the-french-artist/wikipedia_20220301.simple_sentence_split huggingface dataset:
She used to ride sidesaddle to her criminal activities wearing a black velvet riding habit and a feathered hat.
She carried two pistols.
Cartridge belts were strapped across her hips.
Jim Reed started committing crimes.
He was wanted for murder in Arkansas.
The family moved to California.
Starr gave birth to their second child, James Edwin (Eddie), in 1871.
Jim Reed returned to Texas.
He was involved with several criminal gangs.
He tried farming.
He became restless.
He was friendly with the Starr clan.
This clan was a Cherokee Indian family.
They were well known for whiskey, cattle, and horse thievery in the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma).
Jim also was involved with his wife's old friends, the James and Younger gangs.
In April 1874, an arrest warrant was issued for Starr.
People said she was involved in a stagecoach robbery.
The robbery had been done by her husband and others.
There was no proof she was involved in this robbery.
Reed was killed in August of that year in Paris, Texas.
He had settled there with his family.
Marriage to Sam Starr
Starr may have been briefly married to Charles Younger in 1878.
There is no proof that they were married.
In 1880, she married a Cherokee man named Sam Starr.
She settled with him in the Indian Territory.
There, she learned ways to help the cattle thieves, horse thieves and other criminals.
She also hid them from the law.
Starr's illegal activities made money.
She used this money to free other outlaws from jail.
In 1883, Starr and Sam were charged with horse theft.
They were tried in Fort Smith, Arkansas.
She spent nine months at the Detroit House of Corrections in Detroit, Michigan.
In 1886, she was again charged with theft.
This time she was not convicted.
On December 17, Sam Starr was involved in a gunfight with Officer Frank West.
After this, Starr stopped being an outlaw.
Unsolved murder
During the last years of her life, Starr had relationships with several men.
These men had colorful names like Jack Spaniard, Jim French, and Blue Duck.
She married a relative of Sam Starr named Jim July Starr.
He was about 15 years younger than Starr.
On February 3, 1889, Starr was killed in Oklahoma.
She was ambushed.
She died from shotgun wounds to her back, neck, shoulder, and face.
Legend says she was shot with her own double barrel shotgun.
No one was ever convicted of the murder.
Some say the murderer was one of her sharecroppers.
He was afraid she was going to turn him in to the police.
He was an escaped murderer from Florida.
He was tried for Starr's murder.
The murder of Belle Starr remains unsolved.
Story becomes popularized
Starr's story interested publisher Richard K. Fox.
Her story was printed in dime novels and the National Police Gazette.
Fox made her name famous with his novel, Bella Starr, the Bandit Queen, or the Female Jesse James.
This book was published in 1889.
This novel is sometimes cited as a historical reference.
It was the first of many popular stories that used her name.
The Royal Alcazar of Madrid (Real Alcázar de Madrid) was a former royal residence.
It was originally built as a fortress by Muslims between 850 and 856 AD.
It was in the center of Madrid and served as the center of the Spanish royal court.
This was up to the construction of the Royal Palace of Madrid by the Bourbons in the 1700's.
the great building kept its original title of Alcázar (English: "fortress").
It was famous for its many paintings and for its unusual architecture.
It was the residence of the Spanish Royal Family and home of the Court until it was destroyed by fire in 1734.
Many artistic treasures were lost.
This included over 500 paintings, although 1,038 artworks were saved from the fire.
One of these was Las Meninas by Velázquez.
It was damaged, but later restored by Juan García de Miranda.
Royal Palace of Madrid the building that is presently on the site.
skrtttt the boi 100 is lit my boi
The Taxali Gate is one of the 12 gates of the old medieval walled city of Lahore, now in Pakistan.
It dates from Mughal times.
The Royal Mint (where coins were made) of the Mughal Empire or Taxal, was here.
The gate was named for that.
Today, there is no mint here.
There is a very famous shoe market, Sheikhupurian Bazaar.
People can go there and try Desi (local) foods like Siri Paya and many types of sweets.
The world-famous Heera Mandi red light area is also in this area.
This was made famous in Rudyard Kipling's novel, Kim (published 1901).
Gregor Miguel Blanco Pedraza (born December 24, 1983) is a Venezuelan professional baseball player.
He is an outfielder for the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Gregor Blanco was the center fielder and leadoff hitter for Tiburones de La Guaira in Venezuela.
He hit .315 (178 AB) in the 2006–07 season.
In the 2007-2008 season, he hit .345 (229 AB).
In the 2008-2009 season, he hit .349.
He eventually was sent to the majors because of Jordan Schafer's struggles.
The Heera Mandi (Diamond Market), also called Shahi Mohallah (Royal Neighborhood) as well as chudhai center , is a famous red-light district of the old Taxali Gate of Lahore, Pakistan.
A red-light district is an area where prostitutes work.
The Heera Mandi was first called the 'Shahi Mohallah' or Royal Neighborhood in the 17th century.
It was called that because many princes and nobles of the Mughal dynasty used to come there.
At that time there were only Tawaifs (dancing girls) and courtesans there.
They were there to amuse the people.
Later, some women from other parts of Indian Subcontinent were also brought to perform classical Indian dances such as Kathak to entertain Mughals.
During the rule of the Sikh king Ranjit Singh, prostitution [chudhai] also was common.
Many brothels were opened there.
Ranjit Singh renamed this place 'Heera Mandi'.
It was named for an officer, Heera Singh, who lived there.
