title: Jane Birkin

text: "Je t'aime" made UK chart history in that on 4 October 1969 and the following week on 11 October, the song was at two different chart positions, though it is the same song, the same artists, and the same recorded version. The only difference was that they were on different record labels. It was originally released on the Fontana label, but due to its controversy, Fontana withdrew the record, which was then released on the Major Minor label. Because Fontana singles were still in the shops along with the Major Minor release, on 4 October 1969, the Major Minor release was at number three and the Fontana single at number 16. Also at that time, it was the biggest-selling single ever for a completely foreign-language record. She appeared on Gainsbourg's 1971 album "Histoire de Melody Nelson", portraying the Lolita-like protagonist in song and on the cover. Reflecting on being a muse and collaborator of Gainsbourg's, Birkin commented: "[It is] very flattering to have the most beautiful songs, probably, in the French language written for one. [But] how much talent did I really have? Perhaps not that much."


title: Jane Birkin

text: She took a break from acting in 1971–1972, but returned as Brigitte Bardot's lover in "Don Juan, or If Don Juan Were a Woman" (1973). The same year, she had a supporting role in the horror film "Dark Places" with Christopher Lee and Joan Collins. In 1975, she appeared in Gainsbourg's first film, "Je t'aime moi non plus", which created a stir for frank examination of sexual ambiguity, and was banned in the United Kingdom by the British Board of Film Classification. For this performance, she was nominated for a Best Actress César Award.


title: Jane Birkin

text: In 1978, Birkin modeled in trade advertisements for Lee Cooper jeans. She then appeared in the Agatha Christie films "Death on the Nile" (1978) and "Evil Under the Sun" (1982), and recorded several albums, including "Baby Alone in Babylone", "Amours des Feintes", "Lolita Go Home", and "Rendez-vous". She won Female Artist of the Year in the 1992 Victoires de la Musique. She starred in two films directed by Jacques Doillon – as Anne in "La fille prodigue" (1981) and as Alma in "La pirate" (1984, nominated for a César Award). This work led to an invitation from Patrice Chéreau to star on stage in "La Fausse suivante" by Marivaux at Nanterre. She worked with director Herbert Vesely on "Egon Schiele Exzess und Bestrafung" in 1980, appearing as the mistress of Austrian artist Egon Schiele, played by Mathieu Carrière. Jacques Rivette collaborated with her in "Love on the Ground" (1983) and "La Belle Noiseuse" (1991, Nominated Césars best supporting actress). In 1985, she co-starred with John Gielgud in "Leave All Fair" (1985).


title: Jane Birkin

text: She appeared in Merchant Ivory's "A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries" (1998) (which also used her song "Di Doo Dah") and in "Merci Docteur Rey" (2002). The end title song for "Le Divorce" (2003) featured her singing "L'Anamour", composed by Gainsbourg. In 2006, she played the title role in "Elektra", directed by Philippe Calvario in France.


title: Jane Birkin

text: Birkin recorded the song "Beauty" on French producer Hector Zazou's album "Strong Currents" (2003). The cover art of "Have You Fed the Fish?" (2002) by singer-songwriter Badly Drawn Boy features her image and backing vocals by her daughter, Charlotte Gainsbourg. In 2006 she recorded and released the album "Fictions", and in 2010, recorded a duet with Brazilian singer Sérgio Dias, which appeared on "We Are the Lilies", an album by Dias and French band Tahiti Boy and the Palmtree Family; the album also featured contributions from Iggy Pop and others.


title: Jane Birkin

text: In 2016, Birkin appeared in an ongoing campaign for Yves Saint Laurent shot by Hedi Slimane, which featured various female musicians, including Marianne Faithfull, Courtney Love, and Joni Mitchell. The same year, she had the lead role in "La femme et le TGV", a short film directed by Swiss filmmaker Timo von Gunten. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film. In a 2017 interview, Birkin stated that "La femme et le TGV" would be her final acting performance, and that she had no plans to return to acting.


title: Jane Birkin

text: On 24 March 2017, Birkin released "Birkin/Gainsbourg: Le Symphonique", a collection of songs Gainsbourg had written for her during and after their relationship, reworked with full orchestral arrangements. In September 2017, she performed live in Brussels in support of the album.


title: Jane Birkin

text: Birkin was married in 1965 to John Barry, who composed the music for many James Bond films and numerous other movies. They met when Barry cast Birkin in his musical "Passion Flower Hotel." Their daughter, the photographer Kate Barry, was born on 8 April 1967 and died on 11 December 2013. The marriage ended in 1968.


title: Jane Birkin

text: She had a passionate and creative relationship with her mentor Serge Gainsbourg, whom she met on the set of "Slogan" in 1968. They were together 12 years but never married, despite rumours and misreporting to the contrary. In 1971, they had a daughter, actress and singer Charlotte Gainsbourg. They separated in 1980.


title: Jane Birkin

text: On 4 September 1982, she gave birth to her third daughter, Lou Doillon, from her relationship with director Jacques Doillon. They separated in the 1990s. "The Observer" reported in 2007 that Doillon "could not compete with her grief for Gainsbourg" (who died in 1991), and that she had lived alone since their separation. Later, Birkin had a relationship with French writer Olivier Rolin.


title: Jane Birkin

text: Her grandchildren are Roman de Kermadec (born 1987) from Kate Barry, Ben (born 1997), Alice (born 2002), and Jo (born 2011) from Charlotte Gainsbourg, and Marlowe (born 2002) from Lou Doillon.


title: Jane Birkin

text: Birkin's humanitarian interests have led her to work with Amnesty International on immigrant welfare and the AIDS epidemic. She has visited Bosnia, Rwanda, Israel and Palestine.


