title: Sofia

text: According to the 2011 census, throughout the whole municipality some 892,511 people (69.1%) are recorded as Eastern Orthodox Christians, 10,256 (0.8%) as Protestant, 6,767 (0.5%) as Muslim, 5,572 (0.4%) as Roman Catholic, 4,010 (0.3%) belonged to other faith and 372,475 (28.8%) declared themselves irreligious or did not mention any faith. The data says that roughly a third of the total population have already earned a university degree. Of the population aged 15–64 – 265,248 people within the municipality (28.5%) are not economically active, the unemployed being another group of 55,553 people (6%), a large share of whom have completed higher education. The largest group are occupied in trading, followed by those in manufacturing industry. Within the municipality, three-quarters, or 965,328 people are recorded as having access to television at home and 836,435 (64.8%) as having internet. Out of 464,865 homes – 432,847 have connection to the communal sanitary sewer, while 2,732 do not have any. Of these 864 do not have any water supply and 688 have other than communal. Over 99.6% of males and females aged over 9 are recorded as literate. The largest group of the population aged over 20 are recorded to live within marriage (46.3%), another 43.8% are recorded as single and another 9.9% as having other type of coexistence/partnership, whereas not married in total are a majority and among people aged up to 40 and over 70. The people with juridical status divorced or widowed are either part of the factual singles or those having another type of partnership, each of the two constitutes by around 10% of the population aged over 20. Only over 1% of the juridically married do not de facto live within marriage. The families that consist of two people are 46.8%, another 34.2% of the families are made up by three people, whereas most of the households (36.5%) consist of only one person.


title: Sofia

text: Sofia was declared the national capital in 1879. One year later, in 1880, it was the fifth-largest city in the country after Plovdiv, Varna, Ruse and Shumen. Plovdiv remained the most populous Bulgarian town until 1892 when Sofia took the lead. The city is the hot spot of internal migration, the capital population is increasing and is around 17% of the national, thus a small number of people with local roots remain today, they dominate the surrounding rural suburbs and are called Shopi. Shopi speak the Western Bulgarian dialects.


title: Sofia

text: Sofia is ranked as Beta- global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. It is the economic hub of Bulgaria and home to most major Bulgarian and international companies operating in the country, as well as the Bulgarian National Bank and the Bulgarian Stock Exchange. The city is ranked 62nd among financial centres worldwide. In 2015, Sofia was ranked 30th out of 300 global cities in terms of combined growth in employment and real gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, the highest one amongst cities in Southeast Europe. The real GDP (PPP) per capita growth at the time was 2.5% and the employment went up by 3.4% to 962,400. In 2015, Forbes listed Sofia as one of the top 10 places in the world to launch a startup business, because of the low corporate tax (10%), the fast internet connection speeds available – one of the fastest in the world, and the presence of several investment funds, including Eleven Startup Accelerator, LAUNCHub and Neveq.


title: Sofia

text: The city's GDP (PPS) per capita stood at €29,600 ($33,760) in 2015, one of the highest in Southeast Europe and well above other cities in the country. The total nominal GDP in 2018 was 38.5 billion leva ($22.4 billion), or 33,437 leva ($19,454) per capita, and average monthly wages in March 2020 were $1,071, the highest nationally. Services dominate the economy, accounting for 88.6% of the gross value added, followed by industry 11.3% and agriculture 0.1%.


title: Sofia

text: Historically, after World War II and the era of industrialisation under socialism, the city and its surrounding areas expanded rapidly and became the most heavily industrialised region of the country, with numerous factories producing steel, pig iron, machinery, industrial equipment, electronics, trams, chemicals, textiles, food. The influx of workers from other parts of the country became so intense that a restriction policy was imposed, and residing in the capital was only possible after obtaining Sofianite citizenship. However, after the political changes in 1989, this kind of citizenship was removed.


title: Sofia

text: The most dynamic sectors include Information technology (IT) and manufacturing. Sofia is a regional IT hub, ranking second among the Top 10 fastest growing tech centers in Europe in terms of annual growth of active members. The sector employs about 50,000 professionals, 30% of them involved in programming, and contributes for 14% of the city's exports. The IT sector is highly diverse and includes both multinational corporations, local companies and start-ups. Multinationals with major research, development, innovation and engineering centers in Sofia include the second largest global IT center of Coca-Cola, Ubisoft, Hewlett-Packard, VMware, Robert Bosch GmbH, Financial Times, Experian, etc. Several office and tech clusters have been established across the city, including Business Park Sofia, Sofia Tech Park, Capital Fort and others.


title: Sofia

text: Manufacturing has registered a strong recovery since 2012, increasing the exports three-fold and the employment by 52% accounting for over 70,000 jobs. Supported by the city's R&D expertise, Sofia is shifting to high value-added manufacturing including electrical equipment, precision mechanics, pharmaceuticals. There are 16 industrial and logistics parks in Sofia, some sprawling to towns in neighbouring Sofia Province, such as Bozhurishte, Kostinbrod and Elin Pelin. Manufacturing companies include Woodward, Inc., producing airframe and industrial turbomachinery systems, Festo, producing microsensors, Visteon, development and engineering of instrument clusters, LCD displays and domain controllers, Melexis, producing micro-electronic semiconductor solutions in the automotive sector, Sopharma, producing pharmaceuticals, the largest Lufthansa Technik maintenance facilities outside Germany etc.


title: Sofia

text: With its developing infrastructure and strategic location, Sofia is a major hub for international railway and automobile transport. Three of the ten Pan-European Transport Corridors cross the city: IV, VIII and X. All major types of transport (except water) are represented in the city.


title: Sofia

text: The Central Railway Station is the primary hub for domestic and international rail transport, carried out by Bulgarian State Railways (BDZ), the national rail company headquartered in the city. It is one of the main stations along BDZ Line 1, and a hub of Lines 2, 5 and 13. Line 1 provides a connection to Plovdiv, the second-largest city in Bulgaria, while Line 2 is the longest national railway and connects Sofia and Varna, the largest coastal city. Lines 5 and 13 are shorter and provide connections to Kulata and Bankya, respectively. Overall, Sofia has of railway lines.


title: Sofia

text: Public transport is well-developed with bus (), tram () and trolleybus () lines running in all areas of the city. The Sofia Metro became operational in 1998, and now has four lines and 47 stations. , the system has of track. Six new stations were opened in 2009, two more in April 2012, and eleven more in August 2012. In 2015 seven new stations were opened and the underground extended to Sofia Airport on its Northern branch and to Business Park Sofia on its Southern branch. In July 2016 the Vitosha Metro Station was opened on the M2 main line. A third line was opened in August of 2020 and re-organisation of the previous lines lead to a 4th line being created. This line will complete the proposed underground system of three lines with about of lines. The master plan for the Sofia Metro includes three lines with a total of 63 stations. Marshrutkas provide an efficient and popular means of transport by being faster than public transport, but cheaper than taxis. There are around 13,000 taxi cabs operating in the city. Additionally, all-electric vehicles are available through carsharing company Spark, which is set to increase its fleet to 300 cars by mid-2019.


title: Sofia

text: Private automobile ownership has grown rapidly in the 1990s; more than 1,000,000 cars were registered in Sofia after 2002. The city has the 4th-highest number of automobiles per capita in the European Union at 546.4 vehicles per 1,000 people. The municipality was known for minor and cosmetic repairs and many streets are in a poor condition. This is noticeably changing in the past years. There are different boulevards and streets in the city with a higher amount of traffic than others. These include Tsarigradsko shose, Cherni Vrah, Bulgaria, Slivnitsa and Todor Aleksandrov boulevards, as well as the city's ring road. Consequently, traffic and air pollution problems have become more severe and receive regular criticism in local media. The extension of the underground system is hoped to alleviate the city's immense traffic problems.


title: Sofia

text: Sofia has an extensive district heating system that draws on four combined heat and power (CHP) plants and boiler stations. Virtually the entire city (900,000 households and 5,900 companies) is centrally heated, using residual heat from electricity generation (3,000 MW) and gas- and oil-fired heating furnaces; total heat capacity is 4,640 MW. The heat distribution piping network is long and comprises 14,000 substations and 10,000 heated buildings.


title: Sofia

text: Much of Bulgaria's educational capacity is concentrated in Sofia. There are 221 general, 11 special and seven arts or sports schools, 56 vocational gymnasiums and colleges, and four independent colleges. The city also hosts 23 of Bulgaria's 51 higher education establishments and more than 105,000 university students. The American College of Sofia, a private secondary school with roots in a school founded by American missionaries in 1860, is among the oldest American educational institutions outside of the United States.


title: Sofia

text: A number of secondary language schools provide education in a selected foreign language. These include the First English Language School, 91st German Language School, 164th Spanish Language School, and the Lycée Français. These are among the most sought-after secondary schools, along with Vladislav the Grammarian 73rd Secondary School and the High School of Mathematics, which topped the 2018 preference list for high school candidates.


title: Sofia

text: Higher education includes four of the five highest-ranking national universities – Sofia University (SU), the Technical University of Sofia, New Bulgarian University and the Medical University of Sofia. Sofia University was founded in 1888. More than 20,000 students study in its 16 faculties. A number of research and cultural departments operate within SU, including its own publishing house, botanical gardens, a space research centre, a quantum electronics department, and a Confucius Institute. Rakovski Defence and Staff College, the National Academy of Arts, the University of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy, the University of National and World Economy and the University of Mining and Geology are other major higher education establishments in the city.


title: Sofia

text: Other institutions of national significance, such as the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS) and the SS. Cyril and Methodius National Library are located in Sofia. BAS is the centrepiece of scientific research in Bulgaria, employing more than 4,500 scientists in various institutes. Its Institute of Nuclear Research and Nuclear Energy will operate the largest cyclotron in the country. All five of Bulgaria's supercomputers and supercomputing clusters are located in Sofia as well. Three of those are operated by the BAS; one by Sofia Tech Park and one by the Faculty of Physics at Sofia University.