Some historians think that he named it for the beautiful girls (prostitutes) who lived there.
They were like precious diamonds.
British times
When the British Raj came to power in this region, Christian missionaries asked for the Heera Mandi to be moved away.
They thought the activities there were 'sinful'.
The British government tried to move it, but they were forced to move it back because people did not like this idea.
Later, after the 1870s, the British also added some special brothels there for British soldiers.
This area was made famous in Rudyard Kipling's novel Kim (printed in 1901).
After Pakistan became independent in 1947, the Heera Mandi went on as before.
Later, under the harsh Islamic puritanical rule of the military dictator General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, a big operation was started to 'clean' the area from prostitution and crime.
Many brothels were moved or closed by force.
However, once again, people did not like this move.
Many of the brothels and other businesses were re-opened.
Even though prostitution is supposed to be illegal in Pakistan, the Mandi still exists.
It is also famous for some very good food shops nearby, where many people including foreign tourists come to just eat and watch the shows.
Lollywood film actress, director and producer.
She has appeared in more than 200 films since making her debut in 1990.
Reema Khan was born in 1972, in the Heera Mandi area of Lahore, Pakistan.
She was first spotted in 1990 by the Pakistani film director Javed Fazil and was offered the leading role in his film Bulandi.
She became popular at once and went on getting success.
Main films and later career
Khan's early films included 'Zherilay', 'Ishq', 'Naag Devta', 'Pyar hi pyar', 'Sailab', 'Dil', 'Aag', 'Shama' and 'Sahiba'.
These were followed by films such as 'Hina', 'Anjuman', 'Chakuri', 'Chandni', 'Neelam' and 'Insaniat'.
Later she appeared in 'Hathi Meray Sathi' directed by Shameem Ara and in 'Rani Beti Raj Karegi' directed by Altaf Hussain.
In 2002, Asif Ali Pota's 'Fire' and Samina Peerzada's 'Shararat' were released starring Reema in the lead role.
She later also started making some films as a producer and part-time director.
Reema married American cardiologist and surgeon Syed Tariq Shahab on 16 November 2011 in Virginia, United States.
After her marriage, she produced and directed the film 'Love mein Ghum', released on 31st August 2011.
This was a very big commercial and critical success in Pakistan, making over
320 million rupees profit.
Reema is mostly living in the USA now and planning new film
Lucasfilm Animation is an American television and movie animation company.
It is the animation division of Lucasfilm Ltd.. It is known for the Star Wars: The Clone Wars television series.
The division became part of Disney Television Animation company after Disney bought Lucasfilm for $4,000,000,000.
Their logo included R2-D2.
Star Wars: Clone Wars television series (2005-2008 (co-produced with Cartoon Network studios)
Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008 TV Series) television series (2008-2014/present)(distributed by Cartoon Network)
Star Wars Rebels television series (2014-present) (co-production with Disney and distributed by Disney XD)
Lego Star Wars: The Yoda Chronicles film series (2013/2014)(co-production with WILFILM and LEGO and distributed by Disney XD)
Star Wars: The Clone Wars (film) film (2008) (distributed by Wardner Bros.)
Star Wars: Ewoks (co-production with Nevaland)
Asma Jilani Jahangir (27 January 1952 – 11 February 2018) was a leading Pakistani lawyer.
Born in Lahore, she was an advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, President Supreme Court Bar Association of Pakistan and a human rights activist who works both in Pakistan and internationally to prevent the persecution of religious minorities, women, and exploitation of children.
Kari Peter Conrad von Bagh (29 August 1943 – 17 September 2014) was a Finnish movie historian, writer and director.
He worked as the head of the Finnish Film Archive and directed many movie festivals.
He was the editor-in-chief of Filmihullu magazine.
From 2001 until his death, he had been the artistic director of the Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna, Italy.
In 2004, he was a member of the jury in the competition category of the Cannes Film Festival.
Von Bagh was born in Helsinki.
He graduated from the University of Helsinki.
He also was a professor at many other universities across Finland, teaching movie history.
Von Bagh died after a long illness on 17 September 2014 in Helsinki.
Peter von Bagh at the Cannes Film Festival webpage
Finnish educators
Finnish movie directors
Writers from Helsinki
Carolyn Jean Spellmann Shoemaker (June 24, 1929 – August 13, 2021) was an American astronomer.
She was a co-discoverer of Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9.
She held the record for most comets discovered by a single person.
Shoemaker was born Carolyn Jean Spellmann in Gallup, New Mexico, United States.
She was the widow of Eugene Shoemaker, a planetary scientist.
They were married from 1951 until his death in 1997.
Shoemaker died on August 13, 2021 in Flagstaff, Arizona at the age of 92.
The cause of death was health problems caused by a fall.
Universe Today page about Carolyn Shoemaker
Biography of Carolyn Shoemaker at the USGS Astrogeology Science Center
Audrey Charteris (née Long; April 22, 1922 – September 19, 2014) was an American actress.
She appeared in 33 low-budget movies and television shows in the 1940s and early 1950s.
Her best known roles were in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), Tall in the Saddle (1944), Wanderer of the Wasteland (1945), Born to Kill (1947), and Desperate (1947).
Long was born in Orlando, Florida.
Her father was an Episcopal minister and English immigrant.
During her childhood, she and her family moved to Canada as well as Honolulu, Hawaii, and San Francisco, California.
She was educated in both California and Virginia.
She was first married to Edward Rubin from 1945 until their divorce in 1951.
