title: Birmingham City University

text: In November 2003, the university pursued a merger between UCE and Aston University-another university in Birmingham, that, according to "The Guardian", "would create an institution of 32,000 students with a £200m turnover". The plans were announced by the then Vice-Chancellor Peter Knight, and approved by lecturers. The new institution would use the established Aston University name, and all UCE staff members' jobs and employment conditions would be kept intact, although Vice-Chancellor Knight would not be part of its management team. He estimated a completion date for the merger of August 2006.


title: Birmingham City University

text: Michael Sterling, vice-chancellor of University of Birmingham, welcomed the initiative and said it was time for some creative thinking about higher education in the city. "Clearly, with three very distinct universities in one city, it's sensible to take a hard look at the big picture and how we can best work together, whether separately, in combination, or even as one institution," he said. His intervention provoked a furious reaction from Peter Knight, vice-chancellor of UCE, who made it clear his approach was only to Aston University.


title: Birmingham City University

text: The Aston University Council discussed the proposal during a meeting on 3 December 2003 and concluded that it should be rejected. Aston University said that "Whilst the Council respects UCE's distinctive mission, it does not share UCE's analysis of the potential opportunities that might arise from any merger", and cited influencing factors such as Aston's approach to research and teaching, the "significant differences between the missions and strategies" of Aston and UCE, and the negative impact that prolonged discussions would have on both institutions. Aston suggested that it, UCE and the University of Birmingham should instead begin discussions about the three universities' contribution to the future of local and regional higher education.


title: Birmingham City University

text: In August 2005, the University of Central England rebranded itself as "UCE Birmingham" for marketing and promotional purposes, though the original name remained for official use. This decision was reversed in March 2007, following the arrival of a new Vice-Chancellor, and the fuller title "University of Central England in Birmingham" was resurrected for all purposes.


title: Birmingham City University

text: In June 2007, it was announced that the university would be renamed from 'UCE Birmingham', with three possible names being proposed: Birmingham City University, Birmingham Chamberlain University, and Birmingham Metropolitan University. Staff and students (both current and alumni) were asked to complete a survey on what they wished the name to be changed to. On 1 October 2007, Vice-Chancellor David Tidmarsh unveiled the name change from UCE Birmingham to Birmingham City University. 48.2% of those who voted on the survey voted for this name, although 62.1% of staff had voted for Birmingham Metropolitan University. The University of Birmingham Council had previously advised UCE that their preferred choice was Birmingham Metropolitan University, and that it considered Birmingham Chamberlain University "unacceptable" because of Joseph Chamberlain's historic involvement and association with the University of Birmingham.


title: Birmingham City University

text: The proposed name change was met with mixed reaction from students and student union officials. A common argument was that money should be spend on facilities and building repair work, and some students felt ignored by the establishment. The rationale for the name change was a perceived confusion of the location of the university and to give a "shorter, more powerful name". The rebranding of the university, which included changing signage and stationery, cost £285,084.


title: Birmingham City University

text: The university's current logo, designed by Birmingham-based BHMG Marketing, is based on the tiger in the crest originally used when it was awarded university status. The crest itself originated from the Birmingham College of Commerce, one of the institutions that formed the polytechnic in 1971. In 2009, the logo was revised to include the word "CITY" in upper-case on the first line instead of in lower-case on the second.


title: Birmingham City University

text: Since 2011, the university has moved more of its operations to the centre of Birmingham, with teaching at the longstanding Perry Barr site gradually wound down. At the City Centre Campus, the Parkside Building for Design and Media students opened in 2013; the Curzon Building, which houses Business, Law and Social Science courses as well as library, IT and student support facilities opened in 2015; and a new music building for the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire opened in 2017. The university also announced plans to revive the former Belmont Works site nearby as STEAMhouse - a place for small and medium-sized businesses to collaborate with students and academics.


title: Birmingham City University

text: Education courses moved to the City South Campus, where health programmes were already based, leaving the university with two main sites in the city, together with a small number of satellite buildings. Demolition of the Perry Barr campus began in 2018 and was completed by summer 2019.


title: Birmingham City University

text: Throughout its history the university has been spread across a number of different sites in Birmingham. As of 2022, the university is at the following campuses:


title: Birmingham City University

text: The university has completed a "flagship" extension to its campus in Birmingham City Centre, next to the existing facilities at Millennium Point. The City Centre Campus is a £150 million scheme, as part of Birmingham's Eastside development, with design and media students moving into Phase 1 of the development in 2013, from the former Gosta Green Campus and City North Campus, respectively. Business, English, law and social sciences followed when Phase 2 of the new building was completed in 2015.


title: Birmingham City University

text: As of September 2017, Birmingham City University invested approximately £220 million into campus infrastructure while moving its campus into the city centre. The university focused on building cutting-edge facilities for students and updating internal systems used for human resources and finance. The university purchased Oracle ERP Butt and HCM Butt to update its IT strategy and standardise employee-facing functions, which became crucial in the institution's efforts to modernise its IT infrastructure.


title: Birmingham City University

text: University House (formerly known as the New Technology Institute or NTI) is located close to the City Centre Campus and is home to a number of the university's professional service departments. The International Project Space (IPS) is an art gallery located at the Bournville Centre for Visual Arts.


title: Birmingham City University

text: Moor Lane is a venue for sports, business training and conferences near to City North Campus. Previously, a dedicated sports centre was located behind The Coppice, a student accommodation block next to the former City North Campus, and included tennis courts, bowls, football and rugby pitches, running track and a social club. The university announced a £7 million sports complex would be built on the site, formerly the Ansells Sports Club, with construction to start in mid-2008 for completion in 2009. The Doug Ellis Sports Centre, named after Doug Ellis, opened on 4 January 2010 and includes a fitness suite, workout classes, and a sports hall.


title: Birmingham City University

text: Lawyers at Wragge & Co have advised Birmingham City University on the outsourcing of work for the sports centre to international service company Serco. Under a new 10-year agreement, the FTSE 100 company will run both the sports centre and the existing Pavilion sports facility in Perry Barr.


title: Birmingham City University

text: University Locks is a residential halls of residence located adjacent to the City Centre Campus. The university also offers accommodation in a number of privately owned halls of residence, these include Jennens Court, My Student Village: Birmingham (formerly clv Birmingham) and Curzon Gateway in the city centre.


title: Birmingham City University

text: After the former Birmingham Polytechnic was granted University status it installed the city's Lord Mayor as its Chancellor each year. It was one of only two national institutions to adopt this link with its local region. On 21 July 2016 the university announced that Lenny Henry would become its new Chancellor, for an initial term of five years.


title: Birmingham City University

text: Birmingham City University is a large university and has departments covering a wide range of subjects. The university's system was re-organised into four faculties in September 2014, composed of numerous schools and departments.


title: Birmingham City University

text: The faculty was created in 2014 by the merger of the Faculty of Performance, Media and English with the Birmingham Institute of Art and Design. This faculty includes the art and design related courses taught by the School of Art, School of Architecture and Design, School of Fashion and Textiles, School of Jewellery and School of Visual Communication.


title: Birmingham City University

text: It is also home to the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, an international conservatoire and junior school and a major concert venue for many of Birmingham's principal concert promoters and organisations, hosting over 300 events annually. Their Junior Department provides tuition to over 200 young musicians aged 3 to 18 in classical music, chamber music, North Indian music and jazz. Birmingham School of Acting founded in 1936, merged with the university in 2005, and in September 2017 it merged to become part of the Conservatoire. The school is based in purpose-built facilities within the City Centre campus at Millennium Point which include 11 studios. Alongside its undergraduate programmes in Acting, Stage Management and Applied Theatre, the school offers specialist postgraduate programmes in Professional Voice Practice and an MFA in Acting: The British Tradition.


title: Birmingham City University

text: The School of English has undergraduate English programmes specialising across Literature, Language Studies, Drama and Creative Writing; and joint honours programmes in English and Media.


title: Birmingham City University

text: The Birmingham School of Media, was one of the first media schools in the country to teach media as part of the Skillset Academy Network. Its courses have received approval from the Broadcast Journalism Training Council and the Chartered Institute of Public Relations.


title: Birmingham City University

text: This faculty includes Birmingham City Business School, a major centre for business and management education. It incorporates three academic departments and two specialist centres: the Department of Accountancy and Finance, the Department of Business and Marketing, the Department of Management and Human Resources, the Centre for Leadership and Management Practice, and the Centre for Internal Audit, Governance and Risk Management. It also includes the university's School of Law and School of Social Sciences.


title: Birmingham City University

text: The Faculty of Health, Education and Life Sciences began in 1995 by a merger of Birmingham and Solihull College of Nursing and Midwifery, West Midlands School of Radiography and the University of Central England. In 2002, the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine (RCDM) joined the university to offer Ministry of Defence students and nurses better key skills in nurse training.


title: Birmingham City University

text: It also provides courses for intending teachers, serving teachers or those simply interested in education issues covering the entire range of school phases from infant to continuing education, at every study level from full-time undergraduate to postgraduate level and PhD.


title: Birmingham City University

text: The Faculty of Computing, Engineering and the Built Environment, based in Millennium Point, is a national centre of excellence for learning, innovation and technology transfer. The faculty was temporarily known as the Faculty of Technology, Innovation and Development (TID) from 2008 until 2009, when the university relaunched the faculty through the merger of three of the more successful departments—the Technology Innovation Centre (TIC), School of Computing, and the School of Property Construction. It now has two schools each split into two divisions:


title: Birmingham City University

text: The university has four libraries across Birmingham on all campuses that contain around 950,000 books and 9,000 print and electronic journals:


title: Birmingham City University

text: Kenrick Library, named after William Kenrick in recognition of his role as the first Chairman of Governors when the Polytechnic was formed in 1971, was located at the City North Campus. The library closed in May 2018 when the remaining schools based at Perry Barr moved to the City South Campus.


