title: Ash Sarkar

text: She is a contributor to "The Guardian" and "The Independent". She has been a panelist on BBC "Question Time" and "Any Questions?".


title: Ash Sarkar

text: Sarkar appeared in the 2019 BBC documentary series "Rise of the Nazis" to "illuminate the context and perspective of Ernst Thälmann, the leader of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) from 1925 to 1933, who died in a concentration camp in 1944".


title: Ash Sarkar

text: In her writings and commentary, Sarkar has expressed anti-imperialist, feminist, anti-fascist, and libertarian communist views. She has taken part in anti-racist, anti-fascist and anti-Trump protests and in 2018 joined a hunger strike to protest against the detention of asylum seekers at Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre. She supported the Stansted 15's actions against deportation flights.


title: Ash Sarkar

text: After a clip of her telling Piers Morgan on "Good Morning Britain" that she was "literally a communist!" went viral, Sarkar clarified her views as libertarian communist, a "long termist" who supports the former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn's anti-austerity policies. Sarkar has described her view on communism as being "about the desire to see the coercive structures of state dismantled, while also having fun. It's not about driving everybody down to the same level of abjection, but making aesthetic pleasures and luxuries available to all."


title: Ash Sarkar

text: Sarkar uses humour and London slang liberally in her writing and broadcasting. She says politics "should be joyful and exuberant".


title: Ash Sarkar

text: Although she only became a Labour Party member during the UK general election campaign in late 2019, Sarkar (and Novara Media more generally) has become closely associated in media commentary with Corbyn's democratic socialist project: "The Times" has described her as "Britain's loudest Corbynista". Shortly before Labour's loss in the 2019 United Kingdom general election, Sarkar argued in "The Guardian" that young people in precarious employment would turn out for Corbyn's party. Sarkar announced that she had left the Labour Party in September 2021.


title: Ash Sarkar

text: In November 2017, Sarkar spoke at a World Transformed festival. One of her fellow speakers, Paolo Gerbaudo, said that "the hatred in society was taken out on the wrong people" and that he wanted to "make the left hate again", pointing to Philip May, husband of the then–Prime Minister, as a legitimate target because he worked for a large investment manager. In response, Sarkar said "I'm on Team Hate".


title: Ash Sarkar

text: In January 2018, during a debate with Conservative MP Andrew Rosindell, Sarkar jokingly said that "God Save the Queen" is "not the catchiest of national anthems. I would much prefer 'Wearing My Rolex'… a grime banger". According to "Vice News", this made Piers Morgan "apoplectic with rage".


title: Ash Sarkar

text: In September 2018, Sarkar defended anti-Zionist activist Ewa Jasiewicz, who, together with Yonatan Shapira, had once painted "Free Gaza and Palestine, liberate all ghettos" onto a wall of the Warsaw Ghetto. Jasiewicz was scheduled to speak at a Momentum conference that was running alongside the official Labour conference. Sarkar wrote on Twitter that Jasiewicz and Shapira's words were anti-racist, not anti-semitic. In 2019, Sarkar said that, on reflection, she should have "drawn a line between defending Ewa, criticising the coverage and being more critical of the action itself which I don't think was well thought out".


title: Ash Sarkar

text: In a 2018 interview with "Teen Vogue", Sarkar described herself as being a "fierce critic" of the prison industrial complex, military industrial complex, the expanded use of drone warfare and the expansion of deportation under both Barack Obama and Donald Trump. She said the loss of jobs due to automation could give rise to fascism as a way of controlling the "surplus disposable population". Alternatively, the extra time created by automation could liberate people to "imagine different ways of living" and "pursu[ing] your passions".


title: Ash Sarkar

text: On 16 March 2021, "Sunday Telegraph" columnist Julie Burchill was ordered to pay 'substantial damages' to Sarkar after writing posts alleging that Sarkar sympathised with fundamentalist Islam and that she worshipped a paedophile in the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Burchill also wrote a sexual poem about Sarkar, 'liked' Facebook posts saying that Sarkar should kill herself and suggested that she was a victim of female genital mutilation. Sarkar wrote in "The Guardian" that the abuse had affected her mental health and that she had been prescribed anti-anxiety drugs for the first time in her life. Sarkar said she had no part in the decision by the publishers Little, Brown to cancel Burchill's book contract. She also wrote: "The media's reporting of the issue ignored the defamation, racism and harassment in favour of framing me as part of the woke mob—and Burchill as its victim." An apology published by Burchill included, "I should not have sent these tweets, some of which included racist and misogynist comments regarding Ms Sarkar's appearance and her sex life" and acknowledged that it was her publisher, not Sarkar, who was responsible for the cancellation of her book deal.


title: Ash Sarkar

text: Sarkar lives in North London and is a Tottenham Hotspur supporter. She is Muslim and she has said: "I pray, I meditate – it's loosey-goosey, pick'n'mix spirituality probably, if I'm being honest with myself; but for me the name I can give to it is 'Islam'."


title: Monica Crowley

text: Monica Elizabeth Crowley (born September 19, 1968) was the Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs for the U.S. Department of the Treasury. She has been a political commentator and lobbyist. She was a Fox News contributor, where she worked (with a few breaks) from 1996 to 2017. She is a former online opinion editor for "The Washington Times" and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.


title: Monica Crowley

text: In December 2016, the Donald Trump administration announced that Crowley would be appointed a deputy national security advisor for the National Security Council. She withdrew a month later following reports that she had plagiarized portions of her 2012 book "What the (Bleep) Just Happened?" and her 2000 Ph.D. dissertation. On July 16, 2019, Trump announced Crowley's appointment as spokesperson for the Treasury Department. On July 24, 2019, she was sworn into office.


title: Monica Crowley

text: Crowley was born at Fort Huachuca, an Army base located outside Sierra Vista, Arizona, and grew up in Warren Township, New Jersey. Crowley graduated from Watchung Hills Regional High School in 1986. She holds a BA in political science from Colgate University and a Ph.D. in international relations from Columbia University (2000). She allegedly plagiarized parts of her dissertation at Columbia.


title: Monica Crowley

text: In the mid-1990s, Crowley wrote a regular column for the "New York Post". She has also written for "The New Yorker", "The Washington Times", "The Wall Street Journal", the "Los Angeles Times", and the "Baltimore Sun".


title: Monica Crowley

text: Crowley was a commentator for National Public Radio's "Morning Edition" in the mid-1990s. Since 2002, she hosts a nationally syndicated radio show, "The Monica Crowley Show", and she is a regular contributor to "The John Batchelor Show".


title: Monica Crowley

text: In 1996, Crowley joined Fox News Channel, where she was a foreign affairs and political analyst and occasionally substituted for Sean Hannity on Fox News Channel's "Hannity". In 2004, she joined MSNBC's "Connected: Coast to Coast" with co-host Ron Reagan. After a nine-month run, the last show aired on December 9, 2005. Crowley has also been a recurring guest on "Imus in the Morning" and has hosted the MSNBC broadcast "The Best of Imus in the Morning". In 2007, she returned as a contributor to Fox News Channel. She was also a regular participant on "The McLaughlin Group" from late 2007 to 2011.


title: Monica Crowley

text: Crowley was an occasional panelist on Fox News Channel's late-night satire show "Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld". Since 2009, she has been a guest host for Bill O'Reilly on "The O'Reilly Factor" and his subsequent podcast and appeared opposite Alan Colmes on an episode of "The O'Reilly Factor" in a segment called "Barack and a Hard Place". She is also an occasional guest host on the daily (5:00 pm ET) Fox opinion show, "The Five".


title: Monica Crowley

text: In an election-day commentary in 2016 on Fox News, speaking of Republican candidate Donald Trump's impending upset victory, Crowley said, "This is a revolt of the unprotected class against the protected elite class."


title: Monica Crowley

text: As a student, Crowley began writing letters to former President Richard Nixon, who hired her as a research assistant in 1990 when she was 22. She was an editorial advisor and consultant on Nixon's last two books, and following Nixon's death, she published two books about him: "Nixon off the Record: His Candid Commentary on People and Politics" and "Nixon in Winter".


title: Monica Crowley

text: In March 2017, Crowley joined the firm of Douglas Schoen as a part-time consultant, providing "outreach services" on behalf of Ukrainian industrialist and political figure Victor Pinchuk. Crowley registered as a foreign agent as required by the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938.


title: Monica Crowley

text: Following Trump's election victory, it was announced in December 2016 that Crowley would join the Trump administration as a deputy national security advisor. Following this announcement.On July 16, 2019, Trump announced Crowley's appointment as Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs in the Treasury Department. Crowley replaced Tony Sayegh, who left the position in May, as the top spokeswoman for Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.


title: Monica Crowley

text: Crowley has on multiple occasions spread conspiracy theories that President Barack Obama is secretly a Muslim. In 2010, after Obama defended the right to build the Islamic community center Park51 in Lower Manhattan near the World Trade Center, Crowley suggested he had dual loyalties to Islam and the United States, and asked, "How could he...support the enemy?" In 2013, she said that the Muslim Brotherhood had "found an ally" in Obama.


title: Monica Crowley

text: In 2009, she noted that Obama used his full name, Barack Hussein Obama, during his swearing in as president (which presidents typically do), had early in his presidency ordered the closure of the Guantánamo Bay detention camp, and granted an interview to the media outlet Al Arabiya, saying this "tells you where his head is and, possibly, his sympathies. Just sayin'."


title: Monica Crowley

text: In 2015, she shared an article which described Obama as an "Islamic community organizer" who was "conforming US policy to Islam and Sharia."


title: Monica Crowley

text: In 1999, Crowley was accused of plagiarism related to a column on Richard Nixon she wrote for "The Wall Street Journal" which contained "striking similarities" (according to the "Journal") to a piece written 11 years earlier by Paul Johnson. When contacted by "The New York Times" for comment, Crowley responded, "I did not, nor would I ever, use material from a source without citing it." On January 7, 2017, CNN published a report documenting numerous instances of plagiarism in Crowley's 2012 book, "What the (Bleep) Just Happened?" The book includes about 50 examples of copying freely from published sources with no attribution given, including from Wikipedia. In a statement, the Trump transition team called the plagiarism report "nothing more than a politically motivated attack" and stood by her.


title: Monica Crowley

text: Two days later on January 9, 2017, "Politico" reported that a dozen additional instances of plagiarism were in Crowley's 2000 Ph.D. dissertation on international relations at Columbia University. In December 2019, an internal Columbia University investigation concluded that Crowley had engaged in “localized instances of plagiarism” but that the plagiarism did not meet the level of "research misconduct."


