title: 2018 Formula One World Championship

text: The FIA made several changes to its trackside procedures to further accommodate the halo. The time limit on the extraction test – the test of a driver extracting himself from the survival cell of a crashed car – was extended to allow drivers more time to escape. The starting gantries at circuits were also lowered to improve the visibility of the starting lights.


title: 2018 Formula One World Championship

text: Tyre supplier Pirelli provided teams with two new tyre compounds in 2018. Each of the 2017 compounds was made softer, with a new "hypersoft" tyre becoming the softest of the nine and a new "superhard" tyre to be the hardest. The hypersoft compound was marked by a pink sidewall, while the superhard was orange. The hard compound, which previously used orange markings, was changed to ice blue. The hypersoft compound made its début at the Monaco Grand Prix. The rules dictating which tyres are available were relaxed to allow Pirelli to supply a wider range of compounds. Previously, Pirelli had to provide sequential compounds; for example, ultrasoft, supersoft and soft. In 2018, Pirelli was able to supply compounds with up to two steps of difference between them; for example, the ultrasoft, supersoft and hard tyres. Pirelli was required to manufacture an additional tyre compound that was not intended for competition. This tyre was to be supplied to teams for use in demonstration events to prevent teams from using demonstration events as informal – and illegal – testing.


title: 2018 Formula One World Championship

text: For the Spanish, French and British Grands Prix, Pirelli reduced the tread depth by 0.4mm across all compounds. This was to combat blistering due to new asphalt at these circuits for the 2018 season, which resulted in higher grip and reduced tyre wear. This was in response to the high level of blistering experienced by Mercedes at the re-surfaced Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in pre-season testing.


title: 2018 Formula One World Championship

text: The championship started in Melbourne with the Australian Grand Prix. The race concluded with a victory for Ferrari and Sebastian Vettel, who used a timely virtual safety car period – triggered by the stricken Haas of Romain Grosjean – to pass Mercedes's Lewis Hamilton, after which Vettel successfully defended his position until the finish. Kimi Räikkönen finished third in the other Ferrari ahead of Red Bull Racing's Daniel Ricciardo. McLaren ended the first race of their partnership with Renault with a fifth and ninth place for Alonso and Vandoorne respectively. Max Verstappen finished sixth after an early spin ahead of Nico Hülkenberg. Valtteri Bottas was eighth, having started fifteenth when he took a penalty for a gearbox change after a heavy crash in qualifying. Carlos Sainz Jr. completed the points-scoring positions in tenth. Charles Leclerc and Sergey Sirotkin both made their competitive débuts for Sauber and Williams respectively. Leclerc finished thirteenth while Sirotkin retired with a brake failure.


title: 2018 Formula One World Championship

text: Vettel then won from pole at the next round in Bahrain, holding off a late charge from Bottas to win by seven-tenths of a second. Hamilton finished third despite a 5 place grid penalty for a gearbox change and contact with Verstappen on the second lap.


title: 2018 Formula One World Championship

text: However, in China, Vettel's winning run was broken, with Ricciardo's 2 stop strategy helping the Australian to his sixth career victory, ahead of Bottas and Räikkönen. Ricciardo pitted for a new set of softs with 20 laps to go under safety car while the leaders stayed out on their used set of mediums, he then fought his way past both Ferraris and Mercedes to the lead.


title: 2018 Formula One World Championship

text: Hamilton took his first win of the year in Azerbaijan and with it, the lead in the Drivers' Championship. Räikkönen finished 2nd while Sergio Pérez claimed 3rd. With 10 laps to go, Bottas was leading (but still needing to make a pitstop) followed by Vettel and Hamilton. When the Red Bulls crashed they brought out the safety car. Bottas pitted under safety car and came out still leading but a puncture on the penultimate lap caused him to retire. Vettel, who was second behind him at the restart, locked up on cold tyres at turn 1 and went wide, dropping behind the remaining top three.


title: 2018 Formula One World Championship

text: In Spain, Hamilton had taken pole position. However, the first lap saw the safety car deployed when Haas's Romain Grosjean spun off at turn 3. He had spun back onto the track, but his spinning rear tyres caused a plume of smoke to bellow, which Pierre Gasly of Toro Rosso and Nico Hülkenberg of Renault got caught in and led to a 3-car retirement. In the end, Hamilton won comfortably in Spain, extending his lead to seventeen points. Bottas finished second while Verstappen finished third, his first podium of the season.


title: 2018 Formula One World Championship

text: Ricciardo took pole in Monaco and won the event despite developing an engine problem mid-race that left him severely down on power. Vettel finished second and Hamilton finished 3rd. Vettel closed his points deficit to Hamilton, while Ricciardo gained two spots in the Drivers' Championship to be third overall.


title: 2018 Formula One World Championship

text: In Canada, Vettel won from pole taking the world championship lead by one point from Hamilton. Bottas finished 2nd for the fourth time this season as Verstappen finished third, his qualifying position. The race result was counted back to the standings at the end of lap 68 (of 70) after the chequered flag was waved a lap early in error – although this did not impact the top 10 standings. The fastest lap of the race however, was affected. Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo had set two fastest laps on laps 69 and 70, but because the chequered flag mistakenly waved early and the results were taken from lap 68, the fastest lap went to Max Verstappen, who had set it back on lap 65.


title: 2018 Formula One World Championship

text: Hamilton took pole position and victory (his third of the season) in the returning French Grand Prix, taking the world championship lead back with 14 points, with Vettel finishing only 5th after a first corner crash with Bottas. Verstappen finished second, taking advantage of the Vettel–Bottas crash. Räikkönen finished third, passing Ricciardo in the closing laps of the race.


title: 2018 Formula One World Championship

text: In Austria, Bottas started the race on pole, followed by Hamilton and Räikkönen. However, in the race, both Mercedes suffered from technical problems and neither one was able to finish the race. Ricciardo also retired from the race. Verstappen won, followed by Räikkönen in 2nd and Vettel in 3rd. Haas took full advantage of the Mercedes and Ricciardo retirements and finished 4th (Grosjean) and 5th (Magnussen). Vettel re-took the lead of the championship by 1 point, following Hamilton's retirement.


title: 2018 Formula One World Championship

text: At his home race in Great Britain, Hamilton took pole on his final flying lap, with the two Ferraris of Vettel and Räikkönen both within a tenth of his time. However, he dropped down to 18th on the first lap after contact with Räikkönen sent him into a spin. Two safety car periods late in the race bunched the field up, one for a single car crash involving Ericsson and the other after contact between Grosjean and Sainz. Vettel passed Bottas for the lead with 5 laps to go to take his fourth win of the season and extend his championship lead. Hamilton recovered from his first lap crash to take second ahead of Räikkönen.


title: 2018 Formula One World Championship

text: In Germany, Vettel took his fifth pole of the season on home turf. He led the race until lap 52 when he made a mistake at turn 13 and crashed into the wall following a small rain shower, forcing him to retire. The incident triggered a safety car, which saw the leading cars of Bottas and Räikkönen pit for new tyres. Meanwhile, Hamilton took the lead of the race after starting 14th having made one less pit stop. After the safety car restart, Hamilton led Bottas home in a 1–2 for Mercedes on home soil with Räikkönen completing the podium for Ferrari.


title: 2018 Formula One World Championship

text: In Hungary, Hamilton started from pole after a soaking Q3 and won the race, with Vettel and Räikkönen completing the podium.


title: 2018 Formula One World Championship

text: The season resumed in Belgium, after the mid-season break. Hamilton started from pole but lost the lead to title rival Vettel on the first lap after a straight-line high-speed pass. Vettel eventually won the race with Hamilton second and Verstappen completing the podium with third. Also notable was a first-corner crash that saw a lock-up by Hülkenberg send Alonso over the top of Leclerc, while Räikkönen and Ricciardo had their own incident that eventually ended both drivers' races. The race was almost down to 18 cars due to the original Sahara Force India team having gone into administration earlier on, but a new Racing Point Force India team (whose owners includes Williams driver Lance Stroll's father Lawrence) was accepted to the grid in time for the race. Because technically it was a new entry into the championship of a new team, Force India had to start from scratch in the Constructors' Championship, but drivers Sergio Pérez and Esteban Ocon were allowed to keep the points they had earned in the Drivers' Championship. Racing Point Force India qualified 3rd and 4th on the grid during qualifying, and finished 5th and 6th in the race.


title: 2018 Formula One World Championship

text: In Italy, on Ferrari's home turf, Räikkönen took the fastest ever pole position in F1 history until the 2020 Italian Grand Prix, ahead of teammate Vettel. There was a first lap incident between Hamilton and Vettel which left the latter struggling as he could only manage 4th. During a nail-biting race, Hamilton overtook Räikkönen on lap 45, thus winning his sixth race of the season, with Räikkönen finishing second and Bottas finishing third after a collision with Verstappen. Sergey Sirotkin scored his first and only point in the season by finishing 10th after the disqualification of Romain Grosjean – thus ensuring that every driver who entered the championship managed to score points, which happened for the first time in the series' history.


title: 2018 Formula One World Championship

text: In Singapore, a track where Mercedes traditionally struggled, Hamilton took pole position with the fastest lap which he described as "magical" and as one of the best laps he's ever done. Hamilton would go on to win the race with title rival Vettel finishing third behind Verstappen. The race also saw both Kevin Magnussen and Haas get their first fastest lap.


title: 2018 Formula One World Championship

text: In Russia, Bottas started from pole and was the virtual race leader for the first half of the race but obeyed team orders and allowed Hamilton to overtake him on lap 26. This allowed Hamilton to win the race followed by Bottas and Vettel.


title: 2018 Formula One World Championship

text: In Japan, Hamilton took the pole which he then converted into victory after leading every lap, he was followed by Bottas in second and Max Verstappen in third. This was Hamilton's 80th pole position and Bottas's 30th podium finish.


title: 2018 Formula One World Championship

text: At the United States Grand Prix Hamilton could win the world championship if he outscored Vettel by 8 points or more. It was Hamilton who took pole with Räikkönen starting second. Vettel actually qualified second but had to start fifth after being penalised for not slowing enough during a red flag period in first practice. The race was won by Räikkönen, his first win in 114 grand prix which was a new record. Verstappen finished second and Hamilton third, as Vettel finished fourth. Hamilton only outscored Vettel by three points meaning he had failed to wrap up the title on his first attempt.


