title: Chechen Republic of Ichkeria

text: Kidnappings, robberies, and killings of fellow Chechens and outsiders weakened the possibilities of outside investment and Maskhadov's efforts to gain international recognition of its independence effort. Kidnappings became common in Chechnya, procuring over $200 million during the three year independence of the chaotic fledgling state, but victims were rarely killed. In a "Los Angeles Times" interview with a Russian woman, she states that kidnappers would at times mutilate their captives and send video recordings to their families, to encourage the payment of ransoms. According to her there was a slave market in Minutka Square, downtown Grozny. Some of the kidnapped were supposedly sold into indentured servitude to Chechen families. They were openly called slaves and had to endure starvation, beating, and often maiming according to Russian sources. In 1998, 176 people had been kidnapped, and 90 of them had been released during the same year according to official accounts. There were several public executions of criminals.


title: Chechen Republic of Ichkeria

text: After the First Chechen War, the country won "de facto" independence from Russia, and Islamic courts were established. In September 1996, a Sharia-based criminal code was adopted, which included provisions for banning alcohol and punishing adultery with death by stoning. Sharia was supposed to apply to Muslims only, but in fact it was also applied to ethnic Russians who violated Sharia provisions. In one of the first rulings under sharia law, in January 1997 an Islamic court ordered the payment of blood money to the family of a man who was killed in a traffic accident. In November 1997, the Islamic dress code was imposed on all female students and civil servants in the country. In December 1997, the Supreme Sharia Court banned New Year celebrations, considering them "an act of apostasy and falsity". Conceding to an armed and vocal minority movement in the opposition led by Movladi Udugov, in February 1999, Maskhadov declared The Islamic Republic of Ichkeria, and the Sharia system of justice was introduced. Maskhadov hoped that this would discredit the opposition, putting stability before his own ideological affinities. However, according to former Foreign Minister Ilyas Akhmadov, the public primarily supported Maskhadov, his Independence Party, and their secularism. This was exemplified by the much greater numbers in political rallies supporting the government than those supporting the Islamist opposition. Akhmadov notes that the parliament, which was dominated by Maskhadov's own Independence Party, issued a public statement that President Maskhadov did not have the constitutional authority to proclaim sharia law, and also condemning the opposition for "undermining the foundations of the state".


title: Chechen Republic of Ichkeria

text: In 1998, four western engineers working for Granger Telecom were abducted and beheaded after a failed rescue attempt. Gennady Shpigun, the Interior Ministry liaison to Chechen officials, was kidnapped in March 1999 as he was leaving Grozny Airport; his remains were found in Chechnya in March 2000. President Maskhadov started a major campaign against hostage-takers, and on 25 October 1998, Shadid Bargishev, Chechnya's top anti-kidnapping official, was killed in a remote controlled car bombing. Bargishev's colleagues then insisted they would not be intimidated by the attack and would go ahead with their offensive. Other anti-kidnapping officials blamed the attack on Bargishev's recent success in securing the release of several hostages, including 24 Russian soldiers and an English couple. Maskhadov blamed the rash of abductions in Chechnya on unidentified "outside forces" and their Chechen henchmen, allegedly those who joined Pro-Moscow forces during the second war.


title: Chechen Republic of Ichkeria

text: According to the Chechen government at least part of the kidnappings were orchestrated by the Federal Security Service, which was behind the kidnappings and financed them.


title: Chechen Republic of Ichkeria

text: The Second Chechen War saw a new wave of war crimes and violation of International humanitarian law. Both sides have been criticised by international organizations of violating the Geneva Conventions. Russian forces have since the beginning of the conflict indiscriminately and disproportionately bombed and shelled civilian objects, resulting in heavy civilian casualties. In October 1999, powerful ballistic missiles were fired on the Grozny central market, resulting in hundreds of casualties. Russian forces have throughout the campaign ignored to follow their Geneva convention obligations, and has taken little responsibility of protecting the civilian population. Russian media reports states that Russian soldiers were sometimes sold into slavery by their commanders. According to Amnesty International, Chechen civilians have been purposely targeted by Russian forces, in apparent disregard of humanitarian law. The situation has been described by Amnesty International as a Russian campaign to punish an entire ethnic group, on the pretext of "fighting crime and terrorism". In one such occasion, banned Thermobaric weapons were fired on the village of Katyr-Yurt, in what is known as the bombing of Katyr-Yurt. Hundreds of civilians died as a result of the Russian bombardment and the following sweep after. Thermobaric weapons have been used by the Russian army on several occasions according to Human Rights Watch. In what is regarded as one of gravest war crimes in the war, Russian federal forces went on a village-sweep (zachistka), summarily executing dozens of people and committing crimes in what is known as the Novye Aldi massacre.


title: Chechen Republic of Ichkeria

text: During the Second Chechen War, Chechens and Chechen-led militants have at several occasions used terrorism against civilian targets. In one such occasion, three suicide bombers ran a truck filled with explosives into the Grozny governmental headquarters, resulting in at least 35 deaths. Chechen fighters have shown little regard for the safety of the civilian population, often placing their military positions in densely populated areas and refusing to leave civilian areas. Two large scale hostage-takings have been documented, the Moscow theater hostage crisis and Beslan school siege, resulting in the deaths of multiple civilians. In the Moscow stand-off, FSB Spetsnaz forces stormed the building on the third day using an unknown incapacitating chemical agent that proved to be lethal without sufficient medical care, resulting in deaths of 133 out of 916 hostages. In Beslan, some 20 hostages had been executed by their captors before the assault, and the ill-prepared assault itself resulted in 294 more casualties. A report by Human Rights Watch states that without minimizing the abuses committed by Chechen fighters, the main reason for civilian suffering in the Second Chechen War came as a result of the abuses committed by the Russian forces on the civilian population.


title: Chechen Republic of Ichkeria

text: Ethnic Russians made up 29% of the Chechen population before the war, and they generally opposed independence. Due to the mounting anti-Russian sentiment following the declaration of independence and the fear of an upcoming war, by 1994 over 200,000 ethnic Russians decided to leave the independence-striving republic. Ethnic Russians left behind faced constant harassment and violence. The separatist government acknowledged the violence, but did nothing to address it, blaming it on Russian provocateurs. Russians became a soft target for criminals, as they knew the Chechen police would not intervene in their defence. The start of the First Chechen War in 1994 and the first bombing of Grozny created a second wave of ethnic Russian refugees. By the end of the conflict in 1996, the Russian community had nearly vanished.


title: Eid al-Adha

text: Eid al-Adha () is the second and the larger of the two main holidays celebrated in Islam (the other being Eid al-Fitr). It honours the willingness of Ibrahim (Abraham) to sacrifice his son Ismail (Ishmael) as an act of obedience to Allah's command. Before Ibrahim could sacrifice his son, however, Allah provided him with a lamb which he was supposed to kill in his son's place because of his willingness to sacrifice his own son in the name of God. In commemoration of this intervention, animals are ritually sacrificed. Part of their meat is consumed by the family which offers the animal, while the rest of the meat is distributed to the poor and the needy. Sweets and gifts are given, and extended family members are typically visited and welcomed. The day is also sometimes called the Greater Eid.


title: Eid al-Adha

text: In the Islamic lunar calendar, "Eid al-Adha" falls on the tenth day of Dhu al-Hijjah and lasts for four days. In the international (Gregorian) calendar, the dates vary from year to year, shifting approximately 11 days earlier each year.


title: Eid al-Adha

text: Eid al-Adha is also pronounced "Eid al-Azha" and "Eidul Azha", primarily in Iran and regions influenced by the Persian language like the Indian subcontinent; ; , .


title: Eid al-Adha

text: The Arabic word () means 'festival', 'celebration', 'feast day', or 'holiday'. It itself is a triliteral root with associated root meanings of "to go back, to rescind, to accrue, to be accustomed, habits, to repeat, to be experienced; appointed time or place, anniversary, feast day". Arthur Jeffery contests this etymology, and believes the term to have been borrowed into Arabic from Syriac, or less likely Targumic Aramaic.


title: Eid al-Adha

text: The holiday is called () or () in Arabic. The words () and () are synonymous in meaning 'sacrifice' (animal sacrifice), 'offering' or 'oblation'. The first word comes from the triliteral root () with associated meanings of "immolate ; offer up ; sacrifice ; victimize". No occurrence of this root with a meaning related to sacrifice occurs in the Qur'an but in the Hadith literature. Arab Christians use the term to mean the Eucharistic host. The second word derives from the triliteral root () with associated meanings of "closeness, proximity... to moderate; kinship...; to hurry; ...to seek, to seek water sources...; scabbard, sheath; small boat; sacrifice". Arthur Jeffery recognizes the same Semitic root, but believes the sense of the term to have entered Arabic through Aramaic. The word is still used by Aramaic Christians for the Communion service, see Eucharist above. Compare Hebrew "korban" ().


title: Eid al-Adha

text: One of the main trials of Ibrahim's life was to face the command of Allah by killing his beloved son. According to the new narrative, Ibrahim kept having nightmares that he was sacrificing his son Ismail son of Hajar. Ibrahim knew that this was a command from Allah and he told his son, as stated in the Quran, "Oh son, I keep dreaming that I am slaughtering you". Ismail replied, "Father, do what you are ordered to do." Ibrahim prepared to submit to the will of Allah and to slaughter his son as an act of faith and obedience to Allah. During the preparation, Shaytaan tempted Ibrahim and his family by trying to dissuade them from carrying out Allah's commandment, and Ibrahim drove Satan away by throwing pebbles at him. In commemoration of their rejection of Satan, stones are thrown during Hajj rites at symbolic pillars, symbolising the place at which Satan tried to dissuade Ibrahim


title: Eid al-Adha

text: Acknowledging that Ibrahim was willing to sacrifice what is dear to him, Allah the Almighty honoured both Ibrahim and Ismail. Angel Jibreel called Ibrahim "O' Ibrahim, you have fulfilled the revelations." and a lamb from heaven was offered by Angel Jibreel to prophet Ibrahim to slaughter instead of Ismail. Muslims worldwide celebrate Eid al Adha to commemorate both the devotion of Ibrahim and the survival of Ismail.


title: Eid al-Adha

text: This story is known as the Akedah in Judaism (Binding of Isaac) and originates in the Torah, the first book of Moses (Genesis, Ch. 22). The Quran refers to the Akedah as follows:


title: Eid al-Adha

text: The word "Eid" appears once in Al-Ma'ida, the fifth surah of the Quran, with the meaning "a festival or a feast".


title: Eid al-Adha

text: The tradition for Eid al-Adha involves slaughtering an animal and sharing the meat in three equal parts – for family, for relatives and friends, and for poor people. The goal is to make sure every Muslim gets to eat meat.