title: Monica Crowley

text: Shortly after reports emerged that she plagiarized the book "What the (Bleep) Just Happened?", the publisher of the book, HarperCollins, announced:


title: Monica Crowley

text: On January 16, 2017, Crowley withdrew from consideration for the role of senior director of strategic communications at the National Security Council in the Trump administration. "I have decided to remain in New York to pursue other opportunities," she said in a statement. "The Washington Times", where she served previously as online opinion editor, said the same day that it would be investigating her work at the paper for possible incidents of additional plagiarism by her.


title: Monica Crowley

text: Crowley subsequently told Fox News host Sean Hannity, "What happened to me was a despicable, straight-up, political hit job" and said that it had been "debunked." Andrew Kaczynski, the CNN reporter who first reported instances of plagiarism in Crowley's book, called her claims of innocence false and "complete BS," stating: "No one has yet to point out a single inaccuracy in our reporting or asked for a correction on it. Monica Crowley v. reality."


title: Monica Crowley

text: Crowley's brother-in-law was the late liberal political commentator Alan Colmes, who was married to Crowley's sister, Jocelyn Elise Crowley, a professor of public policy at Rutgers University.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: The history of ancient Egypt spans the period from the early prehistoric settlements of the northern Nile valley to the Roman conquest of Egypt in 30 BC. The pharaonic period, the period in which Egypt was ruled by a pharaoh, is dated from the 32nd century BC, when Upper and Lower Egypt were unified, until the country fell under Macedonian rule in 332 BC.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: Egypt's history is split into several different periods according to the ruling dynasty of each pharaoh. The dating of events is still a subject of research. The conservative dates are not supported by any reliable absolute date for a span of about three millennia. The following is the list according to conventional Egyptian chronology.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: The Nile has been the lifeline for Egyptian culture since nomadic hunter-gatherers began living along it during the Pleistocene. Traces of these early people appear in the form of artefacts and rock carvings along the terraces of the Nile and in the oases.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: Along the Nile in the 12th millennium BC, an Upper Paleolithic grain-grinding culture using the earliest type of sickle blades had replaced the culture of hunting, fishing, and hunter-gatherers using stone tools. Evidence also indicates human habitation and cattle herding in the southwestern corner of Egypt near the Sudan border before the 8th millennium BC.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: Despite this, the idea of an independent bovine domestication event in Africa must be abandoned because subsequent evidence gathered over a period of thirty years has failed to corroborate this.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: Archaeological evidence has attested that population settlements occurred in Nubia as early as the Late Pleistocene era and from the 5th millennium BC onwards, whereas there is "no or scanty evidence" of human presence in the Egyptian Nile Valley during these periods, which may be due to problems in site preservation.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: The oldest-known domesticated cattle remains in Africa are from the Faiyum c. 4400 BC. Geological evidence and computer climate modeling studies suggest that natural climate changes around the 8th millennium BC began to desiccate the extensive pastoral lands of North Africa, eventually forming the Sahara by the 25th century BC.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: Continued desiccation forced the early ancestors of the Egyptians to settle around the Nile more permanently and forced them to adopt a more sedentary lifestyle. However, the period from 9th to the 6th millennium BC has left very little in the way of archaeological evidence.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: The Nile valley of Egypt was basically uninhabitable until the work of clearing and irrigating the land along the banks was started. However, it appears that this clearance and irrigation was largely under way by the 6th millennium. By that time, Nile society was already engaged in organized agriculture and the construction of large buildings.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: At this time, Egyptians in the southwestern corner of Egypt were herding cattle and also constructing large buildings. Mortar was in use by the 4th millennium. The people of the valley and the Nile Delta were self-sufficient and were raising barley and emmer, an early variety of wheat, and stored it in pits lined with reed mats. They raised cattle, goats and pigs and they wove linen and baskets. Prehistory continues through this time, variously held to begin with the Amratian culture.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: Between 5500 BC and the 31st century BC, small settlements flourished along the Nile, whose delta empties into the Mediterranean Sea.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: The Tasian culture was the next to appear; it existed in Upper Egypt starting about 4500 BC. This group is named for the burials found at Deir Tasa, a site on the east bank of the Nile between Asyut and Akhmim. The Tasian culture is notable for producing the earliest blacktop-ware, a type of red and brown pottery painted black on its top and interior.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: The Badari culture, named for the Badari site near Deir Tasa, followed the Tasian; however, similarities cause many to avoid differentiating between them at all. The Badari culture continued to produce the kind of pottery called blacktop-ware (although its quality was much improved over previous specimens), and was assigned the sequence dating numbers between 21 and 29. The significant difference, however, between the Tasian and Badari, which prevents scholars from completely merging the two, is that Badari sites are Chalcolithic while the Tasian sites remained Neolithic and are thus considered technically part of the Stone Age.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: The Amratian culture is named after the site of el-Amreh, about south of Badari. El-Amreh was the first site where this culture was found unmingled with the later Gerzeh culture. However, this period is better attested at Nagada, and so is also referred to as the "Naqada I" culture. Black-topped ware continued to be produced, but white cross-line ware, a type of pottery decorated with close parallel white lines crossed by another set of close parallel white lines, began to be produced during this time. The Amratian period falls between S.D. 30 and 39. Newly excavated objects indicate that trade between Upper and Lower Egypt existed at this time. A stone vase from the north was found at el-Amreh, and copper, which is not present in Egypt, was apparently imported from the Sinai Peninsula or perhaps Nubia. Obsidian and an extremely small amount of gold were both definitively imported from Nubia during this time. Trade with the oases was also likely.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: The Gerzeh culture ("Naqada II"), named after the site of el-Gerzeh, was the next stage in cultural development, and it was during this time that the foundation for ancient Egypt was laid. The Gerzeh culture was largely an unbroken development out of the Amratian, starting in the Nile Delta and moving south through Upper Egypt; however, it failed to dislodge the Amratian in Nubia. The Gerzeh culture coincided with a significant drop in rainfall and farming produced the vast majority of food. With increased food supplies, the populace adopted a much more sedentary lifestyle, and the larger settlements grew to cities of about 5000 residents. It was in this time that the city dwellers started using adobe to build their cities. Copper instead of stone was increasingly used to make tools and weaponry. Silver, gold, lapis lazuli (imported from Badakhshan in what is now Afghanistan), and Egyptian faience were used ornamentally, and the cosmetic palettes used for eye paint since the Badari culture began to be adorned with reliefs.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: By the 33rd century BC, just before the First Dynasty of Egypt, Egypt was divided into two kingdoms known from later times as Upper Egypt to the south and Lower Egypt to the north. The dividing line was drawn roughly in the area of modern Cairo.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: The historical records of ancient Egypt begin with Egypt as a unified state, which occurred sometime around 3150 BC. According to Egyptian tradition, Menes, thought to have unified Upper and Lower Egypt, was the first king. This Egyptian culture, customs, art expression, architecture, and social structure were closely tied to religion, remarkably stable, and changed little over a period of nearly 3000 years.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: Egyptian chronology, which involves regnal years, began around this time. The conventional chronology was accepted during the twentieth century, but it does not include any of the major revision proposals that also have been made in that time. Even within a single work, archaeologists often offer several possible dates, or even several whole chronologies as possibilities. Consequently, there may be discrepancies between dates shown here and in articles on particular rulers or topics related to ancient Egypt. There also are several possible spellings of the names. Typically, Egyptologists divide the history of pharaonic civilization using a schedule laid out first by Manetho's "Aegyptiaca", which was written during the Ptolemaic Kingdom in the third century BC.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: Prior to the unification of Egypt, the land was settled with autonomous villages. With the early dynasties, and for much of Egypt's history thereafter, the country came to be known as the Two Lands. The pharaohs established a national administration and appointed royal governors.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: According to Manetho, the first pharaoh was Menes, but archeological findings support the view that the first ruler to claim to have united the two lands was Narmer, the final king of the Naqada III period. His name is known primarily from the famous Narmer Palette, whose scenes have been interpreted as the act of uniting Upper and Lower Egypt. Menes is now thought to be one of the titles of Hor-Aha, the second pharaoh of the First Dynasty.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: Funeral practices for the elite resulted in the construction of mastabas, which later became models for subsequent Old Kingdom constructions such as the step pyramid, thought to have originated during the Third Dynasty of Egypt.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: The Old Kingdom is most commonly regarded as spanning the period of time when Egypt was ruled by the Third Dynasty through to the Sixth Dynasty (2686–2181 BCE). The royal capital of Egypt during this period was located at Memphis, where Djoser (2630–2611 BCE) established his court.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: The Old Kingdom is perhaps best known, however, for the large number of pyramids, which were constructed at this time as pharaonic burial places. For this reason, this epoch is frequently referred to as "the Age of the Pyramids." The first notable pharaoh of the Old Kingdom was Djoser of the Third Dynasty, who ordered the construction of the first pyramid, the Pyramid of Djoser, in Memphis' necropolis of Saqqara.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: It was in this era that formerly independent states became nomes (districts) ruled solely by the pharaoh. Former local rulers were forced to assume the role of nomarch (governor) or work as tax collectors. Egyptians in this era worshiped the pharaoh as a god, believing that he ensured the annual flooding of the Nile that was necessary for their crops.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: The Old Kingdom and its royal power reached their zenith under the Fourth Dynasty. Sneferu, the dynasty's founder, is believed to have commissioned at least three pyramids; while his son and successor Khufu (Greek "Cheops") erected the Great Pyramid of Giza, Sneferu had more stone and brick moved than any other pharaoh. Khufu, his son Khafre (Greek "Chephren"), and his grandson Menkaure (Greek "Mycerinus") all achieved lasting fame in the construction of the Giza pyramid complex.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: To organize and feed the manpower needed to create these pyramids required a centralized government with extensive powers, and Egyptologists believe the Old Kingdom at this time demonstrated this level of sophistication. Recent excavations near the pyramids led by Mark Lehner have uncovered a large city that seems to have housed, fed and supplied the pyramid workers. Although it was once believed that slaves built these monuments, a theory based on The Exodus narrative of the Hebrew Bible, study of the tombs of the workmen, who oversaw construction on the pyramids, has shown they were built by a corvée of peasants drawn from across Egypt. They apparently worked while the annual flood covered their fields, as well as a very large crew of specialists, including stonecutters, painters, mathematicians and priests.