title: 2018 Formula One World Championship

text: In Mexico, Vettel needed to win the Grand Prix and Hamilton 8th or lower for the Championship to remain in contention. Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo secured his latest pole position, but would eventually retire from the Grand Prix with an engine failure, his eighth failure to finish during the season. His teammate, Max Verstappen won by 17.3 seconds while Vettel came in second place. Hamilton finished in 4th place, which was enough to secure his fifth Drivers' Championship.


title: 2018 Formula One World Championship

text: In Brazil, the penultimate race of the season, Ferrari needed to outscore Mercedes by at least 13 points to remain in contention for the Constructors' Championship. Hamilton started from pole but lost the lead to Max Verstappen on lap 40 as Mercedes had to turn his engine down to prevent failure. Verstappen then looked set to win the race, but was spun around on lap 44 by the Force India of Esteban Ocon who was attempting to unlap himself (an incident which led to a shoving match during driver weight checks after the race). Verstappen's spin allowed Hamilton to retake the lead and subsequently win the race. Räikkönen finished third for Ferrari while his teammate Vettel finished sixth after a sensor problem and a failed gamble on tyre strategy compromised his race. This, combined with Hamilton's win and Bottas's fifth-place finish, allowed Mercedes to clinch their fifth successive Constructors' Championship.


title: 2018 Formula One World Championship

text: In Abu Dhabi, the final race of the season, the safety car was brought out on the first lap when Renault's Nico Hülkenberg barrel-rolled into the barricade at turn 9 after accidentally colliding with Grosjean. In his final race for Ferrari, Raikkonen retired on lap 7 when his engine failed, triggering the virtual safety car. In the end, Hamilton won with Vettel finishing second, and the two Red Bulls third and fourth. After the race, Hamilton and Vettel flanked the retiring Fernando Alonso on the post-race lap, and all three drivers performed synchronized "donuts" on the finish straight.


title: 2018 Formula One World Championship

text: In order for full points to be awarded, the race winner must complete at least 75% of the scheduled race distance. Half points are awarded if the race winner completes less than 75% of the race distance provided that at least two laps are completed. In the event of a tie at the conclusion of the championship, a count-back system is used as a tie-breaker, with a driver's/constructor's best result used to decide the standings.


title: Hmong people

text: The Hmong people (RPA: "Hmoob", Nyiakeng Puachue: , Pahawh Hmong: , ) are a sub-ethnic group of the Miao people who originated from Central China. The modern Hmongs presently reside mainly in Southwest China (Guizhou, Yunnan, Sichuan, Chongqing, and Guangxi) and countries in Southeast Asia such as Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar. There is also a very large diasporic community in the United States, comprising more than 300,000 Hmong. The Hmong diaspora also has smaller communities in Australia and South America (specifically Argentina and French Guiana, the latter being an overseas region of France).


title: Hmong people

text: During the First and Second Indo-China Wars, France and the United States intervened in the Lao Civil War by recruiting thousands of Hmong people to fight against forces from North and South Vietnam, which were stationed in Laos in accordance with their mission to support the communist Pathet Lao insurgents. The CIA operation is known as the Secret War.


title: Hmong people

text: In Southeast Asia, Hmong people are referred to by other names, including: ; Lao: ແມ້ວ (Maew, can be pronounced to mean "cat", and also sounds of cats) or ມົ້ງ (Mong); Thai: แม้ว (Maew, can be pronounced to mean "cat", and also sounds of cats) or ม้ง (Mong); ("mun lu-myo").


title: Hmong people

text: The term "Miao" or "Meo" (meaning "cats", "barbarians", and even "Sons of the Soil")" was officially used in reference to the Hmong in Southeast Asia until the 1970s, when Dr. Yang Dao, a Hmong scholar, advocated for the term "Hmong" with the support of clan leaders and General Vang Pao.


title: Hmong people

text: Yang Dao had insisted that the terms "Meo" and "Miao" were both unacceptable as his people had always called themselves by the name "Hmong," which he defined as “free men.”.


title: Hmong people

text: A recent DNA study in Thailand found that Hmong paternal lineage is quite different from those lu Mien and other Southeast Asian tribes. The Hmong-Mien and Sino-Tibetan speaking people are known as hill tribes in Thailand; they were the subject of the first studies to show an impact of patrilocality vs. matrilocality on patterns of mitochondrial (mt) DNA vs. male-specific portion of the Y chromosome (MSY) variation.


title: Hmong people

text: According to linguist Martha Ratliff, there is linguistic evidence to suggest that they have occupied some of the same areas of southern China for over 8,000 years. Evidence from mitochondrial DNA in Hmong–Mien–speaking populations supports the southern origins of maternal lineages even further back in time, although it has been shown that Hmong-speaking populations had comparatively more contact with northern East Asians than had the Mien.


title: Hmong people

text: The most likely homeland of the Hmong–Mien languages is in Southern China between the Yangtze and Mekong rivers.


title: Hmong people

text: Migration of people speaking these languages from South China to Southeast Asia took place ca. 1600–1700 CE. Ancient DNA evidence suggests that the ancestors of the speakers of the Hmong–Mien languages were a population genetically distinct from that of the Tai–Kadai and Austronesian language source populations at a location on the Yangtze River. Recent Y-DNA phylogeny evidence supports the proposition that people who speak the Hmong–Mien languages are descended from a population that is distantly related to those who now speaks the Mon-Khmer languages.


title: Hmong people

text: The time of Proto-Hmong-Mien has been estimated to be about 2500 BP (500 BC) by Sagart, Blench, and Sanchez-Mazas using traditional methods employing many lines of evidence, and about 4243 BP by the Automated Similarity Judgment Program (ASJP), an experimental algorithm for automatic generation of phonologically based phylogenies.


title: Hmong people

text: Hmong traditions and legends indicate that they originated near the Yellow River region of China, but this is not substantiated by any scientific evidence. According to linguist Martha Ratliff, there is linguistic evidence to suggest that they have occupied some of the same areas of southern China for over 8,000 years. Evidence from mitochondrial DNA in Hmong–Mien–speaking populations supports the southern origins of maternal lineages even further back in time, although it has been shown that Hmong-speaking populations had comparatively more contact with northern East Asians than had the Mien. A rare haplogroup, O3d, was found at the Daxi culture in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, indicating that the Daxi people might be the ancestors of modern Hmong-Mien populations, which show only small traces of O3d today.


title: Hmong people

text: Chi You is the Hmong ancestral Hmong God of War. Today, a statue of Chi You has been erected in the town named Zhuolu. The author of "Guoyu", authored in the 4th to 5th century, considered Chi You’s Jiu Li tribe to be related to the ancient ancestors of the Hmong, the San-Miao people.


title: Hmong people

text: In 2011, Hmong DNA was sampled and found to contain 7.84% D-M15 and 6%N(Tat) DNA. The research found a common ancestry between Hmong-Mien peoples and Mon-Khmer people groups dating to the Last Glacial Maximum approximately 15,000 to 18,000 years ago.


title: Hmong people

text: Conflict between the Hmong of southern China and newly arrived Han settlers increased during the 18th century under repressive economic and cultural reforms imposed by the Qing dynasty. This led to armed conflict and large-scale migrations well into the late 19th century, the period during which many Hmong people immigrated to Southeast Asia. The migration process had begun as early as the late-17th century, however, before the time of major social unrest, when small groups went in search of better agricultural opportunities.


title: Hmong people

text: The Hmong people were subjected to persecution and genocide by the Qing dynasty government. Kim Lacy Rogers wrote: "In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, while the Hmong lived in south-western China, their Manchu overlords had labeled them 'Miao' and targeted them for genocide."


title: Hmong people

text: Since 1949, the Miao people () has been an official term for one of the 56 official minority groups recognized by the government of the People's Republic of China. The Miao live mainly in southern China, in the provinces of Guizhou, Hunan, Yunnan, Sichuan, Guangxi, Hainan, Guangdong, and Hubei. According to the 2000 censuses, the number of 'Miao' in China was estimated to be about 9.6 million. The Miao nationality includes Hmong people as well as other culturally and linguistically related ethnic groups who do not call themselves Hmong. These include the Hmu, Kho (Qho) Xiong, and A-Hmao. The White Miao (Bai Miao) and Green Miao (Qing Miao) are Hmong groups.


title: Hmong people

text: The Hmong or Miao began to migrate to Tonkin (Northern Vietnam) in 19th century, where they struggled to establish their community on the high mountains. They recognized the Tai-speaking overlords of valleys, who were vassals of the Vietnamese court in Hue. The Hue court of Tu Duc at the time was facing crisis after crisis, unable to retake control of Tonkin and the border regions, which the Taiping rebellion and other Chinese rebels spillover to Vietnam had pushed it into anarchy. In here, Hmong communities humbly thrived on either sides of the Red River, harmonizing among other ethnic groups, and they were largely ignored by all factions.


title: Hmong people

text: During the colonization of 'Tonkin' (North Vietnam) between 1883 and 1954, a number of Hmong decided to join the Vietnamese Nationalists and Communists, while many Christianized Hmong sided with the French. After the Viet Minh victory, numerous pro-French Hmong had to fall back to Laos and South Vietnam.


title: Hmong people

text: After decades of distant relations with the Lao kingdoms, closer relations between the French military and some Hmong on the Xieng Khouang plateau were set up after World War II. There, a particular rivalry between members of the Lo and Ly clans developed into open enmity, also affecting those connected with them by kinship. Clan leaders took opposite sides and as a consequence, several thousand Hmong participated in the fighting against the Pathet Lao Communists, while perhaps as many were enrolled in the People's Liberation Army. In Laos, numerous Hmong also genuinely tried to avoid getting involved in the conflict in spite of the extremely difficult material conditions under which they lived during wartime.


title: Hmong people

text: In the early 1960s, partially as a result of the North Vietnamese invasion of Laos, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) Special Activities Division began to recruit, train and lead the indigenous Hmong people in Laos to fight against North Vietnamese Army divisions invading Laos during the Vietnam War. This "Secret Army" was organized into various mobile regiments and divisions, including various Special Guerrilla Units, all of whom were led by General Vang Pao. An estimated sixty-percent (60%) of Hmong men in Laos joined up.


title: Hmong people

text: While Hmong soldiers were known to assist the North Vietnamese in many situations, Hmong soldiers were also recognized for serving in combat against the NVA and the Pathet Lao, helping block Hanoi's Ho Chi Minh trail inside Laos and rescuing downed American pilots. Though their role was generally kept secret in the early stages of the conflict, they made great sacrifices to help the U.S.