title: Jane Birkin

text: In 2001, Birkin was awarded the OBE. She has also been awarded the French Ordre National du Mérite. She won the "Best Actress" award at the 1985 Orleans Film Festival for "Leave All Fair". The jury of the 1985 Venice Film Festival recognised Birkin's performance in "Dust" as amongst the best of the year, but decided not to award a best actress prize because all of the actresses they judged to have made the best performances were in films that won major awards. "Dust" won the Silver Lion prize. In 2018, she received Japanese Order of the Rising Sun.


title: Jane Birkin

text: Birkin carried, a hand-woven Castro Marim, Algarve, Portugal, straw basket, everywhere, from the market, to nightclubs, to formal events, until Jacques Doillon's car intentionally ran over the basket.<ref name="vogue/birkin-basket"></ref><ref name="lofficielbaltic/birkin-basket"></ref><ref name="gettyimages/birkin-basket"></ref><ref name="i-d.vice/akw8xb"></ref><ref name="google/books=QJh5DwAAQBAJ"></ref><ref name="thechicflaneuse/birkin-basket"></ref><ref name="theguardian/worldmusic.paris/Birkin"></ref><ref name="yahoo/190000534"></ref><ref name="independent.ie/40088229"></ref>


title: Jane Birkin

text: In 1983, Hermès chief executive Jean-Louis Dumas was seated next to Birkin on a flight from Paris to London. Birkin had just placed her straw basket in the overhead compartment of her seat, but the contents fell to the floor, leaving her to scramble to replace the contents. Birkin explained to Dumas that it had been difficult to find a leather weekend bag she liked. In 1984, he created a black supple leather bag for her: the Birkin bag, based on a 1982 design. She used the bag initially, but later changed her mind because she was carrying too many things in it: "What's the use of having a second one?" she said laughingly. "You only need one and that busts your arm; they're bloody heavy. I'm going to have an operation for tendonitis in the shoulder." Nonetheless, Birkin did use the bag for some time. The Birkin bag has, over the years, become a status symbol, with prices ranging from US$10,000 to $500,000.


title: Jane Birkin

text: In 2015, Birkin wrote a public letter to Hermès requesting her name be removed from the bag, stating she wanted the company to "debaptise the Birkin Croco until better practices in line with international norms can be put in place," referring to the cruel methods used to acquire the skins for the bags. Hermès announced soon afterwards that it had satisfied Birkin with new reassurances on this.


title: Rachel Levine

text: Rachel Leland Levine (; born October 28, 1957) is an American pediatrician who has served as the United States assistant secretary for health since March 26, 2021. She is also a four-star admiral in the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps.


title: Rachel Levine

text: Levine is a professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at the Penn State College of Medicine, and previously served as the Pennsylvania physician general from 2015 to 2017 and as secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Health from 2017 to 2021. Levine is one of only a few openly transgender government officials in the United States, and is the first to hold an office that requires Senate confirmation. On October 19, 2021, Levine became the first openly transgender four-star officer in the nation's eight uniformed services.


title: Rachel Levine

text: Levine was named as one of "USA Today"'s women of the year in 2022, which recognizes women who have made a significant impact on society.


title: Rachel Levine

text: Born on October 28, 1957, Levine is originally from Wakefield, Massachusetts. Her parents, Melvin and Lillian Levine, were both lawyers. She has a sister, Bonnie Levine, who is four years older. Levine is Jewish and grew up attending Hebrew school. Levine earned a high school diploma from Belmont Hill School in Belmont, Massachusetts.


title: Rachel Levine

text: Levine graduated from Harvard College and the Tulane University School of Medicine and completed a residency in pediatrics and a postdoctoral fellowship in adolescent medicine at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in Manhattan, New York.


title: Rachel Levine

text: After completing her training in pediatrics and psychiatry at New York City's Mount Sinai Hospital, Levine moved from Manhattan to central Pennsylvania in 1993 where she joined the faculty of the Penn State College of Medicine and the staff at Penn State Hershey Medical Center. During her tenure there, she created Penn State Hershey Medical Center's Division of Adolescent Medicine and the Penn State Hershey Eating Disorders Program. She was in charge of the latter when she was nominated for the position of Pennsylvania physician general in 2015.


title: Rachel Levine

text: In 2015, Levine was nominated by Pennsylvania Governor-elect Tom Wolf to serve as Pennsylvania's physician general. In one of her most lauded actions as physician general, Levine signed an order allowing law enforcement officers to carry the anti-overdose medication naloxone.


title: Rachel Levine

text: In July 2017, Governor Wolf appointed Levine as Secretary of Health, and she was unanimously confirmed by the Pennsylvania State Senate.


title: Rachel Levine

text: During 2020 and until January 23, 2021, Levine led the public health response on COVID-19 in Pennsylvania as the state secretary of health. She worked closely on a daily basis with the FEMA director and led a daily press briefing. Along with Gov. Tom Wolf, Levine faced criticism from a few Republican leaders over her handling of the pandemic, particularly with regard to nursing home patients.


title: Rachel Levine

text: On March 18, 2020, Levine directed Pennsylvania nursing homes to admit new patients, including stable patients recovering from the COVID-19 virus who were released from the hospital. Despite warnings from nursing home trade groups that such policies could unnecessarily cost more lives, there is no evidence that Levine placed COVID-positive patients in nursing home facilities or that her decision resulted in excess death among the elderly. Levine was also criticized for mishandling COVID data reporting and insufficiently addressing the long-standing oversight problems in Pennsylvania nursing homes that were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Levine faced further scrutiny in May 2020, when she moved her own mother out of a nursing home. In defending the move, Levine said, "My mother requested, and my sister and I, as her children, complied to move her to another location during the COVID-19 outbreak" and described her mother as "more than competent to make her own decisions." These issues were momentarily highlighted by Republican lawmakers after President Biden nominated Levine for the post of United States Assistant Secretary for Health. However, Levine's leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic has been widely praised as calm and steadfast by many Pennsylvanians and local media outlets.