title: Andre Braugher

text: Andre Keith Braugher (; born July 1, 1962) is an American actor. He is best known for his roles as Detective Frank Pembleton in the police drama series "" (1993–1999), used car salesman Owen Thoreau Jr. in the comedy-drama series "Men of a Certain Age" (2009–2011), and Captain Raymond Holt in the police comedy series "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" (2013–2021).


title: Andre Braugher

text: For his television work, Braugher has received two Primetime Emmy Awards from 11 nominations, as well as two Golden Globe Award nominations. He has also had supporting roles in films such as "Glory" (1989), "Primal Fear" (1996), "City of Angels" (1998), "Frequency" (2000), "Poseidon" (2006), "The Mist" (2007), "" (2007), "Salt" (2010), and "The Gambler" (2014), in addition to appearing in series such as "BoJack Horseman", "House", and "New Girl".


title: Andre Braugher

text: Andre Keith Braugher was born in Chicago on July 1, 1962, the youngest of four children born to Sally, a postal worker, and Floyd Braugher, a heavy equipment operator. He attended St. Ignatius College Prep and graduated from Stanford University with a BA in theatre in 1984. He then attended the Juilliard School's Drama Division, graduating in 1988.


title: Andre Braugher

text: Braugher's first film role was in the 1989 film "Glory" as Thomas Searles, a free, educated black man from the North who joins the first black regiment in the Union Army. He played Kojak's sidekick in the late-1980s ABC television film revival of "Kojak". He subsequently moved on to a role on the television series "" as Detective Frank Pembleton, a self-righteous, fiery, unyielding, Jesuit-educated police detective. Braugher won Television Critics Association awards for individual achievement in drama in 1997 and 1998. He was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in 1996 and 1998, winning in the latter year. He left "Homicide" after its sixth season but returned for the reunion . He has also co-starred in the films "City of Angels", "Frequency", and "Poseidon".


title: Andre Braugher

text: As part of the Shakespeare in the Park series at the Delacorte Theater in New York City's Central Park, Braugher played the title role in the 1996 production of "Henry V", for which he received an Obie Award. In 2000, he played the title role as Ben Gideon in the series "Gideon's Crossing", which lasted one season. In 2002, Braugher narrated the award-winning, PBS-broadcast documentary "", produced by Unity Productions Foundation and recently re-issued. He narrated "The Murder of Emmett Till" for PBS. He played Detective Marcellus Washington in the TV series "Hack" from 2002 to 2004. In 2006, Braugher starred as Nick Atwater in the mini-series "Thief" for FX Networks, winning a second Emmy for his performance. He portrayed General Hager in the 2007 film "".


title: Andre Braugher

text: Braugher appeared on the TV series "House, M.D." as Dr. Darryl Nolan, a psychiatrist who helps House recover from his addiction to Vicodin. He also appeared in the TNT series "Men of a Certain Age", for which he was nominated twice as Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. He also voiced the villain Darkseid in the animated film, "".


title: Andre Braugher

text: Braugher co-starred in the Manhattan Theatre Club's production of "The Whipping Man", off-Broadway, for a limited run from January–March 2011. He narrated the introduction to the Olympic Games on NBC from 2006 to 2010, succeeding James Earl Jones in the role. Braugher narrated James Patterson's Alex Cross book "Cross Fire" (2010).


title: Andre Braugher

text: He has a recurring role as defense attorney Bayard Ellis on "", and starred as the lead character, Capt. Marcus Chaplin, in ABC's military drama TV series "Last Resort". Braugher also had a recurring role in season 4 of the Netflix animated series "BoJack Horseman" as California Gov. Woodchuck Coodchuck-Berkowitz. He starred in the Golden Globe-winning TV series "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" as the precinct captain, Raymond Holt. For his performance in "Brooklyn Nine Nine", he has been nominated for four Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series.


title: Andre Braugher

text: In 1991, Braugher married actress Ami Brabson, who co-starred with him in "Homicide: Life on the Street". They have three children.


title: Black

text: Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white have often been used to describe opposites such as good and evil, the Dark Ages versus Age of Enlightenment, and night versus day. Since the Middle Ages, black has been the symbolic color of solemnity and authority, and for this reason it is still commonly worn by judges and magistrates.


title: Black

text: Black was one of the first colors used by artists in Neolithic cave paintings. It was used in ancient Egypt and Greece as the color of the underworld. In the Roman Empire, it became the color of mourning, and over the centuries it was frequently associated with death, evil, witches, and magic. In the 14th century, it was worn by royalty, clergy, judges, and government officials in much of Europe. It became the color worn by English romantic poets, businessmen and statesmen in the 19th century, and a high fashion color in the 20th century. According to surveys in Europe and North America, it is the color most commonly associated with mourning, the end, secrets, magic, force, violence, fear, evil, and elegance.


title: Black

text: Black is the most common ink color used for printing books, newspapers and documents, as it provides the highest contrast with white paper and thus is the easiest color to read. Similarly, black text on a white screen is the most common format used on computer screens. As of September 2019, the darkest material is made by MIT engineers from vertically aligned carbon nanotubes.


title: Black

text: The word "black" comes from Old English "blæc" ("black, dark", "also", "ink"), from Proto-Germanic *"blakkaz" ("burned"), from Proto-Indo-European *"bhleg-" ("to burn, gleam, shine, flash"), from base *"bhel-" ("to shine"), related to Old Saxon "blak" ("ink"), Old High German "blach" ("black"), Old Norse "blakkr" ("dark"), Dutch "blaken" ("to burn"), and Swedish "bläck" ("ink"). More distant cognates include Latin "flagrare" ("to blaze, glow, burn"), and Ancient Greek "phlegein" ("to burn, scorch"). The Ancient Greeks sometimes used the same word to name different colors, if they had the same intensity. "Kuanos"' could mean both dark blue and black. The Ancient Romans had two words for black: "ater" was a flat, dull black, while "niger" was a brilliant, saturated black. "Ater" has vanished from the vocabulary, but "niger" was the source of the country name "Nigeria," the English word "Negro", and the word for "black" in most modern Romance languages (French: "noir"; Spanish and Portuguese: "negro"; Italian: "nero"; Romanian: "negru").


title: Black

text: Old High German also had two words for black: "swartz" for dull black and "blach" for a luminous black. These are parallelled in Middle English by the terms "swart" for dull black and "blaek" for luminous black. "Swart" still survives as the word "swarthy", while "blaek" became the modern English "black". The former is cognate with the words used for black in most modern Germanic languages aside from English (German: "schwarz", Dutch: "zwart", Swedish: "svart", Danish: "sort", Icelandic: "svartr"). In heraldry, the word used for the black color is sable, named for the black fur of the sable, an animal.


title: Black

text: Black was one of the first colors used in art. The Lascaux Cave in France contains drawings of bulls and other animals drawn by paleolithic artists between 18,000 and 17,000 years ago. They began by using charcoal, and later achieved darker pigments by burning bones or grinding a powder of manganese oxide.


title: Black

text: For the ancient Egyptians, black had positive associations; being the color of fertility and the rich black soil flooded by the Nile. It was the color of Anubis, the god of the underworld, who took the form of a black jackal, and offered protection against evil to the dead. To ancient Greeks, black represented the underworld, separated from the living by the river Acheron, whose water ran black. Those who had committed the worst sins were sent to Tartarus, the deepest and darkest level. In the center was the palace of Hades, the king of the underworld, where he was seated upon a black ebony throne. Black was one of the most important colors used by ancient Greek artists. In the 6th century BC, they began making black-figure pottery and later red figure pottery, using a highly original technique. In black-figure pottery, the artist would paint figures with a glossy clay slip on a red clay pot. When the pot was fired, the figures painted with the slip would turn black, against a red background. Later they reversed the process, painting the spaces between the figures with slip. This created magnificent red figures against a glossy black background.


title: Black

text: In the social hierarchy of ancient Rome, purple was the color reserved for the Emperor; red was the color worn by soldiers (red cloaks for the officers, red tunics for the soldiers); white the color worn by the priests, and black was worn by craftsmen and artisans. The black they wore was not deep and rich; the vegetable dyes used to make black were not solid or lasting, so the blacks often faded to gray or brown.


title: Black

text: In Latin, the word for black, "ater" and to darken, "atere", were associated with cruelty, brutality and evil. They were the root of the English words "atrocious" and "atrocity". Black was also the Roman color of death and mourning. In the 2nd century BC Roman magistrates began to wear a dark toga, called a "toga pulla", to funeral ceremonies. Later, under the Empire, the family of the deceased also wore dark colors for a long period; then, after a banquet to mark the end of mourning, exchanged the black for a white toga. In Roman poetry, death was called the "hora nigra", the black hour.


title: Black

text: The German and Scandinavian peoples worshipped their own goddess of the night, Nótt, who crossed the sky in a chariot drawn by a black horse. They also feared Hel, the goddess of the kingdom of the dead, whose skin was black on one side and red on the other. They also held sacred the raven. They believed that Odin, the king of the Nordic pantheon, had two black ravens, Huginn and Muninn, who served as his agents, traveling the world for him, watching and listening.


title: Black

text: In the early Middle Ages, black was commonly associated with darkness and evil. In Medieval paintings, the devil was usually depicted as having human form, but with wings and black skin or hair.


title: Black

text: In fashion, black did not have the prestige of red, the color of the nobility. It was worn by Benedictine monks as a sign of humility and penitence. In the 12th century a famous theological dispute broke out between the Cistercian monks, who wore white, and the Benedictines, who wore black. A Benedictine abbot, Pierre the Venerable, accused the Cistercians of excessive pride in wearing white instead of black. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, the founder of the Cistercians responded that black was the color of the devil, hell, "of death and sin", while white represented "purity, innocence and all the virtues".


title: Black

text: Black symbolized both power and secrecy in the medieval world. The emblem of the Holy Roman Empire of Germany was a black eagle. The black knight in the poetry of the Middle Ages was an enigmatic figure, hiding his identity, usually wrapped in secrecy.


title: Black

text: Black ink, invented in China, was traditionally used in the Middle Ages for writing, for the simple reason that black was the darkest color and therefore provided the greatest contrast with white paper or parchment, making it the easiest color to read. It became even more important in the 15th century, with the invention of printing. A new kind of ink, printer's ink, was created out of soot, turpentine and walnut oil. The new ink made it possible to spread ideas to a mass audience through printed books, and to popularize art through black and white engravings and prints. Because of its contrast and clarity, black ink on white paper continued to be the standard for printing books, newspapers and documents; and for the same reason black text on a white background is the most common format used on computer screens.


