccompanied, and the number of voices varies from two to eight, but usually features three to six voices, whilst the metre of the madrigal varies between two or three tercets, followed by one or two couplets. Unlike the verse-repeating strophic forms sung to the same music, most madrigals are through-composed, featuring different music for each stanza of lyrics, whereby the composer expresses the emotions contained in each line and in single words of the poem being sung.


title: Madrigal

text: As written by Italianized Franco–Flemish composers in the 1520s, the madrigal partly originated from the three-to-four voice frottola (1470–1530); partly from composers' renewed interest in poetry written in vernacular Italian; partly from the stylistic influence of the French chanson; and from the polyphony of the motet (13th–16th c.). The technical contrast between the musical forms is in the frottola consisting of music set to stanzas of text, whilst the madrigal is through-composed, a work with different music for different stanzas. As a composition, the madrigal of the Renaissance is unlike the two-to-three voice Italian Trecento madrigal (1300–1370) of the 14th century, having in common only the name "madrigal", which derives from the Latin "matricalis" (maternal) denoting musical work in service to the mother church.


title: Madrigal

text: Artistically, the madrigal was the most important form of secular music in Italy, and reached its formal and historical zenith in the later 16th century, when the madrigal also was taken up by German and English composers, such as John Wilbye (1574–1638), Thomas Weelkes (1576–1623), and Thomas Morley (1557–1602) of the English Madrigal School (1588–1627). Although of British temper, most English madrigals were "a cappella" compositions for three to six voices, which either copied or translated the musical styles of the original madrigals from Italy. By the mid 16th century, Italian composers began merging the madrigal into the composition of the cantata and the dialogue; and by the early 17th century, the aria replaced the madrigal in opera.


title: Madrigal

text: The madrigal is a musical composition that emerged from the convergence of humanist trends in 16th-century Italy. First, renewed interest in the use of Italian as the vernacular language for daily life and communication, instead of Latin. In 1501, the literary theorist Pietro Bembo (1470–1547) published an edition of the poet Petrarch (1304–1374); and published the "Oratio pro litteris graecis" (1453) about achieving graceful writing by applying Latin prosody, careful attention to the sounding of words, and syntax, the positioning of a word within a line of text. As a form of poetry, the madrigal consisted of an irregular number of lines (usually 7–11 syllables) without repetition.


title: Madrigal

text: Second, Italy was the usual destination for the "oltremontani" ("those from beyond the Alps") composers of the Franco-Flemish school, who were attracted by Italian culture and by employment in the court of an aristocrat or with the Roman Catholic Church. The composers of the Franco-Flemish school had mastered the style of polyphonic composition for religious music, and knew the secular compositions of their homelands, such as the chanson, which much differed from the secular, lighter styles of composition in late-15th- and early-16th-century Italy.


title: Madrigal

text: Third, the printing press facilitated the availability of sheet music in Italy. The musical forms then in common use — the frottola and the ballata, the canzonetta and the mascherata — were light compositions with verses of low literary quality. Those musical forms used repetition and soprano-dominated homophony, chordal textures and styles, which were simpler than the composition styles of the Franco-Flemish school. Moreover, the Italian popular taste in literature was changing from frivolous verse to the type of serious verse used by Bembo and his school, who required more compositional flexibility than that of the frottola, and related musical forms.


title: Madrigal

text: The madrigal slowly replaced the frottola in the transitional decade of the 1520s. The early madrigals were published in "Musica di messer Bernardo Pisano sopra le canzone del Petrarcha" (1520), by Bernardo Pisano (1490–1548), while no one composition is named "madrigal", some of the settings are Petrarchan in versification and word-painting, which became compositional characteristics of the later madrigal. The "Madrigali de diversi musici: libro primo de la Serena" (1530), by Philippe Verdelot (1480–1540), included music by Sebastiano Festa (1490–1524) and Costanzo Festa (1485–1545), Maistre Jhan (1485–1538) and Verdelot, himself.


title: Madrigal

text: In the 1533–34 period, at Venice, Verdelot published two popular books of four-voice madrigals that were reprinted in 1540. In 1536, that publishing success prompted the founder of the Franco-Flemish school, Adrian Willaert (1490–1562), to rearrange some four-voice madrigals for single-voice and lute. In 1541, Verdelot also published five-voice madrigals and six-voice madrigals. The success of the first book of madrigals, "Il primo libro di madrigali" (1539), by Jacques Arcadelt (1507–1568), made it the most reprinted madrigal book of its time. Stylistically, the music in the books of Arcadelt and Verdelot was closer to the French chanson than the Italian frottola and the motet, given that French was their native tongue. As composers, they were attentive to the setting of the text, per Bembo's ideas, and through-composed the music, rather than use the refrain-and-verse constructions common to French secular music.