She was later married to British writer Leslie Charteris from 1952 until his death in 1993.
The January Man is a 1989 comedy-thriller movie.
It is about a former New York City police detective lured back into his job when a serial killer terrorizes the city.
Susan Sarandon plays Christine.
Harvey Keitel plays Frank.
Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio plays Bernadette.
Danny Aiello plays Vincent.
Kevin Kline plays Nick.
Florentinus Ludovicus Leopoldus Eduard ("Flor") Van Noppen (28 June 1956 – 22 September 2014) was a Belgian politician.
He was a member of the N-VA.
Van Noppen was the brother of veterinarian Karel Van Noppen, who was murdered by the hormone mafia.
Van Noppen was elected as a member of the Belgian Chamber of Representatives in 2007 and reelected in 2010.
He also served as city councilor (2001-2014) and alderman (2007-2013) of Dessel.
Van Noppen, who suffered from Multiple system atrophy, retired from politics after the 2014 elections upon completing his term.
Rackstraw Downes (born 1939) is a British-born American realist painter and author.
His oil paintings are known for their details about the months of plein-air sessions.
His drawings usually show industry and the environment background.
Downs lives in Midland, Texas, but was originally from Maine and Connecticut.
Johnny Handsome is a 1989 crime-drama movie.
Ellen Barkin plays Sunny.
Mickey Rourke plays the title character.
Elizabeth McGovern plays Donna.
Morgan Freeman plays A.Z. Drones.
Forest Whitaker plays Steven Fisher.
The movie was not a success at the box office.
It was released on DVD in 2002 and Blu-ray in 2010.
Eugene Merle Shoemaker (April 28, 1928 – July 18, 1997), also known as Gene Shoemaker, was an American geologist.
He was one of the founders of the field of planetary science.
He was best known for co-discovering the Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 with his wife Carolyn Shoemaker and David Levy.
On July 31, 1999, some of his ashes were carried to the Moon by the Lunar Prospector space probe.
USGS page about Gene Shoemaker
NASA page about Gene Shoemaker
David H. Levy (born May 22, 1948) is a Canadian astronomer and science writer.
He co-discovered Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 in 1993, which collided with the planet Jupiter in 1994.
Levy was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
David Levy's Home Page
Gallup is a city in McKinley County, New Mexico, United States.
The population was 21,678 at the 2010 census.
It is the county seat of McKinley County.
Arthur Thomas Hannett (February 17, 1884 –  March 18, 1966) was an American politician.
He became the seventh Governor of New Mexico.
Lyons is a town in Wayne County, New York, United States.
The population was 5,831 at the 2000 census.
The town is named after Lyons (usually now spelled Lyon), France.
The Smitley River is a river in British Columbia, Canada.
It is in the north Pacific Ranges of the Coast Mountains.
It flows southeast to join the Noeick River.
The Smitley River starts on the east side of Mount Saugstad.
Panipat is an old town in Haryana area of India.
It is 90 kms north of Delhi and 130 kms south of Chandigarh.
The Third Battle of Panipat was a major battle of Indian history, fought on 14th January 1761.
It was fought between the Afghan forces of Ahmad Shah Durrani along with his local Rohilla and other Pathan and Oudh allies, against the Maratha Empire.
The Durrani Afghan forces and their allies finally won and defeated the Marathas.
The place of battle field is disputed by historians, but most of them are in favour of horiana in Punjab regions not far away from Delhi.
The Marathas dug a trench which was three kilometres long and four hundred metres wide.
Ahmad Shah Durrani showed his shrewdness by grounding pretended  tents behind which there was a four kilometres long  curtain.
Behind the banner of curtain Ahmad Shah Durrani dug four kilometres long and twenty feet wide cannals.
By extracting muds from the channel  five feet high, twenty feet wide and four kilometres long road was made behind which Afgan riflemen can take safer position to fire acutely targeting advancing Maratha soldiers.
Furthermore, Ahmad Shah Durrani laid his short range movable cannons on the backs of camels positioned behind the road from which cannon fire could be made targeting the advancing Maratha soldiers over the heads of his own forces.
There were four feeder roads one kilometre  away from each other on which Afgan horsemen could come down to battle field and if needed could retreat behind the shadow of five feet high covering road.
These four feeder roads were short, narrow and sloping to battle field.
Ahmad Shah Abdali tried to bait Maratha troops to advance and Marathas stepped into this trap.
Afgans riflemen and short range cannons fired flawlessly onto the Marathas Army and Marathas'began to fall down one after another.
In this final stage of battle Ahmad Shah Abdali's left flank and right flank came down to battle field surrounding Maratha forces on three sides.
In this conjuncture  of the battle, Holker left the battle field realizing the battle was lost and Marathas almost lost their ground in the battle  leaving the chief Sadashivrorao Bhaou encircled by his  bodyguards in the midst of the battle field.
Front troops of Ahmad Shah did not further advance fearing cannon fire of the Marathas'.
Under the cover of these French made cannon 15,000 Maratha forces managed to flee leaving their chief vulnerable.
Some historians disputed that if Malharo Holkerr or Roghunath Rao was made chief of Maratha Army, the result might have been different, because they were well-known about the political situation of North India.
Malharo Holker and Master Roghunath Rao invaded Bangla, Biher and Urisya during the reign of Nawab Alivordi Khan and campaigned guerrilla warfare against his kingdom.
So, they were well-known about this locality and were experienced to campaign guerrilla warfare in this terrain.