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: The Fifth Dynasty began with Userkaf c. 2495 BC and was marked by the growing importance of the cult of the sun god Ra. Consequently, less effort was devoted to the construction of pyramid complexes than during the Fourth Dynasty and more to the construction of sun temples in Abusir. The decoration of pyramid complexes grew more elaborate during the dynasty and its last king, Unas, was the first to have the Pyramid Texts inscribed in his pyramid.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: Egypt's expanding interests in trade goods such as ebony, incense such as myrrh and frankincense, gold, copper and other useful metals compelled the ancient Egyptians to navigate the open seas. Evidence from the pyramid of Sahure, second king of the dynasty, shows that a regular trade existed with the Syrian coast to procure cedar wood. Pharaohs also launched expeditions to the famed Land of Punt, possibly the Horn of Africa, for ebony, ivory and aromatic resins.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: During the Sixth Dynasty (2345–2181 BCE), the power of pharaohs gradually weakened in favor of powerful nomarchs. These no longer belonged to the royal family and their charge became hereditary, thus creating local dynasties largely independent from the central authority of the pharaoh. Internal disorders set in during the incredibly long reign of Pepi II Neferkare (2278–2184 BCE) towards the end of the dynasty. His death, certainly well past that of his intended heirs, might have created succession struggles and the country slipped into civil wars mere decades after the close of Pepi II's reign. The final blow came when the 4.2 kiloyear event struck the region in the 22nd century BC, producing consistently low Nile flood levels. The result was the collapse of the Old Kingdom followed by decades of famine and strife.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: After the fall of the Old Kingdom came a roughly 200-year stretch of time known as the First Intermediate Period, which is generally thought to include a relatively obscure set of pharaohs running from the end of the Sixth to the Tenth and most of the Eleventh Dynasties. Most of these were likely local monarchs who did not hold much power outside of their nome. There are a number of texts known as "Lamentations" from the early period of the subsequent Middle Kingdom that may shed some light on what happened during this period. Some of these texts reflect on the breakdown of rule, others allude to invasion by "Asiatic bowmen". In general, the stories focus on a society where the natural order of things in both society and nature was overthrown.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: It is also highly likely that it was during this period that all of the pyramid and tomb complexes were looted. Further lamentation texts allude to this fact, and by the beginning of the Middle Kingdom mummies are found decorated with magical spells that were once exclusive to the pyramid of the kings of the Sixth Dynasty.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: By 2160 BC, a new line of pharaohs, the Ninth and Tenth Dynasties, consolidated Lower Egypt from their capital in Heracleopolis Magna. A rival line, the Eleventh Dynasty based at Thebes, reunited Upper Egypt, and a clash between the rival dynasties was inevitable. Around 2055 BC, the Theban forces defeated the Heracleopolitan pharaohs and reunited the Two Lands. The reign of its first pharaoh, Mentuhotep II, marks the beginning of the Middle Kingdom.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: The Middle Kingdom is the period in the history of ancient Egypt stretching from the 39th regnal year of Mentuhotep II of the Eleventh Dynasty to the end of the Thirteenth Dynasty, roughly between 2030 and 1650 BC. The period comprises two phases, the Eleventh Dynasty, which ruled from Thebes, and then the Twelfth Dynasty, whose capital was Lisht. These two dynasties were originally considered the full extent of this unified kingdom, but some historians now consider the first part of the Thirteenth Dynasty to belong to the Middle Kingdom.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: The earliest pharaohs of the Middle Kingdom traced their origin to two nomarchs of Thebes, Intef the Elder, who served a Heracleopolitan pharaoh of the Tenth Dynasty, and his successor, Mentuhotep I. The successor of the latter, Intef I, was the first Theban nomarch to claim a Horus name and thus the throne of Egypt. He is considered the first pharaoh of the Eleventh Dynasty. His claims brought the Thebans into conflict with the rulers of the Tenth Dynasty. Intef I and his brother Intef II undertook several campaigns northwards and finally captured the important nome of Abydos. Warfare continued intermittently between the Thebean and Heracleapolitan dynasties until the 39th regnal year of Mentuhotep II, second successor of Intef II. At this point, the Herakleopolitans were defeated and the Theban dynasty consolidated their rule over Egypt. Mentuhotep II is known to have commanded military campaigns south into Nubia, which had gained its independence during the First Intermediate Period. There is also evidence for military actions against the Southern Levant. The king reorganized the country and placed a vizier at the head of civil administration for the country. Mentuhotep II was succeeded by his son, Mentuhotep III, who organized an expedition to Punt. His reign saw the realization of some of the finest Egyptian carvings. Mentuhotep III was succeeded by Mentuhotep IV, the final pharaoh of this dynasty. Despite being absent from various lists of pharaohs, his reign is attested from a few inscriptions in Wadi Hammamat that record expeditions to the Red Sea coast and to quarry stone for the royal monuments.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: The leader of this expedition was his vizier Amenemhat, who is widely assumed to be the future Pharaoh Amenemhat I, the first pharaoh of the Twelfth Dynasty. Amenemhat is therefore assumed by some Egyptologists to have either usurped the throne or assumed power after Mentuhotep IV died childless. Amenemhat I built a new capital for Egypt, Itjtawy, thought to be located near the present-day Lisht, although Manetho claims the capital remained at Thebes. Amenemhat forcibly pacified internal unrest, curtailed the rights of the nomarchs, and is known to have launched at least one campaign into Nubia. His son Senusret I continued the policy of his father to recapture Nubia and other territories lost during the First Intermediate Period. The Libu were subdued under his forty-five year reign and Egypt's prosperity and security were secured. Senusret III (1878–1839 BC) was a warrior king, leading his troops deep into Nubia, and built a series of massive forts throughout the country to establish Egypt's formal boundaries with the unconquered areas of its territory. Amenemhat III (1860–1815 BC) is considered the last great pharaoh of the Middle Kingdom.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: Egypt's population began to exceed food production levels during the reign of Amenemhat III, who then ordered the exploitation of the Faiyum and increased mining operations in the Sinai Peninsula. He also invited settlers from Western Asia to Egypt to labor on Egypt's monuments. Late in his reign, the annual flooding of the Nile began to fail, further straining the resources of the government. The Thirteenth Dynasty and Fourteenth Dynasty witnessed the slow decline of Egypt into the Second Intermediate Period, in which some of the settlers invited by Amenemhat III would seize power as the Hyksos.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: The Second Intermediate Period marks a period when Egypt once again fell into disarray between the end of the Middle Kingdom and the start of the New Kingdom. This period is best known as the time the Hyksos made their appearance in Egypt, the reigns of its kings comprising the Fifteenth Dynasty.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: The Thirteenth Dynasty proved unable to hold onto the long land of Egypt, and a provincial family of Levantine descent located in the marshes of the eastern Delta at Avaris broke away from the central authority to form the Fourteenth Dynasty. The splintering of the land most likely happened shortly after the reigns of the powerful Thirteenth Dynasty Pharaohs Neferhotep I and Sobekhotep IV c. 1720 BC.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: While the Fourteenth Dynasty was Levantine, the Hyksos first appeared in Egypt c. 1650 BC when they took control of Avaris and rapidly moved south to Memphis, thereby ending the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Dynasties. The outlines of the traditional account of the "invasion" of the land by the Hyksos is preserved in the "Aegyptiaca" of Manetho, who records that during this time the Hyksos overran Egypt, led by Salitis, the founder of the Fifteenth Dynasty. More recently, however, the idea of a simple migration, with little or no violence involved, has gained some support. Under this theory, the Egyptian rulers of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth dynasties were unable to stop these new migrants from traveling to Egypt from the Levant because their kingdoms were struggling to cope with various domestic problems, including possibly famine and plague. Be it military or peaceful, the weakened state of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Dynasty kingdoms could explain why they rapidly fell to the emerging Hyksos power.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: The Hyksos princes and chieftains ruled in the eastern Delta with their local Egyptian vassals. The Fifteenth Dynasty rulers established their capital and seat of government at Memphis and their summer residence at Avaris. The Hyksos kingdom was centered in the eastern Nile Delta and central Egypt but relentlessly pushed south for the control of central and Upper Egypt. Around the time Memphis fell to the Hyksos, the native Egyptian ruling house in Thebes declared its independence and set itself up as the Sixteenth Dynasty. Another short lived dynasty might have done the same in central Egypt, profiting from the power vacuum created by the fall of the Thirteenth Dynasty and forming the Abydos Dynasty. By 1600 BC, the Hyksos had successfully moved south in central Egypt, eliminating the Abydos Dynasty and directly threatening the Sixteenth Dynasty. The latter was to prove unable to resist and Thebes fell to the Hyksos for a very short period c. 1580 BC. The Hyksos rapidly withdrew to the north and Thebes regained some independence under the Seventeenth Dynasty. From then on, Hyksos relations with the south seem to have been mainly of a commercial nature, although Theban princes appear to have recognized the Hyksos rulers and may possibly have provided them with tribute for a period.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: The Seventeenth Dynasty was to prove the salvation of Egypt and would eventually lead the war of liberation that drove the Hyksos back into Asia. The two last kings of this dynasty were Seqenenre Tao and Kamose. Ahmose I completed the conquest and expulsion of the Hyksos from the Nile Delta, restored Theban rule over the whole of Egypt and successfully reasserted Egyptian power in its formerly subject territories of Nubia and the Southern Levant. His reign marks the beginning of the Eighteenth Dynasty and the New Kingdom.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: Possibly as a result of the foreign rule of the Hyksos during the Second Intermediate Period, the New Kingdom saw Egypt attempt to create a buffer between the Levant and Egypt, and attain its greatest territorial extent. It expanded far south into Nubia and held wide territories in the Near East. Egyptian armies fought Hittite armies for control of modern-day Syria.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: This was a time of great wealth and power for Egypt. Some of the most important and best-known pharaohs ruled at this time, such as Hatshepsut. Hatshepsut is unusual as she was a female pharaoh, a rare occurrence in Egyptian history. She was an ambitious and competent leader, extending Egyptian trade south into present-day Somalia and north into the Mediterranean. She ruled for twenty years through a combination of widespread propaganda and deft political skill. Her co-regent and successor Thutmose III ("the Napoleon of Egypt") expanded Egypt's army and wielded it with great success. However, late in his reign, he ordered her name hacked out from her monuments. He fought against Asiatic people and was the most successful of Egyptian pharaohs. Amenhotep III built extensively at the temple of Karnak including the Luxor Temple, which consisted of two pylons, a colonnade behind the new temple entrance, and a new temple to the goddess Maat.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: During the reign of Thutmose III (c. 1479–1425 BC), pharaoh, originally referring to the king's palace, became a form of address for the person who was king.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: One of the best-known 18th Dynasty pharaohs is Amenhotep IV, who changed his name to Akhenaten in honor of the god Aten. His exclusive worship of the Aten, sometimes called Atenism, is often seen as history's first instance of monotheism. Atenism and several changes that accompanied it seriously disrupted Egyptian society. Akhenaten built a new capital at the site of Amarna, which gives his reign and the few that followed their modern name, the Amarna Period. Amarna art diverged significantly from the previous conventions of Egyptian art. Under a series of successors, of whom the longest reigning were Tutankhamun and Horemheb. Under them, worship of the old gods was revived and much of the art and monuments that were created during Akhenaten's reign was defaced or destroyed. When Horemheb died without an heir, he named as his successor Ramesses I, founder of the Nineteenth Dynasty.