title: Black

text: In the early Middle Ages, princes, nobles and the wealthy usually wore bright colors, particularly scarlet cloaks from Italy. Black was rarely part of the wardrobe of a noble family. The one exception was the fur of the sable. This glossy black fur, from an animal of the marten family, was the finest and most expensive fur in Europe. It was imported from Russia and Poland and used to trim the robes and gowns of royalty.


title: Black

text: In the 14th century, the status of black began to change. First, high-quality black dyes began to arrive on the market, allowing garments of a deep, rich black. Magistrates and government officials began to wear black robes, as a sign of the importance and seriousness of their positions. A third reason was the passage of sumptuary laws in some parts of Europe which prohibited the wearing of costly clothes and certain colors by anyone except members of the nobility. The famous bright scarlet cloaks from Venice and the peacock blue fabrics from Florence were restricted to the nobility. The wealthy bankers and merchants of northern Italy responded by changing to black robes and gowns, made with the most expensive fabrics.


title: Black

text: The change to the more austere but elegant black was quickly picked up by the kings and nobility. It began in northern Italy, where the Duke of Milan and the Count of Savoy and the rulers of Mantua, Ferrara, Rimini and Urbino began to dress in black. It then spread to France, led by Louis I, Duke of Orleans, younger brother of King Charles VI of France. It moved to England at the end of the reign of King Richard II (1377–1399), where all the court began to wear black. In 1419–20, black became the color of the powerful Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good. It moved to Spain, where it became the color of the Spanish Habsburgs, of Charles V and of his son, Philip II of Spain (1527–1598). European rulers saw it as the color of power, dignity, humility and temperance. By the end of the 16th century, it was the color worn by almost all the monarchs of Europe and their courts.


title: Black

text: While black was the color worn by the Catholic rulers of Europe, it was also the emblematic color of the Protestant Reformation in Europe and the Puritans in England and America. John Calvin, Philip Melanchthon and other Protestant theologians denounced the richly colored and decorated interiors of Roman Catholic churches. They saw the color red, worn by the Pope and his Cardinals, as the color of luxury, sin, and human folly. In some northern European cities, mobs attacked churches and cathedrals, smashed the stained glass windows and defaced the statues and decoration. In Protestant doctrine, clothing was required to be sober, simple and discreet. Bright colors were banished and replaced by blacks, browns and grays; women and children were recommended to wear white.


title: Black

text: In the Protestant Netherlands, Rembrandt used this sober new palette of blacks and browns to create portraits whose faces emerged from the shadows expressing the deepest human emotions. The Catholic painters of the Counter-Reformation, like Rubens, went in the opposite direction; they filled their paintings with bright and rich colors. The new Baroque churches of the Counter-Reformation were usually shining white inside and filled with statues, frescoes, marble, gold and colorful paintings, to appeal to the public. But European Catholics of all classes, like Protestants, eventually adopted a sober wardrobe that was mostly black, brown and gray.


title: Black

text: In the second part of the 17th century, Europe and America experienced an epidemic of fear of witchcraft. People widely believed that the devil appeared at midnight in a ceremony called a Black Mass or black sabbath, usually in the form of a black animal, often a goat, a dog, a wolf, a bear, a deer or a rooster, accompanied by their familiar spirits, black cats, serpents and other black creatures. This was the origin of the widespread superstition about black cats and other black animals. In medieval Flanders, in a ceremony called "Kattenstoet," black cats were thrown from the belfry of the Cloth Hall of Ypres to ward off witchcraft.


title: Black

text: Witch trials were common in both Europe and America during this period. During the notorious Salem witch trials in New England in 1692–93, one of those on trial was accused of being able turn into a "black thing with a blue cap," and others of having familiars in the form of a black dog, a black cat and a black bird. Nineteen women and men were hanged as witches.


title: Black

text: In the 18th century, during the European Age of Enlightenment, black receded as a fashion color. Paris became the fashion capital, and pastels, blues, greens, yellow and white became the colors of the nobility and upper classes. But after the French Revolution, black again became the dominant color.


title: Black

text: Black was the color of the industrial revolution, largely fueled by coal, and later by oil. Thanks to coal smoke, the buildings of the large cities of Europe and America gradually turned black. By 1846 the industrial area of the West Midlands of England was "commonly called 'the Black Country'”. Charles Dickens and other writers described the dark streets and smoky skies of London, and they were vividly illustrated in the engravings of French artist Gustave Doré.


title: Black

text: A different kind of black was an important part of the romantic movement in literature. Black was the color of melancholy, the dominant theme of romanticism. The novels of the period were filled with castles, ruins, dungeons, storms, and meetings at midnight. The leading poets of the movement were usually portrayed dressed in black, usually with a white shirt and open collar, and a scarf carelessly over their shoulder, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron helped create the enduring stereotype of the romantic poet.


title: Black

text: The invention of inexpensive synthetic black dyes and the industrialization of the textile industry meant that high-quality black clothes were available for the first time to the general population. In the 19th century black gradually became the most popular color of business dress of the upper and middle classes in England, the Continent, and America.


title: Black

text: Black dominated literature and fashion in the 19th century, and played a large role in painting. James McNeill Whistler made the color the subject of his most famous painting, "Arrangement in grey and black number one" (1871), better known as "Whistler's Mother".


title: Black

text: Some 19th-century French painters had a low opinion of black: "Reject black," Paul Gauguin said, "and that mix of black and white they call gray. Nothing is black, nothing is gray." But Édouard Manet used blacks for their strength and dramatic effect. Manet's portrait of painter Berthe Morisot was a study in black which perfectly captured her spirit of independence. The black gave the painting power and immediacy; he even changed her eyes, which were green, to black to strengthen the effect. Henri Matisse quoted the French impressionist Pissarro telling him, "Manet is stronger than us all – he made light with black."


title: Black

text: Pierre-Auguste Renoir used luminous blacks, especially in his portraits. When someone told him that black was not a color, Renoir replied: "What makes you think that? Black is the queen of colors. I always detested Prussian blue. I tried to replace black with a mixture of red and blue, I tried using cobalt blue or ultramarine, but I always came back to ivory black."


title: Black

text: Vincent van Gogh used black lines to outline many of the objects in his paintings, such as the bed in the famous painting of his bedroom. making them stand apart. His painting of black crows over a cornfield, painted shortly before he died, was particularly agitated and haunting. In the late 19th century, black also became the color of anarchism. (See the section political movements.)


title: Black

text: In the 20th century, black was the color of Italian and German fascism. (See the section political movements.)


title: Black

text: In art, black regained some of the territory that it had lost during the 19th century. The Russian painter Kasimir Malevich, a member of the Suprematist movement, created the "Black Square" in 1915, is widely considered the first purely abstract painting. He wrote, "The painted work is no longer simply the imitation of reality, but is this very reality ... It is not a demonstration of ability, but the materialization of an idea."


title: Black

text: Black was also appreciated by Henri Matisse. "When I didn't know what color to put down, I put down black," he said in 1945. "Black is a force: I used black as ballast to simplify the construction ... Since the impressionists it seems to have made continuous progress, taking a more and more important part in color orchestration, comparable to that of the double bass as a solo instrument."


title: Black

text: In the 1950s, black came to be a symbol of individuality and intellectual and social rebellion, the color of those who didn't accept established norms and values. In Paris, it was worn by Left-Bank intellectuals and performers such as Juliette Gréco, and by some members of the Beat Movement in New York and San Francisco. Black leather jackets were worn by motorcycle gangs such as the Hells Angels and street gangs on the fringes of society in the United States. Black as a color of rebellion was celebrated in such films as "The Wild One", with Marlon Brando. By the end of the 20th century, black was the emblematic color of the punk subculture punk fashion, and the goth subculture. Goth fashion, which emerged in England in the 1980s, was inspired by Victorian era mourning dress.


title: Black

text: In men's fashion, black gradually ceded its dominance to navy blue, particularly in business suits. Black evening dress and formal dress in general were worn less and less. In 1960, John F. Kennedy was the last American President to be inaugurated wearing formal dress; President Lyndon Johnson and all his successors were inaugurated wearing business suits.


title: Black

text: Women's fashion was revolutionized and simplified in 1926 by the French designer Coco Chanel, who published a drawing of a simple black dress in "Vogue" magazine. She famously said, "A woman needs just three things; a black dress, a black sweater, and, on her arm, a man she loves." French designer Jean Patou also followed suit by creating a black collection in 1929. Other designers contributed to the trend of the little black dress. The Italian designer Gianni Versace said, "Black is the quintessence of simplicity and elegance," and French designer Yves Saint Laurent said, "black is the liaison which connects art and fashion. One of the most famous black dresses of the century was designed by Hubert de Givenchy and was worn by Audrey Hepburn in the 1961 film "Breakfast at Tiffany's".


title: Black

text: The American civil rights movement in the 1950s was a struggle for the political equality of African Americans. It developed into the Black Power movement in the early 1960s until the late 1980s, and the Black Lives Matter movement in the 2010s and 2020s. It also popularized the slogan "Black is Beautiful".


title: Black

text: In the visible spectrum, black is the result of the absorption of all colors. Black can be defined as the visual impression experienced when no visible light reaches the eye. Pigments or dyes that absorb light rather than reflect it back to the eye "look black". A black pigment can, however, result from a "combination" of several pigments that collectively absorb all colors. If appropriate proportions of three primary pigments are mixed, the result reflects so little light as to be called "black". This provides two superficially opposite but actually complementary descriptions of black. Black is the absorption of all colors of light, or an exhaustive combination of multiple colors of pigment.


title: Black

text: In physics, a black body is a perfect absorber of light, but, by a thermodynamic rule, it is also the best emitter. Thus, the best radiative cooling, out of sunlight, is by using black paint, though it is important that it be black (a nearly perfect absorber) in the infrared as well. In elementary science, far ultraviolet light is called "black light" because, while itself unseen, it causes many minerals and other substances to fluoresce.