title: Madrigal

text: Although the madrigal originated in the cities of Florence and Rome, by the mid 16th-century Venice had become the centre of musical activity. The political turmoils of the Sack of Rome (1527) and the Siege of Florence (1529–1530) diminished that city's significance as a musical centre. In addition, Venice was the music publishing centre of Europe; the Basilica of San Marco di Venezia (St. Mark's Basilica) was beginning to attract musicians from Europe; and Pietro Bembo had returned to Venice in 1529. Adrian Willaert (1490–1562) and his associates at St. Mark's Basilica, Girolamo Parabosco (1524–1557), Jacques Buus (1524–1557), and Baldassare Donato (1525–1603), Perissone Cambio (1520–1562) and Cipriano de Rore (1515–1565), were the principal composers of the madrigal at mid-century.


title: Madrigal

text: Unlike Arcadelt and Verdelot, Willaert preferred the complex textures of polyphonic language, thus his madrigals were like motets, although he varied the compositional textures, between homophonic and polyphonic passages, to highlight the text of the stanzas; for verse, Willaert preferred the sonnets of Petrarch. Second to Willaert, Cipriano de Rore was the most influential composer of madrigals; whereas Willaert was restrained and subtle in his settings for the text, striving for homogeneity, rather than sharp contrast, Rore used extravagant rhetorical gestures, including word-painting and unusual chromatic relationships, a compositional trend encouraged by the music theorist Nicola Vicentino (1511–1576). From Rore's musical language came the "madrigalisms" that made the genre distinctive, and the five-voice texture which became the standard for composition.


title: Madrigal

text: The latter history of the madrigal begins with Cipriano de Rore, whose works were the elementary musical forms of madrigal composition that existed by the early 17th century. The relevant composers include Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525–1594), who wrote secular music in his early career; Orlande de Lassus (1530–1594), who wrote the twelve-motet "Prophetiae Sibyllarum" (Sibylline Prophecies, 1600), and later, when he moved to Munich in 1556, began the history of madrigal composition beyond Italy; and Philippe de Monte (1521–1603), the most prolific madrigalist, first published in 1554.


title: Madrigal

text: In Venice, Andrea Gabrieli (1532–1585) composed madrigals with bright, open, polyphonic textures, as in his motet compositions. At the court of Alfonso II d'Este, Duke of Ferrara (r. 1559–1597), there was the "Concerto delle donne" (1580–1597), the concert of the ladies, three women singers for whom Luzzasco Luzzaschi (1545–1607), Giaches de Wert (1535–1596), and Lodovico Agostini (1534–1590) composed ornamented madrigals, often with instrumental accompaniment. The great artistic quality of the "Concerto delle donne" of Ferrara encouraged composers to visit the court at Ferrara, to listen to women sing and to offer compositions for them to sing. In turn, other cities established their own "concerto delle donne", as at Firenze, where the Medici family commissioned Alessandro Striggio (1536–1592) to compose madrigals in the style of Luzzaschi. In Rome, the compositions of Luca Marenzio (1553–1599) were the madrigals that came closest to unifying the different styles of the time.


title: Madrigal

text: In the 1560s, Marc'Antonio Ingegneri (1535–1592) — Monteverdi's instructor — Andrea Gabrieli (1532–1585), and Giovanni Ferretti (1540–1609) re-incorporated lighter elements of composition to the madrigal; serious Petrarchan verse about Love, Longing, and Death was replaced with the villanella and the canzonetta, compositions with dance rhythms and verses about a care-free life. In the late 16th century, composers used word-painting to apply "madrigalisms", passages in which the music matches the meaning of a word in the lyrics; thus, a composer sets "riso" (smile) to a passage of quick, running notes that mimic laughter, and sets "sospiro" (sigh) to a note that falls to the note below. In the 17th century, acceptance of word-painting as a musical form had changed, in the "First Book of Ayres" (1601), the poet and composer Thomas Campion (1567–1620) criticised word-painting as a negative mannerism in the madrigal: "where the nature of everie word is precisely expresst in the Note ... such childish observing of words is altogether ridiculous."


title: Madrigal

text: At the end of the 16th century, the changed social function of the madrigal contributed to its development into new forms of music. Since its invention, the madrigal had two roles: (i) a private entertainment for small groups of skilled, amateur singers and musicians; and (ii) a supplement to ceremonial performances of music for the public. The amateur entertainment function made the madrigal famous, yet professional singers replaced amateur singers when madrigalists composed music of greater range and dramatic force that was more difficult to sing, because the expressed sentiments required soloist singers of great range, rather than an ensemble of singers with mid-range voices.


title: Madrigal

text: There emerged the division between the active performers and the passive audience, especially in the culturally progressive cities of Ferrara and Mantua. The emotions communicated in a madrigal in 1590, an aria expressed in opera at the beginning of the 17th century, yet composers continued using the madrigal into the new century, such as the old-style madrigal for many voices; the solo madrigal with instrumental accompaniment; and the concertato madrigal, of which Claudio Monteverdi (1567–1643) was the most famous composer.