title: Hmong people

text: Thousands of economic and political refugees have resettled in Western countries in two separate waves. The first wave resettled in the late 1970s, mostly in the United States, after the North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao takeovers of the pro-US governments in South Vietnam and Laos respectively. The Lao Veterans of America, and Lao Veterans of America Institute, helped to assist in the resettlement of many Laotian and Hmong refugees and asylum seekers in the United States, especially former Hmong veterans and their family members who served in the "U.S. Secret Army" in Laos during the Vietnam War.


title: Hmong people

text: For many years, the Neo Hom resistance and political movement played a key role in resistance to the Vietnam People's Army in Laos following the U.S. withdrawal in 1975. Vang Pao played a significant role in this movement. Additionally, a spiritual leader Zong Zoua Her, as well as other Hmong leaders, including Pa Kao Her or Pa Khao Her, rallied some of their followers in an additional factionalized guerrilla resistance movement called ChaoFa (RPA: Cob Fab, Pahawh Hmong: ). These events led to the yellow rain controversy when the United States accused the Soviet Union of supplying and using chemical weapons in this conflict.


title: Hmong people

text: Small groups of Hmong people, many of the second or third generation descendants of former CIA soldiers, remain internally displaced in remote parts of Laos, in fear of government reprisals. Faced with continuing military operations against them by the government and a scarcity of food, some groups have begun coming out of hiding, while others have sought asylum in Thailand and other countries. Hmong in Laos, in particularly, developed a stronger and deeper anti-Vietnamese sentiment than their Vietnamese Hmong cousins, due to historic persecution perpetrated by the Vietnamese against them.


title: Hmong people

text: In June 1991, after talks with the UNHCR and the Thai government, Laos agreed to the repatriation of over 60,000 Lao refugees living in Thailand, including tens of thousands of Hmong people. Very few of the Lao refugees, however, were willing to return voluntarily. Pressure to resettle the refugees grew as the Thai government worked to close its remaining refugee camps. While some Hmong people returned to Laos voluntarily, with development assistance from UNHCR, coercive measures and forced repatriation was used to send thousands of Hmong back from whence they had fled. Of those Hmong who did return to Laos, some quickly escaped back to Thailand, describing discrimination and brutal treatment at the hands of Lao authorities.


title: Hmong people

text: In the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s, The Center for Public Policy Analysis, a non-governmental public policy research organization, and its Executive Director, Philip Smith, played a key role in raising awareness in the U.S. Congress and policy-making circles in Washington, D.C. about the plight of the Hmong and Laotian refugees in Thailand and Laos. The CPPA, backed by a bipartisan coalition of members of the U.S. Congress and human rights organizations, conducted numerous research missions to the Hmong and Laotian refugee camps along the Mekong River in Thailand, as well as the Buddhist temple of Wat Tham Krabok.


title: Hmong people

text: Amnesty International, the Lao Veterans of America, Inc., the United League for Democracy in Laos, Inc., Lao Human Rights Council, Inc. (led by Dr. Pobzeb Vang Vang Pobzeb, and later Vaughn Vang) and other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and human rights organizations joined the opposition to forced repatriation.


title: Hmong people

text: Although some accusations of forced repatriation were denied, thousands of Hmong people refused to return to Laos. In 1996, as the deadline for the closure of Thai refugee camps approached, and under mounting political pressure, the U.S. agreed to resettle Hmong refugees who passed a new screening process. Around 5,000 Hmong people who were not resettled at the time of the camp closures sought asylum at Wat Tham Krabok, a Buddhist monastery in central Thailand where more than 10,000 Hmong refugees were already living. The Thai government attempted to repatriate these refugees, but the Wat Tham Krabok Hmong refused to leave and the Lao government refused to accept them, claiming they were involved in the illegal drug trade and were of non-Lao origin.


title: Hmong people

text: In 2003, following threats of forcible removal by the Thai government, the U.S., in a significant victory for the Hmong, agreed to accept 15,000 of the refugees. Several thousand Hmong people, fearing forced repatriation to Laos if they were not accepted for resettlement in the U.S., fled the camp to live elsewhere within Thailand where a sizable Hmong population has been present since the 19th century.


title: Hmong people

text: In 2004 and 2005, thousands of Hmong fled from the jungles of Laos to a temporary refugee camp in the Thai province of Phetchabun.


title: Hmong people

text: The European Union, UNHCHR, and international groups have since spoken out about the forced repatriation.


title: Hmong people

text: On 4 June 2007, as part of an investigation labeled Operation Tarnished Eagle, U.S. federal courts ordered warrants issued for the arrest of Vang Pao and nine others for plotting to overthrow the government of Laos in violation of the federal Neutrality Acts and for multiple weapons charges. The federal charges alleged that members of the group inspected weapons, including AK-47s, smoke grenades, and Stinger missiles, with the intent of purchasing them and smuggling them into Thailand in June 2007, where they were intended to be used by Hmong resistance forces in Laos. The one non-Hmong person of the nine arrested, Harrison Jack, a 1968 West Point graduate and retired Army infantry officer, allegedly attempted to recruit Special Operations veterans to act as mercenaries.


title: Hmong people

text: To obtain the weapons, Jack allegedly met unknowingly with undercover U.S. federal agents posing as weapons dealers, prompting the warrants, part of a long-running investigation into the activities of the U.S.-based Hmong leadership and its supporters.


title: Hmong people

text: On 15 June, the defendants were indicted by a grand jury and a warrant was also issued for the arrest of an 11th man allegedly involved in the plot. Simultaneous raids of the defendants' homes and work locations, involving over 200 federal, state and local law enforcement officials, were conducted in approximately 15 cities in Central and Southern California in the US.


title: Hmong people

text: Multiple protest rallies in support of the suspects, designed to raise awareness of the treatment of Hmong peoples in the jungles of Laos, took place in California, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Alaska, and several of Vang Pao's high-level supporters in the U.S. criticized the California court that issued the arrest warrants, arguing that Vang was a historically important American ally and a valued leader of U.S. and foreign-based Hmong. However, calls for then Californian Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and then President George W. Bush to pardon the defendants were not answered, presumably pending a conclusion of the large and then still-ongoing federal investigation.


title: Hmong people

text: On 18 September 2009, the US federal government dropped all charges against Vang Pao, announcing in a release that the federal government was permitted to consider "the probable sentence or other consequences if the person is convicted." On 10 January 2011, after Vang Pao's death, the federal government dropped all charges against the remaining defendants saying, "Based on the totality of the circumstances in the case, the government believes, as a discretionary matter, that continued prosecution of defendants is no longer warranted," according to court documents.


title: Hmong people

text: The presence of Hmong settlements in Thailand is documented from the end of the 19th century on. Initially, the Siamese paid little attention to them. But in the early 1950s, the state suddenly took a number of initiatives aimed at establishing links. Decolonization and nationalism were gaining momentum in the Peninsula and wars of independence were raging. Armed opposition to the state in northern Thailand, triggered by outside influence, started in 1967 while again many Hmong refused to take sides in the conflict. Communist guerrilla warfare stopped by 1982 as a result of an international concurrence of events that rendered it pointless. Priority has since been given by the Thai state to sedentarizing the mountain population, introducing commercially viable agricultural techniques and national education, with the aim of integrating these non-Tai animists within the national identity.


title: Hmong people

text: Many Hmong refugees resettled in the United States after the Vietnam War. Beginning in December 1975, the first Hmong refugees arrived in the U.S., mainly from refugee camps in Thailand; however, only 3,466 were granted asylum at that time under the Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act of 1975. In May 1976, another 11,000 were allowed to enter the United States, and by 1978 some 30,000 Hmong people had immigrated. This first wave was made up predominantly of men directly associated with General Vang Pao's secret army. It was not until the passage of the Refugee Act of 1980 that families were able to enter the U.S., becoming the second wave of Hmong immigrants. Hmong families scattered across all 50 states but most found their way to each other, building large communities in California, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Smaller, but still sizeable communities also formed in Michigan (Detroit), Montana (Missoula), and Alaska (Anchorage).


title: Hmong people

text: Hmong people have their own terms for their subcultural divisions. "Hmong Der" (Hmoob Dawb), and "Hmong Leng" (Hmoob Leeg) are the terms for two of the largest groups in the United States and Southeast Asia. These subgroups are also known as the White Hmong, and Blue or Green Hmong, respectively. These names originate from the color and designs of women's dresses in each respective group, with the White Hmong distinguished by the white dresses women wear on special occasions, and the Blue/Green Hmong by the blue batiked dresses that the women wear. The name and pronunciation "Hmong" is exclusively used by the White Hmong to refer to themselves, and many dictionaries use only the White Hmong dialect.


title: Hmong people

text: In the Romanized Popular Alphabet, developed in the 1950s in Laos, these terms are written "Hmoob Dawb" (White Hmong) and "Hmoob Leeg" (Green Hmong). The final consonants indicate with which of the eight lexical tones the word is pronounced.


title: Hmong people

text: White Hmong and Green Hmong speak mutually intelligible dialects of the Hmong language, with some differences in pronunciation and vocabulary. One of the most characteristic differences is the use of the voiceless /m̥/ in White Hmong, indicated by a preceding "H" in Romanized Popular Alphabet. Voiceless nasals are not found in the Green Hmong dialect. Hmong groups are often named after the dominant colors or patterns of their traditional clothing, style of head-dress, or the provinces from which they come.


title: Hmong people

text: The Hmong groups in Vietnam and Laos, from the 18th century to the present day, are known as Black Hmong ("Hmoob Dub"), Striped Hmong ("Hmoob Txaij"), White Hmong ("Hmoob Dawb"), Hmong Leng ("Hmoob Leeg") and Green Hmong ("Hmoob Ntsuab"). In other places in Asia, groups are also known as Black Hmong ("Hmoob Dub" or "Hmong Dou"), Striped Hmong ("Hmoob Txaij" or "Hmoob Quas Npab"), Hmong Shi, Hmong Pe, Hmong Pua, and Hmong Xau, Hmong Xanh (Green Hmong), Hmong Do (Red Hmong), Na Mieo and various other subgroups. These include the Flower Hmong or the Variegated Hmong ("Hmong Lenh" or "Hmong Hoa"), so named because of their bright, colorful embroidery work (called "pa ndau" or "paj ntaub", literally "flower cloth").


