title: Frank (Amy Winehouse album)

text: "Frank" entered the UK Albums Chart at number 60 before climbing to number 13 in late January 2004. Following Winehouse's death on 23 July 2011, the album re-entered the UK chart at number five, before reaching a new peak position of number three the following week, with 19,811 copies sold. The album was certified triple platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) on 19 December 2008, and had sold over one million copies as of September 2014.


title: Frank (Amy Winehouse album)

text: "Frank" debuted at number 61 on the "Billboard" 200 in the United States, selling 22,000 copies in its opening week. In the wake of Winehouse's death, the album sold 8,000 copies to re-enter the chart at number 57 on the issue dated 6 August 2011. The following week, it rose to a new peak of number 33 with sales of 12,000 copies. The album had sold 315,000 copies in the US by July 2011.


title: Frank (Amy Winehouse album)

text: Elsewhere, the album charted inside the top five in Austria and Poland, and the top 10 in France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands and Portugal. In late 2011, "Frank" was certified double platinum by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) for sales in excess of two million copies across Europe.


title: Christian mythology

text: Christian mythology is the body of myths associated with Christianity. The term encompasses a broad variety of legends and narratives, especially those considered sacred narratives. Mythological themes and elements occur throughout Christian literature, including recurring myths such as ascending to a mountain, the "axis mundi", myths of combat, descent into the Underworld, accounts of a dying-and-rising god, a flood myth, stories about the founding of a tribe or city, and myths about great heroes (or saints) of the past, paradises, and self-sacrifice.


title: Christian mythology

text: Various authors have also used it to refer to other mythological and allegorical elements found in the Bible, such as the story of the Leviathan. The term has been applied to myths and legends from the Middle Ages, such as the story of Saint George and the Dragon, the stories of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, and the legends of the "Parsival". Multiple commentators have classified John Milton's epic poem "Paradise Lost" as a work of Christian mythology. The term has also been applied to modern stories revolving around Christian themes and motifs, such as the writings of C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Madeleine L'Engle, and George MacDonald.


title: Christian mythology

text: Over the centuries, Christianity has divided into many denominations. Not all of these denominations hold the same set of sacred traditional narratives. For example, the books of the Bible accepted by the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox churches include a number of texts and stories (such as those narrated in the Book of Judith and Book of Tobit) that many Protestant denominations do not accept as canonical.


title: Christian mythology

text: The cosmology of the New Testament is essentially mythical in character. The world is viewed as a three storied structure, with the earth in the center, the heaven above, and the underworld beneath. Heaven is the abode of God and of celestial beings – the angels. The underworld is hell, the place of torment. Even the earth is more than the scene of natural, everyday events, of the trivial round and common task. It is the scene of the supernatural activity of God and his angels on the one hand, and of Satan and his demons on the other. These supernatural forces intervene in the course of nature and in all that men think and will and do. Miracles are by no means rare. Man is not in control of his own life. Evil spirits may take possession of him. Satan may inspire him with evil thoughts. Alternatively, God may inspire his thought and guide his purposes. He may grant him heavenly visions. He may allow him to hear his word of succor or demand. He may give him the supernatural power of his Spirit. History does not follow a smooth unbroken course; it is set in motion and controlled by these supernatural powers. This æon is held in bondage by Satan, sin, and death (for "powers" is precisely what they are), and hastens towards its end. That end will come very soon, and will take the form of a cosmic catastrophe. It will be inaugurated by the "woes" of the last time. Then the Judge will come from heaven, the dead will rise, the last judgment will take place, and men will enter into eternal salvation or damnation.


title: Christian mythology

text: In its broadest academic sense, the word "myth" simply means a traditional story. However, many scholars restrict the term "myth" to sacred stories. Folklorists often go further, defining myths as "tales believed as true, usually sacred, set in the distant past or other worlds or parts of the world, and with extra-human, inhuman, or heroic characters".


title: Christian mythology

text: In classical Greek, "muthos", from which the English word "myth" derives, meant "story, narrative." By the time of Christ, "muthos" had started to take on the connotations of "fable, fiction," and early Christian writers often avoided calling a story from canonical scripture a "myth". Paul warned Timothy to have nothing to do with "godless and silly myths" ("bebēthous kai graōdeis muthous)". This negative meaning of "myth" passed into popular usage. Some modern Christian scholars and writers have attempted to rehabilitate the term "myth" outside academia, describing stories in canonical scripture (especially the Christ story) as "true myth"; examples include C. S. Lewis and Andrew Greeley. Several modern Christian writers, such as C.S. Lewis, have described elements of Christianity, particularly the story of Christ, as "myth" which is also "true" ("true myth"). Others object to associating Christianity with "myth" for a variety of reasons: the association of the term "myth" with polytheism, the use of the term "myth" to indicate falsehood or non-historicity, and the lack of an agreed-upon definition of "myth". As examples of Biblical myths, Every cites the creation account in Genesis 1 and 2 and the story of Eve's temptation.


title: Christian mythology

text: Christian tradition contains many stories that do not come from canonical Christian texts yet still illustrate Christian themes. These non-canonical Christian myths include legends, folktales, and elaborations on canonical Christian mythology. Christian tradition has produced a rich body of legends that were never incorporated into the official scriptures. Legends were a staple of medieval literature. Examples include hagiographies such as the stories of Saint George or Saint Valentine. A case in point is the historical and canonized Brendan of Clonfort, a 6th-century Irish churchman and founder of abbeys. Round his authentic figure was woven a tissue that is arguably legendary rather than historical: the "Navigatio" or "Journey of Brendan". The legend discusses mythic events in the sense of supernatural encounters. In this narrative, Brendan and his shipmates encounter sea monsters, a paradisal island and a floating ice island and a rock island inhabited by a holy hermit: literal-minded devotés still seek to identify "Brendan's islands" in actual geography. This voyage was recreated by Tim Severin, suggesting that whales, icebergs and Rockall were encountered.


title: Christian mythology

text: Folktales form a major part of non-canonical Christian tradition. Folklorists define folktales (in contrast to "true" myths) as stories that are considered purely fictitious by their tellers and that often lack a specific setting in space or time. Christian-themed folktales have circulated widely among peasant populations. One widespread folktale genre is that of the Penitent Sinner (classified as Type 756A, B, C, in the Aarne-Thompson index of tale types); another popular group of folktales describe a clever mortal who outwits the Devil. Not all scholars accept the folkloristic convention of applying the terms "myth" and "folktale" to different categories of traditional narrative.


title: Christian mythology

text: Christian tradition produced many popular stories elaborating on canonical scripture. According to an English folk belief, certain herbs gained their current healing power from having been used to heal Christ's wounds on Mount Calvary. In this case, a non-canonical story has a connection to a non-narrative form of folklore — namely, folk medicine. Arthurian legend contains many elaborations upon canonical mythology. For example, Sir Balin discovers the Lance of Longinus, which had pierced the side of Christ. According to a tradition widely attested in early Christian writings, Adam's skull lay buried at Calvary; when Christ was crucified, his blood fell over Adam's skull, symbolizing humanity's redemption from Adam's sin.


title: Christian mythology

text: Examples of (1) Christian myths not mentioned in canon and (2) literary and traditional elaborations on canonical Christian mythology:


title: Christian mythology

text: Some scholars believe that many elements of Christian mythology, particularly its linear portrayal of time, originated with the Persian religion of Zoroastrianism. Mary Boyce, an authority on Zoroastrianism, writes:


title: Christian mythology

text: Mircea Eliade believes the Hebrews had a sense of linear time before Zoroastrianism influenced them. However, he argues,


title: Christian mythology

text: "a number of other [Jewish] religious ideas were discovered, revalorized, of systematized in Iran". These ideas include a dualism between good and evil, belief in a future savior and resurrection, and "an optimistic eschatology, proclaiming the final triumph of Good".


title: Christian mythology

text: The Zoroastrian concepts of Ahriman, Amesha Spentas, Yazatas, and Daevas probably gave rise to the Christian understanding of Satan, archangels, angels, and demons.


title: Christian mythology

text: In Buddhist mythology, the demon Mara tries to distract the historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, before he can reach enlightenment. Huston Smith, a professor of philosophy and a writer on comparative religion, notes the similarity between Mara's temptation of the Buddha before his ministry and Satan's temptation of Christ before his ministry.


title: Christian mythology

text: In the Book of Revelation, the author sees a vision of a pregnant woman in the sky being pursued by a huge red dragon. The dragon tries to devour her child when she gives birth, but the child is "caught up to God and his throne". This appears to be an allegory for the triumph of Christianity: the child presumably represents Christ; the woman may represent God's people of the Old and New Testaments (who produced Christ); and the Dragon symbolizes Satan, who opposes Christ. According to Catholic scholars, the images used in this allegory may have been inspired by pagan mythology:


title: Christian mythology

text: Academic studies of mythology often define mythology as deeply valued stories that explain a society's existence and world order: those narratives of a society's creation, the society's origins and foundations, their god(s), their original heroes, mankind's connection to the "divine", and their narratives of eschatology (what happens in the "after-life"). This is a very general outline of some of the basic sacred stories with those themes.


title: Christian mythology

text: The Christian texts use the same creation myth as Jewish mythology as written in the Old Testament. According to the Book of Genesis, the world was created out of a darkness and water in seven days. (Unlike a Jew, a Christian might include the miracle of Jesus' birth as a sort of second cosmogonic event) Canonical Christian scripture incorporates the two Hebrew cosmogonic myths found in Genesis 1–2:2 and Genesis 2:


title: Christian mythology

text: In the first text on the creation (Genesis 1–2:3), the Creator is called "Elohim" (translated "God"). He creates the universe over a six-day period, creating a new feature each day: first he creates day and night; then he creates the firmament to separate the "waters above" from the "waters below"; then he separates the dry land from the water; then he creates plants on the land; then he places the Sun, Moon, and stars in the sky; then he creates swimming and flying animals; then he creates land animals; and finally he creates man and woman together, "in his own image". On the seventh day, God rests, providing the rationale for the custom of resting on Sabbath.


