title: Siberian tiger

text: The effect the presence of tigers has on brown bear behavior seems to vary. In the winters of 1970–1973, Yudakov and Nikolaev recorded two cases of bears showing no fear of tigers and another case of a brown bear changing path upon crossing tiger tracks. Other researchers have observed bears following tiger tracks to scavenge tiger kills and to potentially prey on tigers. Despite the threat of predation, some brown bears actually benefit from the presence of tigers by appropriating tiger kills that the bears may not be able to successfully hunt themselves. Brown bears generally prefer to contest the much smaller female tigers. During telemetry research in the Sikhote-Alin Nature Reserve, 44 direct confrontations between bears and tigers were observed, in which bears in general were killed in 22 cases, and tigers in 12 cases. There are reports of brown bears specifically targeting Amur leopards and tigers to abstract their prey. In the Sikhote-Alin reserve, 35% of tiger kills were stolen by bears, with tigers either departing entirely or leaving part of the kill for the bear. Some studies show that bears frequently track down tigers to usurp their kills, with occasional fatal outcomes for the tiger. A report from 1973 describes twelve known cases of brown bears killing tigers, including adult males; in all cases the tigers were subsequently eaten by the bears.


title: Siberian tiger

text: The relationship between the Amur tiger and the Himalayan bear is not specifically studied. Numerous publications on these species there are mainly episodic and survey data on this issue are collected by different authors in selected areas which do not give a complete picture of the nature.


title: Siberian tiger

text: Tigers depress wolf ("Canis lupus") numbers, either to the point of localized extinction or to such low numbers as to make them a functionally insignificant component of the ecosystem. Wolves appear capable of escaping competitive exclusion from tigers only when human pressure decreases tiger numbers. In areas where wolves and tigers share ranges, the two species typically display a great deal of dietary overlap, resulting in intense competition. Wolf and tiger interactions are well documented in Sikhote-Alin, where until the beginning of the 20th century, very few wolves were sighted. Wolf numbers may have increased in the region after tigers were largely eliminated during the Russian colonisation in the late 19th century and early 20th century. This is corroborated by native inhabitants of the region claiming that they had no memory of wolves inhabiting Sikhote-Alin until the 1930s, when tiger numbers decreased. Today, wolves are considered scarce in tiger habitat, being found in scattered pockets, and usually seen travelling as loners or in small groups. First hand accounts on interactions between the two species indicate that tigers occasionally chase wolves from their kills, while wolves will scavenge from tiger kills. Tigers are not known to prey on wolves, though there are four records of tigers killing wolves without consuming them. Tigers recently released are also said to hunt wolves.


title: Siberian tiger

text: This competitive exclusion of wolves by tigers has been used by Russian conservationists to convince hunters in the Far East to tolerate the big cats, as they limit ungulate populations less than wolves, and are effective in controlling wolf numbers.


title: Siberian tiger

text: Siberian tigers also compete with the Eurasian lynx ("Lynx lynx") and occasionally kill and eat them. Eurasian lynx remains have been found in the stomach contents of Siberian tigers in Russia. In March 2014, a dead lynx discovered in Bastak Nature Reserve bore evidence of predation by a Siberian tiger. The tiger apparently ambushed, pursued, and killed the lynx but only consumed it partially. This incident marks one of the first documented cases of a tiger preying on a lynx, and indicates that the tiger might have been more intent on eliminating a competitor than on catching prey.


title: Siberian tiger

text: Siberian tigers mate at any time of the year. A female signals her receptiveness by leaving urine deposits and scratch marks on trees. She will spend 5 or 6 days with the male, during which she is receptive for three days. Gestation lasts from 3 to 3½ months. Litter size is normally two or four cubs but there can be as many as six. The cubs are born blind in a sheltered den and are left alone when the female leaves to hunt for food. Cubs are divided equally between sexes at birth. However, by adulthood there are usually two to four females for every male. The female cubs remain with their mothers longer, and later they establish territories close to their original ranges. Males, on the other hand, travel unaccompanied and range farther earlier in their lives, making them more vulnerable to poachers and other tigers.


title: Siberian tiger

text: At 35 months of age, tigers are sub-adults. Males reach sexual maturity at the age of 48 to 60 months.


title: Siberian tiger

text: The average lifespan for Siberian tigers ranges from 16–18 years. Wild individuals tend to live between 10–15 years, while in captivity individuals may live up to 25 years.


title: Siberian tiger

text: Results of genetic analysis of 95 wild Siberian tiger samples from Russia revealed that genetic diversity is low, only 27–35 individuals contributed to their genes. Further exacerbating the problem is that more than 90% of the population occurred in the Sikhote Alin mountain region. Tigers rarely move across the development corridor, which separates this sub-population from the much smaller sub-population in southwest Primorye province.


title: Siberian tiger

text: The winter of 2006–2007 was marked by heavy poaching. Poaching of tigers and their wild prey species is considered to be driving the decline, although heavy snows in the winter of 2009 could have biased the data. In northern China’s Huang Ni He National Nature Reserve, poachers set up foremost snare traps, but there is not sufficient personnel to patrol this area throughout the year. In Hunchun National Nature Reserve, poaching of ungulate species impedes recovery of the tiger population.


title: Siberian tiger

text: After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, illegal deforestation and bribery of park rangers facilitated poaching of Siberian tigers. Local hunters had access to a formerly sealed off lucrative Chinese market, and this once again put the region's tiger population at risk of extinction. While improvement in the local economy has led to greater resources being invested in conservation efforts, an increase in economic activity has led to an increased rate of development and deforestation. The major obstacle in preserving the tiger is the enormous territory individual tigers require; up to is needed by a single female and more for a single male.


title: Siberian tiger

text: The Siberian tiger was once common in the Korean Peninsula. It was eradicated during the period of Korea under Japanese rule between 1910 and 1945.


title: Siberian tiger

text: Tigers are included on CITES Appendix I, banning international trade. All tiger range states and countries with consumer markets have banned domestic trade as well. At the 14th Conference of the Parties to CITES in 2007, stronger enforcement measures were called for, as well as an end to tiger farming.


title: Siberian tiger

text: In 1992, the "Siberian Tiger Project" was founded, with the aim of providing a comprehensive picture of the ecology of the Amur tiger and the role of tigers in the Russian Far East through scientific studies. By capturing and outfitting tigers with radio collars, their social structure, land use patterns, food habits, reproduction, mortality patterns and their relation with other inhabitants of the ecosystem, including humans is studied. These data compilations will hopefully contribute toward minimizing poaching threats because of traditional hunting. The "Siberian Tiger Project" has been productive in increasing local capacity to address human-tiger conflict with a "Tiger Response Team", part of the Russian government's "Inspection Tiger", which responds to all tiger-human conflicts; by continuing to enhance the large database on tiger ecology and conservation with the goal of creating a comprehensive Siberian tiger conservation plan; and training the next generation of Russian conservation biologists.


title: Siberian tiger

text: In August 2010, China and Russia agreed to enhance conservation and cooperation in protected areas in a transboundary area for Amur tigers. China has undertaken a series of public awareness campaigns including celebration of the first "Global Tiger Day" in July 2010, and "International Forum on Tiger Conservation and Tiger Culture" and "China 2010 Hunchun Amur Tiger Culture Festival" in August 2010.


title: Siberian tiger

text: Inspired by findings that the Amur tiger is the closest relative of the Caspian tiger, there has been discussion whether the Amur tiger could be an appropriate subspecies for reintroduction into a safe place in Central Asia. The Amu-Darya Delta was suggested as a potential site for such a project. A feasibility study was initiated to investigate if the area is suitable and if such an initiative would receive support from relevant decision makers. A viable tiger population of about 100 animals would require at least of large tracts of contiguous habitat with rich prey populations. Such habitat is not presently available in the delta and so cannot be provided in the short term. The proposed region is therefore unsuitable for the reintroduction, at least at this stage of development.


title: Siberian tiger

text: A second possible introduction site in Kazakhstan is the Ili River delta at the southern edge of Lake Balkhash. The delta is situated between the Saryesik-Atyrau Desert and the Taukum Desert and forms a large wetland of about . Until 1948, the delta was a refuge of the extinct Caspian tiger. Reintroduction of the Siberian tiger to the delta has been proposed. Large populations of wild boar inhabit the swamps of the delta. The reintroduction of the Bukhara deer, which was once an important prey, is under consideration. The Ili delta is therefore considered as a suitable site for introduction.


title: Siberian tiger

text: In 2010, Russia exchanged two captive Siberian tigers for Persian leopards with the Iranian government, as conservation groups of both countries agreed on reintroducing these animals into the wild within the next five years. This issue is controversial since only 30% of such releases have been successful. In addition, the Siberian tiger is not genetically identical to the Caspian tiger. Another difference is the climatic, with temperatures higher in Iran than in Siberia. Introducing exotic species into a new habitat could inflict irreversible and unknown damage. In December 2010, one of the tigers exchanged died in Eram Zoo in Tehran. Nevertheless, the project has its defenders, and Iran has successfully reintroduced the Persian onager and Caspian red deer.


title: Siberian tiger

text: In 2005, re-introduction was planned as part of the rewilding project at Pleistocene Park in the Kolyma River basin in northern Yakutia, Russia, provided the herbivore population has reached a size warranting the introduction of large predators.


title: Siberian tiger

text: In recent years, captive breeding of tigers in China has accelerated to the point where the captive population of several tiger subspecies exceeds 4,000 animals. Three thousand specimens are reportedly held by 10–20 "significant" facilities, with the remainder scattered among some 200 facilities. This makes China home to the second largest captive tiger population in the world, after the U.S., which in 2005 had an estimated 4,692 captive tigers. In a census conducted by the U.S.-based Feline Conservation Federation, 2,884 tigers were documented as residing in 468 American facilities.


title: Siberian tiger

text: In 1986, the Chinese government established the world's largest Siberian tiger breeding base, the Harbin Siberian Tiger Park, and was meant to build a Siberian tiger gene pool to ensure the genetic diversity of the tiger. The Park and its existing tiger population would be further divided into two parts, one as the protective species for genetic management and the other as the ornamental species. It was discovered that when the Heilongjiang Northeast Tiger Forest Park was founded it had only 8 tigers, but according to the current breeding rate of tigers at the park, the worldwide number of wild Siberian tigers will break through 1,000 in late 2010. South Korea expected to receive three tigers pledged for donation in 2009 by Russia in 2011.