title: Hmong people

text: When Western authors first came in contact with Hmong people in the 18th century, they referred to them by writing ethnonyms which were previously assigned to them by the Chinese (i.e., Miao, or variants). This practice continued into the 20th century. Even ethnographers studying the Hmong people in Southeast Asia often referred to them as Meo, a corruption of Miao applied by Thai and Lao people to the Hmong. Although "Meo" was an official term, it was often used as an insult against the Hmong people, and it is considered to be derogatory.


title: Hmong people

text: The issue came to a head during the passage of California State Assembly Bill (AB) 78, in the 2003–2004 season. Introduced by Doua Vu and Assembly Member Sarah Reyes, District 31 (Fresno), the bill encouraged changes in secondary education curriculum to include information about the Secret War and the role of Hmong people in the war. Furthermore, the bill called for the use of oral histories and first-hand accounts by Hmong people who had participated in the war and were caught up in its aftermath. Originally, the language of the bill mentioned only "Hmong" people, intending to include the entire community. Several Mong Leng activists, led by Dr. Paoze Thao (Professor of Linguistics and Education at California State University, Monterey Bay), drew attention to the problems associated with omitting "Mong" from the language of the bill. They noted that despite nearly equal numbers of Hmong Der and Mong Leng in the United States, resources are disproportionately allocated to the Hmong Der community. This not only includes scholarly research, it also includes the translation of materials, including the curriculum proposed by the bill. Despite these arguments, "Mong" was not added to the bill. In the version of the bill which was passed by the assembly, "Hmong" was replaced by "Southeast Asians," a broader and more inclusive term.


title: Hmong people

text: Dr. Paoze Thao and some others strongly feel that "Hmong" can only be used in reference to Hmong Der people because it does not include "Mong" Leng people. He feels that the use of "Hmong" in reference to both groups perpetuates the marginalization of the Mong Leng language and culture. Thus, he advocates the use of "Hmong" and "Mong" in reference to the entire ethnic group. Other scholars, including anthropologist Dr. Gary Yia Lee (a Hmong Der person), suggests that for the past 30 years, "Hmong" has been used in reference to the entire community and as a result, the inclusion of Mong Leng people is understandable. Some argue that such distinctions create unnecessary divisions within the global community and they also argue that the use of these same distinctions will only confuse non-Hmong and Mong people who are both trying to learn more about Hmong and Mong history and culture.


title: Hmong people

text: As a compromise alternative, multiple iterations of "Hmong" have been proposed. A Hmong theologian, Rev. Dr. Paul Joseph T. Khamdy Yang has proposed the use of the term "HMong" in reference to the "Hmong" and the "Mong" communities by capitalizing the H and the M. The ethnologist Jacques Lemoine has also begun to use the term (H)mong in reference to the entirety of the Hmong and Mong communities.


title: Hmong people

text: Some non-Chinese Hmong advocate for the term 'Hmong' to be used not only to designate their dialect group They generally claim that the word "Miao" or "Meo" is a derogatory term, with connotations of barbarism, that probably should not be used at all. The term was later adopted by Tai-speaking groups in Southeast Asia where it took on especially insulting associations for Hmong people despite its official status.


title: Hmong people

text: In modern China, the term "Miao" does not carry these negative associations and people of the various sub-groups that constitute this officially recognized nationality freely identify themselves as Miao or Chinese, typically reserving more specific ethnonyms for intra-ethnic communication. During the struggle for political recognition after 1949, it was members of these ethnic minorities who campaigned for identification under the umbrella term "Miao"taking advantage of its familiarity and associations of historical political oppression.


title: Hmong people

text: Contemporary transnational interactions between Hmong in the West and Miao groups in China, following the 1975 Hmong emigration, led to the development of a global Hmong identity that includes linguistically and culturally related minorities in China with no previous ethnic affiliation. Scholarly and commercial exchanges, increasingly made over the Internet, have also resulted in an exchange of terminology, including some Hmong people accepting the designation "Miao" after visiting China and some nationalist non-Hmong Miao peoples identifying as Hmong. Such realignments of identity, while largely the concern of economically elite community leaders reflects a trend towards the interchangeability of the terms "Hmong" and "Miao."


title: Hmong people

text: Linguistic data show that the Hmong of the Peninsula stem from the Miao of southern China as one among a set of ethnic groups belonging to the Hmong–Mien language family. Linguistically and culturally speaking, the Hmong and the other sub-groups of the Miao have little in common.


title: Hmong people

text: Vietnam, where their presence is attested from the late 18th century onwards and characterized with both assimilation, cooperation and hostility, is likely to be the first Indochinese country into which the Hmong migrated.


title: Hmong people

text: At the 2019 national census, there were 1,393,547 Hmong living in Vietnam, the vast majority of them in the north of the country. The traditional trade in coffin wood with China and cultivation of the opium poppy – not prohibited in Vietnam until 1993 – long guaranteed a regular cash income. Today, converting to cash cropping is the main economic activity. As in China and Laos, Hmong participate to a certain degree in local and regional administration. In the late 1990s, several thousands of Hmong started moving to the Central Highlands and some crossed the border into Cambodia, constituting the first attested presence of Hmong settlers in that country.


title: Hmong people

text: In 2015, the Hmong in Laos numbered 595,028. Hmong settlement there is nearly as ancient as in Vietnam.


title: Hmong people

text: After the 1975 Communist victory, thousands of Hmong from Laos had to seek refuge abroad (see Laos below). Approximately 30 percent of the Hmong left, although the only concrete figure we have is that of 116,000 Hmong from Laos and Vietnam together seeking refuge in Thailand up to 1990.


title: Hmong people

text: Myanmar most likely includes a modest number of Hmong (perhaps around 2,500) but no reliable census has been conducted there recently.


title: Hmong people

text: As result of refugee movements in the wake of the Indochina Wars (1946–1975), in particular, in Laos, the largest Hmong community to settle outside Asia went to the United States where approximately 100,000 individuals had already arrived by 1990. By the same date, 10,000 Hmong had migrated to France, including 1,400 in French Guiana, Canada admitted 900 individuals, while another 360 went to Australia, 260 to China, and 250 to Argentina. Over the following years and until the definitive closure of the last refugee camps in Thailand in 1998, additional numbers of Hmong have left Asia, but the definitive figures are still to be produced.


title: Hmong people

text: Approximately 5% of the Hmong population currently lives outside of Asia, with the United States home to the largest Hmong diaspora community. The 2008 Census counted 171,316 people solely of Hmong ancestry, and 221,948 persons of at least partial Hmong ancestry. Other countries with significant populations include:


title: Hmong people

text: The Hmong population within the United States is centered in the Upper Midwest (Wisconsin, Minnesota) and California.


title: Hmong people

text: Hmong people in Vietnam have been perceived differently by various modern political organizations and in different historical periods. Since the Hmong are an ethnic minority in Vietnam, their loyalty toward the Vietnamese state has been frequently questioned by the state. However, many Hmong in Vietnam are fiercely loyal to the Vietnamese state, regardless of the current ideologies of the government with the Hmong in Laos and Cambodia most supportive of active resistance. These tend to be Hmong Christians that have been targeted by all three Indochinese governments. The Hmong in Vietnam also receive cultural and political promotion from the government which led to the Vietnamese Hmong further diverging from the Laotian Hmong, as the latter are strongly anti-Vietnamese due to the Secret War and Communism.


title: Hmong people

text: The Hmong presence in Thailand dates back, according to most authors, to the turn of the 20th century when families migrated from China through Laos and Burma. A relatively small population, they still settled dozens of villages and hamlets throughout the northern provinces. The Hmong were then registered by the state as the Meo hill tribe. Then, more Hmong migrated from Laos to Thailand following the victory of the Pathet Lao in 1975. While some ended up in refugee camps, others settled in mountainous areas among more ancient Hill Tribes.


title: Hmong people

text: Many Hmong refugees resettled in the United States after the Vietnam War. Beginning in December 1975, the first Hmong refugees arrived in the U.S., mainly from refugee camps in Thailand; however, only 3,466 were granted asylum at that time under the Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act of 1975. In May 1976, another 11,000 were allowed to enter the United States, and by 1978 some 30,000 Hmong people had immigrated. This first wave was made up predominantly of men directly associated with General Vang Pao's secret army. It was not until the passage of the Refugee Act of 1980 that families were able to enter the U.S., becoming the second wave of Hmong immigrants. Hmong families scattered across all 50 states but most found their way to each other, building large communities in California, Minnesota and Wisconsin. As of the 2010 census, 260,073 Hmong people reside in the United States the majority of whom live in California (91,224), Minnesota (66,181), and Wisconsin (49,240), an increase from 186,310 in 2000. Of them, 247,595 or 95.2% are Hmong alone, and the remaining 12,478 are mixed Hmong with some other ethnicity or race. The vast majority of part-Hmong are under 10 years old.


title: Hmong people

text: In terms of cities and towns, the largest Hmong-American community is in St. Paul (29,662), followed by Fresno (24,328), Sacramento (16,676), Milwaukee (10,245), and Minneapolis (7,512).


title: Hmong people

text: There are smaller Hmong communities scattered across the United States, including those in Minnesota (Rochester, Mankato, Duluth) Michigan (Detroit and Warren); Anchorage, Alaska; Denver, Colorado; Portland, Oregon; Washington; North Carolina (Charlotte, Morganton); South Carolina (Spartanburg); Georgia (Auburn, Duluth, Monroe, Atlanta, and Winder); Florida (Tampa Bay); California (Merced); Wisconsin(Madison, Eau Claire, Appleton, Green Bay, Milwaukee, Oshkosh, La Crosse, Sheboygan, Manitowoc, and Wausau); Aurora, Illinois; Kansas City, Kansas; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Missoula, Montana; Des Moines, Iowa; Springfield, Missouri; Arkansas, Fitchburg, Massachusetts, and Providence, Rhode Island.


title: Hmong people

text: Sunisa "Suni" Lee of Saint Paul, Minnesota is a notable Hmong-American; she is a three time Olympic medalist in artistic gymnastics. In the 2020 Summer Olympics, Lee won silver in the women's artistic team all-around, followed by gold in the women's artistic individual all-around and bronze in the women's uneven bars. With these results, Sunisa made history as both the first Hmong-American to compete in the Olympics in any sport and the first Hmong-American to win an Olympic medal.