title: Madrigal

text: In Naples, the compositional style of the pupil Carlo Gesualdo followed from the style of his mentor, Luzzasco Luzzaschi (1545–1607), who had published six books of madrigals and the religious music "Responsoria pro hebdomada sancta" ("Responsories for Holy Week", 1611). In the early 1590s, Gesualdo had learnt the chromaticism and textural contrasts of Ferrarese composers, such as Alfonso Fontanelli (1557–1622) and Luzzaschi, but few madrigalists followed his stylistic mannerism and extreme chromaticism, which were compositional techniques selectively used by Antonio Cifra (1584–1629), Sigismondo d'India (1582–1629), and Domenico Mazzocchi (1592–1665) in their musical works. In the 1620s, Gesualdo's successor madrigalist was Michelangelo Rossi (1601–1656), whose two books of unaccompanied madrigals display sustained, extreme chromaticism.


title: Madrigal

text: In the transition from Renaissance music (1400–1600) to Baroque music (1580–1750), Claudio Monteverdi usually is credited as the principal madrigalist whose nine books of madrigals showed the stylistic, technical transitions from the polyphony of the late 16th century to the styles of monody and of the concertato accompanied by basso continuo, of the early Baroque period. As an expressive composer, Monteverdi avoided the stylistic extremes of Gesualdo's chromaticism, and concentrated upon the drama inherent to the madrigal musical form. His fifth and sixth books include polyphonic madrigals for equal voices (in late-16th-century style) and madrigals with solo-voice parts accompanied by basso continuo, which feature unprepared dissonances and recitative passages — foreshadowing the compositional integration of the solo madrigal to the aria. In the fifth book of madrigals, using the term "seconda pratica" (second practice) Monteverdi said that the lyrics must be "the mistress of the harmony" of a madrigal, which was his progressive response to Giovanni Artusi (1540–1613) who negatively defended the limitations of dissonance and equal voice parts of the old-style polyphonic madrigal against the concertato madrigal.<ref name="Arnold/Wakelin"></ref>


title: Madrigal

text: In the first decade of the 17th century, the Italian compositional techniques for the madrigal progressed from the old ideal of an "a cappella" vocal composition for balanced voices, to a vocal composition for one or more voices with instrumental accompaniment. The inner voices became secondary to the soprano and the bass line; functional tonality developed, and treated dissonance freely for composers to emphasise the dramatic contrast among vocal groups and instruments. The 17th-century madrigal emerged from two trends of musical composition: (i) the solo madrigal with basso continuo; and (ii) the madrigal for two or more voices with basso continuo. In England, composers continued to write ensemble madrigals in the older, 16th-century style. In 1600, the harmonic and dramatic changes in the composition of the madrigal expanded to include instrumental accompaniment, because the madrigal originally was composed for group performance by talented, amateur artists, without a passive audience; thus instruments filled the missing parts. The composer usually did not specify the instrumentation; in "The Fifth Book of Madrigals" and in the "Sixth Book of Madrigals", Claudio Monteverdi indicated that the "basso seguente", the instrumental bass part, was optional in the ensemble madrigal. The usual instruments for playing the bass line and filling inner voice parts, were the lute, the theorbo (chitarrone), and the harpsichord.


title: Madrigal

text: The madrigalist Giulio Caccini (1551–1618) produced madrigals in the "solo continuo" style, compositions technically related to monody and descended from the experimental music of the Florentine Camerata (1573–1587). In the collection of solo madrigals, "Le nuove musiche" ("The New Music", 1601), Caccini said that the point of the composition was anti-contrapuntal, because the lyrics and words of the song were primary, and balanced-voice polyphony interfered with hearing the lyrics of the song. After Caccini's developments, the composers Marco da Gagliano (1582–1643), Sigismondo d'India (1582–1629), and Claudio Saracini (1586–1630) also published collections of madrigals in the solo continuo style. Whereas Caccini's music mostly was diatonic, later composers, especially d'India, composed solo continuo madrigals using an experimental idiom of chromaticism. In the "Seventh Book of Madrigals" (1619), Monteverdi published his only madrigal in the solo continuo style, which uses one singing voice, and three groups of instruments — a great technical advance from Caccini's simple voice-and-basso-continuo compositions from the 1600 period.


title: Madrigal

text: Beginning around 1620, the aria supplanted the monodic-style madrigal. In 1618, the last, published book of solo madrigals contained no arias, likewise in that year, books of arias contained no madrigals, thus published arias outnumbered madrigals, and the prolific madrigalists Saracini and d'India ceased publishing in the mid 1620s.


