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

Question: What did M. King Hubbert's employer announce it was in the process of doing in April 2010?

The following are given passages.
Context 1: Passage 1:
457 visa
In Australia, the 457 visa was the most common visa for Australian or overseas employers to sponsor skilled overseas workers to work temporarily in Australia  It was abolished on 18 March 2018 by the Turnbull government and replaced by another visa category  The full title of this subclass of visa was Temporary Business (Long Stay) and was introduced soon after John Howard became Prime Minister in 1996  The title of the visa was changed to Temporary Work (Skilled) (Subclass 457) visa on 24 November 2012   Applications were processed by the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP)  On 18 April 2017, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced that the 457 visas will be replaced with two new visa categories 

Requirements
Holders of a 457 visa may be employed for a period of up to four years and may bring any eligible family members, including same-sex partners, who have unrestricted work and study rights in Australia  "If your sponsor is a start-up business or has traded in Australia for less than 12 months, then the visa will be granted for 18 months " Holders of the subclass 457 visa have no limit on the number of times they travel in and out of Australia Employers must be approved by the Department of Immigration and Border Protection as an approved sponsor  Primary subclass 457 visa holders are restricted to working for their sponsor and may not work (or volunteer) for any other organisation (other than associated entities as defined by the Corporations Act)  In order to change employer and sponsor, the "new employer" must be or become an approved 457 sponsor and then lodge a 457 nomination  Once the nomination is approved, the employer obligations will shift to the new employer and the visa applicant is restricted to working for it  There is no need to apply for a new 457 visa within the validity of the visa 
Employees must also meet minimum levels of skill and English language requirements, in addition to character and health requirements  Some trades occupations and passport holders from certain countries may be required to do a skills assessment (see the TRA website) 
It is common for 457 visa holders to apply for a permanent Australia residents visa with a view to permanently settle in Australia and become Australian citizens 

Restrictions on the 457 visa
A 457 visa holder can only work in a nominated occupation for the sponsor employer  Medical practitioners and general managers must work in their nominated occupation but they can work for employers other than their sponsor or an associated entity of their sponsor  The specific occupations to which this rule applies are listed in Exemption from the requirement to work directly for the sponsor  The worker must also not have ceased employment for more than 60 consecutive days 

457 visa update
The Australian Government reviewed the 457 skilled immigrant visa and made some provisions to quicken the transition to permanent residency starting on 1 July 2012   From that date, non-resident workers on the 457 skilled immigration visa are able to transition to permanent residency if they have two years with the employer who has sponsored them and if the employer provides a full-time position in the 457 visa holder's nominated occupation 
Furthermore, the Australian government has recognised that 457 visas deserve priority in review as they are highly responsive to the needs of the market  Overseas workers will be able to work in Australia on a six-month short term work visa before they apply for a 457 visa 
As at 30 June 2016, the size of the subclass 457 programme was 94,890 Primary visa holders in Australia 

Criticisms
An audit by the Fair Work Ombudsman conducted between September 2013 and June 2014 found that 40% of 457 visa holders were no longer employed by a sponsor or were being paid well below the statutory minimum wage of $53,900 In October 2014, the Abbott government announced that it would make it easier for businesses to apply for 457 visa workers by relaxing rules for English language competency to broaden the pool of potential workers from overseas With the commencement of the Japan free trade agreement in 2015, employers no longer need to offer jobs to locals or to prove that none could fill vacancies before Japanese nationals eligible for 457 visas are employed In December 2014, the Department of Immigration and Border Protection released recommendations to relax 457 visa requirements  The recommendations include extending the six-month short term work visa to 12 months with no obligation to apply for a 457 visa  The Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) has criticized this change on the grounds that it avoids the 457 visa's requirement for English language and skills tests and employers would not be required to demonstrate they had first tried to fill job vacancies with Australian workers 

Replacement
On 18 April 2017, Malcolm Turnbull announced his intention to replace the 457 visas with 2 new categories (short term and medium term) of visas One of the replacements was the Temporary Skill Shortage visa, known as a 482 Visa  It allows immigration It requires candidates to obtain an IELTS (English Language) exam band score of 5 or higher, or other method of showing the English level 

See also
Visa documentation
Working holiday visa
Working Holidays in Australia
Passage 2:
M  King Hubbert
Marion King Hubbert (October 5, 1903 – October 11, 1989) was an American geologist and geophysicist  He worked at the Shell research lab in Houston, Texas   He made several important contributions to geology, geophysics, and petroleum geology, most notably the Hubbert curve and Hubbert peak theory (a basic component of peak oil), with important political ramifications   He was often referred to as "M  King Hubbert" or "King Hubbert" 

Biography
Hubbert was born in San Saba, Texas  He attended the University of Chicago, where he received a Bachelor of Science in 1926, a Master of Science in 1928, and a Doctor of Philosophy in 1937, studying geology, mathematics, and physics   He worked as an assistant geologist for the Amerada Petroleum Company for two years while pursuing the PhD, additionally teaching geophysics at Columbia University  He also served as a senior analyst at the Board of Economic Warfare  He joined the Shell Oil Company in 1943, retiring from that firm in 1964  After he retired from Shell, he became a senior research geophysicist for the United States Geological Survey until his retirement in 1976   He also held positions as a professor of geology and geophysics at Stanford University from 1963 to 1968, and as a professor at UC Berkeley from 1973 to 1976 Hubbert was an avid technocrat  He co-founded Technocracy Incorporated with Howard Scott  Hubbert wrote a study course that was published without attribution called the Technocracy Study Course, which advocates a non-market economics form of energy accounting, in contrast to the current price system method Hubbert was a member of the board of governors, and served as secretary of education in that organization  Hubert died on October 11, 1988 at the age of 86 while receiving treatment for pulmonary embolism 

Research
Hubbert made several contributions to geophysics, including a mathematical demonstration that rock in the earth's crust, because it is under immense pressure in large areas, should exhibit plasticity, similar to clay   This demonstration explained the observed results that the earth's crust deforms over time   He also studied the flow of underground fluids 
Based on theoretical arguments, Hubbert (1940) proposed a constitutive equation 
  
    
      
        
          K
          
            a
            b
            s
          
        
        =
        N
        
          D
          
            2
          
        
      
    
    {\displaystyle K_{abs}=ND^{2}}
   for absolute permeability 
  
    
      
        
          K
          
            a
            b
            s
          
        
      
    
    {\displaystyle K_{abs}}
   of an underground water or oil reservoir where 
  
    
      
        D
      
    
    {\displaystyle D}
   is the average grain diameter and 
  
    
      
        N
      
    
    {\displaystyle N}
   is a dimensionless proportionality constant  However, Kozeny (1927) proposed a constitutive equation for absolute permeability which contains Hubbert's proposal as a factor  Hubbert (1940, 1956) also presented a force potential, denoted 
  
    
      
        Φ
      
    
    {\displaystyle \Phi }
   or 
  
    
      
        
          Φ
          
            h
          
        
      
    
    {\displaystyle \Phi _{h}}
  , that bears his name:

  
    
      
        Φ
        =
        
          ∫
          
            P
            r
            e
            f
          
          
            P
          
        
        
          
            
              d
              P
            
            
              ρ
              (
              P
              )
            
          
        
        −
        g
        z
        
        ⟹
        
        ∇
        
          Φ
          
            h
          
        
        =
        
          
            1
            ρ
          
        
        ∇
        P
        −
        g
        ∇
        z
      
    
    {\displaystyle \Phi =\int _{Pref}^{P}{\frac {dP}{\rho (P)}}-gz\implies \nabla \Phi _{h}={\frac {1}{\rho }}\nabla P-g\nabla z}
  Some years later Hubbert (1956) showed that Darcy's law can be derived from the Navier-Stokes equation of motion of a viscous fluid 
Hubbert is best known for his studies on the size of oil fields and natural gas reserves, and the limits these impose on rates of oil and gas production  He predicted that for any oil-producing area, whether a province, a nation, or the planet as a whole, the rate of petroleum production of the reserve over time would resemble a bell curve  Based on his theory, he presented a paper to the 1956 meeting of the American Petroleum Institute in San Antonio, Texas, which predicted that overall petroleum production would peak in the United States between 1965, which he considered most likely, and 1970, which he considered an upper bound  At first his prediction received much criticism, for the most part because many other predictions of oil capacity had been made over the preceding half century, but these had usually been based on the reserves-to-production ratio, had not taken into account future discoveries, and had proven false   Hubbert became famous when U S  oil production peaked in 1970 and began to decline, as he had predicted 
In 1974, Hubbert projected that global oil production would peak in 1995 "if current trends continue"  Various subsequent predictions have been made by others as trends have fluctuated in the intervening years 
Hubbert believed that solar power would be a practical renewable energy replacement for fossil fuels, and that nuclear energy in breeder reactors would be able to sustain humanity for centuries  He also states that "provided world population can somehow be brought under control, we may at last have found an energy supply (uranium) adequate for our needs for at least the next few centuries of the 'foreseeable future' "

Contributions
Hubbert's contributions to science have been summarized as follows:

Mathematical demonstration that rock in the earth's crust is plastic, and that the earth's crust deforms over time 
Prediction of migration paths of hydrocarbons 
Predictions of peak rates of oil and gas production, based on a consistent mathematical model which ties reserves, discovery rates, and production rates  His model remains highly influential, and has been widely applied to other finite resources 

Renewable resources
Fisheries: At least one researcher has attempted to perform Hubbert linearization (Hubbert curve) on the whaling industry, as well as charting the transparently dependent price of caviar on sturgeon depletion  The Atlantic northwest cod fishery was a renewable resource, but the numbers of fish taken exceeded the fish's rate of recovery  The end of the cod fishery matches the exponential drop of the Hubbert bell curve  The comparison of the cases of fisheries and of mineral extraction tells us that the human pressure on the environment is causing a wide range of resources to go through a depletion cycle which mirrors the Hubbert curve 

Accolades
Hubbert was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences   He was long affiliated with the Geological Society of America, receiving their Arthur L  Day Medal in 1954, being elected President of the Society in 1962, and receiving the Society's Penrose Medal in 1973   He received the Vetlesen Prize from the G  Unger Vetlesen Foundation and Columbia University in 1981   He also received the Elliott Cresson Medal in 1981 

Hubbert on peak oil
Hubbert explaining some aspects of worldwide peak oil  1976 video clip of M King Hubbert speaking about fossil fuel depletion on YouTube 

See also
Bioeconomics (biology)
Fred Meissner

Notes
External links
 Media related to Marion King Hubbert at Wikimedia Commons
 Quotations related to M  King Hubbert at Wikiquote
M  King Hubbert Bibliography Archived 2019-08-01 at the Wayback Machine
M  King Hubbert papers at the University of Wyoming - American Heritage Center
Passage 3:
Royal Dutch Shell
Shell plc is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England  Shell is a public limited company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and secondary listings on Euronext Amsterdam and the New York Stock Exchange  A core component of Big Oil, Shell is the second largest investor-owned oil and gas company in the world by revenue (after ExxonMobil), and among the world's largest companies out of any industry  Measured by both its own emissions, and the emissions of all the fossil fuels it sells, Shell was the ninth-largest corporate producer of greenhouse gas emissions in the period 1988–2015 Shell was formed in 1907 through the merger of Royal Dutch Petroleum Company of the Netherlands and The "Shell" Transport and Trading Company of the United Kingdom  The combined company rapidly became the leading competitor of the American Standard Oil and by 1920 Shell was the largest producer of oil in the world  Shell first entered the chemicals industry in 1929  Shell was one of the "Seven Sisters" which dominated the global petroleum industry from the mid-1940s to the mid-1970s  In 1964, Shell was a partner in the world's first commercial sea transportation of liquefied natural gas (LNG)  In 1970, Shell acquired the mining company Billiton, which it subsequently sold in 1994 and now forms part of BHP  In recent decades gas has become an increasingly important part of Shell's business and Shell acquired BG Group in 2016 Shell is vertically integrated and is active in every area of the oil and gas industry, including exploration, production, refining, transport, distribution and marketing, petrochemicals, power generation, and trading  Shell has operations in over 99 countries, produces around 3 7 million barrels of oil equivalent per day and has around 44,000 service stations worldwide  As of 31 December 2019, Shell had total proved reserves of 11 1 billion barrels (1 76×109 m3) of oil equivalent  Shell USA, its principal subsidiary in the United States, is one of its largest businesses  Shell holds 44% of Raízen, a publicly-listed joint venture with Cosan, which is the third-largest Brazil-based energy company  In addition to the main Shell brand, the company also owns the Jiffy Lube, Pennzoil and Quaker State brands 
Shell is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index and had a market capitalisation of US$199 billion on 15 September 2022, the largest of any company listed on the LSE and the 44th-largest of any company in the world  By 2021 revenues, Shell is the second-largest investor-owned oil company in the world (after ExxonMobil), the largest company headquartered in the United Kingdom, the second-largest company headquartered in Europe (after Volkswagen), and the 15th largest company in the world  Until its unification in 2005 as Royal Dutch Shell plc, the firm operated as a dual-listed company, whereby the British and Dutch companies maintained their legal existence and separate listings but operated as a single-unit partnership  From 2005 to 2022, the company had its headquarters in The Hague, its registered office in London and had two types of shares (A and B)  In January 2022, the firm merged the A and B shares, moved its headquarters to London, and changed its legal name to Shell plc 

History
Origins
The Royal Dutch Shell Group was created in April 1907 through the amalgamation of two rival companies: the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company (Dutch: Koninklijke Nederlandse Petroleum Maatschappij) of the Netherlands and the Shell Transport and Trading Company Limited of the United Kingdom  It was a move largely driven by the need to compete globally with Standard Oil  The Royal Dutch Petroleum Company was a Dutch company founded in 1890 to develop an oilfield in Pangkalan Brandan, North Sumatra, and initially led by August Kessler, Hugo Loudon, and Henri Deterding  The "Shell" Transport and Trading Company (the quotation marks were part of the legal name) was a British company, founded in 1897 by Marcus Samuel, 1st Viscount Bearsted, and his brother Samuel Samuel  Their father had owned an antique company in Houndsditch, London, which expanded in 1833 to import and sell seashells, after which the company "Shell" took its name For various reasons, the new firm operated as a dual-listed company, whereby the merging companies maintained their legal existence but operated as a single-unit partnership for business purposes  The terms of the merger gave 60 percent stock ownership of the new group to Royal Dutch, and 40 percent to Shell  Both became holding companies for Bataafsche Petroleum Maatschappij, containing the production and refining assets, and Anglo-Saxon Petroleum Company, containing the transport and storage assets  National patriotic sensibilities would not permit a full-scale merger or takeover of either of the two companies  The Dutch company, Koninklijke Nederlandsche Petroleum Maatschappij at The Hague, was in charge of production and manufacture  The British Anglo-Saxon Petroleum Company was based in London, to direct the transport and storage of the products In 1912, Royal Dutch Shell purchased the Rothschilds' Russian oil assets in a stock deal  The Group's production portfolio then consisted of 53 percent from the East Indies, 29 percent from the Russian Empire, and 17 percent from Romania 

20th century
During the First World War, Shell was the main supplier of fuel to the British Expeditionary Force  It was also the sole supplier of aviation fuel and supplied 80 percent of the British Army's TNT  It also volunteered all of its shipping to the British Admiralty The German invasion of Romania in 1916 saw 17% of the group's worldwide production destroyed In 1919, Shell took control of the Mexican Eagle Petroleum Company and in 1921 formed Shell-Mex Limited, which marketed products under the "Shell" and "Eagle" brands in the United Kingdom  During the Genoa Conference of 1922 Royal Dutch Shell was in negotiations for a monopoly over Soviet oilfields in Baku and Grosny, although the leak of a draft treaty led to breakdown of the talks  In 1929, Shell Chemicals was founded  By the end of the 1920s, Shell was the world's leading oil company, producing 11 percent of the world's crude oil supply and owning 10 percent of its tanker tonnage Shell Mex House was completed in 1931, and was the head office for Shell's marketing activity worldwide  In 1932, partly in response to the difficult economic conditions of the Great Depression, Shell-Mex merged its UK marketing operations with those of BP to create Shell-Mex & BP, a company that traded until the brands separated in 1975  Royal Dutch Company ranked 79th among United States corporations in the value of World War II military production contracts 
The 1930s saw Shell's Mexican assets seized by the local government  After the invasion of the Netherlands by Nazi Germany in 1940, the head office of the Dutch companies was moved to Curaçao  In 1945 Shell's Danish headquarters in Copenhagen, at the time being used by the Gestapo, was bombed by Royal Air Force De Havilland Mosquitoes in Operation Carthage In 1937, Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC), 23 75 percent owned by Royal Dutch Shell plc, signed an oil concession agreement with the Sultan of Muscat  In 1952, IPC offered financial support to raise an armed force that would assist the Sultan in occupying the interior region of Oman, an area that geologists believed to be rich in oil  This led to the 1954 outbreak of Jebel Akhdar War in Oman that lasted for more than 5 years Around 1952, Shell was the first company to purchase and use a computer in the Netherlands  The computer, a Ferranti Mark 1*, was assembled and used at the Shell laboratory in Amsterdam  In 1970 Shell acquired the mining company Billiton, which it subsequently sold in 1994 In the 1990s, protesters criticised the company's environmental record, particularly the possible pollution caused by the proposed disposal of the Brent Spar platform into the North Sea  Despite support from the UK government, Shell reversed the decision under public pressure but maintained that sinking the platform would have been environmentally better  Shell subsequently published an unequivocal commitment to sustainable development, supported by executive speeches reinforcing this commitment  Shell was subsequently criticised by the European Commission and five European Union members after deciding to leave part of its decommissioned oil rigs standing in the North Sea  Shell argued that removing them would be too costly and risky  Germany said that the estimated 11,000 tonnes of raw oil and toxins remaining in the rigs would eventually seep into the sea, and called it a 'ticking timebomb' On 15 January 1999, off the Argentinian town of Magdalena, Buenos Aires, the Shell tanker Estrella pampeana collided with a German cargo ship, emptying its contents into the lake, polluting the environment, drinkable water, plants and animals  Over a decade after the spill, a referendum held in Magdalena determined the acceptance of a US$9 5 million compensatory payout from Shell  Shell denied responsibility for the spill, but an Argentine court ruled in 2002 that the corporation was responsible 

21st century
In 2002, Shell acquired Pennzoil-Quaker State through its American division for $22 USD per share, or about $1 8 billion USD  Through its acquisition of Pennzoil, Shell became a descendant of Standard Oil  With its acquisition, Shell inherited multiple auto part brands including Jiffy Lube, Rain-X, and Fix-a-Flat  The company was notably late in its acquisition as seen by journalists, with Shell seen as streamlining its assets around the same time of other major mergers and acquisitions in the industry, such as BP's purchase of Amoco and the merger of Exxon and Mobil In 2004, Shell overstated its oil reserves, resulting in loss of confidence in the group, a £17 million fine by the Financial Services Authority and the departure of the chairman Philip Watts  A lawsuit resulted in the payment of $450 million to non-American shareholders in 2007 As a result of the scandal, the corporate structure was simplified  Two classes of ordinary shares, A (code RDSA) and B (code RDSB), identical but for the tax treatment of dividends, were issued for the company In November 2004, following a period of turmoil caused by the revelation that Shell had been overstating its oil reserves, it was announced that the Shell Group would move to a single capital structure, creating a new parent company to be named Royal Dutch Shell plc, with its primary listing on the LSE, a secondary listing on Euronext Amsterdam, its headquarters and tax residency in The Hague, Netherlands and its registered office in London  The company was already incorporated in 2002 as Forthdeal Limited, a shelf corporation incorporated by Swift Incorporations Limited and Instant Companies Limited, both based in Bristol  The unification was completed on 20 July 2005 and the original owners delisted their companies from the respective exchanges  On 20 July 2005, the Shell Transport & Trading Company plc was delisted from the LSE, whereas, Royal Dutch Petroleum Company from the New York Stock Exchange on 18 November 2005  The shares of the company were issued at a 60/40 advantage for the shareholders of Royal Dutch in line with the original ownership of the Shell Group During the 2009 Iraqi oil services contracts tender, a consortium led by Shell (45%) and which included Petronas (30%) was awarded a production contract for the "Majnoon field" in the south of Iraq, which contains an estimated 12 6 billion barrels (2 00×109 m3) of oil  The "West Qurna 1 field" production contract was awarded to a consortium led by ExxonMobil (60%) and included Shell (15%) In February 2010, Shell and Cosan formed a 50:50 joint-venture, Raízen, comprising all of Cosan's Brazilian ethanol, energy generation, fuel distribution and sugar activities, and all of Shell's Brazilian retail fuel and aviation distribution businesses  In March 2010, Shell announced the sale of some of its assets, including its liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) business, to meet the cost of a planned $28bn capital spending programme  Shell invited buyers to submit indicative bids, due by 22 March, with a plan to raise $2–3bn from the sale  In June 2010, Shell agreed to acquire all the business of East Resources for a cash consideration of $4 7 billion  The transaction included East Resources' tight gas fields Over the course of 2013, the corporation began the sale of its US shale gas assets and canceled a US$20 billion gas project that was to be constructed in the US state of Louisiana  A new CEO Ben van Beurden was appointed in January 2014, prior to the announcement that the corporation's overall performance in 2013 was 38 percent lower than in 2012—the value of Shell's shares fell by 3 percent as a result  Following the sale of the majority of its Australian assets in February 2014, the corporation plans to sell a further US$15 billion worth of assets in the period leading up to 2015, with deals announced in Australia, Brazil and Italy Shell announced on 8 April 2015 it had agreed to buy BG Group for £47 billion (US$70 billion), subject to shareholder and regulatory approval  The acquisition was completed in February 2016, resulting in Shell surpassing Chevron Corporation and becoming the world's second largest non-state oil company On 7 June 2016, Shell announced that it would build an ethane cracker plant near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, after spending several years doing an environmental cleanup of the proposed plant's site In January 2017, Shell agreed to sell £2 46bn worth of North Sea assets to oil exploration firm Chrysaor  In 2017, Shell sold its oil sands assets to Canadian Natural Resources in exchange of approximately 8 8% stake in that company  In May 2017, it was reported that Shell plans to sell its shares in Canadian Natural Resources fully exiting the oil sands business On 5 November 2017, the Paradise Papers, a set of confidential electronic documents relating to offshore investment, revealed that Argentine Energy Minister Juan José Aranguren was revealed to have managed the offshore companies 'Shell Western Supply and Trading Limited' and 'Sol Antilles y Guianas Limited', both subsidiaries of Shell  One is the main bidder for the purchase of diesel oil by the government through the state owned CAMMESA (Compañía Administradora del Mercado Mayorista Eléctrico) On 30 April 2020, Shell announced that it would cut its dividend for the first time since the Second World War, due to the oil price collapse following the reduction in oil demand during the COVID-19 pandemic  Shell stated that their net income adjusted for the cost of supply dropped to US$2 9 billion in three months to 31 March  This compared with US$5 3 billion in the same period the previous year  On 30 September 2020, the company said that it would cut up to 9,000 jobs as a result of the economic effects caused by the pandemic and announced a "broad restructuring"  In December 2020, Shell forecast another write-down of $3 5-4 5 billion for the fourth quarter due to lower oil prices, following $16 8 billion of impairment in the second quarter In February 2021, Shell announced a loss of $21 7 billion in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, despite reducing its operating expenses by 12%, or $4 5 billion, according to a Morningstar analysis cited by Barron's In November 2021, Shell announced that it is planning to relocate their headquarters to London, abandon its dual share structure, and change its name from Royal Dutch Shell plc to Shell plc  The company's name change was registered in the Companies House on 21 January 2022 In December 2021, Shell pulled out of the Cambo oil field, off the Shetland Islands, claiming that "the economic case for investment in this project is not strong enough at this time, as well as having the potential for delays"  The proposed oilfield had been the subject of intense campaigning by environmentalists in the run-up to the COP26 UN climate summit in Glasgow in November 2021 On 4 March 2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine and in the midst of the growing boycott of Russian economy and related divestments, Shell bought a cargo of discounted Russian crude oil  The next day, following criticism from Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, Shell defended the purchase as a short term necessity, but also announced that it intended to reduce such purchases, and it would put profits from any Russian oil it purchases into a fund that would go towards humanitarian aid to Ukraine  On 8 March, Shell announced that it would stop buying Russian oil and gas and close its service stations in the country In 2022, the major oil and gas companies, including Shell, reported sharp rises in interim revenues and profits  In fact, this rise in profit for Shell was so sharp, that 2022 was the company's best year, as Shell recorded double the profits from 2021, and the highest profit in its entire history 

Corporate affairs
Management
On 4 August 2005, the board of directors announced the appointment of Jorma Ollila, chairman and CEO of Nokia at the time, to succeed Aad Jacobs as the company's non-executive chairman on 1 June 2006  Ollila is the first Shell chairman to be neither Dutch nor British  Other non-executive directors include Maarten van den Bergh, Wim Kok, Nina Henderson, Lord Kerr, Adelbert van Roxe, and Christine Morin-Postel Since 3 January 2014, Ben van Beurden has been CEO of Shell  His predecessor was Peter Voser who became CEO of Shell on 1 July 2009 Following a career at the corporation, in locations such as Australia and Africa, Ann Pickard was appointed as the executive vice president of the Arctic at Royal Dutch Shell, a role that was publicized in an interview with McKinsey & Company in June 2014 In January 2023, Wael Sawan succeeded Ben van Beurden as CEO 

Board of directors
As of 25 January 2023, the Shell board members are:
Andrew Mackenzie (chair), former CEO of BHP Billiton
Euleen Goh, former CEO of Standard Chartered Singapore
Wael Sawan, CEO of Shell plc
Sinead Gorman, CFO of Shell plc
Dick Boer, former president and CEO of Ahold Delhaize
Neil Carson, former CEO of Johnson Matthey
Ann Godbehere, former CFO of Swiss Re and Northern Rock
Catherine J  Hughes, former executive at Nexen, Husky Oil, and Schlumberger
Jane Holl Lute, former president and CEO of SICPA North America
Martina Hund-Mejean, former CFO of Mastercard
Abraham Schot, former CEO of Audi AG
Caroline Omloo, company secretary