title: Black

text: Absorption of light is contrasted by transmission, reflection and diffusion, where the light is only redirected, causing objects to appear transparent, reflective or white respectively. A material is said to be black if most incoming light is absorbed equally in the material. Light (electromagnetic radiation in the visible spectrum) interacts with the atoms and molecules, which causes the energy of the light to be converted into other forms of energy, usually heat. This means that black surfaces can act as thermal collectors, absorbing light and generating heat (see Solar thermal collector).


title: Black

text: As of September 2019, the darkest material is made from vertically aligned carbon nanotubes. The material was grown by MIT engineers and was reported to have a 99.995% absorption rate of any incoming light. This surpasses any former darkest materials including Vantablack, which has a peak absorption rate of 99.965% in the visible spectrum.


title: Black

text: The earliest pigments used by Neolithic man were charcoal, red ocher and yellow ocher. The black lines of cave art were drawn with the tips of burnt torches made of a wood with resin. Different charcoal pigments were made by burning different woods and animal products, each of which produced a different tone. The charcoal would be ground and then mixed with animal fat to make the pigment.


title: Black

text: The 15th-century painter Cennino Cennini described how this pigment was made during the Renaissance in his famous handbook for artists: "...there is a black which is made from the tendrils of vines. And these tendrils need to be burned. And when they have been burned, throw some water onto them and put them out and then mull them in the same way as the other black. And this is a lean and black pigment and is one of the perfect pigments that we use."


title: Black

text: Cennini also noted that "There is another black which is made from burnt almond shells or peaches and this is a perfect, fine black." Similar fine blacks were made by burning the pits of the peach, cherry or apricot. The powdered charcoal was then mixed with gum arabic or the yellow of an egg to make a paint.


title: Black

text: Different civilizations burned different plants to produce their charcoal pigments. The Inuit of Alaska used wood charcoal mixed with the blood of seals to paint masks and wooden objects. The Polynesians burned coconuts to produce their pigment.


title: Black

text: Good-quality black dyes were not known until the middle of the 14th century. The most common early dyes were made from bark, roots or fruits of different trees; usually walnuts, chestnuts, or certain oak trees. The blacks produced were often more gray, brown or bluish. The cloth had to be dyed several times to darken the color. One solution used by dyers was add to the dye some iron filings, rich in iron oxide, which gave a deeper black. Another was to first dye the fabric dark blue, and then to dye it black.


title: Black

text: A much richer and deeper black dye was eventually found made from the oak apple or "gall-nut". The gall-nut is a small round tumor which grows on oak and other varieties of trees. They range in size from 2–5 cm, and are caused by chemicals injected by the larva of certain kinds of gall wasp in the family Cynipidae. The dye was very expensive; a great quantity of gall-nuts were needed for a very small amount of dye. The gall-nuts which made the best dye came from Poland, eastern Europe, the near east and North Africa. Beginning in about the 14th century, dye from gall-nuts was used for clothes of the kings and princes of Europe.


title: Black

text: Another important source of natural black dyes from the 17th century onwards was the logwood tree, or Haematoxylum campechianum, which also produced reddish and bluish dyes. It is a species of flowering tree in the legume family, Fabaceae, that is native to southern Mexico and northern Central America. The modern nation of Belize grew from 17th century English logwood logging camps.


title: Black

text: Since the mid-19th century, synthetic black dyes have largely replaced natural dyes. One of the important synthetic blacks is Nigrosin, a mixture of synthetic black dyes (CI 50415, Solvent black 5) made by heating a mixture of nitrobenzene, aniline and aniline hydrochloride in the presence of a copper or iron catalyst. Its main industrial uses are as a colorant for lacquers and varnishes and in marker-pen inks.


title: Black

text: The first known inks were made by the Chinese, and date back to the 23rd century B.C. They used natural plant dyes and minerals such as graphite ground with water and applied with an ink brush. Early Chinese inks similar to the modern inkstick have been found dating to about 256 BC at the end of the Warring States period. They were produced from soot, usually produced by burning pine wood, mixed with animal glue. To make ink from an inkstick, the stick is continuously ground against an inkstone with a small quantity of water to produce a dark liquid which is then applied with an ink brush. Artists and calligraphists could vary the thickness of the resulting ink by reducing or increasing the intensity and time of ink grinding. These inks produced the delicate shading and subtle or dramatic effects of Chinese brush painting.


title: Black

text: India ink (or "Indian ink" in British English) is a black ink once widely used for writing and printing and now more commonly used for drawing, especially when inking comic books and comic strips. The technique of making it probably came from China. India ink has been in use in India since at least the 4th century BC, where it was called "masi". In India, the black color of the ink came from bone char, tar, pitch and other substances.


title: Black

text: The ancient Romans had a black writing ink they called "atramentum librarium". Its name came from the Latin word "atrare", which meant to make something black. (This was the same root as the English word "atrocious".) It was usually made, like India ink, from soot, although one variety, called "atramentum elephantinum", was made by burning the ivory of elephants.


title: Black

text: Gall-nuts were also used for making fine black writing ink. Iron gall ink (also known as iron gall nut ink or oak gall ink) was a purple-black or brown-black ink made from iron salts and tannic acids from gall nut. It was the standard writing and drawing ink in Europe, from about the 12th century to the 19th century, and remained in use well into the 20th century.


title: Black

text: The fact that outer space is black is sometimes called Olbers' paradox. In theory, because the universe is full of stars, and is believed to be infinitely large, it would be expected that the light of an infinite number of stars would be enough to brilliantly light the whole universe all the time. However, the background color of outer space is black. This contradiction was first noted in 1823 by German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Matthias Olbers, who posed the question of why the night sky was black.


title: Black

text: The current accepted answer is that, although the universe may be infinitely large, it is not infinitely old. It is thought to be about 13.8 billion years old, so we can only see objects as far away as the distance light can travel in 13.8 billion years. Light from stars farther away has not reached Earth, and cannot contribute to making the sky bright. Furthermore, as the universe is expanding, many stars are moving away from Earth. As they move, the wavelength of their light becomes longer, through the Doppler effect, and shifts toward red, or even becomes invisible. As a result of these two phenomena, there is not enough starlight to make space anything but black.


title: Black

text: The daytime sky on Earth is blue because light from the Sun strikes molecules in Earth's atmosphere scattering light in all directions. Blue light is scattered more than other colors, and reaches the eye in greater quantities, making the daytime sky appear blue. This is known as Rayleigh scattering.


title: Black

text: The nighttime sky on Earth is black because the part of Earth experiencing night is facing away from the Sun, the light of the Sun is blocked by Earth itself, and there is no other bright nighttime source of light in the vicinity. Thus, there is not enough light to undergo Rayleigh scattering and make the sky blue. On the Moon, on the other hand, because there is virtually no atmosphere to scatter the light, the sky is black both day and night. This also holds true for other locations without an atmosphere, such as Mercury.


title: Black

text: In China, the color black is associated with water, one of the five fundamental elements believed to compose all things; and with winter, cold, and the direction north, usually symbolized by a black tortoise. It is also associated with disorder, including the positive disorder which leads to change and new life. When the first Emperor of China Qin Shi Huang seized power from the Zhou Dynasty, he changed the Imperial color from red to black, saying that black extinguished red. Only when the Han Dynasty appeared in 206 BC was red restored as the imperial color.


title: Black

text: In Japan, black is associated with mystery, the night, the unknown, the supernatural, the invisible and death. Combined with white, it can symbolize intuition. In 10th and 11th century Japan, it was believed that wearing black could bring misfortune. It was worn at court by those who wanted to set themselves apart from the established powers or who had renounced material possessions.


title: Black

text: In Japan black can also symbolize experience, as opposed to white, which symbolizes naiveté. The black belt in martial arts symbolizes experience, while a white belt is worn by novices. Japanese men traditionally wear a black kimono with some white decoration on their wedding day.


title: Black

text: In Indonesia black is associated with depth, the subterranean world, demons, disaster, and the left hand. When black is combined with white, however, it symbolizes harmony and equilibrium.


title: Black

text: Anarchism is a political philosophy, most popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which holds that governments and capitalism are harmful and undesirable. The symbols of anarchism was usually either a black flag or a black letter A. More recently it is usually represented with a bisected red and black flag, to emphasise the movement's socialist roots in the First International. Anarchism was most popular in Spain, France, Italy, Ukraine and Argentina. There were also small but influential movements in the United States and Russia. In the latter, the movement initially allied itself with the Bolsheviks.


title: Black

text: The Black Army was a collection of anarchist military units which fought in the Russian Civil War, sometimes on the side of the Bolshevik Red Army, and sometimes for the opposing White Army. It was officially known as the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine, and it was under the command of the anarchist Nestor Makhno.


title: Black

text: Fascism. The Blackshirts () were Fascist paramilitary groups in Italy during the period immediately following World War I and until the end of World War II. The Blackshirts were officially known as the Voluntary Militia for National Security ("Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale", or MVSN).


title: Black

text: Inspired by the black uniforms of the Arditi, Italy's elite storm troops of World War I, the Fascist Blackshirts were organized by Benito Mussolini as the military tool of his political movement. They used violence and intimidation against Mussolini's opponents. The emblem of the Italian fascists was a black flag with fasces, an axe in a bundle of sticks, an ancient Roman symbol of authority. Mussolini came to power in 1922 through his March on Rome with the blackshirts.


title: Black

text: Black was also adopted by Adolf Hitler and the Nazis in Germany. Red, white and black were the colors of the flag of the German Empire from 1870 to 1918. In "Mein Kampf", Hitler explained that they were "revered colors expressive of our homage to the glorious past." Hitler also wrote that "the new flag ... should prove effective as a large poster" because "in hundreds of thousands of cases a really striking emblem may be the first cause of awakening interest in a movement." The black swastika was meant to symbolize the Aryan race, which, according to the Nazis, "was always anti-Semitic and will always be anti-Semitic." Several designs by a number of different authors were considered, but the one adopted in the end was Hitler's personal design. Black became the color of the uniform of the SS, the "Schutzstaffel" or "defense corps", the paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party, and was worn by SS officers from 1932 until the end of World War II.


