title: Gulf War

text: Patrick Day Sloyan of "Newsday" reported, "Bradley Fighting Vehicles and Vulcan armored carriers straddled the trench lines and fired into the Iraqi soldiers as the tanks covered them with mounds of sand. 'I came through right after the lead company,' [Col. Anthony] Moreno said. 'What you saw was a bunch of buried trenches with peoples' arms and things sticking out of them. However, after the war, the Iraqi government said that only 44 bodies were found. In his book "The Wars Against Saddam", John Simpson alleges that US forces attempted to cover up the incident. After the incident, the commander of the 1st Brigade said: "I know burying people like that sounds pretty nasty, but it would be even nastier if we had to put our troops in the trenches and clean them out with bayonets." Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney did not mention the First Division's tactics in an interim report to Congress on Operation Desert Storm. In the report, Cheney acknowledged that 457 enemy soldiers were buried during the ground war.


title: Gulf War

text: A Palestinian exodus from Kuwait took place during and after the Gulf War. During the Gulf War, more than 200,000 Palestinians fled Kuwait during the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait due to harassment and intimidation by Iraqi security forces, in addition to getting fired from work by Iraqi authority figures in Kuwait. After the Gulf War, the Kuwaiti authorities forcibly pressured nearly 200,000 Palestinians to leave Kuwait in 1991. Kuwait's policy, which led to this exodus, was a response to alignment of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and the PLO with Saddam Hussein.


title: Gulf War

text: The Palestinians who fled Kuwait were Jordanian citizens. In 2013, 280,000 Jordanian citizens of Palestinian origin lived in Kuwait. In 2012, 80,000 Palestinians (without Jordanian citizenship) lived in Kuwait.


title: Gulf War

text: However, the UN subsequently spent billions rebuilding hospitals, schools, and water purification facilities throughout the country.


title: Gulf War

text: During the conflict, coalition aircrew shot down over Iraq were displayed as prisoners of war on TV, most with visible signs of abuse. Amongst several testimonies to poor treatment, USAF Captain Richard Storr was allegedly tortured by Iraqis during the Persian Gulf War. Iraqi secret police broke his nose, dislocated his shoulder and punctured his eardrum. Royal Air Force Tornado crew John Nichol and John Peters have both alleged that they were tortured during this time. Nichol and Peters were forced to make statements against the war on television. Members of British Special Air Service Bravo Two Zero were captured while providing information about an Iraqi supply line of Scud missiles to coalition forces. Only one, Chris Ryan, evaded capture while the group's other surviving members were violently tortured. Flight surgeon (later General) Rhonda Cornum was sexually assaulted by one of her captors after the Black Hawk helicopter in which she was riding was shot down while searching for a downed F-16 pilot.


title: Gulf War

text: Since the war, the US has had a continued presence of 5,000 troops stationed in Saudi Arabiaa figure that rose to 10,000 during the 2003 conflict in Iraq. Operation Southern Watch enforced the no-fly zones over southern Iraq set up after 1991; oil exports through the Persian Gulf's shipping lanes were protected by the Bahrain-based US Fifth Fleet.


title: Gulf War

text: Since Saudi Arabia houses Mecca and Medina, Islam's holiest sites, many Muslims were upset at the permanent military presence. The continued presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia after the war was one of the stated motivations behind the 11 September terrorist attacks, the Khobar Towers bombing, and the date chosen for the 1998 US embassy bombings (7 August), which was eight years to the day that US troops were sent to Saudi Arabia. Osama bin Laden interpreted the Islamic prophet Muhammad as banning the "permanent presence of infidels in Arabia". In 1996, bin Laden issued a fatwa, calling for US troops to leave Saudi Arabia. In a December 1999 interview with Rahimullah Yusufzai, bin Laden said he felt that Americans were "too near to Mecca" and considered this a provocation to the entire Islamic world.


title: Gulf War

text: On 6 August 1990, after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 661 which imposed economic sanctions on Iraq, providing for a full trade embargo, excluding medical supplies, food and other items of humanitarian necessity, these to be determined by the council's sanctions committee. From 1991 until 2003, the effects of government policy and sanctions regime led to hyperinflation, widespread poverty and malnutrition.


title: Gulf War

text: During the late 1990s, the UN considered relaxing the sanctions imposed because of the hardships suffered by ordinary Iraqis. Studies dispute the number of people who died in south and central Iraq during the years of the sanctions.


title: Gulf War

text: The draining of the Qurna Marshes was an irrigation project in Iraq during and immediately after the war, to drain a large area of marshes in the Tigris–Euphrates river system. Formerly covering an area of around 3,000 square kilometers, the large complex of wetlands were nearly emptied of water, and the local Shi'ite population relocated, following the war and 1991 uprisings. By 2000, the United Nations Environment Programme estimated that 90% of the marshlands had disappeared, causing desertification of over .


title: Gulf War

text: The draining of the Qurna Marshes also called The Draining of the Mesopotamian Marshes occurred in Iraq and to a smaller degree in Iran between the 1950s and 1990s to clear large areas of the marshes in the Tigris-Euphrates river system. Formerly covering an area of around 20,000 km (7,700 sq mi), the large complex of wetlands was 90% drained before the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. The marshes are typically divided into three main sub-marshes, the Hawizeh, Central, and Hammar Marshes and all three were drained at different times for different reasons. Initial draining of the Central Marshes was intended to reclaim land for agriculture but later all three marshes would become a tool of war and revenge.


title: Gulf War

text: Many international organizations such as the UN Human Rights Commission, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, the Wetlands International, and Middle East Watch have described the project as a political attempt to force the Marsh Arabs out of the area through water diversion tactics.


title: Gulf War

text: On 23 January, Iraq dumped of crude oil into the Persian Gulf, causing the largest offshore oil spill in history at that time. It was reported as a deliberate natural resources attack to keep US Marines from coming ashore ("Missouri" and "Wisconsin" had shelled Failaka Island during the war to reinforce the idea that there would be an amphibious assault attempt). About 30–40% of this came from allied raids on Iraqi coastal targets.


title: Gulf War

text: The Kuwaiti oil fires were caused by the Iraqi military setting fire to 700 oil wells as part of a scorched earth policy while retreating from Kuwait in 1991 after conquering the country but being driven out by coalition forces. The fires started in January and February 1991, and the last one was extinguished by November.


title: Gulf War

text: The resulting fires burned uncontrollably because of the dangers of sending in firefighting crews. Land mines had been placed in areas around the oil wells, and a military cleaning of the areas was necessary before the fires could be put out. Somewhere around of oil were lost each day. Eventually, privately contracted crews extinguished the fires, at a total cost of US$1.5 billion to Kuwait. By that time, however, the fires had burned for approximately 10 months, causing widespread pollution.


title: Gulf War

text: The cost of the war to the United States was calculated by the US Congress in April 1992 to be $61.1 billion (equivalent to $ in ). About $52 billion of that amount was paid by other countries: $36 billion by Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and other Arab states of the Persian Gulf; $16 billion by Germany and Japan (which sent no combat forces due to their constitutions). About 25% of Saudi Arabia's contribution was paid with in-kind services to the troops, such as food and transportation. US troops represented about 74% of the combined force, and the global cost was therefore higher.


title: Gulf War

text: Apart from the impact on Arab States of the Persian Gulf, the resulting economic disruptions after the crisis affected many states. The Overseas Development Institute (ODI) undertook a study in 1991 to assess the effects on developing states and the international community's response. A briefing paper finalized on the day that the conflict ended draws on their findings which had two main conclusions: Many developing states were severely affected and while there has been a considerable response to the crisis, the distribution of assistance was highly selective.


title: Gulf War

text: The ODI factored in elements of "cost" which included oil imports, remittance flows, re-settlement costs, loss of export earnings and tourism. For Egypt, the cost totaled $1 billion, 3% of GDP. Yemen had a cost of $830 million, 10% of GDP, while it cost Jordan $1.8 billion, 32% of GDP.


title: Gulf War

text: International response to the crisis on developing states came with the channeling of aid through The Gulf Crisis Financial Co-ordination Group. They were 24 states, comprising most of the OECD countries plus some Gulf states: Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait. The members of this group agreed to disperse $14 billion in development assistance.


title: Gulf War

text: The World Bank responded by speeding up the disbursement of existing project and adjustment loans. The International Monetary Fund adopted two lending facilitiesthe Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility (ESAF) and the Compensatory & Contingency Financing Facility (CCFF). The European Community offered $2 billion in assistance.


title: Gulf War

text: The war was heavily televised. For the first time, people all over the world watched live pictures of missiles hitting their targets and fighters departing from aircraft carriers. Allied forces were keen to demonstrate their weapons' accuracy.


title: Gulf War

text: In the United States, the "big three" network anchors led the war's network news coverage: ABC's Peter Jennings, CBS's Dan Rather, and NBC's Tom Brokaw were anchoring their evening newscasts when air strikes began on 16 January 1991. ABC News correspondent Gary Shepard, reporting live from Baghdad, told Jennings of the city's quietness. But, moments later, Shepard returned as flashes of light were seen on the horizon and tracer fire was heard on the ground.


title: Gulf War

text: On CBS, viewers were watching a report from correspondent Allen Pizzey, reporting from Baghdad, when the war began. Rather, after the report was finished, announced unconfirmed reports of flashes in Baghdad and heavy air traffic at bases in Saudi Arabia. On the NBC Nightly News, correspondent Mike Boettcher reported unusual air activity in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Moments later, Brokaw announced to his viewers that the air attack had begun.


title: Gulf War

text: It was CNN whose coverage gained the most popularity and its wartime coverage is often cited as one of the landmark events in the network's history, ultimately leading to the establishment of CNN International. CNN correspondents John Holliman and Peter Arnett and CNN anchor Bernard Shaw relayed audio reports from Baghdad's Al-Rashid Hotel as the air strikes began. The network had previously convinced the Iraqi government to allow installation of a permanent audio circuit in their makeshift bureau. When the telephones of all the other Western TV correspondents went dead during the bombing, CNN was the only service able to provide live reporting. After the initial bombing, Arnett remained behind and was, for a time, the only American TV correspondent reporting from Iraq.


