title: Figure skating jumps

text: According to scientist Deborah King from Ithaca College, there are basic physics common to all jumps, regardless of the skating techniques required to execute them. Factors such as angular momentum, the moment of inertia, angular acceleration, and the skater's center of mass determines if a jump is successfully completed. Unlike jumping from dry land, which is fundamentally a linear movement, jumping on the ice is more complicated because of angular momentum. For example, most jumps involve rotation. Scientist James Richards from the University of Delaware says successful jumps depend upon "how much angular momentum do you leave the ice with, how small can you make your moment of inertia in the air, and how much time you can spend in the air". Richards found that a skater tends to spend the same amount of time in the air when performing triple and quadruple jumps, but their angular momentum at the start of triples and quadruples is slightly higher than it is for double jumps. The key to completing higher-rotation jumps is how they control the moment of inertia. Richards also found that many skaters, although they were able to gain the necessary angular momentum for takeoff, had difficulty gaining enough rotational speed to complete the jump. King agrees, saying skaters must be in the air long enough, have enough jump height to complete the required revolutions, and the amount of vertical velocity they are able to gain as they jump off the ice, although different jumps require different patterns of movement. Skaters performing quadruple jumps tend to be in the air longer and have more rotational speed. King also found that most skaters "actually tended to skate slower into their quads as compared to their triples", although the differences in the speed in which they approached triples and quadruples were small. King conjectured that slowing their approach into the jumps were due to skaters' "confidence and a feeling of control and timing for the jump", rather than any difference in how they executed them. Vertical takeoff velocity, however, was higher for both quadruple and triple toe loops, resulting in "higher jumps and more time in the air to complete the extra revolution for the quadruple toe-loop". As Tanya Lewis of "Scientific American" puts it, executing quadruple jumps, which as of 2022, has become more common in both male and female single skating competitions, requires "exquisite strength, speed and grace".


title: Figure skating jumps

text: For example, a skater could successfully complete a jump by making small changes to their arm position partway through the rotation, and a small bend in the hips and knees allows a skater "to land with a lower center of mass than they started with, perhaps seeking out a few precious degrees of rotation and a better body position for landing". When they execute a toe jump, they must use their skate's toe pick to complete a pole-vaulting-type motion off the ice, which along with extra horizontal speed, helps them store more energy in their leg. As they rotate over their leg, their horizontal motion converts into tangential velocity. King, who believes quintuple jumps are mathematically possible, says that in order to execute more rotations, they could improve their rotational momentum as they execute their footwork or approach into their takeoff, creating torque about the rotating axis as they come off the ice. She also says that if skaters can increase their rotational momentum while "still exploding upward" they can rotate faster and increase the number of revolutions they perform. Sports writer Dvora Meyers, reporting on Russian coaching techniques, says female skaters executing more quadruple jumps in competition use what experts call pre-rotation, or the practice of twisting their upper bodies before they take off from the ice, which allows them to complete four revolutions before landing. Meyers also says the technique depends on the skater's being small, light, and young, and that it puts more strain on the back because they do not use as much leg strength. As a skater ages and goes through puberty, however, they tend to not be able to execute quadruple jumps because "the technique wasn't sound to start with". They also tend to retire before the age of 18 due to the increase of back injuries.


title: Figure skating jumps

text: Since the tendency of an edge is toward the center of the circle created by that edge, a skater's upper body, arms, and free leg also have a tendency to be pulled along by the force of the edge. If the upper body, arms, and free leg are allowed to follow passively, they will eventually overtake the edge's rotational edge and will rotate faster, a principle that is also used to create faster spins. The inherent force of the edge and the force generated by a skater's upper body, arms, and free leg tend to increase rotation, so successful jumping requires precise control of these forces. Leaning into the curvature of the edge is how skaters regulate the edge's inherent angular momentum. Their upper body, arms, and free leg are controlled by what happens at the time of preparation for the jump and its takeoff, which are designed to produce the correct amount of rotation on the takeoff. If they do not have enough rotation, they will not be at the correct position at the takeoff; if they rotate too much, their upper body will not be high enough in the air. Skaters must keep track of the many different movements and body positions, as well as the timing of those movements relative to each other and to the jump itself, which requires hours of practice but once mastered, becomes natural.


title: Figure skating jumps

text: The number of possible combinations jumps are limitless; if a turn or change of feet is permitted between combination jumps, any number of sequences is possible, although if the landing of one jump is the takeoff of the next, as is the case in loop combinations, how the skater lands will dictate the possibilities going into subsequent jumps. Rotational momentum tends to increase during combination jumps, so skaters should control rotation at the landing of each jump; if a skater does not control rotation, they will over-rotate on subsequent jumps and probably fall. The way skaters control rotation differs depending upon the nature of the landing and takeoff edges, and the way they use their arms, which regulate their shoulders and upper body position, and free leg, which dictates the positioning of their hips. If the landing on one jump leads directly into the takeoff of the jump that follows it, the bend on the landing leg of the first jump serves as preparation for the spring of the takeoff of the subsequent jump. If some time elapses between the completion of the first jump and the takeoff of the subsequent one, or if a series of movements serve as preparation for the subsequent jump, the leg bend for the spring can be separated from the bend of the landing leg.


title: Cleopatra race controversy

text: The race of Cleopatra VII, the last active Hellenistic ruler of the Macedonian-led Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt, has caused some debate in scholarly and non-scholarly circles. For example, the article "Was Cleopatra Black?" was published in "Ebony" magazine in 2002. Mary Lefkowitz, Professor Emerita of Classical Studies at Wellesley College, traces the main origins of the Black Cleopatra claim to the 1946 book by J.A. Rogers called "World's Great Men of Color", although noting that the idea of Cleopatra as black goes back to at least the 19th century. Lefkowitz refutes Rogers' hypothesis, on various scholarly grounds. The black Cleopatra claim was further revived in an essay by afrocentrist John Henrik Clarke, chair of African history at Hunter College, entitled "African Warrior Queens." Lefkowitz notes the essay includes the claim that Cleopatra described herself as black in the New Testament's Book of Acts – when in fact Cleopatra had died more than sixty years before the death of Jesus Christ.


title: Cleopatra race controversy

text: Scholars identify Cleopatra as having been essentialy of Greek ancestry with some Persian and Sogdian Iranian ancestry, based on the fact that her Macedonian Greek family (the Ptolemaic dynasty) had intermarried with the Seleucid dynasty. Michael Grant states that Cleopatra probably had not a drop of Egyptian blood and that she "would have described herself as Greek." Duane W. Roller notes that "there is absolutely no evidence" that Cleopatra was racially black African as claimed by what he dismisses as generally not "credible scholarly sources."


title: Cleopatra race controversy

text: Cleopatra's official coinage (which she would have approved) and the three portrait busts of her considered authentic by scholars (which match her coins) portray Cleopatra as a Greek woman in style. Polo writes that Cleopatra's coinage presents her image with certainty and asserts that the sculpted portrait of the "" head is confirmed as having a similar profile. Roman frescoes in Pompeii and Herculaneum similar to the Vatican and Berlin marble sculptures have been identified as possible portraits of the queen based on comparable facial features and royal iconography.


title: Cleopatra race controversy

text: In 2009, a BBC documentary speculated that Cleopatra might have been part North African. This was based largely on the examination of a headless skeleton of a female child in a 20 BCE tomb in Ephesus (modern Turkey), together with the old notes and photographs of the now-missing skull. The remains were hypothesized to be those of Arsinoe IV, half-sister to Cleopatra, and conjecture based on discredited processes suggested that the remains belonged to a girl whose "race" may have been "North African". This claim is rejected by scholars, based on the remains being impossible to identify as Arsinoe, the race of the remains being impossible to identify at all, the fact that the remains belonged to a child much younger than Arsinoe when she died, and the fact that Arsinoe and Cleopatra shared the same father, Ptolemy XII Auletes, but had different mothers.


title: Cleopatra race controversy

text: The race and skin color of Cleopatra VII, the last active Hellenistic ruler of the Macedonian Greek Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt, has caused some debate, although generally not in scholarly sources. For example, the article "Was Cleopatra Black?" was published in "Ebony" magazine in 2002, and an article about Afrocentrism from the "St. Louis Post-Dispatch" mentions the question, too.


title: Cleopatra race controversy

text: Mary Lefkowitz, Professor Emerita of Classical Studies at Wellesley College, traces the main origins of the black Cleopatra claim to the 1946 book by J.A. Rogers called "World's Great Men of Color", although noting that the idea of Cleopatra as black goes back to at least the 19th century. Lefkowitz refutes Rogers' hypothesis. She notes Rogers's inability to correctly number Cleopatra's family (for example, naming Cleopatra's brother Ptolemy XIII Theos Philopator as her father, who was Ptolemy XII Auletes, and naming Ptolemy XI Alexander II as Ptolemy XII's father when he was Ptolemy IX Soter), using as his main sources a misinterpretation of William Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra" (written over 1,500 years after Cleopatra's death) and falsely citing "Encyclopedia Britannica" (when in fact it did not then or ever claim Cleopatra was black), and that his presumption Cleopatra's paternal grandmother was a black African slave is "based in the more recent past."


title: Cleopatra race controversy

text: She further stresses slavery in ancient times was very different from modern black chattel slavery, as slaves were not taken based on skin color but were in actuality mostly war captives, largely including Greeks, and notes Roger's claim of a black grandmother is based on practices by slave owners of the 19th century. The black Cleopatra claim, Lefkowitz continues, was further revived in an essay written by afrocentrist John Henrik Clarke, chair of African history at Hunter College, entitled "African Warrior Queens" for "Black Women in Antiquity."


title: Cleopatra race controversy

text: She notes the essay was largely drawn on the writings of Rogers with Clarke's added "supporting information of his own" that includes his claim Cleopatra described herself as black in the New Testament's Book of Acts – when in fact Cleopatra had died more than sixty years before the death of Jesus. She also notes that if Cleopatra's paternal grandmother was Egyptian and that is how she learned Egyptian, it would be more likely for Cleopatra's father Ptolemy XII to be the first Ptolemy to learn Egyptian instead of Cleopatra (noting those like Rogers and Clarke never mention him), who is the only member of the Ptolemaic dynasty known to have learned Egyptian in addition to her native tongue Koine Greek and eight other languages.


