title: Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree

text: An instrumental version of the song appears as background music in the 1964 television special "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", which exclusively featured music written by Marks. It can be heard in the scene where Rudolph first arrives at the Reindeer Games and meets another reindeer named Fireball. A fully sung version of the song would later appear in Rankin/Bass's 1979 sequel "Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July". The song was also used in the 1990 film "Home Alone" during a scene when Kevin McCallister pretends that there is a holiday party taking place in his house, and discourages the burglars from robbing it. The song was also featured in "The Christmas Special" episode of "Regular Show" in 2012. The song was also used in "D-TV" set to the Disney cartoons, "Pluto's Christmas Tree" and "Mickey's Christmas Carol".


title: Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree

text: Although Decca released the single in both 1958 and again in 1959, it did not sell well until Lee became a popular star in 1960. That Christmas holiday season, Lee's "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" placed on the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart for the first time, eventually peaking at No. 14. It continued to sell well during subsequent holiday seasons, peaking as high as No. 3 on "Billboard"'s Christmas Singles chart in December 1965. Lee said, "It was magic, and I think we all knew it. It took a few years to take off, but once it did, it really did."


title: Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree

text: Lee's 1958 recording still receives a great deal of airplay, as radio station formats ranging from top 40 to adult contemporary to country music to oldies to even adult standards have played this version. It has since turned into a perennial holiday favorite, and due to rule changes in 2014 has returned annually to the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart, reaching an all-time chart peak of No. 2 during the 2019 holiday season.


title: Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree

text: The song reached over one million in digital downloads by 2016 according to Nielsen SoundScan, making it fifth on the list of all-time best-selling Christmas/holiday digital singles in SoundScan history. It has sold 1,170,000 copies in the United States as of December 2019.


title: Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree

text: On the official UK Singles Chart, "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" peaked at No. 6 when it was released in the United Kingdom in 1962. In 2013, due to downloads, it became one of a number of songs to re-enter the UK Singles Chart near Christmastime each holiday season. The single peaked at No. 63 on Sunday, December 15, 2013. Then in 2017, it reached No. 9 on the UK Singles Chart, its highest chart position since 1963. On the week ending January 6, 2022, the song reached No. 5, peaking one place higher than its original release 60 years prior.


title: Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree

text: A version of the song by Kim Wilde and Mel Smith (credited as "Mel & Kim" as a parody of then-popular sister act Mel and Kim), featuring Pete Thomas, reached No. 3 on the UK Singles Chart during the Christmas season 1987. The track was recorded to raise funds for Comic Relief. Its accompanying video featured the two hosting a Christmas party with guests including The Mekon and an appearance from Smith's comedy partner Griff Rhys Jones, carol singers played by the band Curiosity Killed the Cat and Spitting Image puppets of Bette Midler and Tina Turner.


title: Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree

text: American singer and songwriter Miley Cyrus under Hannah Montana name, released a cover version of the song as a single on November 6, 2007. She performed the song at Disney's 2006 Disney World Orlando Parade, as the song was first released as a track on the Holiday Edition of the album in 2006.


title: Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree

text: American country singer Kacey Musgraves released a cover version of the song featuring Cuban-born American pop singer Camila Cabello as a track on her soundtrack album "The Kacey Musgraves Christmas Show" on November 28, 2019.


title: Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree

text: Canadian singer Justin Bieber released a cover version of the song as a promotional single on November 12, 2020, exclusively on Amazon Music. On October 29, 2021, the song was released on streaming platforms worldwide as an official single.


title: Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree

text: Talking about the cover, Bieber said: "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" has always been one of my favourite songs to celebrate the holidays and I'm excited to team up with Amazon Music to share my own version, with my fans. I'm so thankful to be able to spend the season with loved ones, and to also use this opportunity to give back to LIFT, Inner-City Arts and Alexandria House: three incredible organizations that I've supported in the past. I hope my fans join me in reaching out to the communities and organizations they care about, to help spread joy to those who need it most."


title: ODB (wrestler)

text: Jessica Nora Kresa (born June 6, 1978) is an American professional wrestler and actress better known as ODB (One Dirty Bitch), best known for her time in Impact Wrestling. She is a four-time TNA Women's Knockout Champion, and a one-time TNA Knockouts Tag Team Champion.


title: ODB (wrestler)

text: Kresa has an athletic background in ice hockey, which her father encouraged her to pursue. She was the captain of the first girls' team at her high school and played at St. Cloud State University for two years. She began watching professional wrestling as a child, and watching wrestlers such as The Killer Bees. She originally desired to be on the show "American Gladiators". She hired a personal trainer in anticipation of her wrestling training.


title: ODB (wrestler)

text: Kresa tried out for the first season of the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE)'s reality show, "WWF Tough Enough". She made the top 25, but missed the final cut for the show. Back home in Minnesota, she began training and was soon wrestling in independent wrestling promotions in the Midwest, facing male wrestlers such as Ken Anderson and Shawn Daivari. Kresa received her first national exposure in early 2003 as ODB, wrestling Trinity in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA). She returned to TNA in early 2004 as Poison and was placed in a brief feud with Trinity. She appeared again in TNA during October 2004 and defeated Tracy Brooks.


title: ODB (wrestler)

text: On June 5, 2006, Kresa debuted in Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW) as a villain under the ring name ODB, her gimmick being a woman who was tough, loud, crude bargirl, losing to Daisy Mae. Three days later, she lost to Mae in a rematch, beginning a feud between the two in the process. After losing to Mae in a tag team match on June 9, ODB finally defeated her in a tag team match on June 16. She then defeated her in a singles match on June 28 to culminate their feud. On July 12, 2006, ODB began declaring herself as the Women's Champion, even though OVW did not recognize a women's champion at the time. She repeatedly cut promos saying that she was the new Women's Champion, and OVW owner Danny Davis conceded and recognized the Women's Championship as an official title. ODB lost her title to Serena Deeb in a four-way match on September 13, 2006. In the spring of 2007, ODB won the first ever "Miss OVW" crown with help from Victoria Crawford. After Deeb dropped the title to Katie Lea, ODB engaged in an ongoing feud with her which led to a match between the two on June 1, 2007, where ODB regained her title and ended Lea's reign. ODB lost her title for the second time when she dropped it to Milena Roucka in a six-way match on September 19, 2007. During her time in OVW, she gained praise for her matches, but Johnny Ace thought she didn't fit with the WWE Divas division and Triple H encouraged her to sign with Total Nonstop Action Wrestling.


title: ODB (wrestler)

text: Kresa was contacted by Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) to appear at their annual pay-per-view Bound for Glory. She made her in-ring re-debut at the event, participating in a 10-Knockout gauntlet match to crown the first-ever Knockout Champion. She was eliminated by Roxxi Laveaux, and the match was eventually won by Gail Kim. She was originally booked as a villain in the women's division, but her abilities while "drunken" created positive crowd reactions, resulting in a naturally gradual fan favorite push.


title: ODB (wrestler)

text: On the January 3, 2008 episode of "Impact!", ODB won an 8-Knockout gauntlet match to determine the rankings of the Knockout's division in TNA. On the January 17, 2008 episode of "Impact!", she defeated Angelina Love, and then challenged Awesome Kong to a title match at Against All Odds. On the January 24 episode of "Impact!", Kong attacked Gail Kim after Kim was named 2007 TNA Knockout of the Year, but was saved by ODB. At Against All Odds, ODB was defeated by Kong. At Destination X, she lost a three-way match, which included Kim, to Kong. At Lockdown, ODB and Kim defeated Kong and Raisha Saeed. The following month at Sacrifice, ODB participated in the first-ever Knockouts "Make Over Battle Royal", which was also won by Kim.


title: ODB (wrestler)

text: In mid–2008, ODB began feuding with The Beautiful People (Angelina Love, Velvet Sky and Cute Kip) alongside Rhaka Khan and Rhino. On the October 30 episode of "Impact!", ODB joined A.J. Styles, Samoa Joe, Jay Lethal, Consequences Creed, Petey Williams, Eric Young and The Motor City Machineguns to form a faction of younger wrestlers to oppose The Main Event Mafia.


title: ODB (wrestler)

text: At Genesis, after scoring the pinfall in a six-woman tag team match, it was announced that ODB would get a shot at the Knockout Championship. In this time, ODB feuded with The Kongtourage with most results as wins. At Against All Odds, she unsuccessfully challenged Awesome Kong for the championship. The next week on "Impact!", she cut a promo about letting "one lucky guy spend the night" with her, and at Destination X, she chose Cody Deaner as her date. Subsequently, Deaner became her manager. At Lockdown, ODB won the Queen of the Cage match, which was contested in a steel cage. On August 16 at Hard Justice, ODB and Deaner faced Angelina Love and Velvet Sky in a tag team match with Love's Knockouts Championship on the line. Deaner pinned Sky, which led to ODB becoming the new Knockouts Champion, but the duo began arguing over who was the true champion. At No Surrender, ODB defeated Deaner to win the championship. After successfully defending her title against Awesome Kong and Tara, she would face both of them in a 3-way match at Bound for Glory, which ODB won.


title: ODB (wrestler)

text: ODB turned heel on December 10 after attacking Tara in a backstage segment. On December 20, 2009, at Final Resolution, ODB lost the Knockout's title to Tara. On the December 31 special four-hour, all Knockout edition of "Impact!" ODB won an eight Knockout Tournament, defeating Traci Brooks and Awesome Kong en route to the finals, where she defeated Hamada, to earn herself a shot at the Knockouts Championship on the January 4 episode of "Impact!", where she defeated Tara to regain the Knockouts Championship. Two weeks later at Genesis, ODB lost the title back to Tara in a two out of three falls match.


title: ODB (wrestler)

text: Despite the announcement of her departure, ODB returned to TNA for one night on the February 24, 2011 episode of "Impact!", answering TNA Knockouts Champion Madison Rayne's open challenge and losing to her in the following match.


