title: Social media use in politics

text: Social media often filters what information individuals see. Since 2008, the number of individuals who get their news via social media has increased to 62 percent. On these social media sites, there are many algorithms run that filter what information individual users see. The algorithms understand a users favorites and dislikes, they then begin to cater their feed to their likes. Consequently, this creates an echo chamber. For instance, black social media users were more likely to see race related news and in 2016 the Trump campaign used Facebook and other platforms to target Hillary Clinton's supporters to drive them out of the election and taking advantage of such algorithms. Whether or not these algorithms have an effect on people's vote and their views is mixed. Iowa State University finds that for older individuals, even though their access to social media is far lower than the youth, their political views were far more likely to change from the 1996–2012 time periods, which indicates that there are a myriad of other factors that impact political views. They further that based upon other literature, Google has a liberal bias in their search results. Consequently, these biased search results can affect an individual's voting preferences by nearly 20 percent. In addition, 23 percent of an individual's Facebook friends are of an opposing political view and nearly 29 percent of the news they receive on the platform is also in opposition of their political ideology, which indicates that the algorithms on these new platforms do not completely create echo chambers.


title: Social media use in politics

text: Washington State University political science professor Travis Ridout explains that in the United Kingdom the popular social media platforms of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube are beginning to play a significant role in campaigns and elections. Contrary to the United States which allows television ads, in the United Kingdom television ads are banned and thus campaigns are now launching huge efforts on social media platforms. Ridout furthers that the social media ads have gotten in many cases offensive and in attack formation at many politicians. Social media is able to provide many individuals with a sense of anonymity that enables them to get away with such aggressive acts. For example, ethnic minority women politicians are often the targets of such attacks. Furthermore, in the United States, many of the youth conservative voices are often reduced. For instance, PragerU, a conservative organization, often has their videos taken down. On a different level, social media can also hamper many political candidates. Media and social media often publish stories about news that are controversial and popular and will ultimately drive more traffic. A key example is President Donald Trump whose controversial statements in 2016 often brought the attention of many individuals and thereby increased his popularity while shunning out other candidates.


title: Social media use in politics

text: In the 2020 Presidential Election, social media was very prevalent and used widely by both campaigns. For Twitter, nearly 87 million users follow President Donald Trump while 11 million users follow Joe Biden. Despite the significant gap between the two, Biden's top tweets have outperformed Donald Trump's top tweets by nearly double. In terms of mentions of each candidate on Twitter, from October 21 to October 23, there were 6.6 million mentions of Trump and Biden and Biden held 72% of the mentions. During the 2020 Presidential Debates, Biden had nearly two times the mentions as Donald Trump with nearly half of the mentions being negative. For Trump, he also had half of his mentions being negative as well.


title: Social media use in politics

text: In Europe, the influence of social media is less than that of the United States. In 2011, only 34% of MEPs use twitter, while 68% use Facebook. In 2012, the EPP had the highest social media following of 7,418 compared to the other parties. This is in relationship to the 375 million voters in all of Europe. When comparing the impact to US social media following, former President Obama has over 27 million fans while the highest in Europe was former French President Nicolas Sarkozy of over 700,000 fines, a stark difference. The 2008 US presidential election skyrocketed the need for technologies to be used in politics and campaigns, especially social media. Europe is now following their lead and has been increasing their use of social media since.


title: Social media use in politics

text: However, just because European Politicians don't use social media as much as American Politicians doesn't mean that social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter don't play a large role in European Politics- in particular- Elections. In the run-up to the 2017 German Bundestag Elections, a group of extremists used social media platforms such as Twitter and YouTube in hopes of gaining support for the far-right group Alternative für Deutschland. Despite being limited in numbers, the group were able to publish "patriotic videos" that managed to get on to the Trending tab on YouTube as well as being able to trend the hashtag "#AfD" on Twitter. Though polled to come 5th in the election, Alternative für Deutschland won 13.3% of the vote, making them the third largest party within the Bundestag, making them the first far-right party to enter the building since 1961


title: Social media use in politics

text: In the UK, Cambridge Analytica was allegedly hired as a consultant company for Leave.EU and the UK Independence Party during 2016, as an effort to convince people to support Brexit. These rumours were the result of the leaked internal emails that were sent between Cambridge Analytica firm and the British parliament. These datasets composed of the data obtained from Facebook were said to be work done as an initial job deliverable for them. Although Arron Banks, co-founder of Leave.EU, denied any involvement with the company, he later declared "When we said we'd hired Cambridge Analytica, maybe a better choice of words could have been deployed." The official investigation by the UK Information Commissioner found that Cambridge Analytica was not involved "beyond some initial enquiries" and the regulator did not identify any "significant breaches" of data protection legislation or privacy or marketing regulations "which met the threshold for formal regulatory action"


title: Social media use in politics

text: In early July 2018, the United Kingdom's Information Commissioner's Office announced it intended to fine Facebook £500,000 ($663,000) over the data breach, this being the maximum fine allowed at the time of the breach, saying Facebook "contravened the law by failing to safeguard people's information". In 2014 and 2015, the Facebook platform allowed an app that ended up harvesting 87 million profiles of users around the world that was then used by Cambridge Analytica in the 2016 presidential campaign and in the Brexit referendum. Although Cambridge Analytica were cleared, questions were still raised with how they came to access these Facebook profiles and target voters that would not have necessarily voted in this matter in the first place. Dominic Cummings the prime minister's ex aide had a majority in involving Cambridge Analytica in the Leave.EU campaign, this can be seen in the real accounts of .


title: Social media use in politics

text: In terms of analyzing the role of fake news in social media, there tends to be about three times more fake new articles that were more likely to be pro-Trump over pro-Clinton articles. There were 115 pro-Trump fake news articles while only 41 pro-Clinton fake news articles; pro-Trump articles were shared 30.3 million times while pro-Clinton articles were shared 7.6 million times on Facebook. For each share there is about 20 page visits which means that with around 38 million shares of fake news articles there are 760 million page views to these articles. This means that roughly each US adult visited a fake news site three times. Whether the spread of fake news has an impact on elections is conflicted as more research is required and is difficult to place a quantification on the effects. However, fake news is more likely to influence individuals who are over 65 and are more conservative. These groups tend to believe fake news more than other groups. College students have difficulty in determining if an article shared on social media is fake news. The same study also concluded that conspiratorial beliefs could be predicted by a person's political party affiliation or their ideological beliefs. For example, those that Republican or held a more conservative belief were far more likely to believe in baseless theories such as that of former President Obama being born outside of the United States; and those that voted Democrat or held a more liberal belief would be more likely to believe in conspiracies such as former President Bush having played a role in the 9/11 attacks.


title: Social media use in politics

text: The role of technological communication and social media in the world can lead to political, economic, and social conflict due to its unmonitored system, cheap interface, and accessibility.


title: Social media use in politics

text: Social media platforms have been weaponized by state-sponsored cyber groups to attack governments in the United States, the European Union, and the Middle East. Although phishing attacks via email are the most commonly used tactic to breach government networks, phishing attacks on social media rose 500% in 2016. As with email-based phishing attacks, the majority of phishing attacks on social media are financially motivated cyber crimes that install malware. However, cyber groups associated with Russia, Iran, and China have used social media to conduct cyberattacks and undermine democratic processes in the West. During the 2017 French presidential election, for example, Facebook detected and removed fake accounts linked to the Russian cyber group Fancy Bear, who were posing as "friends of friends" of Emmanuel Macron associates to steal information from them. Cyber groups associated with Iran, China, and Russia have used LinkedIn to steal trade secrets, gain access to critical infrastructure, or recruit spies. These social engineering attacks can be multi-platform, with threat actors initiating contact on one platform but continuing communication on more private channel. The Iranian-backed cyber group COBALT GYPSY created a fake persona across multiple social media platforms and initiated contact on LinkedIn before moving to Facebook and email.


title: Social media use in politics

text: In December 2019, a chat and video calling application developed by the United Arab Emirates, called ToTok was identified as a spying tool by the US intelligence. Suspicion over the Emirati app emerged because it banned the use of VoIP on applications like WhatsApp, FaceTime and Skype.


title: The Virtuoso (film)

text: The Virtuoso is a 2021 American neo-noir crime thriller film directed and produced by Nick Stagliano. The film stars Anson Mount, Abbie Cornish, Eddie Marsan, Richard Brake, David Morse, and Anthony Hopkins. It follows a professional assassin who must track down and kill his latest target to satisfy an outstanding debt to his mentor.


title: The Virtuoso (film)

text: Danger, deception and murder descend upon a sleepy town when a professional assassin accepts a new assignment from his enigmatic boss.


title: The Virtuoso (film)

text: Filming occurred in January 2019 in Santa Ynez, California. Filming also occurred in Scranton, Pennsylvania in late March and early April 2019.


title: The Virtuoso (film)

text: In March 2021, Lionsgate Films acquired the North American and U.K. distribution rights to the film, which was simultaneously released in theaters and on VOD and digital on April 30, 2021.


title: The Virtuoso (film)

text: On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 18%, based on 55 reviews, with an average rating of 4.1/10. The website's consensus reads, "Don't let the title -- or the talented cast -- fool you: "The Virtuoso" falls far shy of even base level competency in its attempts to wring fresh excitement from a threadbare assassin thriller setup." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 24 out of 100, based on 7 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".


title: Soliton

text: In mathematics and physics, a soliton or solitary wave is a self-reinforcing wave packet that maintains its shape while it propagates at a constant velocity. Solitons are caused by a cancellation of nonlinear and dispersive effects in the medium. (Dispersive effects are a property of certain systems where the speed of a wave depends on its frequency.) Solitons are the solutions of a widespread class of weakly nonlinear dispersive partial differential equations describing physical systems.


title: Soliton

text: The soliton phenomenon was first described in 1834 by John Scott Russell (1808–1882) who observed a solitary wave in the Union Canal in Scotland. He reproduced the phenomenon in a wave tank and named it the "Wave of Translation".


title: Soliton

text: A single, consensus definition of a soliton is difficult to find. ascribe three properties to solitons:


title: Soliton

text: More formal definitions exist, but they require substantial mathematics. Moreover, some scientists use the term "soliton" for phenomena that do not quite have these three properties (for instance, the 'light bullets' of nonlinear optics are often called solitons despite losing energy during interaction).