title: Birmingham City University

text: In 1998, the university was involved in controversy when a book by photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, "Mapplethorpe" (1992), was confiscated. A final year undergraduate student was writing a paper on Mapplethorpe's work and intended to illustrate the paper with a few photographs. She took the photographs to the local photo-studio to be developed and the photo-studio informed West Midlands Police because of the unusual nature of the images. The police confiscated the library book from the student and informed the university that the book would have to be destroyed. If the university agreed to the destruction, no further action would be taken.


title: Birmingham City University

text: The university Vice-Chancellor, Peter Knight, took the view—supported by the Senate—that the book was a legitimate book for the university library to hold and that the action of the police was a serious infringement of academic freedom. The Vice-Chancellor was interviewed by the police, under caution, with a view to prosecution under the terms of the Obscene Publications Act, which defines obscenity as material that is likely to deprave and corrupt. The police focused on one particular image, 'Jim and Tom, Sausalito 1977', which depicts one man urinating into the mouth of another.


title: Birmingham City University

text: After the interview with the Vice-Chancellor, a file was sent to the Crown Prosecution Service as the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has to take the decision as to whether or not to proceed with a trial. After a delay of about six months, the affair came to an end when the DPP informed Knight that no action would be taken as "there was insufficient evidence to support a successful prosecution on this occasion". The original book was returned, in a slightly tattered state, and restored to the university library.


title: Birmingham City University

text: The university runs access and foundation programmes through an international network of associated universities and further education colleges.


title: Birmingham City University

text: The university has five Centres of Research Excellence, which are the main focus of its research activity. Following the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise conducted by the Higher Education Funding Council for England, the "Birmingham Post" reported that more than 70 per cent of research work submitted by Birmingham City University—including in business and management studies, education, English, social work and social policy, and town and country planning—was "officially recognised as of an international standard", and 15 per cent of that work was "rated as world leading". Its art and design submission was among the ten highest ranked in the country, and Birmingham Conservatoire was rated one of the top three conservatoires, and the best outside London. The university was ranked sixty-third based on average assessment scores.


title: Birmingham City University

text: The university has a number of courses accredited by Creative Skillset, the government's skills sector council for audio, visual and creative industries. With regard to post-production, the university also has Avid Mentor status, and is the Midlands' accredited training centre for Apple's Final Cut editing software.


title: Birmingham City University

text: For health and social care, Birmingham City University was awarded national recognition as a Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning. The university has an on-site virtual operating suite for health students, the first at a university in England. In the Smithers-Robinson League Table, for initial teacher training, Birmingham City University and three other institutions are consistently ranked top ten. Ofsted inspection scores for teacher education courses are frequently among the best.


title: Birmingham City University

text: Roughly half of the university's full-time students are from the West Midlands, and a large percentage of these are from ethnic minorities. The university runs access and foundation programmes through an international network of associated universities and further education colleges, and it has the highest intake of international students in the Birmingham area. For 2009 entry, applications rose by 37 per cent from 2008, one of the biggest increases at any university. There are almost six applications per place and a typical entry tariff of 112 UCAS points for honours degree programmes; other courses' requirements vary.


title: Birmingham City University

text: Birmingham City University Students' Union (abbreviated to BCUSU) has its main offices at the city centre campus. There are several reception offices located at other campuses. BCUSU is affiliated with the National Union of Students, and all students are automatically members of the union.


title: Birmingham City University

text: Student media at the Union comprises a student magazine; Polygon, which originally went into publication in the 1980s and, after a short period under other names, was brought back to life in 2019, and the award-winning student radio station; Scratch Radio, which is housed in the Curzon Building at the City Centre Campus and broadcasts on DAB in the city and online.


title: Birmingham City University

text: The student union of Birmingham Polytechnic was condemned in November 1974 when its council passed a resolution supporting IRA terrorism. The polytechnic's student radio station, then known as Radio G, was the runner-up in the 1989 "Guardian"/NUS Student Media Awards.


title: Birmingham City University

text: Now Birmingham City Students' Union, it holds elections every year to elect the five full-time Sabbatical Officers who run the union and act as its Company Directors.


title: Birmingham City University

text: Current and former staff of the university and its former entities include novelists Jim Crace and Stephen Booth, nurse-author Bethann Siviter, journalist Paul Bradshaw, Nigerian researcher and pollster Bell Ihua, scientist Kevin Warwick, environmentalist Chris Baines, politicians Khalid Mahmood (MP for Perry Barr) and Lynne Jones (former MP for Selly Oak), former Member of the European Parliament David Hallam, HSBC CEO Noel Quinn and former Chief Inspector of Probation for England and Wales Paul McDowell.


title: Birmingham City University

text: Notable graduates of the university and its predecessor institutions working in broadcasting include children's television presenter Kirsten O'Brien, sports TV presenter Mary Rhodes, radio and TV presenters Fiona Phillips, Margherita Taylor and Phil Upton, investigative journalist Mark Williams-Thomas and Yemisi Akinbobola, founder of IQ4News and African Women in the Media. Several work in broadcast journalism, such as Sky News news presenter Marverine Cole, GB News' West Midlands Correspondent Jack Carson and BBC news presenter Charlie Stayt.


title: Birmingham City University

text: Art and design alumni include cartoonist Alex Hughes, artist Barbara Walker, fashion designer Betty Jackson, photographer Ravi Deepres, artists Jack Skinner and Rob Pepper, industrial product designer Hans Ramzan, British-born architect Laurie Baker (1917–2007), former Renault chief designer Patrick le Quément, and Saiman Miah, designer of the £5 Olympic coins for the 2012 Olympic Games.


title: Birmingham City University

text: Graduates in the performing arts include musicians Roy Priest (formerly of Sweet Jesus) and Nick Duffy, singer-songwriter Stephen Duffy, actors Jimi Mistry, Catherine Tyldesley and Tom Lister, comedian Frank Skinner, singer and "The X Factor" contestant Rhydian Roberts, and bass guitarist John Taylor, founder of Duran Duran.


title: Wonder Girl

text: Wonder Girl is the alias of multiple superheroines featured in comic books published by DC Comics. Donna Troy, the original Wonder Girl, was created by Bob Haney and Bruno Premiani and first appeared in "The Brave and the Bold" #60 (June/July 1965). The second Wonder Girl, Cassie Sandsmark, was created by John Byrne and first appeared in "Wonder Woman" (vol. 2) #105 (January 1996). Both are protégées of Wonder Woman and members of different incarnations of the Teen Titans. The alias has also been used in reference to a younger version of Wonder Woman as a teenager. In the 2020s, DC introduced a third Wonder Girl in Yara Flor, who hails from a Brazilian tribe of Amazons and was shown in a flashforward to one day succeed Diana as Wonder Woman.


title: Wonder Girl

text: An original version of Wonder Girl named Drusilla appeared in the "Wonder Woman" television series, played by Debra Winger. Donna Troy makes her live adaptation debut in the DC Universe series "Titans", played by Conor Leslie.


title: Wonder Girl

text: A teen-aged Princess Diana of the Amazons first appeared in a backstory in "Wonder Woman" #23 (May/June 1947), written by William Moulton Marston and designed by H.G. Peter.


title: Wonder Girl

text: Wonder Girl first appeared in "The Secret Origin of Wonder Woman", written and edited by Robert Kanigher, in "Wonder Woman" #105 (April 1959). In this revised Silver Age origin, it is established that Diana had in fact not been created from clay, but had been born before the Amazons settled on Paradise Island. Following this issue were several Wonder Girl adventures, and years later an additional character, Wonder Tot—Wonder Woman as a toddler—was also featured. Kanigher restored the character's made-from-clay origin in 1966.


title: Wonder Girl

text: From "Wonder Woman" #124 (August 1961) onward, Wonder Woman, Wonder Girl, and Wonder Tot frequently appeared together in stories that were labeled "impossible tales", presented as films made by Wonder Woman's mother, Queen Hippolyta, who had the power to splice together films of herself and Diana at different ages. The characters of Wonder Girl and Wonder Woman then began to diverge, as Bob Haney wrote Wonder Girl stories that took place in the same time period as those of Wonder Woman.


title: Wonder Girl

text: The last significant appearance of Wonder Woman as a child Wonder Girl was in November 1965. In the tongue-in-cheek "Wonder Woman" #158, Kanigher broke the fourth wall by having Wonder Girl and the rest of the supporting cast he had created (Wonder Tot, the Glop, Bird-Boy, Mer-Boy, Birdman, and Manno) come to the office of a "certain" editor. Protested by fans for ruining the character, Kanigher tells Wonder Girl that he does love her, along with all of his other daughters, such as Black Canary, Star Sapphire, and the Harlequin. Even so, with mounting pressure, he has no choice but to declare her retconned. Wonder Girl stoically accepts her fate as she and the others turn into drawings on Kanigher's desk. Soon after, Wonder Woman enters and is shocked to see her younger self "killed".


title: Wonder Girl

text: Regardless, Diana as a child Wonder Girl was never completely rejected. Reprints of Wonder Girl stories were occasionally included in the comic book. In issue #200, Wonder Woman, in her Diana Prince identity, is shown walking past children at play whereon she flashes back to when she was a fourteen-year-old Wonder Girl with a crush on Mer-Boy.


title: Wonder Girl

text: While the characters of Wonder Girl and Wonder Woman were diverging, Haney was developing a new group of junior superheroes, whose first informal appearance featured a team-up of Robin (Dick Grayson), Kid Flash (Wally West), and Aqualad (Garth). During their next appearance in "The Brave and the Bold" #60 (July 1965), they were dubbed the Teen Titans and joined by Wonder Girl, pictured in the same frame as Wonder Woman and calling Hippolyta "mother".


title: Wonder Girl

text: Wonder Girl and the other Teen Titans were then featured in "Showcase" #59 (December 1965) before being spun off into their own series with "Teen Titans" #1 (February 1966). With the character called only Wonder Girl, or "Wonder Chick" by her teammates, her status as either the younger Wonder Woman displaced in the timeline or another character altogether is not explained until "Teen Titans" #22 (August 1969). In a story by Marv Wolfman and Gil Kane it is established that Wonder Girl is a non-Amazon orphan, rescued by Wonder Woman from an apartment building fire. Unable to find any parents or family, Wonder Woman brings the child to Paradise Island, where she is eventually given Amazon powers by the Purple Ray. The story ends with Wonder Girl wearing a new costume and hairstyle, adopting the secret identity Donna Troy.