title: Christian mythology

text: The second creation myth in Genesis differs from the first in a number of important elements. Here the Creator is called "Yahweh elohim" (commonly translated "Lord God", although Yahweh is in fact the personal name of the God of Israel and does not mean Lord).


title: Christian mythology

text: This myth begins with the words, "When the L God made the earth and the heavens, and no shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the LORD God had not sent rain upon the earth ..." (Genesis 2:4–5 NASB). It then proceeds to describe Yahweh creating a man called Adam out of dust. Yahweh creates the Garden of Eden as a home for Adam, and tells Adam not to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the center of the Garden (next to the Tree of Life).


title: Christian mythology

text: Yahweh also creates animals, and shows them to man, who names them. Yahweh sees that there is no suitable companion for the man among the beasts, and he subsequently puts Adam to sleep and takes out one of Adam's ribs, creating from it a woman whom Adam names Eve.


title: Christian mythology

text: A serpent tempts Eve to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and she succumbs, offering the fruit to Adam as well. As a punishment, Yahweh banishes the couple from the Garden and "placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden the cherubim with a fiery revolving sword to guard the way to the Tree of Life". The Lord says he must banish humans from the Garden because they have become like him, knowing good and evil (because of eating the forbidden fruit), and now only immortality (which they could get by eating from the Tree of Life) stands between them and godhood:


title: Christian mythology

text: "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever" (Genesis 3:22).


title: Christian mythology

text: Although the text of Genesis does not identify the tempting serpent with Satan, Christian tradition equates the two. This tradition has made its way into non-canonical Christian "myths" such as John Milton's "Paradise Lost".


title: Christian mythology

text: According to Lorena Laura Stookey, many myths feature sacred mountains as "the sites of revelations": "In myth, the ascent of the holy mountain is a spiritual journey, promising purification, insight, wisdom, or knowledge of the sacred". As examples of this theme, Stookey includes the revelation of the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, Christ's ascent of a mountain to deliver his Sermon on the Mount, and Christ's ascension into Heaven from the Mount of Olives.


title: Christian mythology

text: Many mythologies involve a "world center", which is often the sacred place of creation; this center often takes the form of a tree, mountain, or other upright object, which serves as an "axis mundi" or axle of the world. A number of scholars have connected the Christian story of the crucifixion at Golgotha with this theme of a cosmic center. In his "Creation Myths of the World", David Leeming argues that, in the Christian story of the crucifixion, the cross serves as "the "axis mundi", the center of a new creation".


title: Christian mythology

text: According to a tradition preserved in Eastern Christian folklore, Golgotha was the summit of the cosmic mountain at the center of the world and the location where Adam had been both created and buried. According to this tradition, when Christ is crucified, his blood falls on Adam's skull, buried at the foot of the cross, and redeems him. George Every discusses the connection between the cosmic center and Golgotha in his book "Christian Mythology", noting that the image of Adam's skull beneath the cross appears in many medieval representations of the crucifixion.


title: Christian mythology

text: In "Creation Myths of the World", Leeming suggests that the Garden of Eden may also be considered a world center.


title: Christian mythology

text: Many Near Eastern religions include a story about a battle between a divine being and a dragon or other monster representing chaos—a theme found, for example, in the "Enuma Elish". A number of scholars call this story the "combat myth". A number of scholars have argued that the ancient Israelites incorporated the combat myth into their religious imagery, such as the figures of Leviathan and Rahab, the Song of the Sea, Isaiah 51:9-10's description of God's deliverance of his people from Babylon, and the portrayals of enemies such as Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar. The idea of Satan as God's opponent may have developed under the influence of the combat myth. Scholars have also suggested that the Book of Revelation uses combat myth imagery in its descriptions of cosmic conflict.


title: Christian mythology

text: According to David Leeming, writing in "The Oxford Companion to World Mythology", the harrowing of hell is an example of the motif of the hero's descent to the underworld, which is common in many mythologies. According to Christian tradition, Christ descended to hell after his death in order to free the souls there; this event is known as the Harrowing of Hell. This story is narrated in the Gospel of Nicodemus and may be the meaning behind 1 Peter 3:18–22.


title: Christian mythology

text: Many myths, particularly from the Near East, feature a god who dies and is resurrected; this figure is sometimes called the "dying god". An important study of this figure is James George Frazer's "The Golden Bough", which traces the dying god theme through a large number of myths. The dying god is often associated with fertility. A number of scholars, including Frazer, have suggested that the Christ story is an example of the "dying god" theme. In the article "Dying god" in "The Oxford Companion to World Mythology", David Leeming notes that Christ can be seen as bringing fertility, though of a spiritual as opposed to physical kind.


title: Christian mythology

text: In his 2006 homily for Corpus Christi, Pope Benedict XVI noted the similarity between the Christian story of the resurrection and pagan myths of dead and resurrected gods: "In these myths, the soul of the human person, in a certain way, reached out toward that God made man, who, humiliated unto death on a cross, in this way opened the door of life to all of us."


title: Christian mythology

text: Many cultures have myths about a flood that cleanses the world in preparation for rebirth. Such stories appear on every inhabited continent on earth. An example is the biblical story of Noah. In "The Oxford Companion to World Mythology", David Leeming notes that, in the Bible story, as in other flood myths, the flood marks a new beginning and a second chance for creation and humanity.


title: Christian mythology

text: According to Sandra Frankiel, the records of "Jesus' life and death, his acts and words" provide the "founding myths" of Christianity. Frankiel claims that these founding myths are "structurally equivalent" to the creation myths in other religions, because they are "the pivot around which the religion turns to and which it returns", establishing the "meaning" of the religion and the "essential Christian practices and attitudes". Tom Cain uses the expression "founding myths" more broadly, to encompass such stories as those of the War in Heaven and the fall of man; according to Cain, "the disastrous consequences of disobedience" is a pervasive theme in Christian founding myths.


title: Christian mythology

text: Christian mythology of their society's founding would start with Jesus and his many teachings, and include the stories of Christian disciples starting the Christian Church and congregations in the 1st century. This might be considered the stories in the four canonical gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. The heroes of the first Christian society would start with Jesus and those chosen by Jesus, the twelve apostles including Peter, John, James, as well as Paul and Mary (mother of Jesus).


title: Christian mythology

text: In his influential 1909 work "The Myth of the Birth of the Hero", Otto Rank argued that the births of many mythical heroes follow a common pattern. Rank includes the story of Christ's birth as a representative example of this pattern.


title: Christian mythology

text: According to Mircea Eliade, one pervasive mythical theme associates heroes with the slaying of dragons, a theme which Eliade traces back to "the very ancient cosmogonico-heroic myth" of a battle between a divine hero and a dragon. He cites the Christian legend of Saint George as an example of this theme. An example from the Late Middle Ages comes from Dieudonné de Gozon, third Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes, famous for slaying the dragon of Malpasso. Eliade writes:


title: Christian mythology

text: "Legend, as was natural, bestowed upon him the attributes of St. George, famed for his victorious fight with the monster. [...] In other words, by the simple fact that he was regarded as a hero, de Gozon was identified with a category, an archetype, which [...] equipped him with a mythical biography from which it was "impossible" to omit combat with a reptilian monster."


title: Christian mythology

text: In the "Oxford Companion to World Mythology" David Leeming lists Moses, Jesus, and King Arthur as examples of the heroic monomyth, calling the Christ story "a particularly complete example of the heroic monomyth". Leeming regards resurrection as a common part of the heroic monomyth, in which the resurrected heroes often become sources of "material or spiritual food for their people"; in this connection, Leeming notes that Christians regard Jesus as the "bread of life".


title: Christian mythology

text: In terms of values, Leeming contrasts "the myth of Jesus" with the myths of other "Christian heroes such as St. George, Roland, el Cid, and even King Arthur"; the later hero myths, Leeming argues, reflect the survival of pre-Christian heroic values—"values of military dominance and cultural differentiation and hegemony"—more than the values expressed in the Christ story.


title: Christian mythology

text: Many religious and mythological systems contain myths about a paradise. Many of these myths involve the loss of a paradise that existed at the beginning of the world. Some scholars have seen in the story of the Garden of Eden an instance of this general motif.


title: Christian mythology

text: Sacrifice is an element in many religious traditions and often represented in myths. In "The Oxford Companion to World Mythology", David Leeming lists the story of Abraham and Isaac and the story of Christ's death as examples of this theme. Wendy Doniger describes the gospel accounts as a "meta-myth" in which Jesus realizes that he is part of a "new myth [...] of a man who is sacrificed in hate" but "sees the inner myth, the old myth of origins and acceptance, the myth of a god who sacrifices himself in love".


title: Christian mythology

text: Related to the doctrine of transsubstantiation, the Christian practice of eating the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ during the Eucharist is an instance of theophagy.


title: Christian mythology

text: The theological concept of Jesus being born to atone for original sin is central to the Christian narrative. According to Christian theology, by Adam disobeying God in the Garden of Eden, humanity acquired an ingrained flaw that keeps humans in a state of moral imperfection, generally called "original sin". According to Paul the Apostle, Adam's sin brought sin and death to all humanity: "Through one man, sin entered the world, and through sin, death" (Romans 5:12).


title: Christian mythology

text: According to the orthodox Christian view, Jesus saved humanity from final death and damnation by dying for them. Most Christians believe that Christ's sacrifice supernaturally reversed death's power over humanity, proved when he was resurrected, and abolished the power of sin on humanity. According to Paul, "if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many" (Romans 5:15). For many Christians, atonement doctrine leads naturally into the eschatological narratives of Christian people rising from the dead and living again, or immediately entering heaven to join Jesus.


title: Christian mythology

text: Paul's theological writings lay out the basic framework of the atonement doctrine in the New Testament. However, Paul's letters contain relatively little mythology (narrative). The majority of narratives in the New Testament are in the Gospels and the Book of Revelation.