title: Soliton

text: Dispersion and nonlinearity can interact to produce permanent and localized wave forms. Consider a pulse of light traveling in glass. This pulse can be thought of as consisting of light of several different frequencies. Since glass shows dispersion, these different frequencies travel at different speeds and the shape of the pulse therefore changes over time. However, also the nonlinear Kerr effect occurs; the refractive index of a material at a given frequency depends on the light's amplitude or strength. If the pulse has just the right shape, the Kerr effect exactly cancels the dispersion effect and the pulse's shape does not change over time. Thus, the pulse is a soliton. See soliton (optics) for a more detailed description.


title: Soliton

text: Many exactly solvable models have soliton solutions, including the Korteweg–de Vries equation, the nonlinear Schrödinger equation, the coupled nonlinear Schrödinger equation, and the sine-Gordon equation. The soliton solutions are typically obtained by means of the inverse scattering transform, and owe their stability to the integrability of the field equations. The mathematical theory of these equations is a broad and very active field of mathematical research.


title: Soliton

text: Some types of tidal bore, a wave phenomenon of a few rivers including the River Severn, are 'undular': a wavefront followed by a train of solitons. Other solitons occur as the undersea internal waves, initiated by seabed topography, that propagate on the oceanic pycnocline. Atmospheric solitons also exist, such as the morning glory cloud of the Gulf of Carpentaria, where pressure solitons traveling in a temperature inversion layer produce vast linear roll clouds. The recent and not widely accepted soliton model in neuroscience proposes to explain the signal conduction within neurons as pressure solitons.


title: Soliton

text: A topological soliton, also called a topological defect, is any solution of a set of partial differential equations that is stable against decay to the "trivial solution". Soliton stability is due to topological constraints, rather than integrability of the field equations. The constraints arise almost always because the differential equations must obey a set of boundary conditions, and the boundary has a nontrivial homotopy group, preserved by the differential equations. Thus, the differential equation solutions can be classified into homotopy classes.


title: Soliton

text: No continuous transformation maps a solution in one homotopy class to another. The solutions are truly distinct, and maintain their integrity, even in the face of extremely powerful forces. Examples of topological solitons include the screw dislocation in a crystalline lattice, the Dirac string and the magnetic monopole in electromagnetism, the Skyrmion and the Wess–Zumino–Witten model in quantum field theory, the magnetic skyrmion in condensed matter physics, and cosmic strings and domain walls in cosmology.


title: Soliton

text: In 1834, John Scott Russell describes his "wave of translation". The discovery is described here in Scott Russell's own words:


title: Soliton

text: Scott Russell spent some time making practical and theoretical investigations of these waves. He built wave tanks at his home and noticed some key properties:


title: Soliton

text: Scott Russell's experimental work seemed at odds with Isaac Newton's and Daniel Bernoulli's theories of hydrodynamics. George Biddell Airy and George Gabriel Stokes had difficulty accepting Scott Russell's experimental observations because they could not be explained by the existing water wave theories. Their contemporaries spent some time attempting to extend the theory but it would take until the 1870s before Joseph Boussinesq and Lord Rayleigh published a theoretical treatment and solutions. In 1895 Diederik Korteweg and Gustav de Vries provided what is now known as the Korteweg–de Vries equation, including solitary wave and periodic cnoidal wave solutions.


title: Soliton

text: In 1965 Norman Zabusky of Bell Labs and Martin Kruskal of Princeton University first demonstrated soliton behavior in media subject to the Korteweg–de Vries equation (KdV equation) in a computational investigation using a finite difference approach. They also showed how this behavior explained the puzzling earlier work of Fermi, Pasta, Ulam, and Tsingou.


title: Soliton

text: In 1967, Gardner, Greene, Kruskal and Miura discovered an inverse scattering transform enabling analytical solution of the KdV equation. The work of Peter Lax on Lax pairs and the Lax equation has since extended this to solution of many related soliton-generating systems.


title: Soliton

text: Note that solitons are, by definition, unaltered in shape and speed by a collision with other solitons. So solitary waves on a water surface are "near"-solitons, but not exactly – after the interaction of two (colliding or overtaking) solitary waves, they have changed a bit in amplitude and an oscillatory residual is left behind.


title: Soliton

text: Solitons are also studied in quantum mechanics, thanks to the fact that they could provide a new foundation of it through de Broglie's unfinished program, known as "Double solution theory" or "Nonlinear wave mechanics". This theory, developed by de Broglie in 1927 and revived in the 1950s, is the natural continuation of his ideas developed between 1923 and 1926, which extended the wave-particle duality introduced by Albert Einstein for the light quanta, to all the particles of matter. In 2019, researchers from Tel-Aviv university measured an accelerating surface gravity water wave soliton by using an external hydrodynamic linear potential. They also managed to excite ballistic solitons and measure their corresponding phases.


title: Soliton

text: Much experimentation has been done using solitons in fiber optics applications. Solitons in a fiber optic system are described by the Manakov equations.


title: Soliton

text: Solitons' inherent stability make long-distance transmission possible without the use of repeaters, and could potentially double transmission capacity as well.


title: Soliton

text: Visionary american artist Paul Laffoley painted "The Solitron" (1997), in which he depicted the soliton wave as a neoalchemichal way of achieving perpetual stillness.


title: Soliton

text: Solitons may occur in proteins and DNA. Solitons are related to the low-frequency collective motion in proteins and DNA.


title: Soliton

text: A recently developed model in neuroscience proposes that signals, in the form of density waves, are conducted within neurons in the form of solitons. Solitons can be described as almost lossless energy transfer in biomolecular chains or lattices as wave-like propagations of coupled conformational and electronic disturbances.


title: Soliton

text: Solitons can occur in materials, such as ferroelectrics, in the form of domain walls. Ferroelectric materials exhibit spontaneous polarization, or electric dipoles, which are coupled to configurations of the material structure. Domains of oppositely poled polarizations can be present within a single material as the structural configurations corresponding to opposing polarizations are equally favorable with no presence of external forces. The domain boundaries, or “walls”, that separate these local structural configurations are regions of lattice dislocations. The domain walls can propagate as the polarizations, and thus, the local structural configurations can switch within a domain with applied forces such as electric bias or mechanical stress. Consequently, the domain walls can be described as solitons, discrete regions of dislocations that are able to slip or propagate and maintain their shape in width and length.


title: Soliton

text: In recent literature, ferroelectricity has been observed in twisted bilayers of van der Waal materials such as MoS and graphene. The moiré superlattice that arises from the relative twist angle between the van der Waal monolayers generates regions of different stacking orders of the atoms within the layers. These regions exhibit inversion symmetry breaking structural configurations that enable ferroelectricity at the interface of these monolayers. The domain walls that separate these regions are composed of partial dislocations where different types of stresses, and thus, strains are experienced by the lattice. It has been observed that soliton or domain wall propagation across a moderate length of the sample (order of nanometers to micrometers) can be initiated with applied stress from an AFM tip on a fixed region. The soliton propagation carries the mechanical perturbation with little loss in energy across the material, which enables domain switching in a domino-like fashion.


title: Soliton

text: It has also been observed that the type of dislocations found at the walls can affect propagation parameters such as direction. For instance, STM measurements showed four types of strains of varying degrees of shear, compression, and tension at domain walls depending on the type of localized stacking order in twisted bilayer graphene. Different slip directions of the walls are achieved with different types of strains found at the domains, influencing the direction of the soliton network propagation.


title: Soliton

text: Nonidealities such as disruptions to the soliton network and surface impurities can influence soliton propagation as well. Domain walls can meet at nodes and get effectively pinned, forming triangular domains, which have been readily observed in various ferroelectric twisted bilayer systems. In addition, closed loops of domain walls enclosing multiple polarization domains can inhibit soliton propagation and thus, switching of polarizations across it. Also, domain walls can propagate and meet at wrinkles and surface inhomogeneities within the van der Waal layers, which can act as obstacles obstructing the propagation.


title: Soliton

text: In magnets, there also exist different types of solitons and other nonlinear waves. These magnetic solitons are an exact solution of classical nonlinear differential equations — magnetic equations, e.g. the Landau–Lifshitz equation, continuum Heisenberg model, Ishimori equation, nonlinear Schrödinger equation and others.


title: Soliton

text: Atomic nuclei may exhibit solitonic behavior. Here the whole nuclear wave function is predicted to exist as a soliton under certain conditions of temperature and energy. Such conditions are suggested to exist in the cores of some stars in which the nuclei would not react but pass through each other unchanged, retaining their soliton waves through a collision between nuclei.


title: Soliton

text: The Skyrme Model is a model of nuclei in which each nucleus is considered to be a topologically stable soliton solution of a field theory with conserved baryon number.


title: Soliton

text: The bound state of two solitons is known as a "bion", or in systems where the bound state periodically oscillates, a "breather". The interference-type forces between solitons could be used in making bions .However, these forces are very sensitive to their relative phases. Alternatively, the bound state of solitons could be formed by dressing atoms with highly excited Rydberg levels. The resulting self-generated potential profile features an inner attractive soft-core supporting the 3D self-trapped soliton, an intermediate repulsive shell (barrier) preventing solitons’ fusion, and an outer attractive layer (well) used for completing the bound state resulting in giant stable soliton molecules. In this scheme, the distance and size of the individual solitons in the molecule can be controlled dynamically with the laser adjustment.


title: Soliton

text: In field theory "bion" usually refers to the solution of the Born–Infeld model. The name appears to have been coined by G. W. Gibbons in order to distinguish this solution from the conventional soliton, understood as a "regular", finite-energy (and usually stable) solution of a differential equation describing some physical system. The word "regular" means a smooth solution carrying no sources at all. However, the solution of the Born–Infeld model still carries a source in the form of a Dirac-delta function at the origin. As a consequence it displays a singularity in this point (although the electric field is everywhere regular). In some physical contexts (for instance string theory) this feature can be important, which motivated the introduction of a special name for this class of solitons.


title: Soliton

text: On the other hand, when gravity is added (i.e. when considering the coupling of the Born–Infeld model to general relativity) the corresponding solution is called "EBIon", where "E" stands for Einstein.