title: Rachel Levine

text: On February 13, 2021, President Joe Biden formally nominated Levine to serve as Assistant Secretary for Health. Her confirmation hearing with the Senate HELP Committee took place on February 25. On March 17, the committee voted 13–9 to advance her nomination for a full Senate vote. On March 24, the Senate voted 52–48, with all Democrats and two Republicans — Susan Collins from Maine and Lisa Murkowski from Alaska — joining all members of the Senate Democratic Caucus to confirm her nomination. Levine is the first openly transgender person to hold an office that requires Senate confirmation.


title: Rachel Levine

text: On October 19, 2021, Levine was commissioned as a four-star admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, becoming the first openly transgender four-star officer in any of the United States uniformed services. She is also the first female four-star admiral in the Commissioned Corps.


title: Rachel Levine

text: Shortly after her confirmation, Levine told NBC News that LGBTQ youth are topmost in her mind when it comes to addressing health disparities in the United States. She cited bullying, suicide, discriminatory policies, and isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic as pressing issues among LGBTQ youth. Levine has also expressed concerns about vaccine hesitancy among LGBTQ youth who are more likely to experience medical distrust and less likely to seek medical care.


title: Rachel Levine

text: During an April 2022 speech at Texas Christian University, Levine criticized "disturbing - and frankly discriminatory - laws and actions" that many states have implemented that affect the lives of LGBTQ youth. In an interview with NPR, she cited a range of policies, including Florida's "Don't Say Gay" bill and Texas' push to investigate parents who provide gender-affirming care to their transgender children. Arguing that such policies are based on politics rather than public health, Levine encouraged people to contact the Office for Civil Rights when they feel they are being discriminated against and vowed to provide support to those who contact her office.


title: Rachel Levine

text: Levine has two children. She transitioned from male to female in 2011. Levine and her ex-wife, Martha Peaslee Levine, married in 1988, during Levine's last year of medical school, and divorced in 2013. She has served as a board member of Equality Pennsylvania, an LGBT rights organization.


title: Rachel Levine

text: Levine was named as one of "USA Today"'s women of the year in 2022, which recognizes women who have made a significant impact.


title: Constellation

text: A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object.


title: Constellation

text: The origins of the earliest constellations likely go back to prehistory. People used them to relate stories of their beliefs, experiences, creation, or mythology. Different cultures and countries adopted their own constellations, some of which lasted into the early 20th century before today's constellations were internationally recognized. The recognition of constellations has changed significantly over time. Many changed in size or shape. Some became popular, only to drop into obscurity. Some were limited to a single culture or nation.


title: Constellation

text: The 48 traditional Western constellations are Greek. They are given in Aratus' work "Phenomena" and Ptolemy's "Almagest", though their origin probably predates these works by several centuries. Constellations in the far southern sky were added from the 15th century until the mid-18th century when European explorers began traveling to the Southern Hemisphere. Twelve (or thirteen) ancient constellations belong to the zodiac (straddling the ecliptic, which the Sun, Moon, and planets all traverse). The origins of the zodiac remain historically uncertain; its astrological divisions became prominent 400 BC in Babylonian or Chaldean astronomy.


title: Constellation

text: In 1922, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) formally accepted the modern list of 88 constellations, and in 1928 adopted official constellation boundaries that together cover the entire celestial sphere. Any given point in a celestial coordinate system lies in one of the modern constellations. Some astronomical naming systems include the constellation where a given celestial object is found to convey its approximate location in the sky. The Flamsteed designation of a star, for example, consists of a number and the genitive form of the constellation's name.


title: Constellation

text: Other star patterns or groups called asterisms are not constellations under the formal definition, but are also used by observers to navigate the night sky. Asterisms may be several stars within a constellation, or they may share stars with more than one constellation. Examples of asterisms include the teapot within the constellation Sagittarius, or the big dipper in the constellation of Ursa Major.


title: Constellation

text: The word "constellation" comes from the Late Latin term , which can be translated as "set of stars"; it came into use in Middle English during the 14th century. The Ancient Greek word for constellation is ἄστρον ("astron"). These terms historically referred to any recognisable pattern of stars whose appearance was associated with mythological characters or creatures, earthbound animals, or objects. Over time, among European astronomers, the constellations became clearly defined and widely recognised. Today, there are 88 IAU designated constellations.


title: Constellation

text: A constellation or star that never sets below the horizon when viewed from a particular latitude on Earth is termed circumpolar. From the North Pole or South Pole, all constellations south or north of the celestial equator are circumpolar. Depending on the definition, equatorial constellations may include those that lie between declinations 45° north and 45° south, or those that pass through the declination range of the ecliptic or zodiac ranging between 23½° north, the celestial equator, and 23½° south.


title: Constellation

text: Stars in constellations can appear near each other in the sky, but they usually lie at a variety of distances away from the Earth. Since each star has its own independent motion, all constellations will change slowly over time. After tens to hundreds of thousands of years, familiar outlines will become unrecognizable. Astronomers can predict the past or future constellation outlines by measuring individual stars' common proper motions or cpm by accurate astrometry and their radial velocities by astronomical spectroscopy.