title: Cleopatra race controversy

text: In her 1993 paper "Black Feminist Thought and Classics: Re-Membering, Re-Claiming, Re-Empowering," classicist Shelley P. Haley discusses Cleopatra from a Black feminist perspective in which she sees the queen as a symbolic figure for African-American women. She writes that "Cleopatra reacted to the phenomena of oppression and exploitation as a Black woman would." Thus, African-American audiences claim Cleopatra as a 'sister.' When prompted on Lefkowitz's criticism of her 1993 article, Haley further argued in favor of Cleopatra symbolizing for African-American women "the treatment we have received at the hands of Eurocentric patriarchy." In regards to the question of the race of the historical Cleopatra, Haley responded "that this is a very complex question when one can ask it about Cleopatra or any ancient—or modern—historical figure." In addition to being a symbolic figure in American Black feminism, Cleopatra became an icon for Egyptian audiences over centuries as well as in the modern age for the Arab and Egyptian nationalist movements. As a national icon for Egyptians, Cleopatra has been seen by such figures as Ahmed Shawqi as representative of the conflict between Egypt and imperialist European powers.


title: Cleopatra race controversy

text: In response to the book "Not Out of Africa" by Lefkowitz, Molefi Kete Asante, Professor of African American Studies at Temple University wrote the article "Race in Antiquity: Truly Out of Africa", in which he emphasized that he "can say without a doubt that Afrocentrists do not spend time arguing that either Socrates or Cleopatra were black."


title: Cleopatra race controversy

text: More recently Kathryn Bard, Professor of Archaeology and Classical Studies at Boston University stated in 2020 that: "Cleopatra was white of Macedonian descent, as were all of the Ptolemy rulers, who lived in Egypt," while for Rebecca Futo Kennedy, Associate Professor of Classics, Women's and Gender Studies, and Environmental Studies at Denison University, since there is no genetic basis for race, any claims to being able to identify Cleopatra's "true racial background" from her family tree perpetuate nothing else but a modern political position. For Dame Mary Beard, Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge and scholar of Ancient Roman civilisation, "The truth is that we have no idea of the origins of Cleopatra. She was certainly of a royal Macedonian family, but whether her mother (or any other of her female ancestors) was Egyptian we just don't know."


title: Cleopatra race controversy

text: In regards to the debate surrounding the casting in 2020 of Israeli actress Gal Gadot in a Cleopatra film project, Egyptian-Australian writer and journalist Daniel Nour contended Egyptians should have a say who is cast as Cleopatra, as she was a "queen "of" Egyptian history." In the context of Egyptian feminism, Nour argues that for Egyptian women "the choice to cast an Egyptian woman in a role like Cleopatra can be incredibly empowering." He continues that since Cleopatra is an Egyptian queen of Greek ancestry, she is representative of the genetic diversity of modern Egypt. He further notes the importance of Egyptian feminist Nawal El Saadawi's identifying Cleopatra's role in Egyptian history as part of "historical demonstrations of the matriarchal power structures held by North-African women." The exclusion of Cleopatra's Greek-ness from mainstream Hollywood productions has also been recently discussed by Greek scholars: Greek historian Konstantinos P. Nikoloutsos, in his anthology "Ancient Greek Women in Film" (2013), has a chapter written by the classicist Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones entitled "‘An Almost All Greek Thing’: Cleopatra VII and Hollywood Imagination" (a reference to the famous 1963 film "Cleopatra") which critiques the lack of representation of Greek culture in portrayals of Cleopatra.


title: Cleopatra race controversy

text: Cleopatra's official Ptolemaic coinage (which she would have approved) and the three Roman portrait busts of her considered authentic by scholars (which match her coins) portray Cleopatra as a Greek woman in style, including the Greek chiton, Hellenistic diadem, and Greek chignon. Francisco Pina Polo writes that Cleopatra's coinage present her image with certainty and asserts that the sculpted portrait of the "" head from the Altes Museum is confirmed as having a similar profile with her hair pulled back into a bun, a diadem, and a hooked nose. Ernle Bradford writes that it is "reasonable to infer" Cleopatra had dark hair and "pale olive skin" by how she portrays herself as a "Eastern Mediterranean type" on her official coins, and that she challenged Rome not as an Egyptian woman, "but as a civilized Greek." Barbara Watterson notes that Cleopatra's coins show her in the Greek style rather than the Egyptian style and argues that although she was a Macedonian Greek we can only speculate the color of Cleopatra's features, but probably had dark brown hair and eyes and skin with an olive hue.


title: Cleopatra race controversy

text: Similar to the Berlin Cleopatra, other Roman sculpted portraits of Cleopatra include diadem-wearing marble heads now located in the Vatican Museums and Archaeological Museum of Cherchell, although may instead be a depiction of her daughter Cleopatra Selene II. The diademed 'Esquiline Venus' statue in the Capitoline Museums is also speculated as being an additional depiction of the queen, especially due to her connection with the Greek goddess Aphrodite as seen on some of her coinage. The Portland Vase, a Roman cameo glass vase dated to the reign of Augustus and now in the British Museum, includes a possible depiction of Cleopatra with a serpent rising in her lap as she sits and grasps the arm of her Roman spouse Mark Antony.


title: Cleopatra race controversy

text: In addition to sculptures and coins, several surviving Roman frescoes from Pompeii and Herculaneum also likely depict Cleopatra. A contemporaneous depiction from Pompeii's House of Marcus Fabius Rufus depicts the queen as the goddess Venus Genetrix holding a cupid in her arms, ostensibly a rare depiction of her son Caesarion who was fathered by the Roman dictator Julius Caesar. Susan Walker notes that the woman's ivory-white skin, round face, long aquiline nose, and large round eyes were features common in Roman and Ptolemaic depictions of goddesses.


title: Cleopatra race controversy

text: Duane W. Roller writes about the fresco: "there seems little doubt that this is a depiction of Cleopatra and Caesarion before the doors of the Temple of Venus in the Forum Julium and, as such, it becomes the only extant contemporary painting of the queen." Walker, Roller and Joann Fletcher observe the similarity of this Pompeiian painting with the face preserved in the "", the damage on the left cheek of the sculpture possibly from the arm of a cupid that may have been torn off.


title: Cleopatra race controversy

text: Posthumous portraits include a fresco of Pompeii's House of Giuseppe II depicting her possible suicide by poisoning, a painted portrait in Pompeii's House of the Orchard showing a side view of her diademed bust, and a highly similar fresco from nearby Herculaneum, the latter which matches the visage of her sculptures and official coinage.


title: Cleopatra race controversy

text: Aside from Hellenistic art, native Egyptian artworks of Cleopatra include the "Bust of Cleopatra" in the Royal Ontario Museum, as well as of the Temple of Hathor in the Dendera Temple complex in Egypt depicting Cleopatra and Caesarion as ruling pharaohs providing offerings to Egyptian deities. Other works include a large Ptolemaic black basalt statue now in the Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, depicting an uncertain Ptolemaic queen thought to be either Arsinoe II or the famous Cleopatra VII.


title: Cleopatra race controversy

text: In his (2006), contends that this Egyptian basalt statue is like other idealized Egyptian portraits of the queen, and does not contain realistic facial features and hence adds little to the knowledge of Cleopatra's appearance. Diana Preston comes to a similar conclusion about native Egyptian depictions of Cleopatra: "Apart from certain temple carvings, which are anyway in a highly stylised pharaonic style and give little clue to Cleopatra's real appearance, the only certain representations of Cleopatra are those on coins. The marble head in the Vatican is one of three sculptures generally, though not universally, accepted by scholars to be depictions of Cleopatra." Barabara Watterson writes that the depictions of Cleopatra such as at Hathor are conventional Egyptian representations rather than actual portraits of the queen. She notes that the Dendera relief shows Cleopatra in the "typical Ptolemaic style."


title: Cleopatra race controversy

text: Scholars generally identify Cleopatra as essentially of Greek ancestry with some Persian and Sogdian Iranian ancestry. This is based on the fact that her Macedonian Greek family – the Ptolemaic dynasty – had intermarried with the Seleucid dynasty that ruled over much of West Asia. Notably this included the first Ptolemaic Cleopatra, Queen Cleopatra I Syra, a Seleucid princess and daughter of Antiochus III the Great who married Ptolemy V Epiphanes. Cleopatra I Syra was a descendant of the Seleucid Queen Apama, the Sogdian Iranian wife of Seleucus I Nicator, a Macedonian Greek companion of Alexander the Great. Laodice III, the mother of Cleopatra I Syra, was born to king Mithridates II of Pontus and his wife Laodice, who had a mixed Greek and Persian ancestral heritage.


title: Cleopatra race controversy

text: While the identity of Cleopatra VII Philopator's mother is uncertain, she is generally believed to be Cleopatra V of Egypt, the sister or cousin wife of Ptolemy XII Auletes, who was the daughter of Ptolemy IX Soter or Ptolemy X Alexander I. Additionally, while the identity of her paternal grandmother is not certain, she is generally believed to be Cleopatra IV, via Ptolemy XII's father, Ptolemy IX Soter, or a Greek Alexandrian woman. Claims of illegitimacy were never used against Cleopatra in the extremely hostile propaganda campaign by Augustus, Michael Grant noting that if Cleopatra had been illegitimate, her "numerous Roman enemies would have revealed this to the world."


title: Cleopatra race controversy

text: Grant states that Cleopatra probably had not a drop of Egyptian blood and that she "would have described herself as Greek." Grant also proposes that Cleopatra's paternal grandmother may have been mixed Syrian and Greek, in line with the precedent of Persian and Syrian blood in the Ptolemaic line, and continues that "certainly she was not an Egyptian," noting there is no known Egyptian wife of a Ptolemaic king and there is only one known Egyptian mistress of a Ptolemy (from the 3rd century BCE). Lefkowitz writes that this Egyptian woman, named Didyame, was the mistress of Ptolemy II Philadelphus. She notes that among Ptolemy II's many mistresses, Didyame was specifically singled out because she was Egyptian, and not of the usual Greek stock among Ptolemaic mistresses (who included among Ptolemy II's mistresses, the courtesans Bilistiche, Agathocleia, Stratonice of Libya, and Myrto—whose coloring and ethnicity were not specifically pointed out like Didyame, "presumably because they were Greek"). She further notes that if she had any children by Ptolemy, they never became king (all Ptolemaic kings were regarded as fully legitimate save for Ptolemy XII Auletes). She contends that it is "misleading to suggest that the unique non-Greek mistress Didyame provides evidence of a common practice."