title: Soliton

text: Erik Lentz, a physicist at the University of Göttingen, has theorized that solitons could allow for the generation of Alcubierre warp bubbles in spacetime without the need for exotic matter, i.e., matter with negative mass.


title: Chasing Cars

text: "Chasing Cars" is a song by Northern Irish-Scottish alternative rock band Snow Patrol. It was released as the second single from their fourth studio album, "Eyes Open" (2006). It was released on 6 June 2006, in the United States and 24 July 2006, in the United Kingdom. The song gained significant popularity in the US after being featured in the second season finale of the medical drama "Grey's Anatomy", which aired on 15 May 2006.


title: Chasing Cars

text: "Chasing Cars" was one of the songs that revealed the impact of legal downloads on single sales in the UK, selling consistently for years after its release. The song is Snow Patrol's biggest-selling single to date, ending 2006 as that year's 14th best-selling single in the UK. It was the last song performed live on the BBC's "Top of the Pops" that year. Released in the post-Britpop period, the song peaked at number 6 on the UK Singles Chart, and number 5 on the US "Billboard" Hot 100.


title: Chasing Cars

text: At the 49th Annual Grammy Awards in 2007, "Chasing Cars" was nominated for Best Rock Song, and at the 2007 Brit Awards it was nominated for Best British Single. As of 2019, the song has spent 111 weeks in the official UK top 75, 166 in the top 100 and had sold over one million copies in the UK by October 2013. It has also sold 3,900,000 copies in the US by January 2015, making it one of the top best-selling rock songs in the digital era. In 2009, UK music licensing body PPL announced that "Chasing Cars" was the most widely played song of the decade in the UK. Ten years later, it was revealed as the most-played song of the 21st century on UK radio.


title: Chasing Cars

text: Lead singer Gary Lightbody reportedly wrote the song when he became sober after a binge of white wine, in the garden of song producer Jacknife Lee's Kent cottage. The song has Lightbody singing a plain melody over sparse guitars, which has an ever-building crescendo. In an interview with "Rolling Stone", he said "It's the purest love song that I've ever written. There's no knife-in-the-back twist. When I read these lyrics back, I was like, 'Oh, that's weird.' All the other love songs I've written have a dark edge." The phrase "Chasing Cars" came from Lightbody's father, in reference to a girl Lightbody was infatuated with, "You're like a dog chasing a car. You'll never catch it and you just wouldn't know what to do with it if you did."


title: Chasing Cars

text: Snow Patrol played "Chasing Cars" on an appearance on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien". The song was also performed as the last live performance on long-running music programme "Top of the Pops". The band also performed the song when they were the musical guest on 17 March 2007 episode of "Saturday Night Live", hosted by Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Additionally, the band played the song live in their appearance at Live Earth; on 7 July 2007, this song was performed during the London leg of the Live Earth concert at Wembley Stadium and at Oxegen later on that night in Ireland.


title: Chasing Cars

text: "Chasing Cars" was heard on the TV show "One Tree Hill"'s third-season finale episode, "The Show Must Go On", which aired in the US on 3 May 2006. Several weeks later, the song appeared on the second-season finale of "Grey's Anatomy" on 15 May 2006, and the song found a larger listening audience and pushed its way onto the download and pop charts in the United States. The song was made into a music video for the show, serving as a promotion for its third season. The music video shows scenes from the first and second seasons as well as previously unseen scenes from the third season, with clips in-between from the UK music video of the song. It was heard again in the eighteenth episode of the show's seventh season on 31 March 2011, along with the cast's cover of Brandi Carlile's "The Story" and The Fray's "How to Save a Life". In the UK, it was also used in the 'Best Bits' montage on the live final of the seventh series of "Big Brother" on 18 August 2006.


title: Chasing Cars

text: In the UK music video, directed by Arni & Kinski, Gary Lightbody lies on the open ground as cameras film him from different angles. It starts raining, splashing his face and hands. Lightbody enters a pool of water next to him and, at the end of the video, he gets out of the water, rises to his feet and looks up at the camera as it zooms out overhead.


title: Chasing Cars

text: In the US version, directed by Nick Brandt, Lightbody is shown lying down in busy places while singing. People ignore and step over him. Among the places he lies are a diner (he sits at a table at the beginning), an intersection in Downtown L.A., the top of an escalator, a subway car, the top of a hill overlooking the Golden State Freeway and, at the end, a bed in a hotel room.


title: Chasing Cars

text: The song received critical acclaim. "Billboard" magazine's Sven Phillip found "Chasing Cars" to be the only song on "Eyes Open" which was "not to be missed". He called it a "catchy, colossal ballad that succeeds without any fireworks". About.com called it a "true gem of a love song". Yahoo! Music's Adam Webb, however, had mixed feelings for the single, when he awarded it 5 stars out of 10, saying it was a "misguided attempt to recreate its breast-beating slo-motion scarf-waving formula." Further, he made comparisons of the song to Hollywood soundtracks, which in his words are "about as subtle as a rhino and too overt to be truly affecting."


title: Chasing Cars

text: The song was nominated for a 2007 Grammy Award for Best Rock Song as well as for a 2007 BRIT Award for Best British Single. In 2007, "Chasing Cars" was voted number 1 in the Top 500 Songs: The Words Behind the Music, on Bristol's GWR FM (and other stations in The One Network).


title: Chasing Cars

text: "Chasing Cars" was released as an overlapping single in early June, and the video was re-edited to include clips from "Grey's Anatomy". The video failed to catch on, regardless, so a third version was filmed for the edited single version of the song. On 13 September 2006, the song soared in the digital music charts to become the most-downloaded song in the U.S. iTunes Store, just one day after the DVD release of the second season of "Grey's Anatomy". The song was used in "Verbotene Liebe", a German soap opera.


title: Chasing Cars

text: The song was released as a download-only single on 17 July 2006, and entered the UK Singles Chart in the week ending 29 July at number 25 on the strength of download sales alone. Its physical release on 24 July pushed the song up to number 15, peaking six weeks later at number 6. However, seven weeks after that, in November the CD single was deleted and, under the chart rules prevailing at that time, the song was removed from the chart two weeks after that, having clocked up 17 weeks in total. It was then absent from the chart for seven weeks, but in January 2007, a change to the chart rules meant that all downloads, with or without a physical equivalent, were now eligible to chart. "Chasing Cars" duly surged back in at a top 10 position (number 9, just three places below its peak), and remained on the chart for 48 consecutive weeks, entirely on downloads, only falling out again in December. After a three-week absence, in January 2008 it was back again, for 13 weeks this time, peaking at No. 50. It then bowed out for a third time, re-entered the top 75 in June, August, October and November 2008, November 2009, January and December 2010, and March, July and December 2011, and re-entered again on 24 August 2013, charting at No. 66 before climbing up to No. 60 the following week, and up to No. 47 the week after, now taking the song's tally up to 111 weeks on the UK Top 75, which at the time, made it the 2nd longest runner of all time (now currently the 3rd longest runner behind "Perfect" by Ed Sheeran), bettered only by Frank Sinatra's "My Way" (124 weeks). Only for 14 weeks out of those 111 was a physical copy of "Chasing Cars" officially available. It has also spent 166 weeks on the Top 100. It sold its millionth copy in the UK in October 2013.


title: Chasing Cars

text: A physical release of the song did not occur at all in Australia, where the song spent 10 weeks over summer 2006/2007 at number one on the Digital Track Chart. Under ARIA chart rules at the time, songs that had a digital-only release were ineligible to chart. When the rules finally changed in October 2007 to include digital-only singles (partly due to declining physical sales), "Chasing Cars" had dwindled in popularity and only managed to peak at number 53. Its sales prior to the week it began charting on the official singles chart were not counted; regardless, it spent a further 63 weeks in the lower half of the chart and was later certified triple platinum (for over 210,000 downloads).


title: Chasing Cars

text: "Chasing Cars" was voted number one in a 2006 Virgin Radio Top 500 Songs of All Time poll. After the popularity of its association with the "Grey's Anatomy" television show and T"he Vampire Diaries ", the song peaked at No. 5 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 in the US, the band's first Top 10 hit in the US. The song peaked at No. 8 on the Modern Rock Tracks chart. It was the fourth best selling digital single of 2006 in the UK, totalling 190,000 legal downloads, and is the UK's 26th most downloaded song of all time. "Chasing Cars" also went to number one on the Adult Contemporary chart for two non-consecutive weeks. As of February 2015, the song has sold 3,900,000 copies in the US.


title: Ben Dover

text: Simon James Honey (born 23 May 1956), better known as Ben Dover, is an English pornographic actor, director and producer. He has also worked under several other pseudonyms including Steve Perry as producer and Lindsay Honey as an actor and musician.


title: Ben Dover

text: Honey was included in Larry Flynt's "Hustler"'s "Top 50 Most Hated People in Porn" list, printed in the January 1999 issue and in 2011, he was inducted into the AVN Hall of Fame.


title: Ben Dover

text: Honey has also won a host of awards for the Ben Dover series including the Breakthrough Award at the AVN Awards in 1997, AVN's "Best Gonzo" Award twice (in 2000 for "Ben Dover's End Games" and in 2002 for "Ben Dover's The Booty Bandit"). In 2006, he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the UK Adult Film Awards, which he co-presented with Kristyn Halborg, Kelly Stafford and co-star Pascal White.


title: Ben Dover

text: In 2012, Honey was nominated by the Internet Service Providers Association as an Internet Villain for his involvement with his company Golden Eye (International) in speculative invoicing.


title: Ben Dover

text: Born in Sittingbourne, Kent to Sylvia (née Foster) (1926–2017) and Frank Cyril Honey (1921–1993), Honey attended Borden Grammar School. Following expulsion from school in 1973, he moved to Newquay, Cornwall where he worked as a children's entertainer called "Uncle Simon" and drummed in a cabaret band for the summer season.


title: Ben Dover

text: Using the pseudonym Lindsay Honey as he "didn't think Simon fitted the bill somehow", he began working as a session drummer for artists such as Edison Lighthouse and White Plains. Honey joined Artful Dodgers who released one single "Here We Go" in 1978 before changing their name to 20th Century Heroes.