title: Christian mythology

text: Although the Gospel stories do not lay out the atonement doctrine as fully as does Paul, they do have the story of the Last Supper, crucifixion, death and resurrection. Atonement is also suggested in the parables of Jesus in his final days. According to Matthew's gospel, at the Last Supper, Jesus calls his blood "the blood of the new covenant, which will be poured out for the forgiveness of many" (Matthew 26:28). John's gospel is especially rich in atonement parables and promises: Jesus speaks of himself as "the living bread that came down from heaven"; "and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world" (John 6:51); "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit" (John 12:24).


title: Christian mythology

text: The sacrifice and atonement narrative appears explicitly in many non-canonical writings as well. For instance, in Book 3 of Milton's "Paradise Lost", the Son of God offers to become a man and die, thereby paying mankind's debt to God the Father.


title: Christian mythology

text: The Harrowing of Hell is a non-canonical myth extrapolated from the atonement doctrine. According to this story, Christ descended into the land of the dead after his crucifixion, rescuing the righteous souls that had been cut off from heaven due to the taint of original sin. The story of the harrowing was popular during the Middle Ages. An Old English poem called "The Harrowing of Hell" describes Christ breaking into Hell and rescuing the Old Testament patriarchs. (The Harrowing is not the only explanation that Christians have put forth for the fate of the righteous who died before Christ accomplished the atonement)


title: Christian mythology

text: In modern literature, atonement continues to be theme. In the first of C. S. Lewis's "Narnia" novels, "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe", a boy named Edmund is condemned to death by a White Witch, and the magical lion-king Aslan offers to die in Edmund's place, thereby saving him. Aslan's life is sacrificed on an altar, but returns to life again. Aslan's self-sacrifice for Edmund is often interpreted as an allegory for the story of Christ's sacrifice for humanity; although Lewis denied that the novel is a mere allegory.


title: Christian mythology

text: Christian eschatological myths include stories of the afterlife: the narratives of Jesus Christ rising from the dead and now acting as a saviour of all generations of Christians, and stories of heaven and hell. Eschatological myths would also include the prophesies of end of the world and a new millennium in the Book of Revelation, and the story that Jesus will return to earth some day.


title: Christian mythology

text: The major features of Christian eschatological mythology include afterlife beliefs, the Second Coming, the resurrection of the dead, and the final judgment.


title: Christian mythology

text: Most Christian denominations hold some belief in an immediate afterlife when people die. Christian scripture gives a few descriptions of an immediate afterlife and a heaven and hell; however, for the most part, both New and Old Testaments focus much more on the myth of a final bodily resurrection than any beliefs about a purely spiritual afterlife away from the body.


title: Christian mythology

text: Much of the Old Testament does not express a belief in a personal afterlife of reward or punishment:"All the dead go down to Sheol, and there they lie in sleep together–whether good or evil, rich or poor, slave or free (Job 3:11–19). It is described as a region "dark and deep," "the Pit," and "the land of forgetfulness," cut off from both God and human life above (Pss. 6:5; 88:3–12). Though in some texts Yahweh's power can reach down to Sheol (Ps. 139:8), the dominant idea is that the dead are abandoned forever. This idea of Sheol is negative in contrast to the world of life and light above, but there is no idea of judgment or of reward and punishment."


title: Christian mythology

text: Later Old Testament writings, particularly the works of the Hebrew prophets, describe a final resurrection of the dead, often accompanied by spiritual rewards and punishments:"Many who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake. Some shall live forever; others shall be in everlasting contempt. But the wise shall shine brightly like the splendor of the firmament, and those who lead the many to justice shall be like the stars forever" (Daniel 12:2).


title: Christian mythology

text: However, even here, the emphasis is not on an immediate afterlife in heaven or hell, but rather on a future bodily resurrection.


title: Christian mythology

text: The New Testament also devotes little attention to an immediate afterlife. Its primary focus is the resurrection of the dead. Some New Testament passages seem to mention the (non-resurrected) dead experiencing some sort of afterlife (for example, the parable of rich man and Lazarus); yet the New Testament includes only a few myths about heaven and hell. Specifically, heaven is a place of peaceful residence, where Jesus goes to "prepare a home" or room for his disciples (John 14:2). Drawing on scriptural imagery (John 10:7, John 10:11–14), many Christian narratives of heaven include a nice green pasture land and a meeting with a benevolent God. Some of the earliest Christian art depicts heaven as a green pasture where people are sheep led by Jesus as "the good shepherd" as in interpretation of heaven.


title: Christian mythology

text: As the doctrines of heaven and hell and (Catholic) purgatory developed, non-canonical Christian literature began to develop an elaborate mythology about these locations. Dante's three-part "Divine Comedy" is a prime example of such afterlife mythology, describing Hell (in "Inferno"), Purgatory (in "Purgatorio"), and Heaven (in "Paradiso"). Myths of hell differ quite widely according to the denomination.


title: Christian mythology

text: The Second Coming of Christ holds a central place in Christian mythology. The Second Coming is the return of Christ to earth during the period of transformation preceding the end of this world and the establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth. According to Matthew's gospel, when Jesus is on trial before the Roman and Jewish authorities, he claims, "In the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven."


title: Christian mythology

text: The legend of the Wandering Jew concerns a Jew who taunted Jesus on the way to the Crucifixion and was then cursed to walk the earth until the Second Coming.


title: Christian mythology

text: Christian mythology incorporates the Old Testament's prophecies of a future resurrection of the dead. Like the Hebrew prophet Daniel (e.g., Daniel 12:2), the Christian Book of Revelation (among other New Testament scriptures) describes the resurrection: "The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds." The righteous and/or faithful enjoy bliss in the earthly Kingdom of Heaven, but the evil and/or non-Christian are "cast into the lake of fire".


title: Christian mythology

text: Christian eschatological myths feature a total world renovation after the final judgment. According to the Book of Revelation, God "will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain, for the old order has passed away". According to Old and New Testament passages, a time of perfect peace and happiness is coming: "They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. One nation will not raise the sword against another; nor will they train for war again." Certain scriptural passages even suggest that God will abolish the current natural laws in favor of immortality and total peace:


title: Christian mythology

text: When Christianity was a new and persecuted religion, many Christians believed the end times were imminent. Scholars debate whether Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher; however, his early followers, "the group of Jews who accepted him as messiah in the years immediately after his death, understood him in primarily apocalyptic terms". Prevalent in the early church and especially during periods of persecution, this Christian belief in an imminent end is called "millennialism". (It takes its name from the thousand-year ("millennial") reign of Christ that, according to the Book of Revelation, will precede the final world renovation; similar beliefs in a coming paradise are found in other religions, and these phenomena are often also called "millennialism")


title: Christian mythology

text: Millennialism comforted Christians during times of persecution, for it predicted an imminent deliverance from suffering. From the perspective of millennialism, human action has little significance: millennialism is comforting precisely because it predicts that happiness is coming no matter what humans do: "The seeming triumph of Evil made up the apocalyptic syndrome which was to precede Christ's return and the millennium."


title: Christian mythology

text: However, as time went on, millennialism lost its appeal. Christ had not returned immediately, as earlier Christians had predicted. Moreover, many Christians no longer needed the comfort that millennialism provided, for they were no longer persecuted: "With the triumph of the Church, the Kingdom of Heaven was already present on earth, and in a certain sense the old world had already been destroyed." (Millennialism has revived during periods of historical stress, and is currently popular among Evangelical Christians)


title: Christian mythology

text: In the Roman Church's condemnation of millennialism, Eliade sees "the first manifestation of the doctrine of [human] progress" in Christianity. According to the amillennial view, Christ will indeed come again, ushering in a perfect Kingdom of Heaven on earth, but "the Kingdom of God is [already] present in the world today through the presence of the heavenly reign of Christ, the Bible, the Holy Spirit and Christianity". Amillennialists do not feel "the eschatological tension" that persecution inspires; therefore, they interpret their eschatological myths either figuratively or as descriptions of far-off events rather than imminent ones. Thus, after taking the amillennial position, the Church not only waited for God to renovate the world (as millennialists had) but also believed itself to be improving the world through human action.


title: Christian mythology

text: In the early modern period, distinguished Christian theologians developed elaborated witch mythologies which contributed to the intensification of witch hunts. Major works in Christian demonology, such as Malleus Maleficarum, were dedicated to the implementation of Exodus 22:18 of the Old Testament: "You shall not permit a sorceress to live." The concept of witches' sabbath was well articulated by the 17th century. Theologian Martin Delrio was one of the first to provide a vivid description in his influential "Disquisitiones magicae":


title: Christian mythology

text: There, on most occasions, once a foul, disgusting fire has been lit, an evil spirit sits on a throne as president of the assembly. His appearance is terrifying, almost always that of a male goat or a dog. The witches come forward to worship him in different ways. Sometimes they supplicate him on bended knee; sometimes they stand with their back turned to him. They offer candles made of pitch or a child's umbilical cord, and kiss him on the anal orifice as a sign of homage. Sometimes they imitate the sacrifice of the Mass (the greatest of all their crimes), as well as purifying with water and similar Catholic ceremonies. After the feast, each evil spirit takes by the hand the disciple of whom he has charge, and so that they may do everything with the most absurd kind of ritual, each person bends over backwards, joins hands in a circle, and tosses his head as frenzied fanatics do. Then they begin to dance. They sing very obscene songs in his [Satan's] honour. They behave ridiculously in every way, and in every way contrary to accepted custom. Then their demon-lovers copulate with them in the most repulsive fashion.


title: Christian mythology

text: Numerous legendary creatures are attested in Christian mythology. These include the Behemoth, Leviathan, Angels, Demons, Nephilim, Re'em, Ziz and dragons.


title: Christian mythology

text: According to Mircea Eliade, many traditional societies have a cyclic sense of time, periodically reenacting mythical events. Through this reenactment, these societies achieve an "eternal return" to the mythical age. According to Eliade, Christianity retains a sense of cyclical time, through the ritual commemoration of Christ's life and the imitation of Christ's actions; Eliade calls this sense of cyclical time a "mythical aspect" of Christianity.