title: Eid al-Adha

text: Devotees offer the Eid al-Adha prayers at the mosque. The Eid al-Adha prayer is performed any time after the sun completely rises up to just before the entering of "Zuhr" time, on the tenth of Dhu al-Hijjah. In the event of a "force majeure" (e.g. natural disaster), the prayer may be delayed to the 11th of Dhu al-Hijjah and then to the 12th of Dhu al-Hijjah.


title: Eid al-Adha

text: Eid prayers must be offered in congregation. Participation of women in the prayer congregation varies from community to community. It consists of two "rakats" (units) with seven "takbirs" in the first Raka'ah and five Takbirs in the second Raka'ah. For Shia Muslims, Salat al-Eid differs from the five daily canonical prayers in that no "adhan" (call to prayer) or "iqama" (call) is pronounced for the two Eid prayers. The "salat" (prayer) is then followed by the khutbah, or sermon, by the Imam.


title: Eid al-Adha

text: At the conclusion of the prayers and sermon, Muslims embrace and exchange greetings with one another ("Eid Mubarak"), give gifts and visit one another. Many Muslims also take this opportunity to invite their friends, neighbours, co-workers and classmates to their Eid festivities to better acquaint them about Islam and Muslim culture.


title: Eid al-Adha

text: During Eid ul-Adha, distributing meat amongst the people, chanting the "takbir" out loud before the Eid prayers on the first day and after prayers throughout the four days of Eid, are considered essential parts of this important Islamic festival.


title: Eid al-Adha

text: Men, women, and children are expected to dress in their finest clothing to perform Eid prayer in a large congregation in an open "waqf" ("stopping") field called Eidgah or mosque. Affluent Muslims who can afford it sacrifice their best halal domestic animals (usually a camel, goat, sheep, or ram depending on the region) as a symbol of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his only son. The sacrificed animals, called (), known also by the Perso-Arabic term "qurbāni", have to meet certain age and quality standards or else the animal is considered an unacceptable sacrifice. In Pakistan alone nearly ten million animals are sacrificed on Eid days, costing over $2 billion.


title: Eid al-Adha

text: The meat from the sacrificed animal is preferred to be divided into three parts. The family retains one-third of the share; another third is given to relatives, friends, and neighbors; and the remaining third is given to the poor and needy.


title: Eid al-Adha

text: Muslims wear their new or best clothes. People cook special sweets, including ma'amoul (filled shortbread cookies) and samosas. They gather with family and friends.


title: Eid al-Adha

text: While Eid al-Adha is always on the same day of the Islamic calendar, the date on the Gregorian calendar varies from year to year since the Islamic calendar is a lunar calendar and the Gregorian calendar is a solar calendar. The lunar calendar is approximately eleven days shorter than the solar calendar. Each year, Eid al-Adha (like other Islamic holidays) falls on one of about two to four Gregorian dates in parts of the world, because the boundary of crescent visibility is different from the International Date Line.


title: Eid al-Adha

text: The following list shows the official dates of Eid al-Adha for Saudi Arabia as announced by the Supreme Judicial Council. Future dates are estimated according to the Umm al-Qura calendar of Saudi Arabia. The Umm al-Qura calendar is just a guide for planning purposes and not the absolute determinant or fixer of dates. Confirmations of actual dates by moon sighting are applied on the 29th day of the lunar month prior to Dhu al-Hijjah to announce the specific dates for both Hajj rituals and the subsequent Eid festival. The three days after the listed date are also part of the festival. The time before the listed date the pilgrims visit Mount Arafat and descend from it after sunrise of the listed day.


title: Eid al-Adha

text: In many countries, the start of any lunar Hijri month varies based on the observation of new moon by local religious authorities, so the exact day of celebration varies by locality.


title: Eid al-Adha

text: Because the Hijri year differs by about 11 days from the AD year, Eid al-Adha can occur twice a year, in the year 1029, 1062, 1094, 1127, 1159, 1192, 1224, 1257, 1290, 1322, 1355, 1387, 1420, 1452, 1485, 1518, 1550, 1583, 1615, 1648, 1681, 1713, 1746, 1778, 1811, 1844, 1876, 1909, 1941, 1974, 2006, 2039, 2072, 2104, 2137, 2169, 2202, 2235, 2267 and 2300. (will continue to occur every 32 or 33 years).


title: Gothenburg

text: Gothenburg (; abbreviated Gbg; ) is the second-largest city in Sweden, fifth-largest in the Nordic countries, and capital of the Västra Götaland County. It is situated by the Kattegat, on the west coast of Sweden, and has a population of approximately 590,000 in the city proper and about 1.1 million inhabitants in the metropolitan area.


title: Gothenburg

text: Gothenburg was founded as a heavily fortified, primarily Dutch, trading colony, by royal charter in 1621 by King Gustavus Adolphus. In addition to the generous privileges (e.g. tax relaxation) given to his Dutch allies from the ongoing Thirty Years' War, the king also attracted significant numbers of his German and Scottish allies to populate his only town on the western coast. At a key strategic location at the mouth of the Göta älv, where Scandinavia's largest drainage basin enters the sea, the Port of Gothenburg is now the largest port in the Nordic countries.


title: Gothenburg

text: Gothenburg is home to many students, as the city includes the University of Gothenburg and Chalmers University of Technology. Volvo was founded in Gothenburg in 1927. The original parent Volvo Group and the now-separate Volvo Car Corporation are still headquartered on the island of Hisingen in the city. Other key companies are SKF and AstraZeneca.


title: Gothenburg

text: Gothenburg is served by Göteborg Landvetter Airport southeast of the city center. The smaller Göteborg City Airport, from the city center, was closed to regular airline traffic in 2015.


title: Gothenburg

text: The city hosts the Gothia Cup, the world's largest youth football tournament, and the , Europe's largest youth basketball tournament, alongside some of the largest annual events in Scandinavia. The Gothenburg Film Festival, held in January since 1979, is the leading Scandinavian film festival, with over 155,000 visitors each year. In summer, a wide variety of music festivals are held in the city, including the popular Way Out West Festival.


title: Gothenburg

text: The city was named Göteborg in the city's charter in 1621 and simultaneously given the German and English name Gothenburg. The Swedish name was given after the "Göta älv", called Göta River in English, and other cities ending in "-borg".


title: Gothenburg

text: Both the Swedish and German/English names were in use before 1621 and had already been used for the previous city founded in 1604 that burned down in 1611. Gothenburg is one of few Swedish cities to still have an official and widely used exonym.


title: Gothenburg

text: The city council of 1641 consisted of four Swedish, three Dutch, three German, and two Scottish members. In Dutch, Scots, English, and German, all languages with a long history in this trade and maritime-oriented city, the name Gothenburg is or was (in the case of German) used for the city. Variations of the official German/English name Gothenburg in the city's 1621 charter existed or exist in many languages. The French form of the city name is "Gothembourg", but in French texts, the Swedish name "Göteborg" is more frequent. In addition, the traditional forms ("Gothenburg" in English, or "Gotemburgo" in Spanish and Portuguese) are sometimes replaced with the use of the Swedish "Göteborg", for example by The Göteborg Opera and the Göteborg Ballet. However, "Göteborgs universitet", previously designated as the Göteborg University in English, changed its name to the University of Gothenburg in 2008. The Gothenburg municipality has also reverted to the use of the English name in international contexts.


title: Gothenburg

text: In 2009, the city council launched a new logotype for Gothenburg. Since the name "Göteborg" contains the Swedish letter "ö", they planned to make the name more "international" and "up to date" by turning the "ö" sideways. , the name is spelled "Go:teborg" on a large number of signs in the city.


title: Gothenburg

text: In the early modern period, the configuration of Sweden's borders made Gothenburg strategically critical as the only Swedish gateway to Skagerrak, the North Sea and Atlantic, situated on the west coast in a very narrow strip of Swedish territory between Danish Halland in the south and Norwegian Bohuslän in the north. After several failed attempts, Gothenburg was successfully founded in 1621 by King Gustavus Adolphus (Gustaf II Adolf).The site of the first church built in Gothenburg, subsequently destroyed by Danish invaders, is marked by a stone near the north end of the Älvsborg Bridge in the Färjenäs Park. The church was built in 1603 and destroyed in 1611. The city was heavily influenced by the Dutch, Germans, and Scots, and Dutch planners and engineers were contracted to construct the city as they had the skills needed to drain and build in the marshy areas chosen for the city. The town was designed like Dutch cities such as Amsterdam, Batavia (Jakarta) and New Amsterdam (Manhattan). The planning of the streets and canals of Gothenburg closely resembled that of Jakarta, which was built by the Dutch around the same time. The Dutchmen initially won political power, and it was not until 1652, when the last Dutch politician in the city's council died, that Swedes acquired political power over Gothenburg. During the Dutch period, the town followed Dutch town laws and Dutch was proposed as the official language in the town. Robust city walls were built during the 17th century. In 1807, a decision was made to tear down most of the city's wall. The work started in 1810 and was carried out by 150 soldiers from the Bohus regiment.


title: Gothenburg

text: Along with the Dutch, the town also was heavily influenced by Scots who settled down in Gothenburg. Many became people of high-profile. William Chalmers, the son of a Scottish immigrant, donated his fortunes to set up what later became the Chalmers University of Technology. In 1841, the Scotsman Alexander Keiller founded the Götaverken shipbuilding company that was in business until 1989. His son James Keiller donated Keiller Park to the city in 1906.


title: Gothenburg

text: The Gothenburg coat of arms was based on the lion of the coat of arms of Sweden, symbolically holding a shield with the national emblem, the Three Crowns, to defend the city against its enemies.


title: Gothenburg

text: In the Treaty of Roskilde (1658), Denmark–Norway ceded the Danish province of Halland, in the south, and the Norwegian province of Bohus County or "Bohuslän" in the north, which left Gothenburg less exposed. Gothenburg grew into a significant port and trade centre on the west coast, because it was the only city on the west coast that, along with Marstrand, was granted the rights to trade with merchants from other countries.


title: Gothenburg

text: In the 18th century, fishing was the most important industry. However, in 1731, the Swedish East India Company was founded, and the city flourished due to its foreign trade with highly profitable commercial expeditions to China.


title: Gothenburg

text: The harbour developed into Sweden's main harbour for trade towards the west, and when Swedish emigration to the United States increased, Gothenburg became Sweden's main point of departure for these travellers. The impact of Gothenburg as a main port of embarkation for Swedish emigrants is reflected by Gothenburg, Nebraska, a small Swedish settlement in the United States.


title: Gothenburg

text: With the 19th century, Gothenburg evolved into a modern industrial city that continued on into the 20th century. The population increased tenfold in the century, from 13,000 (1800) to 130,000 (1900). In the 20th century, major companies that developed included SKF (1907) and Volvo (1927).


title: Gothenburg

text: Gothenburg is located on the west coast, in southwestern Sweden, about halfway between the capital cities of Copenhagen (Denmark) and Oslo (Norway). The location at the mouth of the Göta älv, which feeds into the Kattegat, an arm of the North Sea, has helped the city grow in significance as a trading city. The archipelago of Gothenburg consists of rough, barren rocks and cliffs, which also is typical for the coast of Bohuslän. Due to the Gulf Stream, the city has a mild climate and moderately heavy precipitation. It is the second-largest city in Sweden after its capital Stockholm.