title: Hmong people

text: Canada's small Hmong population is mostly concentrated within the province of Ontario. Kitchener, Ontario has 515 residents of Hmong descent, and has a Hmong church.


title: Hmong people

text: There is also a small community of several thousand Hmong who migrated to French Guiana in the late 1970s and early 1980s, that can be mainly found in the Hmong villages of Javouhey (1200 individuals) and Cacao (950 individuals).


title: Hmong people

text: Hmong Catholics, Protestants and Animists have been subjected to military attacks, police arrest, imprisonment, forced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, and torture in Laos and Vietnam on anti-religious grounds.


title: Hmong people

text: A significant example was the deportation of Zoua Yang and her 27 children from Thailand on 19 December 2005, after the group was arrested attending a church in Ban Kho Noi, Phetchabun Province, Thailand and Ms. Yang and her children were detained upon their return to Laos, after which the whereabouts of much of the family remain unknown.


title: Hmong people

text: In 2011, Vietnam People's Army troops were used to crush a peaceful demonstration by Hmong Catholic, Protestant and Evangelical Christians who gathered in Dien Bien Province and the Dien Bien Phu area of northwestern Vietnam, according to Philip Smith of the Center for Public Policy Analysis, independent journalists and others. In 2013, Vam Ngaij Vaj, a Christian pastor of Hmong ancestry, was beaten to death by Vietnamese police and security forces. In Hanoi, Vietnamese government officials refused to allow medical treatment for a Hmong Christian leader, Duong Van Minh, who was suffering from a serious kidney illness, in February 2014.


title: Hmong people

text: The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has documented official and ongoing religious persecution, religious freedom violations against the Laotian and Hmong people in both Laos and Vietnam by the governments. In April 2011, the Center for Public Policy Analysis also researched and documented cases of Hmong Christians being attacked and summarily executed, including four Lao Hmong Christians.


title: The Father (2020 film)

text: The Father is a 2020 psychological drama film directed by Florian Zeller, in his directorial debut; he co-wrote the screenplay with fellow playwright Christopher Hampton based on Zeller's 2012 play "Le Père", which is part of a trilogy that also includes "Le Fils" and "The Mother". A French-British co-production, the film stars Anthony Hopkins, Olivia Colman, Mark Gatiss, Imogen Poots, Rufus Sewell, and Olivia Williams, and follows an octogenarian Welsh man living with dementia.


title: The Father (2020 film)

text: "The Father" premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival on 27 January 2020 and was released by Sony Pictures Classics in the United States on 26 February 2021, in France on 26 May 2021 by UGC Distribution, and in the United Kingdom on 11 June 2021 by Lionsgate UK. The film grossed $28 million on a $6 million budget and was acclaimed by critics, who lauded the performances of Hopkins and Colman, as well as the production values and its portrayal of dementia.


title: The Father (2020 film)

text: At the 93rd Academy Awards, Hopkins won Best Actor and Zeller and Hampton won Best Adapted Screenplay; the film received six nominations in total, including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actress (Colman). At the 78th Golden Globe Awards, the film received four nominations, including Best Motion Picture – Drama, and it received six nominations at the 74th British Academy Film Awards, winning Best Actor (Hopkins) and Best Adapted Screenplay. In addition, Hopkins and Colman were nominated for Outstanding Leading Actor and Outstanding Supporting Actress respectively at the 27th Screen Actors Guild Awards.


title: The Father (2020 film)

text: Anne visits her father Anthony in his flat after he has driven away the latest of several caregivers. He has dementia and constantly forgets important life events and where things are around his flat, including his watch. He tells Anne he believes his caregiver stole his watch and that he will never move out of his flat. She tells Anthony she is moving to Paris to be with a man, which confuses Anthony since he does not recall any men in her life since the end of her marriage to James. Anne says that if he keeps refusing to have a caregiver, she will have to move him into a nursing home.


title: The Father (2020 film)

text: The next day, Anthony encounters an unknown man, Paul, in his flat. Paul says he is Anne's husband and that Anthony is living in their flat. Anne returns but appears to Anthony as a different woman. When a new caregiver, Laura, arrives for an interview, Anthony tells Laura he was a professional dancer and insists he does not need any assistance. Anthony later says Laura reminds him of his other daughter Lucy, whom he has not seen for a long time.


title: The Father (2020 film)

text: Anthony is taken to a doctor and rejects the idea that he has memory problems. Later, he tells Laura how proud he is of Lucy, a painter. She tells him she is sorry about Lucy's accident, but Anthony is confused as he has no recollection of the accident. Over the course of the film, it becomes clear that Anthony has really been living with Anne for years, but believes he still lives in his own flat. After Anne comes home, she and her husbandwho is sometimes called Paul and sometimes James, and appears as two different menhave an argument over a holiday that had to be cancelled because of Anthony's needs, and about Anne's sacrifices for her father. Paul asks Anthony how long he plans to stay in their flat and annoy everyone; this sequence of events is repeated later, and on the second occasion Paul slaps him.


title: The Father (2020 film)

text: Anthony wakes up and walks out of the flat, finding himself in a hospital hallway. He remembers Lucy lying in a hospital bed with blood on her face. He then wakes up in a completely different bedroom, which is in a nursing home. His nurse arrives, who earlier appeared as both Anne and Laura, but identifies herself as Catherine. She informs him that Anne lives in Paris and visits on occasional weekends. Another nurse named Bill also visits, identical to one of the men who earlier appeared to be Anne's husband. Anthony breaks down in tears over his inability to understand what is happening to him, as well as Anne's disappearance. He says he wants his mother and that he is "losing his leaves, the branches, the wind and the rain". Catherine comforts him and tells him she will take him out to the park later.


title: The Father (2020 film)

text: It was announced in May 2019 that Florian Zeller was to direct a screenplay with Christopher Hampton based on his play. Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman were cast in the film. Olivia Williams, Rufus Sewell, Imogen Poots and Mark Gatiss joined later that month, with filming beginning on 13 May. Filming locations included West London Film Studios, and Hayes, Hillingdon.


title: The Father (2020 film)

text: "The Father" had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on 27 January 2020. Prior to this, Sony Pictures Classics and Lionsgate acquired U.S. and U.K. distribution rights to the film, respectively. It also screened at the Toronto International Film Festival on 14 September 2020 and at the AFI Fest in October 2020.


title: The Father (2020 film)

text: In the United States, the film began a limited release in New York City and Los Angeles on 26 February 2021, before expanding on 12 March and then being available on premium video on demand starting 26 March, after originally being scheduled to be released on 18 December 2020. The film was released in India on 23 April 2021 and in the United Kingdom on 11 June 2021, delayed from earlier release dates of 8 January and 12 March in response to lockdowns as result of a second-wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The film was released in mainland China on 18 June 2021.


title: The Father (2020 film)

text: "The Father" grossed $2.1 million in the United States and Canada, and $26.1 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $28.2 million.


title: The Father (2020 film)

text: In the film's opening weekend in the United States, the film made $433,611 from 865 theatres, finishing eighth at the box office. The weekend following its six Oscar nominations, the film made $355,000 from 937 theatres. Following its two Oscar wins, the film made $147,000 from 713 theatres, for a running total of $1.9 million.


title: The Father (2020 film)

text: In Spain the film made $171,901 in its opening weekend from 156 theatres, then $160,378 in its second and $54,901 in its third.


title: The Father (2020 film)

text: Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that of critics' reviews were positive, with an average rating of . The website's critics consensus reads: "Led by stellar performances and artfully helmed by writer-director Florian Zeller, "The Father" presents a devastatingly empathetic portrayal of dementia." Metacritic assigned it a Weighted arithmetic mean score of 88 out of 100 based on 51 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". According to PostTrak, 84% of audience members gave the film a positive score, with 54% saying they would definitely recommend it.


title: The Father (2020 film)

text: Writing for "Variety", Owen Gleiberman said ""The Father" does something that few movies about mental deterioration in old age have brought off in quite this way, or this fully. It places us in the mind of someone losing his mind—and it does so by revealing that mind to be a place of seemingly rational and coherent experience." For "The Guardian", Benjamin Lee wrote of Hopkins's performance: "It's astounding, heartbreaking work, watching him try to rationally explain to himself and those around him what he's experiencing. In some of the film's most quietly upsetting moments, his world has shifted yet again but he remains silent, knowing that any attempt to question what he's woken up to will only fall on deaf ears. Hopkins runs the full gamut of emotions from fury to outrage to longing for his mother like a little child and never once does it feel like a constructed character bit, despite our association with him as an actor with a storied career."


title: The Father (2020 film)

text: Todd McCarthy of "The Hollywood Reporter" wrote: "The best film about the wages of aging since "Amour" eight years ago, "The Father" takes a bracingly insightful, subtle and nuanced look at encroaching dementia and the toll it takes on those in close proximity to the afflicted. Fronted by a stupendous performance from Anthony Hopkins as a proud [man] in denial of his condition, this penetrating work marks an outstanding directorial debut by the play's French author Florian Zeller."


title: The Father (2020 film)

text: Writing for "Indiewire", David Ehrlich said: "Zeller adapts his award-winning play of the same name with steely vision and remarkable confidence, as the writer-director makes use of the camera like he's been standing behind one for his entire life. ... In Zeller's hands, what appears to be a conventional-seeming portrait of an unmoored old man as he rages against his daughter and caretaker slowly reveals itself to be the brilliant study of a mind at sea, and of the indescribable pain of watching someone drown."


title: The Father (2020 film)

text: Writing for "The New York Times", Jeannette Catsoulis said "The Father" is "stupendously effective and profoundly upsetting" and described it as a "majestic depiction of things falling away". "The Guardian" Anne Billson ranked Hopkins's performance in the film as the best of his career.


title: The Father (2020 film)

text: A follow-up film, "The Son" based on Zeller's 2018 play, which is framed as a prequel to "The Father", with Hopkins reprising his role as Anthony and Zeller returning as writer and director, was released on 25 November 2022.


title: Lauren Cohan

text: Lauren Cohan (born January 7, 1982) is an American-British actress best known for her role as Maggie Greene in the AMC post-apocalyptic horror television series "The Walking Dead" (2011–2018; 2020–2022). Her other notable TV roles include Bela Talbot in the dark fantasy drama "Supernatural" (2007–2008), Rose in the supernatural teen drama "The Vampire Diaries" (2010–2012), Vivian McArthur Volkoff in the action comedy "Chuck" (2011), and Francesca "Frankie" Trowbridge in the action comedy-drama "Whiskey Cavalier" (2019). Her film appearances include the comedy "" (2006), the psychological thriller horror "The Boy" (2016), the biographical drama "All Eyez on Me" (2017), and the action thriller "Mile 22" (2018).