title: Christian mythology

text: However, Judeo-Christian thought also makes an "innovation of the first importance", Eliade says, because it embraces the notion of linear, historical time; in Christianity, "time is no longer [only] the circular Time of the Eternal Return; it has become linear and irreversible Time". Summarizing Eliade's statements on this subject, Eric Rust writes, "A new religious structure became available. In the Judaeo-Christian religions—Judaism, Christianity, Islam—history is taken seriously, and linear time is accepted. [...] The Christian myth gives such time a beginning in creation, a center in the Christ-event, and an end in the final consummation."


title: Christian mythology

text: In contrast, the myths of many traditional cultures present a cyclic or static view of time. In these cultures, all the "[important] history is limited to a few events that took place in the mythical times". In other words, these cultures place events into two categories, the mythical age and the present, between which there is no continuity. Everything in the present is seen as a direct result of the mythical age:


title: Christian mythology

text: "Just as modern man considers himself to be constituted by [all of] History, the man of the archaic societies declares that he is the result of [only] a certain number of mythical events."


title: Christian mythology

text: Because of this view, Eliade argues, members of many traditional societies see their lives as a constant repetition of mythical events, an "eternal return" to the mythical age: "In "imitating" the exemplary acts of a god or of a mythical hero, or simply by recounting their adventures, the man of an archaic society detaches himself from profane time and magically re-enters the Great Time, the sacred time."


title: Christian mythology

text: According to Eliade, Christianity shares in this cyclic sense of time to an extent. "By the very fact that it is a religion", he argues, Christianity retains at least one "mythical aspect" — the repetition of mythical events through ritual. Eliade gives a typical church service as an example:"Just as a church constitutes a break in plane in the profane space of a modern city, [so] the service celebrated inside [the church] marks a break in profane temporal duration. It is no longer today's historical time that is present—the time that is experienced, for example, in the adjacent streets—but the time in which the historical existence of Jesus Christ occurred, the time sanctified by his preaching, by his passion, death, and resurrection."


title: Christian mythology

text: Heinrich Zimmer also notes Christianity's emphasis on linear time; he attributes this emphasis specifically to the influence of Augustine of Hippo's theory of history. Zimmer does not explicitly describe the cyclical conception of time as itself "mythical" per se, although he notes that this conception "underl[ies] Hindu mythology".


title: Christian mythology

text: Neil Forsyth writes that "what distinguishes both Jewish and Christian religious systems [...] is that they elevate to the sacred status of myth narratives that are situated in historical time".


title: Christian mythology

text: According to Carl Mitcham, "the Christian mythology of progress toward transcendent salvation" created the conditions for modern ideas of scientific and technological progress. Hayden White describes "the myth of Progress" as the "secular, Enlightenment counterpart" of "Christian myth". Reinhold Niebuhr described the modern idea of ethical and scientific progress as "really a rationalized version of the Christian myth of salvation".


title: Christian mythology

text: According to Irwin, from the perspective of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), "history is a tale of progress". Christianity inherited the Hebrew sense of history through the Old Testament. Thus, although most Christians believe that human nature is inherently "fallen" (see original sin) and cannot become perfected without divine grace, they do believe that the world can and will change for the better, either through human and divine action or through divine action alone.


title: Christian mythology

text: According to Mircea Eliade, the medieval "Gioacchinian myth [...] of universal renovation in a more or less imminent future" has influenced a number of modern theories of history, such as those of Lessing (who explicitly compares his views to those of medieval "enthusiasts"), Fichte, Hegel, and Schelling; and has also influenced a number of Russian writers.


title: Christian mythology

text: Calling Marxism "a truly messianic Judaeo-Christian ideology", Eliade writes that Marxism "takes up and carries on one of the great eschatological myths of the Middle Eastern and Mediterranean world, namely: the redemptive part to be played by the Just (the 'elect', the 'anointed', the 'innocent', the 'missioners', in our own days the proletariat), whose sufferings are invoked to change the ontological status of the world".


title: Christian mythology

text: In his article "The Christian Mythology of Socialism", Will Herberg argues that socialism inherits the structure of its ideology from the influence of Christian mythology upon western thought.


title: Christian mythology

text: In "The Oxford Companion to World Mythology", David Leeming claims that Judeo-Christian messianic ideas have influenced 20th-century totalitarian systems, citing the state ideology of the Soviet Union as an example.


title: Christian mythology

text: According to Hugh S. Pyper, the biblical "founding myths of the Exodus and the exile, read as stories in which a nation is forged by maintaining its ideological and racial purity in the face of an oppressive great power", entered "the rhetoric of nationalism throughout European history", especially in Protestant countries and smaller nations.


title: Christian mythology

text: Mythic patterns such as the primordial struggle between good and evil appear in passages throughout the Hebrew Bible, including passages that describe historical events. A distinctive characteristic of the Hebrew Bible is the reinterpretation of myth on the basis of history, as in the Book of Daniel, a record of the experience of the Jews of the Second Temple period under foreign rule, presented as a prophecy of future events and expressed in terms of "mythic structures" with "the Hellenistic kingdom figured as a terrifying monster that cannot but recall [the Near Eastern pagan myth of] the dragon of chaos".


title: Christian mythology

text: Mircea Eliade argues that the imagery used in some parts of the Hebrew Bible reflects a "transfiguration of history into myth". For example, Eliade says, the portrayal of Nebuchadnezzar as a dragon in Jeremiah 51:34 is a case in which the Hebrews "interpreted contemporary events by means of the very ancient cosmogonico-heroic myth" of a battle between a hero and a dragon.


title: Christian mythology

text: According to scholars including Neil Forsyth and John L. McKenzie, the Old Testament incorporates stories, or fragments of stories, from extra-biblical mythology. According to the New American Bible, a Catholic Bible translation produced by the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, the story of the Nephilim in Genesis 6:1–4 "is apparently a fragment of an old legend that had borrowed much from ancient mythology", and the "sons of God" mentioned in that passage are "celestial beings of mythology". The New American Bible also says that Psalm 93 alludes to "an ancient myth" in which God battles a personified Sea. Some scholars have identified the biblical creature Leviathan as a monster from Canaanite mythology. According to Howard Schwartz, "the myth of the fall of Lucifer" existed in fragmentary form in Isaiah 14:12 and other ancient Jewish literature; Schwartz claims that the myth originated from "the ancient Canaanite myth of Athtar, who attempted to rule the throne of Ba'al, but was forced to descend and rule the underworld instead".


title: Christian mythology

text: Some scholars have argued that the calm, orderly, monotheistic creation story in Genesis 1 can be interpreted as a reaction against the creation myths of other Near Eastern cultures. In connection with this interpretation, David and Margaret Leeming describe Genesis 1 as a "demythologized myth", and John L. McKenzie asserts that the writer of Genesis 1 has "excised the mythical elements" from his creation story.


title: Christian mythology

text: Perhaps the most famous topic in the Bible that could possibly be connected with mythical origins is the topic of Heaven (or the sky) as the place where God (or angels, or the saints) resides, with stories such as the ascension of Elijah (who disappeared in the sky), war of man with an angel, flying angels. Even in the New Testament Paul the Apostle is said to "have visited the third heaven", and Jesus was portrayed in several books as going to return from Heaven on a cloud, in the same way he ascended thereto. The official text repeated by the attendees during Roman Catholic mass (the Apostles' Creed) contains the words "He ascended into Heaven, and is Seated at the Right Hand of God, The Father. From thence He will come again to judge the living and the dead".


title: Christian mythology

text: According to a number of scholars, the Christ story contains mythical themes such as descent to the underworld, the heroic monomyth, and the "dying god" (see section below on "mythical themes and types").


title: Christian mythology

text: Some scholars have argued that the Book of Revelation incorporates imagery from ancient mythology. According to the New American Bible, the image in Revelation 12:1–6 of a pregnant woman in the sky, threatened by a dragon, "corresponds to a widespread myth throughout the ancient world that a goddess pregnant with a savior was pursued by a horrible monster; by miraculous intervention, she bore a son who then killed the monster". Bernard McGinn suggests that the image of the two Beasts in Revelation stems from a "mythological background" involving the figures of Leviathan and Behemoth.


title: Christian mythology

text: The Pastoral Epistles contain denunciations of "myths" ("muthoi"). This may indicate that Rabbinic or Gnostic mythology was popular among the early Christians to whom the epistles were written and that the epistles' author was attempting to resist that mythology.


title: Christian mythology

text: The Sibylline oracles contain predictions that the dead Roman Emperor Nero, infamous for his persecutions, would return one day as an Antichrist-like figure. According to Bernard McGinn, these parts of the oracles were probably written by a Christian and incorporated "mythological language" in describing Nero's return.


title: Christian mythology

text: After Christian theology was accepted by the Roman Empire, promoted by St. Augustine in the 5th century, Christian mythology began to predominate the Roman Empire. Later the theology was carried north by Charlemagne and the Frankish people, and Christian themes began to weave into the framework of European mythologies. The pre-Christian Germanic and Celtic mythology that were native to the tribes of Northern Europe were denounced and submerged, while saint myths, Mary stories, Crusade myths, and other Christian myths took their place. However, pre-Christian myths never went entirely away, they mingled with the (Roman Catholic) Christian framework to form new stories, like myths of the mythological kings and saints and miracles, for example (Eliade 1963:162–181). Stories such as that of Beowulf and Icelandic, Norse, and Germanic sagas were reinterpreted somewhat, and given Christian meanings. The legend of King Arthur and the quest for the Holy Grail is a striking example. The thrust of incorporation took on one of two directions. When Christianity was on the advance, pagan myths were Christianized; when it was in retreat, Bible stories and Christian saints lost their mythological importance to the culture.