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: Ramesses I reigned for two years and was succeeded by his son Seti I. Seti I carried on the work of Horemheb in restoring power, control, and respect to Egypt. He also was responsible for creating the temple complex at Abydos.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: Arguably Ancient Egypt's power as a nation-state peaked during the reign of Ramesses II ("the Great") of the Nineteenth Dynasty. He reigned for 67 years from the age of 18 and carried on his father Seti I's work and created many more splendid temples, such as that of Abu Simbel temples on the Nubian border. He sought to recover territories in the Levant that had been held by the Eighteenth Dynasty. His campaigns of reconquest culminated in the Battle of Kadesh in 1274 BC, where he led Egyptian armies against those of the Hittite king Muwatalli II and was caught in history's first recorded military ambush.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: Ramesses II was famed for the huge number of children he sired by his various wives and concubines; the tomb he built for his sons (many of whom he outlived) in the Valley of the Kings has proven to be the largest funerary complex in Egypt.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: His immediate successors continued the military campaigns, though an increasingly troubled court complicated matters. Ramesses II was succeeded by his son Merneptah and then by Merenptah's son Seti II. Seti II's throne seems to have been disputed by his half-brother Amenmesse, who may have temporarily ruled from Thebes.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: Upon his death, Seti II's son Siptah, who may have been afflicted with poliomyelitis during his life, was appointed to the throne by Chancellor Bay, a West Asian commoner who served as vizier behind the scenes. At Siptah's early death, the throne was assumed by Twosret, the queen dowager of Seti II and possibly Amenmesse's sister.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: A period of anarchy at the end of Twosret's short reign saw a native reaction to foreign control leading to the execution of Bay and the enthronement of Setnakhte, establishing the Twentieth Dynasty.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: The last "great" pharaoh from the New Kingdom is widely considered Ramesses III, the son of Setnakhte who reigned three decades after the time of Ramesses II (c.1279–1213 BC). In Year 8 of his reign, the Sea People invaded Egypt by land and sea. Ramesses III defeated them in two great land and sea battles. He claimed that he incorporated them as subject people and settled them in Southern Canaan, although there is evidence that they forced their way into Canaan. Their presence in Canaan may have contributed to the formation of new states in this region such as Philistia after the collapse of the Egyptian Empire. He was also compelled to fight invading Libyan tribesmen in two major campaigns in Egypt's Western Delta in his Year 6 and Year 11 respectively.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: The heavy cost of these battles slowly exhausted Egypt's treasury and contributed to the gradual decline of the Egyptian Empire in Asia. The severity of these difficulties is stressed by the fact that the first known strike action in recorded history occurred during Year 29 of Ramesses III's reign, when the food rations for the Egypt's favoured and elite royal tomb-builders and artisans in the village of Deir el-Medina could not be provisioned. Something in the air prevented much sunlight from reaching the ground and also arrested global tree growth for almost two full decades until 1140 BC. One proposed cause is the Hekla 3 eruption in Iceland, but the dating of that event remains in dispute.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: Following Ramesses III's death, there was endless bickering between his heirs. Three of his sons would go on to assume power as Ramesses IV, Ramesses VI and Ramesses VIII, respectively. However, at this time Egypt was also increasingly beset by a series of droughts, below-normal flooding levels of the Nile, famine, civil unrest and official corruption. The power of the last pharaoh, Ramesses XI, grew so weak that in the south the Theban High Priests of Amun became the effective de facto rulers of Upper Egypt, while Smendes controlled Lower Egypt even before Ramesses XI's death. Smendes would eventually found the Twenty-first Dynasty at Tanis.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: After the death of Ramesses XI, his successor Smendes ruled from the city of Tanis in the north, while the High Priests of Amun at Thebes had effective rule of the south of the country, whilst still nominally recognizing Smendes as king. In fact, this division was less significant than it seems, since both priests and pharaohs came from the same family. Piankh, assumed control of Upper Egypt, ruling from Thebes, with the northern limit of his control ending at Al-Hibah. (The High Priest Herihor had died before Ramesses XI, but also was an all-but-independent ruler in the latter days of the king's reign.) The country was once again split into two parts with the priests in Thebes and the pharaohs at Tanis. Their reign seems without other distinction, and they were replaced without any apparent struggle by the Libyan kings of the Twenty-Second Dynasty.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: Egypt has long had ties with Libya, and the first king of the new dynasty, Shoshenq I, was a Meshwesh Libyan, who served as the commander of the armies under the last ruler of the Twenty-First Dynasty, Psusennes II. He unified the country, putting control of the Amun clergy under his own son as the High Priest of Amun, a post that was previously a hereditary appointment. The scant and patchy nature of the written records from this period suggest that it was unsettled. There appear to have been many subversive groups, which eventually led to the creation of the Twenty-Third Dynasty, which ran concurrent with the latter part of the Twenty-Second Dynasty.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: The country was reunited by the Twenty-Second Dynasty founded by Shoshenq I in 945 BC (or 943 BC), who descended from Meshwesh immigrants, originally from Ancient Libya. This brought stability to the country for well over a century. After the reign of Osorkon II the country had again splintered into two states with Shoshenq III of the Twenty-Second Dynasty controlling Lower Egypt by 818 BC while Takelot II and his son (the future Osorkon III) ruled Middle and Upper Egypt.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: After the withdrawal of Egypt from Nubia at the end of the New Kingdom, a native dynasty took control of Nubia. Under king Piye, the Nubian founder of Twenty-Fifth Dynasty, the Nubians pushed north in an effort to crush his Libyan opponents ruling in the Delta. Piye managed to attain power as far as Memphis. His opponent Tefnakhte ultimately submitted to him, but he was allowed to remain in power in Lower Egypt and founded the short-lived Twenty-Fourth Dynasty at Sais. The Kushite kingdom to the south took full advantage of this division and political instability and defeated the combined might of several native-Egyptian rulers such as Peftjauawybast, Osorkon IV of Tanis, and Tefnakht of Sais. Piye was succeeded first by his brother, Shabaka, and then by his two sons Shebitku and Taharqa. Taharqa reunited the Two Lands of Northern and Southern Egypt and created an empire that was as large as it had been since the New Kingdom. Pharaohs such as Taharqa built or restored temples and monuments throughout the Nile valley, including at Memphis, Karnak, Kawa, and Jebel Barkal. It was during the 25th Dynasty that the Nile valley saw the first widespread construction of pyramids (many in modern Sudan) since the Middle Kingdom.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: The international prestige of Egypt declined considerably by this time. The country's international allies had fallen under the sphere of influence of Assyria and from about 700 BC the question became when, not if, there would be war between the two states. Taharqa's reign and that of his successor, Tantamani, were filled with constant conflict with the Assyrians against whom there were numerous victories, but ultimately Thebes was occupied and Memphis sacked.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: From 671 BC on, Memphis and the Delta region became the target of many attacks from the Assyrians, who expelled the Nubians and handed over power to client kings of the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty. Psamtik I was the first recognized as the king of the whole of Egypt, and he brought increased stability to the country during a 54-year reign from the new capital of Sais. Four successive Saite kings continued guiding Egypt successfully and peacefully from 610–526 BC, keeping the Babylonians in certain measures away with the help of Greek mercenaries.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: However, during this period Babylonian emperor Nebuchadnezzar II (605–562 BC) campaigned against the Egyptians and drove them back over the Sinai. In 567 BC he went to war with Pharaoh Amasis, and briefly invaded Egypt itself.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: By the end of this period a new power was growing in the Near East: Persia. The Pharaoh Psamtik III had to face the might of Persia at Pelusium; he was defeated and briefly escaped to Memphis, but ultimately was captured and then executed.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: Achaemenid Egypt can be divided into three eras: the first period of Persian occupation, 525–404 BC (when Egypt became a satrapy), followed by an interval of independence, and the second and final period of occupation, 343–332 BC.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: The Persian king Cambyses assumed the formal title of Pharaoh, called himself Mesuti-Re ("Re has given birth"), and sacrificed to the Egyptian gods. He founded the Twenty-seventh Dynasty. Egypt was then joined with Cyprus and Phoenicia in the sixth satrapy of the Achaemenid Empire.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: Cambyses' successors Darius I the Great and Xerxes pursued a similar policy, visited the country, and warded off an Athenian attack. It is likely that Artaxerxes I and Darius II visited the country as well, although it is not attested, and did not prevent the Egyptians from feeling unhappy.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: During the war of succession after the reign of Darius II, which broke out in 404 BC, they revolted under Amyrtaeus and regained their independence. This sole ruler of the Twenty-eighth Dynasty died in 399, and power went to the Twenty-ninth Dynasty. The Thirtieth Dynasty was established in 380 BC and lasted until 343 BC. Nectanebo II was the last native king to rule Egypt.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: In 332 BC, Mazaces handed over the country to Alexander the Great without a fight. The Achaemenid empire had ended, and for a while Egypt was a satrapy in Alexander's empire. Later the Ptolemies and then the Romans successively ruled the Nile valley.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: In 332 BC, Alexander III of Macedon conquered Egypt with little resistance from the Persians. He visited Memphis, and went on a pilgrimage to the oracle of Amun at the Siwa Oasis. The oracle declared him the son of Amun. He conciliated the Egyptians by the respect he showed for their religion, but he appointed Greeks to virtually all the senior posts in the country, and founded a new Greek city, Alexandria, to be the new capital. The wealth of Egypt could now be harnessed for Alexander's conquest of the rest of the Persian Empire. Early in 331 BC, he led his forces away to Phoenicia, never returning to Egypt.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: Following Alexander's death in Babylon in 323 BC, a succession crisis erupted among his generals. Perdiccas ruled the empire as regent for Alexander's half-brother Arrhidaeus, who became Philip III of Macedon, and Alexander's infant son Alexander IV of Macedon. Perdiccas appointed Ptolemy, one of Alexander's closest companions, to rule Egypt in the name of the joint kings. However, as Alexander's empire disintegrated, Ptolemy soon established himself as ruler in his own right. Ptolemy successfully defended Egypt against an invasion by Perdiccas in 321 BC and consolidated his position in Egypt and the surrounding areas during the Wars of the Diadochi (322–301 BC). In 305 BC, Ptolemy took the title of Pharaoh. As Ptolemy I Soter ("Saviour"), he founded the Ptolemaic dynasty that was to rule Egypt for nearly 300 years.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: The later Ptolemies took on Egyptian traditions by marrying their siblings, had themselves portrayed on public monuments in Egyptian style and dress, and participated in Egyptian religious life. Hellenistic culture thrived in Egypt well after the Muslim conquest. The Egyptians soon accepted the Ptolemies as the successors to the pharaohs of independent Egypt. Ptolemy's family ruled Egypt until the Roman conquest of 30 BC.