title: Siberian tiger

text: The Siberian tiger very rarely becomes a man-eater. Numerous cases of attacks on humans were recorded in the 19th century, occurring usually in central Asia excluding Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and the Far East. Tigers were historically rarely considered dangerous unless provoked, though in the lower reaches of the Syr-Darya, a tiger reportedly killed a woman collecting firewood and an unarmed military officer whilst passing through reed thickets. Attacks on shepherds were recorded in the lower reaches of Ili. In the Far East, during the middle and late 19th century, attacks on people were recorded. In 1867 on the Tsymukha River, tigers killed 21 men and injured 6 others. In China's Jilin Province, tigers reportedly attacked woodsmen and coachmen, and occasionally entered cabins and dragged out both adults and children.


title: Siberian tiger

text: According to the Japanese Police Bureau in Korea, in 1928 a tiger killed one human, whereas leopards killed three, wild boars four and wolves killed 48. Six cases were recorded in 20th century Russia of unprovoked attacks leading to man-eating behaviour. Provoked attacks are however more common, usually the result of botched attempts at capturing them. In December 1997, an injured Amur tiger attacked, killed and consumed two people. Both attacks occurred in the Bikin River valley. The anti-poaching task force "Inspection Tiger" investigated both deaths, tracked down and killed the tiger.


title: Siberian tiger

text: In January 2002, a man was attacked by a tiger on a remote mountain road near Hunchun in Jilin province, China, near the borders of Russia and North Korea. He suffered compound fractures but managed to survive. When he sought medical attention, his story raised suspicions as Siberian tigers seldom attack humans. An investigation of the attack scene revealed that raw venison carried by the man was left untouched by the tiger. Officials suspected the man to be a poacher who provoked the attack. The following morning, tiger sightings were reported by locals along the same road, and a local TV station did an on-site coverage. The group found tiger tracks and blood spoor in the snow at the attack scene and followed them for approximately 2,500 meters, hoping to catch a glimpse of the animal. Soon, the tiger was seen ambling slowly ahead of them. As the team tried to get closer for a better camera view, the tiger suddenly turned and charged, causing the four to flee in panic. About an hour after that encounter, the tiger attacked and killed a 26-year-old woman on the same road. Authorities retrieved the body with the help of a bulldozer. By then, the tiger was found lying 20 meters away, weak and barely alive. It was successfully tranquilized and taken for examination, which revealed that the tiger was anemic and gravely injured by a poacher's snare around its neck, with the steel wire cutting deeply down to the vertebrae, severing both trachea and esophagus. Despite extensive surgery by a team of veterinarians, the tiger died of wound infection. Subsequent investigation revealed that the first victim was a poacher who set multiple snares that caught both the tiger and a deer. The man was later charged for poaching and harming endangered species. He served two years in prison. After being released from prison, he worked in clearing the forest of old snares.


title: Siberian tiger

text: In an incident at the San Francisco Zoo in December 2007, a tiger escaped and killed a visitor, and injured two others. The animal was shot by the police. The zoo was widely criticized for maintaining only a fence around the tiger enclosure, while the international standard is . The zoo subsequently erected a taller barrier topped by an electric fence. One of the victims admitted to taunting the animal.


title: Siberian tiger

text: Zookeepers in Anhui province and the cities of Shanghai and Shenzhen were attacked and killed in 2010. In January 2011, a tiger attacked and killed a tour bus driver at a breeding park in Heilongjiang province. Park officials reported that the bus driver violated safety guidelines by leaving the vehicle to check on the condition of the bus. In September 2013, a tiger mauled a zookeeper to death at a zoo in western Germany after the worker forgot to lock a cage door during feeding time. In July 2020, a female tiger attacked and killed a 55-year-old zookeeper at the Zürich Zoo in Switzerland.


title: Siberian tiger

text: The English name 'Siberian tiger' was coined by James Cowles Prichard in the 1830s. The name 'Amur tiger' was used in 1933 for Siberian tigers killed by the Amur River for an exhibition in the American Museum of Natural History.


title: Siberian tiger

text: The Tungusic peoples considered the tiger a near-deity and often referred to it as "Grandfather" or "Old man". The Udege and Nani people call it "Amba". The Manchu considered the Siberian tiger as Hu Lin, the king. Since the tiger has a mark on its foreheads that looks like a Chinese character for 'King' (), or a similar character meaning "Great Emperor", it is revered by the Udege and Chinese people.


title: Siberian tiger

text: A drawn Siberian tiger was the mascot of the 1981 Bandy World Championship, which was played in Khabarovsk in southeast Siberia.


title: Tom Burke (actor)

text: Tom Burke (born 30 June 1981) is an English actor. He is best known for his roles as Athos in the 2014–2016 BBC series "The Musketeers", Dolokhov in the 2016 BBC literary-adaptation miniseries "War & Peace", the eponymous character Cormoran Strike in the 2017–2022 BBC series "Strike" and Orson Welles in the 2020 film "Mank".


title: Tom Burke (actor)

text: Burke was born in London and grew up in Kent. His parents, David Burke and Anna Calder-Marshall, are also actors, as were his godparents, Alan Rickman and Bridget Turner. His maternal grandparents were writers Arthur Calder-Marshall and Ara Calder-Marshall. Burke was born with a cleft lip and had reconstructive surgery.


title: Tom Burke (actor)

text: Burke always wanted to become an actor. He attended the National Youth Theatre, the Young Arden Theatre in Faversham, and the Box Clever Theatre Company performing at the Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury, and participated in the plays his parents staged in their hometown.


title: Tom Burke (actor)

text: As a child, Burke was diagnosed with dyslexia and struggled academically. He left school before his A-levels because he "couldn't stand the idea of that" and thought he "wouldn't survive it". As soon as he left school at 17, he wrote to an acting agency and got the first role he auditioned for. He attended dance school before being accepted at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London when he was 18.


title: Tom Burke (actor)

text: Burke's first role was as Roland in 1999's "", a direct-to-video sequel of the 1996 film "Dragonheart". That year he appeared in an episode of the series "Dangerfield" and the television movie "All the King's Men". After graduating from RADA, he started working steadily in television, film and theatre.


title: Tom Burke (actor)

text: His first television part after drama school was Syd in the Paul Abbott thriller series "State of Play", starring John Simm, Bill Nighy and James McAvoy. In 2004 he played Lee in TV film "Bella and the Boys". In 2005 he played the 20-year-old version of Giacomo Casanova's son, Giac, in the television adaptation of "Casanova", starring David Tennant and Peter O'Toole.


title: Tom Burke (actor)

text: In 2006, he played Dr. John Seward in the TV film "Dracula". In 2007 he played Napoleon Bonaparte in an episode of BBC's docudrama "Heroes and Villains" and had a small part as a book publisher in the satirical drama "The Trial of Tony Blair". In 2009 he played Lieutenant Race in an episode of the 12th series of "Agatha Christie's Poirot". In 2011 he played Bentley Drummle in two episodes of BBC's adaptation of Charles Dickens' "Great Expectations". In 2012 he became a regular cast member in the second series of BBC Two's "The Hour" as journalist Bill Kendall. From 2014 to 2016, he played Athos on the BBC One series "The Musketeers", an adaptation of Alexandre Dumas' "The Three Musketeers". He also plays Cormoran Strike in the BBC miniseries "Strike," based on the detective novels of Robert Galbraith; and Rebrov in Sky TV's "The Lazarus Project" which will air in the U.S. on the TNT cable network in January.


title: Tom Burke (actor)

text: In 2004 Burke had his first cinema part in "The Libertine". In 2007 he played an aspiring filmmaker who ends up directing a porn film in the comedy "I Want Candy". In 2008 he played Bluey in "Donkey Punch", a horror thriller that debuted at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. In 2009 he played Geoff Goddard in ", and" had a small part in Stephen Frears' "Chéri". In 2010 he played Davy in "Third Star", a drama starring Benedict Cumberbatch, JJ Feild and Adam Robertson which follows a trip four friends, one of them terminally ill, make to Barafundle Bay in Wales.


title: Tom Burke (actor)

text: In 2012 he played Mark in "Cleanskin". In 2013 he played Billy, the older brother of Ryan Gosling's character in "Only God Forgives", directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. That year he had a supporting role in the Ralph Fiennes-directed film "The Invisible Woman".


title: Tom Burke (actor)

text: In 2020, he played American filmmaker Orson Welles in David Fincher's Netflix original film "Mank", opposite Gary Oldman as Herman J. Mankiewicz. He will also star in English director and photographer Mitch Jenkins's film "The Show" (written by Alan Moore) as private investigator Fletcher Dennis. In November 2021, Burke joined Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth in the "" spinoff film "Furiosa", replacing Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, who had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts.


title: Tom Burke (actor)

text: As a theatre actor, Burke has worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company and has appeared in plays at Shakespeare's Globe, playing Romeo in "Romeo and Juliet" in 2004; at the Old Vic in Noël Coward's "Design for Living" opposite Andrew Scott and Lisa Dillon in 2010; and at the Almeida Theatre playing Greg in "reasons to be pretty" in 2011. In 2002 he played Hamlet in Howard Barker's "Gertrude – The Cry", a reworking of Shakespeare's "Hamlet" which focuses on the character of Gertrude, the protagonist's mother.


title: Tom Burke (actor)

text: In 2006 he worked with Ian McKellen in the play "The Cut". In 2008 he played Adolph in "Creditors" at the Donmar Warehouse. Actor Alan Rickman, Burke's godfather, staged the play which earned Burke an Ian Charleson Award. The play subsequently premiered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York in 2010. In 2012 he played Louis Dubedat in "The Doctor's Dilemma" at the National Theatre.


title: AirPods

text: AirPods are wireless Bluetooth earbuds designed by Apple Inc. They were first announced on September 7, 2016, alongside the iPhone 7. Within two years, they became Apple's most popular accessory. The most recent model, AirPods (3rd generation), are a replacement to the 1st and 2nd generation models, although the 2nd generation is still sold on Apple's website. These models are Apple's entry-level wireless headphones, sold alongside the AirPods Pro and AirPods Max.


title: AirPods

text: In addition to playing audio, the AirPods contain a microphone that filters out background noise as well as built-in accelerometers and optical sensors capable of detecting taps and pinches (e.g. double-tap or pinch to pause audio) and placement within the ear, which enables automatic pausing of audio when they are taken out.


title: AirPods

text: On March 20, 2019, Apple released the second-generation AirPods, which feature the H1 chip, longer talk time, and hands-free "Hey Siri" support. An optional wireless charging case which costs extra was added in the offerings.