Historical leadership
Name and logo
The name Shell is linked to The "Shell" Transport and Trading Company  In 1833, the founder's father, Marcus Samuel Sr , founded an import business to sell seashells to London collectors  When collecting seashell specimens in the Caspian Sea area in 1892, the younger Samuel realised there was potential in exporting lamp oil from the region and commissioned the world's first purpose-built oil tanker, the Murex (Latin for a type of snail shell), to enter this market; by 1907 the company had a fleet  Although for several decades the company had a refinery at Shell Haven on the Thames, there is no evidence of this having provided the name The Shell logo is one of the most familiar commercial symbols in the world  This logo is known as the "pecten" after the sea shell Pecten maximus (the giant scallop), on which its design is based  The yellow and red colours used are thought to relate to the colours of the flag of Spain, as Shell built early service stations in California, previously a Spanish colony  The current revision of the logo was designed by Raymond Loewy in 1971 The slash was removed from the name "Royal Dutch/Shell" in 2005, concurrent with moves to merge the two legally separate companies (Royal Dutch and Shell) to the single legal entity which exists today On 15 November 2021, Royal Dutch Shell plc announced plans to change its name to Shell plc 

Logo evolution
Operations
Business groupings
Shell is organised into four major business groupings:
Upstream – manages the upstream business  It searches for and recovers crude oil and natural gas and operates the upstream and midstream infrastructure necessary to deliver oil and gas to the market  Its activities are organised primarily within geographic units, although there are some activities that are managed across the business or provided through support units 
Integrated Gas and New Energies – manages to liquefy natural gas, converting gas to liquids and low-carbon opportunities 
Downstream – manages Shell's manufacturing, distribution, and marketing activities for oil products and chemicals  Manufacturing and supply include refinery, supply, and shipping of crude oil 
Projects and technology – manages the delivery of Shell's major projects, provides technical services and technology capability covering both upstream and downstream activities  It is also responsible for providing functional leadership across Shell in the areas of health, safety and environment, and contracting and procurement 

Oil and gas activities
Shell's primary business is the management of a vertically integrated oil company  The development of technical and commercial expertise in all stages of this vertical integration, from the initial search for oil (exploration) through its harvesting (production), transportation, refining and finally trading and marketing established the core competencies on which the company was founded  Similar competencies were required for natural gas, which has become one of the most important businesses in which Shell is involved, and which contributes a significant proportion of the company's profits  While the vertically integrated business model provided significant economies of scale and barriers to entry, each business now seeks to be a self-supporting unit without subsidies from other parts of the company Traditionally, Shell was a heavily decentralised business worldwide (especially in the downstream) with companies in over 100 countries, each of which operated with a high degree of independence  The upstream tended to be far more centralised with much of the technical and financial direction coming from the central offices in The Hague  The upstream oil sector is also commonly known as the "exploration and production" sector Downstream operations, which now also includes the chemicals business, generate the majority of Shell's profits worldwide and is known for its global network of more than 40,000 petrol stations and its various oil refineries  The downstream business, which in some countries also included oil refining, generally included a retail petrol station network, lubricants manufacture and marketing, industrial fuel and lubricants sales, and a host of other product/market sectors such as LPG and bitumen  The practice in Shell was that these businesses were essentially local and that they were best managed by local "operating companies" – often with middle and senior management reinforced by expatriates 

Sponsorships
Shell has a long history of motorsport sponsorship, most notably Scuderia Ferrari (1951–1964, 1966–1973 and 1996-present), BRM (1962–1966 and 1968–1972), Scuderia Toro Rosso (2007–2013 and 2016), McLaren (1967–1968 and 1984–1994), Lotus (1968–1971), Ducati Corse (since 1999), Team Penske (2011–present), Hyundai Motorsport (since 2005), AF Corse, Risi Competizione, BMW Motorsport (2015–present with also Pennzoil) and Dick Johnson Racing (1987-2004 and 2017–present) Starting in 2023, Shell will become the official fuel for IndyCar Series, supplying E100 race fuel for all teams 

Operations by region
Arctic
Kulluk oil rig
Following the purchase of an offshore lease in 2005, Shell initiated its US$4 5 billion Arctic drilling program in 2006, after the corporation purchased the "Kulluk" oil rig and leased the Noble Discoverer drillship  At inception, the project was led by Pete Slaiby, a Shell executive who had previously worked in the North Sea  However, after the purchase of a second offshore lease in 2008, Shell only commenced drilling work in 2012, due to the refurbishment of rigs, permit delays from the relevant authorities and lawsuits  The plans to drill in the Arctic led to protests from environmental groups, particularly Greenpeace; furthermore, analysts in the energy field, as well as related industries, also expressed skepticism due to perceptions that drilling in the region is "too dangerous because of harsh conditions and remote locations" Further problems hampered the Arctic project after the commencement of drilling in 2012, as Shell dealt with a series of issues that involved air permits, Coast Guard certification of a marine vessel, and severe damage to essential oil-spill equipment  Additionally, difficult weather conditions resulted in the delay of drilling during mid-2012 and the already dire situation was exacerbated by the "Kulluk" incident at the end of the year  Shell had invested nearly US$5 billion by this stage of the project As the Kulluk oil rig was being towed to the American state of Washington to be serviced in preparation for the 2013 drilling season, a winter storm on 27 December 2012 caused the towing crews, as well as the rescue service, to lose control of the rig  As of 1 January 2013, the Kulluk was grounded off the coast Sitkalidak Island, near the eastern end of Kodiak Island  Following the accident, a Fortune magazine contacted Larry McKinney, the executive director at the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies at Texas A&M, and he explained that "A two-month delay in the Arctic is not a two-month delay     A two-month delay could wipe out the entire drilling season "It was unclear if Shell would recommence drilling in mid-2013, following the "Kulluk" incident, and, in February 2013, the corporation stated that it would "pause" its closely watched drilling project off the Alaskan coast in 2013, and will instead prepare for future exploration  In January 2014, the corporation announced the extension of the suspension of its drilling program in the Arctic, with chief executive van Beurden explaining that the project is "under review" due to both market and internal issues A June 2014 interview with Pickard indicated that, following a forensic analysis of the problems encountered in 2012, Shell will continue with the project and Pickard stated that she perceives the future of the corporation activity in the Arctic region as a long-term "marathon"  Pickard stated that the forensic "look back" revealed "there was an on/off switch" and further explained:

In other words, don't spend the money unless you're sure you're going to have the legal environment to go forward  Don't spend the money unless you're sure you're going to have the permit  No, I can't tell you that I'm going to have that permit until June, but we need to plan like we're going to have that permit in June  And so probably the biggest lesson is to make sure we could smooth out the on/off switches wherever we could and take control of our own destiny 
Based upon the interview with Pickard, Shell is approaching the project as an investment that will reap energy resources with a lifespan of around 30 years According to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management report in 2015 the chances of a major spill in a deep-sea Arctic drilling is 75% before century's end 

Kodiak Island
In 2010, Greenpeace activists painted "No Arctic Drilling" using spilled BP oil on the side of a ship in the Gulf of Mexico that was en route to explore for Arctic oil for Shell  At the protest, Phil Radford of Greenpeace called for "President Obama [to] ban all offshore oil drilling and call for an end to the use of oil in our cars by 2030 "On 16 March 2012, 52 Greenpeace activists from five different countries boarded Fennica and Nordica, multipurpose icebreakers chartered to support Shell's drilling rigs near Alaska  Around the same time period, a reporter for Fortune magazine spoke with Edward Itta, an Inupiat leader and the former mayor of the North Slope Borough, who expressed that he was conflicted about Shell's plans in the Arctic, as he was concerned that an oil spill could destroy the Inupiat peoples hunting-and-fishing culture, but his borough also received major tax revenue from oil and gas production; additionally, further revenue from energy activity was considered crucial to the future of the living standard in Itta's community In July 2012, Greenpeace activists shut down 53 Shell petrol stations in Edinburgh and London in a protest against the company's plans to drill for oil in the Arctic  Greenpeace's "Save the Arctic" campaign aims to prevent oil drilling and industrial fishing in the Arctic by declaring the uninhabited area around the North Pole a global sanctuary A review was announced after the Kulluk oil rig ran aground near Kodiak Island in December 2012 In response, Shell filed lawsuits to seek injunctions from possible protests, and Benjamin Jealous of the NAACP and Radford argued that the legal action was "trampling Americans' rights " According to Greenpeace, Shell lodged a request with Google to take down video footage of a Greenpeace protest action that occurred at the Shell-sponsored Formula One (F1) Belgian Grand Prix on 25 August 2013, in which "SaveTheArctic org" banners appear at the winners' podium ceremony  In the video, the banners rise up automatically—activists controlled their appearance with the use of four radio car antennas—revealing the website URL, alongside an image that consists of half of a polar bear's head and half of the Shell logo Shell then announced a "pause" in the timeline of the project in early 2013 and, in September 2015, the corporation announced the extension of the suspension of its drilling program in the Arctic 

Polar Pioneer rig
A June 2014 interview with the corporation's new executive vice president of the Arctic indicated that Shell will continue with its activity in the region In Seattle protests began in May 2015 in response to the news that the Port of Seattle made an agreement with Shell to berth rigs at the Port's Terminal 5 during the off-season of oil exploration in Alaskan waters  The arrival of Shell's new Arctic drilling vessel, Polar Pioneer (IMO number: 8754140), a semi-submersible offshore drilling rig, was greeted by large numbers of environmental protesters paddling kayaks in Elliott Bay On 6 May 2015, it was reported that during a coast guard inspection of Polar Pioneer, a piece of anti-pollution gear failed, resulting in fines and delay of the operation  Oil executives from Total and Eni interviewed by the New York Times, expressed scepticism about Shell's new ambitions for offshore drilling in the Arctic, and cited economic and environmental hurdles  ConocoPhillips and Equinor (formerly Statoil) suspended Arctic drilling earlier, after Shell's failed attempt in 2012 

Australia
On 20 May 2011, Shell's final investment decision for the world's first floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) facility was finalized following the discovery of the remote offshore Prelude field—located off Australia's northwestern coast and estimated to contain about 3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas equivalent reserves—in 2007  FLNG technology is based on liquefied natural gas (LNG) developments that were pioneered in the mid-20th century and facilitates the exploitation of untapped natural gas reserves located in remote areas, often too small to extract any other way The floating vessel to be used for the Prelude field, known as Prelude FLNG, is promoted as the longest floating structure in the world and will take in the equivalent of 110,000 barrels of oil per day in natural gas—at a location 200 km (125 miles) off the coast of Western Australia—and cool it into liquefied natural gas for transport and sale in Asia  The Prelude is expected to start producing LNG in 2017—analysts estimated the total cost of construction at more than US$12 billion Following the decision by the Shell fuel corporation to close its Geelong Oil Refinery in Australia in April 2013, a third consecutive annual loss was recorded for Shell's Australian refining and fuel marketing assets  Revealed in June 2013, the writedown is worth A$203 million and was preceded by a A$638m writedown in 2012 and a A$407m writedown in 2011, after the closure of the Clyde Refinery in Sydney, Australia In February 2014, Shell sold its Australian refinery and petrol stations for US$2 6 billion (A$2 9 billion) to Swiss company Vitol At the time of the downstream sale to Vitol, Shell was expected to continue investment into Australian upstream projects, with projects that involve Chevron Corp , Woodside Petroleum and Prelude  In June 2014, Shell sold 9 5% of its 23 1% stake in Woodside Petroleum and advised that it had reached an agreement for Woodside to buy back 9 5% of its shares at a later stage  Shell became a major shareholder in Woodside after a 2001 takeover attempt was blocked by then federal Treasurer Peter Costello and the corporation has been open about its intention to sell its stake in Woodside as part of its target to shed assets  At a general body meeting, held on 1 August 2014, 72 percent of shareholders voted to approve the buy-back, short of the 75 percent vote that was required for approval  A statement from Shell read: "Royal Dutch Shell acknowledges the outcome of Woodside Petroleum Limited's shareholders' negative vote on the selective buy-back proposal  Shell is reviewing its options in relation to its remaining 13 6 percent holding "

Brunei
Brunei Shell Petroleum (BSP) is a joint venture between the Government of Brunei and Shell  The British Malayan Petroleum Company (BMPC), owned by Royal Dutch Shell, first found commercial amounts of oil in 1929  It currently produces 350,000 barrels of oil and gas equivalent per day  BSP is the largest oil and gas company in Brunei, a sector which contributes 90% of government revenue  In 1954, the BMPC in Seria had a total of 1,277 European and Asian staff 

China
The company has upstream operations in unconventional oil and gas in China  Shell has a joint venture with PetroChina at the Changbei tight gas field in Shaanxi, which has produced natural gas since 2008  The company has also invested in exploring for shale oil in Sichuan  The other unconventional resource which Shell invested in in China was shale  The company was an early entrant in shale oil exploration in China but scaled down operations in 2014 due to difficulties with geology and population density  It has a joint venture to explore for oil shale in Jilin through a joint venture with Jilin Guangzheng Mineral Development Company Limited 

Hong Kong
Shell has been active in Hong Kong for a century, providing Retail, LPG, Commercial Fuel, Lubricants, Bitumen, Aviation, Marine and Chemicals services, and products  Shell also sponsored the first Hong Kong-built aircraft, Inspiration, for its around-the-world trip 

India
Shell India has inaugurated its new lubricants laboratory at its Technology Centre in Bangalore 

Ireland
Shell first started trading in Ireland in 1902  Shell E&P Ireland (SEPIL) (previously Enterprise Energy Ireland) is an Irish exploration and production subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell  Its headquarters are on Leeson Street in Dublin  It was acquired in May 2002  Its main project is the Corrib gas project, a large gas field off the northwest coast, for which Shell has encountered controversy and protests in relation to the onshore pipeline and licence terms In 2005, Shell disposed of its entire retail and commercial fuels business in Ireland to Topaz Energy Group  This included depots, company-owned petrol stations and supply agreements stations throughout the island of Ireland  The retail outlets were re-branded as Topaz in 2008/9 The Topaz fuel network was subsequently acquired in 2015 by Couchetard and these stations began re-branding to Circle K in 2018 

Malaysia
Shell discovered the first oil well in Malaysia in 1910, in Miri, Sarawak  Today the oil well is a state monument known as the Grand Old Lady  In 1914, following this discovery, Shell built Malaysia's first oil refinery and laid a submarine pipeline in Miri 

Nigeria
Shell began production in Nigeria in 1958  In Nigeria, Shell told US diplomats that it had placed staff in all the main ministries of the government  Shell continues however upstream activities/extracting crude oil in the oil-rich Niger Delta as well as downstream/commercial activities in South Africa  In June 2013, the company announced a strategic review of its operations in Nigeria, hinting that assets could be divested  In August 2014, the company disclosed it was in the process of finalizing the sale of its interests in four Nigerian oil fields  On 29 January 2021 a Dutch court ruled that Shell was responsible for multiple oil leaks in Nigeria The actions of companies like Shell has led to extreme environmental issues in the Niger Delta  Many pipelines in the Niger Delta owned by Shell are old and corroded  Shell has acknowledged its responsibility for keeping the pipelines new but has also denied responsibility for environmental causes  The heavy contamination of the air, ground and water with toxic pollutants by the oil industry in the Niger Delta is often used as an example of ecocide  This has led to mass protests from the Niger Delta inhabitants, Amnesty International, and Friends of the Earth the Netherlands against Shell  It has also led to action plans to boycott Shell by environmental and human rights groups  In January 2013, a Dutch court rejected four out of five allegations brought against the firm over oil pollution in the Niger Delta but found a subsidiary guilty of one case of pollution, ordering compensation to be paid to a Nigerian farmer 

Nordic countries
On 27 August 2007, Shell and Reitan Group, the owner of the 7-Eleven brand in Scandinavia, announced an agreement to re-brand some 269 service stations across Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark, subject to obtaining regulatory approvals under the different competition laws in each country  In April 2010 Shell announced that the corporation is in process of trying to find a potential buyer for all of its operations in Finland and is doing similar market research concerning Swedish operations  In October 2010 Shell's gas stations and the heavy vehicle fuel supply networks in Finland and Sweden, along with a refinery located in Gothenburg, Sweden were sold to St1, a Finnish energy company, more precisely to its major shareholding parent company Keele Oy 

North America
Through most of Shell's early history, Shell USA business in the United States was substantially independent  Its stock was traded on the NYSE, and the group's central office had little direct involvement in running the operation  However, in 1984, Shell made a bid to purchase those shares of Shell Oil Company it did not own (around 30%) and, despite opposition from some minority shareholders which led to a court case, Shell completed the buyout for a sum of $5 7 billion 

Philippines
Royal Dutch Shell operates in the Philippines under its subsidiary, Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corporation  Its headquarters is in Makati and it has facilities in the Pandacan oil depot and other key locations In January 2010, the Bureau of Customs claimed 7 34 billion pesos worth of unpaid excise taxes against Pilipinas Shell for importing Catalytic cracked gasoline (CCG) and light catalytic cracked gasoline (LCCG) stating that those imports are bound for tariff charges In August 2016, Pilipinas Shell filed an application to sell US$629 million worth of primary and secondary shares to the investing public (registration statement) with the SEC  This was a prelude to filing its IPO listing application with the Philippine Stock Exchange  On 3 November 2016 the Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corporation was officially listed on the Philippine Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol SHLPH after they held its initial public offering on 19 to 25 October of the same year Due to the economic slowdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic on the global, regional and local economies, continually low refining margins, and competition with imported refined products, the management of Pilipinas Shell announced in August 2020 that the 110,000 bbl/d refinery in Tabangao, Batangas, which started operations in 1962, will be shutting down permanently and turned into an import terminal instead 

Russia
In February 2022, Shell exited all its joint ventures with Gazprom because of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and, in March 2022, Shell announced that it would stop buying oil from Russia and close all its service stations there  In April 2022, it emerged that Shell was to book up to $5 billion in impairment charges from exiting its interests in Russia 

Singapore
Singapore is the main centre for Shell's petrochemical operations in the Asia Pacific region  Shell Eastern Petroleum limited (SEPL) have their refinery located in Singapore's Pulau Bukom island  They also operate as Shell Chemicals Seraya in Jurong Island  In November 2020, Shell announced that, as part of efforts to curtail pollution emissions, it will cut its oil-processing capacity in Singapore 

United Kingdom
In the UK sector of the North Sea Shell employs around 4,500 staff in Scotland as well as an additional 1,000 service contractors: however in August 2014 it announced it was laying off 250 of them, mainly in Aberdeen  Shell paid no UK taxes on its North Sea operations over the period 2018 to 2021 

Alternative energy
In the early 2000s Shell moved into alternative energy and there is now an embryonic "Renewables" business that has made investments in solar power, wind power, hydrogen, and forestry  The forestry business went the way of nuclear, coal, metals and electricity generation, and was disposed of in 2003  In 2006 Shell paid SolarWorld to take over its entire solar business and in 2008, the company withdrew from the London Array which when built was the world's largest offshore wind farm Shell also is involved in large-scale hydrogen projects  HydrogenForecast com describes Shell's approach thus far as consisting of "baby steps", but with an underlying message of "extreme optimism"  In 2015, the company announced plans to install hydrogen fuel pumps across Germany, planning on having 400 locations in operation by 2023 Shell holds 44% of Raízen, a joint venture with Brazilian sugarcane producer Cosan which is the third-largest Brazil-based energy company by revenues and a major producer of ethanol  In 2015, the company partnered with Brazilian start-up company Insolar to install solar panels in Rio de Janeiro to deliver electricity to the Santa Marta neighbourhood Shell is the operator and major shareholder of The Shell Canada Quest Energy project, based within the Athabasca Oil Sands Project, located near Fort McMurray, Alberta  It holds a 60% share, alongside Chevron Canada Limited, which holds 20%, and Marathon Canadian Oil Sands Holding Limited, which holds the final 20%  Commercial operations launched in November 2015  It was the world's first commercial-scale oil and sand carbon capture storage (CCS) project  It is expected to reduce CO2 emissions in Canada by 1 08 million tonnes per year In December 2016, Shell won the auction for the 700 MW Borssele III & IV offshore wind farms at a price of 5 45 c/kWh, beating 6 other consortia  In June 2018, it was announced that the company and its co-investor Partners Group had secured $1 5bn for the project, which also involves Eneco, Van Oord, and Mitsubishi/DGE In October 2017, it bought Europe's biggest vehicle charging network, "NewMotion "In November 2017, Shell's CEO Ben van Beurden announced Shell's plan to cut half of its carbon emissions by 2050, and 20 percent by 2035  In this regard, Shell promised to spend $2 billion annually on renewable energy sources  Shell began to develop its wind energy segment in 2001, the company now operates six wind farms in the United States and is part of a plan to build two offshore wind farms in the Netherlands In December 2017, the company announced plans to buy UK household energy and broadband provider First Utility  In March 2019 it rebranded to Shell Energy and announced that all electricity would be supplied from renewable sources In December 2018, the company announced that it had partnered with SkyNRG to begin supplying sustainable aviation fuel to airlines operating out of San Francisco Airport (SFO), including KLM, SAS, and Finnair  In the same month, the company announced plans to double its renewable energy budget to investment in low-carbon energy to $4 billion US each year, with an aim to spend up to $2 billion US on renewable energy by 2021 In January 2018, the company acquired a 44% interest in Silicon Ranch, a solar energy company run by Matt Kisber, as part of its global New Energies project  The company took over from Partners Group, paying up to an estimated $217 million for the minority interest In February 2019, the company acquired German solar battery company Sonnen  It first invested in the company in May 2018 as part of its New Energies project  As of late 2021, the company had 800 employees and has installed 70 000 home battery systems On 27 February 2019, the company acquired British VPP operator Limejump for an undisclosed amount In July 2019, Shell installed their first 150 kW electric car chargers at its London petrol stations with payments handled via SMOOV  They also plan to provide 350 kW chargers in Europe by entering into an agreement with IONITY On 26 January 2021, Shell said it would buy 100 per cent of Ubitricity, owner of the largest public charging network for electric vehicles in the United Kingdom, as the company expands its presence along the power supply chain On 25 February 2021, Shell announced the acquisition of German Virtual Power Plant (VPP) company Next Kraftwerke for an undisclosed amount  Next Kraftwerke connects renewable electricity generation- and storage projects to optimize the usage of those assets  The company mostly operates in Europe In November 2022, it was announced Shell's wholly-owned subsidiary, Shell Petroleum NV, had acquired the Odense-headquartered renewable natural gas producer, Nature Energy Biogas A/S for nearly $2 billion USD 

Controversies
General issues
Shell's public rhetoric and pledges emphasize that the company is shifting towards climate-friendly, low-carbon and transition strategies  However, a 2022 study found that the company's spending on clean energy was insignificant and opaque, with little to suggest that the company's discourse matched its actions In 1989, Shell redesigned a $3-billion natural gas platform in the North Sea, raising its height one to two meters, to accommodate an anticipated sea level rise due to global warming  In 2013, Royal Dutch Shell PLC reported CO2 emissions of 81 million metric tonnes In 2017, Shell sold non-compliant foreign fuel to consumers In 2020, the Northern Lights CCS project was announced, which is a joint project between Equinor, Shell and Total, operating in the European Union (Norway) and aiming to store liquid CO2 beneath the seabed Environmentalists have expressed concern that Shell is processing oil from the Amazon region of South America  In the United States, the Martinez refinery (CA) and the Puget Sound Refinery (WA) carry Amazonian oil  In 2015, 14% of the Martinez refinery's gross, at 19,570 barrels per day, came from the Amazon In 2021, Shell was ranked as the 10th most environmentally responsible company out of 120 oil, gas, and mining companies involved in resource extraction north of the Arctic Circle in the Arctic Environmental Responsibility Index (AERI) In December 2021, Royal Dutch Shell decided to move ahead with seismic tests to explore for oil in humpback whale breeding grounds along South Africa's eastern coastline  On 3 December 2021, a South African high court struck down an urgent application brought by environmentalists to stop the project, which will involve a vessel regularly firing an air gun that produces a very powerful shock wave underwater to help map subsea geology  According to Greenpeace Africa and the South African Deep Sea Angling Association, this could cause "irreparable harm" to the marine environment, especially to migrating humpback whales in the area 

Climate change
In 2017, a public information film ("Climate of Concern") unseen for years resurfaced and showed Shell had clear grasp of global warming 26 years earlier but has not acted accordingly since, said critics The burning of the fossil fuels produced by Shell are responsible for 1 67% of global industrial greenhouse gas emissions from 1988 to 2015  In April 2020, Shell announced plans to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 or sooner  However, internal documents from the company released by the Democratic-led House committee reveal a private 2020 communication saying Shell does not have any plans to bring emissions to zero for next 10–20 years 

Climate case
On 5 April 2019, Milieudefensie (Dutch for "environmental defense"), together with six NGOs and more than 17,000 citizens, sued Shell, accusing the company of harming the climate despite knowing about global warming since 1986  In May 2021, the district court of The Hague ruled that Shell must reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 45% by 2030 (compared to 2019 levels) 

Oil spills
Shell was responsible for around 21,000 gallons of oil spilled near Tracy, California, in May 2016 due to a pipeline crack 
Shell was responsible for an 88,200-gallon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in May 2016 
Two ruptures in a Shell Oil Co  pipeline in Altamont, California – one in September 2015 and another in May 2016 – led to questions on whether the Office of the State Fire Marshal, charged with overseeing the pipeline, was doing an adequate job 
On 29 January 2021, a Dutch court ordered Royal Dutch Shell plc's Nigerian unit to compensate for oil spills in two villages over 13 years ago  Shell Nigeria is liable for damages from pipeline leaks in the villages of Oruma and Goi, the Hague Court of Appeals said in a ruling  Shell said that it should not be liable, as the spills were the result of sabotage 