title: Cleopatra race controversy

text: Duane W. Roller speculates that Cleopatra VII could have been the daughter of a hypothetical half-Macedonian-Greek, half-Egyptian woman belonging to the priestly family of Ptah (the other main candidate he notes would be Cleopatra V/VI) located in Memphis in northern Egypt, but contends that whatever Cleopatra's ancestry, she valued her Greek Ptolemaic heritage the most. He further notes that "there is absolutely no evidence" that Cleopatra was racially black African as claimed by what he dismisses as generally not "credible scholarly sources." He goes onto say outside the hypothesis of Cleopatra being three-quarters Macedonian Greek and a quarter Egyptian, there is "no room for anything else, certainly not for any black African blood." Diana Preston also writes that Cleopatra's paternal grandmother may have been part Syrian, continuing that even if Cleopatra had an Egyptian grandmother "it does not follow she was a black African" and that Cleopatra "almost certainly had olive skin and dark eyes."


title: Cleopatra race controversy

text: Adrian Goldsworthy notes Cleopatra, having Macedonian blood with a little Syrian, was probably not dark skinned (he also notes Roman propaganda never mentions it), contending "fairer skin is marginally more likely considering her ancestry," and that she "was no more Egyptian culturally or ethnically than most residents of modern day Arizona are Apaches."


title: Cleopatra race controversy

text: He further notes that Cleopatra's native tongue was Greek, that it was in "Greek literature and culture she that was educated," that her worship of Isis was "strongly Hellenised," and that although she was presented in some statuary in the idealized Egyptian style, she was unlikely to have dressed like this outside of performing certain rites. Instead, he continues, Cleopatra "wore the headband and robes of a Greek monarch." Stacy Schiff concurs Cleopatra was not dark-skinned, that "the Ptolemies were in fact Macedonian Greek, which makes Cleopatra approximately as Egyptian as Elizabeth Taylor", that her Ptolemaic relatives were described as "honey skinned", that she was part Persian, and that "an Egyptian mistress is a rarity among the Ptolemies."


title: Cleopatra race controversy

text: Mary Lefkowitz notes that had Cleopatra's grandmother or mother been Egyptian, it surely would have been pointed out in the records, and concludes that whatever her ancestry, Cleopatra "regarded herself as Greek." Schiff continues that Cleopatra "faithfully held up the family tradition." In essence, Cleopatra's loyalties were to her Ptolemaic Greek heritage. As noted by Donald R. Dudley, Cleopatra and her family were "the successor[s] to the native Pharaohs, exploiting through a highly organized bureaucracy the great natural resources of the Nile Valley."


title: Cleopatra race controversy

text: In 2009, a BBC documentary speculated that Arsinoe IV of Egypt, the half-sister of Cleopatra VII, may have been part North African and then further speculated that Cleopatra's mother, thus Cleopatra herself, might also have been part North African. This was based largely on the claims of Hilke Thür of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, who in the 1990s had examined a headless skeleton of a female child in a 20 BCE tomb in Ephesus (modern Turkey), together with the old notes and photographs of the now-missing skull. She hypothesized the body as that of Arsinoe.


title: Cleopatra race controversy

text: Arsinoe and Cleopatra shared the same father (Ptolemy XII Auletes) but had different mothers, with Thür claiming the alleged African ancestry came from the skeleton's mother. However, researchers Clarence C. Gravlee, H. Russell Bernard, and William R. Leonard, and others have demonstrated that skull measurements are not a reliable indicator of race and the measurements were jotted down in 1920 before modern forensic science took hold.


title: Cleopatra race controversy

text: To date it has never been definitively proved the skeleton is that of Arsinoe IV. Furthermore, craniometry as used by Thür to determine race is based in scientific racism that is now generally considered a pseudoscience that supported "exploitation of groups of people" to "perpetuate racial oppression" and "distorted future views of the biological basis of race." When a DNA test was made that attempted to determine the identity of the child, it was impossible to get an accurate reading since the bones had been handled too many times, and the skull had been lost in Germany during World War II.


title: Cleopatra race controversy

text: Mary Beard wrote a dissenting essay criticizing the findings, pointing out that one, there is no surviving name on the tomb and that the claim the tomb is alleged to invoke the shape of the Pharos Lighthouse "doesn't add up"; second, the skull did not survive intact and the skeleton is of a child too young to be that of Arsinoe (the bones are said to be that of a 15–18-year-old child, with Arsinoe being around her mid twenties at her death); and third, since Cleopatra and Arsinoe were not known to have the same mother, "the ethnic argument goes largely out of the window."


title: M39 Enhanced Marksman Rifle

text: The M39 Enhanced Marksman Rifle (EMR; formally Rifle, Caliber 7.62 mm, M39 Enhanced Marksman Rifle; NSN 1005-01-553-5196) is a semi-automatic, gas-operated designated marksman rifle chambered for the 7.62×51mm NATO cartridge. It is a modified and accurized version of the M14 rifle used by the United States military, in a similar vein to the Mk 14 Enhanced Battle Rifle. It is based on the United States Marine Corps Designated Marksman Rifle (DMR), which it replaced. It is manufactured by Sage International and maintained by the USMC's Precision Weapons Section.


title: M39 Enhanced Marksman Rifle

text: The rifle is currently issued with match-grade M118LR 175-grain long range ammunition. The "basic" EMR (without telescopic sight, magazine, sling, basic issue items, cleaning gear, suppressor and bipod) weighs or less.


title: M39 Enhanced Marksman Rifle

text: In November 1992, Marine Corps Systems Command drafted a mission needs statement for an enhanced sniper support team weapon (SSTW). It called for a weapon to support the M40A1 sniper rifle in a Scout Sniper team for close-range engagements and to lay down rapid semiautomatic suppressive fire. At the time, the role was filled by the M16A2, which could not mount optics or night vision sights and used M855 5.56×45mm NATO ammunition, which was too inaccurate for the role. A previous designated marksman weapon effort attempted to use the M14 for the role, but it was not as accurate as bolt-action rifles and could not fit into the Fleet Marine Forces logistics system. The enhanced SSTW had to engage targets out to 600 meters, use ammunition interchangeable with the M40A1, be able to mount a sound suppressor and optics, and be supportable. Even though the M14 was not initially suitable, rifle equipment builders continued to refine it and produced versions as "interim measures". They eventually became a program unto themselves and culminated as the M39 Enhanced Marksman Rifle.


title: M39 Enhanced Marksman Rifle

text: The EMR is primarily used by a designated marksman, to provide precision fire for units that do not rate a scout sniper. As a replacement for the DMR, the EMR fills the need for a lightweight, accurate weapon system utilizing a cartridge more powerful than the M16A4's standard 5.56×45mm NATO—the 7.62×51mm NATO. The EMR is also used by Marine scout snipers when the mission requires rapid accurate fire and by Marine Corps explosive ordnance disposal teams.


title: M39 Enhanced Marksman Rifle

text: In early 2012, the Marine Corps began replacing the M39 with the M110 Semi-Automatic Sniper System, originally developed for the U.S. Army, on a one-for-one basis, with the designation of Mk 11 Mod 2. The M110 better fills the requirements of the SSTW, being able to mount suppressors and night vision systems while maintaining zero, and having M16 training and supply commonality.


title: Ulf Kristersson

text: Ulf Hjalmar Ed Kristersson (born 29 December 1963) is a Swedish politician who has been serving as Prime Minister of Sweden since October 2022. He has been the leader of the Moderate Party (M) since October 2017 and a member of the Riksdag (MP) for Södermanland County since 2014 and for Stockholm County from 1991 to 2000. He previously served as Minister for Social Security from 2010 to 2014 and as Chairman of the Moderate Youth League from 1988 to 1992.


title: Ulf Kristersson

text: On 11 December 2014, he was appointed Shadow Finance Minister of the Moderate Party and economic policy spokesperson. On 1 October 2017 Kristersson was elected party leader of the Moderate Party after Anna Kinberg Batra stepped down. Under his leadership, M has opened up to the Sweden Democrats (SD) and, by late 2021, had formed an informal right-wing alliance with them and two center-right parties of the dissolved Alliance. In the 2022 Swedish general election, that bloc obtained a majority in the Riksdag, leading to Kristersson's election as Prime Minister on 17 October.


title: Ulf Kristersson

text: Ulf Kristersson was born in Lund, Skåne County, as the eldest of three children to Lars Kristersson (1938–2015) who worked with economics and teacher Karin Kristersson (née Axelsson; 1938–2020). The family moved to Torshälla outside Eskilstuna five years later. In his youth, Kristersson was a troupe gymnast.


title: Ulf Kristersson

text: Kristersson finished secondary school at S:t Eskils gymnasium in Eskilstuna. After graduating, Kristersson did military service as a platoon commander at Uppland Regiment from 1983 to 1984 and completed a degree in economics at Uppsala University.


title: Ulf Kristersson

text: In connection with the 1985 Swedish general election, he was employed as a campaigner at the Moderate Youth League (MUF) in Sörmland. On 26 November 1988, he rose to become the new Chairman of MUF, succeeding Beatrice Ask. In 1991, the center-right Bildt Cabinet took power, and Kristersson became an MP. He served on the Social Security Committee. He soon becomes a vocal critic of the government's crisis agreement with Social Democrats. At the time, Kristersson developed a friendship with the former party leader, Gösta Bohman, who, in some respects, also supported his criticism of the Bildt Cabinet.


title: Ulf Kristersson

text: In 1992, Kristersson was challenged as chairman of MUF by Fredrik Reinfeldt. The congress was preceded by considerable ideological divisions between liberals and conservatives. All this erupted at the congress in Lycksele, which came to be known as the Battle of Lycksele. Kristersson, the liberal alternative, lost narrowly. It is said that his loss caused his withdrawal from front-line politics and he was subsequently known as part of the "Lost Generation" of the Moderate Party. From 1995 to 1998, Kristersson was chief of marketing at Timbro, a free market think-tank, while also working in parliament. In 1994 he also released the book "Non-working Generation" at Timbros publishing company. In the book Kristersson argues against the welfare institutions in Sweden and compares these to apartheid because he considered these institutions to force people into passivity.


title: Ulf Kristersson

text: Kristersson left his parliamentary seat in April 2000, feeling that the new party leader Bo Lundgren had declined his services. Kristersson worked for two years in the private sector, mainly as communications director and VP for the internet consultancy Adcore, a dotcom crash casualty.