But it should be kept in mind that Sadashivro Rao Bhau who was peshwa's younger brother and peshwa's son Vishwash Rao also took part in this battle.
If Roghunath Rao or Holker was made chief of the Maratha Army, lives of Baji Rao and Sadashivrorao Bhau would have been in jeopardy.
Keeping this in mind, Peshwa made Sadashivrorao Bhau the chief of Maratha Army.
When the battle began at 8 a.m.on 14th January, 1761 after the Marathas' scantier foodgrains were engulfed by their soldiers, Durrani forces fired their short range cannons, but proved to be ineffective because of falling their ignition on the middle of the battlefield.
Thus Ahmad Shah Durrani tried to thwart Maratha advance, he sent his special messenger over the river Jamuna to cross his roughly 15000 baluch soldiers who were engaged to block supply lines of Maratha.
Ahmad Shah Abdali had little faith on his allies's ground troops.
So, he cunningly played hit and run tactics until his 15000 Baluch troops completed crossing Jamuna toward the East.
After reaching his 15000 cavalry troops in the evening, Ahmad Shah Abdali decided the final phase of his charge.
In the meantime, after receiving message of crossing 15000 Afgan troops across the river Jamuna, Vishwasrao disappeared from the battlefield and secretly crossed the river Jamuna on the west.
This was a major blow for the maratha side.
On the other side Ahmad Shah Abdali tried to prolong the battle for minimum losses and maximum gains.
And he was successful in his tactics.
Zabardast Khan (died 1788) was a Suleman Khel Ghilzai Pathan warrior in history.
He fought at the Third Battle of Panipat as part of the Afghan forces of Ahmad Shah Durrani.
Marc Okrand (; born July 3rd, 1948) is an American linguist.
He is known for making the Klingon language.
Okrand worked with Native American languages.
He earned a bachelor's degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1972.
His 1977 doctoral work from the University of California, Berkeley, was on the grammar of Mutsun, a dialect of Ohlone (a.k.a.
Southern Costanoan).
Southern Costanoan is an extinct Utian language earlier spoken in the north central Californian coastal areas from Northern Costanoan down to 30 miles south of Salinas.
Okrand's doctoral work was watched over by early linguist Mary Haas.
He taught college linguistics courses at the University of California, Santa Barbara, from 1975 to 1978.
After that he took a post doctoral fellowship at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., in 1978.
Okrand helped make closed captioning for the Oscars award show in 1982.
While there Okrand met the producer for the movie Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
His first work was replacing in Vulcan language words for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
The actors had been filmed talking in English.
He was then hired by Paramount Pictures to make the Klingon language.
Okrand also taught the actors using it in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.
He was later also hired for the 2009 Star Trek film for their use of the Romulan and Vulcan languages.
He also made a Klingon dialogue for the 2009 movie, but it was not used in the final edited version.
Okrand was also involved in Star Trek Into Darkness, but only after the movie was finished being made.
a press release about Marc Okrand  at the National Captioning Institute's website
Marc Okrand  at startrek.com
Interview with Marc Okrand in the Wall Street Journal
A eulogy (from , eulogia, meaning "praise") is a speech or writing in praise of a person or thing.
It is often given about a recently dead or retired person.
Eulogies may be given as part of funeral services.
North Bend is a village in Miami Township, Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, along the Ohio River.
The population was 857 at the 2010 census.
Mary Rosamund Haas (January 12, 1910 – May 17, 1996) was an American linguist.
She studied Native American Indian languages.
She also studied Thai and historical linguistics.
Sahana Pradhan (17 June 1927 – 22 September 2014) was a Nepalese politician.
She was Minister of Foreign Affairs until she resigned on 16 April 2008.
In 1986, she became the leader of the Communist Party of Nepal.
In 1987, the political party merged with another one.
Pradhan was born in Kathmandu.
She was married to politician Pushpa Lal Shrestha until his death in 1978.
Pradhan died from a brain haemorrhage on 22 September 2014 in Kathmandu.
Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist–Leninist) politicians
Deputy Prime ministers of Nepal
Star Trek Into Darkness is a 2013 American science fiction action movie.
The movie was directed by J. J. Abrams.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1408101/ - IMDb
Geochronology is the science of finding the ages of rocks, fossils and sediments.
It uses a number of methods.
Geochronology is the main tool used to get absolute age dates for all fossil assemblages, and for the history of the Earth and other bodies.
By measuring the amount of radioactive decay of a radioactive isotope with a known half-life, geologists can establish the absolute age of the parent material.
A number of radioactive isotopes are used for this purpose, and depending on the rate of decay, are used for dating different geological periods.
More slowly decaying isotopes are useful for longer periods of time, but less accurate in absolute years.
With the exception of the radiocarbon method, most of these techniques are actually based on measuring an increase in the abundance of a radiogenic isotope, which is the decay-product of the radioactive parent isotope.
Two or more radiometric methods can be used in concert to achieve more robust results.
Most radiometric methods are suitable for geological time only, but some such as the radiocarbon method and the 40Ar/39Ar dating method can be extended into the time of early human life and into recorded history.
Radiocarbon dating.
This technique measures the decay of carbon-14 in organic material and can be best applied to samples younger than about 60,000 years.
Uranium-lead dating.
This technique measures the ratio of two lead isotopes (lead-206 and lead-207) to the amount of uranium in a mineral or rock.
Often applied to the trace mineral zircon in igneous rocks, this method is one of the two most commonly used (along with argon-argon dating) for geologic dating.
Uranium-lead dating is applied to samples older than about 1 million years.
