title: Flash animation

text: Adobe Flash animation or Adobe Flash cartoon (formerly Macromedia Flash animation, Macromedia Flash cartoon, FutureSplash animation, and FutureSplash cartoon) is an animation that is created with the Adobe Animate (formerly Flash Professional) platform or similar animation software and often distributed in the SWF file format. The term Adobe Flash animation refers to both the file format and the medium in which the animation is produced. Adobe Flash animation has enjoyed mainstream popularity since the mid-2000s, with many Adobe Flash-animated television series, television commercials, and award-winning online shorts being produced since then.


title: Flash animation

text: In the late 1990s, when bandwidth was still at 56 kbit/s for most Internet users, many Adobe Flash animation artists employed limited animation or cutout animation when creating projects intended for web distribution. This allowed artists to release shorts and interactive experiences well under 1 MB, which could stream both audio and high-end animation.


title: Flash animation

text: Adobe Flash is able to integrate bitmaps and other raster-based art, as well as video, though most Adobe Flash films are created using only vector-based drawings, which often result in a somewhat clean graphic appearance. Some hallmarks of poorly produced Adobe Flash animation are jerky natural movements (seen in walk-cycles and gestures), auto-tweened character movements, lip-sync without interpolation, and abrupt changes from front to profile view.


title: Flash animation

text: Adobe Flash animations are typically distributed by way of the World Wide Web, in which case they are often referred to as Internet cartoons, online cartoons, or web cartoons. Web Adobe Flash animations may be interactive and are often created in a series. An Adobe Flash animation is distinguished from a Webcomic, which is a comic strip distributed via the Web, rather than an animated cartoon.


title: Flash animation

text: The first prominent use of the Adobe Flash animation format was by "Ren & Stimpy" creator John Kricfalusi. On October 15, 1997, he launched "The Goddamn George Liquor Program", the first cartoon series produced specifically for the Internet. The series starred George Liquor (a fictional character rumored to have ended Kricfalusi's employment on "Ren & Stimpy") and his dim-witted nephew Jimmy The Idiot Boy. Later, Kricfalusi produced more animated projects with Adobe Flash Professional, including several online shorts for Icebox.com, television commercials, and a music video. Soon after that, web cartoons began appearing on the Internet with more regularity.


title: Flash animation

text: On February 26, 1999, in a major milestone for Adobe Flash animation, the popular web series "WhirlGirl" became the first regularly scheduled Adobe Flash animated web series when it premiered on the premium cable channel Showtime in an unprecedented telecast and simultaneous release on the Showtime website. Created by David B. Williams and produced by Visionary Media, the studio he founded, "WhirlGirl" follows the adventures of a young super-heroine fighting for freedom in a future ruled by an all-powerful "mediatech empire". The series originally launched in the spring of 1997 as a web comic with limited animation and sound. After gaining online syndication partners including Lycos.com and WebTV, the series first adopted Adobe Flash animation in July 1998. Following her Showtime debut, the titular heroine appeared in over 50 Adobe Flash webisodes on the Showtime website and starred in a million-dollar multimedia Showtime marketing campaign.


title: Flash animation

text: About the same time, Joe Cartoon launched the interactive animation "Frog in a Blender" to become one of the first true "viral hits" on the Internet, gaining more than 90 million views since its release in 1999.


title: Flash animation

text: "The Von Ghouls" went live in November 1999, featuring the first music group with cartoon episodes online including original songs, in the vein of Saturday morning cartoons of the 1970s. A number of popular portal sites featured Adobe Flash animation during the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, including Newgrounds, Icebox, MondoMedia, CampChaos, MediaTrip, Bogbeast and AtomFilms. Stan Lee, the late founder of Marvel Comics, launched an animated comics site.


title: Flash animation

text: The Internet also saw the proliferation of many adult-only Adobe Flash cartoon sites. Some of the shows from that period made the transition to traditional media, including "Queer Duck", "Gary the Rat", "Happy Tree Friends", and the politically minded JibJab shorts. Occasionally, the trend has been reversed: after being canceled from both ABC and Fox, Atom Films and Flinch Studio created net-only episodes of "The Critic" in 2000–2001. In another instance, Adobe Flash almost made the transition to the big screen. In 2001, production began on what would have been the first Adobe Flash-animated feature film, the ill-fated "Lil' Pimp", which also began life as an Internet series. As potentially controversial as its subject matter was, it had a relatively large budget, a number of well-known actors (including William Shatner, the late Bernie Mac, and Lil' Kim), a full crew, and a running time of nearly 80 minutes. Although Sony Pictures decided not to release the film, it was eventually released on DVD by Lionsgate.


title: Flash animation

text: In 2000, another major milestone occurred in the world of animation when the first broadcast-quality Adobe Flash animation aired on television. Dice Raw's music video "Thin Line between Raw and Jiggy" appeared on the big screen at Resfest 2000, on television via BET, and the Web on sites such as Sputnik7.com, Shockwave.com, Heavy.com and was also included with the CD. Its creation became one of media history's first convergent entertainment productions. Todd Wahnish, who would later go on to create Marvel Entertainment's "All Winners Squad", pioneered the early conversion of traditional hand-drawn techniques into vector-based animation seen in the video. The video triggered a flood of Adobe Flash-based television animation.


title: Flash animation

text: Several recording companies experimented with releasing animated music videos to promote their artists' releases online, including Madonna, Beastie Boys and Tenacious D; however, none became the hit that allowed for the expansion of Flash animated music videos. Adam Sandler and Tim Burton, among others, released original Internet-only animated works, but were not able to devise successful financial models and the trend dissipated, largely as a result of a lack of viable micropayment systems.


title: Flash animation

text: Several popular online series were produced in Adobe Flash Professional, such as the Emmy Award-winning "Off-Mikes", produced by ESPN and Animax Entertainment; "Gotham Girls" and "Lobo", produced by Warner Bros.; "Crime Time", produced by Future Thought Productions and "Homestar Runner" produced by Mike and Matt Chapman.


title: Flash animation

text: Many animated television series were produced using Macromedia Flash, inspired by both the comparatively low cost of production and the unique arrays of new animation styles that can be achieved through the medium, including "Metalocalypse", "Being Ian", "Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends", "Kappa Mikey", "Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi", "Happy Tree Friends", "The Buzz on Maggie", "Astroblast!", "Odd Job Jack", "Little Einsteins", "Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!", "The Powerpuff Girls", "Total Drama", the BBC Three show "Monkey Dust", the Channel Four show "Modern Toss", "Yin Yang Yo!", "Alejo & Valentina", "Angry Birds Toons", "Aaagh! It's the Mr. Hell Show", "Jake and the Never Land Pirates", "The Mr. Men Show","The Lion Guard", "" on The Hub (however, this show uses a heavily modified version of Flash 8), Cinemax's "Eli's Dirty Jokes", "Queer Duck" from Showtime, "The Mr. Peabody and Sherman Show" from Netflix, "The Loud House" on Nickelodeon, and "Shorties Watching Shorties" on Comedy Central.


title: Flash animation

text: Other TV shows, such as "Home Movies", "Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law", and "" broadcast on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim programming block, switched to Adobe Flash Professional from other animation technology and on Disney XD with "".


title: Flash animation

text: Many animation film festivals responded to the popularity of Adobe Flash animation by adding separate categories in competition for "web cartoons" or "Internet cartoons". Additionally, several exclusively web-based Adobe Flash competitions have been established. It is speculated that only the category "made for Internet" will survive, as competitions at animation film festivals are typically arranged in categories defined by film length and distribution channel, rather than by animation techniques or tools used to create it.


title: Flash animation

text: Adobe Flash Professional was renamed to Adobe Animate in 2016 to both more accurately reflect its market position then, since over a third of all content created in Animate uses HTML5, and prevent confusion between Adobe Flash Professional and Adobe Flash Player since they are completely different products. Adobe will continue to support Adobe Animate even after Flash Player's end-of-life deadline by 2020, hence all animations produced in Animate will survive Flash Player's death. The only change is that after 2020, animators will instead share their animations in either video, HTML5, or WebGL format. On June 16, 2020, as part of Adobe's 'Evolving Brand Identity', Adobe Animate unveiled a complete redesign of its logo in which for the first time in almost 20 years, the main color was changed from Red to Purple, ending any association of Flash entirely.


title: Flash animation

text: While the creation of animation using Adobe Animate can be much easier and less expensive than traditional animation techniques, the amount of time, money, and skill required to produce a project using the software depends on the chosen content and style. Internet distribution is considerably easier and less expensive than television broadcasting, and websites such as Newgrounds provide free hosting. Many Adobe Flash animations are created by individual or amateur artists, and many that are first distributed on the web became popular enough to be broadcast on television, particularly on such networks as MTV and G4.


title: Flash animation

text: Adobe Flash animation production is enjoying considerable popularity in major animation studios around the world, as animators take advantage of the software's ability to organize a large number of assets (such as characters, scenes, movements, and props) for later re-use. Because Adobe Animate files are in vector file format, they can be used to transfer animation to 35 mm film without any compromise in image quality. In 2003, Big Idea Entertainment used Animate (back when it was called Flash) to make . This feature is used by several independent animators worldwide, including Phil Nibbelink, who saw his 77-minute feature film "" released in theaters in 2006, and Nina Paley, who released "Sita Sings the Blues" in 2008. For Disneyland's 50 Magical Years film featuring Live action Steve Martin interacting with Donald Duck, the hand drawn animation of Donald Duck was cleaned up and colored in Flash. "", a straight-to-DVD feature of the animated series "Drawn Together", produced by Comedy Central and released in April 2010, discarded the series' traditional animation and used Flash animation instead.


title: Flash animation

text: There are a number of other software packages available that can create output in the .swf format. Among these are Vyond, Toon Boom, Xara Photo & Graphic Designer, Serif DrawPlus, Toufee, Express Animator, CelAction 2D and Anime Studio. These front-ends often provide additional support for creating cartoons, especially with tools more tailored to traditionally trained animators, as well as additional rigging for characters, which can speed up character animation considerably.


Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry (PPCLI, generally referred to as the Patricia's) is one of the three Regular Force infantry regiments of the Canadian Army of the Canadian Armed Forces. Formed in 1914, it is named for Princess Patricia of Connaught, daughter of the then-Governor General of Canada. The regiment is composed of three battalions, for a total of 2,000 soldiers. The PPCLI is the main lodger unit of Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Edmonton in Alberta and CFB Shilo in Manitoba, and attached to 3rd Canadian Division; as such, it serves as the "local" regular infantry regiment for much of Western Canada. The Loyal Edmonton Regiment (LER), a Reserve Force battalion, is affiliated with the PPCLI but is not formally part of it. As part of this affiliation, the LER carries the designation '4th Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry'.


title: Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry

text: The regiment is a ceremonial structure, and the three battalions are independent operational entities, under the 1 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group (1 CMBG). Although the regimental name includes the phrase "light infantry", two of its battalions are mechanized infantry, and the unit has never been organized as a traditional light infantry regiment.


text: The PPCLI was raised on the initiative of Captain Andrew Hamilton Gault in 1914, to participate in the Canadian war effort for the First World War. It was the first Canadian infantry unit to enter the theatre of operations, arriving in France on December 21, 1914. The regiment has also participated in the Second World War, the Korean War and the War in Afghanistan, as well as in numerous NATO operations and United Nations peacekeeping missions. The regiment has received 39 battle honours, three Commander-in-Chief Unit Commendations and the United States Presidential Unit Citation.


text: The regiment is composed of three battalions, all of which are Regular Force units and part of the 1 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group (1CMBG). Each battalion is a distinct operational entity in the Canadian Forces' order of battle. The two first battalions are mechanized infantry, while the third one is light infantry. The regimental headquarters are located on CFB Edmonton.


text: The 1st Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry (1PPCLI) is located at Steele Barracks, CFB Edmonton, Alberta. 1 PPCLI is a mechanized infantry battalion of the Regular Force and uses the LAV 6.0 (light armoured vehicle) as its primary fighting vehicle. The battalion is made of three rifle companies, combat support company comprising reconnaissance and signals platoons as well as a sniper group, and administration company. The current commander is Lieutenant-Colonel J.D. Schaub, CD Its regimental sergeant-major (RSM) is Chief Warrant Officer R.J. Crane, MMM, MMV, CD.


text: The 2nd Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry (2PPCLI) is based at Kapyong Barracks in CFB Shilo, Manitoba. The battalion is a mechanized infantry unit of the Regular Force and is part of the 1CMBG. The battalion is composed of three rifle companies (A, B and C), one combat support company, and one command and administration company. Each rifle company is made of three platoons and a headquarters element, and has 15 LAV 6.0 infantry fighting vehicles. The combat support company is composed of a reconnaissance platoon and a signals platoon. The current battalion commander is Lieutenant-Colonel M.J. Reekie, MMV, CD. Its Regimental Sergeant Major (RSM) is Chief Warrant Officer B. Perry, MMM, CD


text: The 3rd Battalion Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry (3PPCLI) is based at Steele Barracks, CFB Edmonton, Alberta. The battalion is a light infantry unit of the Regular Force, and the only one in Western Canada. The battalion is composed of three rifle companies, one combat support company and one combat service support company. 3PPCLI also maintains an airborne and mountain operations capability. The commanding officer (CO) is Lieutenant-Colonel J.C. Thamer, CD The regimental sergeant major is Chief Warrant Officer L.J. Schnurr, CD.


text: Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry originated in Ottawa, Ontario on 10 August 1914. The Permanent Active Militia (Regular Force) component was formed on 1 April 1919 and the Canadian Expeditionary Force component of the regiment was disbanded on 30 August 1920.


text: Following the Second World War on 1 March 1946, the Canadian Active Service Force regiment was disbanded and the 2nd Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, CIC was redesignated Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, CIC. On 27 June 1946, the regiment was embodied in the post-war Permanent Force (Active Force).


text: On 7 August 1950, the 2nd Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, RCIC was authorized to be formed as an Active Force unit embodied in the Special Force. On 1 January 1952, it ceased to be embodied in the Canadian Army Special Force.


text: On 30 November 1950, the 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, RCIC was authorized to be formed as an Active Force unit embodied in the Special Force. On 1 November 1953, it ceased to be embodied in the Canadian Army Special Force. On 8 January 1954, it was reduced to nil strength and the battalion was disbanded on 21 July 1954. On 27 April 1970, the 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry was authorized to be formed as a Regular Force unit.


text: On 3 November 1997, the regiment was granted the perpetuation of the 260th Battalion Canadian Rifles, Canadian Expeditionary Force (Siberia).


text: At the outbreak of World War I, when Canada was lacking regular military forces, the then-Captain Andrew Hamilton Gault raised the Patricias. Hamilton Gault offered $100,000 () to finance and equip a battalion to participate in the Canadian war effort overseas. The government temporarily accepted his offer on August 6, 1914, and officially authorized it on August 10. The Department of Militia and Defence contributed to the equipment of the unit. The charter of the regiment was signed on August 10, and the Governor General of Canada, The Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, approved the creation of the regiment.


text: A sandstone slab memorial at Lansdowne Park is dedicated to the founding of Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry at this location in August 1914.


text: Lieutenant-Colonel Francis D. Farquhar was instrumental in assisting Hamilton Gault in founding the regiment. Colonel Farquhar, Military Secretary to Canada's Governor General, asked the Duke of Connaught for permission to name the regiment after his daughter, Princess Patricia of Connaught. She was pleased to accept this honour and thus Princess Patricia's were established. "Light Infantry" in the battalion name was chosen by Captain Gault, who served during the Second Boer War and liked the impression of an irregular force that the name inspired.


text: Farquhar and Gault moved expeditiously to mobilize the regiment. The day after authority was granted, August 11, the two men began an aggressive recruitment campaign. Due to the patriotic outpouring following the August 4 declaration of war, 3,000 applicants were recruited within eight days. By August 19 a full complement of 1,098 had been selected, of those, 1,049 had previously served in South Africa or in the British Army. Farquhar became the first commander of the battalion. The regiment's first formal parade was conducted on August 23 in Ottawa, during which Princess Patricia presented the regimental standard. Princess Patricia, Colonel-in-Chief, designed and made by hand the regimental flag to be presented on that occasion. It is a crimson flag with a circular royal blue centre. In the circle are gold initials "V P", which stands for Victoria Patricia. The regimental standard became known as the "Ric-A-Dam-Doo". This flag was carried in every regimental action during World War I. It was not officially adopted as a regimental colour and consecrated as such until after the First World War.As a Canadian regiment mobilized in a time of wartime shortages, the regiment was equipped with weapons from a variety of sources. Private soldiers initially carried the Canadian .303 Ross rifle, while officers and non-commissioned officers normally carried the 1914 Colt Canadian-contract .45 M1911 pistol.


text: The regiment left Ottawa on August 28 and boarded the SS "Megantic" in Montreal, Quebec. However, because of enemy action in the Atlantic Ocean, the regiment had to deboard at Lévis, Quebec. During the period of training at Lévis, following extensive tests on the Ross rifle, the Patricias issued the first of what would be many damning reports of the suitability of the Ross rifle for combat. The regiment finally left on September 27 from Quebec City on board the "Royal George" for England in company with the rest of the first Canadian contingent.


text: Upon arrival at their camp on the Salisbury Plain, England on October 18 the regiment was first stationed at Bustard Camp near Stonehenge. On November 16 the unit joined the 80th Brigade of the British Expeditionary Force at Winchester. At that time the regiment abandoned the troubled Ross rifle in favour of the British Lee–Enfield. On 20 December, the regiment departed for the port of Southampton with the rest of the brigade and embarked for France arriving the next day. On this date the PPCLI was the only Canadian infantry unit on the battlefield; only the 1st Canadian Medical Corps was there before.


text: The Patricias first took their place in the trenches on January 6, 1915, at a location known to the British Army's soldiers as "Dickiebush".


text: When Farquhar was killed in action at St Eloi on March 20, he was replaced by Lieutenant-Colonel H. Buller, another British regular, who had served with him on the staff of the governor general before the war.


text: On May 8, the stout defence of Bellewaerde Ridge during the Battle of Frezenberg established the reputation of the Patricias but at tremendous cost. When they came out of the line the 700 men that had started the battle had been reduced to just 150 who were battle ready. The tattered remains were commanded by a lieutenant, all other officers having been killed or wounded. The phrase "holding up the whole damn line" became one of unit's unofficial mottos for the regiment.


text: The PPCLI served for a year with the 80th Brigade before joining the new 7th Brigade within the 3rd Canadian Division on December 22. In 1916 the regiment fought major battles at Mount Sorrel and on the Somme. It was not until October 1916 that the first Canadian, Lieutenant-Colonel Agar Adamson, was appointed to command the regiment. In 1917 as part of the Canadian Corps, the regiment took part in the Battle of Vimy Ridge on April 9, and Passchendaele later the same year. In 1918 the regiment fought at the Battle of Amiens, Jigsaw Wood, and the Battle of the Canal du Nord as part of the great battles of the Hundred Days that ended the war. The 4th Company PPCLI entered Mons with other Canadian troops early on November 11, before the armistice took effect at 11 am.


text: During the Battle of Passchendaele Sergeant George Harry Mullin earned the Victoria Cross, the highest honor in the British Empire. Sergeant Robert Spall won the regiment's second Victoria Cross at Parvilliers on August 12 and 13, 1918.


text: A former Patricia, Lieutenant Hugh McKenzie, who had risen from private to company sergeant-major before accepting his commission and transferring to the Canadian Machine Gun Corps, was awarded the Victoria Cross posthumously for his actions during Passchendaele. He had already won the Empire's second-highest award for gallantry, the Distinguished Conduct Medal, while serving with the regiment as well as the French Croix de Guerre. On 30 October 1917, he was a member of the 7th Canadian Machine Gun Company, Canadian Machine Gun Corps, leading a section of four machine guns in support of the regiment. Seeing that one of the PPCLI companies was hesitating to advance in the face of a German machine gun position on dominating ground, he handed command of his troops to an NCO and went to rally the men of his old regiment. McKenzie organized an attack and captured the enemy position. Once on the position, however, he realized that it was itself under dominating enemy machine gun fire from a nearby pillbox. McKenzie organized parties to capture the pillbox by making both frontal and flanking attacks. He was killed while leading the frontal attack. When the awarded of his Victoria Cross was announced in the London Gazette on 12 February 1918, his surname was misspelled as "Mackenzie."