title: Christian mythology

text: According to Mircea Eliade, the Middle Ages witnessed "an upwelling of mythical thought" in which each social group had its own "mythological traditions". Often a profession had its own "origin myth" which established models for members of the profession to imitate; for example, the knights tried to imitate Lancelot or Parsifal. The medieval trouveres developed a "mythology of woman and Love" which incorporated Christian elements but, in some cases, ran contrary to official church teaching.


title: Christian mythology

text: George Every includes a discussion of medieval legends in his book "Christian Mythology". Some medieval legends elaborated upon the lives of Christian figures such as Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the saints. For example, a number of legends describe miraculous events surrounding Mary's birth and her marriage to Joseph.


title: Christian mythology

text: In many cases, medieval mythology appears to have inherited elements from myths of pagan gods and heroes. According to Every, one example may be "the myth of St. George" and other stories about saints battling dragons, which were "modelled no doubt in many cases on older representations of the creator and preserver of the world in combat with chaos". Eliade notes that some "mythological traditions" of medieval knights, namely the Arthurian cycle and the Grail theme, combine a veneer of Christianity with traditions regarding the Celtic Otherworld. According to Lorena Laura Stookey, "many scholars" see a link between stories in "Irish-Celtic mythology" about journeys to the Otherworld in search of a cauldron of rejuvenation and medieval accounts of the quest for the Holy Grail.


title: Christian mythology

text: According to Eliade, "eschatological myths" became prominent during the Middle Ages during "certain historical movements". These eschatological myths appeared "in the Crusades, in the movements of a Tanchelm and an Eudes de l'Etoile, in the elevation of Fredrick II to the rank of Messiah, and in many other collective messianic, utopian, and prerevolutionary phenomena". One significant eschatological myth, introduced by Gioacchino da Fiore's theology of history, was the "myth of an imminent third age that will renew and complete history" in a "reign of the Holy Spirit"; this "Gioacchinian myth" influenced a number of messianic movements that arose in the late Middle Ages.


title: Christian mythology

text: During the Renaissance, there arose a critical attitude that sharply distinguished between apostolic tradition and what George Every calls "subsidiary mythology"—popular legends surrounding saints, relics, the cross, etc.—suppressing the latter.


title: Christian mythology

text: The works of Renaissance writers often included and expanded upon Christian and non-Christian stories such as those of creation and the Fall. Rita Oleyar describes these writers as "on the whole, reverent and faithful to the primal myths, but filled with their own insights into the nature of God, man, and the universe". An example is John Milton's "Paradise Lost", an "epic elaboration of the Judeo-Christian mythology" and also a "veritable encyclopedia of myths from the Greek and Roman tradition".


title: Christian mythology

text: According to Cynthia Stewart, during the Reformation, the Protestant reformers used "the founding myths of Christianity" to critique the church of their time.


title: Christian mythology

text: Every argues that "the disparagement of myth in our own civilization" stems partly from objections to perceived idolatry, objections which intensified in the Reformation, both among Protestants and among Catholics reacting against the classical mythology revived during the Renaissance.


title: Christian mythology

text: The philosophes of the Enlightenment used criticism of myth as a vehicle for veiled criticisms of the Bible and the church. According to Bruce Lincoln, the philosophes "made irrationality the hallmark of myth and constituted philosophy—rather than the Christian "kerygma"—as the antidote for mythic discourse. By implication, Christianity could appear as a more recent, powerful, and dangerous instance of irrational myth".


title: Christian mythology

text: Since the end of the 18th century, the biblical stories have lost some of their mythological basis to western society, owing to the scepticism of the Enlightenment, 19th-century freethinking, and 20th century modernism. Most westerners no longer found Christianity to be their primary imaginative and mythological framework by which they understand the world. However other scholars believe mythology is in our psyche, and that mythical influences of Christianity are in many of our ideals, for example the Judeo-Christian idea of an after-life and heaven. The book "" by Tom Beaudoin explores the premise that Christian mythology is present in the mythologies of pop-culture, such as Madonna's "Like a Prayer" or Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun." Modern myths are strong in comic book stories (as stories of culture heroes) and detective novels as myths of good versus evil.


title: Christian mythology

text: Some commentators have categorized a number of modern fantasy works as "Christian myth" or "Christian mythopoeia". Examples include the fiction of C.S. Lewis, Madeleine L'Engle, J.R.R. Tolkien, and George MacDonald.


title: Christian mythology

text: In "The Eternal Adam and the New World Garden", written in 1968, David W. Noble argued that the Adam figure had been "the central myth in the American novel since 1830". As examples, he cites the works of Cooper, Hawthorne, Melville, Twain, Hemingway, and Faulkner.


title: Introducing... The Beatles

text: Introducing... The Beatles is the first studio album released by the English rock band the Beatles in the United States. Originally scheduled for a July 1963 release, the LP came out on 10 January 1964, on Vee-Jay Records, ten days before Capitol's "Meet the Beatles!". The latter album, however, entered the U.S. album chart one week before the former. Consequently, when "Meet The Beatles!" peaked at for eleven consecutive weeks, "Introducing...The Beatles" stalled at where it remained for nine consecutive weeks. It was the subject of much legal wrangling, but ultimately, Vee-Jay was permitted to sell the album until late 1964, by which time it had sold more than 1.3 million copies. On 24 July 2014 the album was certified gold and platinum by the RIAA.


title: Introducing... The Beatles

text: The Beatles' recording contract that began May 1962 with Parlophone in the United Kingdom gave the parent corporation EMI rights to offer any of the group's recordings to the various labels EMI owned in many countries of the world. However, EMI's United States subsidiary, Capitol Records, declined to release the "Please Please Me" single. Following this, Transglobal, an EMI affiliate that worked to place foreign masters with US record companies, negotiated with several labels before Vee-Jay Records signed a licensing agreement giving it the right of first refusal on Beatles' records for five years. As part of that agreement, even after its singles releases of "Please Please Me" and "From Me to You" failed to chart above No. 116 on the "Billboard" Hot 100, Vee-Jay planned to release the "Please Please Me" album in the US, and received copies of the mono and stereo master tapes in late April or early May 1963.


title: Introducing... The Beatles

text: Originally, Vee-Jay considered releasing the "Please Please Me" LP unaltered, as it appeared in the UK. A surviving acetate made by Universal Recording Corporation of Chicago, probably in May 1963, contains all 14 songs in the same order as on the UK album, with the title still listed as "Please Please Me". But in keeping with the American norm of a 12-song album, Vee-Jay chose instead to omit "Please Please Me" and "Ask Me Why" (which had comprised the first single release) and change the album's title to "Introducing... The Beatles". Also, the engineer at Universal in Chicago thought that Paul McCartney's count-in at the start of "I Saw Her Standing There" was extraneous rather than intentionally placed there, so he snipped the "one, two, three" (leaving the "four") from Vee-Jay's mono and stereo masters. Except for those omissions, the order and contents of the album were untouched, resulting in a US album that bore the closest resemblance to a British Beatles LP until "Revolver" in 1966.


title: Introducing... The Beatles

text: Preparations for the LP's release continued in late June and early July 1963, including the manufacturing of masters and metal parts and the printing of 6,000 front covers. But, despite the claims of many older Beatles books and discographies that "Introducing... The Beatles" was first released on 22 July 1963, no documentation exists to confirm that the album was released at any time in 1963.


title: Introducing... The Beatles

text: A management shake-up at Vee-Jay, which included the resignation of the label's president Ewart Abner after he used company money to cover personal gambling debts, resulted in the cancellation of the release of "Introducing... The Beatles" and albums by Frank Ifield, Alma Cogan and a Jewish cantor.


title: Introducing... The Beatles

text: Vee-Jay's financial problems forced it to take care of its most pressing debt first. Because the Beatles and Ifield were low priorities, the label chose not to report royalties on their sales. As a result, Transglobal declared its contract with Vee-Jay null and void on 8 August 1963. The next single, "She Loves You", was licensed by Transglobal to the Swan label of Philadelphia.


title: Introducing... The Beatles

text: On 14 December 1963, "Billboard" magazine mentioned that Capitol Records planned an all-out promotional campaign for the Beatles in the United States. Following that, the single "I Want to Hold Your Hand" was rush released on 26 December. On 7 January 1964, Vee-Jay's board of directors met for the first time since the single was released, and it discussed the Beatles' material it had in the vault. Desperate for cash, the board decided to release "Introducing... The Beatles", even if it meant legal trouble in the future.


title: Introducing... The Beatles

text: Metal parts were already at Vee-Jay's three primary pressing plants, and 6,000 front covers were already printed. But it had no back cover prepared. So, as a stopgap, the label used a back cover slick made from one side of its standard inner sleeve, consisting of full-colour reproductions of the covers of 25 "other fine albums of significant interest". This cover is known by collectors as the "Ad Back" version and is highly sought. A second stopgap back cover was used when the "Ad Back" slicks were exhausted; because it is all-white with no printing at all, it is known by collectors as the "Blank Back" edition and is also very rare. Finally, third editions contain Vee-Jay's official back cover, with "Introducing The Beatles" near the top and the song titles in two columns underneath. All of these were available on the market within days of the 10 January release date. Also in January, "Please Please Me" was reissued as a single, this time with "From Me to You" as the B-side.


title: Introducing... The Beatles

text: But on 16 January 1964, less than a week after "Introducing... The Beatles" was released, Vee-Jay was served with a restraining order stopping further distribution. Beechwood Music, Inc., Capitol Records' publishing subsidiary, owned the American publishing rights to "Love Me Do" and "P.S. I Love You", and because the two songs had not yet been officially released in the US, Beechwood refused to issue a license for Vee-Jay to release them. Approximately 80,000 copies of "Introducing... The Beatles" had been released with the two songs on them, with only 2,000 or so in stereo.


title: Introducing... The Beatles

text: To circumvent the restraining order, Vee-Jay quickly reconfigured "Introducing... The Beatles". It removed "Love Me Do" and "P.S. I Love You" and replaced them with the previously omitted "Ask Me Why" and "Please Please Me", though some pressings of the album did not alter the track list. The new versions were prepared in late January and began appearing in stores around 10 February 1964.