Accusations of greenwashing
On 2 September 2002, Shell Chairman Philip Watts accepted the "Greenwash Lifetime Achievement Award" from the Greenwash Academy's Oscar Green, near the World Summit on Sustainable Development In 2007, British ASA ruled against a Shell ad involving chimneys spewing flowers, which depicted Shell's waste management policies, claiming it was misleading the public about Shell's environmental impact In 2008, the British ASA ruled that Shell had misled the public in an advertisement when it claimed that a $10 billion oil sands project in Alberta, Canada, was a "sustainable energy source" In 2021, Netherlands officials told Shell to stop running a campaign which claimed customers could turn their fuel "carbon neutral" by buying offsets, as it was concluded that this claim was devoid of evidence In December 2022, U S  House Oversight and Reform Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney and U S  House Oversight Environment Subcommittee Chair Ro Khanna sent a memorandum to all House Oversight and Reform Committee members summarizing additional findings from the Committee's investigation into the fossil fuel industry disinformation campaign to obscure the role of fossil fuels in causing global warming, and that upon reviewing internal company documents, accused Shell  along with BP, Chevron Corporation, and ExxonMobil of greenwashing their Paris Agreement carbon neutrality pledges while continuing long-term investment in fossil fuel production and sales, for engaging in a campaign to promote the use of natural gas as a clean energy source and bridge fuel to renewable energy, and of intimidating journalists reporting about the companies' climate actions and of obstructing the Committee's investigation, which ExxonMobil, Shell, and the American Petroleum Institute denied 

Health and safety
A number of incidents over the years led to criticism of Shell's health and safety record, including repeated warnings by the UK Health and Safety Executive about the poor state of the company's North Sea platforms 

Reaction to the War in Ukraine
Shell already had previous experience exiting markets that were subject to sanctions pressure from NATO or EU member states  In particular, in 2013, Shell announced that it was suspending its operations in Syria  On 8 March 2022, Shell announced its intention to phase out all Russian hydrocarbon production and acquisition projects, including crude oil, petroleum products, natural gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG)   In early 2022 the company criticized by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine for its slow response to the war in Ukraine  As of April 2023, Shell still had shares in Russian companies, such as 27 5% in Sakhalin Energy Investment Company (SEIC), a joint venture with Gazprom (50%), Mitsui (12 5%) and Mitsubishi (10%) 

royaldutchshellplc com
This domain name was first registered by a former marketing manager for Royal Dutch Shell plc, Alfred Donovan, and has been used as a "gripe site"  It avoids being an illegal cybersquatter as long as it is non-commercial, active, and no attempt is made to sell the domain name, as determined by WIPO proceedings  In 2005, Donovan said he would relinquish the site to Shell after it "gets rid of all the management he deems responsible for its various recent woes " The site has been recognized by several media outlets for its role as an Internet leak  In 2008 the Financial Times published an article based on a letter published by royaldutchshellplc com, which Reuters and The Times also covered shortly thereafter  On 18 October 2006, the site published an article stating that Shell had for some time been supplying information to the Russian government relating to Sakhalin II  The Russian energy company Gazprom subsequently obtained a 50% stake in the Sakhalin-II project  Other instances where the site has acted as an Internet leak include a 2007 IT outsourcing plan, as well as a 2008 internal memo where CEO Jeroen van der Veer expressed disappointment in the company's share-price performance The gripe site has also been recognized as a source of information regarding Shell by several news sources  In the 2006 Fortune Global 500 rankings, in which Royal Dutch Shell placed third, royaldutchshellplc com was listed alongside shell com as a source of information  In 2007 the site was described as "a hub for activists and disgruntled former employees " A 2009 article called royaldutchshellplc com "the world's most effective adversarial Web site " The site has been described as "an open wound for Shell "

See also
Notes
Passage 4:
Jack Hubbert
Jack Hubbert (19 March 1916 – 5 August 1990) was an Australian rules footballer who played with Essendon in the Victorian Football League (VFL) 

Notes
External links
Jack Hubbert's playing statistics from AFL Tables
Jack Hubbert at AustralianFootball com
Passage 5:
San Ardo, California
San Ardo, formerly known as San Bernardo (Spanish for "St  Bernard"), is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Monterey County, California, United States  San Ardo is located 18 miles (29 km) southeast of King City at an elevation of 449 feet (137 m)  The population was 392 at the 2020 census, down from 517 in 2010 

History
The owner of the San Bernardo land grant, M J  Brandenstein, laid out the town when the railroad reached his land in 1887  The San Bernardo post office opened in 1886, and changed its name to San Ardo in 1887  The former name of San Bernardo was changed to avoid confusion with San Bernardino, California 

Geography
San Ardo is near the point where the broad Salinas Valley has its southeastern terminus and pinches out within the converging portions of the California Coast Ranges, including the Santa Lucia Mountains on the west and the Cholame Hills and the Diablo Range on the east  U S  Route 101 passes west of the town, leading northwest to 18 miles (29 km) to King City and 66 miles (106 km) to Salinas, the Monterey county seat, while to the southeast it leads 33 miles (53 km) to Paso Robles 
According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of 0 4 square miles (1 0 km2), all of it land  The Salinas River flows northward along the west side of the community 

Climate
This region experiences warm (but not hot) and dry summers, with no average monthly temperatures above 71 6 °F   According to the Köppen Climate Classification system, San Ardo has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate, abbreviated "Csb" on climate maps 

Economy
The huge San Ardo Oil Field is about 5 miles (8 km) south of town   Much of the local economy is based on agriculture (including farming and ranching), and servicing the oil field 

Demographics
2010
At the 2010 census San Ardo had a population of 517  The population density was 1,150 7 inhabitants per square mile (444 3/km2)  The racial makeup of San Ardo was 252 (48 7%) White, 1 (0 2%) African American, 3 (0 6%) Native American, 5 (1 0%) Asian, 0 (0 0%) Pacific Islander, 245 (47 4%) from other races, and 11 (2 1%) from two or more races   Hispanic or Latino of any race were 363 people (70 2%) The whole population lived in households, no one lived in non-institutionalized group quarters and no one was institutionalized 
There were 140 households, 76 (54 3%) had children under the age of 18 living in them, 82 (58 6%) were opposite-sex married couples living together, 16 (11 4%) had a female householder with no husband present, 13 (9 3%) had a male householder with no wife present   There were 6 (4 3%) unmarried opposite-sex partnerships, and 1 (0 7%) same-sex married couples or partnerships  22 households (15 7%) were one person and 9 (6 4%) had someone living alone who was 65 or older  The average household size was 3 69   There were 111 families (79 3% of households); the average family size was 4 13 
The age distribution was 185 people (35 8%) under the age of 18, 66 people (12 8%) aged 18 to 24, 139 people (26 9%) aged 25 to 44, 83 people (16 1%) aged 45 to 64, and 44 people (8 5%) who were 65 or older   The median age was 26 6 years  For every 100 females, there were 112 8 males   For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 129 0 males 
There were 158 housing units at an average density of 351 7 per square mile, of the occupied units 47 (33 6%) were owner-occupied and 93 (66 4%) were rented  The homeowner vacancy rate was 4 1%; the rental vacancy rate was 9 6%   145 people (28 0% of the population) lived in owner-occupied housing units and 372 people (72 0%) lived in rental housing units 

2000
At the 2000 census there were 501 people, 157 households, and 110 families in the CDP   The population density was 1,114 6 inhabitants per square mile (430 3/km2)   There were 167 housing units at an average density of 371 5 per square mile (143 4/km2)   The racial makeup of the CDP was 47 90% White, 0 40% African American, 2 40% Native American, 0 40% Asian, 46 91% from other races, and 2 00% from two or more races  Hispanic or Latino of any race were 65 67% Of the 157 households 41 4% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 47 1% were married couples living together, 10 2% had a female householder with no husband present, and 29 3% were non-families  24 2% of households were one person and 7 6% were one person aged 65 or older   The average household size was 3 19 and the average family size was 3 82 
The age distribution was 35 3% under the age of 18, 11 8% from 18 to 24, 27 7% from 25 to 44, 15 8% from 45 to 64, and 9 4% 65 or older   The median age was 27 years  For every 100 females, there were 106 2 males   For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 114 6 males 
The median household income was $25,208 and the median family income  was $31,500  Males had a median income of $30,417 versus $14,375 for females  The per capita income for the CDP was $11,379   About 15 4% of families and 24 0% of the population were below the poverty line, including 32 5% of those under age 18 and 13 5% of those age 65 or over 
Context 3: Passage 1:
A Summer in La Goulette
A Summer in La Goulette (French: Un été à La Goulette, Arabic: صيف حلق الوادي, romanized: ṣayf Ḥalq el-Wādī) is a 1996 film by Tunisian director Férid Boughedir  It is a narrative of how intercommunal relations deteriorated in cosmopolitan La Goulette after the end of French rule, especially Muslim-Jewish relations affected by the Six-Day War and the rising impact of Islam on Tunisian society 
The film also features La Goulette native Claudia Cardinale as herself  The film was entered into the 46th Berlin International Film Festival 

Plot
Youssef (Mustapha Adouani) is a Muslim who works on the TGM and lives in La Goulette  His best friends are Jewish Jojo the brik seller and Sicilian Catholic Giuseppe the fisherman, who are also his neighbours  Their daughters grow up together and share their prospects for life, but the landlord Hadj Beji (Gamil Ratib) has his eyes on Youssef's daughter Meriem (Sonia Mankaï) 

Cast
Gamil Ratib : Hadj Beji
Mustapha Adouani : Youssef
Guy Nataf : Jojo
Ivo Salerno : Giuseppe
Michel Boujenah : TSF
Claudia Cardinale : herself
Sonia Mankaï : Meriem
Ava Cohen-Jonathan : Tina
Sarah Pariente : Gigi
Kais Ben Messaoud : Chouchou
Mohamed Driss : Miró

See also
Le Chant des mariées
Passage 2:
Isabelle Carré
Isabelle Carré (born 28 May 1971) is a French actress  She has appeared in more than 70 films since 1989  She won a César Award for Best Actress for her role in Se souvenir des belles choses (2001), and has been nominated a further six times for Beau fixe (1992), Le Hussard sur le toit (1995), La Femme défendue (1997), Les Sentiments (2003), Entre ses mains (2005) and Anna M  (2007) 
Since 26 August 2006, she has been married to film producer Bruno Pésery, with whom she has a son, Antoine, born on 11 October 2008  Her brother, Benoît Carré, is a member of the band Lilicub 

Selected filmography
Theatre
1990: Une nuit de Casanova
1990: The Cherry Orchard
1992: L'École des Femmes
1993: On ne badine pas avec l'amour
1993: Il ne faut jurer de rien
1993: Le Mal court
1995: Dostoïevsky va à la plage
1995: Le Père humilié
1995: Arloc
1996: Slaves
1999: Mademoiselle Else
2000: Résonances
2001: The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice
2001: Léonce et Léna
2002: Hugo à deux voix
2003: La Nuit chante
2004: L'Hiver sous la table
2006: Blanc
2009: Un garçon impossible (by Petter S  Rosenlund, directed by Jean-Michel Ribes)

Awards
Prix Romy Schneider, 1998
Lumières Award for Best Actress, Se souvenir des belles choses, 2003
César Award for Best Actress, Se souvenir des belles choses, 2003

Nominations
1993: Nominated for the César Award for Most Promising Actress for Beau fixe
1996: Nominated for the César Award for Most Promising Actress for Le Hussard sur le toit
1998: Nominated for the César Award for Most Promising Actress for La Femme défendue
2004: Nominated for the César Award for Best Actress for Les Sentiments
2006: Nominated for the César Award for Best Actress for Entre ses mains (In His Hands)
2006: Nominated for the Globes de Cristal Award for Best Actress for Entre ses mains (In His Hands)
2008: Nominated for the César Award for Best Actress for Anna M 
2008: Nominated for the Globes de Cristal Award for Best Actress for Anna M 
2011: Nominated for the César Award for Best Actress for Les Émotifs anonymes

Theatre
1999: Molière Award for Best Actress, Mademoiselle Else
2004: Molière Award for Best Actress, L'Hiver sous la table

Decorations
Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters (2016)
Passage 3:
La femme enfant
La femme enfant (German: Die Stumme Liebe) is a 1980 French drama film directed by Raphaële Billetdoux and starring Klaus Kinski  It competed in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival 

Cast
Klaus Kinski – Marcel
Pénélope Palmer – Élisabeth
Michel Robin – Le père
Hélène Surgère – La mère
Ary Aubergé – L'épicier
Georges Lucas – Le curé

Production
According to Raphaële Billetdoux, the shooting with Klaus Kinski was a nightmare and at one point she had the temptation to stop there, as it was no longer possible to continue  For example, during the bathing scene that Kinski is preparing for the girl, then 14-year-old Pénélope Palmer was already very anxious about shooting a nude scene, even shot in a very modest way  So Billetdoux had reduced the technical team to and set the stage so that Kinski had his back to her (and to the camera), as Palmer was about to enter the bathtub  He then freaked out: "What ?! I turn my back ?! Never ! And then, I want to see her naked     "

See also
Klaus Kinski filmography
Passage 4:
La Rosiere de Pessac
La Rosière de Pessac (The Virgin of Pessac) is the title of two hour-long films directed by Jean Eustache (in 1968 and 1979 respectively)   The films cover an annual ceremony, held in Eustache's place of birth, in which the mayor and his associates nominate a girl as the town's most virtuous   Thus, the girls chosen in those two years are eponymous subjects of these documentaries 

External links
La Rosière de Pessac at IMDb
La Rosière de Pessac at IMDb
Passage 5:
Cubism
Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related artistic movements in music, literature, and architecture  In Cubist works of art, the subjects are analysed, broken up, and reassembled in an abstract form—instead of depicting objects from a single perspective, the artist depicts the subject from multiple perspectives to represent the subject in a greater context  Cubism has been considered the most influential art movement of the 20th century  The term cubism is broadly associated with a variety of artworks produced in Paris (Montmartre and Montparnasse) or near Paris (Puteaux) during the 1910s and throughout the 1920s 
The movement was pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, and joined by Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Robert Delaunay, Henri Le Fauconnier, Juan Gris, and Fernand Léger  One primary influence that led to Cubism was the representation of three-dimensional form in the late works of Paul Cézanne  A retrospective of Cézanne's paintings was held at the Salon d'Automne of 1904, current works were displayed at the 1905 and 1906 Salon d'Automne, followed by two commemorative retrospectives after his death in 1907 In France, offshoots of Cubism developed, including Orphism, abstract art and later Purism  The impact of Cubism was far-reaching and wide-ranging  In France and other countries Futurism, Suprematism, Dada, Constructivism, Vorticism, De Stijl and Art Deco developed in response to Cubism  Early Futurist paintings hold in common with Cubism the fusing of the past and the present, the representation of different views of the subject pictured at the same time or successively, also called multiple perspective, simultaneity or multiplicity, while Constructivism was influenced by Picasso's technique of constructing sculpture from separate elements  Other common threads between these disparate movements include the faceting or simplification of geometric forms, and the association of mechanization and modern life 

History
Historians have divided the history of Cubism into phases  In one scheme, the first phase of Cubism, known as Analytic Cubism, a phrase coined by Juan Gris a posteriori, was both radical and influential as a short but highly significant art movement between 1910 and 1912 in France  A second phase, Synthetic Cubism, remained vital until around 1919, when the Surrealist movement gained popularity  English art historian Douglas Cooper proposed another scheme, describing three phases of Cubism in his book, The Cubist Epoch  According to Cooper there was "Early Cubism", (from 1906 to 1908) when the movement was initially developed in the studios of Picasso and Braque; the second phase being called "High Cubism", (from 1909 to 1914) during which time Juan Gris emerged as an important exponent (after 1911); and finally Cooper referred to "Late Cubism" (from 1914 to 1921) as the last phase of Cubism as a radical avant-garde movement  Douglas Cooper's restrictive use of these terms to distinguish the work of Braque, Picasso, Gris (from 1911) and Léger (to a lesser extent) implied an intentional value judgement 

Proto-Cubism: 1907–1908
Cubism burgeoned between 1907 and 1911  Pablo Picasso's 1907 painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon has often been considered a proto-Cubist work 
In 1908, in his review of Georges Braque's exhibition at Kahnweiler's gallery, the critic Louis Vauxcelles called Braque a daring man who despises form, "reducing everything, places and a figures and houses, to geometric schemas, to cubes" Vauxcelles recounted how Matisse told him at the time, "Braque has just sent in [to the 1908 Salon d'Automne] a painting made of little cubes"  The critic Charles Morice relayed Matisse's words and spoke of Braque's little cubes  The motif of the viaduct at l'Estaque had inspired Braque to produce three paintings marked by the simplification of form and deconstruction of perspective Georges Braque's 1908 Houses at L’Estaque (and related works) prompted Vauxcelles, in Gil Blas, 25 March 1909, to refer to bizarreries cubiques (cubic oddities)  Gertrude Stein referred to landscapes made by Picasso in 1909, such as Reservoir at Horta de Ebro, as the first Cubist paintings  The first organized group exhibition by Cubists took place at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris during the spring of 1911 in a room called 'Salle 41'; it included works by Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Fernand Léger, Robert Delaunay and Henri Le Fauconnier, yet no works by Picasso or Braque were exhibited By 1911 Picasso was recognized as the inventor of Cubism, while Braque's importance and precedence was argued later, with respect to his treatment of space, volume and mass in the L’Estaque landscapes  But "this view of Cubism is associated with a distinctly restrictive definition of which artists are properly to be called Cubists," wrote the art historian Christopher Green: "Marginalizing the contribution of the artists who exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants in 1911 [   ]"The assertion that the Cubist depiction of space, mass, time, and volume supports (rather than contradicts) the flatness of the canvas was made by Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler as early as 1920, but it was subject to criticism in the 1950s and 1960s, especially by Clement Greenberg Contemporary views of Cubism are complex, formed to some extent in response to the "Salle 41" Cubists, whose methods were too distinct from those of Picasso and Braque to be considered merely secondary to them  Alternative interpretations of Cubism have therefore developed  Wider views of Cubism include artists who were later associated with the "Salle 41" artists, e g , Francis Picabia; the brothers Jacques Villon, Raymond Duchamp-Villon and Marcel Duchamp, who beginning in late 1911 formed the core of the Section d'Or (or the Puteaux Group); the sculptors Alexander Archipenko, Joseph Csaky and Ossip Zadkine as well as Jacques Lipchitz and Henri Laurens; and painters such as Louis Marcoussis, Roger de La Fresnaye, František Kupka, Diego Rivera, Léopold Survage, Auguste Herbin, André Lhote, Gino Severini (after 1916), María Blanchard (after 1916) and Georges Valmier (after 1918)  More fundamentally, Christopher Green argues that Douglas Cooper's terms were "later undermined by interpretations of the work of Picasso, Braque, Gris and Léger that stress iconographic and ideological questions rather than methods of representation "John Berger identifies the essence of Cubism with the mechanical diagram  "The metaphorical model of Cubism is the diagram: The diagram being a visible symbolic representation of invisible processes, forces, structures  A diagram need not eschew certain aspects of appearance but these too will be treated as signs not as imitations or recreations "

Early Cubism: 1909–1914
There was a distinct difference between Kahnweiler's Cubists and the Salon Cubists  Prior to 1914, Picasso, Braque, Gris and Léger (to a lesser extent) gained the support of a single committed art dealer in Paris, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, who guaranteed them an annual income for the exclusive right to buy their works  Kahnweiler sold only to a small circle of connoisseurs  His support gave his artists the freedom to experiment in relative privacy  Picasso worked in Montmartre until 1912, while Braque and Gris remained there until after the First World War  Léger was based in Montparnasse In contrast, the Salon Cubists built their reputation primarily by exhibiting regularly at the Salon d'Automne and the Salon des Indépendants, both major non-academic Salons in Paris  They were inevitably more aware of public response and the need to communicate  Already in 1910 a group began to form which included Metzinger, Gleizes, Delaunay and Léger  They met regularly at Henri le Fauconnier's studio near the boulevard du Montparnasse  These soirées often included writers such as Guillaume Apollinaire and André Salmon  Together with other young artists, the group wanted to emphasise a research into form, in opposition to the Neo-Impressionist emphasis on color Louis Vauxcelles, in his review of the 26th Salon des Indépendants (1910), made a passing and imprecise reference to Metzinger, Gleizes, Delaunay, Léger and Le Fauconnier as "ignorant geometers, reducing the human body, the site, to pallid cubes " At the 1910 Salon d'Automne, a few months later, Metzinger exhibited his highly fractured Nu à la cheminée (Nude), which was subsequently reproduced in both Du "Cubisme" (1912) and Les Peintres Cubistes (1913) The first public controversy generated by Cubism resulted from Salon showings at the Indépendants during the spring of 1911  This showing by Metzinger, Gleizes, Delaunay, le Fauconnier and Léger brought Cubism to the attention of the general public for the first time  Amongst the Cubist works presented, Robert Delaunay exhibited his Eiffel Tower, Tour Eiffel (Solomon R  Guggenheim Museum, New York) 

At the Salon d'Automne of the same year, in addition to the Indépendants group of Salle 41, were exhibited works by André Lhote, Marcel Duchamp, Jacques Villon, Roger de La Fresnaye, André Dunoyer de Segonzac and František Kupka  The exhibition was reviewed in the October 8, 1911 issue of The New York Times  This article was published a year after Gelett Burgess' The Wild Men of Paris, and two years prior to the Armory Show, which introduced astonished Americans, accustomed to realistic art, to the experimental styles of the European avant garde, including Fauvism, Cubism, and Futurism  The 1911 New York Times article portrayed works by Picasso, Matisse, Derain, Metzinger and others dated before 1909; not exhibited at the 1911 Salon  The article was titled The "Cubists" Dominate Paris' Fall Salon and subtitled Eccentric School of Painting Increases Its Vogue in the Current Art Exhibition – What Its Followers Attempt to Do 
Among all the paintings on exhibition at the Paris Fall Salon none is attracting so much attention as the extraordinary productions of the so-called "Cubist" school  In fact, dispatches from Paris suggest that these works are easily the main feature of the exhibition  [   ]
In spite of the crazy nature of the "Cubist" theories the number of those professing them is fairly respectable  Georges Braque, André Derain, Picasso, Czobel, Othon Friesz, Herbin, Metzinger—these are a few of the names signed to canvases before which Paris has stood and now again stands in blank amazement 

What do they mean? Have those responsible for them taken leave of their senses? Is it art or madness? Who knows?