title: Ulf Kristersson

text: Kristersson was chairman of the Swedish Adoption Center (Adoptionscenter). During his time as chairman, information emerged that the centre handled adoptions of children trafficked from China.


title: Ulf Kristersson

text: He returned to active politics in 2002 as Commissioner (Mayor) for Finance in Strängnäs and served there until 2006. In 2006, he was appointed Vice Mayor ("Socialborgarråd") in Stockholm, responsible for the social welfare and labor division. During this time Kristersson got a rental contract for a five-room apartment in central Stockholm from Ersta Diakonisällskap. Due to that, Stockholm city was contracting and gave economical aid to Ersta Diakonisällskap, that, among other things provided for housing for those in social need. An investigation was started and Kristersson and another person in the associations leadership were suspected of bribery. According to a internal policy document, the apartments in the building was reserved for those newly employed by the association and students at Marie Cederschiöld högskola. The investigation was closed with the motivation that Kristersson did not have direct influence over the aid that the association could give. Fredrik Reinfeldt also asked Kristersson to lead the committee responsible for developing a new family policy for the party. He immediately caused controversy by suggesting that fathers must take a month of paternity leave for the family to receive all benefits. This was clearly conflicted with traditional Moderate Party policy, which has centered on individual choice.


title: Ulf Kristersson

text: On 5 October 2010, Fredrik Reinfeldt appointed Kristersson to become Minister of Social Security, a position he held for four years. After the 2014 Swedish general election, the Reinfeldt cabinet resigned, but Kristersson was elected as MP again, this time for Södermanland County. Following Reinfeldt's resignation as party leader, Anna Kinberg Batra appointed him as Shadow Finance Minister.


title: Ulf Kristersson

text: Anna Kinberg Batra resigned as leader of the Moderates on 25 August 2017, after internal criticism. Kristersson publicly decided to run for leadership on 1 September and was elected on 1 October. The party saw a sharp increase in support in the polls, compared to the record low numbers under his predecessor Batra. He has a harsher stance against immigration than his predecessors.


title: Ulf Kristersson

text: In September 2018, incumbent Prime Minister Stefan Löfven was ousted. Kristersson expressed hope of becoming the next Prime Minister. On 2 October, he was designated by Speaker of the Riksdag Andreas Norlén to form a new government. He initially sought to form a government coalition involving the Alliance parties (Moderate Party, Centre Party, Christian Democrats and Liberals) with support from the Swedish Social Democratic Party (S). On 9 October, he said that S had rejected all further talks on agreements and that he would now seek other ways to form a new government. On 14 October, he stated that he was not able to form a new government.


title: Ulf Kristersson

text: On 5 November 2018, Speaker Norlén proposed Kristersson as Prime Minister following breakdowns in all other government negotiations. On 14 November 2018, the Riksdag rejected Kristersson's bid to become Prime Minister by a vote of 195 to 154. It was the first time ever that a speaker's proposal for Prime Minister lost such a vote and the first time in 40 years that center-right parties (Centre Party and Liberals) vetoed a center-right candidate for Prime Minister.


title: Ulf Kristersson

text: Kristersson held a meeting in December 2019 with Jimmie Åkesson, leader of the Sweden Democrats, and said that he would cooperate with them in parliament. The anti-immigration party had previously been subject to a "cordon sanitaire" by all other parties, with Kristersson himself ruling out dialogue with them ahead of the 2018 elections. According to Ann-Cathrine Jungar of Södertörn University, this put Sweden in line with several other European countries in which center-right and radical-right parties cooperate. In August 2020, he criticised the government for a perceived failure to deal with rising crime, including gun violence, which he called a "second pandemic".


title: Ulf Kristersson

text: On 29 June 2021, after Prime Minister Stefan Löfven was ousted, Speaker of the Riksdag Andreas Norlén formally tasked Kristersson with forming a government. Kristersson had until 3 July to report his potential government to Norlén. Kristersson planned to lead a coalition of his own party along with the Christian Democrats, Liberals, and Sweden Democrats. On 1 July, Kristersson informed the Speaker that he did not have enough support to form a government and returned his mandate.


title: Ulf Kristersson

text: Kristersson led the Moderate Party (M) during the 2022 campaign, in which his party lost parliamentary seats, as well as the second place position (for the first time since the 1976 Swedish general election); nonetheless, the right-wing bloc gained an absolute majority, resulting in Magdalena Andersson's resignation and Kristersson's nomination as Prime Minister by Speaker Andreas Norlén. Kristersson signalled his preference for a coalition government between M, the Christian Democrats (KD) and Liberals (L) with external support from the Sweden Democrats (SD).


title: Ulf Kristersson

text: On 14 October, Kristersson presented the fully documented Tidö Agreement () between M, KD, L and SD. This enabled the first three parties to seek a mandate for a new national administration to be chosen by the Riksdag, with SD given strong influence amounting to confidence and supply. On 17 October, Kristersson was elected Prime Minister by 176 Riksdag votes for, and 173 votes against him, with no absentees or abstentions. It is the first time SD has exerted direct government influence. European Union lawmakers criticized the center-right and M in particular, as a member of the European People's Party, for allying with the far right, as did opposition leaders.


title: Ulf Kristersson

text: On 18 October 2022, Kristersson as per constitutional requirements was officially identified by the Swedish king as the new Prime Minister, having announced his program earlier that day in a speech to the Riksdag after which he had identified the members chosen for his cabinet.


title: Ulf Kristersson

text: On 27 October 2022, Kristersson and Ebba Busch announced a 55 billion (SEK) subsidy compensation in connection to the high increase of power bills; the subsidy will only be paid out in the energy price zones three and four in the southern parts of Sweden.


title: Ulf Kristersson

text: A 2018 political profile in "The Local" described Kristersson as exuding "nice guy vibes: smart, humble and reasonable, easygoing and open to discussion" while positioning him to the right of his predecessors on issues such as crime and immigration. He was also described in the same profile as representing the neoliberal wing of the Moderate Party (M).


title: Ulf Kristersson

text: Kristersson himself has described social mobility as one of his core concerns in politics. In his first leadership speech, Kristersson stated that Sweden should become "a country for hopefuls" and that M should be "a party for hopefuls". On the matter of asylum, Kristersson states that he supports the integration of refugees into Swedish society but argues for compulsory cultural assimilation and learning of the Swedish language, and that refugees be put to work and pay tax.


title: Ulf Kristersson

text: Kristersson initially ruled out forming an alliance with the Sweden Democrats (SD) upon assuming party leadership; following the 2018 Swedish general election, he ended the policy of non-cooperation and met with SD's leadership for official talks. Before the 2022 Swedish general election, Kristersson suggested that he would form a loose right-wing bloc consisting of M, the Christian Democrats (KD), Liberals (L) and SD but expressed uncertainty at SD's demand that they be allocated cabinet positions should the right-wing bloc win a majority. Following the election, Kristersson signalled his ambition to form a new conservative government with support from SD.


title: Ulf Kristersson

text: Kristersson lives in Strängnäs. He and his wife Birgitta Ed, a former PR consultant who is soon a priest, have adopted three daughters from China. Kristersson is 169 centimeters (5' 5½") tall.


title: 1998 NFL season

text: The season culminated with Super Bowl XXXIII, with the Denver Broncos defeating the Atlanta Falcons 34–19 at Pro Player Stadium in Miami. The Broncos had won their first thirteen games, the best start since the undefeated 1972 Dolphins, and were tipped by some to have a realistic chance at winning all nineteen games. The Minnesota Vikings became the first team since the 1968 Baltimore Colts to win all but one of their regular season games and not win the Super Bowl. After no team had won 14 regular season games since the 1992 49ers, three teams went 14–2 or better for the only time in a 16-game season.


title: 1998 NFL season

text: "Football Outsiders" argued that "1998 was the last hurrah for the great quarterbacks who came into the league in the 1980s. The top four QBs [statistically] were all over 35: Vinny Testaverde, Randall Cunningham, Steve Young, and John Elway. Troy Aikman, age 32, was fifth. Dan Marino was 11th in his last good year."


title: 1998 NFL season

text: The 1998 NFL Draft was held from April 17 to 18, 1998 at New York City's Theater at Madison Square Garden. With the first pick, the Indianapolis Colts selected quarterback Peyton Manning from the University of Tennessee.


title: 1998 NFL season

text: Dale Hamer and Gary Lane returned to head linesman and side judge, respectively. Tony Corrente and Ron Winter were promoted to referee.


title: 1998 NFL season

text: Mike Pereira left the field after two seasons as a side judge to become an assistant supervisor of officials. He succeeded Jerry Seeman as Vice President of Officiating in 2001. Pereira's replacement, Terry McAulay, assumed Pereira's old position and uniform number (77). McAulay was promoted to referee in 2001 and was crew chief for three Super Bowls (XXXIX, XLIII and XLVIII).


title: 1998 NFL season

text: The 1998 Hall of Fame Class included Paul Krause, Tommy McDonald, Anthony Muñoz, an offensive lineman for the Cincinnati Bengals, Mike Singletary, a member of the Chicago Bears Super Bowl XX championship team, and Dwight Stephenson, a Pro Bowl offensive lineman with the Miami Dolphins.


title: 1998 NFL season

text: This was the first season that CBS held the rights to televise AFC games, taking over from NBC. Meanwhile, this was the first time that ESPN broadcast all of the Sunday night games throughout the season (this was also the first season in which ESPN's coverage used the "Monday Night Football" themes, before reverting to using an original theme in 2001). ABC and Fox renewed their rights for "Monday Night Football" and the NFC package, respectively. All of these networks signed eight-year television contracts through the 2005 season.


title: 1998 NFL season

text: This was also the first season where the late games kicked off at 4:05pm ET & 4:15pm ET (replacing the original 4:00pm ET start time), to give networks more time to finish the early games before the start of the late games. The 4:15 start time would last until 2011.


title: 1998 NFL season

text: "MNF" broadcasts were also pushed back from its 9:00pm ET start time to 8:00pm ET. The actual kickoffs were at 8:20pm, preceded by a new pregame show hosted by Chris Berman. Frank Gifford was then reassigned as a special contributor to the pregame show, while Boomer Esiason replaced Gifford in the booth.


title: 1998 NFL season

text: Longtime CBS Sports announcer Jim Nantz was named as the host of the revived "The NFL Today" pregame show, with Marcus Allen, Brent Jones, and George Seifert as analysts. For its new lead broadcast team, CBS hired Greg Gumbel and Phil Simms from NBC. Randy Cross also came from NBC, and was paired with longtime CBS Sports announcer Verne Lundquist to form the network's new #2 crew.