title: Gothenburg

text: The Gothenburg Metropolitan Area ("Stor-Göteborg") has 982,360 inhabitants and extends to the municipalities of Ale, Alingsås, Göteborg, Härryda, Kungälv, Lerum, Lilla Edet, Mölndal, Partille, Stenungsund, Tjörn, Öckerö within Västra Götaland County, and Kungsbacka within Halland County.


title: Gothenburg

text: Angered, a suburb outside Gothenburg, consists of Hjällbo, Eriksbo, Rannebergen, Hammarkullen, Gårdsten, and Lövgärdet. It is a Million Programme part of Gothenburg, like Rosengård in Malmö and Botkyrka in Stockholm. Angered had about 50,000 inhabitants in 2015. It lies north of Gothenburg and is isolated from the rest of the city. Bergsjön is another Million Programme suburb north of Gothenburg, it has 14,000 inhabitants. Biskopsgården is the biggest multicultural suburb on the island of Hisingen, which is a part of Gothenburg but separated from the city by the river.


title: Gothenburg

text: Gothenburg has an oceanic climate ("Cfb" according to the Köppen climate classification). Despite its northerly latitude, temperatures are quite mild throughout the year and warmer than places at a similar latitude such as Stockholm; this is mainly because of the moderating influence of the Gulf Stream. During the summer, daylight extends 18 hours and 5 minutes, but lasts 6 hours and 32 minutes in late December. The climate has become significantly milder in later decades, particularly in summer and winter; July temperatures used to be below Stockholm's 1961–1990 averages, but have since been warmer than that benchmark.


title: Gothenburg

text: Summers are warm and pleasant with average high temperatures of and lows of , but temperatures of occur on many days during the summer. Winters are cold and windy with temperatures of around , though it rarely drops below . Precipitation is regular but generally moderate throughout the year. Snow mainly occurs from December to March, but is not unusual in November and April and can sometimes occur even in October and May.


title: Gothenburg

text: Gothenburg has several parks and nature reserves ranging in size from tens of square meters to hundreds of hectares. It also has many green areas that are not designated as parks or reserves.


title: Gothenburg

text: Very few buildings are left from the 17th century when the city was founded, since all but the military and royal houses were built of wood. Some structures which do survive from this early phase in the city's history are Kronhuset and the Torstenson Palace, and the fortresses Skansen Kronan and Skansen Lejonet.


title: Gothenburg

text: The first major architecturally interesting period is the 18th century when the East India Company made Gothenburg an important trade city. Imposing stone houses in Neo-Classical style were erected around the canals. One example from this period is the East India House, which today houses the Göteborg City Museum.


title: Gothenburg

text: In the 19th century, the wealthy bourgeoisie began to move outside the city walls which had protected the city. The style now was an eclectic, academic, somewhat overdecorated style which the middle-class favoured. The working class lived in the overcrowded city district Haga in wooden houses.


title: Gothenburg

text: In the 19th century, the first comprehensive town plan after the founding of city was created, which led to the construction of the main street, Kungsportsavenyen. Perhaps the most significant type of houses of the city, Landshövdingehusen, were built in the end of the 19th century – three-storey houses with the first floor in stone and the other two in wood.


title: Gothenburg

text: The early 20th century, characterized by the National Romantic style, was rich in architectural achievements. Masthugg Church is a noted example of the style of this period. In the early 1920s, on the city's 300th anniversary, the Götaplatsen square with its Neoclassical look was built.


title: Gothenburg

text: After this, the predominant style in Gothenburg and rest of Sweden was Functionalism which especially dominated the suburbs such as Västra Frölunda and Bergsjön. The Swedish functionalist architect Uno Åhrén served as city planner from 1932 through 1943. In the 1950s, the big stadium Ullevi was built when Sweden hosted the 1958 FIFA World Cup.


title: Gothenburg

text: The modern architecture of the city has been formed by such architects as Gert Wingårdh, who started as a Post-modernist in the 1980s.


title: Gothenburg

text: Gustaf Adolf Square is a town square located in central Gothenburg. Noted buildings on the square include Gothenburg City Hall (formerly the stock exchange, opened in 1849) and the Nordic Classicism law court. The main canal of Gothenburg also flanks the square.


title: Gothenburg

text: The Gothenburg Central Station is in the centre of the city, next to Nordstan and Drottningtorget. The building has been renovated and expanded numerous times since the grand opening in October 1858. In 2003, a major reconstruction was finished which brought the 19th-century building into the 21st century expanding the capacity for trains, travellers, and shopping. Not far from the central station is the Skanskaskrapan, or more commonly known as "The Lipstick". It is high with 22 floors and coloured in red-white stripes. The skyscraper was designed by Ralph Erskine and built by Skanska in the late 1980s as the headquarters for the company.


title: Gothenburg

text: By the shore of the Göta Älv at Lilla Bommen is The Göteborg Opera. It was completed in 1994. The architect Jan Izikowitz was inspired by the landscape and described his vision as "Something that makes your mind float over the squiggling landscape like the wings of a seagull."


title: Gothenburg

text: Feskekörka, or "Fiskhallen", is an indoor fishmarket by the Rosenlundskanalen in central Gothenburg. Feskekörkan was opened on 1November 1874 and its name from the building's resemblance to a Gothic church. The Gothenburg city hall is in the Beaux-Arts architectural style. The Gothenburg Synagogue at Stora Nygatan, near Drottningtorget, was built in 1855 according to the designs of the German architect August Krüger.


title: Gothenburg

text: The Gunnebo House is a country house located to the south of Gothenburg, in Mölndal. It was built in a neoclassical architecture towards the end of the 18th century. Created in the early 1900s was the Vasa Church. It is located in Vasastan and is built of granite in a neo-Romanesque style.


title: Gothenburg

text: Another noted construction is Brudaremossen TV Tower, one of the few partially guyed towers in the world.


title: Gothenburg

text: The sea, trade, and industrial history of the city are evident in the cultural life of Gothenburg. It is also a popular destination for tourists on the Swedish west coast.


title: Gothenburg

text: Many of the cultural institutions, as well as hospitals and the university, were created by donations from rich merchants and industrialists, for example the Röhsska Museum. On 29December 2004, the Museum of World Culture opened near Korsvägen. Museums include the Göteborgs Konsthall, Gothenburg Museum of Art, and several museums of sea and navigation history, natural history, the sciences, and East India. Aeroseum, close to the Göteborg City Airport, is an aircraft museum in a former military underground air force base. The Volvo museum has exhibits of the history of Volvo and the development from 1927 until today. Products shown include cars, trucks, marine engines, and buses.


title: Gothenburg

text: Universeum is a public science centre that opened in 2001, the largest of its kind in Scandinavia. It is divided into six sections, each containing experimental workshops and a collection of reptiles, fish, and insects. Universeum occasionally host debates between Swedish secondary-school students and Nobel Prize laureates or other scholars.


title: Gothenburg

text: The most noted attraction is the amusement park Liseberg, located in the central part of the city. It is the largest amusement park in Scandinavia by number of rides, and was chosen as one of the top ten amusement parks in the world (2005) by "Forbes". It is the most popular attraction in Sweden by number of visitors per year (more than 3 million).


title: Gothenburg

text: There are a number of independent theatre ensembles in the city, besides institutions such as Gothenburg City Theatre, Backa Theatre (youth theatre), and Folkteatern.


title: Gothenburg

text: The main boulevard is called Kungsportsavenyn (commonly known as "Avenyn", "The Avenue"). It is about long and starts at Götaplatsen – which is the location of the Gothenburg Museum of Art, the city's theatre, and the city library, as well as the concert hall – and stretches all the way to Kungsportsplatsen in the old city centre of Gothenburg, crossing a canal and a small park. The "Avenyn" was created in the 1860s and 1870s as a result of an international architecture contest, and is the product of a period of extensive town planning and remodelling. "Avenyn" has Gothenburg's highest concentration of pubs and clubs. Gothenburg's largest shopping centre (8th largest in Sweden), Nordstan, is located in central Gothenburg.


title: Gothenburg

text: Gothenburg's Haga district is known for its picturesque wooden houses and its cafés serving the well-known "Haga bulle" – a large cinnamon roll similar to the "kanelbulle".


title: Gothenburg

text: Five Gothenburg restaurants have a star in the 2008 "Michelin Guide": 28 +, Basement, Fond, Kock & Vin, Fiskekrogen, and Sjömagasinet.


title: Gothenburg

text: The city has a number of star chefs – over the past decade, seven of the Swedish Chef of the Year awards have been won by people from Gothenburg.


title: Gothenburg

text: The Gustavus Adolphus pastry, eaten every 6November in Sweden, Gustavus Adolphus Day, is especially connected to, and appreciated in, Gothenburg because the city was founded by King Gustavus Adolphus.


title: Gothenburg

text: One of Gothenburg's most popular natural tourist attractions is the southern Gothenburg archipelago, which is a set of several islands that can be reached by ferry boats mainly operating from Saltholmen. Within the archipelago are the Älvsborg fortress, Vinga and Styrsö islands.


title: Gothenburg

text: The annual Gothenburg Film Festival, is the largest film festival in Scandinavia. The Gothenburg Book Fair, held each year in September. It is the largest literary festival in Scandinavia, and the second largest book fair in Europe. A radical bookfair is held at the same time at the Syndikalistiskt Forum.


title: Gothenburg

text: The International Science Festival in Gothenburg is an annual festival since April 1997, in central Gothenburg with thought-provoking science activities for the public. The festival is visited by about people each year. This makes it the largest popular-science event in Sweden and one of the leading popular-science events in Europe.


title: Gothenburg

text: Citing the financial crisis, the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions moved the 2010 World Library and Information Congress, previously to be held in Brisbane, Australia, to Gothenburg. The event took place on 10–15August 2010.


title: Gothenburg

text: Gothenburg has a diverse music community—the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra is the best-known in classical music. Gothenburg also was the birthplace of the Swedish composer Kurt Atterberg. The first internationally successfully Swedish group, instrumental rock group The Spotnicks came from Gothenburg.


title: Gothenburg

text: Bands such as The Soundtrack of Our Lives and Ace of Base are well-known pop representatives of the city. During the 1970s, Gothenburg had strong roots in the Swedish progressive movement (progg) with such groups as Nationalteatern, Nynningen, and Motvind. The record company Nacksving and the editorial office for the magazine Musikens Makt which also were part of the progg movement were located in Gothenburg during this time as well.