Uranium-thorium dating.
This technique is used to date speleothems, corals, carbonates, and fossil bones.
Its range is from a few years to about 700,000 years.
Potassium-argon dating and argon-argon dating.
These techniques  date metamorphic, igneous and volcanic rocks.
They are also used to date volcanic ash layers within or overlying human anthropology sites.
The younger limit of the argon-argon method is a few thousand years.
Electron spin resonance (ESR) dating
Cosmogenic nuclides
A series of techniques to find the age when a surface was created or exposed.
Exposure dating uses the concentration of nuclides like  10Be, 26Al, 36Cl.
They are produced by cosmic rays interacting with Earth materials.
The data show when a surface, such as an alluvial fan, was created.
Burial dating uses the radioactive decay of two elements to find the age when a sediment was buried away from cosmic rays.
Luminescence dating
Luminescence dating techniques use 'light' emitted from materials such as quartz, diamond, feldspar, and calcite.
Many types of luminescence techniques are used in geology and in archaeology.
Incremental dating
Ice cores
Varves
Paleomagnetic dating
Marker horizons are stratigraphic units of the same age, with distinctive composition and appearance.
So, though they are in different geographic sites, there is certainty about their age-equivalence.
Fossil faunal and floral assemblages, marine and terrestrial, make for distinctive marker horizons.
Volcanic ash (tephra) has a geochemical fingerprint.
Tephra is often used as a dating tool in archaeology, because the dates of some volcanic eruptions are well-established.
The Atlantean language is a constructed language created by Marc Okrand.
It was made  for Disney's film Atlantis: The Lost Empire.
Atlantean Language Institute – Provides a dictionary, grammar guide, and corpus
Atlantis: The Lost Empire, the film for which the language was created.
Dulla Bhatti or Dullah Bhatti real name Abdullah Bhatti (popularly referred to as the Son of Punjab' or 'Robin Hood of Punjab') (died 1599) was a famous Punjabi Folk hero and freedom fighter who led a revolt against Mughal rule during the rule of the emperor Akbar.
He belonged to the Bhatti Muslim Rajput tribe and was a zamindar or rural farmer.
On becoming a young man, Dulla was angered to see the injustice of the Mughal rulers against local Punjabis, and he turned against them.
He started guerilla warfare against the Mughal forces in the Punjab and was successful to some extent for 10 or 12 years.
Later, however, he was defeated by the Mughal forces through the betrayal of some enemies and was imprisoned in Lahore Fort, Lahore.
He was later hanged there in 1599.
Place in popular literature and culture
Bhatti still remains a big and popular hero for Punjabi people, and he is mostly remembered in the traditional Punjabi var (ballads or songs about heroes).
He is also remembered in the traditional dhadhi performances, like poems acted out, where actors show his many brave deeds.
A number of books, stories (fiction) and plays (drama) have been written about his life and deeds, most famous of these is Takht Lahore a 1973 play or drama written by the Pakistani writer Najam Hussain Syed.
A number of Urdu and Punjabi films have been made about him, including Dullah Bhatti (1956) by famed director Anwar Kamal Pasha.
This is a timeline of events in the Levant by the Jihadist militant group called the Islamic State (also called IS, ISIS, ISIL or Daesh).
2014 events
3 January: ISIS was proclaimed an Islamic state in Fallujah.
After tension for a long time, the newly formed Army of Mujahedeen, the Free Syrian Army and the Islamic Front launched an offensive against ISIS-held territory in the Syrian provinces of Aleppo and Idlib.
A spokesman for the rebels said that rebels had attacked ISIS in up to 80% of all ISIS-held villages in Idlib and 65% of those in Aleppo.
4 January: ISIS claimed responsibility for the car-bomb attack on 2 January that killed four people and wounded dozens in the southern Beirut suburb of Haret Hreik, an area controlled by Hezbollah.
6 January: Syrian rebels had managed to expel ISIS forces from the city of Ar-Raqqah, ISIS's largest stronghold and capital of Ar-Raqqah province.
Several weeks later ISIS took the city back.
8 January: Syrian rebels expelled most ISIS forces from the city of Aleppo.
However, ISIS reinforcements from Deir ez-Zor province managed to retake several neighborhoods of the city of Ar-Raqqah.
By mid-January ISIS fighters had retaken the entire city of Ar-Raqqah, while rebels expelled ISIS fighters fully from Aleppo city and the villages west of it.
25 January: ISIS announced the creation of its new Lebanese arm, pledging to fight the Shia militant group Hezbollah and its supporters in Lebanon.
29 January: Turkish aircraft near the border fired on an ISIS convoy inside Aleppo province in Syria, killing 11 ISIS fighters and one ISIS emir.
30 January: ISIS fired on border patrol soldiers in Turkey.
The Turkish Army retaliated with Panter howitzers and destroyed the ISIS convoy.
In late January, it was confirmed that Syrian rebels had assassinated ISIS's second-in-command, Haji Bakr, who was al-Qaeda's military council head and a former military officer in Saddam Hussein's army.
3 February: al-Qaeda's general command broke off its links with ISIS, reportedly to concentrate the Muslim extremist effort on unseating President Bashar al-Assad.
By mid-February, the al-Nusra Front had joined the battle in support of rebel forces, and expelled ISIS forces from Deir ez-Zor province in Syria.
23 February: The Islamic State carried out a suicide attack in Aleppo killing a commander of Ahrar ash-Sham and 6 other members of the group.