title: ODB (wrestler)

text: She made her next appearance in the May 19 episode of the newly christened "Impact Wrestling" by attacking Velvet Sky, claiming that she had gotten fired because of her. In storyline, ODB was not under contract with TNA and had to make her entrances in matches through the crowd with no entrance music. ODB and Sky faced each other in a singles match on the June 9 episode of "Impact Wrestling", with Sky emerging victorious. The following week, ODB cost Sky and Ms. Tessmacher their match for the TNA Knockouts Tag Team Championship, and then beat Sky down with her new partner, Jacqueline. The following week, ODB and Jacqueline defeated Sky and Tessmacher in a tag team match. On the July 7 episode of "Impact Wrestling", Sky defeated both ODB and Jacqueline in a two-on-one handicap match, forcing both of them to leave TNA as per stipulation of the match. However, ODB, along with Jacqueline, returned to "Impact Wrestling" on July 21, once again attacking Sky prior to her match for the Knockouts Championship with Mickie James. They would eventually be attacked by the returning Traci Brooks, before being escorted out of the arena by police officers. On the August 18 episode of "Impact Wrestling", ODB and Jacqueline changed their attitudes, abandoning their heelish antics, in order to regain contracts with the promotion. After several weeks of working as fan favorites, ODB and Jacqueline were signed to contracts by the new head of the Knockouts division, Karen Jarrett, on the September 1 episode of "Impact Wrestling". ODB returned on the November 17 episode of "Impact Wrestling", taking part in a gauntlet match, which was won by Mickie James.


title: ODB (wrestler)

text: On the December 22 episode of "Impact Wrestling" ODB teamed up with Eric Young in the Wild Card Tournament, advancing to the semi-finals after a win over Anarquia and Shannon Moore. The following week, the team was eliminated from the tournament by Magnus and Samoa Joe. After the loss, ODB would pursue an on-screen relationship with Young, and the two would begin a feud with Angelina Love and Winter, and the duo would defeat Love and Winter in a tag team match on the January 26, 2012 episode of "Impact Wrestling". On the March 8 episode of "Impact Wrestling", ODB and Young defeated Gail Kim and Madison Rayne to win the TNA Knockouts Tag Team Championship. After the match, ODB accepted Young's storyline marriage proposal. ODB and Young made their first title defense two weeks later, when they defeated Mexican America (Rosita and Sarita). ODB's and Young's wedding ceremony took place on the April 12 episode of "Impact Wrestling", with Rosita and Sarita interfering. This led to a match, three days later at Lockdown, where ODB and Young defeated Rosita and Sarita in a steel cage match to retain the titles. On July 19, ODB and Young became the longest reigning Knockouts Tag Team Champions in history by surpassing The Beautiful People's reign of 141 days. On the October 18 episode of "Impact Wrestling", ODB defeated the newly crowned TNA Knockout Champion Tara in a non-title match. The rivalry between ODB and Tara continued, and the two competed on November 11 at Turning Point, where ODB and Young defeated Tara and her on-screen boyfriend Jesse in a non-title mixed tag team match. On the November 15 episode of "Impact Wrestling", ODB competed in a battle royal to determine the next contender for Tara's championship, which was won by the returning Mickie James.


title: ODB (wrestler)

text: After a four-month absence, ODB returned to TNA in April 2013, as the new referee for the Knockouts division. On the June 20 episode of "Impact Wrestling", ODB and Young were stripped of the Knockouts Tag Team Championships by Brooke Hogan — the Knockouts Division Commissioner — due to Young being a male, ending their reign at a record-setting 478 days.


title: ODB (wrestler)

text: On the July 25 episode of "Impact Wrestling", ODB refereed a Knockouts Championship match between champion Mickie James and Gail Kim, which saw Kim slap ODB after turning a blind eye to a dirty pin and James ultimately retaining the title, beginning a rivalry between the two. ODB returned to in-ring action the following week, where she fought Kim to double count-out. On August 15 at the special episode of ""Impact Wrestling: Hardcore Justice"", ODB pinned Kim in a three-way hardcore match, which also included James. The following week, ODB was defeated by Kim in singles competition. ODB and Kim faced off once again in a number one contender's two out of three falls match on the August 29 episode of "Impact Wrestling", which ODB won. On September 12, during the tapings of the September 19 episode of "Impact Wrestling", ODB defeated Mickie James to win her fourth TNA Women's Knockout Championship. On October 20 at Bound for Glory, ODB lost her title to Kim in a three-way match, also involving Brooke, after an interference from Lei'D Tapa, ending her reign at 38 days. ODB received a rematch on the October 31 episode of "Impact Wrestling", but was once again defeated by Kim. On the December 12 episode of "Impact Wrestling", ODB was helped to get retribution over Lei'D Tapa by the returning Madison Rayne, thus forming her own alliance. ODB and Rayne teamed together for the first time on the December 19 episode of "Impact Wrestling", where they defeated Tapa and Kim, after Rayne pinned Kim.<ref name="Impact12/19/13"></ref> ODB defeated Brittany on the April 29, 2014 episode of "TNA Xplosion", in what would turn out to be her final match with TNA.


title: ODB (wrestler)

text: On August 21, 2014, ODB was removed from the Knockouts website and her TNA profile was moved to the alumni section of the roster, therefore announcing her departure from the company. On September 5, 2014, ODB competed in TNA One Night Only: World Cup 2014, which aired on tape delay from April. She competed for Team Eric Young and lost to Angelina Love. In the main event, ODB managed to eliminate Gail Kim before being eliminated by Robbie E.


title: ODB (wrestler)

text: On January 3, 2015, ODB debuted for Ring of Honor, saving The Briscoe Brothers from an attack of The Kingdom (Michael Bennett, Matt Taven and Maria Kanellis). At the January 24 tapings, The Kingdom defeated ODB and the Briscoes after Bennett and Taven attacked ODB, allowing Kanellis to pin her. On March 1 at the ROH 13th Anniversary Show pay-per-view, ODB gained a measure of revenge by defeating Kanellis in a singles match.


title: ODB (wrestler)

text: On the December 15, 2016 episode of "Impact Wrestling" dubbed "Total Nonstop Deletion", ODB made a one-night appearance to TNA to answer Sienna's #1 contender challenge for the TNA Knockouts Championship in a losing effort. After the match was over "Broken" Matt Hardy's drone, Vanguard 1, received a motorboat from ODB.


title: ODB (wrestler)

text: Two months later the following year on March 2 during the tapings of "Impact Wrestling", ODB returned to TNA, defeating Laurel Van Ness. On April 6, 2017 during the episode of "Impact Wrestling", ODB won a gauntlet match to become number one contender for Rosemary's Knockouts Championship, a match she eventually went on to lose.


title: ODB (wrestler)

text: On November 2, 2019, Impact Wrestling announced that proceeds from their Melrose Ballroom TV tapings would go towards replacing her food truck that burned down in Chicago during the weekend of Starrcast and AEW All Out. She confirmed that she would be present but didn't comment on whether or not she'd be wrestling at the event.


title: ODB (wrestler)

text: ODB made a surprise appearance at All Out, participating in the Casino Battle Royal. She eliminated Teal Piper before being eliminated by Britt Baker.


title: ODB (wrestler)

text: On December 14, 2019, at Into the Fire, ODB made her National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) debut as Allysin Kay's mystery tag team partner, defeating Marti Belle and Melina.


title: ODB (wrestler)

text: ODB made her third return to Impact Wrestling on the February 2, 2021 episode of "Impact!", where she helped Jazz and Jordynne Grace as they were attacked by Kimber Lee, Susan and the Knockouts Champion Deonna Purrazzo.


title: ODB (wrestler)

text: Aside from being a wrestler, Kresa worked as a bartender at the Courtside Bar & Grill in Anoka, Minnesota. and runs a food truck called ODB's Meat & Greet.


title: ODB (wrestler)

text: In 2011, Kresa starred alongside fellow wrestlers Kurt Angle, James Storm, Matt Morgan, Terry Gerin and Sid Eudy in the horror movie "Death from Above".


title: ODB (wrestler)

text: Kresa appeared on the June 23, 2013, episode of the Animal Planet show "" which is hosted by Eric Young.


title: ODB (wrestler)