title: Constellation

text: The 88 constellations recognized by the International Astronomical Union as well as those that cultures have recognized throughout history are imagined figures and shapes derived from the patterns of stars in the observable sky. Many officially recognized constellations are based in the imaginations of ancient, Near Eastern and Mediterranean mythologies. H.A. Rey, who wrote popular books on astronomy, pointed out the imaginative nature of the constellations and their mythological, artistic basis, and the practical use of identifying them through definite images, according to the classical names they were given.


title: Constellation

text: It has been suggested that the 17,000-year-old cave paintings in Lascaux Southern France depict star constellations such as Taurus, Orion's Belt, and the Pleiades. However, this view is not generally accepted among scientists.


title: Constellation

text: Inscribed stones and clay writing tablets from Mesopotamia (in modern Iraq) dating to 3000 BC provide the earliest generally accepted evidence for humankind's identification of constellations. It seems that the bulk of the Mesopotamian constellations were created within a relatively short interval from around 1300 to 1000 BC. Mesopotamian constellations appeared later in many of the classical Greek constellations.


title: Constellation

text: The oldest Babylonian catalogues of stars and constellations date back to the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age, most notably the "Three Stars Each" texts and the "MUL.APIN", an expanded and revised version based on more accurate observation from around 1000 BC. However, the numerous Sumerian names in these catalogues suggest that they built on older, but otherwise unattested, Sumerian traditions of the Early Bronze Age.


title: Constellation

text: The classical Zodiac is a revision of Neo-Babylonian constellations from the 6th century BC. The Greeks adopted the Babylonian constellations in the 4th century BC. Twenty Ptolemaic constellations are from the Ancient Near East. Another ten have the same stars but different names.


title: Constellation

text: Biblical scholar E. W. Bullinger interpreted some of the creatures mentioned in the books of Ezekiel and Revelation as the middle signs of the four-quarters of the Zodiac, with the Lion as Leo, the Bull as Taurus, the Man representing Aquarius, and the Eagle standing in for Scorpio. The biblical Book of Job also makes reference to a number of constellations, including "bier", "fool" and "heap" (Job 9:9, 38:31–32), rendered as "Arcturus, Orion and Pleiades" by the KJV, but "‘Ayish" "the bier" actually corresponding to Ursa Major. The term "Mazzaroth" , translated as "a garland of crowns", is a "hapax legomenon" in Job 38:32, and it might refer to the zodiacal constellations.


title: Constellation

text: There is only limited information on ancient Greek constellations, with some fragmentary evidence being found in the "Works and Days" of the Greek poet Hesiod, who mentioned the "heavenly bodies". Greek astronomy essentially adopted the older Babylonian system in the Hellenistic era, first introduced to Greece by Eudoxus of Cnidus in the 4th century BC. The original work of Eudoxus is lost, but it survives as a versification by Aratus, dating to the 3rd century BC. The most complete existing works dealing with the mythical origins of the constellations are by the Hellenistic writer termed pseudo-Eratosthenes and an early Roman writer styled pseudo-Hyginus. The basis of Western astronomy as taught during Late Antiquity and until the Early Modern period is the "Almagest" by Ptolemy, written in the 2nd century.


title: Constellation

text: In the Ptolemaic Kingdom, native Egyptian tradition of anthropomorphic figures represented the planets, stars, and various constellations. Some of these were combined with Greek and Babylonian astronomical systems culminating in the Zodiac of Dendera; it remains unclear when this occurred, but most were placed during the Roman period between 2nd to 4th centuries AD. The oldest known depiction of the zodiac showing all the now familiar constellations, along with some original Egyptian constellations, decans, and planets. Ptolemy's "Almagest" remained the standard definition of constellations in the medieval period both in Europe and in Islamic astronomy.


title: Constellation

text: Ancient China had a long tradition of observing celestial phenomena. Nonspecific Chinese star names, later categorized in the twenty-eight mansions, have been found on oracle bones from Anyang, dating back to the middle Shang dynasty. These constellations are some of the most important observations of Chinese sky, attested from the 5th century BC. Parallels to the earliest Babylonian (Sumerian) star catalogues suggest that the ancient Chinese system did not arise independently.


title: Constellation

text: Three schools of classical Chinese astronomy in the Han period are attributed to astronomers of the earlier Warring States period. The constellations of the three schools were conflated into a single system by Chen Zhuo, an astronomer of the 3rd century (Three Kingdoms period). Chen Zhuo's work has been lost, but information on his system of constellations survives in Tang period records, notably by Qutan Xida. The oldest extant Chinese star chart dates to that period and was preserved as part of the Dunhuang Manuscripts. Native Chinese astronomy flourished during the Song dynasty, and during the Yuan dynasty became increasingly influenced by medieval Islamic astronomy (see Treatise on Astrology of the Kaiyuan Era). As maps were prepared during this period on more scientific lines, they were considered as more reliable.


title: Constellation

text: A well-known map from the Song period is the Suzhou Astronomical Chart, which was prepared with carvings of stars on the planisphere of the Chinese sky on a stone plate; it is done accurately based on observations, and it shows the supernova of the year of 1054 in Taurus.


title: Constellation

text: Influenced by European astronomy during the late Ming dynasty, charts depicted more stars but retained the traditional constellations. Newly observed stars were incorporated as supplementary to old constellations in the southern sky, which did not depict the traditional stars recorded by ancient Chinese astronomers. Further improvements were made during the later part of the Ming dynasty by Xu Guangqi and Johann Adam Schall von Bell, the German Jesuit and was recorded in Chongzhen Lishu (Calendrical Treatise of Chongzhen period, 1628). Traditional Chinese star maps incorporated 23 new constellations with 125 stars of the southern hemisphere of the sky based on the knowledge of Western star charts; with this improvement, the Chinese Sky was integrated with the World astronomy.