title: Ben Dover

text: Following a chance meeting between the band's guitarist Paul Jackson and one time Bay City Rollers bassist Ian Mitchell (who replaced original member Alan Longmuir in 1976, before quitting after seven months) in a taxi, the band (Jackson, Honey and bassist John Jay) agreed to be his backing band and The Ian Mitchell Band was launched in May 1979. Although the band did not take off in the UK, they released three studio albums within a single year and toured across Europe and Japan. Following the departure of Jackson, the band changed their name to La Rox and reinvented themselves as a glam rock band, with Honey becoming the band's keyboard player. The change made little impact on the band's fortunes in the UK, and they split up in 1982. Honey, along with the band's second drummer John Towe and guitarist Lea Hart (who had replaced Paul Jackson) scored a minor UK hit with the one-off single "Small Ads" released in April 1981 under the name the "Small Ads".


title: Ben Dover

text: Honey also worked as a cabaret singer under the pseudonym "Steve Jackson" and briefly reunited with Mitchell to form "Bachelor Of Hearts" who released one album in 1983 to little fanfare (a version of the track "Girls in Jeans" was later used as the outro music on Ben Dover films).


title: Ben Dover

text: In 1978, broke from his dwindling career as a musician and working as a male stripper using the stage name "Hot Rod" (due to his reported likeness to Rod Stewart at the time), Honey responded to an advertisement for models in "The Stage" newspaper and met agent Kent William Boulton (1941–2002), a college lecturer from Bromley and former Labour Party candidate on the Isle of Wight who entered the porn business late in life and was renowned for organising "spanking parties".


title: Ben Dover

text: Being paid £150 a shoot, Honey started working for Berth Milton Sr, publisher of Private Magazine and other European hardcore porn magazines such as Rodox/Color Climax, a Danish company. His first shoot was with a then 17-year-old Eileen Daly, who had gone to see the same agent above a strip club in Soho with her mother. Honey was introduced by Boulton to the photographer Lexington Steel and director Mike Freeman.


title: Ben Dover

text: Honey began working as an actor for Mike Freeman's Videx Ltd. in 1980, a video production company based in Wimbledon. Freeman had produced softcore porn throughout the 1960s via his company Climax Films, and employed well known Soho gangster Gerald Patrick Joseph Hawley as a bodyguard. He was jailed in December 1969 for the murder of Hawley, reportedly after he tried to take over Freeman's business.


title: Ben Dover

text: Upon release from prison in 1979, Freeman set about exploiting the Obscene Publications Act, which didn't yet cover the new video format, and started producing hardcore pornography. While working at Videx, Honey starred in his first film as an actor in "Truth or Dare" with actress Paula Meadows. However, the law was soon changed to bring video under the Obscene Publications Act and Freeman's home was raided in 1981 by the OPS (Obscene Publications Squad), with all the Videx video equipment confiscated in the process. The Videx offices were raided again in 1983 and Freeman was arrested in relation to the film "The Videx Video Show" under Obscene Publications Act and Perverting the course of justice.


title: Ben Dover

text: Freeman was sentenced to 15 months in the case relating to the first raid in 1981 involving the video "Sex Slave". Honey took over Videx and produced and directed his first film, "Rock 'n' Roll Ransom", for the company which featured his bandmate Ian Mitchell. After serving ten months Freeman was released from prison and set about preparing for the case of the second raid in relation to the video "The Videx Video Show". Freeman was charged under The Obscene Publications Act and Protection of Children Act, as images of children taken at a naturist park were featured (although in a separate scene to any pornographic content). Having called film critic Derek Malcolm as a witness who classed the film as "harmless erotica" and successfully demonstrating that the film was not obscene, Freeman, Honey, Freeman's girlfriend and company secretary Sara Bhaskaran, and silent business partner John Edward Currey were found not guilty under the Obscene Publications Act. However, Freeman was found guilty of perverting the course of justice, despite having already been acquitted of the offence relating to the video, and sentenced to a further 15 months. He was then recalled by the Parole Board for his previous life sentence for murder.


title: Ben Dover

text: Honey worked as a photographer, under the pseudonym "Brian Wilson" (after The Beach Boys singer), for "Escort" magazine throughout the 1980s, shooting his partner Linzi Drew who regularly appeared in the magazine. The couple also took the Videx equipment (which Freeman had purchased to replace the original confiscated equipment) and mailing list to set up their own mail order business. Operating from their home, Corner Cottage in Stoke d'Abernon, Surrey, they sold hardcore pornographic films under various names such as Stephanie Perry and Glamour Pussy Video Club via adverts in magazines. The couple also used other addresses across Surrey, including that of a pet shop, where order forms would be collected.


title: Ben Dover

text: The couple were arrested in February 1990 following a police raid on their home and convicted in 1992 at Guildford Crown Court under the Obscene Publications Act for "publishing obscene material for gain" and "being in possession of obscene material" following a sting operation in which an undercover police officer joined the companies' mailing list and over a period of more than a year bought several videos, which also proved that the operation was "an on-going tax-free profitable business".


title: Ben Dover

text: Drew was sentenced to four months, which she served at Holloway Prison and Drake Hall, Staffordshire, before being released after serving two months, while Honey was sentenced to nine months, which he served at Brixton Prison before being transferred after five weeks to Send Open Prison, Surrey. Documents seized by the police indicated that they had 400 people on their mailing list who paid £60 per video.


title: Ben Dover

text: In December 1993 Honey filed for bankruptcy. Following release from prison Honey and Bill Wright (a.k.a. Frank Thring) were commissioned to work on the first feature-length videos for Berth Milton, Sr.'s Private Media Group, which had only produced magazines before. Honey directed its first seven films with Wright and took on the new pseudonym Steve Perry (after the Journey frontman).


title: Ben Dover

text: Honey started production of a new gonzo-style series in summer 1994 using the stage name Ben Dover (a name which was influenced by a title from John Stagliano's "Buttman" pornography video series "Bendover Babes"). He directed, produced and starred (as both cameraman/narrator and occasionally as performer) in the series between 1995 and 2002 along with actors including Marino Franchi and Pascal White. In 1995, Drew became pregnant with their son Tyger Drew-Honey and left the pornography industry.


title: Ben Dover

text: Upon release in the United States, the Ben Dover films were edited by VCA Pictures to censor the more graphic contents of the original productions. In 2002 Honey was dropped by VCA, which had been taken over by Hustler, and opted to concentrate on the market in the UK instead. It wasn't until 2004 that he again attempted to obtain US distribution for his films and signed a deal with Kick Ass Pictures and resurrected the Ben Dover brand. He began producing the "Ben Dover's Kick Ass Anal Adventures" series, of which there were five instalments.


title: Ben Dover

text: In 2008 Honey attended the UK Adult Film Awards once more, representing Television X and Red Hot TV along with Linsey Dawn Mckenzie and other British adult film stars. Television X has shown some of his most recent projects such as "St/ Teenycums", which won Best Script at the UK Adult Film Awards 2008.


title: Ben Dover

text: Following the demise of physical DVD sales, Honey diversified the Ben Dover brand by launching branded clothing, sex toys (including "The Ben Dover Signature line", which produces, among other products, "The Ben Dover Realistic Penis" and "The Ben Dover Anal Kit"), male enhancers, mugs and stickers as well as Ben Dover approved stag and hen parties. Honey also hosts "Ben Dover Porn Disco"s involving wet t-shirt competitions and "SwingalongaBen" swinging parties in Aston, Birmingham.


title: Ben Dover

text: Also in 2012, Honey started production on a new online Ben Dover series "Like Father Like Son," an incest-based series where he and his on-screen son have sex with the same girl together. He confirmed the series did not feature his own son.


title: Ben Dover

text: In addition to his pornographic work, in 2000 Honey featured in the feature film "Last Resort" (2000), in which he played a low-budget porn producer.


title: Ben Dover

text: In 2001, despite admitting to having failed to vote in the previous election, Honey revealed that he was considering standing as an independent candidate in the next general election as an "Independent Libertarian". He would advocate the dismantling of the Royal Family, branding them an "outdated, irrelevant and frankly dangerous institution", removing any power from the church and reforming the National Health Service and would "make patients at A&E departments who are there as a result of pub fights etc, be made to pay a serious levy for the expense of treating them". In 2009 Honey resurrected his plans to enter politics, with his own party "New Democrats".


title: Ben Dover

text: In September 2009, Honey was featured on the BBC Four programme "Rich Man Poor Man: Ben Dover Straightens Up", where he attempted to search for personal fulfilment in his life and be taken seriously by making a break in mainstream acting. He performed his one-man show "Innocent 'Til Proven Filthy" at the 2009 Edinburgh Fringe Festival.


title: Ben Dover

text: In 2012 Honey joined the Guns N' Roses tribute band "Guns 2 Roses" as a special guest drummer, and continues to tour with them on select dates. He also released the mockumentary "The Only Way is Dover" on YouTube, claiming "It's a bit like "Curb Your Enthusiasm". It's not about porn, it's about what we do when we're not doing porn."


title: Ben Dover

text: In 2016 Honey was cast by film producer Mark Noyce as Rubber John in the comedy film "The Blazing Cannons".


title: Ben Dover

text: In February 2017, Honey revealed that he was battling bladder cancer and is currently undergoing chemotherapy.


title: Ben Dover

text: In 2008, Honey set up the shell company Golden Eye (International) Ltd with Julian Fraser Becker (commercial director of Optime Strategies Ltd, who trade as Ben Dover Productions) which claims to be the "holder of numerous film copyrights", primarily those of Ben Dover Productions films. The company was named after the house Honey shared with his partner Linzi Drew and son, Tyger Drew-Honey in Hersham, Surrey into which they moved in 2005 and left in 2011, after the couple split up and the house put up for sale and sold in November 2011.


title: Ben Dover

text: In May 2009, Ben Dover Productions announced that it was retaining the services of the Anti Piracy Group to tackle the problem of DVD piracy. The company claimed their sales and profits had plummeted due to organised crime gangs flooding the streets with pirated DVDs of their titles.