title: Gothenburg

text: There is also an active indie scene in Gothenburg. For example, the musician Jens Lekman was born in the suburb of Angered and named his 2007 release "Night Falls Over Kortedala" after another suburb, Kortedala. Other internationally acclaimed indie artists include the electro pop duos Studio, The Knife, Air France, The Tough Alliance, indie rock band Love is All, songwriter José González, and pop singer El Perro del Mar, as well as genre-bending quartet Little Dragon fronted by vocalist Yukimi Nagano. Another son of the city is one of Sweden's most popular singers, Håkan Hellström, who often includes many places from the city in his songs. The glam rock group Supergroupies derives from Gothenburg.


title: Gothenburg

text: Gothenburg's own commercially successful At the Gates, In Flames, and Dark Tranquillity are credited with pioneering melodic death metal. Other well-known bands of the Gothenburg scene are thrash metal band The Haunted, progressive power metal band Evergrey, and power metal bands HammerFall and Dream Evil.


title: Gothenburg

text: Many music festivals take place in the city every year. The Metaltown Festival was a two-day festival featuring heavy metal music bands, held in Gothenburg. It used to be arranged annually since 2004, taking place at the Frihamnen venue. In June 2012, the festival included bands such as In Flames, Marilyn Manson, Slayer, Lamb of God, and Mastodon. Another popular festival, Way Out West, focuses more on rock, electronic, and hip-hop genres.


title: Gothenburg

text: As in all of Sweden, a variety of sports are followed, including football, ice hockey, basketball, handball, floorball, baseball, and figure skating. A varied amateur and professional sports clubs scene exists.


title: Gothenburg

text: Gothenburg is the birthplace of football in Sweden as the first football match in Sweden was played there in 1892. The city's three major football clubs, IFK Göteborg, Örgryte IS, and GAIS share a total of 34 Swedish championships between them. IFK has also won the UEFA Cup twice. Other notable clubs include BK Häcken (football), Göteborg HC (women's ice hockey), Pixbo Wallenstam IBK (floorball), multiple national handball champion Redbergslids IK, and four-time national ice hockey champion Frölunda HC, Gothenburg had a professional basketball team, Gothia Basket, until 2010 when it ceased. The bandy department of GAIS, GAIS Bandy, played the first season in the highest division Elitserien last season. The group stage match between the main rivals Sweden and Russia in the 2013 Bandy World Championship was played at Arena Heden in central Gothenburg.


title: Gothenburg

text: The city's most notable sports venues are Scandinavium, and Ullevi (multisport) and the newly built Gamla Ullevi (football).


title: Gothenburg

text: The 2003 World Allround Speed Skating Championships were held in Rudhallen, Sweden's only indoor speed-skating arena. It is a part of Ruddalens IP, which also has a bandy field and several football fields.


title: Gothenburg

text: The only Swedish heavyweight champion of the world in boxing, Ingemar Johansson, who took the title from Floyd Paterson in 1959, was from Gothenburg.


title: Gothenburg

text: Gothenburg has hosted a number of international sporting events including the 1958 FIFA World Cup, the 1983 European Cup Winners' Cup Final, an NFL preseason game on 14August 1988 between the Chicago Bears and the Minnesota Vikings, the 1992 European Football Championship, the 1993 and the 2002 World Men's Handball Championship, the 1995 World Championships in Athletics, the 1997 World Championships in Swimming (short track), the 2002 Ice Hockey World Championships, the 2004 UEFA Cup final, the 2006 European Championships in Athletics, and the 2008 World Figure Skating Championships. Annual events held in the city are the Gothia Cup and the Göteborgsvarvet. The annual Gothia Cup, is the world's largest football tournament with regards to the number of participants: in 2011, a total of 35,200 players from 1,567 teams and 72 nations participated.


title: Gothenburg

text: Gothenburg hosted the XIII FINA World Masters Championships in 2010. Diving, swimming, synchronized swimming and open-water competitions were held on 28July to 7August. The water polo events were played on the neighboring city of Borås.


title: Gothenburg

text: Gothenburg is also home to the Gothenburg Sharks, a professional baseball team in the Elitserien division of baseball in Sweden.


title: Gothenburg

text: With around 25,000 sailboats and yachts scattered about the city, sailing is a popular sports activity in the region, particularly because of the nearby Gothenburg archipelago. In June 2015, the Volvo Ocean Race, professional sailing's leading crewed offshore race, concluded in Gothenburg, as well as an event in the 2015–2016 America's Cup World Series in August 2015.


title: Gothenburg

text: The Gothenburg Amateur Diving Club (Göteborgs amatördykarklubb) has been operating since October 1938.


title: Gothenburg

text: Due to Gothenburg's advantageous location in the centre of Scandinavia, trade and shipping have always played a major role in the city's economic history, and they continue to do so. Gothenburg port has come to be the largest harbour in Scandinavia.


title: Gothenburg

text: Apart from trade, the second pillar of Gothenburg has traditionally been manufacturing and industry, which significantly contributes to the city's wealth. Major companies operating plants in the area include SKF, Volvo (both cars and trucks), and Ericsson. Volvo Cars is the largest employer in Gothenburg, not including jobs in supply companies. The blue-collar industries which have dominated the city for long are still important factors in the city's economy, but they are being gradually replaced by high-tech industries.


title: Gothenburg

text: Gothenburg is the terminus of the Valdemar-Göteborg gas pipeline, which brings natural gas from the North Sea fields to Sweden, through Denmark.


title: Gothenburg

text: Historically, Gothenburg was home base from the 18th century of the Swedish East India Company. From its founding until the late 1970s, the city was a world leader in shipbuilding, with such shipyards as Eriksbergs Mekaniska Verkstad, Götaverken, Arendalsvarvet, and Lindholmens varv. Gothenburg is classified as a global city by GaWC, with a ranking of Gamma. The city has been ranked as the 12th-most inventive city in the world by "Forbes".


title: Gothenburg

text: Gothenburg became a city municipality with an elected city council when the first Swedish local government acts were implemented in 1863. The municipality has an assembly consisting of 81 members, elected every fourth year. Political decisions depend on citizens considering them legitimate. Political legitimacy can be based on various factors: legality, due process, and equality before the law, as well as the efficiency and effectiveness of public policy. One method used to achieve greater legitimacy for controversial policy reforms such as congestion charges is to allow citizens to decide or advise on the issue in public referendums.


title: Gothenburg

text: In December 2010 a petition for a local referendum on the congestion tax, signed by 28,000 citizens, was submitted to the City Council. This right to submit so-called "people's initiatives" was inscribed in the Local Government Act, which obliged local governments to hold a local referendum if petitioned by 5% of the citizens unless the issue was deemed to be outside their area of jurisdiction or if a majority in the City Council voted against holding such a referendum. A second petition for a referendum, signed by 57,000 citizens, was submitted to the local government in February 2013. This petition followed a campaign organised by a local newspaper – Göteborgs Tidningen – whose editor-in-chief argued that the paper's involvement was justified by the large public response to a series of articles on the congestion tax, as well as out of concern for the local democracy.


title: Gothenburg

text: In 2019, approximately 28% (159,342 residents) of the population of Gothenburg were foreign born and approximately 46% (265,019 residents) had at least one parent born abroad. In addition, approximately 12% (69,263 residents) were foreign citizens.


title: Gothenburg

text: In 2016, 45% of Gothenburg's immigrant population is from other parts of Europe, and 10% of the total population is from another Nordic country.


title: Gothenburg

text: Gothenburg has two universities, both of which started as colleges founded by private donations in the 19th century. The University of Gothenburg has about 38,000 students and is one of the largest universities in Scandinavia, and one of the most versatile in Sweden. Chalmers University of Technology is a well-known university located in Johanneberg south of the inner city, lately also established at Lindholmen in Norra Älvstranden, Hisingen.


title: Gothenburg

text: In 2015, there were ten adult education centres in Gothenburg: "Agnesbergs folkhögskola", "Arbetarrörelsens folkhögskola i Göteborg", "Finska folkhögskolan", "Folkhögskolan i Angered", "Göteborgs folkhögskola", "Kvinnofolkhögskolan", "Mo Gård folkhögskola", "S:ta Birgittas folkhögskola", "Västra Götalands folkhögskolor" and "Wendelsbergs folkhögskola".


title: Gothenburg

text: In 2015, there were 49 high schools in Gothenburg. Some of the more notable schools are Hvitfeldtska gymnasiet, Göteborgs Högre Samskola, Sigrid Rudebecks gymnasium and Polhemsgymnasiet. Some high-schools are also connected to large Swedish corporations, such as SKF Technical high-school owned by SKF and Gothenburg's technical high-school jointly owned by Volvo, Volvo Cars and Gothenburg municipality.


title: Gothenburg

text: With over of double track, the Gothenburg tram network covers most of the city and is the largest tram/light rail network in Scandinavia. Gothenburg also has a bus network. Boat and ferry services connect the Gothenburg archipelago to the mainland. The lack of a subway is due to the soft ground on which Gothenburg is situated. Tunneling is very expensive in such conditions.


title: Gothenburg

text: Public transport on the Göta älv river is operated on the Älvsnabben ferry line, operated by Styrsöbolaget on a commission from Västtrafik.


title: Gothenburg

text: Other major transportation hubs are "Centralstationen" (Gothenburg Central Station) and the Nils Ericson Terminal with trains and buses to various destinations in Sweden, as well as connections to Oslo and Copenhagen (via Malmö).


title: Gothenburg

text: Gothenburg is served by Göteborg Landvetter Airport , located about 20 km (12 mi) east of the city centre. It is named after nearby locality Landvetter. Flygbussarna offer frequent bus connections to and from Gothenburg with travel time 20–30 minutes. Swebus, Flixbus and Nettbuss also serve the airport with several daily departures to Gothenburg, Borås and other destinations along European route E4. Västtrafik, the local public transport provider in the area, offers additional connections to Landvetter.


title: Gothenburg

text: The airport is operated by Swedish national airport operator Swedavia, and with 6.8 million passengers served in 2017, it is Sweden's second-largest airport after Stockholm Arlanda. It serves as a base for several domestic and international airlines, e.g. Scandinavian Airlines, Norwegian Air Shuttle and Ryanair. Göteborg Landvetter, however, does not serve as a hub for any airline. In total, there are about 50 destinations with scheduled direct flights to and from Gothenburg, most of them European. An additional 40 destinations are served via charter.


title: Gothenburg

text: The second airport in the area, Göteborg City Airport , is closed. On 13January 2015, Swedish airport operator Swedavia announced that Göteborg City Airport will not reopen for commercial services following an extensive rebuild of the airport started in November 2014, citing that the cost of making the airport viable for commercial operations again was too high, at 250 million kronor ($31 million). Commercial operations will be gradually wound down. The airport was located northwest of the city centre. It was formerly known as "Säve Flygplats." It is located within the borders of Gothenburg Municipality. In addition to commercial airlines, the airport was also operated by a number of rescue services, including the Swedish Coast Guard, and was used for other general aviation. Most civil air traffic to Göteborg City Airport was via low-cost airlines such as Ryanair and Wizz Air. Those companies have now been relocated to Landvetter Airport.