By March, ISIS forces had fully retreated from Syria's Idlib province after battles against the Syrian rebels.
4 March: ISIS retreated from the Aleppo province–Turkey border town of Azaz and nearby villages, choosing instead to stay around Ar-Raqqah, expecting more fighting with al-Nusra.
8 March: During an interview with French television channel France 24, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki accused Saudi Arabia and Qatar of openly funding ISIS.
20 March: In Niğde, a city in Turkey, three ethnic Albanian members of ISIS—Benjamin Xu, Çendrim Ramadani and Muhammed Zakiri—opened fire while hijacking a truck, killing one police officer and one gendarmerie officer and wounding five people.
Shortly after their arrest, Polis Özel Harekat teams launch a series of operations against ISIS in the capital city, İstanbul.
Police found documents and an ISIS flag in one place and two people from Azerbaijan were arrested.
27 April: Iraqi military helicopters reportedly attacked and destroyed an ISIS convoy of eight vehicles inside Syria.
This may be the first time that Iraqi forces have struck outside their country since the Gulf War.
1 May: ISIS carried out a total of seven public executions in the city of Ar-Raqqah, in northern Syria.
Pictures that emerged from the city show how ISIS had been carrying out public crucifixions in areas under its control.
In most of these crucifixions, the victims were shot first and their bodies were then displayed, but there were also reports of crucifixions after the victims were shot or beheaded.
In one case, a man was said to have been "crucified alive for eight hours," but there was no indication of whether he died.
In early June, following its large-scale offensives in Iraq, ISIS was reported to have seized control of most of Mosul, the city with the second highest population in Iraq, a large part of the surrounding Nineveh province, and the city of Fallujah.
ISIS also took control of Tikrit, the administrative center of the Salah ad Din Governorate, with the ultimate goal of capturing Baghdad, the capital city of Iraq.
ISIS was believed to have only 2,000–3,000 fighters up until the Mosul campaign, but during that campaign, it became clear that there were far more fighters than was previously thought.
In June there were reports that a number of Sunni groups in Iraq had joined ISIS.
However, the Kurds—who are mostly Sunnis—in the northeast of Iraq, were unwilling to be drawn into the conflict, and there were clashes in the area between ISIS and the Kurdish Peshmerga.
5 June: ISIS militants stormed the city of Samarra, Iraq, before being ousted from the city by airstrikes mounted by the Iraqi military.
6 June: ISIS militants carried out multiple attacks in the city of Mosul, Iraq.
7 June: ISIS militants took over the University of Anbar in Ramadi, Iraq and held 1,300 students hostage, before being ousted by the Iraqi military.
9 June: Mosul fell to ISIS control.
The militants seized control of government offices, the airport, and police stations.
Militants also looted the Central Bank in Mosul, reportedly absconding with US$429 million.
More than 500,000 people fled Mosul to escape ISIS.
Mosul is a strategic city as it is at a crossroad between Syria and Iraq, and poses the threat of ISIS seizing control of oil production.
11 June: ISIS seized the Turkish consulate in the Iraqi city of Mosul, and kidnapped the head of the diplomatic mission and several staff members.
ISIS seized the Iraqi city of Tikrit.
12 June: Human Rights Watch, an international human rights advocacy organization, issued a statement about the growing threat to civilians in Iraq.
13 June: Navi Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, expressed alarm at reports that ISIS fighters "have been actively seeking out—and in some cases killing—soldiers, police and others, including civilians, whom they perceive as being associated with the government."
15 June: ISIS militants captured the Iraqi city of Tal Afar, in the province of Nineveh.
ISIS claimed that 1,700 Iraqi soldiers who had surrendered in the fighting had been killed, and released many images of mass executions via its Twitter feed and various websites.
22 June: ISIS militants captured two key crossings in Anbar, a day after seizing the border crossing at Al-Qaim, a town in a province which borders Syria.
According to analysts, capturing these crossings could aid ISIS in transporting weapons and equipment to different battlefields.
24 June: The Syrian Air Force bombed ISIS positions in Iraq.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki stated: "There was no coordination involved, but we welcome this action.
We welcome any Syrian strike against Isis because this group targets both Iraq and Syria."
25 June: The al-Nusra Front's branch in the Syrian town of al-Bukamal pledged loyalty to ISIS, thus bringing months of fighting between the two groups to a close.
25 June: In an interview with the BBC Arabic service, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said that Iraq had purchased used Sukhoi fighter jets from Russia and Belarus to battle ISIS militants, after delays in the delivery of F-16 fighters purchased from the US. "[
If] we had air cover, we would have averted what happened", he said.
26 June: Iraq launched its first counterattack against ISIS's advance with an airborne assault designed to seize back control of Tikrit University.
28 June: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Obama administration had requested US$500 million from Congress to use in the training and arming of "moderate" Syrian rebels fighting against the Syrian government, in order to counter the growing threat posed by ISIS in Syria and Iraq.
29 June: ISIS announced the establishment of a new caliphate.
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was appointed its caliph, and the group formally changed its name to the Islamic State.
2 July: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed caliph of the new Islamic State, said that Muslims should unite to capture Rome in order to "own the world."
He called on Muslims the world over to unite behind him as their leader.
3 July: ISIS captured Syria's largest oilfield from rival Islamist fighters, al-Nusra Front, who put up no resistance to the attack.
Taking control of the al-Omar oilfield gave ISIS access to potentially useful crude oil reserves.