title: Gulf War

text: In the United Kingdom, the BBC devoted the FM broadcast portion of its national talk radio station BBC Radio 4 to an 18-hour rolling news format called Radio 4 News FM. The station was short-lived, ending shortly after President Bush declared the ceasefire and Kuwait's liberation. However, it paved the way for the later introduction of Radio Five Live.


title: Gulf War

text: Two BBC journalists, John Simpson and Bob Simpson (no relation), defied their editors and remained in Baghdad to report on the war's progress. They were responsible for a report which included an "infamous cruise missile that travelled down a street and turned left at a traffic light."


title: Gulf War

text: Newspapers all over the world also covered the war and "Time" magazine published a special issue dated 28 January 1991, the headline "War in the Gulf" emblazoned on the cover over a picture of Baghdad taken as the war began.


title: Gulf War

text: US policy regarding media freedom was much more restrictive than in the Vietnam War. The policy had been spelled out in a Pentagon document entitled "Annex Foxtrot". Most of the press information came from briefings organized by the military. Only selected journalists were allowed to visit the front lines or conduct interviews with soldiers. Those visits were always conducted in the presence of officers, and were subject to both prior approval by the military and censorship afterward. This was ostensibly to protect sensitive information from being revealed to Iraq. This policy was heavily influenced by the military's experience with the Vietnam War, in which public opposition within the US grew throughout the war's course. It was not only the limitation of information in the Middle East; media were also restricting what was shown about the war with more graphic depictions like Ken Jarecke's image of a burnt Iraqi soldier being pulled from the American AP wire whereas in Europe it was given extensive coverage.


title: Gulf War

text: The war's coverage was new in its immediacy. About halfway through the war, Iraq's government decided to allow live satellite transmissions from the country by Western news organizations, and US journalists returned en masse to Baghdad. NBC's Tom Aspell, ABC's Bill Blakemore, and CBS News' Betsy Aaron filed reports, subject to acknowledged Iraqi censorship. Throughout the war, footage of incoming missiles was broadcast almost immediately.


title: Gulf War

text: A British crew from CBS News, David Green and Andy Thompson, equipped with satellite transmission equipment, traveled with the front line forces and, having transmitted live TV pictures of the fighting en route, arrived the day before the forces in Kuwait City, broadcasting live television from the city and covering the entrance of the Arab forces the next day.


title: Gulf War

text: Alternative media outlets provided views opposing the war. Deep Dish Television compiled segments from independent producers in the US and abroad, and produced a 10-hour series that was distributed internationally, called The Gulf Crisis TV Project. The series' first program "War, Oil and Power" was compiled and released in 1990, before the war broke out. "News World Order" was the title of another program in the series; it focused on the media's complicity in promoting the war, as well as Americans' reactions to the media coverage. In San Francisco, Paper Tiger Television West produced a weekly cable television show with highlights of mass demonstrations, artists' actions, lectures, and protests against mainstream media coverage at newspaper offices and television stations. Local media outlets in cities across the USA screened similar oppositional media.


title: Gulf War

text: Media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) critically analyzed media coverage during the war in various articles and books, such as the 1991 "Gulf War Coverage: The Worst Censorship was at Home".


title: Gulf War

text: "Gulf War" and "Persian Gulf War" are the most common terms for the conflict used within western countries, though it may also be called the "First Gulf War" (to distinguish it from the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the subsequent Iraq War). Some authors have called it the "Second Gulf War" to distinguish it from the Iran–Iraq War. "Liberation of Kuwait" () ("taḥrīr al-kuwayt") is the term used by Kuwait and most of the coalition's Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates. Terms in other languages include and ("Gulf War"); ("Second Gulf War"); ("War of Kuwait").


title: Gulf War

text: Most of the coalition states used various names for their operations and the war's operational phases. These are sometimes incorrectly used as the conflict's overall name, especially the US "Desert Storm":


title: Gulf War

text: Precision-guided munitions were heralded as key in allowing military strikes to be made with a minimum of civilian casualties compared to previous wars, although they were not used as often as more traditional, less accurate bombs. Specific buildings in downtown Baghdad could be bombed while journalists in their hotels watched cruise missiles fly by.


title: Gulf War

text: Precision-guided munitions amounted to approximately 7.4% of all bombs dropped by the coalition. Other bombs included cluster bombs, which disperse numerous submunitions, and daisy cutters, 15,000-pound bombs which can disintegrate everything within hundreds of yards.


title: Gulf War

text: Global Positioning System (GPS) units were relatively new at the time and were important in enabling coalition units to easily navigate across the desert. Since military GPS receivers were not available for most troops, many used commercially available units. To permit these to be used to best effect, the "selective availability" feature of the GPS system was turned off for the duration of Desert Storm, allowing these commercial receivers to provide the same precision as the military equipment.


title: Gulf War

text: Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) and satellite communication systems were also important. Two examples of this are the US Navy's Grumman E-2 Hawkeye and the US Air Force's Boeing E-3 Sentry. Both were used in command and control area of operations. These systems provided essential communications links between air, ground, and naval forces. It is one of several reasons coalition forces dominated the air war.


title: Gulf War

text: American-made color photocopiers were used to produce some of Iraq's battle plans. Some of the copiers contained concealed high-tech transmitters that revealed their positions to American electronic warfare aircraft, leading to more precise bombings.


title: Gulf War

text: The role of Iraq's Scud missiles featured prominently in the war. Scud is a tactical ballistic missile that the Soviet Union developed and deployed among the forward deployed Soviet Army divisions in East Germany.


title: Gulf War

text: Scud missiles utilize inertial guidance which operates for the duration that the engines operate. Iraq used Scud missiles, launching them into both Saudi Arabia and Israel. Some missiles caused extensive casualties, while others caused little damage.


title: Gulf War

text: The US Patriot missile was used in combat for the first time. The US military claimed a high effectiveness against Scuds at the time, but later analysis gives figures as low as 9%, with 45% of the 158 Patriot launches being against debris or false targets. The Dutch Ministry of Defense, which also sent Patriot missiles to protect civilians in Israel and Turkey, later disputed the higher claim. Further, there is at least one incident of a software error causing a Patriot missile's failure to engage an incoming Scud, resulting in deaths. Both the US Army and the missile manufacturers maintained the Patriot delivered a "miracle performance" in the Gulf War.


title: Gulf War

text: The Gulf War has been the subject of several video games including "", "" and "". There have also been numerous depictions in film including "Jarhead" (2005), which is based on US Marine Anthony Swofford's 2003 memoir of the same name.


title: Idris Elba

text: Idrissa Akuna Elba (; born 6 September 1972) is an English actor. An alumnus of the National Youth Theatre in London, he is known for roles including Stringer Bell in the HBO series "The Wire", DCI John Luther in the BBC One series "Luther", and Nelson Mandela in the biographical film "" (2013). He has been nominated four times for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film, winning one, and has been nominated five times for a Primetime Emmy Award.


title: Idris Elba

text: Elba appeared in Ridley Scott's "American Gangster" (2007), "Obsessed" (2009) and "Prometheus" (2012). He portrayed Heimdall in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) film "Thor" (2011) and its sequels "" (2013), "" (2017), and "" (2022), as well as "" (2015) and "" (2018). He also starred in "Pacific Rim" (2013), "Beasts of No Nation" (2015), for which he received Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations for Best Supporting Actor, and "Molly's Game" (2017). In 2016, he voiced Chief Bogo in "Zootopia", Shere Khan in the live action/CGI adaptation of "The Jungle Book", Fluke in "Finding Dory," and played the role of Krall in "Star Trek Beyond". He made his directorial debut in 2018 with an adaptation of the 1992 novel "Yardie" by Victor Headley. In 2021, he portrayed Bloodsport in "The Suicide Squad", set in the DC Extended Universe (DCEU), while in 2022, he voiced Knuckles the Echidna in the film "Sonic the Hedgehog 2" (2022), and will headline a spin-off self-titled solo series as the character for Paramount+ in 2023.


title: Idris Elba

text: Aside from acting, Elba performs as a DJ under the moniker DJ Big Driis or Idris and as an R&B singer. In 2016, he was named in the "Time" 100 list of the Most Influential People in the World. As of May 2019, his films have grossed over at the global box office, including over in North America, where he is one of the top 20 highest-grossing actors.


title: Idris Elba

text: Idrissa Akuna Elba was born on 6 September 1972 in the London Borough of Hackney, to Winston Elba, a Sierra Leonean Creole man who worked at the Ford Dagenham plant, and Eve, a Ghanaian woman. His parents were married in Sierra Leone and later moved to London. Elba was raised in Hackney and East Ham, and shortened his first name to "Idris" at school in Canning Town, where he first became involved in acting. He credits "The Stage" with giving him his first big break, having seen an advertisement for a play in it; he auditioned and met his first agent while performing in the role. In 1986, he began helping an uncle with his wedding DJ business; within a year, he had started his own DJ company with some of his friends.


title: Idris Elba

text: Elba briefly attended Barking and Dagenham College, leaving school in 1988 and winning a place in the National Youth Music Theatre after a £1,500 Prince's Trust grant. To support himself between roles in his early career, he worked in odd jobs including tyre-fitting, cold-calling, and night shifts at Ford Dagenham. He was worked in nightclubs under the DJ nickname "Big Driis" during his adolescence, but began auditioning for television roles in his early twenties.


title: Idris Elba

text: Elba's first acting role was in "Crimewatch" murder reconstructions and in 1994 he appeared in a BBC children's drama called "The Boot Street Band". In 1995, he landed his first significant role on a series called "Bramwell", a medical drama set in 1890s England. He played a central character in an episode of Season 1, an African petty thief named Charlie Carter, who lost his wife to childbirth and had to figure out how to support his newborn daughter. His first named role arrived earlier in 1995, when he was cast as a gigolo on the "Sex" episode of "Absolutely Fabulous". Many supporting roles on British television followed, including series such as "The Bill" and "The Ruth Rendell Mysteries". He joined the cast of the soap opera "Family Affairs" and went on to appear on the television serial "Ultraviolet" and later on "Dangerfield". He decided to move to New York City soon after. He returned to England occasionally for a television role, such as a part in one of the "Inspector Lynley Mysteries". In 2001, Elba played Achilles in a stage production of "Troilus and Cressida" in New York City.