title: AirPods

text: On October 26, 2021, Apple released the third-generation AirPods, which feature an external redesign with shorter stems similar to AirPods Pro, spatial audio, IPX4 water resistance, longer battery life, and MagSafe charging capability.


title: AirPods

text: Apple announced the first generation AirPods on September 7, 2016, at an Apple Special Event alongside the iPhone 7 and Apple Watch Series 2. Apple originally planned to release the AirPods in late October, but delayed the release date. On December 13, 2016, Apple began taking online orders for AirPods. They were available at Apple Stores, Apple Authorized Resellers, and select carriers on December 20, 2016.


title: AirPods

text: AirPods contain a proprietary Apple W1 SoC processor which helps optimize battery use as well as the Bluetooth 4.2 and audio connections. The advanced connectivity functions of the W1 requires devices running iOS 10, macOS Sierra, watchOS 3, or later. They can also function as standard Bluetooth headphones when connected to any device that supports Bluetooth 4.0 or higher, including Windows laptops and Android devices.


title: AirPods

text: There are two microphones inside each AirPod, one facing outward at ear level and another at the bottom of the stem. Each AirPod weighs , and its charging case weighs . The AirPods are capable of holding a charge of around five hours. Charging them for fifteen minutes in the case gives three hours of listening time. The charging case provides 24 hours of total usage time. During a complete dismantling, each AirPod was found to contain a 93 milliwatt hour battery in its stem, while the charging case contains a 1.52 watt hour or 398 mAh at 3.81 V battery.


title: AirPods

text: Production of the first-generation AirPods was discontinued on March 20, 2019, after the second generation was released.


title: AirPods

text: Apple announced the second generation AirPods on March 20, 2019. They are the same design as the first generation, but have updated features. They include an H1 processor which supports hands-free "Hey Siri", Bluetooth 5 connectivity. Apple also claims 50% more talk time and faster device connection times. The "Announce Messages with Siri” feature was added in iOS 13.2, which allows the user to dictate text messages to Siri.


title: AirPods

text: Second-generation AirPods can be purchased with the same charging case as the first generation, or for an additional price bundled with the Wireless Charging Case, which can be used with Qi chargers. The Wireless Charging Case can be purchased separately and is compatible with first-generation AirPods. It moves the charging indicator LED to the exterior of the case. The Wireless Charging Case was initially announced in September 2017 alongside the AirPower charging mat, but was delayed by AirPower's protracted development and eventual cancellation. The second generation AirPods remained on sale with a price cut following the release of the third generation in October 2021, but are now only available with the lightning charging case.


title: AirPods

text: Apple announced the third generation AirPods on October 18, 2021. They feature an external redesign with shorter stems similar to AirPods Pro and use similar force touch controls. They include support for spatial audio and Dolby Atmos, IPX4 water resistance, skin detection and a case supporting MagSafe charging. Apple claims increased battery life, with AirPods lasting six hours and the charging case providing up to 30 hours. Preorders of the third generation AirPods began on October 18, 2021. The third generation AirPods were released on October 26, 2021, and are priced at $179. In September 2022, Apple released a $169 variant with a charging case lacking Qi and MagSafe charging compatibility.


title: AirPods

text: All of the electronics and circuitry responsible for the audio drivers and Bluetooth transmission are stored entirely within the head of the AirPod. The battery is stored in the stem. The battery and circuit boards are connected via flex/ribbon cable.


title: AirPods

text: AirPods are compatible with any device that supports Bluetooth 4.0 or higher, including Android and Windows devices, although certain features such as automatic switching between devices are only available on Apple devices using iCloud.


title: AirPods

text: The first-generation AirPods are fully compatible with iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch models with iOS 10 or later, Apple Watch models with watchOS 3 or later, and Mac models with macOS Sierra or later.


title: AirPods

text: The second-generation AirPods are fully compatible with devices running iOS 12.2 or later, macOS Mojave 10.14.4 or later, and watchOS 5.2 or later.


title: AirPods

text: The third-generation AirPods are fully compatible with devices running iOS 15.1 or later, iPadOS 15.1 or later, macOS Monterey 12.0 or later, and watchOS 8.1 or later.


title: AirPods

text: The lithium-ion batteries in AirPods can see significant degradation over time, with two-year-old sets lasting for less than half of the advertised five hours. Apple has a program to service batteries and purchase replacement individual AirPods and charging cases. The replacement of one or both AirPods or the charging case has a lower price with AppleCare+ than without. Apple offers battery servicing for free with AppleCare+ and for a fee without. However, this is just a replacement service, as AirPods batteries cannot be removed.


title: AirPods

text: AirPods contain upgradeable firmware. Its original firmware was version 3.3.1. In February 2017, Apple released version 3.5.1, 3.7.2 in May 2017, and then 6.3.2 on March 26, 2019. In July 2019, version 6.7.8 was released and 6.8.8 followed in September 2019. In June 2020, firmware 2D15 was released (G2). In September 2020, firmware 3A283 (G2 and Pro) was released and in April 2021, firmware 3E751. AirPods automatically sync through Apple's iCloud service, allowing users to switch audio sources to other supported devices connected by the same Apple ID.


title: AirPods

text: Analysts estimate Apple sold between 14 million and 16 million AirPods in 2017. In 2018, AirPods were Apple's most popular accessory product, with 35 million units sold. 60 million units were sold in 2019. Analysts estimate AirPods make up 60% of the global wireless headphone market and that Apple's entire Wearables products (Apple Watch, AirPods, and AirPods Pro) “is now bigger than 60% of the companies in the Fortune 500”. An estimated 5-7% of Apple's revenue from AirPods comes from replacement earbuds and cases. Analysts estimate Apple sold 120 million or so pairs in 2021.


title: AirPods

text: On announcement day, AirPods were compared to Apple's previously existing EarPods (2012–present), with "The Verge" noting "They look... just like the old EarPods, with the wires cut off." Initially mocked by many for their unfamiliar design (including CNN asking "Would people actually wear these?" in 2016), their popularity grew rapidly over the years and they were voted the most popular "hearable" brand of 2019.


title: AirPods

text: At an Apple earnings call in 2019, CEO Tim Cook called AirPods “nothing less than a cultural phenomenon.” AirPods had become a viral sensation with memes circulating across the internet about its appearance and its relation to the removal of the headphone jack in iPhones. However, as time wore on, AirPods became known as a status symbol.


title: AirPods

text: One criticism of AirPods is their high price; however, at launch they were actually priced less than most "true wireless" earbuds on the market (e.g. the Samsung Gear IconX and Bragi Dash) and remain competitively priced with similar products from other major brands.


title: AirPods

text: Another prominent criticism was a problem that caused the charging case battery to deplete at a rapid rate despite the AirPods not being used. Users were reporting upwards of 30% idle discharge per day. In response, Apple released a firmware update (version 3.5.1) for the AirPods, which addressed connectivity and battery drain problems.


title: AirPods

text: According to the "Financial Times", AirPods are difficult if not impossible to recycle, and not designed to be repairable.


title: AirPods

text: In 2022, researchers at the Taipei Veterans General Hospital in Taiwan compared the performance of AirPods 2 and the original AirPods Pro using Live Listen on an iPhone or iPad to compare to medical hearing aids. Oticon Opn 1 was the high-end comparison, with Bernafon MD1 as the more affordable alternative. The performance of the systems were at least assisting participants with Pro (including noise cancelling features) being better and approximating the hearing aids.


title: AirPods

text: Some consumers expressed the viewpoint that there were better options for wireless earphones based on quality and cost. One of Apple's biggest competitors is Samsung, which markets wireless earbuds that are very similar to AirPods. Another similar product line is from Apple's Beats Electronics, which sells products such as the Powerbeats Pro wireless earbuds.


title: Sam Walton

text: was an American business magnate best known for founding the retailers Walmart and Sam's Club, which he started in 1962 and 1983 respectively. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. grew to be the world's largest corporation by revenue as well as the biggest private employer in the world. For a period of time, Walton was the richest man in America. His family has remained the richest family in the U.S. for several consecutive years, with a net worth of around US$240.6 billion as of January 2022.


title: Sam Walton

text: Samuel Moore Walton was born to Thomas Gibson Walton and Nancy Lee, in Kingfisher, Oklahoma. He lived there with his parents on their farm until 1923. However, farming did not provide enough money to raise a family, and Thomas Walton went into farm mortgaging. He worked for his brother's Walton Mortgage Company, which was an agent for Metropolitan Life Insurance, where he foreclosed on farms during the Great Depression.


title: Sam Walton

text: He and his family (now with another son, James, born in 1921) moved from Oklahoma. They moved from one small town to another for several years, mostly in Missouri. While attending eighth grade in Shelbina, Missouri, Sam became the youngest Eagle Scout in the state's history. In adult life, Walton became a recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award from the Boy Scouts of America.


title: Sam Walton

text: Eventually the family moved to Columbia, Missouri. Growing up during the Great Depression, he did chores to help make financial ends meet for his family as was common at the time. He milked the family cow, bottled the surplus, and drove it to customers. Afterwards, he would deliver "Columbia Daily Tribune" newspapers on a paper route. In addition, he sold magazine subscriptions. Upon graduating from David H. Hickman High School in Columbia, he was voted "Most Versatile Boy".


title: Sam Walton

text: After high school, Walton decided to attend college, hoping to find a better way to help support his family. He attended the University of Missouri as an ROTC cadet. During this time, he worked various odd jobs, including waiting tables in exchange for meals. Also during his time in college, Walton joined the Zeta Phi chapter of Beta Theta Pi fraternity. He was also tapped by QEBH, the well-known secret society on campus honoring the top senior men, and the national military honor society Scabbard and Blade. Additionally, Walton served as president of Burall Bible Class, a large class of students from the University of Missouri and Stephens College. Upon graduating in 1940 with a bachelor's degree in economics, he was voted "permanent president" of the class.


title: Sam Walton

text: Furthermore, he elaborated that he learned from a very early age that it was important for them as kids to help provide for the home, to be givers rather than takers. Walton realized while serving in the army, that he wanted to go into retailing and to go into business for himself.


title: Sam Walton

text: Walton joined J. C. Penney as a management trainee in Des Moines, Iowa, three days after graduating from college. This position paid him $75 a month. Walton spent approximately 18 months with J. C. Penney. He resigned in 1942 in anticipation of being inducted into the military for service in World War II. In the meantime, he worked at a DuPont munitions plant near Tulsa, Oklahoma. Soon afterwards, Walton joined the military in the U.S. Army Intelligence Corps, supervising security at aircraft plants. In this position he served at Fort Douglas in Salt Lake City, Utah. He eventually reached the rank of captain.