title: Black

text: The Nazis used a black triangle to symbolize anti-social elements. The symbol originates from Nazi concentration camps, where every prisoner had to wear one of the Nazi concentration camp badges on their jacket, the color of which categorized them according to "their kind". Many Black Triangle prisoners were either mentally disabled or mentally ill. The homeless were also included, as were alcoholics, the Romani people, the habitually "work-shy", prostitutes, draft dodgers and pacifists. More recently the black triangle has been adopted as a symbol in lesbian culture and by disabled activists.


title: Black

text: Black shirts were also worn by the British Union of Fascists before World War II, and members of fascist movements in the Netherlands.


title: Black

text: Patriotic resistance. The Lützow Free Corps, composed of volunteer German students and academics fighting against Napoleon in 1813, could not afford to make special uniforms and therefore adopted black, as the only color that could be used to dye their civilian clothing without the original color showing. In 1815 the students began to carry a red, black and gold flag, which they believed (incorrectly) had been the colors of the Holy Roman Empire (the imperial flag had actually been gold and black). In 1848, this banner became the flag of the German confederation. In 1866, Prussia unified Germany under its rule, and imposed the red, white and black of its own flag, which remained the colors of the German flag until the end of the Second World War. In 1949 the Federal Republic of Germany returned to the original flag and colors of the students and professors of 1815, which is the flag of Germany today.


title: Black

text: Black has been a traditional color of cavalry and armoured or mechanized troops. German armoured troops (Panzerwaffe) traditionally wore black uniforms, and even in others, a black beret is common. In Finland, black is the symbolic color for both armoured troops and combat engineers, and military units of these specialities have black flags and unit insignia.


title: Black

text: The black beret and the color black is also a symbol of special forces in many countries. Soviet and Russian OMON special police and Russian naval infantry wear a black beret. A black beret is also worn by military police in the Canadian, Czech, Croatian, Portuguese, Spanish and Serbian armies.


title: Black

text: The silver-on-black skull and crossbones symbol or Totenkopf and a black uniform were used by Hussars and Black Brunswickers, the German Panzerwaffe and the Nazi Schutzstaffel, and U.S. 400th Missile Squadron (crossed missiles), and continues in use with the Estonian Kuperjanov Battalion.


title: Black

text: In Christian theology, black was the color of the universe before God created light. In many religious cultures, from Mesoamerica to Oceania to India and Japan, the world was created out of a primordial darkness. In the Bible the light of faith and Christianity is often contrasted with the darkness of ignorance and paganism.


title: Black

text: In Christianity, the devil is often called the "prince of darkness". The term was used in John Milton's poem "Paradise Lost", published in 1667, referring to Satan, who is viewed as the embodiment of evil. It is an English translation of the Latin phrase "princeps tenebrarum", which occurs in the "Acts of Pilate", written in the fourth century, in the 11th-century hymn "Rhythmus de die mortis" by Pietro Damiani, and in a sermon by Bernard of Clairvaux from the 12th century. The phrase also occurs in "King Lear" by William Shakespeare (c. 1606), Act III, Scene IV, l. 14:


title: Black

text: Priests and pastors of the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Protestant churches commonly wear black, as do monks of the Benedictine Order, who consider it the color of humility and penitence.


title: Black

text: In the West, black is commonly associated with mourning and bereavement, and usually worn at funerals and memorial services. In some traditional societies, for example in Greece and Italy, some widows wear black for the rest of their lives. In contrast, across much of Africa and parts of Asia like Vietnam, white is a color of mourning.


title: Black

text: In Victorian England, the colors and fabrics of mourning were specified in an unofficial dress code: "non-reflective black paramatta and crape for the first year of deepest mourning, followed by nine months of dullish black silk, heavily trimmed with crape, and then three months when crape was discarded. Paramatta was a fabric of combined silk and wool or cotton; crape was a harsh black silk fabric with a crimped appearance produced by heat. Widows were allowed to change into the colors of half-mourning, such as gray and lavender, black and white, for the final six months."


title: Black

text: A "black day" (or week or month) usually refers to tragic date. The Romans marked "fasti" days with white stones and "nefasti" days with black. The term is often used to remember massacres. Black months include the Black September in Jordan, when large numbers of Palestinians were killed, and Black July in Sri Lanka, the killing of members of the Tamil population by the Sinhalese government.


title: Black

text: In the financial world, the term often refers to a dramatic drop in the stock market. For example, the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the stock market crash on October 29, 1929, which marked the start of the Great Depression, is nicknamed Black Tuesday, and was preceded by Black Thursday, a downturn on October 24 the previous week.


title: Black

text: In western popular culture, black has long been associated with evil and darkness. It is the traditional color of witchcraft and black magic.


title: Black

text: In the Book of Revelation, the last book in the New Testament of the Bible, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are supposed to announce the Apocalypse before the Last Judgment. The horseman representing famine rides a black horse. The vampire of literature and films, such as Count Dracula of the Bram Stoker novel, dressed in black, and could only move at night. The Wicked Witch of the West in the 1939 film "The Wizard of Oz" became the archetype of witches for generations of children. Whereas witches and sorcerers inspired real fear in the 17th century, in the 21st century children and adults dressed as witches for Halloween parties and parades.


title: Black

text: Black is frequently used as a color of power, law and authority. In many countries judges and magistrates wear black robes. That custom began in Europe in the 13th and 14th centuries. Jurists, magistrates and certain other court officials in France began to wear long black robes during the reign of Philip IV of France (1285–1314), and in England from the time of Edward I (1271–1307). The custom spread to the cities of Italy at about the same time, between 1300 and 1320. The robes of judges resembled those worn by the clergy, and represented the law and authority of the King, while those of the clergy represented the law of God and authority of the church.


title: Black

text: Until the 20th century most police uniforms were black, until they were largely replaced by a less menacing blue in France, the U.S. and other countries. In the United States, police cars are frequently Black and white. The riot control units of the Basque Autonomous Police in Spain are known as "beltzak" ("blacks") after their uniform.


title: Black

text: Black formal attire is still worn at many solemn occasions or ceremonies, from graduations to formal balls. Graduation gowns are copied from the gowns worn by university professors in the Middle Ages, which in turn were copied from the robes worn by judges and priests, who often taught at the early universities. The mortarboard hat worn by graduates is adapted from a square cap called a biretta worn by Medieval professors and clerics.


title: Black

text: In the 19th and 20th centuries, many machines and devices, large and small, were painted black, to stress their functionality. These included telephones, sewing machines, steamships, railroad locomotives, and automobiles. The Ford Model T, the first mass-produced car, was available only in black from 1914 to 1926. Of means of transportation, only airplanes were rarely ever painted black.


title: Black

text: Black house paint is becoming more popular with Sherwin-Williams reporting that the color, Tricorn Black, was the 6th most popular exterior house paint color in Canada and the 12th most popular paint in the United States in 2018.


title: Black

text: Black is also commonly used as a racial description in the United Kingdom, since ethnicity was first measured in the 2001 census. The 2011 British census asked residents to describe themselves, and categories offered included Black, African, Caribbean, or Black British. Other possible categories were African British, African Scottish, Caribbean British and Caribbean Scottish. Of the total UK population in 2001, 1.0 percent identified themselves as Black Caribbean, 0.8 percent as Black African, and 0.2 percent as Black (others).


title: Black

text: In Canada, census respondents can identify themselves as Black. In the 2006 census, 2.5 percent of the population identified themselves as black.


title: Black

text: In Australia, the term black is not used in the census. In the 2006 census, 2.3 percent of Australians identified themselves as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islanders.


title: Black

text: In Brazil, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) asks people to identify themselves as "branco" (white), "pardo" (brown), "preto" (black), or "amarelo" (yellow). In 2008 6.8 percent of the population identified themselves as "preto".


title: Black

text: Black is the color most commonly associated with elegance in Europe and the United States, followed by silver, gold, and white.


title: Black

text: Black first became a fashionable color for men in Europe in the 17th century, in the courts of Italy and Spain. (See history above.) In the 19th century, it was the fashion for men both in business and for evening wear, in the form of a black coat whose tails came down the knees. In the evening it was the custom of the men to leave the women after dinner to go to a special smoking room to enjoy cigars or cigarettes. This meant that their tailcoats eventually smelled of tobacco. According to the legend, in 1865 Edward VII, then the Prince of Wales, had his tailor make a special short smoking jacket. The smoking jacket then evolved into the dinner jacket. Again according to legend, the first Americans to wear the jacket were members of the Tuxedo Club in New York State. Thereafter the jacket became known as a tuxedo in the U.S. The term "smoking" is still used today in Russia and other countries.


title: Black

text: The tuxedo was always black until the 1930s, when the Duke of Windsor began to wear a tuxedo that was a very dark midnight blue. He did so because a black tuxedo looked greenish in artificial light, while a dark blue tuxedo looked blacker than black itself.


title: Black

text: For women's fashion, the defining moment was the invention of the simple black dress by Coco Chanel in 1926. (See history.) Thereafter, a long black gown was used for formal occasions, while the simple black dress could be used for everything else. The designer Karl Lagerfeld, explaining why black was so popular, said: "Black is the color that goes with everything. If you're wearing black, you're on sure ground." Skirts have gone up and down and fashions have changed, but the black dress has not lost its position as the essential element of a woman's wardrobe. The fashion designer Christian Dior said, "elegance is a combination of distinction, naturalness, care and simplicity," and black exemplified elegance.


title: Black

text: The expression "X is the new black" is a reference to the latest trend or fad that is considered a wardrobe basic for the duration of the trend, on the basis that black is always fashionable. The phrase has taken on a life of its own and has become a cliché.


title: Black

text: Many performers of both popular and European classical music, including French singers Edith Piaf and Juliette Gréco, and violinist Joshua Bell have traditionally worn black on stage during performances. A black costume was usually chosen as part of their image or stage persona, or because it did not distract from the music, or sometimes for a political reason. Country-western singer Johnny Cash always wore black on stage. In 1971, Cash wrote the song "Man in Black" to explain why he dressed in that color: "We're doing mighty fine I do suppose / In our streak of lightning cars and fancy clothes / But just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back / Up front there ought to be a man in black."