title: Introducing... The Beatles

text: Because of the initial restraining order, version two of "Introducing... The Beatles" did not enter the "Billboard" charts until three weeks after Capitol's "Meet the Beatles!" album. Once it did, it quickly rose to the number two spot, where it stayed for nine straight weeks. It also peaked at number two in "Cash Box", and it got to number one in "Record World" magazine. This success inspired a host of other Vee-Jay releases. First came the album "Jolly What! England's Greatest Recording Stars: The Beatles and Frank Ifield on Stage" issued on 26 February, containing the Beatles tracks "Please Please Me", "From Me to You", "Ask Me Why" and "Thank You Girl" from the 1963 singles and "Introducing...", and other tracks from Frank Ifield. The rereleased single "Please Please Me" rose to number three on the "Hot 100", "Cash Box" and "Record World". Soon after, "Twist and Shout" was released 2 March on the subsidiary Tollie label with "There's a Place" as the B-side, and "Do You Want to Know a Secret", with "Thank You Girl" on the B-side, was issued on 23 March. Both singles went up to number two on the "Hot 100", with "Twist and Shout" reaching number one on both "Cash Box" and "Record World". Also a Beatles EP titled "Souvenir of Their Visit to America" was released by Vee-Jay on 23 March, featuring "Misery", "A Taste of Honey", "Ask Me Why", and "Anna".


title: Introducing... The Beatles

text: Even with the replacement of the two Beechwood Music songs, Vee-Jay and Capitol battled in court throughout the early part of 1964. Injunctions against Vee-Jay's album were issued, lifted and restored more than once. Because the album was often pressed quickly between restraining orders, there are almost two dozen different label variations, including mono and stereo copies, manufactured at numerous pressing plants. Finally, on 9 April 1964, the two labels settled. Vee-Jay was granted a license giving it the right to issue the 16 Beatles' songs it controlled, in any way it saw fit, until 15 October 1964. At that time, its license expired, and all rights would revert to Capitol. During the time "Introducing... The Beatles" was available, it sold approximately 1,300,000 mono copies and approximately 41,000 stereo copies. Because only 3.1 percent of all of the LPs were in stereo, true stereo copies are rare.


title: Introducing... The Beatles

text: After the settlement, the Beechwood songs were issued by Vee-Jay as a single, on 27 April on Tollie. "Love Me Do"/"P.S. I Love You" rose to become the Beatles' fourth number one single on "Billboard" and their fifth on both "Cash Box" and "Record World".


title: Introducing... The Beatles

text: Twice before its license expired, Vee-Jay repackaged "Introducing... The Beatles". Although neither album contained any new music, both of them made the "Billboard" album charts.


title: Introducing... The Beatles

text: One of these was "Songs, Pictures and Stories of the Fabulous Beatles" (Vee-Jay VJLP(S)-1062), which featured a three-quarters gatefold cover, portrait paintings of the four musicians and the text:


title: Introducing... The Beatles

text: The inside cover text describes Paul as the "Nut Beatle" or "Beatle Nut", John as "nearsighted" and the "Chief Beatle", George as the "quietest" and the "one with the deadpan face" and Ringo as the "shortest Beatle" who "will send his steak back if it is not blood red". The back sleeve shows outlines of hearts below each Beatle-photo and holds instructions of how to fill the hearts with personal photos. It also erroneously features a second portrait of Paul in place of George, despite being labeled as George.


title: Introducing... The Beatles

text: The record inside the cover did not even contain the new name; it still stated "Introducing... The Beatles" on the label. "Songs, Pictures and Stories" was released either in late July 1964 or 12 October 1964, with the latter the more likely date, because it entered the "Billboard" album chart on 31 October. It eventually peaked at number 63.


title: Introducing... The Beatles

text: The other repackaging was the two-record set "The Beatles vs the Four Seasons", which contained copies of "Introducing... The Beatles" in one pocket of the gatefold cover and "Golden Hits of the Four Seasons" (VJLP 1065) in the other. This Vee-Jay creation spent three weeks on the "Billboard" chart in October 1964 and peaked at number 142. The cover artwork for this version was later parodied for the bootleg release "The Beatles vs the Third Reich", featuring the band's 1962 Star-Club recordings.


title: Introducing... The Beatles

text: Though Vee-Jay could not manufacture or distribute any Beatles product after 15 October 1964, it took a long time for the records to vanish from retail stores. Both "Introducing... The Beatles" and "Songs, Pictures and Stories of the Fabulous Beatles" remained on the "Billboard" LP chart until 9 January 1965.


title: Introducing... The Beatles

text: From the start of Beatlemania in the United States until the October 1964 expiration of its rights to Beatles music, Vee-Jay issued four LP albums, four singles, and an EP out of the 16 tracks it gained from its 1963 license period. On 22 March 1965, Capitol issued "The Early Beatles", which contained 11 of the 14 tracks that had previously been issued on "Introducing... The Beatles". "Misery" and "There's a Place", two of the other three songs, would not make their Capitol Records LP debut until 1980, on the US version of "Rarities". The other "Introducing..." song was "I Saw Her Standing There", first released in the UK on the "Please Please Me" LP. The song appeared in the US on both the Vee-Jay album as well as Capitol's "Meet The Beatles!" LP. These two albums marked the only time that two different Beatles' albums, each from a different record label, were released in the same month with one song appearing on both albums. There is a difference between the two tracks in that Paul's count-off is cut short on the Vee-Jay release by three numbers leaving only "four!" on the intro. Later, in the summer of 1964, Capitol would release "Something New" in the United States with five songs that had already appeared on the American "A Hard Day's Night" soundtrack album released by United Artists Records about one month earlier.


title: Introducing... The Beatles

text: "Introducing... The Beatles" has never been officially released on compact disc, although several unauthorized CD reproductions have circulated in both mono and stereo versions, mostly with the version two line-up (with "Please Please Me" and "Ask Me Why").


title: Introducing... The Beatles

text: Starting in the late 1960s and continuing through the 1990s, "Introducing... The Beatles" was frequently counterfeited. These counterfeits can be identified by the cover printing and quality, the label, or the sound quality.


title: Introducing... The Beatles

text: Counterfeits have some significant differences from the commercial issue. Some of the more common variations include...


title: Introducing... The Beatles

text: Nearly all fakes claim to be in stereo (though the actual sound of the record is often in mono). As legitimate stereo copies of "Introducing... The Beatles" are rare, the majority of copies with "stereo" or "stereophonic" printed on the cover are counterfeits.


title: Introducing... The Beatles

text: There are also known fake versions of "Songs, Pictures, and Stories of the Fabulous Beatles". These counterfeits often omit ""Stories"" from the album title, since they are circulated without the gatefold cover and the text inside, renaming it "Songs and Pictures of the Fabulous Beatles". These versions have three songs not on the original album. "From Me To You" (in place of "Anna"), "Love Me Do" (in place of "Ask Me Why") and "P.S I Love You", which opens side 2 rather than "Please Please Me" (The song is rather placed on side 1, track 3).


title: Heartbeat City

text: Heartbeat City is the fifth studio album by American rock band the Cars, released on March 13, 1984, by Elektra Records. The band produced the album with Robert John "Mutt" Lange.


title: Heartbeat City

text: This marks the band's first album not produced by long-time producer Roy Thomas Baker. It also represented a return to the success of the band's self-titled debut album, with critic Robert Christgau noting that "the glossy approach the Cars invented has made this the best year for pure pop in damn near twenty years, and it's only fair that they should return so confidently to form." Numerous tracks from the album received airplay on modern rock and AOR stations, with the singles "Drive" and "You Might Think" reaching the top 10 of the "Billboard" Hot 100, while the album peaked at number three on the "Billboard" 200.


title: Heartbeat City

text: "Heartbeat City" spawned six singles. "Drive" and "You Might Think" reached the top 10 of the "Billboard" Hot 100, peaking at numbers three and seven, respectively. A number of songs from the album gained significant radio and television exposure, notably "Drive", "You Might Think" and "Magic", which all received heavy rotation on MTV. The title track served as the album's sixth and final single outside North America.


title: Heartbeat City

text: The lead vocals on "Drive" were performed by bassist Benjamin Orr. The song's video was directed by actor Timothy Hutton and features Ric Ocasek arguing with a troubled young woman played by model Paulina Porizkova (whom Ocasek would later marry). "Hello Again" had a video directed by Andy Warhol, who also appeared onscreen.


title: Heartbeat City

text: Despite not being released as a single, "It's Not the Night" reached number 31 on the Top Rock Tracks chart. The song "Stranger Eyes" was used in the theatrical trailer of the 1986 film "Top Gun", but never made it onto the soundtrack. "Looking for Love" was covered by Austrian singer Falco as "Munich Girls" on his 1985 album "Falco 3".


title: Heartbeat City

text: When the Cars performed at Live Aid, they played three songs from the album ("You Might Think", "Drive", and the album's title track), alongside the fan favorite "Just What I Needed".


title: Heartbeat City

text: The album was produced by Robert John "Mutt" Lange. His commitment to the Cars album meant that he told Def Leppard he could not work on their album, "Hysteria". However, due to delays in that album's recording, Lange was eventually able to produce it.


title: Heartbeat City

text: The cover art (including an image of a 1971 Plymouth Duster 340 and an Alberto Vargas pin-up model) is from a 1972 piece by Peter Phillips called "Art-O-Matic Loop di Loop".


title: November Uprising

text: The November Uprising (1830–31), also known as the Polish–Russian War 1830–31 or the Cadet Revolution,


title: November Uprising

text: was an armed rebellion in the heartland of partitioned Poland against the Russian Empire. The uprising began on 29 November 1830 in Warsaw when young Polish officers from the military academy of the Army of Congress Poland revolted, led by Lieutenant Piotr Wysocki. Large segments of the peoples of Lithuania, Belarus, and the Right-bank Ukraine soon joined the uprising. Although the insurgents achieved local successes, a numerically superior Imperial Russian Army under Ivan Paskevich eventually crushed the uprising.