title: Constellation

text: Historically, the origins of the constellations of the northern and southern skies are distinctly different. Most northern constellations date to antiquity, with names based mostly on Classical Greek legends. Evidence of these constellations has survived in the form of star charts, whose oldest representation appears on the statue known as the Farnese Atlas, based perhaps on the star catalogue of the Greek astronomer Hipparchus. Southern constellations are more modern inventions, sometimes as substitutes for ancient constellations (e.g. Argo Navis). Some southern constellations had long names that were shortened to more usable forms; e.g. Musca Australis became simply Musca.


title: Constellation

text: Some of the early constellations were never universally adopted. Stars were often grouped into constellations differently by different observers, and the arbitrary constellation boundaries often led to confusion as to which constellation a celestial object belonged. Before astronomers delineated precise boundaries (starting in the 19th century), constellations generally appeared as ill-defined regions of the sky. Today they now follow officially accepted designated lines of right ascension and declination based on those defined by Benjamin Gould in epoch 1875.0 in his star catalogue "Uranometria Argentina".


title: Constellation

text: The 1603 star atlas "Uranometria" of Johann Bayer assigned stars to individual constellations and formalized the division by assigning a series of Greek and Latin letters to the stars within each constellation. These are known today as Bayer designations. Subsequent star atlases led to the development of today's accepted modern constellations.


title: Constellation

text: The southern sky, below about −65° declination, was only partially catalogued by ancient Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, Chinese, and Persian astronomers of the north. The knowledge that northern and southern star patterns differed goes back to Classical writers, who describe, for example, the African circumnavigation expedition commissioned by Egyptian Pharaoh Necho II in c. 600 BC and those of Hanno the Navigator in c. 500 BC.


title: Constellation

text: The history of southern constellations is not straightforward. Different groupings and different names were proposed by various observers, some reflecting national traditions or designed to promote various sponsors. Southern constellations were important from the 14th to 16th centuries, when sailors used the stars for celestial navigation. Italian explorers who recorded new southern constellations include Andrea Corsali, Antonio Pigafetta, and Amerigo Vespucci.


title: Constellation

text: Many of the 88 IAU-recognized constellations in this region first appeared on celestial globes developed in the late 16th century by Petrus Plancius, based mainly on observations of the Dutch navigators Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman. These became widely known through Johann Bayer's star atlas "Uranometria" of 1603. more were created in 1763 by the French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille, who also split the ancient constellation Argo Navis into three; these new figures appeared in his star catalogue, published in 1756.


title: Constellation

text: Several modern proposals have not survived. The French astronomers Pierre Lemonnier and Joseph Lalande, for example, proposed constellations that were once popular but have since been dropped. The northern constellation Quadrans Muralis survived into the 19th century (when its name was attached to the Quadrantid meteor shower), but is now divided between Boötes and Draco.


title: Constellation

text: A list of 88 constellations was produced for the International Astronomical Union in 1922. It is roughly based on the traditional Greek constellations listed by Ptolemy in his "Almagest" in the 2nd century and Aratus' work "Phenomena", with early modern modifications and additions (most importantly introducing constellations covering the parts of the southern sky unknown to Ptolemy) by Petrus Plancius (1592, 1597/98 and 1613), Johannes Hevelius (1690) and Nicolas Louis de Lacaille (1763), who introduced fourteen new constellations. Lacaille studied the stars of the southern hemisphere from 1751 until 1752 from the Cape of Good Hope, when he was said to have observed more than 10,000 stars using a refracting telescope.


title: Constellation

text: In 1922, Henry Norris Russell produced a list of 88 constellations with three-letter abbreviations for them. However, these constellations did not have clear borders between them. In 1928, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) formally accepted 88 modern constellations, with contiguous boundaries along vertical and horizontal lines of right ascension and declination developed by Eugene Delporte that, together, cover the entire celestial sphere; this list was finally published in 1930. Where possible, these modern constellations usually share the names of their Graeco-Roman predecessors, such as Orion, Leo or Scorpius. The aim of this system is area-mapping, i.e. the division of the celestial sphere into contiguous fields. Out of the 88 modern constellations, 36 lie predominantly in the northern sky, and the other 52 predominantly in the southern.


title: Constellation

text: The boundaries developed by Delporte used data that originated back to epoch B1875.0, which was when Benjamin A. Gould first made his proposal to designate boundaries for the celestial sphere, a suggestion on which Delporte based his work. The consequence of this early date is that because of the precession of the equinoxes, the borders on a modern star map, such as epoch J2000, are already somewhat skewed and no longer perfectly vertical or horizontal. This effect will increase over the years and centuries to come.


title: Constellation

text: The constellations have no official symbols, though those of the ecliptic may take the signs of the zodiac. Symbols for the other modern constellations, as well as older ones that still occur in modern nomenclature, have occasionally been published.


title: Constellation

text: The Great Rift, a series of dark patches in the Milky Way, is more visible and striking in the southern hemisphere than in the northern. It vividly stands out when conditions are otherwise so dark that the Milky Way's central region casts shadows on the ground. Some cultures have discerned shapes in these patches and have given names to these "dark cloud constellations". Members of the Inca civilization identified various dark areas or dark nebulae in the Milky Way as animals and associated their appearance with the seasonal rains. Australian Aboriginal astronomy also describes dark cloud constellations, the most famous being the "emu in the sky" whose head is formed by the Coalsack, a dark nebula, instead of the stars.