title: Idris Elba

text: After a supporting turn on a 2001 episode of "Law & Order", Elba landed a starring role on the 2002 HBO drama series "The Wire". From 2002 to 2004, Elba portrayed Russell "Stringer" Bell in the series, perhaps his best-known role in the United States. In 2005, he portrayed Captain Augustin Muganza in "Sometimes in April", an HBO film about the Rwandan genocide. Elba appeared on the 2007 BET special "Black Men: The Truth". He appeared as Charlie Gotso on "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency", filmed in Botswana. The series premiered on 23 March 2008, Easter Sunday, on BBC One, receiving a high 6.3 million viewers and 27% of the audience share.


title: Idris Elba

text: In January 2009, it was reported by "Variety" that Elba would portray Charles Miner, a new rival to Dunder Mifflin regional manager Michael Scott (Steve Carell) for NBC's "The Office". Elba appeared in a six-episode story arc later in the 2009 season as well as the season finale.


title: Idris Elba

text: In September 2009, he signed a deal to star as the lead role on the six-part BBC television series "Luther", which aired in May 2010. He appeared on Showtime's "The Big C" in 2010. At the 69th Golden Globe Awards telecast on 15 January 2012, Elba won the Award for Best Actor in a Series, Mini-Series, or Motion Picture Made for Television for his role on the BBC crime thriller series "Luther".


title: Idris Elba

text: In April 2018, it was announced that Elba was cast as Charlie in the Netflix comedy series, "Turn Up Charlie". It premiered on 15 March 2019 and was cancelled after one season. He also created and starred in the semi-autobiographical comedy "In the Long Run".


title: Idris Elba

text: In 2007, Elba signed on as the lead role of the film "Daddy's Little Girls", playing Monty, a blue-collar mechanic who falls in love with an attorney helping him gain custody of his kids, and finds the relationship and his custody hopes threatened by the return of his former wife. He appeared in "28 Weeks Later" (2007) and "This Christmas" (2007), which brought in nearly $50 million at the box office in 2007. In 2008, he starred in the horror film "Prom Night" and the Guy Ritchie London gangster film "RocknRolla". In 2009, he starred in the horror film "The Unborn" and in "Obsessed", a thriller that had him cast opposite Beyoncé. The latter was a box office success, taking $29 million in its opening weekend.


title: Idris Elba

text: Elba's next film was "Legacy" (2010), in which he portrayed a black ops soldier who returns to Brooklyn after a failed mission in Eastern Europe, where he has undertaken a journey looking for retribution. He starred in Dark Castle's adaptation of DC/Vertigo's "The Losers", under the direction of Sylvain White, in the role of Roque, the second-in-command of a black-ops team out for revenge against a government that did them wrong. Filming took place in Puerto Rico and the movie was released in April 2010. Elba appeared in the thriller "Takers" (2010). He played Heimdall in Kenneth Branagh's film "Thor" (2011) (based on the Marvel Comics superhero of the same name).


title: Idris Elba

text: In August 2010, Elba signed up to portray the title character in a reboot of James Patterson's Alex Cross film franchise. However, in February 2011, he was replaced by Tyler Perry. In "" (2011), the sequel to "Ghost Rider" (2007), Elba played an alcoholic warrior monk tasked with finding the title character. In February 2012, Elba confirmed that he would portray Nelson Mandela in the film "Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom", which is based on his autobiography. As part of his preparation for the role, Elba spent a night locked in a cell alone on Robben Island, where Mandela had been imprisoned. His performance earned him a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama.


title: Idris Elba

text: In June 2012, Elba portrayed Captain Janek in Ridley Scott's "Prometheus". He joined the cast of the film "Pacific Rim" (2013) in the role of Stacker Pentecost. He reprised his role as Heimdall in "" in 2013. In January 2014, he confirmed that he would be starring in a film adaptation of "Luther". In 2014, he starred in "No Good Deed" as a vengeful psychopathic serial killer.


title: Idris Elba

text: In 2015, Elba appeared as Heimdall in the superhero blockbuster "", directed by Joss Whedon. Elba also starred alongside Abraham Attah in the film "Beasts of No Nation" which premiered in select theatres and on Netflix. He earned a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in any Motion Picture as well as a BAFTA Award nomination for Supporting Actor in the Film category. In 2016, he had several voice roles: the cape buffalo chief of police, Chief Bogo, in Disney's "Zootopia", alongside Ginnifer Goodwin and Jason Bateman; villainous tiger Shere Khan in "The Jungle Book" (2016), a live-action adaptation of the animated 1967 film of the same name, directed by Jon Favreau; and sea lion Fluke in Pixar's "Finding Dory", alongside Ellen DeGeneres and Albert Brooks, both reprising their roles from "Finding Nemo" (2003). Also that year, he played the main antagonist, Krall, in the sequel "Star Trek Beyond".


title: Idris Elba

text: In 2017, he played Roland Deschain in the Stephen King film adaptation "The Dark Tower", starred in "The Mountain Between Us" and Aaron Sorkin's directorial debut "Molly's Game", alongside Jessica Chastain. In 2019, Elba starred as the villain in "Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw", a spin-off of "Fast & Furious" franchise, and played Macavity in Tom Hooper's film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical, "Cats". In 2021, Elba portrayed mercenary Robert "Milton" DuBois / Bloodsport in James Gunn's "The Suicide Squad". In 2022, Elba was the voice of Knuckles in the film "Sonic the Hedgehog 2", a sequel to the film "Sonic the Hedgehog", itself based on the franchise of the same name, and will reprise the role in a self-titled solo series for Paramount+ in 2023.


title: Idris Elba

text: Elba has appeared in music videos for Fat Joe (2002), Angie Stone (2004) and rapper Giggs (2010). In 2006, he recorded the four-song EP "Big Man" for Hevlar Records. He co-produced and performed on the intro to Jay-Z's album "American Gangster" (2007). He DJed at the 2007 NBA All Star parties at The Venetian and Ice House Lounge in Las Vegas.


title: Idris Elba

text: In July 2009, Elba was the DJ for BET's current series "Rising Icons". Elba announced the release of his first single "Please Be True." In the August 2009 issue of "Essence" magazine, he announced the name of his six-song EP as "Kings Among Kings". He released his EP "High Class Problems Vol. 1" in the United Kingdom in February 2010, for which he has won many prizes including a "Billboard" Music Awards nomination.


title: Idris Elba

text: In 2011, he performed on the intro to Pharoahe Monch's album "W.A.R.". The following year, he co-directed and performed in the Mumford & Sons music video for "Lover of the Light".


title: Idris Elba

text: In 2014, he produced K. Michelle's "The Rebellious Soul Musical" which debuted on VH1 on 19 August 2014. In May, Elba featured on Mr Hudson's single "Step Into the Shadows". Mr Hudson also produced his album "Idris Elba Presents mi Mandela", which was released in November 2014. He also featured on the remix of Ghanaian music group, VVIP's single "Selfie" together with Nigerian rapper Phyno released on 12 September 2014 and video released on YouTube on 11 April 2015.


title: Idris Elba

text: Elba performed a rap for the second album by Noel Fielding and Sergio Pizzorno's band, the Loose Tapestries. Elba also rapped in a remix of Skepta's "Shutdown" which was uploaded on 1 June 2015 to SoundCloud. On 17 August, a song was released on which Elba appeared on Nigerian singer D'banj's single "Confidential", featuring Sierra Leonean rapper Shadow Boxer with the video uploaded to YouTube on 20 August. In November 2015, Elba opened for Madonna during her Rebel Heart Tour in Berlin, Germany. Elba is also featured on the Macklemore & Ryan Lewis album "This Unruly Mess I've Made" (2016).


title: Idris Elba

text: In July 2018, he launched his record label, 7Wallace Music. Elba performed at Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in April 2019. In 2019, he featured on the track "Boasty" by British grime artist Wiley. Elba also appears in the "Boasty" music video, delivering his verse in a mansion that includes a film set. In 2019, Elba appears on Taylor Swift's song "London Boy" from her seventh studio album "Lover". The intro of the song samples a snippet from an interview by Elba. In April 2020, Elba collaborated with producer Jay Robinson on the track "Know Yourself", released on Mau5trap.


title: Idris Elba

text: In 2020, after hearing Canadian R&B singer Emanuel's debut single "Need You", Elba reached out with an idea for a music video compiled from clips of people sharing the things that were helping them cope with the COVID-19 pandemic. Elba was credited as creative director of the video, and is being credited as an executive producer of Emanuel's forthcoming full-length debut album.


title: Idris Elba

text: On 13 February 2021, Elba performed a guest DJ mix for "Mix Up" on Australian national youth broadcaster Triple J. On 22 September 2021, Elba announced he would be releasing a collaborative EP with Australian pop rock duo Lime Cordiale titled "Cordi Elba", which was released on 14 January 2022. Elba also collaborated with Paul McCartney on a remix of McCartney's song "Long Tailed Winter Bird."


title: Idris Elba

text: In October 2014, Elba presented the series "Journey Dot Africa with Idris Elba" on BBC Radio 2, exploring all types of African music. Elba has also featured in various television commercials for Sky box-sets in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2019. Elba has collaborated with the UK Parliament in their efforts to eradicate Ebola from West Africa, working alongside the UK Secretary of State for International Development Justine Greening in 2014. Elba has created a collaboration with British fashion label Superdry, which launched at the end of November 2015.


title: Idris Elba

text: In January 2016, Elba addressed the UK Parliament in regards to the concern of the lack of diversity on screen. Stating, 'Change is coming but it's taking its sweet time', he spoke about the lack of diversity regarding race, gender and sexuality.


title: Idris Elba

text: Elba hosted The Best FIFA Football Awards 2017 at the London Palladium on 23 October 2017. During the show he took a selfie of "the best team in the world" which included Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar.


title: Idris Elba

text: He had the idea to develop the music from his album "Idris Elba Presents mi Mandela" into a show, which ultimately resulted in a play called "Tree" that premiered at the Manchester International Festival in 2019. However, authorship of the piece was disputed. On 2 July 2019, "The Guardian" published a story describing how writers Tori Allen-Martin and Sarah Henley claimed to have been removed from the production under what they described as questionable circumstances. The two writers had worked on the project for four years following an approach from Elba asking them to develop his idea for a musical based on the album, on which Allen-Martin had also collaborated. Kwame Kwei-Armah joined the project in May 2018 and rewrote part of their material. At the time of its premiere "Tree" was billed as "created by Idris Elba and Kwame Kwei-Armah". Allen-Martin and Henley described their creative input as having included research and script-writing, as well as coming up with the play's title, and that after being removed they were threatened with legal action if they went public with the story. Elba and Kwei-Armah both published rebuttals of the writers' account of what happened on Twitter.