17 July: Syria's Shaer gas field in the Homs Governorate was seized by Islamic State.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, at least 90 National Defence Force guards defending the field were killed, as were 21 ISIS fighters.
The SOHR later put the death toll from the fighting and executions at 270 soldiers, militiamen and staff, and at least 40 ISIS fighters.
19 July: ISIS claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing which killed 33 people and left more than 50 wounded.
The explosion occurred in Baghdad's Kadhimiya district, which is the site of a major Shia shrine.
24 July: ISIS blew up the Mosque and tomb of the Prophet Yunus (Jonah) in Mosul, with no reported casualties.
Residents in the area said that ISIS had erased a piece of Iraqi heritage.
Johah's tomb was also an important holy site concerning Jewish heritage.
26 July: ISIS blew up the Nabi Shiyt (Prophet Seth) shrine in Mosul.
Sami al-Massoudi, deputy head of the Shia endowment agency which oversees holy sites, confirmed the destruction and added that ISIS had taken artifacts from the shrine to an unknown location.
28 July: To mark the Muslim holy festival of Eid al-Fitr, which ends the period of Ramadan, ISIS released and circulated a 30-minute video showing graphic scenes of mass executions.
The UN reported that of the 1,737 fatalities of the Iraq conflict during July so far, 1,186 were civilians.
1 August: The Indonesian National Counterterrorism Agency (Badan Nasional Penanggulangan Terorisme) declared ISIS a terrorist organization.
2 August: The Iraqi Army confirmed that 37 loyalist fighters had died during combat with Islamic State militants south of Baghdad, and in Mosul.
The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) claimed that "hundreds" of IS militiamen had died in the action.
2 August: ISIS and its al-Nusra Front allies invaded Lebanon in and around the town of Arsal, sparking a five day battle between them and the Lebanese army, who pushed ISIS back across the border into Syria.
Over a hundred fighters were killed, and scores of civilians were killed or wounded.
3 August: IS fighters occupied the city of Zumar and an oilfield in the north of Iraq, after a battle against Kurdish forces.
5 August: Al Jazeera reported that an IS offensive in the Sinjar area of northern Iraq had forced 30,000–50,000 Yazidis to flee into the mountains, fearing they would be killed by the IS.
They had been threatened with death if they refused conversion to Islam.
A UN representative said that "a humanitarian tragedy is unfolding in Sinjar."
For more information see: Persecution of Yazidis by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
6 August: The Islamic State kidnapped 400 Yazidi women in Sinjar to sell them as sex slaves.
7 August: IS fighters took control of the town of Qaraqosh in the province of Nineveh in northern Iraq, which forced its large Christian population to flee.
7 August: US President Obama authorized targeted airstrikes in Iraq against ISIS, along with airdrops of aid.
The UK offered the US  assistance with surveillance and refuelling, and planned humanitarian airdrops to Iraqi refugees.
8 August: The US asserted that the systematic destruction of the Yazidi people by the Islamic State was genocide.
The US military launched indefinite airstrikes targeting Islamic State fighters, equipment and installations, with humanitarian aid support from the UK and France, in order to protect civilians in northern Iraq.
The Islamic State had advanced to within 30 km of Erbil in northern Iraq.
The UK is also considering joining the US in airstrikes.
10 August: France's Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said that Iraq's Kurds must be equipped to fight against ISIS and indicated that France would consider providing arms aid "in liaison with the Europeans".
Islamic State militants buried an unknown number of Yazidi women and children alive, in an attack that killed 500 people, in what has been described as ongoing genocide in northern Iraq.
11 August: The Arab League accused the Islamic State of committing crimes against humanity.
The UK decided not to join the US in airstrikes and instead stepped up its humanitarian aid to refugees.
12 August: The parents of kidnapped American journalist James Foley received an email from his captors.
The US announced that it would not extend its airstrikes against the Islamic State to areas outside northern Iraq, emphasizing that the objective of the airstrikes was to protect US diplomats in Erbil.
The US and the UK airdropped 60,000 litres of water and 75,000 meals for stranded refugees.
The Vatican called on religious leaders of all denominations, particularly Muslim leaders, to unite and condemn the IS for what it described as "heinous crimes" and the use of religion to justify them.
13 August: The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that Islamic State jihadists had seized control of six villages near the Turkish border in the northern province of Aleppo in Syria.
15 August: The United Nations Security Council issued a resolution which "deplores and condemns in the strongest terms the terrorist acts of ISIL (Islamic State) and its violent extremist ideology, and its continued gross, systematic and widespread abuses of human rights and violations of international humanitarian law."
16 August: The Islamic State massacred 80 Yazidis.
The EU agreed to supply Kurdish forces with arms, and US military forces continued to attack Islamic State fighters in the area around Iraq’s crucial Mosul Dam.
17 August: The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that the Islamic State had killed 700 members of the Syrian al-Sheitaat tribe, mostly civilians, after two weeks of clashes over the control of two oilfields in the region.
Peshmerga troops, aided by the US air campaign, began an offensive to take back the strategic Mosul Dam from the Islamic State, amid fears that the destruction of the dam might unleash a 65-foot wave of water that would engulf the northern city of Mosul, and even flood Baghdad.<onlyinclude>
18 August: Pope Francis, leader of the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, said that the international community would be justified in stopping Islamist militants in Iraq.
He also said that it should not be up to a single nation to decide how to intervene in the conflict.
19 August: According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the Islamic State now has an army of more than 50,000 fighters in Syria.
