prompt_front: Answer the question based on the given passages. Only give me the answer and do not output any other words.

Question: In the King's Speech, who played the person who was the King of England in 1950?

The following are given passages.
Context 1: Passage 1:
Taylor King
Taylor Steven King (born May 30, 1988) is an American former professional basketball player   King played for the Duke Blue Devils, Villanova University Wildcats, and Concordia of the NAIA  where he played the forward position  King attended Mater Dei High School of Santa Ana, where he enjoyed a successful high school basketball career, posting the third highest career point total in California high school history with 3,216 points 

High school career
King established several school records while at Mater Dei: total career points (3,216), points in a single season (987 in 2007), career 3-pointers made (370), career rebounds (1,456) and rebounds in a single season (444 in 2006)  He participated in the ABCD Camp, a camp for the best high school players in the United States, in each of his 4 high school seasons (2003 to 2006) 

College career
King played for Duke his freshman year   He transferred to Villanova University following the spring 2008 semester   Per NCAA regulations, King did not compete in the 2008–09 season, but returned for the 2009–10 season, with three more years of collegiate eligibility 
During the summer of 2010, Taylor King left the Villanova men's basketball team for what a team spokesman said were "personal reasons " On August 11, 2010, it was announced that King had transferred to USC  However, shortly after, it was announced he would not be attending USC but actually the NAIA school Concordia 

Professional career
On October 21, 2011, it was announced that King had made the final 12-man roster for the National Basketball League of Canada's London Lightning   However, on January 17, the Lightning released him, leaving room for him to be signed by the Quebec Kebs on February 2 On September 17, 2014, King signed a one-year contract with Cheshire Phoenix of the British Basketball League, coached by John Coffino  
King made an instant impact, leading the league in scoring with an average of 20 1ppg in 33 games, which included a 36-point game against the Sheffield Sharks  King was also fifth in the league in rebounding, with an average of 9 5rpg 
After the 2017–18 season, King retired from basketball 
Passage 2:
The King's Speech
The King's Speech is a 2010 historical drama film directed by Tom Hooper and written by David Seidler  Colin Firth plays the future King George VI who, to cope with a stammer, sees Lionel Logue, an Australian speech and language therapist played by Geoffrey Rush  The men become friends as they work together, and after his brother abdicates the throne, the new king relies on Logue to help him make his first wartime radio broadcast upon Britain's declaration of war on Germany in 1939 
Seidler read about George VI's life after learning to manage a stuttering condition he developed during his own youth  He started writing about the relationship between the therapist and his royal patient as early as the 1980s, but at the request of the King's widow, Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, postponed work until her death in 2002  He later rewrote his screenplay for the stage to focus on the essential relationship between the two protagonists  Nine weeks before filming began, the filmmakers learned of the existence of notes written by Logue that were being used by his grandson Mark and Peter Conradi as the basis of a book, and were granted permission to incorporate material from the notes and book into the script 
Principal photography took place in London and around Britain from November 2009 to January 2010  Hard light was used to give the story a greater resonance and wider-than-normal lenses were employed to recreate the Duke of York's feelings of constriction  A third technique Hooper employed was the off-centre framing of characters 
The King's Speech was a major box office and critical success  It was widely praised by film critics for its visual style, art direction, screenplay, directing, score, and acting  Other commentators discussed the film's representation of historical detail, especially the reversal of Winston Churchill's opposition to abdication  The film received many awards and nominations, particularly for Colin Firth's performance, which resulted in his first Academy Award for Best Actor  At the 83rd Academy Awards, The King's Speech received 12 Oscar nominations, more than any other film in that year, and subsequently won four, including Best Picture  Censors initially gave it adult ratings due to profanity, though these were later revised downwards after criticism by the makers and distributors in the UK and some instances of swearing were muted in the US  On a budget of £8 million, it earned over £250 million internationally 

Plot
At the official closing of the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley Stadium, Prince Albert, Duke of York, the second son of King George V, addresses the crowd with a strong stammer  His search for treatment has been discouraging, but his wife, Elizabeth, persuades him to see the Australian-born Lionel Logue, a non-medically trained Harley Street speech defects therapist  "Bertie", as he is called by his family, believes the first session is not going well, but Lionel, who insists that all his patients address him as such, has his potential client recite Hamlet's "To be, or not to be" soliloquy while hearing classical music played on a pair of headphones  Bertie is frustrated at the experiment but Lionel gives him the acetate recording that he has made of the reading as a souvenir 
After Bertie's father, King George V, broadcasts his 1934 Royal Christmas Message, he explains to Bertie that the wireless will play a significant part in the role of the royal family, allowing them to enter the homes of the people, and that Bertie's brother's neglect of his responsibilities make training in it necessary  The attempt at reading the message himself is a failure, but that night Bertie plays the recording Lionel gave him and is astonished at the lack of stutter there  He therefore returns for daily treatments to overcome the physical and psychological roots of his speaking difficulty 
George V dies in 1936, and his eldest son David ascends the throne as King Edward VIII  A constitutional crisis arises with the new king over a prospective marriage with the twice-divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson  Edward, as the supreme governor of the Church of England, cannot marry her, even if she receives her second divorce, since both her previous husbands are alive 
At an unscheduled session, Bertie expresses his frustration that, while his speech has improved when speaking to most people, he still stammers when talking to David, at the same time revealing the extent of Edward VIII's folly with Simpson  When Lionel insists that Bertie himself could make a good king, Bertie accuses Lionel of speaking treason and quits Lionel in anger  Bertie must now face the Accession Council without any assistance 
Bertie and Lionel only come together again after King Edward decides to abdicate in order to marry  Bertie, urged ahead by Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, ascends the throne as King George VI and visits Lionel's home with his wife before their coronation, much to the surprise of Mrs  Logue when she comes upon Queen Elizabeth having tea at her dining room table  This is the first time that she learns who her husband's patient has been 
Bertie and Lionel's relationship is questioned by the King's advisors during the preparations for his coronation in Westminster Abbey  The archbishop of Canterbury, Cosmo Gordon Lang, brings to light that George never asked for advice from his advisors about his treatment and that Lionel has never had formal training   Lionel explains to an outraged Bertie that at the time he started with speech defects there were no formal qualifications and that the only known help that was available for returning Great War shell-shocked Australian soldiers was from personal experience  Bertie remains unconvinced until provoked to protest at Lionel's disrespect for King Edward's Chair and the Stone of Scone  Only at this pivotal moment, after realising he has just expressed himself without impairment, is Bertie able to rehearse with Lionel and complete the ceremony 
As the new king, Bertie is in a crisis when he must broadcast to Britain and the Empire following the declaration of war on Nazi Germany in 1939  Lionel is summoned to Buckingham Palace to prepare the king for his speech  Knowing the challenge that lies before him, Lang, Winston Churchill, and Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain are present to offer support  The King and Logue are then left in the broadcasting room  He delivers his speech with Logue conducting him, but by the end he is speaking freely  Preparing to leave the room for the congratulations of those present, Logue mentions to the King that he still has difficulty enunciating w and the King jokes back, "I had to throw in a few so they'd know it was me "
As the Royal Family step onto the palace balcony and are applauded by the crowd, a title card explains that Logue, who received the Royal Victorian Order for service to the Crown, was always present at King George VI's speeches during the war and that they remained friends until the King's death from lung cancer in 1952 

Cast
Colin Firth as King George VI
Geoffrey Rush as Lionel Logue
Helena Bonham Carter as Queen Elizabeth
Guy Pearce as King Edward VIII
Timothy Spall as Winston Churchill
Derek Jacobi as Cosmo Gordon Lang
Jennifer Ehle as Myrtle Logue
Michael Gambon as King George V
Freya Wilson as Princess Elizabeth
Ramona Marquez as Princess Margaret
Patrick Ryecart as Lord Wigram
Simon Chandler as Lord Dawson of Penn
Claire Bloom as Queen Mary
Orlando Wells as Prince George, Duke of Kent
Tim Downie as Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester
Eve Best as Wallis Simpson
Anthony Andrews as Stanley Baldwin
Andrew Havill as Robert Wood

Production
Development
As a child, David Seidler developed a stammer, which he believes was caused by the emotional trauma of World War II and the murder of his grandparents during the Holocaust  King George VI's success in overcoming his stammer inspired the young Seidler, "Here was a stutterer who was a king and had to give radio speeches where everyone was listening to every syllable he uttered, and yet did so with passion and intensity " When Seidler became an adult, he resolved to write about King George VI  During the late 1970s and 1980s he voraciously researched the King, but found a dearth of information on Logue  Eventually Seidler contacted Valentine Logue, who agreed to discuss his father and make his notebooks available if the Queen Mother gave her permission  She asked him not to do so in her lifetime, and Seidler halted the project 

The Queen Mother died in 2002  Three years later, Seidler returned to the story during a bout of creative work inspired by a recovery from cancer  His research, including a chance encounter with an uncle whom Logue had treated, indicated he used mechanical breathing exercises combined with psychological counselling to probe the underlying causes of the condition  Thus prepared, Seidler imagined the sessions  He showed the finished screenplay to his wife, who liked it, but pronounced it too "seduced by cinematic technique"  She suggested he rewrite it as a stage play to focus on the essential relationship between the King and Logue  After he had completed it, he sent it to a few friends who worked in theatre in London and New York for feedback In 2005, Joan Lane of Wilde Thyme, a production company in London, received the script  Lane started talking with Simon Egan and Gareth Unwin of Bedlam Productions, and they invited Seidler to London to rewrite the play again, this time for the screen  Together, Lane and Bedlam Productions organised a reading of the play in Pleasance Theatre, a small house in north London, to a group of Australian expatriates, among whom was Tom Hooper's mother  She called her son and said, "I've found your next project" Instead of trying to contact his agent, Lane asked an Australian staff member to hand-deliver the script to Geoffrey Rush's house, not far away from hers in Melbourne  Unwin reports that he received a four-page e-mail from Rush's manager admonishing them for the breach of etiquette, but ending with an invitation to discuss the project further  Iain Canning from See-Saw Films became involved and, in Gareth Unwin's words: "We worked with ex-chair of BAFTA Richard Price, and started turning this story about two grumpy men sitting in a room into something bigger " Hooper liked the story, but thought that the original ending needed to be changed to reflect events more closely: "Originally, it had a Hollywood ending     If you hear the real speech, he's clearly coping with his stammer  But it's not a perfect performance  He's managing it "

The production team learned – some nine weeks prior to the start of filming – of a diary containing Logue's original notes on his treatment of the Duke, which was in the process of being turned into a non-fiction book by Logue's grandson Mark and journalist Peter Conradi, titled The King's Speech: How One Man Saved the British Monarchy  Striking an agreement with the authors, they then went back and re-worked the script to reflect what was in the notes and the book  Some lines, such as at the climax, when Logue smiles and says, "You still stammered on the W" to the King, who replies, "I had to throw in a few so they would know it was me" were direct quotations from Logue's notes  Changes from the script to reflect the historical record included Michael Gambon improvising the ramblings of George V as he signed away authority, and the decision in the opening scene to dress the Duke in an overcoat rather than regal finery Seidler thought Paul Bettany would be a good choice to play King George VI, while Hooper preferred Hugh Grant, though both actors declined the offer  Once they met with Firth and heard him read for the part, Seidler and Hooper were convinced of his suitability for the role The UK Film Council awarded the production £1 million in June 2009  Filming began in December 2009, and lasted 39 days  Most was shot in the three weeks before Christmas because Rush would be performing in a play in January  The schedule was further complicated by Bonham Carter's availability: she worked on Harry Potter during the week, so her scenes had to be filmed during the weekend 

Location and design
The film depicted both regal opulence and scruffy, depression-era London  On 25 November 2009 the crew took over the Pullens buildings in Southwark and gave it the appearance of a street from 1930s London  Large advertisements for (among other things) Bovril and fascism were added to walls, and grit and grime to streets and buildings  To reproduce London smog of the time – thick enough that cars might need guidance from someone walking ahead – so much artificial smoke was used that fire alarms were triggered On 26 November, a week's filming with Firth, Rush, and Jacobi began at Ely Cathedral, the location used for Westminster Abbey  The production had asked for permission to film in the Abbey but were denied due to the demands of tourism  Though Lincoln Cathedral is architecturally a closer match to the Abbey, they preferred Ely, a favoured filming location  Its size allowed them to build sets showing not just the coronation, but the preparations before it Lancaster House, an opulent government-owned period house in London, was rented (at £20,000 per day) for interior scenes of Buckingham Palace  The 1936 Accession Council at St  James's Palace, where George VI swore an oath, was filmed in the Livery Hall of Drapers' Hall  The room, ornate and vast, met the occasion: the daunting nature of the new King's responsibilities was shown by surrounding him with rich detail, flags and royal portraiture The crew investigated Logue's former consultation rooms, but they were too small to film in  Instead, they found a high, vaulted room not far away in 33 Portland Place  Eve Stewart, the production designer, liked the mottled, peeling wallpaper there so much that she recreated the effect throughout the entire room  In his DVD commentary, Hooper said he liked Portland Place as a set because it felt "lived in", unlike other period houses in London  The scenes of the Duke of York at home with his family were also filmed here; showing the Prince living in a townhouse "subverted" expectations of a royal drama 

The opening scene, set at the closing ceremony of the 1925 British Empire Exhibition at Wembley Stadium, was filmed on location at Elland Road, home of Leeds United, and Odsal Stadium, home of Bradford RLFC  Elland Road was used for the speech elements of the prince stammering his way through his first public address, and Odsal Stadium was selected because of the resemblance of its curved ends to Wembley Stadium in 1925  The crew had access to the stadium only at 10 pm, after a football game  They filled the terraces with inflatable dummies and over 250 extras dressed in period costumes  Live actors were interspersed to give the impression of a crowd  Additional people, as well as more ranks of soldiers on the pitch, were added in post-production with visual effects Other locations include Cumberland Lodge, Harley Street, Knebworth, Hatfield House, the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, Queen Street Mill Textile Museum in Burnley, and Battersea Power Station, which doubled as a BBC wireless control room  The final cut of the film was completed on 31 August 2010 

Dialogue
In developing his portrayal of George VI's stammer, Firth worked with Neil Swain, the voice coach for the film  His sister, Kate Firth, also a professional voice coach to actors, proposed exercises the King might have done with Logue, and made suggestions on how to imagine Logue's mix of physical and psychological coaching for the film In addition, Firth watched archive footage of the King speaking  In an interview with Allan Tyrer published by the British Stammering Association, Swain said: "[It] was very interesting while we were working on the film just to think tonally how far we could go and should go with the strength of George's stammer  I think a less courageous director than Tom [Hooper] – and indeed a less courageous actor than Colin [Firth] – might have felt the need to slightly sanitise the degree and authenticity of that stammer, and I'm really really pleased that neither of them did " In May 2011 Firth said he was finding traces of the stammer difficult to eliminate: "You can probably hear even from this interview, there are moments when it's quite infectious  You find yourself doing it and if I start thinking about it the worse it gets  If nothing else it's an insight into what it feels like "

Music
The film's original music is composed by Alexandre Desplat, which consisted of a sparse arrangement of strings and piano  The London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Terry Davies, limited orchestral score by only adding oboe and harp in one cut, to convey the character of the king, while also using single note to represent the stickiness of the King's speech  Old microphones extracted from the EMI archives, specially made for the royal family, had been used to record the score, to create a dated sound The use of the 2nd movement (Allegretto) of Beethoven's 7th Symphony, played during the broadcast of the 1939 radio speech from the film's climax, was played as a temp track added by editor Tariq Anwar  Desplat did not want to change the track and defended Anwar's suggestion, as the theme has a universal quality  Hooper further remarked that the stature of the piece helps elevate the status of the speech to a public event  The score album also featured Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Marriage of Figaro overture  The score was nominated for several awards, including Best Original Score at the Oscars, Golden Globes, and BAFTAs, winning the latter award  The score also won a Grammy at the 54th Grammy Awards 

Visual style
Hooper employed a number of cinematic techniques to evoke the King's feelings of constriction  He and cinematographer Danny Cohen used wider than normal lenses to photograph the film, typically 14mm, 18mm, 21mm, 25mm and 27mm, where the subtle distortion of the picture helps to convey the King's discomfort  For instance, the subjective point of view shot during the Empire exhibition speech used a close up of the microphone with a wider lens, similar to the filming technique used for one of the Duke's early consultations with a physician  In The New York Times, Manohla Dargis wrote that the feeling of entrapment inside the King's head was rendered overly literal with what she believed to be a fisheye lens, though in these scenes the wider lenses were used  Hooper also discussed using the 18mm lens, one he likes "because it puts human beings in their context" Roger Ebert noted that the majority of the film was shot indoors, where oblong sets, corridors, and small spaces manifest constriction and tightness, in contrast to the usual emphasis on sweep and majesty in historical dramas  Hooper used wide shots to capture the actors' body language, particularly that of Geoffrey Rush, who trained at L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq in Paris and "is consequently brilliant in the way he carries his body"  Hooper widened his scope first to capture Rush's gestures, then full body movements and silhouettes  The approach carried over to Firth as well  In the first consultation scene, the Duke is squeezed against the end of a long couch framed against a large wall, "as if to use the arm of the sofa as a kind of friend, as a security blanket?" Martin Filler praised the "low-wattage" cinematography of Danny Cohen's, as making everything look like it has been "steeped in strong tea" At other times, the camera was positioned very close to the actors to catch the emotion in their faces: "If you put a lens 6 inches from somebody's face, you get more emotion than if you're on a long lens 20 feet away," Cohen said in an interview  Hooper sought a second subtlety while filming the first consultation room scene between the two men, having placed the camera 18 inches from Colin Firth's face: "I wanted the nervousness of the first day to percolate into his performances," he said Historical dramas traditionally tend to use "soft light", but Hooper wanted to use a harsher glare, which gives a more contemporary feel, and thus a greater emotional resonance  To achieve the effect, the lighting team erected huge blackout tents over the Georgian buildings and used large lights filtered through Egyptian cotton 

Historical accuracy
Several events in the film did not happen, or were exaggerated  The visual blog Information is Beautiful deduced that, while taking creative licence into account, the film was 74 4% accurate when compared to real-life events, summarising: "Some nips and tucks of the historical record, but mostly an accurate retelling of a unique friendship" 

Relationship with Lionel Logue
The filmmakers not only tightened the chronology of the events to just a few years but even shifted the timeline of treatment  The Duke of York actually began working with Logue in October 1926, ten years before the abdication crisis, and the improvement in his speech was apparent in months rather than years as suggested by the film  When he was dispatched to Australia to open their new Parliament House in Canberra in 1927, the Duke gave numerous speeches during the journey and performed well despite Logue not accompanying him on the trip  He wrote to Logue from the Caribbean, "You remember my fear of 'The King'  I give it every evening at dinner on board  This does not worry me any more " Of his speech opening Parliament it was observed that he spoke "resonantly and without stuttering" Robert Logue, a grandson of Lionel, doubted the film's depiction of the speech therapist, stating "I don't think he ever swore in front of the King and he certainly never called him 'Bertie'"  Andrew Roberts, an English historian, states that the severity of the King's stammer was exaggerated and the characters of Edward VIII, Wallis Simpson, and George V made more antagonistic than they really were, to increase the dramatic effect 

Politics
Christopher Hitchens and Isaac Chotiner have criticised the film for failing to indict the appeasement of the era or to portray Edward VIII's sympathetic attitude to Nazi Germany   The Guardian also corrected the portrayal of Stanley Baldwin as having resigned due to his refusal to order Britain's re-armament, when he in fact stepped down as "a national hero, exhausted by more than a decade at the top"  Stanley's grandson, Earl Baldwin, was particularly unhappy with this film due to its factual distortions and portrayal of his grandfather as a dithering fool who misunderstood Hitler's intentions Hugo Vickers, an adviser on the film, agreed that the alteration of historical details to preserve the essence of the dramatic story was sometimes necessary  The high-ranking officials, for instance, would not have been present when the King made his speech, nor would Churchill have been involved at any level, "but the average viewer knows who Churchill is; he doesn't know who Lord Halifax and Sir Samuel Hoare are "Hitchens and Chotiner also challenged the film's portrayal of Winston Churchill's role in the abdication crisis  It is well established that Churchill encouraged Edward VIII to resist pressure to abdicate, whereas he is portrayed in the film as supportive of the Duke of York and not opposed to the abdication  Hitchens attributes this treatment to the "cult" surrounding Churchill's legacy  In a smart, well-made film "would the true story not have been fractionally more interesting for the audience?", he wondered 

Realism
Martin Filler acknowledged that the film legitimately used artistic licence to make valid dramatic points, such as in the probably imagined scene when George V lectures his son on the importance of broadcasting  Filler cautions that George VI would never have tolerated Logue addressing him casually, nor swearing, and the King almost certainly would have understood a newsreel of Hitler speaking in German  Filler makes the larger point that both the King and his wife were, in reality, lukewarm towards Churchill because of the latter's support for his brother during the abdication crisis Commenting on the film's final scene on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, Andrew Roberts has written, "The scene is fairly absurd from a historical point of view – Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill were not present and there were no cheering crowds outside Buckingham Palace " However, Roberts praises the film overall as a sympathetic portrayal of the King's "quiet, unassuming heroism [   ] The portrayals by Firth and Bonham Carter are sympathetic and acute, and the movie's occasional factual bêtises should not detract from that "

Release
Cinema release
The film had its world première on 6 September 2010 at the Telluride Film Festival in the United States  It was screened at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival, on Firth's 50th birthday, where it received a standing ovation and won the People's Choice Award  The cinema release poster was re-designed to show an extreme close-up of Firth's jaw and a microphone after Hooper criticised the first design as a "train smash"  Tim Appelo called the original, air-brushed effort, which showed the three leads, "shockingly awful" though the new one "really is worthwhile" The film was distributed by Transmission Films in Australia and by Momentum Pictures in the United Kingdom  The Weinstein Company distributed it in North America, Germany, Benelux, Scandinavia, China, Hong Kong, and Latin America  The film was released in France on 2 February 2011 by Wild Bunch under the title Le discours d'un roi 

Ratings controversy
The film was initially given a 15 certificate by the British Board of Film Classification, due to a minute-long scene where Logue encourages the King to swear, which he could do without stuttering  At the London Film Festival, Hooper criticised the decision, questioning how the board could certify the film "15" for bad language but allow films such as Salt (2010) and Casino Royale (2006) to have "12A" ratings, despite their graphic torture scenes  Following Hooper's criticism, the board lowered the rating to "12A", allowing children under 12 years of age to see the film if they are accompanied by an adult  Hooper levelled the same criticism at the Motion Picture Association of America, which gave the film an "R" rating, preventing anyone under the age of 17 from seeing the film without an adult  In his review, Roger Ebert criticised the "R" rating, calling it "utterly inexplicable", and wrote, "This is an excellent film for teenagers "In January 2011 Harvey Weinstein, the executive producer and distributor, said he was considering having the film re-edited to remove some profanity, so that it would receive a lower classification and reach a larger audience  Hooper refused to cut the film, though he considered covering the swear words with bleeps  Helena Bonham Carter also defended the film, saying, "[The film] is not violent  It's full of humanity and wit  [It's] for people not with just a speech impairment, but who have got confidence [doubts] " After receiving his Academy Award, Colin Firth noted that he does not support re-editing the film; while he does not condone the use of profanity, he maintains that its use was not offensive in this context  "The scene serves a purpose", Firth states  An alternative version, with some of the profanities muted out, was classified as "PG-13" in the United States; this version was released to cinemas on 1 April 2011, replacing the R-rated one  The PG-13 version of this film is not available on DVD and Blu-ray 