title: History of ancient Egypt

text: All the male rulers of the dynasty took the name, Ptolemy. Ptolemaic queens regnant, some of whom were the sisters of their husbands, were usually called Cleopatra, Arsinoe or Berenice. The most famous member of the line was the last queen, Cleopatra VII, known for her role in the Roman political battles between Julius Caesar and Pompey, and later between Octavian and Mark Antony. Her apparent suicide at the conquest by Rome marked the end of Ptolemaic rule in Egypt.


title: Phil Manzanera

text: Phillip Geoffrey Targett-Adams (born 31 January 1951), known professionally as Phil Manzanera, is an English guitarist, songwriter and record producer. He is the lead guitarist with Roxy Music, and was the lead guitarist with 801, and Quiet Sun. In 2006, Manzanera co-produced David Gilmour's album "On an Island", and played in Gilmour's band for tours in Europe and North America. He wrote and presented a series of 14 one-hour radio programmes for station Planet Rock entitled "The A-Z of Great Guitarists".


title: Phil Manzanera

text: Manzanera was born on 31 January 1951 in London, England, to a Colombian mother (nee Manzanera) and an English father, who worked for British Overseas Airways Corporation, and spent most of his childhood in different parts of the Americas, including Hawaii, Venezuela, Colombia, and Cuba. It was in Havana, Cuba, living opposite Batista that the young Manzanera, aged six, encountered his first guitar, a Spanish guitar owned by his mother. His earliest musical accomplishments were Cuban folk songs inspired by the Cuban Revolution.


title: Phil Manzanera

text: In Venezuela, the eight-year-old Manzanera started experimenting with the sounds of the electric guitar. During his teenage years he was absorbing the twin influences of 1960s rock and roll and Latin American rhythms of merengue, cumbia, and particularly the boleros of the Mexican Armando Manzanero.


title: Phil Manzanera

text: In his late teens Manzanera – then a boarder at Dulwich College in south east London, England, where his brother was also a student – formed a series of school bands with his friends Bill MacCormick, later a member of Matching Mole and Random Hold, MacCormick's brother Ian (better known as music writer Ian MacDonald) and drummer Charles Hayward, later of This Heat and Camberwell Now. Among the younger students at the school who saw the older boys performing in these various bands were Simon Ainley (later in 801), David Ferguson and David Rhodes; Ainley was briefly the lead vocalist for 801 in 1977, and all three were members of the late-1970s progressive group Random Hold; Rhodes subsequently became a long-serving member of Peter Gabriel's backing band.


title: Phil Manzanera

text: The final incarnation of Manzanera's Dulwich College bands – a psychedelic outfit dubbed Pooh & the Ostrich Feathers – evolved into the progressive rock quartet Quiet Sun with the addition of keyboard player Dave Jarrett. They wrote a number of original songs and instrumental pieces, none of which were recorded until years later, and the band broke up when McCormick joined Matching Mole, but Manzanera briefly revived the group in 1975 to record a full LP of their original music during the making of his first solo album "Diamond Head"; later he included two other previously unrecorded Quiet Sun tracks on his 2008 album "Firebird V11", which also featured Charles Hayward.


title: Phil Manzanera

text: Manzanera was determined to join a professional band, and in October 1971 he was one of about twenty players who auditioned as lead guitarist for the recently formed art rock band Roxy Music. Manzanera displayed a wide-ranging interest in music. Influenced by his childhood sojourns in Latin America, and his stints at boarding school, he came to know several prominent musicians including Soft Machine's Robert Wyatt and Pink Floyd's David Gilmour, who was a friend of his older brother, Eugene.


title: Phil Manzanera

text: He joined Roxy Music in 1972; his bandmates at this time were Bryan Ferry, Brian Eno, Paul Thompson, Andy Mackay, and Graham Simpson. Roxy Music's rise was meteoric, with the band being hailed as a major stylistic influence of the early 1970s. During the next 12 years, until 1983 when the band members went on a "long break", Roxy Music released a series of internationally best-selling albums, achieving ten UK Top Ten albums and touring extensively throughout the world. Although Ferry had sole writing credit on the first two LPs, and his work dominated the group's output, Manzanera was credited as co-writer with Ferry on the following Roxy Music songs:


title: Phil Manzanera

text: In parallel with Roxy Music, Manzanera has always pursued solo projects, both recording his own albums and producing for others. His first major credit as producer was in 1975; after spotting the New Zealand group Split Enz, who had supported Roxy on their 1974 Australian tour, Manzanera produced the group's second LP, "Second Thoughts", which was recorded in London.


title: Phil Manzanera

text: Manzanera played guitar on three tracks of the first Brian Eno album "Here Come the Warm Jets", as well as guitar and production assistance on Eno's second solo album "Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)".


title: Phil Manzanera

text: All his previous solo albums have been digitally remastered and re-released with new artwork on his own label, Expression Records.


title: Phil Manzanera

text: As a writer, producer and solo artist, Phil Manzanera has worked with many of the luminaries of modern music, such as Steve Winwood, David Gilmour, John Cale, Godley & Creme, Nico and John Wetton. He has co-written material with many artists, including Brian Eno, Tim Finn, Robert Wyatt and Gilmour. Manzanera co-wrote Pink Floyd's single "One Slip" from their 1987 "A Momentary Lapse of Reason" album.


title: Phil Manzanera

text: Manzanera's first solo album "Diamond Head" (1975) featured an all-star line-up of session contributors, including most of the former and current members of Roxy Music, except Bryan Ferry. Brian Eno co-wrote and sang on two tracks ("Big Day" and "Miss Shapiro"), Paul Thompson, Eddie Jobson and Andy Mackay all contributed, and Roxy's occasional tour bassist John Wetton (ex Family, and then a member of King Crimson) played bass and duetted on vocals (with Doreen Chanter on "Same Time Next Week"). Robert Wyatt co-wrote and sang (in Spanish) on "Frontera", and the members of Manzanera's pre-Roxy group Quiet Sun featured on the instrumental tracks. Concurrent with the recording of "Diamond Head", Manzanera reunited Quiet Sun (who had not been able to make any professional recordings) and used the studio time to quickly record a full LP of Quiet Sun material, released by EG Records under the title "Mainstream".


title: Phil Manzanera

text: Reworked versions of two tracks from "Mainstream" featured on Manzanera's next major collaboration, the critically acclaimed concert recording "801 Live", which was recorded at a 1976 London show performed by the "special occasion" band 801. The group comprised Manzanera, with Eno on vocals, synth and treatments, Quiet Sun bassist Bill MacCormick, Curved Air keyboardist Francis Monkman, 19-year-old drumming prodigy Simon Phillips, and slide guitarist Lloyd Watson, who had previously performed as a solo support act for Roxy Music. The LP featured an eclectic mix of Manzanera, Quiet Sun and Eno originals, alongside distinctive cover versions of two well-known tracks, The Beatles' "Tomorrow Never Knows" and The Kinks' "You Really Got Me". The album also broke new ground in live concert recording, being one of the first live LPs to use the "direct injection" (DI) method of recording, in which the signals from the various electric instruments were fed directly into the recording console, enabling a dramatic improvement in fidelity over the earlier method of placing microphones near the various instrument amplifiers.


title: Phil Manzanera

text: The success of the live album led to the creation of a more permanent incarnation of 801, without Lloyd Watson. Manzanera's old schoolmate Simon Ainley (who was later a member of Random Hold with Bill McCormick) took over from Eno as lead vocalist, who only provided treatments and textures. Francis Monkman, Bill and Ian McCormick and Simon Phillips became part of an all-star session group that also included Tim Finn and Eddie Rayner of Split Enz (who had by then relocated to the UK), former 10cc members Kevin Godley and Lol Creme, saxophonist Mel Collins, Roxy Music's Eddie Jobson and drummer Dave Mattacks. The 'new' 801 recorded the studio album "Listen Now", was released in November 1976, although according to Ainley the initial recordings had begun in December 1975, well before the original concert line-up of 801 was put together. The studio LP was not a commercial success and the group disbanded after a short UK tour. A live performance at Manchester University in Nov. 1977, with Ainley on vocals and guitar, and appearances by special guests Andy Mackay, Kevin Godley and Lol Creme, was recorded on 24-track tape, but the recording remained unreleased until 1997.


title: Phil Manzanera

text: Manzanera's second solo album "K-Scope" (1978) was originally intended to be the second 801 studio album, and indeed it featured many of the same personnel from "Listen Now", including Ainley, Bill and Ian McCormick, John Wetton, Simon Phillips, Mel Collins, Tim and Neil Finn, Eddie Rayner, Godley and Creme, and keyboard player Dave Skinner. According to Ainley, he was slated to perform the lead vocal tracks, and he contributed to the composition of the track "Slow Motion TV", but by his own account he had a severe cold the day he began recording his vocals and could not hit the notes; as a result Manzanera replaced him with Tim Finn, and Ainley contributed only rhythm guitar to a couple of tracks. The LP was eventually released under Manzanera's name, but shortly after it was released Roxy Music reformed, and Manzanera's solo projects were put on hold until the group disbanded again in 1982.


title: Phil Manzanera

text: His third solo album "Primitive Guitars" (1982) marked his tenth anniversary as a professional musician. It was intended as a retrospective of his musical influences and stylistic growth, interpreted through a series of solo pieces that represent various stages in his life – childhood in South America, adolescence in London, his work in Roxy Music and 801, and other projects. Manzanera plays all the instruments, backed only by a drum machine, except for one track that features John Wetton on bass. In between tracks, Manzanera inserted snatches of dialogue recorded at various rehearsals.