Salon des Indépendants
The subsequent 1912 Salon des Indépendants located in Paris (20 March to 16 May 1912) was marked by the presentation of Marcel Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase, No  2, which itself caused a scandal, even amongst the Cubists  It was in fact rejected by the hanging committee, which included his brothers and other Cubists  Although the work was shown in the Salon de la Section d'Or in October 1912 and the 1913 Armory Show in New York, Duchamp never forgave his brothers and former colleagues for censoring his work  Juan Gris, a new addition to the Salon scene, exhibited his Portrait of Picasso (Art Institute of Chicago), while Metzinger's two showings included La Femme au Cheval (Woman with a horse) 1911–1912 (National Gallery of Denmark)  Delaunay's monumental La Ville de Paris (Musée d'art moderne de la Ville de Paris) and Léger's La Noce, The Wedding (Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris), were also exhibited 

Galeries Dalmau
In 1912, Galeries Dalmau presented the first declared group exhibition of Cubism  worldwide (Exposició d'Art Cubista), with a controversial showing by Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Juan Gris, Marie Laurencin and Marcel Duchamp (Barcelona, 20 April to 10 May 1912)  The Dalmau exhibition comprised 83 works by 26 artists  Jacques Nayral's association with Gleizes led him to write the Preface for the Cubist exhibition, which was fully translated and reproduced in the newspaper La Veu de Catalunya  Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase, No  2 was exhibited for the first time Extensive media coverage (in newspapers and magazines) before, during and after the exhibition launched the Galeries Dalmau as a force in the development and propagation of modernism in Europe  While press coverage was extensive, it was not always positive  Articles were published in the newspapers Esquella de La Torratxa and El Noticiero Universal attacking the Cubists with a series of caricatures laced with derogatory text  Art historian Jaime Brihuega writes of the Dalmau show: "No doubt that the exhibition produced a strong commotion in the public, who welcomed it with a lot of suspicion 

Salon d'Automne
The Cubist contribution to the 1912 Salon d'Automne created scandal regarding the use of government owned buildings, such as the Grand Palais, to exhibit such artwork  The indignation of the politician Jean Pierre Philippe Lampué made the front page of Le Journal, 5 October 1912  The controversy spread to the Municipal Council of Paris, leading to a debate in the Chambre des Députés about the use of public funds to provide the venue for such art  The Cubists were defended by the Socialist deputy, Marcel Sembat It was against this background of public anger that Jean Metzinger and Albert Gleizes wrote Du "Cubisme" (published by Eugène Figuière in 1912, translated to English and Russian in 1913)  Among the works exhibited were Le Fauconnier's vast composition Les Montagnards attaqués par des ours (Mountaineers Attacked by Bears) now at Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Joseph Csaky's Deux Femme, Two Women (a sculpture now lost), in addition to the highly abstract paintings by Kupka, Amorpha (The National Gallery, Prague), and Picabia, La Source (The Spring) (Museum of Modern Art, New York) 

Abstraction and the ready-made
The most extreme forms of Cubism were not those practiced by Picasso and Braque, who resisted total abstraction  Other Cubists, by contrast, especially František Kupka, and those considered Orphists by Apollinaire (Delaunay, Léger, Picabia and Duchamp), accepted abstraction by removing visible subject matter entirely  Kupka's two entries at the 1912 Salon d'Automne, Amorpha-Fugue à deux couleurs and Amorpha chromatique chaude, were highly abstract (or nonrepresentational) and metaphysical in orientation  Both Duchamp in 1912 and Picabia from 1912 to 1914 developed an expressive and allusive abstraction dedicated to complex emotional and sexual themes  Beginning in 1912 Delaunay painted a series of paintings entitled Simultaneous Windows, followed by a series entitled Formes Circulaires, in which he combined planar structures with bright prismatic hues; based on the optical characteristics of juxtaposed colors his departure from reality in the depiction of imagery was quasi-complete  In 1913–14 Léger produced a series entitled Contrasts of Forms, giving a similar stress to color, line and form  His Cubism, despite its abstract qualities, was associated with themes of mechanization and modern life  Apollinaire supported these early developments of abstract Cubism in Les Peintres cubistes (1913), writing of a new "pure" painting in which the subject was vacated  But in spite of his use of the term Orphism these works were so different that they defy attempts to place them in a single category Also labeled an Orphist by Apollinaire, Marcel Duchamp was responsible for another extreme development inspired by Cubism  The ready-made arose from a joint consideration that the work itself is considered an object (just as a painting), and that it uses the material detritus of the world (as collage and papier collé in the Cubist construction and Assemblage)  The next logical step, for Duchamp, was to present an ordinary object as a self-sufficient work of art representing only itself  In 1913 he attached a bicycle wheel to a kitchen stool and in 1914 selected a bottle-drying rack as a sculpture in its own right 

Section d'Or
The Section d'Or, also known as Groupe de Puteaux, founded by some of the most conspicuous Cubists, was a collective of painters, sculptors and critics associated with Cubism and Orphism, active from 1911 through about 1914, coming to prominence in the wake of their controversial showing at the 1911 Salon des Indépendants  The Salon de la Section d'Or at the Galerie La Boétie in Paris, October 1912, was arguably the most important pre-World War I Cubist exhibition; exposing Cubism to a wide audience  Over 200 works were displayed, and the fact that many of the artists showed artworks representative of their development from 1909 to 1912 gave the exhibition the allure of a Cubist retrospective The group seems to have adopted the name Section d'Or to distinguish themselves from the narrower definition of Cubism developed in parallel by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque in the Montmartre quarter of Paris, and to show that Cubism, rather than being an isolated art-form, represented the continuation of a grand tradition (indeed, the golden ratio had fascinated Western intellectuals of diverse interests for at least 2,400 years) The idea of the Section d'Or originated in the course of conversations between Metzinger, Gleizes and Jacques Villon  The group's title was suggested by Villon, after reading a 1910 translation of Leonardo da Vinci's Trattato della Pittura by Joséphin Péladan 
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Europeans were discovering African, Polynesian, Micronesian and Native American art  Artists such as Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso were intrigued and inspired by the stark power and simplicity of styles of those foreign cultures  Around 1906, Picasso met Matisse through Gertrude Stein, at a time when both artists had recently acquired an interest in primitivism, Iberian sculpture, African art and African tribal masks  They became friendly rivals and competed with each other throughout their careers, perhaps leading to Picasso entering a new period in his work by 1907, marked by the influence of Greek, Iberian and African art  Picasso's paintings of 1907 have been characterized as Protocubism, as notably seen in Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, the antecedent of Cubism 

The art historian Douglas Cooper states that Paul Gauguin and Paul Cézanne "were particularly influential to the formation of Cubism and especially important to the paintings of Picasso during 1906 and 1907"  Cooper goes on to say: "The Demoiselles is generally referred to as the first Cubist picture  This is an exaggeration, for although it was a major first step towards Cubism it is not yet Cubist  The disruptive, expressionist element in it is even contrary to the spirit of Cubism, which looked at the world in a detached, realistic spirit  Nevertheless, the Demoiselles is the logical picture to take as the starting point for Cubism, because it marks the birth of a new pictorial idiom, because in it Picasso violently overturned established conventions and because all that followed grew out of it "The most serious objection to regarding the Demoiselles as the origin of Cubism, with its evident influence of primitive art, is that "such deductions are unhistorical", wrote the art historian Daniel Robbins  This familiar explanation "fails to give adequate consideration to the complexities of a flourishing art that existed just before and during the period when Picasso's new painting developed " Between 1905 and 1908, a conscious search for a new style caused rapid changes in art across France, Germany, The Netherlands, Italy, and Russia  The Impressionists had used a double point of view, and both Les Nabis and the Symbolists (who also admired Cézanne) flattened the picture plane, reducing their subjects to simple geometric forms  Neo-Impressionist structure and subject matter, most notably to be seen in the works of Georges Seurat (e g , Parade de Cirque, Le Chahut and Le Cirque), was another important influence  There were also parallels in the development of literature and social thought In addition to Seurat, the roots of cubism are to be found in the two distinct tendencies of Cézanne's later work: first his breaking of the painted surface into small multifaceted areas of paint, thereby emphasizing the plural viewpoint given by binocular vision, and second his interest in the simplification of natural forms into cylinders, spheres, and cones  However, the cubists explored this concept further than Cézanne  They represented all the surfaces of depicted objects in a single picture plane, as if the objects had all their faces visible at the same time  This new kind of depiction revolutionized the way objects could be visualized in painting and art 

The historical study of Cubism began in the late 1920s, drawing at first from sources of limited data, namely the opinions of Guillaume Apollinaire  It came to rely heavily on Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler's book Der Weg zum Kubismus (published in 1920), which centered on the developments of Picasso, Braque, Léger, and Gris  The terms "analytical" and "synthetic" which subsequently emerged have been widely accepted since the mid-1930s  Both terms are historical impositions that occurred after the facts they identify  Neither phase was designated as such at the time corresponding works were created  "If Kahnweiler considers Cubism as Picasso and Braque," wrote Daniel Robbins, "our only fault is in subjecting other Cubists' works to the rigors of that limited definition "The traditional interpretation of "Cubism", formulated post facto as a means of understanding the works of Braque and Picasso, has affected our appreciation of other twentieth-century artists  It is difficult to apply to painters such as Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Robert Delaunay and Henri Le Fauconnier, whose fundamental differences from traditional Cubism compelled Kahnweiler to question whether to call them Cubists at all  According to Daniel Robbins, "To suggest that merely because these artists developed differently or varied from the traditional pattern they deserved to be relegated to a secondary or satellite role in Cubism is a profound mistake "The history of the term "Cubism" usually stresses the fact that Matisse referred to "cubes" in connection with a painting by Braque in 1908, and that the term was published twice by the critic Louis Vauxcelles in a similar context  However, the word "cube" was used in 1906 by another critic, Louis Chassevent, with reference not to Picasso or Braque but rather to Metzinger and Delaunay:

"M  Metzinger is a mosaicist like M  Signac but he brings more precision to the cutting of his cubes of color which appear to have been made mechanically [   ]" The critical use of the word "cube" goes back at least to May 1901 when Jean Béral, reviewing the work of Henri-Edmond Cross at the Indépendants in Art et Littérature, commented that he "uses a large and square pointillism, giving the impression of mosaic  One even wonders why the artist has not used cubes of solid matter diversely colored: they would make pretty revetments " (Robert Herbert, 1968, p  221)The term Cubism did not come into general usage until 1911, mainly with reference to Metzinger, Gleizes, Delaunay, and Léger  In 1911, the poet and critic Guillaume Apollinaire accepted the term on behalf of a group of artists invited to exhibit at the Brussels Indépendants  The following year, in preparation for the Salon de la Section d'Or, Metzinger and Gleizes wrote and published Du "Cubisme" in an effort to dispel the confusion raging around the word, and as a major defence of Cubism (which had caused a public scandal following the 1911 Salon des Indépendants and the 1912 Salon d'Automne in Paris)  Clarifying their aims as artists, this work was the first theoretical treatise on Cubism and it still remains the clearest and most intelligible  The result, not solely a collaboration between its two authors, reflected discussions by the circle of artists who met in Puteaux and Courbevoie  It mirrored the attitudes of the "artists of Passy", which included Picabia and the Duchamp brothers, to whom sections of it were read prior to publication  The concept developed in Du "Cubisme" of observing a subject from different points in space and time simultaneously, i e , the act of moving around an object to seize it from several successive angles fused into a single image (multiple viewpoints, mobile perspective, simultaneity or multiplicity), is a generally recognized device used by the Cubists The 1912 manifesto Du "Cubisme" by Metzinger and Gleizes was followed in 1913 by Les Peintres Cubistes, a collection of reflections and commentaries by Guillaume Apollinaire  Apollinaire had been closely involved with Picasso beginning in 1905, and Braque beginning in 1907, but gave as much attention to artists such as Metzinger, Gleizes, Delaunay, Picabia, and Duchamp The fact that the 1912 exhibition had been curated to show the successive stages through which Cubism had transited, and that Du "Cubisme" had been published for the occasion, indicates the artists' intention of making their work comprehensible to a wide audience (art critics, art collectors, art dealers and the general public)  Undoubtedly, due to the great success of the exhibition, Cubism became avant-garde movement recognized as a genre or style in art with a specific common philosophy or goal 

Crystal Cubism: 1914–1918
A significant modification of Cubism between 1914 and 1916 was signaled by a shift towards a strong emphasis on large overlapping geometric planes and flat surface activity  This grouping of styles of painting and sculpture, especially significant between 1917 and 1920, was practiced by several artists; particularly those under contract with the art dealer and collector Léonce Rosenberg  The tightening of the compositions, the clarity and sense of order reflected in these works, led to its being referred to by the critic Maurice Raynal as 'crystal' Cubism  Considerations manifested by Cubists prior to the outset of World War I—such as the fourth dimension, dynamism of modern life, the occult, and Henri Bergson's concept of duration—had now been vacated, replaced by a purely formal frame of reference Crystal Cubism, and its associative rappel à l'ordre, has been linked with an inclination—by those who served the armed forces and by those who remained in the civilian sector—to escape the realities of the Great War, both during and directly following the conflict  The purifying of Cubism from 1914 through the mid-1920s, with its cohesive unity and voluntary constraints, has been linked to a much broader ideological transformation towards conservatism in both French society and French culture 

Cubism after 1918
The most innovative period of Cubism was before 1914  After World War I, with the support given by the dealer Léonce Rosenberg, Cubism returned as a central issue for artists, and continued as such until the mid-1920s when its avant-garde status was rendered questionable by the emergence of geometric abstraction and Surrealism in Paris  Many Cubists, including Picasso, Braque, Gris, Léger, Gleizes, and Metzinger, while developing other styles, returned periodically to Cubism, even well after 1925  Cubism reemerged during the 1920s and the 1930s in the work of the American Stuart Davis and the Englishman Ben Nicholson  In France, however, Cubism experienced a decline beginning in about 1925  Léonce Rosenberg exhibited not only the artists stranded by Kahnweiler's exile but others including Laurens, Lipchitz, Metzinger, Gleizes, Csaky, Herbin and Severini  In 1918 Rosenberg presented a series of Cubist exhibitions at his Galerie de l’Effort Moderne in Paris  Attempts were made by Louis Vauxcelles to argue that Cubism was dead, but these exhibitions, along with a well-organized Cubist show at the 1920 Salon des Indépendants and a revival of the Salon de la Section d’Or in the same year, demonstrated it was still alive The reemergence of Cubism coincided with the appearance from about 1917–24 of a coherent body of theoretical writing by Pierre Reverdy, Maurice Raynal and Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler and, among the artists, by Gris, Léger and Gleizes  The occasional return to classicism—figurative work either exclusively or alongside Cubist work—experienced by many artists during this period (called Neoclassicism) has been linked to the tendency to evade the realities of the war and also to the cultural dominance of a classical or Latin image of France during and immediately following the war  Cubism after 1918 can be seen as part of a wide ideological shift towards conservatism in both French society and culture  Yet, Cubism itself remained evolutionary both within the oeuvre of individual artists, such as Gris and Metzinger, and across the work of artists as different from each other as Braque, Léger and Gleizes  Cubism as a publicly debated movement became relatively unified and open to definition  Its theoretical purity made it a gauge against which such diverse tendencies as Realism or Naturalism, Dada, Surrealism and abstraction could be compared 

Influence in Asia
Japan and China were among the first countries in Asia to be influenced by Cubism  Contact first occurred via European texts translated and published in Japanese art journals in the 1910s  In the 1920s, Japanese and Chinese artists who studied in Paris, for example those enrolled at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, brought back with them both an understanding of modern art movements, including Cubism  Notable works exhibiting Cubist qualities were Tetsugorō Yorozu's Self Portrait with Red Eyes (1912) and Fang Ganmin's Melody in Autumn (1934) 

Interpretation
Intentions and criticism
The Cubism of Picasso and Braque had more than a technical or formal significance, and the distinct attitudes and intentions of the Salon Cubists produced different kinds of Cubism, rather than a derivative of their work  "It is by no means clear, in any case," wrote Christopher Green, "to what extent these other Cubists depended on Picasso and Braque for their development of such techniques as faceting, 'passage' and multiple perspective; they could well have arrived at such practices with little knowledge of 'true' Cubism in its early stages, guided above all by their own understanding of Cézanne " The works exhibited by these Cubists at the 1911 and 1912 Salons extended beyond the conventional Cézanne-like subjects—the posed model, still-life and landscape—favored by Picasso and Braque to include large-scale modern-life subjects  Aimed at a large public, these works stressed the use of multiple perspective and complex planar faceting for expressive effect while preserving the eloquence of subjects endowed with literary and philosophical connotations In Du "Cubisme" Metzinger and Gleizes explicitly related the sense of time to multiple perspective, giving symbolic expression to the notion of ‘duration’ proposed by the philosopher Henri Bergson according to which life is subjectively experienced as a continuum, with the past flowing into the present and the present merging into the future  The Salon Cubists used the faceted treatment of solid and space and effects of multiple viewpoints to convey a physical and psychological sense of the fluidity of consciousness, blurring the distinctions between past, present and future  One of the major theoretical innovations made by the Salon Cubists, independently of Picasso and Braque, was that of simultaneity, drawing to greater or lesser extent on theories of Henri Poincaré, Ernst Mach, Charles Henry, Maurice Princet, and Henri Bergson  With simultaneity, the concept of separate spatial and temporal dimensions was comprehensively challenged  Linear perspective developed during the Renaissance was vacated  The subject matter was no longer considered from a specific point of view at a moment in time, but built following a selection of successive viewpoints, i e



ground_truth: trying to find a potential buyer for all of its operations in Finland

FIN

fi

Finland

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 spouse of the actor that plays vision in avengers age of ultron?

The following are given passages.
Context 2: Passage 1:
A Beautiful Mind (soundtrack)
A Beautiful Mind is the original soundtrack album, on the Decca Records label, of the 2001 film A Beautiful Mind starring Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly (who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as "Alicia Nash"), Christopher Plummer and Paul Bettany  The original score and songs were composed and conducted by James Horner 
The album garnered nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score and the Academy Award for Best Original Score  Music critics felt that the musical score fit the film well, but believed it to be similar to several of Horner's previous films 

Development
Composer James Horner was a frequent collaborator with Ron Howard, the director of A Beautiful Mind  Horner desired to feature vocals reminiscent of being midway between a girl and woman, and wrote the score specifically for 15-year-old Welsh singer Charlotte Church  To convey "the beauty of mathematics", Horner decided to use the idea of a kaleidoscope, as its "patterns are always changing, and things move very quickly, but in moving so quickly, they create other patterns that move very slowly underneath"  He added that these changing patterns were conveyed with the piano and Church's voice 

Release and reception
Writing for Empire magazine, Danny Graydon gave the soundtrack four out of five stars  He thought the score contained elements of Horner's previous films Sneakers (1992) and Bicentennial Man (1999), but said "if you can forgive that, this is a clever, masterful and romantic score that captures a brilliant mind in conflict"  In the tracks "Creating Government Dynamics" and "Cracking The Russian Codes", Graydon opined that Church's "poignant vocals mix well with the frenetic piano and strings to represent Nash’s brilliance" and wished that her voice had been used more in the film Dan Goldwasser of Soundtrack net also found similarities to the score in Bicentennial Man, but thought Horner's work fit the film regardless, explaining "it effectively underscores the drama and romance, and even provides a few bits of tension for the action scene"  Goldwasser concluded that "while it all works well in the film, there is enough about this score that just seemed to  [sic] 'familiar' to make it stand out"  Contributing to National Public Radio, Andy Trudeau believed Church's particular voice adds a "human element  It's the sound that, I think, gives a sense of--the center of this character, if you will  I think it's the soul  And it's trying to be normal in a way, and underneath it it's trying to be crazy" Horner's score garnered nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score and the Academy Award for Best Original Score  It lost the Golden Globe to the film Moulin Rouge! and the Oscar to The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring 

Track listing
Adapted from:
Passage 2:
Christel Khalil
Christel Adnana Mina Khalil (born November 30, 1987) is an American actress 

Background
Khalil was born in Los Angeles, California, to a mother of Native American, African American, and European descent and a Pakistani father  Khalil has stated she identifies as mixed race  She has three older brothers and a younger paternal half-sister  In January 2017, in the wake of President Donald Trump's signing of Executive Order 13769, Khalil revealed that her father is an immigrant from his native country of Pakistan 

Career
Khalil is best known for her portrayal as Lily Winters on the CBS soap opera The Young and the Restless  At the 39th Daytime Emmy Awards on June 23, 2012, she won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Younger Actress in a Drama Series after four nominations in the category  In August 2018, she announced her decision to downgrade from being on contract with the show and instead continue on a recurring basis  Khalil explained the decision was driven by her desire to have more freedom in both her professional and personal life  She continued to make sporadic appearances on the show until being approached by current head writer and co-executive producer Josh Griffith in January 2020, to return to filming on a regular basis Khalil has had small roles in movies such as Dragon Fury, Matilda, Interview With the Assassin and White Like the Moon  She voiced Cornelia Hale in W I T C H , and also appeared on That's So Raven and Malcolm in the Middle, among other shows  Khalil also performed in Los Angeles theater productions before landing her role on The Young and the Restless  In 2012, she was featured in musician Johnny Britt's music video  for his single Beautiful Queen  In  spring 2018, Khalil co-starred in the independent thriller, Good Deed, which premiered on the Lifetime network in November 2018 under the title Sorority Stalker  In spring 2019, she was cast in the independent comedy We Need To Talk by writer and director Todd Wolfe 

Personal life
In September 2008, she married musician Stephen Hensley  The Young and the Restless co-star Elizabeth Hendrickson served as a bridesmaid while Bryton James was a groomsman  Khalil gave birth to their son on April 17, 2010, during an at home water birth  Bryton James is his godfather and actress Fadhia Marcelin is his godmother  She and Hensley split in early 2011 and divorced later that year  In 2015, Khalil stated she had been in a relationship with bar runner Ray Wicks for 4 years  Khalil ended the relationship in August 2015   In the summer of 2018, Khalil stated that she in a relationship with Canadian businessman Sam Restagno, who works in private equity  The two met in 2016, during that years Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, California  In 2019, Khalil and her son relocated to Toronto, Ontario to be with Restagno, who was born and based there  In July 2020, Khalil moved back to Los Angeles  In June 2023, she announced she was expecting her second child, her first with Restagno She is best friends with Bryton James, who portrays her character's brother, Devon Hamilton on The Young and the Restless  She is also friends with several former and current The Young and the Restless co-stars, including Mishael Morgan and Nadine Heimann  In October 2015, she modeled for Heimann's non-profit, True Connection In June 2015, after the United States Supreme Court's decision on Obergefell v  Hodges, she voiced her support for same-sex marriage  Khalil has said one of her favorite hobbies is traveling because she loves experiencing different cultures and travel makes her feel connected to who she is as a person 

Filmography
Awards and nominations
Passage 3:
Black Widow (Natasha Romanova)
Black Widow (Natalia Alianovna "Natasha" Romanova; Russian: Наталья Альяновна "Наташа" Романова) is a character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics  Created by editor and plotter Stan Lee, scripter Don Rico, and artist Don Heck, the character debuted in Tales of Suspense #52 (April 1964)  The character was introduced as a Russian spy, an antagonist of the superhero Iron Man  She later defected to the United States, becoming an agent of the fictional spy agency S H I E L D  and a member of the superhero team the Avengers 
The character has appeared in numerous forms of media, such as animated television series, video games, and films 
Scarlett Johansson portrayed Natasha Romanoff in the Marvel Cinematic Universe films Iron Man 2 (2010), The Avengers (2012), Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Captain America: Civil War (2016), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Captain Marvel (2019), Avengers: Endgame (2019), and Black Widow (2021), with Lake Bell voicing the character in the animated series What If   ? (2021) 

Publication history
The Black Widow's first appearances were as a recurring, non-costumed, Russian-spy antagonist in the feature "Iron Man", beginning in Tales of Suspense #52 (April 1964)  Five issues later, she recruits the besotted costumed archer and later superhero Hawkeye to her cause  Her government later supplies her with her first Black Widow costume and high-tech weaponry, but she eventually defects to the United States after appearing, temporarily brainwashed against the U S , in the superhero-team series The Avengers #29 (July 1966)  The Widow later becomes a recurring ally of the team before officially becoming its 16th member many years later 
The Black Widow was visually updated in 1970: The Amazing Spider-Man #86 (July 1970) reintroduced her with shoulder-length red hair (instead of her former short black hair), a skintight black costume, and wristbands which fired spider threads John Romita, the artist responsible for the redesign elaborated on how the character was updated  "I did the costume on the Black Widow  One of my favorite strips from when I was a kid was Miss Fury  They had done a Miss Fury book at Marvel, and when I found out they had the rights to her, I said I'd love to do a Miss Fury book sometime  I had done an updated drawing of Miss Fury, and Stan said, "Why don't we redesign the Black Widow costume based on Miss Fury?" So I took the mask off her face, and made the Black Widow, the one in the patent leather jumpsuit "In short order, The Black Widow starred in her own series in Amazing Adventures #1–8 (Aug  1970–Sept  1971), sharing that split book with the feature Inhumans  The Black Widow feature was dropped after only eight issues (the Inhumans feature followed soon, ending with issue #10) Immediately after her initial solo feature ended, the Black Widow co-starred in Daredevil  #81–124 (Nov  1971–Aug  1975), of which #92-107 were cover titled Daredevil and the Black Widow  Daredevil writer Gerry Conway recounted, "It was my idea to team up Daredevil and the Black Widow, mainly because I was a fan of Natasha, and thought she and Daredevil would have interesting chemistry " Succeeding writers, however, felt that Daredevil worked better as a solo hero, and gradually wrote the Black Widow out of the series  She was immediately recast into the super-team series The Champions as the leader of the titular superhero group, which ran for 17 issues (Oct  1975–Jan  1978) Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the Black Widow appeared frequently as both an Avengers member and a freelance agent of S H I E L D  She starred in a serialized feature within the omnibus comic-book series Marvel Fanfare #10–13 (Aug  1983–March 1984), written by George Pérez and Ralph Macchio, with art by penciller Perez  These stories were later collected in the oversized one-shot Black Widow: Web of Intrigue #1 (June 1999) 
The Widow guest-starred in issues of Solo Avengers, Force Works, Iron Man, Marvel Team-Up, and other comics  She had made frequent guest appearances in Daredevil since the late 1970s 
She starred in a three-issue arc, "The Fire Next Time", by writer Scott Lobdell and penciller Randy Green, in Journey into Mystery #517–519 (Feb –April 1998) 
A new ongoing Black Widow comic title debuted in April 2010  The first story arc was written by Marjorie Liu with art by Daniel Acuña  Beginning with issue #6 (Sept  2010), the title was written by Duane Swierczynski, with artwork by Manuel Garcia and Lorenzo Ruggiero 
Black Widow appeared as a regular character throughout the 2010–2013 Secret Avengers series, from issue #1 (July 2010) through its final issue #37 (March 2013) 
Black Widow appears in the 2013 Secret Avengers series by Nick Spencer and Luke Ross Black Widow appears in a relaunched ongoing series by writer Nathan Edmondson and artist Phil Noto  The first issue debuted in Jan  2014 In October 2015, it was announced that Mark Waid and Chris Samnee would be launching a new Black Widow series for 2016 as part of Marvel's post-Secret Wars relaunch  The first issue was released in March 2016 

Limited series and specials
Aside from the arcs in Marvel Fanfare and Journey into Mystery, the Black Widow has starred in four limited series and four graphic novels 
The three-issue Black Widow (June-Aug  1999), under the Marvel Knights imprint, starred Romanova and fully introduced her appointed successor, Captain Yelena Belova, who had briefly appeared in an issue of the 1999 series Inhumans  The writer for the story arc, "The Itsy-Bitsy Spider" was Devin K  Grayson while J  G  Jones was the artist  The next three-issue, Marvel Knights mini-series, also titled Black Widow (Jan –March 2001) featured both Black Widows in the story arc "Breakdown", by writers Devin Grayson and Greg Rucka with painted art by Scott Hampton Romanova next starred in another solo miniseries titled Black Widow: Homecoming (Nov  2004–April 2005), also under the Marvel Knights imprint and written by science fiction novelist Richard K  Morgan, with art initially by Bill Sienkiewicz and later by Sienkiewicz over Goran Parlov layouts  A six-issue sequel, Black Widow: The Things They Say About Her (Nov  2005–April 2006; officially Black Widow 2: The Things They Say About Her in the series' postal indicia), by writer Morgan, penciller Sean Phillips, and inker Sienkiewicz, picks up immediately where the previous miniseries left off, continuing the story using many of the same characters She starred in the solo graphic novel Black Widow: The Coldest War (April 1990), and co-starred in three more: Punisher/Black Widow: Spinning Doomsday's Web (Dec  1992); Daredevil/Black Widow: Abattoir (July 1993); and Fury/Black Widow: Death Duty (June 1995), also co-starring Marvel UK's Night Raven Black Widow is also featured in the short story Love Is Blindness in I Heart Marvel: Marvel Ai (2006) #1 (April 2006), where she instigates a humorous fight with Elektra over Daredevil's affections  The comic is stylized to look like Japanese animation and uses images, not words, inside the speech and thought bubbles to convey what the characters are saying/thinking In 2010, the year in which the character, called only Natasha Romanoff, made her film debut in Iron Man 2, the Black Widow received two separate miniseries  Black Widow and the Marvel Girls was an all-ages, four-issue series that chronicled her adventures with various women of the Marvel Universe, including Storm, She-Hulk, the Enchantress, and Spider-Woman  It was written by Paul Tobin, with art by Salvador Espin, Veronica Gandini and Takeshi Miyazawa  The second four-issue miniseries, Black Widow: Deadly Origin, was written by Paul Cornell, and featured art by Tom Raney and John Paul Leon 