text: In 2014, Kresa appeared on an episode of "My Family Recipe Rocks", hosted by Joey Fatone, on an episode called "Campfire Cooking with Professional Wrestler Jessie Kresa". She shared her recipes for ODB Bloody Marys, One Dirty Bean Dip, Walking Tacos and Campfire Cones.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: Christianity in Turkey has a long history dating back to the early origins of Christianity in Asia Minor during the 1st century AD. In modern times the percentage of Christians in Turkey has declined from 20 to 25 percent in 1914 to 3–5.5 percent in 1927, to 0.3–0.4%, roughly translating to 200,000–320,000 devotees. The percentage of Christians in Turkey fell was mainly as a result of the Late Ottoman genocides (Armenian genocide, Greek genocide and the Assyrian genocide), the population exchange between Greece and Turkey, the emigration of Christians that began in the late 19th century and gained pace in the first quarter of the 20th century, and due to events such as Varlık Vergisi and the 1955 Istanbul pogrom against Christian Greeks and Armenians. Exact numbers are difficult to estimate as many former Muslim converts to Christianity often hide their Christian faith for fear of familial pressure, religious discrimination, and persecution.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: This was due to events which had a significant impact on the country's demographic structure, such as the First World War, the genocide of Greeks, Armenians, and Assyrians perpetrated by Turkish Muslims, and the population exchange between Greece and Turkey, and the emigration of Christians (such as Assyrians, Greeks, Armenians, etc.) to foreign countries (mostly in Europe and the Americas) that actually began in the late 19th century and gained pace in the first quarter of the 20th century, especially during World War I. Today there are more than 200,000–320,000 people of different Christian denominations, representing roughly 0.3–0.4 percent of Turkey's population, including an estimated 80,000 Oriental Orthodox, 35,000 Roman Catholics, 18,000 Antiochian Greeks, 5,000 Greek Orthodox, 8,000 Protestants, 4,994 Jehovah's Witnesses, and 512 Mormons. There is also a small group of ethnic Orthodox-Christian Turks (mostly living in Istanbul or Izmir) who follow the Greek Orthodox or Syriac Orthodox church and additionally Protestant Turks who still face difficulties regarding social acceptance and also historic claims to churches or property in the country because they are former Muslim converts to Christianity from Turkish-Muslim backgrounds (rather than ethnic minorities). Ethnically Turkish Protestants number around 7,000–8,000. In 2009, there were 236 churches open for worship in Turkey. The Eastern Orthodox Church has been headquartered in Constantinople since the 4th century.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: Christianization of ancient Arameans and Armenians most likely began around the 1st century AD. The spread of Christianity beyond Jerusalem is discussed in the Book of Acts.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: The Cappadocian Fathers produced some of the earliest hagiographies in the region. In addition to writings about feminine virtue by Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory of Nazianzos, later texts about Nicholas of Sion and Theodore of Sykeon described miracles and rural life.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: The historical region of Syria became one of the main centers of miaphisite Christianity, embodied in the Oriental Orthodoxy, which had accepted only the first three ecumenical councils: Nicaea (325), Constantinople (381) and Ephesus (431). Miaphisite Christians were strongly opposed to Chalcedonian Creed that had been established by the Council of Chalcedon in 451. In the 5th and 6th centuries, the Syriac Orthodox Church that originated in Antioch continued to fracture into multiple denominations. Some Armenian miaphysite Christians sought to reunite with Rome in later centuries, but their efforts were unsuccessful.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: Constantinople is generally considered to be the center and the "cradle of Orthodox Christian civilization". From the mid-5th century to the early 13th century, Constantinople was the largest and wealthiest city in Europe. The city became famous for its architectural masterpieces, such as Hagia Sophia, the cathedral of the Eastern Orthodox Church, which served as the seat of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the sacred Imperial Palace where the Emperors lived, the Hippodrome, the Golden Gate of the Land Walls, and opulent aristocratic palaces. The University of Constantinople was founded in the fifth century and contained artistic and literary treasures before it was sacked in 1204 and 1453, including its vast Imperial Library which contained the remnants of the Library of Alexandria and had 100,000 volumes. The city was the home of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople and guardian of Christendom's holiest relics such as the Crown of thorns and the True Cross. During most of its existence, the Byzantine Empire was one of the most powerful economic, cultural, and military forces in Europe. The imperial role in the affairs of the Church never developed into a fixed, legally defined system. Additionally, due to the decline of Rome and internal dissension in the other Eastern Patriarchates, the Church of Constantinople became, between the 6th and 11th centuries, the richest and most influential centre of Christendom.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: The Eastern Orthodox Church split from Rome during the Great Schism of 1054. With the arrival of the crusaders many Orthodox bishops, particularly in Antioch, were replaced by Latin prelates. After the Mongols defeated the Abbasid Caliphate in 1258, the Armenians and Nestorians had decent relations with the conquering Il-khans for a time, but by the end of the 14th-century many Syrian Orthodox and Nestorian churches were destroyed when the Turco-Mongolian ruler Temür raided West Asia.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: Two out of the five centers (Patriarchates) of the ancient Pentarchy are in Turkey: Constantinople (Istanbul) and Antioch (Antakya). Antioch was also the place where the followers of Jesus were called "Christians" for the first time in history, as well as being the site of one of the earliest and oldest surviving churches, established by Saint Peter himself. For a thousand years, the Hagia Sophia was the largest church in the world.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: Turkey is also home to the Seven Churches of Asia, where the Revelation to John was sent. Apostle John is reputed to have taken Virgin Mary to Ephesus in western Turkey, where she spent the last days of her life in a small house, known as the House of the Virgin Mary, which still survives today and has been recognized as a holy site for pilgrimage by the Catholic and Orthodox churches, as well as being a Muslim shrine. The cave of the Seven Sleepers is also located in Ephesus.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: The death of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste (modern day Sivas) is recorded as 320 AD during a persecution by Emperor Licinius. They are mentioned by Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, Ephrem the Syrian and John Chrysostom.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: In accordance with the traditional custom of the time, the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II allowed his troops and his entourage three full days of unbridled pillage and looting in the Christian city of Constantinople, capital of the Roman Empire since its foundation by the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great in the 4th century AD, shortly after it was captured in 1453. Once the three days passed, he would then claim its remaining contents for himself. However, by the end of the first day, he proclaimed that the looting should cease as he felt profound sadness when he toured the looted and enslaved city. The cathedral of Hagia Sophia was not exempted from the pillage and looting and specifically became its focal point, as the Ottoman Turks believed it to contain the greatest treasures and valuables of the city. Shortly after the defence of the Walls of Constantinople, the city collapsed and the Ottoman troops entered victoriously; the pillagers and looters made their way to the Hagia Sophia and battered down its doors before storming in.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: Throughout the period of the siege of Constantinople, the trapped Christian worshippers of the city participated in the Divine Liturgy and the Prayer of the Hours at the Hagia Sophia and the church formed a safe-haven and a refuge for many of those who were unable to contribute to the city's defence, which comprised women, children, elderly, the sick, and the wounded. Being trapped in the church, the many congregants and yet more refugees inside became spoils-of-war to be divided amongst the Ottoman invaders. The building was desecrated and looted, with the helpless occupants who sought shelter within the church being enslaved. While most of the elderly, the infirm/wounded, and sick were killed, and the remainder (mainly teenage males and young boys) were chained up and sold into slavery.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: The women of Constantinople also suffered from rape and sexual violence at the hands of Ottoman forces. According to historian Barbaro, "all through the day the Turks made a great slaughter of Christians through the city". According to historian Philip Mansel, widespread persecution of the city's civilian inhabitants took place, resulting in thousands of murders and rapes, and 30,000 civilians being enslaved or forcibly deported. George Sphrantzes says that people of both genders were raped inside the church of Hagia Sophia.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: The first capitulation concluded between the Ottoman Empire and a foreign state was that of 1535, granted to the Kingdom of France. The Ottoman Empire was then at the height its power, and the French king Francis I had shortly before sustained a disastrous defeat at the Battle of Pavia. His only hope of assistance lay in the Ottoman sultan Suleiman I. The appeal to Suleiman on the ground of the common interest of the Kingdom of France and the Ottoman Empire in overcoming the power of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V overweening power was successful; thus was established the Franco-Ottoman alliance, and in 1536 the capitulations were signed. They amounted to a treaty of commerce and a treaty allowing the establishment of Christian Frenchmen in Ottoman Turkey and fixing the jurisdiction to be exercised over them: individual and religious liberty was guaranteed to them, the King of France was empowered to appoint consuls in Ottoman Turkey, the consuls were recognized as competent to judge the civil and criminal affairs of French subjects in Ottoman Turkey according to French law, and the consuls may appeal to the officers of the sultan for their aid in the execution of their sentences. This, the first of the capitulations, can be seen as the prototype of its successors.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: Anglican, American Presbyterian, and German Lutheran missionaries arrived in the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century. During the same period, there were nationalistic campaigns against Assyrians which often had the assistance of Kurdish paramilitary support. In 1915, Turks and Kurds massacred tens of thousands Assyrians in Siirt. Assyrians were attacked in the Hakkari mountains by the Turkish army with the help of Kurdish tribes, and many Christians were deported and about a quarter million Assyrians were murdered or died due to persecution. This number doubles if the killings during the 1890s are included. Kurds saw the Assyrians as dangerous foreigners and enforcers of the British colonizers, which made it justifiable to them to commit ethnic cleansing. The Kurds fought the Assyrians also due to fears that the Armenians, or European colonial powers backing them, would assume control in Anatolia. Kurdish military plundered Armenian and other Christian villages.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: In the 1890s the "Hamidiye" (Kurdish paramilitary units) attacked Armenians in a series of clashes that culminated in the Hamidian massacres of 1894-1896 and the Adana massacre in 1909. It is estimated that between 80,000 and 300,000 Armenians were killed during these pre-War massacres. Into the 19th century, the Christians of Istanbul tended to be either Greek Orthodox, members of the Armenian Apostolic Church or Catholic Levantines.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: During the tumultuous period of the First World War, up to 3 million indigenous Christians are alleged to have been killed. Prior to this time, the Christian population stood at around 20% -25% of the total. According to professor Martin van Bruinessen, relations between Christians and Kurdish and other Muslim peoples were often bitter and during World War I "Christians of Tur Abdin (in Turkey) for instance have been subjected to brutal treatment by Kurdish tribes, who took their land and even their daughters".


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: Kurdish-dominated Hamidiye slaughtered Christian Armenians in Tur Abdin region in 1915. It is estimated that ten thousand Assyrians were killed, and reportedly "the skulls of small children were smashed with rocks, the bodies of girls and women who resisted rape were chopped into pieces live, men were mostly beheaded, and the clergy skinned or burnt alive..." In 1915, Turks and Kurds plundered the Assyrian village of Mar-Zaya in Jelu and slaughtered the population, it is estimated that 7,000 Assyrians were slaughtered during this period. In September 1914 more than 30 Armenian and Assyrian villages were burnt by Kurdish and Turkish mobs in the Urmia region. After the Russian army retreated, Turkish troops with Kurdish detachments organized mass slaughters of Assyrians, in the Assyrian village of Haftvan 750 men were beheaded and 5,000 Assyrian women were taken to Kurdish harems. Turks and Kurds also slaughtered Christians in Diarbekir. There was a policy during the Hamidian era to use Kurdish tribes as irregulars (Hamidiye units) against the Armenians.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: The Greek forces who occupied Smyrna in the post-war period were defeated in the Turkish War of Independence which ended with the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne. Under the terms of the peace treaty, 1.3 million Christian residents of Turkey were relocated to Greece and around 400,000 Muslims were likewise moved from Greece to Turkey. When the Turkish state was founded in 1923 the remaining Greek population was estimated to be around 111,000; the Greek Orthodox communities in Istanbul, Gökçeada, and Bozcaada numbering 270,000 were exempted. Other terms of the treaty included various provisions to protect the rights of religious minorities and a concession by the Turks to allow the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate to remain in Istanbul.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: The BBC reported in 2014 that Turkey's Christian population had declined from 20% to 0.2% since 1914.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) designated Turkey a "Country of Particular Concern" for religious freedom, noting “systematic limitations on the freedom of religion or belief” with respect to access to places of worship, religious education and right to train clergy. The report does note some areas of improvement such as better protection of the property rights of non-Muslims.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: In the pre-war period American missionaries had been actively involved in the Ottoman education system. Many of the schools were closed down and suffered under stringent regulations and burdensome taxes during the country's secularization. Historically, these schools had worked with the Ottoman Empire's Christian communities, and were regarded with suspicion by the fledgling state.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: A number of high-profile incidents targeting non-Muslims, including Christians, have occurred since the modern Turkish Republic was founded in 1923. During the Istanbul pogrom of 1955, non-Muslims (pejoratively called "gayrimüslim") were attacked, harassed and killed by Turkish Muslims. In 2007, one German Protestant and two Turkish converts were tortured to death in Malatya by five men in the Zirve Publishing House murders. Turkish media called these killings the "missionary massacres".