title: Ben Dover

text: The company then engaged in a campaign of "speculative invoicing", where they sent out letters, initially through lawyers, to alleged copyright infringers demanding a payment of £700 or face the threat of potential court action: a scheme described by the House of Lords as "straightforward legal blackmail" and a scam. The company paid for a list of alleged BitTorrent file-sharers identities, and retained the services of Tilly Bailey & Irvine to pursue the alleged copyright infringers for compensation, using what they claimed to be "bespoke technology which captures the irrefutable evidence of the perpetrators". It was revealed that this technology, investigated and checked by physicist and "checked computer expert" Clement Vogler of computer consultants Ad Litem Limited, a company which was dissolved in 2011, was targeting innocent individuals, and that the speculative invoicing relied on the embarrassment of those targeted agreeing to the fine to avoid the threatened court action, regardless of whether they were guilty or not. The data gatherer, Alireza Torabi of NG3 Systems, also gathered IP data for ACS:Law. Following adverse public and press reaction, Tilly Bailey & Irvine abandoned the practice and accepted a £2,800 fine from the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Without the aid of solicitors, Golden Eye (International) Limited continued the practice of speculatively invoicing those they claim had "infringed their copyrights".


title: Ben Dover

text: In 2011, the company lost a court case against an internet user who they claimed had illegally downloaded the Ben Dover film "Fancy An Indian?", and were themselves accused of breaching the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 and Civil Procedure Rules when issuing the claim. Timothy Dutton QC of the Solicitors Regulation Authority noted that as computer IP addresses can be shared, faked and hijacked, the evidence being used was of the "flimsiest" variety. Golden Eye attempted to get the case tried in a county court, but when it was confirmed it would need to be tried at the London Patents County Court the company tried to pull out of the case. Judge Birss QC highlighted similarities between this and a previous case involving Media CAT Limited and lawyers who unsuccessfully tried to sue 27 individuals for alleged copyright infringement, as Media CAT Limited were not the rights holders of the copyrighted material in question and led to ACS:Law ceasing to trade.


title: Ben Dover

text: In order for the case to progress in the Patents County Court, the actual copyright holder, Optime Strategies Limited (who trade as Ben Dover Productions), would have to have joined Golden Eye (Julian Becker is a director of both companies) and "potentially put themselves at risk of becoming liable for a wasted costs claim if the case were to fail like ACS:Law's did". To avoid this, in January 2012, the company instead started pursuing individuals through the HM Courts & Tribunals Money Claim Online service for claims which should only be made through the Patents County Court.


title: Ben Dover

text: On 9 March 2012, Golden Eye went to court in an attempt to obtain a Norwich Pharmacal Order (NPO) for the details of over 9,000 IP addresses from internet service provider O2 (UK)/Telefónica Europe (an internet provider who previously had not contested NPOs) to service further "speculative invoicing" letters to alleged copyright infringers. Golden Eye were questioned by statutory consumer organisation Consumer Focus regarding the company's ability (or lack of) to connect an IP address with the account holder, the company's role in relation to the copyrights involved and the amount being demanded, which they stated was "far and above the likely actual damages".


title: Ben Dover

text: On 26 March 2012, the High Court ordered O2 to hand over the details of 9,124 of its customers’ details to Golden Eye. However, the judge deemed the proposed £700 fine to be "unsupported and unsupportable" and that the bill payer couldn't automatically be assumed to be guilty of any alleged copyright violation, and therefore any claim made by Golden Eye/Ben Dover Productions/Optime Strategies Ltd couldn't move forward unless the recipient of the company's speculative invoicing letters admitted their own guilt due to the evidence used being unreliable. The wording of any such letters would also be severely restricted, and the "precise wording of the order and of the letter of claim" would be decided at a further hearing. Consumer Focus welcomed the ruling that bill payers couldn't automatically be assumed to be guilty of any alleged copyright violation on their internet connection, commenting that "Consumers should not be subject to the type of threatening letters Golden Eye intended to send to more than 9,000 O2 customers". Golden Eye's lawyer admitted that taking a test case to court would not be cost effective, and therefore the company didn't intend on taking any cases to court and that they relied on those accused paying their "fine".


title: Ben Dover

text: In July 2012, the High Court ruled that Golden Eye would only be granted access to data in relation to Ben Dover Production films, not the titles by twelve other production companies that Golden Eye were acting on behalf of (including Terry Stephen's One Eyed Jack Productions and Justin Ribeiro Dos Santos's Joybear Pictures) and would take 75% of any "damages" paid, which Mr Justice Arnold stated "would be tantamount to the court sanctioning the sale of the intended defendants’ privacy and data protection rights to the highest bidder". This meant that Golden Eye would only be able to target 2,845 of its original target of over 9,000 households. It was revealed in December 2012 that the IP data supplied to O2 (UK)/Telefónica Europe by Golden Eye, from 2,850 alleged copyright infringements of Ben Dover Production films could only be matched to less than 1,000 individuals.


title: Ben Dover

text: In an interview with "Vice", Honey claimed his income had dropped 90% in two years and admitted his reasons for his involvement in speculative invoicing was that "if I can't make money out of porn, the only way I can make money is to get to the people who are not buying it".


title: Ben Dover

text: Honey used to be married to adult actress and model Linzi Drew. Their son is English actor, musician and television presenter Tyger Drew-Honey, best known for starring in the BBC sit-com "Outnumbered". Honey also appeared in the first episode of his son's TV series "Tyger Takes On...", which examined the influence of pornography on Drew-Honey's generation.


title: Donnie Steele

text: Donnie Steele is an American heavy metal musician. He is best known as one of two original guitarists in Slipknot. Steele co-founded Slipknot in 1995, performing on the band's debut demo "Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat.". He left in 1996 and was replaced by Craig "133" Jones, but later rejoined in 2011 as the touring bassist following the 2010 death of Paul Gray. Steele was part of the recording sessions for the band's 2014 album "", but left at some point before the album was finished and was replaced by Alessandro Venturella. According to Jim Root, some of Steele's bass tracks were used for the album though he did not specify which tracks feature Steele on bass.


title: Donnie Steele

text: Donnie Steele began his career as a member of Des Moines, Iowa-based death metal band Body Pit, in which fellow future Slipknot members Anders Colsefni (vocals), Mick Thomson (guitar) and Paul Gray (bass) had all performed. He later co-founded Slipknot in September 1995, alongside Colsefni, Gray, second guitarist Josh "Gnar" Brainard, drummer Joey Jordison and percussionist Shawn "Clown" Crahan. He was described by Brainard as "a pretty technical guitar player" and "one of those multi-talented guys". Author Joel McIver partly credits Steele with the introduction of jazz elements to the band's sound, describing the guitarist as a "self-confessed jazzbo".


title: Donnie Steele

text: In early 1996, after the recording of the band's debut demo "Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat.", Steele began to miss a number of Slipknot rehearsal sessions. The other band members attempted to track the guitarist down, but had to continue on without him, until one of them later saw him by chance and was told that he no longer wanted to be in the group. According to Brainard, Steele "felt that playing with Slipknot was against his Christian beliefs"; the rest of the band respected the guitarist's reasons for choosing to leave, although both Brainard and Colsefni have criticised his lack of communication regarding his decision to do so. With concerts forthcoming, Steele was quickly replaced by Craig Jones who later became the band's sampler.


title: Donnie Steele

text: Following the death of Gray in May 2010, Slipknot took a brief hiatus and later announced that Steele would replace the bassist for upcoming tour dates. In an official statement, the band explained that "Donnie was in the band at the very beginning, and rather than get an outsider, we thought it would be a fitting tribute to Paul to play with someone from within the family". Speaking about his return to the band, percussionist Shawn "Clown" Crahan explained that the decision to invite Steele to replace Gray "felt completely comfortable", adding that the band was "not gonna have some jackass from another band come into our world ... Donnie's family. Donnie's from the stone of the 'Knot".


title: Donnie Steele

text: During live performances, Steele remained backstage out of sight of the crowd. Despite praising him for fitting back into Slipknot well, Crahan justified this decision by asking "What gives him the right to be onstage with us right now?", elaborating that "When we're going through an experience like this with our fans, they need to concentrate on the eight members that are grieving, not on someone new". Steele decided to leave the band during the recording sessions for "", and was replaced by Alessandro Venturella in 2014, but he recorded some bass parts for the album according to guitarist Jim Root.


title: Donnie Steele

text: Aside from Slipknot, Donnie Steele formed the death metal group Killpact in 2001 with vocalist Rick Funderburk, bassist Steve Pundzak and drummer Ernie McGinn (who had previously performed in Body Pit). In an interview with MFKR1, a website dedicated to the early incarnations of Slipknot, he described the band as "a mixture of death metal, 80's thrash and shred with a strong emphasis on hooks". In 2016, Steele made a guest appearance contributing some solos for the debut album by Des Moines-based groove metal band Murder Earth, "Waiting (For the End of Man)", following the departure of guitarist Ryan Thornton.


title: Grapevine, Texas

text: Grapevine is a city and suburb of Dallas and Fort Worth located in northeast Tarrant County, Texas, United States, with minor portions extending into Dallas County and Denton County. The city is located in the Mid-Cities suburban region between Dallas and Fort Worth and includes a larger portion of Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport than other cities.


title: Grapevine, Texas

text: The city is adjacent to Grapevine Lake, a large reservoir impounded by the Army Corps of Engineers in 1952 that serves as a source of water and recreational area.


title: Grapevine, Texas

text: In October 1843, General Sam Houston and fellow Republic of Texas Commissioners camped at Tah-Wah-Karro Creek, also known as Grape Vine Springs, to meet with leaders of 10 Indian nations. This meeting culminated in the signing of a treaty of "peace, friendship, and commerce," which opened the area for homesteaders. The settlement that emerged was named Grape Vine due to its location on the appropriately-named Grape Vine Prairie near Grape Vine Springs, both names in homage to the wild grapes that grew in the area. Grapevine is the oldest settlement in Tarrant County, dating back to 1844 when Texas was a republic before statehood in 1845.


title: Grapevine, Texas

text: The first recorded white settlement in what would become the modern city occurred in the late 1840s and early 1850s. General Richard Montgomery Gano owned property near Grape Vine and helped organize the early settlement against Comanche raiding parties before leading his band of volunteers to battle in the American Civil War. Growth during the 19th century was slow but steady; by 1890, Grape Vine had about 800 residents supported by such amenities as a newspaper, a public school, several cotton gins, a post office, and railroad service. The settlement made continued gains early in the 20th century and on January 12, 1914, the post office altered the town's name to one word: Grapevine.