Fictional character biography
Early life
Natasha was born in Stalingrad (now Volgograd), Russian SFSR, USSR  The first and best-known Black Widow is a Russian agent trained as a spy, martial artist, and sniper, and outfitted with an arsenal of high-tech weaponry, including a pair of wrist-mounted energy weapons dubbed her "Widow's Bite"  She wears no costume during her first few appearances but simply evening wear and a veil  Romanova eventually defects to the U S  for reasons that include her love for the reluctant-criminal turned superhero archer, Hawkeye 
The first hints to Natasha Romanova's childhood come from Ivan Petrovich, who is introduced as her middle-aged chauffeur and confidant in the Black Widow's 1970s Amazing Adventures  Petrovich tells Matt Murdock that he had been given custody of little Natasha by a woman who died immediately afterwards, during the Battle of Stalingrad in autumn 1942  He consequently felt committed to raise the orphan as a surrogate father and she eventually trained as a Soviet spy, being eager to help her homeland  In another flashback, set in the fictional island of Madripoor in 1941, Petrovich helps Captain America and the mutant Logan, who would later become the Canadian super-agent and costumed hero Wolverine, to rescue Natasha from Nazis A revised, retconned origin establishes her as being raised from very early childhood by the U S S R 's "Black Widow Ops" program, rather than solely by Ivan Petrovitch  Petrovitch had taken her to Department X with other young female orphans, where she was brainwashed and trained in combat and espionage at the covert "Red Room" facility  There, she is biotechnologically and psycho-technologically enhanced—which provides a rationale for her unusually long and youthful lifespan  During that time she had some training under the Winter Soldier, and the pair even had a short romance  Each Black Widow is deployed with false memories to help ensure her loyalty  Romanova eventually discovers this, including the fact that she had never, as she had believed, been a ballerina  She further discovers that the Red Room is still active as "2R" 
The KGB arranged a marriage between Natasha and the renowned Soviet test pilot Alexei Shostakov  However, when the Soviet government decided to make Shostakov into their new operative, the Red Guardian, he is told that he can have no further contact with his wife  Natasha is told that he died and is trained as a secret agent separately 

The Avengers
Romanova grew up to serve as a femme fatale  She was assigned to assist Boris Turgenov in the assassination of Professor Anton Vanko for defecting from the Soviet Union, which served as her first mission in the United States  Natasha and Turgenov infiltrated Stark Industries as part of the plan  She attempted to manipulate information from American defense contractor Tony Stark, and inevitably confronted his superhero alter ego, Iron Man  The pair then battled Iron Man, and Turgenov stole and wore the Crimson Dynamo suit  Vanko sacrificed himself to save Iron Man, killing Turgenov in the process, using an unstable experimental laser light pistol  Romanova later meets the criminal archer Hawkeye and sets him against Iron Man, and later helped Hawkeye battle Iron Man Later, Natasha again attempted to get Hawkeye to help her destroy Iron Man  The pair almost succeeded, but when Black Widow was injured, Hawkeye retreated to get her to safety  During this period, Romanova was attempting to defect from the Soviet Union and began falling in love with Hawkeye, weakening her loyalty to her country  When her employers learned the truth, the KGB had her gunned down, sending her to a hospital, convincing Hawkeye to go straight and seek membership in the Avengers The Red Room kidnapped and brainwashed her again, and with the Swordsman and the first Power Man, she battled the Avengers  She eventually broke free from her psychological conditioning (with the help of Hawkeye), and successfully defected, having further adventures with Spider-Man, with Hawkeye, and with Daredevil  She ultimately joins the Avengers as a costumed hero herself 

S H I E L D  and Daredevil
Upon Nick Fury's request, she begins freelancing as an agent of the international espionage group S H I E L D  She is sent on a secret S H I E L D  mission to China by Nick Fury  There, with the Avengers, she battles Col  Ling, Gen  Brushov, and her ex-husband the Red Guardian  For a time, as writer Les Daniels noted in a contemporaneous study in 1971,

    her left-wing upbringing was put to better use, and she has lately taken to fighting realistic oppressor-of-the-people types  She helps young Puerto Ricans clean up police corruption and saves young hippies from organized crime       [The splash page of Amazing Adventures #3 (Nov  1970)] reflects the recent trend toward involving fantastic characters in contemporary social problems, a move which has gained widespread publicity for Marvel and its competitor, DC 
She investigates a plot by Egghead, the Puppet Master and the Mad Thinker to blackmail the US government using a laser-firing satellite During her romantic involvement with Matt Murdock in San Francisco, she operates as an independent superhero alongside Murdock's alter ego, Daredevil  There she tries unsuccessfully to find a new career for herself as a fashion designer  Eventually, her relationship with Murdock stagnates, and after briefly working with Avengers finally breaks up with Murdock, fearing that playing "sidekick" is sublimating her identity  During a HYDRA attempt to take over S H I E L D , she is tortured to such an extent that she regresses back to an old cover identity of schoolteacher Nancy Rushman, but she is recovered by Spider-Man in time to help Nick Fury and Shang-Chi work out what had happened and restore her memory, with "Nancy" developing an attraction to Spider-Man before her memory is restored during the final fight against Madam Viper, Boomerang, and the Silver Samurai  She later returns to Matt Murdock's life to find he is romantically involved with another woman, Heather Glenn, prompting her to leave New York  Natasha ultimately realizes that Matt still only thinks of her in platonic terms, and elects to restrain herself from any advances 

The Champions
After their breakup, the Widow moves to Los Angeles and becomes leader of the newly created and short-lived super team known as The Champions, consisting of her, Ghost Rider (Johnny Blaze), Hercules (with whom she has a brief romance), and former X-Men Angel and Iceman Her friends usually call her "Natasha", the informal version of "Natalia"  She has sometimes chosen the last-name alias "Romanoff"  She has hinted to be a descendant of the deposed House of Romanov and a relation to Nicholas II of Russia 

21st century
Natasha crosses Daredevil's (Matt Murdock) path again when he attempts to slay an infant he believes to be the Anti-Christ while under the influence of mind-altering drugs  After Daredevil's one-time love, Karen Page, dies protecting the child, Natasha reconciles with Murdock, revealing she still loves him, but noting that he is too full of anger to commit to a relationship with her Natasha is challenged by Yelena Belova, a graduate from the training program through which Natasha herself was taught the espionage trade, who is the first to ever surpass Natasha's marks and considers herself the rightful successor to the "Black Widow" mantle  Natasha refers to her as "little one" and "rooskaya (meaning "Russian"), and encourages her to discover her individuality rather than live in blind service, asking her "why be Black Widow, when you can be Yelena Belova?" After several confrontations, Natasha subjects Yelena to intense psychological manipulation and suffering in order to teach her the reality of the espionage business, and an angry but disillusioned Yelena eventually returns home and temporarily quits being a spy  Although Matt Murdock is appalled by the cruelty of Natasha's treatment of Yelena, Nick Fury describes the action as Natasha's attempt at saving Yelena's life  After bringing the Avengers and the Thunderbolts together to overcome Count Nefaria, Natasha supported Daredevil's short-lived efforts to form a new super-team to capture the Punisher, originally believed to be Nick Fury's murderer  Despite recruitment endeavors, however, this vigilante group folded shortly after she and her teammate Dagger fought an army of renegade S H I E L D  androids; ironically, she soon afterward worked with both Daredevil and Punisher against the European crime syndicate managed by the Brothers Grace  Months later, her pursuit of war criminal Anatoly Krylenko led to a clash with Hawkeye, whose pessimism regarding heroic activities now rivaled her own Shortly after the Scarlet Witch's insanity seemingly killed Hawkeye and again disbanded the Avengers, Natasha, weary of espionage and adventure, travelled to Arizona but was targeted  Andrea discovers that other women had been trained in the Black Widow Program, and all are now being hunted down and killed by the North Institute on behalf of the corporation Gynacon  Natasha's investigations led her back to Russia, where she was appalled to learn the previously unimagined extent of her past manipulation, and she discovered the Widows were being hunted because Gynacon, having purchased Russian biotechnology from Red Room's successor agency 2R, wanted all prior users of the technology dead  Natasha finds and kills the mastermind of the Black Widow murders: Ian McMasters, Gynacon's aging CEO, who intended to use part of their genetic structure to create a new chemical weapon  After killing McMasters, she clashed with operatives of multiple governments to help Sally Anne Carter, a girl Natasha had befriended in her investigations, whom she rescued with help from Daredevil and Yelena Belova  She soon returned the favor for Daredevil by reluctantly working with Elektra Natchios to protect his new wife, Milla Donovan, from the FBI and others, although Yelena proved beyond help when she agreed to be transformed into the new Super-Adaptoid by A I M  and HYDRA 

Civil War / Initiative
During the Superhero Civil War, Natasha becomes a supporter of the Superhuman Registration Act and a member of the taskforce led by Iron Man  Afterward, the registered Natasha joins the reconstituted Avengers  S H I E L D  director Nick Fury is presumed killed, and deputy director Maria Hill incapacitated, so Natasha assumes temporary command of S H I E L D  as the highest-ranking agent present Later, Tony Stark assigns Natasha to convey the late Captain America's shield to a secure location, but is intercepted by her former lover, Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier, who steals the shield  Natasha and the Falcon then rescue Barnes from the Red Skull's minions and bring him to the S H I E L D  Helicarrier, where Stark convinces Bucky to become the new Captain America  Afterward, Natasha accompanies Bucky as his partner for a brief time until she is called back by S H I E L D  She later rejoins him and Falcon for the final confrontation with the Red Skull, helping to rescue Sharon Carter  She and Bucky have restarted their relationship  She later plays an important role in the capture of Hercules  However, due to her respect of the Greek god, she let him go  Soon Natasha, along with the rest of the Avengers, gets involved in the current Skrull invasion  Afterwards, she stayed as Bucky's partner  She also assists former director Maria Hill in delivering a special form of data to Bucky 

Thunderbolts
Norman Osborn discovered Yelena Belova breaking into an abandoned S H I E L D  facility, and offered her the position of field leader of the new Thunderbolts  On her first mission, she and Ant-Man take control of Air Force One with the Goblin, Doc Samson, and the new President aboard  It was suggested she faked her apparent death (as the Adaptoid) but it is never explained how 
A conversation with the Ghost implies that Yelena is working as a mole for someone else and that she may even be someone else disguised as Yelena  She is later seen talking privately through a comm-link to Nick Fury Osborn orders Yelena to lead the current Thunderbolts to kill former Thunderbolt, Songbird  Fury orders "Yelena" to rescue and retrieve Songbird for the information she might possess about Osborn and his operations  Yelena finds Songbird and reveals to her that she was really Natasha Romanova in disguise  She tries delivering Songbird to Fury but the Thunderbolts have also followed them  The trio are captured as Osborn reveals he had been impersonating Fury in messages all along to set Natasha up in order to strengthen the Thunderbolts and lead him to Fury  She and Songbird are brought to be executed but manage to escape when Ant-Man, Headsmen, and Paladin turn on the rest of the Thunderbolts and let them go 

Heroic Age
At the start of the "Heroic Age," Natasha is recruited by Steve Rogers into a new black-ops wing of the Avengers dubbed the Secret Avengers  She travels to Dubai with her new teammate, Valkyrie, where they steal a dangerous artifact which the Beast then studies, noting that it seems like a distant cousin of the Serpent Crown  In the story "Coppelia", she encounters a teenage clone of herself, code named "Tiny Dancer", whom she rescues from an arms dealer 

Fear Itself
During the "Fear Itself" storyline, Black Widow and Peregrine are sent on a mission to free hostages being held in a Marseille cathedral by Rapido  He and a group of mercenaries are trying to exploit the panic over the events in Paris to steal France's nuclear arsenal 

Ends of the Earth
During the "Ends of the Earth" storyline involving one of Doctor Octopus' schemes, Natasha is one of only three heroes left standing after the defeat of the Avengers by the Sinister Six, joining Silver Sable and Spider-Man to track the Six (albeit because she was closest to Sable's cloaked ship after the Avengers were defeated rather than for her prowess)  She is later contacted by the Titanium Man to warn her and her allies about Doctor Octopus' attempt to rally other villains against Spider-Man  She is knocked out along with Hawkeye by Iron Man during a battle against the Avengers when they were temporarily under Octavius' remote control 

Secret Wars
During the incursion event between Earth-616 and Earth-1610, Natasha is involved in the final battle between the Marvel Universe's superheroes and the Ultimate Universe's Children of Tomorrow  She pilots a ship holding a handpicked few to restart humanity after the universe ends, copiloted by Jessica Drew  Her ship is shot down during the battle though, and she is killed in the ensuing explosion As the evacuation of Earth-616 begins in light of the fact that Earth-1610 is about to come crashing down as part of the "Last Days" storyline, Black Widow is seen standing atop a building with Captain America who gives her a list of people to save and bring aboard the lifeboat  As she tells Sam she cannot save them all, Sam explains it's Natasha's job to assist in the effort to save as many people as possible before Earth as they know it is destroyed  As she leaves, her mind transitions to Cold War Russia, where a young Natasha (here called Natalia) speaks with two Russian functionaries in the infamous "Red Room"  She is given her first mission: travel to Cuba and locate a family called the Comienzas, who are at risk from Raúl Castro's regime and who may have information of vital importance to Russia  She is told to rendezvous with another agent, her classmate Marina, and befriend the family under the guise of a Russian businesswoman  Natasha assures them of her competency and leaves  When one of the officers questions her youth, the other assures him, "she's a killer  She will not disappoint " Natasha meets Marina in Cuba and the two friends catch up before meeting with the Comienzas that night at a local bar  Using her talent for deception, she casually and politely convinces the husband and wife that she's seeking inside information to help her import various goods into the country  The Comienzas explain they cannot reveal said information, prompting Natasha to later explain to Marina that the family might need "a little push"  Not too soon she effectively began terrorizing the family into desperation  First, she plants an American flag on their doorstep to mimic someone accusing them of defecting to the United States  Later after meeting with one of the Russian officers from the Red Room to report her progress, she detonated a car bomb outside their home when the first attempt did not make them "nearly desperate enough"  Following the car bomb explosion, Natasha declares the family is indeed desperate enough to reproach for information  Before letting Natasha go, the officer announces she has one additional task before her mission is over: Marina has become too much enamored with her civilian guise, and is now a security risk  Natasha will have to eliminate her  Flipping to the present, Black Widow is saving as many people as she can, but she quickly flashbacks to Havana  Natasha and her then Red Room partner Marina are trying to help a family defect  Natasha's orders are simple: Kill the parents and make it public  When Natasha asks if she should kill the child too, her boss looks horrified that she would be so OK with that and tells her no  Having no problem following orders she sets up a meet and using a sniper rifle she takes out the pair without blinking  Next she shoots Marina's boyfriend then Marina herself  Next she shoots Marina's cat  Flipping back to the present, Black Widow is back saving people from the incursion as the reason that triggered Natasha's flashback is revealed     a man she saved is holding his cat  This dark, heartless side of the Black Widow shows why she is trying so hard to do good today 

Secret Empire
During the "Secret Empire" storyline, Black Widow appears as a member of the underground resistance at the time when most of the United States has been taken over by Hydra and Captain America who was brainwashed by Red Skull's clone using the powers of the sentient Cosmic Cube Kobik into believing that he was a Hydra sleeper agent  While Hawkeye assembles a strike force of Hercules and Quicksilver to find the Cosmic Cube fragments, Black Widow sets off to kill Rogers herself reasoning that even if Rick's theory is true, the man Rogers was would prefer to die than be used in this manner  She finds herself followed by the Champions as she establishes her version of the Red Room  While preparing to shoot Captain America with a sniper rifle, she rushes to prevent Miles Morales from killing him as predicted by Ulysses, and is struck by his shield, breaking her neck and killing her  Despite the return of the real Steve Rogers and the downfall of Hydra, Natasha's death, along with other casualties, remains 

Clone of Natalia Romanova
However, while observing a dictator who recently rose to power due to his support of Hydra, Bucky witnesses the man being assassinated in such a manner that he believes only Natasha could have pulled off the kill and believes he sees the Black Widow (actually Yelena Belova) depart from her chosen vantage point It was later discovered that a series of clones of the original Black Widow had been produced by the Black Widow Ops Program following her death  Its member Ursa Major bribed Epsilon Red to let him add the current memories of the deceased Natalia Romanova to one such clone while secretly disposing of the bad programming  The Black Widow Ops Program tasked the clone into taking out the remnants of Hydra and S H I E L D  She revealed herself to Winter Soldier and Hawkeye while also killing Orphan Maker  To keep them from interfering, the Black Widow clone locked Winter Soldier and Hawkeye in a safe room within the Red Room  The Black Widow clone rose to the ranks of the Red Room while secretly persuading the recruits to turn against their masters  When Winter Soldier and Hawkeye arrived at the Red Room, the Black Widow clone dropped her cover where she began to kill her superiors, liberate the recruits and destroy all the clones and Epsilon Red  When the authorities arrived, The Black Widow clone, adopting the name Natasha Romanoff, left the Red Room, where she left a note for Hawkeye to stop following her and for Winter Soldier to join her in ending the Red Room During the "Infinity Countdown" storyline, the Black Widow clone traced a dead drop signal left by a revived Wolverine in Madripoor  She discovered that Wolverine had left the Space Infinity Gem in her care  The Black Widow clone meets up with Doctor Strange who wants to dispose of the Space Stone  Doctor Strange did not want to take it as he knows what would happen if they are in the same proximity  She is among the Infinity Gem holders who are contacted by Doctor Strange stating that they need to reform the Infinity Watch in order to safeguard the Infinity Gems from such calamities like Thanos Captain America had Black Widow's clone infiltrate Roxxon as an ex-S H I E L D  operative-turned-contractor named Angel to spy on Roxxon and keep an eye on Weapon H  As Angel, she accompanied Weapon H and his assigned team to Weirdworld up to the point where Morgan le Fay of Earth-15238 exposed her identity to Weapon H  After getting out of the wreckage of the Roxxon Research Outpost, Black Widow reveals to Blake that she was sent to get the Roxxon group out of Weirdworld  Dr  Carrie Espinoza and the Roxxon soldiers with her salvage a Weirdworld Adamantine Crystal filled with Morgan le Fay's mystic energies which Dr  Esponoza states to Black Widow and Blake that it can power all of New York for 10 years  As the group arrives near the Inaku village, they witness Weapon H fighting Korg as Black Widow is contacted by Sonia Sung from Roxxon's headquarters  Black Widow tries to help Sonia get through to Weapon H until Dario Agger arrives  Black Widow is among those that are evacuated through the portal 

Powers and abilities
Black Widow has been enhanced by biotechnology that makes her body resistant to aging and disease and she heals faster than the average human  The white blood cells in her body are also enhanced by these implants, making them efficient enough to fight off most microbes, foreign bodies and other threats to her body, keeping her healthy and immune to most, if not all, infections, diseases and physical disorders Romanova has a gifted intellect  She displays an uncanny affinity for psychological manipulation and can mask her real emotions perfectly  Like Steve Rogers, she possesses the ability to quickly process multiple information streams (such as threat assessment) and rapidly respond to changing tactical situations, as well as having extensive espionage training Black Widow is a world-class athlete, gymnast, acrobat, and aerialist, capable of numerous complex maneuvers and feats  She can coordinate her body with balance, flexibility, and dexterity easily, and is an accomplished ballerina  She has mastered several martial arts such as jiu jitsu, aikido, boxing, judo, karate, savate, ninjutsu, various styles of kung fu and kenpo, as well as the Russian martial art sambo  She also underwent training on how to masterfully use sidearms, marksman rifles and melee weapons such as batons and combat knives 
She is also a skilled hypnotist  She uses a combination of techniques such as direct eye contact, hypnotic speech patterns and a soothing voice to influence a subjects' mind, planting thoughts, ideas or post-hypnotic commands, or even affecting memories and personality traits 

Equipment
Black Widow uses a variety of equipment invented by Soviet scientists and technicians, with later improvements by S H I E L D  scientists and technicians  She usually wears distinctively shaped bracelets which fire the Widow's Bite electro-static energy blasts that can deliver charges up to 30,000 volts, as well as "Widow's Line" grappling hooks, tear gas pellets, and a new element introduced during her ongoing series during the "Kiss or Kill" arc called the "Widow's Kiss"—an aerosol instant knock-out gas she has modified  She wears a belt of metallic discs; some are disc-charges containing plastic explosives, while others have been shown to be compartments for housing other equipment  Her costume consists of synthetic stretch fabric equipped with micro-suction cups on fingers and feet, enabling her to adhere to walls and ceilings  In the 2006 "Homecoming" mini-series, she was seen using knives, unarmed combat, and various firearms, but she has since begun using her bracelets again  While in disguise as Yelena Belova, when infiltrating the then Osborn-sanctioned Thunderbolts during "Dark Reign", she used a specialized multi-lens goggle/head-carapace that demonstrated various technical abilities, such as enhancing vision and communication  Later, she has used a modified gun based on her Widow's Bite wrist cartridge during her adventures alongside the new Captain America 

Supporting characters
Reception
Critical response
Laura Bradley of Vanity Fair included Black Widow in their "Stan Lee’s Most Iconic Characters" list  Jesse Schedeen of IGN included Black Widow in their "Marvel's Femme Fatales" list, writing, "Whatever happens, at least it can be said that Natasha's life still hasn't become boring after all these years," and ranked her 42nd in their "Top 50 Avengers" list, and 74th in their "Top 100 Comic Book Heroes" list  Deirdre Kaye of Scary Mommy ranked Black Widow 1st in their "Looking For A Role Model? These 195+ Marvel Female Characters Are Truly Heroic" list  Matthew Perpetua and Daniel Kibblesmith of BuzzFeed ranked Black Widow 3rd in their "84 Avengers Members Ranked From Worst To Best" list  Madeline Catalano of MovieWeb ranked Black Widow 4th in their "Toughest Female Superheroes" list  Gavia Baker-Whitelaw of The Daily Dot ranked Black Widow 9th in their "Top 33 female Superheroes Of All Time" list  The A V  Club ranked Black Widow 10th in their "100 Best Marvel Characters" list Jo-Anne Rowney of Daily Mirror ranked Black Widow 11th in their "Best female superheroes of all time" list  Rob Bricken of Gizmodo ranked Black Widow 13th in their "Every Member Of The Avengers" list, saying, "She's been one of the most venerable Avengers " Darren Franich of Entertainment Weekly ranked Black Widow 14th in their "Let's Rank Every Avenger Ever" list  Sarah Prado of Game Rant ranked Black Widow 14th in their "Marvel: 14 Best Villains Turned Heroes" list  Comics Buyer's Guide ranked Black Widow 31st in their "100 Sexiest Women in Comics" list  Lance Cartelli of Comicbook com ranked Black Widow 41st in their "50 Most Important Superheroes Ever" list  Lance Cartelli of GameSpot ranked Black Widow 46th in their "50 Most Important Superheroes" list  Wizard Magazine ranked Black Widow 176th in their "Top 200 Comic Book Characters" list Screen Rant included Black Widow in their "10 Best Villains Who Became Heroes In Marvel Comics" list, and in their "10 Most Powerful Members Of The Lady Liberators" list  CBR com ranked Black Widow 6th in their "Avengers' Greatest Leaders" list, 6th in their "10 Most Powerful Russians In Comics" list, and 32nd in their "35 Strongest Avengers" list 

Other versions
1602
In Marvel 1602, a world where superheroes have started to appear several hundred years early, Natasha is a freelance spy and "the most dangerous woman in Europe " Initially allied with Matthew Murdoch (Daredevil's 1602 counterpart), she later betrays him to Count Otto Von Doom, whom she shares a romantic relationship with  It is Natasha who later comes to Doom's rescue when he is horribly burned by Thor's lightning & the accompanying discharge of Blake's golden sphere Natasha is still working with Count von Doom during Marvel 1602: Fantastick Four where she is the captain of his flying ship  However, when she questions his plan to take the ship to the edge of the world, he pushes her over the side and appoints the Wizard captain 

1872
The Secret Wars War Zone of 1872 reimagines Natasha in the Wild West in the town of Timely  Natasha Barnes is a widow who was married to Deputy Bucky Barnes, who was killed by Mayor Fisk's men when he tried to stop a lynching  Fisk had her believe the Native Americans were responsible for his death until Sheriff Rogers told her the truth  After Sheriff Rogers was killed by Fisk and his men, Natasha teams up with Red Wolf and Doctor Bruce Banner to take Fisk down and destroy the dam separating the Cheyenne from their water 

Age of Ultron
In the Age of Ultron story, Black Widow is shown after Ultron's attack with disfiguring scars on the right side of her face from an unknown source, disarming a desperate and panicked man who attempts to threaten her for resources before meeting up with Moon Knight in one of Nick Fury's old bases 

The Avengers: United They Stand
Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow appeared in the comic-book series based on the animated television series The Avengers: United They Stand 

Earth X
Natasha Romanova appeared in the Earth X miniseries much the same as her 616 counterpart  After Absorbing Man was broken to pieces by The Vision after killing The Avengers (Giant Man, Wasp, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver and Hawkeye), part of his body was given to her to guard in order to prevent anyone from putting Absorbing man back together   She was killed sometime before the start of Earth X  Later in the series, she is revealed in the Realm of the Dead and is recruited by Mar-Vell into his legion of the undead 

House of M
Natasha is seen as a member of the Soviet Super Soldiers  Natasha later appears a member of Shang-Chi's Red Dragons, and is mentioned as a member of S H I E L D 

Marvel Mangaverse
She appears in the New Dawn arc where The Executioner and she are hired by Mordo to kidnap Bruce Banner  They manage to succeed in doing so, with her escaping with Bruce while Tigra is dealing with The Executioner intent on keeping the reward for the job herself  However, during her escape, Bruce turns into The Hulk and destroys the submarine they were in, presumably killing her 

Marvel Zombies
Black Widow is among the Avengers who are infected by the Sentry in Marvel Zombies vs  the Army of Darkness  She is seen consuming a Yorkshire Terrier puppy  Later, in the original Marvel Zombies series, she is among the zombies who attack the Silver Surfer 