title: Madrigal

text: In the late 1630s, two madrigal collections summarised the compositional and technical practises of the late-style madrigal. In "Madrigali a 5 voci in partitura" (1638), Domenico Mazzocchi collected and organised madrigals into continuo and ensemble works specifically composed for "a cappella" performance. For the first time in a collection of madrigal music, Mazzocchi published precise instructions, including the symbols for crescendo and decrescendo; however, those madrigals were for musicologic study, not for performance, indicating composer Mazzochi's retrospective review of the madrigal as an old form of musical composition. In the "Eighth Book of Madrigals" (1638), Monteverdi published his most famous madrigal, the "Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda", a dramatic composition much like a secular oratorio, featuring musical innovations such as the "stile concitato" (agitated style) that employs the string tremolo. In the event, the evolution of musical composition eliminated the madrigal as a discrete musical form; the solo cantata and the aria supplanted the solo continuo madrigal, and the ensemble madrigal was supplanted by the cantata and the dialogue, and, by 1640, the opera was the predominant dramatic musical form of the 17th century.


title: Madrigal

text: In 16th-century England, the madrigal became greatly popular upon publication of "Musica Transalpina" in ("Transalpine Music", 1588), by Nicholas Yonge (1560–1619) a collection of Italian madrigals with corresponding English translations of the lyrics, which later initiated madrigal composition in England. The unaccompanied madrigal survived longer in England than in Continental Europe, where the madrigal musical form had fallen from popular favour, but English madrigalists continued composing and producing music in the Italian style of the late-16th century.


title: Madrigal

text: In early 18th-century England, the singing of madrigals was revived by catch clubs and glee clubs, leading to an upsurge of interest in the form and creation of musical institutions such as the Madrigal Society, which was established in London by attorney and amateur musician John Immyns in 1741. In the 19th century, the madrigal was the best-known music from the Renaissance (15th–16th c.) consequent to the prolific publishing of sheet music in the 16th and 17th centuries, even before the rediscovery of the madrigals of the composer Palestrina (Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina).


title: Madrigal

text: In the 16th century, the musical form of the Italian madrigal greatly influenced secular music throughout Europe, which composers wrote either in Italian or in their native tongues. The extent of madrigalist musical influence depended upon the cultural strength of the local tradition of secular music. In France, the native composition of the "chanson" disallowed the development of a French-style madrigal; nonetheless, French composers such as Orlande de Lassus (1532–1594) and Claude Le Jeune (1528–1600) applied madrigalian techniques in their musics. In the Netherlands, Cornelis Verdonck (1563–1625), Hubert Waelrant (1517–1595), and Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562–1621) composed madrigals in Italian.


title: Madrigal

text: In German-speaking Europe, the prolific composers of madrigals included Lassus in Munich and Philippe de Monte (1521–1603) in Vienna. The German-speaking composers who studied the Italian techniques for composing madrigals, especially in Venice, included Hans Leo Hassler (1564–1612) who studied with Andrea Gabrieli, and Heinrich Schütz (1585–1672) who studied with Giovanni Gabrieli. From northern Europe, Danish and Polish court composers went to Italy to learn the Italian style of madrigal; while Luca Marenzio (1553–1599) went to the Polish court to work as the "maestro di cappella" (Master of the Chapel) for King Sigismund III Vasa (r. 1587–1632) in Warsaw. Moreover, the "rektor" of the University of Wittenberg, Caspar Ziegler (1621–1690) and Heinrich Schütz wrote the treatise "Von den Madrigalen" (1653).


title: Madrigal

text: The "a capella" old-style madrigal for four or five voices continued in parallel with the new "concertato" style of madrigal, but the compositional watershed of the "seconda prattica" provided an autonomous basso continuo line, presented in the "Fifth Book of Madrigals" (1605), by Claudio Monteverdi.


title: Larkin Poe

text: Larkin Poe is an American roots rock band originally from north Georgia, currently based in Nashville, Tennessee, and fronted by sisters Rebecca Lovell (born January 30, 1991) and Megan Lovell (born May 12, 1989). Featuring strong southern harmonies, heavy electric guitar riffs, and slide guitar, they are often touted as "the little sisters of the Allman Brothers". The band performed at the 2014 and 2016 Glastonbury Festival and were voted "Best Discovery of Glastonbury 2014" by the UK's "The Observer". The sisters have also toured as backing musicians for a variety of other bands, most notably Elvis Costello, Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes, Kristian Bush of Sugarland, and Keith Urban.


title: Larkin Poe

text: Rebecca and Megan Lovell began their musical careers in 2005 as teenagers with the formation of a bluegrass/Americana group, the Lovell Sisters, with their older sister, Jessica Lovell. After self-releasing two independent albums and touring successfully for four years – appearing on Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion", the "Grand Ole Opry", and performing at Bonnaroo Music Festival – the Lovell Sisters announced the group's disbandment in December 2009. In January 2010, Rebecca and Megan regrouped as Larkin Poe. "Larkin Poe" was the name of the sisters' great-great-great-great-grandfather.


title: Larkin Poe

text: Over the course of 3 years (2010–2013), Larkin Poe self-released 5 independent EPs, 2 collaborative albums, and a live performance DVD. "Spring" EP (2010), "Summer" EP (2010), "Fall" EP (2010), "Winter" EP (2010), "Thick as Thieves" EP (2011), "The Sound of the Ocean Sound" a collaboration with Thom Hell (2013), "Killing Time" EP a collaboration with Blair Dunlop (2013).