Reception
Box office
In Great Britain and Ireland, the film was the highest earning film on its opening weekend  It took in £3,510,000 from 395 cinemas  The Guardian said that it was one of the biggest takes in recent memory, and compared it to Slumdog Millionaire (2008), which, two years earlier, earned £1 5 million less  The King's Speech continued a "stunning three weeks" atop the UK Box office, and earned over £3 million for four consecutive weekends, the first film to do so since Toy Story 3 (2010)  After five weeks on UK release, it was hailed as the most successful independent British film ever In the United States The King's Speech opened with $355,450 (£220,000) in four cinemas  It holds the record for the highest per-cinema gross of 2010  It was widened to 700 screens on Christmas Day and 1,543 screens on 14 January 2011  It eventually made $138 million in North America overall In Australia The King's Speech made more than A$6,281,686 (£4 million) in the first two weeks, according to figures collected by the Motion Picture Distributors Association of Australia  The executive director of Palace Cinemas, Benjamin Zeccola, said customer feedback on the film was spectacular  "It's our No 1 for all the period, all throughout the country      I think this is more successful than Slumdog Millionaire and a more uplifting film  It's a good example of a film that started out in the independent cinemas and then spread to the mainstream cinemas "Of the film's net profit, estimated to amount to $30–40 million (£20–25 million) from the cinema release alone, roughly 20% was to be split between Geoffrey Rush (as executive producer), Tom Hooper and Colin Firth, who were to receive their bonuses before the other stakeholders  The remaining profit was to be split equally between the producers and the equity investors  The UK Film Council invested £1 million of public funds from the United Kingdom lottery into the film  In March 2011 Variety estimated that the return could be between fifteen and twenty times that  The Council's merger into the British Film Institute means that the profits were to be returned to that body 

Critical response
The King's Speech has received widespread critical acclaim, with Firth's performance receiving universal praise  Bonham Carter and Rush were also widely praised with both going on to win BAFTAs and receiving Academy Award nominations  Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 94% based on reviews from 297 critics; the film's average rating was calculated as 8 60/10  The website's critical consensus reads: "Colin Firth gives a masterful performance in The King's Speech, a predictable but stylishly produced and rousing period drama " Metacritic gave the film a weighted score of 88/100, based on 41 critical reviews, which indicates "universal acclaim"  CinemaScore reported that audiences gave the film a rare "A+" grade  Empire gave the film five stars out of five, commenting, "You'll be lost for words " Lisa Kennedy of The Denver Post gave the film full marks for its humane qualities and craftsmanship: "It is an intelligent, winning drama fit for a king – and the rest of us", she said  Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times awarded the film a full four stars, commenting that "what we have here is a superior historical drama and a powerful personal one " Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian gave four stars out of five, stating, "Tom Hooper's richly enjoyable and handsomely produced movie     is a massively confident crowd-pleaser "Manohla Dargis, whilst generally ambivalent towards the film, called the lead performances one of its principal attractions  "With their volume turned up, the appealing, impeccably professional Mr  Firth and Mr  Rush rise to the acting occasion by twinkling and growling as their characters warily circle each other before settling into the therapeutic swing of things and unknowingly preparing for the big speech that partly gives the film its title," she wrote  The Daily Telegraph called Guy Pearce's performance as Edward VIII "formidable     with glamour, charisma and utter self-absorption"  Empire said he played the role well as "a flash harry flinty enough to shed a nation for a wife " The New York Times thought he was able to create "a thorny tangle of complications in only a few abbreviated scenes"  Hooper praised the actor in the DVD commentary, saying he "nailed" the 1930s royal accent  Richard Corliss of Time magazine named Colin Firth's performance one of the Top 10 Movie Performances of 2010 

Allociné, a French cinema website, gave the film an average of four out of five stars, based on a survey of 21 reviews  Le Monde, which characterised the film as the "latest manifestation of British narcissism" and summarised it as "We are ugly and boring, but, By Jove!, we are right!", nevertheless admired the performances of Firth, Rush, and Bonham Carter  It said that, though the film swept British appeasement under the carpet, it was still enjoyable Slovenian Marxist philosopher and cultural critic Slavoj Žižek has incorporated the film into his critique of ideology by describing it as "reactionary," interpreting the king's stutter as evidence that he "displays a minimum of common sense, experiencing the stupidity of seriously accepting that one is king by divine will" and claiming that "the task of the Australian voice-coach is to render him stupid enough to accept his being a king as his natural property " Žižek thus interprets the king's stutter as a case of what is referred to in Lacanian psychoanalysis as "symbolic castration "Queen Elizabeth II, the daughter and successor of King George VI, was sent two copies of the film before Christmas 2010  The Sun newspaper reported she had watched the film in a private screening at Sandringham House  A palace source described her reaction as being "touched by a moving portrayal of her father"  Seidler called the reports "the highest honour" the film could receive 

Depiction of stuttering
The British Stammering Association welcomed the release of The King's Speech, congratulating the film makers on their "realistic depiction of the frustration and the fear of speaking faced by people who stammer on a daily basis " It said that "Colin Firth's portrayal of the King's stammer in particular strikes us as very authentic and accurate " The Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists welcomed the film, and launched their "Giving Voice" campaign around the time of its commercial release Disfluency advocate Jonah Lehrer called the film "an inspiring tale" and praised its portrayal of the troubles suffered by Firth's character 
 However, Lehrer and other advocates criticized the film's depiction of stuttering as a result of emotional repression and childhood trauma  The treatment performed by Rush's character also drew criticism  Lehrer did admit it was a necessary artistic license: "[the film] would have been a rather tedious piece of entertainment if the climactic scene involved Logue telling the monarch that his primary motor cortex was to blame "Science journalist Jeremy Hsu wrote that the film "mainly succeeds by tackling the social stigma that surrounds stuttering " However, similar to Lehrer, he disapproved that it perpetuated myths about the condition, namely its relationship with childhood trauma and overly strict parenting Columnist Jane Ahlin praised the film as it "brings out of the shadows a common problem figuring into the lives of children and adults from every culture around the world " At the same time, she stated, "heartwarming though the movie The King's Speech is, as someone who married a stutterer and is the mother of a stutterer, I'm not sure it does anything to put myths about stuttering to rest " She criticized the depiction of family and social dynamics as causes of the condition, as well as the portrayal of stutterering as connected to emotional or psychological problems 

Awards and nominations
At the 83rd Academy Awards, The King's Speech won the Academy Award for Best Picture, Best Director (Hooper), Best Actor (Firth), and Best Original Screenplay (Seidler)  The film had received 12 Oscar nominations, more than any other film in that year  Besides the four categories it won, the film received nominations for Best Cinematography (Danny Cohen) and two for the supporting actors (Bonham Carter and Rush), as well as two for its mise-en-scène: Art Direction and Costumes At the 64th British Academy Film Awards, it won seven awards, including Best Film, Outstanding British Film, Best Actor for Firth, Best Supporting Actor for Rush, Best Supporting Actress for Bonham Carter, Best Original Screenplay for Seidler, and Best Music for Alexandre Desplat  The film had been nominated for 14 BAFTAs, more than any other film  At the 68th Golden Globe Awards, Firth won for Best Actor   The film won no other Golden Globes, despite earning seven nominations, more than any other film At the 17th Screen Actors Guild Awards, Firth won the Best Actor award and the entire cast won Best Ensemble, meaning Firth went home with two acting awards in one evening  Hooper won the Directors Guild of America Awards 2010 for Best Director  The film won the Darryl F  Zanuck Award for Best Theatrical Motion Picture at the Producers Guild of America Awards 2010 The King's Speech won the People's Choice Award at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival, Best British Independent Film at the 2010 British Independent Film Awards, and the 2011 Goya Award for Best European Film from the Academia de las Artes y las Ciencias Cinematográficas de España (Spanish Academy of Cinematic Art and Science) 

See also
Bertie & Elizabeth (2002), a television film which also addresses the stammering of the king (played by James Wilby)  It was a co-production of PBS (Masterpiece Theatre) and Carlton Television 
Passage 3:
Gunhilde
Gunhilde (or Gunnhild) (died 13 November 1002) is said to have been the sister of Sweyn Forkbeard, King of Denmark, and the daughter of Harald Bluetooth  She was married to Pallig, a Dane who served the King of England, Æthelred the Unready, as ealdorman of Devonshire She is supposed to have been a hostage in England when she was killed in the St  Brice's Day massacre, ordered by Æthelred  Pallig is reported alternatively to have been killed in the massacre or to have provoked the massacre by deserting Æthelred's service Historians are divided about the strength of the evidence that she was Sweyn Forkbeard's sister  Ryan Lavelle is sceptical of the reliability of the later medieval sources, such as the Chronicle of John of Wallingford, which mention her  However, Frank Stenton described the claim as a "well recorded tradition", and considered that a desire to avenge her death was probably a principal motive for Sweyn's invasion of England in 1003, leading to the eventual conquest of England by his son Cnut 
Passage 4:
George VI
George VI (Albert Frederick Arthur George; 14 December 1895 – 6 February 1952) was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death on 6 February 1952  He was also the last Emperor of India from 1936 until the British Raj was dissolved in August 1947, and the first Head of the Commonwealth following the London Declaration of 1949 
The future George VI was born in the reign of his great-grandmother Victoria; he was named Albert at birth after his great-grandfather Albert, Prince Consort, and was known as "Bertie" to his family and close friends  His father ascended the throne as George V in 1910  As the second son of the king, Albert was not expected to inherit the throne  He spent his early life in the shadow of his elder brother, Prince Edward, the heir apparent  Albert attended naval college as a teenager and served in the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force during the First World War  In 1920, he was made Duke of York  He married Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon in 1923, and they had two daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret  In the mid-1920s, he engaged speech therapist Lionel Logue to treat his stutter, which he learned to manage to some degree  His elder brother ascended the throne as Edward VIII after their father died in 1936, but Edward abdicated later that year to marry the twice-divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson  As heir presumptive to Edward VIII, Albert thereby became the third monarch of the House of Windsor, taking the regnal name George VI 
In September 1939, the British Empire and most Commonwealth countries—but not Ireland—declared war on Nazi Germany  War with the Kingdom of Italy and the Empire of Japan followed in 1940 and 1941, respectively  George VI was seen as sharing the hardships of the common people and his popularity soared  Buckingham Palace was bombed during the Blitz while the King and Queen were there, and his younger brother the Duke of Kent was killed on active service  George became known as a symbol of British determination to win the war  Britain and its allies were victorious in 1945, but the British Empire declined  Ireland had largely broken away, followed by the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947  George relinquished the title of Emperor of India in June 1948 and instead adopted the new title of Head of the Commonwealth  He was beset by smoking-related health problems in the later years of his reign and died at Sandringham House, aged 56, of a coronary thrombosis in 1952  He was succeeded by his elder daughter, Elizabeth II 

Early life
Albert was born at York Cottage, on the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, during the reign of his great-grandmother Queen Victoria  His father was Prince George, Duke of York (later King George V), the second and only surviving son of the Prince and Princess of Wales (later King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra)  His mother, the Duchess of York (later Queen Mary), was the eldest child and only daughter of Francis, Duke of Teck, and Princess Mary Adelaide, Duchess of Teck  His birthday, 14 December 1895, was the 34th anniversary of the death of his great-grandfather Albert, Prince Consort  Uncertain of how the Prince Consort's widow, Queen Victoria, would take the news of the birth, the Prince of Wales wrote to the Duke of York that the Queen had been "rather distressed"  Two days later, he wrote again: "I really think it would gratify her if you yourself proposed the name Albert to her "The Queen was mollified by the proposal to name the new baby Albert, and wrote to the Duchess of York: "I am all impatience to see the new one, born on such a sad day but rather more dear to me, especially as he will be called by that dear name which is a byword for all that is great and good " Consequently, he was baptised "Albert Frederick Arthur George" at St Mary Magdalene Church, Sandringham on 17 February 1896  Formally he was His Highness Prince Albert of York; within the royal family he was known informally as "Bertie"  The Duchess of Teck did not like the first name her grandson had been given, and she wrote prophetically that she hoped the last name "may supplant the less favoured one"  Albert was fourth in line to the throne at birth, after his grandfather, father and elder brother, Edward 
Albert was ill often and was described as "easily frightened and somewhat prone to tears"  His parents were generally removed from their children's day-to-day upbringing, as was the norm in aristocratic families of that era  He had a stutter that lasted for many years  Although naturally left-handed, he was forced to write with his right hand, as was common practice at the time  He had chronic stomach problems as well as knock knees, for which he was forced to wear painful corrective splints Queen Victoria died on 22 January 1901, and the Prince of Wales succeeded her as King Edward VII  Prince Albert moved up to third in line to the throne, after his father and elder brother 

Military career and education
Beginning in 1909, Albert attended the Royal Naval College, Osborne, as a naval cadet  In 1911 he came bottom of the class in the final examination, but despite this he progressed to the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth  When his grandfather Edward VII died in 1910, his father became King George V  Prince Edward became Prince of Wales, with Albert second in line to the throne Albert spent the first six months of 1913 on the training ship HMS Cumberland in the West Indies and on the east coast of Canada  He was rated as a midshipman aboard HMS Collingwood on 15 September 1913  He spent three months in the Mediterranean, but never overcame his seasickness  Three weeks after the outbreak of World War I he was medically evacuated from the ship to Aberdeen, where his appendix was removed by Sir John Marnoch  He was mentioned in dispatches for his actions as a turret officer aboard Collingwood in the Battle of Jutland (31 May – 1 June 1916), the great naval battle of the war  He did not see further combat, largely because of ill health caused by a duodenal ulcer, for which he had an operation in November 1917 In February 1918 Albert was appointed Officer in Charge of Boys at the Royal Naval Air Service's training establishment at Cranwell  With the establishment of the Royal Air Force Albert transferred from the Royal Navy to the Royal Air Force  He served as Officer Commanding Number 4 Squadron of the Boys' Wing at Cranwell until August 1918, before reporting for duty on the staff of the RAF's Cadet Brigade at St Leonards-on-Sea and then at Shorncliffe  He completed a fortnight's training and took command of a squadron on the Cadet Wing  He was the first member of the British royal family to be certified as a fully qualified pilot Albert wanted to serve on the Continent while the war was still in progress and welcomed a posting to General Trenchard's staff in France  On 23 October, he flew across the Channel to Autigny  For the closing weeks of the war, he served on the staff of the RAF's Independent Air Force at its headquarters in Nancy, France  Following the disbanding of the Independent Air Force in November 1918, he remained on the Continent for two months as an RAF staff officer until posted back to Britain  He accompanied King Albert I of Belgium on his triumphal re-entry into Brussels on 22 November  Prince Albert qualified as an RAF pilot on 31 July 1919 and was promoted to squadron leader the following day In October 1919, Albert went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied history, economics and civics for a year, with the historian R  V  Laurence as his "official mentor"  On 4 June 1920 his father created him Duke of York, Earl of Inverness and Baron Killarney  He began to take on more royal duties  He represented his father and toured coal mines, factories, and railyards  Through such visits he acquired the nickname of the "Industrial Prince"  His stutter, and his embarrassment over it, together with a tendency to shyness, caused him to appear less confident in public than his older brother, Edward  However, he was physically active and enjoyed playing tennis  He played at Wimbledon in the Men's Doubles with Louis Greig in 1926, losing in the first round  He developed an interest in working conditions, and was president of the Industrial Welfare Society  His series of annual summer camps for boys between 1921 and 1939 brought together boys from different social backgrounds 

Marriage
In a time when royalty were expected to marry fellow royalty, it was unusual that Albert had a great deal of freedom in choosing a prospective wife  An infatuation with the already-married Australian socialite Lady Loughborough came to an end in April 1920 when the King, with the promise of the dukedom of York, persuaded Albert to stop seeing her  That year, he met for the first time since childhood Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the youngest daughter of the Earl and Countess of Strathmore  He became determined to marry her  Elizabeth rejected his proposal twice, in 1921 and 1922, reportedly because she was reluctant to make the sacrifices necessary to become a member of the royal family  In the words of Lady Strathmore, Albert would be "made or marred" by his choice of wife  After a protracted courtship, Elizabeth agreed to marry him Albert and Elizabeth were married on 26 April 1923 in Westminster Abbey  Albert's marriage to someone not of royal birth was considered a modernising gesture  The newly formed British Broadcasting Company wished to record and broadcast the event on radio, but the Abbey Chapter vetoed the idea (although the Dean, Herbert Edward Ryle, was in favour) 

From December 1924 to April 1925, the Duke and Duchess toured Kenya, Uganda, and the Sudan, travelling via the Suez Canal and Aden  During the trip, they both went big-game hunting Because of his stutter, Albert dreaded public speaking  After his closing speech at the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley on 31 October 1925, one which was an ordeal for both him and his listeners, he began to see Lionel Logue, an Australian-born speech therapist  The Duke and Logue practised breathing exercises, and the Duchess rehearsed with him patiently  Subsequently, he was able to speak with less hesitation  With his delivery improved, Albert opened the new Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, during a tour of the empire with the Duchess in 1927  Their journey by sea to Australia, New Zealand and Fiji took them via Jamaica, where Albert played doubles tennis partnered with a black man, Bertrand Clark, which was unusual at the time and taken locally as a display of equality between races The Duke and Duchess had two children: Elizabeth (called "Lilibet" by the family, and the future Elizabeth II) who was born in 1926, and Margaret who was born in 1930  The close family lived at White Lodge, Richmond Park, and then at 145 Piccadilly, rather than one of the royal palaces  In 1931, the Canadian prime minister, R  B  Bennett, considered Albert for Governor General of Canada—a proposal that King George V rejected on the advice of the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, J  H  Thomas 

Reign
Reluctant king
King George V had severe reservations about Prince Edward, saying "After I am dead, the boy will ruin himself in twelve months" and "I pray God that my eldest son will never marry and that nothing will come between Bertie and Lilibet and the throne " On 20 January 1936, George V died and Edward ascended the throne as King Edward VIII  In the Vigil of the Princes, Prince Albert and his three brothers (the new king, Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, and Prince George, Duke of Kent) took a shift standing guard over their father's body as it lay in state, in a closed casket, in Westminster Hall 
As Edward was unmarried and had no children, Albert was the heir presumptive to the throne  Less than a year later, on 11 December 1936, Edward abdicated in order to marry Wallis Simpson, who was divorced from her first husband and divorcing her second  Edward had been advised by British prime minister Stanley Baldwin that he could not remain king and marry a divorced woman with two living ex-husbands  He abdicated and Albert, though he had been reluctant to accept the throne, became king  The day before the abdication, Albert went to London to see his mother, Queen Mary  He wrote in his diary, "When I told her what had happened, I broke down and sobbed like a child "On the day of Edward's abdication, the Oireachtas, the parliament of the Irish Free State, removed all direct mention of the monarch from the Irish constitution  The next day, it passed the External Relations Act, which gave the monarch limited authority (strictly on the advice of the government) to appoint diplomatic representatives for Ireland and to be involved in the making of foreign treaties  The two acts made the Irish Free State a republic in essence without removing its links to the Commonwealth Across Britain, gossip spread that Albert was physically and psychologically incapable of being king  No evidence has been found to support the contemporaneous rumour that the government considered bypassing him, his children and his brother Prince Henry, in favour of their younger brother Prince George, Duke of Kent  This seems to have been suggested on the grounds that Prince George was at that time the only brother with a son 

Early reign
Albert assumed the regnal name "George VI" to emphasise continuity with his father and restore confidence in the monarchy  The beginning of George VI's reign was taken up by questions surrounding his predecessor and brother, whose titles, style and position were uncertain  He had been introduced as "His Royal Highness Prince Edward" for the abdication broadcast, but George VI felt that by abdicating and renouncing the succession, Edward had lost the right to bear royal titles, including "Royal Highness"  In settling the issue, George's first act as king was to confer upon his brother the title "Duke of Windsor" with the style "Royal Highness", but the letters patent creating the dukedom prevented any wife or children from bearing royal styles  George VI was forced to buy from Edward the royal residences of Balmoral Castle and Sandringham House, as these were private properties and did not pass to him automatically  Three days after his accession, on his 41st birthday, he invested his wife, the new queen consort, with the Order of the Garter 

George VI's coronation at Westminster Abbey took place on 12 May 1937, the date previously intended for Edward's coronation  In a break with tradition, his mother Queen Mary attended the ceremony in a show of support for her son  There was no Durbar held in Delhi for George VI, as had occurred for his father, as the cost would have been a burden to the Government of India  Rising Indian nationalism made the welcome that the royal party would have received likely to be muted at best, and a prolonged absence from Britain would have been undesirable in the tense period before the Second World War  Two overseas tours were undertaken, to France and to North America, both of which promised greater strategic advantages in the event of war The growing likelihood of war in Europe dominated the early reign of George VI  The King was constitutionally bound to support British prime minister Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler  When the King and Queen greeted Chamberlain on his return from negotiating the Munich Agreement in 1938, they invited him to appear on the balcony of Buckingham Palace with them  This public association of the monarchy with a politician was exceptional, as balcony appearances were traditionally restricted to the royal family  While broadly popular among the general public, Chamberlain's policy towards Hitler was the subject of some opposition in the House of Commons, which led historian John Grigg to describe George's behaviour in associating himself so prominently with a politician as "the most unconstitutional act by a British sovereign in the present century" 

In May and June 1939, the King and Queen toured Canada and the United States; it was the first visit of a reigning British monarch to North America, although George had been to Canada prior to his accession  From Ottawa, George and Elizabeth were accompanied by Canadian prime minister Mackenzie King, to present themselves in North America as King and Queen of Canada  Both Mackenzie King and the Canadian governor general, Lord Tweedsmuir, hoped that George's presence in Canada would demonstrate the principles of the Statute of Westminster 1931, which gave full sovereignty to the British Dominions  On 19 May, George personally accepted and approved the Letter of Credence of the new U S  ambassador to Canada, Daniel Calhoun Roper; gave royal assent to nine parliamentary bills; and ratified two   international treaties with the Great Seal of Canada  The official royal tour historian, Gustave Lanctot, wrote "the Statute of Westminster had assumed full reality" and George gave a speech emphasising "the free and equal association of the nations of the Commonwealth" The trip was intended to soften the strong isolationist tendencies among the North American public with regard to the developing tensions in Europe  Although the aim of the tour was mainly political, to shore up Atlantic support for the United Kingdom in any future war, the King and Queen were enthusiastically received by the public  The fear that George would be compared unfavourably to his predecessor was dispelled  They visited the 1939 New York World's Fair and stayed with President Franklin D  Roosevelt at the White House and at his private estate at Hyde Park, New York  A strong bond of friendship was forged between Roosevelt and the royal couple during the tour, which had major significance in the relations between the United States and the United Kingdom through the ensuing war years 