title: Wonder Girl

text: As special event comics like the "Crisis on Infinite Earths" and "Infinite Crisis" miniseries have rewritten character histories, the origin of Donna Troy has been revised several times. In brief, those origins are as follows:


title: Wonder Girl

text: Cassie Sandsmark is the granddaughter of Zeus. She has been a member of both Young Justice and the Teen Titans. Initially, her powers were derived from ancient Greek magical artifacts. Later, Zeus granted her the boon of actual powers. Her powers are similar to Wonder Woman's, though she carries a lasso that expels Zeus's lightning, which was given to her by her father, Ares, the Greek god of war. When the Greek gods left the mortal plane during "Infinite Crisis", Zeus stripped Cassie of her powers. However, she was granted powers by Ares in exchange for becoming his champion.


title: Wonder Girl

text: After Superboy's death, she quit the Titans for a time to be an independent vigilante. She was mourning the loss of her lover, Superboy, and bitter from the abandonment by Robin and Wonder Woman over the following year. She later rejoined the group after a battle with the Brotherhood of Evil and the return of Cyborg. She is close friends with fellow hero Supergirl. She later didn't need anyone to empower her as she grew stronger herself.


title: Wonder Girl

text: Yara Flor is the daughter of an Amazon and a Brazilian river god, who becomes the defender of the Esquecida Amazon tribe. The character debuted in January 2021 as part of DC Comic's "Future State" storyline, in which she is shown to be the Wonder Woman of the future. In the present day DC Comics narrative, Yara is introduced as part of the "Infinite Frontier" publishing event. She is unaware of her Amazon heritage, but, responding to a prophecy, the Olympian Gods and the Amazons of Themiscyra, Bana-Mighdall, and a third tribe in the Amazon rainforest separately begin to converge on her location as she makes a trip from the US to Brazil, the country of her birth. Queen Hippolyta sends Wonder Girl Cassie Sandsmark to protect Yara, where she encounters Artemis of Bana-Mighdall.


title: Wonder Girl

text: As an Amazon-Guarani demigoddess, Yara inherits abilities the average Amazon does not. Tara has superhuman strength, speed, reflexes, durability, agility and senses. Yara also has the ability of hydrokinesis (manipulating water), which she discovers after she gets her golden bolas. Yara also rides a white winged horse from Olympus named Jerry.


title: Wonder Girl

text: According to the character's creator, Joëlle Jones, Yara's appearance was inspired by the Brazilian model Suyane Moreira.


title: Wonder Girl

text: Both Donna and Cassie have a recurring roles in the "Tiny Titans" comic by Art Baltazar and Franco Aureliani. The two are depicted as cousins, with the Wonder Girl alias given to Donna and Cassie being referred to by her first name.


title: Wonder Girl

text: In "" #2, Wonder Girl first appears in 1953 as a "mystic projection" to take Wonder Woman's place while Diana gives birth. She finds a wounded Steve Trevor and takes him back to Paradise Island, but despite being subjected to the Purple Power Ray, he dies of his wounds, leaving Diana to raise their daughter, Stephanie, alone.


title: Wonder Girl

text: In 1964, Stephanie (or "Stevie") decides to go out on her own as Wonder Girl. She shares a link with Supergirl (Kara Kent), as they were born at the same time. Years later, she becomes the new Wonder Woman. Her outfit is pretty much the same as her mother's, except that she does not possess either the tiara or the Magic Lasso of Aphrodite, instead possessing the winged sandals of Hermes. She also wears a mask. When she becomes the new Wonder Woman, she adds a cape to the ensemble. In "Superman & Batman: Generations" #3, she is killed by Darkseid.


title: Wonder Girl

text: Another version of Donna exists in the New 52 on the alternate Earth-2. In "Earth-2: Society", the character, Fury, reveals her name is Donna. This character is the daughter of the late Earth-2 Wonder Woman and the New God, Steppenwolf. This is the first time Fury is used as a doppelganger of Donna Troy and not just an analogue.


title: Wonder Girl

text: In the "DC Comics Bombshells" universe, Wonder Girl is not a single person, but rather a team of young Asian-American girls who are empowered by the mystical artifacts formerly used by Wonder Woman. The Wonder Girls consist of Donna Troy (a Nisei Japanese-American), Cassie Sandsmark (a mixed-race girl of partial Japanese heritage), Yuki and Yuri Katsura, and Emily Sung.


title: Wonder Girl

text: In the comic tie-in to "", Cassie is with the Titans when the Joker's nuclear bomb goes off. Her attire is similar to that of Wonder Woman's in the game. She is sent to spy on Conner after he is devastated by Superman's actions to see what he's up to, and finds him at the Fortress of Solitude trying to find the Phantom Zone Projector. She and the other Titans try to help Conner stop Superman, but Superman mortally wounds him. She and the Titans are sent to the Phantom Zone by Superman to save Conner's life and to stop them from interfering with Superman's plans. In the prequel to Injustice 2, they are freed from the Phantom Zone thanks to the Insurgency. As evidenced during their fight with Amazo, her relationship to her mentor, Wonder Woman, is strained due to the latter allying with the Regime (Though Diana is still concerned for Cassie's well-being and had no idea about Superman sending the Titans to the Phantom Zone).


title: Mary Livingstone

text: Mary Livingstone (born Sadya Marcowitz, later known as Sadie Marks; June 25, 1905–June 30, 1983) was an American radio comedienne and actress. She was the wife and radio partner of comedian Jack Benny.


title: Mary Livingstone

text: Enlisted casually to perform on her husband's program, she proved a talented comedian. But she also proved one of the rare performers to experience severe stage fright years after her career was established, so much so that she retired from show business completely, after two decades in the public eye, almost three decades before her death and at the height of her husband and partner's fame.


title: Mary Livingstone

text: Livingstone was born Sadya Marcowitz in Seattle, Washington, but raised in Vancouver, British Columbia. Her father, David Marcowitz (or Markowitz), was a prosperous Jewish scrap metal dealer from Romania. Her mother was Esther Wagner Marcowitz. They changed their surname to Marks several years after Sadya was born. Livingstone's brother, Hilliard Marks, was a radio and television producer who worked primarily for his future brother-in-law, Jack Benny.


title: Mary Livingstone

text: Livingstone first met her future husband, Jack Benny, in Vancouver at a Passover seder in her family home in 1922, when Benny was playing the Orpheum Theatre. Benny accompanied his friend Zeppo (b. Herbert) Marx.


title: Mary Livingstone

text: Zeppo Marx took Benny to the home of David Marks, where they enjoyed a quiet and comfortable gathering. Marks's youngest daughter, Sadie (her name was anglicized), was very impressed by this comedian who played a violin as part of his act. By her own testimony she made up her mind that she would grow up and marry Jack Benny someday."– "American National Biography"


title: Mary Livingstone

text: Livingstone's birth name was anglicized from Marcovitz, not from Marx. Despite the two families' acquaintance, Livingstone was unrelated to the Marx Brothers.


title: Mary Livingstone

text: In 1925, aged 20, Sadie visited California with her family while Jack Benny was in the same town for a show. Still nursing a small crush on the comedian, Sadie went to the theater to re-introduce herself to him. As he approached her in a hallway, she smiled and said, "Hello, Mr. Benny, I'm..." But he curtly cut her off with a "hello" and continued on his way down the hall without pausing; she learned much later that when Benny was deep in thought about his work, it was nearly impossible to get his attention.


title: Mary Livingstone

text: They met again a year later, while she was said to be working as a lingerie salesgirl at a May Company department store in downtown Los Angelesand the couple finally began dating. Invited on a double-date by a friend who had married Sadie's sister, Babe, Benny brought Sadie along to keep him company. This time, the couple clicked: Jack was finally smitten with Sadie and asked her on another date. She turned him down at first, as she was seeing another young man, but Benny persisted. He visited her at the May Company almost daily and was reputed to buy so much ladies' hosiery from her that he helped her set a sales record; he also called her several times a day when on the road.


title: Mary Livingstone

text: Jack Benny married Mary Livingstone January 14, 1927, at the Clayton Hotel in Waukegan, Illinois, one week after proposing.


title: Mary Livingstone

text: Livingstone's brother, Hilliard Marks, was a radio and television producer who worked primarily for his brother-in-law, Jack Benny.


title: Mary Livingstone

text: Benny and Livingstone adopted a two-week old girl in 1934, whom they named Joanie. In "Sunday Nights at Seven" (1990), her father's unfinished memoir that she completed with her own recollections, Joan Benny revealed she rarely felt close to her mother, and the two often argued:She had so many good qualitiesher sense of humor, her generosity, her loyalty to her friends. She had a famous, successful, and adoring husband; she had famous, interesting, and amusing friends; she lived in luxury; she was a celebrity in her own right. In short, she had everything a woman could possibly want. When I think of her it's with sadness because I wish she could have enjoyed it all more.Lucille Ball referred to Livingstone as a "hard-hearted Hannah", and that she overly exerted control of her husband's life. George Burns, one of Jack Benny's closest friends, was not particularly fond of Livingstone. He believed that she intimidated her husband and was running his life. He also believed that Livingstone lacked talent."Mary wasn't a bad person, she was just difficult, a little jealous and insecure. She didn't want to have better things than her friends had, particularly Gracie; she wanted to have the same things, but more of them. And bigger."Ostensibly Livingstone's best friend, Burns's wife Gracie Allen confided to a friend that "Mary Benny and I are supposed to be dearest of friends, but we're not. I love Jack and I can tolerate Mary, but there are some things about her I don't like". Allen went on to describe Livingstone's desire to one-up any purchase of luxury items. Burns noted that while their circle of friends found Livingstone challenging, there was also a sense of fierce loyalty between them.