title: Phil Manzanera

text: In the 1990s, Manzanera performed in concerts all over the world, including at Guitar Legends, the five-day guitar festival in Seville, where he was musical director for the event as well as playing with Bob Dylan, Keith Richards, Jack Bruce, Vicente Amigo, Dave Edmunds, Joe Satriani, Steve Cropper, Aterciopelados, Robert Cray and Richard Thompson. He has also played in Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Cuba, Spain, France, Italy and the UK, including a ten-date European tour with the Cuban band Grupo Moncada. He played at WOMAD festivals in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. Manzanera ended the 20th Century by appearing with Bryan Ferry at the British Gas Millennium Concert at Greenwich, the first time they had performed together in 18 years. Manzanera produced in 1993 the highly acclaimed album "Severino" from the Brazilian rock band Os Paralamas do Sucesso, which included a participation by Brian May.


title: Phil Manzanera

text: "Firebird V11" (2008) was another all-instrumental album, recorded with a 3-piece backing group that included his old Quiet Sun bandmate Charles Hayward on drums, Polish jazz pianist Leszek Możdżer and bassist Yaron Stavi from the Gilad Atzmon band. It includes two original Quiet Sun tracks, written in 1970, which had never been previously recorded. As the title indicates, the album is a tribute to, and feature for, Manzanera's signature guitar, the red-and-black Gibson Firebird V11 guitar which he has played throughout his career – he can be seen holding the guitar in the "centrefold" photograph on Roxy Music's second album "For Your Pleasure" in 1972, and a photographically distorted image of it was used on the cover of "Primitive Guitars".


title: Phil Manzanera

text: The Roxy Music "long break" came to an end in 2001 with a critically acclaimed, sold-out, 52-date world tour. In the summer of 2003 Roxy played 10 dates in the US, followed by 13 European gigs in 2004, including performing at Live 8 in Berlin.


title: Phil Manzanera

text: Manzanera had a state-of-the-art studio, Gallery Studios, in West London (now Songphonic Records). The first recording was Robert Wyatt's album "Cuckooland" and the client list included Brian Eno, David Gilmour, Annie Lennox, Kevin Ayers, and Chrissie Hynde. Wyatt's critically acclaimed album "Comicopera" was recorded at Gallery in 2007.


title: Phil Manzanera

text: Manzanera began singing on his own albums with "Vozero" in 2001, followed by "6pm" in 2004 and "50 Minutes Later" in 2005.


title: Phil Manzanera

text: He appeared at The Strat Pack celebration concert at Wembley Arena in 2005, alongside other musicians such as Hank Marvin, Ronnie Wood and David Gilmour.


title: Phil Manzanera

text: Between 2003 and 2008, he collaborated with Colombian artist/sculptor Lucho Brieva on the Corroncho project. The project sprang from a Spanish version of the track "Complicada", written by Brieva's wife Chrissie Hynde. The resulting album comprises a set of songs about two "corroncho" characters ("corroncho" being the pejorative name given by people from Bogotá to fellow Colombians from the Caribbean Coast, particularly Barranquilla). The album includes the musical styles of salsa, cumbia, pop music, ballads and chillout and has guest appearances from Robert Wyatt, Paul Thompson, Enrique Bunbury, Chrissie Hynde, Annie Lennox, Quimi Portet, Gilad Atzmon, and one of Cuba's top pianists Aldo Lopez Gavilan.


title: Phil Manzanera

text: While his 1990 solo album "Southern Cross" was an album of Latin music, Manzanera started in 1999 a series of solo productions that reflect his past achievements in a modern context. Many musicians from past times turn up again on the recordings, like Brian Eno, Andy Mackay, Robert Wyatt, Bill MacCormick and many others. On "The Sound of Blue" even a couple of former musical themes turn up reworked. These albums also feature Phil as lead vocalist.


title: Phil Manzanera

text: Manzanera has played a variety of instruments throughout his career, but he is best known for his "signature" guitar, a 1964 'Cardinal Red' Gibson Firebird VII, with gold-plated pick-ups and tuners. This guitar became widely known to fans after Manzanera posed with it during the photo session that produced the inner gatefold photo for Roxy Music's second album "For Your Pleasure" in 1972, and he has used it regularly throughout his career. Manzanera also frequently uses two custom-made Gibson Les Paul guitars, one of which (picture above) features a mother of pearl inlay in the shape of an iguana. On tour and in the studio, Manzanera also regularly plays Fender Stratocasters, a Fender Telecaster, and Blade guitars. On the evidence of the cover photographs for the "801 Live" album, he also played a Yamaha SG-2000 guitar (as used by Carlos Santana) during the 801 period.


title: Phil Manzanera

text: Beginning in the early days of Roxy Music, Manzanera's guitar sound was often heavily treated using various electronic devices and techniques, including processing the output of his guitar through Eno's synthesizers, both in the studio and on stage. This allowed him to create a wide range of sounds and textures, many of which are not immediately identifiable as having been produced by an electric guitar. On his solo album "Primitive Guitars", all the sounds on the album except the drum machine and the bass played by John Wetton (on one track) were produced by Manzanera's guitars.


title: Phil Manzanera

text: In 1977, Manzanera purchased St. Anne's Court, in Chertsey, consisting of a coach house, which Manzanera converted into a recording studio and a main house, designed in 1936 by the architect Sir Raymond McGrath. The gardens were created by Christopher Tunnard.


title: Phil Manzanera

text: The recording studio was used to record Manzanera's solo albums and Roxy Music's "Flesh & Blood" and "Avalon". The main house later featured in the television production "Poirot".


title: Phil Manzanera

text: Asteroid 72801 Manzanera, discovered by Marc Buie at Kitt Peak National Observatory in 2001, was named in his honour. The official was published by the Minor Planet Center on 18 May 2019 ().


title: You Need to Calm Down

text: "You Need to Calm Down" is a song recorded by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. It was released on June 14, 2019, as the second single from her seventh studio album, "Lover" (2019). The fourteenth track on the album, Swift wrote and produced the song with Joel Little. "You Need to Calm Down" is an electropop and synth-pop song, with a chorus of ascending echoes. Its lyrics see Swift address internet trolls and homophobes, voicing her support for the LGBTQ+ community.


title: You Need to Calm Down

text: An accompanying lyric video was released on June 14, 2019. The music video was released on June 17, featuring an ensemble cast, directed by Swift and Drew Kirsch, and executive-produced by Swift and Todrick Hall. "You Need to Calm Down" divided music critics, some of whom praised the song for its catchiness and pro-LGBTQ+ message, while few others criticized its theme as confusing and cynical. Nevertheless, "You Need to Calm Down" is regarded as a gay anthem. The single reached number one in Scotland, and the top five in Australia, Canada, Ireland, Malaysia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. It debuted at the second spot on the US "Billboard" Hot 100, becoming the second consecutive top-two single from "Lover" and tying Swift with Madonna for the most number-two hits for a female artist in the chart's history.


title: You Need to Calm Down

text: At the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards, the "You Need to Calm Down" music video received nine nominations, winning two: Video of the Year, which is Swift's second win in the category following "Bad Blood" (2015), and the Video for Good. The song also received a nomination for Best Pop Solo Performance at the 62nd Grammy Awards.


title: You Need to Calm Down

text: On April 26, 2019, the title of the song was teased in the intro for the music video for "Me!" when Brendon Urie shouted the title in French. Later, it was revealed an "old-timey, 1940s-sounding instrumental version" of the song played in the background in the scene. On June 13, 2019, Swift announced on a livestream on Instagram that her upcoming album's second single, entitled "You Need to Calm Down", was to be released at midnight EDT on June 14 (04:00 UTC).


title: You Need to Calm Down

text: A lyric video for the song was released together with the song on YouTube. The video contained several easter eggs, including changing the word "glad" to GLAAD, and highlighting "EA" letters as a reference to the Equality Act. The references followed Swift's donation to GLAAD in support of Pride Month, and Swift's Change.org petition for the United States Senate to pass the Equality Act. The petition has attracted more than 500,000 signatures, including from Democrats such as Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, Beto O'Rourke, and Kirsten Gillibrand. Following the release of the song, GLAAD reported an "influx" of donations in the amount of $13, a reference to Swift's favorite number. A vertical video premiered exclusively on Spotify on June 24, 2019.


title: You Need to Calm Down

text: Music critics were divided with "You Need to Calm Down". Dan Stubbs from "NME" called the song "withering in its measured response", concluding it was "an infectious, bite-size pop package". Gwen Ihnat of "The A.V. Club" wrote that the song "clearly and refreshingly combats homophobia and anti-gay bias". Maeve McDermott and Joshua Bote, writing for "USA Today", considered the song "an improvement" over the previous single "Me!", and "a more promising example of what fans can expect" from the album. Mikael Wood of the "Los Angeles Times" also concurred that the song was "a big creative improvement" over "Me!", while commenting the "explicit pro-gay message is certainly welcome, but it also feels just the slightest bit cynical". "Time"'s Raisa Bruner wrote that the song is "bright, bubbly and unabashedly vying for earworm status", and that it is a "colorful clapback that works as a warning to homophobes, trolls and bullies". She added that Swift is "sing-talking her way through a series of quotable lyrics, over a "juicy, unhurried" synth beat. Bruner further stated that, at this song, Swift is "at her most pop-forward" on "Lover", owing to its cascading chorus echoes.


title: You Need to Calm Down

text: Michelle Kim of "Pitchfork" opined that while the song is "well-intentioned" and the allyship deserved some praise, it is also "bewildering and underwhelming at the same time". Justin Kirkland of "Esquire" wrote the song "misses the point of being an LGBTQ ally" by "equating online haters with the personal and societal struggle of LGBTQ+ people". Similarly, Spencer Kornhaber from "The Atlantic" criticised the song's "breathtaking argument... that famous people are persecuted in a way meaningfully comparable to queer people." Will Gottsegen of "Spin" wrote the song's "easy, inoffensive lyrics... feel engineered to appeal to the broadest possible demographic", and that the song "plays it too safe" and "feels a little like a cop out". Constance Grady of "Vox" called the song "exhausting", comparing the song unfavorably to "Mean" (2011), another single from Swift.


title: You Need to Calm Down

text: In the United States, "You Need to Calm Down" debuted and peaked at number two on the "Billboard" Hot 100, becoming the second top two hit from "Lover". Like in the case of lead single "Me!", "Old Town Road" by Lil Nas X featuring Billy Ray Cyrus blocked "You Need to Calm Down" from reaching the top spot on the chart. However, the song garnered several chart records for Swift: With six songs reaching the number-two spot, Swift tied Madonna as the female artist with the most number two hits on the chart, having previously reached the spot with "Me!", "I Don't Wanna Live Forever" (2017), "I Knew You Were Trouble" (2013), "Today Was a Fairytale" (2010) and "You Belong with Me" (2009). The song became Swift's twenty-fourth top 10 hit, which is the fifth-most among female artists in the chart's history, behind Madonna (38), Rihanna (31), Mariah Carey (28) and Janet Jackson (27). The single is also Swift's sixteenth song to debut inside the top 10 of the chart, which is the second most top-ten debuts in the chart's history, only behind Drake, who has 20 top-ten debuts, making Swift the first and only female artist with 16 top-ten debuts in the Hot 100 history.