American journalist James Foley was beheaded by the Islamic State on video tape.
20 August: President Obama denounced the "brutal murder of Jim Foley by the terrorist group ISIL."
21 August: The US military admitted that a covert rescue attempt involving dozens of US Special Operations forces had been made to rescue James Foley and other Americans held captive in Syria by Islamic State militants.
The air and ground assault, involving the first known US military ground action inside Syria, had the authorization of President Obama.
The ensuing gunfight resulted in one US soldier being injured.
The rescue was unsuccessful, as Foley and the other captives were not in the location targeted.
This was the first known engagement by US ground forces with suspected Islamic State militants.
The US Defense Secretary warned that the Islamic State were tremendously well-funded, adding, "They have no standard of decency, of responsible human behavior", and that they were an imminent threat to the US.
22 August: The US is considering airstrikes on ISIS in Syria, which would draw US military forces directly into the Syrian Civil War, as President Obama develops a long-term strategy to defeat the Islamic State.
26 August: The Islamic State carried out a suicide attack in Baghdad killing 15 people and injuring 37 others.
28 August: The Islamic State beheaded a Lebanese Army soldier whom they had kidnapped.
The group also beheaded a Kurdish Peshmerga fighter in response to Kurdistan's alliance with the United States, and executed around 250 Syrian soldiers captured after the fall of Tabqa Air Base in Ar-Raqqah province.
The soldiers had earlier been marched to their place of execution wearing just their underwear.
29 August: UK Prime Minister David Cameron raised the UK's terror level to "severe" and committed to fight radical Islam "at home and abroad".
31 August:  Iraqi military forces supported by Shia militias and American airstrikes broke the two-month siege of the northern Iraqi town of Amerli by Islamic State militants.
German Federal Minister of Defence Ursula von der Leyen announced that Germany will send enough weapons to arm 4,000 Peshmerga fighters in northern Iraq fighting Islamic State insurgents.
The delivery to be scheduled in stages will include 16,000 assault rifles, 40 machine guns, 240 rocket-propelled grenades, 500 MILAN anti-tank missiles with 30 launchers and 10,000 hand grenades, with a total value of around 70 million euros.
In order to assess the needs of the Peshmerga and prevent an excessive accumulation of arms, the Bundeswehr seconded six liaison officers to Erbil who will report to Berlin.
1 September: The German government's Cabinet decision to arm the Kurdish Peshmerga militia was ratified in the Bundestag by a "vast majority" of votes, after an emotional debate.
2 September: The IS released a video showing the beheading of a man whom they identified as American journalist Steven Sotloff.
4 September: A member of the Islamic State issued a threat to Russian President Vladimir Putin, vowing to oust him over his support of Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria.
5 September: The German Bundeswehr dispatched the first of a planned series of cargo planes to Iraq, loaded with helmets, vests, radios, and infrared night-vision rifle scopes.
After a three-hour stopover in Baghdad for inspection, the aircraft will deliver the equipment to German personnel already in Erbil for distribution to the Kurdish fighters.
Qassem Soleimani, Commander of the elite Iranian Revolutionary Guard Quds Force, has been to the Iraqi city of Amirli, to work with the United States in pushing back militants of the Islamic State.
8 September: The Islamic State carried out a double suicide attack in a town north of Baghdad killing 9 people and wounding 70 others.
10 September: After ISIS had outraged American opinion by beheading two American journalists and had seized control of large portions of Syria and Iraq in the face of ineffective opposition from American allies, President Obama decided on a new objective for a rollback policy in the Middle East.
He announced: "America will lead a broad coalition to roll back this terrorist threat.
Our objective is clear: We will degrade, and ultimately destroy, ISIL through a comprehensive and sustained counterterrorism strategy."
12 September: A Western-backed Syrian rebels group operating around Damascus and the Islamic State signed a "non-aggression" agreement.
13 September: UK humanitarian aid worker David Cawthorne Haines, whose life had been threatened by Jihadi John in the Steven Sotloff video, was purportedly beheaded in a video titled "A Message to the Allies of America".
15 September: The Battle of Suq al Ghazi ended with a US–Iraqi win.
18 September: The Australian Federal Police, Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, Queensland Police and New South Wales Police launched the largest counterterrorism operation in Australian history.
The targets were ISIS-linked networks thought to be planning to behead an Australian at home and launch mass-casualty attacks in populated areas.
Fifteen people were arrested in the raids by police and intelligence organisations, with one being charged with terrorism offences.
20 September: The hostages captured on 11 June 2014 from the Turkish consulate in Mosul were released.
21 September: ISIS released a speech, titled "Indeed, You Lord (sic) is Ever Watchful", encouraging Muslims around the world to kill non-Muslims.
22 September: Air operations begin over Syria; cruise missiles and precision-guided bombs strike ISIS targets in Syria.
29 September: ISIS releases third video of "long-term prisoner" and journalist John Cantlie entitled "Lend Me Your Ears - Messages From The British hostage John Cantlie: Episode 2".
As in previous videos, Cantlie appears alone, sitting at a desk wearing an orange prison uniform.
The scripted video criticizes US president Barack Obama’s strategy of using air strikes to defeat Islamic State fighters.
3 October: After a meeting of the Australian National Security Committee, Australian prime minister Tony Abbott announced that Australia would contribute eight F/A-18F Super Hornets to aid the war effort against Islamic extremists in Iraq.
The aircraft join a KC-30A Tanker and an E-7A Wedgetail AEW&C aircraft already deployed.