title: Mary Livingstone

text: Sadie took part in some of Jack's vaudeville performances but never thought of herself as a full-time performer, seeming glad to be done with it when he moved to radio in 1932. Then came the day he called her at home and asked her to come to the studio quickly. An actress hired to play a part on the evening's show didn't show up and, instead of risking a hunt for a substitute, Benny thought his wife could handle the part: a character named Mary Livingstone scripted as Benny's biggest fan.


title: Mary Livingstone

text: At first, it seemed like a brief role; she played the part on that night's and the following week's show before being written out of the scenario. But NBC received so much fan mail that the character was revived into a regular feature on the Benny show, and the reluctant Sadie Marks became a radio star in her own right. Livingstone underwent a change, too, from fan to tart secretary-foil; the character occasionally went on dates with Benny's character but they were rarely implied to be truly romantically involved otherwise. The lone known exceptions were a fantasy sequence used on both the radio and television versions of the show, as well as during an NBC musical tribute to Benny, in which Mary admitted to being "Mrs. Benny".


title: Mary Livingstone

text: Livingstone's "chiss sweeze sandwich" order in a lunch counter sketch was referred to for several years afterwards (episode 333; October 27, 1946). Another flubbed line was "How could you possibly hit a car when it was up on the grease rack?" Instead, she asked, "How could you possibly hit a car when it was up on the grass reek?" The following week, Benny devoted much of the show to poking fun at the tongue twister, chastising her for using the made-up phrase "grass reek". But Jack got his comeuppance later in the show, when the show's guest, the real-life Beverly Hills police chief, was talking about the strange call the department got the night before: two skunks fighting on someone's lawn. "And let me tell you," he said, "when they were done, did that grass reek!" Mary then took great satisfaction out of making Jack admit to the millions of listeners that "grass reek" did exist ("...Boy did that grease rack!" "That's "grass reek!"" ""Well make up your mind!""). It was also mentioned in a later show when, while Christmas shopping, Mary notices a toy gas station and says that it "even has a grease rack". This was a typical example of Benny's and Livingstone's (and the show's writers') ability to improvise comedy from un-scripted errors.


title: Mary Livingstone

text: Mary's trademark gag on the radio show, other than beleaguering Benny, was to read letters from her mother (who lived in Plainfield, New Jersey), usually beginning with "My darling daughter Mary...". The letters often included comical stories about Mary's (fictional) sister Babesimilar to Sadie's real sister Babe in name onlywho was so masculine she played as a linebacker for the Green Bay Packers and worked in steel mills and coal mines, or their ne'er-do-well father, who always seemed to be a half-step ahead of the law. Mother Livingstone, naturally enough, detested Benny and was forever advising her daughter to quit his employ.


title: Mary Livingstone

text: Never very comfortable as a performer despite her success, Livingstone's stage fright became so acute by the time the Benny show was moving toward television that she rarely appeared on the radio show in its final season, 1954–55. When she did appear, the Bennys' adopted daughter, Joan, occasionally acted as a stand-in for her mother, or Mary's lines were read in rehearsals by Jack's script secretary, Jeanette Eyman, while Livingstone's prerecorded lines were played during live broadcasts.


title: Mary Livingstone

text: Livingstone made few appearances on the television versionmostly in filmed episodesand finally retired from show business after her close friend Gracie Allen did so in 1958. Her Washington Post obituary quoted Livingstone about her stage fright: "It ended up with every Sunday night being the most torturous day of the week," she once said. "TV was even harder; every week became a nightmare. I finally just told Jack I was going to quit or I was going to die."


title: Mary Livingstone

text: One of her final performances was as a mouse spoof of herself in "The Mouse That Jack Built", a "Merrie Melodies" cartoon from 1959 lampooning the radio show. Her final performance as Mary Livingstone came on Benny's 1970 "20th Anniversary Special". When introducing her to the audience, Benny noted that it was her first time performing in fifteen years and the pre-recorded segment made references to her performance anxiety.


title: Mary Livingstone

text: After writing a biography of her husband, Livingstonewhose surname is often misspelled without the 'e', as with her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contribution to radiodied from heart disease at her home in Holmby Hills on June 30, 1983, five days after her 78th birthday, though several outlets reported her age as 77.


title: Fugger family

text: The House of Fugger () is a German upper bourgeois family that was historically a prominent group of European bankers, members of the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century mercantile patriciate of Augsburg, international mercantile bankers, and venture capitalists. Alongside the Welser family, the Fugger family controlled much of the European economy in the sixteenth century and accumulated enormous wealth. The Fuggers held a near monopoly on the European copper market.


title: Fugger family

text: This banking family replaced the Medici family, who influenced all of Europe during the Renaissance. The Fuggers took over many of the Medicis' assets and their political power and influence. They were closely affiliated with the House of Habsburg whose rise to world power they financed. Unlike the citizenry of their hometown and most other trading patricians of German free imperial cities, such as the Tuchers, they never converted to Lutheranism, as presented in the Augsburg Confession, but rather remained with the Roman Catholic Church and thus close to the Habsburg emperors.


title: Fugger family

text: Jakob Fugger ""the Rich"" was elevated to the nobility of the Holy Roman Empire in May 1511 and assumed the title Imperial Count of Kirchberg and Weissenhorn in 1514. Today, he is considered to be one of the wealthiest people ever to have lived, with an GDP-adjusted net worth of over $400 billion, and approximately 2% of the entire GDP of Europe at the time. While the company was dissolved in 1657, the Fuggers remained wealthy landowners and ruled the County of Kirchberg and Weissenhorn. The Babenhausen branch became Princes of the Holy Roman Empire in 1803, while the Glött branch of the family became Princes in Bavaria in 1914.


title: Fugger family

text: The founder of the family was Hans Fugger, a weaver at Graben, near the Swabian Free City of Augsburg. The last name was originally spelled "Fucker" – the first recorded reference to the family comes when Johann's son, also named Johann (or Hans), moves to Augsburg in 1367, with the local tax register laconically noting "Fucker advenit", "Fugger has arrived". He married Klara Widolf and became an Augsburg citizen. After Klara's death, he married Elizabeth Gattermann. He joined the weaver's guild, and by 1396 he was ranked high in the list of taxpayers. He added the business of a merchant to that of a weaver.


title: Fugger family

text: His eldest son, Andreas Fugger, was a merchant in the weaving trade, and was nicknamed "Fugger the Rich" after buying land and other properties. The Fugger family itemized and inventoried a large number of Asian rugs, an unusual undertaking at the time. Andreas's son, Lukas Fugger, was granted arms by the Emperor Frederick III, a golden deer on a blue background, and he was soon nicknamed "the Fugger of the Deer". He was too ambitious, however, and went bankrupt. His descendants served their cousins of the famous younger branch and later went to Silesia. Contemporary members of the Fugger of the Deer ("German:" Fugger vom Reh) are descendants of Matthäus Fugger (1442–1489/92). The current head of the family is Markus Fugger von dem Rech (born 1970).


title: Fugger family

text: Hans Fugger's younger son, Jakob the Elder, founded another branch of the family. This branch progressed more steadily and they became known as the "Fuggers of the Lily" after their chosen arms of a flowering lily on a gold and blue background. Jakob was a master weaver, a merchant, and an alderman. He married Barbara Basinger, the daughter of a goldsmith. His fortune progressed, and by 1461, he was the twelfth richest man in Augsburg. He died in 1469.


title: Fugger family

text: Jakob's eldest son, Ulrich, took over the business on his father's death, and in 1473 he provided new suits of clothes to Frederick, his son Maximilian I, and his suite on their journey to Trier to meet Charles the Bold of Burgundy and the betrothal of the young prince to Charles's daughter Maria. Thus began a very profitable relationship between the Fugger family and the Habsburgs.


title: Fugger family

text: With the help of their brother in Rome, Marx, Ulrich and his brother George handled remittances to the papal court of monies for the sale of indulgences and the procuring of church benefices. From 1508 to 1515 they leased the Roman mint. Ulrich died in 1510.


title: Fugger family

text: When the Fuggers made their first loan to the Archduke Sigismund in 1487, they took as security an interest in silver and copper mines in the Tirol. This was the beginning of an extensive family involvement in mining and precious metals. The Fuggers also participated in mining operations in Silesia, and owned copper mines in Hungary. Their trade in spices, wool, and silk extended to almost all parts of Europe.


title: Fugger family

text: Ulrich's youngest brother Jakob Fugger, born in 1459, was to become the most famous member of the dynasty. In 1498 he married Sibylla Artzt, Grand Burgheress to Augsburg, the daughter of an eminent Grand Burgher of Augsburg (German "Großbürger zu Augsburg"). They had no children, but this marriage gave Jakob the opportunity to elevate to Grand Burgher of Augsburg and later allowed him to pursue a seat on the city council () of Augsburg. He was elevated to the nobility of the Holy Roman Empire in May 1511, made Imperial Count in 1514, and in 1519 led a consortium of German and Italian businessmen that loaned Charles V 850,000 florins (about 95,625 oz(t) or 2974 kg of gold) to procure his election as Holy Roman Emperor over Francis I of France. The Fuggers' contribution was 543,000 florins.


title: Fugger family

text: In 1494, the Fuggers established their first public company. Jakob's aim was to establish a copper monopoly by opening foundries in Hohenkirchen and Fuggerau (named for the family, in Carinthia) and by expanding the sales organization in Europe, especially the Antwerp agency. Jakob leased the copper mines in Besztercebánya in the Kingdom of Hungary (today Banská Bystrica, Slovakia) in 1495, eventually making them the greatest mining centre of the time.


title: Fugger family

text: At the height of his power Jakob Fugger was sharply criticized by his contemporaries, especially by Ulrich von Hutten and Martin Luther, for selling indulgences and benefices and urging the Pope to rescind or amend the prohibition on the levying of interest. The imperial fiscal and governmental authorities in Nuremberg brought action against him and other merchants in an attempt to halt their monopolistic practices.


title: Fugger family

text: In 1511, Jakob deposited 15,000 florins as an endowment for some almshouses. In 1514, he bought up part of Augsburg and in 1516 came to an agreement with the city that he would build and provide a number of almshouses for needy citizens. By 1523, 52 houses had been built, and the Fuggerei had come into existence. It is still used today.