Second World War
Following the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, the United Kingdom and the self-governing Dominions other than Ireland declared war on Nazi Germany  The King and Queen resolved to stay in London, despite German bombing raids  They officially stayed in Buckingham Palace throughout the war, although they usually spent nights at Windsor Castle  The first night of the Blitz on London, on 7 September 1940, killed about one thousand civilians, mostly in the East End  On 13 September, the couple narrowly avoided death when two German bombs exploded in a courtyard at Buckingham Palace while they were there  In defiance, Elizabeth declared: "I am glad we have been bombed  It makes me feel we can look the East End in the face " The royal family were portrayed as sharing the same dangers and deprivations as the rest of the country  They were subject to British rationing restrictions, and U S  First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt remarked on the rationed food served and the limited bathwater that was permitted during a stay at the unheated and boarded-up Palace  In August 1942, the King's brother, the Duke of Kent, was killed on active service 

In 1940, Winston Churchill replaced Neville Chamberlain as prime minister, though personally George would have preferred to appoint Lord Halifax  After the King's initial dismay over Churchill's appointment of Lord Beaverbrook to the Cabinet, he and Churchill developed "the closest personal relationship in modern British history between a monarch and a Prime Minister"  Every Tuesday for four and a half years from September 1940, the two men met privately for lunch to discuss the war in secret and with frankness  George related much of what the two discussed in his diary, which is the only extant first-hand account of these conversations Throughout the war, George and Elizabeth provided morale-boosting visits throughout the United Kingdom, visiting bomb sites, munitions factories, and troops  George visited military forces abroad in France in December 1939, North Africa and Malta in June 1943, Normandy in June 1944, southern Italy in July 1944, and the Low Countries in October 1944  Their high public profile and apparently indefatigable determination secured their place as symbols of national resistance  At a social function in 1944, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Field Marshal Alan Brooke, revealed that every time he met Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, he thought Montgomery was after his job  George replied: "You should worry, when I meet him, I always think he's after mine!"In 1945, crowds shouted "We want the King!" in front of Buckingham Palace during the Victory in Europe Day celebrations  In an echo of Chamberlain's appearance, the King invited Churchill to appear with the royal family on the balcony to public acclaim  In January 1946, George addressed the United Nations at its first assembly, which was held in London, and reaffirmed "our faith in the equal rights of men and women and of nations great and small" 

Empire to Commonwealth
George VI's reign saw the acceleration of the dissolution of the British Empire  The Statute of Westminster 1931 had already acknowledged the evolution of the Dominions into separate sovereign states  The process of transformation from an empire to a voluntary association of independent states, known as the Commonwealth, gathered pace after the Second World War  During the ministry of Clement Attlee, British India became the two independent Dominions of India and Pakistan in August 1947  George relinquished the title of Emperor of India, and became King of India and King of Pakistan instead  In late April 1949, the Commonwealth leaders issued the London Declaration, which laid the foundation of the modern Commonwealth and recognised George as Head of the Commonwealth  In January 1950, he ceased to be King of India when it became a republic  He remained King of Pakistan until his death  Other countries left the Commonwealth, such as Burma in January 1948, Palestine (divided between Israel and the Arab states) in May 1948 and the Republic of Ireland in 1949 In 1947, George and his family toured southern Africa  The prime minister of the Union of South Africa, Jan Smuts, was facing an election and hoped to make political capital out of the visit  George was appalled, however, when instructed by the South African government to shake hands only with whites, and referred to his South African bodyguards as "the Gestapo"  Despite the tour, Smuts lost the election the following year, and the new government instituted a strict policy of racial segregation 

Illness and death
The stress of the war had taken its toll on George's health, made worse by his heavy smoking, and subsequent development of lung cancer among other ailments, including arteriosclerosis and Buerger's disease  A planned tour of Australia and New Zealand was postponed after George developed an arterial blockage in his right leg, which threatened the loss of the leg and was treated with a right lumbar sympathectomy in March 1949  His elder daughter and heir presumptive, Elizabeth, took on more royal duties as her father's health deteriorated  The delayed tour was re-organised, with Princess Elizabeth and her husband, Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, taking the place of the King and Queen 
George was well enough to open the Festival of Britain in May 1951, but on 4 June it was announced that he would need immediate and complete rest for the next four weeks, despite the arrival of Haakon VII of Norway the following afternoon for an official visit  On 23 September 1951, he underwent a surgical operation where his entire left lung was removed by Clement Price Thomas after a malignant tumour was found  In October 1951, Elizabeth and Philip went on a month-long tour of Canada; the trip had been delayed for a week due to George's illness  At the State Opening of Parliament in November, the Lord Chancellor, Lord Simonds, read the King's speech from the throne  The King's Christmas broadcast of 1951 was recorded in sections, and then edited together On 31 January 1952, despite advice from those close to him, George went to London Airport to see Elizabeth and Philip off on their tour to Australia via Kenya  It was his last public appearance  Six days later, at 07:30 GMT on the morning of 6 February, he was found dead in bed at Sandringham House in Norfolk  He had died in the night from a coronary thrombosis at the age of 56  His daughter flew back to Britain from Kenya as Queen Elizabeth II From 9 February George's coffin rested in St Mary Magdalene Church, Sandringham, before lying in state at Westminster Hall from 11 February  His funeral took place at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, on the 15th  He was interred initially in the Royal Vault until he was transferred to the King George VI Memorial Chapel inside St George's on 26 March 1969  In 2002, fifty years after his death, the remains of his widow, Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, and the ashes of his younger daughter, Princess Margaret, who both died that year, were interred in the chapel alongside him  In 2022, the remains of Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, Prince Philip, were also interred in the chapel 

Legacy
In the words of Labour Member of Parliament (MP) George Hardie, the abdication crisis of 1936 did "more for republicanism than fifty years of propaganda"  George VI wrote to his brother Edward that in the aftermath of the abdication he had reluctantly assumed "a rocking throne" and tried "to make it steady again"  He became king at a point when public faith in the monarchy was at a low ebb  During his reign, his people endured the hardships of war, and imperial power was eroded  However, as a dutiful family man and by showing personal courage, he succeeded in restoring the popularity of the monarchy The George Cross and the George Medal were founded at the King's suggestion during the Second World War to recognise acts of exceptional civilian bravery  He bestowed the George Cross on the entire "island fortress of Malta" in 1943  He was posthumously awarded the Order of Liberation by the French government in 1960, one of only two people (the other being Churchill in 1958) to be awarded the medal after 1946 Colin Firth won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance as George VI in the 2010 film The King's Speech 

Titles, honours and arms
As Duke of York, Albert bore the royal arms of the United Kingdom differenced with a label of three points argent, the centre point bearing an anchor azure—a difference earlier awarded to his father, George V, when he was Duke of York, and then later awarded to his grandson Prince Andrew, Duke of York  As king, he bore the royal arms undifferenced 

Issue
Ancestry
Notes
Passage 5:
Raymond Márquez
Raymond Márquez (born 1930), a k a  "Spanish Raymond", is an American criminal  He was the "king" of the illegal numbers racket in Harlem from the 1950s until his retirement in 2001 

Early years
Márquez's parents moved from Puerto Rico to New York City in the late 1920s and settled in the Harlem section of Manhattan  He was born and raised in Harlem; there he also received his primary and secondary education  His father was able to establish a grocery store; however, the family economic situation was not a good one and when Márquez graduated from Textile High School in 1947, at the age of 17, his parents were unable to send him to college 

Harlem numbers racket and legal battles
In 1947, Márquez looked upon people who were prosperous, well dressed and involved in numbers activities as his role models  He began his career in the Harlem numbers racket as a pickup boy  As a pick up boy, he would go around Harlem, gathering the betting slips from the runners  The runners are those who solicited the wagers from the betting customers  Márquez would then turn in the slips to a regional controller and eventually the listed slips would end up at the headquarters of the gambling organization, known as a bank  Márquez branched out for himself within a year and gained a reputation for paying winning customers promptly Márquez had few legal scrapes during his early years  By 1958, law enforcement authorities publicly identified him as an underworld kingpin  and that is when an investigator from the New York Police Department (NYPD), nicknamed him "Spanish Raymond", a moniker which has stood since then  Also in 1958, Márquez was accused in a killing related to his gambling activities  A grand jury failed to indict him for the murder  Márquez acknowledged bribing the police in the 1950s and 1960s to prevent raids on his illicit network  Márquez also was believed to have paid a percentage of his profits to Mafia boss Anthony "Fat Tony" Salerno  Márquez denied that he did business with the Mafia, and said that while he was friends with Salerno he was not a business partner 

First conviction
In 1969, Márquez was arrested by the FBI on Federal gambling and extortion charges  He was convicted and sentenced to concurrent terms of three and five years imprisonment  He served a total of five years from 1970 to 1975  In 1975  he was released and continued in his former activities  This was during the post Knapp Commission era in which the NYPD was the focus of a scandal arising from pervasive corruption and the crackdown on the numbers racket was sidelined due to a moratorium on numbers gambling resulting from concerns that systemic corruption of the NYPD would continue to flourish  Protection payoffs to the police were no longer necessary Two years after his release from prison, in 1977, Márquez was briefly kidnapped, and was freed after payment of $8,100 in jewelry as ransom by his wife  He was found in the trunk of his car in Flushing, Queens  Márquez was identified in The New York Times as allegedly running a $25 million a year numbers racket Márquez received attention in the late 1970s, when a New York State Supreme Court justice, Andrew Tyler, was convicted of perjury for allegedly lying about a meeting with Márquez in 1975  The conviction was overturned in 1978 

Controversial investments
In April 1994, he was arrested on state gambling charges  Prosecutors claimed that he had amassed a small fortune by illegal means and that therefore said fortune should be confiscated  The indictment led to a legal battle over attempts by city authorities to seize $6 5 million from him in unpaid taxes from wealth that they say was generated by illegal activities from 1990 to 1993  The prosecutors contended that Márquez and his organization handled about $30 million a year in wagers that were made at 41 parlors and that his organization faxed the reported earnings to his wife's yacht  His wife, Alice, also pleaded guilty to a gambling charge Márquez claimed that his wife had accumulated a fortune, including three motels, a 63-foot yacht and a home in Great Neck, New York, through legitimate investments  It was later shown that the home, the yacht and motels had all been acquired prior to 1990 In 1995, Márquez was indicted on 221 counts of running a criminal enterprise  The charges were reduced to two counts, a "C" felony for attempted enterprise corruption and "E" felony for promoting gambling 

Dramatic arrests
On January 13, 1995, 500 NYPD police officers raided 69 locations, including nearly a dozen money banks, which were allegedly under the Márquez family's control  Police arrested 75 employees on felony gambling charges, confiscated over $100,000 in cash, and seized over a dozen keys to safety deposit boxes According to a law enforcement official, the operation was managed by his two nephews, Peter and Robert Márquez Jr , grossed between $25 and $30 million per year, and was headquartered in a row of four contiguous buildings on St  Nicholas Avenue and 113th Street which were connected by a series of doors, tunnels and trapdoors  Robert and Peter Márquez were arrested, along with their sister, Christine, and father Fernando 

An ill-advised plea bargain
In April 1996, Márquez pleaded guilty after making an agreement with the District Attorney's office to forfeit $1 million and to serve a 90-day jail sentence with four years and nine months of probation However, it was discovered by the Appeals Bureau at the D A 's office that a split sentence with a "C" felony was reserved only for those with a narcotics conviction, thus making the deal invalid  Márquez's lawyer sought to withdraw the guilty plea, which was denied by the court  Márquez was sentenced to five years' probation and a $1 million fine In 1998, Márquez and three associates were indicted on 52 counts and charged with running a criminal organization, in the culmination of a year-long NYPD investigation  The prosecution built a case on circumstantial evidence consisting of recordings of Márquez's cell-phone conversations and numerous surveillance videos and photographs of him driving by reputed gambling parlors  Márquez, who was represented by his son, claimed that he was doing research on his autobiography and that was the reason that he showed up on the surveillance tapes  He and three co-defendants were all acquitted after a three-month trial 

Lawsuit against New York City
In 2001, Márquez sued the City of New York for $15 million, claiming that he contracted bladder cancer caused by the secondhand cigarette smoke he inhaled at Rikers Island and the Tombs while confined there for 29 months in the 1990s  Márquez admitted he smoked for three decades before quitting in the 1970s  His son and lawyer, David Márquez, maintained that he had not inhaled deeply when he smoked, that the ventilation system at Rikers Island was inadequate, and that by the time he went to Rikers he hadn't smoked in 23 years  In 2008, a jury rejected the claim after a trial in New York State Supreme Court 

Retirement
Márquez announced his retirement in 2001, saying that he was fed up of being targeted by the office of Manhattan's District Attorney Robert M  Morgenthau  In an interview with the New York Daily News, Márquez described the numbers game as "a source of entertainment to the people" and professed his innocence to the various criminal charges that had been leveled against him over the years  Prosecutors responded that Márquez's "saint act doesn't ring true" and that numbers rackets enforce their control through violence Márquez runs and manages hotels in Commack, Long Island, and Fort Lauderdale, Florida  In 2011, Márquez was targeted by New York City authorities for owing $1 6 million in unincorporated business taxes, making him one of the city's top scofflaws  His son said Márquez would never pay it, saying that Márquez was judgement-proof 

See also
List of Puerto Ricans

Further reading
Gangsters of Harlem by Ron Chepesiuk; Publisher: Barricade Books; ISBN 1-56980-318-8; ISBN 978-1-56980-318-9
Context 2: Passage 1:
Nico van der Laan
Nico van der Laan (25 August 1908 – 20 September 1986) was a Dutch architect, as were his father Leo van der Laan and his brothers Jan and Hans, with whom he was closely associated 

Life and work
Nico van der Laan was born in Leiden, son of the architect Leo van der Laan  He studied to 1937 at the Technische Hogeschool in Delft  His eldest brother Jan took over their father's architectural practice in Leiden 
Together with his brother Hans, who in 1927 became a Benedictine monk at Oosterhout Abbey, Nico immersed himself in the theory of the origins of architecture 
After World War II, with his brother Hans, he led a course in Church Architecture in the Kruithuis in 's-Hertogenbosch, using the early Christian basilica as an example, for training architects in the post-war reconstruction of ecclesiastical buildings  From these courses arose the Bossche School, a name given by opponents of the Van der Laan brothers and their followers 
One of his most notable buildings is St  Martin's Church in Gennep  His brother Hans was also very probably involved in the construction of this church, and drawings of it in Hans' hand are known  Nico also supported his brother in other ways, in terms of finance and morale 
From 1946 Nico van der Laan also had his own architectural practice 

Sources
Remery, Michael, 2010: Mystery and Matter: On the Relationship Between Liturgy and Architecture in the Thought of Dom Hans van der Laan OSB (1904-1991 (Studies in Religion and the Arts vol  3)  Brill ISSN 1877-3192 Online version
Passage 2:
M  Suryanarayan
Mothavarapu Suryanarayan (1930 – 2010) was an Indian first-class cricketer who was born on 1 February 1930 during Madras presidency  M  Suryanarayan is the first son of M Baliah Naidu and the Grandson of Buchi Babu Naidu who is also known as the 'Father of South Indian Cricket' the doyen of Madras Cricket  He was also a  member of the First Ranji Trophy triumph team of Tamil Nadu in 1954–1955, which the Madras team won against Holkar  He was a right-handed batsman and a right-arm medium bowler  The Hindu describing his Cricket, once said: " His batting resembles very closely that of his father -dashing and carefree -and his cover-drive, a joy to watch, has amazing impetus   "And it added that he had "enriched Madras sport as his father had"  His only younger brother M M Kumar represented in the Ranji Trophy 

Career
M  Suryanarayan was a stylish right-hand middle order batsman who played off and cover drives in particularly elegant fashion  A stalwart of Madras cricket in the forties and fifties, `Suri' as he was popularly known, played 11 matches for the state in the Ranji Trophy and earned selection for the Indian team for the fifth and final `Test' against the SJOC team at Lucknow in 1953–54  Suryanarayan proved his mettle by scoring two unbeaten half-centuries against bowlers of the class of Frank Worrell, Fazal Mahmood, Amir Elahi, Khan Mohamed, Loxton, Peter Loader, and Jim McConnel  He Captained Madras and Mysore at the highest levels, besides scoring three centuries before lunch in first-class cricket in Madras and Bangalore  He won the All-India University Tennis Doubles title, Partnering Ramanathan Krishnan, and played in the qualifying rounds of the doubles tournament at Wimbledon  He also won several titles in Table tennis and golf in South Indian Competitions 

Later life
M  Suryanarayan followed in his father's footsteps in many ways  He was a natural at all ball games  M  Suryanarayan did a University of Madras Science degree from Presidency College, then moved into the British Indian world of commerce in Madras and Bangalore before going into business on his own  He also spent some years abroad promoting Indian handlooms on behalf of the Government of India  He published a book written by Suri & Raja (ed), Buchi Babu (Father of Madras Cricket) and his sporting clan, 1993 
Passage 3:
Peter Griffin
Peter Löwenbräu Griffin Sr  (born Justin Peter McFinnigan) is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the American animated sitcom Family Guy  He is voiced by the series' creator, Seth MacFarlane, and first appeared on television, along with the rest of the Griffin family, in the 15-minute pilot pitch of Family Guy on December 20, 1998  Peter was created and designed by MacFarlane himself  MacFarlane was asked to pitch a pilot to the Fox Broadcasting Company based on Larry & Steve, a short made by MacFarlane which featured a middle-aged character named Larry and an intellectual dog, Steve  After the series pilot was given the green light, the Griffin family appeared in the episode "Death Has a Shadow" 
Peter is married to Lois and is the father of Meg, Chris, and Stewie  He also has a dog named Brian, with whom he is best friends  He has worked at a toy factory and at Quahog's Brewery  Peter's voice was inspired by the security guards that MacFarlane heard at his school  His appearance was a redesign of the protagonist Larry from MacFarlane's previous animated short films The Life of Larry and Larry & Steve  He has appeared in several pieces of Family Guy merchandise—including toys, T-shirts, and video games—and he has made crossover appearances in other shows, including The Simpsons, Drawn Together, American Dad!, and Family Guy's spin-off series The Cleveland Show 

Role in Family Guy
Peter Griffin is a middle-class Irish American in his mid‑forties, who is a bespectacled, obese blue-collar worker with a prominent Rhode Island and Eastern Massachusetts accent  Peter's age has never been officially confirmed and has fluctuated  Peter and his wife, Lois, have three children: Meg, Chris, and Stewie  He also has two deceased children: Peter Jr , who was shaken to death, and Dave, Stewie's twin who is implied to have been killed by Stewie during childbirth  He is the illegitimate son of Thelma Griffin and Mickey McFinnigan, and was raised by Thelma and his stepfather, Francis Griffin  It is uncertain whether Peter's legal parents were married before he was conceived, however, as Peter has a flashback in which Francis directly tells him, "I'm not your father!" in the episode "Peter's Two Dads", in which Peter realizes that Francis is not his true father, implying he knew that Peter is not his biological son  Peter and his family live in the fictional town of Quahog, Rhode Island, which is modeled after Providence, Rhode Island  Peter primarily worked as a safety inspector at the Happy-Go-Lucky Toy Factory until his boss, Jonathan Weed, choked to death on a dinner roll while dining with Peter and Lois; he then became a fisherman on his own boat, which was known as the "S S  More Powerful than Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, and The Incredible Hulk Put Together", with the help of two Portuguese immigrants, Santos and Pasqual, until his boat was destroyed  He now works in the shipping department of the Pawtucket Patriot brewery  Peter is also shown in various jobs for single episodes and cutaway gags  In one episode, Peter played for the NFL's New England Patriots until his behavior resulted in his being kicked off the team  In a running gag, storylines are randomly interrupted by extremely long, unexpected fights between Peter and Ernie the Giant Chicken, an anthropomorphic chicken who serves as an archenemy to Peter  These battles parody the action film genre, with explosions, high-speed chases, and immense devastation to the town of Quahog 

Character
Creation
MacFarlane initially conceived Family Guy in 1995 while studying animation at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD)  During college, he created his thesis film entitled The Life of Larry, which was submitted by his professor at RISD to Hanna-Barbera  MacFarlane was hired by the company  Then in 1996, MacFarlane created a sequel to The Life of Larry entitled Larry & Steve, which featured a middle-aged character named Larry and an intellectual dog, Steve; the short was broadcast in 1997 as one of Cartoon Network's World Premiere Toons  Executives at Fox saw the Larry shorts and contracted MacFarlane to create a series, entitled Family Guy, based on the characters  Fox proposed MacFarlane complete a 15-minute short, and gave him a budget of $50,000  Several aspects of Family Guy were inspired by the Larry shorts  While working on the series, the characters of Larry and his dog Steve slowly evolved into Peter and Brian  MacFarlane stated that the difference between The Life of Larry and Family Guy was that "Life of Larry was shown primarily in my dorm room and Family Guy was shown after the Super Bowl "

Voice
The voice of Peter is provided by MacFarlane, who also provides the voice for Brian, Stewie, Quagmire, Tom Tucker, Carter Pewterschmidt, Dr  Hartman, and others  MacFarlane has been part of the main voice cast from the beginning of the series including the pilot, and has voiced Peter from the start  MacFarlane chose to voice Peter and several other characters himself, believing it would be easier to portray the voices he already envisioned than for someone else to attempt it  MacFarlane's speaking voice is not very close to Peter's; he uses his normal voice as the voice of Brian  MacFarlane drew inspiration for the voice of Peter from the security guards he overheard talking while he was attending the Rhode Island School of Design; according to him, "I knew a thousand Peter Griffins growing up in New England  Guys who would not think before they spoke, like [switching to Peter's voice] there was no self-editing mechanism  [Pointing to himself] Everything in here, [pointing to his front] it's coming out here, with no gateway"  MacFarlane also voices many of Peter's ancestors who share the same type of voice  He noted in an interview that he voices Peter and the rest of the characters partly because they initially had a small budget, but also that he prefers to have the freedom to do it himself  In another interview, he pointed out that Peter's voice is one of the most difficult to do There have been rare occasions where MacFarlane does not voice Peter  In the episode "No Meals on Wheels" (season 5, 2007), actor Patrick Stewart voiced Peter in a cutscene, but MacFarlane voices Peter for the rest of the episode  In the episode "Family Gay" (season 7, 2009), Seth Rogen provided a guest-voice as Peter under the effects of the "Seth Rogen gene"  In "Road to the Multiverse" (season 8, 2009), he was voiced by actor Jamison Yang, who was required for a scene where everything in the world was Japanese  In Friends of Peter G (season 9, 2011), John Viener voiced Peter in an alternate timeline where he gave up drinking 