text: The last of the Patricias killed in action was likely Corporal Percy Wainwright Carleton on 10 November 1918. In total 1,272 officers and enlisted men of the Patricias were killed and 82 officers and enlisted men were captured during the war.The 260th Battalion, Canadian Rifles, CEF (Siberia) was authorized on 1 November 1918 in Victoria, B.C. and embarked for Russia on 29 December 1918. It served with the 16th Infantry Brigade as part of the Allied Forces in eastern Russia until 9 May 1919. The battalion was disbanded on 15 November 1920. The service of the 260th Battalion, CEF (Siberia) resulted in Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry being awarded the battle honour .


text: On March 20, 1919, the regiment became a component of the Permanent Active Militia. In 1920 the regimental headquarters, A Company and D Company were relocated to Fort Osborne Barracks, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, while B Company relocated to Esquimalt, British Columbia. The period between the two wars was a recession period for the Canadian Armed Forces, and the regiment lost 209 soldiers in 1924.


text: In 1926 a group of officers and friends of the PPCLI erected a plaque in the chapel of a women's monastery on Echo Drive, across the Rideau Canal from Lansdowne Park which was dedicated to the memory of the war dead and veterans of the PPCLI during the First World War. It was moved to St. Clement Chapel, Albion Road in 1985, then to St. Clement's new premises at 87 Mann Avenue in 1993.


text: World War II began in Europe on September, 1st 1939, and the Parliament of Canada declared war between Canada and Germany on September 10, 1939. The same day, the Patricias were mobilized for active service. The regiment recruited in Winnipeg and Vancouver until October. The regiment sailed from Halifax, Nova Scotia on the December 21, 1939, arriving in Aldershot, England, as part of the 2nd Brigade of the 1st Canadian Infantry Division under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel W.G. Colquhoun. They spent New Year's Eve in Cove, west of Farnborough. On February 10, 1940, the colonel-in-chief, Princess Patricia, inspected her regiment for the first time in twenty-one years. The regiment spent three and a half years in United Kingdom, most of which was spent in coastal defence and training in various parts of the country.


text: On July 10, 1943, the PPCLI, forming part of the 1st Canadian Infantry Division and the British Eighth Army, landed in Sicily during Operation Husky. The Patricia won its first battle honours of the Second World War at Leonforte. Later, on September 4, 1943, the regiment landed and fought in Italy, advancing North for two months. The unit was slowed down by the demolished bridges and the German rear guard. In December 1943 the regiment fought during the Moro River Campaign; that year the soldiers spent Christmas in Ortona.


text: In May 1944 the PPCLI took part in the offensive against the Hitler Line, west of Monte Cassino, during the allied offensive against Rome. At that point the regiment was a component of the newly formed I Canadian Corps. In August the unit took part in the offensive against the Gothic Line and in the assaults on San Fortunato and Rimini.


text: On March 13, 1945, the I Canadian Corps was transferred to Northwest Europe where it joined the First Canadian Army and took part in the liberation of the Netherlands. Shortly after, the regiment captured the city of Apeldoorn, and, on May 7, 1945, it was the first allied force to enter Amsterdam, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Clark.


text: On June 1, 1945, a new battalion of the regiment was authorized to be part the Canadian Pacific Force in the campaign against Japan. Its official designation was 1st Canadian Infantry Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, 2nd Canadian Infantry. After the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by American atomic bombs and Japan's subsequent surrender on August 15, 1945, the Pacific Force was disbanded. On September 2, the new battalion was renamed "2nd Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, Canadian Infantry Corps" and became a component of the interim force, waiting for the formation of a permanent force.


text: In October 1945, the regiment's serving battalion in Europe, understrength, returned to Winnipeg and was demobilized.


text: After the war, in January 1946, while the interim force was gradually disbanded and the permanent force was formed, the 2nd Battalion returned to CFB Shilo. On June 10, it was relocated to Calgary, Alberta. On March 1, 1947, the battalion was renamed from "2nd Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, Canadian Infantry Corps" to "2nd Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry".


text: In 1948, on the eve of the Korean War, an emphasis was put on the airborne troops and the 2nd Battalion was the first unit chosen to fill this role, on a voluntary basis. In the end, all the members of the unit, including the officers, became paratroopers; training was completed in the spring of 1949.


text: On August 15, 1950, the 2nd Battalion was created within the regiment to be a component of the Canadian Army Special Force in response to the North Korean invasion of South Korea; the unit adopted the designation of 2nd Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. The new battalion trained in Calgary and at CFB Wainwright, in Alberta, before boarding the USS "Private Joe P. Martinez" on November 25, 1950, to Pusan in South Korea. The battalion landed in Korea in December and trained in the mountains for eight weeks before finally taking part in the war on February 6, becoming a component of the 27th British Commonwealth Brigade of the IX American Corps in the 8th US Army. The 2nd Battalion of the PPCLI was the first Canadian infantry unit to take part in the Korean War.


text: On April 22, 1951, Chinese forces undertook a major offensive against the United Nations forces and pierced through the first line of defence held by the 6th South Korean Division. During the Battle of Kapyong the 2nd Battalion, PPCLI, the 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, and A Company, 72nd Heavy Tank Battalion (US) were tasked with the defence of the Kapyong Valley. The formation delayed the Chinese forces for three days while United Nations forces withdrew to a new defensive line, thus saving Seoul. For their action, these three units received the United States Presidential Unit Citation and the Republic of Korea Presidential Unit Citation.


text: On May 25, 1951, the 2nd Battalion, PPCLI was transferred to the 25th Canadian Infantry Brigade within the 1st Commonwealth Division. In the fall, the 2nd Battalion was replaced by 1PPCLI and returned to Calgary. Meanwhile, in Canada, a new battalion was created on November 30, 1950. This 3rd Battalion trained at CFB Wainwright, CFB Borden, and Camp Ipperwash, before sending troops with the 1st and 2nd Battalions during their tour in Korea.


text: The 3rd Battalion replaced the 1st Battalion in the fall of 1952, and occupied Hill 355 until late November 1952. After three months of active service the battalion was disbanded on February 8, 1954. The PPCLI was again reduced to two battalions, and the commander, regimental sergeant major, and members of the disbanded 3rd Battalion were chosen to form the new 2nd Battalion of the Canadian Guards.


text: In the spring of 1950 the 1st Battalion supported civil authorities responding to floods in Manitoba.


text: From 1950 to 1969, Canada, as a NATO member, maintained a brigade-group in Germany. The 2nd Battalion, PPCLI served in Germany from October 1953 to the fall of 1955, when the 1st Battalion replaced it until the fall of 1957. In the fall of 1963 the 1st Battalion deployed for its second rotation until 1966. The 2nd Battalion returned in July 1984 for four years. In 1994 CFB Lahr in Germany closed, effectively ending the Canadian rotations.


text: The 1st Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry was sent to Cyprus in 1968 within the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFYCIP). Different infantry units including the two PPCLI battalions then undertook six-month rotations in the country until 1993. PPCLI completed 12 tours in Cyprus.


text: In 1970 the 1st Battalion of The Queen's Own Rifles of Canada was based in Victoria, British Columbia. Due to a reorganization, its members were rebadged to the newly recreated 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. The regiment also increased in size when the Canadian government closed 4 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group.


text: The sculpture "Anti-Tank Patrol" by André Gauthier was commissioned to mark the 75th anniversary of the regiment in 1989.


text: The Patricias served in Israel, Golan, Egypt, Lebanon, Kuwait, Iraq, Nigeria, Uganda, Congo, Vietnam, Central America, Angola, Somalia, Rwanda, Korea, Croatia, and Bosnia, for various missions.


text: During the Yugoslav Wars in the early 1990s, soldiers from PPCLI served in the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR), the United Nations peacekeeping force in Croatia. In the autumn of 1992 The 3rd Battalion replaced the Royal 22nd Regiment in Sector North, stationed out of Camp Polom, near Pakrac. The 22nd had actually spent much of their six-month tour out of position. They were with General Lewis MacKenzie, securing the Sarajevo airport for UN relief shipments. It was replaced by a battle group of 875 members mostly from the 2nd Battalion PPCLI in 1993. The battle group was dispatched to the Medak Pocket in September 1993 to interpose themselves between Serb and Croatian forces. After the Croatians opened fire on the PPCLI troops, they became involved in an intense firefight. In 2002 Colonel Jim Calvin and his men were awarded the Commander-in-Chief Unit Commendation for their bravery. A battle group drawn mostly from 1st Battalion PPCLI replaced the 2nd in 1994; the 2nd Battalion also served with the stabilization force in 1997, 2000 and 2003, the 3rd Battalion in 2000, and the 1st Battalion in 2002 and 2003. B Company, 1st Battalion, deployed as part of Lord Strathcona's Horse (Royal Canadians) Battle Group to northwest Bosnia from July 1997 to January 1998. Elements of PPCLI served with Lord Strathcona's Horse during the 1917–1918 winter, and in 1999, the 1st Battalion sent a complete battle group to the Kosovo Force.In the spring of 1997, the 1st Battalion supported civil authorities with the Manitoba floods yet again. In 1998, it was again mobilized, this time to respond to the 1998 North American ice storm in Quebec.


text: In 1998 to celebrate the announcement of the re-opening of Canada House, a detachment of the 3rd Battalion was sent to London to mount the Royal Guard at the Buckingham Palace, a rare honour. The Royal Canadian Regiment had the same honour two years later, at the re-opening.


text: On January 22, 2002, during Operation Apollo, the Canadian contribution to Operation Enduring Freedom and the War in Afghanistan, the 3rd Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, deployed to Afghanistan. The Battlegroup also included a reconnaissance squadron from Lord Strathcona's Horse and support elements from the 1st Service Battalion. These were the first major troops Canada sent in the theatre of operations, only preceded by a small team of Joint Task Force 2 operators in late 2001.