title: Sam Walton

text: In 1945, after leaving the military, Walton took over management of his first variety store at the age of 26. With the help of a $20,000 loan from his father-in-law, plus $5,000 he had saved from his time in the Army, Walton purchased a Ben Franklin variety store in Newport, Arkansas. The store was a franchise of the Butler Brothers chain.


title: Sam Walton

text: Walton pioneered many concepts that became crucial to his success. According to Walton, if he offered prices as good or better than stores in cities that were four hours away by car, people would shop at home. Walton made sure the shelves were consistently stocked with a wide range of goods. His second store, the tiny "Eagle" department store, was down the street from his first Ben Franklin and next door to its main competitor in Newport.


title: Sam Walton

text: With the sales volume growing from $80,000 to $225,000 in three years, Walton drew the attention of the landlord, P. K. Holmes, whose family had a history in retail.


title: Sam Walton

text: Admiring Sam's great success, and desiring to reclaim the store (and franchise rights) for his son, he refused to renew the lease. The lack of a renewal option, together with the prohibitively high rent of 5% of sales, were early business lessons to Walton. Despite forcing Walton out, Holmes bought the store's inventory and fixtures for $50,000, which Walton called "a fair price".


title: Sam Walton

text: With a year left on the lease, but the store effectively sold, he, his wife Helen and his father-in-law managed to negotiate the purchase of a new location on the downtown square of Bentonville, Arkansas. Walton negotiated the purchase of a small discount store, and the title to the building, on the condition that he get a 99-year lease to expand into the shop next door. The owner of the shop next door refused six times, and Walton gave up on Bentonville when his father-in-law, without Sam's knowledge, paid the shop owner a final visit and $20,000 to secure the lease. He had just enough left from the sale of the first store to close the deal, and reimburse Helen's father. They opened for business with a one-day remodeling sale on May 9, 1950.


title: Sam Walton

text: Before he bought the Bentonville store, it was doing $72,000 in sales and it increased to $105,000 in the first year and then $140,000 and $175,000.


title: Sam Walton

text: With the new Bentonville "Five and Dime" opening for business, and 220 miles away, a year left on the lease in Newport, the money-strapped young Walton had to learn to delegate responsibility.


title: Sam Walton

text: After succeeding with two stores at such a distance (and with the postwar baby boom in full effect), Walton became enthusiastic about scouting more locations and opening more Ben Franklin franchises. (Also, having spent countless hours behind the wheel, and with his close brother James "Bud" Walton having been a pilot in the war, he decided to buy a small second-hand airplane. Both he and his son John would later become accomplished pilots and log thousands of hours scouting locations and expanding the family business.)


title: Sam Walton

text: In 1954, he opened a store with his brother Bud in a shopping center in Ruskin Heights, a suburb of Kansas City, Missouri. With the help of his brother and father-in-law, Sam went on to open many new variety stores. He encouraged his managers to invest and take an equity stake in the business, often as much as $1000 in their store, or the next outlet to open. (This motivated the managers to sharpen their managerial skills and take ownership over their role in the enterprise.) By 1962, along with his brother Bud, he owned 16 stores in Arkansas, Missouri, and Kansas (fifteen Ben Franklin's and one independent, in Fayetteville).


title: Sam Walton

text: Sam Walton is regarded as one of the greatest project entrepreneurs in the retail chain industry. He had a great passion for learning. He frequently made unannounced visits to Walmarts around the country to learn what local innovations were working that then could be shared with other Walmarts. On one of those visits he was puzzled by a greeter saying “hello” at the entrance of the store and asked the fellow what he was doing. The greeter explained that his main job was to discourage shoplifters from taking unpaid merchandise out of the store through the entrance. Walton was delighted and shared the innovation with “associates” throughout his chain.


title: Sam Walton

text: The first true Walmart opened on July 2, 1962, in Rogers, Arkansas. Called the Wal-Mart Discount City store, it was located at 719 West Walnut Street. He launched a determined effort to market American-made products. Included in the effort was a willingness to find American manufacturers who could supply merchandise for the entire Walmart chain at a price low enough to meet the foreign competition.


title: Sam Walton

text: As the Meijer store chain grew, it caught the attention of Walton. He came to acknowledge that his one-stop-shopping center format was based on Meijer's original innovative concept.


title: Sam Walton

text: Contrary to the prevailing practice of American discount store chains, Walton located stores in smaller towns, not larger cities. To be near consumers, the only option at the time was to open outlets in small towns. Walton's model offered two advantages. First, existing competition was limited and secondly, if a store was large enough to control business in a town and its surrounding areas, other merchants would be discouraged from entering the market.


title: Sam Walton

text: To make his model work, he emphasized logistics, particularly locating stores within a day's drive of Walmart's regional warehouses, and distributed through its own trucking service. Buying in volume and efficient delivery permitted sale of discounted name brand merchandise. Thus, sustained growthfrom 1977's 190 stores to 1985's 800was achieved.


title: Sam Walton

text: Given its scale and economic influence, Walmart is noted to significantly impact any region in which it establishes a store. These impacts, both positive and negative, have been dubbed the "Walmart Effect".


title: Sam Walton

text: Walton married Helen Robson on Valentine's Day, February 14, 1943. They had four children: Samuel Robson (Rob) born in 1944, John Thomas (1946–2005), James Carr (Jim) born in 1948, and Alice Louise born in 1949.


title: Sam Walton

text: Walton supported various charitable causes. He and Helen were active in 1st Presbyterian Church in Bentonville; Sam served as an Elder and a Sunday School teacher, teaching high school age students. The family made substantial contributions to the congregation. Walton worked the concept of “service leadership” into the corporate structure of Walmart based on the concept of Christ being a servant leader and emphasized the importance of serving others based in Christianity.


title: Sam Walton

text: Walton died on Sunday, April 5, 1992 (three months shy of Walmart's thirtieth anniversary), of multiple myeloma, a type of blood cancer, in Little Rock, Arkansas. The news of his death was relayed by satellite to all 1,960 Walmart stores. At the time, his company employed 380,000 people. Annual sales of nearly $50 billion flowed from 1,735 Walmarts, 212 Sam's Clubs, and 13 Supercenters.


title: Sam Walton

text: His remains are interred at the Bentonville Cemetery. He left his ownership in Walmart to his wife and their children: Rob Walton succeeded his father as the Chairman of Walmart, and John Walton was a director until his death in a 2005 plane crash. The others are not directly involved in the company (except through their voting power as shareholders), however his son Jim Walton is chairman of Arvest Bank. The Walton family held five spots in the top ten richest people in the United States until 2005. Two daughters of Sam's brother Bud Walton—Ann Kroenke and Nancy Laurie—hold smaller shares in the company.


title: Sam Walton

text: In 1998, Walton was included in "Time"s . Walton was honored for his work in retail in March 1992, just one month before his death, when he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from then-President George H. W. Bush.


title: Sam Walton

text: "Forbes" ranked Sam Walton as the richest person in the United States from 1982 to 1988, ceding the top spot to John Kluge in 1989 when the editors began to credit Walton's fortune jointly to him and his four children. (Bill Gates first headed the list in 1992, the year Walton died.) Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. also runs Sam's Club warehouse stores. Walmart operates in the United States and in more than fifteen international markets, including: Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, India, South Africa, Botswana, Ghana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Kenya, Lesotho, Eswatini (Swaziland), Honduras,


title: Sam Walton

text: At the University of Arkansas, the Business College (Sam M. Walton College of Business) is named in his honor. Walton was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 1992.


title: Tata family

text: The Tata family is an Indian business family, based in Mumbai, India. The parent company is Tata Sons, which is the main holding company of the Tata Group. About 65% of the stock in these companies is owned by various Tata family charitable trusts, mainly the Ratan Tata Trust and the Dorab Tata Trust. Approximately 18% of the shares are held by the Pallonji Mistry family, and the rest by various Tata sons.


title: Tata family

text: The Tatas are a Parsi family and originally came to Mumbai from Surat in the state of Gujarat. The founder of the family's fortune was Jamshetji Tata. The Tata family is related to the Petit baronets through Sylla Tata, who married Sir Dinshaw Maneckji Petit, 3rd Baronet.


title: Murder on the Orient Express

text: Murder on the Orient Express is a work of detective fiction by English writer Agatha Christie featuring the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. It was first published in the United Kingdom by the Collins Crime Club on 1 January 1934. In the United States, it was published on 28 February 1934, under the title of Murder in the Calais Coach, by Dodd, Mead and Company. The UK edition retailed at seven shillings and sixpence (7/6) and the US edition at $2.


title: Murder on the Orient Express

text: The elegant train of the 1930s, the Orient Express, is stopped by heavy snowfall. A murder is discovered, and Poirot's trip home to London from the Middle East is interrupted to solve the case. The opening chapters of the novel take place primarily in Istanbul. The rest of the novel takes place in Yugoslavia, with the train trapped between Vinkovci and Brod.


title: Murder on the Orient Express

text: The US title of "Murder in the Calais Coach" was used to avoid confusion with the 1932 Graham Greene novel "Stamboul Train", which had been published in the United States as "Orient Express".


title: Murder on the Orient Express

text: After taking the Taurus Express from Aleppo to Istanbul, private detective Hercule Poirot arrives at the Tokatlian Hotel, where he receives a telegram prompting him to return to London. He instructs the concierge to book him a first-class compartment on the Simplon-route Orient Express service leaving that night. Although the train is fully booked, Poirot obtains a second-class berth through the intervention of friend, fellow Belgian, and fellow passenger Monsieur Bouc, director of the train operator Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits. Other passengers include American widow Caroline Hubbard; English governess Mary Debenham; Swedish missionary Greta Ohlsson; American businessman Samuel Ratchett, with his secretary/translator Hector MacQueen, and his English valet Edward Henry Masterman; Italian-American car salesman Antonio Foscarelli; Russian Princess Natalia Dragomiroff and her German maid Hildegarde Schmidt; Hungarian Count Rudolph Andrenyi and his wife Elena; English Colonel John Arbuthnot; American salesman Cyrus B. Hardman; and Greek medical doctor Stavros Constantine.