title: White Heat

text: White Heat is a 1949 American film noir directed by Raoul Walsh and starring James Cagney, Virginia Mayo, Edmond O'Brien, Margaret Wycherly and Steve Cochran. Written by Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts, "White Heat" is based on a story by Virginia Kellogg, and is considered to be one of the best gangster movies of all time. In 2003, it was added to the National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress.


title: White Heat

text: Arthur "Cody" Jarrett is a ruthless, psychotic criminal and leader of the Jarrett gang. Although married to Verna, he is overly attached to his equally crooked and determined mother, "Ma" Jarrett.


title: White Heat

text: Cody and his gang rob a mail train in the Sierra Nevada mountains, killing four members of the train's crew. While on the lam, Cody has a severe migraine, which Ma nurses him through. Afterward, Ma and Cody have a quick drink and toast, "Top of the world!", before rejoining the others. The gang splits up.


title: White Heat

text: Informants enable the authorities to close in on a motor court in Los Angeles where Cody, Verna, and Ma are holed up. Cody shoots and wounds US Treasury investigator Philip Evans and makes his escape. He then puts his emergency scheme in motion: confess to a lesser crime committed by an associate in Springfield, Illinois, at the same time as the train job—a federal crime—thus providing him with a false alibi and assuring him a lesser sentence. He turns himself in and is sentenced to one to three years in state prison. Evans, however, plants undercover agent Hank Fallon (as "Vic Pardo") in Cody's cell. His task is to find the "Trader", a fence who launders stolen money for Cody.


title: White Heat

text: On the outside, "Big Ed" Somers, Cody's ambitious right-hand man, takes charge. Verna betrays Cody and joins Ed. Ed pays inmate Roy Parker to kill Cody. In the prison workshop, Parker attempts to drop a heavy piece of machinery on Cody, but Hank pushes Cody out of the way, saving his life and gaining Cody's trust. Ma visits and vows to "take care of" Big Ed, despite Cody's frantic attempts to dissuade her. He starts worrying and decides to break out with Hank. Meanwhile, it is revealed that Verna has murdered Ma, whom she despised, by shooting her in the back. Big Ed knows this and holds this information over Verna to keep her with him. When Cody learns of Ma's death by way of a new inmate, he goes berserk in the mess hall. He concocts an escape plan.


title: White Heat

text: In the infirmary, he is diagnosed as having a "homicidal psychosis" and is recommended for transfer to an asylum. Another inmate sneaks him a gun, which Cody uses to take hostages, and along with Hank and their cellmates, Cody escapes. They also take along Parker. Cody later kills him in cold blood.


title: White Heat

text: When they learn of Cody's escape, Big Ed and Verna anxiously await his return. Verna tries slipping away, but Cody catches her. Although Verna murdered Ma, she convinces Cody that Big Ed did it, so Cody guns him down. The gang welcome the escapees, including Hank, whom Cody likes and trusts. They start planning their next job.


title: White Heat

text: A stranger shows up at the gang's isolated hideout, asking to use the phone. Hank is concerned. Cody introduces the stranger as "The Trader," Daniel Winston. Cody plans to steal a chemical plant's payroll by using an empty tanker truck as a Trojan horse. Hank says he will repair Verna's radio, then rigs a signal transmitter and attaches it to the Trojan tanker; on the way to the plant, he manages to get a message to Evans. The police track the tanker and prepare an ambush.


title: White Heat

text: The gang gets into the payroll office, but the tanker driver, ex-con "Bo" Creel, recognizes Hank and informs Cody. Having tracked the truck to Long Beach, California, using direction finders, the police surround the building and call on Cody to surrender; he decides to fight it out. When the police fire tear gas into the office, Hank manages to escape. In the ensuing gun battle, the police kill most of Cody's gang and Verna is arrested. Cody shoots one of his own men for trying to surrender. Finally, only Cody is still loose. He flees to the top of a gigantic, globe-shaped gas storage tank. After Hank shoots Cody several times with a rifle, Cody fires at the tank, which bursts into flames. He shouts "Made it, Ma! Top of the world!" before the tank explodes.


title: White Heat

text: After winning an Oscar for "Yankee Doodle Dandy", Cagney left Warner Brothers in 1942 to form his own production company with his business manager and brother, William. After making four unsuccessful movies (including the well-regarded, but "financially disastrous" adaptation of William Saroyan's "The Time of Your Life"), Cagney returned to Warner in mid-1949. His decision to return was purely financial; Cagney admitted he "needed the money," and that he never forgot the "hell" Warner put him through in the 1930s when it came to renewing his contract. Likewise, the last thing Jack Warner wanted to see was Cagney back on his lot; referring to him as "that little bastard", he vowed to never take him back. Cagney's new contract with Warner enabled him to make $250,000 per film on a schedule of one film per year, plus script approval and the opportunity to develop projects for his own company.


title: White Heat

text: To make good on his comeback, Cagney settled on the script for "White Heat"; on May 6, 1949, he signed on to portray Arthur "Cody" Jarrett. Much to Jack Warner's dismay, it was writers Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts who suggested him for the lead, claiming "there's only one man who can play [Jarrett] and make the rafters rock." For years, Cagney resisted gangster roles in an effort to avoid typecasting, but decided to return to the genre after feeling his box office power waning. Following Cagney's attachment, Warner increased the production budget to $1 million and hired Raoul Walsh to direct. Walsh had previously worked with Cagney on "The Roaring Twenties" (in 1939) and "The Strawberry Blonde" (in 1941). However, Cagney was unhappy with the studio's decision to hire Walsh; in part, because he requested Frank McHugh be in the film, but Warner turned his friend down in an attempt to cut costs.


title: White Heat

text: Warner bought the rights to the story from Virginia Kellogg for $2,000. Being "methodical craftsmen", it took Goff and Roberts six months to complete the first draft. They "would plot in complete detail before even beginning to write, then write their dialogue together, line by line." When Walsh saw it, he pleaded with Cagney's brother, William, to talk Cagney out of doing the picture. According to him, the draft was "bad—a real potboiler," but William reassured Walsh that "Jimmy [would] rewrite it as much as possible."


title: White Heat

text: "White Heat" was meant to be based on the true story of Ma Barker, a bank robber who raised her four sons as criminals. However, this was changed along with Cagney's involvement; Ma Barker became Ma Jarrett, and her four children were reduced to two. Arthur Barker became Arthur "Cody" Jarrett, a psychopath with a mother fixation. Cody's mental illness and the exact cause of his migraines remain a mystery throughout the film. This was done intentionally, enabling viewers to use their imaginations and draw their own conclusions. In total, the script received several rewrites, with input being given from some of Cagney's closest friends. Humphrey Bogart and Frank McHugh worked "after hours" on revisions; with McHugh writing the film's opening scene.


title: White Heat

text: The script is notable for reworking many themes from Cagney's previous films with Warner. Most notably, in "The Public Enemy", Cagney smashed a grapefruit into Mae Clarke's face; in "White Heat" he kicks Virginia Mayo off a chair. In "Each Dawn I Die", his character suffers the ill effects of prison; while here, his character has a breakdown in the prison mess hall. Furthermore, in "The Roaring Twenties" Cagney fought with rival gangsters in a similar fashion to how Cody Jarrett stalks the double-crossing "Big Ed" Somers (portrayed by Steve Cochran).


title: White Heat

text: The production began on May 5, 1949, and lasted six weeks until completion on June 20. Walsh made use of a number of locations in southern California; first by going to the Santa Susana Mountains (near his home) to shoot "chase scenes". He then moved on to an old Southern Pacific tunnel near Chatsworth to stage the opening robbery scenes. Urban street scenes along with the "Milbank Hotel" were shot in and around Van Nuys. The "hideaway lodge sequences" were shot at the Warner ranch, the interior scenes in the studio itself, and the climax scene at an oil refinery near Torrance, south of Los Angeles. The drive-in theater scenes were shot at the now demolished San Val Drive-In in Burbank.


title: White Heat

text: Jack Warner wanted the prison mess hall scene replaced for budgetary reasons, stating the "cost of a single scene with 600 extras and only one line of dialogue would be exorbitant." For this reason, Warner wanted the scene shot in a chapel, but relented when "the writers pointed out that, apart from the fact that Jarrett would [never be willingly caught in a] chapel", the whole point of the scene was to "have a lot of noise, with rattling knives and forks and chatter, that suddenly goes completely silent when Jarrett first screams." The scream was improvised by Cagney, and the shock on everyone's face was real, for neither Cagney nor Walsh informed any of the extras of what was going to happen. Warner agreed to the scene on the condition that it be shot in three hours, so "that the extras were through by lunchtime."


title: White Heat

text: A number of scenes were improvised; Walsh's "personal touches go beyond the script." When Cody and his gang hide out in their cabin just after the train heist, Cody has one of his "debilitating headaches", causing him to fall from his chair and fire off a round from his .45. This was Walsh's idea, as was the showing of Virginia Mayo's upper thigh on screen. Another scene involved Cody giving his wife, Verna, a "seething look", but Walsh improvised and had Cagney knock her off of her chair. Cagney claimed it was his idea "to have Cody climb onto Ma Jarrett's lap and sit there; being soothed during one of his psychotic [episodes]", but Walsh has always denied this; claiming many years later that it was his idea.


title: White Heat

text: Critical reaction to the film was positive, and today it is considered a classic. Bosley Crowther of "The New York Times" called it "the acme of the gangster-prison film" and praised its "thermal intensity".


title: White Heat

text: In 2005, "White Heat" was listed in "Time" magazine's top 100 films of all time. On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 97% based on 35 reviews, with a weighted average of 8.40/10. The site's consensus reads: "Raoul Walsh's crime drama goes further into the psychology of a gangster than most fear to tread and James Cagney's portrayal of the tragic anti-hero is constantly volatile".


title: White Heat

text: In 1950, Virginia Kellogg was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Story. Also that year writers Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts were nominated for the Edgar Award for Best Motion Picture, by the Mystery Writers of America. In 2003, the United States Library of Congress selected "White Heat" for preservation in the National Film Registry.


title: White Heat

text: On June 4, 2003, the American Film Institute named Cody Jarrett in its list of the best heroes and villains of the past 100 years, he was voted 26th. Furthermore, in June 2005, "Made it, Ma! Top of the World!" was voted 18th in AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes; while, in June 2008, "White Heat" was voted 4th in AFI's 10 Top 10 list of gangster movies.