title: Fugger family

text: Jakob died in 1525. He is considered to be one of the richest persons of all time, and today he is well known as Jakob Fugger "the rich". At its peak his wealth is estimated to be 2% of Europe's GDP


title: Fugger family

text: Jakob's successor was his nephew Anton Fugger, son of his elder brother Georg. Anton was born in 1493, married Anna Rehlinger, and died in 1560.


title: Fugger family

text: In 1525, the Fuggers were granted the revenues from the Spanish orders of knighthood together with the profits from mercury and silver mines. The formerly rich yield of the Tirolean and Hungarian mines decreased, but Anton established new trade ties with Peru and Chile and started mining ventures in Sweden and Norway. He was involved in the slave trade from Africa to America, but was more successful in the spice trade and the importation of Hungarian cattle. Eventually, he was forced to renounce the Maestrazgo lease after 1542 and to give up the silver mines of Guadalcanal.


title: Fugger family

text: After hard times under Anton's nephew and successor Johann Jakob, Anton's oldest son, Markus, carried on the business successfully, earning some 50,000,000 ducats between 1563 and 1641 from the production of mercury at Almadén alone, but the Fugger company was completely dissolved after the Thirty Years' War when Leopold Fugger returned the mines in Tyrol to the Habsburgs in 1657.


title: Fugger family

text: The burial chapel of the Fuggers in St. Anne's Church, Augsburg of 1509 is the earliest example of Renaissance architecture in Germany.


title: Fugger family

text: Anselm Maria Fugger von Babenhausen (1766–1821) was created Prince of the Holy Roman Empire in 1803. The present head of this branch is Prince Hubertus "Fugger von Babenhausen" who owns Jakob the Rich's former business seat, the Fuggerhäuser in Augsburg, as well as nearby Wellenburg Castle and the castle at Babenhausen, Bavaria (purchased by Anton Fugger in 1539 and today housing a museum on the family history); he is also co-owner of a small private bank, the Fürst Fugger Privatbank, in Augsburg.


title: Fugger family

text: The branch "Fugger von Glött", descendants of Johann Ernst, a great-grandson of Anton, was elevated to the rank of a Bavarian prince in 1914 with Carl Ernst Fürst Fugger von Glött; the branch ended in the male line with his son Joseph-Ernst Fürst Fugger von Glött (1895–1981),husband of Princess Stephanie of Hohenzollern (1895-1975), his estate including the castle at Kirchheim in Schwaben (acquired in 1551 by Anton Fugger) being inherited by his sister Maria's (1894–1935) son, Albert Count von Arco-Zinneberg (b. 1932), whom he adopted, and who took on the name Fugger von Glött.


title: Fugger family

text: The comital branch "Fugger von Kirchberg und zu Weissenhorn" is today represented by countess Maria-Elisabeth von Thun und Hohenstein, née countess Fugger, heiress of Kirchberg Castle at Illerkirchberg (bought in 1507 by Jakob Fugger). She also heads the charitable family foundations including the Fuggerei in Augsburg and Welden monastery.


title: Fugger family

text: In April 2019, Dutch maritime investigators unearthed a 16th-century shipwreck during an exploration for container ship MSC Zoe which lost containers overboard in January 2019. Copper plates with emblem of the Fugger family were found in the ship built around 1540 in the Netherlands during the reign of Charles V.


title: Elk Grove, California

text: Elk Grove is a city in Sacramento County, California, located just south of the state capital of Sacramento. It is part of the Sacramento–Arden-Arcade–Roseville Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2020 Census, the population of the city was 176,124. A 2021 Census estimate puts the population of the city at 178,997. Elk Grove has many wineries, wine cellars, and vineyards. Elk Grove was the fastest-growing city in the U.S. between July 1, 2004, and July 1, 2005, and is also presently the second-largest city in Sacramento County by population.


title: Elk Grove, California

text: The City of Elk Grove became the first city in California to be incorporated in the 21st century. It is a general law city with a council/manager form of government. One of Elk Grove's largest employers is the Elk Grove Unified School District, which is the city's second largest employer.


title: Elk Grove, California

text: Spanish explorer Gabriel Moraga entered the region in 1808, naming the valley "Sacramento Valley" in honor of "Sacramento," the Holy Sacrament in Spanish, giving the northerly city of Sacramento its name. A writer on Moraga's expedition wrote of the region:


title: Elk Grove, California

text: "Canopies of oaks and cottonwoods, many festooned with grapevines, overhung both sides of the blue current. Birds chattered in the trees and big fish darted through the pellucid depths. The air was like champagne, and (the Spaniards) drank deep of it, drank in the beauty around them."


title: Elk Grove, California

text: Elk Grove was founded in 1850 as a stage stop for travelers coming from Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay Area, when the Elk Grove Hotel and Stage Stop was opened by James Hall and the town was named after it. In 1868 the Western Division of the Central Pacific Railroad came through about a mile east of Elk Grove. At this new location another hotel was built to accommodate travelers and was named the Elk Grove Hotel.


title: Elk Grove, California

text: In the following decades, Elk Grove remained a small farming community with little urban development. In the late 1980s, suburban development projects began to spring up around the community, specifically in the north near Sacramento. These were meant to serve Sacramento's population, as well as San Francisco commuters seeking a commuting community relatively near the San Francisco Bay Area where they could reside. Such changes triggered a period of rapid growth. On July 1, 2000, Elk Grove incorporated as a city. The city's growth peaked in 2004 and 2005, when Elk Grove was declared the fastest growing city in the US.


title: Elk Grove, California

text: Apple Inc. manufactured its iMac line in Elk Grove as late as 2002. After many of those tasks were offshored in 2004, the facility was converted into the modern Apple Elk Grove campus. In 2018, Apple invested $4.2 million into expanding the office space, expanding its already established AppleCare support presence in the region.


title: Elk Grove, California

text: Elk Grove residents boasts the 2nd highest household median income in the Sacramento region at $112,737.


title: Elk Grove, California

text: The Elk Grove Unified School District is the fifth largest school district in California and one of the fastest growing school districts in the nation. It also consistently ranks among the top school districts in the state. Located in southern Sacramento County, the district covers , one-third of the county. For the 2002–03 school year, the district served more than 52,500 students, and grew to 62,767 students in the 2016–2017 school year. Those students attend 40 elementary schools, 9 middle schools, 9 high schools and 7 alternative high schools.


title: Elk Grove, California

text: There are also several private schools in town. A local community college, Cosumnes River College, offers both career training and a transfer program to four-year universities, such as the CSU system and UC system across the state of California. Located nearby are California State University, Sacramento and the University of California, Davis. Elk Grove is also the home of the private six-year Universalist college Quest Seminary. In 2013, California Northstate University College of Pharmacy, which offers a Doctor of Pharmacy degree program, relocated to Elk Grove (near Interstate 5).


title: Elk Grove, California

text: Elk Grove is 5 – 10 miles south of the state capital in Sacramento and experiences a hot-summer Mediterranean climate (Köppen Csa) with hot summers and cool winters. Summers are moderated by a cool Pacific Ocean breeze also known as the "delta breeze" which comes through the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta from the San Francisco Bay.


title: Elk Grove, California

text: The Elk Grove Public Library is located at 8900 Elk Grove Boulevard in a modern two-story building. It moved to this location in 2008 from its old building one block east. The library is part of the broader Sacramento Public Library system. The Elk Grove Library also serves neighboring communities such as Vineyard, Wilton, Sloughhouse, and Rancho Murieta.


title: Elk Grove, California

text: Beginning in 2012, voters elect the mayor for a two-year term. Prior to 2012, the mayor's position was a one-year term and was chosen by the city council. The remaining four positions on the city council are elected by districts to four-year terms.


title: Elk Grove, California

text: On November 8, 2016, Steve Ly became the second one directly elected mayor following Gary Davis. He is the first ethnic Hmong mayor in the United States, having come here at the age of four with his family as refugees from Laos after the end of the Vietnam War. Currently, Bobbie Singh-Allen sits as mayor defeating Ly in the 2020 election following Ly's controversial tenure. The remaining councilmembers are Darren Suen (District 1), Pat Hume (District 2), Kevin Spease (District 3) and Stephanie Nguyen (District 4).


title: Elk Grove, California

text: The Cosumnes Community Services District is the largest Community Services District in California and provides parks and recreation services and fire protection services in Elk Grove. Located in southern Sacramento County, the district covers .The board of directors is the governing body of the district and is composed of five duly-elected or appointed residents. At the beginning of each year, the board selects from its members a president and vice-president to serve during the ensuing year.


title: Elk Grove, California

text: In March 2020, an EGPD officer was fired and a sergeant resigned after videos of a police officer kicking a shoplifting suspect in the face were released. The officer, Bryan Wayne Schmidt, was convicted of felony assault by a Sacramento Superior Court on March 14, 2022.


title: Elk Grove, California

text: In December 2021, a lawsuit was filed which alleges that Sgt. Gabriel Ramos coerced a single mother into sex, threatening action against her son if she would not comply.


title: Elk Grove, California

text: Elk Grove is serviced by a fared bus system called E-tran that traverses many of the city's main routes.


title: Elk Grove, California

text: Cosumnes Community Services District owns and operates over 100 parks in Elk Grove, including Emerald Lakes Golf Course.


title: Elk Grove, California

text: There are plans for SacRT to expand its light rail system two miles south from Cosumnes River College to Elk Grove Boulevard, however these plans for a new light-rail station are currently in the planning phase.


title: Elk Grove, California

text: Amtrak California "San Joaquin" intercity rail and Altamont Corridor Express commuter rail were expected to be brought directly to Elk Grove in 2021, on the existing rail line which extends from Marysville in the north to Stockton in the south. However, that project has been delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing wildfires throughout the state.