title: Grapevine, Texas

text: On Easter Sunday, April 1, 1934, Henry Methvin, an associate of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, killed two police officers, E.B. Wheeler and H.D. Murphy, during an altercation near Grapevine. A historical marker remains at the intersection of Dove Road and State Highway 114.


title: Grapevine, Texas

text: Grapevine's population fell during the interwar period, as the economy stagnated, though the city was officially incorporated in 1936. Cotton was the primary crop for Grapevine until the early 20th century, when it was overtaken by cantaloupe farms that accounted for 25,000 acres. For several decades, until the early 1970s, the Rotary Club sign outside of town boasted Grapevine as the "Cantaloupe Capital of the World". Population growth and economic gains resumed to some extent in the decades after World War II. The opening of Dallas–Fort Worth International Airport in 1974 spurred massive development. Grapevine depended heavily upon agricultural production prior to the mid-20th century, but transformed into a regional center of commerce because of its proximity to the airport's north entrance.


title: Grapevine, Texas

text: In recent years, several wineries have opened in Grapevine, and the city has been active in maintaining its historic downtown corridor.


title: Grapevine, Texas

text: According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which are land and are covered by water.


title: Grapevine, Texas

text: As of the 2020 United States census, there were 50,631 people, 21,838 households, and 13,887 families residing in the city.


title: Grapevine, Texas

text: As of the 2010 census, 46,334 people, 18,223 households, and 12,332 families were residing in the city. The population density was 1,451 people per square mile. The racial makeup of the city was 81.1% White, 3.3% African American, 0.7% Native American, 4.5% Asian, 8.0% from other races, and 2.2% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 18.0% of the population.


title: Grapevine, Texas

text: Of the 18,223 households, 33.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 51.9% were married couples living together, 10.5% had a single householder with no spouse present, and 33.3% were not families. About 27.1% of all households were made up of individuals, and 14.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.49, and the average family size was 3.06.


title: Grapevine, Texas

text: The age distribution in the city was 25.1% under 18, 74.9% over the age of 18, 5.6% from 20 to 24, 13.3% from 25 to 34, 24.7% from 35 to 49, 20.9% from 50 to 64, and 7.9% who were 65 or older. The median age was 37.5 years.


title: Grapevine, Texas

text: According to a 2010 estimate, the median household income was $76,040, and the median family income was $93,587. Males had a median income of $66,378 versus $47,995 for females. The per capita income was $38,304. About 5.2% of families and 7.9% of the population were below the poverty line, including 11.3% of those under age 18 and 5.5% of those age 65 or over.


title: Grapevine, Texas

text: Data provided by the city's Economic Development Department shows a general upward trend in population, with an estimated population of 54,578 as of 2020. The median age in the city was estimated at 36 years old, with more than half of residents obtaining an Associate's Degree or higher. Median household income had also increased to $88,225.


title: Grapevine, Texas

text: Grapevine uses a council–manager government, consisting of an elected city council, composed of the mayor and six at-large councilmembers, with a city manager appointed by the council. The current city manager is Bruno Rumbelow.


title: Grapevine, Texas

text: The city almost entirely lies within the boundaries of Texas House District 98 and Texas Senate Districts 9 and 12, with very small portions lying within Texas House Districts 63 and 115 and Texas Senate Districts 10 and 16.


title: Grapevine, Texas

text: The city almost entirely lies within the boundaries of Texas State Board of Education District 11, with a very small portion lying within District 14.


title: Grapevine, Texas

text: The Grapevine-Colleyville Independent School District serves most of the city. The district operates 11 elementary schools (prekindergarten through grade 5), four middle schools (grades 6–8), and two high schools (grades 9–12). Colleyville Heritage High School and Grapevine High School both draw students from different areas of Grapevine.


title: Grapevine, Texas

text: Northwestern Grapevine lies inside Carroll Independent School District, while smaller portions are served by Lewisville Independent School District and Coppell Independent School District.


title: Grapevine, Texas

text: Grapevine's economy is largely centered around travel and tourism, although those sectors also promote strong growth in other areas such as entertainment, retail trade, and transportation. Travelers arriving to and departing from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport make up the majority of the city's visitors. The Gaylord Texan and Great Wolf Lodge are the two biggest hotels in Grapevine and among the biggest in the Metroplex. The hotels also have large convention centers and entertainment venues. In 2020, Coury Hospitality launched Hotel Vin, a new boutique hotel attached to the recently finished TEXRail station.


title: Grapevine, Texas

text: Nearby Grapevine Mills Mall is a regional outlet shopping center with many amenities, including a movie theater. Embassy Suites Grapevine and the DFW Lakes Hilton complex also lay adjacent to Grapevine Mills and Bass Pro Shops.


title: Grapevine, Texas

text: In addition to these areas, Main Street in historic downtown Grapevine is a popular attraction. Public amenities like City Hall, the Grapevine Convention and Visitor's Bureau, the city library, public parks, and a recreation center are located on Main Street, nestled in between a wealth of small businesses. These include antique stores, restaurants, bars, theaters, and many specialty shops. The Grapevine Vintage Railroad follows a historic route between Grapevine and the Fort Worth Stockyards, departing from a station on South Main Street. The city is also the home of several wineries and tasting rooms to include Umbra Winery as well as the Texas Wine and Grape Growers Association.


title: Grapevine, Texas

text: GameStop, a national electronics retailer and one of the city's largest corporate employers, is headquartered in Grapevine.


title: Grapevine, Texas

text: In April 2017, Kubota Corp. established a new U.S. headquarters in Grapevine, moving about 300 employees from California and spending $50 million.


title: Grapevine, Texas

text: In 2020, The Trade Group completed construction on their US headquarters near the Northern border of the city.


title: Grapevine, Texas

text: The facility at 1639 West 23rd Street is on the property of DFW Airport and in Grapevine. Tenants include China Airlines, Lufthansa Cargo, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.


title: Grapevine, Texas

text: Historically, Grapevine was the headquarters of a collection of now-defunct air carriers. In 1978 Braniff Place, the final world headquarters for Braniff International Airways, was built in what is now Grapevine, on the grounds of Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. Following Braniff's 1982 bankruptcy, the structure is now known as Verizon Place. In the 1990s Metro Airlines maintained its main offices in the city of Grapevine, as did Kitty Hawk Aircargo for a time.


title: Grapevine, Texas

text: Two grade-separated highways run through the city. State Highways 114 and 121 trisect Grapevine south and slightly west of downtown. 121 runs from the south and 114 from the northwest. The highways intersect near Mustang Drive and William D. Tate Avenue and continue together towards the airport before splitting again at the north entrance of Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. Grapevine's highways as of 2010 underwent a significant overhaul to improve traffic flow through the area.


title: Grapevine, Texas

text: Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport is the main provider of air service to Grapevine and the region, providing connections to places around the state, country, and abroad. DFW is the main hub for American Airlines, though other major carriers maintain a large presence. Love Field in Dallas is relatively close to Grapevine.


title: Grapevine, Texas

text: The Grapevine Vintage Railroad provides service to and from Fort Worth along the former Cotton Belt Railroad right-of-way. The service acts more as a tourist attraction due to its slow speeds. However, the city's 50-year commitment to the Trinity Metro and approval of a half-cent sales tax increase have paid dividends through the introduction of the TEXRail service to northeast Tarrant County since January 10, 2019. New train stations downtown and north of the airport are included in the plans, as is a connection to Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) light-rail provides mass transit service to the eastern half of the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex.


title: Grapevine, Texas

text: The closest connections to rail are the DFW airport, Terminal A, DART Rail station and the Hurst station for the Trinity Rail Express. Amtrak passenger service is available in both downtown Dallas and Fort Worth.


title: Grapevine, Texas

text: The Convention and Visitor's Bureau operates the Grapevine Visitor's Shuttle between points of interest within the city. Additional information including stops and pricing can be found here.


title: Grapevine, Texas

text: The majority of Grapevine's transportation infrastructure is centered around the automobile, though amenities for bicycles can be found. A bicycle route runs along the length of Dove Road beginning at the intersection of Dove and North Main Street, connecting Grapevine and Southlake.


title: Grapevine, Texas

text: Additionally, the Cotton Belt trail runs parallel to State Highway 26, from the Colleyville city limits to downtown Grapevine. The "Dallas Road" project will stretch over 1.5 miles to extend the Cotton Belt Tril with a 10-foot wide trail section along the north side of western Dallas road between William D Tate Avenue, or Ball Street, and Dooley Street. A 10-foot-wide trail will also be added along the east side of Dooley north from Dallas Road to the Dallas Area Rapid Transit right of way. A 12-foot-trail section will be added east from Dooley along the north side of the DART rail corridor to Texan Trail. This will provide a very wide cement trail from Colleyville to the far east side of Grapevine.


title: Grapevine, Texas

text: Other bicycle paths can be found at the various city parks, most notably the trail from Parr Park to Bear Creek Park. Off-road trails are also available. Northshore Mountain Bike trail begins at Rockledge Park on the north side of Grapevine Lake and continues into Flower Mound along the shore. Mileage is 22.5 miles broken up into two major loops: East Loops, 1 – 4, which are 12.5 miles and the West Loops, 5 – 7. Horseshoe Trail begins at Catfish Lane, continues to Dove Road, and loops back to the trail head, for a total of 5.4 miles.


title: Grapevine, Texas

text: Grapevine received the Runner Friendly Community designation from the Road Runners Club of America. Grapevine has approximately 24-miles of hike and bike trails that link parks, schools, and businesses. The hike and bike trails have mileage markers that also have GPS coordinates for location identification in case of emergencies. The city also has an indoor 1/8 mile walking/jogging track and several outdoor tracks that belong to the local school district. The city has joint-use agreement with the school district for the use of school facilities.


title: Grapevine, Texas

text: The hike and bike trails in Grapevine include water fountains, community bathrooms or portable toilets, available parking, signs linking pedestrian networks, mile markers, walk lights at busy intersections, stop signs at residential intersections, and painted crosswalks. One trail in Grapevine links with four other communities, creating an additional 11-mile trail.


title: The Girl Who Played with Fire

text: The Girl Who Played with Fire () is the second novel in the best-selling "Millennium" series by Swedish writer Stieg Larsson. It was published posthumously in Swedish in 2006 and in English in January 2009.