Personality
Peter Griffin is a stereotypical blue-collar worker who frequently gets drunk with his neighbors and friends Cleveland Brown, Joe Swanson and Glenn Quagmire at "The Drunken Clam," Quahog's local tavern  In the season 4 episode "Petarded", Peter discovered his low intellect falls slightly below the level for mental retardation after taking an I Q  test, which places his I Q  at around 70  In that same episode, Peter is declared mentally retarded because of his low I Q  level  Peter also might have brain damage in Wernicke's area as he cutaways into seemingly random situations and speaks in perfect grammar but can't seem to choose how to create a sentence  Peter is known for his brash impulsiveness, which has led to several awkward situations, such as attempting to molest Meg in order to adopt a redneck lifestyle  He is easily influenced by anyone he finds interesting and will often try to replicate their lifestyle and behavior merely out of curiosity  He is incredibly jealous of other attractions Lois has in her life, an attitude which has led to extreme situations, such as when he assaulted a whale that kissed Lois at SeaWorld  In the third season episode "Stuck Together, Torn Apart", Peter and Lois split up because of Peter's jealousy, only to discover that Lois has the same character flaw and the two decide to live together with their mutually jealous nature  Peter has a very short attention span which frequently leads him to bizarre situations, as Chris points out in "Long John Peter", after Peter's parrot dies "He will get over it pretty quickly and then move on to another wacky thing", to which Peter finds a pipe organ and forgets about his parrot (Peter then destroys the pipe organ within seconds and then finds a deed to a cattle ranch)   Peter is also naïve with one example in "Airport '07" where he thinks his truck will fly by filling it with airplane fuel 
Peter has complex relationships with all three of his children  He normally makes fun of Meg and treats her badly, such as in the episode "FOX-y Lady", where he, Meg and Chris try to create a cartoon and they exclude Meg and her ideas  Though in some episodes Peter has had a good relationship with Meg, in "Hell Comes to Quahog" (season 5, 2006), Peter almost tells Meg he loves her and in "Road to Rupert" (season 5, 2007), he told Meg that he would treat her badly in front of the family, but that he would be her friend in secret  It was presumed though that in "Peter's Sister", (season 14, 2015) that Peter would stop bullying Meg  Peter has a much better relationship with Stewie  Peter and Stewie had their adventures when he took him to Walt Disney World Resort in the episode "The Courtship of Stewie's Father" (season 4, 2005)  With Chris, Peter communicates well, but at times when in need of advice or in an adventure Peter tells Chris to do the opposite of what he should do, like in "Long John Peter" (season 6, 2008), where Chris is asking for advice on dating and Peter tells him to treat women horribly Peter is best friends with his anthropomorphic dog, Brian  In earlier seasons, Brian often served as a voice of reason for Peter, helping him out with issues  Brian is extremely grateful to Peter for picking him up on the side of the road as a stray, shown during a flashback in the episode, "Brian: Portrait of a Dog"  His gratitude was affirmed in "New Kidney in Town", where Brian offers to give up both his kidneys and his life so that Peter could undergo a kidney transplant, although he did not have to do it thanks to another, more suitable donor being found  At Brian's funeral in "Life of Brian", Peter said that Brian was his "best friend in the whole world" and "like a brother to him" 

Ancestry
Before Peter was born, his mother Thelma went to Mexico City to have an abortion but gave birth during the procedure, and smuggled him home to Providence, Rhode Island, where he spent his childhood  Peter was raised by Francis and Thelma Griffin in the Roman Catholic faith  In "Peter's Two Dads", he discovers that his biological father is an Irishman named Mickey McFinnigan  Peter visits Mickey, who initially rejects him  Mickey later accepts him as his son after beating him in the "game of drink" (the game of drink referring to matching shots until one passes out)  Mickey is based on the friends of MacFarlane's father  MacFarlane said: "When I was growing up, my father had lots of friends: big, vocal, opinionated New England, Irish Catholics  They were all bursting at the seams with personality, and Family Guy came out of a lot of those archetypes that I spent years observing "

Reception
Praise
Editors of Variety put Family Guy in their contenders for the 2011 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series; they stated that, depending on your sense of humor, Peter is either "a comedy genius" or "an obnoxious idiot"  MacFarlane has been nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in the Outstanding Voice-Over Performance category several times for voicing Peter and other characters; he won in 2016  He was also nominated in 2008 for an Annie Award in the Voice Acting in an Animated Television Production or Short Form for voicing Peter Peter has ranked in several of IGN's top 10s (generally these lists are related to the show)  Among these, Peter ranked the third spot on IGN's "Top 25 Family Guy Characters," in which it was stated that many of the show's best gags come from Peter and his shenanigans and that "Peter practically invented the "manatee joke"  Entertainment Weekly placed Peter in its "18 Bad TV Dads" list (the list also included characters like Homer Simpson and Al Bundy) 

Criticism and controversy
Peter has been criticized for being too similar to Homer Simpson  Peter has appeared in some episodes of The Simpsons; in these episodes which he has been featured, he has been depicted as Homer Simpson's clone or is accused of plagiarism  Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly wrote that Peter is Homer Simpson "as conceived by a singularly sophomoric mind that lacks any reference point beyond other TV shows"  Robin Pierson from The TV Critic criticized the Griffin family for being too similar to the Simpson family, and said that Peter "has Homer Simpson written all over him"  This is eventually made fun of in the episode "Ratings Guy" when, after Peter ruins television and goes to the networks to reverse the changes, Homer Simpson shows up with the same plight, with Peter going "A-ha! Looks like this is one we beat you to!" In "The Simpsons Guy", a crossover episode between Family Guy and The Simpsons, the Griffins end up in the town of Springfield after their car is stolen, where they meet the Simpsons 
Peter has created some controversy in various episodes of Family Guy  The episode "The Cleveland–Loretta Quagmire" (season 4, 2005) featured a sequence titled "You Have AIDS", in which Peter dances and sings in a barbershop quartet fashion around the bed of a man with end-stage AIDS about his diagnosis, which drew protests from several AIDS service organizations  In the episode "When You Wish Upon a Weinstein" (season 3, 2003), Peter sings a parody song of "When You Wish upon a Star", entitled "I Need a Jew"; on October 3, 2007, Bourne Co  Music Publishers filed a lawsuit accusing the show of infringing its copyright on the original song; Bourne Co , the sole United States copyright owner of the song, alleged the parody pairs a "thinly veiled" copy of their music with antisemitic lyrics  The complaint was not upheld 

Cultural influence
Appearances in the media
Peter has made several television appearances outside of Family Guy, often in the form of direct parody  Peter has appeared in two episodes of The Simpsons, poking fun at how the two shows are frequently compared to each other  In the fourteenth season episode "Treehouse of Horror XIII", Peter is depicted as one of Homer Simpson's clones, and in the seventeenth season episode, "The Italian Bob", a photo of Peter is in a book of criminals, which says he is wanted for "plagiarismo"  Peter also appeared in various episodes of the show's spin-off The Cleveland Show  In addition, Peter has appeared at the end of the American Dad! episode "Hurricane!" with guns on both Stan Smith and former neighbor Cleveland Brown  During the stand-off, Stan accidentally shoots his wife Francine, which Peter declares as "classic American Dad!" 

Merchandise
Peter is also featured on the Family Guy: Live in Vegas CD, and plays a significant part in Family Guy Video Game!, the first Family Guy video game, which was released by 2K Games in 2006  Peter was used in the game Family Guy Online as a character class for the game's character creator  MacFarlane recorded exclusive material of Peter's voice and other Family Guy characters for a 2007 pinball machine based the show, created by Stern Pinball  In 2004, the first series of Family Guy toy figurines was released by Mezco Toyz; each member of the Griffin family had their own toy, with the exception of Stewie, of whom two different figures were made  Over the course of two years, four more series of toy figures have been released, with various forms of Peter  Alongside the action figures, Peter has been included in various other Family Guy-related merchandise As of 2009, six books have been released about the Family Guy universe, all published by HarperCollins since 2005  This include Family Guy: It Takes a Village Idiot, and I Married One (ISBN 978-0-7528-7593-4), which covers the entire events of the episode "It Takes a Village Idiot, and I Married One", and Family Guy and Philosophy: A Cure for the Petarded (ISBN 978-1-4051-6316-3), a collection of 17 essays exploring the connections between the series and historical philosophers  which include Peter as a character  Peter appears in comic-book based on the Family Guy universe; by Titan Comics  The first comic book was released July 27, 2011 In 2008, the character appeared in advertisements for Subway, promoting the restaurant's massive feast sandwich  Chief marketing officer Tony Pace commented "Peter's a good representation of the people who are interested in the Feast, and Family Guy is a show "that appeals to that target audience " The Boston Globe critic Brian Steinberg praised the restaurant's use of the character for the commercials 

Notes
Passage 4:
Louis Chedid
Louis Chedid (born 1 January 1948, in Ismaïlia) is a French singer-songwriter of Lebanese and Egyptian origin 

Biography
Louis Chedid is the son of the writer Andrée Chedid and the father of Matthieu Chedid (better known as -M-) 
As a child he made his first footsteps into the singing world as a member of the "Manécanterie des Petits Chanteurs à la Croix de Bois", a famous French catholic boys choir 
Chedid was a fan of the jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt and decided that he would set forth into a career in the world of music as soon as he left school  After his first album "Balbutiements" (Mumblings – 1973) attracted little attention, his talent was first recognised after the release of titles like "La Belle" and "T'as beau pas être beau" released in 1977 
In 1981, "Ainsi soit-il" (Amen) rose to the top of the charts, followed four years later by "Anne ma sœur Anne" (My sister Anne) which criticised the increasing popularity of the extreme-right in France  His first, autobiographical novel – 40 Berges Blues – was published in 1992 
Chedid is also the composer of Pierre-Dominique Burgaud's "Le Soldat Rose" (The Pink Soldier, 2006), a fairytale musical whose songs have been interpreted by singers including -M-, Vanessa Paradis, Jeanne Cherhal, Francis Cabrel, Alain Souchon and Bénabar 

Discography
Albums
Promotional singles
"Miss Melissa" (1974)
"Je chante sous les transistors" (1977)
"La Belle" / "Chapeau de paille" (1977)
"T'as beau pas être beau" / "L'Amour S M P M" (1978)
"Papillon" / "Dans la rue de Sherbrooke" (1979)

Collaborations
Fairytale-Musical "Émilie Jolie" (Philippe Chatel, 1979) : chanson du raton-laveur-rêveur (Song of the dreaming racoon)
Duo with his son Matthieu Chedid : Tel père tel fils (like father like son) – for Solidays, a French AIDS charity appeal
Passage 5:
Joffrey Baratheon
Joffrey Baratheon  is a fictional character in the A Song of Ice and Fire series of epic fantasy novels by American author George R  R  Martin, and its HBO television adaptation Game of Thrones  Introduced in 1996's A Game of Thrones, he subsequently appears in A Clash of Kings (1998) and A Storm of Swords (2000) 
Joffrey is officially the eldest son and heir of king Robert Baratheon and Cersei Lannister, but in actuality is the eldest child of Cersei and her twin brother Jaime Lannister   Joffrey inherits the throne after Robert's death, which, along with his execution of Lord Ned Stark of Winterfell, triggers a power struggle in Westeros known as the War of Five Kings  He is characterized as a spoiled, sadistic bully and frequently torments his family as well as Sansa Stark, to whom he is betrothed in the first novel  He later marries Margaery Tyrell, but is killed by poison during his wedding reception  Joffrey's demise is referred to as The Purple Wedding 
Joffrey is portrayed by Irish actor Jack Gleeson in the television adaptation Game of Thrones, a role for which he received international recognition and critical praise 

Overview
Joffrey Baratheon is not a point of view character in the novels, so his actions are witnessed and interpreted through the eyes of other people, such as his uncle Tyrion Lannister and his one-time fiancée Sansa Stark  He inherits his mother's traditional Lannister looks, and has blond hair and green eyes, and is believed by many to be very handsome  His appearance is referred to as his one redeeming quality 

Character description
In public, Joffrey is allegedly the oldest son and heir of King Robert Baratheon and Queen Cersei Lannister, both of whom entered into a political marriage alliance after Robert took the throne by force from the "Mad King" Aerys II Targaryen   In reality, his biological father is his mother's twin brother, Jaime Lannister   He has a younger sister, Myrcella, and a younger brother, Tommen, both of whom are also products of Jaime and Cersei's incestuous relationship   Their sole biological grandparents, Tywin and Joanna Lannister, were also first cousins Joffrey is an amoral sadist who disguises his cruelty with a thin veneer of charm   This is best epitomized by his response when his (then) betrothed offends him: Joffrey pronounces that his mother had taught him never to strike a woman, and so commissions a knight of the Kingsguard to hit her instead   He enjoys forcing people to fight to the death, and enforces cruel punishments for lesser crimes   He has no sense of personal responsibility, blaming failures on others   He lacks self-control and often insults his allies and family members  He is also impulsive, which frequently leads him to make rash decisions  He appears to have virtually no interests other than sadism and extreme violence, paying no attention to actually governing his kingdom or to anything involving sex, even when he is offered exceptionally beautiful women  Though he takes pleasure in violence, Joffrey is shown to be a coward when confronted with danger to himself, and often shies away from any real fighting 
Joffrey is 12 years old at the beginning of A Game of Thrones (1996) 

Storylines
A Game of Thrones
Prince Joffrey is taken by his parents to Winterfell and is betrothed to Sansa Stark in order to create an alliance between House Baratheon and House Stark  At first, Joffrey is kind and polite to Sansa  However, he refuses to show sympathy with the family when Bran Stark falls from a tower, until physically forced to by his uncle, Tyrion Lannister  While on the Kingsroad to King's Landing, Joffrey and Sansa come across Arya Stark practicing swordplay with a commoner Mycah  Joffrey accuses Mycah of assaulting a noble girl and makes a cut on his face with a sword  This causes Arya to hit Joffrey, allowing Mycah to escape  When Joffrey then turns on Arya, her direwolf Nymeria attacks Joffrey, injuring him  Later, Joffrey lies about the attack, saying it was unprovoked and demands Nymeria to be killed; however, Sansa's direwolf Lady is killed instead  He later has his bodyguard Sandor "The Hound" Clegane hunt down and kill Mycah 
Later, Eddard Stark discovers that Joffrey is not King Robert's biological son and refuses to acknowledge Joffrey's claim to the throne when King Robert dies  He is taken into custody  On Sansa's pleas, Eddard issues a false confession of his treason  Joffrey promised Sansa that he would be merciful but then beheads Eddard anyway and later forces Sansa to look upon her father's head 

A Clash of Kings
Joffrey is briefly seen in A Clash of Kings (1998)  He rules with whim and caprice, proving difficult for even his mother to control  Sansa becomes imprisoned to his will, and he frequently has his guards beat her when she displeases him  When Stannis Baratheon attacks King's Landing, Joffrey leaves the battlefield, damaging the morale of his army  The battle is only won by his uncle Tyrion's use of wildfire and his grandfather Tywin's last-minute counterattack aided by the forces of House Tyrell 

A Storm of Swords
Joffrey sets aside his earlier betrothal to Sansa Stark in favor of Margaery Tyrell, cementing an alliance between the Lannisters and House Tyrell  At Tyrion and Sansa's wedding, he humiliates his uncle and is outraged when his uncle threatens him after he commands him to consummate their marriage  Tyrion only avoids punishment when his father Tywin assures Joffrey that his uncle was drunk and had no intention of threatening the king  Later after the events of the "Red Wedding", Joffrey gleefully plans on serving Sansa her recently deceased brother's head  His uncle Tyrion and his grandfather Tywin are outraged and the former threatens Joffrey once again  After another disagreement, Tywin sends Joffrey to his room, much to Joffrey's chagrin  During his wedding feast, he repeatedly torments Tyrion and Sansa, presenting an offensive play about "The War of the Five Kings", with each of the kings played by dwarves to humiliate his uncle, whom he also forces to act as his cupbearer  At the conclusion of the dinner, however, Joffrey dies from poisoned wine  Tyrion is falsely accused and arrested by Cersei in A Storm of Swords (2000) but it is later revealed that Lady Olenna Tyrell and Lord Petyr Baelish were the true perpetrators 

Family tree
TV adaptation
Season 1
After Robert's death, Cersei Lannister and her father Tywin Lannister) make Joffrey King, and his mother uses him as a puppet  He is also betrothed to Sansa Stark to cement an alliance between the Houses of Stark and Lannister  A cruel tyrant, Joffrey makes sadistic torture and mass murder the main features of his kingdom, and even has Sansa's father Ned executed for treason (which he declares he will never allow to go unpunished) over Sansa's pleas for mercy and Cersei's disapproval 

Season 2
Joffrey's tyranny worsens the situation with the Lannisters' war effort, as his uncle (and secretly, father) Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) is captured by the Starks, and Joffrey's "paternal uncles" Renly (Gethin Anthony) and Stannis (Stephen Dillane) challenge his claim to the Iron Throne  Joffrey frequently orders his Kingsguard to beat Sansa  His cruelty and ignorance of the commoners' suffering makes him unpopular after he orders the City Watch to kill all of his "father"'s bastard children in King's Landing; consequently, he is almost killed during a riot  When Stannis attacks King's Landing, Joffrey serves only as a figurehead and avoids the heavy fighting  When the battle eventually turns in Stannis' favor, Cersei calls her son into the safety of the castle, damaging the morale of his army  The battle is only won by his uncle Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) and grandfather Tywin, aided by the forces of House Tyrell  To cement the alliance between those families, Joffrey's engagement to Sansa is annulled so he can marry Margaery Tyrell (Natalie Dormer) 

Season 3
The marriage is yet to take place, and rifts are growing between Joffrey, and his uncle Tyrion and grandfather Tywin, who are (in their respective ways) rebutting his cruelty  Joffrey also seems to take little interest in his betrothed, but is amazed and altered by her ways of winning the people's favor, in which he takes part  At Tyrion and Sansa's wedding, he humiliates his uncle and is outraged when his uncle threatens him after Joffrey commands him to consummate the marriage  Tyrion only avoids punishment when his father Tywin assures Joffrey that Tyrion was drunk and had no intention of threatening the king  Later, after the events of the "Red Wedding", Joffrey gleefully plans on serving Sansa her recently deceased brother Robb's (Richard Madden) head  Tyrion and Tywin are outraged, and the former threatens Joffrey once again  After another disagreement, Tywin sends Joffrey to his room, much to Joffrey's chagrin 

Season 4
Joffrey finally marries Margaery  During his wedding feast, he repeatedly torments Tyrion and Sansa, presenting an offensive play about "The War of the Five Kings", with each of the kings played by dwarves to humiliate his uncle, whom he also forces to act as his cupbearer  At the height of the festivities, Joffrey is suddenly overcome by poison and dies  His last act is an attempt to point at Tyrion, and as a result Tyrion is falsely accused and ordered arrested by Cersei, but it is later revealed that Lady Olenna Tyrell and Lord Petyr Baelish were the true perpetrators  Olenna, Margaery's grandmother, later confides to Margaery that she would never have let her marry "that beast"  Following Joffrey's funeral, his younger brother and heir, Tommen, is crowned King and proceeds to marry Margaery 

Development and reception

In January 2007, HBO secured the rights to adapt Martin's series for television  Jack Gleeson was cast as Joffrey Baratheon  Gleeson received critical acclaim for his portrayal  In 2016, Rolling Stone ranked the character #4 in their list of the "40 Greatest TV Villains of All Time"  Author Martin described Joffrey as similar to "five or six people that I went to school with     a classic bully     incredibly spoiled"  Gleason would cite Joaquin Phoenix's portrayal of Commodus in Gladiator as a big influence for his performance 
Passage 6:
Paul Chomnycky
Paul Patrick Chomnycky, OSBM, (born 19 May 1954) is a bishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Church and the current bishop of the Diocese of Stamford, Connecticut 

Education
Paul Chomnycky was born in Vancouver, Canada, the son of a Ukrainian-immigrant father and Canadian-born mother (both of whom died in 1996), and graduated from the University of British Columbia with a bachelor's degree in Commerce in 1980   After working as an accountant for two years, he entered the novitate of the Order of St  Basil the Great, working in the Basilian monastery in New York 
On 1 October 1988, he was ordained as a priest of the Order of St  Basil the Great   Then, he continued with further studies in Philosophy at the University of St
Context 3: Passage 1:
List of Super Bowl halftime shows
Halftime shows are a tradition during American football games at all levels of competition  Entertainment during the Super Bowl, the annual championship game of the National Football League (NFL), represents a fundamental link to pop culture, which helps broaden the television audience and nationwide interest 
Prior to the early 1990s, the halftime show featured university marching bands (the Grambling State University Marching Band has performed at the most Super Bowl halftime shows, featuring in six shows including at least one per decade from the 1960s to 1990), drill teams, and other performance ensembles such as Up with People  In the 90s, the halftime show began to feature major hit musicians, beginning with Super Bowl XXV (1991) with New Kids on the Block  In an effort to boost the prominence of the halftime show to increase viewer interest, Super Bowl XXVII (1993) featured a headlining performance by Michael Jackson 

Background
During most of the Super Bowl's first decade, the halftime show featured a college marching band  The show's second decade featured a more varied show, often featuring drill teams and other performance ensembles; the group Up with People produced and starred in four of the performances  The middle of the third decade, in an effort to counter other networks' efforts to counterprogram the game, saw the introduction of popular music acts such as New Kids on the Block, Gloria Estefan, Michael Jackson, Clint Black, Patti LaBelle, and Tony Bennett  Starting with Super Bowl XXXII, commercial sponsors presented the halftime show; within five years, the tradition of having a theme—begun with Super Bowl III—ended, replaced by major music productions by arena rock bands and other high-profile acts  In the six years immediately following an incident at Super Bowl XXXVIII where Justin Timberlake exposed one of Janet Jackson's breasts in an alleged "wardrobe malfunction", all of the halftime shows consisted of a performance by one artist or group, with the musicians in that era primarily being rock artists from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s   These shows were considered "family friendly" and the time in which they took place has been described as "the age of reactionary halftime shows"  Since Super Bowl XLV, the halftime show has returned to featuring popular contemporary musicians, with the typical format featuring a single headline artist collaborating with a small number of guest acts 
The NFL does not pay the halftime show performers an appearance fee, though it covers all expenses for the performers and their entourage of band members management, technical crew, security personnel, family, and friends  Super Bowl XXVII halftime show with Michael Jackson provided an exception, as the NFL and Frito-Lay agreed to make a donation and provide commercial time for Jackson's Heal the World Foundation  According to Nielsen SoundScan data, the halftime performers regularly experience significant spikes in weekly album sales and paid digital downloads due to the exposure  For Super Bowl XLIX, it was reported by the Wall Street Journal that league officials asked representatives of potential acts if they would be willing to provide financial compensation to the NFL in exchange for their appearance, in the form of either an up-front fee, or a cut of revenue from concert performances made after the Super Bowl  While these reports were denied by an NFL spokeswoman, the request had, according to the Journal, received a "chilly" response from those involved 