text: In March 2002, during Operation Anaconda, members of the 3PPCLI were in the Afghan province of Paktiya, clearing the mountains looking for Taliban and members of Al-Qaeda. The Canadian element of the operation, led by the United States, was composed of sixteen soldiers including six snipers. This sniper team, led by Master-Corporal Graham Ragsdale, registered more than 20 kills while Master-Corporal Arron Perry set the new world record for farthest combat kill with a .50 cal McMillan Tac-50 sniper rifle that killed a Taliban fighter at a distance of . Later on in the mission, Corporal Rob Furlong set yet a new record by firing a shot from a .50 cal McMillan Tac-50 sniper rifle that killed a Taliban fighter at a distance of . Both shots surpassed the long-standing previous world record of set by U.S. Marine Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Hathcock during the Vietnam War. The U.S. Army awarded the team members the Bronze Star for their actions in combat. Other Canadian snipers recorded high hit ratios and some extremely difficult shots, but remain anonymous.On March 13, 2002, Operation Harpoon was launched in parallel of Operation Anaconda, with the goal of eliminating a small pocket of Taliban fighters. The operation involved air elements as well as a ground battlegroup composed of Canadian and American soldiers, led by Lieutenant-Colonel Pat Stogran, commander 3PPCLI battlegroup. The next day, a reconnaissance platoon from 3PPCLI led the American troops to a network of caves and bunkers used by Al-Qaeda resisters. The battlegroup proceeded to destroy the bunkers and Operation Harpoon ended on March 19.


text: After Operation Harpoon, the 3PPCLI returned to Kandahar International Airport, and started training for future operations. On April 18, 2002, the 3rd Battalion was involved in a highly publicized case of friendly-fire ("blue on blue"). The Canadian soldiers were participating in planned nighttime training exercises near Kandahar when Major Harry Schmidt, an American pilot from the Illinois Air National Guard, flew overhead. Believing he was being fired upon by enemy soldiers, Schmidt dropped one laser-guided bomb on the soldiers from his F-16. Sergeant Marc Léger, Corporal Ainsworth Dyer, Private Richard Green and Private Nathan Smith were killed instantly and eight were injured. Schmidt was court-martialed by the U.S. and convicted of dereliction of duty as a result, in what became known as the Tarnak Farm incident.On May 4, 2002, Operation Torii is launched, and Lieutenant-Colonel Stogran leads an international task force, of which 400 Canadian soldiers. The goal of the mission was to discover networks of caves used by the Talibans and Al-Qaeda, as well as to gather intelligence in the Tora Bora region.


text: From June 30 to July 4, 2002, the majority of 3PPCLI relocated to Zabul Province, Northwest of Kandahar, to establish for the first time a coalition presence in the region.


text: The 3rd Battalion started preparing its redeployment back to Canada on July 13, and its members came back home in two contingents, on July 28 and July 30, after a short stay in Guam. In March 2003, the 1st Battalion, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, deployed a 35-soldier platoon to serve alongside already deployed units from Operation Apollo. The platoon was replaced in July by a Royal Canadian Horse Artillery platoon.


text: From August 2004 to February 2005, during Operation Athena, the 3rd Battalion deployed a reconnaissance platoon with the LdSH (RC) reconnaissance squadron to Kabul. A battlegroup built on 1PPCLI deployed in Kandahar from February to July 2006.


text: When the 1PPCLI deployed to Afghanistan, the Taliban began a major offensive and the Canadians were caught in the middle. After a spring in which a record number of attacks against Canadian soldiers had been set, and numerous offensives by Canadians which included six deaths to the Canadian Forces, the Taliban in Kandahar and Helmand provinces were massing and Operation Mountain Thrust was launched in the beginning of the summer. Canadians were the leading combatants and the first fighting in the Battle of Panjwaii took place. Complex mud-walled compounds made the rural Panjwaii district take on an urban style of fighting in some places. Daily firefights, artillery bombardments, and allied airstrikes turned the tides of the battle in favour of the Canadians.After Operation Mountain Thrust came to an end, Taliban fighters flooded back into the Panjwaii district in numbers that had not been seen yet in a single area in the post Anaconda war. The Canadian Forces, which came under NATO command at the end of July, launched Operation Medusa in an attempt to clear the areas of Taliban fighters once and for all.


text: The fighting of Operation Medusa was conducted with a larger force of Canadians, most of them being brand new to combat and largely fought by the rotation replacing the 1PPCLI, a battle group built around the 1st Battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment (RCR).


text: For their actions in 2006, the 1st Battalion PPCLI Battle Group was given the Commander-in-Chief Unit Commendation from the Governor-General of Canada.


text: The 2nd Battalion, PPCLI, took over from the 3rd Battalion, Royal 22 Régiment (R22eR) in February 2008. In August of the same year, it is replaced by the 3RCR, and in September 2009, 1PPCLI returns in Afghanistan to replace 2R22eR, where it stayed until May 2010.


text: Battle honours are the right given by the Canadian Crown to the regiment to mark on its colours the name of the battles or operations in which they stood out. Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry has received 41 battle honours. Battle honours in all caps were awarded for participation in large operations and campaigns, while those in lowercase indicate honours granted for more specific battles. Those battle honours in bold type are authorized for emblazonment on the regimental colours. Two soldiers of the regiment have been awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest honours of the Commonwealth forces, during World War I.


text: Instead of a regimental band, PPCLI maintains three drum lines that form the regimental corps of drums, which provides ceremonial musical support. It is the Canadian counterpart to the Corps of Drums of the British Army Royal Logistics Corps, and thus it is an all-percussion unit that occasionally marches with the Royal Canadian Artillery Band. From 1919 to 1994 however, PPCLI did maintain a regimental band. PPCLI's band date back to the First World War when its core band came from the St. Mary's Boys Brigade Band and the 140th New Brunswick Battalion in January 1916. PPCLI Band was formed in 1919 under the guidance of Captain Tommy James and was stationed at Fort Osborne Barracks in Winnipeg. In early 1940s, the 1st Canadian Division Band was largely made up of former PPCLI bandsmen, which provided the basis to be reactivated after the war at Wainwright, Alberta. Due to military budget cuts in 1994, the entire band was disbanded and reduced to a corps of drums. The drum line was inactive due to the Afghanistan War in the early 2000s; however, it was re-formed under the leadership of Sergeant Keith Mooney and Warrant Officer Dave Kennedy in 2014. The process for establishment began in 2012 with the research for drum patterns and sequences. The drum line took part in the regimental Centennial Parade in September 2014.


text: The Edmonton Police Service pipe band, which was formed in 1914, was dissolved during the First World War, with its musicians being re-augmented to PPCLI and leading the regiment into battle. Members of the pipe band also served as stretcher bearers during the war. As a result of this close history together, the Pipes and Drums of the EPS, which was re-founded in 1961, is the only non-military civilian band within the Commonwealth to wear the badges of three Canadian regiments, with one of these being PPCLI. While serving as a public relations tool for the EPS, it performs alongside the regiment during public events in Edmonton. The band was invited to play at PPCLI's beating retreat ceremony in 1964 and at the regimental trooping the colour in 1967.


text: Since March 17, 2007, the regiment's colonel-in-chief is former Governor-General of Canada Adrienne Clarkson. The previous colonel-in-chief was Countess Mountbatten of Burma, herself succeeding Princess Patricia. This is the first time that a person who is not a member of the Canadian Royal Family has been invited to take such a position with the regiment. The new colonel-in-chief took up her appointment at a ceremony on March 17, 2007, at the Regimental Headquarters in Edmonton.


text: The PPCLI does not have an official motto; however, their unofficial motto, "First In The Field", is based on the fact that they were the first Canadian unit to deploy in the Great War. The regiment also uses another non-official motto, "Once a Patricia, Always a Patricia", which reminds that the regimental family includes retired soldiers and officers and those who transferred elsewhere in the Canadian Forces. March 17 is the most important date within the regiment, as it corresponds to Princess Patricia's birthday. May 8 is the anniversary of the 1915 Battle of Frezenberg and is observed by a parade and a church ceremony. April 25 is the anniversary of the Battle of Kapyong, normally observed by the 2nd Battalion with a parade. On August 10, the regiment celebrates the foundation of the PPCLI in 1914. September 21 is the anniversary of the Battle of San Fortunato in 1944.


text: The regimental march of Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry consists of the songs "Has Anyone Seen The Colonel?", "It's a Long Way To Tipperary", and "Mademoiselle from Armentières".


text: "The Patrician" is a regimental journal first published in May 1933. In 1946, a monthly paper started publishing, but was suspended during the Korean War. In 1953, "The Patrician" started publishing twice annually until 1960 when it became annual because of financial restraints. "The Patrician" adopted its present format in 2003.


text: "Ric-A-Dam-Doo" is a nickname for the original camp flag of the PPCLI. Various sources claim that "Ric-A-Dam-Doo" is a presumably phonetic version of the Gaelic for "cloth of thy mother"; but it is not clear that this claim has been confirmed by a Gaelic speaker. The independent companies that preceded the formation of the 42nd Regiment of Foot were known in Scottish Gaelic as "Am Freiceadan Dubh", which translates to "The Black Watch" in English.


text: In 1984, in a conversation with the PPCLI Colonel-of-The-Regiment, Colonel William Sutherland, Lieutenant James MacInnis surmised that the PPCLI's founder, Brigadier Hamilton Gault, a former 'Black Watch' officer from the Canadian Militia, may have used the Gaelic term when referring to the flag and Lt MacInnis believed that subsequent soldiers' bastardization of the Gaelic became accepted practise. The Ric-A-Dam-Doo was hand-sewn by Princess Patricia and presented to the Regiment.


text: In 2011 Colonel-in-Chief Adrienne Clarkson, asked songwriter Bryan Adams to write a song to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the PPCLI. Together with his songwriting partner Jim Vallance, they composed a song based on the flag called Ric-A-Dam-Doo. It was recorded by the wives of the regiment in Edmonton, Alberta and was released to the public by Universal Records.


text: The PPCLI is not directly affiliated with the Western Hockey League, but they are associated through name with the Regina Pats who were formed in 1917 in Regina, Saskatchewan, as a major junior hockey team. The "Patricias" shortened their name to the Regina "Pats" in 1923, and to this day wear the PPCLI patch on their hockey jersey's shoulders. The Regina Pats are the longest lived major junior hockey team in the world.