title: Larkin Poe

text: In late 2013, Larkin Poe signed a record deal with RH Music, the music division of San Francisco-based company Restoration Hardware. Following this signing, the band began work on their first full-length album, "Kin", which was released in 2014.


title: Larkin Poe

text: In March 2014, producer T Bone Burnett tapped the sisters to record harmonies and instrumentation on The New Basement Tapes' album "" alongside Marcus Mumford of Mumford & Sons, Elvis Costello, Jim James of My Morning Jacket, Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes, and Rhiannon Giddens. Rebecca and Megan also appear in the 2014 Showtime documentary "Lost Songs: The Basement Tapes Continued".


title: Larkin Poe

text: In June 2014, Larkin Poe performed at the Glastonbury Festival, which resulted in them being named "best discovery of Glastonbury" by "The Observer".


title: Larkin Poe

text: In April 2016, Larkin Poe reissued their debut album under the title "Reskinned", with a different order of songs and 5 new tracks replacing songs from the original version. They performed their song "Trouble in Mind" on "Conan". They also appeared on Steven Tyler's album "We're All Somebody from Somewhere", which was released in July of the same year.


title: Larkin Poe

text: In February 2017, Larkin Poe performed as part of the backing band at the MusiCares tribute to Tom Petty in Los Angeles, accompanying such artists as Jackson Browne and Don Henley.


title: Larkin Poe

text: Larkin Poe's cover of the traditional song "John the Revelator" was used as the Series 3 episode 13 ending music for the Fox TV show "Lucifer".


title: Larkin Poe

text: In 2017, Larkin Poe released their self-produced sophomore album, "Peach", which was nominated for the Blues Foundation Best Emerging Artist Album in 2018.


title: Larkin Poe

text: Larkin Poe released their third studio album, "Venom & Faith", on November 9, 2018. The album was recorded in Nashville, produced by Rebecca and Megan, and engineered and mixed by Roger Alan Nichols. "Venom & Faith" reached #1 on the "Billboard" blues album chart for the week of November 24, 2018. The album was nominated for the 2020 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album.


title: Larkin Poe

text: Larkin Poe were one of the headliners at the 2020 Mahindra Blues Festival in Mumbai, India. Although relatively unknown in that part of the world, the duo left a mark with their performance of "When God Closes a Door". They then surprised their fans with the first live performance of the title track from their next album. Shortly after that, the duo announced the dates of their USA tour via their social media pages.


title: Larkin Poe

text: Larkin Poe's fourth studio album "Self Made Man" was released on June 12, 2020, on Tricki-Woo Records. The lead single, "She's a Self Made Man", was released in March 2020. "Self Made Man" reached #1 on the "Billboard" blues album chart for the week of June 27, 2020, making it their second consecutive number-one album.


title: Larkin Poe

text: On November 20, 2020, Larkin Poe released their fifth studio album, "Kindred Spirits", a covers album featuring renditions of songs by Lenny Kravitz, Neil Young, Elvis Presley, Phil Collins, Elton John, and others.


title: Great Falls, Montana

text: Great Falls is the third most populous city in the U.S. state of Montana and the county seat of Cascade County. The population was 60,442 according to the 2020 census. The city covers an area of and is the principal city of the Great Falls, Montana, Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Cascade County. The Great Falls MSA’s population stood at 84,414 in the 2020 census.


title: Great Falls, Montana

text: A cultural, commercial and financial center in the central part of the state, Great Falls is located just east of the Rocky Mountains and is bisected by the Missouri River. It is from the east entrance to Glacier National Park in northern Montana, and from Yellowstone National Park in southern Montana and northern Wyoming. A north–south federal highway, Interstate 15, serves the city.


title: Great Falls, Montana

text: Great Falls is named for a series of five waterfalls located on the Missouri River north and east of the city. The Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1805–1806 was forced to portage around a stretch of the river in order to bypass the falls; the company spent 31 days in the area, performing arduous labor to make the portage. Three of the waterfalls, known as Black Eagle, Rainbow and the Great Falls (or the Big Falls), are among the sites of five hydroelectric dams in the area, giving the city its moniker, “The Electric City”. Other nicknames for Great Falls include “The River City” and “Western Art Capital of the World”. The city is also home to two military installations: Malmstrom Air Force Base east of the city, which is the community’s largest employer; and the Montana Air National Guard to the west, adjacent to Great Falls International Airport.


title: Great Falls, Montana

text: Great Falls is a popular tourist destination in Montana, with one million overnight visitors annually, who spend an estimated $185 million while visiting, according to the Great Falls Montana Tourism group. Among Montana cities, Great Falls boasts the greatest number of museums, with 10, including the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center near Giant Springs and the C. M. Russell Museum and Original Log Cabin Studio on the city’s north side. Great Falls was the largest city in Montana from 1950 to 1970, when it was eclipsed by Billings in the 1970 census; Missoula assumed second place in 2000.