title: Lauren Cohan

text: Cohan was born Lauren Storholm in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, to American father Paul Storholm and Scottish mother, Susan Cohan (née Moorhouse), who are now divorced. She was raised in New Jersey until age 13, when her family moved to her mother's native UK, settling in Surrey. In addition to Cherry Hill, Cohan lived for one year in the state of Georgia before her family moved to the UK.


title: Lauren Cohan

text: Lauren's surname was legally changed to that of her stepfather, Cohan, and her mother converted to Judaism when she remarried. Lauren Cohan converted to Judaism at age five and had a Bat Mitzvah ceremony. Cohan is the only child of her parents, and has many younger half-siblings through her mother and father's remarriages. Her younger brother is Beverly Hills based British private chef, Daniel Cohan. Through one of her sisters Alia, she has a niece, Isla. Cohan graduated from King Alfred's College, Winchester (now the University of Winchester) with a Bachelor of Arts degree in drama and English literature before touring with a theatre company she co-founded at the university.


title: Lauren Cohan

text: In 2006, after her film debut in "Casanova" (2005) as Sister Beatrice, Cohan starred in the sequel to "Van Wilder" (2002), "", as Charlotte Higginson. Her next role was in the 2008 film "Float". In February 2010, she was cast in "Death Race 2" and was the lead in the 2016 supernatural-horror "The Boy". Also in 2016, she appeared as Martha Wayne (Batman's deceased mother) in "" and played Leila Steinberg in the 2017 biographical drama "All Eyez on Me".


title: Lauren Cohan

text: In 2007, Cohan garnered her first major supporting role – partially also described as a season lead – when she was cast for season three of "Supernatural" as Bela Talbot, a thief who procures valuable supernatural objects and sells them to very rich, very powerful people in the supernatural world. The character appeared in six episodes of the series, her last in the penultimate episode of season three titled "Time Is on My Side".


title: Lauren Cohan

text: Cohan played the recurring character Rose, a 560-year-old vampire, in "The Vampire Diaries". In 2011, she joined the television series "Chuck" in a recurring role playing Vivian McArthur Volkoff, a "charming, sophisticated socialite" from the United Kingdom, and the daughter of primary villain, Alexei Volkoff. She also guest starred on shows such as "Archer", "Cold Case", "", "Life", and "Modern Family".


title: Lauren Cohan

text: Cohan starred in a pilot for The CW called "Heavenly" (2011) in which she played the lead character, Lily, an attorney who teams up with an angel; however, it was not picked up as a series.


title: Lauren Cohan

text: In April 2011, Cohan was cast in her most notable role as Maggie Greene (later Maggie Rhee) on "The Walking Dead", an AMC post-apocalyptic horror television series based on the comic book series of the same name. She first appeared in season two as a recurring character, but she became a series regular at the start of season three. The drama was the highest-rated series in cable television history in 2015. At the conclusion of the eighth season of "The Walking Dead", Cohan completed her contract obligations as a series regular. It was later reported Cohan had not reached an agreement to sign on for season nine as a main cast member due to a pay dispute, as she demanded an enhanced salary closer to the salaries of her male co-stars Andrew Lincoln and Norman Reedus. AMC refused, and Cohan began making herself available for TV pilots. Cohan eventually reached an agreement to appear in five episodes in the first half of season nine of "The Walking Dead" and departed the series in 2018.


title: Lauren Cohan

text: In early 2018, in the midst of her contract negotiations with AMC regarding "The Walking Dead", Cohan was cast as CIA operative Francesca "Frankie" Trowbridge in the ABC action comedy-drama "Whiskey Cavalier". "Whiskey Cavalier" was picked up to series in May 2018 and premiered on February 24, 2019. ABC did not renew the series for a second season. In October 2019, it was reported that Cohan would return to "The Walking Dead" as a series regular in the series' eleventh and final season. Furthermore, showrunner Angela Kang indicated that Cohan might appear during the series' then-current tenth season as well.


title: Rock and roll

text: Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock 'n' roll, or rock 'n roll) is a genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It originated from African-American music such as jazz, rhythm and blues, boogie woogie, gospel, as well as country music. While rock and roll's formative elements can be heard in blues records from the 1920s and in country records of the 1930s, the genre did not acquire its name until 1954.


title: Rock and roll

text: According to journalist Greg Kot, "rock and roll" refers to a style of popular music originating in the United States in the 1950s. By the mid-1960s, rock and roll had developed into "the more encompassing international style known as rock music, though the latter also continued to be known in many circles as rock and roll." For the purpose of differentiation, this article deals with the first definition.


title: Rock and roll

text: In the earliest rock and roll styles, either the piano or saxophone was typically the lead instrument. These instruments were generally replaced or supplemented by guitar in the middle to late 1950s. The beat is essentially a dance rhythm with an accentuated backbeat, almost always provided by a snare drum. Classic rock and roll is usually played with one or two electric guitars (one lead, one rhythm) and a double bass (string bass). After the mid-1950s, electric bass guitars ("Fender bass") and drum kits became popular in classic rock.


title: Rock and roll

text: Rock and roll had a polarizing influence on lifestyles, fashion, attitudes, and language. It is often portrayed in movies, fan magazines, and on television. Some people believe that the music had a positive influence on the civil rights movement, because both Black American and White American teenagers enjoyed it.


title: Rock and roll

text: The term "rock and roll" is defined by Greg Kot in "Encyclopædia Britannica" as the music that originated in the mid-1950s and later developed "into the more encompassing international style known as rock music". The term is sometimes also used as synonymous with "rock music" and is defined as such in some dictionaries.


title: Rock and roll

text: The phrase "rocking and rolling" originally described the movement of a ship on the ocean, but by the early 20th century was used both to describe the spiritual fervor of black church rituals and as a sexual analogy. A retired Welsh seaman named William Fender can be heard singing the phrase "rock and roll" when describing a sexual encounter in his performance of the traditional song "The Baffled Knight" to the folklorist James Madison Carpenter in the early 1930s, which he would have learned at sea in the 1800s; the recording can be heard on the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library website.


title: Rock and roll

text: Various gospel, blues and swing recordings used the phrase before it became widely popular; it was used in 1940s recordings and reviews of what became known as "rhythm and blues" music aimed at a black audience.


title: Rock and roll

text: In 1934, the song "Rock and Roll" by the Boswell Sisters appeared in the film "Transatlantic Merry-Go-Round". In 1942, before the concept of rock and roll had been defined, "Billboard" magazine columnist Maurie Orodenker started to use the term to describe upbeat recordings such as "Rock Me" by Sister Rosetta Tharpe; her style on that recording was described as "rock-and-roll spiritual singing". By 1943, the "Rock and Roll Inn" in South Merchantville, New Jersey, was established as a music venue. In 1951, Cleveland, Ohio, disc jockey Alan Freed began playing this music style, and referring to it as "rock and roll" on his mainstream radio program, which popularized the phrase.


title: Rock and roll

text: Several sources suggest that Freed found the term, used as a synonym for sexual intercourse, on the record "Sixty Minute Man" by Billy Ward and his Dominoes. The lyrics include the line, "I rock 'em, roll 'em all night long". Freed did not acknowledge the suggestion about that source in interviews, and explained the term as follows: "Rock ’n roll is really swing with a modern name. It began on the levees and plantations, took in folk songs, and features blues and rhythm".


title: Rock and roll

text: In discussing Alan Freed's contribution to the genre, two significant sources emphasized the importance of African-American rhythm and blues. Greg Harris, then the Executive Director of the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame, offered this comment to CNN: "Freed's role in breaking down racial barriers in U.S. pop culture in the 1950s, by leading white and black kids to listen to the same music, put the radio personality 'at the vanguard' and made him 'a really important figure. After Freed was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the organization's Web site offered this comment: "He became internationally known for promoting African-American rhythm and blues music on the radio in the United States and Europe under the name of rock and roll".


title: Rock and roll

text: Not often acknowledged in the history of rock and roll, Todd Storz, the owner of radio station KOWH in Omaha, Nebraska, was the first to adopt the Top 40 format (in 1953), playing only the most popular records in rotation. His station, and the numerous others which adopted the concept, helped to promote the genre: by the mid 50s, the playlist included artists such as "Presley, Lewis, Haley, Berry and Domino".


title: Rock and roll

text: The origins of rock and roll have been fiercely debated by commentators and historians of music. There is general agreement that it arose in the Southern United States – a region that would produce most of the major early rock and roll acts – through the meeting of various influences that embodied a merging of the African musical tradition with European instrumentation. The migration of many former slaves and their descendants to major urban centers such as St. Louis, Memphis, New York City, Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, and Buffalo meant that black and white residents were living in close proximity in larger numbers than ever before, and as a result heard each other's music and even began to emulate each other's fashions. Radio stations that made white and black forms of music available to both groups, the development and spread of the gramophone record, and African-American musical styles such as jazz and swing which were taken up by white musicians, aided this process of "cultural collision".


title: Rock and roll

text: The immediate roots of rock and roll lay in the rhythm and blues, then called "race music", in combination with either boogie-woogie and shouting gospel or with country music of the 1940s and 1950s. Particularly significant influences were jazz, blues, gospel, country, and folk. Commentators differ in their views of which of these forms were most important and the degree to which the new music was a re-branding of African-American rhythm and blues for a white market, or a new hybrid of black and white forms.