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: In 2001, Turkey's National Security Council reported that it considers Protestant missionaries the third largest threat to Turkey's national security, surpassed only by Islamic fundamentalism and the Kurdish separatist organization PKK. A 2004 report by the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) similarly recommended implementing new laws to curb missionary activity. According to the Turkish Evangelical Churches movement, Turkish Protestant churches had only 3,000 members in 2009—about half of these were converts from Islam, while the others were converts from Armenian and Syriac Christianity. Since Turkish nationality was often perceived exclusively as a Muslim identity after the Balkan Wars, the influence of Protestant missionaries on Turkey's Alevi population has been a concern since the era of Committee of Union and Progress rule. In 2016 the Association of Protestant Churches in Turkey released a report warning of an increase in anti-Christian hate speech.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: Turkey's Christian community has been largely non-disruptive, with the notable exception of one convert, who hijacked Turkish Airlines Flight 1476 with the stated intent of flying it to the Vatican to meet the Pope and ask for his help to avoid serving in a "Muslim army".


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: In 2013, the "Washington Post" reported that members of the ruling Ak Parti had expressed their desires to convert Hagia Sophia into a mosque. Hagia Sophia, which is called "ayasofya" in Turkish, is an ancient church dating to 360 AD that was converted into a mosque after Mehmed II conquered Constantinople in 1453. It has been a museum since 1935. Patriarch Bartholomew objected to the government's rhetoric, saying "If it is to reopen as a house of worship, then it should open as a Christian church.” Also in 2013, the government announced that the 5th-century Monastery of Stoudios, located in Istanbul's Samatya neighborhood, would be converted into a mosque. The monastery, one of Byzantium's most important, was sacked during the Crusades and later served as a mosque for a time, until it was converted to a museum during the 20th century.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: There is an ethnic Turkish Protestant Christian community in Turkey which number about 7,000–8,000 adherents most of them came from Muslim Turkish background. In 2003, Milliyet newspaper claimed that 35,000 Turkish Muslims had converted to Christianity.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: Today the Christian population of Turkey is estimated at around 200,000- 320,000 Christians. 35,000 Catholics of varying ethnicities, 25,000 ethnic "Syriacs" (), (mostly followers of the Syriac Orthodox Church, the Assyrian Church of the East, and the Chaldean Catholic Church), 3,000–4,000 Greek Orthodox, 15,000–18,000 Antiochian Greeks and smaller numbers of Bulgarians, Georgians, and Protestants of various ethnicities.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: According to Bekir Bozdağ, Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey, there were 349 active churches in Turkey in October 2012: 140 Greek, 58 Assyrian and 52 Armenian.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: In 2015, the Turkish government gave permission for the Christian channel SAT-7 to broadcast on the government-regulated Türksat satellite.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: By the 21st century, Turkey's Greek Orthodox population had declined to only around 2,000–3,000. There are between 40,000 and 70,000 Christian Armenian citizens of Turkey.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: The largest Christian population in Turkey is in Istanbul, which has a large community of Armenians and Greeks. Istanbul is also where the Patriarchate of Greek Orthodox Christianity is located. Antioch, located in Turkey's Hatay province, is the original seat of the namesake Antiochian Orthodox Church, but is now the titular see. The area, known for having ethnic diversity and large Christian community, has 7,000 Christians and 14 active churches. The city has one of the oldest churches in the world as well, called the Church of St Peter, which is said to have been founded by the Saint himself.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: Tur Abdin is a large area with a multitude of mostly Syriac Orthodox churches, monasteries and ruins. Settlements in Tur Abdin include Midyat. The Christian community in Midyat is supplemented by a refugee community from Syria and has four operating churches. Some of the most significant Syriac churches and monasteries in existence are in or near Midyat including Mor Gabriel Monastery and the Saffron Monastery.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: The Syriac Orthodox Church has a strong presence in Mardin. Many Syriacs left during the genocides in 1915.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: By some estimates, in the early 2000s there were between 10,000 and 20,000 Catholics and Protestants in Turkey. Since 1960 a growing number of Muslims in Turkey are converting to Christianity, estimates range from 4,000 to 35,000 by various sources.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: Archbishop Martin Kmetec told Aid to the Church in Need, in an interview, that ecumenical relations are generally good in the country. "In general, our relations with other Christian churches are good. The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I, for example, has a good relationship with the Focolare Movement and the new Apostolic Vicar of Istanbul, Bishop Massimiliano Palinuro. Likewise, here in Izmir we get together with the Orthodox Christians, but also with the Anglicans, on various Christian feast days. Armenian priests recently celebrated an Armenian liturgy at our Catholic Church of St. Polycarp because they do not have their own church in Izmir. We also worked together with the Armenians in Izmir to open a small book shop for the Bible Society. These are promising signs of an ecumenical dialogue."


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: In 2008 the Bishop of Europe, Geoffrey Rowell, caused controversy by ordaining a local man to minister to Turkish-speaking Anglicans in Istanbul.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: The Autocephalous Turkish Orthodox Patriarchate (Turkish: Bağımsız Türk Ortodoks Patrikhanesi), also referred to as the Turkish Orthodox Church, is an unrecognized Eastern Orthodox Christian denomination based in Turkey.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: The Armenian Apostolic Church traces its origins to St. Gregory the Illuminator who is credited with having introduced the Armenian king Tiridates III to Christianity. It is one of the most ancient churches. Historically, the Armenian Church accepted only the first three Ecumenical Councils, rejecting the Council of Chalcedon in 451; its Christology is sometimes described as "non-Chalcedonian" for this reason. The Bible was first translated into the Armenian language by Mesrop Mashtots.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: Turkey's Armenian Christian community is led by the Armenian Patriarchates of Istanbul and Jerusalem. estimates of Turkey's Armenian Orthodox population range from between 50,000 and 70,000.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: There are 35 churches maintained by the religious foundation in Istanbul and its surrounding areas. Besides Surp Asdvadzadzin Patriarchal Church (translation: the Holy Mother-of-God Armenian Patriarchal Church) in Kumkapi, Istanbul, there are tens of Armenian Apostolic churches. There are other churches in Kayseri, Diyarbakır, Derik, İskenderun, and Vakifli Koyu that are claimed by foundations as well. Around 1,000 Armenian churches throughout Turkey sit on public or privately owned land as well, with them all either being re-purposed or abandoned and/or in ruins.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: Constantinople became established in the ecclesiastical hierarchy at the Council of Constantinople in 381. The legendary origins of the Patriarchate of Constantinople go back to St. Andrew, Metrophanes and Alexander of Constantinople. Constantinople's primacy over the Patriarchates of Alexandria and Antioch was reaffirmed at the Council of Chalcedon in 481, after which the papacy in Rome supported Constantinople in its dispute with Alexandria over monophysitism. Later, when Rome sought to assert its primacy over Byzantium, the Eastern Orthodox church developed the doctrine of pentarchy as a response.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: During the 8th and 9th centuries, Byzantium was embroiled in the Iconoclastic persecution. The Photian schism was also 9th century power struggle for the Patriarchate between Ignatios, backed by Pope Nicholas I, and Photios I of Constantinople.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: The Byzantine rite is similar to mass in the Catholic Church and the Divine Office (cycle of eight non-Mass services in the Catholic faith). In addition to the Hours of the Office, the Byzantine rite is used for sacraments (including marriage and baptism), ordination, funerals, blessings and other occasions.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: The three divine liturgies of the Byzantine rite are John Chrysostom’s, Basil’s, and the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: Hatay Province including Antakya is not part of the canonic area of the Church of Constantinople. Most of the local orthodox persons are Arabic-speaking.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: Catholic Church in Turkey is represented by jurisdictions of western and eastern rites. Though the Armenian Apostolic Church was no longer in union with Rome and Byzantium after the Council of Chalcedon, a number of Armenians have converted to Catholicism over the years. After the Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II extended formal recognition to Catholics, an Armenian Catholic Patriarchate was established in Constantinople.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: The Armenian Evangelical Church was founded in 1846, after Patriarch Matteos Chouhajian excommunicated members of the "Pietisical Union" who had started to raise questions about possible conflicts between Scripture and Church traditions. The new church was recognized by the Ottoman government in 1850 after encouragement from the British Ambassador Henry Wellesley Cowley. There were reportedly 15 Turkish converts in Constantinople in 1864. One church minister said "We wanted the Turks first to become Armenian". Hagop A. Chakmakjian commented that "the implication was that to be Christian meant to be identified with the Armenian people".