title: Gothenburg

text: The Swedish company Stena Line operates between Gothenburg/Frederikshavn in Denmark and Gothenburg/Kiel in Germany.


title: Gothenburg

text: The "England ferry" ("Englandsfärjan") to Newcastle via Kristiansand (run by the Danish company DFDS Seaways) ceased at the end of October 2006, after being a Gothenburg institution since the 19th century. DFDS Seaways' sister company, DFDS Tor Line, continues to run scheduled cargo ships between Gothenburg and several English ports, and these used to have limited capacity for passengers and their private vehicles. Also freight ships to North America and East Asia leave from the port.


title: Gothenburg

text: Gothenburg is an intermodal logistics hub and Gothenburg harbour has access to Sweden and Norway via rail and trucks. Gothenburg harbour is the largest port in Scandinavia with a cargo turnover of 36.9 million tonnes per year in 2004.


title: Gothenburg

text: Two of the noted people from Gothenburg are fictional, but have become synonymous with "people from Gothenburg". They are a working class couple called Kal and Ada, featured in "Gothenburg jokes" ("göteborgsvitsar"), songs, plays and names of events. Each year two persons who have significantly contributed to culture in the city are given the honorary titles of "Kal and Ada". A bronze statue of the couple made by Svenrobert Lundquist, was placed outside the entrance to Liseberg in 1995.


title: Gothenburg

text: Some of the noted people from Gothenburg are Academy Award Winning actress Alicia Vikander, footballer Gunnar Gren, artist Evert Taube, golfer Helen Alfredsson, industrialist Victor Hasselblad, singer-songwriter Björn Ulvaeus, diplomat Jan Eliasson, British Open Winner and professional golfer Henrik Stenson, Miss Sweden 1966 and Miss Universe 1966's winner Margareta Arvidsson, YouTuber PewDiePie (Felix Kjellberg), the most subscribed-to individual on the platform, with over 100 million subscribers and YouTuber RoomieOfficial (Joel Berghult).


title: Gothenburg

text: The Global Destination Sustainability Index has named Gothenburg the world's most sustainable destination every year since 2016.


title: Gothenburg

text: In 2020 Business Region Göteborg received the 'European Entrepreneurial Region Award 2020' (EER Award 2020) from the EU.


title: Gothenburg

text: The Gothenburg Award is the city's international prize that recognises and supports work to achieve sustainable development – in the Gothenburg region and from a global perspective. The award, which is one million Swedish crowns, is administrated and funded by a coalition of the City of Gothenburg and 12 companies. Past winners of the award have included Kofi Annan, Al Gore, and Michael Biddle.


title: Gothenburg

text: Gothenburg had signed an agreement with Shanghai in 1986 which was upgraded in 2003 to include exchanges in culture, economics, trade and sport. The agreement was allowed to lapse in 2020.


title: Henry Cejudo

text: Henry Cejudo (born February 9, 1987) is an American former professional mixed martial artist and freestyle wrestler. He is the former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Flyweight Champion and Bantamweight Champion. He is the fourth UFC fighter to hold titles in two different weight classes simultaneously, and the second to defend titles in two different weight divisions. He is the only person to win an Olympic gold medal and a UFC title. He is considered to be among the greatest combat athletes of all time due to his accomplishments in MMA and freestyle wrestling.


title: Henry Cejudo

text: During his wrestling career, Cejudo, who competed at 55 kilograms, most notably became the youngest American Olympic Gold medalist in wrestling at the 2008 Summer Olympics at age 21 (record later broken by Kyle Snyder, 20, in 2016) and was also the 2007 Pan American Games champion, as well as a multiple–time Pan American Continental and US National champion.


title: Henry Cejudo

text: On May 9, 2020, Cejudo successfully defended his UFC bantamweight title by TKO over Dominick Cruz in the second round. He announced his retirement from professional fighting immediately after the fight, although there was widespread speculation that the retirement would be temporary.


title: Henry Cejudo

text: Born to Mexican immigrants Jorge Cejudo and Nelly Rico in Los Angeles, California, Henry Cejudo is the second youngest of the family's seven siblings. As a result of his violent father's drug and alcohol abuse, Cejudo's family constantly moved around the Los Angeles area.


title: Henry Cejudo

text: Four-year-old Henry and the rest of the children with her, Nelly fled to New Mexico before Jorge — who was jailed after threatening to kill his whole family and subsequently getting into an altercation in the street — was released. Jorge was deported when Cejudo was six years old and died when Cejudo was about 20 years old. After a couple of years in New Mexico, the family relocated to Phoenix, Arizona. In Phoenix, the family lived in Maryvale in poverty despite their mother working multiple jobs to make the ends meet.


title: Henry Cejudo

text: Cejudo also never slept alone in his own bed until he was provided one by USA Wrestling while participating in a residency program at the US Olympic Training Center in Colorado. Henry also started competing as an amateur boxer, and won the annual state Copper Gloves boxing tournament in 2010 in Phoenix, Arizona.


title: Henry Cejudo

text: Inspired by his older brother Angel Cejudo, who was an undefeated four-time AIA state champion with a record of 150 wins and zero defeats, Henry also became a four-timer. His freshman and sophomore year titles were won in Arizona, before he moved to Colorado Springs, Colorado, to become a resident athlete at the United States Olympic Training Center. He won the Colorado state championships (CHSAA) as a junior and senior, and was named ASICS National High School Wrestler of the Year in 2006. In the same year, he was selected in the USA Wrestling Magazine's Dream Team of High School All-Americans.


title: Henry Cejudo

text: In 2006, Cejudo won the Fargo National title in freestyle. Soon after his victory, he began full-time training at the United States Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado. There, he prepared for the Junior World Championships; after a fifth-place finish in 2005, Cejudo was able to claim the silver medal for the United States of America. He opted to pursue an international career rather than competing in college.


title: Henry Cejudo

text: Cejudo made his senior level debut on October 23, 2005, at the Sunkist Open, at the age of 18. He earned notable victories over NCAA champion Jason Powell and three-time All-American Tanner Gardner before finishing fifth. On April 15, 2006, he won the US National Championship at 55 kilograms, qualifying for the US World Team Trials and becoming the first high schooler to do so since the organization (USAW) was established as the sport's governing body in 1983. At the WTT, he defeated an eventual accomplished wrestler in Franklin Gómez in the opening match of the Challenge Tournament before making it to the best-of-three finals. There, he was downed twice by the 00' Olympic Silver medalist and 98' World Champion Sammie Henson, losing the spot. He quickly bounced back a week later with a Pan American title. In his last competition of the year, Cejudo took part of the Sunkist Open, where he lost in the second round.


title: Henry Cejudo

text: On March 22, 2007, he captured a bronze medal at the World Cup. In April 7, he claimed his second US National title while compiling wins over collegiate and international standout Nick Simmons and two-time All-American Vic Moreno. On May 18, he earned his second Pan American title. Cejudo then made the US World Team after two straight wins over Matt Azevedo. Before the World Championships, he warmed up with a Pan American Games title. At the World's, he was taken out in the opening round by Uzbekistan's Erkin Tadzhimetov and placed 31st.


title: Henry Cejudo

text: Cejudo started off the most successful year of his freestyle career in March 2, with a Pan American title. He failed to secure his third consecutive US National title after he was pinned by Matt Azevedo, not before defeating recent All-American Obe Blanc. At the US Olympic Team Trials, he started off by comfortably downing two opponents to make it to the best-of-three. There, he had a hard-fought series with 04' Olympic Silver medalist and defending Olympic Teamer Stephen Abas, whom he went 2–1 with, earning the US Olympic Team spot.


title: Henry Cejudo

text: At the 2008 Summer Olympics, Cejudo opened up with a win over Radoslav Velikov, the 06' World Champion; after losing the first period 0–1, he bounced back with 3–2 and 4–3 periods. In the next round, he faced Besarion Gochashvili from Georgia; the same results as his opening bout popped up, after losing the first period 1–3, he came back with scores of 3–2 and 3–0 to defeat Gochashvili. He then wrestled Azerbaijan's Namig Sevdimov, whom he took out after once again losing the first period (3–5) and winning the next two (3–2, 4–3). In the finale, he met Tomohiro Matsunaga, a Japanese athlete who was coming fresh off an Asian title; he won the first period after scoring the biggest move and won the second period after a comfortable 3–0 score. This made Cejudo the youngest American to win Olympic Gold in wrestling history at age 21 (record was later broken by Kyle Snyder, 20, in 2016). He then took a break from his freestyle wrestling career.


title: Henry Cejudo

text: After announcing that he would try to make a second Olympic run in 2010, Cejudo made his comeback at the 2011 Beat the Streets charity event, where he beat Rasul Mashezov 2–0 and 4–3.


title: Henry Cejudo

text: In his first tournament since his lay-off, Cejudo claimed a Sunkist Open title after compiling four victories, on October 28, 2011. On November 26, 2011, he earned a silver medal from the Henri Deglane Challenge, after being defeated in the finals by Ghenadie Tulbea.


title: Henry Cejudo

text: At the 2012 US Olympic Team Trials, Cejudo downed Obe Blanc before being defeated by the top-seed Nick Simmons, failing to make his second US Olympic Team. After the Simmons match, Cejudo put his shoes in the middle of the mat, signaling his retirement from the sport.


title: Henry Cejudo

text: While already an undefeated MMA prospect, Cejudo made a brief return to the sport at the "Agon V: Iowa against the World" event by wrestling Tony Ramos (who would go on to win the US Open weeks later) on April 4, 2015, weeks after his win over Chris Cariaso at UFC 185. Despite riding an 8–2 lead, he was defeated by that year's World Team Member after he scored eight more points of his own, ending the match 8–10.


title: Henry Cejudo

text: In June 2018, Cejudo was prestigiously inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame as a Distinguished Member.


title: Henry Cejudo

text: Soon after his exhibition match with Ramos, Cejudo flirted with the possibility of making a 2016 Olympic Run, however, his intentions never materialized. After his UFC retirement in May 2020, Cejudo expressed that he "could never see myself coming back (to wrestling)", but that he was interested in visiting his former coach Terry Brands and training with 2020 Dan Hodge Trophy winner Spencer Lee, which he did in October 2020.


title: Henry Cejudo

text: On January 30, 2013, Cejudo announced on his Twitter page that he planned to begin training for a career in MMA. Despite wrestling at 121 pounds during his wrestling career, Cejudo fought at 135 pounds in his MMA debut. He defeated Michael Poe by TKO due to punches in his MMA debut on March 2, 2013, for the Arizona-based World Fighting Federation.


title: Henry Cejudo

text: Over the next year, Cejudo amassed a record of 6–0 with three wins by TKO, one by submission, and two by decision. Prior to signing with the UFC, Cejudo was listed as the #1 ranked bantamweight prospect in the MMA Prospects Report 2013.