title: Rock and roll

text: In the 1930s, jazz, and particularly swing, both in urban-based dance bands and blues-influenced country swing (Jimmie Rodgers, Moon Mullican and other similar singers), were among the first music to present African-American sounds for a predominantly white audience. One particularly noteworthy example of a jazz song with recognizably rock and roll elements is Big Joe Turner with pianist Pete Johnson's 1939 single "Roll 'Em Pete", which is regarded as an important precursor of rock and roll. The 1940s saw the increased use of blaring horns (including saxophones), shouted lyrics and boogie-woogie beats in jazz-based music. During and immediately after World War II, with shortages of fuel and limitations on audiences and available personnel, large jazz bands were less economical and tended to be replaced by smaller combos, using guitars, bass and drums. In the same period, particularly on the West Coast and in the Midwest, the development of jump blues, with its guitar riffs, prominent beats and shouted lyrics, prefigured many later developments. In the documentary film "Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll", Keith Richards proposes that Chuck Berry developed his brand of rock and roll by transposing the familiar two-note lead line of jump blues piano directly to the electric guitar, creating what is instantly recognizable as rock guitar. This proposal by Richards neglects the black guitarists who did the same thing before Berry, such as Goree Carter, Gatemouth Brown, and the originator of the style, T-Bone Walker. Country boogie and Chicago electric blues supplied many of the elements that would be seen as characteristic of rock and roll. Inspired by electric blues, Chuck Berry introduced an aggressive guitar sound to rock and roll, and established the electric guitar as its centerpiece, adapting his rock band instrumentation from the basic blues band instrumentation of a lead guitar, second chord instrument, bass and drums. In 2017, Robert Christgau declared that "Chuck Berry did in fact invent rock 'n' roll", explaining that this artist "came the closest of any single figure to being the one who put all the essential pieces together".


title: Rock and roll

text: Rock and roll arrived at a time of considerable technological change, soon after the development of the electric guitar, amplifier and microphone, and the 45 rpm record. There were also changes in the record industry, with the rise of independent labels like Atlantic, Sun and Chess servicing niche audiences and a similar rise of radio stations that played their music. It was the realization that relatively affluent white teenagers were listening to this music that led to the development of what was to be defined as rock and roll as a distinct genre. Because the development of rock and roll was an evolutionary process, no single record can be identified as unambiguously "the first" rock and roll record. Contenders for the title of "first rock and roll record" include Sister Rosetta Tharpe's "Strange Things Happening Every Day" (1944), "That's All Right" by Arthur Crudup (1946), "Move It On Over" by Hank Williams (1947), "The Fat Man" by Fats Domino (1949), Goree Carter's "Rock Awhile" (1949), Jimmy Preston's "Rock the Joint" (1949) (later covered by Bill Haley & His Comets in 1952), "Rocket 88" by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats (Ike Turner and his band The Kings of Rhythm), recorded by Sam Phillips for Sun Records in March 1951. In terms of its wide cultural impact across society in the US and elsewhere, Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock", recorded in April 1954 but not a commercial success until the following year, is generally recognized as an important milestone, but it was preceded by many recordings from earlier decades in which elements of rock and roll can be clearly discerned.


title: Rock and roll

text: Other artists with early rock and roll hits included Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Gene Vincent. Chuck Berry's 1955 classic "Maybellene" in particular features a distorted electric guitar solo with warm overtones created by his small valve amplifier. However, the use of distortion was predated by electric blues guitarists such as Joe Hill Louis, Guitar Slim, Willie Johnson of Howlin' Wolf's band, and Pat Hare; the latter two also made use of distorted power chords in the early 1950s. Also in 1955, Bo Diddley introduced the "Bo Diddley beat" and a unique electric guitar style, influenced by African and Afro-Cuban music and in turn influencing many later artists.


title: Rock and roll

text: Rock and roll was strongly influenced by R&B, according to many sources, including an article in the Wall Street Journal in 1985 titled, "Rock! It's Still Rhythm and Blues". In fact, the author stated that the "two terms were used interchangeably", until about 1957. The other sources quoted in the article said that rock and roll combined R&B with pop and country music.


title: Rock and roll

text: Fats Domino was one of the biggest stars of rock and roll in the early 1950s and he was not convinced that this was a new genre. In 1957, he said: "What they call rock 'n' roll now is rhythm and blues. I’ve been playing it for 15 years in New Orleans". According to "Rolling Stone", "this is a valid statement ... all Fifties rockers, black and white, country born and city-bred, were fundamentally influenced by R&B, the black popular music of the late Forties and early Fifties". Further, Little Richard built his ground-breaking sound of the same era with an uptempo blend of boogie-woogie, New Orleans rhythm and blues, and the soul and fervor of gospel music vocalization.


title: Rock and roll

text: "Rockabilly" usually (but not exclusively) refers to the type of rock and roll music which was played and recorded in the mid-1950s primarily by white singers such as Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis, who drew mainly on the country roots of the music. Presley was greatly influenced by and incorporated his style of music with that of some of the greatest Black musicians like BB King, Arthur Crudup and Fats Domino. His style of music combined with black influences created controversy during a turbulent time in history. Many other popular rock and roll singers of the time, such as Fats Domino and Little Richard, came out of the black rhythm and blues tradition, making the music attractive to white audiences, and are not usually classed as "rockabilly".


title: Rock and roll

text: Presley popularized rock and roll on a wider scale than any other single performer and by 1956, he had emerged as the singing sensation of the nation.


title: Rock and roll

text: Bill Flagg who is a Connecticut resident, began referring to his mix of hillbilly and rock 'n' roll music as rockabilly around 1953.


title: Rock and roll

text: In July 1954, Presley recorded the regional hit "That's All Right" at Sam Phillips' Sun Studio in Memphis. Three months earlier, on April 12, 1954, Bill Haley & His Comets recorded "Rock Around the Clock". Although only a minor hit when first released, when used in the opening sequence of the movie "Blackboard Jungle" a year later, it set the rock and roll boom in motion. The song became one of the biggest hits in history, and frenzied teens flocked to see Haley and the Comets perform it, causing riots in some cities. "Rock Around the Clock" was a breakthrough for both the group and for all of rock and roll music. If everything that came before laid the groundwork, "Rock Around the Clock" introduced the music to a global audience.


title: Rock and roll

text: In 1956, the arrival of rockabilly was underlined by the success of songs like "Folsom Prison Blues" by Johnny Cash, "Blue Suede Shoes" by Perkins, and the No. 1 hit "Heartbreak Hotel" by Presley. For a few years it became the most commercially successful form of rock and roll. Later rockabilly acts, particularly performing songwriters like Buddy Holly, would be a major influence on British Invasion acts and particularly on the song writing of the Beatles and through them on the nature of later rock music.


title: Rock and roll

text: Doo-wop was one of the most popular forms of 1950s rhythm and blues, often compared with rock and roll, with an emphasis on multi-part vocal harmonies and meaningless backing lyrics (from which the genre later gained its name), which were usually supported with light instrumentation. Its origins were in African-American vocal groups of the 1930s and 40s, such as the Ink Spots and the Mills Brothers, who had enjoyed considerable commercial success with arrangements based on close harmonies. They were followed by 1940s R&B vocal acts such as the Orioles, the Ravens and the Clovers, who injected a strong element of traditional gospel and, increasingly, the energy of jump blues. By 1954, as rock and roll was beginning to emerge, a number of similar acts began to cross over from the R&B charts to mainstream success, often with added honking brass and saxophone, with the Crows, the Penguins, the El Dorados and the Turbans all scoring major hits. Despite the subsequent explosion in records from doo wop acts in the later 1950s, many failed to chart or were one-hit wonders. Exceptions included the Platters, with songs including "The Great Pretender" (1955) and the Coasters with humorous songs like "Yakety Yak" (1958), both of which ranked among the most successful rock and roll acts of the era. Towards the end of the decade there were increasing numbers of white, particularly Italian-American, singers taking up doo wop, creating all-white groups like the Mystics and Dion and the Belmonts and racially integrated groups like the Del-Vikings and the Impalas. Doo-wop would be a major influence on vocal surf music, soul and early Merseybeat, including the Beatles.


title: Rock and roll

text: Many of the earliest white rock and roll hits were covers or partial re-writes of earlier black rhythm and blues or blues songs. Through the late 1940s and early 1950s, R&B music had been gaining a stronger beat and a wilder style, with artists such as Fats Domino and Johnny Otis speeding up the tempos and increasing the backbeat to great popularity on the juke joint circuit. Before the efforts of Freed and others, black music was taboo on many white-owned radio outlets, but artists and producers quickly recognized the potential of rock and roll. Some of Presley's early recordings were covers of black rhythm and blues or blues songs, such as "That's All Right" (a countrified arrangement of a blues number), "Baby Let's Play House", "Lawdy Miss Clawdy", and "Hound Dog". The racial lines, however, are rather more clouded by the fact that some of these R&B songs originally recorded by black artists had been written by white songwriters, such as the team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Songwriting credits were often unreliable; many publishers, record executives, and even managers (both white and black) would insert their name as a composer in order to collect royalty checks.


title: Rock and roll

text: Covers were customary in the music industry at the time; it was made particularly easy by the compulsory license provision of United States copyright law (still in effect). One of the first relevant successful covers was Wynonie Harris's transformation of Roy Brown's 1947 original jump blues hit "Good Rocking Tonight" into a more showy rocker and the Louis Prima rocker "Oh Babe" in 1950, as well as Amos Milburn's cover of what may have been the first white rock and roll record, Hardrock Gunter's "Birmingham Bounce" in 1949. The most notable trend, however, was white pop covers of black R&B numbers. The more familiar sound of these covers may have been more palatable to white audiences, there may have been an element of prejudice, but labels aimed at the white market also had much better distribution networks and were generally much more profitable. Famously, Pat Boone recorded sanitized versions of songs recorded by the likes of Fats Domino, Little Richard, the Flamingos and Ivory Joe Hunter. Later, as those songs became popular, the original artists' recordings received radio play as well.


title: Rock and roll

text: The cover versions were not necessarily straightforward imitations. For example, Bill Haley's incompletely bowdlerized cover of "Shake, Rattle and Roll" transformed Big Joe Turner's humorous and racy tale of adult love into an energetic teen dance number, while Georgia Gibbs replaced Etta James's tough, sarcastic vocal in "Roll With Me, Henry" (covered as "Dance With Me, Henry") with a perkier vocal more appropriate for an audience unfamiliar with the song to which James's song was an answer, Hank Ballard's "Work With Me, Annie". Presley's rock and roll version of "Hound Dog", taken mainly from a version recorded by the pop band Freddie Bell and the Bellboys, was very different from the blues shouter that Big Mama Thornton had recorded four years earlier. Other white artists who recorded cover versions of rhythm and blues songs included Gale Storm (Smiley Lewis' "I Hear You Knockin), the Diamonds (The Gladiolas' "Little Darlin and Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers' "Why Do Fools Fall in Love?"), the Crew Cuts (the Chords' "Sh-Boom" and Nappy Brown's "Don't Be Angry"), the Fountain Sisters (The Jewels' "Hearts of Stone") and the Maguire Sisters (The Moonglows' "Sincerely").