title: November Uprising

text: The Russian Emperor Nicholas I issued the Organic Statute in 1832, according to which henceforth Russian-occupied Poland would lose its autonomy and become an integral part of the Russian Empire. Warsaw became little more than a military garrison, and its university closed.


title: November Uprising

text: After the Partitions of Poland by Austria, Germany, and Russia, Poland ceased to exist as an independent political entity at the end of 1795. However, the Napoleonic Wars and Polish participation in the wars against Russia and Austria resulted in the creation of the Duchy of Warsaw in 1807. The Congress of Vienna brought that state's existence to an end in 1815, and essentially solidified the long-term division of Poland among Russia, Prussia and Austria. The Austrian Empire annexed territories in the south, Prussia took control over the semi-autonomous Grand Duchy of Poznań in the west and Russia assumed hegemony over the semi-autonomous so-called Congress Kingdom.


title: November Uprising

text: Initially, the Russian-formed Congress Kingdom enjoyed a relatively large amount of internal autonomy and was only indirectly subject to imperial control. It had its own constitution. The province, united with Russia through a personal union with the Tsar as King of Poland, could elect its own parliament (the Sejm) and government. The kingdom had its own courts, army and treasury. Over time, however, the freedoms granted to the Kingdom were gradually taken back, and the constitution was progressively ignored by the Russian authorities. Alexander I of Russia never formally crowned himself as King of Poland. Instead, in 1815, he appointed Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovich as "de facto" viceroy and disregarded the constitution.


title: November Uprising

text: Soon after the Congress of Vienna resolutions had been signed, Russia ceased to respect them. In 1819, Alexander I abandoned liberty of the press in the Congress Kingdom and introduced censorship. The Russian secret police, commanded by Nikolay Nikolayevich Novosiltsev, started to infiltrate and persecute Polish clandestine organizations, and in 1821, the Tsar ordered the abolition of Freemasonry. As a result, after 1825, sessions of the Polish Sejm were conducted in secret. Nicholas I of Russia formally crowned himself as King of Poland on 24 May 1829 in Warsaw.


title: November Uprising

text: Despite numerous protests by various Polish politicians who actively supported the "personal union", Grand Duke Constantine had no intention of respecting the Polish constitution, one of the most progressive in Europe at that time. He abolished Polish social and patriotic organizations and the liberal opposition of the Kaliszanie faction and replaced Poles with Russians in important administrative positions. Although married to a Pole (Joanna Grudzińska), he was commonly considered an enemy of the Polish nation. Also, his command over the Polish Army led to serious conflicts within the officer corps. The frictions led to various conspiracies throughout the country, most notably within the army.


title: November Uprising

text: The armed struggle began when a group of conspirators led by a young cadet from the Warsaw officers' school, Piotr Wysocki, took arms from their garrison on 29 November 1830 and attacked the Belweder Palace, the main seat of the Grand Duke. The final spark that ignited Warsaw was a Russian plan to use the Polish Army to suppress France's July Revolution and the Belgian Revolution, in clear violation of the Polish constitution. The rebels managed to enter the Belweder, but Grand Duke Constantine had escaped in women's clothing. The rebels then turned to the main city arsenal and captured it after a brief struggle. The following day, armed Polish civilians forced the Russian troops to withdraw north of Warsaw. That incident is sometimes called the Warsaw Uprising or the November Night. ().


title: November Uprising

text: Taken by surprise by the rapid unfolding of events during the night of 29 November 1830, the local Polish government ("Administrative Council") assembled immediately to take control and to decide on a course of action. Unpopular ministers were removed and men like Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, the historian Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz and General Józef Chłopicki took their places. Loyalists led by Prince Czartoryski initially tried to negotiate with Grand Duke Constantine and to settle matters peacefully. However, when Czartoryski told the Council that Constantine was ready to forgive the offenders and that the matter would be amicably settled, Maurycy Mochnacki and other radicals angrily objected and demanded a national uprising. Fearing an immediate break with Russia, the government agreed to let Constantine depart with his troops.


title: November Uprising

text: Mochnacki did not trust the newly-constituted ministry and set out to replace it with the Patriotic Club, organized by him. At a large public demonstration on 3 December in Warsaw, he denounced the negotiations between the Government and Grand Duke Constantine, who was encamped outside the city. Mochnacki advocated a military campaign in Lithuania to spare the country from the devastation of war and to preserve the local food supply. The meeting adopted a number of demands to be communicated to the Administrative Council, including the establishment of a revolutionary government and an immediate attack upon the forces of Constantine. The Polish army, with all but two of its generals, Wincenty Krasiński and Zygmunt Kurnatowski, now joined the uprising.


title: November Uprising

text: The remaining four ministers of the pre-revolutionary cabinet left the Administrative Council, and their places were taken by Mochnacki and three of his associates from the Patriotic Club, including Joachim Lelewel. The new body was known as the "Provisional Government". To legalize its actions the Provisional Government ordered the convocation of the Sejm and on 5 December 1830 proclaimed Chłopicki as "Dictator of the Uprising". Chłopicki considered the uprising an act of madness but bowed to pressure and consented to take command temporarily in the hope that it would be unnecessary to take the field. An able and highly-decorated soldier, he had retired from the army because of the chicanery of Constantine. He overestimated the power of Russia and underestimated the strength and the fervor of the Polish revolutionary movement. By temperament and conviction, he was opposed to a war with Russia and did not believe in a successful outcome. He accepted the dictatorship essentially to maintain internal peace and to save the Constitution.


title: November Uprising

text: Believing that Tsar Nicholas was unaware of his brother's actions and that the uprising could be ended if the Russian authorities accepted the Constitution, Chłopicki's first move was to send Prince Franciszek Ksawery Drucki-Lubecki to Saint Petersburg to negotiate. Chłopicki refrained from strengthening the Polish army and refused to initiate armed hostilities by expelling Russian forces from Lithuania. However, the radicals in Warsaw pressed for war and the complete liberation of Poland. On 13 December, the Sejm pronounced the "National Uprising" against Russia, and on 7 January 1831, Prince Drucki-Lubecki returned from Russia with no concessions. The Tsar demanded the complete and unconditional surrender of Poland and announced that the "Poles should surrender to the grace of their Emperor". His plans foiled, Chłopicki resigned the following day.


title: November Uprising

text: Power in Poland was now in the hands of the radicals united in the Towarzystwo Patriotyczne ("Patriotic Society"), directed by Joachim Lelewel. On 25 January 1831, the Sejm passed the Act of Dethronization of Nicholas I, which ended the Polish-Russian personal union and was equivalent to a declaration of war on Russia. The proclamation declared that "the Polish nation is an independent people and has a right to offer the Polish crown to him whom it may consider worthy, from whom it might with certainty expect faith to his oath and wholehearted respect to the sworn guarantees of civic freedom."


title: November Uprising

text: On 29 January, the National Government of Adam Jerzy Czartoryski was established, and Michał Gedeon Radziwiłł was chosen as successor to Chłopicki, who was persuaded to accept active command of the army.


title: November Uprising

text: It was too late to move the theatre of hostilities to Lithuania. On 4 February 1831, a 115,000-strong Russian army under Field Marshal Hans Karl von Diebitsch crossed the Polish borders. The first major battle took place on 14 February 1831, close to the village of Stoczek near Łuków. In the Battle of Stoczek, Polish cavalry under Brigadier Józef Dwernicki defeated the Russian division of Teodor Geismar. However, the victory had mostly psychological value and could not stop the Russian advance towards Warsaw. The subsequent Battles of Dobre, Wawer and Białołęka were inconclusive.


title: November Uprising

text: The Polish forces then assembled on the right bank of the Vistula to defend the capital. On 25 February, a Polish contingent of approximately 40,000 met a Russian force of 60,000 east of Warsaw at the Battle of Olszynka Grochowska. Both armies withdrew after almost two days of heavy fighting and with considerable losses on both sides. Over 7,000 Poles fell on that field, and the number of killed in the Russian army was slightly larger. Diebitsch was forced to retreat to Siedlce and Warsaw was saved.


title: November Uprising

text: Chłopicki, whose soldierly qualities reasserted themselves by military activity, was wounded in action and his place taken by General Jan Skrzynecki, who, like his predecessor, had won distinction under Napoleon for personal courage. Disliked by Grand Duke Constantine, he had retired from service. He shared with Chłopicki the conviction that war with Russia was futile but with the opening of hostilities took command of a corps and fought creditably at Grochov. When the weak and indecisive Michał Radziwiłł surrendered the dictatorship, Skrzynecki was chosen to succeed him. He endeavored to end the war by negotiations with the Russian field commanders and hoped for benign foreign intervention.


title: November Uprising

text: Sympathetic echoes of the Polish aspirations reverberated throughout Europe. Enthusiastic meetings had been held in Paris under Lafayette's chairmanship, and money for the Polish cause was collected in the United States. The governments of France and Britain, however, did not share the feelings of some of their people. King Louis-Philippe of France thought mainly of securing for himself recognition on the part of all European governments, and Lord Palmerston was intent on maintaining friendly relations with Russia. Britain regarded with alarm the reawakening of the French national spirit and did not wish to weaken Russia, "as Europe might soon again require her services in the cause of order, and to prevent Poland, whom it regarded as a national ally of France, from becoming a French province of the Vistula". Austria and Prussia adopted a position of benevolent neutrality towards Russia. They closed the Polish frontiers and prevented the transportation of munitions of war or supplies of any kind.


title: November Uprising

text: Under those circumstances, the war with Russia began to take on a somber and disquieting aspect. The Poles fought desperately and attempts were made to rouse Volhynia, Podolia, Samogitia and Lithuania. With the exception of the Lithuanian uprising in which the youthful Countess Emilia Plater and several other women distinguished themselves, the guerilla warfare carried on in the frontier provinces was of minor importance and served only to give Russia an opportunity to crush local risings. Notorious was the slaughter of the inhabitants of the small town of Ashmiany in Belarus. Meanwhile, new Russian forces under Grand Duke Michael Pavlovich of Russia arrived in Poland but met with many defeats. Constant warfare, however, and bloody battles such as that at Ostroleka in which 8,000 Poles lost their lives, considerably depleted the Polish forces. Mistakes on the part of the commanders, constant changes and numerous resignations, and the inactivity of the commanders, who continued to hope for foreign intervention, added to the feeling of despair.