title: Shiv Sena

text: Shiv Sena (IAST: "Śiva Sēnā") () was a right-wing to far-right Marathi regionalist and Hindu ultranationalist political party in India founded in 1966 by cartoonist Bal Thackeray. Originally emerging from nativist movements in Bombay (present-day Mumbai), the party agitated for preferential treatment for the Marathi people over migrants from other parts of India. Its election symbol for Maharashtra was the "Bow and Arrow".


title: Shiv Sena

text: Although the party's primary base always remained in Maharashtra, it tried to expand to a pan-Indian base. In the 1970s, it gradually moved from advocating a pro-Marathi ideology to one supporting a broader Hindu nationalist agenda, and aligned itself with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The party took part in Mumbai (BMC) municipal elections for its entire existence. In 1989, it entered into an alliance with the BJP for Lok Sabha as well as Maharashtra Legislative Assembly elections. The alliance in the latter was temporarily broken in the 2014 elections, although it was quickly reformed. Shiv Sena was a coalition partner in the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) from 1998 until 2019, including the Vajpayee Government from 1998–2004 and the Narendra Modi Government from 2014–2019.


title: Shiv Sena

text: After the October 2019 Maharashtra elections, Shiv Sena claimed that promises were not kept by their alliance partner the BJP and broke ties. The party joined hands with the Indian National Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party in to form a government in Maharashtra. This alliance lost power in 2022 after Eknath Shinde, a rebel Shiv Sena leader, gathered the support of a majority of Shiv Sena MLAs along with the BJP and became Chief Minister of Maharashtra. The party subsequently split in two, with Shinde's faction forming Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena and the faction of erstwhile leader Uddhav Thackeray forming Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray).


title: Shiv Sena

text: The party had a powerful hold over the Hindi film industry. It has been referred to as an "extremist", "chauvinist", or "fascist" party. Shiv Sena has been blamed for the 1970 communal violence in Bhiwandi, the 1984 Bhiwandi riot, and violence in the 1992–1993 Bombay riots.


title: Shiv Sena

text: The party draws its strength from the support of the Maratha and Kunbi communities of Maharashtra which Shiv Sena drew away from the Indian National Congress.


title: Shiv Sena

text: After the Independence of India in 1947, regional administrative divisions from the colonial era were gradually changed and states following linguistic borders were created. Within the Bombay Presidency, a massive popular struggle was launched for the creation of a state for the Marathi-speaking people. In 1960, the presidency was divided into two linguistic states - Gujarat and Maharashtra. Moreover, Marathi-speaking areas of the erstwhile Hyderabad state were joined with Maharashtra. Bombay, in many ways the economic capital of India, became the state capital of Maharashtra. On one hand, people belonging to the Gujarati community owned the majority of the industry and trade enterprises in the city.<ref name="Public sector, Threats against other communities, businesses owned especially by Gujarati and Marwaris/">


title: Shiv Sena

text: On the other hand, there was a steady flow of South Indian migrants to the city who came to take many white-collar jobs.


title: Shiv Sena

text: In 1960 Bal Thackeray, a Bombay-based cartoonist, began publishing the satirical cartoon weekly "Marmik". Through this publication, he started disseminating anti-migrant sentiments. On 19 June 1966, Thackeray founded the Shiv Sena as a political organisation.


title: Shiv Sena

text: The Shiv Sena attracted many unemployed Marathi youth, who were attracted by Thackeray's charged anti-migrant oratory. Shiv Sena cadres became involved in various attacks against the South Indian communities, vandalizing South Indian restaurants and pressuring employers to hire Marathis.<ref name="Rediff article: sons of the soil, lungi slogan, shakhas, south Indians in 1970, shift to Hindutva, defeat of communists/"></ref>


title: Shiv Sena

text: The Sena started placing more weight on the Hindutva ideology in the 1970s as the 'sons of the soil' cause was weakening.


title: Shiv Sena

text: The party began a coalition with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for seats in the Lok Sabha and the Maharashtra Assembly from 1989. The two formed a government in Maharashtra between 1995 and 1999. The Sena was the opposition party in the state along with the BJP from 1999 to 2014. However, the 25 year alliance with the BJP was threatened in 2014 Maharashtra Assembly elections over seat sharing and both contested the election independently. With the BJP becoming the largest party following the 2014 election, Sena declared opposition. However, after negotiations, Sena agreed to join the government in Maharashtra. The Shiv Sena-BJP combine governs the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation. Traditionally the main strongholds of Shiv Sena have been Mumbai and the Konkan coastal areas. However, in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections the result was reversed. The Shiv Sena made inroads in the interior parts of the state, while suffering losses in Mumbai.


title: Shiv Sena

text: In July 2005, Former Maharashtra Chief Minister and Sena leader Narayan Rane was expelled from the party, which sparked internal conflict in the party. In December the same year Raj Thackeray, Bal Thackeray's nephew, left the party. Raj Thackeray later founded a new party, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS). After the split, clashes have occurred between followers of the two Senas.


title: Shiv Sena

text: Although the MNS is a break-away group from the Shiv Sena, the party is still based in Bhumiputra ideology. When unveiling the party in an assembly at Shivaji Park he said, everyone is anxious to see what will happen to Hindutva and, "I shall elaborate on the party's stance on issues like Hindutva, its agenda for development of Maharashtra and the significance of the party flag colours at the 19 March public meeting."


title: Shiv Sena

text: Bal Thackeray's son Uddhav Thackeray became the party's leader in 2004, although Bal Thackeray continued to be an important figurehead. After the death of Bal Thackeray on 17 November 2012, Uddhav became the leader of the party but refused to take the title "Shiv Sena Pramukh" (Shiv Sena Supremo).