title: Dane Cook

text: Dane Jeffrey Cook (born March 18, 1972) is an American stand-up comedian and film actor. He has released six comedy albums: "Harmful If Swallowed"; "Retaliation"; ""; ""; and "Isolated Incident". In 2006, "Retaliation" became the highest charting comedy album in 28 years and went platinum. He performed an HBO special in late 2006, "Vicious Circle", a straight-to-DVD special titled "Rough Around The Edges" (which is included in the album of the same name), and a Comedy Central special in 2009 titled "Isolated Incident". He is known for his use of observational, often vulgar, and sometimes dark comedy.


title: Dane Cook

text: and in 2006 was described as "alarmingly popular". As an actor, Cook has appeared in films since 1997, including "Mystery Men", "Waiting...", "Employee of the Month", "Good Luck Chuck", "Dan in Real Life", "Mr. Brooks", and "My Best Friend's Girl". He also provided the lead voice role in the 2013 computer-animated sports film "Planes", and its 2014 sequel "" as Dusty Crophopper. He was the second comedian (after Andrew Dice Clay) to sell out Madison Square Garden's large arena space.


title: Dane Cook

text: Cook was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the second son of Donna Jean (née Ford; died 2006) and George F. Cook (died 2007). He has an older half-brother, Darryl, and five sisters. He grew up in a Catholic family of Irish descent.


title: Dane Cook

text: Cook has described himself as having been "pretty quiet, pretty introverted, shy" as a child, although he was a "wild child" at home. He overcame his shyness in his junior year of high school, when he began acting and doing stand-up comedy. After graduating from high school, he studied graphic design in college as a back-up plan, in case he did not achieve success in comedy. He now designs all of his merchandise, including the cover of his album, "Harmful If Swallowed".


title: Dane Cook

text: On October 30, 1992, Cook and a group of local emerging improv/sketch comedians were scheduled to appear at the Boston Garden as part of local radio station WBCN's "Rock of Boston" music concert. Although they anticipated appearing earlier in the lineup, they were scheduled to perform between popular band Spin Doctors and the final headline act Phish, making them somewhat nervous but determined to do well. Moments after they took the stage however, the crowd, neither expecting nor appreciating a comedy act at this late stage in the evening's program and impatient for Phish to go on, expressed their displeasure by throwing their shoes at the stage. Robert Kelly, also on stage as a member of the comedy group, pleaded with the audience to settle down and let them perform their act; the crowd instead escalated to throwing lighters. Sustaining minor injuries, Cook and the comedy group left the stage. Cook described the incident – as well as how dejected he felt and his resulting determination to someday return to the Boston Garden and perform successfully someday – as part of a web series for "The Tonight Show" entitled "Worst I Ever Bombed".


title: Dane Cook

text: In 1994, Cook moved to New York City and began performing. Two years later, he moved to Los Angeles, where he still lives today. His big break came in 1998 when he appeared on Comedy Central's "Premium Blend". In 2000, Cook did a half-hour special on "Comedy Central Presents". Since then his special has won the Comedy Central Stand-up showdown twice in a row.


title: Dane Cook

text: In 2003, Cook released his first CD/DVD, "Harmful If Swallowed". He signed a contract with Comedy Central Records. The album is certified platinum. He released his second CD/DVD in 2005, entitled "Retaliation". This album went double platinum and made Cook the first comic in 27 years to have an album in the top 5 on the Billboard charts after Steve Martin's "A Wild and Crazy Guy" moved as high as #2 in late 1978. He performed at the MTV Video Music Awards, and then afterwards he joined Snoop Dogg in presenting the award for Best New Artist.


title: Dane Cook

text: On April 15, 2005, Cook performed his first HBO Special entitled "Vicious Circle". "" was filmed "in the round" at the TD Garden. The same year, Cook shot two pilot episodes for his own sitcom, "Cooked". The sitcom was not picked up and the two pilot episodes were later released on DVD as the "Lost Pilot". That same year, he embarked on a 30-day, 20-show college tour called Tourgasm with his longtime friends Robert Kelly, Gary Gulman, and Jay Davis. The tour was filmed and was later made into a 9-episode documentary on HBO.


title: Dane Cook

text: On December 3, 2005, Cook hosted "Saturday Night Live" ("SNL"). He would then go on to host the premiere of season 32 of "SNL" a year later. The same year Cook launched his own company, "Superfinger Entertainment", in order to produce his own albums and videos.


title: Dane Cook

text: In 2006, Cook headlined for Dave Attell's Insomniac Tour and hosted the 2006 Teen Choice Awards alongside Jessica Simpson. The following year he won the award for Best Comedian. On November 12, 2007, Cook became the second comic to sell out Madison Square Garden's large arena space after Andrew Dice Clay accomplished this feat in 1990. He did two sold-out shows in one night. The show was filmed and would later be put onto a DVD to be sold on Cook's third comedy album. Cook won the Big Entertainer Award at the VH1 Big in '06 Awards, and "Rolling Stone" magazine's Hot Comic of the Year. The following day, November 13, 2007, he released his third CD/DVD entitled "Rough Around The Edges", which was filmed live at Madison Square Garden in New York City. During that time, he embarked on his first arena tour.


title: Dane Cook

text: On April 10, 2007, Cook broke the Laugh Factory's endurance record (previously held by Richard Pryor) by performing on stage for three hours and 50 minutes. Dave Chappelle would break the record five days later by performing for six hours and seven minutes. Chappelle beat that record on December 3, 2007, by performing for six hours and twelve minutes. On January 1, 2008, Cook broke Chappelle's record, by performing on stage for seven hours.


title: Dane Cook

text: From May 23, 2008, to May 25, 2008, Cook reunited with Robert Kelly and Al Del Bene for three shows at The Coliseum in Caesars Palace. From May 29-June 4, 2008 the trio went to Iraq to perform for the troops. Del Bene was the Emcee, Kelly was the feature, and Cook was the headliner.


title: Dane Cook

text: He finished his fourth album, "Isolated Incident"; a performance which aired on Comedy Central on May 17, 2009, with the release of the record following two days later. He kicked off that tour at the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Connecticut, on April 25, 2009. This album was the last as part of Cook's four-record deal with Comedy Central Records. The new album was performed at Laugh Factory in Hollywood, which is considered to be Cook's home base, where he goes to work on new material. He released the DVD version of "Isolated Incident" in November 2009.


title: Dane Cook

text: In 2012, Cook caused a minor controversy when a joke he made in a comedy club about the 2012 Aurora, Colorado shooting was recorded and made the headlines.He later took to Twitter to apologize, "I am devastated by the recent tragedy in Colorado & did not mean to make light of what happened. I made a bad judgment call with my material last night & regret making a joke at such a sensitive time. My heart goes out to all of the families & friends of the victims."


title: Dane Cook

text: In September 2016 Cook headlined with Sebastian Maniscalco at the Oddball Comedy Festival in Dallas, Texas, and the Oddball Comedy & Curiosity Festival in Irvine, California. He also toured Canada in November at the annual "Just For Laughs" comedy festival.


title: Dane Cook

text: At the end of 2018 Cook announced the "Tell It Like It is" Tour, his first full-scale stand-up tour since "Under Oath" in 2013. The tour began in February 2019 in Huntington, New York and concluded in November in Los Angeles, California.


title: Dane Cook

text: Cook began his film career with small roles in the late 1990s, including "Mystery Men" as "The Waffler", and opposite Dennis Rodman in 1999's "Simon Sez."


title: Dane Cook

text: In 2006, Cook starred in his first leading role as Zack Bradley in "Employee of the Month", which co-starred Jessica Simpson and Dax Shepard. The film made a modest $30 million against a $12 million budget.


title: Dane Cook

text: In June 2007, Cook co-starred in his first dramatic role as the devious photographer "Mr. Smith" in "Mr. Brooks", which starred Kevin Costner. The film debuted at number 4 at the box office, grossing $10,017,067 in its opening weekend.


title: Dane Cook

text: In September 2007, Cook starred as dentist Charlie Logan in "Good Luck Chuck", which co-starred Jessica Alba and Dan Fogler. The film was the second-highest-grossing film (#1 Comedy) at the U.S. box office in its opening weekend, grossing $13.6 million in 2,612 theaters. The film went on to have a total box office tally of approximately $35 million U.S. and $24 million foreign. A month later, Cook co-starred as Mitch Burns in "Dan In Real Life", which starred Steve Carell. The film grossed $11.8 million in 1,921 theaters its opening weekend, ranking number 2 at the box office. As of July 6, 2008, it has grossed $62,745,217.


title: Dane Cook

text: In 2008, Cook starred as air purifier call-center supervisor Tank Turner in "My Best Friend's Girl" with Kate Hudson, Jason Biggs, and Alec Baldwin. The film grossed $8.2 million in its opening weekend, debuting at #3 at the box office.


title: Dane Cook

text: In 2010, Cook claimed that he had auditioned for the role of Captain America for "", although director Joe Johnston did not have him on the short list for the part.


title: Dane Cook

text: In 2013, Cook voiced the character of Dusty Crophopper in the animated film, "Planes", a spin-off of Pixar's "Cars" franchise. He reprised his role as Dusty in the 2014 sequel "".


title: Dane Cook

text: In 2015, Cook starred in the film "400 Days" with Brandon Routh, Caity Lotz, and Ben Feldman. The film was directed by Matt Osterman and executive produced by Cook.


title: Dane Cook

text: On November 18, 2010, it was announced that both Cook and Josh Hamilton would be starring in Neil LaBute's 2011 Broadway production of "Fat Pig"; however, before the show began it was postponed for financial reasons.


title: Dane Cook

text: His first TV role was playing a quarterback named Kyle on the 1995 ABC comedy "Maybe This Time", which starred Marie Osmond, Betty White and Ashley Johnson.


title: Dane Cook

text: In October 2005, during an interview with Jay Leno on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno", actress Charlize Theron leaned forward and allowed Cook to kiss her backside.