Ultimate Marvel
Under the Ultimate Marvel imprint Natasha Romanova is a member of the Ultimates, this universe's analogue of the Avengers  She debuted in Ultimate Marvel Team-Up #14 (June 2002) in a story written by Brian Michael Bendis and drawn by Terry Moore, before becoming one of the major characters in writer Mark Millar and penciller Bryan Hitch's The Ultimates, debuting there in #7 (Sept  2002) Romanova is a former KGB spy and assassin, code-named the Black Widow, known for killing her ex-husbands, notably Alexi Shostakov  She was originally part of the Ultimates' covert operations ("black ops") team, but with the emergence of the Chitauri threat was subsequently moved to public status after a publicly acceptable background was written for her  She has genetic or cybernetic enhancements making her far better in combat than the average human  After accepting a marriage proposal from Tony Stark, she receives a black suit of Iron Man armor as an engagement present, along with a set of nanites to control the armor Romanova is later revealed as a traitor—claiming that she betrayed the Ultimates because she feels that America has turned her country into a collection of drug-runners and prostitutes—responsible for killing Hawkeye's wife and children, revealing Bruce Banner's connection to the Hulk to the public, helping to frame Captain America as a traitor, and collaborating with the Liberators in their invasion of the United States  After she murders Edwin Jarvis and holds Stark hostage in an attempt to extort his fortune, Stark activates the nanites in her bloodstream, freezing her body in place, before knocking her unconscious with a wine bottle  She appears later in an emergency clinic, having cut open her wrists to bleed out the disabling nanites  Hawkeye kills her in revenge for her part in the murder of his family By The Ultimates 3 #1 a sex tape between Natasha and Stark has been leaked to the public  According to Janet Pym, the tape is of unknown origin and seems to have been professionally done with "close ups"  Stark is shown to be in a state of depression over Natasha's betrayal and subsequent death  It is later revealed that one of the Ultrons calling himself Yellowjacket had leaked the tape  During the Brotherhood's attack on the Stark Mansion, Mystique shapeshifts into Natasha to get close to Tony in an attempt to kill him but is knocked unconscious by Wasp 

What If?
In What If? Age of Ultron #3, where Thor was killed, Natasha becomes the new wielder of Mjolnir to hold off an assault by the World-Serpent in Thor's absence 

In other media
Television
Black Widow was to appear in a proposed live-action 1975 series, portrayed by series creator Angie Bowie  However, the series was not picked up by a studio 
Black Widow appears in the "Iron Man" segment of The Marvel Super Heroes, voiced by Margaret Griffin 
Black Widow appears in The Super Hero Squad Show episode "Deadly is the Black Widow's Bite!," voiced by Lena Headey 
Black Widow appears in The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, voiced by Vanessa Marshall  This version is an agent of S H I E L D  and member of Nick Fury's Secret Warriors 
A young Black Widow appears in Iron Man: Armored Adventures, voiced by Ashleigh Ball  This version is initially a freelancer before eventually joining S H I E L D 
Black Widow appears in Avengers Assemble, voiced by Laura Bailey  This version is a member of the Avengers 
Black Widow appears in Lego Marvel Super Heroes: Maximum Overload, voiced by again by Laura Bailey 
Black Widow appears in Ultimate Spider-Man, voiced again by Laura Bailey  This version is a member of the Avengers 
Black Widow appears in Marvel Disk Wars: The Avengers 
Black Widow appears in Lego Marvel Super Heroes: Avengers Reassembled, voiced again by Laura Bailey 
Black Widow appears in the Spider-Man episode "Spider-Island" Part 2, voiced again by Laura Bailey 
Black Widow appears in Lego Marvel Super Heroes - Black Panther: Trouble in Wakanda, voiced again by Laura Bailey 
Black Widow appears in Marvel Future Avengers, voiced by Mayumi Asano in Japanese and Laura Bailey in English 

Film
In 2004, Lionsgate Entertainment announced that a Black Widow motion picture by screenwriter-director David Hayter and starring Natasha Romanoff was in the script stage  Lionsgate subsequently dropped the project 
The Ultimate Marvel incarnation of Black Widow appears in Ultimate Avengers and Ultimate Avengers 2, voiced by Olivia d'Abo 
Black Widow makes a non-speaking cameo appearance in Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow, in which she joined the Avengers in stopping Ultron  Though she was killed in battle, she is survived by her and Captain America's son James Rogers 
Black Widow appears in Iron Man: Rise of Technovore, voiced by Clare Grant 
Black Widow appears in Avengers Confidential: Black Widow & Punisher, voiced by Jennifer Carpenter 

Marvel Cinematic Universe
Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow appears in media set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), portrayed by Scarlett Johansson  This version is a former assassin for the Red Room before joining S H I E L D  and becoming an Avenger  She first appears in the live-action film Iron Man 2 before making subsequent appearances in the live-action films The Avengers (2012), Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Captain America: Civil War (2016), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Captain Marvel (2019), Avengers: Endgame (2019), and a self-titled film (2021)  Additionally, alternate timeline versions of Romanoff appear in the Disney+ animated series What If   ?, voiced by Lake Bell 

Video games
Black Widow appears in The Punisher, voiced by Saffron Henderson 
Black Widow appears as a playable character in PlayStation Portable (PSP) and the PC versions of Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, voiced by Nika Futterman 
Black Widow appears in Spider-Man: Web of Shadows, voiced by Salli Saffioti 
Black Widow appears as a boss in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2, voiced again by Nika Futterman 
Black Widow, based on the MCU incarnation, appears in the Iron Man 2 tie-in game, voiced by Catherine Campion 
Black Widow appears as a playable character in Marvel Super Hero Squad: The Infinity Gauntlet, voiced by Grey DeLisle 
Black Widow appears as a playable character in Marvel Super Hero Squad Online, voiced by Laura Bailey 
Black Widow appears as a playable character in Marvel Strike Force 
Black Widow appears as a playable character in Marvel: Avengers Alliance 
Black Widow appears as a card in Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3's Heroes vs Heralds mode
Black Widow appears as a playable character in Marvel Contest of Champions 
Black Widow appears as a playable character in Marvel Avengers: Battle for Earth 
Black Widow appears in LittleBigPlanet via the "Marvel Costume Kit 5" DLC 
Black Widow appears in Zen Pinball 2 via the "Women of Power" DLC pack's A-Force table 
Black Widow appears as a playable character in Marvel Heroes, voiced by Julianne Buescher 
Black Widow appears as a playable character in Lego Marvel Super Heroes voiced again by Laura Bailey 
Black Widow appears as a playable character in Marvel Avengers Alliance Tactics 
Black Widow appears as a playable character in Disney Infinity 2 0, voiced again by Laura Bailey 
Black Widow appears as a playable character in Disney Infinity 3 0, voiced again by Laura Bailey 
Five variants of Black Widow appear in Marvel Puzzle Quest 
Black Widow appears as a playable character in Marvel: Future Fight 
Black Widow appears as a playable character in Lego Marvel's Avengers, voiced by Scarlett Johansson 
A teenage version of Black Widow appears as a playable character in Marvel Avengers Academy, voiced by Alison Brie 
Black Widow appears as a downloadable playable character in Marvel vs  Capcom: Infinite, voiced again by Laura Bailey 
Black Widow appears as a playable character in Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2, voiced by Maria Teresa Creasey 
Black Widow appears as a playable character in Marvel Powers United VR, voiced again  by Laura Bailey 
Black Widow appears as a playable character in Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order, voiced again by Laura Bailey 
Black Widow appears as a playable character in Marvel's Avengers, voiced again by Laura Bailey 
Black Widow appears as a playable character in Marvel Future Revolution, voiced again by Laura Bailey  Additionally, several alternate universe incarnations of Black Widow appear as NPCs, such as one who went undercover in the Hydra Empire and one who joined a secret rebellion against the Maestro on Sakaar 
Black Widow's mainstream and MCU incarnations, with the latter based on her appearances in Avengers: Endgame and her self-titled film, appear as unlockable outfits in Fortnite Battle Royale 
Black Widow appears in Marvel Snap 

Novels
Black Widow appears in the novels Black Widow: Forever Red (2015) and Black Widow: Red Vengeance (2016), by Margaret Stohl 
Black Widow appears in the prose novel adaptation of The Death of Captain America 
Black Widow appears in the prose novel adaptation of Civil War 
The MCU incarnation of Black Widow appears in Avengers: Everybody Wants To Rule The World 

Miscellaneous
Black Widow appears in the Spider-Woman motion comic, voiced by JoEllen Anklam 
Black Widow appears in Marvel Universe: LIVE!, portrayed by Louise Forsley  This version is a member of the Avengers 
Black Widow appears in the Black Widow: Bad Blood audio novel 

Collected editions
See also
List of Russian superheroes
List of Marvel Comics superhero debuts
Passage 4:
Jeremy Staat
Jeremy Ray Staat (born October 10, 1976) is a former American football defensive lineman and offensive lineman who played in the National Football League (NFL) for the Pittsburgh Steelers from 1998 through 2000 and the St  Louis Rams for two games in 2003  He also played for the Los Angeles Avengers of the Arena Football League (AFL)  After his football career, he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps and was deployed to Iraq  On September 17, 2019, Staat, a registered Republican, announced his candidacy for Congress in California's 8th District 

Football career
Staat was a two-sport star in Bakersfield High School in Bakersfield, California, where he was All-Area selection  He then attended Bakersfield College, a junior college, where he played offensive and defensive line for two years while also excelling in track and field  After initially expressing interest in transferring to the University of Nebraska as a walk on, he was offered a full ride scholarship to Arizona State University as a defensive lineman At ASU, Staat became friends with free safety Pat Tillman, and was a roommate with Tillman's brother for a semester  While playing for the Sun Devils, he won the Morris Trophy as the best defensive lineman in the Pac-10 Conference in 1997 and was named a FWAA First-team All-American [1]In the 1998 NFL Draft, the Pittsburgh Steelers selected Staat with the 41st overall pick  The Steelers had debated about whether to take Staat or Alan Faneca with their first round pick but ultimately was able to take both  He played three seasons in Pittsburgh, starting in eleven games in the 1999 season  He would sign with the Seattle Seahawks in 2001 but would be cut from the team following the preseason  Cut by a football team for the first time in his life, Staat began seriously considering joining the military following the September 11, 2001 attacks  However, Tillman, who had quit a lucrative career with the Arizona Cardinals to become a U S  Army Ranger after the attacks, talked Staat into staying in the league for at least three more games to earn his NFL retirement benefits [2]In 2002, he signed with the Oakland Raiders and was moved to offensive guard by Bill Callahan  He would be cut during the preseason, however, after Jon Gruden was traded to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers  Despite speculation that he would reunite with Jake Plummer on the Arizona Cardinals, following an injury to defensive lineman Tom Burke, he would ultimately remain unsigned  Staat eventually earned his pension during a stint with the St  Louis Rams during the 2003 season after transitioning back to the defensive line  The following season, he joined the Los Angeles Avengers of the Arena Football League  During the season, he learned Tillman had been killed in action in Afghanistan, in what was later revealed to be a "friendly fire" incident  The loss of his friend further reduced his interest in football  He would throw his helmet during the middle of practice and storm off the field, leaving the Avengers and professional football forever 

Post-football career
Immediately after football, one of Staat's friends got him a job working at a Walgreens drug store  Staat, like Tillman's family, was dismayed by the United States Army's handling of the story surrounding Tillman's death; himself noting that "The fog around his death was thickened by lies " However, after spending time deciding on his own future, he opted to follow his deceased friend and teammate's example and join the military; but instead of the Army, he joined the United States Marine Corps [3]Staat joined the Marine Corps in 2006 [4] In March 2007, Lance Corporal Staat deployed with 1st Battalion 3rd Marines for a seven-month mission in Iraq [5] He was an infantry machine gunner and drove around in seven-ton armored trucks used to transport soldiers Staat's Iraq tour was fairly quiet, his unit suffered two injuries and no one was killed in action  His opinions changed: "It wasn't a blood fest, like some people make it out to be  It was pretty controlled  We had a pretty good sense of security  My eyes were opened up  They [the Iraqis] were just people  I expected to see guys running around with AK-47s, shouting about Allah and shooting into the sky " After returning from his tour, he started to have back, hip and heart problems  He was put on light duty and began the process of seeking a medical discharge Following his military career, Staat opted to return and finish his degree  He graduated from Arizona State University in 2009 with a master's degree, and returned to his hometown of Bakersfield, where he teaches welding at Bakersfield College In 2019, Staat announced that he would be running for Congress in the 2020 Election on the Republican Party ticket for California's 8th congressional district  He lost in the March primary to Jay Obernolte 
Passage 5:
Paul Bettany
Paul Bettany (born 27 May 1971) is a British actor  He is best known for his roles as J A R V I S  and Vision in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and for starring in the Disney+ miniseries WandaVision (2021), for which he was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie 
Bettany first gained popularity for appearing in the films Gangster No  1 (2000), A Knight's Tale (2001) and A Beautiful Mind (2001)  He was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for playing Stephen Maturin in the film Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)  Other films in which Bettany has appeared include Dogville (2003), Wimbledon (2004), The Da Vinci Code (2006), The Tourist (2010), Margin Call (2011), Legend (2015) and Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)  He made his directorial debut with the film Shelter (2014), which he also wrote and co-produced 
In television and theatre, Bettany has portrayed Ian Campbell, 11th Duke of Argyll in the series A Very British Scandal and Andy Warhol in the play The Collaboration in the West End, which is set to transfer to Broadway 

Early life
Bettany was born on 27 May 1971 in London, to Anne (née Kettle), a stage singer, theatre teacher, and stage manager, and Thane Bettany, a dancer, actor, drama teacher and godfather to Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh  Bettany was raised Roman Catholic, although his church attendance drifted after his confirmation  Bettany then experimented with other Christian denominations among which were Methodist and Church of England congregations with his father  Bettany is now an atheist  While his father taught at the all-girls boarding school Queenswood School, near Hatfield, Hertfordshire, the family lived on the school grounds When Bettany was 16, his brother Matthew died at age 8 after falling onto concrete from a tennis pavilion roof at Queenswood  Soon after, Bettany dropped out of school, left home, and became a street performer in London  He lived in a small flat and earned money by playing his guitar in the streets as a busker  His parents later divorced  After two years, he found a new job in a home for the elderly  After working there for a year, Bettany enrolled at the Drama Centre London  He had dyslexia prior to it being recognised as a learning difficulty 

Career
In 1990, at the age of 19, Bettany began a three-year course at the Drama Centre London in Chalk Farm  He made his stage debut in Stephen Daldry's acclaimed West End revival of An Inspector Calls at the Aldwych Theatre, playing the part of Eric Birling  He also appeared in the Royal Shakespeare Company's productions of Richard III, Romeo and Juliet, and Julius Caesar (for which he received a Charleson Award nomination)  When Bettany was 21, he appeared in a BBC production of Oliver Twist, playing Bill Sikes 
After appearing in the finale of Sean Bean's series Sharpe as William II of the Netherlands at the Battle of Waterloo, he made his film debut with a small part in Bent, a Holocaust drama which also featured Clive Owen, Jude Law, and Ian McKellen  He continued doing work in stage and television: these included Joe Penhall's Love and Understanding, which played at London's Bush Theatre and then ran in Connecticut  He had roles in the television productions Killer Net and Coming Home, during which he met and dated Emily Mortimer  His last stage work was in One More Wasted Year and Stranger's House at the Royal Court Theatre  He filmed several more movies, including his first leading role in Gangster No  1  The British Independent Film Awards nominated him for Best Actor, and the London Film Critics' Circle nominated him for British Newcomer of the Year Back in Hollywood, writer/director Brian Helgeland (L A  Confidential) was planning a new film called The Sin Eater (also known as The Order)  He was impressed by Bettany's audition tape, though Helgeland eventually decided to film A Knight's Tale instead  The studio executives were not impressed, but Helgeland was determined to cast him, even writing the part of Chaucer for him  A Knight's Tale would be Bettany's first big Hollywood production  He received critical acclaim for A Knight's Tale, including winning the London Film Critics Circle Award for Best British Supporting Actor  After the movie wrapped, Helgeland, determined that Hollywood should recognize Bettany's talent, showed the audition tape to many of his peers, including Ron Howard, who promptly cast Bettany in A Beautiful Mind alongside Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly  After A Beautiful Mind, Bettany was offered the role of serial killer Francis Dolarhyde in Red Dragon, opposite Edward Norton and Anthony Hopkins  He turned down the role due to his commitment to a role in Lars von Trier's Dogville Bettany's next major project saw him starring again alongside A Beautiful Mind costar Russell Crowe in Peter Weir's Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World  His portrayal of surgeon and naturalist Stephen Maturin brought him a BAFTA nomination, and he was named British Actor of the Year (London Film Critics' Circle), and Best Actor (Evening Standard) 
On 28 June 2004, Bettany and 13 other actors were included in the 2004 invitation to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences  Dogville and The Reckoning were released in limited cinemas in 2004  In September of that year, Bettany made his leading-man debut in Wimbledon, a romantic comedy with Kirsten Dunst  The film's cast would also introduce him to Jon Favreau, playing his manager, a relationship that would return when Favreau cast him as the voice of J A R V I S  in Iron Man  In mid-2005, Bettany filmed Firewall in Vancouver, Canada, a thriller also starring Harrison Ford and Virginia Madsen, which reunited him with Wimbledon director Richard Loncraine  He spent the autumn of 2005 filming The Da Vinci Code, based on Dan Brown's best-selling novel and starring Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou and Ian McKellen  In the film, he played an Opus Dei monk named Silas 
In 2007, Bettany went to London to star in There For Me, written by his friends Dan Fredenburgh and Doraly Rosen  In 2008, he appeared in the New Line Cinema family fantasy Inkheart, playing the part of a fire-eater named Dustfinger  In 2009, he appeared as Charles Darwin in Creation, starring opposite his own wife Jennifer Connelly  In 2010, Bettany appeared alongside Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie in The Tourist and portrayed the archangel Michael in Legion, a film depicting divine vengeance upon humanity  He starred in the films Priest and Margin Call, both released in 2011 
Bettany reprised his voice role as J A R V I S  in 2010's Iron Man 2, 2012's The Avengers, 2013's Iron Man 3, and Disneyland's Innoventions attraction  In 2014, Bettany starred alongside Johnny Depp and fellow British actor Rebecca Hall in the feature film Transcendence  He was once again paired with Depp in Mortdecai, a 2015 motion picture also starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Ewan McGregor  After voicing J A R V I S  for five years, Bettany made his first onscreen appearance in a Marvel Cinematic Universe film in the 2015 film Avengers: Age of Ultron, playing Vision  He reprised the role in the sequels Captain America: Civil War (2016) and Avengers: Infinity War (2018) Bettany portrayed Ted Kaczynski in the Discovery Channel television show, Manhunt: Unabomber  Bettany replaced Michael K  Williams in Solo: A Star Wars Story, after Williams was removed from the final film, as he was unable to return to set during the film's reshoots  Bettany was cast in his place, with the character being reworked from a motion-capture alien to a human  On 20 January 2018, it was reported that Bettany was nearing a deal to play Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh on the Netflix series The Crown, succeeding Matt Smith  Days later, on 25 January, it was reported by TVLine that Bettany was ultimately unable to sign on due to scheduling conflicts Bettany starred alongside Elizabeth Olsen in the Marvel television miniseries WandaVision, portraying a new version of his Marvel Cinematic Universe character, Vision, with Olsen portraying the titular Wanda  It premiered on Disney+ in January 2021, garnering praise from critics  Reviewing the series, Matt Purslow of IGN wrote Bettany "effortlessly takes to the comedic skits" and that he and Olsen "provide a fantastic amount of life, wit, and emotion"  For his performance, Bettany received nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie and Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film Bettany starred in the 2021 miniseries A Very British Scandal  He played artist Andy Warhol in a production of the play The Collaboration by Anthony McCarten at the Young Vic in London from February to April 2022  He is slated to reprise the role in a film adaptation of the play  Bettany is attached to portray businessman Alexander Nix in a film about the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal as well as co-write and star in the dramedy film Harvest Moon Bettany will reprise his role as Vision in the television series Vision Quest 

Personal life
On 1 January 2003, Bettany married American actress Jennifer Connelly in Scotland; they met when they starred together in the 2001 film A Beautiful Mind  They did not become a couple until some time after filming, as both were in other relationships at the time  As a teenager, he had developed a crush on her after seeing her in the 1986 film Labyrinth  The September 11 attacks motivated him to act on his feelings for her, and after two days of attempting to contact her, he proposed, despite the fact that they were not yet in a relationship  Soon after their marriage, they moved to Brooklyn Heights after living in Tribeca  The couple have two children together  Bettany is stepfather to Connelly's son from a previous relationship Bettany is close friends with actor Johnny Depp  Text messages between Bettany and Depp from 2013 were used as evidence in 2020 during Depp's defamation trial against The Sun and in 2022 as part of Depp's defamation trial against his ex-wife, actress Amber Heard 

Acting credits
Film
Television
Theatre
Awards and nominations
Notes
Passage 6:
The New Adventures of the Elusive Avengers
The New Adventures of the Elusive Avengers (Russian: Новые приключения Неуловимых, translit  Novye prikluchenya Neulovimykh) is a 1968 Soviet action film, a sequel of The Elusive Avengers, directed by Edmond Keosayan and made on Mosfilm  The film was followed by The Crown of the Russian Empire, or Once Again the Elusive Avengers released in 1971 

Plot
The film continues the story of the Elusive Avengers, a posse of young Red Partisans, including Valerka, a former schoolboy, Yashka, a devil-may-care gypsy, and two orphan siblings, Danka and his sister Ksanka  They join the Red Army and fight Baron Wrangel's White Guards  They intercept an airplane that was carrying a letter to the Baron  The letter reveals that the map of fortifications in Crimea is in possession of the White counter-intelligence officer, Colonel Kudasov  This map is vital for the Red Army assault, and the Avengers are sent on a secret mission to steal the map 
They enter Sevastopol on a fishing boat and disguise themselves  Danka assumes the guise of a shoe cleaner, and Valerka fashions himself as a young monarchist nobleman  Meanwhile, the Red agent they were sent to is arrested by Kudasov and killed when he tries to escape, leaving the Avengers on their own 
Ksanka meets Bubba Castorsky, a popular singer and dancer who helped the Avengers in the first film, and Bubba tells them about a White officer who probably knows the combination for Kudasov's safe  Valerka visits the cabaret often visited by this officer, captain Ovechkin, and befriends him  But Danka is arrested, because Ataman Burnash comes to the city and recognizes him  Yashka meets the local Gypsies and persuades them to help freeing Danka 
Then Captain Ovechkin recognizes Valerka for what he is, gloats at him and tells him the combination, intending to arrest him immediately, but Valerka detonates a pool ball filled with explosives and escapes  He dashes to the Counterintelligence Service headquarters, infiltrates it and steals the map  The headquarters is surrounded by soldiers, but Danka, Yashka and Ksanka distract the soldiers and let him escape with the map  The Avengers, along with Bubba, flee the city, but a White officer shoots Bubba when they are already escaping on a boat 

Cast
Mikhail Metyolkin – Valerka Meshcheryakov
Vasily Vasilyev – Yashka the Gypsy
Viktor Kosykh – Danka Shchus
Valentina Kurdyukova – Ksanka Shchus
Armen Dzhigarkhanyan – captain Pyotr Sergeyevich Ovechkin
Boris Sichkin – Buba Kastorsky, actor and singer
Arkady Tolbuzin – colonel Leopold Sergeyevich Kudasov
Vladimir Ivashov – lieutenant Perov, Kudasov's adjutant
Yefim Kopelyan – chieftain Ignat Burnash
Konstantin Sorokin – Mefody Kuzmich, carousel owner
Ivan Pereverzev – Smirnov, chief of staff of Red Cavalry Army
Nikolay Fedortsov – Andrei, underground fighter
Yevgeny Vesnik – drunk colonel
Sergey Filippov – Koshkin, apothecary, expert on explosions
Savely Kramarov – Ilyukha Verekhov, cross-eyed convoy, former bandit
Eduard Abalov – episode
Yan Frenkel – violinist (uncredited)

External links
The New Adventures of the Elusive Avengers at IMDb
Context 3: , as if viewed simultaneously from numerous angles (and in multiple dimensions) with the eye free to roam from one to the other This technique of representing simultaneity, multiple viewpoints (or relative motion) is pushed to a high degree of complexity in Metzinger's Nu à la cheminée, exhibited at the 1910 Salon d'Automne; Gleizes' monumental Le Dépiquage des Moissons (Harvest Threshing), exhibited at the 1912 Salon de la Section d'Or; Le Fauconnier's Abundance shown at the Indépendants of 1911; and Delaunay's City of Paris, exhibited at the Indépendants in 1912  These ambitious works are some of the largest paintings in the history of Cubism  Léger's The Wedding, also shown at the Salon des Indépendants in 1912, gave form to the notion of simultaneity by presenting different motifs as occurring within a single temporal frame, where responses to the past and present interpenetrate with collective force  The conjunction of such subject matter with simultaneity aligns Salon Cubism with early Futurist paintings by Umberto Boccioni, Gino Severini and Carlo Carrà; themselves made in response to early Cubism Cubism and modern European art was introduced into the United States at the now legendary 1913 Armory Show in New York City, which then traveled to Chicago and Boston  In the Armory show Pablo Picasso exhibited La Femme au pot de moutarde (1910), the sculpture Head of a Woman (Fernande) (1909–10), Les Arbres (1907) amongst other cubist works  Jacques Villon exhibited seven important and large drypoints, while his brother Marcel Duchamp shocked the American public with his painting Nude Descending a Staircase, No  2 (1912)  Francis Picabia exhibited his abstractions La Danse à la source and La Procession, Seville (both of 1912)  Albert Gleizes exhibited La Femme aux phlox (1910) and L'Homme au balcon (1912), two highly stylized and faceted cubist works  Georges Braque, Fernand Léger, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Roger de La Fresnaye and Alexander Archipenko also contributed examples of their cubist works 