title: Murder on the Orient Express

text: Ratchett has been receiving death threats; recognizing Poirot, he tries to hire him for protection. Poirot, repulsed by Ratchett, refuses, telling him, "I will not take your case because I do not like your face." Bouc has taken the last first-class cabin, but on the first morning he arranges to move to a separate coach and gives Poirot his space. That night, Poirot observes some strange occurrences. Early in the morning, he is awakened by a cry from Ratchett's compartment next door. Pierre Michel, the train's conductor, knocks on Ratchett's door, but a voice from inside responds, "Ce n'est rien. Je me suis trompé." ("It is nothing. I was mistaken.") Hubbard rings her bell and tells Michel a man passed through her room. When Poirot rings his bell for water, Michel informs him that the train is stuck in a snowdrift between Vinkovci and Brod before he hears a loud thump next door. He observes a woman in a red kimono going towards the washroom, then goes to sleep.


title: Murder on the Orient Express

text: The next morning, with the train still stalled, Bouc informs Poirot that Ratchett has been murdered and the murderer is still aboard, having no way to escape in the snow. As there are no police onboard, Poirot takes up the case. With help from Constantine, Poirot examines Ratchett's body and compartment, discovering the following: the body has twelve stab wounds, the window had been left open, a handkerchief with the initial "H", a pipe cleaner, a flat match different from the ones Ratchett used, and a charred piece of paper with "member little Daisy Armstrong" written on it.


title: Murder on the Orient Express

text: The piece of paper helps Poirot work out the murderer's motive. Many years earlier, American gangster Cassetti kidnapped three-year-old Daisy Armstrong. Cassetti collected a significant ransom from the wealthy Armstrong family, then revealed that he had already killed the child. Sonia Armstrong, Daisy's mother, who was pregnant with her second child, went into premature labor upon hearing the news and died, along with the baby. Her grieving husband, Colonel Armstrong, shot himself, and Daisy's French nursemaid, Susanne, was accused of aiding Cassetti and committed suicide, only to be found innocent afterwards. Cassetti escaped justice through corruption and legal technicalities, and fled the country. Poirot concludes that "Ratchett" was actually Cassetti. Whomever had answered the conductor was not Ratchett, as Ratchett did not speak French.


title: Murder on the Orient Express

text: As Poirot begins interviewing everyone on the train, he discovers MacQueen is directly involved as he knows about the Armstrong note and believed it was destroyed and that Hubbard believes the murderer was in her cabin. While the passengers and Pierre all provide suitable alibis for each other, Poirot notes that some of them observed the woman in the red kimono walking down the hallway on the night of the murder. However, no one admits to owning a red kimono. Hubbard had Ohlsson lock the communicating door between her compartment and that of Cassetti, which invalidates her story of the man in her compartment, and Schmidt bumped into a stranger wearing a Wagons-Lits uniform. Miss Debenham inadvertently reveals she has been to America, contrary to her earlier statements, and Ohlsson shows much emotion when the subject of Daisy is brought up, causing further suspicion. Arbuthnot remarks that Cassetti should have been found guilty in a second trial instead of murdered, and Hardman admits he is actually a MacNeil Agency private detective who was asked to watch out for an assassin that was stalking Cassetti.


title: Murder on the Orient Express

text: While inspecting the passengers' luggage, Poirot is surprised to find the label on Countess Andrenyi's luggage is wet and that her passport is smudged, Schmidt's bag contains the uniform in question, and Poirot's own luggage contains the red kimono, recently hidden there. Hubbard herself finds the murder weapon hidden in her sponge bag. Poirot meets with Constantine and Bouc to review the case and develop a list of questions. With these and the evidence in mind, Poirot thinks about the case, going into a trance-like state. When he surfaces from it, he deduces the solution.


title: Murder on the Orient Express

text: He calls in the suspects and reveals their true identities and that they were all connected to the Armstrong tragedy in some way, gathering them in the dining car for the second solution. Countess Andrenyi (nee Goldenberg) is Helena, Daisy's aunt, who was a child herself at the time of the tragedy. Rudolph, her loving husband, smudged her luggage label and obscured her name to conceal her identity. Debenham was Helena and Daisy's governess; Foscarelli was the Armstrongs' chauffeur and a suspect in the kidnapping; Masterman was Col. Armstrong's valet; Michel is Susanne's father and the person who procured the false second uniform; Hubbard is actually actress Linda Arden (Daisy's grandmother and Sonia and Helena's mother); Schmidt was the Armstrongs' cook; and Ohlsson was Daisy's nurse. Princess Dragomiroff, in reality Sonia's godmother, claims the monogrammed handkerchief, saying that her forename is Natalia and the "H" is actually a Cyrillic letter "N". Arbuthnot is there on Debenham's behalf and his own, as he was a personal friend of Colonel Armstrong. Hardman is an ex-policeman who admits he was in love with Susanne, and MacQueen, who had feelings for Sonia, was the son of the lawyer who represented the Armstrongs. The only passengers not involved in the murder are Bouc and Constantine, both having slept in the other coach, which was locked.


title: Murder on the Orient Express

text: Poirot propounds two possible solutions, one far simpler than the other, and advising them to consider both seriously. The first is that a stranger boarded the train when it stopped at Vinkovci, killed Cassetti as a result of a Mafia feud, and disembarked at great risk through the snow. The second is that all the clues except the handkerchief and pipe cleaner were planted and that Michel and all the passengers in the coach, except Helena, stabbed Cassetti, acting as their own jury. Arden acknowledges everything and offers to take responsibility as she was the mastermind. Bouc and Constantine, however, decide the first solution should be relayed to the police. Poirot retires from the case.


title: Murder on the Orient Express

text: The "Times Literary Supplement" of 11 January 1934 outlined the plot and concluded that "The little grey cells solve once more the seemingly insoluble. Mrs Christie makes an improbable tale very real, and keeps her readers enthralled and guessing to the end."


title: Murder on the Orient Express

text: In "The New York Times Book Review" of 4 March 1934, Isaac Anderson wrote, "The great Belgian detective's guesses are more than shrewd; they are positively miraculous. Although both the murder plot and the solution verge upon the impossible, Agatha Christie has contrived to make them appear quite convincing for the time being, and what more than that can a mystery addict desire?"


title: Murder on the Orient Express

text: The reviewer in "The Guardian" of 12 January 1934 noted that the murder would have been "perfect" (i.e. a perfect crime) had Poirot not been on the train and also overheard a conversation between Miss Debenham and Colonel Arbuthnot before he boarded; however, Poirot's "'little grey cells' worked admirably, and the solution surprised their owner as much as it may well surprise the reader, for the secret is well kept and the manner of the telling is in Mrs Christie's usual admirable manner."


title: Murder on the Orient Express

text: Robert Barnard said that this novel was "The best of the railway stories. The Orient Express, snowed up in Yugoslavia, provides the ideal 'closed' set-up for a classic-style exercise in detection, as well as an excuse for an international cast-list. Contains my favourite line in all Christie: 'Poor creature, she's a Swede.' Impeccably clued, with a clever use of the Cyrillic script (cf. "The Double Clue"). The solution raised the ire of Raymond Chandler, but won't bother anyone who doesn't insist his detective fiction mirror real-life crime." The reference is to Chandler's criticism of Christie in his essay, "The Simple Art of Murder". In 1995, the novel was included in Mystery Writers of America's The Top 100 Mystery Novels of All Time list. In December 2014, the novel was included in "Entertainment Weekly"'s list of the Nine Great Christie Novels.


title: Murder on the Orient Express

text: The kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh's son in 1932 inspired that element in Christie's novel two years later. The novel used many elements of the real life case: a young child, firstborn of the family, was kidnapped for ransom directly from the crib, the parents were famous, the father was a well-known pilot and the mother pregnant, and the ransom was paid but the child found dead soon after. An innocent, but perhaps loose-lipped, maid employed by Lindbergh's parents was suspected of involvement in the crime. After being harshly interrogated by police, she committed suicide.


title: Murder on the Orient Express

text: Two less notable events helped inspire her novel: Agatha Christie's first journey on the Orient Express in late 1928, and a blizzard near Cherkeskoy, Turkey, that marooned an Orient Express for six days just a few months later, in February 1929.


title: Murder on the Orient Express

text: Flooding from rainfall that washed sections of track away in December 1931 halted Christie's return from her husband's archaeological dig at Nineveh aboard an Orient Express for 24 hours. Her authorised biography details that event in a complete quotation of a letter to her husband, which describes several passengers on her train who inspired both the plot and the characters in her novel, including an American, Mrs. Hilton, who inspired Mrs. Hubbard.


title: Murder on the Orient Express

text: John Moffatt starred as Poirot in a five-part BBC Radio 4 adaptation by Michael Bakewell, directed by Enyd Williams, and originally broadcast from 28 December 1992 – 1 January 1993. André Maranne appeared as Bouc, Joss Ackland as Ratchett/Cassetti, Sylvia Syms as Mrs Hubbard, Siân Phillips as Princess Dragomiroff, Francesca Annis as Mary Debenham, and Peter Polycarpou as Dr Constantine.


title: Murder on the Orient Express

text: In 2017, the streaming service Audible released another radio adaptation that featured Tom Conti as the voice of Poirot. The voice cast also featured Sophie Okonedo as Mary Debenham, Eddie Marsan as Ratchett/Cassetti, and narration from Art Malik.


title: Murder on the Orient Express

text: The Soviet radio play was released in 1966. The voice cast featured Vsevolod Yakut as Poirot, Rostislav Plyatt as Colonel Arbuthnot, Maria Babanova as Hubbard, Oleg Yefremov as Hector McQueen, Leonid Kanevsky as Antonio Foscarelli, Angelina Stepanova as Princess Dragomiroff and Alexander Lazarev as Hardman.


title: Murder on the Orient Express

text: The book was made into a 1974 movie directed by Sidney Lumet and produced by John Brabourne and Richard B. Goodwin; it was a critical and commercial hit. The film starred Albert Finney as Poirot, Martin Balsam as Signor Bianchi, George Coulouris as Dr Constantine, and Richard Widmark as Ratchett/Cassetti, with the remaining cast of suspects including Sean Connery (Arbuthnot), Lauren Bacall (Mrs Hubbard), Anthony Perkins (MacQueen), John Gielgud (Beddoes), Michael York (Count Andrenyi), Jean-Pierre Cassel (Pierre Michel), Jacqueline Bisset (Countess Andrenyi), Wendy Hiller (Princess Dragomiroff), Vanessa Redgrave (Mary Debenham), Rachel Roberts (Hildegarde Schmidt), Colin Blakely (Hardman), Denis Quilley (Foscarelli), and Ingrid Bergman, who won the 1974 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as Greta Ohlsson. Only minor changes were made for the film: Masterman was renamed Beddoes, the dead maid was named Paulette instead of Susanne, Helena Goldenberg became Helena Grünwald (which is German for "Greenwood"), Antonio Foscarelli became Gino Foscarelli, Caroline Martha Hubbard became Harriet Belinda Hubbard, and the train company's Belgian/Flemish director, Monsieur Bouc, became instead an Italian director, Signor Bianchi.