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: Syriac Orthodox Church, that follows the West Syriac Rite, was present in various southeastern regions of modern Turkey since the early medieval times. Since the 12th century, the patriarchal seat itself was transferred to Mor Hananyo Monastery (Deir al-Za`faran), in southeastern Anatolia near Mardin (modern Turkey), where it remained until 1924. In modern times, active churches are located in Istanbul, Diyarbakır, Adıyaman, and Elazığ. There are many both active and inactive churches in the traditionally Neo-Aramaic area of Tur Abdin, which is a region centered in the western area of Mardin Province, and has areas that go into Şırnak, and Batman Province. Up until the 1980s the Syriac population was concentrated there as well, but a large amount of the population has fled the region to Istanbul or abroad due to the Kurdish-Turkish conflict. The Church structure is still organized however, with 12 reverends stationed in churches and monasteries there. Churches were also in several other provinces as well, but during the Seyfo the churches in those churches were destroyed or left ruined.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: Historical Church of the East, that followed the East Syriac Rite, was present in various southeastern regions of modern Turkey throughout medieval and early modern times, and the continuation of that presence is embodied in the modern Assyrian Church of the East, and the Ancient Church of the East. Ecclesiastical structure of East Syriac Christianity in the region was almost completely wiped out in the Assyrian genocide. Originally, one of its main centers was in the region of Hakkari, in the village of Qodchanis, that was the seat of Shimun-line patriarchs from the 17th century up to the advent of modern times. Patriarch Mar Dinkha IV of the Assyrian Church of the East visited Turkey in 2012.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: Recognizing that present-day Ephesus of the New Testament endowed Turkey with historical importance, early leaders of the LDS Church preached in Turkey in 1850, and — with the help of British LDS soldiers — organized a congregation in Istanbul in 1854. In 1979, another LDS community was organized in Ankara.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: The Armenian Protestants own three Istanbul churches from the 19th century. There is an Alliance of Protestant Churches in Turkey.


title: Christianity in Turkey

text: There are churches for foreigners in compounds and resorts, although they are not counted in lists of churches as they are used only by tourists and expatriates.


title: Lithium hydroxide

text: Lithium hydroxide is an inorganic compound with the formula LiOH. It can exist as anhydrous or hydrated, and both forms are white hygroscopic solids. They are soluble in water and slightly soluble in ethanol. Both are available commercially. While classified as a strong base, lithium hydroxide is the weakest known alkali metal hydroxide.


title: Lithium hydroxide

text: The preferred feedstock is hard-rock spodumene, where the lithium content is expressed as % lithium oxide.


title: Lithium hydroxide

text: Lithium hydroxide is often produced industrially from lithium carbonate in a metathesis reaction with calcium hydroxide:


title: Lithium hydroxide

text: According to Bloomberg, Ganfeng Lithium Co. Ltd. (GFL or Ganfeng) and Albemarle were the largest producers in 2020 with around 25kt/y, followed by Livent Corporation (FMC) and SQM. Significant new capacity is planned, to keep pace with demand driven by vehicle electrification. Ganfeng are to expand lithium chemical capacity to 85,000 tons, adding the capacity leased from Jiangte, Ganfeng will become the largest lithium hydroxide producer globally in 2021.


title: Lithium hydroxide

text: In 2020 Tianqi Lithium's, plant in Kwinana, Western Australia is the largest producer, with a capacity of 48kt/y.


title: Lithium hydroxide

text: Lithium hydroxide is mainly consumed in the production of cathode materials for lithium ion batteries such as lithium cobalt oxide () and lithium iron phosphate. It is preferred over lithium carbonate as a precursor for lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxides.


title: Lithium hydroxide

text: A popular lithium grease thickener is lithium 12-hydroxystearate, which produces a general-purpose lubricating grease due to its high resistance to water and usefulness at a range of temperatures.


title: Lithium hydroxide

text: Lithium hydroxide is used in breathing gas purification systems for spacecraft, submarines, and rebreathers to remove carbon dioxide from exhaled gas by producing lithium carbonate and water:


title: Lithium hydroxide

text: The latter, anhydrous hydroxide, is preferred for its lower mass and lesser water production for respirator systems in spacecraft. One gram of anhydrous lithium hydroxide can remove 450 cm of carbon dioxide gas. The monohydrate loses its water at 100–110 °C.


title: Lithium hydroxide

text: Lithium hydroxide, together with lithium carbonate, is a key intermediates used for the production of other lithium compounds, illustrated by its use in the production of lithium fluoride:


title: Lithium hydroxide

text: It is also used in ceramics and some Portland cement formulations, where it is also used to suppress ASR (concrete cancer).


title: Lithium hydroxide

text: Lithium hydroxide (isotopically enriched in lithium-7) is used to alkalize the reactor coolant in pressurized water reactors for corrosion control.


title: Tummo

text: In Tibetan Buddhism, tummo (; ) is the fierce goddess of heat and passion. Tummo is found in the Mahasiddha Krishnacarya and the "Hevajra Tantra" texts.


title: Tummo

text: Tummo is also a tantric practice for inner heat, developed around the concept of the female deity. It is found in the Six Dharmas of Naropa, Lamdre, Kalachakra. and Anuyoga teachings of Vajrayana. The purpose of tummo is to gain control over body processes during the completion stage of 'highest yoga tantra' (Anuttarayoga Tantra) or Anuyoga.


title: Tummo

text: "Tummo" ("gTum mo" in Wylie transliteration, also spelled "tumo", or "tum-mo"; Sanskrit "" or "chandali") is a Tibetan word, literally meaning 'fierce [woman]'. "Tummo" is also the Tibetan word for 'inner fire.' "Tummo" may also be rendered in English approximating its phonemic pronunciation as "dumo".


title: Tummo

text: Inner heat ("gtum mo", skt. "chandali," literally meaning "fierce, hot or savage woman") practice is the foundation for the rest of the six dharmas and is the first of the six dharmas. This practice works with the subtle body (also known as the "vajra-body") system of channels ("nadis"), winds ("lung, vayu"), drops ("bindus") and chakras. Through inner heat, the vital winds are caused to enter into the central channel ("avadhuti"), causing the four blisses or joys which is then unified with the wisdom that understands emptiness.


title: Tummo

text: This practice is a kind of "pranayama," that generally involves sitting with a straight back, visualizing the channels, holding the breath deep in the abdomen for extended periods (called "vase breath", "kumbhaka"), then applying visualization of a fiery short stroke AH syllable on the navel. This practice leads the vital winds into the central channel, where they are said to melt the drops ("bindus", which are tiny spheres of subtle energy) causing great bliss. This powerful bliss experience "is said to constitute a similitude of the actual bliss experienced in spiritual awakening ("byang chub", "bodhi")."


title: Tummo

text: According to Glenn Mullin, tantric scriptures state that the tantric bliss experienced in this practice is "a hundred times more intense than ordinary sexual orgasm, [and] gives rise to a special state of consciousness." This ecstatic state of mind is then used to contemplate emptiness. This "ecstasy conjoined with (the wisdom of) emptiness" is what is referred to as "Mahamudra" ('Great Seal').


title: Tummo

text: Ulrich Timme Kragh outlines the progression of this practice from one of Gampopa's manuals, entitled "Closely Stringed Pearls". After describing the visualization of the three channels, the text outlines the four chakras which are to be visualized along the central channel with various spokes radiating out of each chakra like an open umbrella. The four chakras described by Gampopa are:


title: Tummo

text: Another meditation manual by Gampopa also mentions a practice that relies on visualizing a drop ("thig le, *bindu") between the eyebrows. This bindu descends and ascends through the central channel, spreading a sensation of bliss-emptiness along the way. Regarding post-meditation, the yogi is "instructed to train in experiencing all sensory impressions as blissful and to maintain a constant sense of inner heat and the soothing, cooling bliss of the descending bodhicitta. It is said that the experience of everything as being blissful will automatically give rise to the experience of non-thought ("mi rtog pa", "nirvikalpa")."


title: Tummo

text: In Tsongkhapa's system, inner heat is the foundation stone for the whole six dharmas (along with meditation on emptiness). Every time one practices one of these six dharmas, one must first generate inner heat, along with the four blisses and merge this with meditation on emptiness. Once mastered, tummo is then applied to the practice of illusory body, and based on illusory body yoga, one practices radiance/clear light yoga.


title: Tummo

text: Tsongkhapa's commentary "The Three Inspirations", divides the practice of inner heat into three main components:


title: Tummo

text: Tsongkhapa describes the outcome of the full method (with all three elements described above practiced at once) as follows:


title: Tummo

text: This practice will cause the vital winds to enter the central channel. Tsongkhapa describes various signs that this has occurred, mainly that the breath flows smoothly and evenly through the nostrils, then it becomes increasingly subtle, and then it stops altogether.


title: Tummo

text: Tummo practice is also said to generate the four blisses. Tsongkhapa explains that the first bliss arises when the energy drop in the crown chakra is melted when the vital winds are brought to the crown by tummo. When the energies reach the throat, this is the second bliss ("supreme bliss"), when they reach the heart, the third bliss arises ("special bliss") and when they reach the navel, the fourth "innate bliss" arises. If one can hold the mind at the chakras for extended periods, one will gain the ability to control the movement of the energy drops. Then one can also bring the drop back up the central channel, experiencing the blisses again but starting from the navel chakra. One then continues to practice by moving the drop up and down the central channel, experiencing the four descending and the four rising blisses again and again.


title: Tummo

text: To meditate on innate wisdom, one lets the drop melt all the way down to the chakra at the secret place ("tip of the jewel"). Then one meditates on emptiness and rests in that ecstasy - emptiness meditation. Then one brings the drop back to the crown chakra, which meditates on "the sphere of ecstasy conjoined with emptiness."


title: Tummo

text: Tsongkhapa further states: "During the post-meditation periods one must consciously cultivate mindfulness of the experience of ecstasy and emptiness, and stamp all objects and events that appear and occur with the seal of this ecstasy and emptiness. This application causes a special ecstasy to be ignited, which one should foster."


title: Tummo

text: Studies on Tibetan monks and a Western control group have demonstrated the effect of increased thermal power output using the "forceful breath" technique that depends in part on meditative visualization.


title: Tummo

text: In a 1982 study by Benson et al. three monks, who were practitioners of tummo yoga, were researched. All three monks had been practicing tummo for six years on a daily basis. On top of that, they lived in barely insulated, unheated stone sheds. Their skin temperature was measured at different points, namely, around the navel, the lower back, the chest, the left forearm, the left fifth finger nail bed, and lastly, the forehead. In the first monk a temperature increase of 5.9℃ was registered in his finger during a 55-minute tummo practice; the toe temperature increased by 7℃; the air temperature went up from 22℃ to 23.5℃. Finger temperature in the second monk increased by 7.2℃, the toe temperature increased by 4.0℃; the air temperature increased from 16℃ to 19.2℃. In the third monk a temperature increase of 3.15℃ was registered in his finger; toe temperature increased by 8.3℃; the room temperature decreased from 20℃ to 18.5℃ but then increased again to 19.5℃. These results showcase that the practice of tummo yoga can lead to large increases in toe and finger temperature.


title: Tummo

text: In a 2002 experiment reported by the "Harvard Gazette", conducted in Normandy, France, two monks from the Buddhist tradition wore sensors that recorded changes in heat production and metabolism. However, this study has not been published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal and has been criticized by peers: "The visual effect of steaming sheets reported by eye-witnesses of the g-tummo ceremony cannot be taken as evidence of elevated body temperature. Wet sheets wrapped around a practitioner's body would steam and dry due to the significant temperature difference between the wet sheets (heated by a human body) and the cold air outside, even if the practitioners simply maintain their normal body temperature."