History
The following is a list of the performers, producers, themes, and sponsors for each Super Bowl game's show  This list does not include national anthem performers, which are listed in the article List of national anthem performers at the Super Bowl  Names in bold are headline performers 

1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
2010s
2020s
Details on specific shows
Super Bowl XL
For the Rolling Stones, the stage was in the form of the group's iconic tongue logo (John Pasche's design first used in 1971 on their Sticky Fingers album)  It was the largest stage ever assembled for a Super Bowl halftime show, with 28 separate pieces assembled in five minutes by a 600-member volunteer stage crew  The group performed three songs: "Start Me Up", "Rough Justice", and "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction"  The show was viewed by 89 9 million people, more than the audiences for the Oscars, Grammys and Emmy Awards combined  In the wake of the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show controversy with Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake, ABC and the NFL imposed a five-second delay and censored lyrics considered too sexually explicit in the first two songs by briefly turning off Mick Jagger's microphone—censoring to which the group had previously agreed 
However, the choice of the Rolling Stones sparked controversy in the Detroit community because the band did not represent the traditional Detroit "Motown Sound", and no artists from the area were included 

Achievements
The Super Bowl XXVII halftime show starring Michael Jackson is the most watched Super Bowl halftime show, with a TV audience of 133 4 million viewers 
The Super Bowl LIV halftime show starring Shakira and Jennifer Lopez is the most viewed Super Bowl halftime show on YouTube, with 270 million Views 
Based on online metrics, TicketSource revealed that the Super Bowl LIV halftime show starring Shakira and Jennifer Lopez is the "World's most popular" halftime show 
The Super Bowl LVI halftime show starring Dr  Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J  Blige and Kendrick Lamar is the first Super Bowl halftime show to win the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Variety Special (Live) 

See also
List of AFL Grand Final pre-match performances
List of Grey Cup halftime shows
List of national anthem performers at the Super Bowl

Notes
Passage 2:
6,000 Enemies
6,000 Enemies is a 1939 American drama film directed by George B  Seitz and starring Walter Pidgeon as a successful District Attorney who is framed on charge of bribery   Although innocent, he is sent to prison where he fights to clear his name  The film also stars Rita Johnson 

Plot summary
Steve Donegan is an elected district attorney and launches an anti-organized crime campaign  Joe Silenus, a crime boss, plots to frame Donegan for accepting a bribe  Donegan is sentenced to prison, where he re-encounters all the men he convicted during his anti-crime crusade  Martin receives orders to eliminate Donegan  Anne Barry, the embezzlement convict, saves his life by alerting the guards to her screams 
Steve’s brother pursues Silenus, disguised as a chauffeur in order to prove his innocence  ‘Socks’ Martin knocks Steve Donegan down six times, but he keeps getting up and fighting  Two revolvers are smuggled into the prison inside a fruit basket meant for the warden  ‘Socks suggests that Steve join him in the prison break  When Phil arrives at the prison to see Steve, he is shot in the drive by just outside the gates  The prisoners riot as a result of the shots, and the rumored prison break begins 

Cast
Walter Pidgeon as Steve Donegan
Rita Johnson as Anne Barry
Paul Kelly as Dr  Malcolm Scott
Nat Pendleton as 'Socks' Martin
Harold Huber as Joe Silenus
Grant Mitchell as Warden Alvin Parkhurst
John Arledge as Phil Donegan
J M  Kerrigan as Dan Barrett
Adrian Morris as 'Bull' Snyder
Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams as Maxie (as Guinn Williams)
Arthur Aylesworth as 'Bluebeard' Dawson
Raymond Hatton as Prisoner 'Wibbie' Yern
Lionel Royce as Prisoner 'Dutch' Myers
Tom Neal as Prisoner Ransom
Willie Fung as Wang

Box office
According to MGM records, the film earned $233,000 in the US and Canada and $125,000 elsewhere, resulting in a profit of $22,000  It also featured the short "The Bear That Couldn't Sleep", which was the first Barney Bear short 
Passage 3:
NFL (video game)
NFL is a 1989 football video game, developed by Atlus and published by LJN exclusively for the Nintendo Entertainment System 

Gameplay modes
This game was the first since NFL Football - released in 1979 for the Intellivision - to get an official National Football League license  Intending to loosely represent the 1988-89 season of the National Football League, the game uses the teams and play formations of that particular era while avoiding usage of the players' names, due to a lack of an NFLPA license, which was given to Tecmo's Tecmo Bowl The player could play one of four options, either Interconference, AFC and NFC game or the Super Bowl (specifically Super Bowl XXIII)  Along with the option to choose a package to play during the game, players can directly control the entire team at once  This game was one of the first NFL video games on a gaming system  The game employs a Top-Down system for the actual gameplay and allows players to assign handicaps to a human opponent that is not as skilled as they are 

Reception
Allgame gave the game a 2 5 out of 5 rating in their overview 
Passage 4:
Nintendo Entertainment System
The Nintendo Entertainment System, commonly known as the NES, is an 8-bit third-generation home video game console produced by Nintendo  It was first released in Japan in 1983 as the Family Computer, commonly referred to as the Famicom or FC  The NES, a redesigned version, was released in American test markets on October 18, 1985, before becoming widely available in North America and other countries 
After developing a series of successful arcade games in the early 1980s, Nintendo planned to create a home video game console  Rejecting more complex proposals, the Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi called for a simple, cheap console that ran games stored on cartridges  The controller design was reused from Nintendo's portable Game & Watch games  Nintendo released several add-ons, such as a light gun for shooting games like Duck Hunt 
The NES was one of the best-selling consoles of its time and helped revitalize the US gaming industry following the video game crash of 1983  It introduced a now-standard business model of licensing third-party developers to produce and distribute games  The NES featured a number of groundbreaking games, such as the 1985 platform game Super Mario Bros  and the 1986 action-adventure games The Legend of Zelda and Metroid, which became long-running franchises  It was succeeded in 1990 by the Super Nintendo Entertainment System  In 2011, IGN named the NES the greatest video game console of all time 

History
Development
Following a series of arcade game successes in the early 1980s, Nintendo made plans to create a cartridge-based console called the Family Computer, or Famicom  Masayuki Uemura designed the system  The console's hardware was largely based on arcade video games, particularly the hardware for Namco's Galaxian (1979) and Nintendo's Radar Scope (1980) and Donkey Kong (1981), with the goal of matching their powerful sprite and scrolling capabilities in a home system  Original plans called for an advanced 16-bit system which would function as a full-fledged computer with a keyboard and floppy disk drive, but Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi rejected this and instead decided to go for a cheaper, more conventional cartridge-based game console as he believed that features such as keyboards and disks were intimidating to non-technophiles  A test model was constructed in October 1982 to verify the functionality of the hardware, after which work began on programming tools  Because 65xx CPUs had not been manufactured or sold in Japan up to that time, no cross-development software was available and it had to be produced from scratch  Early Famicom games were written on a system that ran on an NEC PC-8001 computer and LEDs on a grid were used with a digitizer to design graphics as no software design tools for this purpose existed at that time The code name for the project was "GameCom", but Masayuki Uemura's wife proposed the name "Famicom", arguing that "In Japan, 'pasokon' is used to mean a personal computer, but it is neither a home nor personal computer  Perhaps we could say it is a family computer " Meanwhile, Hiroshi Yamauchi decided that the console should use a red and white theme after seeing a billboard for DX Antenna (a Japanese antenna manufacturer) which used those colors The Famicom was also influenced by the ColecoVision, Coleco's competition against the Atari 2600 in the United States; the ColecoVision's top-seller was a port of Nintendo's Donkey Kong  The project's chief manager Takao Sawano brought a ColecoVision home to his family, impressed by its smooth graphics, which contrasts with the flicker and slowdown commonly seen on Atari 2600 games  Uemura said the ColecoVision set the bar for the Famicom  They wanted to surpass it and match the more powerful Donkey Kong arcade hardware; they took a Donkey Kong arcade cabinet to chip manufacturer Ricoh for analysis, which led to Ricoh producing the Picture Processing Unit (PPU) chip for the NES Original plans called for the Famicom's cartridges to be the size of a cassette tape, but ultimately they ended up being twice as big  Careful design attention was paid to the cartridge connectors because loose and faulty connections often plagued arcade machines  As it necessitated 60 connection lines for the memory and expansion, Nintendo decided to produce its own connectors The controllers are hard-wired to the console with no connectors for cost reasons  The controller designs were reused from the Game & Watch machines, although the Famicom design team originally wanted to use arcade-style joysticks, even dismantling some from American game consoles to see how they worked  There were concerns regarding the durability of the joystick design and that children might step on joysticks on the floor  Katsuya Nakawaka attached a Game & Watch D-pad to the Famicom prototype and found that it was easy to use and caused no discomfort  Ultimately though, they installed a 15-pin expansion port on the front of the console so that an optional arcade-style joystick could be used Gunpei Yokoi suggested an eject lever to the cartridge slot which is not necessary, but he believed that children could be entertained by pressing it  Uemura adopted his idea  Uemura added a microphone to the second controller with the idea that it could be used to make players voices sound through the TV speaker 

Japanese release
The console was released on July 15, 1983, as the Home Cassette-type Video Game: Family Computer, for ¥14,800 (equivalent to ¥18,400 in 2019) with three ports of Nintendo's successful arcade games Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr , and Popeye  The Famicom was slow to gather success; a bad chip set caused the early revisions to crash  Following a product recall and a reissue with a new motherboard, the Famicom's popularity soared, becoming the bestselling game console in Japan by the end of 1984 : 279, 285 Nintendo launched the system with only first-party games, but after being approached by Namco and Hudson Soft in 1984, agreed to produce third-party games for a 30% fee for console licensing and production costs  This rate continued in the industry for consoles and digital storefronts through the 21st Century 

North American release
Nintendo also had its sights set on the North American market, entering into negotiations with Atari, Inc  to release the Famicom under Atari's name as the Nintendo Advanced Video Gaming System  The deal was set to be finalized and signed at the Summer Consumer Electronics Show in June 1983  However, Atari discovered at that show that its competitor Coleco was illegally demonstrating its Coleco Adam computer with Nintendo's Donkey Kong game  This violation of Atari's exclusive license with Nintendo to publish the game for its own computer systems delayed the implementation of Nintendo's game console marketing contract with Atari  Atari's CEO Ray Kassar was fired the next month, so the deal went nowhere, and Nintendo decided to market its system on its own : 283–285 

Subsequent plans for the Nintendo Advanced Video System likewise never materialized: a North American repackaged Famicom console featuring a keyboard, cassette data recorder, wireless joystick controller and a special BASIC cartridge : 287  By the beginning of 1985, more than 2 5 million Famicom units had been sold in Japan, and Nintendo soon announced plans to release it in North America as the Advanced Video Entertainment System (AVS) that year  The American video game press was skeptical that the console could have any success in the region, as the industry was still recovering from the video game crash of 1983  The March 1985 issue of Electronic Games magazine stated that "the videogame market in America has virtually disappeared" and that "this could be a miscalculation on Nintendo's part" The Famicom hardware first made its North American debut in the arcades, in the form of the Nintendo VS  System in 1984; the system's success in arcades paved the way for the official release of the NES console  With US retailers refusing to stock game consoles, Yamauchi realized there was still a market for video games in the arcades, so he decided to introduce the Famicom to North America through the arcade industry  The VS  System became a major success in North American arcades, becoming the highest-grossing arcade machine of 1985 in the United States  By the time the NES launched, nearly 100,000 VS  Systems had been sold to American arcades  The success of the VS  System gave Nintendo the confidence to release the Famicom in North America as a video game console, for which there was growing interest due to Nintendo's positive reputation in the arcades  It also gave Nintendo the opportunity to test new games as VS  Paks in the arcades, to determine which games to release for the NES launch At June 1985's Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Nintendo unveiled the American version of its Famicom, with a new case redesigned by Lance Barr and featuring a "zero insertion force" cartridge slot  The change from a top-loader in the Famicom to a front-loader was to make the new console more like a video cassette recorder, which had grown in popularity by 1985, and differentiate the unit from past video game consoles  Additionally, Uemura explained that Nintendo developers had feared that the console's electronics might face electrostatic hazards in dry American states such as Arizona and Texas, and a front-loading design would be safer if children handled the console carelessly This was deployed as the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)  Nintendo seeded these first systems to limited American test markets starting in New York City on October 18, 1985, and followed up in Los Angeles in February 1986; the American nationwide release came on September 27, 1986  Nintendo released 17 launch games: 10-Yard Fight, Baseball, Clu Clu Land, Duck Hunt, Excitebike, Golf, Gyromite, Hogan's Alley, Ice Climber, Kung Fu, Pinball, Soccer, Stack-Up, Super Mario Bros , Tennis, Wild Gunman, and Wrecking Crew 
For expedient production, some varieties of these launch games contain Famicom chips with an adapter inside the cartridge so they play on North American consoles, which is why the title screens of Gyromite and Stack-Up show the titles of the Famicom games Robot Gyro and Robot Block, respectively 
The system's launch represented not only a new product, but also a reframing of the severely damaged home video game market in North America  The 1983 video game crash had occurred in large part due to a lack of consumer and retailer confidence in video games, which had been partially due to confusion and misrepresentation in video game marketing  Prior to the NES, the packaging of many video games presented bombastic artwork which did not represent a game's actual graphics  Furthermore, a single game such as Pac-Man appeared across consoles with substantial variations in graphics, sound, and general quality  In contrast, Nintendo's marketing strategy aimed to regain consumer and retailer confidence by delivering a singular platform whose graphics could be represented truthfully and whose qualities were clearly defined To differentiate Nintendo's new home platform from the perception of a troubled and shallow video game market still reeling from the 1983 crash, the company freshened its product nomenclature and established a strict product approval and licensing policy  The overall platform is referred to as "Entertainment System" instead of a "video game system", is centered upon a machine called a "Control Deck" instead of a "console", and features software cartridges called "Game Paks" instead of "video games"  This allowed Nintendo to gain more traction in selling the system in toy stores  To deter production of games which had not been licensed by Nintendo, and to prevent copying, the 10NES lockout chip system act as a lock-and-key coupling of each Game Pak and Control Deck  The packaging of the launch lineup of NES games bear pictures of close representations of actual onscreen graphics  To reduce consumer confusion, symbols on the games' packaging clearly indicate the genre of the game  A seal of quality is on all licensed game and accessory packaging  The initial seal states, "This seal is your assurance that Nintendo has approved and guaranteed the quality of this product"  This text was later changed to "Official Nintendo Seal of Quality" Unlike with the Famicom, Nintendo of America marketed the console primarily to children, instituting a strict policy of censoring profanity, sexual, religious, or political content  The most famous example is Lucasfilm's attempts to port the comedy-horror game Maniac Mansion to the NES, which Nintendo insisted be considerably watered down 
The optional Robotic Operating Buddy, or R O B , was part of a marketing plan to portray the NES's technology as being novel and sophisticated when compared to previous game consoles, and to portray its position as being within reach of the better established toy market  Though at first, the American public exhibited limited excitement for the console itself, peripherals such as the light gun and R O B  attracted extensive attention 

Other markets
In Europe and Oceania, the NES was released in two separate marketing regions  The first consisted of mainland Europe (excluding Italy) where distribution was handled by a number of different companies, with Nintendo responsible for manufacturing  The NES saw an early launch in Europe in 1986 although most of the European countries received the console in 1987  The release in Scandinavia was on September 1, 1986, where it was released by Bergsala  In the Netherlands, it was distributed by Bandai BV  In France it was released in October 1987, while in Spain between late 1987 and 1988 through distributor Spaco  Also in 1987, Mattel handled distribution for the second region, consisting of the United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy, Australia and New Zealand  Mattel handled distribution for Nintendo in Canada as well; however, it was unrelated to the aforementioned European / Australian releases In Brazil, the console was released late in 1993 by Playtronic, even after the SNES  But the Brazilian market had been dominated by unlicensed NES clones – both locally made, and smuggled from Taiwan  One of the most successful local clones was the Phantom System, manufactured by Gradiente, which licensed Nintendo products in the country for the following decade  The sales of officially licensed products were low, due to the cloning, the quite late official launch, and the high prices of Nintendo's licensed products Outside of Japan, regions in greater Asia received an "Asian Version" of the front-loader NES despite the prevalence of imported Famicom systems  Due to import restrictions, NES consoles in India and South Korea were rebranded and distributed by local licensees  The Indian version is called the Samurai Electronic TV Game System and the Korean version is called the Hyundai Comboy  The console sold very poorly in India 

Later redesigns and bundles
For its complete North American release, the Nintendo Entertainment System was progressively released over the ensuing years in several different bundles, beginning with the Deluxe Set, the Basic Set, the Action Set and the Power Set  The Deluxe Set, retailing at US$179 99 (equivalent to $529 in 2022), included R O B , a light gun called the NES Zapper, two controllers, and two Game Paks: Gyromite and Duck Hunt  The Control Deck, first released in 1987, retailed at US$89 99 with no game, and US$99 99 bundled with the Super Mario Bros  cartridge  The Action Set, released April 14, 1988, for US$109 99, came with the Control Deck, two game controllers, an NES Zapper, and a dual Game Pak containing both Super Mario Bros  and Duck Hunt 
In 1989, the Power Set included the console, two game controllers, an NES Zapper, a Power Pad, and a triple Game Pak containing Super Mario Bros, Duck Hunt, and World Class Track Meet  In 1990, a Sports Set bundle was released, including the console, an NES Satellite infrared wireless multitap adapter, four game controllers, and a dual Game Pak containing Super Spike V'Ball and Nintendo World Cup  Two more bundle packages were later released using the original model NES console



ground_truth: Colin Firth

prompt_front: Answer the question based on the given passages. Only give me the answer and do not output any other words.

Question: Who is the father of the Labo M performer?

The following are given passages.
Context 2:  Anselm and the Gregorian University in Rome, receiving a Bachelor's in Sacred Theology in 1990 
Upon his return to Canada, he served briefly as an assistant pastor at Sts  Peter and Paul Church in Mundare, Alberta and St  Basil's, Edmonton  Eventually he would return to both parishes as their pastor in 1997 and 2000 and also served as the pastor of St  Mary's Church in Vancouver from 1994 to 1997  During his tenure as pastor at St  Basil's in Edmonton and St  Paul's in Mundare, he was also the superior of the local Basilian monastery 
Bishop Chomnycky also served as the Director of the Basilian Fathers museum in Mundare, a member of the Provincial Council of the Basilian Fathers of Canada, and a member of the college of consultors of the Edmonton Eparchy  He was appointed Exarch for Ukrainian Catholics in Great Britain on April 5, 2002 and consecrated bishop on June 11, 2002 by Cardinal Lubomyr Husar 

See also
Passage 7:
Rosalie Loveling
Rosalie Loveling (20 March 1834 – 4 May 1875) was a Flemish author of poetry, novels, and essays 

Biography
Rosalie Loveling was born in Nevele, Belgium, and was the older sister of Virginie Loveling, also an author, with whom she co-wrote part of her oeuvre  After the death of their father Herman Loveling, the family moved to Ghent where the sisters moved in circles of French-speaking, mainly anti-clerical intelligentsia before eventually returning to Nevele 
She made her literary debut influenced by Klaus Groth, whose 'Trinia' she translated into Dutch  Together with her sister, she went on to write realistic and descriptive poetry with a romantic undertone  They also published two collections of essays on life in the rural communities as well as the city bourgeoisie 
Rosalie Loveling died on 4 May 1875 in Nevele 

Bibliography
Co-authored with Virginie Loveling
Gedichten (1870)
Novellen (1874) Rosalie : Jan-oom en Belle-Trezeken, De baan der kunst, Serafine, Broeder en zuster, Meester Huyghe ; Virginie: Drie kleine schetsen, Sidon, In de Hope van Vrede, De verdwaalden, Emiliaantje
Nieuwe novellen (1876) Rosalie: Mijnheer Daman en zijn erfgenamen, Juffrouw Leocadie Stevens, Po en Paoletto ; Virginie: Octavie en Estelle, De kwellende gedachte, De vijftig franken
Polydoor en Theodoor en andere novellen en schetsen (1883) Virginie: Polydoor en Theodoor ; Rosalie: De hond, Uwe tweede vrouw, Het eenig kind, De gierigheid, Kinderverdriet, Onbehendige troostwoorden, Iets over het onderwijs der vrouw, Beloften en bedreigingen, Mijn verre neef
Onze Rensen (1950)
Niets is onbeduidend (compilation and commentary by A  Van Elslander, 1978)

Sole author
Vreest gij niet (1853)
Trinia, translated from Klaus Groth's work (1864)
Het licht op oog (1866)
De eerst opvoeding (1863)
Het meesterschap (1868)
Het geschenk

See also
Flemish literature
Passage 8:
Ahmet Zappa
Ahmet Emuukha Rodan Zappa (born May 15, 1974) is an American musician and writer, and trustee of the Zappa Family Trust 

Early life
Ahmet Zappa was born in Los Angeles, California, the third of four children born to musician Frank Zappa and businesswoman Gail Zappa (née Sloatman)  His father was of Italian (Sicilian), Greek, Arab, and French descent, and his mother was of German and Portuguese ancestry  He is said to be named after music executive Ahmet Ertegun (co-founder and president of Atlantic Records), whom his father greatly admired  This is contradicted by Neil Slaven in Electric Don Quixote: The Definitive Story Of Frank Zappa, who notes:

His first name was that of an imaginary person we always had hanging around back when we had no one on our payroll," Gail told Victoria Balfour  "We'd snap our fingers and say, 'Ahmet? Dishes  Coffee, please ' He was also named Rodan after a giant pterodactyl that would have ravaged the world if the Japanese film director Ishiro Honda hadn't destroyed it in 1957 
His older brother and sister are Dweezil Zappa and Moon Zappa, and his younger sister is Diva Zappa 