title: Shiv Sena

text: Following the 2019 Maharashtra Legislative Assembly election, which was contested by Shiv Sena as part of an alliance with the BJP, the longtime allies


title: Shiv Sena

text: In January 2018, Shiv Sena officially cut ties with the BJP and their National Democratic Alliance (NDA) coalition ahead of the 2019 Indian general election after nearly 30 years of campaigning alongside the BJP. But in February 2019, BJP and Shiv Sena announced the resumption of their alliance for the general elections as well as the 2019 Maharashtra Legislative Assembly election. The election saw Shiv Sena lose votes, after which they declined to support the BJP in forming a government over the BJP's refusal to engage in power-sharing. Shiv Sena withdrew from the NDA, precipitating a political crisis in late October-early November 2019. Ultimately, the crisis led to party leader Uddhav Thackeray becoming Chief Minister through the support of the Indian National Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party. The three parties formed the Maha Vikas Aghadi sub-alliance to govern Maharashtra.


title: Shiv Sena

text: In 2022, during a party meeting, Thackeray explained his move to pull out of NDA to join the United Progressive Alliance. "We supported the BJP wholeheartedly to enable them to fulfill their national ambitions. The understanding was they will go national while we will lead in Maharashtra. But we were betrayed and attempts were made to destroy us in our home. So we had to hit back". Thackeray accused BJP of dumping its allies according to its political convenience. He said, "BJP doesn't mean Hindutva. I stand by my comment that Shiv Sena had wasted 25 years in alliance with BJP."


title: Shiv Sena

text: On 20 June 2022, elections to the Maharashtra Legislative Council were held, in which members of the Legislative Assembly voted to elect members of the upper house. Shiv Sena and its allies won less seats than expected, while the BJP won more. This was attributed to some members of Shiv Sena cross-voting for BJP candidates. Immediately afterward, Eknath Shinde, a senior Shiv Sena leader, began negotiating with the BJP with the support of several Shiv Sena MLAs.


title: Shiv Sena

text: On 29 June 2022, Uddhav Thackeray resigned from the post of Chief Minister as well as from the Legislative Council after the Supreme Court ruled that he must prove his majority. A new government was formed that included the BJP and a majority of Shiv Sena MLAs. On 30 June, Eknath Shinde was sworn in as the new Chief Minister with Devendra Fadnavis of the BJP as Deputy CM.


title: Shiv Sena

text: As a result of the political crisis, Shiv Sena split into two parties, with Shinde's supporters forming Balasahebanchi Shiv Sena, and the faction remaining loyal to Thackeray forming Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray). As an interim measure, neither party was designated as Shiv Sena's legal successor.


title: Shiv Sena

text: The "ShivsenaPramukh" (Chief) of the party is the post equivalent to the president of an organisation. This post is an hereditary post.The current "ShivsenaPramukh" is Uddhav Thackeray while his son Aditya Thackeray being the crowned "ShivsenaPramukh".As the "Pramukh" (Chief) of the party, Bal Thackeray took all major decisions while the activists and members of the Shiv Sena "Shiv Sainiks" carried out most of the party's grassroots work. During his last days, the day-to-day activities of the party were handled by his youngest son Uddhav Thackeray. Aditya Thackeray, son of Uddhav Thackeray, became the leader of the Yuva Sena, the Youth Wing of the party. After Bal Thackerey's death in 2012, the party was de facto led by Uddhav Thackeray.


title: Shiv Sena

text: The Sena Bhavan located in the Dadar locality in Mumbai has served as the Headquarters of the Sena since 1976. The Sena's "shakhas" (Branches) spread throughout the state of Maharashtra as well as in selected locations in other states, which decide on most of the local issues in their localities.


title: Shiv Sena

text: The Sthaniya Lokadhikar Samiti is affiliated with the Shiv Sena. It advocates the preservation of rights of employment for Maharashtrians in Maharashtra.


title: Shiv Sena

text: People of various Maharashtrian castes worked together in the Sena. The party's leaders mostly came from the so-called "high castes" i.e. Brahmins, CKPs and Pathare Prabhus - Thackerey, Manohar Joshi, Sudhir Joshi, Balwant Mantri, Dr Hemchandra Gupte, Shyam Deshmukh, Madhav Deshpande, Datta Pradhan, Vijay Parvatkar, Madhukar Sarpotdar and Pramod Navalkar.


title: Shiv Sena

text: One of the above-mentioned leaders, Dr.Hemchandra Gupte, Mayor of Bombay in the early 70s and the former family physician and confidante of Thackeray, quit Shivsena in "disgust" citing importance given to money, violence committed by the Shivsainiks and Thackeray's support for Mrs.Gandhi during the 1975 emergency.


title: Shiv Sena

text: There were also leaders from other castes such as Dattaji Salvi, Dattaji Nalawade and Wamanrao Mahadik, and those from the so-called lower castes such as Chaggan Bhujbal, Leeladhar Dake, Bhai Shingre and Vijay Gaonkar.


title: Shiv Sena

text: Over the years, other than the Sena Chief, there have been twelve senior leaders in the party, called 'Netas'. Out of these, eight have been


title: Shiv Sena

text: upper caste (four Brahmins, two CKPs and two Pathare Prabhus). Others have been either Maratha (Dattaji Salvi), Shimpi (Wamanrao Mahadik), Agri (Leeladhar Dake) or Mali (Chaggan Bhujbal). In fact, Bhujbal quit the party accusing the Sena of upper-caste bias in the leadership.