title: Idris Elba

text: He currently signed a deal with Apple to produce original content through his Green Door Pictures production company. In January 2021, it was reported that the companies of Elba and his wife, Sabrina Dhowre, would be developing an Afrofuturist adult animated, and sci-fi, series, tentatively titled "Dantai", for Crunchyroll, which would be about a time when biotech has "created an ever-widening gap between the haves and have-nots."


title: Idris Elba

text: Elba portrays the fictional character Solomon Reed in CD Projekt Red's 2020 video game Cyberpunk 2077 downloadable expansion Phantom Liberty. He provides voice acting and his likeness to the character.


title: Idris Elba

text: Discovery Channel produced a documentary, "Idris Elba: Fighter", chronicling Elba's 12-month kickboxing and mixed martial arts training under Muay Thai coach Kieran Keddle, culminating in Elba's first professional kickboxing fight—and win—against Lionel Graves, a younger, more experienced Dutch opponent, at London's York Hall.


title: Idris Elba

text: Elba has been married three times: first to Hanne "Kim" Nørgaard (from 1999 to 2003) and then to Sonya Nicole Hamlin (for four months in 2006). He has two children: a daughter, Isan, with Nørgaard and a son with former girlfriend Naiyana Garth. Elba began a relationship with Somali-Canadian model Sabrina Dhowre in early 2017. They became engaged on 10 February 2018, during a screening of his film "Yardie" at an East London cinema. They were married on 26 April 2019 in Marrakesh.


title: Idris Elba

text: Elba has stated he is spiritual but not religious. He is an avid Arsenal supporter. In 2015, as part of his Discovery Channel miniseries "Idris Elba: No Limits", he broke the land speed record for the Pendine Sands "Flying Mile" course.


title: Idris Elba

text: The Prince's Trust, a UK youth charity founded by Prince Charles in 1976, which Elba credits with helping begin his career, appointed him as their anti-crime ambassador in April 2009. He voiced support for a vote to remain in the European Union for the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum.


title: Idris Elba

text: On 16 March 2020, Elba said he and his wife had tested positive for COVID-19 amidst the pandemic. During his quarantine period, he noted that he had suffered from asthma all his life, placing him in the high-risk category of the disease.


title: Idris Elba

text: In 2013, Elba was named "Essence"s annual Sexiest Man of the Year and, in 2018, he was named "People" magazine's Sexiest Man Alive. In October 2014, he was presented with a MOBO Inspiration Award.


title: Idris Elba

text: Elba was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2016 New Year Honours for services to drama. In 2017, he won the male title for the "Rear of the Year" award in Britain.


title: Idris Elba

text: In September 2018, he was one of 50 people named for "making London awesome" and helping to shape London's cultural landscape, as part of "Time Out" magazine's 50th anniversary. In the 2020 and 2021 editions of the "Powerlist", he was listed in the top 100 most influential people in the UK of African/African-Caribbean descent.


title: Jamie Lee Curtis

text: Jamie Lee Curtis (born November 22, 1958) is an American actress, producer, children's author, and activist. She came to prominence with her portrayal of Lt. Barbara Duran on the ABC sitcom "Operation Petticoat" (1977–78). In 1978, she made her feature film debut playing Laurie Strode in John Carpenter's slasher film "Halloween", which established her as a scream queen and led to a string of parts in horror films such as "The Fog", "Prom Night", "Terror Train" (all 1980) and "Roadgames" (1981). She reprised the role of Laurie in the sequels "Halloween II" (1981), "" (1998), "" (2002), "Halloween" (2018), "Halloween Kills" (2021), and "Halloween Ends" (2022).


title: Jamie Lee Curtis

text: Curtis's film work spans many genres, including the cult comedies "Trading Places" (1983)—for which she won a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress—and "A Fish Called Wanda" (1988), for which she received a BAFTA nomination for Best Actress. Her role in the 1985 film "Perfect" earned her a reputation as a sex symbol. She won a Golden Globe Award for her role as Helen Tasker in James Cameron's action thriller "True Lies" (1994). Curtis's other notable film credits include "Blue Steel" (1990), "My Girl" (1991), "Forever Young" (1992), "Mother's Boys" (1993), "Virus" (1999), "Drowning Mona" (2000), "The Tailor of Panama" (2001), "Freaky Friday" (2003), "Christmas with the Kranks" (2004), "You Again" (2010), "Knives Out" (2019), and "Everything Everywhere All at Once" (2022). To date, her films have grossed in excess of US$2.3 billion at the box office.


title: Jamie Lee Curtis

text: Curtis received a Golden Globe and a People's Choice Award for her role as Hannah Miller on ABC's "Anything But Love" (1989–1992), and earned an Primetime Emmy nomination for "Nicholas' Gift" (1998). She also starred as Cathy Munsch on the Fox series "Scream Queens" (2015–16), for which she received her seventh Golden Globe nomination. Curtis has written numerous children's books, including "Today I Feel Silly, and Other Moods That Make My Day" (1998), which made "The New York Times" best-seller list.


title: Jamie Lee Curtis

text: In 2016, "IndieWire" named her one of the best actors never to have received an Academy Award nomination. Curtis is a daughter of Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis. She is married to Christopher Guest, with whom she has two adopted children. Due to her marriage with Guest, who is the 5th Baron Haden-Guest in the United Kingdom, Curtis is a baroness, though she does not use this title.


title: Jamie Lee Curtis

text: Curtis was born in Santa Monica, California, to actors Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh. Her father was Jewish, a son of Hungarian Jewish immigrants, from Mátészalka. Two of her maternal great-grandparents were Danish, while the rest of her mother's ancestry was German and Scots-Irish. Curtis has an older sister, Kelly Curtis, who is also an actress, and four half-siblings (all from her father's remarriages): Alexandra, actress Allegra Curtis, Benjamin, and Nicholas Curtis (who died in 1994 of a drug overdose). Curtis's parents divorced in 1962. After the divorce, she stated her father was "not around" and that he was "not interested in being a father." She was raised by her mother and her stepfather, stockbroker Robert Brandt.


title: Jamie Lee Curtis

text: Curtis attended elite schools Westlake School (now Harvard-Westlake School) and Beverly Hills High School in Los Angeles, and graduated from Choate Rosemary Hall in Connecticut in 1976. Returning to California in 1976, she attended her mother's alma mater, the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California, and studied law. She dropped out after one semester to pursue an acting career.


title: Jamie Lee Curtis

text: Curtis's film debut occurred in the 1978 horror film "Halloween", in which she played the role of Laurie Strode. The film was a major success and was considered the highest-grossing independent film of its time, earning accolades as a classic horror film. The producer, Debra Hill, specifically cast Curtis because her mother, Leigh, had been known as a horror icon. Curtis was subsequently cast in several horror films, garnering her the title "scream queen." She would also return to the "Halloween" franchise seven times, playing Strode again in the sequels "Halloween II" (1981), "" (1998), "" (2002), "Halloween" (2018), "Halloween Kills" (2021), and "Halloween Ends" (2022), and having an uncredited voice role in "" (1982).


title: Jamie Lee Curtis

text: Her next film following "Halloween" was "The Fog", which was helmed by "Halloween" director John Carpenter. The horror film opened in February 1980 to mixed reviews but strong box office, starting Curtis as a horror film starlet. Her next film, "Prom Night", was a low-budget Canadian slasher film released in July 1980. The film, for which she earned a Genie Award nomination for Best Performance by a Foreign Actress, was similar in style to "Halloween", yet received negative reviews which marked it as a disposable entry in the then-popular slasher genre. That year, Curtis also starred in "Terror Train", which opened in October and met with negative reviews akin to "Prom Night". Both films performed moderately well at the box office. Curtis's roles in the latter two films served a similar function to that of Strode—the main character whose friends are murdered and is practically the only protagonist to survive. Film critic Roger Ebert, who gave negative reviews to all three of Curtis's 1980 films, said that Curtis "is to the current horror film glut what Christopher Lee was to the last one—or Boris Karloff was in the 1930s." In 1981, she appeared alongside Stacey Keach in the Australian thriller film "Roadgames", directed by Carpenter's friend Richard Franklin; her importation, which was requested by the film's American distributor AVCO Embassy Pictures, was contested by the Sydney branch of Actors Equity. Although the film was a box office bomb in Australia and Franklin later regretted not increasing the size of Curtis's role, it has achieved a cult following and was championed by Quentin Tarantino. In 1997, she was inducted into the "Fangoria" Hall of Fame.


title: Jamie Lee Curtis

text: Her role in 1983's "Trading Places" helped Curtis shed her horror queen image, and garnered her a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. She then starred in the 1988 comedy film "A Fish Called Wanda", which achieved cult status while showcasing her as a comedic actress. For her performance, she was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. Curtis received positive reviews for her performance in the action thriller "Blue Steel" (1990), which was directed by Kathryn Bigelow. She also received a Golden Globe Award for her work in the 1994 action comedy film "True Lies", directed by James Cameron.


title: Jamie Lee Curtis

text: Her other film roles also include the coming-of-age films "My Girl" (1991) and "My Girl 2" (1994), and the Disney comedy film "Freaky Friday" (2003), opposite Lindsay Lohan. The latter was filmed at Palisades High School in Pacific Palisades, California, near where Curtis and Guest lived with their children. She was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical for her performance in the film. She starred in the Christmas comedy film "Christmas with the Kranks" (2004), which went on to gain a cult following.


title: Jamie Lee Curtis

text: In October 2006, Curtis told "Access Hollywood" that she had closed the book on her acting career to focus on her family. She returned to acting after being cast in June 2007 in Disney's live-action-animated film "Beverly Hills Chihuahua", co-starring opposite Piper Perabo as one of three live-action characters in the film. She also starred in the 2010 comedy film "You Again", opposite Kristen Bell and Sigourney Weaver. Curtis had voice roles in the animated films "The Little Engine That Could" (2011) and "From Up on Poppy Hill" (2011). This was followed by supporting roles in the neo-noir mystery film "Veronica Mars" (2014) and the biographical drama film "Spare Parts" (2015).