title: Dane Cook

text: In May 2012, it was announced that Cook would be starring in the new NBC comedy "Next Caller". On October 12, 2012, the show was canceled prior to its airing after filming four out of six episodes.


title: Dane Cook

text: Cook's style is principally "long-form storytelling" and "multipurpose phrases". Cook says his onstage persona is a combination of the personalities of his mom, Donna, and his dad, George. "My mother is like a Looney Tunes cartoon. She's wiggly ... She has the ability to tongue in cheek a lot, and do it in a way where she's being physical. My dad is the polar opposite. He always had a little 'what the fuck' in his voice. Even if he knew nothing about what he was talking about, he could sell it. So I looked at these two extremely funny people and created a style of comedy from absorbing their actions."


title: Dane Cook

text: One reviewer noted that Cook attracted a young, growing audience through colorful observations and high energy performances.


title: Dane Cook

text: Commentators in a variety of media sources have characterized Dane Cook's humor as unfunny. Comedian Ron White has criticized Dane Cook for his lack of real material and for his inflated ego; saying "[He] does not make me laugh, at all, in any way, shape or form." When asked about his opinion of Cook on "The Howard Stern Show", comedian Nick DiPaolo said "he doesn't make me laugh, but that doesn't mean he's not funny." On Boston radio station WBCN, Dane Cook was named by radio show Toucher and Rich to a tournament of the top 16 "Worst Comedians" and, based on listener voting, was voted the "Worst Comedian" of all. In the "Michigan Daily", Elie Zwiebel and co-author Jesse Bean wrote that "he's managed to become one of the most overrated comics ever" and that his act is "boringly stagnant". In an interview with Jason Tanamor of Zoiks! Online, Tanamor asked Cook why he was so despised. Cook stated that he'd had conversations with his therapist, attributing some of the negativity to his alpha demeanor. Add to that, Cook's highly successful career. "Unfortunately, what you find is, you know in your graduating class with the guys you came up with, there's going to be some dudes in front of you that don't want you catching up, and there's going to be some guys behind you that maybe they've never had an opportunity. That, coupled with, like you said, reaching the Billboard charts with 'Retaliation' and a lot of people going, 'Who the fuck does he think he is?'


title: Dane Cook

text: Jim Breuer talked about Cook's reputation within the comedy industry, saying: "Everyone kills this guy ... Not one comedian comes on [my Sirius radio show] and says 'I'm so happy for him', which is weird. ... They can't stand this poor guy." Breuer went on to say that he personally thinks Cook is a "tremendous performer".


title: Dane Cook

text: Paul Provenza said that he was not a fan of his earlier work, but "...caught a couple of Dane Cook shows at the Laugh Factory in Los Angeles, and he was fantastic", and became a fan because he felt he had "matured".


title: Dane Cook

text: Comedian Joe Rogan claimed that Cook performed a bit on an episode of "Premium Blend" that Rogan had developed on "I'm Gonna Be Dead Someday", and claimed to have performed the routine earlier in clubs with Cook present. In 2010 Rogan had Cook as a guest on his podcast, telling him that he was a "good dude" and that he was "...glad we put all that shit past and hung out...I think you are doing some awesome shit." Cook replied: "That means the world hearing that from you, Joe ... You've got a lot of integrity and I've always had a lot of respect for you."


title: Dane Cook

text: There was also widespread Internet discussion regarding 3 bits from Cook's 2005 album "Retaliation", and similar bits from comic Louis C.K.'s 2001 album "Live in Houston". In 2011, Cook played himself in an episode of "Louie", scripted by C.K., centering on a fictional encounter between the two comics during which they discuss the controversy. In an interview in 2012, Louis C.K. defended Cook, saying "I don't think he stole from me knowingly... I think he sort of got some of my jokes in his head and got sloppy. He's a good guy and not capable of maleficence."


title: Dane Cook

text: Cook's half-brother, Darryl McCauley, served as his business manager until 2008, when Cook discovered that McCauley and his wife Erika had embezzled at least $12 million from Cook. Both Darryl and Erika McCauley were charged with embezzlement and larceny in 2010 and pleaded guilty. Darryl was sentenced to six years in prison and 16 years of probation, and Erika was sentenced to three years in prison and 13 years of probation. Both were ordered to pay restitution to Cook.


title: Dane Cook

text: In 2017, Cook began dating Kelsi Taylor, who is 26 years his junior. In August of 2022, the couple announced their engagement.


title: Dane Cook

text: Cook co-wrote and performed the song "Ruthie Pigface Draper" for the "Dan In Real Life" film with Norbert Leo Butz.


title: Dane Cook

text: Cook provided guest vocals on the 2011 song "In the Future" by Steel Panther from their third studio album "Balls Out".


title: Turkish Airlines

text: Turkish Airlines (Turkish: "Türk Hava Yolları") is the national flag carrier airline of Turkey. , it operates scheduled services to 340 destinations in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas, making it the largest mainline carrier in the world by number of passenger destinations. The airline serves more destinations non-stop from a single airport than any other airline in the world and flies to 126 countries, more than any other airline. With an operational fleet of 24 cargo aircraft, the airline's cargo division serves 82 destinations.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: The airline's corporate headquarters are at the Turkish Airlines General Management Building on the grounds of Istanbul Atatürk Airport in Yeşilköy, Bakırköy, Istanbul. Istanbul Airport in Arnavutköy is the airline's main base, and there are secondary hubs at Ankara Esenboğa Airport and İzmir Adnan Menderes Airport. Turkish Airlines has been a member of the Star Alliance network since 1 April 2008.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: Turkish Airlines was established on 20 May 1933 as "Turkish State Airlines" (Turkish: "Devlet Hava Yolları") as a department of the Ministry of National Defense. The airline's initial fleet consisted of two five-seat Curtiss Kingbirds, two four-seat Junkers F 13s and one ten-seat Tupolev ANT-9. In 1935, the airline was turned over to the Ministry of Public Works and was subsequently renamed "General Directorate of State Airlines". Three years later, in 1938, it became part of the Ministry of Transportation.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: Several Douglas DC-3s and Douglas C-47s were phased in during 1945. Being initially set up as a domestic carrier, the airline commenced international services with the inauguration of Ankara–Istanbul–Athens flights in 1947; with the DC-3s and C-47s enabling the carrier to expand its network.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: Nicosia, Beirut and Cairo were soon added to the airline's international flight destinations. However, domestic services remained the carrier's primary focus until the early 1960s.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: In 1956, the Turkish government reorganized the airline under the name "Türk Hava Yolları A.O." (often abbreviated as THY). It was capitalized at TRY 60 million. The airline joined the International Air Transport Association (IATA) shortly thereafter. In 1957, British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) began supplying technical support after acquiring a 6.5 percent shareholding, which it held for about 20 years.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: New aircraft including Vickers Viscounts, Fokker F27s and Douglas DC-3s were added to the fleet in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Turkish Airlines began operating their first jet, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9, in 1967. This was followed by the addition of three Boeing 707 jets in 1971. Other aircraft operated in the early 1970s included the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 and the Fokker F28 which were put into service in 1972 and 1973 respectively.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: The airline was plagued by several issues in the 1980s and 90s. It developed a reputation for poor service compared to competitors and flight delays, with 47 out of 100 flights not departing on time. It also endured hijackings and suffered seven accidents between 1974 and 1983. The most notorious was the 1974 crash of Turkish Airlines Flight 981, when an aircraft design flaw led to a faulty cargo door breaking off in flight near Ermenonville, France, resulting in the deaths of 346 people.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: A new government came to power in 1983 which recognized THY's importance as Turkey's gateway to the world, beginning the airline's makeover into a modern operation. It would go on to maintain one of the youngest fleets in the world. Security was intensified, causing one shipper to compare it to Israel's El Al, at least in terms of delays.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: THY built a new, state-of-the-art technical center at Yeşilköy Airport in 1984. The airline was capable of both light and heavy maintenance on many different aircraft types. The technical staff then made up one-quarter of the airline's 6,000 employees, according to Air Transport World. In 1984, the company's capital was raised to 60 billion TL as it was classified as a state economic enterprise. Three years later, the capital was raised again, to 150 billion TL.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: By the mid-1980s, THY had a fleet of 30 aircraft. It was flying approximately three million passengers a year to 16 domestic destinations and three dozen international ones. The airline was Turkey's largest source of foreign currency. Turkish Airlines began operating Airbus A310s in 1985, allowing the addition of flights to Singapore in 1986. A route to New York City via Brussels was added in 1988.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: The company posted losses in 1987 and 1988, largely due to high payments on its dozen new Airbus A310s, according to Air Transport World. The fleet also included 11 Boeing 727s and nine Douglas DC-9s. THY ended the decade with 8,500 employees.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: The airline ordered five Airbus A340 aircraft with option for five more in 1990 to be able to fly to North American and East Asian destinations. The first A340 was delivered three years later, in 1993.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: The company suffered in the global aviation crisis following the Persian Gulf War and would not break-even again until 1994. However, the business was again booming in the mid-1990s, with the greatest growth coming from North American destinations. THY launched a nonstop flight to New York City in July 1994.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: The company's capital continued to be raised, reaching 10 trillion TL in 1995. During that year, the airline also converted three of its Boeing 727s to dedicated freighters. The DC-9s had been sold off. The company posted a $6 million profit on revenues of $1 billion for the year. While profitable, THY had to contend with Turkey's exorbitant inflation, making capital improvements difficult.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: The domestic market was deregulated in 1996, allowing new scheduled competition from charter airlines. At the same time, larger international carriers were providing stiff competition on routes to Western Europe. THY entered into marketing agreements with other international airlines to enhance their competitiveness. The company teamed with Japan Airlines to offer service to Osaka and Tokyo in 1997 and 1998. Other jointly operated flights soon followed with Austrian Airlines, Swissair, and Croatia Airlines.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: A new terminal opened in January 2000 at Istanbul's Istanbul Atatürk Airport. Turkish Airlines continued to extend their international reach, forging marketing agreements with Asiana Airlines, American Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, LOT Polish Airlines, Czech Airlines and Cathay Pacific in 2000. On 29 October 2000, THY withdrew from the Swissair-led Qualiflyer alliance to help attract a strategic investor for their privatization. The airline had been part of the alliance's frequent-flyer program since November 1998. An Antalya-Frankfurt route was added in 2001 through a code-sharing agreement with Sun Express.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: Turkey underwent an economic crisis throughout most of 2001, leading to a reduction in traffic on domestic routes in particular. THY managed to survive after the September 11 attacks on the United States without a government bailout or mass layoffs, although 300 middle management positions were eliminated, 400 part-timers were laid off and wages were cut 10 percent. Turkish Daily News credited the airline's survival to entrepreneurial management, which was quick to get rid of loss-making routes at home and abroad.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: In 2003, the war in Iraq prompted Turkish Airlines to close some routes in the Persian Gulf, while flights to Asia were suspended during the SARS epidemic. However, the airline soon recovered, increasing traffic on existing routes and adding service to Delhi after an 11-year lapse.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: Another fleet expansion program kicked off in 2004, helping THY maintain one of the youngest fleets in Europe. In July that year, the airline announced a massive $2.8 billion order of 36 jets from Airbus, plus an order for 15 Boeing 737s.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: THY was not just ordering new planes. It was planning to spend $350 million on a new technical and training facility at Istanbul's underutilized Sabiha Gökçen International Airport. The airline had built up a significant technical services operation, maintaining not just their aircraft but those of third parties. Turkish Technic employed 2,700 workers and was planning to hire another 2,000 by 2010. THY also had three flight simulators and offered flight training services.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: The airline faced the entry of new competitors into the liberalizing Turkish aviation market. However, tourism was booming, with 20 million people expected to visit the country in 2005 versus 12 million in 2003. THY divested its 50% holding in Cyprus Turkish Airlines ("Kıbrıs Türk Hava Yolları") in 2005.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: Although the company was publicly traded at this time, the government-owned 98% of its shares. The privatization program was revived in 2004 with a public offering of 20% of shares on the Istanbul Stock Exchange. The Turkish government-owned 75% of shares after the offering, which raised $170 million. Currently, the Republic of Turkey's Prime Ministry Privatization Administration owns a 49.12% interest in THY, while 50.88% of shares are publicly traded.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: On 1 April 2008, Turkish Airlines joined the Star Alliance after an 18-month integration process beginning in December 2006, becoming the seventh European airline in the 20-member alliance.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: In December 2011, the Turkish government unveiled plans to modernize the Aden Adde International Airport in Mogadishu, Somalia, which became one of the newest flight destinations of the carrier in 2012. The rehabilitation project is part of Turkey's broader engagement in the local post-conflict reconstruction process. Among the scheduled renovations are new airport systems and infrastructure, including a modern control tower to monitor the airspace. In March 2012, Turkish Airlines became the first international carrier to resume flights to Somalia since the start of that country's civil war in the early 1990s.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: By the end of 2013, Turkish Airlines had increased their number of flight points to 241 destinations worldwide (199 international and 42 domestic).