title: Henry Cejudo

text: On July 25, 2014, Cejudo signed with the UFC. He is the third Olympic gold medalist wrestler in company history, after Mark Schultz and Kevin Jackson. Cejudo was expected to face Scott Jorgensen on August 30, 2014, at UFC 177. However, due to medical issues on the day of the weigh-ins, Cejudo was forced out of the bout and the fight was subsequently canceled. In light of this, and his history of missing weight, president Dana White said Cejudo had to move up to bantamweight or leave the UFC.


title: Henry Cejudo

text: In his eventual debut, Cejudo faced Dustin Kimura in a bantamweight bout on December 13, 2014, at UFC on Fox 13. Cejudo won the fight by unanimous decision.


title: Henry Cejudo

text: Cejudo faced Chris Cariaso in a flyweight bout on March 14, 2015, at UFC 185. He won the fight by unanimous decision.


title: Henry Cejudo

text: Cejudo was briefly linked to a bout against former title challenger Joseph Benavidez on September 5, 2015, at UFC 191. However, the fight did not take place at the event. In turn, Cejudo faced Jussier Formiga on November 21, 2015, at The Ultimate Fighter Latin America 2 Finale. He won the fight by split decision. Brandon Moreno confirmed that he helped Cejudo train for this fight.


title: Henry Cejudo

text: On September 16, 2015, Cejudo announced that he would refuse to fight in Nevada after the Nevada State Athletic Commission suspended and fined Nick Diaz following a failed drug test at UFC 182. Cejudo cited the NSAC's process in determining Diaz's guilt as the reason for the boycott. Despite the lack of change in NSAC procedure, Cejudo ended his Nevada boycott to face UFC Flyweight champion Demetrious Johnson on April 23, 2016, at UFC 197 for the Flyweight title. He lost the fight via TKO in the first round, being dropped with a variety of strikes.


title: Henry Cejudo

text: In May 2016, the UFC announced that Cejudo would be one of the coaches, opposite Joseph Benavidez on . The pairing faced each other on December 3, 2016, at . Cejudo lost the back-and-forth fight via split decision.


title: Henry Cejudo

text: Cejudo was expected to face Sergio Pettis on May 13, 2017, at UFC 211. However, on May 10, Cejudo pulled out of the fight with a hand injury and the bout was canceled.


title: Henry Cejudo

text: Cejudo faced Wilson Reis on September 9, 2017, at UFC 215. He won the fight via TKO in the second round. This win also won Cejudo his first "Performance of the Night" bonus award.


title: Henry Cejudo

text: A rescheduled fight with Pettis took place on December 2, 2017, at UFC 218. Cejudo won the fight by unanimous decision.


title: Henry Cejudo

text: Two years after challenging for the Flyweight title, Cejudo faced Demetrious Johnson in a rematch for UFC Flyweight Championship title in the co-main event at UFC 227 on August 4, 2018. Cejudo went on to win the back-and-forth fight via split decision to become the UFC's second Flyweight champion and first Olympic gold medalist to capture UFC gold. This fight earned him the Fight of the Night award. 13 of 25 media outlets scored the bout in favor of Cejudo, while 12 scored it for Johnson.


title: Henry Cejudo

text: In the first defense of his UFC Flyweight Championship, Cejudo was initially scheduled to face UFC Bantamweight champion T.J. Dillashaw on January 26, 2019, at UFC 233. However, after that pay-per-view event was canceled, the fight was moved a week earlier to headline UFC Fight Night 143 on January 19, 2019. It was the first title fight to showcase the new UFC legacy belt. Cejudo won the fight via TKO just 32 seconds into the first round to retain his title. The win also earned Cejudo his second "Performance of the Night" bonus award. On 9 April 2019, USADA announced that Dillashaw had tested positive for EPO in pre and post-fight screenings and had been suspended for two years.


title: Henry Cejudo

text: Cejudo faced Marlon Moraes on June 8, 2019 at UFC 238 for the vacant UFC Bantamweight Championship. He won the fight via TKO in the third round. This win made Cejudo the fourth fighter to hold championships simultaneously in two weight divisions in UFC, and earned him the "Performance of the Night" award. Cejudo became inactive until 2020 due to a shoulder injury.


title: Henry Cejudo

text: In December 2019, Cejudo agreed to relinquish the UFC Flyweight title in order to focus on the bantamweight division.


title: Henry Cejudo

text: Cejudo faced Marlon Moraes on June 8, 2019 at UFC 238 for the vacant UFC Bantamweight Championship. He won the fight via TKO in the third round. This win made Cejudo the fourth fighter to hold championships simultaneously in two weight divisions in UFC, and earned him the "Performance of the Night" award. Cejudo became inactive until 2020 due to a shoulder injury. It was revealed later that Cejudo suffered a rolled ankle mere days before the fight, requiring therapy to even compete.


title: Henry Cejudo

text: Cejudo was scheduled to face José Aldo on May 9, 2020 at UFC 250. However, Aldo pulled out on April 8 due to visa issues. Cejudo faced a replacement in Dominick Cruz on May 9, 2020 at UFC 249. He won the fight via technical knockout in the second round.


title: Henry Cejudo

text: Immediately after the Cruz fight on May 9, 2020, Cejudo announced his retirement from professional fighting The announcement was met with some skepticism, as various UFC commentators and fighters stated their opinion that Cejudo was using the announcement as a contract negotiation ploy.


title: Henry Cejudo

text: On May 24, the UFC officially vacated the bantamweight title and removed Cejudo's name from their rankings, based on his retirement announcement.


title: Henry Cejudo

text: In May 2022, Cejudo's coach Eric Albarracin revealed that Cejudo had re-entered the USADA testing pool with an intent to return to competition in late 2022.


title: Henry Cejudo

text: Cejudo made an appearance on the May 27, 2020 episode of AEW Dynamite alongside fellow MMA fighters Rashad Evans and Vitor Belfort to support Mike Tyson in confronting members of Chris Jericho's Inner Circle. Two months later, Cejudo confirmed he was in talks with AEW about potentially signing a contract, stating that he was also considering competing in amateur wrestling as well.


title: Henry Cejudo

text: Cejudo, along with his manager Ali Abdelaziz, fellow fighters Justin Gaethje and Colby Covington, and UFC President Dana White, all appeared at a rally for President Donald Trump in September 2020.


title: Joe Pantoliano

text: Joseph Peter Pantoliano (born September 12, 1951) is an American character actor who has appeared in over 150 films, television and stage productions.


title: Joe Pantoliano

text: After his early roles in the television series "M*A*S*H" and the 1983 comedy "Risky Business", he gained recognition for his numerous supporting roles in high-profile films and television series; including "Hill Street Blues", "The Goonies", "La Bamba", "Empire of the Sun", "The Fugitive", "NYPD Blue", "Memento", and "Bad Boys" and its sequels. He starred as Caesar in the Wachowskis' directorial debut "Bound" and played Cypher in their second film "The Matrix" (1999) and Michael Gorski in their Netflix series, "Sense8" (2015–2018). His role as Ralph Cifaretto on the HBO crime drama "The Sopranos" won him the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series.


title: Joe Pantoliano

text: Pantoliano is a published author and is active in the field of mental health, having documented his mother's issues and his own. He founded the nonprofit "No Kidding, Me Too!" dedicated to removing the stigma from mental illness.


title: Joe Pantoliano

text: Pantoliano was born on September 12, 1951, in Hoboken, New Jersey, the son of Italian-American parents Mary (née Centrella), a bookie and seamstress, and Dominic "Monk" Pantoliano, a hearse driver and factory foreman. Pantoliano's family moved to Cliffside Park, New Jersey, where he attended Cliffside Park High School.


title: Joe Pantoliano

text: He first grew to fame as "Guido the Killer Pimp" in 1983's "Risky Business". In 1985 he appeared as the villainous Francis Fratelli in teen classic "The Goonies". He gained fame among a new generation as Cypher in the 1999 landmark sci-fi film "The Matrix". He won a Primetime Emmy Award as Ralph Cifaretto in HBO's "The Sopranos".


title: Joe Pantoliano

text: Pantoliano is also known for his role as Eddie Moscone, the foul-mouthed, double-crossing bail bondsman, in the Robert De Niro comedy "Midnight Run", as Captain Conrad Howard in "Bad Boys" and its sequels "Bad Boys II" and "Bad Boys for Life", as double-crossed mafioso Caesar in "Bound", as John "Teddy" Gammell in "Memento", and as investigative journalist Ben Urich in Mark Steven Johnson's 2003 "Daredevil" adaptation. He played Deputy U.S. Marshal Cosmo Renfro in "The Fugitive" along with Tommy Lee Jones and reprised the role in the sequel "U.S. Marshals".


title: Joe Pantoliano

text: In 2003 Pantoliano replaced Stanley Tucci in the Broadway play "Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune". The same year he won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for "The Sopranos".


title: Joe Pantoliano

text: In 2012 Pantoliano starred as the eccentric pawn broker Oswald Oswald in the film adaptation of Wendy Mass's popular children's book "Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life", written and directed by Tamar Halpern. In 2013, he was cast as Yogi Berra in the Broadway production of "Bronx Bombers", but dropped out during rehearsals due to "creative differences." From 2015 to 2018 he played Michael Gorski in the Wachowskis' Netflix series "Sense8".


title: Joe Pantoliano

text: When not acting, Pantoliano writes. He is the author of two memoirs: "Who's Sorry Now: The True Story of a Stand-Up Guy", and "Asylum: Hollywood Tales From My Great Depression: Brain Dis-Ease, Recovery and Being My Mother's Son". In the latter, he writes about his addictions to alcohol, food, sex, Vicodin, and Percocet, before being diagnosed with clinical depression.


title: Joe Pantoliano

text: Pantoliano and his wife Nancy Sheppard, a former model, have four children. He was introduced to his wife by his friend, actress Samantha Phillips.


title: Joe Pantoliano

text: On October 9, 2007, Pantoliano announced on the National Alliance on Mental Illness blog that he had been suffering from clinical depression for the last decade, although he was only formally diagnosed recently. He claims that his 2006 film "Canvas" helped him come to terms with his depression. Rather than hide his illness from the public, he has chosen to speak out about it to remove some of the stigmas commonly associated with mental illness. He founded a nonprofit organization, No Kidding, Me Too!, to unite members of the entertainment industry in educating the public about mental illness. The title comes from the response he has frequently heard after divulging how mental illness affected him and his family. In 2009, he directed, wrote, and starred in his first documentary called "NO KIDDING! ME 2!!" He also has dyslexia.


title: Joe Pantoliano

text: After a "Sopranos" episode in which his character brutally beat a young stripper to death, during an interview he stated, "After the episode aired a lot more women started hitting on me. I thought it was very revealing." During his tenure on the show, Pantoliano struggled to stay anonymous in New Jersey. To avoid being recognized by fans he wore a wig based on the hair style of Christopher Nolan, with whom he had worked in "Memento".