title: Great Falls, Montana

text: For much of prehistory, no permanent settlements existed at or near Great Falls, though Salish Indians seasonally hunted bison in the region. Around 1600, Piegan Blackfeet Indians, migrating west, entered the area, pushing the Salish back into the Rocky Mountains and claiming the area now occupied by Great Falls. The area remained territory of the Blackfeet until long after the United States claimed the region in 1803 as part of the Louisiana Purchase.


title: Great Falls, Montana

text: Meriwether Lewis and William Clark led the Lewis and Clark Expedition into the newly purchased territory from 1804–1806. The expedition came upon the "Great Falls of the Missouri River" on June 13, 1805.


title: Great Falls, Montana

text: Politically, the future site of Great Falls passed through numerous hands in the 19th century. It was part of the unincorporated frontier until May 30, 1854, when Congress established the Nebraska Territory. On March 2, 1861, the site became part of the Dakota Territory. The Great Falls area was incorporated into the Idaho Territory on March 4, 1863, and then into the Montana Territory on May 28, 1864. It became part of the state of Montana upon that territory's admission to statehood on November 8, 1889.


title: Great Falls, Montana

text: The founding of Great Falls was the brainchild of Paris Gibson, a Maine-born entrepreneur who became acquainted with railroad magnate James J. Hill in Minneapolis, Minnesota. By the 1880s, Gibson was a sheep man in Fort Benton, Montana. He visited the Great Falls of the Missouri River in 1880 and was deeply impressed by the possibilities for building a major industrial city near the falls with power provided by hydroelectricity. He returned in 1883 with friend Robert Vaughn and some surveyors and platted a permanent settlement on the south side of the river. The city's first citizen, Silas Beachley, arrived later that year. With investments from Hill and from Helena businessman Charles Arthur Broadwater, houses, a store, and a flour mill were established in 1884. The Great Falls post office was established on July 10, 1884, and Gibson was named the first postmaster. A planing mill, lumber yard, bank, school, and newspaper were established in 1885. By 1887 the town had 1,200 citizens, and the arrival of Hill’s Great Northern Railway in October of that year helped cement the city’s future. Great Falls was incorporated on November 28, 1888.


title: Great Falls, Montana

text: Great Falls quickly became a thriving industrial and supply center. A ground-breaking for a smelter in nearby Black Eagle took place in 1890, the same year that construction of a hydroelectric dam atop Black Eagle Falls was completed. The dam provided the fledgling city with electricity and marked the first major instance of hydroelectric power in Montana. In 1894, naturalist Vernon Bailey passed through and described Great Falls as "a very good town, appears prosperous and booming & I should judge contains 15000 inhabitants". By the early 1900s, Great Falls was en route to becoming one of Montana's largest cities. The rustic studio of famed Western artist Charles Marion Russell was a popular attraction, as were the famed Great Falls of the Missouri.


title: Great Falls, Montana

text: Among structures built in the early years were the sandstone Central High School (completed in 1896), now the Paris Gibson Square Museum of Art; the ornate copper-domed Cascade County Courthouse (1903); and railroad passenger depots of the Great Northern Railway (1909) and the Milwaukee Road (1915), both overlooking the Missouri River.


title: Great Falls, Montana

text: James Jerome Hill, president and primary stockholder of the Great Northern Railway, established a subsidiary, the Montana Central Railway, on January 25, 1886. The mines in Butte were eager to get their metals to market. Gold and silver had been discovered near Helena, and coal companies in Canada sought to transport their fuel to Montana's smelters. Hill's close friend and business associate, Paris Gibson, promoted Great Falls as a site for the development of cheap hydroelectricity and heavy industry. As Hill was building the Great Northern across the northern tier of Montana, it made sense to also build a north–south railroad through central Montana to connect Great Falls with Helena and Butte. Surveyors and engineers had begun grading a route between Helena and Great Falls in the winter of 1885–1886, and by the end of 1886 had surveyed a route from Helena to Butte.


title: Great Falls, Montana

text: Construction on the Great Northern's line westward began in late 1886, and on October 16, 1887, the link between Devils Lake, North Dakota, Fort Assinniboine (near the present-day city of Havre, Montana), and Great Falls was complete. Service to Helena began in November 1887, and Butte followed on November 10, 1888.