Career
Ahmet Zappa has released several albums with his brother Dweezil, and wrote the song "Frogs with Dirty Little Lips" with his father 
He has appeared in several feature films and television programs  In the late 1990s, he appeared on Channel 4 UK's The Adam and Joe Show, in a regular segment called "Vinyl Justice", in which hosts Adam Buxton and Joe Cornish, dressed as policemen, examined his vinyl collection for "criminal records"  In 2000, he appeared in the film Ready to Rumble  With his brother Dweezil, he performed a cover of Britney Spears' song "   Baby One More Time" for the film's soundtrack  Other appearances include hosting the TV shows Robotica (TV series) and But Can They Sing? 
In July 2006, Zappa saw the release of his debut novel, entitled The Monstrous Memoirs of a Mighty McFearless, aimed at younger readers  The rights to a movie were purchased by Bruckheimer Films and Disney  The movie is in production with screenwriter Tim Firth assisting, no release date has been announced On October 19, 2006, The Jim Henson Company announced it had hired Zappa to write a treatment for a feature film version of the hit 1980s television show Fraggle Rock  He is also writing a sequel to The Monstrous Memoirs of a Mighty McFearless, which had also been optioned to adapt to a screenplay  Zappa proposed to Disney's studio head Bob Iger that the company form a graphic novel-to-film division; the result was "Disney's Kingdom Comics " Zappa was also given a first-look deal at Walt Disney Studios for motion picture productions  His company is called Monsterfoot Productions  His first film, The Odd Life of Timothy Green, was released in 2012 by Walt Disney Pictures, and starred Jennifer Garner and Joel Edgerton 
Following the death of Zappa's mother, Gail, in October 2015, it was revealed that Ahmet and his sister Diva were given control of the Zappa Family Trust with shares of 30% each, while his siblings Moon and Dweezil were given smaller shares of 20% each  As beneficiaries only, Moon and Dweezil will not see any money from the trust until it is profitable—in 2016, it was "millions of dollars in debt"—and must seek permission from Ahmet, the trustee, to make money from their father's music or merchandise bearing his name  The uneven divide of the trust has resulted in several conflicts between Zappa's children, including a feud between Dweezil and Ahmet over Dweezil's use of his father's music in live performances 
Under Ahmet's direction, the trust proposed a trademark on the name Zappa, which would prevent Dweezil from using the name for commercial purposes without authorization  Since 2006, Dweezil toured with an act called Zappa Plays Zappa, playing his father's music  The trust sought to collect a fee from Dweezil for continued use of the name, as well as proceeds from merchandise sold at Zappa Plays Zappa concerts  In response to the trust's action, Dweezil renamed his performance series "50 Years of Frank: Dweezil Zappa Plays Whatever the F@%k He Wants—the Cease and Desist Tour  In more recent times, the Zappa siblings have legally reconciled their differences with Dweezil noting "It may be a bumpy road at times – we are a passionate Italian family – but we have decided to work toward privately discussing issues rather than using public forums and lawyers "

Personal life
Zappa married actress Selma Blair on January 24, 2004, at Carrie Fisher's mansion in Beverly Hills, California  Blair filed for divorce at the Los Angeles Superior Court on June 21, 2006, citing irreconcilable differences  In a statement to People, a spokesman for the couple said, "Selma and Ahmet have decided to divorce but love each other very much and will continue to be close friends" Zappa is now married to Shana Muldoon—designer, writer, and creator of Disney Star Darlings and the sister of actor Patrick Muldoon  They have a daughter, Halo Violetta Zappa, born in 2010, and a son, Arrow D'Oro Leon Zappa, born in 2016 

Discography
Confessions (1991)
Shampoohorn (1994)
Music for Pets (1996)

Filmography
Pump Up the Volume (1990) – Jaime
Anarchy TV (1998) - Officer Sweitzer
Jack Frost (1998) – Snow plow driver
Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror (1998) – Lazlo
Ready to Rumble (2000) – Cashier
Gen¹³ (2000) – Additional Voices (voice)
The Odd Life of Timothy Green (2012) – story by and producer

Television
2 Hip 4 Tv – Host (1988)
Roseanne (1994)
webRIOT – host (1999)
Happy Hour – host (1999)
Robotica – host for three seasons (2001–2002)
But Can They Sing? – host (2005)
Head Case Ep No  105 (Parental Guidance Required) – Starz Channel Original Series – self (2008)
Passage 9:
Labo M
Labo M (2003) is the third studio album by French singer-songwriter Matthieu Chedid in his persona as -M-  It's an all-instrumental work which, considering that one of -M-'s trademarks had previously been his inventive wordplay, caused some degree of discontent amongst parts of his fan base  Remarkably successful for an instrumental work, the album entered the French charts at number 27 but proved to be a stopgap with the full studio album Qui de nous deux appearing later the same year 
The album's title meaning "M's Laboratory", is a pun on La Bohème as well as the name of Chedid's recording studio 

Track listing
Tapis Volant 1
Slide Melody
Les Saules
L'Automat
Ricken
Stan est Stone
Au Kazoo
Jam à la Mer
Tapis Volant 2
Coup d'Trash
La Nébuleuse
Passage 10:
Chen Peisi
Chen Peisi (Chinese: 陈佩斯; born 1 February 1954) is a Chinese sketch comedian, film and stage actor, and voice actor   Chen's oft-time comedy partner is Zhu Shimao 

Name
Chen Peisi is the second son of famous stage and film actor Chen Qiang  Chen Qiang's first son (Chen Peisi's brother) was born in 1951 while he was overseas in the Hungarian capital Budapest performing The White-Haired Girl, so he named his first son Chen Buda (陈布达) after Buda, the western half of Budapest, as he loved the city during the visit   When the second son was born three years later, he named the son Peisi after Pest, the eastern half of Budapest, as the Standard Chinese phonetic translation of Budapest is "Bù Dá Peì Sī"   Chen Qiang's youngest child and daughter Chen Lida (陈丽达) was also named after a part of Budapest — the Margaret Island in the Danube between Buda and Pest 

Biography
Chen was born in Changchun, Jilin on 1 February 1954  In 1966, Chen studied at The High School Affiliated to Beijing Normal University  In 1969, during the Cultural Revolution, he worked in Inner Mongolia Production and Construction Corps  In 1973, Chen worked in August First Film Studio as an actor  In 1991, Chen set up a company named Hainan Comedy Film and Television Limited Company (海南喜剧影视有限公司), then renamed it Dadao Film and Television Limited Company (大道影业有限公司)  In 2000, Chen and his partner Zhu Shimao sued the China International Television Corporation over royalties from broadcasts which they won, but they were then taken off air by the parent company, China Central Television On October 26, 2020, he returned to the CCTV stage and served as the first instructor of the variety show "Gold Medal Comedy Class" after 20 years 

Filmography
Film
Television
Variety show
Passage 11:
Jodie Rimmer
Jodie Rimmer (born 1974) is a New Zealand voice and performer actress best known for starring on Young Hercules, as Lilith  Her work includes Xena: Warrior Princess,  Channelling Baby, The Strip, and In My Father's Den 

Biography
Rimmer was educated at Glenfield College on Auckland's North Shore 

Awards
In 2005, Rimmer won in the Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role category at the New Zealand Screen Awards for her role in the film In My Father's Den (2004) 

Filmography
Film
Television
Passage 12:
David Wm  Sims
David William Sims (born September 17, 1963) is an American musician, best known as the bass guitarist of the bands Scratch Acid (with whom he initially played guitar), Rapeman, and The Jesus Lizard  He has also recorded or performed with Sparklehorse, Rhys Chatham, Shivaree, Pigface, Flour, and others  Sims currently performs experimental solo electric bass as Unfact 
Sims was born and raised in Austin, Texas  His parents were an American-history professor and a nurse  Besides being a musician, Sims is a Certified Public Accountant and blogged on his personal website from 2008 to 2011, with only updates subsequently  In a Kreative Kontrol podcast in 2014, it was discussed that Sims "always had issues with the name" of Rapeman and that it was "the biggest musical regret" of his life  He lives in New York City 

Solo discography (as Unfact)
2010 "Dead Wasp" 7" single (Ox-Ghost Recordings)
2010 "Bleached Valentine" - split LP with Noveller (Ox-Ghost Recordings/Saffron Recordings)
Passage 13:
Lucy Walker (climber)
Lucy Walker (1836–1916) was a British mountaineer and the first woman to climb the Matterhorn 
Walker was born in 1836, in British North America, in what would later become Canada  Her mother, Jane McNeil McMurdo, moved from Scotland to North America with her husband and infant daughter in 1836  Mrs McMurdo left her husband to live with Francis (Frank) Walker; Lucy Walker and her brother Horace were born before their parents moved to England  The McMurdos divorced in 1841, and Frank Walker and Jane McMurdo married on 24 April 1841  The family then moved to Liverpool, England, where Frank Walker became a lead merchant   Walker began her climbing rather modestly in 1858 when she was advised by her doctor to take up walking as a cure for rheumatism   Accompanied by her father Frank Walker and her brother Horace Walker, both of whom were early members of the Alpine Club, and Oberland guide Melchior Anderegg, she became the first woman to regularly climb in the Alps 
Walker's achievements were, at first, largely unnoticed except by those in her immediate company   Early successes included the first ascent of the Balmhorn (1864), and the first female ascent of the Eiger (1864), Wetterhorn (1866), and Piz Bernina (1869)  In 1871 her long-standing guide, Melchior Anderegg, learned that a contemporary Meta Brevoort, an American female mountaineer, was planning an expedition to climb the Matterhorn   Walker's party hastily rearranged their plans and on 21 July, she became the first woman to stand atop the Matterhorn, and with it gained world renown  As well as the Eiger she had already been the first woman to climb the Aiguille Verte (1870), Lyskam (1868), Gross Fiescherhorn (1868), Schreckhorn (1867), Weisshorn (1866), Dom (1866), Rimpfischhorn (1864), Grand Combin (1864), Zumsteinspitze (1863), Finsteraarhorn (1862) and the Strahlhorn (1860)  In 1873 she added the Taschhorn to this enviable  list of first ascents In all Lucy Walker completed a total of 98 expeditions  In 1909 she became a member of the newly formed Ladies' Alpine Club where she was acclaimed as the pioneer of women climbers   In 1913 she was elected its second President and served in that capacity until 1915  She died at her home in Liverpool on 10 September 1916 

See also
Annie Smith Peck
Frederica Plunket

Further reading
Brown, Rebecca (2003)  Women on high : pioneers of mountaineering  [S l ]: Appalachian Mountain Club  ISBN 9781929173426  OCLC 795297761 
Passage 14:
Journey 2: The Mysterious Island
Journey 2: The Mysterious Island is a 2012 American science fantasy action-adventure film directed by Brad Peyton and produced by Beau Flynn, Tripp Vinson and Charlotte Huggins  A sequel to Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008), the film is based on Jules Verne's The Mysterious Island (1875)  It stars Dwayne Johnson, Michael Caine, Josh Hutcherson, Vanessa Hudgens, Luis Guzmán, and Kristin Davis  The storyline was written by Richard Outten, Brian Gunn and Mark Gunn, and the screenplay by Brian and Mark Gunn 
Journey 2: The Mysterious Island was released in cinemas on February 10, 2012, by Warner Bros  Pictures, New Line Cinema and Walden Media to mixed reviews, but was a box office success with a worldwide gross of $335 million, surpassing its predecessor  It was released on DVD/Blu-ray on June 5, 2012 

Plot
Four years after his adventure in the center of the earth, 17-year-old Sean Anderson is arrested by the police for breaking into a satellite control center in hopes of enhancing a coded signal that could have been sent by his long-missing grandfather, Alexander Anderson  
Wanting to bond with Sean, his new stepfather Hank Parsons helps decipher the code, which leads to three books: Treasure Island, Gulliver's Travels, and Jules Verne's Mysterious Island  Using the books' individual maps, Hank uses a backlight to make them a single island, complete with the coordinates to its location  Hoping to prove to Sean that there is no mysterious island there, Hank agrees to take him to where the coordinates point to 
In Palau, Hank reluctantly hires helicopter tourism guide Gabato and his daughter Kailani (on whom Sean develops an immediate crush) to fly to the coordinates, as they are the only ones willing to take them  The helicopter gets caught in a cyclone and they crash into the Pacific, waking up on the island 
Moving in land, they are shocked to discover miniature elephants (which belong to a prehistoric species, the Dwarf sicilian elephant) and giant butterflies, meaning the animal sizes are opposite  After coming across an egg clutch, Gabato accidentally wakes up a giant frilled lizard, which chases them throughout the jungle  
They nearly get eaten, but are saved by Alexander  He takes them to a hut he built from the wreckage of the ship that brought him to the island  He has a working radio, but due to the positioning of the satellite, it will be two weeks before they can call out 
The next morning, Alexander leads the group to the lost city of Atlantis, which rises every 70 years and sinks again after a couple of days  Although Alexander assures them the island won't sink for many years, Hank discovers sea water coming from underground, meaning they only have days before the island sinks  Their only means of salvation seems to be the legendary Nautilus, Captain Nemo's submarine  Kailani enters Nemo's crypt and finds his journal, which shows that Nautilus is in a cave at Poseidon's Cliffs 
To go there, they mount giant bees and fly over a high ridge  When giant bee-eater birds try to devour them, Sean saves Kailani's life, but dislocates his ankle  Hank and Alexander reset Sean's ankle, then the group has a bonding moment when Hank sings his rendition of "What a Wonderful World" to ease Sean's pain 
The next morning, the water rises greatly and Hank deduces that the island will sink in a matter of hours  Gabato is missing, having gone toward the island's volcano in search of gold  While Alexander and Kailani go after him, Sean and Hank head for Poseidon's Cliffs 
To reach Nautilus' underwater cave, Sean and Hank create makeshift oxygen tanks and dive down fifty feet, but are nearly killed by a giant electric moray eel  The 140-year-old batteries have run down, so they engineer a way to start the submarine with the eel's electricity 
Kailani and Alexander find Gabato and convince him to escape with them instead of trying to take some volcano gold  As they near Poseidon's Cliffs, the volcano erupts  Sean and Hank arrive in Nautilus just in time to rescue the others from the water  Gabato pilots the submarine out of harm's way while Hank and Sean fire torpedoes into the path of falling debris  As they clear the dangers, Kailani kisses Sean for his bravery 
Six months later, Kailani and Gabato are well off, as he runs the most popular tourist attraction on Palau – tours aboard the Nautilus  Kailani visits Sean on his birthday  While the family celebrates, Alexander arrives with a book for Sean's birthday present – Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon, Alexander's suggestion for the next new adventure with the family 
The film ends with the camera panning to the moon 

Cast
Dwayne Johnson as Hank, Sean's stepfather and a former Navy code breaker 
Josh Hutcherson as Sean, Hank's stepson who wants to find his missing grandfather on the Mysterious Island 
Michael Caine as Alexander, Sean's grandfather who is the father of Max and Trevor Anderson from the previous film 
Luis Guzmán as Gabato, Kailani's father, who is part of the father-daughter tour guide team 
Vanessa Hudgens as Kailani, part of the father-daughter tour guide company and Sean's love interest 
Kristin Davis as Liz, Sean's mother and Hank's wife  Portrayed by Jane Wheeler in the previous film 
Anna Colwell as Jessica
Stephen Caudill as Cop, a police officer who is a friend of Hank's 
Branscombe Richmond as Tour Guide
Walter Bankson as Hockey Player

Production
After the commercial success of the first film, New Line Cinema and Walden Media purchased Richard Outten's spec script, Mysterious Travels, in March 2009 to serve as the basis for the film  In the story, the characters embark on a journey to a mysterious uncharted island thought to have inspired the writing of three literary classics: Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, and Jules Verne's Mysterious Island  Brian Gunn and Mark Gunn were chosen to revise Outten's script  Warner Bros  and New Line Cinema announced that Journey 2: The Mysterious Island would be released on February 10, 2012 

Casting
Josh Hutcherson was the only actor to reprise his role  Due to scheduling issues, Brendan Fraser and Anita Briem did not return  Kristin Davis replaced Jane Wheeler as Sean's mother Liz  Dwayne Johnson played Sean's stepfather, who is forced to accompany Sean on the trip to find his missing grandfather Alexander (played by Michael Caine) on a mythical and monstrous island  Vanessa Hudgens was cast as Hutcherson's love interest, Kailani 

Short film
The theatrical release of the film was preceded by a Looney Tunes short film titled Daffy's Rhapsody, featuring Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd in the first CG or 3-D depiction of these specific Looney Tunes characters  The short film's director, Matthew O'Callaghan, noted that "Daffy Rhapsody was originally recorded in the early 1950s as part of a kids' album"  Unlike the earlier CG Looney Tunes shorts that appeared before Happy Feet Two and Yogi Bear, this short did not appear on the home video release of the film it accompanied 

Release
Theatrical release
Journey 2: The Mysterious Island was released in cinemas on February 10, 2012, by Warner Bros  Pictures, Walden Media and New Line Cinema  The film was accompanied by a 3D Looney Tunes short titled Daffy's Rhapsody  The short was originally going to play before Happy Feet Two, but was replaced with I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat to go along with the bird theme 

Home media
Journey 2: The Mysterious Island was released on DVD/Blu-ray on June 5, 2012 

Reception
Box office
Journey 2: The Mysterious Island grossed $103 9 million in North America and $231 4 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $335 3 million, against a production budget of $79 million surpassing its predecessor  In North America, the film earned a $6 54 million on its debut Friday, ranking fourth at the box office  Over the weekend, it earned $27 3 million, coming in third place, much higher than the original's $21 0 million debut  Outside North America, Journey 2 began its run three weeks before its North American release  It topped the box office outside North America for two consecutive weekends and three in total  It surpassed the original's total outside North America  Its highest-grossing region after North America was China ($58 4 million), followed by Russia and the CIS ($17 6 million) and Mexico ($12 7 million) 

Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 44% based on 131 reviews with an average rating of 4 92/10  The site's critical consensus reads: "Aggressively unambitious, Journey 2 might thrill teen viewers, but most others will find it too intense for young audiences and too cartoonishly dull for adults"  On Metacritic, the film has a score of 41 out of 100 based on reviews from 27 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews"  Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a B grade, stating that "the movie flies by pleasantly, and is then instantly forgettable  Perhaps Jules Verne can explain the science of that"  Randy Cordova from the Arizona Republic said: "Johnson can't save the movie, directed by Brad Peyton, from being a sloppy skip from one seemingly unrelated idea to the next"  Roger Ebert, who gave the first film two stars, gave the sequel two-and-a-half stars, stating: "It isn't a "good" movie in the usual sense (or most senses), but it is jolly and goodnatured, and Michael Caine and Dwayne Johnson are among the most likable of actors" 

Accolades
Soundtrack
Letterbomb - Performed by Green Day
Sleep Forever - Performed by Crocodiles
Aloha Oe - Performed by Dwayne Johnson
Hello Again - Performed by Meta & The Cornerstones
Three Little Birds - Performed by Bob Marley & The Wailers
What a Wonderful World - Performed by Dwayne Johnson

Future
In August 2014, Carey Hayes and Chad Hayes were announced to write the script for a third film  Brad Peyton and Dwayne Johnson were expected to direct and star in the sequel, respectively  It was later stated that there would be two sequels  By January 2018 however, Johnson stated despite the financial success of The Mysterious Island, and although a third film titled Journey from the Earth to the Moon was intended, its development had been cancelled due to a lack of immediate interest and troubles in adequately adapting the novel  Despite this, reports from Hollywood production insiders arose in August 2020, stating that a sequel was once again in development  In December 2021, Hiram Garcia confirmed that Warner Bros  Pictures wants a sequel film, though Seven Bucks Productions decided to delay development in favor of pursuing other projects 

See also
Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008 film)
Passage 15:
Matthieu Chedid
Matthieu Chedid (born 21 December 1971) is a French multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter 
Chedid began his career as a session musician playing both acoustic and electric guitar  In the late 1990s, he rose to fame as a singer-songwriter and musician under the alias M (often stylized as -M-), blending Nouvelle Chanson, electronic and rock music  In studio, he experiments with various instruments and electronic music, while on tour as -M- he mostly plays the guitar, and is known for his eccentric outfits and dramatic live performances, sometimes including special effects 
Chedid has also performed in the 2005 stage musical Le soldat rose and is part of French-Malian band Lamomali  Since 2018, he has been the most awarded artist at the Victoires de la Musique Awards with 13 awards, tied with Alain Bashung 

Biography
Matthieu Chedid was born in Boulogne-Billancourt, Hauts-de-Seine, France  His father Louis Chedid is a singer from a family of Lebanese extraction, of Maronite and Greek Orthodox Christian background  Louis Chedid's mother Andrée (née Saab) was an Egyptian-born French writer and poet, who has written lyrics for Matthieu Chedid's songs  Matthieu Chedid's sisters are the music video and concert director Émilie Chedid (born in 1970) and French singer Anna Chedid (born in 1987), also known by her stage name Nach  His brother Joseph "Selim" Chedid (born in 1986) is also a French singer and a guitar and drums player 
Chedid took an interest in music early on  In 1978, at the age of six, Chedid lent his voice to the chorus of his father's hit song T'as beau pas être beau alongside older sister, Émilie  During his teenage years and early twenties, Chedid was part of short-lasting groups such as Tam Tam , Les Bébés fous and Les Poissons Rouges with Mathieu Boogaerts, as well as Julien Voulzy and Pierre Souchon (respectively the sons of singers Laurent Voulzy and Alain Souchon) who went on to form the duo Les Cherche Midi 
He has collaborated with a number of artists, both on stage and in the recording studio  Early into his solo career, Chedid was the opening act for Texas concerts  He has recorded with NTM, Sinclair, Billy Ze Kick, Brigitte Fontaine, Sean Lennon, Vanessa Paradis, and Johnny Hallyday 
Until 2008, Chedid was in a relationship with French actress Audrey Tautou 

-M-
Chedid performs and records under the stage name -M-  Chedid created -M- as means of overcoming his shyness on stage and also as a way of distancing his work from that of his father and grandmother  The pseudonym comes from Chedid's first initial but also refers to the similar-sounding French word aime, meaning love  The character -M- is a superhero, noted for having a playful nature, and recognized for his flamboyant costumes (primarily monochrome suits with slim trousers and long jackets with upward pointed collars) and hair styled into the shape of an M In 1997, -M- released his first solo album Le Baptême  During this time; he played mainly solo or with the cellist Vincent Ségal  The album received overall positive critical reception, but public recognition only came a few months later, with the release of the single "Machistador" 

Je dis aime
In 1999, -M- published his second album, Je dis aime a title that puns 'aime' (like/love) with 'M'  A few months later, the album was 11th on the French Charts, with more than 500,000 albums sold, thanks to a number of successful songs ("Je dis aime", "Onde Sensuelle", "Monde Virtuel", "Le complexe du corn-flakes", "Mama Sam") 
Live, -M- played with Cyril Atef, Vincent Segal and DJ Shalom for the samples on some songs  He still works with his sister Emilie Chedid for the realisation of the clips  His live performance largely contributed to his success, playing on his character of -M- to transform every concert into a show  He won his first Victoire de la Musique awards for Male Artist of the Year and Concert of the Year 

"Belleville Rendez-vous" and Qui de nous deux
-M- gained international exposure through his recording of the song "Belleville Rendez-vous" for the soundtrack of the 2003 Sylvain Chomet animated film The Triplets of Belleville in both French and English   The song, with lyrics by Chomet and music by Benoit Charest, was nominated for a 2003 Academy Award   The music video for "Belleville Rendez-vous" uses both a live-action depiction of -M- and an animated depiction incorporated into footage from the film 
In autumn 2003, he released his 3rd album Qui de nous deux (Which one of us two) with the singles "Qui de nous deux", "La bonne étoile", "Mon ego"  Softer, this album saw the birth of his first daughter, Billie, for whom an all-pink guitar was built by instrument-maker Cyril Guérin  A pink guitar can be seen in the video for "Qui de nous deux" 
In 2007, he worked once again with Vanessa Paradis on her album Divinidylle, released in September 2007 