title: The Girl Who Played with Fire

text: The book features many of the characters who appeared in "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" (2005), among them the title character, Lisbeth Salander, a brilliant computer hacker and social misfit, and Mikael Blomkvist, an investigative journalist and publisher of "Millennium " magazine.


title: The Girl Who Played with Fire

text: Widely seen as a critical success, "The Girl Who Played with Fire" was also (according to "The Bookseller" magazine) the first and only translated novel to be number one in the UK hardback chart.


title: The Girl Who Played with Fire

text: After a yearlong sojourn to Grenada, Lisbeth Salander uses three million laundered kronor to purchase a new apartment in Stockholm. She re-establishes contact with Dragan Armansky, her former boss at Milton Securities, and her former legal guardian Holger Palmgren. Nils Bjurman, who had previously raped Salander, focuses his attention on capturing her and destroying the film she made of his crime. Reviewing her medical records, he identifies a person from her past as his strongest ally. Mikael Blomkvist, the publisher of "Millennium" magazine, who had lost contact with Salander since her absence, sees her being attacked by a member of the Svavelsjö outlaw motorcycle club. He attempts to help, to Salander's astonishment, and their joint efforts enable her to elude her attacker.


title: The Girl Who Played with Fire

text: "Millennium" is approached by Dag Svensson and Mia Johansson, who have put together a report concerning sex trafficking in Sweden and the abuse of underage girls by high-ranking figures. Everyone is intrigued by recurring mentions of "Zala", a mysterious figure heavily involved in the sex-trafficking industry. Salander, hacking Blomkvist's computer, is taken aback by the mention of Zala, and visits Svensson and Johansson to ask questions. Later that same night, Blomkvist finds the couple shot dead in their apartment. With Salander's fingerprints on the murder weapon, and her formal record establishing a history of violent instability, she is implicated in the double murder. Bjurman is also found dead, shot by the same weapon; Salander is the prime suspect.


title: The Girl Who Played with Fire

text: Eager to clear Salander's name and realizing that she has hacked into his notebook computer, Blomkvist leaves her notes on his desktop; her replies point him to "Zala". Blomkvist confronts Gunnar Björck, a policeman on sick leave and one of the high-ranking abusers identified by Svensson and Johansson, who agrees to disclose information about Zala if Blomkvist leaves him out of "Millennium"s exposé. Miriam Wu, Salander's current sex partner, is taken in for questioning by the police. After her release, Paolo Roberto, Salander's former boxing coach, witnesses her being kidnapped into a van by Salander's earlier attacker, aided by a "blond giant". He follows them to a warehouse south of Nykvarn, where he attempts to fight the giant and manages to escape with Wu. The giant recovers and sets the warehouse on fire to destroy the evidence.


title: The Girl Who Played with Fire

text: Visiting Bjurman's summer cabin, Salander finds a classified Säpo file and begins to make the connection between Bjurman and Zala, whose real name is Alexander Zalachenko. By coincidence, two members of the motorcycle club, Carl-Magnus Lundin (Salander's attacker) and Sonny Nieminen, have been dispatched to burn the place down. Salander incapacitates them, leaving suspects for the police to find. She returns to her apartment and, having no choice, decides to find and kill Zalachenko. She discovers the identity of the giant, Ronald Niedermann, and traces him to a post office box in Göteborg. Meanwhile, Blomkvist manages to find Salander's new apartment as well as the DVD revealing Bjurman's crime.


title: The Girl Who Played with Fire

text: With information from Björck and Palmgren, Blomkvist pieces together the entire story: Zalachenko is a former Soviet defector whose very existence is kept classified by Säpo. Initially an intelligence source, Zalachenko began to traffic in sex slaves on the side. He became the partner of a 17-year-old woman who became pregnant with twins, Lisbeth and Camilla. Zalachenko was an itinerant father who habitually abused his partner, culminated in Lisbeth's deliberately setting his car alight while her father was in it. The authorities imprisoned Salander and declared her insane, since acknowledging Zalachenko's crimes would require them to divulge his existence. Niedermann had killed Svensson and Johansson on Zalachenko's orders; Bjurman, who was involved with Zalachenko, played a role in the murders and was killed to ensure his silence.


title: The Girl Who Played with Fire

text: Between Blomkvist's testimony, Salander's various character witnesses, and the additional suspects piling up, the police are forced to admit that their original suspicions were wrong. Blomkvist finds Niedermann's Göteborg address and sets off for the farm where he and Zalachenko await. There, Salander is captured and brought before Zalachenko. She is shot when she attempts to escape and is buried by Neidermann, not realising she is still alive. Battling through immense pain, Salander slowly digs herself out and attempts to kill Zalachenko with an axe. On his way to Göteborg, Blomkvist captures Niedermann and ties him against a signpost by the road. The book ends as Blomkvist finds Salander and calls emergency services.


title: The Girl Who Played with Fire

text: The English version was published in January 2009 and immediately became a number 1 bestseller. It received generally positive reviews from most of the major UK newspapers. Many reviewers agreed with Joan Smith at "The Sunday Times" that this novel was “even more gripping and astonishing than the first”.


title: The Girl Who Played with Fire

text: Most of the reviewers concentrated mainly on the character of Lisbeth Salander, with Mark Lawson at the "Guardian" saying that "the huge pleasure of these books is Salander, a fascinating creation with a complete and complex psychology."


title: The Girl Who Played with Fire

text: Boyd Tonkin in "The Independent" said: "the spiky and sassy Lisbeth Salander – punkish wild child, traumatised survivor of the 'care' system, sexual adventurer and computer hacker of genius" was "the most original heroine to emerge in crime fiction for many years". Michiko Kakutani at "The New York Times" wrote that "Salander and Blomkvist, transcend their genre and insinuate themselves in the reader’s mind through their oddball individuality, their professional competence and, surprisingly, their emotional vulnerability."


title: The Girl Who Played with Fire

text: The character of Paolo Roberto is an actual person. He is a former boxer and television chef who has also dabbled in politics. He played himself in the 2009 film adaptation of the book.


title: The Girl Who Played with Fire

text: In the first part of the book, Salander is exploring "Dimensions in Mathematics" apparently written by L. C. Parnault and published by Harvard University Press in 1999. On February 9, 2009, Harvard University Press announced on their website that this book and the author are purely fictitious.


title: The Girl Who Played with Fire

text: The mysterious Karl Axel Bodin, in whose house Salander finds Zalachenko and Niedermann, is a historical name. Bodin was born in Karlstad and later moved to Sundsvall. He went to Norway to join the Waffen-SS; at the end of World War II, he was attached to the country's branch of the Gestapo. At the war's end, Bodin and another Swedish volunteer stole a car in an attempted escape to Sweden. The car's owner saw the theft, and soon a gunfight erupted in which the car owner and Bodin's friend were shot. Bodin left his friend behind and crossed the border.


title: Temple of Apollo (Delphi)

text: The Temple of Apollo, god of music, harmony, light, healing, and oracles occupied the most important and prominent position in the Delphic Panhellenic Sanctuary. The edifice with the partially restored colonnade visible today dates to the 20th century BC and, according to ancient accounts, five different temples were built throughout history. The famous oracle, the Pythia, operated inside the temple, the location chosen, according to one tradition, due to a sacred chasm beneath the site emitting vapours, which were inhaled by the Pythia.


title: Temple of Apollo (Delphi)

text: Located on Mount Parnassos in Central Greece, the Temple of Apollo at Delphi is part of the Panhellenic Sanctuary at Delphi and occupies a remote, but central location relative to Greek settlements. The temple's heightened position upon the mountain signifies both the prominence of Apollo and the sanctuary itself. According to measurements believed to be created by Zeus, Delphi was the center of the universe for Greeks, and the “omphalos” or “navel,” of the earth was located in Apollo's sacred temple. Far from the influence of particular cities, but still central, the location of the sanctuary reinforces its Panhellenic nature and contributes to the idea that Apollo could be trusted as a neutral authority. Given its central location and difficult accessibility, the Temple of Apollo at Delphi was no ordinary site, but a place close to the gods.


title: Temple of Apollo (Delphi)

text: According to mythological legend, Apollo famously killed Python, the dragon that previously guarded the oracle, as the sun rose from the ravines of Delphi. After the god took possession of the oracle, Apollo, along with his mother, Leto, and his sister, Artemis, would be worshipped at Delphi.


title: Temple of Apollo (Delphi)

text: Greek traditions, and the writings of Pausanias in his "Description of Greece" of the second century CE, indicate five different temples were built to honor Apollo at Delphi. Some historians suggest the first three temples were constructed prior to the Homeric poems and before the cult of Apollo was established.


title: Temple of Apollo (Delphi)

text: The first and most ancient temple, according to Pausanias, was similar to a hut and was made of branches from the bay tree. This tradition may be the result of later intervention, according to archaeologist J. Henry Middleton, who questions if the legend was reworked to connect the first temple of Apollo with bay laurel. The bay plant is closely associated with Apollo because it was used to purify the god after he killed Python.


title: Temple of Apollo (Delphi)

text: Pausanias says the second temple was a gift from Apollo to the Hyperboreans, the oracle's original founders according to legend, and was constructed by bees with feathers and beeswax. Archaeologists assume bird feathers were used to construct the temple, but Pausanias does not clarify. Another story suggests Pteras, a Delphian man, used fern to build the second temple, a version Pausanias does not accept.


title: Temple of Apollo (Delphi)

text: The third temple was said to be made of bronze and built by Hephaestus, according to myth, Pausanias believed the temple was bronze but doubted it was the work of Hephaestus. Two stories exists explaining its collapse, one suggests the temple was destroyed in a fire and the other says it fell into a deep fissure of the earth.


title: Temple of Apollo (Delphi)

text: The fourth temple was stone, built by Trophonius and Agamedes, and was said to be burned accidentally in 548 B.C, during the time Erxicleides ruled Athens. Historians suggests the fourth temple was the first sanctuary during the time of Apollo at Delphi, and the temple referred to in mythology. Apollo left Olympus and visited many lands before deciding on a home at Delphi, according to Homeric hymn, and there he would be an oracle in his temple.