title: Great Falls, Montana

text: Hill organized the Great Falls Water Power & Townsite Company in 1887, with the goal of developing the town of Great Falls; providing it with power, sewage, and water; and attracting commerce and industry to the city. To attract industry to the new city, he offered low rates on the Montana Central Railway. On September 12, 1889, the Boston and Montana ("B & M") signed an agreement with Great Falls Water Power & Townsite Company in which the power company agreed to build a dam that would supply the mining firm with at least 1,000 horsepower (or 0.75 MW) of power by September 1, 1890, and 5,000 horsepower (or 3.73 MW) of power by January 1, 1891. In exchange, B & M agreed to build a $300,000 copper smelter near the dam. Black Eagle Dam began generating electricity in December 1890. Water was permitted to flow over the crest of the dam on January 6, 1891, and the dam was considered complete on March 15, 1891. By 1912, Rainbow Dam and Volta Dam (now Ryan Dam) were all operating. Morony Dam was built in 1930 and Cochrane Dam in 1957–1958.


title: Great Falls, Montana

text: On April 7, 1908, construction began on a masonry/brick chimney measuring tall on the B & M's (now the city's largest employer) smelting site at Black Eagle by the Alphonse Custodis Construction Co. of New York, for dispersal of fumes from B & M's copper smelting process. B & M would soon merge with the Amalgamated Copper Company and become the Anaconda Copper Mining Company or "ACM". The B & M smelter stack was completed on October 23, 1908. The chimney had an interior measurement of in diameter at the base and in diameter at the top. At the time of its completion it was the tallest chimney in the world (see List of tallest chimneys). With the moniker "The Big Stack", it immediately became a landmark for the community, but after over 70 years of operation the smelter closed in 1980.


title: Great Falls, Montana

text: The Big Stack's "sister" stack in Anaconda, also of masonry/brick construction, completed in 1919, and slightly taller at , began to suffer from cracking and the ACM decided to remove the support bands from the upper half of the Big Stack in 1976 and send them to Anaconda. This action proved to be the Big Stack's ultimate demise, since the cracks it was also suffering from rapidly worsened such that the ACM, citing concern for public safety (due to the continual deterioration of the stack's structural integrity), slated the Big Stack's demolition for September 18, 1982.


title: Great Falls, Montana

text: In an interesting twist of fate, the demolition crew failed to accomplish the task on the first try; the two worst cracks in the stack ran from just above ground level to nearly 300 feet up. The demolition team's intent was to create a wedge in the base so the stack's rubble would fall almost vertically into a large trench, but as the 600 lbs of explosives were set off the cracks "completed themselves" all the way to the ground—effectively severing the stack into two-thirds and one-third pieces. Much to the delight of the spectating community, the smaller of the two pieces remained standing, but the failed demolition only solidified the safety issue whereas the community cited the event as the stack's defiance. The demolition team who had planted the charges was recalled and later the same afternoon they returned and finished the demolition, after packing another 400 lbs of explosives into the smaller wedge.


title: Great Falls, Montana

text: During the first two decades of the 20th century, Great Falls prospered from a homesteading boom, strong agricultural markets and favorable weather. It also became a financial center and regional shopping hub. In the late 1930s, the federal government’s New Deal programs provided Great Falls with a new Civic Center building, and the city’s business sector expanded with the arrival of military installations during World War II, helping Great Falls become the state’s largest city from 1950 to 1970. During World War II, the Northwest Staging Route passed through Great Falls, along which planes were delivered to the USSR according to the Lend-Lease program. Great Falls prospered further with the opening of a nearby military base in the 1940s, but as rail transportation and freight slowed in the later part of the century, outlying farming areas lost population, and with the closure of the smelter and cutbacks at Malmstrom Air Force Base in the 1980s, its population growth slowed.


title: Great Falls, Montana

text: In recent years, the economy of Great Falls has suffered from the decline of heartland industry, much like other cities in the Great Plains and Midwest.


title: Great Falls, Montana

text: Great Falls is located near several waterfalls on the Missouri River. It lies near the center of Montana on the northern Great Plains. It lies next to the Rocky Mountain Front and is approximately south of the Canada–US border. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and is water.


title: Great Falls, Montana

text: The city of Great Falls lies atop the Great Falls Tectonic Zone, an intracontinental shear zone between two geologic provinces of basement rock of the Archean period which form part of the North American continent. The city lies at the southern reach of the Laurentide Ice Sheet, a vast glacial sheet of ice which covered much of North America during the last glacial period. Approximately 1.5 million years ago, the Missouri River flowed northward into a terminal lake. The Laurentide Ice Sheet pushed the river southward. Between 15,000 BCE and 11,000 BCE, the Laurentide Ice Sheet blocked the Missouri River and created Glacial Lake Great Falls. About 13,000 BCE, as the glacier retreated, Glacial Lake Great Falls emptied catastrophically in a glacial lake outburst flood. The current course of the Missouri River essentially marks the southern boundary of the Laurentide Ice Sheet. The Missouri River flowed eastward around the glacial mass, settling into its present course. As the ice retreated, meltwater from Glacial Lake Great Falls poured through the Highwood Mountains and eroded the mile-long, Shonkin Sag, one of the most famous prehistoric meltwater channels in the world.