title: White Heat

text: Scenes of the film are featured in the 1992 crime-drama film "Juice" as well as the 1982 "Hart to Hart" episode "Hart and Sole." In the noir parody "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid", Steve Martin acts in scenes with Cagney's character through special effects and cross-cutting.


title: White Heat

text: The "Made it ma! Top of the world" line is used in the 1991 film "Ricochet", in which Denzel Washington recites the quote in the final scene atop a tower. A variation of the quote—"Top of the world, ma!"—appears in the 1986 movie "Tough Guys" during a scene in which Eli Wallach shoots at cops from a train; the same variation is used in the 1990 film "The Adventures of Ford Fairlane" by Andrew Dice Clay when he escapes kidnappers and discovers that he is atop the Capitol Records Building. It has also been quoted in a fifth-season episode of "Cheers", a second-season episode of "Breaking Bad" and the series finale of "Mixels". The line is also quoted in the Kings of the Sun song "Drop the Gun".


title: White Heat

text: The film has inspired songs such as Madonna's "White Heat" on "True Blue"; the song was also dedicated to Cagney. Sam Baker's "White Heat" references the plot and dialogue on his 2013 album "Say Grace".


title: White Heat

text: The "Made it ma! Top of the world" line also was used in the opening of 50 Cent and PnB Rock's "Crazy" song.


title: Anti-war movement

text: An anti-war movement (also "antiwar") is a social movement, usually in opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term anti-war can also refer to pacifism, which is the opposition to all use of military force during conflicts, or to anti-war books, paintings, and other works of art. Some activists distinguish between anti-war movements and peace movements. Anti-war activists work through protest and other grassroots means to attempt to pressure a government (or governments) to put an end to a particular war or conflict or to prevent it in advance.


title: Anti-war movement

text: Substantial opposition to British war intervention in America led the British House of Commons on 27 February 1783 to vote against further war in America, paving the way for the Second Rockingham ministry and the Peace of Paris.


title: Anti-war movement

text: Substantial antiwar sentiment developed in the United States roughly between the end of the War of 1812 and the commencement of the Civil War in what is called the Antebellum era. A similar movement developed in England during the same period. The movement reflected both strict pacifist and more moderate non-interventionist positions. Many prominent intellectuals of the time, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau ("see" "Civil Disobedience") and William Ellery Channing contributed literary works against war. Other names associated with the movement include William Ladd, Noah Worcester, Thomas Cogswell Upham, and Asa Mahan. Many peace societies were formed throughout the United States, the most prominent of which being the American Peace Society. Numerous periodicals (such as "The Advocate of Peace") and books were also produced. The "Book of Peace", an anthology produced by the American Peace Society in 1845, must surely rank as one of the most remarkable works of antiwar literature ever produced.


title: Anti-war movement

text: A recurring theme in this movement was the call for the establishment of an international court to adjudicate disputes between nations. Another distinct feature of antebellum antiwar literature was the emphasis on how war contributed to a moral decline and brutalization of society in general.


title: Anti-war movement

text: A key event in the early history of the modern anti-war stance in literature and society was the American Civil War, where it culminated in the candidacy of George B. McClellan for US president as a Peace Democrat against incumbent President Abraham Lincoln. The outlines of the antiwar stance are seen: the argument of the costs of maintaining the present conflict not being worth the gains that can be made, the appeal to end the horrors of war, and the argument of war being waged for the profit of particular interests. During the war, the New York Draft Riots were started as violent protests against Lincoln's "Enrollment Act of Conscription" to draft men to fight in the war. The outrage over conscription was augmented by the ability to "buy" one's way out, which could be afforded only by the wealthy. After the war, "The Red Badge of Courage" described the chaos and sense of death which resulted from the changing style of combat: away from the set engagement, and towards two armies engaging in continuous battle over a wide area.


title: Anti-war movement

text: In Britain, in 1914, the Public Schools Officers' Training Corps annual camp was held at Tidworth Camp, near Salisbury Plain. Head of the British Army Lord Kitchener was to review the cadets, but the immenence of the war prevented him. General Horace Smith-Dorrien was sent instead. He surprised the two-or-three thousand cadets by declaring (in the words of Donald Christopher Smith, a Bermudian cadet who was present) "that war should be avoided at almost any cost, that war would solve nothing, that the whole of Europe and more besides would be reduced to ruin, and that the loss of life would be so large that whole populations would be decimated. In our ignorance I, and many of us, felt almost ashamed of a British General who uttered such depressing and unpatriotic sentiments, but during the next four years, those of us who survived the holocaust-probably not more than one-quarter of us – learned how right the General's prognosis was and how courageous he had been to utter it." Having voiced these sentiments did not hinder Smith-Dorrien's career, or prevent him from carrying out his duty in the First World War to the best of his abilities.


title: Anti-war movement

text: With the increasing mechanization of war, opposition to its horrors grew, particularly in the wake of the First World War. European avant-garde cultural movements such as Dada were explicitly anti-war.


title: Anti-war movement

text: The Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918 gave the American authorities the right to close newspapers and jailed individuals for having anti-war views.


title: Anti-war movement

text: On 16 June 1918, Eugene V. Debs made an anti-war speech and was arrested under the Espionage Act of 1917. He was convicted, sentenced to serve ten years in prison, but President Warren G. Harding commuted his sentence on 25 December 1921.


title: Anti-war movement

text: In 1924, Ernst Friedrich published "Krieg dem Krieg!" ("War Against War!"): an album of photographs drawn from German military and medical archives from the first world war. In Regarding the Pain of Others Sontag describes the book as "photography as shock therapy" that was designed to "horrify and demoralize".


title: Anti-war movement

text: It was in the 1930s that the Western anti-war movement took shape, to which the political and organizational roots of most of the existing movement can be traced. Characteristics of the anti-war movement included opposition to the corporate interests perceived as benefiting from war, to the status quo which was trading the lives of the young for the comforts of those who are older, the concept that those who were drafted were from poor families and would be fighting a war in place of privileged individuals who were able to avoid the draft and military service, and to the lack of input in decision making that those who would die in the conflict would have in deciding to engage in it.


title: Anti-war movement

text: In 1933, the Oxford Union resolved in its Oxford Pledge, "That this House will in no circumstances fight for its King and Country."


title: Anti-war movement

text: Many war veterans, including US General Smedley Butler, spoke out against wars and war profiteering on their return to civilian life.


title: Anti-war movement

text: Veterans were still extremely cynical about the motivations for entering World War I, but many were willing to fight later in the Spanish Civil War, indicating that pacifism was not always the motivation. These trends were depicted in novels such as "All Quiet on the Western Front", "For Whom the Bell Tolls" and "Johnny Got His Gun".


title: Anti-war movement

text: Opposition to World War II was most vocal during its early period, and stronger still before it started while appeasement and isolationism were considered viable diplomatic options. Communist-led organizations, including veterans of the Spanish Civil War, opposed the war during the period starting with the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact but then turned into hawks after Germany invaded the Soviet Union.


title: Anti-war movement

text: The war seemed, for a time, to set anti-war movements at a distinct social disadvantage; very few, mostly ardent pacifists, continued to argue against the war and its results at the time. However, the Cold War followed with the post-war realignment, and the opposition resumed. The grim realities of modern combat, and the nature of mechanized society ensured that the anti-war viewpoint found presentation in "Catch-22", "Slaughterhouse-Five" and "The Tin Drum". This sentiment grew in strength as the Cold War seemed to present the situation of an unending series of conflicts, which were fought at terrible cost to the younger generations.


title: Anti-war movement

text: Organized opposition to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War began slowly and in small numbers in 1964 on various college campuses in the United States and quickly as the war grew deadlier. In 1967 a coalition of antiwar activists formed the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam which organized several large anti-war demonstrations between the late 1960s and 1972. Counter-cultural songs, organizations, plays and other literary works encouraged a spirit of nonconformism, peace, and anti-establishmentarianism. This anti-war sentiment developed during a time of unprecedented student activism and right on the heels of the Civil Rights Movement, and was reinforced in numbers by the demographically significant baby boomers. It quickly grew to include a wide and varied cross-section of Americans from all walks of life. The anti-Vietnam war movement is often considered to have been a major factor affecting America's involvement in the war itself. Many Vietnam veterans, including the former Secretary of State and former U.S. Senator John Kerry and disabled veteran Ron Kovic, spoke out against the Vietnam War on their return to the United States.


title: Anti-war movement

text: Opposition to the South African Border War spread to a general resistance to the apartheid military. Organizations such as the End Conscription Campaign and Committee on South African War Resisters, were set up. Many opposed the war at this time.


title: Anti-war movement

text: Following the rise of nationalism and political tensions after Slobodan Milošević came to power, as well as the outbreaks of the Yugoslav Wars, numerous anti-war movements developed in Serbia. The anti-war protests in Belgrade were held mostly because of opposition the Battle of Vukovar, Siege of Dubrovnik and Siege of Sarajevo, while protesters demanded the referendum on a declaration of war and disruption of military conscription.


title: Anti-war movement

text: More than 50,000 people participated in many protests, and more than 150,000 people took part in the most massive protest called "The Black Ribbon March" in solidarity with people in Sarajevo. It is estimated that between 50,000 and 200,000 people deserted from the Yugoslav People's Army, while between 100,000 and 150,000 people emigrated from Serbia refusing to participate in the war. According to professor Renaud De la Brosse, senior lecturer at the University of Reims and a witness called by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), it is surprising how great the resistance to Milošević's propaganda was among Serbs, given that and the lack of access to alternative news.


title: Anti-war movement

text: The most famous associations and NGOs who marked the anti-war ideas and movements in Serbia were the "Center for Antiwar Action", Women in Black, Humanitarian Law Center and Belgrade Circle. The Rimtutituki was a rock supergroup featuring Ekatarina Velika, Električni Orgazam and Partibrejkers members, which was formed at the petition signing against mobilization in Belgrade.


title: Anti-war movement

text: NATO bombing of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War triggered debates over the legitimacy of the intervention. About 2,000 Serbian Americans and anti-war activists protested in New York City against NATO airstrikes, while more than 7,000 people protested in Sydney. The most massive protests were held in Greece, and demonstrations were also held in Italian cities, London, Moscow, Toronto, Berlin, Stuttgart, Salzburg and Skopje.