title: Temple of Apollo (Delphi)

text: According to the Delphi Archaeological Museum, the Sphinx of Naxos, which sits on a tall column guarding Apollo's sanctuary, was built around 560 B.C.


title: Temple of Apollo (Delphi)

text: The fifth and final temple was originally built in 510 B.C, but had to be reconstructed after an earthquake. The original Alkmaeonid temple, completed by about 511 B.C at the latest, was of the Doric order, with a six by fifteen column peristyle (surrounding colonnade). The sculpted decoration of its pediments was the work of the Athenian sculptor Antenor. The east pediment depicted Apollo's arrival at Delphi in triumph on his four-horse chariot. The west pediment depicted the battle between gods and giants (gigantomachy). The earthquake destroyed this temple in 373 B.C. Inaugurated in 330 B.C (43 years after the earthquake), the restored temple was also of Doric order, on the same footprint as its predecessor, and made of marble-coated porous stone. Amphiktionic council held a meeting prior to the construction of the new temple and decided the cost of the new building would be split. A quarter of the payment was made by the people of Delphi, and the rest was collected as donations from other civilizations, such as other Greek states and Egypt. The architect, Spintharius of Corinth, was chosen by the council to construct a design created by members of the Alcmaeonidae family, a wealthy Athenian family who had been forcibly exiled from Athens by the tyrant Peisistratos.The temple, according to the design, was made of limestone and included white Parian marble columns. Pediments, built by the Athenians, Praxias and Androsthenes, occupied the east and west sides of the temple. The Eastern pediment included statues of Apollo, Latona, and Artemis standing along a rising and setting sun. The west pediment depicted the god Dionysos among his female votaries, the Thyiades. Persian shields taken as booty by the Athenians from the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC were attached to the temple's metopes along with Gallic shields, spoils of the repulse of Gauls during the 279 BC invasion.


title: Temple of Apollo (Delphi)

text: Inscribed on a column in the pronaos (the porch before the temple's "cella"), according to ancient writers, were three of the Delphic maxims of the Seven Sages: ΓΝΩΘΙ ΣEΑΥΤΟΝ (KNOW THYSELF), ΜΗΔΕΝ ΑΓΑΝ (NOTHING IN EXCESS), and ΕΓΓΥΑ, ΠΑΡΑ ΔΑΤΗ (SURETY BRINGS RUIN) as well as the enigmatic Delphic symbol “Ε”.


title: Temple of Apollo (Delphi)

text: The temple survived until AD 390, when the Roman emperor Theodosius I silenced the oracle by destroying the temple and most of the statues and works of art in the name of Christianity. The site was completely destroyed by zealous Christians in an attempt to remove all traces of Paganism.


title: Temple of Apollo (Delphi)

text: The ruins of this temple decay at a faster rate than some of the other ruins on the Southern slopes of Mount Parnassos. This is mostly due to the use of limestone, a softer material, along with porous stone.


title: Temple of Apollo (Delphi)

text: The Temple of Apollo at Delphi functions as a Panhellenic sanctuary serving all Greek settlements. Archaeologist J. Henry Middleton suggests Delphi, the location of the temple, contributes to the sanctuary's Panhellenic nature because Delphi itself was a sacred space representing, in Greek view, a politically and religiously united Greece.


title: Temple of Apollo (Delphi)

text: Professor of classics at the University of Buffalo, Susan Guettel Cole, explains in her book, "Landscapes, Gender, and Ritual Space", Apollo was a figure of authority in legal and political concerns. The god served Greek civilizations which sought his political support and protection from corrupt leadership. Citizens from different Greek settlements came to Delphi to receive Apollo's political guidance through his oracles, the Pythia. According to Cole, accounts also exist of Greek civilizations placing texts which contained resolutions of political conflict in the walls of the Temple of Apollo. Doing so intended to consecrate the political text and demonstrate these Greek laws derived from the Apollo's authority. Settlers from Ozolian Locris, a region in Ancient Greece, hung political text in the temple during the sixth century. The document contained laws of a newly established colony and it also put forth punishments for leaders exploiting such laws. Laws from Dreros and Gortyn, were infamously inscribed into the walls of Apollo's temple. The seventh century law from Dresos, and the sixth century law from Gortyn, both stated conditions and regulations for political offices in their civilizations.


title: Temple of Apollo (Delphi)

text: Cole writes that Apollo, also a Greek god of healing, settled disputes regarding pollution and approved plans for purification which were submitted to him and his oracle at Delphi. According to the book, a pollution law for the ancient city of Kyrene was supposedly delivered and voiced by Apollo himself. Capable of inflicting and relieving civilizations of plague, the Temple of Apollo at Delphi was also visited when seeking Apollo's help during large health disasters.


title: Temple of Apollo (Delphi)

text: The priestesses of Apollo, known as the Pythia, served as the oracles at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. The Pythia are the mystical spouses of Apollo, according to historians, and the women who delivered the god's prophecies in his sacred temple. At the same time as Apollo, according to classical scholar, Kurt Latte, the Pythia also arrived at Delphi. Archaeologists and historians believe the oracle of Apollo was first stationed in what was called the sanctuary of the Earth, prior to the building of Apollo's sacred temple. According to historian Charles Seltman, and many other accounts, the Pythia were originally selected as virgins until one of the young females was raped in the temple, and future priestesses were required to be at least fifty years old, but still wore the dress of a young woman.


title: Temple of Apollo (Delphi)

text: The oracular process of the Pythia went as follows: the inquirer comes to the Temple of Apollo at Delphi and offers a gift upon the altar located outside the building. Offerings were typically sacrificed animals such as goats, sheep, or bulls. If the Pythia decided an offering was sufficient, she would proceed to enter Apollo's temple and descend into a chamber below the sanctuary ground. She sits on a tripod in the chamber and is cleansed by water from the Castalian spring, which entered through a large chasm in the rock floor. Various accounts describe the emission of gases also arising from the chasm while others say burnt bay laurel leaves created the fumes. All reports state the Pythia inhaled the gases or fumes, drank from a silver bowl containing water from the Castalian spring, and held a branch of the bay laurel plant in her hand and, in doing so, the Pythia was brought to a state of delirium. In this tranced psychological state came the knowledge of Apollo which the Pythia would begin to voice in words which could not be understood. A priest standing above in the temple hears her voice through an opening in the floor and interprets the prophecy. The priest's interpretation of the prophecy was then delivered either verbally to the inquirer or, often in more important cases, were written by the priest on a bay laurel leaf. This interpretation is controversial, and has been challenged by scholars such as Joseph Fontenrose and Lisa Maurizio, who argue that the ancient sources uniformly represent the Pythia speaking intelligibly, and giving prophecies in her own voice.


title: Temple of Apollo (Delphi)

text: The legitimacy of the oracular process which took place at the Temple of Apollo is debated by scholars. Authors of classics, C.R. Whittaker, and geologists, J.Z. De Boer and J.R. Hale, have concluded the accounts of the Pythia's experience are myth. There is no evidence of a large fissure or chasm in the ground under the temple, and there is no indication that consuming bay laurel leaves or water from the Castalian spring can induce an intoxicated state. Whittaker attributes these details to ancient authors' inability to understand myths which described the experiences of the Pythia. Some classical and archaeological scholars also suggest that inquiries were given to the Pythia as two options for two different courses of action, and she would choose the correct course of action while in her altered state, an interpretation better accepted by scholars.


title: Temple of Apollo (Delphi)

text: In 1892, the first excavation at Delphi, known as the Great Excavation, took place. The French government, in 1891, granted the French School of Athens the rights to excavate and the process started in 1892 and ended in 1894. Archaeologist, Jean Théphille Homelle, lead the excavation of the entire site of Delphi, which included the Temple of Apollo. Excavation uncovered various artistic votives dedicated to Apollo. Offerings included buildings, statues, and bronze and marble structures. Most notable amongst the findings was a bronze statue known as the "Charioteer of Delphi", a sculpture from a larger bronze structure and the remaining component of the arrangement. The Charioteer, according to the Delphi Archaeological Museum, was a gift from Polyzalos of Gela, dedicated to the site after a victorious trip to the Pythian Games. Another important discovery during excavation at the Temple of Apollo, was a sculpture depicting three women known as the "Dancers of Delphi," which accompanies the Charioteer in the Delphi Archaeological Museum. The head of the Sphinx of Naxos, also a part of the museum, was found in 1893.


title: Temple of Apollo (Delphi)

text: In 1938, the French School of Athens would excavate again under the direction of archaeologist Robert Demangel and supervised by future secretary of the school, Pierre Amandry, and archaeologist, Pierre de La Coste-Messeliére. French excavators discovered two small cavities in the ground below Apollo's sacred temple. Pieces of ivory, bronze, and gold found in the two pits were evident of statues made of such materials. Statues depicted human figures with hair and accessories made of gold and faces and limbs made of ivory. Remains of the statues were preserved well and work began to reconstruct the aesthetics of the different statue features. Also found amongst the remains below the Temple of Apollo were gold slates with depictions of animals and mythological figures.


title: Temple of Apollo (Delphi)

text: More recent geological study of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi have identified fractures and fault zones in the ground below the site. During a tectonic event, it is possible hydrocarbon gases were emitted from these fault zones and such gases can have intoxicating and psychoactive effects. Geological evidence also indicates that fractures below the temple have created possible passage for Castalian spring water to enter the temple. These geological discoveries may be the origins of accounts about the Pythia and the state of delirium they endured when delivering oracular prophecies.


title: Entente Cordiale

text: The Entente Cordiale (; ) comprised a series of agreements signed on 8 April 1904 between the United Kingdom and the French Republic which saw a significant improvement in Anglo-French relations. Beyond the immediate concerns of colonial demarcation addressed by the agreement, the signing of the Entente Cordiale marked the end of almost a thousand years of intermittent conflict between the two states and their predecessors, and replaced the "modus vivendi" that had existed since the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 with a more formal agreement. The Entente Cordiale represented the culmination of the policy of Théophile Delcassé (France's foreign minister from 1898 to 1905), who believed that a Franco-British understanding would give France some security in Western Europe against any German system of alliances (see Triple Alliance (1882)). Credit for the success of the negotiation of the Entente Cordiale belongs chiefly to Paul Cambon (France's ambassador in London from 1898 to 1920) and to the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Lansdowne.