title: Great Falls, Montana

text: Great Falls has a cold semi-arid climate (Köppen: "BSk"), with a notable amount of summer precipitation occurring in the form of thunderstorms. Winters are very cold, long and often snowy, though periods of chinook winds do cause warm spells and raise the maximum temperature above on an average of fifteen afternoons during the three-month winter period. In the absence of such winds, shallow cold snaps are common; there is an average of 20.8 nights with a low of or colder and 44 days failing to top freezing. The wettest part of the year is the spring. Summers are hot and dry, with highs reaching on nineteen days per year, though the diurnal temperature variation is large and easily exceeds . Freak early and late summer snowfalls such as a two-day total of in August 1992 can occur, although the median snowfall from June to September is zero and on average the window for accumulating () snowfall is October 2–May 13. The average first and last freeze dates are September 21 and May 21, respectively, allowing a growing season of 122 days, although, excepting for July, a freeze has occurred in every month of the year. Extreme temperatures range from on February 15, 1936 to on July 25, 1933.


title: Great Falls, Montana

text: The entirety of Cascade County forms the Great Falls Metropolitan statistical area. Great Falls is an economic hub for a substantially larger region that includes most of north-central Montana. Small towns and census-designated places in Cascade County near Great Falls include:


title: Great Falls, Montana

text: As of the census of 2010, there were 58,505 people, 25,301 households, and 15,135 families residing in the city. The population density was . There were 26,854 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was 88.5% Caucasian, 1.1% African American, 5.0% Native American, 0.9% Asian, 0.1% Pacific Islander, 0.6% from other races, and 3.8% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino people of any race were 3.4% of the population.


title: Great Falls, Montana

text: There were 25,301 households, of which 28.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 43.6% were married couples living together, 11.5% had a female householder with no husband present, 4.8% had a male householder with no wife present, and 40.2% were non-families. 33.5% of all households were made up of individuals, and 12.7% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.26 and the average family size was 2.88.


title: Great Falls, Montana

text: The median age in the city was 39 years. 22.5% of residents were under the age of 18; 9.9% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 24.5% were from 25 to 44; 26.5% were from 45 to 64; and 16.6% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the city was 48.9% male and 51.1% female.


title: Great Falls, Montana

text: As of the 2000 census, there were 56,690 people, 23,834 households, and 14,848 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,909.1 people per square mile (1,123.0/km). There were 25,250 housing units at an average density of 1,295.7 per square mile (500.2/km). The racial makeup of the city was 89.96% caucasian, 0.95% African American, 5.09% Native American, 0.86% Asian, 0.09% Pacific Islander, 0.60% from other races, and 2.45% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino people of any race were 2.39% of the population.


title: Great Falls, Montana

text: There were 23,834 households, out of which 30.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 47.4% were married couples living together, 11.1% had a female householder with no husband present, and 37.7% were non-families. 31.9% of all households were made up of individuals, and 12.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.31 and the average family size was 2.92.


title: Great Falls, Montana

text: In the city, the age distribution of the population shows 24.9% under the age of 18, 9.0% from 18 to 24, 27.7% from 25 to 44, 22.7% from 45 to 64, and 15.7% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 38 years. For every 100 females, there were 94.2 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 91.4 males.


title: Great Falls, Montana

text: The median income for a household in the city was $32,436, and the median income for a family was $40,107. Males had a median income of $29,353 versus $20,859 for females. The per capita income for the city was $18,059. About 11.1% of families and 14.5% of the population were below the poverty line, including 20.3% of those under the age of 18 and 9.2% of those 65 and older.


title: Great Falls, Montana

text: Built as a railroad hub, Great Falls initially relied heavily on ore smelting in its early years. Black Eagle Dam, opened in 1890, was the first hydroelectric dam built in Montana and the first built on the Missouri River. The energy industry helped give the city of Great Falls the nickname "The Electric City". The same year, the Boston and Montana Consolidated Copper and Silver Mining Company broke ground on a large smelter in the city, drawn to the location by the power provided by the dam. Elements came online over the next few years, with the final works—an electrolytic refinery and blast furnaces—completed in February and April 1893. By 1892, more than 1,000 workers were employed at the smelter. Energy production received a boost with the discovery of petroleum about north of the city in the late 1910s. Great Falls boasted two oil refineries by 1920, although a devastating fire left the city with just one after 1929.


title: Great Falls, Montana

text: Great Falls suffered its first major economic crisis in 1893. Banks and industry in the city were severely undercapitalized, and the Panic of 1893 cut off access to money in the east. The price of silver collapsed and nearby mines closed. Markets for beef, mutton, and wool largely disappeared, leaving area ranchers destitute. A large number of businesses in Great Falls shut their doors. The city was largely saved by the smelter, which continued to employ about 900 workers from 1895 to 1900. A North Montana Agricultural Society was formed to bring improvements in the practice of cattle ranching and wheat farming, and to lobby for federal- and state-funded irrigation projects. An attempt to win state legislative approval for an official state fair to be located at Great Falls failed in 1894, but organizers were successful in holding the first Cascade County Fair in May 1895.