title: Anti-war movement

text: There was initially little opposition to the 2001 Afghanistan War in the United States and the United Kingdom, which was seen as a response to the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks and was supported by most the American public. Most vocal opposition came from pacifist groups and groups promoting a leftist political agenda. In the United States, the group A.N.S.W.E.R. was one of the most visible organizers of anti-war protests, but the group faced considerable controversy over allegations that it was a front for the Stalinist Workers World Party. Over time, opposition to the war in Afghanistan has grown more widespread, partly as a result of weariness with the length of the conflict and partly as a result of a conflating of the conflict with the unpopular war in Iraq.


title: Anti-war movement

text: The anti-war position gained renewed support and attention in the buildup to the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the U.S. and its allies. Millions of people staged mass protests across the world in the immediate prelude to the invasion, and demonstrations and other forms of anti-war activism have continued throughout the occupation. The primary opposition within the U.S. to the continued occupation of Iraq has come from the grassroots. Opposition to the conflict, how it had been fought, and complications during the aftermath period divided public sentiment in the U.S., resulting in majority public opinion turning against the war for the first time in the spring of 2004, a turn which has held since.


title: Anti-war movement

text: The American country music band Dixie Chicks opposition to the war caused many radio stations to stop playing their records, but who were supported in their anti-war stance by the equally anti-war country music legend Merle Haggard, who in the summer of 2003 released a song critical of US media coverage of the Iraq War. Anti-war groups protested during both the Democratic National Convention and 2008 Republican National Convention protests held in Saint Paul, Minnesota, in September 2008.


title: Anti-war movement

text: Organised opposition to a possible future military attack against Iran by the United States is known to have started during 2005–2006. Beginning in early 2005, journalists, activists and academics such as Seymour Hersh, Scott Ritter, Joseph Cirincione and Jorge E. Hirsch began publishing claims that United States' concerns over the alleged threat posed by the possibility that Iran may have a nuclear weapons program might lead the US government to take military action against that country in the future. These reports, and the concurrent escalation of tensions between Iran and some Western governments, prompted the formation of grassroots organisations, including Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran in the US and the United Kingdom, to advocate against potential military strikes on Iran. Additionally, several individuals, grassroots organisations and international governmental organisations, including the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, a former United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq, Scott Ritter, Nobel Prize winners including Shirin Ebadi, Mairead Corrigan-Maguire and Betty Williams, Harold Pinter and Jody Williams, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Code Pink, the Non-Aligned Movement of 118 states, and the Arab League, have publicly stated their opposition to a would-be attack on Iran.


title: Anti-war movement

text: Anti-war/Putin demonstrations took place in Moscow "opposing the War in Donbass", i.e., in Eastern Ukraine.


title: Anti-war movement

text: In May 2021, protests broke out following a flare-up of the Israel–Palestine conflict. The 2021 conflict lasted from 6 May until 21 May when a ceasefire was signed.


title: Anti-war movement

text: Beginning in 2022, the anti-war movement was renewed following tensions between Russia and Ukraine. Protests escalated on 24 February 2022, after Russia invaded Ukraine.


title: Anti-war movement

text: English poet Robert Southey's 1796 poem After Blenheim is an early modern example of anti-war literature that was written generations after the Battle of Blenheim but while Britain was again at war against France.


title: Anti-war movement

text: World War I produced a generation of poets and writers influenced by their experiences in the war. The work of poets, including Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, exposed the contrast between the realities of life in the trenches and how the war was seen by the British public at the time and the earlier patriotic verse penned by Rupert Brooke. The German writer Erich Maria Remarque penned "All Quiet on the Western Front", which has been adapted for several mediums and has become of the most often cited pieces of anti-war media.


title: Anti-war movement

text: Pablo Picasso's 1937 painting "Guernica", on the other hand, used abstraction, rather than realism. to generate an emotional response to the loss of life from the fascists' bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War. The American author Kurt Vonnegut used science fiction themes in his 1969 novel "Slaughterhouse-Five", depicting the bombing of Dresden in World War II, which Vonnegut witnessed.


title: Anti-war movement

text: The second half of the 20th century also witnessed a strong anti-war presence in other art forms, including anti-war music such as "Eve of Destruction" and One Tin Soldier and films such as "M*A*S*H" and "Die Brücke", opposing the Cold War in general or specific conflicts such as the Vietnam War. The war in Iraq has also generated significant artistic anti-war works, including the American filmmaker Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11", which holds the box-office record for documentary films, and the Canadian musician Neil Young's 2006 album "Living with War".


title: Anti-war movement

text: Various people have discussed the philosophical question of whether war is inevitable, and how it can be avoided; in other words, what are the necessities of peace. Various intellectuals and others have discussed it from an intellectual and philosophical point of view, not only in public, but participating or leading anti-war campaigns despite its differing from their main areas of expertise, leaving their professional comfort zones to warn against or fight against wars.


title: Eldorado (Electric Light Orchestra album)

text: Eldorado (subtitled A Symphony by the Electric Light Orchestra) is the fourth studio album by the Electric Light Orchestra (ELO). It was released in the United States in September 1974 by United Artists Records and in the United Kingdom in October 1974 by Warner Bros. Records.


text: "Eldorado" is the first complete ELO concept album; bandleader Jeff Lynne conceived the storyline before he wrote any music. The plot follows a Walter Mitty-like character who journeys into fantasy worlds via dreams, to escape the disillusionment of his mundane reality. Lynne began to write the album in response to criticisms from his father, a classical music lover, who said that Electric Light Orchestra's repertoire "had no tune". The influence of The Beatles is prevalent, especially in the melody of the verse of "Mister Kingdom" which to some degree resembles the Beatles' "Across the Universe".


text: "Eldorado" marks the first album on which Jeff Lynne hired an orchestra; on previous albums, he would overdub the strings. Louis Clark co-arranged, with Lynne (and keyboardist Richard Tandy), and conducted the strings. The group's three resident string players continued to perform on recordings, however, and can be heard most prominently on the songs "Boy Blue" and "Laredo Tornado". Mike de Albuquerque departed early on in the recording process, as touring made him feel separated from his family. Lynne plays most of, if not all, the bass tracks and backing vocals for the album, but de Albuquerque still featured on the final release as well as getting credited. Kelly Groucutt replaced him for the subsequent tour, when cellist Melvyn Gale also joined (replacing the departing Mike Edwards). "Eldorado Finale" is heavily orchestrated, much like "Eldorado Overture". Jeff Lynne said of the song, "I like the heavy chords and the slightly daft ending, where you hear the double bass players packing up their basses, because they wouldn't play another millisecond past the allotted moment."


text: The cover was designed by John Kehe. It is a frame (mirrored and enlarged) of Dorothy's red shoes from minute 77 of 1939 "The Wizard Of Oz" movie.


text: "Can't Get It Out of My Head" was released as a single (with "Illusions in G Major" as the B-side) and was a success in the US. An edited version of "Boy Blue" was released as the album's second single, but failed to make any commercial impact. The album was certified Gold in the United States soon after its release. The album and singles, however, failed to find a wide audience in the band's native United Kingdom.


text: In 1978, the filmmaker Kenneth Anger re-released his 1954 film "Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome", using "Eldorado" as the soundtrack.


text: In July 2010, the album was named one of ""Classic Rock" magazine"s "50 Albums That Built Prog Rock".


text: On 17 June 2015, the album was ranked #43 on "Rolling Stone"s "50 Greatest Prog Rock Albums of All Time"


title: Greylag goose

text: The greylag goose or graylag goose (Anser anser) is a species of large goose in the waterfowl family Anatidae and the type species of the genus "Anser". It has mottled and barred grey and white plumage and an orange beak and pink legs. A large bird, it measures between in length, with an average weight of . Its distribution is widespread, with birds from the north of its range in Europe and Asia migrating southwards to spend the winter in warmer places. It is the type species of the genus "Anser" and is the ancestor of most breeds of domestic goose, having been domesticated at least as early as 1360 BC. The genus name is from "anser", the Latin for "goose".


title: Greylag goose

text: Greylag geese travel to their northerly breeding grounds in spring, nesting on moorlands, in marshes, around lakes and on coastal islands. They normally mate for life and nest on the ground among vegetation. A clutch of three to five eggs is laid; the female incubates the eggs and both parents defend and rear the young. The birds stay together as a family group, migrating southwards in autumn as part of a flock, and separating the following year. During the winter they occupy semi-aquatic habitats, estuaries, marshes and flooded fields, feeding on grass and often consuming agricultural crops. Some populations, such as those in southern England and in urban areas across the species' range, are primarily resident and occupy the same area year-round.


title: Greylag goose

text: "Anser anser", the greylag goose, is a member of the waterfowl family Anatidae. It was first described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 as "Anas anser", but was transferred two years later to the new genus "Anser", erected by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson, where it is the type species. Two subspecies are recognised; "A. a. anser", the western greylag goose, which breeds in Iceland and northern and central Europe; "A. a. rubrirostris", the eastern greylag goose, which breeds in Romania, Turkey, and Russia eastwards to northeastern China. The two subspecies intergrade where their ranges meet. The greylag goose sometimes hybridises with other species of goose, including the barnacle goose ("Branta leucopsis") and the Canada goose ("Branta canadensis"), and occasionally with the mute swan ("Cygnus olor"). The greylag goose was one of the first animals to be domesticated; this happened at least 3,000 years ago in Ancient Egypt, the domestic subspecies being known as "A. a. domesticus". As the domestic goose is a subspecies of the greylag goose they are able to interbreed, with the offspring sharing characteristics of both wild and domestic birds.


title: Greylag goose

text: The greylag is the largest and bulkiest of the grey geese of the genus "Anser", but is more lightly built and agile than its domestic relative. It has a rotund, bulky body, a thick and long neck, and a large head and bill. It has pink legs and feet, and an orange or pink bill with a white or brown nail (hard horny material at tip of upper mandible). It is long with a wing length of . It has a tail , a bill of long, and a tarsus of . It weighs , with a mean weight of around . The wingspan is . Males are generally larger than females, with the sexual dimorphism more pronounced in the eastern subspecies "rubirostris", which is larger than the nominate subspecies on average.


title: Greylag goose

text: The plumage of the greylag goose is greyish brown, with a darker head and paler breast and belly with a variable amount of black spotting. It has a pale grey forewing and rump which are noticeable when the bird is in flight or stretches its wings on the ground. It has a white line bordering its upper flanks, and its wing coverts are light coloured, contrasting with its darker flight feathers. Its plumage is patterned by the pale fringes of the feathers. Juveniles differ mostly in their lack of black speckling on the breast and belly and by their greyish legs. Adults have a distinctive 'concertina' pattern of folds in the feathers on their necks.