title: Murder on the Orient Express

text: On 16 June 2015, 20th Century Fox hired Kenneth Branagh to direct and star as Poirot in another film adaptation of the story, which was released on 3 November 2017. On 29 September 2016, the studio issued a press release announcing much of the cast, including Johnny Depp as Ratchett, Michelle Pfeiffer as Mrs Hubbard, Penélope Cruz as Pilar Estravados (a Spanish version of Greta Ohlsson, the name coming from a character in "Hercule Poirot's Christmas"), Judi Dench as Princess Dragomiroff, Derek Jacobi as Masterman, Leslie Odom Jr. as Dr Arbuthnot, Daisy Ridley as Mary Debenham, Lucy Boynton as Countess Andrenyi, Tom Bateman as Monsieur Bouc, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo as Biniamino Marquez (a Cuban version of Antonio Foscarelli), Josh Gad as Hector MacQueen, Marwan Kenzari as Pierre Michel, Sergei Polunin as Count Andrenyi, Willem Dafoe as Cyrus Hardman, and Olivia Colman as Hildegarde Schmidt. The character of Col. Arbuthnot is combined with Dr. Constantine to create Dr Arbuthnot, a sniper who served under Col. Armstrong in the war and had his medical school paid for by Armstrong; MacQueen's father is portrayed as having been a prosecutor in the Armstrong case rather than the Armstrong family's lawyer, and whose career was ruined after he prosecuted the maid Susanne; and Monsieur Bouc is changed from the director of the company to the director's nephew. Added was a direct link for Poirot to the Armstrong kidnapping—before Sonia's death, John Armstrong wrote to Poirot for help. Also unlike the book, the kidnapping does not take place in Long Island but in New Jersey, where the Lindbergh Kidnapping took place. Susanne Michel is switched from Pierre Michel's daughter to his sister. Cyrus Hardman poses as an Austrian scientist named Gerhard Hardman for part of the film. The last scene also sets up "Death on the Nile" as a sequel.


title: Murder on the Orient Express

text: The novel was first adapted as a 1955 episode of the West German television series "Die Galerie der großen Detektive". played the role of Poirot.


title: Murder on the Orient Express

text: A thoroughly modernized and poorly received made-for-TV version starring Alfred Molina as Poirot was presented by CBS in 2001. This version co-starred Meredith Baxter as Mrs Hubbard and Leslie Caron as Señora Alvarado (based on Princess Dragomiroff, and portrayed as the widow of a South American dictator). Poirot is portrayed as significantly younger and less eccentric than Christie's detective, and is given a subplot involving a romantic relationship with Vera Rosakoff, who is loosely based on an infrequently recurring character of the same name. The story is updated to a contemporary setting, and four of the suspects (Hildegarde Schmidt, Cyrus Hardman, Edward Masterman and Greta Ohlsson) are deleted, as is Dr Constantine.


title: Murder on the Orient Express

text: David Suchet reprised the role of Hercule Poirot in ""Murder on the Orient Express"" (2010), a 90-minute movie-length episode of the television series "Agatha Christie's Poirot" co-produced by ITV Studios and WGBH-TV, adapted for the screen by Stewart Harcourt. The original air date was 11 July 2010 in the United States, and it was aired on Christmas Day 2010 in the UK.


title: Murder on the Orient Express

text: The cast includes Dame Eileen Atkins as Princess Dragomiroff, Hugh Bonneville as Masterman, Jessica Chastain as Mary Debenham, Barbara Hershey as Mrs Hubbard, Toby Jones as Ratchett, and David Morrissey as Colonel Arbuthnot.


title: Murder on the Orient Express

text: The character Cyrus Hardman (the former American police officer turned private detective) has been largely amalgamated with the chauffeur Foscarelli (in as much as regards being the lover of the dead maid) and Dr Constantine (who in the novel is unrelated to the murders) becomes a co-conspirator, depicted as having been the Armstrong family's doctor in America.


title: Murder on the Orient Express

text: As in the 2017 film, MacQueen's father was the prosecutor rather than the Armstrongs' lawyer, whose career was ruined after he was threatened into acquitting Cassetti. The adaptation's treatment of Ratchett's murder is much darker in comparison with the novel. The killers gather in his cabin and stab him one by one while he is drugged but awake, rather than stabbing him independently while he is unconscious. The ending dwells on Poirot's horror at the act of mob justice and his moral conflict, in view of his Catholic faith and commitment to the law, when he decides not to tell the Yugoslavian police what he knows.


title: Murder on the Orient Express

text: The interior of the Orient Express was reproduced at Pinewood Studios in London, while other locations include the Freemason Hall, Nene Valley Railway, and a street in Malta (shot to represent Istanbul).


title: Murder on the Orient Express

text: A Japanese adaptation was broadcast over two nights in January 2015 on Fuji Television, titled "", and it featured several famous actors, including Ninomiya Kazunari, Matsushima Nanako, Tamaki Hiroshi, Kichise Michiko, Nishida Toshiyuki, and Sawamura Ikki. The main character, Suguro Takeru, modeled on Hercule Poirot, was played by actor Nomura Mansai.


title: Murder on the Orient Express

text: The first night featured a storyline true to the original text, but set in Japan in 1933. In this version, the train "Orient Kyuukou" ran from the western city of Shimonoseki to Tokyo, with the train stopped by a small avalanche near Sekigahara, Gifu.


title: Murder on the Orient Express

text: American playwright Ken Ludwig adapted the novel into a play, which premiered at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey on March 14, 2017. The production was directed by Emily Mann, and starred Allan Corduner in the role of Hercule Poirot.


title: Murder on the Orient Express

text: A board game based on the novel named "Orient Express" was released in 1985. The point and click computer game "" was released in November 2006 for Windows and expanded on Agatha Christie's original story with a new playable central character as Hercule Poirot (voiced by David Suchet) is ill and recovering in his train compartment.


title: Murder on the Orient Express

text: The story's first true publication was the US serialisation in six instalments in the "Saturday Evening Post" from 30 September to 4 November 1933 (Volume 206, Numbers 14 to 19). The title was "Murder in the Calais Coach", and it was illustrated by William C. Hoople.


title: Murder on the Orient Express

text: The UK serialisation appeared after book publication, appearing in three instalments in the "Grand Magazine", in March, April, and May 1934 (Issues 349 to 351). This version was abridged from the book version (losing some 25% of the text), was without chapter divisions, and named the Russian princess as Dragiloff instead of Dragomiroff. Advertisements in the back pages of the UK first editions of "The Listerdale Mystery", "Why Didn't They Ask Evans", and "Parker Pyne Investigates" claimed that "Murder on the Orient Express" had proven to be Christie's best-selling book to date and the best-selling book published in the Collins Crime Club series.


title: Druid

text: A druid was a member of the high-ranking class in ancient Celtic cultures. Druids were religious leaders as well as legal authorities, adjudicators, lorekeepers, medical professionals and political advisors. Druids left no written accounts. While they were reported to have been literate, they are believed to have been prevented by doctrine from recording their knowledge in written form. Their beliefs and practices are attested in some detail by their contemporaries from other cultures, such as the Romans and the Greeks.


title: Druid

text: The earliest known references to the druids date to the 4th century BCE. The oldest detailed description comes from Julius Caesar's "Commentarii de Bello Gallico" (50s BCE). They were described by other Roman writers such as Cicero, Tacitus, and Pliny the Elder. Following the Roman invasion of Gaul, the druid orders were suppressed by the Roman government under the 1st-century CE emperors Tiberius and Claudius, and had disappeared from the written record by the 2nd century.


title: Druid

text: In about 750 CE, the word "druid" appears in a poem by Blathmac, who wrote about Jesus, saying that he was "better than a prophet, more knowledgeable than every druid, a king who was a bishop and a complete sage." The druids appear in some of the medieval tales from Christianized Ireland like "Táin Bó Cúailnge", where they are largely portrayed as sorcerers who opposed the coming of Christianity. In the wake of the Celtic revival during the 18th and 19th centuries, fraternal and neopagan groups were founded based on ideas about the ancient druids, a movement known as Neo-Druidism. Many popular notions about druids, based on misconceptions of 18th-century scholars, have been largely superseded by more recent study.


title: Druid

text: The English word "druid" derives from Latin "druidēs" (plural), which was considered by ancient Roman writers to come from the native Celtic Gaulish word for these figures. Other Roman texts employ the form "druidae", while the same term was used by Greek ethnographers as ("druidēs"). Although no extant Romano-Celtic inscription is known to contain the form, the word is cognate with the later insular Celtic words, Old Irish "druí" 'druid, sorcerer', Old Cornish "druw", Middle Welsh "dryw" 'seer; wren'. Based on all available forms, the hypothetical proto-Celtic word may be reconstructed as *"dru-wid-s" (pl. *"druwides") meaning "oak-knower". The two elements go back to the Proto-Indo-European roots "*deru-" and "*weid-" "to see". The sense of "oak-knower" or "oak-seer" is supported by Pliny the Elder, who in his "Natural History" considered the word to contain the Greek noun "drýs" (δρύς), "oak-tree" and the Greek suffix "-idēs" (-ιδης). Both Old Irish "druí" and Middle Welsh "dryw" could refer to the wren, possibly connected with an association of that bird with augury in Irish and Welsh tradition (see also Wren Day).


title: Druid

text: Sources by ancient and medieval writers provide an idea of the religious duties and social roles involved in being a druid.


title: Druid

text: The Greco-Roman and the vernacular Irish sources agree that the druids played an important part in pagan Celtic society. In his description, Julius Caesar wrote that they were one of the two most important social groups in the region (alongside the "equites", or nobles) and were responsible for organizing worship and sacrifices, divination, and judicial procedure in Gallic, British, and Irish societies. He wrote that they were exempt from military service and from paying taxes, and had the power to excommunicate people from religious festivals, making them social outcasts. Two other classical writers, Diodorus Siculus and Strabo, wrote about the role of druids in Gallic society, stating that the druids were held in such respect that if they intervened between two armies they could stop the battle.


title: Druid

text: Pomponius Mela was the first author to say that the druids' instruction was secret and took place in caves and forests.