title: Joe Pantoliano

text: On May 1, 2020, Pantoliano was struck by a vehicle while walking, and suffered a concussion and chest trauma.


title: Reconquista

text: The (Spanish, Portuguese and Galician for "reconquest") is a term describing the 781-year period in the history of the Iberian Peninsula between the Umayyad conquest of Hispania in 711 and the fall of the Nasrid kingdom of Granada in 1492, in which the Christian kingdoms expanded through war and conquered al-Andalus; the territories of Iberia ruled by Muslims.


title: Reconquista

text: The beginning of the "Reconquista" is traditionally marked with the Battle of Covadonga (718 or 722), the first known victory by Christian military forces in Hispania since the 711 military invasion which was undertaken by combined Arab-Berber forces. The rebels who were led by Pelagius defeated a Muslim army in the mountains of northern Hispania and established the independent Christian Kingdom of Asturias.


title: Reconquista

text: In the late 10th century, the Umayyad vizier Almanzor waged military campaigns for 30 years to subjugate the northern Christian kingdoms. His armies ravaged the north, even sacking the church of Santiago de Compostela. When the government of Córdoba disintegrated in the early 11th century, a series of petty successor states known as "taifas" emerged. The northern kingdoms took advantage of this situation and struck deep into al-Andalus; they fostered civil war, intimidated the weakened "taifas", and made them pay large tributes ("parias") for "protection".


title: Reconquista

text: After a Muslim resurgence under the Almohads in the 12th century, the great Moorish strongholds in the south fell to Christian forces in the 13th century after the decisive battle of Las Navas de Tolosa (1212)—Córdoba in 1236 and Seville in 1248—leaving only the Muslim enclave of Granada as a tributary state in the south. After the surrender of Granada in January 1492, the entire Iberian peninsula was controlled by Christian rulers. On 30 July 1492, as a result of the Alhambra Decree, all the Jewish community—some 200,000 people—were forcibly expelled. The conquest was followed by a series of edicts (1499–1526) which forced the conversions of Muslims in Spain, who were later expelled from the Iberian peninsula by the decrees of King Philip III in 1609.


title: Reconquista

text: Beginning in the 19th century, traditional historiography has used the term "Reconquista" for what was earlier thought of as a restoration of the Visigothic Kingdom over conquered territories. The concept of "Reconquista", consolidated in Spanish historiography in the second half of the 19th century, was associated with the development of a Spanish national identity, emphasizing nationalistic and romantic aspects. The concept continues to have importance in far-right European political parties regarded as anti-immigrant and Islamophobic—especially with the Spanish Vox party and the French Reconquête party.


title: Reconquista

text: The Reconquista idea deeply afected Iberian culture, and its rememoration can still be seen through the festival "Moros y Cristianos" which was transported to Spanish colonies worldwide.


title: Reconquista

text: A discernible irredentist ideology that would later become part of the concept of "Reconquista", of a Christian reconquest of the peninsula, appeared in writings by the end of the 9th century. For example, the anonymous Christian chronicle "Chronica Prophetica" (883–884) claimed a historical connection between the Visigothic Kingdom conquered by the Muslims in 711 and the Kingdom of Asturias in which the document was produced, and stressed a Christian and Muslim cultural and religious divide in Hispania, and a necessity to drive out the Muslims and restore conquered territories. In fact, in the writings of both sides, there was a sense of divide based on ethnicity and culture between the inhabitants of the small Christian kingdoms in the north and the dominant elite in the Muslim-ruled south.


title: Reconquista

text: The linear approach to the origins of a 'Reconquista' taken in early twentieth century historiography is complicated by a number of issues. For example, periods of peaceful coexistence, or at least of limited and localized skirmishes on the frontiers, were more prevalent over the 781 years of Muslim rule in Iberia than periods of military conflict between the Christian kingdoms and al-Andalus. Additionally, both Christian and Muslim rulers fought coreligionist kingdoms, and cooperation and alliances between Muslims and Christians were not uncommon, such as between the Arista dynasty and Banu Qasi as early as the 9th century. Blurring distinctions even further were the mercenaries from both sides who simply fought for whoever paid the most. The period is seen today to have had long episodes of relative religious tolerance. However, this idea of harmonious coexistence has been challenged by modern scholars.


title: Reconquista

text: The Crusades, which started late in the 11th century, bred the religious ideology of a Christian reconquest, confronted at that time with a similarly staunch Muslim Jihad ideology in Al-Andalus by the Almoravids, and to an even greater degree by the Almohads. In fact, previous documents from the 10th and 11th centuries are mute on any idea of "reconquest". Propaganda accounts of Muslim-Christian hostility came into being to support that idea, most notably the "Chanson de Roland", an 11th-century French "chanson de geste" that offers a fictionalized retelling of the Battle of Roncevaux Pass (778) dealing with the Iberian "Saracens" ("Moors"), and centuries later introduced in the French school system with a view to instilling moral and national values in the population following the 1870 defeat of the French in the Franco-Prussian War, regardless of the actual events.


title: Reconquista

text: The consolidation of the modern idea of "Reconquista" is inextricably linked to the foundational myths of Spanish nationalism in the 19th century, associated with the development of a Centralist, Castilian and staunchly Catholic brand of nationalism, evoking nationalistic, romantic and sometimes colonialist themes. The concept gained further track in the 20th century during the Francoist dictatorship. It thus became one of the key tenets of the historiographical discourse of National Catholicism, the mythological and ideological identity of the regime. The discourse was underpinned in its most traditional version by an avowed historical illegitimacy of Al-Andalus and the subsequent glorification of the Christian conquest.


title: Reconquista

text: The idea of a "liberation war" of "reconquest" against the Muslims, depicted as foreigners, suited well the anti-Republican rebels during the Spanish Civil War who agitated for the banner of a Spanish fatherland threatened by regional nationalisms and communism. Their rebellious pursuit was thus a crusade for the restoration of the Church's unity, where Franco stood for both Pelagius of Asturias and El Cid. The Reconquista has become a rallying call for right and far-right parties in Spain to expel from office incumbent progressive or peripheral nationalist options, as well as their values, in different political contexts as of 2018.


title: Reconquista

text: The same kind of propaganda was used by the Republicans to their enemies as foreign invaders, specially given prominence of the Army of Africa made up of native North African soldiers among Franco's troops.


title: Reconquista

text: Some contemporary authors consider it proved that the process of Christian state-building in Iberia was indeed often defined by the reclamation of lands that had been lost to the Moors in generations past. In this way, state-building might be characterised—at least in ideological, if not practical, terms—as a process by which Iberian states were being "rebuilt". In turn, other recent historians dispute the whole concept of "Reconquista" as a concept created "a posteriori" in the service of later political goals. A few historians point out that Spain and Portugal did not previously exist as nations, and therefore the heirs of the Christian Visigothic Kingdom were not technically "re"conquering them, as the name suggests. One of the first Spanish intellectuals to question the idea of a "reconquest" that lasted for eight centuries was José Ortega y Gasset, writing in the first half of the 20th century. However, the term "reconquista" is still widely in use.


title: Reconquista

text: In 711, North African Berber soldiers with some Arabs commanded by Tariq ibn Ziyad crossed the Strait of Gibraltar, engaging a Visigothic force led by King Roderic at the Battle of Guadalete (July 19–26) in a moment of serious in-fighting and division across the Visigothic Kingdom of Hispania. On July 23, an estimated 16,000 Umayyad troops were killed, but many of Roderic's troops deserted, leading to defeat. Roderic was drowned while crossing the Guadalquivir River.


title: Reconquista

text: After Roderic's defeat, the Umayyad governor of Ifrikiya Musa ibn-Nusayr joined Tariq, directing a campaign against different towns and strongholds in Hispania. Some, like Mérida, Cordova, or Zaragoza in 712, probably Toledo, were taken, but many agreed to a treaty in exchange for maintaining autonomy, in Theodemir's dominion (region of Tudmir), or Pamplona, for example. The invading Islamic armies did not exceed 60,000 men.


title: Reconquista

text: After the establishment of a local Emirate, Caliph Al-Walid I, ruler of the Umayyad Caliphate, removed many of the successful Muslim commanders. Tariq ibn Ziyad was recalled to Damascus and replaced with Musa ibn-Nusayr, who had been his former superior. Musa's son, Abd al-Aziz ibn Musa, apparently married Egilona, Roderic's widow, and established his regional government in Seville. He was suspected of being under the influence of his wife and was accused of wanting to convert to Christianity and of planning a secessionist rebellion. Apparently a concerned Al-Walid I ordered Abd al-Aziz's assassination. Caliph Al-Walid I died in 715 and was succeeded by his brother Sulayman ibn Abd al-Malik. Sulayman seems to have punished the surviving Musa ibn-Nusayr, who very soon died during a pilgrimage in 716. In the end, Abd al-Aziz ibn Musa's cousin, Ayyub ibn Habib al-Lakhmi became the "wali" (governor) of Al-Andalus.


title: Reconquista

text: A serious weakness amongst the Muslim conquerors was the ethnic tension between Berbers and Arabs. The Berbers were indigenous inhabitants of North Africa who had only recently converted to Islam; they provided most of the soldiery of the invading Islamic armies but sensed Arab discrimination against them. This latent internal conflict jeopardized Umayyad unity. The Umayyad forces arrived and crossed the Pyrenees by 719. The last Visigothic king Ardo resisted them in Septimania, where he fended off the Berber-Arab armies until 720.


title: Reconquista

text: After the Islamic Moorish conquest of most of the Iberian Peninsula in 711–718 and the establishment of the emirate of Al-Andalus, an Umayyad expedition suffered a major defeat at the Battle of Toulouse and was halted for a while on its way north. Odo of Aquitaine had married his daughter to Uthman ibn Naissa, a rebel Berber and lord of Cerdanya, in an attempt to secure his southern borders in order to fend off Charles Martel's attacks on the north. However, a major punitive expedition led by Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi, the latest emir of Al-Andalus, defeated and killed Uthman, and the Muslim governor mustered an expedition north across the western Pyrenees, looted areas up to Bordeaux, and defeated Odo in the Battle of the River Garonne in 732.


title: Reconquista

text: A desperate Odo turned to his archrival Charles Martel for help, who led the Frankish and remaining Aquitanian armies against the Umayyad armies and defeated them at the Battle of Poitiers in 732, killing Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi. While Moorish rule began to recede, it would remain in parts of the Iberian peninsula for another 760 years.


title: Reconquista

text: A drastic increase of taxes by the emir Anbasa ibn Suhaym Al-Kalbi provoked several rebellions in Al-Andalus, which a series of succeeding weak emirs were unable to suppress. Around 722, a Muslim military expedition was sent into the north in late summer to suppress a rebellion led by Pelagius of Asturias (Pelayo in Spanish, Pelayu in Asturian). Traditional historiography has hailed Pelagius' victory at Covadonga as the beginning of the "Reconquista".