Cubist sculpture
Just as in painting, Cubist sculpture is rooted in Paul Cézanne's reduction of painted objects into component planes and geometric solids (cubes, spheres, cylinders, and cones)  And just as in painting, it became a pervasive influence and contributed fundamentally to Constructivism and Futurism 
Cubist sculpture developed in parallel to Cubist painting  During the autumn of 1909 Picasso sculpted Head of a Woman (Fernande) with positive features depicted by negative space and vice versa  According to Douglas Cooper: "The first true Cubist sculpture was Picasso's impressive Woman's Head, modeled in 1909–10, a counterpart in three dimensions to many similar analytical and faceted heads in his paintings at the time " These positive/negative reversals were ambitiously exploited by Alexander Archipenko in 1912–13, for example in Woman Walking  Joseph Csaky, after Archipenko, was the first sculptor in Paris to join the Cubists, with whom he exhibited from 1911 onwards  They were followed by Raymond Duchamp-Villon and then in 1914 by Jacques Lipchitz, Henri Laurens and Ossip Zadkine Indeed, Cubist construction was as influential as any pictorial Cubist innovation  It was the stimulus behind the proto-Constructivist work of both Naum Gabo and Vladimir Tatlin and thus the starting-point for the entire constructive tendency in 20th-century modernist sculpture 

Architecture
Cubism formed an important link between early-20th-century art and architecture  The historical, theoretical, and socio-political relationships between avant-garde practices in painting, sculpture and architecture had early ramifications in France, Germany, the Netherlands and Czechoslovakia  Though there are many points of intersection between Cubism and architecture, only a few direct links between them can be drawn  Most often the connections are made by reference to shared formal characteristics: faceting of form, spatial ambiguity, transparency, and multiplicity Architectural interest in Cubism centered on the dissolution and reconstitution of three-dimensional form, using simple geometric shapes, juxtaposed without the illusions of classical perspective  Diverse elements could be superimposed, made transparent or penetrate one another, while retaining their spatial relationships  Cubism had become an influential factor in the development of modern architecture from 1912 (La Maison Cubiste, by Raymond Duchamp-Villon and André Mare) onwards, developing in parallel with architects such as Peter Behrens and Walter Gropius, with the simplification of building design, the use of materials appropriate to industrial production, and the increased use of glass 

Cubism was relevant to an architecture seeking a style that needed not refer to the past  Thus, what had become a revolution in both painting and sculpture was applied as part of "a profound reorientation towards a changed world"  The Cubo-Futurist ideas of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti influenced attitudes in avant-garde architecture  The influential De Stijl movement embraced the aesthetic principles of Neo-plasticism developed by Piet Mondrian under the influence of Cubism in Paris  De Stijl was also linked by Gino Severini to Cubist theory through the writings of Albert Gleizes  However, the linking of basic geometric forms with inherent beauty and ease of industrial application—which had been prefigured by Marcel Duchamp from 1914—was left to the founders of Purism, Amédée Ozenfant and Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (better known as Le Corbusier,) who exhibited paintings together in Paris and published Après le cubisme in 1918  Le Corbusier's ambition had been to translate the properties of his own style of Cubism to architecture  Between 1918 and 1922, Le Corbusier concentrated his efforts on Purist theory and painting  In 1922, Le Corbusier and his cousin Jeanneret opened a studio in Paris at 35 rue de Sèvres  His theoretical studies soon advanced into many different architectural projects 

La Maison Cubiste (Cubist House)
At the 1912 Salon d'Automne an architectural installation was exhibited that quickly became known as Maison Cubiste (Cubist House), with architecture by Raymond Duchamp-Villon and interior decoration by André Mare along with a group of collaborators  Metzinger and Gleizes in Du "Cubisme", written during the assemblage of the "Maison Cubiste", wrote about the autonomous nature of art, stressing the point that decorative considerations should not govern the spirit of art  Decorative work, to them, was the "antithesis of the picture"  "The true picture" wrote Metzinger and Gleizes, "bears its raison d'être within itself  It can be moved from a church to a drawing-room, from a museum to a study  Essentially independent, necessarily complete, it need not immediately satisfy the mind: on the contrary, it should lead it, little by little, towards the fictitious depths in which the coordinative light resides  It does not harmonize with this or that ensemble; it harmonizes with things in general, with the universe: it is an organism   " La Maison Cubiste was a fully furnished model house, with a  facade, a staircase, wrought iron banisters, and two rooms:  a living room—the Salon Bourgeois, where paintings by Marcel Duchamp, Metzinger (Woman with a Fan), Gleizes, Laurencin and Léger were hung, and a bedroom  It was an example of L'art décoratif, a home within which Cubist art could be displayed in the comfort and style of modern, bourgeois life  Spectators at the Salon d'Automne passed through the plaster facade, designed by Duchamp-Villon, to the two furnished rooms  This architectural installation was subsequently exhibited at the 1913 Armory Show, New York, Chicago and Boston, listed in the catalogue of the New York exhibit as Raymond Duchamp-Villon, number 609, and entitled "Facade architectural, plaster" (Façade architecturale) 

The furnishings, wallpaper, upholstery and carpets of the interior were designed by André Mare, and were early examples of the influence of cubism on what would become Art Deco   They were composed of very brightly colored roses and other floral patterns in stylized geometric forms 
Mare called the living room in which Cubist paintings were hung the Salon Bourgeois  Léger described this name as 'perfect'  In a letter to Mare prior to the exhibition Léger wrote: "Your idea is absolutely splendid for us, really splendid  People will see Cubism in its domestic setting, which is very important "Mare's ensembles were accepted as frames for Cubist works because they allowed paintings and sculptures their independence", Christopher Green wrote, "creating a play of contrasts, hence the involvement not only of Gleizes and Metzinger themselves, but of Marie Laurencin, the Duchamp brothers (Raymond Duchamp-Villon designed the facade) and Mare's old friends Léger and Roger La Fresnaye" In 1927, Cubists Joseph Csaky, Jacques Lipchitz, Louis Marcoussis, Henri Laurens, the sculptor Gustave Miklos, and others collaborated in the decoration of a Studio House, rue Saint-James, Neuilly-sur-Seine, designed by the architect Paul Ruaud and owned by the French fashion designer Jacques Doucet, also a collector of Post-Impressionist and Cubist paintings (including Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, which he bought directly from Picasso's studio)  Laurens designed the fountain, Csaky designed Doucet's staircase, Lipchitz made the fireplace mantel, and Marcoussis made a Cubist rug 

Czech Cubist architecture
The original Cubist architecture is very rare  Cubism was applied to architecture only in Bohemia (today Czech Republic) and especially in its capital, Prague  Czech architects were the first and only ones to ever design original Cubist buildings  Cubist architecture flourished for the most part between 1910 and 1914, but the Cubist or Cubism-influenced buildings were also built after World War I  After the war, the architectural style called Rondo-Cubism was developed in Prague fusing the Cubist architecture with round shapes 

In their theoretical rules, the Cubist architects expressed the requirement of dynamism, which would surmount the matter and calm contained in it, through a creative idea, so that the result would evoke feelings of dynamism and expressive plasticity in the viewer  This should be achieved by shapes derived from pyramids, cubes and prisms, by arrangements and compositions of oblique surfaces, mainly triangular, sculpted facades in protruding crystal-like units, reminiscent of the so-called diamond cut, or even cavernous that are reminiscent of the late Gothic architecture  In this way, the entire surfaces of the facades including even the gables and dormers are sculpted  The grilles as well as other architectural ornaments attain a three-dimensional form  Thus, new forms of windows and doors were also created, e  g  hexagonal windows  Czech Cubist architects also designed Cubist furniture 
The leading Cubist architects were Pavel Janák, Josef Gočár, Vlastislav Hofman, Emil Králíček and Josef Chochol  They worked mostly in Prague but also in other Bohemian towns  The best-known Cubist building is the House of the Black Madonna in the Old Town of Prague built in 1912 by Josef Gočár with the only Cubist café in the world, Grand Café Orient  Vlastislav Hofman built the entrance pavilions of Ďáblice Cemetery in 1912–1914, Josef Chochol designed several residential houses under Vyšehrad  A Cubist streetlamp has also been preserved near the Wenceslas Square, designed by Emil Králíček in 1912, who also built the Diamond House in the New Town of Prague around 1913 

Cubism in other fields
The influence of Cubism extended to other artistic fields, outside painting and sculpture  In literature, the written works of Gertrude Stein employ repetition and repetitive phrases as building blocks in both passages and whole chapters  Most of Stein's important works utilize this technique, including the novel The Making of Americans (1906–08)  Not only were they the first important patrons of Cubism, Gertrude Stein and her brother Leo were also important influences on Cubism as well  In turn, Picasso was an important influence on Stein's writing  In the field of American fiction, William Faulkner's 1930 novel As I Lay Dying can be read as an interaction with the cubist mode  The novel features narratives of the diverse experiences of 15 characters which, when taken together, produce a single cohesive body 
The poets generally associated with Cubism are Guillaume Apollinaire, Blaise Cendrars, Jean Cocteau, Max Jacob, André Salmon and Pierre Reverdy  As American poet Kenneth Rexroth explains, Cubism in poetry "is the conscious, deliberate dissociation and recombination of elements into a new artistic entity made self-sufficient by its rigorous architecture  This is quite different from the free association of the Surrealists and the combination of unconscious utterance and political nihilism of Dada " Nonetheless, the Cubist poets' influence on both Cubism and the later movements of Dada and Surrealism was profound; Louis Aragon, founding member of Surrealism, said that for Breton, Soupault, Éluard and himself, Reverdy was "our immediate elder, the exemplary poet " Though not as well remembered as the Cubist painters, these poets continue to influence and inspire; American poets John Ashbery and Ron Padgett have recently produced new translations of Reverdy's work  Wallace Stevens' "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" is also said to demonstrate how cubism's multiple perspectives can be translated into poetry John Berger said: "It is almost impossible to exaggerate the importance of Cubism  It was a revolution in the visual arts as great as that which took place in the early Renaissance  Its effects on later art, on film, and on architecture are already so numerous that we hardly notice them "

Gallery
Press articles and reviews
See also
Fourth dimension in art
Precisionism
Proto-Cubism
Rayonism
Section d'Or
Vorticism
Passage 6:
Pour Un Maillot Jaune
Pour Un Maillot Jaune is a French 1965 documentary – described as a cinematic tribute – about the 1965 Tour de France  It was made by the French film director, Claude Lelouch  Lelouch is best known as the director of Un Homme et Une Femme (A Man and a Woman in English) in 1966 

The film
Pour Un Maillot Jaune (For a yellow jersey) follows the 1965 Tour de France not as a sports documentary but an atmospheric film of the events that surround it  Where riders are shown racing, it is an illustration of the hardship or the danger they face  The main events are the daily routines of the competitors, the bossing about of spectators by officials (which Lelouch emphasises by adding animal noises to the soundtrack), the monotonous days of journalists who follow the race for hours to write only a few hundred words, and the evening entertainment laid on by the Europe-1 radio station 
The film starts with a scene of riders arriving at the start by train and then of race organisers Jacques Goddet and Félix Lévitan and an anonymous man with a cigarette in his mouth supervising the cutting of a blue, white and red ribbon across the road as a band plays the Marseillaise, the French national anthem  The film then jumps – as it does throughout its 30 minutes – to an open-air mass for riders wearing their race clothes 
There are dramatic shots of riders climbing mountains, often with breathtaking views, a struggle which Lelouch emphasises by slowly fading down the heartbeat-like music to near silence, stressing each rider's lone and silent battle with himself  In more light-hearted scenes, the team manager Raphael Géminiani is shown angrily realising he has been filmed while he has been asleep, and the soigneur Louis Guerlacher is shown kneading a rider's muscles as though they were soggy baguettes 

The technique
Unlike Vive Le Tour, an earlier film by Louis Malle and with which Pour Un Maillot Jaune is inevitably associated, Claude Lelouch uses no narrator and depends on the film to tell its own story  He portrays the spirit of the moment with repeated musical themes, some of them not always perfectly edited  Only occasionally does the sound of the moment reach the screen and in one scene, when riders are descending at speed from a mountain, Lelouch has made the error of adding the sound of squealing brakes that would never have happened in real life Throughout, the film jumps from colour to black and white and back 

The race
The 1965 Tour de France was won by a young Italian called Felice Gimondi, riding only as a late inclusion  The French had hoped that the winner would be Raymond Poulidor relieved for once of riding against Jacques Anquetil who had always beaten him  By the Chartreuse, however, Gimondi was unbeatable and even attacked Poulidor and left him behind "just to show Raymond that I could go faster and that I was the better man "
The film ends as Gimondi takes his lap of honour at the Parc des Princes Paris 
The charm of the film to cycling enthusiasts is to see the Tour as it was four decades ago, when the winners stood on rickety podiums of scaffold poles, slept in shabby hotels and retrieved a spanner from their pockets to change the height of their handlebars as they rode 

External links
   pour un maillot jaune at IMDb
Passage 7:
Women's Games
Women's Games (French: Jeux de femmes) is a 1946 French comedy film directed by Maurice Cloche and starring Jacques Dumesnil, Hélène Perdrière and Saturnin Fabre The film's sets were designed by the art director Raymond Nègre 

Cast
Passage 8:
Le casseur de pierres
Le casseur de pierres is a 1989 Tunisian short drama film directed by Mohamed Zran  It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival 

Cast
Abdallah Maymoun - Sabeur
Monia Tkitik - Monia
Fatha Mahdoui - Fatima
Moufida Zran - Scheherezade
Passage 9:
Les Accords de Bella
Les Accords de Bella (lit  'Bella's Accords') is a 2007 anthropological documentary film directed by David Constantin  It was selected by the African Film Festival of Cordoba - FCAT 

Synopsis
Rodrigues Island, lost in the middle of the Indian Ocean, has something particular: There are more than 500 accordions for 35,000 people  Polkas, mazurkas and waltzes are part of the history and mestization of an island forgotten by all for a very long time  Here, the accordion is not a forgotten instrument, quite the contrary; its sound mixes with African drums so that young and old can dance  With Philippe Imbert's help, a French craftsman, the Rodrigues Accordion Association has set out on a new adventure: Making their own accordion  The first one, the prototype, completely made on the island, is called Bella 
Passage 10:
Sous les pieds des femmes
Sous les pieds des femmes (also known as Under Women's Feet) is a 1997 French drama film written and  directed by Rachida Krim and starring Claudia Cardinale 

Plot
Cast
Claudia Cardinale  as  Aya   in 1996
Fejria Deliba	  as  Aya  in 1958
Nadia Farès  as Fouzia
Mohammad Bakri  as Amin
Yorgo Voyagis as  Moncef
Bernadette Lafont as Suzanne
Samy Naceri  as Mohammed
Éric Atlan as Captain Bertrand
Roland Bertin  as Le Président du tribunal
Guy Bedos as  Le Procureur
Kader Boukhanef as  Mourad
Safy Boutella as  Addellah
Olivier Brunhes as  Jacques
Arnaud Meunier as  Jeannot
Catherine Samie as  La Voisine
Passage 11:
Gai pied
Gai pied or Gai pied hebdo was a monthly, then weekly (hence the name Hebdo), French gay magazine, founded by Jean Le Bitoux  Its name, which literally means "Gay foot", is a homophone of guêpier, which means a hornet's nest or, figuratively, a trap or pitfall — a reference to the magazine's determination to torment the status-quo 

History and profile
The magazine's name was suggested by Michel Foucault, who wrote an article for the first issue and continued to contribute material to the magazine throughout its existence 
The first issue was sold at two thousand kiosks throughout France on 1 April 1979  It was published by Pink Triangle publications and printed by the Revolutionary Communist League 
Among the magazine's collaborators were Yves Navarre, Tony Duvert, Gianni De Martino, Guy Hocquenghem, Renaud Camus, Alain Pacadis, Copi, Hugo Marsan, Emmanuel Dreuilhe and others  The magazine enjoyed great success among French gays, and increased their visibility  Apart from its articles, the magazine published personal ads and erotic photographs 
In 1980, Jean-Paul Sartre agreed to an interview with the magazine, as did artists David Hockney and Barbara and politicians Pierre Bérégovoy and Gaston Defferre, showing their support for the magazine's cause 
In 1987, minister of the interior Charles Pasqua attempted to ban the publication of Gai pied  A demonstration on 19 March, along with statements of support from many public figures including minister of culture François Léotard, prevented the ban 
Between 1987 and 1990 the magazine controlled FG DJ Radio 
Despite early success, the magazine struggled to respond to the menace of AIDS, and was dealt a financial blow by the success of Minitel  After losing much of its readership, the magazine ended publication in 1991 

See also
Illico
Têtu
Passage 12:
Family Pack
Family Pack may refer to:

Family Pack (2000 film), a French-Balgian drama film directed by Chris Vander Stappen
Family Pack (2022 film), an Indian comedy film directed by Arjun Kumar S 
Passage 13:
Eriq Ebouaney
Eriq Ebouaney (born 3 October 1967) is a French actor  He is best known for his portrayal as the Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba in the 2000 film Lumumba, as "Blacktie" in Brian De Palma's Femme Fatale and as "Ice" in the 2008 action film Transporter 3 in which he starred opposite Jason Statham 

Early life
Ebouaney was born in Angers, France, the son of Cameroonian immigrants  As a child he didn't show an interest in acting and was set on becoming a businessman  However, at the age of 30, he joined a theatre company and left his job as a sales manager to become a professional actor 

Career
He made his film debut in 1996 in the Cédric Klapisch directed film Chacun cherche son chat  He landed a leading role in the 2000 film Lumumba in which he portrayed Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba  The film was shot in Beira, Mozambique 
In 2002, he starred in Brian De Palma's Femme Fatale alongside Antonio Banderas  In 2004, he played the character of Jean Claude in Mark Bamford's debut feature Cape of Good Hope  In 2005 he starred in the award-winning Ridley Scott film, Kingdom of Heaven, in which he starred alongside Michael Sheen, Liam Neeson, Orlando Bloom, David Thewlis, Martin Hancock and Nathalie Cox 
In 2006, he starred in The Front Line and La piste 
In 2008, he played a supporting role in the critically acclaimed Australian film Disgrace featuring American actor John Malkovich, a small role in the Italian film Bianco e nero and later was cast as "Ice" in Transporter 3, featuring British actor Jason Statham 

Filmography
Passage 14:
Les Sous-doués en vacances
Les Sous-doués en vacances is a 1982 French comedic film, directed by Claude Zidi  It is the sequel to Les sous-doués (1980) 

Production
The film was shot between 10 August and 3 October 1981  Roland Moreno, the real life inventor of the smart card, was cast in the film as a "mad inventor" who creates a "love computer "Florence Guérin recalls how she gave her first line to the cinema in this film: "After passing a day doing a walk-on part, I knew that the next day they needed a girl for a nude scene, but she had a line in it  I begged Claude Zidi, going in front of his boat and he gave in, telling me that maybe the scene would be cut and that they already had another actress  Finally I shot, the scene was not cut, and the end credits read: B B 1: Florence Guérin "Sandrine Bonnaire in an extra in the movie 

Release
The film was released in 1982  It was shown in Paris for 22 weeks 
Passage 15:
Vaux-sous-Aubigny
Vaux-sous-Aubigny (French pronunciation: ​[vo su z‿obiɲi]) is a former commune in the Haute-Marne department in north-eastern France  On 1 January 2016, it was merged into the new commune Le Montsaugeonnais  Its population was 710 in 2019  It is the natal village of beekeeper Charles Dadant 

See also
Communes of the Haute-Marne department
Passage 16:
La naissance d'Osiris
La naissance d'Osiris, ou La fête Pamilie (The Birth of Osiris, or The Festival of Pamylia) is a one-act opera by Jean-Philippe Rameau, first performed on 12 October 1754 at Fontainebleau to celebrate the birth of the future King Louis XVI  The libretto is by Rameau's frequent collaborator Louis de Cahusac  Cahusac styled the work a ballet allégorique ("allegorical ballet"), but it is usually categorised as an acte de ballet  Its slender plot tells of Jupiter's announcement to a group of Egyptian shepherds of the birth of the god Osiris, who symbolises the baby prince  The piece may have started life as part of a larger work, Les beaux jours de l'Amour, an opéra-ballet Rameau and Cahusac planned but never completed for reasons which are still uncertain 

Background and performance history
Musicologists now think that Rameau and Cahusac originally intended La naissance d'Osiris to be part of a multi-act opéra-ballet called Les beaux jours de l'Amour  There is some evidence this work was substantially complete by May 1751, but for unknown reasons it was never staged  The other acts were Nélée et Myrthis (never completed and unperformed until the 20th century) and Anacréon, first performed separately at Fontainebleau on 23 October 1754  The Rameau scholar Sylvie Bouissou believes that La naissance would have been the first act of Les beaux jours de l'Amour Like Anacréon, La naissance d'Osiris was salvaged for performance before the court at Fontainebleau  It thus became one of a series of operas celebrating the births of the children of the Dauphin of France and his wife Maria Josepha  On this occasion the royal baby was the Duc de Berry, the future King Louis XVI  The conductor Hugo Reyne notes the historical irony of identifying Louis XVI with Osiris, a god who was murdered, just as Louis was to be guillotined in 1793  The opera appeared on 12 October 1754 as part of a triple bill alongside revivals of Rameau's Pigmalion and Les incas de Pérou (the second act of the 1735 opéra-ballet Les Indes galantes)  Documents show it went into rehearsal on 26 August, three days after the birth of the prince  The manuscripts show it was adapted for the occasion from Les beaux jours de l'Amour; originally Pamilie was merely an unnamed "shepherdess" A lengthy account of the premiere appeared in the October 1754 edition of the journal Le Mercure de France  In the same issue, Cahusac explained the Egyptian background of the work:

As she was leaving the temple of Jupiter, a Theban woman named Pamyles heard a voice announcing the birth of a hero who would one day bring happiness to Egypt  This hero was Osiris, whom Pamyles brought up and who was subsequently one of the most illustrious benefactors of humanity  To preserve the memory of this event, the Egyptians established the Festival of Pamylia 
Osiris had already featured in the first act of Rameau's opéra-ballet Les fêtes de l'Hymen et de l'Amour (premiered 1747 and revived in July 1754)  The reviewer in Le Mercure de France described the richness of the scenery in La naissance: the pillars of the temple were carved with hieroglyphics; there were sphinxes and a palm-tree  He also gave a detailed account of the final dance in which the ballerina Mademoiselle Catinon played Cupid and Mademoiselle Puvigné a shepherdess  The reviewer praised the singing of the prima donna Marie Fel as Pamylie There is no evidence La naissance d'Osiris was ever revived in the 18th century, probably because it was too closely linked with the occasion of the premiere  However, Rameau did reuse some of the music in his later works: Anacréon, Les Paladins and Les Boréades 

Music
The work is predominantly pastoral in style, containing four musettes (numbers which employ a musette de cour, a type of bagpipe)  "La flamme des éclairs, les éclats du tonnerre" is unusually virtuosic for a bass aria  It appears that the performers found some of the music so technically challenging that it was omitted from the premiere; this virtuosic writing probably derives from Italian musical style  The overture too shows Italian influence; it is in three parts (quick-slow-quick) and the music of the last section is reprised in the final chorus of the opera 

Roles
Synopsis
Scene: The stage shows the temple of Jupiter
The shepherds rejoice at the peace their land enjoys; there is only one thing missing to make their happiness complete (chorus: "Coulez jours de paix, coulez jours heureux")  They bring their presents into the temple of Jupiter  A shepherd sings a musette celebrating the return of Spring and his love for Sylvie (musette: "Du printemps sur l'herbe fleurie")  A shepherdess vows to remain faithful to her lover (ariette: "Non, non, une flamme volage")  The sky darkens, lightning flashes and thunder rumbles; believing it is the wrath of Jupiter, the terrified shepherds start to flee (chorus: "Jupiter s'arme de la foudre"), but the High Priest reassures them that the god is pleased with their sacrifices and has good news for them (ariette: "La flamme des éclairs, les éclats du tonnerre")  The sky clears and Jupiter himself descends accompanied by Cupid and the Graces  He promises the people an era of peace and announces the birth of a hero (air: "Il est né, ce héros que vos vœux demande")  The priests pay homage to Jupiter and the shepherds rejoice (chorus: "Chants d'allégresse et de victoire", ariette for a shepherdess: "Volez, plaisirs, régnez, aimables jeux")  Jupiter returns to heaven, leaving Cupid behind to rule the earth  The opera concludes with a divertissement of dances, choruses and airs in praise of Cupid 

Recordings
La naissance d'Osiris Stéphanie Révidat (Pamilie), Céline Ricci (Une bergère), François-Nicolas Geslot (Un berger), Bertrand Chuberre(Le grand prêtre), Florian Westphal (Jupiter), La Simphonie du Marais, conducted by Hugo Reyne (Musiques à la Chabotterie, 2006)
On Rameau, Maître à Danser along with Daphnis et Eglé, Les Arts Florissants conducted by William Christie (1 DVD, Alpha, 2014)
Orchestral suite, Capella Savaria, conducted by Mary Térey-Smith (Naxos, 1997)
Passage 17:
Pauvres Diables
"Pauvres Diables" is a song by Julio Iglesias recorded in 1979  The song is also commonly known as "Vous les femmes" based on the opening lyrics  The song was also recorded in Spanish language by Iglesias as "Pobre diablo" 
The song has been recorded by many artists including Johnny Hallyday and later by Arno in the film score for 2013 film Les Garçons et Guillaume, à table! (English title Me, Myself and Mum)
In 2014, the song was reinterpreted by Nuno Resende, Julio Iglesias Jr  and Damien Sargue as "Vous les femmes (Pobre diablo)" in the covers compilation album Latin Lovers 
Passage 18:
Gaspard Manesse
Gaspard Manesse (born 25 March 1975 in Paris) is a French actor, composer and musician  He is best known for his starring role as Julien Quentin in the film Au revoir, les enfants (1987)  He acted in and composed the music for the film Comme il vient  Gaspard is a composer and musician - he tours throughout the heart of France playing the trumpet with a group called "Surnatural Orchestra" from the Ile-de-France 

Filmography
Comme il vient – 2002
Erreur de jeunesse (fr)   –  1989
Au revoir, les enfants (Goodbye, Children)  – 1987

External links
Gaspard Manesse at IMDb
http://surnaturalorchestra free fr/ (in French)



ground_truth: Jennifer Connelly

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

Question: Where was the person who acted in the film Sous les pieds des femmes born?