title: Jamie Lee Curtis

text: Curtis returned to leading roles with her reprisal of Laurie Strode in the horror sequel film "Halloween" (2018). The film debuted to $76.2 million, marking the second-best opening weekend of October and the highest opening weekend of the "Halloween" franchise; and became the biggest domestic grosser in the franchise with its opening weekend alone. Its opening performance was the best-ever for a film starring a lead actress over 55 years old. Curtis's performance earned critical acclaim. Also in 2018, she had a role in the drama film "An Acceptable Loss". She then starred as Linda Drysdale-Thrombrey in Rian Johnson's mystery film "Knives Out", which earned critical acclaim and over $300 million at the global box office.


title: Jamie Lee Curtis

text: In September 2021, she was honored with the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival for her lifetime achievements. Curtis again reprised her role as Laurie Strode in the horror sequels "Halloween Kills", which was released in October 2021, and in "Halloween Ends", which was released in October 2022. She also appeared as Deirdre Beaubeirdra in the science fiction action film "Everything Everywhere All at Once" (2022), and will have a leading role in the video game adaptation "Borderlands".


title: Jamie Lee Curtis

text: Curtis made her television debut in a 1977 episode of the drama series "Quincy, M.E.". She went on to guest star on several series, including "Columbo", "Charlie's Angels" and "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century". She appeared as Nurse Lt. Barbara Duran in the short-lived comedy series "Operation Petticoat" (1977–1978), based on the 1959 film that starred her father, Tony Curtis. Curtis was also a gameshow panelist on several episodes of "Match Game".


title: Jamie Lee Curtis

text: Curtis starred in the 1981 television film "", playing the eponymous doomed Playmate. She earned a Golden Globe Award nomination for her work in TNT's adaptation of the Wendy Wasserstein play "The Heidi Chronicles". Her first starring role on television came opposite Richard Lewis in the situation comedy series "Anything But Love", which ran for four seasons from 1989 through 1992. For her performance as Hannah Miller, she received a People's Choice Award and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy. Curtis also appeared in a 1996 episode of the sitcom "The Drew Carey Show". In 1998, she starred in the CBS television film "Nicholas' Gift", for which she received an Primetime Emmy Award nomination.


title: Jamie Lee Curtis

text: In 2012, she appeared in five episodes of the police drama series "NCIS", playing the role of Dr. Samantha Ryan, a potential romantic interest of Special Agent Gibbs (Mark Harmon). During an interview, she stated that if they could develop a storyline, she would be interested to return to the series, but this never occurred. The series reunited Curtis with Harmon, after he played her character's fiancé and later husband in the 2003 remake of "Freaky Friday".


title: Jamie Lee Curtis

text: From 2012 to 2018, Curtis had a recurring role as Joan Day, the mother of Zooey Deschanel's character, in the sitcom "New Girl". From 2015 to 2016, Curtis had a lead role as Cathy Munsch on the Fox satirical horror comedy series "Scream Queens", which aired for two seasons. For her performance, she was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy.


title: Jamie Lee Curtis

text: Working with illustrator Laura Cornell, Curtis has written a number of children's books, all published by HarperCollins Children's Books.


title: Jamie Lee Curtis

text: In 1987, Curtis filed a US patent application that subsequently issued as Patent No. 4,753,647. This is a modification of a diaper with a moisture-proof pocket containing wipes that can be taken out and used with one hand. Curtis refused to allow her invention to be marketed until companies started selling biodegradable diapers. The full statutory term of this patent expired February 20, 2007, and it is now in the public domain. She filed a second US patent application related to disposable diapers in 2016 which issued as US Patent 9,827,151 on November 28, 2017, and will expire on September 7, 2036.


title: Jamie Lee Curtis

text: Curtis has been a blogger for "The Huffington Post" online newspaper from 2011 to 2017. On her website, Curtis tells her young readers that she "moonlights as an actor, photographer, and closet organizer".


title: Jamie Lee Curtis

text: Curtis launched the podcast series "Letters from Camp" on Audible in 2020 and "Good Friend with Jamie Lee Curtis" for iHeartRadio in 2021.


title: Jamie Lee Curtis

text: During California's 2008 general election, Curtis appeared in the "Yes on Prop 3" television advertisements.


title: Jamie Lee Curtis

text: In March 2012, Curtis was featured with Martin Sheen and Brad Pitt in a performance of Dustin Lance Black's play "8"—a staged reenactment of the federal trial that overturned California's Prop 8 ban on same-sex marriage—as Sandy Stier. The production was held at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre and broadcast on YouTube to raise money for the American Foundation for Equal Rights. In June 2016, the Human Rights Campaign released a video in tribute to the victims of the Orlando nightclub shooting; in the video, Curtis and others told the stories of the people killed there.


title: Jamie Lee Curtis

text: Curtis endorsed Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election; she has since been a vocal critic of President Donald Trump.


title: Jamie Lee Curtis

text: Beginning in 1990, Curtis and her father, Tony, took a renewed interest in their family's Hungarian Jewish heritage, and helped finance the rebuilding of the "Great Synagogue" in Budapest, Hungary. The largest synagogue in Europe today, it was originally built in 1859 and suffered damage during World War II.


title: Jamie Lee Curtis

text: Curtis also helped to refurbish the synagogue in Mátészalka where her grandparents worshipped. She attended the opening of the Tony Curtis Memorial Museum and Cafe, which is also located in Mátészalka.


title: Jamie Lee Curtis

text: Curtis was guest of honor at the 11th annual gala and fundraiser in 2003 for Women in Recovery, a Venice, California-based non-profit organization offering a live-in, twelve-step program of rehabilitation for women in need. Past honorees of this organization include Sir Anthony Hopkins and Dame Angela Lansbury. Curtis is also involved in the work of the Children Affected by AIDS Foundation, serving as the annual host for the organization's "Dream Halloween" event in Los Angeles, launched every year in October.


title: Jamie Lee Curtis

text: Curtis plays a leadership role for Children's Hospital Los Angeles and supported the 2011 opening of a new inpatient facility for the organization.


title: Jamie Lee Curtis

text: Curtis married Christopher Guest on December 18, 1984. She saw a picture of him from the movie "This Is Spinal Tap" in "Rolling Stone" and told her friend Debra Hill, "Oh, I'm going to marry that guy"; she married him five months later. They have two adopted daughters: Annie, born in 1986, and Ruby, born in 1996; Ruby is transgender. Curtis is actor Jake Gyllenhaal's godmother. Prior to her marriage to Guest, Curtis dated British rock singer Adam Ant.


title: Jamie Lee Curtis

text: Her father-in-law was a British hereditary peer, Peter Haden-Guest, 4th Baron Haden-Guest; when he died on April 8, 1996, her husband succeeded him, becoming the 5th Baron Haden-Guest and making her "The Honourable the Lady Haden-Guest". Curtis does not use this title, saying, "it has nothing to do with me".


title: Jamie Lee Curtis

text: She is close friends with actress Sigourney Weaver. In a 2015 interview, she said she has never watched Weaver's film "Alien" in its entirety because she was too scared by it.


title: Jamie Lee Curtis

text: Curtis is a recovering alcoholic, and was once addicted to painkillers that she began using after a cosmetic surgical procedure. She became sober from opiates in 1999 after reading and relating to Tom Chiarella's account of addiction; and maintains that recovery is the greatest achievement of her life.


title: Jamie Lee Curtis

text: After her father Tony's death, she learned that her entire family, including siblings, had been cut out of his will.


title: Jamie Lee Curtis

text: She is a fan of "World of Warcraft" and "One Piece", and has attended Comic-Con, EVO and BlizzCon incognito.


title: Jamie Lee Curtis

text: Curtis received the Lifetime Achievement Award during the 78th Venice International Film Festival, to which she reacted saying that she "[felt] so alive, like I'm this 14-year-old person just beginning their life. That’s how I wake up every day with that sort of joy and purpose" and added that she "is just beginning [her] work."


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: Bosnia and Herzegovina (, ), abbreviated BiH () or B&H, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and often known informally as Bosnia, is a country at the crossroads of south and southeast Europe, located in the Balkans. Bosnia and Herzegovina borders Serbia to the east, Montenegro to the southeast, and Croatia to the north and southwest. In the south it has a narrow coast on the Adriatic Sea within the Mediterranean, which is about long and surrounds the town of Neum. Bosnia, which is the inland region of the country, has a moderate continental climate with hot summers and cold, snowy winters. In the central and eastern regions of the country, the geography is mountainous, in the northwest it is moderately hilly, and in the northeast it is predominantly flat. Herzegovina, which is the smaller, southern region of the country, has a Mediterranean climate and is mostly mountainous. Sarajevo is the capital and the largest city of the country followed by Banja Luka, Tuzla and Zenica.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: The area that is now Bosnia and Herzegovina has been inhabited by human beings since at least the Upper Paleolithic, but evidence suggests that during the Neolithic age, permanent human settlements were established, including those that belonged to the Butmir, Kakanj, and Vučedol cultures. After the arrival of the first Indo-Europeans, the area was populated by several Illyrian and Celtic civilizations. Culturally, politically, and socially, the country has a rich and complex history. The ancestors of the South Slavic peoples that populate the area today arrived during the 6th through the 9th century. In the 12th century, the Banate of Bosnia was established; by the 14th century, this had evolved into the Kingdom of Bosnia. In the mid-15th century, it was annexed into the Ottoman Empire, under whose rule it remained until the late 19th century. The Ottomans brought Islam to the region, and altered much of the country's cultural and social outlook.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: From the late 19th century until World War I, the country was annexed into the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. In the interwar period, Bosnia and Herzegovina was part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. After World War II, it was granted full republic status in the newly formed Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In 1992, following the breakup of Yugoslavia, the republic proclaimed independence. This was followed by the Bosnian War, which lasted until late 1995 and was brought to a close with the signing of the Dayton Agreement.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: Today, the country is home to three main ethnic groups, designated "constituent peoples" in the country's constitution. The Bosniaks are the largest group of the three, the Serbs are the second-largest, and the Croats are the third-largest. In English, all natives of Bosnia and Herzegovina, regardless of ethnicity, are called Bosnian. Minorities, who under the constitution are categorized as "others", include Jews, Roma, Albanians, Montenegrins, Ukrainians and Turks.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: Bosnia and Herzegovina has a bicameral legislature and a three-member presidency made up of one member from each of the three major ethnic groups. However, the central government's power is highly limited, as the country is largely decentralized. It comprises two autonomous entities—the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska—and a third unit, the Brčko District, which is governed by its own local government. The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina furthermore consists of 10 cantons.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: Bosnia and Herzegovina is a developing country and ranks 74th in the Human Development Index. Its economy is dominated by industry and agriculture, followed by tourism and the service sector. Tourism has increased significantly in recent years. The country has a social-security and universal-healthcare system, and primary and secondary level education is free. It is a member of the UN, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the Council of Europe, the Partnership for Peace, and the Central European Free Trade Agreement; it is also a founding member of the Union for the Mediterranean, established in July 2008. Bosnia and Herzegovina is an EU candidate country and has also been a candidate for NATO membership since April 2010, when it received a Membership Action Plan.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: The first preserved widely acknowledged mention of a form of the name "Bosnia" is in "De Administrando Imperio", a politico-geographical handbook written by the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII in the mid-10th century (between 948 and 952) describing the "small land" (χωρίον in Greek) of "Bosona" (Βοσώνα), where the Serbs dwell.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: The name is believed to derive from the hydronym of the river Bosna that courses through the Bosnian heartland. According to philologist Anton Mayer, the name "Bosna" could derive from Illyrian *"Bass-an-as", which in turn could derive from the Proto-Indo-European root "bos" or "bogh", meaning "the running water". According to the English medievalist William Miller, the Slavic settlers in Bosnia "adapted the Latin designation ... Basante, to their own idiom by calling the stream Bosna and themselves "Bosniaks"".