text: In the movie “Across the Pacific”(1942), a cashiered U.S. Army officer, played by Humphrey Bogart crosses the border in 1941 and attempts to enlist in the Princess Pats. He is refused, as the regiment expects all its officers to have high moral standards. The character later comments that his rejection “was a *little* on the insulting side”.


text: The character Major Patrick Gordon/Patrick Crawley in Season 2 of Downton Abbey was a member of PPCLI.


text: The Canadian infantry soldiers in the Afghanistan War-based movie Hyena Road are members of the PPCLI.


text: In 1968 movie "The Devil's Brigade" Sgt. Patrick O'Neill (played by Jeremy Slate) is wearing P.P.C.L.I. insignia on his shoulder.


text: In the "Ultimate Soldier Challenge" TV show on History channel (Season 1, Episode 5) three teams of two soldiers (US Marines, Canadians, and Contractors) are competing in various military tasks. The Canadians (Alex and Andrija) are from the PPCLI.


title: Sunshower

text: A sunshower or sun shower is a meteorological phenomenon in which rain falls while the sun is shining. A sunshower is usually the result of accompanying winds associated with a rain storm sometimes miles away, blowing the airborne raindrops into an area where there are no clouds, therefore causing a sunshower. Sometimes a sunshower is created when a single rain shower cloud passes overhead, and the Sun's angle keeps the sunlight from being obstructed by overhead clouds.


title: Sunshower

text: Sunshower conditions often lead to the appearance of a rainbow, if the sun is at a sufficiently low angle. Although used in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and the UK, the term "sunshower" is rarely found in dictionaries. Additionally, the phenomenon has a wide range of sometimes remarkably similar folkloric names in cultures around the world. A common theme is that of clever animals and tricksters getting married or related to the devil, although many variations of this theme are in existence.


title: Thure Lindhardt

text: Thure Frank Lindhardt (; born 24 December 1974) is a Danish actor, educated at the drama school at Odense Theatre in 1998.


title: Thure Lindhardt

text: Lindhardt was born in Copenhagen, and grew up in Roskilde. At the age of 12, he got a part in Bille August's film "Pelle the Conqueror". His breakthrough in Denmark came with his portrayal of a boy with autism in "A Place Nearby", co-starring with Ghita Nørby.


title: Thure Lindhardt

text: Since then, he has played parts in a variety of movies and series, including "Into the Wild", "Angels in Fast Motion" aka "Nordkraft", "Brotherhood", "Love in Thoughts", "Sugar Rush", "Princess", "Rejseholdet", "Byzantium" and "Flame & Citron", a movie about the World War II resistance group Holger Danske, in which Lindhardt played Bent Faurschou-Hviid, co-starring with Mads Mikkelsen.


title: Thure Lindhardt

text: He also played a role as the young Swiss Guard Lieutenant Chartrand in the 2009 film "Angels & Demons", directed by Ron Howard.


title: Thure Lindhardt

text: He co-starred in Ira Sachs's film "Keep the Lights On", which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2012. Later in 2012, he was nominated for a Gotham Independent Film Award for Breakthrough Actor as well as an Independent Spirit Award for Best Male Lead.


title: Thure Lindhardt

text: In the third season of Showtime's "The Borgias", Lindhardt starred opposite Jeremy Irons, playing Rufio, a ruthless assassin working under Catherina Sforza (portrayed by Gina McKee) to bring about the Borgias' downfall.


title: Thure Lindhardt

text: In 2012 Lindhardt played a role in the European-Scandinavian TV series "The Spiral", and in 2013 he appeared in the feature film "Adieu Paris".


title: Thure Lindhardt

text: In 2015 he played the Danish detective Henrik Sabroe opposite Sofia Helin in season 3 of the Danish-Swedish TV police series "The Bridge". He replaced Kim Bodnia as a lead. He reprised the role in the show's fourth and final season, broadcast in early 2018.


title: Great Recession in the United States

text: The Great Recession in the United States was a severe financial crisis combined with a deep recession. While the recession officially lasted from December 2007 to June 2009, it took many years for the economy to recover to pre-crisis levels of employment and output. This slow recovery was due in part to households and financial institutions paying off debts accumulated in the years preceding the crisis along with restrained government spending following initial stimulus efforts. It followed the bursting of the housing bubble, the housing market correction and subprime mortgage crisis.


title: Great Recession in the United States

text: According to the Department of Labor, roughly 8.7 million jobs (about 7%) were shed from February 2008 to February 2010, and real GDP contracted by 4.2% between Q4 2007 and Q2 2009, making the Great Recession the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. The GDP bottom, or trough, was reached in the second quarter of 2009 (marking the technical end of the recession that is defined by a period of falling economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales). Real (inflation-adjusted) GDP did not regain its pre-crisis (Q4 2007) peak level until Q3 2011. Unemployment rose from 4.7% in November 2007 to peak at 10% in October 2009, before returning steadily to 4.7% in May 2016. The total number of jobs did not return to November 2007 levels until May 2014.


title: Great Recession in the United States

text: Households and non-profit organizations added approximately $8 trillion in debt during the 2000-2008 period (roughly doubling it and fueling the housing bubble), then reduced their debt level from the peak in Q3 2008 until Q3 2012, the only period this debt declined since at least the 1950s. However, the debt held by the public rose from 35% GDP in 2007 to 77% GDP by 2016, as the government spent more while the private sector (e.g., households and businesses, particularly the banking sector) reduced the debt burdens accumulated during the pre-recession decade. President Barack Obama declared the bailout measures started under the Bush Administration and continued during his Administration as completed and mostly profitable as of December 2014.


title: Great Recession in the United States

text: After the Great Depression of the 1930s, the American economy experienced robust growth, with periodic lesser recessions, for the rest of the 20th century. The federal government enforced the Securities Exchange Act (1934) and The Chandler Act (1938), which tightly regulated the financial markets. The Securities Exchange Act of 1934 regulated the trading of the secondary securities market and The Chandler Act regulated the transactions in the banking sector.


title: Great Recession in the United States

text: There were a few investment banks, small by current standards, that expanded during the late 1970s, such as JP Morgan. The Reagan Administration in the early 1980s began a thirty-year period of financial deregulation. The financial sector sharply expanded, in part because investment banks were going public, bringing them vast sums of stockholder capital. From 1978 to 2008, the average salary for workers outside of investment banking in the U.S. increased from $40k to $50k – a 25 percent salary increase - while the average salary in investment banking increased from $40k to $100k – a 150 percent salary increase. Deregulation also precipitated financial fraud - often tied to real estate investments - sometimes on a grand scale, such as the savings and loan crisis. By the end of the 1980s, many workers in the financial sector were being jailed for fraud, but many Americans were losing their life savings. Large investment banks began merging and developing financial conglomerates; this led to the formation of the giant investment banks like Goldman Sachs.


title: Great Recession in the United States

text: In the early months of 2008, many observers believed that a U.S. recession had begun. The collapse of Bear Stearns and the resulting financial market turbulence signaled that the crisis would not be mild and brief.


title: Great Recession in the United States

text: Alan Greenspan, ex-Chairman of the Federal Reserve, stated in March 2008 that the 2008 financial crisis in the United States "is likely to be judged in retrospect as the most wrenching since the end of World War II". A chief economist at Standard & Poor's said in March 2008 he had projected a worst-case-scenario in which the country would endure a double-dip recession, in which the economy would briefly recover in the summer 2008, before plunging again. Under this scenario, the economy's total output, as measured by the gross domestic product (GDP), would drop by 2.2 percentage points, making it among the worst recessions in the post World War II period.


title: Great Recession in the United States

text: The former head of the National Bureau of Economic Research said in March 2008 that he believed the country was then in a recession, and it could be a severe one. A number of private economists generally predicted a mild recession ending in the summer of 2008 when the economic stimulus checks going to 130 million households started being spent. A chief economist at Moody's predicted in March 2008 that policymakers would act in a concerted and aggressive way to stabilize the financial markets, and that the economy would suffer, but not enter a prolonged and severe recession. It takes many months before the National Bureau of Economic Research, the unofficial arbiter of when recessions begin and end, would make its own ruling.


title: Great Recession in the United States

text: According to numbers published by the Bureau of Economic Analysis in May 2008, the GDP growth of the previous two quarters was positive. As one common definition of a recession is negative economic growth for at least two consecutive fiscal quarters, some analysts suggested this indicates that the U.S. economy was not in a recession at the time. However, this estimate has been disputed by analysts who argue that if inflation is taken into account, the GDP growth was negative for those two quarters, making it a technical recession. In a May 9, 2008 report, the chief North American economist for investment bank Merrill Lynch wrote that despite the GDP growth reported for the first quarter of 2008, "it is still reasonable to believe that the recession started some time between September and January", on the grounds that the National Bureau of Economic Research's four recession indicators all peaked during that period.


title: Great Recession in the United States

text: New York's budget director concluded the state of New York was officially in a recession by the summer of 2008. Governor David Paterson called an emergency economic session of the state legislature for August 19 to push a budget cut of $600 million on top of a hiring freeze and a 7 percent reduction in spending at state agencies that had already been implemented by the Governor. An August 1 report, issued by economists with Wachovia Bank, said Florida was officially in a recession.


title: Great Recession in the United States

text: White House budget director Jim Nussle maintained at that time that the U.S. had avoided a recession, following revised GDP numbers from the Commerce Department showing a 0.2 percent contraction in the fourth quarter of 2007 down from a 0.6 percent increase, and a downward revision to 0.9 percent from 1 percent in the first quarter of 2008. The GDP for the second quarter was placed at a 1.9 percent expansion, below an expected 2 percent. On the other hand, Martin Feldstein, who headed the National Bureau of Economic Research and served on the group's recession-dating panel, said he believed the U.S. was in a very long recession and that there was nothing the Federal Reserve could do to change it.


title: Great Recession in the United States

text: In a CNBC interview at the end of July 2008, Alan Greenspan said he believed the U.S. was not yet in a recession, but that it could enter one due to a global economic slowdown.


title: Great Recession in the United States

text: A study released by Moody's found two-thirds of the 381 largest metropolitan areas in the United States were in a recession. The study also said 28 states were in recession, with 16 at risk. The findings were based on unemployment figures and industrial production data.