title: Greylag goose

text: The greylag goose has a loud cackling call similar to that of the domestic goose, "aahng-ung-ung", uttered on the ground or in flight. There are various subtle variations used under different circumstances, and individual geese seem to be able to identify other known geese by their voices. The sound made by a flock of geese resembles the baying of hounds. Goslings chirp or whistle lightly, and adults hiss if threatened or angered.


title: Greylag goose

text: This species has a Palearctic distribution. The nominate subspecies breeds in Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, the Baltic States, northern Russia, Poland, eastern Hungary and Romania. It also breeds locally in the United Kingdom, Denmark, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and North Macedonia. The eastern race extends eastwards across a broad swathe of Asia to China. European birds migrate southwards to the Mediterranean region and North Africa. Asian birds migrate to Azerbaijan, Iran, Pakistan, northern India, Bangladesh and eastward to China. In North America, there are both feral domestic geese, which are similar to greylags, and occasional vagrant greylags. Greylag geese seen in the wild in New Zealand probably originated from the escape of farmyard geese, and a similar situation has occurred in Australia, where feral birds are now established in the east and southeast of the country.


title: Greylag goose

text: In their breeding quarters, they are found on moors with scattered lochs, in marshes, fens and peat-bogs, besides lakes and on little islands some way out to sea. They like dense ground cover of reeds, rushes, heather, bushes and willow thickets. In their winter quarters, they frequent salt marshes, estuaries, freshwater marshes, steppes, flooded fields, bogs and pasture near lakes, rivers and streams. They also visit agricultural land where they feed on winter cereals, rice, beans or other crops, moving at night to shoals and sand-banks on the coast, mud-banks in estuaries or secluded lakes. Large numbers of immature birds congregate each year to moult on the Rone Islands near Gotland in the Baltic Sea.


title: Greylag goose

text: Since the 1950s, increases in winter temperatures have resulted in greylag geese, breeding in central Europe, reducing their winter migration distances. Wintering grounds closer to home can therefore be exploited, meaning that the geese can return to set up breeding territories earlier the following spring.


title: Greylag goose

text: In Great Britain, their numbers had declined as a breeding bird, retreating north to breed wild only in the Outer Hebrides and the northern mainland of Scotland. However, during the 20th century, feral populations have been established elsewhere, and they have now re-colonised much of England. These populations are increasingly coming into contact and merging.


title: Greylag goose

text: The greylag goose has become a pest species in several areas where its population has increased sharply. In Norway, the number of greylag geese is estimated to have increased three- to fivefold between 1995 and 2015. As a consequence, farmers' problems caused by goose grazing on farmland have increased considerably. This problem is also evident for the pink-footed goose. In the Orkney islands the population has increased dramatically: there were 300 breeding pairs, increasing to 10,000 in 2009, and 64,000 in 2019. Due to extensive damage caused to crops, the hunting season for the greylag goose in the Orkney islands is now most of the year.


title: Greylag goose

text: Greylag geese are largely herbivorous and feed chiefly on grasses. Short, actively growing grass is more nutritious and greylag geese are often found grazing in pastures with sheep or cows. Because of its low nutrient status, they need to feed for much of their time; the herbage passes rapidly through the gut and is voided frequently. The tubers of sea clubrush ("Bolboschoenus maritimus") are also taken as well as berries and water plants such as duckweed ("Lemna") and floating sweetgrass ("Glyceria fluitans"). In wintertime they eat grass and leaves but also glean grain on cereal stubbles and sometimes feed on growing crops, especially during the night. They have been known to feed on oats, wheat, barley, buckwheat, lentils, peas and root crops. Acorns are sometimes consumed, and on the coast, seagrass ("Zostera" sp.) may be eaten. In the 1920s in Britain, the pink-footed goose "discovered" that potatoes were edible and started feeding on waste potatoes. The greylag followed suit in the 1940s and now regularly searches for tubers on ploughed fields. They also consume small fish, amphibians, crustaceans, molluscs and insects.


title: Greylag goose

text: Greylag geese tend to pair bond in long-term monogamous relationships. Most such pairs are probably life-long partnerships, though 5 to 8% of the pairs separate and re-mate with other geese. Birds in heterosexual pairs may engage in promiscuous behavior, despite the opposition of their mates.


title: Greylag goose

text: Homosexual pairs are common (14 to 20% of the pairs may be ganders, depending on flock), and share the characteristics of heterosexual pairs with the exceptions that the bonds appear to be closer, based on the intensity of their displays. Same-sex pairs also engage in courtship and sexual relations, and often assume high-ranking positions in the flock as a result of their superior strength and courage, leading some to speculate that they may serve as guardians of the flock. The sexual preference of the birds is generally flexible, as more than half of widowers re-pair with a bird of the opposite sex.


title: Greylag goose

text: The nest is on the ground among heather, rushes, dwarf shrubs or reeds, or on a raft of floating vegetation. It is built from pieces of reed, sprigs of heather, grasses and moss, mixed with small feathers and down. A typical clutch is four to six eggs, but fewer eggs or larger numbers are not unusual. The eggs are creamy-white at first but soon become stained, and average . They are mostly laid on successive days and incubation starts after the last one is laid. The female does the incubation, which lasts about twenty-eight days, while the male remains on guard somewhere near. The chicks are precocial and able to leave the nest soon after hatching. Both parents are involved in their care and they soon learn to peck at food and become fully-fledged at eight or nine weeks, about the same time as their parents regain their ability to fly after moulting their main wing and tail feathers a month earlier. Immature birds undergo a similar moult, and move to traditional, safe locations before doing so because of their vulnerability while flightless.


title: Greylag goose

text: Greylag geese are gregarious birds and form flocks. This has the advantage for the birds that the vigilance of some individuals in the group allows the rest to feed without having to constantly be alert to the approach of predators. After the eggs hatch, some grouping of families occur, enabling the geese to defend their young by their joint actions, such as mobbing or attacking predators. After driving off a predator, a gander will return to its mate and give a "triumph call", a resonant honk followed by a low-pitched cackle, uttered with neck extended forward parallel with the ground. The mate and even unfledged young reciprocate in kind.


title: Greylag goose

text: Young greylags stay with their parents as a family group, migrating with them in a larger flock, and only dispersing when the adults drive them away from their newly established breeding territory the following year. At least in Europe, patterns of migration are well understood and follow traditional routes with known staging sites and wintering sites. The young learn these locations from their parents which normally stay together for life. Greylags leave their northern breeding areas relatively late in the autumn, for example completing their departure from Iceland by November, and start their return migration as early as January. Birds that breed in Iceland overwinter in the British Isles; those from Central Europe overwinter as far south as Spain and North Africa; others migrate down to the Balkans, Turkey and Iraq for the winter.


title: Greylag goose

text: The greylag was once revered across Eurasia. It was linked with the goddess of healing, Gula, a forerunner of the Sumerian fertility goddess Ishtar, in the cities of the Tigris-Euphrates delta over 5,000 years ago. In Ancient Egypt, geese symbolised the sun god Ra. In Ancient Greece and Rome, they were associated with the goddess of love, Aphrodite, and goose fat was used as an aphrodisiac. Since they were sacred birds, they were kept on Rome's Capitoline Hill, from where they raised the alarm when the Gauls attacked in 390 BC.


title: Greylag goose

text: The goose's role in fertility survives in modern British tradition in the nursery rhyme "Goosey Goosey Gander", which preserves its sexual overtones ("And in my lady's chamber"), while "to goose" still has a sexual meaning. The tradition of pulling a wishbone derives from the tradition of eating a roast goose at Michaelmas, where the goose bone was once believed to have the powers of an oracle. For that festival, in Thomas Bewick's time, geese were driven in thousand-strong flocks on foot from farms all over the East of England to London's Cheapside market, covering some per day. Some farmers painted the geese's feet with tar and sand to protect them from road wear as they walked.


title: Greylag goose

text: Greylag geese were domesticated by at least 1360 BC, when images of domesticated birds resembling the eastern race, "Anser anser rubirostris" (which like modern farmyard geese, but unlike western greylags, have a pink beak) were painted in Ancient Egypt. Goose feathers were used as quill pens, the best being the primary feathers of the left-wing, whose "curvature bent away from the eyes of right-handed writers". The feathers also served to fletch arrows. In ethology, the greylag goose was the subject of Konrad Lorenz's pioneering studies of imprinting behaviour.


title: Merry Brandybuck

text: Meriadoc Brandybuck, usually called Merry, is a Hobbit, a fictional character from J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium, featured throughout his most famous work, "The Lord of the Rings".


title: Merry Brandybuck

text: Merry is described as one of the closest friends of Frodo Baggins, the main protagonist. Merry and his friend and cousin, Pippin, are members of the Fellowship of the Ring. They become separated from the rest of the group and spend much of "The Two Towers" making their own decisions. By the time of "The Return of the King", Merry has enlisted in the army of Rohan as an esquire to King Théoden, in whose service he fights during the War of the Ring. After the war, he returns home, where he and Pippin lead the Scouring of the Shire, ridding it of Saruman's influence.


title: Merry Brandybuck

text: Commentators have noted that his and Pippin's actions serve to throw light on the characters of the good and bad lords Theoden and Denethor, Steward of Gondor, while their simple humour acts as a foil for the higher romance involving kings and the heroic Aragorn.


title: Merry Brandybuck

text: Merry appeared in the animated film of "Lord of the Rings" by Ralph Bakshi, the animated version of "The Return of the King" by Rankin/Bass, and in the live action film series by Peter Jackson.


title: Merry Brandybuck

text: Meriadoc, a hobbit, known as Merry, was the only child of Saradoc Brandybuck, a Master of Buckland, and Esmeralda (née Took), the younger sister of Paladin Took II, making him a cousin to Paladin's son, his friend Pippin. His grandfather Rorimac Brandybuck's sister Primula was the mother of Frodo Baggins, the main protagonist of the book. Merry and Frodo were thus first cousins once removed. Hobbits of the Shire saw Bucklanders as "peculiar, half foreigners as it were"; the Bucklanders were the only hobbits comfortable with boats; and living next to the Old Forest, protected from it only by a high hedge, they locked their doors after dark, unlike hobbits in the Shire.