title: You Need to Calm Down

text: The song debuted at number-one on the "Billboard" Digital Song Sales charts, selling 79,000 downloads, becoming Swift's record-extending seventeenth number-one hit on that chart. With 12 consecutive weeks spent in the top 20 of the "Billboard" Hot 100, "You Need to Calm Down" is Swift's song with the longest duration spent in the top 20 since "I Don't Wanna Live Forever" with Zayn Malik in 2017. The track started at number 33 on the Mainstream Top 40 chart, based on three days of airplay, and has since reached number 9.


title: You Need to Calm Down

text: In Canada, the song entered the Hot AC chart at number 40 based on three days of radio tracking. It debuted at number four on the Canadian Hot 100, becoming the second top five hit from the album in the country.


title: You Need to Calm Down

text: In the United Kingdom, the song debuted at number five on the UK Singles Chart, becoming Swift's thirteenth top 10 in the UK. In Scotland, the song debuted at number one on the singles chart, becoming Swift's fifth chart topper in the country, as well as her second consecutive number-one hit in Scotland from "Lover". In Ireland, the song debuted at number five, tying Swift's previous single, "Me!", which peaked in the week ending May 3, 2019. In Germany, the song debuted at number 37 on the Official German Charts later peaking at number 36. In the Netherlands, the song debuted at number 28 on the Single Top 100 chart. In Belgium, the song arrived at number 11 on the Belgian Ultratip chart later peaking at number three. In Sweden, the song entered at number 55 on the Sverigetopplistan chart later peaking at number 35.


title: You Need to Calm Down

text: In Australia, the song debuted at number 3 in the ARIA Charts, becoming the second top three hit from the album in the country. In New Zealand, the song entered the Recorded Music NZ singles chart at number 5, becoming Swift's fifteenth top 10 single in the country. The song also topped New Zealand Hot Singles chart.


title: You Need to Calm Down

text: The music video was directed by Swift and Drew Kirsch, and executive produced by Swift and Todrick Hall. It was released on June 17, 2019, after a premiere on "Good Morning America". The video featured a large number of celebrity cameos, many of whom are LGBT. In order of appearance, the list includes dancer Giuseppe Giofrè, Dexter Mayfield, YouTuber Hannah Hart, actress Laverne Cox, singer Chester Lockhart, entertainer Todrick Hall, singer Hayley Kiyoko, actor Jesse Tyler Ferguson, lawyer Justin Mikita, singer Ciara, Netflix series "Queer Eye"s Fab Five (Tan France, Bobby Berk, Karamo Brown, Antoni Porowski, Jonathan Van Ness), figure skater Adam Rippon, singer Adam Lambert, television personality Ellen DeGeneres, entertainers Billy Porter and RuPaul, singer Katy Perry, and actor Ryan Reynolds. The appearance of Perry serves as an end to a dispute between her and Swift, although both artists had publicly ended the feud several months prior. Numerous drag queens, all past contestants on "RuPaul's Drag Race" (Riley Knoxx being the exception), also appear in the video impersonating various female recording artists. Tatianna portrays Ariana Grande, Trinity the Tuck portrays Lady Gaga, Delta Work portrays Adele, Trinity K. Bonet portrays Cardi B, Jade Jolie portrays Swift, Riley Knoxx portrays Beyoncé, Adore Delano portrays Katy Perry and A'keria Chanel Davenport portrays Nicki Minaj. The video was shot in Santa Clarita, California.


title: You Need to Calm Down

text: The video is set in a colorful trailer park. Swift awakens in her trailer, wearing a bathrobe over a swimsuit, with an embroidery containing the Cher quote "Mom, I am a Rich Man" hanging on a wall. Swift throws her phone onto her bed, which then gives off sparks and starts a fire in the trailer. She nonchalantly walks to a pool, ignoring her burning trailer. She goes into the pool, lying on a float, while looking at the camera and singing. The camera then switches to other residents in the trailer park and their activities, including Mayfield dancing, Hart weightlifting a boombox and Cox watering her yard of plastic flamingoes and greeting Lockhart, who promptly faints.


title: You Need to Calm Down

text: The scene cuts to Swift walking and dancing down a street with Hall, interspersed with scenes of Kiyoko shooting an arrow into a target with the number "5" (a clue to Swift's next promotional single "The Archer", the fifth track on the album), protestors holding placards with anti-gay slogans (a reference to a real-life religious group that picketed Swift's concerts), Ciara officiating a wedding between Ferguson and Mikita, and Rippon serving snow cones to customers from a stall. Swift also holds a tea party with the Fab Five and Hall. In another trailer, Lambert tattoos the words "Cruel Summer" (later revealed to be a song on the album) onto DeGeneres' right arm. In the next scene, Swift and other residents sun tan while ignoring the heckling protestors, followed by Porter walking down the middle of the two crowds wearing a dress.


title: You Need to Calm Down

text: The scene shifts to a "pop queen pageant" with the contestants dressed as numerous female singers. RuPaul walks down the lineup with a crown decorated with emeralds and fleur-de-lis motifs, but instead of crowning a winner, he throws it in the air. A food fight begins, with Swift appearing in a french fries costume and Perry in a hamburger suit. The two see and walk towards each other. Elsewhere, Reynolds is portraying Norman Rockwell working on a painting of the Stonewall Inn. Swift and Perry smile, dance and share a hug. At the end of the video, a message appears urging viewers to sign Swift's Change.org petition for the United States Senate to pass the Equality Act.


title: You Need to Calm Down

text: The music video received mixed reviews. It received praise for Swift's activism, while criticism was levelled at the execution, particularly the depiction of the anti-LGBT protestors. Many publications including "The New York Times", "The Washington Post", CNN, and "The Irish Times" have noted that the song and music video was Swift's most political move yet. Jon Caramanica from "The New York Times" applauded the inclusion of LGBT celebrities and drag queens as "a worthy celebration", but also wrote it was "plausible cover". Writing in the same review, Wesley Morris questioned the video's release in June to coincide with Pride Month as "tired, tardy or tidily opportunistic", but concluded the video was "a fine thing". Craig Jenkins of "Vulture" wrote the song and video "has great intentions", but opened up Swift to accusations of queerbaiting and profiting from Pride Month. Dave Holmes from "Esquire" praised the celebrity cameos, but noted the "ugly and poorly-educated" look of the protestors and the "sexless" portrayal of gay life.


title: You Need to Calm Down

text: In an opinion piece for NBC News, Michael Arceneaux agreed that Swift "meant well", but criticized the depiction of the anti-gay protestors as "poorer bumpkins", and that the scene between Swift and Katy Perry detracts from the overall pro-gay message. Spencer Kornhaber from "The Atlantic" pointed out "in real-life, Pride counterprotests feature yet-uglier slogans", and "writing off bigotry as negativity... isn't helpful". Nathan Ma from "The Independent" wrote the protestors could have included politicians who voted for anti-LGBT legislation.


title: You Need to Calm Down

text: Some publications and LGBTQ+ personalities have defended Swift. Emma Grey Ellis from "Wired" wrote "the song has spawned more opinions than it has words", and continued "people claimed to despise Swift's lack of politics, and now she is overtly political and they still hate it." De Elizabeth from "InStyle" opined "a lack of outright activism allowed Swift to become a punching bag". Actor Brian Jordan Alvarez praised the video in an interview with IndieWire, stating that he is "completely grateful anytime anyone, especially someone with a huge platform, expresses positivity, love, and support for the LGBTQ community." Actor Billy Eichner praised Swift's activism, saying "[the LGBT community needs] all the allies we can get." Fashion designer and television personality Tan France, who appeared in the video, called Swift a "powerful ally" and remarked that while LGBT people are often encouraged to take their time to come out, the same is not extended to allies.


title: You Need to Calm Down

text: The song was nominated for nine awards at the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards, including the category Video of the Year, becoming the most nominated video of the night. It is also Swift's second victory for Video of the Year following "Bad Blood" in 2015, joining Beyoncé and Rihanna as the only female acts to win the category twice and the fourth artist overall. It also won Video for Good. The song was nominated for Best Pop Solo Performance at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards, becoming her third nod in the category, following "Shake It Off" (2015) and "Blank Space" (2016).


title: You Need to Calm Down

text: On June 1, 2019, Swift initiated a petition on Change.org, titled "Support the Equality Act", in favor of the United States Senate's support in passing the pro-LGBT "Equality Act" in the country's Congress; the act bans discrimination "on the basis of the sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or pregnancy, childbirth, or a related medical condition of an individual, as well as because of sex-based stereotypes". A message urging the viewers to sign the petition appears at the end of the "You Need to Calm Down" music video; it states: "Let's show our pride by demanding that, on a national level, our laws truly treat all of our citizens equally. Please sign my petition for Senate support of the Equality Act on Change.org". As of April 12, 2020, the petition had over 704,000 signatures, including those from Democratic senators and presidential candidates like Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Ed Markey, Kirsten Gillibrand, Tim Kaine, Cory Brooker and Beto O'Rourke. Swift also addressed a letter to Republican senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, her home state, asking him and the other senators to support the act: "For American citizens to be denied jobs or housing based on who they love or how they identify is un-American and cruel".


title: You Need to Calm Down

text: The release of "You Need to Calm Down" further led to a spike in individual donations to GLAAD, an American LGBT non-governmental organization, as the lyrics of the song namechecks the organization: "why are you mad when you could be GLAAD?". In response, GLAAD started a Facebook fundraiser for fans to support the advocacy work for Pride Month, with $1300 as a goal since 13 is Swift's lucky number. Anthony Ramos, Director of Talent Management at GLAAD, stated that Swift "is one of the world's biggest pop stars; the fact that she continues to use her platform and music to support the LGBTQ community and the Equality Act is a true sign of being an ally. 'You Need to Calm Down' is the perfect Pride anthem, and we're thrilled to see Taylor standing with the LGBTQ community to promote inclusivity, equality, and acceptance this Pride month". Ramos also highlighted that many of the individual donations were made in the amount of $13. Sarah Kate, the CEO and President of GLAAD, stated: "Taylor Swift continues to use her platform to speak out against discrimination and create a world where everyone can live the life they love. GLAAD is so thankful for her donation to support our advocacy efforts and for her ongoing work to speak out for what is fair, just, and LGBTQ inclusive. In today's divisive political and cultural climate, we need more allies like Taylor, who send positive and uplifting messages to LGBTQ people everywhere".