title: Great Recession in the United States

text: In March 2008, financier Warren Buffett stated in a CNBC interview that by a "common sense definition", the U.S. economy was already in a recession. Buffett has also stated that the definition of recession is flawed and that it should be three consecutive quarters of GDP growth that is less than population growth. However, the U.S. only experienced two consecutive quarters of GDP growth less than population growth.


title: Great Recession in the United States

text: Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke testified in September 2010 regarding the causes of the crisis. He wrote that there were shocks or triggers (i.e., particular events that touched off the crisis) and vulnerabilities (i.e., structural weaknesses in the financial system, regulation and supervision) that amplified the shocks. Examples of triggers included: losses on subprime mortgage securities that began in 2007 and a run on the shadow banking system that began in mid-2007, which adversely affected the functioning of money markets. Examples of vulnerabilities in the "private" sector included: financial institution dependence on unstable sources of short-term funding such as repurchase agreements or Repos; deficiencies in corporate risk management; excessive use of leverage (borrowing to invest); and inappropriate usage of derivatives as a tool for taking excessive risks. Examples of vulnerabilities in the "public" sector included: statutory gaps and conflicts between regulators; ineffective use of regulatory authority; and ineffective crisis management capabilities. Bernanke also discussed "Too big to fail" institutions, monetary policy, and trade deficits.


title: Great Recession in the United States

text: The U.S. Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission reported its findings in January 2011. It concluded that "the crisis was avoidable and was caused by: Widespread failures in financial regulation, including the Federal Reserve's failure to stem the tide of toxic mortgages; Dramatic breakdowns in corporate governance including too many financial firms acting recklessly and taking on too much risk; An explosive mix of excessive borrowing and risk by households and Wall Street that put the financial system on a collision course with crisis; Key policy makers ill prepared for the crisis, lacking a full understanding of the financial system they oversaw; and systemic breaches in accountability and ethics at all levels."


title: Great Recession in the United States

text: Among the important catalysts of the subprime crisis were the influx of money from the private sector, the banks entering into the mortgage bond market, government policies aimed at expanding homeownership, speculation by many home buyers, and the predatory lending practices of the mortgage lenders, specifically the adjustable-rate mortgage, 2–28 loan, that mortgage lenders sold directly or indirectly via mortgage brokers. On Wall Street and in the financial industry, moral hazard lay at the core of many of the causes.


title: Great Recession in the United States

text: A federal inquiry found that some federal government policies (or lack of them) were responsible to a large extent for the recession in the United States and the resultant vast unemployment. Factors include:


title: Great Recession in the United States

text: Alan Greenspan was the Chairman of the Federal Reserve of the United States from 1987 to 2006. He was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in August 1987 and was reappointed by President Bill Clinton in 1996. He was widely blamed, perhaps fairly or unfairly, as the individual most singly responsible for the housing bubble in the U.S.. Furthermore, he himself understood the full extent of the problem only until it was too late, saying that "I really didn't get it until very late in 2005 and 2006." Greenspan stated that the housing bubble was "fundamentally engendered by the decline in real long-term interest rates", though he also claims that long-term interest rates are beyond the control of central banks because "the market value of global long-term securities is approaching $100 trillion" and thus these and other asset markets are large enough that they "now swamp the resources of central banks".


title: Great Recession in the United States

text: Greenspan admitted to a congressional committee that he had been "partially wrong" in his hands-off approach towards the banking industry - "I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organisations, specifically banks and others, were such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms," said Greenspan. That being said, the Federal Reserve did not have the power to wade into the banking sector at the time.


title: Great Recession in the United States

text: On December 1, 2008, the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) declared that the United States entered a recession in December 2007, citing employment and production figures as well as the third quarter decline in GDP. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 679 points that same day. On January 4, 2009, Nobel Memorial Prize–winning economist Paul Krugman wrote, "This looks an awful lot like the beginning of a second Great Depression."


title: Great Recession in the United States

text: The Great Recession cost millions of jobs initially and high unemployment lingered for years after the official end of the recession in June 2009. One of the frightening aspects how deep the recession would go, which is one reason Congress passed and President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) in January 2009. Known as "The Stimulus", ARRA was a roughly $800 billion mix of tax cuts (about one-third) and spending programs (about two-thirds) with the primary impact spread over three years. Many economists argued the stimulus was too small, while conservatives such as the Tea Party argued that deficit reduction was the priority.


title: Great Recession in the United States

text: The number of jobs ("total non-farm payrolls" which includes both private sector and government jobs) reached a peak of 138.4 million in January 2008, then fell to a trough (bottom) of 129.7 million in February 2010, a decline of nearly 8.8 million jobs or 6.8%. The number of jobs did not regain the January 2008 level until May 2014. For comparison, the severe 1981-82 recession had a jobs decline of 3.2%. Full-time employment did not regain its pre-crisis level until August 2015.


title: Great Recession in the United States

text: The unemployment rate ("U-3") rose from the pre-recession level of 4.7% in November 2008 to a peak of 10.0% in October 2009, before steadily falling back to the pre-recession level by May 2016. One factor to consider is that the job count was artificially high and the unemployment rate was artificially low prior to the recession due to an unsustainable housing bubble, which had increased construction and other employment substantially. In 2003, prior to the significant expansion of subprime lending of 2004-2006, the unemployment rate was close to 6%. The wider measure of unemployment ("U-6") which includes those employed part-time for economic reasons or marginally attached to the labor force rose from 8.4% pre-crisis to a peak of 17.1% in October 2009. It did not regain the pre-crisis level until May 2017.


title: Great Recession in the United States

text: Bloomberg maintains a "dashboard" of several labor-market variables that illustrates the state of recovery of the labor market.


title: Great Recession in the United States

text: The major investment banks at the core of the crisis obtained significant funding in overnight repo markets, which were disrupted during the crisis. In effect, there was a run on the essentially unregulated shadow banking (non-depository) banking system, which had grown larger than the regulated depository system. Unable to obtain financing, they merged (in the case of Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch), declared bankruptcy (Lehman Brothers) or obtained federal depository bank charters and private loans (Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley). Insurer AIG, which had guaranteed many of the liabilities of these and other banks around the globe through derivatives called credit default swaps, also was bailed out and taken over by the government at an initial cost exceeding $100 billion. The bailout of AIG was essentially a conduit for the U.S. government to bail out banks around the world, as the money was used by AIG to make good on its obligations.


title: Great Recession in the United States

text: The year 2008, as of September 17, had seen 81 public corporations file for bankruptcy in the United States, already higher than the 78 for all of 2007. The largest corporate bankruptcy in U.S. history also made 2008 a record year in terms of assets, with Lehman's size—$691 billion in assets—alone surpassing all past annual totals. The year also saw the ninth-biggest bankruptcy, with the failure of IndyMac Bank.


title: Great Recession in the United States

text: "The Wall Street Journal" stated that venture capital funding slowed down, which in the past had led to unemployment and slowed new job creation. The Federal Reserve took steps to feed economic expansion by lowering the prime rate repeatedly during 2008.


title: Great Recession in the United States

text: On September 17, 2008, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke advised Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson that a large amount of public money would be needed to stabilize the financial system. Short selling on 799 financial stocks was banned on September 19. Companies were also forced to disclose large short positions. The Treasury Secretary also indicated that money funds would create an insurance pool to cover themselves against losses and that the government would buy mortgage-backed securities from banks and investment houses. Initial estimates of the cost of the Treasury bailout proposed by the Bush Administration's draft legislation (as of September 19, 2008) were in the range of $700 billion to $1 trillion U.S. dollars. President George W. Bush asked Congress on September 20, 2008 for the authority to spend as much as $700 billion to purchase troubled mortgage assets and contain the financial crisis. The crisis continued when the United States House of Representatives rejected the bill and the Dow Jones took a 777-point plunge. A revised version of the bill was later passed by Congress, but the stock market continued to fall nevertheless. The first half of the bailout money was primarily used to buy preferred stock in banks, instead of troubled mortgage assets. This flew in the face of some economists' argument that buying preferred stock would be far less effective than buying common stock.


title: Great Recession in the United States

text: As of mid-November 2008, it was estimated that the new loans, purchases, and liabilities of the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, and FDIC, brought on by the financial crisis, totalled over $5 trillion: $1 trillion in loans by the Fed to broker-dealers through the emergency discount window, $1.8 trillion in loans by the Fed through the Term Auction Facility, $700 billion to be raised by the Treasury for the Troubled Assets Relief Program, $200 billion insurance for the GSEs by the Treasury, and $1.5 trillion insurance for unsecured bank debt by FDIC.


title: Great Recession in the United States

text: ProPublica maintains a "bailout tracker" that indicated about $626 billion was "spent, invested or loaned" in bailouts of the financial system due to the crisis as of March 2018, while $713 billion had been repaid to the government ($390 billion in principal repayments and $323 billion in interest) indicating the bailouts generated $87 billion in profit.


title: Great Recession in the United States

text: The Federal Reserve, Treasury, and Securities and Exchange Commission took several steps on September 19 to intervene in the crisis. To stop the potential run on money market mutual funds, the Treasury also announced on September 19 a new $50,000,000,000 ($50 billion) program to ensure the investments, similar to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) program. Part of the announcements included temporary exceptions to section 23A and 23B (Regulation W), allowing financial groups to more easily share funds within their group. The exceptions would expire on January 30, 2009, unless extended by the Federal Reserve Board. The Securities and Exchange Commission announced the termination of short-selling of 799 financial stocks, as well as action against naked short selling, as part of its reaction to the mortgage crisis.


title: Great Recession in the United States

text: The recession officially ended in the second quarter of 2009, but the nation's economy continued to be described as in an "economic malaise" during the second quarter of 2011. Some economists described the post-recession years as the weakest recovery since the Great Depression and World War II. The weak recovery led one commentator to call it a "Zombie Economy", so-called because it was neither dead nor alive. Household incomes, as of August 2012 continued falling after the end of the recession, eventually declining 7.2% below the December 2007 level. Additionally as of September 2012, the long-term unemployment is the highest it had been since World War II, and the unemployment rate peaked several months after the end of the recession (10.1% in October 2009) and was above 8% until September 2012 (7.8%). The Federal Reserve kept interest rates at a historically low 0.25% from December 2008 until December 2015, when it began to raise them again.