title: Rock and roll

text: Some commentators have suggested a decline of rock and roll in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The retirement of Little Richard to become a preacher (October 1957), the departure of Presley for service in the United States Army (March 1958), the scandal surrounding Jerry Lee Lewis' marriage to his thirteen-year-old cousin (May 1958), the deaths of Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens in a plane crash (February 1959), the breaking of the Payola scandal implicating major figures, including Alan Freed, in bribery and corruption in promoting individual acts or songs (November 1959), the arrest of Chuck Berry (December 1959), and the death of Eddie Cochran in a car crash (April 1960) gave a sense that the initial phase of rock and roll had come to an end.


title: Rock and roll

text: During the late 1950s and early 1960s, the rawer sounds of Presley, Gene Vincent, Jerry Lee Lewis and Buddy Holly were commercially superseded by a more polished, commercial style of rock and roll. Marketing frequently emphasized the physical looks of the artist rather than the music, contributing to the successful careers of Ricky Nelson, Tommy Sands, Bobby Vee and the Philadelphia trio of Bobby Rydell, Frankie Avalon, Fabian, and Del Shannon, who all became "teen idols".


title: Rock and roll

text: Some music historians have also pointed to important and innovative developments that built on rock and roll in this period, including multitrack recording, developed by Les Paul, the electronic treatment of sound by such innovators as Joe Meek, and the "Wall of Sound" productions of Phil Spector, continued desegregation of the charts, the rise of surf music, garage rock and the Twist dance craze. Surf rock in particular, noted for the use of reverb-drenched guitars, became one of the most popular forms of American rock of the 1960s.


title: Rock and roll

text: In the 1950s, Britain was well placed to receive American rock and roll music and culture. It shared a common language, had been exposed to American culture through the stationing of troops in the country, and shared many social developments, including the emergence of distinct youth sub-cultures, which in Britain included the Teddy Boys and the rockers. Trad jazz became popular in the UK, and many of its musicians were influenced by related American styles, including boogie woogie and the blues. The skiffle craze, led by Lonnie Donegan, utilised amateurish versions of American folk songs and encouraged many of the subsequent generation of rock and roll, folk, R&B and beat musicians to start performing. At the same time British audiences were beginning to encounter American rock and roll, initially through films including "Blackboard Jungle" (1955) and "Rock Around the Clock" (1956). Both movies featured the Bill Haley & His Comets hit "Rock Around the Clock", which first entered the British charts in early 1955 – four months before it reached the US pop charts – topped the British charts later that year and again in 1956, and helped identify rock and roll with teenage delinquency.


title: Rock and roll

text: The initial response of the British music industry was to attempt to produce copies of American records, recorded with session musicians and often fronted by teen idols. More grassroots British rock and rollers soon began to appear, including Wee Willie Harris and Tommy Steele. During this period American Rock and Roll remained dominant; however, in 1958 Britain produced its first "authentic" rock and roll song and star, when Cliff Richard reached number 2 in the charts with "Move It". At the same time, TV shows such as "Six-Five Special" and "Oh Boy!" promoted the careers of British rock and rollers like Marty Wilde and Adam Faith. Cliff Richard and his backing band, the Shadows, were the most successful home grown rock and roll based acts of the era. Other leading acts included Billy Fury, Joe Brown, and Johnny Kidd & the Pirates, whose 1960 hit song "Shakin' All Over" became a rock and roll standard.


title: Rock and roll

text: As interest in rock and roll was beginning to subside in America in the late 1950s and early 1960s, it was taken up by groups in major British urban centers like Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, and London. About the same time, a British blues scene developed, initially led by purist blues followers such as Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies who were directly inspired by American musicians such as Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf. Many groups moved towards the beat music of rock and roll and rhythm and blues from skiffle, like the Quarrymen who became the Beatles, producing a form of rock and roll revivalism that carried them and many other groups to national success from about 1963 and to international success from 1964, known in America as the British Invasion. Groups that followed the Beatles included the beat-influenced Freddie and the Dreamers, Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, Herman's Hermits and the Dave Clark Five. Early British rhythm and blues groups with more blues influences include the Animals, the Rolling Stones, and the Yardbirds.


title: Rock and roll

text: Rock and roll influenced lifestyles, fashion, attitudes, and language. In addition, rock and roll may have contributed to the civil rights movement because both African-American and white American teens enjoyed the music.


title: Rock and roll

text: Many early rock and roll songs dealt with issues of cars, school, dating, and clothing. The lyrics of rock and roll songs described events and conflicts to which most listeners could relate through personal experience. Topics such as sex that had generally been considered taboo began to appear in rock and roll lyrics. This new music tried to break boundaries and express emotions that people were actually feeling but had not discussed openly. An awakening began to take place in American youth culture.


title: Rock and roll

text: In the crossover of African-American "race music" to a growing white youth audience, the popularization of rock and roll involved both black performers reaching a white audience and white musicians performing African-American music. Rock and roll appeared at a time when racial tensions in the United States were entering a new phase, with the beginnings of the civil rights movement for desegregation, leading to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that abolished the policy of "separate but equal" in 1954, but leaving a policy which would be extremely difficult to enforce in parts of the United States. The coming together of white youth audiences and black music in rock and roll inevitably provoked strong white racist reactions within the US, with many whites condemning its breaking down of barriers based on color. Many observers saw rock and roll as heralding the way for desegregation, in creating a new form of music that encouraged racial cooperation and shared experience. Many authors have argued that early rock and roll was instrumental in the way both white and black teenagers identified themselves.


title: Rock and roll

text: Several rock historians have claimed that rock and roll was one of the first music genres to define an age group. It gave teenagers a sense of belonging, even when they were alone. Rock and roll is often identified with the emergence of teen culture among the first baby boomer generation, who had greater relative affluence and leisure time and adopted rock and roll as part of a distinct subculture. This involved not just music, absorbed via radio, record buying, jukeboxes and TV programs like "American Bandstand", but also extended to film, clothes, hair, cars and motorcycles, and distinctive language. The youth culture exemplified by rock and roll was a recurring source of concern for older generations, who worried about juvenile delinquency and social rebellion, particularly because, to a large extent, rock and roll culture was shared by different racial and social groups.


title: Rock and roll

text: In America, that concern was conveyed even in youth cultural artifacts such as comic books. In "There's No Romance in Rock and Roll" from "True Life Romance" (1956), a defiant teen dates a rock and roll-loving boy but drops him for one who likes traditional adult music—to her parents' relief. In Britain, where postwar prosperity was more limited, rock and roll culture became attached to the pre-existing Teddy Boy movement, largely working class in origin, and eventually to the rockers. "On the white side of the deeply segregated music market", rock and roll became marketed for teenagers, as in Dion and the Belmonts' "A Teenager in Love" (1959).


title: Rock and roll

text: From its early 1950s beginnings through the early 1960s, rock and roll spawned new dance crazes including the twist. Teenagers found the syncopated backbeat rhythm especially suited to reviving Big Band-era jitterbug dancing. Sock hops, school and church gym dances, and home basement dance parties became the rage, and American teens watched Dick Clark's "American Bandstand" to keep up on the latest dance and fashion styles. From the mid-1960s on, as "rock and roll" was rebranded as "rock," later dance genres followed, leading to funk, disco, house, techno, and hip hop.


title: Liver

text: The liver is a major organ only found in vertebrates which performs many essential biological functions such as detoxification of the organism, and the synthesis of proteins and biochemicals necessary for digestion and growth. In humans, it is located in the right upper quadrant of the abdomen, below the diaphragm. Its other roles in metabolism include the regulation of glycogen storage, decomposition of red blood cells, and the production of hormones.


title: Liver

text: The liver is an accessory digestive organ that produces bile, an alkaline fluid containing cholesterol and bile acids, which helps the breakdown of fat. The gallbladder, a small pouch that sits just under the liver, stores bile produced by the liver which is later moved to the small intestine to complete digestion. The liver's highly specialized tissue, consisting mostly of hepatocytes, regulates a wide variety of high-volume biochemical reactions, including the synthesis and breakdown of small and complex molecules, many of which are necessary for normal vital functions. Estimates regarding the organ's total number of functions vary, but is generally cited as being around 500.


title: Liver

text: It is not known how to compensate for the absence of liver function in the long term, although liver dialysis techniques can be used in the short term. Artificial livers have not been developed to promote long-term replacement in the absence of the liver. , liver transplantation is the only option for complete liver failure.


title: Liver

text: lobes of unequal size and shape. A human liver normally weighs approximately and has a width of about . There is considerable size variation between individuals, with the standard reference range for men being and for women . It is both the heaviest internal organ and the largest gland in the human body.


title: Liver

text: Located in the right upper quadrant of the abdominal cavity, it rests just below the diaphragm, to the right of the stomach, and overlies the gallbladder.


title: Liver

text: The liver is connected to two large blood vessels: the hepatic artery and the portal vein. The hepatic artery carries oxygen-rich blood from the aorta via the celiac trunk, whereas the portal vein carries blood rich in digested nutrients from the entire gastrointestinal tract and also from the spleen and pancreas. These blood vessels subdivide into small capillaries known as liver sinusoids, which then lead to lobules.


title: Liver

text: Lobules are the functional units of the liver. Each lobule is made up of millions of hepatic cells (hepatocytes), which are the basic metabolic cells. The lobules are held together by a fine, dense, irregular, fibroelastic connective tissue layer extending from the fibrous capsule covering the entire liver known as Glisson's capsule. This extends into the structure of the liver by accompanying the blood vessels, ducts, and nerves at the hepatic hilum. The whole surface of the liver, except for the bare area, is covered in a serous coat derived from the peritoneum, and this firmly adheres to the inner Glisson's capsule.


title: Liver

text: Terminology related to the liver often starts in "hepat-" from ἡπατο-, from the Greek word for liver.


title: Liver

text: The liver is grossly divided into two parts when viewed from above – a right and a left lobe - and four parts when viewed from below (left, right, caudate, and quadrate lobes).


title: Liver

text: The falciform ligament makes a superficial division of the liver into a left and right lobe. From below, the two additional lobes are located between the right and left lobes, one in front of the other. A line can be imagined running from the left of the vena cava and all the way forward to divide the liver and gallbladder into two halves. This line is called Cantlie's line.