title: November Uprising

text: The more radical elements severely criticized the government not only for its inactivity but also for its lack of land reform and its failure to recognize the peasants' rights to the soil they tilled, but the Sejm, fearing that the governments of Europe might regard the war with Russia as social revolution, procrastinated and haggled over concessions. The initial enthusiasm of the peasantry waned, and the ineptitude of the government became more apparent.


title: November Uprising

text: In the meantime, the Russian forces, commanded after the death of Diebitsch by General Paskevich, were moving to encircle Warsaw. Skrzynecki failed to prevent the Russian forces from joining, and the Sejm responded to popular clamor for his deposition by appointing General Dembinski to temporary command. The atmosphere was highly charged. Severe rioting took place and the government became completely disorganized. Count Jan Krukowiecki was made President of the Ruling Council. He had little faith in the success of the military campaign but believed that when passions had subsided he could end the war on what seemed to him advantageous terms.


title: November Uprising

text: Despite a desperate defence by General Józef Sowiński, Warsaw's suburb of Wola fell to Paskevich's forces on 6 September. The next day saw the second line of the capital's defensive works attacked by the Russians. During the night of 7 September Krukowiecki capitulated, although the city still held out. He was immediately deposed by the Polish government and replaced by Bonawentura Niemojowski. The army and the government withdrew to the Modlin fortress, on the Vistula, subsequently renamed Novo-Georgievsk by the Russians, and then to Płock. New plans had been adopted when the news arrived that the Polish crack corps under Ramorino, unable to join the main army, had laid down its arms after crossing the Austrian frontier into Galicia. It became evident that the war could be carried on no longer.


title: November Uprising

text: On 5 October 1831, the remainder of the Polish army of over 20,000 men crossed the Prussian frontier and laid down their arms at Brodnica in preference to submission to Russia. Only one man, a colonel by the name of Stryjenski, gained the peculiar distinction of giving himself up to Russia.


title: November Uprising

text: Following the example of Dąbrowski a generation before, General Bem endeavored to reorganize the Polish soldiers in Prussia and Galicia into Legions and lead them to France, but the Prussian government frustrated his plans. The immigrants left Prussia in bands of between fifty and a hundred, and their journey through the various German principalities was greeted with enthusiasm by the local populations. Even German sovereigns such as the King of Saxony, the Princess of Weimar and the Duke of Gotha shared in the general demonstration of sympathy. It was only upon the very insistent demands of Russia that the Polish committees all over Germany were be closed.


title: November Uprising

text: Adam Czartoryski remarked that the war with Russia, precipitated by the rising of young patriots in November 1830, came either too early or too late. Puzyrewski argued that the rising should have been initiated in 1828, when Russia was experiencing reversals in Turkey and was least able to spare substantial forces for war with Poland (Lewinski-Corwin, 1917). Military critics, such as the Russian pundit General Puzyrevsky, maintained that in spite of the inequality of resources of the two countries, Poland had had every chance of holding her own against Russia if the campaign had been managed skillfully. Russia sent over 180,000 well-trained men against Poland's 70,000, 30% of whom were fresh recruits entering the service at the opening of hostilities. "In view of this, one would think that not only was the result of the struggle undoubted, but its course should have been a triumphant march for the infinitely stronger party. Instead, the war lasted eight months, with often doubtful success. At times the balance seemed to tip decidedly to the side of the weaker adversary who dealt not only blows but even ventured daring offensives."


title: November Uprising

text: It had long been argued, as Edward Lewinski-Corwin in 1917, that "anarchy and a lack of concord" among people were the causes of Poland's national downfall. Thus, when the rising finally began, the insurgents demanded absolute power for their leaders and tolerated no criticism for fear that discord would again prove ruinous for all. However, the men chosen to lead, because of their past achievements, proved unable to perform the great task expected of them. Moreover, many apparently had little faith that their joint effort could succeed.


title: November Uprising

text: Militarily, Poland might have succeeded if the line of battle had been established in Lithuania, wrote Lewinski-Corwin, and if the Russian forces, arriving in Poland progressively, had been dealt with separately and decisively, one unit after another.


title: November Uprising

text: After the end of the November Uprising, Polish women wore black ribands and jewellery as a symbol of mourning for their lost homeland. Such images can be seen in the first scenes of the movie "Pan Tadeusz", filmed by Andrzej Wajda in 1999, based on the Polish national epic. A 1937 German film, "Ride to Freedom" was partly shot on location in Poland.


title: November Uprising

text: The Scottish poet Thomas Campbell, who had championed the cause of the Poles in "The Pleasures of Hope", was affected by the news of the capture of Warsaw by the Russians in 1831 as if it had been the deepest of personal calamities. "Poland preys on my heart night and day", he wrote in one of his letters, and his sympathy found a practical expression in the foundation in London of the Association of the Friends of Poland. The November Uprising was also supported in the United States. Edgar Allan Poe was sympathetic to the Polish cause and volunteered to fight the Russians during the November Uprising (Bobr-Tylingo 1982, 145).


title: November Uprising

text: Despite Poland's deep connection to Catholicism and the fact that many participants in the rebellion were Catholic, the rebellion was condemned by the Church. Pope Gregory XVI issued an encyclical in the following year on the subject of civil disobedience. "Cum Primum" stated:


title: System of measurement

text: A system of measurement is a collection of units of measurement and rules relating them to each other. Systems of measurement have historically been important, regulated and defined for the purposes of science and commerce. Systems of measurement in use include the International System of Units or (the modern form of the metric system), the British imperial system, and the United States customary system.


title: System of measurement

text: The French Revolution gave rise to the metric system, and this has spread around the world, replacing most customary units of measure. In most systems, length (distance), mass, and time are "base quantities".


title: System of measurement

text: Later science developments showed that an electromagnetic quantity such as electric charge or electric current could be added to extend the set of base quantities. Gaussian units have only length, mass, and time as base quantities, with no separate electromagnetic dimension. Other quantities, such as power and speed, are derived from the base set: for example, speed is distance per unit time. Historically a wide range of units was used for the same type of quantity: in different contexts, length was measured in inches, feet, yards, fathoms, rods, chains, furlongs, miles, nautical miles, stadia, leagues, with conversion factors that were not powers of ten.


title: System of measurement

text: The preference for a more universal and consistent system only gradually spread with the growth of international trade and science. Changing a measurement system has costs in the near term, which results in resistance to such a change. The substantial benefit of conversion to a more rational and internationally consistent system of measurement has been recognized and promoted by scientists, engineers and politicians, and has resulted in most of the world adopting a commonly agreed metric system.


title: System of measurement

text: In antiquity, "systems of measurement" were defined locally: the different units might be defined independently according to the length of a king's thumb or the size of his foot, the length of stride, the length of arm, or maybe the weight of water in a keg of specific size, perhaps itself defined in "hands" and "knuckles". The unifying characteristic is that there was some definition based on some standard. Eventually "cubits" and "strides" gave way to "customary units" to meet the needs of merchants and scientists.


title: System of measurement

text: In the metric system and other recent systems, underlying relationships between quantities, as expressed by formulae of physics such as Newton's laws of motion, is used to select a small number of base quantities for which a unit is defined for each, from which all other units may be derived. Secondary units (multiples and submultiples) are derived from these base and derived units by multiplying by powers of ten, so for example where the unit of length is the metre; a distance of 1 m is 1,000 millimetres, or 0.001 kilometres.


title: System of measurement

text: Metrication is complete or nearly complete in almost all countries. US customary units are heavily used in the United States and to some degree in Liberia. Traditional Burmese units of measurement are used in Burma. U.S. units are used in limited contexts in Canada due to the large volume of trade; there is also considerable use of imperial weights and measures, despite "de jure" Canadian conversion to metric.


title: System of measurement

text: A number of other jurisdictions have laws mandating or permitting other systems of measurement in some or all contexts, such as the United Kingdom – whose road signage legislation, for instance, only allows distance signs displaying imperial units (miles or yards) – or Hong Kong.


title: System of measurement

text: In the United States, metric units are used almost universally in science, widely in the military, and partially in industry, but customary units predominate in household use. At retail stores, the litre (spelled 'liter' in the U.S.) is a commonly used unit for volume, especially on bottles of beverages, and milligrams, rather than grains, are used for medications. Some other non-SI units are still in international use, such as nautical miles and knots in aviation and shipping.


title: System of measurement

text: Metric systems of units have evolved since the adoption of the first well-defined system in France in 1795. During this evolution the use of these systems has spread throughout the world, first to non-English-speaking countries, and then to English speaking countries.


title: System of measurement

text: Multiples and submultiples of metric units are related by powers of ten and their names are formed with prefixes. This relationship is compatible with the decimal system of numbers and it contributes greatly to the convenience of metric units.


title: System of measurement

text: In the early metric system there were two base units, the metre for length and the gram for mass. The other units of length and mass, and all units of area, volume, and derived units such as density were derived from these two base units.


title: System of measurement

text: Mesures usuelles (French for "customary measurements") were a system of measurement introduced as a compromise between the metric system and traditional measurements. It was used in France from 1812 to 1839.


title: System of measurement

text: A number of variations on the metric system have been in use. These include gravitational systems, the centimetre–gram–second systems (cgs) useful in science, the metre–tonne–second system (mts) once used in the USSR and the metre–kilogram–second system (mks). In some engineering fields, like computer-aided design, millimetre–gram–second (mmgs) is also used.


title: System of measurement

text: The current international standard for the metric system is the International System of Units ( or SI). It is a system in which all units can be expressed in terms of seven units. The units that serves as the SI base units are the metre, kilogram, second, ampere, kelvin, mole, and candela.