Mister Mystère
Rumors circulated before the release of his 2009 studio album, Mister Mystère, that Chedid had decided to drop the character -M- to record and perform under his given name  The album, however, was released under the name -M- but included photographs of the singer without the wild costumes and hair associated with the -M- character  The music video for the first single, "Le Roi des ombres", showed Chedid burning a tiny effigy of his alterego 

Louis, Matthieu, Joseph et Anna Chedid
Chedid was part of the musical group Louis, Matthieu, Joseph et Anna Chedid with several members of his family  They began with a tour in 2015, which was followed by a studio recording 

Îl, Lamomali, and Lettre infinie
In autumn 2012, he released the album, Îl, played with Lawrence Clais and Brad Thomas Ackley 
He worked with Toumani Diabaté and Sidiki Diabaté on a collective album, Lamomali, released in March 2017 The album also features Philippe Jaroussky as well as Oxmo Puccino lending a mesmeric world music flavour to it that celebrates cultural diversity and world peace 
In 2019, he released the studio album, Lettre infinie, featuring collaborations from Thomas Bangalter and Phillipe Zdar  He announced new album, R Ê V A L I T É, to be released in June of 2022 

Public image
Chedid is mostly known for his on-stage persona -M- whose signature hairstyle is reminiscent of the letter M and was initially achieved using hair wax  According to Chedid, the hairstyle was inspired by the ear tufts of certain species of owls, from a lithography of an owl given by his grandmother Andrée  The letter M also appears as a pattern in the character's clothes, in music videos and stage sets  With his energetic personality, eccentric outfits and hairstyle, the character has drawn comparisons with English musician David Bowie's stage persona Ziggy Stardust  Besides Matthieu Chedid, the character -M- has also been portrayed by actor Vincent Lindon in the music video for Chedid's song La bonne étoile  In promotional material and music videos for his 2009 album Mister Mystère, Chedid is seen with natural hair instead of the signature M-shaped hairstyle  The lyrics of some of the songs, and the music video of Le Roi des Ombres ending with Chedid burning a tiny effigy of the -M- character, led to speculation about whether he would abandon his alter ego  Chedid eventually kept performing the character, showing his natural hair or wearing M-shaped wigs or helmets 

Awards
Matthieu Chedid holds the gold place in number of Victoires de la Musique awards, with 13 awards

Discography
Albums
Studio albums

Collaborations

Live albums

Soundtracks

Rereleases

Singles
As main artist
Collaborations
Other hits
Charity
2016: "Vole" (with Nolwenn Leroy, Alain Souchon, Laurent Voulzy   )

Bibliography
Les Âmes de Mogador (2003), with Patrice Renson : tribute to Essaouira (Maroc)  A CD of ten unreleased tracks is included 
-M-, qui de nous deux (2004), with Claude Gassian : book produced during the recording of the album Qui de nous deux
-M- de A à Z (2005), by Mathias Goudeau
Le monde de -M- (2005), with Marianne Chedid, Sonia Rachline and Sophie Laurent : insight on his career, with a lot of pictures
-M- le mot dit : esthétique d'un funkistador by Marc Borbon: analysis of M's world through a fan's own experience
Le Livre Extraordinaire de -M- by Lisa Roze: package of an archival photographs, unpublished shootings, a book, postcards, a pop-up, a new song (Si Si No No), etc 
Context 3:  The Challenge Set of 1992 included the console, two controllers, and a Super Mario Bros  3 Game Pak for a retail price of US$89 99  The Basic Set retailed at US$89 99; it included only the console and two controllers, and no pack-in game  Instead, it contained a book called the Official Nintendo Player's Guide, which contained detailed information for every NES game made up to that point 
Finally, the console was redesigned for the Australian, North American and Japanese markets  As part of the final Nintendo-released bundle package, the product included the New-Style NES, or NES-101, and one redesigned "dogbone" game controller  In Australia, this version of the system was also available with a cartridge compiling Super Mario Bros, Tetris and Nintendo World Cup  Released in October 1993 in North America and 1994 in Australia, this final bundle retailed for US$49 99 and A$69 99 (A$79 99 with the pack-in game) respectively, and remained in production until the discontinuation of the NES in 1995 

Discontinuation
On August 14, 1995, Nintendo discontinued the Nintendo Entertainment System in both North America and Europe  In North America, replacements for the original front-loading NES were available for $25 in exchange for a broken system until at least December 1996, under Nintendo's Power Swap program  The Game Boy and Super NES were also covered in this program, for $25 and $35 respectively On May 30, 2003, Nintendo announced the discontinuation of the Famicom in September alongside the Super Famicom and the disk rewriting services for the Famicom Disk System  The last Famicom, serial number HN11033309, was manufactured on September 25; it was kept by Nintendo and subsequently loaned to the organizers of Level X, a video game exhibition held from December 4, 2003, to February 8, 2004, at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, for a Famicom retrospective in commemoration of the console's 20th anniversary  Nintendo offered repair service for the Famicom in Japan until 2007, when it was discontinued due to a shortage of available parts 

Hardware
Configurations
Although all versions of the Famicom/NES include essentially similar hardware, they vary in physical characteristics  The original Famicom's design is predominantly white plastic, with dark red trim; it featured a top-loading cartridge slot, grooves on both sides of the deck in which the hardwired game controllers could be placed when not in use, and a 15-pin expansion port located on the unit's front panel for accessories  In contrast, the design of the original NES features a more subdued gray, black, and red color scheme; it includes a front-loading cartridge slot covered by a small, hinged door that can be opened to insert or remove a cartridge and closed at other times, and an expansion port on the bottom of the unit  The cartridge connector pinout was changed between the Famicom and NES In late 1993, Nintendo introduced a redesigned version of the Famicom/NES (officially named the New Famicom in Japan and the New-Style NES in the U S ) to complement the Super Famicom/NES and prolong interest in the console while implementing cost reduction measures  For the redesigned NES, Nintendo opted to use a top-loading cartridge slot in to avoid reliability issues with the original console; the redesign also omitted AV output  Conversely, the redesigned Famicom offered such output while introducing detachable game controllers, though the microphone functionality was omitted as a result  The redesigned Famicom and NES models are cosmetically similar aside from the presence of a cartridge "bump" on the NES model, which the Famicom model lacks to accommodate its shorter cartridges as well as the RAM Adapter for the Famicom Disk System Sharp Corporation produced three licensed variants of the Famicom in Japan, all of which prominently displayed the shortened moniker rather than the official "Family Computer" name  One variant was a television set with an integrated Famicom; originally released in 1983 as the My Computer TV in 14-inch (36 cm) and 19-inch (48 cm) models, it was later released in the United States in 1989 as a 19-inch model named the Video Game Television  Another variant was the Twin Famicom, a console released in 1986 that combined a Famicom with a Famicom Disk System  Sharp then produced the Famicom Titler in 1989; intended for video capture and production, it featured internal RGB video generation and video output via S-Video while including inputs for adding subtitles and voice-overs 

Hardware clones
A thriving market of unlicensed NES hardware clones emerged during the climax of the console's popularity  Initially, such clones were popular in markets where Nintendo issued a legitimate version of the console long time after unlicensed hardware  In particular, the Dendy (Russian: Де́нди), an unlicensed hardware clone produced in Taiwan and sold in the former Soviet Union, emerged as the most popular video game console of its time in that setting and it enjoyed a degree of fame roughly equivalent to that experienced by the NES/Famicom in North America and Japan  A range of Famicom clones was marketed in Argentina during the late 1980s and early 1990s under the name of "Family Game", resembling the original hardware design  Thailand got Family FR brand famiclones, the Micro Genius (Simplified Chinese: 小天才) was marketed in Southeast Asia as an alternative to the Famicom; and in Central Europe, especially Poland, the Pegasus was available  Since 1989, there were many Brazilian clones of NES, and the very popular Phantom System (with hardware superior to the original console) caught the attention of Nintendo itself 

The unlicensed clone market has flourished following Nintendo's discontinuation of the NES  Some of the more exotic of these resulting systems surpass the functionality of the original hardware, such as a portable system with a color LCD (PocketFami)  Others have been produced for certain specialized markets, such as a rather primitive personal computer with a keyboard and basic word processing software  These unauthorized clones have been helped by the invention of the so-called NES-on-a-chip As was the case with unlicensed games, Nintendo has typically gone to the courts to prohibit the manufacture and sale of unlicensed cloned hardware  Many of the clone vendors have included built-in copies of licensed Nintendo software, which constitutes copyright infringement in most countries 

Design flaws
Nintendo's design styling for US release was made deliberately different from that of other game consoles  Nintendo wanted to distinguish its product from those of competitors and to avoid the generally poor reputation that game consoles had acquired following the video game crash of 1983  One result of this philosophy is to disguise the cartridge slot design as a front-loading zero-insertion force (ZIF) cartridge socket, designed to resemble the front-loading mechanism of a VCR  The socket works well when both the connector and the cartridges are clean and the pins on the connector are new  However, the socket is not truly zero-insertion force  When a user inserts the cartridge into the NES, the force of pressing the cartridge into place bends the contact pins slightly and presses the cartridge's ROM board back into the cartridge  Frequent insertion and removal of cartridges wears out the pins, and the ZIF design proved more prone to interference by dirt and dust than an industry-standard card edge connector The design problems were exacerbated by Nintendo's choice of materials  The console slot nickel connector springs wear due to design and the game cartridge's brass plated nickel connectors are also prone to tarnishing and oxidation  Nintendo sought to fix these problems by redesigning the next generation Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) as a top loader similar to the Famicom  Many players try to alleviate issues in the game caused by this corrosion by blowing into the cartridges, then reinserting them, which actually speeds up the tarnishing due to moisture  One way to slow down the tarnishing process and extend the life of the cartridges is to use isopropyl alcohol and swabs, as well as non-conductive metal polish such as Brasso or Sheila Shine Users have attempted to solve these problems by blowing air onto the cartridge connectors, inserting the cartridge just far enough to get the ZIF to lower, licking the edge connector, slapping the side of the system after inserting a cartridge, shifting the cartridge from side to side after insertion, pushing the ZIF up and down repeatedly, holding the ZIF down lower than it should have been, and cleaning the connectors with alcohol  Many frequently used methods to fix this problem actually risk damaging gaming cartridges or the system  In 1989, Nintendo released an official NES Cleaning Kit to help users clean malfunctioning cartridges and consoles 
In response to these hardware flaws, "Nintendo Authorized Repair Centers" sprang up across the U S  According to Nintendo, the authorization program was designed to ensure that the machines were properly repaired  Nintendo would ship the necessary replacement parts only to shops that had enrolled in the authorization program 
With the release of the top-loading NES-101 (New-Style NES) in 1993 toward the end of the NES's lifespan, Nintendo resolved the problems by switching to a standard card edge connector and eliminating the lockout chip  All of the Famicom systems use standard card edge connectors, as do Nintendo's two subsequent game consoles, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and the Nintendo 64 

Lockout
The Famicom as released in Japan contains no lockout hardware, which led to unlicensed cartridges (both legitimate and bootleg) becoming extremely common throughout Japan and East Asia  Nintendo tried to promote its "Seal of Quality" in these regions to identify licensed games to combat bootlegs, but bootleg Famicom games continued to be produced even after Nintendo moved production onto the Super Famicom, effectively extending the lifetime of the Famicom The original NES released for Western countries in 1985 contains the 10NES lockout chip, which prevents it from running cartridges unapproved by Nintendo  The inclusion of the 10NES was a direct influence from the 1983 video game crash in North America, partially caused by a market flooded with uncontrolled publishing of games of poor quality for the home consoles  Nintendo did not want to see that happen with the NES and used the lockout chip to restrict games to only those they licensed and approved for the system  This means of protection worked in combination with the Nintendo "Seal of Quality", which a developer had to acquire before they would be able to have access to the required 10NES information prior to publication of their game Initially, the 10NES chip proved a significant barrier to unlicensed developers seeking to develop and sell games for the console  However, hobbyists in later years discovered that disassembling the NES and cutting the fourth pin of the lockout chip would change the chip's mode of operation from "lock" to "key", removing all effects and greatly improving the console's ability to play legal games, as well as bootlegs and converted imports 
Original NES consoles sold in different regions have different lockout chips, thereby enforcing regional lockout (regardless of TV signal compatibility)  Such regions include North America; most of continental Europe (PAL-B); Asia; and the British Isles, Italy, and Australasia (PAL-A) Problems with the 10NES lockout chip frequently result in one of the console's most common issues: the blinking red power light, in which the system appears to turn itself on and off repeatedly because the 10NES would reset the console once per second  The lockout chip required constant communication with the chip in the game to work : 247  Dirty, aging, and bent connectors often disrupt the communication, resulting in the blink effect  In other cases, the console turns on but only displays a solid white, gray, or green screen 

Technical specifications
The console's main central processing unit (CPU) was produced by Ricoh, which manufactured different versions between NTSC and PAL regions; NTSC consoles use a 2A03 clocked at 1 79 MHz, while PAL consoles use a 2A07 clocked at 1 66 MHz  Both CPUs are second source variants of the MOS Technology 6502, an 8-bit microprocessor prevalent in contemporary home computers and consoles; Nintendo ostensibly disabled the 6502's binary-coded decimal mode on them to avoid patent infringement against or licensing fees towards MOS Technology, which was owned by then-rival Commodore International  The CPU has access to 2 KB of onboard work RAM The console's graphics are handled by a Ricoh 2C02, a processor known as the Picture Processing Unit (PPU) that is clocked at 5 37 MHz  A derivative of the Texas Instruments TMS9918—a video display controller used in the ColecoVision—the PPU features 2 KB of video RAM, 256 bytes of on-die "object attribute memory" (OAM) to store sprite display information on up to 64 sprites, and 28 bytes of RAM to store information on the YIQ-based color palette; the console can display up to 25 colors simultaneously out of 54 usable colors The console's standard display resolution is 256 × 240 pixels, though video output options vary between models  The original Famicom features only radio frequency (RF) modulator output, while the NES additionally includes support for composite video via RCA connectors  The redesigned Famicom omits the RF modulator entirely, only outputting composite video via a proprietary "multi-out" connector first introduced on the Super Famicom/NES; conversely, the redesigned NES features RF modulator output only, though a version of the model including the "multi-out" connector was produced in rare quantities The console produces sound via an audio processing unit (APU) integrated into the processor  It supports a total of five sound channels: two pulse wave channels, one triangle wave channel, one white noise channel, and one DPCM channel for sample playback  Audio playback speed is dependent on the CPU clock rate, which is set by a crystal oscillator 

Accessories
Controllers
The game controller for both the NES and the Famicom has an oblong brick-like design with a simple four button layout: two round buttons labeled "A" and "B", a "START" button, and a "SELECT" button  Additionally, the controllers use the cross-shaped D-pad, designed by Nintendo employee Gunpei Yokoi for Nintendo Game & Watch systems, to replace the bulkier joysticks on controllers of earlier gaming consoles : 279 The original model Famicom features two game controllers, both of which are hardwired to the back of the console  The second controller lacks the START and SELECT button, featuring a small microphone instead; however, few games use this feature  The earliest produced Famicom units have square A and B buttons; issues with them getting stuck when pressed down led Nintendo to change their shape to a circular design in subsequent units following the console's recall Instead of the Famicom's hardwired controllers, the NES has two proprietary seven-pin ports on the front of the console to support detachable controllers and third-party peripherals  The controllers bundled with the NES are identical and include the START and SELECT buttons, lacking the microphone on the original Famicom's second controller  The cables for NES controllers are also generally three times longer than their Famicom counterparts A number of special controllers are intended for use with specific games, though are not commonly used  Such peripherals include the NES Zapper (a light gun), R O B  (a toy robot),: 297  and the Power Pad (a dance pad) : 226  The original Famicom has a deepened DA-15 expansion port on the front of the unit to accommodate them Two official advanced controllers were produced for the NES: the NES Advantage, an arcade controller produced by Asciiware and licensed by Nintendo of America; and the NES Max, a controller with grip handles that featured a "cycloid" sliding-disc D-pad in place of the traditional one  Both controllers have a "Turbo" feature, which simulates multiple rapid button presses, for the A and B buttons; the NES Max has manually pressed Turbo buttons, while the NES Advantage offers toggle buttons for Turbo functionality along with knobs that adjust the firing rate of each button  The latter also includes a "Slow" button that rapidly pauses games, though this function is not intended for games that invoke a pause menu or screen The standard game controller was redesigned upon the introduction of the redesigned console  Though the original button layout was retained, the shape of the redesigned controller—nicknamed the "dog bone" controller—resembles that of the Super Famicom/NES  In addition, the redesigned Famicom adopted NES-style detachable controller ports The original NES controller has become one of the most recognizable symbols of the console  Nintendo has mimicked the look of the controller in several other products, from promotional merchandise to limited edition versions of the Game Boy Advance 

Japanese accessories
Few of the numerous peripheral devices and software packages for the Famicom were released outside Japan 
The Famicom 3D System, an active shutter 3D headset headset peripheral released in 1987, enabled the ability to play stereoscopic video games  It was a commercial failure and never released outside Japan; users described the headset as bulky and uncomfortable  Seven games are compatible with the glasses, with three of them developed by Square; two titles received worldwide releases as Rad Racer and The 3-D Battles of WorldRunner Family BASIC is an implementation of BASIC for the Famicom, packaged with a keyboard  Similar in concept to the Atari 2600 BASIC cartridge, it allows the user to write programs, especially games, which can be saved on an included cassette recorder  Nintendo of America rejected releasing Famicom BASIC in the US in favor of its primary marketing demographic of children : 162 The Famicom Modem connected a Famicom to a now defunct proprietary network in Japan which provided content such as financial services  A dial-up modem was never released for the NES after a partnership with Fidelity Investments 

Famicom Disk System
By 1986, the cost and size limitations of ROM chips used in the Famicom's ROM cartridges were apparent, with no new advancements present to address them  With this in mind, Nintendo looked at the personal computer (PC) market, where the floppy disk was gaining wide adoption as a computer data storage medium  Partnering with Mitsumi to develop a floppy disk add-on for the Famicom based on the latter's Quick Disk format, Nintendo officially released it as the Family Computer Disk System in Japan on February 21, 1986, at a retail price of ¥15,000 The advantages of the format (called "Disk Card") were apparent on launch: it offered more than triple the data storage capacity of the then-largest cartridge (used for Super Mario Bros ) and introduced game save capability while offering lower production costs compared to cartridges, which resulted in lower retail prices for consumers  The add-on also offered upgraded sound capability by adding a wavetable synthesis channel while including more space that developers could use for the Famicom's audio sample channel  Taking advantage of the disk's re-writability, Nintendo set up "Disk Writer" interactive kiosks at retail stores throughout Japan; at each kiosk, consumers could rewrite their disks with new games; new blank disks to write onto were also offered inside it : 75  Nintendo also set up "Disk Fax" kiosks for players to submit their high scores on special blue disks for contests and rankings, predating the online leaderboard by several years Although Nintendo committed to exclusively releasing games on the Disk System after its release, numerous external issues plagued its long-term viability  Just four months after launch, Capcom released a Famicom port of Makaimura (known as Ghosts 'n Goblins in the U S ) on a cartridge with more data storage capacity than what was possible on Disk Cards, nullifying one of the Disk System's major advantages by using discrete logic chips to perform bank switching  Nintendo also demanded half of the copyright ownership for each game it selected for release on the Disk System, resulting in developers electing to remain on cartridge instead as the latter gained functionality previously considered unique to the former  Developers additionally loathed the Disk Writer kiosks due to their lower profit margin, while retailers complained of their presence taking up valuable space as interest in the format waned : 78 Usage of a floppy disk-based medium brought about further complications; Disk Cards were more fragile than cartridges and were prone to data corruption from magnetic exposure  Their unreliability was exacerbated by their lack of a shutter, which Nintendo substituted with a wax sleeve and clear keep case to reduce costs; blue disks and later Disk Cards included shutters  The rubber belt-based disk drives were also unreliable, with cryptic error codes complicating troubleshooting; even when fully functional, players accustomed to cartridges were annoyed with the introduction of loading times and disk flipping  Furthermore, the rewritable nature of the format resulted in rampant software piracy, with Nintendo's attempts at anti-piracy measures quickly defeated Despite selling close to two million units for all of 1986, Nintendo only managed to increase the total to 4 4 million units by 1990, falling well short of internal projections : 76  By then, the Disk System was rendered obsolete due to advancements in ROM cartridge production: memory mapping chips for expanded data storage capacity, battery-backed SRAM for game saving, and declining overall production costs  While Nintendo alluded to a Western release for the Disk System, going so far as to successfully file a U S  patent for it and having the Famicom's cartridge pins used by its RAM Adapter for enhanced audio rerouted to the NES's little-used bottom expansion port, such a release never materialized due to its reception in Japan  Most of its games were re-released with workarounds on cartridge for both the Famicom and NES, albeit without the enhanced audio  Although the last game for the Disk System was released in December 1992, Nintendo continued to offer repair and rewrite services for it until September 2003 

NES Test Station
The NES Test Station diagnostics machine was introduced in 1988  It is an NES-based unit designed for testing NES hardware, components, and games  It was only provided for use in World of Nintendo boutiques as part of the Nintendo World Class Service program  Visitors were to bring items to test with the station, and could be assisted by a store technician or employee 
The NES Test Station's front has a Game Pak slot and connectors for testing various components (AC adapter, RF switch, Audio/Video cable, NES Control Deck, accessories and games), with a centrally-located selector knob to choose which component to test  The unit itself weighs approximately 11 7 pounds without a TV  It connects to a television via a combined A/V and RF Switch cable  By actuating the green button, a user can toggle between an A/V Cable or RF Switch connection  The television it is connected to (typically 11" to 14") is meant to be placed atop it In 1991, Nintendo provided an add-on called the "Super NES Counter Tester" that tests Super NES components and games  The Super NES Counter Tester is a standard Control Deck on a metal fixture with the connection from the back of the unit re-routed to the front  These connections may be made directly to the test station or to the TV, depending on what is to be tested 

Games
Game Pak
The NES uses a 72-pin design, as compared with 60 pins on the Famicom  To reduce costs and inventory, some early games released in North America are simply Famicom cartridges attached to an adapter to fit inside the NES hardware  Early NES cartridges are held together with five small slotted screws  Games released after 1987 were redesigned slightly to incorporate two plastic clips molded into the plastic itself, removing the need for the top two screws The back of the cartridge bears a label with handling instructions  Production and software revision codes were imprinted as stamps on the back label to correspond with the software version and producer  All licensed NTSC and PAL cartridges are a standard shade of gray plastic, with the exception of The Legend of Zelda and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, which were manufactured in gold-plastic carts  Unlicensed carts were produced in black, robin egg blue, and gold, and are all slightly different shapes than standard NES cartridges  Nintendo also produced yellow-plastic carts for internal use at Nintendo Service Centers, although these "test carts" were never made available for purchase  All licensed US cartridges were made by Nintendo, Konami, and Acclaim  For promotion of DuckTales: Remastered, Capcom sent 150 limited-edition gold NES cartridges with the original game, featuring the Remastered art as the sticker, to different gaming news agencies  The instruction label on the back includes the opening lyric from the show's theme song, "Life is like a hurricane" Famicom cartridges are shaped slightly differently  Unlike NES games, official Famicom cartridges were produced in many colors of plastic  Adapters, similar in design to the popular accessory Game Genie, are available that allow Famicom games to be played on an NES  In Japan, several companies manufactured the cartridges for the Famicom : 61  This allowed these companies to develop customized chips designed for specific purposes, such as superior sound and graphics 

Third-party licensing
Nintendo's near monopoly on the home video game market left it with a dominant influence over the industry  Unlike Atari, which never actively pursued third-party developers (and even went to court in an attempt to force Activision to cease production of Atari 2600 games), Nintendo had anticipated and encouraged the involvement of third-party software developers, though strictly on Nintendo's terms  Some of the Nintendo platform-control measures were adopted in a less stringent way by later console manufacturers such as Sega, Sony, and Microsoft 
To this end, a 10NES authentication chip is in every console and in every licensed cartridge  If the console's chip can not detect a counterpart chip inside the cartridge, the game does not load : 247  Nintendo portrayed these measures as intended to protect the public against poor-quality games, and placed a golden seal of approval on all licensed games released for the system 
Nintendo found success with Japanese arcade manufacturers such as Konami, Capcom, Taito and Namco, which signed on as third-party developers  However, they found resistance with US game developers including Atari Games, Activision, Electronic Arts and Epyx refusing Nintendo's one-sided terms  Acclaim Entertainment, a fledgling game publisher founded by former Activision employees, was the first major third-party licensee in the United States to sign on with Nintendo in late 1987  Atari Games (through Tengen) and Activision signed on soon after 
Nintendo was not as restrictive as Sega, which did not permit third-party publishing until Mediagenic in late summer 1988  Nintendo's intention was to reserve a large part of NES game revenue for itself



ground_truth: Louis Chedid

prompt_front: Answer the question based on the given passages. Only give me the answer and do not output any other words.