title: You Need to Calm Down

text: On August 26, 2019, Swift won the Video of the Year award for the "You Need to Calm Down" music video at the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards; in her speech, Swift urged the audience and the viewers to sign her petition, and pointed out that the White House has not responded to the petition despite having "five times the amount of signatures that it would need to warrant a response". The televised speech led to a surge in the number of signatures on the petition. The next day, the White House issued a statement. Judd Deere, the White House deputy Press Secretary, stated that "the Trump administration absolutely opposes discrimination of any kind and supports the equal treatment of all; however, the House-passed bill in its current form is filled with poison pills that threaten to undermine parental and conscience rights". "You Need to Calm Down" went on to become a gay anthem.


title: You Need to Calm Down

text: Swift performed the song live for the first time at the Amazon Prime Day Concert 2019. On August 22, she performed the song at a "Good Morning America" concert in Central Park. The next day, she performed an acoustic rendition of the song at a SiriusXM Town Hall. She also performed it at the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards along with "Lover" and included the song in her setlist for BBC Radio 1's Live Lounge on September 2. On September 9, Swift performed the song at the "City of Lover" one-off concert in Paris, France; this concert live version was released to digital music and music streaming platforms on May 17, 2020. On October 19, she performed the song at the We Can Survive charity concert in Los Angeles. On November 10, she performed the song at the Alibaba Singles' Day Gala in Shanghai, China. On December 8, Swift performed the song at Capital FM's Jingle Bell Ball 2019 in London. On December 13, she performed the song at iHeartRadio Z100's Jingle Ball in New York City.


title: You Need to Calm Down

text: British rock band Yonaka covered the song for their Spotify Singles edition in August 2019. American singer-songwriter Kelly Clarkson covered the song in an episode of her television show, "The Kelly Clarkson Show", to commemorate the 2020 Pride Month. YouTube user John Fassold mashed the song up with "Ripped Pants" from the cartoon "SpongeBob SquarePants", "Jump Up, Super Star!" from the video game "Super Mario Odyssey", and Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro," among others. "You Need to Calm Down" was featured in a commercial for Amazon Music. In June 2021, as part of a project on human rights, students of Barking and Dagenham College made a video to "You Need to Calm Down" for Pride Month. The song was used in a commercial Swift narrated for the United States women's national soccer team competing at the 2020 Summer Olympics.


title: Sadashiv Amrapurkar

text: Sadashiv Dattaray Amrapurkar (11 May 1950 – 3 November 2014) was an Indian actor, best known for his performances in Marathi and Hindi films from 1983 to 1999. He acted in more than 300 movies in Hindi, Marathi, and other regional languages. He also played first class cricket in Ranji trophy.


title: Sadashiv Amrapurkar

text: He received the Filmfare Award for Best Performance in a Negative Role in 1991 for "Sadak" — the first time the award was instituted. In 1993, he won the Filmfare Award for best actor in a villainous role, when the award was instituted. In 1993 he also played a comic hero, Inspector Pyare Mohan, in "Aankhen". In addition to negative roles, he played supporting roles and, later, comic roles.


title: Sadashiv Amrapurkar

text: Amrapurkar was born as Ganesh Kumar Narwode (or Nalawade) on 11 May 1950, in Amrapur village of Shevgaon tehsil, Ahmadnagar district in Maharashtra.


title: Sadashiv Amrapurkar

text: Amrapurkar began acting during his school days. While completing his master's degree in history at Pune University, he was involved in theatre.


title: Sadashiv Amrapurkar

text: Amrapurkar started his career as an actor in Marathi theatre, eventually acting and directing nearly fifty plays, before transitioning to films. He made his film debut with the role of Bal Gangadhar Tilak in "22 June 1897", a Marathi historical film directed by Jayoo Patwardhan and Nachiket Patwardhan.


title: Sadashiv Amrapurkar

text: He won a number of awards in theatre and film. His first film was Govind Nihalani's "Ardh Satya" (1983), for which he won a Filmfare Award. He has acted in more than 300 movies in Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Oriya, Haryanvi, Telugu and Tamil. In 1993, he won the Filmfare award for Best Actor in a villainous role, the first time this award was instituted.


title: Sadashiv Amrapurkar

text: In 1981–82, Amarapurkar acted in a Marathi stage play, "Hands-Up!", alongside stage actors Avinash Masurekar and Bhakti Barve-Inamdar. This play was successful and Amrapurkar was noticed by director Govind Nihalani, who was searching for an actor to play the central negative character in his movie "Ardh Satya". The movie went on to be a hit and Amrapurkar's acting was appreciated. His style of dialog delivery was considered unique as compared to the popular Hindi movie villains in those days. Amrapurkar won a Filmfare Award for his performance in the film.


title: Sadashiv Amrapurkar

text: After "Ardh Satya", Amarapurkar starred in "Purana Mandir", "Nasoor", "Muddat", "Jawaani" and "Khamosh". In 1986, he starred as the villain in the Amitabh Bachchan-starrer "Aakhree Raasta". In 1987, he starred as the main villain in the Dharmendra-starrer "Hukumat", which went on to be a blockbuster that grossed even more than "Mr. India". From 1988 he increasingly appeared in villainous roles in films such as "Mohre, "Khatron Ke Khiladi" (1988 film), Kaal Chakra, Eeshwar, Elaan-E-Jung, Farishtay, Veeru Dada, Naaka Bandi" and "Begunaah".


title: Sadashiv Amrapurkar

text: In the mid-1990s he migrated towards supporting roles and comic roles such as in "Aankhen", "Ishq", "Coolie No. 1", "", "Aunty No. 1", "Jai Hind", "Master" and "". He played the role of Dr. Khanna in the 1996 film "Chhote Sarkar". He did a number of stunning roles in Marathi films such as "Kadachit", "Vaastupurush, Doghi", "Savarkhed ek Gaav" and "Ara Ara Aaba Ata tari Thamba". His last Hindi screen role was a cameo in the short film by Dibakar Banerjee, "Bombay Talkies" (2012).


title: Sadashiv Amrapurkar

text: He did a cameo in the Waheeda Rehman-starrer "Swayam" in 1991. He played the role of a tough, upright cop who reprimands his children for leaving an elderly widow to fend for herself on the streets. The film touched on the problems old people face with the breakdown of the joint family system. It was a subject close to Amrapurkar's heart and he did the role for free.


title: Sadashiv Amrapurkar

text: Amrapurkar was a philanthropist, social activist, and was engaged in a number of social organizations such as Samajik Krutadnyata Nidhi, Andhashraddha Nirmulan Samiti, Snehalaya, Lokshahi Prabodhan Vyaspeeth, Ahmednagar Aitihasik Vastu Sangrahalaya, and many others. He always had a soft spot for the rural youth and strove for their development.


title: Sadashiv Amrapurkar

text: Amrapurkar also lent his support to the Anna Hazare movement in 2011 and was active in engaging citizens during the 2009 Lok Sabha elections by holding several discussions to make voters aware of their rights.


title: Sadashiv Amrapurkar

text: He was a philanthropist, social activist, and civically engaged in a number of social organizations including:


title: Sadashiv Amrapurkar

text: After his death in his memory Ahmednagar's Think Global Foundation started giving Late Sadashiv Amarapurkar Award which has become very popular in a short span. Kiran Kale, president of Think Global Foundation conceptualized this initiative. In 2016, the Marathi writer and IT expert Achyut Godbole and social worker and writer Deepa Deshmukh were honored with this award. In 2017, the playback singer Suresh Wadkar was honored with this award by the auspicious hands of the veteran actor Vikram Gokhale.


title: Sadashiv Amrapurkar

text: Amrapurkar developed a lung inflammation in October 2014 resulting in hospitalisation at Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital, where his condition became critical. He died on 3 November 2014, at 64 years old.


title: Sadashiv Amrapurkar

text: He directed some well-known artists like Shanta Jog, Smita Patil, Shreeram Lagoo, Bhakti Barve, Dilip Prabhavalkar, Neena Kulkarni, and Suhas Joshi.


title: Morissette (singer)

text: Johanne Morissette Daug Amon-Lamar ( ; born June 2, 1996), known professionally as Morissette and frequently also referred to as Morissette Amon, is a Filipino singer, songwriter, producer and former actress. She first rose to prominence when she was the runner-up on TV5's "Star Factor" at the age of 14. In 2012, she made her professional stage debut in the Repertory Philippines stage adaptation of Disney's "Camp Rock" in the role of Mitchie Torres. She competed in the first season of ABS-CBN's "The Voice of the Philippines" in 2013, where she became part of Sarah Geronimo's team.


title: Morissette (singer)

text: Morissette was born and raised in Minglanilla, Cebu. She became part of ABS-CBN' s Sunday afternoon show, "ASAP" in January 2014, and was introduced as one of the "Homegrown Divas", which ultimately became "ASAP's" "Birit Queens". She became a recording artist of Star Music in early 2014 and released her first album, titled "Morissette", in March 2015. In 2017 "Filipino Star Magazine" called her "The Next Big Diva".


title: Morissette (singer)

text: Morissette has often been referred to as "Asia's Phoenix" since her performance at the 14th Asia Song Festival in Busan, South Korea, on September 24, 2017, where she represented the Philippines. She returned to the same festival to represent the Philippines at the 15th Asia Song Festival in Busan on October 3, 2018. She was the first Filipino artist to have her own V Live channel, a popular South Korean live video streaming service for celebrities.


title: Morissette (singer)

text: Morissette debuted on the Pandora Predictions Chart, and on December 22, 2020, she debuted at number 7 on the Next Big Sound chart, the first female OPM artist to do so. She began to write and produce her own songs with her fiancé, Dave Lamar, in 2020. The two wed in 2021.


title: Morissette (singer)

text: Johanne Morissette Daug Amon, also known as Morissette, was born on June 2, 1996, in Cebu City, Philippines, to her mother Analie Daug and father Amay Amon. She is the oldest child and has one sibling, Jeremy Mattheu Amon. She studied at Immaculate Heart of Mary Academy in Minglanilla, Cebu. Her father is a rock musician. Her name "Johanne", which is pronounced as "Yohan", was coined by her father from German composer Johann Sebastian Bach, while "Morissette" was taken from her father's favorite singer, Alanis Morissette. She was 3 years old when her family discovered her talent in singing. When she was left alone with a karaoke machine, she sang the Regine Velasquez song, "You Are My Song". As she grew up, she sang Jessa Zaragoza songs like "Paano Kaya".