title: Tummo

text: A 2013 study by Kozhevnikov and colleagues showed increases in core body temperature in both expert meditators from eastern Tibet and Western non-meditators. The expert meditators using "tummo" visualization and exercises were able to increase body temperature the most. This study researched the effects of tummo combined with the visualization practice that accompanies the traditional technique compared with tummo yoga in which the breathing technique alone is implicated. The participants in the traditional tummo-practicing group were expert meditators from a monastery in eastern Tibet. The participants in the breathing technique-only group were from a Western background and did not have experience like the traditional group. However the Western group did have experience with several other forms of yoga.


title: Tummo

text: For the traditional tummo-practicing group the years of experience ranged from 6 to 32 years. EEG activity, left fifth finger temperature, and core body temperature were measured in 4 different conditions for the traditional practice group. The conditions were 1) baseline forceful breathing, where participants were asked to breathe and perform in the way in which they would normally during forceful breathing, but without the visualization, 2) Baseline gentle breathing, where participants performed gentle breathing as usual, but without the visualization, 3) meditation forceful breathing, where participants performed forceful breathing along with the visualization practice, and 4) meditation gentle breathing, where the participants practiced gentle breathing along with the visualization practice.


title: Tummo

text: The participants in the Western group received extensive instruction in the techniques involved in the performance of the different forms of breathing used in the practice of tummo, after which all the participants in the Western group practiced these tummo techniques for about 45–60 minutes, during which time their temperatures were measured. In the traditional condition rises in temperature varying from 1.2℃ to 6.8℃ were observed. It was also discovered that when those in the traditional condition also applied their visualisation techniques, the rise in temperature could be sustained for a longer period of time. In those in the Western condition temperatures rose to the same degree as that observed in those in the traditional condition. These findings reveal that, when tummo is practiced in the right form, both experienced and newly-trained practitioners are able to raise their body temperature. When, in addition, visualisation methods are implemented, this rise in temperature can be maintained for a longer period of time.


title: Peter Brook

text: Peter Stephen Paul Brook (21 March 1925 – 2 July 2022) was an English theatre and film director. He worked first in England, from 1945 at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, from 1947 at the Royal Opera House, and from 1962 for the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC). With them, he directed the first English-language production in 1964 of "Marat/Sade" by Peter Weiss, which was transferred to Broadway in 1965 and won the Tony Award for Best Play, and Brook was named Best Director. He also directed films such as an iconic version of "Lord of the Flies" in 1963.


title: Peter Brook

text: He was based in France from the early 1970s on, where he founded an international theatre company, playing in developing countries, in an approach of great simplicity. He was often referred to as "our greatest living theatre director". He won multiple Emmy Awards, a Laurence Olivier Award, the Japanese Praemium Imperiale, the Prix Italia and the Europe Theatre Prize. In 2021, he was awarded India's Padma Shri.


title: Peter Brook

text: Brook was born on 21 March 1925 in the Bedford Park area of Chiswick, the second son of Simon Brook and his wife Ida (Judelson), both Lithuanian Jewish immigrants from Latvia. The family home was at 27 Fairfax Road, Turnham Green. His elder brother Alexis became a psychiatrist and psychotherapist. His first cousin was Valentin Pluchek, chief director of the Moscow Satire Theatre. Brook was educated at Westminster School, Gresham's School, and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he studied languages until 1945. Brook was excused from military service during World War II due to childhood illness.


title: Peter Brook

text: Brook directed Marlowe's "Dr Faustus", his first production, in 1943 at the Torch Theatre in London, followed at the Chanticleer Theatre in 1945 with a revival of Cocteau's "The Infernal Machine". He was engaged from 1945 as stage director at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre (BRT). Hired by BRT direct Barry Jackson when he was just twenty years old, Jackson described Brook as "the youngest earthquake I've known".


title: Peter Brook

text: In 1947, Brook went to Stratford-upon-Avon as assistant director on "Romeo and Juliet" and "Love's Labour's Lost" for the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre. From 1947 to 1950, he was Director of Productions at the Royal Opera House in London. His work there included an effective re-staging of Puccini's "La bohème" using sets dating from 1899, in 1948, and a highly controversial staging of "Salome" by Richard Strauss with sets by Salvador Dalí in 1949. A proliferation of stage and screen work as producer and director followed. Howard Richardson's "Dark of the Moon" at the Ambassadors Theatre, London, in 1949 was an early, much admired production. From 1962, he was director of the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), together with Peter Hall. With them, he directed the first English-language production in 1964 of "Marat/Sade" by the German playwright Peter Weiss. It transferred to Broadway in 1965 and won the Tony Award for Best Play, and Brook was named Best Director. In 1966, they presented "US", an anti-Vietnam War protest play.


title: Peter Brook

text: In England, Peter Brook and Charles Marowitz undertook The Theatre of Cruelty Season (1964) at the Royal Shakespeare Company, aiming to explore ways in which Artaud's ideas could be used to find new forms of expression and retrain the performer. The result was a showing of 'works in progress' made up of improvisations and sketches, one of which was the premier of Artaud's "The Spurt of Blood".


title: Peter Brook

text: His greatest influence, however, was Joan Littlewood. Brook described her as "the most galvanising director in mid-20th century Britain". Brook's work was also inspired by the theories of experimental theatre of Jerzy Grotowski, Bertolt Brecht, Chris Covics and Vsevolod Meyerhold and by the works of G. I. Gurdjieff, Edward Gordon Craig, and Matila Ghyka.


title: Peter Brook

text: Brook collaborated with actors Paul Scofield as Lear, John Gielgud in "Measure for Measure", and Glenda Jackson; designers Georges Wakhévitch and Sally Jacobs; and writers Ted Hughes and William Golding. Brook first encountered Wakhévitch in London when he saw the production of Jean Cocteau's ballet "Le Jeune Homme et la Mort" which Wakhévitch designed. Brook declared that he "was convinced that this was the designer for whom I had been waiting".


title: Peter Brook

text: In 1971, with Micheline Rozan, Brook founded the International Centre for Theatre Research, a multinational company of actors, dancers, musicians and others, which travelled widely in the Middle East and Africa in the early 1970s. It has been based in Paris at the Bouffes du Nord theatre since 1974. The troupe played at immigrant hostels, in villages and in refugee camps, sometimes for people who had never been exposed to theatre. In 2008 he resigned as its artistic director, beginning a three-year handover to Olivier Mantei and .


title: Peter Brook

text: In the mid-1970s, Brook, with writer Jean-Claude Carrière, began work on adapting the Indian epic poem the "Mahabharata" into a stage play, which was first performed in 1985 and later developed into a televised mini series.


title: Peter Brook

text: In a long article in 1985, "The New York Times" noted "overwhelming critical acclaim", and that the play "did nothing less than attempt to transform Hindu myth into universalized art, accessible to any culture". However, many post-colonial scholars have challenged the claim to universalism, accusing the play of orientalism. Gautam Dasgupta wrote that "Brook's "Mahabharata" falls short of the essential Indianness of the epic by staging predominantly its major incidents and failing to adequately emphasize its coterminous philosophical precepts."


title: Peter Brook

text: In 2015, Brook returned to the world of "The Mahabharata" with a new Young Vic production, "Battlefield", in collaboration with Jean-Claude Carrière and Marie-Hélène Estienne.


title: Peter Brook

text: In 2005, Brook directed "Tierno Bokar", based on the life of the Malian sufi of the same name. The play was adapted for the stage by Marie-Hélène Estienne from a book by Amadou Hampâté Bâ (translated into English as ""). The book and play detail Bokar's life and message of religious tolerance. Columbia University produced 44 related events, lectures, and workshops that were attended by over 3,200 people throughout the run of "Tierno Bokar". Panel discussions focused on topics of religious tolerance and Muslim tradition in West Africa.


title: Peter Brook

text: In 1951, Brook married actress Natasha Parry. They had two children: Irina, an actress and director, and Simon, a director. Parry died of a stroke in July 2015, aged 84.


title: Peter Brook

text: Sources for Brook's productions are held by the Academy of Arts in Berlin, the Princess of Asturias Foundation, and others.


title: Peter Brook

text: Brook was fascinated with the works of Shakespeare which he produced in England and elsewhere, in films, and adaptation. In 1945, he began with "King John", with designer Paul Shelving at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. At the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, he directed "Measure for Measure" in 1950 and "The Winter's Tale" in 1952, both with John Gielgud, followed there by "Hamlet Prince of Denmark" in 1955, with Paul Scofield (Hamlet), Alec Clunes (Claudius), Diana Wynyard (Gertrude), Mary Ure (Ophelia), Ernest Thesiger (Polonius), Richard Johnson (Laertes), Michael David (Horatio), and Richard Pasco (Fortinbras). "Titus Andronicus", with Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, was played there the same year, and also on a European tour in 1957.


title: Peter Brook

text: Brooks's 1953 staging of "King Lear", for the American TV show "Omnibus", starred Orson Welles in Welles's first-ever television production.


title: Peter Brook

text: His first work for the Royal Shakespeare Company was in 1962 "King Lear", with Paul Scofield. He created a legendary version of "A Midsummer Night's Dream", with designer Sally Jacobs (designer), John Kane (Puck), Frances de la Tour (Helena), Ben Kingsley (Demetrius) and Patrick Stewart (Snout) in 1970. He directed the film "King Lear", again with Scofield, in 1971.


title: Peter Brook

text: He kept producing works by Shakespeare for the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, in French, including "Timon d'Athènes", adaptated by Jean-Claude Carrière, 1974, "Mesure pour mesure" in 1978 and as a film a year later, "La Tempête", adaptated by Carrière, with Sotigui Kouyaté in 1990.


title: Peter Brook

text: He directed "The Tragedy of Hamlet", with Adrian Lester (Hamlet), Jeffery Kissoon (Claudius / Ghost), Natasha Parry (Gertrude), Shantala Shivalingappa (Ophelia), Bruce Myers (Polonius), Rohan Siva (Laertes / Guildenstern), Scott Handy (Horatio) and Yoshi Oida (Player King / Rosencrantz) in 2000, followed by a TV film version in 2002. In 2009, he directed a theatrical version of sonnets, "Love is my Sin". In 2010, Shakespeare was among the authors for the production "Warum warum" ("Why Why"), written by Brook and Marie-Hélène Estienne after also Antonin Artaud, Edward Gordon Craig, Charles Dullin, Vsevolod Meyerhold and Motokiyo Zeami.


title: Peter Brook

text: In 1989 he was awarded the II Europe Theatre Prize in Taormina, with the following motivation:In the field of world theatre of the second half of our century, the long theoretical and practical work of Peter Brook has – without any doubt – unrivalled merits, which are – broadly speaking – unique. Brook's first merit is that of having always pursued an authentic research outside the sterile 'routine' of what he has defined as 'Deadly Theatre'. Brook's second merit is that of having been able to use different languages of contemporary scene; in the same way he has been able to unify the variety of languages. Brook's third merit is that of having discovered and given back a bright vitality to some great cultural and theatrical heritages which hitherto had remained distant from us both in space and time. Nevertheless – without any doubt – Brook's noblest and most constant merit is that of having never separated the strictness and finesse of research from the necessity that the result of those ones would have had the audience as their receiver and interlocutor; the audience which is also requested to renew its habits.