title: Sravanthi Ravi Kishore

text: Sravanthi Ravi Kishore is an Indian film producer known for his works in Telugu cinema. He owns the film production company "Sri Sravanthi Movies", known for presenting hit romantic comedy films. Red was his 30th film production venture, while he had also dubbed 4 films from Tamil into Telugu. He won Nandi Award for Second Best Feature Film - Silver for Nuvve Nuvve (2002)


title: Traditional healers of Southern Africa

text: Traditional healers of Southern Africa are practitioners of traditional African medicine in Southern Africa. They fulfill different social and political roles in the community, including divination, healing physical, emotional and spiritual illnesses, directing birth or death rituals, finding lost cattle, protecting warriors, counteracting witchcraft, and narrating the history, cosmology, and concepts of their tradition. There are two main types of traditional healers within the Nguni, Sotho-Tswana, and Tsonga societies of Southern Africa: the diviner ("sangoma"), and the herbalist ("inyanga"). These healers are effectively South African shamans who are highly revered and respected in a society where illness is thought to be caused by witchcraft, pollution (contact with impure objects or occurrences) or through neglect of the ancestors. It is estimated that there are as many as 200,000 traditional healers in South Africa compared to 25,000 doctors trained in bio-medical medicine. Traditional healers are consulted by approximately 60% of the South African population, usually in conjunction with modern biomedical services. =


title: Traditional healers of Southern Africa

text: For harmony between the living and the dead, vital for a trouble-free life, traditional healers believe that the ancestors must be shown respect through ritual and animal sacrifice. They perform summoning rituals by burning plants like "imphepho" ("Helichrysum petiolare"), dancing, chanting, channelling or playing drums. Traditional healers will often give their patients "muti"—medications made from plant, animal and minerals—imbued with spiritual significance. These muthi often have powerful symbolism; for example, lion fat might be prepared for children to promote courage. There are medicines for everything from physical and mental illness, social disharmony and spiritual difficulties to potions for protection, love and luck.


title: Traditional healers of Southern Africa

text: Although "sangoma" is a Zulu term that is colloquially used to commonly describe all types of Southern African traditional healers, there are differences between practices: an inyanga is concerned mainly with medicines made from plants and animals, while a sangoma relies primarily on divination for healing purposes and might also be considered a type of fortune teller. In modern times, colonialism, urbanisation, apartheid and transculturation have blurred the distinction between the two and traditional healers tend to practice both arts. Traditional healers can alternate between these roles by diagnosing common illnesses, selling and dispensing remedies for medical complaints, and divining cause and providing solutions to spiritually or socially centred complaints.


title: Traditional healers of Southern Africa

text: Each culture has their own terminology for their traditional healers. Xhosa traditional healers are known as "amaxwele" (herbalists) or "amagqirha" (diviners). "Ngaka" and "selaoli" are the terms in Northern Sotho and Southern Sotho respectively, while among the Venda they are called "mungome". The Tsonga refer to their healers as "n'anga" or "mungoma".


title: Traditional healers of Southern Africa

text: A sangoma is a practitioner of "ngoma", a philosophy based on a belief in ancestral spirits (siSwati: "amadloti"; Zulu: "amadlozi"; Sesotho: "badimo"; Xhosa: "izinyanya") and the practice of traditional African medicine, which is often a mix of medicinal plants and various animal body fats or skin. Sangomas perform a holistic and symbolic form of healing by drawing on the embedded beliefs of the Bantu peoples in South Africa, who believe that ancestors in the afterlife guide and protect the living. Sangomas are called to heal, and through them it is believed that ancestors from the spirit world can give instruction and advice to heal illness, social disharmony and spiritual difficulties. Traditional healers work in a sacred healing hut or "indumba", where they believe their ancestors reside. Where no physical 'indumba' is available, a makeshift miniature sacred place called "imsamo" can be used.


title: Traditional healers of Southern Africa

text: Sangomas believe they are able to access advice and guidance from their ancestors for their patients through spirit possession by an ancestor, or mediumship, throwing bones, or by dream interpretation. In possession states, the sangoma works themself into a trance through drumming, dancing and chanting, and allows their ego to step aside for an ancestor to take possession of his or her body and communicate directly with the patient, or dancing fervently beyond their stated ability. The sangoma will provide specific information about the problems of the patient. Some sangomas speak to their patients through normal conversation, whilst others speak in tongues, or languages foreign to their patients, but all languages used by sangomas are indigenous Southern African languages depending on the specific ancestors being called upon. Not all sangomas follow the same rituals or beliefs.


title: Traditional healers of Southern Africa

text: Ancestral spirits can be the personal ancestors of the sangoma or the patient or they might be general ancestors associated with the geographic area or the community. It is believed that the spirits have the power to intervene in people's lives who work to connect the sangoma to the spirits that are acting in a manner to cause affliction. For example, a crab could be invoked as a mediator between the human world and the world of spirits because of its ability to move between the world of the land and the sea. Helping and harming spirits are believed to use the human body as a battleground for their own conflicts. By using ngoma, the sangoma believes they can create harmony between the spirits which is thought to bring an alleviation of the patient's suffering.


title: Traditional healers of Southern Africa

text: The sangoma may burn incense (like "impepho") or sacrifice animals to please the ancestral spirits. Snuff is also used to communicate with the ancestors through prayer.


title: Traditional healers of Southern Africa

text: A sangoma's goal in healing is to establish a balanced and harmless relationship between the afflicted patient and the spirits that are causing their illness or problem. The healer intercedes between the patient and the world of the dead in order to make restitution. This is generally performed through divination (throwing the bones or ancestral channeling), purification rituals, or animal sacrifice to appease the spirits through atonement.


title: Traditional healers of Southern Africa

text: Throwing the bones to access the advice of ancestors is an alternative practice to the exhausting ritual of possession by the ancestor. In a typical session, a patient will visit the sangoma and the sangoma must determine what the affliction is or the reason the patient has come to them for help. Before the throwing of the bones, the healer should first ask the name and surname of the patient; the healer then calls the ancestors by names, starting with his/her initiators' names, then his/hers, followed by the patient's ancestors names. The patient or diviner throws bones on the floor, which may include animal vertebrae, dominoes, dice, coins, shells and stones, each with a specific significance to human life. For example, a hyena bone signifies a thief and will provide information about stolen objects. The sangoma or the patient throws the bones but the ancestors control how they lie. The sangoma then interprets this metaphor in relation to the patient's afflictions, what the ancestors of the patient require, and how to resolve the disharmony. In the same way, sangomas will interpret metaphors present in dreams, either their own or their patients.


title: Traditional healers of Southern Africa

text: When the diviner comes to an acceptable understanding of the problem and the patient agrees, the diviner then needs to again throw the bones to ask the ancestors if he/she could help the patient. Depending on the feedback from the bones he/she will instruct the patient on a course of medicine which may include the use of ngoma, referral to a herbalist, inyanga (if the sangoma does not have the knowledge themselves), or recommend a Western medicine regimen.


title: Traditional healers of Southern Africa

text: The spiritually curative medicines prescribed by a traditional healer are called "muthi". They may be employed in healing as warranted in the opinion of the herbal specialist or inyanga. Muthi is a term derived from a Zulu word for tree. African traditional medicine makes extensive use of botanical products but the medicine prescribed by an inyanga may also include other formulations which are zoological or mineral in composition. Traditional medicine uses approximately 3,000 out of 30,000 species of higher plants of Southern Africa. Over 300 species of plants have been identified as having psychoactive healing effects on the nervous system, many of which need further cultural and scientific study In South African English and Afrikaans, the word muthi is sometimes used as a slang term for medicine in general.


title: Traditional healers of Southern Africa

text: Muthis are prepared, and depending on the affliction, a number of purification practices can be administered "Ukuzila" Fasting one of the most important thing to do in preparing muthi and healing. These practices include bathing, vomiting, steaming, nasal ingestion, enemas, and cuttings:


title: Traditional healers of Southern Africa

text: An experienced inyanga/Sangoma will generally seek the guidance of an ancestral spirit before embarking to find and collect muthi and you can also go to herbalists to ask for a certain plant/herb you need. The healer, through dreams or during prayers, believes they are advised of auspicious times for collecting the plants. In some cases, symbols and dreams are also interpreted to determine which particular plants to collect for a specific patient and where these plants are located, not in all cases as most traditional healers have their herbs stored in their huts("eNdumbeni"). The healer supplements the perceived advice from an ancestral spirit with their own knowledge, training and experience.


title: Traditional healers of Southern Africa

text: Both men and women can become traditional healers. A sangoma is believed to be "called" to heal through an initiation illness; symptoms involve psychosis, headaches, intractable stomach pain, shoulder, neck complaints, short breath, swollen feet and waist issues or illness that cannot be cured by conventional methods. These problems together must be seen by a sangoma as "thwasa" or the calling of the ancestors. Sangomas believe that failure to respond to the calling will result in further illness until the person concedes and goes to be trained. The word "thwasa" is derived from "thwasa" which means 'the light of the new moon' or from "ku mu thwasisa" meaning 'to be led to the light'.


title: Traditional healers of Southern Africa

text: A trainee sangoma (or "ithwasane") trains formally under another sangoma for a period of anywhere between a number of months and many years. The training involves learning humility to the ancestors, purification through steaming, washing in the blood of sacrificed animals, and the use of muti, medicines with spiritual significance. The ithwasa may not see their families during training and must abstain from sexual contact and often live under harsh and strict conditions. This is part of the cleansing process to prepare the healer for a life's work of dedication to healing and the intense experiences of training tend to earn a deeply entrenched place in the sangoma's memory.


title: Traditional healers of Southern Africa

text: During the training period the ithwasa will share their ailments in the form of song and dance, a process that is nurtured by the analysis of dreams, anxieties, and with prayer. The story develops into a song which becomes a large part of the graduation-type ceremony that marks the end of the ukuthwasa training. At times in the training, and for the graduation, a ritual sacrifice of an animal is performed (usually chickens and a goat or a cow).