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: The name "Herzegovina" means "herzog's [land]", and "herzog" derives from the German word for "duke". It originates from the title of a 15th-century Bosnian magnate, Stjepan Vukčić Kosača, who was "Herceg [Herzog] of Hum and the Coast" (1448). Hum (formerly called Zachlumia) was an early medieval principality that had been conquered by the Bosnian Banate in the first half of the 14th century. When the Ottomans took over administration of the region, they called it the Sanjak of Herzegovina ("Hersek"). It was included within the Bosnia Eyalet until the formation of the short-lived Herzegovina Eyalet in the 1830s, which reemerged in the 1850s, after which the administrative region became commonly known as "Bosnia and Herzegovina".


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: On initial proclamation of independence in 1992, the country's official name was the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but following the 1995 Dayton Agreement and the new constitution that accompanied it, the official name was changed to Bosnia and Herzegovina.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: Bosnia has been inhabited by humans since at least the Paleolithic, as one of the oldest cave paintings was found in Badanj cave. Major Neolithic cultures such as the Butmir and Kakanj were present along the river Bosna dated from –.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: The bronze culture of the Illyrians, an ethnic group with a distinct culture and art form, started to organize itself in today's Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro and Albania.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: From 8th century BCE, Illyrian tribes evolved into kingdoms. The earliest recorded kingdom in Illyria (a region in the western part of the Balkan Peninsula inhabited by the Illyrians, as recorded in classical antiquity) was the Enchele in the 8th century BCE. The era in which we observe other Illyrian kingdoms begins approximately at 400 BCE and ends at 167 BCE. The Autariatae under Pleurias (337 BCE) were considered to have been a kingdom. The Kingdom of the Ardiaei (originally a tribe from the Neretva valley region) began at 230 BCE and ended at 167 BCE. The most notable Illyrian kingdoms and dynasties were those of Bardylis of the Dardani and of Agron of the Ardiaei who created the last and best-known Illyrian kingdom. Agron ruled over the Ardiaei and had extended his rule to other tribes as well.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: From the 7th century BCE, bronze was replaced by iron, after which only jewelry and art objects were still made out of bronze. Illyrian tribes, under the influence of Hallstatt cultures to the north, formed regional centers that were slightly different. Parts of Central Bosnia were inhabited by the Daesitiates tribe, most commonly associated with the Central Bosnian cultural group. The Iron Age Glasinac-Mati culture is associated with the Autariatae tribe.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: A very important role in their life was the cult of the dead, which is seen in their careful burials and burial ceremonies, as well as the richness of their burial sites. In northern parts, there was a long tradition of cremation and burial in shallow graves, while in the south the dead were buried in large stone or earth tumuli (natively called "gromile") that in Herzegovina were reaching monumental sizes, more than 50 m wide and 5 m high. "Japodian tribes" had an affinity to decoration (heavy, oversized necklaces out of yellow, blue or white glass paste, and large bronze fibulas, as well as spiral bracelets, diadems and helmets out of bronze foil).


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: In the 4th century BCE, the first invasion of Celts is recorded. They brought the technique of the pottery wheel, new types of fibulas and different bronze and iron belts. They only passed on their way to Greece, so their influence in Bosnia and Herzegovina is negligible. Celtic migrations displaced many Illyrian tribes from their former lands, but some Celtic and Illyrian tribes mixed. Concrete historical evidence for this period is scarce, but overall it appears the region was populated by a number of different peoples speaking distinct languages.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: In the Neretva Delta in the south, there was important Hellenistic influence of the Illyrian Daors tribe. Their capital was "Daorson" in Ošanići near Stolac. Daorson in the 4th century BCE was surrounded by megalithic, 5 m high stonewalls (as large as those of Mycenae in Greece), composed of large trapezoid stone blocks. Daors made unique bronze coins and sculptures.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: Conflict between the Illyrians and Romans started in 229 BCE, but Rome did not complete its annexation of the region until AD 9. It was precisely in modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina that Rome fought one of the most difficult battles in its history since the Punic Wars, as described by the Roman historian Suetonius. This was the Roman campaign against Illyricum, known as "Bellum Batonianum". The conflict arose after an attempt to recruit Illyrians, and a revolt spanned for four years (6–9 AD), after which they were subdued. In the Roman period, Latin-speaking settlers from the entire Roman Empire settled among the Illyrians, and Roman soldiers were encouraged to retire in the region.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: Following the split of the Empire between 337 and 395 AD, Dalmatia and Pannonia became parts of the Western Roman Empire. The region was conquered by the Ostrogoths in 455 AD. It subsequently changed hands between the Alans and the Huns. By the 6th century, Emperor Justinian I had reconquered the area for the Byzantine Empire. Slavs overwhelmed the Balkans in the 6th and 7th centuries. Illyrian cultural traits were adopted by the South Slavs, as evidenced in certain customs and traditions, placenames, etc.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: The Early Slavs raided the Western Balkans, including Bosnia, in the 6th and early 7th century (amid the Migration Period), and were composed of small tribal units drawn from a single Slavic confederation known to the Byzantines as the "Sclaveni" (whilst the related "Antes", roughly speaking, colonized the eastern portions of the Balkans).