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: Germantown is an urbanized census-designated place in Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. With a population of 91,249 as of 2020 U.S. Decennial Census, Germantown is the third most populous place in Maryland, after the city of Baltimore, and the census-designated place of Columbia. Germantown is located approximately outside the U.S. capital of Washington, D.C. and is an important part of the Washington metropolitan area.


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: Germantown was founded in the early 19th century by European immigrants, though much of the area's development did not take place until the mid-20th century. The original plan for Germantown divided the area into a downtown and six town villages: Gunners Lake Village, Kingsview Village, Churchill Village, Middlebrook Village, Clopper's Mill Village, and Neelsville Village. The Churchill Town Sector at the corner of Maryland Route 118 and Middlebrook Road most closely resembles the downtown or center of Germantown because of the location of the Upcounty Regional Services Center, the Germantown Public Library, the Black Rock Arts Center, the Regal Germantown Stadium 14, and pedestrian shopping that features an array of restaurants. Three exits to Interstate 270 are less than one mile away, the Maryland Area Regional Commuter train is within walking distance, and the Germantown Transit Center that provides Ride On shuttle service to the Shady Grove station of the Washington Metro's Red Line.


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: Germantown has the assigned ZIP codes of 20874 and 20876 for delivery and 20875 for post office boxes. It is the only "Germantown, Maryland" recognized by the United States Postal Service, though three other Maryland counties have unincorporated communities with the same name.


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: In the 1830s and 1840s, the central business area was focused around the intersection of Liberty Mill Road and Clopper Road. Several German immigrants set up shop at the intersection and the town became known as "German Town", even though most residents of the town were of English or Scottish descent.


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: Although it avoided much of the physical destruction that ravaged other cities in the region, the Civil War was still a cause of resentment and division among residents of Germantown. Many Germantown residents were against slavery and had sons fighting for the Union Army. In contrast, other residents of Germantown owned slaves, and even those who were not slave-owners had sons fighting for the Confederate Army. As a result, many people in Germantown, who had been on friendly terms with each other, made an effort not to interact with each other, such as switching churches, or frequenting a store or mill miles away from the ones they would normally do business with.


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: Late in the summer and fall of 1861, there were more than twenty thousand Union soldiers camped to the west of Germantown, in neighboring Darnestown and Poolesville. Occasionally, these soldiers would come to Germantown and frequent the stores there. In September 1862 and in June 1863, several regiments of Union Army soldiers marched north on Maryland Route 355, on their way to the battles of Antietam and Gettysburg, respectively. In July 1864, General Jubal Early led his army of Confederate soldiers down Maryland Route 355 to attack the Union capital of Washington, D.C. Throughout the course of the war, Confederate raiders would often pass through the Germantown area. Local farmers in the Germantown area lost horses and other livestock to both Union and Confederate armies.


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: In 1865, George Atzerodt, a co-conspirator in the assassination of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, was captured in Germantown. Atzerodt had come to the town with his family from Prussia when he was about nine years old. About five years later, his father moved the family to Virginia, but Atzerodt still had many friends and relatives in Germantown. He was living in Port Tobacco during the Civil War, and supplementing his meager income as a carriage painter by smuggling people across the Potomac River in a rowboat. This clandestine occupation brought him into contact with John Surratt and John Wilkes Booth and he was drawn into a plot to kidnap President Lincoln. On April 14, 1865, Booth gave Atzerodt a gun and told him that he was to kill U.S. Vice President Andrew Johnson, which he refused to do. When he found out that Booth had shot Lincoln, Atzerodt panicked and fled to the Germantown farm of his cousin Hartman Richter, on Schaeffer Road near Clopper Road. He was discovered there by soldiers on April 20, six days after the assassination. Atzerodt was tried, convicted and hanged on July 7, 1865, along with co-conspirators Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, and David Herold at Washington, D.C.'s Fort McNair.


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: Germantown did not have a public school until after the end of the American Civil War. During that time, education was handled at home. In 1868, a one-room schoolhouse was built on Maryland Route 118, near Black Rock Road, which hosted children from both Germantown and neighboring Darnestown. In 1883, a larger one-room schoolhouse was built closer to Clopper Road. Another, newer school was constructed in 1910, on what is now the site of Germantown Elementary School. This school had four rooms, with two downstairs and two upstairs, with each room housing two grade levels. After the eighth grade, the students would head via train to nearby Rockville, for further education.


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: The wooden structure of the Bowman Brothers Mill fell victim to a fire in 1914. Four years later, the owners were back in business again, selling the mill to the Liberty Milling Company, a brand new corporation. Augustus Selby was the first owner and manager of the new Liberty Mill, which opened in 1918. Electricity was brought into Liberty Mill and also served the homes and businesses nearby, making Germantown the first area in the northern portion of Montgomery County to receive electricity.


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: In 1935, professional baseball player Walter Perry Johnson, who played as a pitcher for the Washington Senators (now the Minnesota Twins), purchased a farm on what is now the site of Seneca Valley High School. Used as a dairy farm, Johnson lived there with his five children and his mother (his wife had died), until his death in 1946. A road near the school was named after him.


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: "Feed the Liberty Way" was used as a slogan for Liberty Mill which, with eight silos, became the second largest mill in all of Maryland, supplying flour to the United States Army during World War II. Cornmeal and animal feed were also manufactured at Liberty Mill, and a store at the mill sold specialty mixes, such as pancake and muffin mix. Following the end of World War II, the Liberty Mill went into disrepair. For over 25 years, the mill continued to deteriorate until it was destroyed by an arsonist on May 30, 1972. The cement silos were removed by the county in 1986 to make way for the MARC Germantown train station commuter parking lot.


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: In January 1958, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission was relocated from its location in downtown Washington, D.C. to Germantown, which was considered far enough from the city to withstand a Soviet nuclear attack. The facility now operates as an administration complex for the U.S. Department of Energy and headquarters for its Office of Biological and Environmental Research.


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: Marshall Davis owned a farm located where Interstate 270 and Germantown Road intersect today. After Interstate 270 divided his farm in two, Davis decided to sell the last of his land to the International Development Corporation for about $1,300 per acre in 1955. Fairchild-Hiller Corporation bought the land for about $4,000 per acre in 1964, and it built an industrial park on the land four years later. Harry Unglesee and his family sold their farm near Hoyles Mill Road for less than $1,000 per acre in 1959. Other farmers soon sold their land to developers and speculators as well.


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: The Germantown Master Plan was adopted in 1967. The plan for the area included a dense central downtown area and less dense development surrounding it. In 1974, the Montgomery County Council approved an amended plan written by the Montgomery County Planning Board. The amended plan included a downtown area and six separate villages, each comprising smaller neighborhoods with schools, shopping areas, and public facilities. The amended plan also included the construction of a third campus for Montgomery College near the downtown area. The same year, the completion of a sewer line helped the development and growth of Germantown.


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: During the 1970s, Wernher von Braun, a German rocket scientist during World War II, worked for the aerospace company Fairchild Industries, which had offices in Germantown, as its vice president for Engineering and Development. Von Braun worked at Fairchild Industries from July 1, 1972, until his death on June 16, 1977.


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: The Germantown Campus of Montgomery College opened on October 21, 1978. At the time, it consisted of two buildings, 24 employees, and 1,200 students. Enrollment had increased to five thousand students by 2003, with eighty employees across four buildings. A steel water tower modeled after the Earth can be seen from orbiting satellites in outer space. As of 2008, a forty-acre bio-technology laboratory was nearing completion.


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: Since the early 1980s, Germantown has experienced rapid economic and population growth, both in the form of townhouses and single-family dwellings, and an urbanized "town center" has been built. Germantown was the fastest growing zip code in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area and Maryland in 1986, and the 1980s saw a population growth of 323.3% for Germantown.


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: In 2000, the Upcounty Regional Services Center (now the Sidney Kramer Upcounty Regional Services Center) opened in Germantown, and a 16,000 square feet section of the first floor was home to the Germantown Public Library for several years until it moved to a new, 19 million dollar complex in 2007. On September 29, 2013, the Upcounty Regional Services Center in Germantown was renamed as the Sidney Kramer Upcounty Regional Services Center, after Sidney Kramer, the Montgomery County executive from 1986 to 1990.


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: In October 2000, the Maryland SoccerPlex opened in Germantown. The sports complex includes nineteen natural grass fields, three artificial fields, a 5,200 seat soccer stadium with lighting and press box, eight indoor convertible basketball/volleyball courts. Two miniature golf courses, a splash park, a driving range, an archery course, community garden, model boat pond, two BMX courses, tennis center, and a swim center are also located within the confines of the complex. The soccerplex is the current home of the Washington Spirit of the National Women's Soccer League.


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: In March 2001, Germantown's only movie theater, the Sony 6, opened in the 1980s, located at the Germantown Commons Shopping Center, closed down as part of a closure of 112 movie theaters across the United States by Loews Cineplex, leaving Germantown without a movie theater of its own. As a result, local residents frequented a movie theater in Kentlands or one at The Rio in Gaithersburg. Over a year later, on May 3, 2002, the Hoyts Cinema 14, now the Regal Germantown Stadium 14, opened, and Germantown now had its own movie theater once again. A DSW footwear retail store now sits on the site of the former Sony 6 theater. A month later, it was announced that a Staples and Best Buy store would open at Germantown's Milestone Shopping Center later that fall. Opening later that year, the Best Buy store replaced a Homeplace store that had closed down in 2001 following that company's disbandment.