The following are given passages.
Context 4: Kearsarge was converted into a crane ship, and was given hull classification symbol IX-16 on 17 July 1920, but it was changed to AB-1 on 5 August  Her turrets, superstructure, and armor were removed, and were replaced by a large revolving crane with a lifting capacity of 250 long tons (254 t), as well as 10-foot (3 m) blisters, which improved her stability  The crane ship was used often over the next 20 years, including the raising of USS Squalus in 1939  On 6 November 1941, Kearsarge was renamed Crane Ship No  1, allowing her name to be given to the aircraft carrier that was eventually renamed Hornet, and later to the carrier Kearsarge  She continued her service, however, handling guns, turrets, armor, and other heavy lifts for vessels such as the battleships Indiana, Alabama, and  Pennsylvania and the cruisers Savannah and Chicago  She was transferred to the San Francisco Naval Shipyard in 1945, where she participated in the construction of Hornet, the carrier Boxer, and the re-construction of the carrier Saratoga  In 1948, she left the West Coast for the Boston Naval Shipyard  On 22 June 1955, her name was struck from the Naval Vessel Register, and she was sold for scrap on 9 August 

USS Kentucky (BB-6)
Kentucky laid down on the same day as her sister ship, and was launched the same day as well  She was commissioned on 15 May 1900  Later that year, she left for China to join the Eight Nation Alliance then in the process of suppressing the Boxer Rebellion  Kentucky arrived in East Asia in early 1901 and she saw no action during the final stage of the uprising  The ship operated in the region until early 1904  After returning to the United States, she joined the North Atlantic Squadron in 1905  During the 1906 Cuban Insurrection, she carried Marines to the island, embarking them in Provincetown and landing them at Havana, Cuba for the Second Occupation of Cuba In 1907, Kentucky participated in the Great White Fleet, as part of the Fourth Division with her sister  The fleet left from Hampton Roads on 16 December 1907, circled South America, passed through San Francisco, and arrived at Hawaii  From there, they sailed to New Zealand and Australia, visited the Philippine Islands, Japan, China, and Ceylon before transiting the Suez Canal  The fleet split at Port Said, with Kentucky visiting Tripoli and Algiers, before reforming with the fleet at Gibraltar  She returned to Hampton Roads on 22 February From 1909–1911, Kentucky was modernized at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard  She was thereafter placed in reserve, where she remained until she was recommissioned at Philadelphia on 23 June 1915  Following the United States occupation of Veracruz, she sailed to Mexico, patrolling the coast off Veracruz until 1916  She then returned to New York, where she laid until the United States entered World War I  During the war, she operated as a training ship as part of the mobilization effort, training several thousand men along the Atlantic coast In late 1918 and early 1919, Kentucky was overhauled at the Boston Navy Yard  She then left for exercises in Guantanamo Bay, Norfolk, and along the New England coast, and later trained United States Naval Academy midshipmen  Kentucky was decommissioned on 29 March 1920; the Navy briefly considered rebuilding her into a crane ship as well, but ultimately decided against it  Her name was struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 27 May 1922 and she was sold for scrap to Dravo Corporation on 24 March 1923 

Footnotes
Passage 4:
Otho Holland Williams
Otho Holland Williams (March 1, 1749 – July 15, 1794) was a Continental Army officer from Maryland in the American Revolutionary War  He participated in many battles throughout the war in the New York, New Jersey  and Southern theaters, eventually ending his career as a brigadier general 
Born in rural Prince George's County, Maryland, Williams spent his childhood on Springfield Farm near present-day Williamsport  He was orphaned at age thirteen and was put in the care of his father's brother-in-law, Mr  Ross  Williams took an apprenticeship under Mr  Ross and studied his profession in the Clerk's office of Frederick, eventually taking charge of the office  At age eighteen, Williams moved to Baltimore and undertook a similar trade  Williams returned to Frederick in 1774 and entered into a commercial life 
In response to Congress's call for soldiers at the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War in the spring of 1775, Williams joined a Continental Army rifle unit as a commissioned officer  Soon thereafter, he and his unit marched off to the Siege of Boston  Seeing his first significant combat action in late 1776 at the Battle of Fort Washington, Williams was captured by the British and imprisoned in New York  He was released in early 1778 and returned to the Continental Army as colonel of the 6th Maryland Regiment, a position he had acquired during his captivity  From thereafter, Williams led his regiment through much of the southern campaign, most notably in the battles of Camden, Guilford Court House, and Eutaw Springs  Near the end of the War, Williams was sent by his commanding officer General Greene with documents to Congress and was promoted to brigadier general in 1782 
After the war, Williams later served as an associate justice for Baltimore County, and as the first commissioner of the Port of Baltimore  He returned to Springfield Farm in 1787, bought the house and the surrounding land, and began laying out the town of Williamsport   In 1792, Washington offered Williams to be brigadier general of the army, though he declined due to his failing health  Williams died two years later in 1794 while travelling to Sweet Springs, Virginia 

Early life
Otho Holland Williams was born on March 1, 1749, the third generation of his family born on the North American Continent, his ancestors having emigrated from Wales   For the first year of his life, he lived with his parents Joseph and Prudence Williams in Prince George's County until the family settled at the mouth of the Conecocheague near present-day Williamsport  His family home was Springfield Farm, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974  Shortly before Joseph Williams death, he placed his thirteen-year-old son into the care of his brother-in-law Mr  Ross, who worked in the clerk's office in Frederick County   After studying the duties of the office, Williams took charge of the office himself before moving to Baltimore for similar employment at the age of eighteen   In the spring of 1774, Williams returned to Frederick and entered into commercial life 

Early War
On June 14, 1775, upon the call for soldiers by the Continental Congress, Williams joined Capt  Thomas Price's Independent Rifle Company of Maryland as first lieutenant  The company then marched to the Siege of Boston  Soon after the company's arrival in Boston, Williams was promoted to the command of the company   By order of the Continental Congress on June 27, 1776, the rifle company was integrated into the Maryland and Virginia Rifle Regiment, with Hugh Stephenson as colonel, Moses Rawlings as lieutenant colonel and Williams as major The regiment did not see much action until the Battle of Fort Washington, where Williams was taken prisoner by the British   He was taken to New York, where due to his rank he was permitted to go at large on his parole   During this time in New York, it was common for British officers to amuse themselves by insulting American prisoners with pointed questions such as "What Trade were you of before you entered the service?"  When a high ranking British officer asked this question of Williams he replied:

That he was in a profession which taught him to resist tyranny and punish insolence, and that proofs of his profession would follow a reputation towards him 
It is suggested that the officer offended by this retort informed William Phillips—then in command of the New York garrison—that Williams was sending military information to George Washington contrary to the terms of his parole   Williams was promptly arrested and confined to a sixteen square foot (1 5 square meter) room without ventilation in the city's provost jail which he shared with Ethan Allen   Due to possible maltreatment by his captors and malnourishment, his health was affected to the point where he never fully recovered from his imprisonment 
After the surrender of General John Burgoyne after the Battles of Saratoga, Williams was exchanged on January 16, 1778   During his imprisonment, Williams had been  promoted to colonel and given command of the 6th Maryland Regiment of the Maryland Line   Shortly after his release, he stated in a letter to the governor of Maryland that the regiment contained "   not above a hundred effective men    and that those are very indifferently clothed "  He further stated: "I heartily desire to join the army as soon as possible but certainly it had better be reinforced by a regiment without a colonel than by a colonel without a regiment " After joining Washington's army shortly before the Battle of Monmouth he learned that the regiment was noted for a looseness of discipline and was unable to stand with others in the line during battle  Soon after he took effective command, the 6th Maryland Regiment became known as the equal, if not superior, to any in the whole army 

Southern campaign
After the unsuccessful attempt to capture Savannah, Georgia, under the command of General Benjamin Lincoln, the Southern Department of the Continental Army retreated to Charleston, South Carolina   General Sir Henry Clinton moved his forces, surrounded the city where Lincoln's army was located and cut off any chance of relief for the Continental Army   Prior to his surrender, Lincoln had been able to get messages to General Washington and Congress requesting aid   At the end of April 1780, Washington dispatched General Johann de Kalb with 1,400 Maryland and Delaware troops   The Maryland Line made up a large portion of this force, with Williams serving in the post of Adjutant general to General De Kalb 
General de Kalb's forces took almost a month to descend the Chesapeake Bay and did not arrive in Petersburg, Virginia, until the middle of June, almost a month after Lincoln had surrendered his army  The Continental Congress appointed Horatio Gates to command the Southern Department  He assumed command on July 25, 1780, and immediately marched into South Carolina with the intent of engaging the British Army, now under the command of Charles Cornwallis  Williams served as Deputy Adjutant-General under Gates 

Battle of Camden
After brief aggressive maneuvering which threatened the British position in the Carolinas, Cornwallis moved his forces to engage the American forces   The two armies met in the Battle of Camden on August 16, 1780, six miles (9 5 km) north of Camden, South Carolina   Due to several tactical errors on the part of General Gates, Cornwallis achieved a decisive victory   Deserted by their commander and facing opposition on all sides, the Continental Army was forced to retreat   During this engagement, Williams had been stationed to the rear of the army and was unable to contribute until the end  and General de Kalb was mortally wounded   Prior to his death three days later, de Kalb paid a glowing tribute to the Maryland Troop under his command 

Battle of Guilford Court House
After the successful retreat across the Dan River, during which Williams led his men during many highly successful rear guard actions checking the enemy's advance and baffling every British attempt to bring the American army into a general engagement, General Nathanael Greene chose to offer battle to General Cornwallis's forces on March 15, 1781, on ground of his own choosing at Guilford Court House, inside the city limits of present-day Greensboro, North Carolina After the British forces had broken Greene's first line made up of North Carolina Militia and the second line made up of Virginia Militia they threatened the third line made up by the 1st Maryland Regiment, under the command of Colonel John Gunby, and the 2nd Maryland Regiment  The Brigade of Guards, under the command of a Colonel Stewart, broke through the 2nd Maryland Regiment, captured two field pieces and threatened the rear of the 1st Maryland forces whom were already engaged with sizable force under the command of a Colonel Webster 
The 1st Maryland Regiment charged and swept Webster's forces from the field   They then turned to face the oncoming guards unit   After a brief exchange of musket fire, in which 1st Maryland's commander's horse was shot from under him, the 1st Maryland Regiment charged the Guards unit who were quickly routed 
Greene, not able to see this part of the battle from his vantage point, had already ordered a retreat   Thus, unsupported, the Maryland troops were soon forced to withdraw  During this retreat the 6th Maryland Regiment under Williams again acted as the rear guard of the army and is credited with holding off the British forces allowing Greene to move his forces to safety   In recognition of Williams' gallantry, Greene appointed him to the post of Adjutant general of the Army 

Battle of Eutaw Springs
The Battle of Eutaw Springs can be divided into two distinct engagements   During the first action, Greene had given the following order to Williams:

Let Williams advance and sweep the field with his bayonets "
The 6th Maryland Regiment advanced and broke the British line forcing them to fall back several miles and allowing the Continental Army to gain control of the British Camp   The Americans then began to pillage the camp which allowed time for the British to form a new line anchored by a stone house that the Continental Army was unable to move later in the day Near the close of the War, he was sent by General Greene with dispatches to congress and on May 9, 1782, promoted to brigadier general 

Later life
After the War, Williams returned to Maryland and settled in Baltimore   He was soon appointed commissioner of the port by the governor of Maryland, an appointment that was renewed when George Washington assumed the Presidency of the United States  He was also admitted as an original member of The Society of the Cincinnati of Maryland in November 1783 and was later elected as the first assistant secretary general of the National Society at its first general meeting in 1784 In 1786 he married his wife, Mary, the second daughter of William Smith with whom he had four sons  In the year following his marriage, Williams bought his father's house near the Potomac River and dedicated himself to improving the farm and laying out the town of Williamsport, Maryland, which was named in his honor  Williams wanted the capital of the United States to be located in Williamsport and wrote a letter to Washington to that effect on November 1, 1790, enclosing a map of the town Washington thought so highly of Williams that in 1792, when Daniel Morgan refused the rank of brigadier general of the American Army, the president had Henry Knox, the United States Secretary of War, write Williams asking him to accept the position  The position would have made Williams the second in command of the American Army, but citing poor health and no ambition for the position, Williams declined the appointment  However, on December 21, 1792, Williams accepted the Maryland State Legislature's invitation for him to serve as an associate justice for Baltimore County His health deteriorating, Williams was induced to try the "sea airs" and in 1793 journeyed to Barbados which afforded him some benefits   In 1794 upon reaching Woodstock on his way to Sweet Springs, Virginia, Williams became too ill to travel   On Tuesday, July 15, 1794, at the age of 46, Otho Holland Williams died   His remains were interred under a simple monument on the summit of a hill on his Williamsport homestead   His wife died one year later leaving their children orphaned and under the care of her father 

Footnotes
Passage 5:
Battle of Kazan (1774)
The Battle of Kazan (1774) was a major battle during Pugachev's Rebellion  It took place on 12–15 July 1774 in Kazan, Russia, and the surrounding area  The first stage began in the morning of 12 July, when rebels under Yemelyan Pugachev defeated government troops and besieged them in the Kazan Kremlin  During the battle some government forces defected to the rebels' side  However, in the evening, tsarist forces under Johann Michelson reached Kazan and defeated the rebels in two battles which took place on 13 and 15 July, forcing Pugachev to retreat to Tsaryovokokshaysk and then to cross the Volga  Out of 25,000 and 15,000 rebels who participated in the first and last stages of the battle respectively, only 500 escaped 

Prelude to the battle
Kazan was threatened by Pugachev as early as the autumn of 1773  Many of the town's nobles escaped to Moscow, inspiring fear there  A defensive plan was formulated by the Russian high command and was approved personally by Catherine the Great 

Kazan's defenders
There were 3 sectors of defense in Kazan  The first, under general Banner, extended from Kazanka and Arsk Field to Qaban lakes  There, government troops were reinforced by gymnasium pupils under headmaster Kanitsa and armed town militiamen  The second was from the Pleteni to Yamskoy quarter under general-mayor Larionov, and the third was from Yamskoy to Kazanka, under colonel Svechin  The area north from the citadel was defended by Admiralty troops under Shchelin  The citadel itself was reinforced and the garrison under Letskoy was ready to fight  Zilantov Monastery and the Admiralty were turned into strongholds, redoubts were installed at Kazanka's bank and Arsk Field, and a system of knife-rests was installed around the city  Nine cannons were placed behind the knife-rests  The suburban settlements were left to defend themselves without government assistance 
There were 1,500 regular troops in Kazan, along with policemen, Admiralty troops and firemen the defenders numbered 2,000  On 2 July the governor von Brandt announced a coming siege 

Rebels
Ten mullahs sent by Catherine's officers to agitate against Pugachev were killed by rebels  The Orthodox bishop Veniamin appealed to Christians to refuse from joining Pugachev army  However, many peasants from the entire region of modern Tatarstan joined the rebellion and marched to Kazan 
On 10 and 11 July Pugachev's troops encamped to the north-east of Kazan, between Troitskaya Noksa and Tsaritsyno  The army numbered 25,000, mostly Cossacks supported by Tatar and Udmurt peasants and Bashkir cavalry  Only the Cossacks had firearms; the Bashkirs were armed with bows while the peasants were mostly equipped with clubs and stakes  On 11 July, Pugachev, with an interpreter, approached Kazan borders and demanded that the loyalist forces surrender  The Tatar community was invited to support the rebellion  Von Brandt refused to disarm; however, the Tatars quarters sent seventy emissaries with presents to Pugachev  They also disclosed weaknesses in the Kazan defense 
On 12 July, at four o'clock in the morning, Pugachev convened a council of war, dividing his army into 4 groups  The first two under Beloborodov and Mineyev should attack Arsk Field, the main group under Pugachev himself attacked Sukonny (Broadcloth Manufactory) quarter  The group under Ovchinnikov and Bakhmutov should attack Tatar quarters  The storm started at six o'clock after Pugachev's prayer 

Battle
Storm of Kazan
Beloborodov took Neyelova grove, the area of modern-day Gorky Park and approached the citadel by the avenue now known as Karl Marx Street  Pugachev's cannons neutralized government artillery and shelled the defenders of the cloth factory under manufacturer Dryablov  Workers joined the rebel army  The fourth group of rebels reached Mokry quarter and Admiralty 
Government troops were forced to retreat and were besieged in the citadel  Nearly half of the defenders, mostly ethnic Tatars, defected to the rebels  The central stone part of Kazan, mostly settled by Russian nobles and merchants, was set on fire  Sukonny and Tatar quarters, however, stayed safe 
Pugachev ordered his troops to safeguard the lives of civilians and captives  They were convoyed to the nearby village of Savinovo, where Pugachev invited them to join his troops  Among others, a captive Lutheran priest was appointed colonel in Pugachev's army, but nobles and resisters were massacred 

Pugachev's family
Pugachev's family, his wife Sofia Dmitrievna, his 11-year-old son Trofim, daughters Khristina and Agrafena and his brother, were imprisoned in Kazan during the rebellion  Sofia Pugacheva should confirm, that Yemelyan is not Peter III, but a Cossack  She could visit markets to spread this information  When Pugachev's group marched they occasionally met his family  Trofim called him, but Pugachev said that he is simply a friend of this family  So, he took them to unit transport 

Michelson's arrival
The Kremlin surrounded, rebel cannons were installed near Spasskaya Tower and started shelling  After noon, Pugachev stopped the storm and retreated to Arsk Field  There he participated in thanksgiving service  Then he had a dinner at Tatar merchant Musa Apanayev's house 
In the evening governmental troops from Ufa under Johann Michelson reached Kazan  A harsh battle took place at the modern Gogol street, but neither side won  Pugachev retreated to Savinovo and Sukhaya Reka villages  On 13 July he tried to prevent the end of the siege of the citadel, but under the pressure of Michelson and Potyomkin the rebels were defeated and were forced to retreat  On 15 July Pugachyov's army of 15,000 was defeated in the battle of Arsk Field  Pugachev with 500 men escaped to Tsaryovokokshaysk, to cross the Volga on 18 July and to continue his struggle then  Michelson didn't follow him, as government forces had no horses 
Before the trial captives were imprisoned in a camp near the suburb of Bishbalta  In autumn two gallows were placed in Kazan, one in Sukonny, another in Tatar quarter  Many captive rebels were executed, including Beloborodov and Mineyev 

Aftermath
After Pugachev's escape some rebel groups under Bäxtiär Qanqayıv and Usman Timerev continued the resistance, but they were shortly neutralized by governmental troops 
The battle of Kazan had a significant role in Tatarstan's history  The Tatar participation in the rebellion numbered up to 85,000  Nevertheless, the participants of the rebellion were harshly punished  The Tsar's government continued its policy of the support of Muslim nobility and clergy, to prevent similar uprisings as a result of religious oppression in the future  Feudal oppression, however, stayed for a long time This battle took a major place in the Soviet culture  The first Tatar movie Bulat-Batır was devoted to Pugachev's rebellion in Tatarstan and the siege of Kazan 

See also
Pugachov's oak


== References and footnotes ==
Passage 6:
HMS Galatea (1914)
HMS Galatea was one of eight Arethusa-class light cruisers built for the Royal Navy in the 1910s  She fought in the First World War, participating in the Battle of Jutland  Following the war, she was scrapped 

Design and description
The Arethusa-class cruisers were intended to lead destroyer flotillas and defend the fleet against attacks by enemy destroyers  The ships were 456 feet 6 inches (139 1 m) long overall, with a beam of 49 feet 10 inches (15 2 m) and a deep draught of 15 feet 3 inches (4 6 m)  Displacement was 5,185 long tons (5,268 t) at normal and 5,795 long tons (5,888 t) at full load  Arethusa was powered by four Parsons steam turbines, each driving one propeller shaft, which produced a total of 40,000 indicated horsepower (30,000 kW)  The turbines used steam generated by eight Yarrow boilers which gave her a speed of about 28 5 knots (52 8 km/h; 32 8 mph)  She carried 840 long tons (853 t) tons of fuel oil that gave a range of 5,000 nautical miles (9,300 km; 5,800 mi) at 16 knots (30 km/h; 18 mph) The main armament of the Arethusa-class ships was two BL 6-inch (152 mm) Mk XII guns that were mounted on the centreline fore and aft of the superstructure and six QF 4-inch Mk V guns in waist mountings  They were also fitted with a single QF 3-pounder 47 mm (1 9 in) anti-aircraft gun and four 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes in two twin mounts 

Service history
She was launched on 14 May 1914 at William Beardmore and Company shipyard  On her commissioning she was assigned as the leader to the 2nd Destroyer Flotilla of the Harwich Force, guarding the eastern approaches to the English Channel  On 4 May 1916, she took part in the shooting down of Zeppelin L 7  At the Battle of Jutland, she was the flagship of the 1st Light Cruiser Squadron under Commodore E S  Alexander-Sinclair  She was the first ship to report the presence of German ships, triggering the battle  Galatea was also the first to receive a hit by the German light cruiser SMS Elbing, but no explosion occurred  She was sold for scrapping on 25 October 1921  Mount Galatea in Alberta, Canada is named after this ship 

Notes
Bibliography
Colledge, J  J ; Warlow, Ben (2006) [1969]  Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of all Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy (Rev  ed )  London: Chatham Publishing  ISBN 978-1-86176-281-8 
Corbett, Julian (March 1997)  Naval Operations to the Battle of the Falklands  History of the Great War: Based on Official Documents  Vol  I (2nd, reprint of the 1938 ed )  London and Nashville, Tennessee: Imperial War Museum and Battery Press  ISBN 0-89839-256-X 
Corbett, Julian (1997)  Naval Operations  History of the Great War: Based on Official Documents  Vol  II (reprint of the 1929 second ed )  London and Nashville, Tennessee: Imperial War Museum in association with the Battery Press  ISBN 1-870423-74-7 
Friedman, Norman (2010)  British Cruisers: Two World Wars and After  Barnsley, South Yorkshire, UK: Seaforth  ISBN 978-1-59114-078-8 
Friedman, Norman (2011)  Naval Weapons of World War One  Barnsley, South Yorkshire, UK: Seaforth  ISBN 978-1-84832-100-7 
Gardiner, Robert & Gray, Randal, eds  (1985)  Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1906–1921  Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press  ISBN 0-85177-245-5 
Newbolt, Henry (1996)  Naval Operations  History of the Great War Based on Official Documents  Vol  V (reprint of the 1931 ed )  Nashville, Tennessee: Battery Press  ISBN 0-89839-255-1 
Pearsall, Alan (1984)  "Arethusa Class Cruisers, Part I"  Warship  London: Conway Maritime Press  VIII: 203–11  ISBN 0-87021-983-9 
Pearsall, Alan (1984)  "Arethusa Class Cruisers, Part II"  Warship  London: Conway Maritime Press  VIII: 258–65  ISBN 0-87021-983-9 

External links

Ships of the Arethusa class
Battle of Jutland Crew Lists Project - HMS Galatea Crew List
Passage 7:
Jakub Jasiński
Jakub Krzysztof Jasiński (Lithuanian: Jokūbas Kristupas Jasinskis) of Rawicz Clan (24 July 1761 – 4 November 1794) was a Polish general, and poet of Enlightenment  He participated in the War in Defence of the Constitution in 1792, was an enemy of the Targowica Confederation and organized an action against its supporters in Vilnius  He participated also in the Kościuszko Uprising, during the course of which he was killed in the Battle of Praga in 1794 
A graduate of the Warsaw-based Szkoła Rycerska, with time he became the tutor of engineering at his alma mater  He fought with distinction in the War in Defense of the Constitution of 1792  After the king joined the Targowica Confederation he remained loyal to the new authorities  In 1789 he became the commanding officer of the Engineering Corps for Lithuania 

War in Defence of the Constitution
He participated in the Battle of Brześć in July 1792, for which he was awarded the military award Virtuti Militari Despite his antipathy towards the Confederation of Targowica, opposed the Constitution of 3 May which Jasiński had defended, during this time he pledged his loyalty to it, not giving up conspiratorial activities against it 

The war of liberation
During the Kościuszko Uprising of 1794 Jasiński was among the most prominent members of the radical wing of the Polish Jacobins and at the same time a successful military commander of partisan forces in the area of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania  In April of that year he liberated the city of Vilnius by leading a successful uprising there  Supported by Tadeusz Kościuszko and appointed the commander in chief of all the partisan forces in the former Grand Duchy, he managed to defeat numerous Russian garrisons in the area  However, accusations of radical republicanism brought him into conflict with the state authorities, and by the beginning of June he was forced to resign as commander-in-chief of Lithuanian forces and pass his office to General Michał Wielhorski  Jakub Jasiński continued to harass enemy forces in Lithuania and then withdrew with a small partisan troop towards Warsaw  There he perished in November during the defense of Warsaw against the forces of Alexander Suvorov 
Among his literary works are numerous poems of satirical and fabled character, under huge influence of Voltaire, for example Jasiński's better-known "Sprzeczki" (Quarrels)  He was also an author of many patriotic and revolutionary poems and songs against injustices, inspired by the French Revolution, and arousing hope of a similar one in his homeland 

Commemoration

In Poland, there are or were a number of streets named after Jakub Jasiński, including in Warsaw, Chorzów, Częstochowa, Gliwice, Inowrocław, Kraków, Lublin, Łódź, Przemyśl, Radom, Świdnica, and Zielona Góra 
Outside Poland, he is also commemorated in the names of Streets in Belarus, where there is a street named after him in Maladzyechna as well in Lithuania, where he has a street both in the Old Town of Vilnius and in Kaunas  Belarus also released a stamp with his image in 1994 



ground_truth: La Goulette