title: Druid

text: Druidic lore consisted of a large number of verses learned by heart, and Caesar remarked that it could take up to twenty years to complete the course of study. What was taught to druid novices anywhere is conjecture: of the druids' oral literature, not one certifiably ancient verse is known to have survived, even in translation. All instruction was communicated orally, but for ordinary purposes, Caesar reports, the Gauls had a written language in which they used Greek letters. In this he probably draws on earlier writers; by the time of Caesar, Gaulish inscriptions had moved from Greek script to Latin script.


title: Druid

text: Greek and Roman writers frequently made reference to the druids as practitioners of human sacrifice. Caesar says those who had been found guilty of theft or other criminal offences were considered preferable for use as sacrificial victims, but when criminals were in short supply, innocents would be acceptable. A form of sacrifice recorded by Caesar was the burning alive of victims in a large wooden effigy, now often known as a wicker man. A differing account came from the 10th-century "Commenta Bernensia", which stated that sacrifices to the deities Teutates, Esus and Taranis were by drowning, hanging and burning, respectively (see threefold death).


title: Druid

text: Diodorus Siculus asserts that a sacrifice acceptable to the Celtic gods had to be attended by a druid, for they were the intermediaries between the people and the divinities. He remarked upon the importance of prophets in druidic ritual:


title: Druid

text: Archaeological evidence from western Europe has been widely used to support the view that Iron Age Celts practiced human sacrifice. Mass graves found in a ritual context dating from this period have been unearthed in Gaul, at both Gournay-sur-Aronde and Ribemont-sur-Ancre in the region of the Belgae chiefdom. The excavator of these sites, Jean-Louis Brunaux, interpreted them as areas of human sacrifice in devotion to a war god, although this view was criticized by another archaeologist, Martin Brown, who believed that the corpses might be those of honoured warriors buried in the sanctuary rather than sacrifices. Some historians have questioned whether the Greco-Roman writers were accurate in their claims. J. Rives remarked that it was "ambiguous" whether druids ever performed such sacrifices, for the Romans and Greeks were known to project what they saw as barbarian traits onto foreign peoples including not only druids but Jews and Christians as well, thereby confirming their own "cultural superiority" in their own minds.


title: Druid

text: Nora Chadwick, an expert in medieval Welsh and Irish literature who believed the druids to be great philosophers, has also supported the idea that they had not been involved in human sacrifice, and that such accusations were imperialist Roman propaganda.


title: Druid

text: Alexander Cornelius Polyhistor referred to the druids as philosophers and called their doctrine of the immortality of the soul and reincarnation or metempsychosis, "Pythagorean":


title: Druid

text: Diodorus Siculus, writing in 36 BCE, described how the druids followed "the Pythagorean doctrine", that human souls "are immortal and after a prescribed number of years they commence a new life in a new body". In 1928, folklorist Donald A. Mackenzie speculated that Buddhist missionaries had been sent by the Indian king Ashoka. Caesar noted the druidic doctrine of the original ancestor of the tribe, whom he referred to as "Dispater", or "Father Hades".


title: Druid

text: Druids play a prominent role in Irish folklore, generally serving lords and kings as high ranking priest-counselors with the gift of prophecy and other assorted mystical abilitiesthe best example of these possibly being Cathbad. The chief druid in the court of King Conchobar mac Nessa of Ulster, Cathbad features in several tales, most of which detail his ability to foretell the future. In the tale of Deirdre of the Sorrowsthe foremost tragic heroine of the Ulster Cyclethe druid prophesied before the court of Conchobar that Deirdre would grow up to be very beautiful, and that kings and lords would go to war over her, much blood would be shed because of her, and Ulster's three greatest warriors would be forced into exile for her sake. This prophecy, ignored by the king, came true.


title: Druid

text: The greatest of these mythological druids was Amergin Glúingel, a bard and judge for the Milesians featured in the Mythological Cycle. The Milesians were seeking to overrun the Tuatha Dé Danann and win the land of Ireland but, as they approached, the druids of the Tuatha Dé Danann raised a magical storm to bar their ships from making landfall. Thus Amergin called upon the spirit of Ireland itself, chanting a powerful incantation that has come to be known as "The Song of Amergin" and, eventually (after successfully making landfall), aiding and dividing the land between his royal brothers in the conquest of Ireland, earning the title Chief Ollam of Ireland.


title: Druid

text: Other such mythological druids were Tadg mac Nuadat of the Fenian Cycle, and Mug Ruith, a powerful blind druid of Munster.


title: Druid

text: Irish mythology has a number of female druids, often sharing similar prominent cultural and religious roles with their male counterparts. The Irish have several words for female druids, such as "bandruí" ("woman-druid"), found in tales such as "Táin Bó Cúailnge"; Bodhmall, featured in the Fenian Cycle, and one of Fionn mac Cumhaill's childhood caretakers; and Tlachtga, daughter of the druid Mug Ruith who, according to Irish tradition, is associated with the Hill of Ward, site of prominent festivals held in Tlachtga's honour during the Middle Ages.


title: Druid

text: Biróg, another "bandruí" of the Tuatha Dé Danann, plays a key role in an Irish folktale where the Fomorian warrior Balor attempts to thwart a prophecy foretelling that he would be killed by his own grandson by imprisoning his only daughter Eithne in the tower of Tory Island, away from any contact with men. Bé Chuilledaughter of the woodland goddess Flidais and sometimes described as a sorceress rather than a bandruífeatures in a tale from the Metrical Dindshenchas where she joins three other of the Tuatha Dé to defeat the evil Greek witch Carman. Other bandrúi include Relbeo, a Nemedian druid who appears in The Book of Invasions, where she is described as the daughter of the King of Greece and mother of Fergus Lethderg and Alma One-Tooth. Dornoll was a bandrúi in Scotland, who normally trained heroes in warfare, particularly Laegaire and Conall; she was the daughter of Domnall Mildemail.


title: Druid

text: According to classical authors, the Gallizenae (or Gallisenae) were virgin priestesses of the Île de Sein off Pointe du Raz, Finistère, western Brittany. Their existence was first mentioned by the Greek geographer Artemidorus Ephesius and later by the Greek historian Strabo, who wrote that their island was forbidden to men, but the women came to the mainland to meet their husbands. Which deities they honored is unknown. According to Pomponius Mela, the Gallizenae acted as both councilors and practitioners of the healing arts:


title: Druid

text: According to "Historia Augusta", Alexander Severus received a prophecy about his death by a Gaul druidess ("druiada"). The work also has Aurelian questioning those druidesses about the fate of his descendants, to which they answered in favor of Claudius II. Flavius Vopiscus is also quoted as recalling a prophecy received by Diocletian from a Tungri druidess.


title: Druid

text: The earliest surviving literary evidence of druids emerges from the classical world of Greece and Rome. Archaeologist Stuart Piggott compared the attitude of the Classical authors toward the druids as being similar to the relationship that had existed in the 15th and 18th centuries between Europeans and the societies that they were just encountering in other parts of the world, such as the Americas and the South Sea Islands. He highlighted the attitude of "primitivism" in both Early Modern Europeans and Classical authors, owing to their perception that these newly encountered societies had less technological development and were backward in socio-political development.


title: Druid

text: Historian Nora Chadwick, in a categorization subsequently adopted by Piggott, divided the Classical accounts of the druids into two groups, distinguished by their approach to the subject as well as their chronological contexts. She calls the first of these groups the "Posidonian" tradition after one of its primary exponents, Posidonious, and notes that it takes a largely critical attitude towards the Iron Age societies of Western Europe that emphasizes their "barbaric" qualities. The second of these two groups is termed the "Alexandrian" group, being centred on the scholastic traditions of Alexandria, Egypt; she notes that it took a more sympathetic and idealized attitude toward these foreign peoples. Piggott drew parallels between this categorisation and the ideas of "hard primitivism" and "soft primitivism" identified by historians of ideas A. O. Lovejoy and Franz Boas.


title: Druid

text: One school of thought has suggested that all of these accounts are inherently unreliable, and might be entirely fictional. They have suggested that the idea of the druid might have been a fiction created by Classical writers to reinforce the idea of the barbaric "other" who existed beyond the civilized Greco-Roman world, thereby legitimizing the expansion of the Roman Empire into these areas.


title: Druid

text: The earliest record of the druids comes from two Greek texts of c. 300 BC: a history of philosophy written by Sotion of Alexandria, and a study of magic widely attributed to Aristotle. Both texts are now lost, but are quoted in the 2nd century CE work "Vitae" by Diogenes Laërtius.


title: Druid

text: Subsequent Greek and Roman texts from the 3rd century BCE refer to "barbarian philosophers", possibly in reference to the Gaulish druids.


title: Druid

text: The earliest extant text that describes druids in detail is Julius Caesar's "Commentarii de Bello Gallico", book VI, written in the 50s or 40s BC. A general who was intent on conquering Gaul and Britain, Caesar described the druids as being concerned with "divine worship, the due performance of sacrifices, private or public, and the interpretation of ritual questions". He said they played an important part in Gaulish society, being one of the two respected classes along with the "equites" (in Rome the name for members of a privileged class above the common people, but also "horsemen") and that they performed the function of judges.


title: Druid

text: Caesar wrote that the druids recognized the authority of a single leader, who would rule until his death, when a successor would be chosen by vote or through conflict. He remarked that they met annually at a sacred place in the region occupied by the Carnute tribe in Gaul, while they viewed Britain as the centre of druidic study; and that they were not found among the German tribes to the east of the Rhine. According to Caesar, many young men were trained to be druids, during which time they had to learn all the associated lore by heart. He also said that their main teaching was "the souls do not perish, but after death pass from one to another". They were concerned with "the stars and their movements, the size of the cosmos and the earth, the world of nature, and the power and might of the immortal gods", indicating they were involved with not only such common aspects of religion as theology and cosmology, but also astronomy. Caesar held that they were "administrators" during rituals of human sacrifice, for which criminals were usually used, and that the method was by burning in a wicker man.


title: Druid

text: Though he had first-hand experience of Gaulish people, and therefore likely druids, Caesar's account has been widely criticized by modern historians as inaccurate. One issue raised by such historians as Fustel de Coulanges was that while Caesar described the druids as a significant power within Gaulish society, he did not mention them even once in his accounts of his Gaulish conquests. Nor did Aulus Hirtius, who continued Caesar's account of the Gallic Wars after Caesar's death. Hutton believed that Caesar had manipulated the idea of the druids so they would appear both civilized (being learned and pious) and barbaric (performing human sacrifice) to Roman readers, thereby representing both "a society worth including in the Roman Empire" and one that required civilizing with Roman rule and values, thus justifying his wars of conquest. Sean Dunham suggested that Caesar had simply taken the Roman religious functions of senators and applied them to the druids. Daphne Nash believed it "not unlikely" that he "greatly exaggerates" both the centralized system of druidic leadership and its connection to Britain.