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: Tribes recorded by the ethnonyms of "Serb" and "Croat" are described as a second, latter, migration of different people during the second quarter of the 7th century who do not seem to have been particularly numerous; these early "Serb" and "Croat" tribes, whose exact identity is subject to scholarly debate, came to predominate over the Slavs in the neighbouring regions. The bulk of Bosnia proper, however, appears to have been a territory between Serb and Croat rule. It is considered that the westernmost and parts of proper modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina were settled and ruled by Croats, while the easternmost parts by Serbs.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: Bosnia is first mentioned "as a land (horion Bosona)" in Byzantine Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus' "De Administrando Imperio" in the mid 10th century, at the end of a chapter (Chap. 32) entitled "Of the Serbs and the country in which they now dwell". This has been scholarly interpreted in several ways and used especially by the Serb national ideologists to prove Bosnia as originally a "Serb" land. Other scholars have asserted the inclusion of Bosnia into Chapter 32 to merely be the result of Serbian Grand Duke Časlav's temporary rule over Bosnia at the time, while also pointing out Porphyrogenitus does not say anywhere explicitly that Bosnia is a "Serb land". In fact, the very translation of the critical sentence where the word "Bosona" (Bosnia) appears is subject to varying interpretation. In time, Bosnia formed a unit under its own ruler, who called himself Bosnian. Bosnia, along with other territories, became part of Duklja in the 11th century, although it retained its own nobility and institutions.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: In the High Middle Ages, political circumstance led to the area being contested between the Kingdom of Hungary and the Byzantine Empire. Following another shift of power between the two in the early 12th century, Bosnia found itself outside the control of both and emerged as the Banate of Bosnia (under the rule of local "bans"). The first Bosnian ban known by name was Ban Borić. The second was Ban Kulin, whose rule marked the start of a controversy involving the Bosnian Church – considered heretical by the Roman Catholic Church. In response to Hungarian attempts to use church politics regarding the issue as a way to reclaim sovereignty over Bosnia, Kulin held a council of local church leaders to renounce the heresy and embraced Catholicism in 1203. Despite this, Hungarian ambitions remained unchanged long after Kulin's death in 1204, waning only after an unsuccessful invasion in 1254. During this time, the population was called "Dobri Bošnjani" ("Good Bosnians"). The names Serb and Croat, though occasionally appearing in peripheral areas, were not used in Bosnia proper.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: Bosnian history from then until the early 14th century was marked by a power struggle between the Šubić and Kotromanić families. This conflict came to an end in 1322, when Stephen II Kotromanić became "Ban". By the time of his death in 1353, he was successful in annexing territories to the north and west, as well as Zahumlje and parts of Dalmatia. He was succeeded by his ambitious nephew Tvrtko who, following a prolonged struggle with nobility and inter-family strife, gained full control of the country in 1367. By the year 1377, Bosnia was elevated into a kingdom with the coronation of Tvrtko as the first Bosnian King in Mile near Visoko in the Bosnian heartland.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: Following his death in 1391 however, Bosnia fell into a long period of decline. The Ottoman Empire had started its conquest of Europe and posed a major threat to the Balkans throughout the first half of the 15th century. Finally, after decades of political and social instability, the Kingdom of Bosnia ceased to exist in 1463 after its conquest by the Ottoman Empire.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: There was a general awareness in medieval Bosnia, at least amongst the nobles, that they shared a join state with Serbia and that they belong to the same ethnic group. That awareness diminished over time, due to differences in political and social development, but it was kept in Herzegovina and parts of Bosnia which were a part of Serbian state.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: The Ottoman conquest of Bosnia marked a new era in the country's history and introduced drastic changes in the political and cultural landscape. The Ottomans incorporated Bosnia as an integral province of the Ottoman Empire with its historical name and territorial integrity.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: Within Bosnia, the Ottomans introduced a number of key changes in the territory's socio-political administration; including a new landholding system, a reorganization of administrative units, and a complex system of social differentiation by class and religious affiliation.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: The four centuries of Ottoman rule also had a drastic impact on Bosnia's population make-up, which changed several times as a result of the empire's conquests, frequent wars with European powers, forced and economic migrations, and epidemics. A native Slavic-speaking Muslim community emerged and eventually became the largest of the ethno-religious groups due to lack of strong Christian church organizations and continuous rivalry between the Orthodox and Catholic churches, while the indigenous Bosnian Church disappeared altogether (ostensibly by conversion of its members to Islam). The Ottomans referred to them as "kristianlar" while the Orthodox and Catholics were called "gebir" or "kafir", meaning "unbeliever". The Bosnian Franciscans (and the Catholic population as a whole) were protected by official imperial decrees and in accordance and full extent of Ottoman laws; however, in effect, these often merely affected arbitrary rule and behavior of powerful local elite.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: As the Ottoman Empire continued their rule in the Balkans (Rumelia), Bosnia was somewhat relieved of the pressures of being a frontier province, and experienced a period of general welfare. A number of cities, such as Sarajevo and Mostar, were established and grew into regional centers of trade and urban culture and were then visited by Ottoman traveler Evliya Çelebi in 1648. Within these cities, various Ottoman Sultans financed the construction of many works of Bosnian architecture such as the country's first library in Sarajevo, madrassas, a school of Sufi philosophy, and a clock tower ("Sahat Kula"), bridges such as the Stari Most, the Emperor's Mosque and the Gazi Husrev-beg Mosque.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: Furthermore, several Bosnian Muslims played influential roles in the Ottoman Empire's cultural and political history during this time. Bosnian recruits formed a large component of the Ottoman ranks in the battles of Mohács and Krbava field, while numerous other Bosnians rose through the ranks of the Ottoman military to occupy the highest positions of power in the Empire, including admirals such as Matrakçı Nasuh; generals such as Isa-Beg Ishaković, Gazi Husrev-beg, Telli Hasan Pasha and Sarı Süleyman Pasha; administrators such as Ferhad Pasha Sokolović and Osman Gradaščević; and Grand Viziers such as the influential Sokollu Mehmed Pasha and Damat Ibrahim Pasha. Some Bosnians emerged as Sufi mystics, scholars such as Muhamed Hevaji Uskufi Bosnevi, Ali Džabić; and poets in the Turkish, Albanian, Arabic, and Persian languages.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: However, by the late 17th century the Empire's military misfortunes caught up with the country, and the end of the Great Turkish War with the treaty of Karlowitz in 1699 again made Bosnia the Empire's westernmost province. The 18th century was marked by further military failures, numerous revolts within Bosnia, and several outbreaks of plague.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: The Porte's efforts at modernizing the Ottoman state were met with distrust growing to hostility in Bosnia, where local aristocrats stood to lose much through the proposed Tanzimat reforms. This, combined with frustrations over territorial, political concessions in the north-east, and the plight of Slavic Muslim refugees arriving from the Sanjak of Smederevo into Bosnia Eyalet, culminated in a partially unsuccessful revolt by Husein Gradaščević, who endorsed a Bosnia Eyalet autonomous from the authoritarian rule of the Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II, who persecuted, executed and abolished the Janissaries and reduced the role of autonomous Pashas in Rumelia. Mahmud II sent his Grand vizier to subdue Bosnia Eyalet and succeeded only with the reluctant assistance of Ali Pasha Rizvanbegović. Related rebellions were extinguished by 1850, but the situation continued to deteriorate.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: New nationalist movements appeared in Bosnia by the middle of the 19th century. Shortly after Serbia's breakaway from the Ottoman Empire in the early 19th century, Serbian and Croatian nationalism rose up in Bosnia, and such nationalists made irredentist claims to Bosnia's territory. This trend continued to grow in the rest of the 19th and 20th centuries.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: Agrarian unrest eventually sparked the Herzegovinian rebellion, a widespread peasant uprising, in 1875. The conflict rapidly spread and came to involve several Balkan states and Great Powers, a situation that led to the Congress of Berlin and the Treaty of Berlin in 1878.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: At the Congress of Berlin in 1878, the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister Gyula Andrássy obtained the occupation and administration of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and he also obtained the right to station garrisons in the Sanjak of Novi Pazar, which would remain under Ottoman administration until 1908, when the Austro-Hungarian troops withdrew from the Sanjak.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: Although Austro-Hungarian officials quickly came to an agreement with the Bosnians, tensions remained and a mass emigration of Bosnians occurred. However, a state of relative stability was reached soon enough and Austro-Hungarian authorities were able to embark on a number of social and administrative reforms they intended would make Bosnia and Herzegovina into a "model" colony.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: Habsburg rule had several key concerns in Bosnia. It tried to dissipate the South Slav nationalism by disputing the earlier Serb and Croat claims to Bosnia and encouraging identification of Bosnian or Bosniak identity. Habsburg rule also tried to provide for modernisation by codifying laws, introducing new political institutions, establishing and expanding industries.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: Austria–Hungary began to plan the annexation of Bosnia, but due to international disputes the issue was not resolved until the annexation crisis of 1908. Several external matters affected the status of Bosnia and its relationship with Austria–Hungary. A bloody coup occurred in Serbia in 1903, which brought a radical anti-Austrian government into power in Belgrade. Then in 1908, the revolt in the Ottoman Empire raised concerns that the Istanbul government might seek the outright return of Bosnia and Herzegovina. These factors caused the Austro-Hungarian government to seek a permanent resolution of the Bosnian question sooner, rather than later.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: Taking advantage of turmoil in the Ottoman Empire, Austro-Hungarian diplomacy tried to obtain provisional Russian approval for changes over the status of Bosnia and Herzegovina and published the annexation proclamation on 6 October 1908. Despite international objections to the Austro-Hungarian annexation, Russians and their client state, Serbia, were compelled to accept the Austrian-Hungarian annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in March 1909.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: In 1910, Habsburg Emperor Franz Joseph proclaimed the first constitution in Bosnia, which led to relaxation of earlier laws, elections and formation of the Bosnian parliament and growth of new political life.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: On 28 June 1914, Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb member of the revolutionary movement Young Bosnia, assassinated the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in Sarajevo—an event that was the spark that set off World War I. At the end of the war, the Bosniaks had lost more men per capita than any other ethnic group in the Habsburg Empire whilst serving in the Bosnian-Herzegovinian Infantry (known as "Bosniaken") of the Austro-Hungarian Army. Nonetheless, Bosnia and Herzegovina as a whole managed to escape the conflict relatively unscathed.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: The Austro-Hungarian authorities established an auxiliary militia known as the Schutzkorps with a moot role in the empire's policy of anti-Serb repression. Schutzkorps, predominantly recruited among the Muslim (Bosniak) population, were tasked with hunting down rebel Serbs (the "Chetniks" and "Komitadji") and became known for their persecution of Serbs particularly in Serb populated areas of eastern Bosnia, where they partly retaliated against Serbian Chetniks who in fall 1914 had carried out attacks against the Muslim population in the area. The proceedings of the Austro-Hungarian authorities led to around 5,500 citizens of Serb ethnicity in Bosnia and Herzegovina being arrested, and between 700 and 2,200 died in prison while 460 were executed. Around 5,200 Serb families were forcibly expelled from Bosnia and Herzegovina.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: Following World War I, Bosnia and Herzegovina joined the South Slav Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (soon renamed Yugoslavia). Political life in Bosnia and Herzegovina at this time was marked by two major trends: social and economic unrest over property redistribution and the formation of several political parties that frequently changed coalitions and alliances with parties in other Yugoslav regions.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: The dominant ideological conflict of the Yugoslav state, between Croatian regionalism and Serbian centralization, was approached differently by Bosnia and Herzegovina's major ethnic groups and was dependent on the overall political atmosphere. The political reforms brought about in the newly established Yugoslavian kingdom saw few benefits for the Bosnian Muslims; according to the 1910 final census of land ownership and population according to religious affiliation conducted in Austria-Hungary, Muslims owned 91.1%, Orthodox Serbs owned 6.0%, Croat Catholics owned 2.6% and others, 0.3% of the property. Following the reforms, Bosnian Muslims were dispossessed of a total of 1,175,305 hectares of agricultural and forest land.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: Although the initial split of the country into 33 oblasts erased the presence of traditional geographic entities from the map, the efforts of Bosnian politicians, such as Mehmed Spaho, ensured the six oblasts carved up from Bosnia and Herzegovina corresponded to the six sanjaks from Ottoman times and, thus, matched the country's traditional boundary as a whole.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: The establishment of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929, however, brought the redrawing of administrative regions into banates or "banovinas" that purposely avoided all historical and ethnic lines, removing any trace of a Bosnian entity. Serbo-Croat tensions over the structuring of the Yugoslav state continued, with the concept of a separate Bosnian division receiving little or no consideration.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: The Cvetković-Maček Agreement that created the Croatian banate in 1939 encouraged what was essentially a partition of Bosnia and Herzegovina between Croatia and Serbia. However the rising threat of Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany forced Yugoslav politicians to shift their attention. Following a period that saw attempts at appeasement, the signing of the Tripartite Treaty, and a coup d'état, Yugoslavia was finally invaded by Germany on 6 April 1941.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: Once the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was conquered by German forces in World War II, all of Bosnia and Herzegovina was ceded to the Nazi puppet regime, the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) led by the Ustaše. The NDH leaders embarked on a campaign of extermination of Serbs, Jews, Romani as well as dissident Croats, and, later, Josip Broz Tito's Partisans by setting up a number of death camps. The regime systematically and brutally massacred Serbs in villages in the countryside, using a variety of tools. The scale of the violence meant that approximately every sixth Serb living in Bosnia and Herzegovina was the victim of a massacre and virtually every Serb had a family member that was killed in the war, mostly by the Ustaše. The experience had a profound impact in the collective memory of Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. An estimated 209,000 Serbs or 16.9% of its Bosnia population were killed on the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina during the war.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: The Ustaše recognized both Catholicism and Islam as the national religions, but held the position Eastern Orthodox Church, as a symbol of Serb identity, was their greatest foe. Although Croats were by far the largest ethnic group to constitute the Ustaše, the Vice President of the NDH and leader of the Yugoslav Muslim Organization Džafer Kulenović was a Muslim, and Muslims in total constituted nearly 12% of the Ustaše military and civil service authority.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: Many Serbs themselves took up arms and joined the Chetniks, a Serb nationalist movement with the aim of establishing an ethnically homogeneous 'Greater Serbian' state within the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The Chetniks, in turn, pursued a genocidal campaign against ethnic Muslims and Croats, as well as persecuting a large number of communist Serbs and other Communist sympathizers, with the Muslim populations of Bosnia, Herzegovina and Sandžak being a primary target. Once captured, Muslim villagers were systematically massacred by the Chetniks. Of the 75,000 Muslims who died in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the war, approximately 30,000 (mostly civilians) were killed by the Chetniks. Massacres against Croats were smaller in scale but similar in action. Between 64,000 and 79,000 Bosnian Croats were killed between April 1941 to May 1945. Of these, about 18,000 were killed by the Chetniks.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: A percentage of Muslims served in Nazi "Waffen-SS" units. These units were responsible for massacres of Serbs in northwest and eastern Bosnia, most notably in Vlasenica. On 12 October 1941, a group of 108 prominent Sarajevan Muslims signed the Resolution of Sarajevo Muslims by which they condemned the persecution of Serbs organized by the Ustaše, made distinction between Muslims who participated in such persecutions and the Muslim population as a whole, presented information about the persecutions of Muslims by Serbs, and requested security for all citizens of the country, regardless of their identity.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: Starting in 1941, Yugoslav communists under the leadership of Josip Broz Tito organized their own multi-ethnic resistance group, the Partisans, who fought against both Axis and Chetnik forces. On 29 November 1943, the Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia (AVNOJ) with Tito at its helm held a founding conference in Jajce where Bosnia and Herzegovina was reestablished as a republic within the Yugoslavian federation in its Habsburg borders. During the entire course of World War II in Yugoslavia, 64.1% of all Bosnian Partisans were Serbs, 23% were Muslims and 8.8% Croats.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: Military success eventually prompted the Allies to support the Partisans, resulting in the successful Maclean Mission, but Tito declined their offer to help and relied on his own forces instead. All the major military offensives by the antifascist movement of Yugoslavia against Nazis and their local supporters were conducted in Bosnia and Herzegovina and its peoples bore the brunt of the fighting. More than 300,000 people died in Bosnia and Herzegovina in World War II. At the end of the war, the establishment of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, with the constitution of 1946, officially made Bosnia and Herzegovina one of six constituent republics in the new state.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: Due to its central geographic position within the Yugoslavian federation, post-war Bosnia was selected as a base for the development of the military defense industry. This contributed to a large concentration of arms and military personnel in Bosnia; a significant factor in the war that followed the break-up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. However, Bosnia's existence within Yugoslavia, for the large part, was relatively peaceful and very prosperous, with high employment, a strong industrial and export oriented economy, a good education system and social and medical security for every citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Several international corporations operated in Bosnia — Volkswagen as part of TAS (car factory in Sarajevo, from 1972), Coca-Cola (from 1975), SKF Sweden (from 1967), Marlboro, (a tobacco factory in Sarajevo), and Holiday Inn hotels. Sarajevo was the site of the 1984 Winter Olympics.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: During the 1950s and 1960s, Bosnia was a political backwater of Yugoslavia. In the 1970s, a strong Bosnian political elite arose, fueled in part by Tito's leadership in the Non-Aligned Movement and Bosnians serving in Yugoslavia's diplomatic corps. While working within the Socialist system, politicians such as Džemal Bijedić, Branko Mikulić and Hamdija Pozderac reinforced and protected the sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Their efforts proved key during the turbulent period following Tito's death in 1980, and are today considered some of the early steps towards Bosnian independence. However, the republic did not escape the increasingly nationalistic climate of the time. With the fall of communism and the start of the breakup of Yugoslavia, doctrine of tolerance began to lose its potency, creating an opportunity for nationalist elements in the society to spread their influence.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: On 18 November 1990, multi-party parliamentary elections were held throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina. A second round followed on 25 November, resulting in a national assembly where communist power was replaced by a coalition of three ethnically based parties. Following Slovenia and Croatia's declarations of independence from Yugoslavia, a significant split developed among the residents of Bosnia and Herzegovina on the issue of whether to remain within Yugoslavia (overwhelmingly favored by Serbs) or seek independence (overwhelmingly favored by Bosniaks and Croats).