title: Turkish Airlines

text: In the wake of the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt, the Federal Aviation Administration temporarily banned flights between Turkey and the United States. This posed a particular problem for Turkish Airlines as a key component of the airline's strategy was to deliver one-stop journeys between the US and hard-to-reach destinations in Africa, the Middle East, and India. This ban was lifted on 18 July, and Turkish Airlines resumed flights to the U.S. on 19 July after a three-day disruption.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: In August 2016, Turkish Airlines announced a profit collapse to a loss of 198 million Euros for the second quarter of 2016 while expecting an overall loss of 10 million passengers for 2016. The airline already announced significant reductions in operations for the upcoming 2016–2017 schedule period with frequency cuts to 45 European and 13 intercontinental routes. Turkish Airlines also announced an overall record loss of 1.9 billion Turkish Lira ($644.4 million) for the first half of 2016.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: The following year saw the airline recover, with financial results for 2017 showing an almost 35% increase in turnover, and a return to profitability.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: In February 2022, Turkish Cargo, the airline's freight subsidiary, relocated all cargo flights and operations from their former base at Istanbul Atatürk Airport to the new Istanbul Airport.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: The airline head office is in the Turkish Airlines General Management Building at Istanbul Atatürk Airport in Yeşilköy, Bakırköy.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: On 26 January 2022, İlker Aycı resigned from his position as chairman of the airline. During the board meeting the next day, Ahmet Bolat was elected to become the new chairman. Bilal Ekşi holds the deputy chairman and CEO positions.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: , Turkish Airlines flies to 340 destinations in 129 countries, including 53 domestic and 12 in the United States.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: Turkish Airlines operates a fleet of 388 aircraft, consisting of 13 passenger aircraft types. The airline started operations in 1933 with five aircraft, which grew to 52 in 1945 after the addition of Douglas DC-3s used in the Second World War. This made Turkish Airlines the largest carrier in the Middle East. The first jet-engined aircraft of the airline was a Douglas DC-9, which joined the fleet in 1967. The first wide-body Douglas DC-10 was added in 1972. The airline made major changes to its fleet development in late-1980s, when the first Airbus A310 arrived, and the Airbus A340 was ordered. The first Boeing 737s arrived a few years later.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: Throughout 2004, the airline ordered over 50 aircraft both from Boeing and Airbus. Three Boeing 777-300s were leased in 2008, and later ordered 12 more from Boeing. In 2013, the airline ordered almost 200 aircraft. The airline ordered 25 each of the Boeing 787-9 and Airbus A350-900 in March 2018, which started delivery in 2019 and 2020 respectively.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: "Miles & Smiles" is the frequent-flyer programme of Turkish Airlines, inaugurated in 2000 after the airline left Qualiflyer. Earned miles can be used on Turkish Airlines flights, as well as on flights operated by the entire Star Alliance network. Miles&Smiles Classic Plus members are entitled to Star Alliance Silver benefits, while Elite and Elite Plus Miles & Smiles status entitles the member to Star Alliance Gold benefits.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: Members of the frequent flyer programme also earn miles when paying their purchases with their Miles & Smiles credit card. Currently residents of Turkey, Israel and Azerbaijan are offered with Miles & Smiles credit card by programme member local banks. Credit cards can be issued in form of American Express, Mastercard and/or Isracard. There are also agreements with specific banks in countries across America, Asia and Oceania for earning and spending miles.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: "Turkish Airlines Corporate Club" is a kind of programme created for corporates. The Club allows its members to easily arrange business travels with special benefits. The Corporate Club is a part of Universal Air Travel Plan Network (UATP).


title: Turkish Airlines

text: Turkish Airlines has been the official carrier of several European football clubs such as Galatasaray, Manchester United, FC Barcelona, Borussia Dortmund, Olympique de Marseille, Aston Villa, FK Sarajevo, and Hannover 96.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: The airline has also made sponsorship and promotion deals with renowned athletes and actors, including Lionel Messi, Kobe Bryant, Caroline Wozniacki, Kevin Costner, Wayne Rooney, and Didier Drogba.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: The company has been the primary sponsor of the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague since 2010 and was among the sponsors of the 2010 FIBA World Championship.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: On 22 October 2013, Turkish Airlines and Euroleague signed an agreement to prolong their existing sponsorship deal by five years until 2020.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: Turkish Airlines is the sponsor of the Turkish Airlines Open, a European Tour golf tournament played annually in Turkey since 2013.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: Turkish Airlines was the kit sponsor of Galatasaray for the 2014–15 UEFA Champions League and Bosnian club FK Sarajevo. Since then, the airline has continued its sponsorship of Galatasaray and has also been the kit sponsor for the European campaigns of other Turkish clubs such as Trabzonspor and Başakşehir.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: On 10 December 2015, Turkish Airlines and UEFA signed a sponsorship deal for the UEFA Euro 2016, becoming the first airline sponsor of UEFA European Championship tournaments.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: On 29 January 2016, Turkish Airlines announced its partnership with Warner Bros. to sponsor the film "". In the movie, a pivotal scene unfolds aboard a Turkish Airlines A330. That year, the airline also teamed up with a number of Turkish tourist agencies in the production of the romantic comedy film "Non-Transferable".


title: Turkish Airlines

text: On 14 September 2018, Turkish Airlines and Lega Basket Serie A, the top-tier professional basketball league in Italy, signed a sponsorship agreement, making the airline an official partner for the 2018–19 LBA season.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: In February 2019, Turkish Airlines arranged to become partial sponsors for League of Ireland First Division side Drogheda United.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: In August 2019, Turkish Airlines reached an agreement with Club Atlético River Plate to become the main sponsor of the Argentine sports club for the next three seasons.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: Prior to the start of the 2022–23 season, Turkish Airlines becomes the official global sponsors of the UEFA Champions League and the Super Cup, UEFA Youth League and the Futsal Champions League for the remainder of the 2021–24 cycle after UEFA agreed to sponsor in the next 2 seasons.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: Turkish Airlines Flight Academy was established by the 28th THY Board on 10 November 2004, and started training with 16 cadets on 1 May 2006. The Flight Academy is based at Istanbul Atatürk Airport and uses Aydın Çıldır Airport for training activities.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: The ever-growing flight academy fleet consists of the following 25 aircraft, 19 of which are single-engine and 6 of which are multi-engine aircraft:


title: Turkish Airlines

text: Turkish Airlines' maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) center, Turkish Technic, was incorporated in 2006 and is responsible for the maintenance of Turkish Airlines and other third party aircraft within eight hangars. Capabilities include airframe, landing gear, APU and other subsystems. Turkish Technic opened an engine center in partnership with Pratt & Whitney called TEC (Turkish Engine Center) in January 2010 at Sabiha Gökçen International Airport (SAW). The facility provides engine MRO services to customers worldwide.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: Turkish Technic was based at Istanbul Atatürk Airport within two hangars. It bought out MNG Technic along with its hangars, and the main complex moved to SAW with the building of two new hangars. Two smaller hangars are also located at Ankara Esenboğa Airport. Additional hangars are being built at the new Istanbul Airport to accommodate the operator's growing fleet.


title: Turkish Airlines

text: In its history, Turkish Airlines has suffered a total of 19 incidents and accidents of which 15 were fatal. A total of 68 crew, 835 passengers and 35 people on the ground have been killed.