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: In 2003, one of Germantown's trailer parks, the Cider Barrel Mobile Home Park, located at the intersection of Germantown Road and Frederick Road, closed after decades of operation, having been in business since at least the 1970s. Despite this closure, the Barrel building itself was preserved, with a cluster of garden apartments erected near it.


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: On August 14, 2011, a 7-Eleven convenience store in downtown Germantown fell victim to a flash mob robbery, in which nearly forty people walked into the store, grabbed merchandise, and subsequently fled with the stolen goods, all without paying. The incident garnered widespread attention in the United States and internationally.


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: Holy Cross Health opened a hospital on the campus of Montgomery College in October 2014, becoming the first hospital in the U.S. to be built on a community college campus. The opening of the new 93-bed hospital strengthens the college's medical program by giving students the opportunity for hands-on work and access to more advanced medical technology. The hospital is projected to eventually bring 5,000 new jobs to the area.


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: In August 2017, Brandi Edinger initiated efforts to crowdfund the repurposing of the historic Cider Barrel as a bakery via Kickstarter, but failed to meet the $80,000 goal set by October. On January 1, 2020, it was reported that plans are underway to reopen the Barrel in the spring of that year after it was closed for nearly two decades. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic occurring in the months leading up to its planned reopening, it has been delayed indefinitely to a time when the pandemic poses less of a safety risk. In the spring of 2022, after no further updates on its opening plans, it was reported that Laura Richman, the woman spearheading the effort to reopen the barrel, was unable to complete the work needed to reopen the barrel due to her current job and pursuit of an MBA in Boston, even with the pandemic subsiding, and is seeking a new operations manager in her place.


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: Despite its size, Germantown has never been incorporated formally as a town or a city. It has no mayor or city council and is thus governed by Montgomery County. It is represented by Democrat Craig L. Rice in the Montgomery County Council. Germantown is part of two districts for the Maryland General Assembly, 15 (ZIP code 20874), and 39 (ZIP code 20876). For the US Congress, it is part of Maryland's 6th district.


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: The U.S. Department of Energy has its headquarters for the Office of Biological and Environmental Research in Germantown. The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission was moved from its location in downtown Washington, D.C. to the present-day U.S. Department of Energy building in Germantown because of fears of a Soviet nuclear attack on the U.S. capital. At the time, Germantown was believed to be far enough from Washington, D.C. to avoid the worst effects of a nuclear strike on the city. The facility now operates as an administration complex for the U.S. Department of Energy.


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: Since development began in the late 20th century, Germantown has experienced economies of agglomeration, with many high-tech companies opening headquarters and other offices in Germantown and other areas along the Interstate 270 corridor. Qiagen North America, Earth Network Systems Inc., Digital Receiver Technology Inc., Mid-Atlantic Federal Credit Union, and Hughes Network Systems all have their headquarters in Germantown.


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: In addition to the companies headquartered in Germantown, many have offices in the area, including Wabtec, Viasat, RADA USA, Mars Symbioscience, Xerox, General Electric Aviation, Earth Networks, WeatherBug, and Proxy Aviation Systems.


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: According to the United States Census Bureau, the community has a total area of 10.9 sq mi (28.0 km), of which all but (0.46%) is land.


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: Germantown lies within the humid subtropical climate zone (Köppen "Cfa"), with hot, humid summers, cool winters, and generous precipitation year-round. Its location above the Fall Line in the Piedmont region gives it slightly lower temperatures than cities to the south and east such as Washington, D.C. and Silver Spring. Summers are hot and humid with frequent afternoon thunderstorms. July is the warmest month, with an average temperature of . Winters are cool but variable, with sporadic snowfall and lighter rain showers of longer duration. January is the coldest month, with an average temperature of . Average annual rainfall totals .


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: As of 2013 estimates by the U.S. Census Bureau, Germantown had a population of 90,676. As of the census of 2010, there were 86,395 people, and 30,531 households residing in the area. The population density was 8,019 people per square mile (3,096.6/km). The racial makeup of the area was 36.3% white, 21.8% African American, 0.2% Native American, 19.7% Asian, 0.03% Pacific Islander, 0.3% from other races, and 3.3% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 18.4% of the population.


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: There were 20,893 households, out of which 41.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 49.8% were married couples living together, 13.7% had a female householder with no husband present, and 32.4% were non-families. 23.5% of all households were made up of individuals, and 1.8% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.80 and the average family size was 3.19.


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: In the area, the population was spread out, with 28.9% under the age of 18, 7.7% from 18 to 24, 43.0% from 25 to 44, 17.3% from 45 to 64, and 3.1% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 31 years. For every 100 females, there were 94.9 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 90.6 males.


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: The median income for a household in Germantown was $76,061 as of a 2010 estimate by the website, "City-Data". 6.5% of the population and 3.5% of families were below the poverty line. Out of the total people living in poverty, 5.9% are under the age of 18 and 9.9% are 65 or older.


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: All the public schools in Germantown are part of the Montgomery County Public Schools system. The elementary schools in Germantown are Cedar Grove Elementary School, Clopper Mill Elementary School, Fox Chapel Elementary School, Germantown Elementary School, Great Seneca Creek Elementary School, Captain James E. Daly Jr. Elementary School, Lake Seneca Elementary School, Ronald McNair Elementary School, Sally K. Ride Elementary School, Spark Matsunaga Elementary School, S. Christa McAuliffe Elementary School, Waters Landing Elementary School, and William B. Gibbs, Jr. Elementary School.


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: The four middle schools are Kingsview Middle School, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School, Neelsville Middle School, and Roberto W. Clemente Middle School, which feed into three high schools: Northwest High School, Clarksburg High School and Seneca Valley High School. Students from Kingsview move on to Northwest, students from Neelsville move on to Clarksburg while those from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Roberto W. Clemente Middle Schools move on to Seneca Valley High School. Additionally, the Longview School, which provides special education services, is located in Germantown.


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: Montgomery College, the largest higher education institution in Montgomery County, has its largest campus in Germantown. It is located on Observation Drive not far from the downtown area.


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: Germantown is bisected by Interstate 270, one of Maryland's busiest highways. Northbound traffic heads toward Frederick and Interstate 70 and southbound traffic heads toward Bethesda and the Capital Beltway. Interstate 270 has three exits in Germantown.


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: Germantown also has a station on the MARC train's Brunswick Line, which operates over CSX's Metropolitan Subdivision. The station building itself, at the corner of Liberty Mill Road and Mateny Hill Road, is a copy of the original 1891 structure designed by E. Francis Baldwin for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. The modern station building was rebuilt after it was destroyed by arson in 1978.


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: The Montgomery County public transit bus system, Ride On, serving Montgomery County with over 100 bus routes, operates a major transit hub in Germantown known as the Germantown Transit Center. The transit center serves approximately 20 routes, making it one of the largest transit centers in the county.


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: , a light rail system, the Corridor Cities Transitway, is under evaluation. If constructed, the system would connect the terminal of the Washington Metro Red Line, Shady Grove station in nearby Derwood to Germantown and continue northward to Clarksburg.


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: The BlackRock Center for the Arts is located in the downtown Germantown, at the Germantown Town Center. The BlackRock Center for the Arts also sponsors the Germantown Oktoberfest, an annual festival held every year in the fall, which includes various genres of music, including traditional German folk, rock and pop. The Harmony Express Men's Chorus is a 4-part a cappella men's chorus based in Germantown.


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: The band Clutch is also from Germantown. Members of the group attended Seneca Valley High School together, with several members graduating with the Class of 1989. Two years later, in 1991, the band was formed.


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: The Maryland SoccerPlex sports complex is located in Germantown. Maureen Hendrick's Field at Championship Stadium hosts many amateur, collegiate, and regional soccer and lacrosse tournaments. The Montgomery County Road Runners Club annually hosts the Riley's Rumble Half Marathon & 8K that starts and finishes in the SoccerPlex. The SoccerPlex formerly hosted the Washington Spirit of the National Women's Soccer League. The Germantown Swim Center is also located within the SoccerPlex. The swim center has hosted many major swimming events including Metros and the 2022 Landmark Conference Swimming & Diving Championship.


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: The Germantown Historical Society (GHS) was formed in 1990 as a non-profit organization with a mission to educate the public about local history and preserve local historic sites. The GHS office and future museum is located in the historic Germantown Bank (1922) at 19330 Mateny Hill Road, across from the MARC railroad station. The GHS offers lectures on local history and has traveling exhibits about Germantown. It also sells the books, Liberty Mill T-shirts, and other souvenirs. The main fundraiser for the organization is the Germantown Community Flea Market, held on the first Saturday of the month April through November in the MARC parking lot, Rt. 118 and Bowman Mill Drive, featuring more than 150 vendors.


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: Germantown is served by a news and information website known as the "Germantown Pulse". The "Germantown Pulse" covers a wide range of topics, including sports, schools, crime, music, and other events of note in the area.


title: Germantown, Maryland

text: Germantown veterans are served by the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, American Legion Post 295. American Legion Post 295 sponsors Cub Scout Pack 436, a Venturing Crew and is establishing a Sea Scout Ship. American Legion Boys State and American Legion Baseball have been longtime programs supported by the Post.


title: Dante Bichette

text: Alphonse Dante Bichette Sr. (; born November 18, 1963) is an American former professional baseball player, currently employed by the Toronto Blue Jays organization. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) as an outfielder for the California Angels (1988–1990), Milwaukee Brewers (1991–1992), Colorado Rockies (1993–1999), Cincinnati Reds (2000), and Boston Red Sox (2000–2001). He was also the hitting coach for the Rockies in 2013. He batted and threw right-handed.


title: Dante Bichette

text: Bichette was a four-time All-Star as a member of the Rockies, and was a member of the 1993 inaugural team. In 1995, he won the Silver Slugger Award and finished second in the Most Valuable Player Award (MVP) voting while leading the National League in home runs, runs batted in, slugging percentage, total bases and hits. The next year, he joined the 30–30 club with 31 home runs and 31 stolen bases, and in 1998, again led the league in hits with 219. Each year from 1993−1998 he batted over .300, and in each year from 1995−1999, drove in at least 100 runs.