title: Traditional healers of Southern Africa

text: At the end of ukuthwasa and during initiation, early hours of the morning a goat that will be slaughtered should be a female one, that's for "Umguni", the second one will be slaughtered the following morning after the chickens, which are sacrificed at the river "Abamdzawo". All this sacrifices are to call to the ancestors and appease them. The local community, friends and family are all invited to the initiation to witness and celebrate the completion of training. The ithwasane is also tested by the local elder sangomas to determine whether they have the skills and insight necessary to heal. The climactic initiation test is to ensure the ithwasa has the ability to "see" things hidden from view. This is signified and proved when other sangomas hide the ithwasa's sacred objects, including the gall bladder of the goat that was sacrificed and the thwasane must, in front of the community, call upon their ancestors, find the hidden objects, which includes the skin of the goat, "Umgamase", the ancestors clothes and return them back to the sangomas that hid them, thus proving they have the ability to "see" beyond the physical world. The heading practice is also done at night after taking off all those traditional clothing you had worn all day, they hide them for that thwasane to look for them again. The graduation ceremony takes three days from Friday to Sunday, the early hours of the morning the thwasane needs to sweep the whole yard, wash his/her clothes and also to bath at the river; he/she should return home when they are dry.


title: Traditional healers of Southern Africa

text: Sangoma can also literally mean 'person of the drum' or 'the drumming one' and drumming is an important part of summoning the ancestors. During times of celebration (e.g. at an Initiation) the possessed sangoma is called to dance and celebrate their ancestors. The sangoma will fall into trance (when in trance the Sangoma is not conscious of what is happening, so after that he/she will be told of the things he/she had said) where the ancestors will be channeled (which is signified in Zulu traditions by episodes of convulsive fits) followed by the singing of ancestral songs. These songs are echoed back to the ancestor via the audience in a process of call and response. The possessed sangoma will then change into their traditional ancestral clothing and dance vigorously while others drum and sing in celebration.


title: Traditional healers of Southern Africa

text: The Zulu word with prefix is "isangoma" (pl. "izangoma"), alternatively it is also spelled as "umngoma" (pl. "abangoma"), "sa ngoma" means 'do "ngoma" and "i sa ngoma" means "those who do "ngoma"", so "sangoma" or "isangoma" refers specifically to the practitioner of the "ngoma" practice.


title: Traditional healers of Southern Africa

text: The term sangoma is often used colloquially in South Africa for equivalent professions in other Bantu cultures in Southern Africa. Forms of the "ngoma" ritual are practiced throughout southern and south-eastern Africa in countries such as South Africa, Eswatini, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Lesotho, Kenya, and Batswana. In more northern areas the practices are generally more diverse and less organized than the southern practices. Among the Kongo, the practice is called "loka" or more negatively "doga", a term meaning witchcraft.


title: Traditional healers of Southern Africa

text: Ngoma is believed to have come to southern Africa during the western Bantu migration that began around 2000 BCE and was further influenced by the eastern Bantu migration that occurred until 500 CE. The practice has evolved along with the social problems of its users. In pre-colonial form ngoma songs dealt mainly with issues of hunting. Over time the system adapted to include the introduction of guns, and later the racial and class struggles of practitioners under colonial rule. In Zimbabwe, the civil war experience led to a revival of ngoma practice with a new emphasis on the spirits of the victims of war. The service allowed the sangoma to help people cope with their own violent acts as well as those they had fallen victim to. An example of this is the Tsonga who believe that one of the main alien spirits that can bestow powers of clairvoyance and the ability to detect witchcraft is the Ndau Spirit. The Ndau spirit possesses the descendants of the Gaza soldiers who had slain the Ndau and taken their wives. Once the Ndau spirit has been converted from hostile to benevolent forces, the spirits bestow the powers of divination and healing on the n'angna.


title: Traditional healers of Southern Africa

text: Sangomas are legally recognised in South Africa as "traditional health practitioners", under the "Traditional Health Practitioners Act of 2007 (Act. 22 of 2007)" as diviners alongside herbalists, traditional birth attendants, and traditional surgeons. The act calls for the establishment of a national council of traditional health practitioners to regulate and register a.o. sangomas in the country. However, it was only in December 2011 that the National Department of Health took action and opened nominations for seats on an interim council. In October 2012, Health Department spokesperson Joe Maila advised that the department aimed to have the council up and running by the end of 2012. The Interim Traditional Health Practitioners Council was eventually inaugurated on 12 February 2013. Several sections of the act, dealing with the establishment and governance of the national council and the registration of practitioners, came into effect on 1 May 2014.


title: Traditional healers of Southern Africa

text: Previously, the South African Parliament had passed the "Traditional Health Practitioners Act of 2004 (Act. 35 of 2004)". However, the act was ruled unconstitutional after Doctors for Life International challenged it at the Constitutional Court, citing the insufficient public participation at provincial level in the drafting of the act.


title: Traditional healers of Southern Africa

text: The South African Law Reform Commission received a submission from the Traditional Healers Organisation requesting the investigation of the constitutionality of the Witchcraft Suppression Act of 1957 and the Mpumalanga Witchcraft Suppression Bill of 2007, the drafting of which was suspended in 2008. On 23 March 2010 the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development approved a South African Law Reform Commission project to review witchcraft legislation. In March 2012 the South African Law Reform Commission advised that Ms Jennifer Joni has been designated as researcher and Judge Dennis Davis has been designated as project leader for Project 135: Review of witchcraft legislation. Dr Theodore Petrus, who completed a doctoral thesis on witchcraft-related crime in 2009, was invited to become part of an advisory committee to assist in the review.


title: Traditional healers of Southern Africa

text: While there are recorded instances of white sangomas before 1994, since 1994 an increasing number of white people have openly trained as sangomas in South Africa. The question of authenticity is still an ongoing discussion. According to Nokuzola Mndende of the Icamagu Institute, a Xhosa sangoma and former lecturer in religious studies at the University of Cape Town: Philip Kubekeli, director of the Traditional Medical Practitioners, Herbalist and Spiritual Healers Association, and Phephsile Maseko, spokesperson of the Traditional Healers Organisation, see nothing wrong with white sangomas. Kubekeli and Maseko maintain the position that traditional healing knows no colour.


title: Traditional healers of Southern Africa

text: Several white sangomas, interviewed by The Big Issue in 2010, claimed that they have been welcomed by the black community in South Africa, aside from isolated experiences of hostility. On the other hand, there have also been reports that white sangomas have been less readily accepted by black sangomas.


title: Traditional healers of Southern Africa

text: A number of the South African traditions (e.g. Swazi and Tsonga/Shangaan) believe that a foreign or alien spirit can call one to become a traditional healer, which they call "Abandzawo", especially if there is a significant extreme relationship between one of the healer's biological ancestors and the foreign spirit that occurred in the past. Dr Nhlavana Maseko, founder of the Traditional Healers Organisation, explains:


title: Traditional healers of Southern Africa

text: The formal health sector has shown continued interest in the role of sangomas and the efficacy of their herbal remedies. Botanists and pharmaceutical scientists continue to study the ingredients of traditional medicines in use by sangomas. Well known contributions to world medicine from South African herbal remedies include aloe, buchu and devil's claw. Public health specialists are now enlisting sangomas in the fight, not only against the spread of HIV/AIDS, but also diarrhoea and pneumonia, which are major causes of death in rural areas, especially in children. In the past decade, the role of traditional healers has become important in fighting the impact of HIV and treating people infected with the virus before they advance to a point where they require (or can obtain) anti-retroviral drugs. However, there are no traditional medicines in South Africa that have clinically been proven to be effective in the treatment of HIV/AIDS. A conclusion from a review by UNAIDS in September 2000, regarding collaboration with traditional healers in HIV/AIDS prevention and care, found that modern and traditional belief systems are not incompatible, but complementary.


title: Traditional healers of Southern Africa

text: While for many they provide the healing needed, there are some causes for concern. Charlatans who have not undergone thwasa charge exorbitant prices for fraudulent service, and not all countries in southern Africa have effective regulatory bodies to prevent this practice. Some sangomas have been known to abuse the charismatic power they have over their patients by sexually assaulting them, sometimes dressed up as ritual. Repeated use of the same razor blade to make incisions for muti carries HIV transmission risks in regions where the disease is rife. Western-style doctors have seen a number of cases of patients with serious gastrointestinal problems through the use of muti, especially in enema form, and have coined the phrase "ritual enema induced colitis" to describe the phenomenon.


title: Traditional healers of Southern Africa

text: The notion of traditional medicine has been exploited for financial gain by what are often called plastic shamans. In the Cape, they often adopt Muslim sounding names in order to attract the local Cape Coloured population, who are in part Muslim.


title: Traditional healers of Southern Africa

text: They advertise through flyers, posters and adverts that are commonly plastered on the streets and lamposts of cities throughout South Africa, especially in densely populated urban areas. The advertisements claim the ability to bring back lost lovers, potions to enlarge penises and spells that will make people rich or provide them with luck. Many people have lost significant amounts of money from scams, tricks and false promises that these charlatans use in their cons. Many women have significantly damaged their reproductive organs and the ability to reproduce, due to back street abortions.


title: Traditional healers of Southern Africa

text: Legitimate sangomas are angered by these charlatans and are working to end the trade of bogus traditional healers and fake sangomas through regulation, legal action and awareness. They believe the charlatans harm the reputation of the legitimate traditional healers and also damage the lives of many innocent people. As a general rule, sangomas tend not to advertise through flyers or posters. They tend to rely more on their reputation, word of mouth and their trust in their ancestors to bring them the right clients.


title: Traditional healers of Southern Africa

text: Dr Motlalepula Matsabisa, director of the Medical Research Council's Indigenous Knowledge Unit, says there appears to be many fake traditional healers around, however because of a lack of regulation, they go unchecked and explains that if anyone can bring about good luck and predict lotto numbers, they would not be poor themselves. However, he also warns that people should not be gullible.


title: Social season (United Kingdom)

text: The social season, or season, refers to the traditional annual period in the spring and summer when it is customary for members of the social elite of British society to hold balls, dinner parties and charity events. Until the First World War, it was also the appropriate time to be resident in the city (generally meaning London) rather than in the country in order to attend such events.