title: Great Recession in the United States

text: However, the Great Recession was different in kind from all the recessions since the Great Depression, as it also involved a banking crisis and the de-leveraging (debt reduction) of highly indebted households. Research indicates recovery from financial crises can be protracted, with lengthy periods of high unemployment and substandard economic growth. Economist Carmen Reinhart stated in August 2011: "Debt de-leveraging [reduction] takes about seven years ... And in the decade following severe financial crises, you tend to grow by 1 to 1.5 percentage points less than in the decade before, because the decade before was fueled by a boom in private borrowing, and not all of that growth was real. The unemployment figures in advanced economies after falls are also very dark. Unemployment remains anchored about five percentage points above what it was in the decade before."


title: Great Recession in the United States

text: Then-Fed Chair Ben Bernanke explained during November 2012 several of the economic headwinds that slowed the recovery:


title: Great Recession in the United States

text: For example, U.S. federal spending rose from 19.1% GDP in fiscal year (FY) 2007 to 24.4% GDP in FY2009 (the last year budgeted by President Bush) before falling towards to 20.4% GDP in 2014, closer to the historical average. In dollar terms, federal spending was actually higher in 2009 than in 2014, despite a historical trend of a roughly 5% annual increase. This reduced real GDP growth by approximately 0.5% per quarter on average between Q3 2010 and Q2 2014. Both households and government practicing austerity at the same time was a recipe for a slow recovery.


title: Great Recession in the United States

text: Several key economic variables (e.g., Job level, real GDP per capita, stock market, and household net worth) hit their low point (trough) in 2009 or 2010, after which they began to turn upward, recovering to pre-recession (2007) levels between late 2012 and May 2014 (close to Reinhart's prediction), which marked the recovery of all jobs lost during the recession. Real median household income fell to a trough of $53,331 in 2012, but recovered to an all-time high of $59,039 by 2016. However, the gains during the recovery were very unevenly distributed. Economist Emmanuel Saez wrote in June 2016 that the top 1% of families captured 52% of the total real income (GDP) growth per family from 2009-2015. The gains were more evenly distributed after the tax increases in 2013 on higher-income earners. According to the Federal Reserve, median family net worth had peaked at about $140,000 in 2007, fell to a low point of $84,000 in 2013, and only partially recovered to $97,000 by 2016. Middle-class families had much of their wealth in housing, driving much of the decline when the housing bubble burst.


title: Great Recession in the United States

text: Healthcare costs in the United States slowed in the period after the Great Recession (2008–2012). A decrease in inflation and in the number of hospital stays per population drove a reduction in the rate of growth in aggregate hospital costs at this time. Growth slowed most for surgical stays and least for maternal and neonatal stays.


title: Great Recession in the United States

text: President Obama declared the bailout measures started under the Bush Administration and continued during his Administration as completed and mostly profitable as of December 2014. As of January 2018, bailout funds had been fully recovered by the government, when interest on loans is taken into consideration. A total of $626B was invested, loaned, or granted due to various bailout measures, while $390B had been returned to the Treasury. The Treasury had earned another $323B in interest on bailout loans, resulting in an $87B profit.


title: Great Recession in the United States

text: The vast majority of economic historians believe the Great Recession was the second worst contraction in US history, after the Great Depression. Some economists, including Ben Bernanke, have argued that the financial crisis precipitating the Great Recession was arguably more severe than the financial crisis that preceded the Great Depression, and that a depression was only avoided due to decisive policy actions taken by the Federal Reserve and federal government.


title: World Rugby Sevens Series

text: The World Rugby Men's Sevens Series is an annual series of international rugby sevens tournaments run by World Rugby featuring national sevens teams. Organised for the first time in the 1999–2000 season as the IRB World Sevens Series, the competition was formed to promote an elite-level of international rugby sevens and develop the game into a viable commercial product. The competition has been sponsored by banking group HSBC since 2014.


title: World Rugby Sevens Series

text: The season's circuit consists of 10 tournaments that generally begin in November or December and last until May. The venues are held across 10 countries, and visits five of the six populated continents. The United Arab Emirates, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, France and England each host one event. Each tournament has 16 teams – 15 core teams that participate in each tournament and one regional qualifier.


title: World Rugby Sevens Series

text: Teams compete for the World Rugby Series title by accumulating points based on their finishing position in each tournament. The lowest placed core team at the end of the season is dropped, and replaced by the winner of the Hong Kong Sevens. New Zealand had originally dominated the Series, winning each of the first six seasons from 1999–2000 to 2004–05, but since then, Fiji, South Africa, Samoa and Australia have each won season titles. England and the United States have placed in the top three for several seasons but have not won the series title.


title: World Rugby Sevens Series

text: The International Olympic Committee's decision in 2009 to add rugby sevens to the Summer Olympics beginning in 2016 has added a boost to rugby sevens and to the World Sevens Series; this boost has led to increased exposure and revenues, leading several of the core teams to field fully professional squads.


title: World Rugby Sevens Series

text: The first international rugby sevens tournament was held in 1973 in Scotland, which was celebrating a century of the Scottish Rugby Union. Seven international teams took part, with England defeating Ireland 22–18 in the final to take the trophy. The Hong Kong Sevens annual tournament began in 1976. Over the next two decades the number of international sevens competitions increased. The most notable was the Rugby World Cup Sevens with Scotland hosting the inaugural event in 1993, along with rugby joining the Commonwealth Games program in 1998.


title: World Rugby Sevens Series

text: The first season of the World Sevens Series was the 1999–2000 season. At the Series launch, the chairman of the International Rugby Board, Vernon Pugh, described the IRB's vision of the role of this new competition: "this competition has set in place another important element in the IRB’s drive to establish rugby as a truly global sport, one with widespread visibility and steadily improving standards of athletic excellence." New Zealand and Fiji dominated the first series, meeting in the final in eight of the ten season tournaments, and New Zealand narrowly won, overtaking Fiji by winning the last tournament of the series.


title: World Rugby Sevens Series

text: New Zealand won the first six seasons in a row from 1999–2000 to 2004–05, led by players such as Karl Te Nana and Amasio Valence. The number of stops in the series varied over the seasons, but experienced a contraction from 11 tournaments in 2001–02 to 7 tournaments in 2002–03 due to the global recession. In the 2005–06 season Fiji clinched the season trophy on the last tournament of the season finishing ahead of England. New Zealand regained the trophy in 2006–07 season in the last tournament of the season.


title: World Rugby Sevens Series

text: South Africa was the next team to win the series after taking home the 2008–09 title. In the 2009–10 season, Samoa who finished seventh the previous year shocked the world – led by 2010 top try-scorer and World Rugby Sevens Player of the Year Mikaele Pesamino – by winning four of the last five tournaments to overtake New Zealand and win the series.


title: World Rugby Sevens Series

text: The 2011–12 season was the last to have 12 core teams as the 2011–12 series expanded to 15 teams that had core status. Qualification for these places was played out at the 2012 Hong Kong Sevens. Canada (returning to core status for the first time since 2008), Spain and Portugal joined the 12 core teams for the next season. The Japan event also made a return for the first time since 2001 (lasting until 2015). New Zealand continued their dominance by finishing on top.


title: World Rugby Sevens Series

text: Argentina was originally planned to begin hosting a tenth event with Mar Del Plata the venue in the 2012–13 season, giving the tour an event on each continent, but when Argentina joined the Rugby Championship those plans were shelved. With the same schedule, New Zealand again were the winners over South Africa. They took it again in 2013–14 with Spain the first team to be relegated after finishing last during that season with Japan replacing them.


title: World Rugby Sevens Series

text: Heading into the 2014–15 season, the top four teams qualifying to the 2016 Summer Olympics, with Fiji, South Africa, New Zealand and Great Britain all qualifying through. The 2014–15 season and 2015–16 season were won by Fiji – the first time a team other than New Zealand won back-to-back season titles – led by 2015 and 2016 season Dream Team nominee Osea Kolinisau The two seasons also yielded teams winning their first tournaments – the United States won the 2015 London Sevens to finish the season in sixth overall; Kenya won the 2016 Singapore Sevens, and Scotland won the 2016 London Sevens. Prior to the 2015–16 season World Rugby did a comprehensive review of all nine tournament hosts and adjusted the schedule, dropping two sites (Japan and Scotland), and adding three sites (France, Singapore and Canada) to the calendar.


title: World Rugby Sevens Series

text: In the 2016–17 series, a dominant and consistent display by South Africa saw them reach the finals of the 2016–17 series rounds on eight occasions, winning five of these. As a result, South Africa were series champions with victory in the penultimate round in Paris. The season was a qualifier for the 2018 Rugby World Cup Sevens with the top four teams that had not already qualified, coming from this season. The teams that made it through to the World Cup via this method were Canada, Argentina, Scotland and Samoa.


title: World Rugby Sevens Series

text: The World Series has consisted of 10 scheduled tournament stops since the 2015–16 season, which generally fall in the same order and timeframes. From 2020 to 2022, however, several of these events had to be cancelled due to impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: World Rugby Sevens Series

text: A group of core teams, currently 15 in number, is announced for each season based on performances in the previous season. Each core team has a guaranteed place in all of that season's events. The core teams have been selected through a designated promotion/relegation process since the 2012–13 season.


title: World Rugby Sevens Series

text: Non-core teams are also invited to compete in every season of the World Rugby Sevens Series. With 15 core teams, there is generally now only one invited team at each 16-team tournament. Before 2012–13, when there were only 12 core teams, four places at each tournament were usually available to invited teams.


title: World Rugby Sevens Series

text: In 2019, World Rugby announced a plan to create a second-tier competition that would allow the best thirteen sevens teams, with the addition of three invited teams, from their region to compete in a similar style format to the Sevens Series for the potential of gaining promotion to the World Rugby Sevens Series and becoming a core team. This breaks from the usual format of promotion and relegation in the sevens series.


title: World Rugby Sevens Series

text: The World Series results are sometimes used as a qualifier for other tournaments. For example, the top four teams of the 2014–15 series automatically qualified for the 2016 Summer Olympics. Similarly, certain teams from the 2016–17 series qualified for the 2018 Rugby World Cup Sevens.