title: Druid

text: Other historians have accepted that Caesar's account might be more accurate. Norman J. DeWitt surmised that Caesar's description of the role of druids in Gaulish society may report an idealized tradition, based on the society of the 2nd century BC, before the pan-Gallic confederation led by the Arverni was smashed in 121 BC, followed by the invasions of Teutones and Cimbri, rather than on the demoralized and disunited Gaul of his own time. John Creighton has speculated that in Britain, the druidic social influence was already in decline by the mid-1st century BCE, in conflict with emergent new power structures embodied in paramount chieftains. Other scholars see the Roman conquest itself as the main reason for the decline of the druid orders. Archaeologist Miranda Aldhouse-Green (2010) asserted that Caesar offered both "our richest textual source" regarding the druids, and "one of the most reliable". She defended the accuracy of his accounts by highlighting that while he may have embellished some of his accounts to justify Roman imperial conquest, it was "inherently unlikely" that he constructed a fictional class system for Gaul and Britain, particularly considering that he was accompanied by a number of other Roman senators who would have also been sending reports on the conquest to Rome, and who would have challenged his inclusion of serious falsifications.


title: Druid

text: Other classical writers also commented on the druids and their practices. Caesar's contemporary, Cicero, noted that he had met a Gallic druid, Divitiacus, of the Aedui tribe. Divitiacus supposedly knew much about the natural world and performed divination through augury. Whether Diviaticus was genuinely a druid can however be disputed, for Caesar also knew this figure, and wrote about him, calling him by the more Gaulish-sounding (and thereby presumably the more authentic) Diviciacus, but never referred to him as a druid and indeed presented him as a political and military leader.


title: Druid

text: Another classical writer to take up describing the druids not too long after was Diodorus Siculus, who published this description in his "Bibliotheca historicae" in 36 BC. Alongside the druids, or as he called them, "drouidas", whom he viewed as philosophers and theologians, he remarked how there were poets and singers in Celtic society whom he called "bardous", or bards. Such an idea was expanded on by Strabo, writing in the 20s CE, who declared that amongst the Gauls, there were three types of honoured figures:


title: Druid

text: Roman writer Tacitus, himself a senator and historian, described how when the Roman army, led by Suetonius Paulinus, attacked the island of Mona (Anglesey; Welsh: "Ynys Môn"), the legionaries were awestruck on landing, by the appearance of a band of druids, who, with hands uplifted to the sky, poured forth terrible imprecations on the heads of the invaders. He says these "terrified our soldiers who had never seen such a thing before". The courage of the Romans, however, soon overcame such fears, according to the Roman historian; the Britons were put to flight, and the sacred groves of Mona were cut down. Tacitus is also the only primary source that gives accounts of druids in Britain, but maintains a hostile point of view, seeing them as ignorant savages.


title: Druid

text: In the Middle Ages, after Ireland and Wales were Christianized, druids appear in a number of written sources, mainly tales and stories such as "Táin Bó Cúailnge", and in the hagiographies of various saints. These were all written by Christian monks.


title: Druid

text: In Irish-language literature, druids"draoithe", plural of "draoi"are sorcerers with supernatural powers, who are respected in society, particularly for their ability to do divination. "Dictionary of the Irish Language" defines "druí" (which has numerous variant forms, including "draoi") as 'magician, wizard or diviner'. In the literature the druids cast spells and turn people into animals or stones, or curse peoples' crops to be blighted.


title: Druid

text: When druids are portrayed in early Irish sagas and saints' lives set in pre-Christian Ireland, they are usually given high social status. The evidence of the law-texts, which were first written down in the 7th and 8th centuries, suggests that with the coming of Christianity the role of the druid in Irish society was rapidly reduced to that of a sorcerer who could be consulted to cast spells or do healing magic and that his standing declined accordingly. According to the early legal tract "Bretha Crólige", the sick-maintenance due to a druid, satirist and brigand ("díberg") is no more than that due to a "bóaire" (an ordinary freeman). Another law-text, "Uraicecht Becc" ('small primer'), gives the druid a place among the "dóer-nemed" or professional classes which depend for their status on a patron, along with wrights, blacksmiths and entertainers, as opposed to the "fili", who alone enjoyed free "nemed"-status.


title: Druid

text: While druids featured prominently in many medieval Irish sources, they were far rarer in their Welsh counterparts. Unlike the Irish texts, the Welsh term commonly seen as referring to the druids, "", was used to refer purely to prophets and not to sorcerers or pagan priests. Historian Ronald Hutton noted that there were two explanations for the use of the term in Wales: the first was that it was a survival from the pre-Christian era, when "dryw" had been ancient priests; the second was that the Welsh had borrowed the term from the Irish, as had the English (who used the terms "dry" and "drycraeft" to refer to magicians and magic respectively, most probably influenced by the Irish terms).


title: Druid

text: As the historian Jane Webster stated, "individual druids ... are unlikely to be identified archaeologically". A. P. Fitzpatrick, in examining what he believed to be astral symbolism on Late Iron Age swords has expressed difficulties in relating any material culture, even the Coligny calendar, with druidic culture.


title: Druid

text: Nonetheless, some archaeologists have attempted to link certain discoveries with written accounts of the druids. The archaeologist Anne Ross linked what she believed to be evidence of human sacrifice in Celtic pagan society—such as the Lindow Man bog body—to the Greco-Roman accounts of human sacrifice being officiated over by the druids. Miranda Aldhouse-Green, professor of archaeology at Cardiff University, has noted that Suetonius's army would have passed very near the site whilst traveling to deal with Boudicca and postulates that the sacrifice may have been connected. A 1996 discovery of a skeleton buried with advanced medical and possibly divinatory equipment has, however, been nicknamed the "Druid of Colchester".


title: Druid

text: An excavated burial in Deal, Kent discovered the "Deal Warrior"a man buried around 200–150 BCE with a sword and shield, and wearing an almost unique head-band, too thin to be part of a leather helmet. The crown is bronze with a broad band around the head and a thin strip crossing the top of the head. Since traces of hair were left on the metal it must have been worn without any padding beneath. The form of the headdress resembles depictions of Romano-British priests from several centuries later, leading to speculation among archaeologists that the man might have been a religious officiala druid.


title: Druid

text: In the Gallic Wars of 58–51 BC, the Roman army, led by Julius Caesar, conquered the many tribal chiefdoms of Gaul, and annexed it as a part of the Roman Republic. According to accounts produced in the following centuries, the new rulers of Roman Gaul subsequently introduced measures to wipe out the druids from that country. According to Pliny the Elder, writing in the 70s CE, it was the emperor Tiberius (ruled 14–37 CE), who introduced laws banning not only druid practices, and other native soothsayers and healers, a move which Pliny applauded, believing it would end human sacrifice in Gaul. A somewhat different account of Roman legal attacks on the druids was made by Suetonius, writing in the 2nd century CE, when he stated that Rome's first emperor, Augustus (ruled 27 BC–14 CE), had decreed that no-one could be both a druid and a Roman citizen, and that this was followed by a law passed by the later Emperor Claudius (ruled 41–54 CE) which "thoroughly suppressed" the druids by banning their religious practices.


title: Druid

text: The best evidence of a druidic tradition in the British Isles is the independent cognate of the Celtic "*druwid-" in Insular Celtic: The Old Irish "druídecht" survives in the meaning of 'magic', and the Welsh "dryw" in the meaning of 'seer'.


title: Druid

text: While the druids as a priestly caste were extinct with the Christianization of Wales, complete by the 7th century at the latest, the offices of bard and of "seer" () persisted in medieval Wales into the 13th century.


title: Druid

text: Classics professor Phillip Freeman discusses a later reference to 'dryades', which he translates as 'druidesses', writing, "The fourth century A.D. collection of imperial biographies known as the "Historia Augusta" contains three short passages involving Gaulish women called 'dryades' ('druidesses'). He points out that "In all of these, the women may not be direct heirs of the druids who were supposedly extinguished by the Romansbut in any case they do show that the druidic function of prophecy continued among the natives in Roman Gaul." However, the "Historia Augusta" is frequently interpreted by scholars as a largely satirical work, and such details might have been introduced in a humorous fashion. Additionally, female druids are mentioned in later Irish mythology, including the legend of Fionn mac Cumhaill, who, according to the 12th century "The Boyhood Deeds of Fionn", is raised by the woman druid Bodhmall and her companion, another wise-woman.


title: Druid

text: The story of Vortigern, as reported by Nennius, gives one of the very few glimpses of possible druidic survival in Britain after the Roman arrival. He wrote that after being excommunicated by Germanus of Auxerre, the British leader Vortigern invited twelve druids to help him.


title: Druid

text: In the lives of saints and martyrs, the druids are represented as magicians and diviners. In Adamnan's "vita" of Columba, two of them act as tutors to the daughters of Lóegaire mac Néill, the High King of Ireland, at the coming of Saint Patrick. They are represented as endeavouring to prevent the progress of Patrick and Saint Columba by raising clouds and mist. Before the battle of Culdremne (561 CE) a druid made an "airbe drtiad" ("fence of protection"?) round one of the armies, but what is precisely meant by the phrase is unclear. The Irish druids seem to have had a peculiar tonsure. The word "druí" is always used to render the Latin "magus", and in one passage St Columba speaks of Christ as his druid. Similarly, a life of Saint Beuno states that when he died he had a vision of "all the saints and druids".


title: Druid

text: Sulpicius Severus' "vita" of Martin of Tours relates how Martin encountered a peasant funeral, carrying the body in a winding sheet, which Martin mistook for some druidic rites of sacrifice, "because it was the custom of the Gallic rustics in their wretched folly to carry about through the fields the images of demons veiled with a white covering". So Martin halted the procession by raising his pectoral cross: "Upon this, the miserable creatures might have been seen at first to become stiff like rocks. Next, as they endeavoured, with every possible effort, to move forward, but were not able to take a step farther, they began to whirl themselves about in the most ridiculous fashion, until, not able any longer to sustain the weight, they set down the dead body." Then discovering his error, Martin raised his hand again to let them proceed: "Thus", the hagiographer points out, "he both compelled them to stand when he pleased, and permitted them to depart when he thought good."