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: The Serb members of parliament, consisting mainly of the Serb Democratic Party members, abandoned the central parliament in Sarajevo, and formed the Assembly of the Serb People of Bosnia and Herzegovina on 24 October 1991, which marked the end of the three-ethnic coalition that governed after the elections in 1990. This Assembly established the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina in part of the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina on 9 January 1992. It was renamed Republika Srpska in August 1992. On 18 November 1991, the party branch in Bosnia and Herzegovina of the ruling party in the Republic of Croatia, the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), proclaimed the existence of the Croatian Community of Herzeg-Bosnia in a separate part of the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina with the Croatian Defence Council (HVO) as its military branch. It went unrecognized by the Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which declared it illegal.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: A declaration of the sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina on 15 October 1991 was followed by a referendum for independence on 29 February and 1 March 1992, which was boycotted by the great majority of Serbs. The turnout in the independence referendum was 63.4 percent and 99.7 percent of voters voted for independence. Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence on 3 March 1992 and received international recognition the following month on 6 April 1992. The Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was admitted as a member state of the United Nations on 22 May 1992. Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević and Croatian leader Franjo Tuđman are believed to have agreed on a partition of Bosnia and Herzegovina in March 1991, with the aim of establishing Greater Serbia and Greater Croatia.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: Following Bosnia and Herzegovina's declaration of independence, Bosnian Serb militias mobilized in different parts of the country. Government forces were poorly equipped and unprepared for the war. International recognition of Bosnia and Herzegovina increased diplomatic pressure for the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) to withdraw from the republic's territory, which they officially did in June 1992. The Bosnian Serb members of the JNA simply changed insignia, formed the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS), and continued fighting. Armed and equipped from JNA stockpiles in Bosnia, supported by volunteers and various paramilitary forces from Serbia, and receiving extensive humanitarian, logistical and financial support from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Republika Srpska's offensives in 1992 managed to place much of the country under its control. The Bosnian Serb advance was accompanied by the ethnic cleansing of Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats from VRS-controlled areas. Dozens of concentration camps were established in which inmates were subjected to violence and abuse, including rape. The ethnic cleansing culminated in the Srebrenica massacre of more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys in July 1995, which was ruled to have been a genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Bosniak and Bosnian Croat forces also committed war crimes against civilians from different ethnic groups, though on a smaller scale. Most of the Bosniak and Croat atrocities were committed during the Croat–Bosniak War, a sub-conflict of the Bosnian War that pitted the Army of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH) against the HVO. The Bosniak-Croat conflict ended in March 1994, with the signing of the Washington Agreement, leading to the creation of a joint Bosniak-Croat Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which amalgamated HVO-held territory with that held by the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH).


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: On 4 February 2014, the protests against the Government of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, one of the country's two entities, dubbed the Bosnian Spring, the name being taken from the Arab Spring, began in the northern town of Tuzla. Workers from several factories that had been privatised and gone bankrupt assembled to demand action over jobs, unpaid salaries and pensions. Soon protests spread to the rest of the Federation, with violent clashes reported in close to 20 towns, the biggest of which were Sarajevo, Zenica, Mostar, Bihać, Brčko and Tuzla. The Bosnian news media reported that hundreds of people had been injured during the protests, including dozens of police officers, with bursts of violence in Sarajevo, in the northern city of Tuzla, in Mostar in the south, and in Zenica in central Bosnia. The same level of unrest or activism did not occur in Republika Srpska, but hundreds of people also gathered in support of protests in the city of Banja Luka against its separate government.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: The protests marked the largest outbreak of public anger over high unemployment and two decades of political inertia in the country since the end of the Bosnian War in 1995.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: According to a report made by Christian Schmidt of the Office of High Representative in late 2021, Bosnia and Herzegovina has been experiencing intensified political and ethnic tensions, which could potentially break the country apart and slide it back into war once again. The European Union fears this will lead to further Balkanization in the region.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: Bosnia and Herzegovina is in the western Balkans, bordering Croatia () to the north and west, Serbia () to the east, and Montenegro () to the southeast. It has a coastline about long surrounding the town of Neum. It lies between latitudes 42° and 46° N, and longitudes 15° and 20° E.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: The country's name comes from the two alleged regions Bosnia and Herzegovina, whose border was never defined. Historically, Bosnia's official name never included any of its many regions until the Austro-Hungarian occupation.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: The country is mostly mountainous, encompassing the central Dinaric Alps. The northeastern parts reach into the Pannonian Basin, while in the south it borders the Adriatic. The Dinaric Alps generally run in a southeast–northwest direction, and get higher towards the south. The highest point of the country is the peak of Maglić at , on the Montenegrin border. Other major mountains include Volujak, Zelengora, Lelija, Lebršnik, Orjen, Kozara, Grmeč, Čvrsnica, Prenj, Vran, Vranica, Velež, Vlašić, Cincar, Romanija, Jahorina, Bjelašnica, Treskavica and Trebević. The geological composition of the Dinaric chain of mountains in Bosnia consists primarily of limestone (including Mesozoic limestone), with deposits of iron, coal, zinc, manganese, bauxite, lead, and salt present in some areas, especially in central and northern Bosnia.


title: Bosnia and Herzegovina

text: Overall, nearly 50% of Bosnia and Herzegovina is forested. Most forest areas are in the centre, east and west parts of Bosnia. Herzegovina has a drier Mediterranean climate, with dominant karst topography. Northern Bosnia (Posavina) contains very fertile agricultural land along the Sava river and the corresponding area is heavily farmed. This farmland is a part of the Pannonian Plain stretching into neighboring Croatia and Serbia. The country has only of coastline, around the town of Neum in the Herzegovina-Neretva Canton. Although the city is surrounded by Croatian peninsulas, by international law, Bosnia and Herzegovina has a right of passage to the outer sea.