title: Social season (United Kingdom)

text: In modern times in the United Kingdom, "the Season" is known to encompass various prestigious events that take place during the spring and summer. According to "The Sloaney" magazine's online guide "Sloaney Season", it starts with Cheltenham Festival (March), and includes the Grand National (April), The Boat Race (April), Badminton Horse Trials (May), Chelsea Flower Show (May), Epsom Derby (June), Royal Ascot (June), Test matches at Lord's (July), Wimbledon (July), Henley Royal Regatta (July), Edinburgh International Festival (August) and others, ending with Goodwood Revival (September).


title: Social season (United Kingdom)

text: The London social season evolved in the 17th and 18th centuries, and in its traditional form it peaked in the 19th century. In this era the British elite was dominated by families of the nobility and landed gentry, who generally regarded their country house as their main home, but spent several months of the year in the capital to socialise and to engage in politics. The most exclusive events were held at the town mansions of leading members of the aristocracy. Exclusive public venues such as Almack's played a secondary role. The Season coincided with the sitting of parliament; it began some time after Christmas and ran until midsummer, roughly late June.


title: Social season (United Kingdom)

text: The social season played a role in the political life of the country: the members of the two Houses of Parliament were almost all participants in the season. But the Season also provided an opportunity for the children of marriageable age of the nobility and gentry to be launched into society. Debutantes were formally introduced into society by presentation to the monarch at royal court during the Court Drawing Rooms and Queen Charlotte's Ball until the practice was abolished by Queen Elizabeth II in 1958. Queen Charlotte's Ball ceased to function in 1976, but has been relaunched since, by former debutante Jennie Hallam-Peel, without the monarch's involvement, and with more limited uptake; debutantes instead curtsy to "Queen Charlotte's Birthday Cake".


title: Social season (United Kingdom)

text: The traditional Season went into decline after the First World War, when many aristocratic families gave up their London mansions. From then on, more society events took place at public venues, making it harder to maintain social exclusivity.


title: Social season (United Kingdom)

text: Many events that take place far from central London (though generally within the Home Counties) came to be regarded as part of the social season, including Royal Ascot and the Henley Royal Regatta. The events that now constitute the London social season are increasingly hosted or sponsored by large companies (i.e. "corporate hospitality"). Western dress codes still apply to certain events in the season, especially those in which the King maintains an official role.


title: Social season (United Kingdom)

text: Although several of these events are not actually held in London, such as the Hurlingham Polo Association at Guards Polo Club, the organisers of most events attempt to avoid date clashes, so it is generally possible to visit all of them in the same year.


title: Social season (United Kingdom)

text: The traditional end of the London Season is the Glorious Twelfth of August, which marks the beginning of the shooting season. Society would retire to the country to shoot birds during the autumn and hunt foxes during the winter before coming back to London again with the spring.


title: Social season (United Kingdom)

text: London is the capital of shops and of speculation, the government is made there. The aristocracy inscribes itself there only during sixty days, it there takes its orders, it inspects the government kitchen, it passes in review its daughters to marry, and equipages to sell, it says good-day and goes away promptly ; - it is so little amusing that it supports itself only for the few days called the season.


title: Dislocation

text: In materials science, a dislocation or Taylor's dislocation is a linear crystallographic defect or irregularity within a crystal structure that contains an abrupt change in the arrangement of atoms. The movement of dislocations allow atoms to slide over each other at low stress levels and is known as "glide" or slip. The crystalline order is restored on either side of a "glide dislocation" but the atoms on one side have moved by one position. The crystalline order is not fully restored with a "partial dislocation". A dislocation defines the boundary between "slipped" and "unslipped" regions of material and as a result, must either form a complete loop, intersect other dislocations or defects, or extend to the edges of the crystal. A dislocation can be characterised by the distance and direction of movement it causes to atoms which is defined by the Burgers vector. Plastic deformation of a material occurs by the creation and movement of many dislocations. The number and arrangement of dislocations influences many of the properties of materials.


title: Dislocation

text: The two primary types of dislocations are "sessile" dislocations which are immobile and "glissile" dislocations which are mobile. Examples of sessile dislocations are the "stair-rod" dislocation and the Lomer–Cottrell junction. The two main types of mobile dislocations are "edge" and "screw " dislocations.


title: Dislocation

text: Edge dislocations can be visualized as being caused by the termination of a plane of atoms in the middle of a crystal. In such a case, the surrounding planes are not straight, but instead bend around the edge of the terminating plane so that the crystal structure is perfectly ordered on either side. This phenomenon is analogous to half of a piece of paper inserted into a stack of paper, where the defect in the stack is noticeable only at the edge of the half sheet.


title: Dislocation

text: The theory describing the elastic fields of the defects was originally developed by Vito Volterra in 1907. In 1934, Egon Orowan, Michael Polanyi and G. I. Taylor, proposed that the low stresses observed to produce plastic deformation compared to theoretical predictions at the time could be explained in terms of the theory of dislocations.


title: Dislocation

text: The theory describing the elastic fields of the defects was originally developed by Vito Volterra in 1907. The term 'dislocation' referring to a defect on the atomic scale was coined by G. I. Taylor in 1934.


title: Dislocation

text: Prior to the 1930s, one of the enduring challenges of materials science was to explain plasticity in microscopic terms. A simplistic attempt to calculate the shear stress at which neighbouring atomic planes "slip" over each other in a perfect crystal suggests that, for a material with shear modulus formula_1, shear strength formula_2 is given approximately by:


title: Dislocation

text: The shear modulus in metals is typically within the range 20 000 to 150 000 MPa indicating a predicted shear stress of 3 000 to 24 000 MPa. This was difficult to reconcile with measured shear stresses in the range of 0.5 to 10 MPa.


title: Dislocation

text: In 1934, Egon Orowan, Michael Polanyi and G. I. Taylor, independently proposed that plastic deformation could be explained in terms of the theory of dislocations. Dislocations can move if the atoms from one of the surrounding planes break their bonds and rebond with the atoms at the terminating edge. In effect, a half plane of atoms is moved in response to shear stress by breaking and reforming a line of bonds, one (or a few) at a time. The energy required to break a row of bonds is far less than that required to break all the bonds on an entire plane of atoms at once. Even this simple model of the force required to move a dislocation shows that plasticity is possible at much lower stresses than in a perfect crystal. In many materials, particularly ductile materials, dislocations are the "carrier" of plastic deformation, and the energy required to move them is less than the energy required to fracture the material.


title: Dislocation

text: A dislocation is a linear crystallographic defect or irregularity within a crystal structure which contains an abrupt change in the arrangement of atoms. The crystalline order is restored on either side of a dislocation but the atoms on one side have moved or slipped. Dislocations define the boundary between slipped and unslipped regions of material and cannot end within a lattice and must either extend to a free edge or form a loop within the crystal. A dislocation can be characterised by the distance and direction of movement it causes to atoms in the lattice which is called the Burgers vector. The Burgers vector of a dislocation remains constant even though the shape of the dislocation may change.


title: Dislocation

text: A variety of dislocation types exist, with mobile dislocations known as "glissile" and immobile dislocations called "sessile". The movement of mobile dislocations allow atoms to slide over each other at low stress levels and is known as glide or slip. The movement of dislocations may be enhanced or hindered by the presence of other elements within the crystal and over time, these elements may diffuse to the dislocation forming a Cottrell atmosphere. The pinning and breakaway from these elements explains some of the unusual yielding behavior seen with steels. The interaction of hydrogen with dislocations is one of the mechanisms proposed to explain hydrogen embrittlement.


title: Dislocation

text: Dislocations behave as though they are a distinct entity within a crystalline material where some types of dislocation can move through the material bending, flexing and changing shape and interacting with other dislocations and features within the crystal. Dislocations are generated by deforming a crystalline material such as metals, which can cause them to initiate from surfaces, particularly at stress concentrations or within the material at defects and grain boundaries. The number and arrangement of dislocations give rise to many of the properties of metals such as ductility, hardness and yield strength. Heat treatment, alloy content and cold working can change the number and arrangement of the dislocation population and how they move and interact in order to create useful properties.


title: Dislocation

text: When metals are subjected to cold working (deformation at temperatures which are relatively low as compared to the material's absolute melting temperature, formula_4 i.e., typically less than formula_5) the dislocation density increases due to the formation of new dislocations. The consequent increasing overlap between the strain fields of adjacent dislocations gradually increases the resistance to further dislocation motion. This causes a hardening of the metal as deformation progresses. This effect is known as strain hardening or work hardening.


title: Dislocation

text: Dislocation density formula_6 in a material can be increased by plastic deformation by the following relationship:


title: Dislocation

text: Since the dislocation density increases with plastic deformation, a mechanism for the creation of dislocations must be activated in the material. Three mechanisms for dislocation formation are homogeneous nucleation, grain boundary initiation, and interfaces between the lattice and the surface, precipitates, dispersed phases, or reinforcing fibers.


title: Dislocation

text: The creation of a dislocation by "homogeneous nucleation" is a result of the rupture of the atomic bonds along a line in the lattice. A plane in the lattice is sheared, resulting in 2 oppositely faced half planes or dislocations. These dislocations move away from each other through the lattice. Since homogeneous nucleation forms dislocations from perfect crystals and requires the simultaneous breaking of many bonds, the energy required for homogeneous nucleation is high. For instance, the stress required for homogeneous nucleation in copper has been shown to be formula_8, where formula_1 is the shear modulus of copper (46 GPa). Solving for formula_10, we see that the required stress is 3.4 GPa, which is very close to the theoretical strength of the crystal. Therefore, in conventional deformation homogeneous nucleation requires a concentrated stress, and is very unlikely. Grain boundary initiation and interface interaction are more common sources of dislocations.


title: Dislocation

text: Irregularities at the grain boundaries in materials can produce dislocations which propagate into the grain. The steps and ledges at the grain boundary are an important source of dislocations in the early stages of plastic deformation.


title: Dislocation

text: The Frank–Read source is a mechanism that is able to produce a stream of dislocations from a pinned segment of a dislocation. Stress bows the dislocation segment, expanding until it creates a dislocation loop that breaks free from the source.