Question: What is the abbreviated name of the exclusive platform of the video game named for the league with a halftime event just before the publishers clearing house sweepstakes drawing.

The following are given passages.
Context 3:  Nintendo required that it be the sole manufacturer of all cartridges, and that the publisher had to pay in full before the cartridges for that game be produced  Cartridges could not be returned to Nintendo, so publishers assumed all the risk  As a result, some publishers lost more money due to distress sales of remaining inventory at the end of the NES era than they ever earned in profits from sales of the games  Because Nintendo controlled the production of all cartridges, it was able to enforce strict rules on its third-party developers, who were required to sign a contract that would obligate them to develop exclusively for the system, order at least 10,000 cartridges, and only make five games per year : 214–215  The global 1988 shortage of DRAM and ROM chips reportedly caused Nintendo to only permit an average of 25% of publishers' requests for cartridges, with some receiving much higher amounts and others almost none  GameSpy noted that Nintendo's "iron-clad terms" made the company many enemies during the 1980s  Some developers tried to circumvent the five game limit by creating additional company brands like Konami's Ultra Games label; others tried circumventing the 10NES chip 

Nintendo was accused of antitrust violations because of the strict licensing requirements  The United States Department of Justice and several states began probing Nintendo's business practices, leading to the involvement of Congress and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)  The FTC conducted an extensive investigation which included interviewing hundreds of retailers  During the FTC probe, Nintendo changed the terms of its publisher licensing agreements to eliminate the two-year rule and other restrictive terms  Nintendo and the FTC settled the case in April 1991, with Nintendo required to send vouchers giving a $5 discount off to a new game, to every person that had purchased an NES game between June 1988 and December 1990  GameSpy remarked that Nintendo's punishment was particularly weak giving the case's findings, although it has been speculated that the FTC did not want to damage the video game industry in the United States With the NES near the end of its life, many third-party publishers such as Electronic Arts supported upstart competing consoles with less strict licensing terms such as the Sega Genesis and then the PlayStation, which eroded and then took over Nintendo's dominance in the home console market, respectively  Consoles from Nintendo's rivals in the post-SNES era had always enjoyed much stronger third-party support than Nintendo, which relied more heavily on first-party games 

Unlicensed games
Companies that refused to pay the licensing fee or were rejected by Nintendo found ways to circumvent the console's authentication system  Most of these companies created circuits that use a voltage spike to temporarily disable the 10NES chip : 286  A few unlicensed games released in Europe and Australia are in the form of a dongle to connect to a licensed game, to use the licensed game's 10NES chip for authentication  To combat unlicensed games, Nintendo of America threatened retailers who sold them with losing their supply of licensed games, and multiple revisions were made to the NES PCBs to prevent unlicensed games from working 
Atari Games took a different approach with its line of NES products, Tengen  The company attempted to reverse engineer the lockout chip to develop its own "Rabbit" chip  Tengen also obtained a description of the lockout chip from the United States Patent and Trademark Office by falsely claiming that it was required to defend against present infringement claims  Nintendo successfully sued Tengen for copyright infringement  Tengen's antitrust claims against Nintendo were never decided Color Dreams made Christian video games under the subsidiary name Wisdom Tree  Historian Steven Kent wrote, "Wisdom Tree presented Nintendo with a prickly situation  The general public did not seem to pay close attention to the court battle with Atari Games, and industry analysts were impressed with Nintendo's legal acumen; but going after a tiny company that published innocuous religious games was another story ": 400

Game rentals
As the Nintendo Entertainment System grew in popularity and entered millions of American homes, some small video rental shops began buying their own copies of NES games, and renting them out to customers for around the same price as a video cassette rental for a few days  Nintendo received no profit from the practice beyond the initial cost of their game, and unlike movie rentals, a newly released game could hit store shelves and be available for rent on the same day  Nintendo took steps to stop game rentals, but did not take any formal legal action until Blockbuster Video began to make game rentals a large-scale service  Nintendo claimed that allowing customers to rent games would significantly hurt sales and drive up the cost of games  Nintendo lost the lawsuit, but did win on a claim of copyright infringement  Blockbuster was banned from including photocopies of original, copyrighted instruction booklets with its rented games  In compliance with the ruling, Blockbuster produced original short instructions—usually in the form of a small booklet, card, or label stuck on the back of the rental box—that explained the game's basic premise and controls  Video rental shops continued the practice of renting video games 

Reception
By 1988, industry observers stated that the NES's popularity had grown so quickly that the market for Nintendo cartridges was larger than that for all home computer software : 347  Compute! reported in 1989 that Nintendo had sold seven million NES systems in 1988 alone, almost as many as the number of Commodore 64s sold in its first five years  "Computer game makers [are] scared stiff", the magazine said, stating that Nintendo's popularity caused most competitors to have poor sales during the previous Christmas and resulted in serious financial problems for some 

In June 1989, Nintendo of America's vice president of marketing Peter Main, said that the Famicom was present in 37% of Japan's households  By 1990, 30% of American households owned the NES, compared to 23% for all personal computers  By 1990, the NES had outsold all previously released consoles worldwide  The slogan for this brand was "It can't be beaten" : 345  The Nintendo Entertainment System was not available in the Soviet Union 
In the early 1990s, gamers predicted that competition from technologically superior systems such as the 16-bit Sega Genesis would mean the immediate end of the NES's dominance  Instead, during the first year of Nintendo's successor console the Super Famicom (named Super Nintendo Entertainment System outside Japan), the Famicom remained the second highest-selling video game console in Japan, outselling the newer and more powerful NEC PC Engine and Sega Mega Drive by a wide margin  The console remained popular in Japan and North America until late 1993, when the demand for new NES software abruptly plummeted  The final licensed Famicom game released in Japan is Takahashi Meijin no Bōken Jima IV (Adventure Island IV), in North America is Wario's Woods, and in Europe is The Lion King in 1995  In the wake of ever decreasing sales and the lack of new games, Nintendo of America officially discontinued the NES by 1995  Nintendo produced new Famicom units in Japan until September 25, 2003, and continued to repair Famicom consoles until October 31, 2007, attributing the discontinuation of support to insufficient supplies of parts The NES was initially not as successful in Europe during the late 1980s, when it was outsold by the Master System in the United Kingdom  By 1990, the Master System was the highest-selling console in Europe, though the NES was beginning to have a fast-growing user base in the United Kingdom  During the early 1990s, NES sales caught up with and narrowly overtook the Master System overall in Western Europe, though the Master System maintained its lead in several markets such as the United Kingdom, Belgium and Spain 

Legacy
The NES was released two years after the video game crash of 1983, when many retailers and adult consumers regarded electronic games as a passing fad,: 280  so many believed at first that the NES would soon fade  Before the NES and Famicom, Nintendo was known as a moderately successful Japanese toy and playing card manufacturer, but the consoles' popularity helped the company grow into an internationally recognized name almost synonymous with video games as Atari had been, and set the stage for Japanese dominance of the video game industry  With the NES, Nintendo also changed the relationship between console manufacturers and third-party software developers by restricting developers from publishing and distributing software without licensed approval  This led to higher-quality games, which helped change the attitude of a public that had grown weary from poorly produced games for earlier systems : 306–307 The NES hardware design is also very influential  Nintendo chose the name "Nintendo Entertainment System" for the US market and redesigned the system so it would not give the appearance of a child's toy  The front-loading cartridge input allowed it to be used more easily in a TV stand with other entertainment devices, such as a videocassette recorder The system's hardware limitations led to design principles that still influence the development of modern video games  Many prominent game franchises originated on the NES, including Nintendo's own Super Mario Bros ,|: 57  The Legend of Zelda: 353  and Metroid,: 357  Capcom's Mega Man franchise, Konami's Castlevania: 358  franchise, Square's Final Fantasy,|: 95  and Enix's Dragon Quest|: 222  franchises 
NES imagery, especially its controller, has become a popular motif for a variety of products, including Nintendo's Game Boy Advance  Clothing, accessories, and food items adorned with NES-themed imagery are still produced and sold in stores 

Emulation
The NES can be emulated on many other systems  The first emulator was the Japanese-only Pasofami  It was soon followed by iNES, which is available in English and is cross-platform, in 1996  It was described as being the first NES emulation software that could be used by a non-expert  The first version of NESticle, an unofficial MS-DOS-based emulator, was released on April 3, 1997  Nintendo offers licensed emulation of some NES games via its Virtual Console service for the Wii, Nintendo 3DS, and Wii U, and via its Nintendo Switch Online service 

Re-release
On July 14, 2016, Nintendo announced the November 2016 launch of a miniature replica of the NES, named the Nintendo Entertainment System: NES Classic Edition in the United States and Nintendo Classic Mini: Nintendo Entertainment System in Europe and Australia  The emulation-based console includes 30 permanently bundled games from the vintage NES library, including the Super Mario Bros  series and The Legend of Zelda series  The system has HDMI display output and a new replica controller, which can also connect to the Wii Remote for use with Virtual Console games  It was discontinued in North America on April 13, 2017, and worldwide on April 15, 2017  However, Nintendo announced in September 2017 that the NES Classic Mini would return to production on June 29, 2018, only to be discontinued again permanently by December of that year 

See also
History of Nintendo
Nintendo hard
Nintendo World Championships

Notes
Transliterations
Passage 5:
The Journal of Men's Studies
The Journal of Men's Studies (abbreviated JMS) is a peer-reviewed journal established in 1992 as the first  published by Men's Studies Press  As of 2015 the journal is published by SAGE Publications 

See also
Gender studies
Men's studies
Women's studies

External links
Official website
Passage 6:
Publishers Clearing House
Publishers Clearing House (PCH) is a direct marketing company that markets merchandise and magazine subscriptions with sweepstakes and prize-based games 
It was founded in 1953 by Harold Mertz to replace door-to-door magazine subscription sales by a single vendor offering multiple subscriptions by mail  It introduced its sweepstakes in 1967  In the early 1990s, the company was the subject of concerns and legal actions regarding whether consumers were misled about their odds of winning the sweepstakes and whether purchases increased their chances  By 2010, the company had reached settlements with all 50 states 
The company acquired search company Blingo in 2006, online gaming company Funtank in 2010, mobile marketing company Liquid Wireless in 2012, and internet news aggregator Topix in 2019 

History
Early history
Publishers Clearing House was founded in 1953 in Port Washington, New York by Harold Mertz, a former manager of a door-to-door sales team for magazine subscriptions  The company started in Mertz's basement with help from his first wife LuEsther and daughter Joyce  Its first mailings were of 10,000 envelopes from Mertz's home in Long Island, New York, and offered 20 magazine subscriptions  A hundred orders were received  Within a few years the company moved out of Mertz's basement into an office building and started hiring staff  When PCH moved its headquarters in 1969, its prior location was donated to the city and renamed the Harold E  Mertz Community Center  The company revenue had grown to US$50 million by 1981, and $100 million by 1988 In 1967 PCH ran its first sweepstakes as a way to increase subscription sales, based on the sweepstakes held by Reader's Digest  The first prizes ranged from $1 to $10 and entrants had a 1 in 10 chance of winning  After the sweepstakes increased response rates to mailings, prizes of $5,000 and eventually $250,000 were offered  PCH began advertising the sweepstakes on TV in 1974  It was the only major multi-magazine subscription business until 1977  Former client Time Inc  and several other publishers formed American Family Publishers (AFP) to compete with PCH after the company refused repeated requests by Time for a larger share of sales revenue from magazine subscriptions AFP and PCH competed for exclusive rights to magazines and for the better promotion and prize ideas  When AFP increased their jackpot to $1 million, and then to $10 million in 1985, PCH raised its prizes to match  $7 million in prizes were distributed by 1979, $40 million by 1991, and $137 million by 2000  In 1989, two members of its advertising team, Dave Sayer and Todd Sloane, started the Prize Patrol, a publicized event where winners are surprised with a check at their home  The idea was inspired by the 1950s television series The Millionaire  The two companies were often mistaken for each other, with Star Search host Ed McMahon and The $25,000 Pyramid host Dick Clark, the spokespeople for AFP, mistaken for representatives of the better-known PCH In 1992 thousands of discarded sweepstakes entries from contestants who had not bought magazine subscriptions were found in the company's trash, reinforcing beliefs that the company favored those who made purchases in selecting a sweepstakes winner  PCH said this was done by a disgruntled employee at their mail processing vendor  A class action lawsuit ensued, which PCH settled by giving discarded entrants a second chance to win 

Government regulation
In the 1990s PCH and its primary competitor, AFP, experienced a series of legal troubles due to concerns that their mailings misled consumers about their odds of winning and implied that magazine purchases increased their chances  This led to the Deceptive Mail Prevention and Enforcement Act of 2000, which regulates direct mail businesses  At the senate hearings regarding this Act, PCH said most consumers were not confused about their chances of winning or that purchases did not increase their chances  The company said that fewer than five percent of participants spend more than $300  Government officials from California said 5,000 local consumers paid more than $2,500 each in magazine purchases under the false belief that they were increasing their odds of winning the sweepstakes Industry sources estimated PCH's response rates decreased by 7 to 12 percent a its sales volume by 22 to 30 percent in response to the bad publicity from the lawsuits  In 2000, PCH laid off a quarter of its 800-person work force 

Lawsuits and settlements
In 1994 PCH sent mailings telling recipients they were all "finalists", which led to a lawsuit involving the attorneys general of 14 US states  Later that year, PCH denied wrongdoing, but agreed to pay a settlement of $490,000 and to change their practices  Under the agreement, PCH said it would define terms like "finalist" and disclose the chances of winning In 1997, a contestant of competitor AFP flew to Tampa, Florida thinking he had won, though he had not  The resulting publicity caused more lawsuits for both companies  PCH reached a $30 million national settlement in 1999  In 2000, another $18 million settlement was reached with 24 states, after the company sent mass mailings which said "You are a winner!" and used mock personalized checks  PCH agreed to avoid similar mailings in the future, and add a "sweepstakes fact box" to mailings State attorneys spoke out against the national settlement from 2000 and additional lawsuits were filed by individual states  Another $34 million settlement was reached in 2001 in a lawsuit involving 25 states, bringing the total settlements since 1999 to $82 million  As part of the settlement, PCH was required to avoid terms including "Guaranteed Winner," add disclaimers to mailings saying that the recipient had not yet won and that purchasing merchandise would not increase their chances of being a winner  PCH reached settlements with all fifty states and agreed to work with a "compliance counsel " PCH apologized in the settlement and said it would contact customers who had spent more than $1,000 on merchandise the prior year PCH also reached an agreement with Iowa in 2007  In 2010 the company paid $3 5 million to the attorneys general of 32 states and the District of Columbia to settle possible contempt charges that it had violated the terms of the 2001 agreement  The company denied wrongdoing, but agreed to work with both an ombudsman and a compliance counsel who would review its mailings quarterly In April 2014, an investigation by the Senate Special Committee on Aging concluded that PCH had "pushed the limits" of prior agreements and that additional legislation may be needed In late 2021 PCH was hit with another lawsuit  "Publishers Clearing House sells and rents mailing lists containing subscribers’ personal information to a variety of third parties, including data miners and list brokers, multiple new class action lawsuits allege  Five plaintiffs have filed separate class action lawsuits against Publishers Clearing House (PCH), with each claiming the publishing company monetizes its subscribers’ private information—including their names and addresses—without consent 

Online development
PCH began selling merchandise in 1985 with two products  After a Hershey's Chocolate Cookbook and a diet cookbook sold more than other products, the company began expanding into jewelry, media, collectibles, household products, and others  The company also shifted its focus online  It began selling magazine subscriptions and merchandise on PCH com in 1996  In 2006, it acquired Blingo Inc , an ad-supported metasearch engine that was later re-branded as PCH Search and Win  PCH ran contests on Twitter, Facebook, and Myspace  iPhone apps for slot games and trivia were developed  The company created online play-and-win sites like PCH Games (formerly Candystand) and PCHQuiz4Cash, with air-hockey and video poker games In December 2010, PCH acquired Funtank and its online gaming site Candystand com  In 2011, PCH promoted a "$5,000 every week for life" sweepstakes in TV ads and the front page of AOL com  The following year the company acquired a mobile marketing company, Liquid Wireless  The company utilized, then stopped then started again utilizing coregistration (through other websites) to expand its customer base In 2008, a PCH spokesperson said the digital properties were intended to attract younger consumers  By 2013, the internet had become PCH's primary channel of interaction with consumers  The New York Times described the digital transition as "part of an overall effort to collect information on Web users, show them advertisements and use the registration information for PCH’s mailing lists "In 2020, PCH acquired digital publisher Wide Open Media Group, publisher of websites Wide Open Spaces, Wide Open Country, and FanBuzz 

Products
PCH is a direct-marketing company that sells merchandise and magazine subscriptions and operates several prize-based websites  While best known for the sweepstakes and Prize Patrol it uses to promote its magazine subscriptions, the majority of the company's revenue is from merchandise  The company has been selling books, media, jewelry, and other consumer items since the 1980s  PCH operates eight websites, including PCH Search and Win, PCH Lotto, PCH Games, PCH Save and Win, and Candystand The company also sells magazine subscriptions at a discount and advertises subscriptions along with its sweepstakes  It's estimated that companies like PCH keep 75 to 90 percent of the fees from the original subscription, while publishers use the increased distribution to improve circulation numbers and revenue from renewals  PCH popularized the idea of using sweepstakes to sell magazine subscriptions in the direct-marketing market and became known by detractors as a producer of junk mail for advertising through mass-mailings  Documents filed with the New York State Department in 1993 said that year the company mailed 220 million envelopes  Frequent buyers can receive 30 to 40 mailings a year 

Sweepstakes
Although PCH advertises its sweepstakes along with magazine subscriptions, no purchase is necessary to enter or win  In 1995, PCH began the tradition of announcing winners of its $10 million prize just after the Super Bowl  As of 2012, $225 million in prizes have been distributed  Some of its larger prizes are for $5,000 a week for life, or $10 million  Prizes can also range from $1 Amazon gift cards to $2,500, $1 million or $3 million  The larger cash prizes are paid in installments, typically with a balloon payment at 30 years, reducing the present value of prizes to much less than their nominal values 

Odds of winning
According to the official rules, as of June 2020, the odds of winning "$5,000 a Week for Life" in Giveaway 16000 are 1 in 6 2 billion 

Prize Patrol
The Prize Patrol surprises sweepstakes winners at their homes, work, or other locations with cash prizes capturing the event on video  Since their introduction in 1989, these reality TV-style videos of prize-winners surprised at their doorstep with checks for $1,000 to $10 million have been used in widely broadcast television commercials, and, more recently, in the company's online acquisition efforts, websites and social media communications  In 2013, a $5 million television campaign modified the traditional prize patrol commercial by digitally altering video from classic sitcoms like The Brady Bunch and Gilligan's Island to show the prize patrol visiting characters in the show  Major winners are never contacted in advance; any letters, telephone calls, and social media messages claiming that a person may have already won a major prize, or claiming that they need to pay a fee to collect the prize, are always scams The Prize Patrol has made in-person appearances or delivered prizes on TV programs including The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Price Is Right, and Let's Make a Deal  Their surprise winning moments have been spoofed by Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien, and the cast of Saturday Night Live; woven into the plots of movies such as Let's Go to Prison, The Sentinel, and Knight and Day; and Early Edition  They have been the subject of cartoons 

Spokesperson
In the summer of 2020 Marie Osmond became a spokesperson for Publishers Clearing House with television and online advertisements as well as direct-to-home mailings 
In January 2021, Steve Harvey made his debut in television commercials as a spokesperson for PCH 

Charitable Giving
Over 40% of net profits are donated to charity 

See also
List of New York companies
Passage 7:
Legal Help Desk
Legal Help Desk (abbreviated as Legal HD) is a legal-consulting public affairs show that aired on CNN Philippines since November 26, 2012  It is hosted by Atty  Karen Jimeno 

See also
Nine Media Corporation
Solar Entertainment Corporation
Solar News Channel
Solar News and Current Affairs
Solar Daybreak
Solar Newsday
Solar Network News
Solar Nightly News
Solar Headlines
Passage 8:
Groove Games
Groove Games was a Canadian developer and publisher of video game  Established in 2001, Groove Games had published more than 20 retail game titles on the PC, Xbox, and PlayStation 2 platforms 
In December 2006, Groove Media Inc  launched an online software platform, SkillGround  It allowed visitors to download retail-quality games for free and play against competitors of similar skill levels for fun, or for cash  SkillGround hosted multiple genres including: first-person shooter, racing, sports and fighting 

Released games



ground_truth: NES

Family Computer

Famicom

Nintendo Entertainment System