title: Reconquista

text: Two northern realms, Navarre and Asturias, despite their small size, demonstrated an ability to maintain their independence. Because the Umayyad rulers based in Córdoba were unable to extend their power over the Pyrenees, they decided to consolidate their power within the Iberian peninsula. Arab-Berber forces made periodic incursions deep into Asturias, but this area was a "cul-de-sac" on the fringes of the Islamic world fraught with inconveniences during campaigns and of little interest.


title: Reconquista

text: It comes then as no surprise that, besides focusing on raiding the Arab-Berber strongholds of the Meseta, Alphonse I centred on expanding his domains at the expense of the neighbouring Galicians and Basques at either side of his realm just as much. During the first decades, Asturian control over part of the kingdom was weak, and for this reason it had to be continually strengthened through matrimonial alliances and war with other peoples from the north of the Iberian Peninsula. After Pelayo's death in 737, his son Favila of Asturias was elected king. Favila, according to the chronicles, was killed by a bear during a trial of courage. Pelayo's dynasty in Asturias survived and gradually expanded the kingdom's boundaries until all of northwest Hispania was included by roughly 775. However, credit is due to him and to his successors, the "Banu Alfons" from the Arab chronicles. Further expansion of the northwestern kingdom towards the south occurred during the reign of Alfonso II (from 791 to 842). A king's expedition arrived in and pillaged Lisbon in 798, probably concerted with the Carolingians.


title: Reconquista

text: The Asturian kingdom became firmly established with the recognition of Alfonso II as king of Asturias by Charlemagne and the Pope. During his reign, the bones of St. James the Great were declared to have been found in Galicia, at Santiago de Compostela. Pilgrims from all over Europe opened a channel of communication between the isolated Asturias and the Carolingian lands and beyond, centuries later.


title: Reconquista

text: After the Umayyad conquest of the Iberian heartland of the Visigothic kingdom, the Muslims crossed the Pyrenees and gradually took control of Septimania, starting in 719 with the conquest of Narbonne through 725 when Carcassonne and Nîmes were secured. From the stronghold of Narbonne, they tried to conquer Aquitaine but suffered a major defeat at the Battle of Toulouse (721).


title: Reconquista

text: Ten years after halting their advance north, Odo of Aquitaine married his daughter to Uthman ibn Naissa, a rebel Berber and lord of Cerdanya (perhaps all of contemporary Catalonia as well), in an attempt to secure his southern borders to fend off Charles Martel's attacks on the north. However, a major punitive expedition led by Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi, the latest emir of Al-Andalus, defeated and killed Uthman.


title: Reconquista

text: After expelling the Muslims from Narbonne in 759 and driving their forces back over the Pyrenees, the Carolingian king Pepin the Short conquered Aquitaine in a ruthless eight-year war. Charlemagne followed his father by subduing Aquitaine by creating counties, taking the Church as his ally and appointing counts of Frankish or Burgundian stock, like his loyal William of Gellone, making Toulouse his base for expeditions against Al-Andalus. Charlemagne decided to organize a regional subkingdom, the Spanish March, which included part of contemporary Catalonia, in order to keep the Aquitanians in check and to secure the southern border of the Carolingian Empire against Muslim incursions. In 781, his three-year-old son Louis was crowned king of Aquitaine, under the supervision of Charlemagne's trustee William of Gellone, and was nominally in charge of the incipient Spanish March.


title: Reconquista

text: Meanwhile, the takeover of the southern fringes of Al-Andalus by Abd ar-Rahman I in 756 was opposed by Yusuf ibn Abd al-Rahman, autonomous governor ("wāli") or king ("malik") of al-Andalus. Abd ar-Rahman I expelled Yusuf from Cordova, but it took still decades for him to expand to the north-western Andalusian districts. He was also opposed externally by the Abbasids of Baghdad who failed in their attempts to overthrow him. In 778, Abd al-Rahman closed in on the Ebro valley. Regional lords saw the Umayyad emir at the gates and decided to enlist the nearby Christian Franks. According to Ali ibn al-Athir, a Kurdish historian of the 12th century, Charlemagne received the envoys of Sulayman al-Arabi, Husayn, and Abu Taur at the Diet of Paderborn in 777. These rulers of Zaragoza, Girona, Barcelona, and Huesca were enemies of Abd ar-Rahman I, and in return for Frankish military aid against him offered their homage and allegiance.


title: Reconquista

text: Charlemagne, seeing an opportunity, agreed upon an expedition and crossed the Pyrenees in 778. Near the city of Zaragoza Charlemagne received the homage of Sulayman al-Arabi. However the city, under the leadership of Husayn, closed its gates and refused to submit. Unable to conquer the city by force, Charlemagne decided to retreat. On the way home the rearguard of the army was ambushed and destroyed by Basque forces at the Battle of Roncevaux Pass. "The Song of Roland", a highly romanticized account of this battle, would later become one of the most famous of the Middle Ages. Around 788 Abd ar-Rahman I died and was succeeded by Hisham I. In 792 Hisham proclaimed a jihad, advancing in 793 against the Kingdom of Asturias and Carolingian Septimania (Gothia). They defeated William of Gellone, Count of Toulouse, in battle, but William led an expedition the following year across the eastern Pyrenees. Barcelona, a major city, became a potential target for the Franks in 797, as its governor Zeid rebelled against the Umayyad emir of Córdoba. An army of the emir managed to recapture it in 799, but Louis, at the head of an army, crossed the Pyrenees and besieged the city for seven months until it finally capitulated in 801.


title: Reconquista

text: The main passes in the Pyrenees were Roncesvalles, Somport and La Jonquera. Charlemagne established across them the vassal regions of Pamplona, Aragon, and Catalonia respectively. Catalonia was itself formed from a number of small counties, including Pallars, Girona, and Urgell; it was called the "Marca Hispanica" by the late 8th century. They protected the eastern Pyrenees passes and shores and were under the direct control of the Frankish kings. Pamplona's first king was Iñigo Arista, who allied with his Muslim kinsmen the Banu Qasi and rebelled against Frankish overlordship and overcame a Carolingian expedition in 824 that led to the setup of the Kingdom of Pamplona. Aragon, founded in 809 by Aznar Galíndez, grew around Jaca and the high valleys of the Aragon River, protecting the old Roman road. By the end of the 10th century, Aragon, which then was just a county, was annexed by Navarre. Sobrarbe and Ribagorza were small counties and had little significance to the progress of the "Reconquista".


title: Reconquista

text: In the late 9th century under Count Wilfred, Barcelona became the "de facto" capital of the region. It controlled the other counties' policies in a union, which led in 948 to the independence of Barcelona under Count Borrel II, who declared that the new dynasty in France (the Capets) were not the legitimate rulers of France nor, as a result, of his county. These states were small and, with the exception of Navarre, did not have the capacity for attacking the Muslims in the way that Asturias did, but their mountainous geography rendered them relatively safe from being conquered, and their borders remained stable for two centuries.


title: Reconquista

text: The northern principalities and kingdoms survived in their mountainous strongholds (see above). However, they started a definite territorial expansion south at the turn of the 10th century (Leon, Najera). The fall of the Caliphate of Cordova (1031) heralded a period of military expansion for the northern kingdoms, now divided into several mighty regional powers after the division of the Kingdom of Navarre (1035). A myriad of autonomous Christian kingdoms emerged thereafter.


title: Reconquista

text: The Kingdom of Asturias was located in the Cantabrian Mountains, a wet and mountainous region in the north of the Iberian Peninsula. It was the first Christian power to emerge. The kingdom was established by a Visigothic nobleman, named Pelagius ("Pelayo"), who had possibly returned after the Battle of Guadalete in 711 and was elected leader of the Asturians, and the remnants of the "gens Gothorum" ( The Hispano-Gothic aristocracy and the Hispano-Visigothic population who took refuge in the North ). Historian Joseph F. O'Callaghan says an unknown number of them fled and took refuge in Asturias or Septimania. In Asturias they supported Pelagius's uprising, and joining with the indigenous leaders, formed a new aristocracy. The population of the mountain region consisted of native Astures, Galicians, Cantabri, Basques and other groups unassimilated into Hispano-Gothic society, laying the foundations for the Kingdom of Asturias and starting the Astur-Leonese dynasty that spanned from 718 to 1037 and led the initial efforts in the Iberian peninsula to take back the territories then ruled by the Moors. Although the new dynasty first ruled in the mountains of Asturias, with the capital of the kingdom established initially in Cangas de Onís, and was in its dawn mostly concerned with securing the territory and settling the monarchy, the latest kings (particularly Alfonso III of Asturias) emphasized the nature of the new kingdom as heir of that in Toledo and the restoration of the Visigothic nation in order to vindicate the expansion to the south. However, such claims have been overall dismissed by modern historiography, emphasizing the distinct, autochthonous nature of the Cantabro-Asturian and Vasconic domains with no continuation to the Gothic Kingdom of Toledo.


title: Reconquista

text: Pelagius' kingdom initially was little more than a gathering point for the existing guerrilla forces. During the first decades, the Asturian dominion over the different areas of the kingdom was still lax, and for this reason it had to be continually strengthened through matrimonial alliances with other powerful families from the north of the Iberian Peninsula. Thus, Ermesinda, Pelagius' daughter, was married to Alfonso, Dux Peter of Cantabria's son. Alfonso's son Fruela married Munia, a Basque from Álava, after crushing a Basque uprising (probably resistance). Their son is reported to be Alfonso II, while Alfonso I's daughter Adosinda married Silo, a local chief from the area of Flavionavia, Pravia.


title: Reconquista

text: Alfonso's military strategy was typical of Iberian warfare at the time. Lacking the means needed for wholesale conquest of large territories, his tactics consisted of raids in the border regions of Vardulia. With the plunder he gained further military forces could be paid, enabling him to raid the Muslim cities of Lisbon, Zamora, and Coimbra. Alfonso I also expanded his realm westwards conquering Galicia.


title: Reconquista

text: During the reign of King Alfonso II (791–842), the kingdom was firmly established, and a series of Muslim raids caused the transfer of the Asturian capital to Oviedo. The king is believed to have initiated diplomatic contacts with the kings of Pamplona and the Carolingians, thereby gaining official recognition for his kingdom and his crown from the Pope and Charlemagne.


title: Reconquista

text: The bones of St. James the Great were proclaimed to have been found in Iria Flavia (present day Padrón) in 813 or probably two or three decades later. The cult of the saint was transferred later to Compostela (from Latin "campus stellae", literally "the star field"), possibly in the early 10th century when the focus of Asturian power moved from the mountains over to Leon, to become the Kingdom of León or Galicia-Leon. Santiago's were among many saint relics proclaimed to have been found across north-western Hispania. Pilgrims started to flow in from other Iberian Christian realms, sowing the seeds of the later Way of Saint James (11–12th century) that sparked the enthusiasm and religious zeal of continental Christian Europe for centuries.