title: World Rugby Sevens Series

text: Tally of top six placings in the series for each team, updated after the most recently completed 2021–22 season (obtained by summing the placings of each team as recorded in the above table of results by season).


title: World Rugby Sevens Series

text: Rugby sevens is a fast-paced version of rugby union with seven players each side on a full-sized rugby field. Games are much shorter, lasting seven minutes each half. The game is quicker and faster-scoring than 15-a-side rugby, which explains part of its appeal. It also gives players the space for superb feats of individual skill. Sevens is traditionally played in a two-day tournament format. Currently, in a normal event, 16 teams are entered.


title: World Rugby Sevens Series

text: World Rugby operates satellite tournaments in each continent alongside the Sevens World Series which serve as qualifiers for Series events; in 2012–13 they also determined the entrants in the World Series Pre-Qualifier, and since 2013–14 determine the entrants in the Core Team Qualifier.


title: World Rugby Sevens Series

text: In each tournament, the teams are divided into pools of four teams, who play a round-robin within the pool. Points are awarded in each pool on a different schedule from most rugby tournaments—3 for a win, 2 for a draw, 1 for a loss, 0 for a no-show. In case teams are tied after pool play, the tiebreakers are:


title: World Rugby Sevens Series

text: As of the 2009–10 series, four trophies are awarded in each tournament. In descending order of prestige, they are the Cup, whose winner is the overall tournament champion, Plate, Bowl and Shield. Each trophy is awarded at the end of a knockout tournament.


title: World Rugby Sevens Series

text: In a normal event, the top two teams in each pool advance to the Cup competition. The four quarterfinal losers drop into the bracket for the Plate. The Bowl is contested by the third and fourth-place finishers in each pool, while the Shield is contested by the losing quarterfinalists of the Bowl.


title: World Rugby Sevens Series

text: A third-place match is now conducted between the losing Cup semifinalists in all tournaments; this was introduced for the 2011–12 series.


title: World Rugby Sevens Series

text: In 2012–13, the season-ending London Sevens expanded to 20 teams, with 12 competing for series points and eight involved in the Core Team Qualifier. With the promotion place now determined at the Hong Kong Sevens, the London Sevens returned to the traditional 16-team format in 2013–14.


title: World Rugby Sevens Series

text: The Hong Kong Sevens had 24 teams through the 2011–12 series, but has featured 28 teams since 2012–13, with 15 core teams and the winner of the HSBC Asian Sevens Series competing for series points. At the 2013 event, the remaining 12 teams were those in the World Series Pre-Qualifier; from 2014 forward, the remaining 12 teams are those in the Core Team Qualifier.


title: World Rugby Sevens Series

text: Originally, the six pool winners of the Hong Kong Sevens, plus the two highest-finishing second-place teams, advanced to the Cup.


title: World Rugby Sevens Series

text: In the transitional year of 2012, the Hong Kong Sevens was split into two separate competitions. The 12 core teams competed for the Cup, Plate and Bowl under a format similar to that of a regular event. The 12 invited teams all competed for the Shield, with the top three sides in that competition also earning core status for 2012–13.


title: World Rugby Sevens Series

text: From 2013 on, the Hong Kong Sevens was played under the same 16-team format used in the rest of the series, with typically 15 core teams plus an invited team (for Hong Kong, usually the winner of the HSBC Asian Sevens Series) competing in the main draw of the tournament. In line with changes which began at the start of the 2016–17 World Rugby Sevens Series, the duration of the Cup final was reduced from 20 minutes to 14 minutes in 2017. In that season, the number of trophies was also reduced to two; the main Cup contested by the top eight teams from the pool stage, and a Challenge Trophy contested by the bottom eight teams from the pool stage.


title: World Rugby Sevens Series

text: The season championship is determined by points earned in each tournament. World Rugby introduced a new scoring system for the 2011–12 series, in which all teams participating in a tournament are guaranteed points. Initially, World Rugby announced the new points schedule only for the standard 16-team events; the allocations for the Hong Kong Sevens were announced later. A new scoring system was introduced in 2019–20 requiring teams to play for 7th, 11th and 15th places, previously teams had tied for 7th–8th 11th–12th and 15th–16th places.


title: World Rugby Sevens Series

text: Tie-breaking: If two or more teams are level on overall series points, the following tie-breakers are used:


title: World Rugby Sevens Series

text: The tour received 1,147 hours of air time in 2005–06; 530 of which was live, and was broadcast to 136 countries. By 2008–09, the hours of air time had increased to over 3,300, with 35 broadcasters airing the series in 139 countries and 15 languages. Broadcast time increased further in 2009–10, with 3,561 hours of air time (1,143 hours live) carried by 34 broadcasters in 141 countries and 16 languages. In 2010–11, 3,657 hours of coverage were aired (1,161 hours live), with the same number of broadcasters as the previous season but six new countries added. For that season, Sevens World Series programming was available in 332 million homes worldwide, with a potential audience of 760 million.


title: World Rugby Sevens Series

text: The International Rugby Board reached a 5-year deal with HSBC in October 2010 that granted them status as the first-ever title sponsor of the Sevens World Series. Through the agreement, HSBC acquired title naming rights to all tournaments in the World Series, beginning with the Dubai Sevens on 3 December 2010. HSBC has since sub-licensed the naming rights to individual tournaments, while retaining its name sponsorship of the overall series. A renewed, 4-year deal was announced before the 2015–16 Series, this deal was also expanded to include the World Rugby Women's Sevens Series.


title: World Rugby Sevens Series

text: In the year after the International Olympic Committee announced in 2009 that rugby sevens would return to the Olympics in 2016, most of the "core teams" on the Series began offering full-time contracts to their players. These annual salaries can range from €18,000 to €100,000. England offers among the more generous salaries, ranging from an estimated €25,000 to over €100,000. New Zealand has a graded system with salaries ranging from €23,000-plus to about €52,500 for its four top earners. The basic salary for Scottish sevens players ranges from €22,500 to €40,000. The Australian sevens players are estimated to be on a basic salary of about €27,000-plus. Toward the bottom end of the scale is Ireland, offering its players a €18,000 to €23,750 development contract, less than minimum wage.


title: The Mummy (TV series)

text: The Mummy (also known as The Mummy: The Animated Series) is an American animated series produced by Universal Cartoon Studios based on the 1999 film of the same name. It premiered on Kids' WB on The WB network on September 22, 2001. It is set in 1938. It was retooled and renamed The Mummy: Secrets of the Medjai for its second and final season, which began on February 8, 2003. The show was cancelled on June 7, 2003. Reruns of the show still aired on Kids' WB until it was removed from its Saturday morning lineup around July 2003.


title: The Mummy (TV series)

text: Based loosely on the movies "The Mummy" and "The Mummy Returns", the O'Connells find themselves being chased around the world by the undead corrupt High Priest, Imhotep, and his lackey, Colin Weasler, while trying to get the Manacle of Osiris off Alex's wrist. This takes their trip across the world, trying to locate the lost scrolls of Thebes, the only things that can remove the manacle. The scrolls had to be destroyed to prevent Imhotep from possessing the manacle. In the second season, Alex is trained as a Medjai to combat the mummy, as well as facing new threats along the way.


title: The Mummy (TV series)

text: The series received positive reviews from critics with praise given to the writing, animation, and the character of Alex O'Connell. In February 2003, Kids' WB considered "The Mummy," which was airing its second season at the time, one of the network's, "breakout hits."


title: The Mummy (TV series)

text: On February 20, 2002, it was announced video game developer Ubisoft had obtained the rights to "The Mummy: The Animated Series" from Universal Studios Consumer Products Group, enabling the publisher to produce games based on the brand. It was projected the Gameboy Advance game would be completed in the fall of 2002.


title: The Mummy (TV series)

text: HIP Interactive had developed a new game based on "The Mummy: The Animated Series" for PlayStation 2, Xbox, and PC. In May 2004, they revealed they would be showing off their new game at E3 later that year. On June 30, 2004, All In The Game LTD, who was co-producing the new game with HIP Interactive, revealed Corey Johnson would reprise his role as "Mr. Daniels" from the 1999 film "The Mummy", in the new video game. According to casting director Phil Morris, Johnson was brought in to help reproduce the same production values of the original films and television show.


title: The Mummy (TV series)

text: In October 2002, Universal released "The Mummy: Quest of the Lost Scrolls" on VHS and DVD. Dubbed a "feature length adventure", the film was a mash up of the first episode of the series, and the last two episode from season one.


title: The Mummy (TV series)

text: Universal Studios Home Entertainment released the entire series on DVD in Region 1 in three-volume sets in 2008. They were released in Canada on July 22 and in the U.S. on December 16.


title: Mazda MX-3

text: The Mazda MX-3 is a four-seat coupé front wheel drive manufactured and marketed by Mazda, introduced at the Geneva Auto Show in March 1991 and marketed for model years 1992–1998.


title: Mazda MX-3

text: The MX-3 was also marketed as the Mazda MX-3 Precidia in Canada and as the Eunos Presso, Autozam AZ-3 and Mazda AZ-3 in Japan. In Australia it was marketed as the Eunos 30X until late 1996 when it became the Mazda-Eunos 30X.


title: Mazda MX-3

text: The MX-3's platform is called the EC platform, and shares much with the BG platform of the contemporary Familia/323/Protegé. The first model year was available in Japan, Europe, Australia, and North America where it went on sale in September 1991, as a 1992. Originally available with a single-cam 1.6-liter inline-four or the 1.8 liter twin-cam V6, a few more engines were available as development continued. In the summer of 1991, the Autozam AZ-3 was added to the Japanese market lineup. It was known by two names;"Autozam" was meant to be Mazda's more youthful brand, so it combined a somewhat lower price with a sportier (but smaller) twin-cam 1.5L 4 cylinder engine, and also sold as the Eunos Presso, a companion, affordable sports hatchback to the Eunos Roadster.


title: Mazda MX-3

text: The small displacement V6 was offered to comply with Japanese government regulations concerning exterior dimensions and engine displacement; Japanese buyers were liable for annual taxes for vehicles exceeding the regulations and large displacement engines, which would affect sales. Japanese buyers who were willing to pay the tax for larger vehicles were now given a choice of the FC series Mazda RX-7 and the JC series Mazda Cosmo.