title: Shiv Sena

text: The number of dalits were also not insignificant. And even after the Sena opposed the reservations proposed by the Mandal commission, there was no dent in the percentage of OBCs in the Sena. In this way, the Sena was successful in uniting all Maharashtrians irrespective of caste under the common "Marathi umbrella". The agenda of preferential treatment for the "sons of the soil" i.e. Maharashtrians brought them all together.


title: Shiv Sena

text: Shiv Sena's strength in the late 1980s and early '90s mainly came from the support of the Maratha caste - which it drew away from the Congress. Citing the large percentage of MLAs elected from Shiv Sena belonging to the Maratha caste, Vora from the University of Pune concludes that the Shiv Sena has been emerging as a "Maratha Party".


title: Shiv Sena

text: is a building which houses the central office of the Shiv Sena in Mumbai, India. It is located on Ram Ganesh Gadkari Chowk and Shivaji Park in Dadar. It was inaugurated on 19 June 1977. The refurbished Sena Bhavan was inaugurated on 27 July 2006. It has a Copper Statue of Shivaji Maharaj and a Large Poster of Balasaheb Thackeray.


title: Shiv Sena

text: In the 1993 Bombay bombings, a group of terrorists attacked the building as well as a number of other major buildings in the city.


title: Shiv Sena

text: The Sena says it has played a central role in the emancipation of 500,000 slum dwellers in the Dharavi area of Mumbai, the largest slum in Asia. However, the policy of giving free houses to slum dwellers has been controversial since it was introduced by the then Shiv Sena-BJP government.


title: Shiv Sena

text: In the 1970s, Shiv Sena was opposed to the Namantar Andolan, a Dalit-led movement to change the name of Marathwada University in Aurangabad to "Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar University", and supported views of conservative Marathas.


title: Shiv Sena

text: In 1996, Shiv Sena organised the first and only live concert of American pop icon Michael Jackson in India to raise the funds for its business wing and to help create over two-hundred seventy thousand jobs for people of Maharashtra.


title: Shiv Sena

text: In December 2003, Shiv Sena activists damaged the cricket pitch of the Agra Sport Stadium which was supposed to host the cricket match between Pakistan and India. In April 2005, Bharatiya Vidyarthi Sena, the student wing of Shiv Sena, attempted to prevent the India-Pakistan One-day international match being held in New Delhi. The protester's spokesman demanded:


title: Shiv Sena

text: The Sena acted as a "moral police" and opposed Valentine's Day celebrations. On 14 February 2006, Bal Thackeray condemned and apologised for the violent attacks by its Shiv Sainiks on a private celebration in Mumbai. "It is said that women were beaten up in the Nallasopara incident. If that really happened, then it is a symbol of cowardice. I have always instructed Shiv Sainiks that in any situation women should not be humiliated and harassed." Thackeray and the Shiv Sena remained opposed to it, although they indicated support for an "Indian alternative".


title: Shiv Sena

text: On 20 November 2009, Shiv Sena activists attacked and vandalised the offices of Hindi and Marathi TV news channels IBN7 and IBN-Lokmat, located in Mumbai and Pune respectively. The Shivsainik slapped IBN7's senior editor Ravindra Ambekar and then attacked IBN-Lokmat's editor Nikhil Wagle. Shiv Sena attributed the attacks to the criticisms of Bal Thackeray by the news channel over his remarks on Sachin Tendulkar. Shiv Sena's Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut described the attacks as "spontaneous". Shiv Sena spokespersons tried to justify the attacks and refused to apologize for their acts of violence.


title: Shiv Sena

text: Shiv Sena got an entry in Guinness Book of World Records in 2010 for "collecting maximum blood in a day". Shiv Sena organized a blood donation camp which collected over 24,000 bottles of blood in a single day. Later this world record was broken by a blood donation camp of HDFC Bank in 2014.


title: Shiv Sena

text: On 2 November 2014, during the Kiss of Love protest against moral policing, members of Shiv Sena, Bajrang Dal, Vishwa Hindu Parishad and many other right wing groups opposed and attacked protestors and threatened to strip protestors for kissing on the streets. These opposing groups claimed that public display of affection is against both Indian culture and the law of the land (under section 294 of the Indian Penal Code), though according to the Supreme Court and the Delhi High Court, kissing in public is not a criminal offence. Police took many of the Kiss of Love protestors into custody to save their lives, but were blamed for giving a free hand to counter protestors of the right wing groups.


title: Shiv Sena

text: In October 2015, Shiv Sena issued threats which enforced a ban on a scheduled concert by Pakistani classic singer Ghulam Ali. The move was adopted to appease anti-Pakistan constituents to vote for Sena in coming elections. However, in 2015 Pakistan urged the international community to take note of the activities of Shiv Sena, while Shiv Sena claimed that criticism of Shiv Sena by Pakistan vindicates "our patriotism".


title: Shiv Sena

text: On 19 October 2015, Shiv Sena activists attacked and vandalised the office of BCCI to stop a meeting between PCB and BCCI officials. The activists shouted anti-Pakistan slogans and held posters that read 'Shahryar Khan go back', determined to stop Manohar from meeting his Pakistani counterpart. Shiv Sena has also threatened to stop Pakistan's Aleem Dar from officiating in the fifth and final ODI between India and South Africa.


title: Shiv Sena

text: In 2015 Shiv Sena announced 10,000 rupees help to each drought-affected farmer of Marathwada region, while they also announced 2 lakh rupees "reward" to Hindus family who had 5 children between 2010 and 2015 in Uttar Pradesh. As per Shiv Sena, the reason behind the "reward" was "decline in growth rate of Hindu population compared to Muslim population as per recent census".


title: Shiv Sena

text: In January 2016, the Shiv Sena demanded that the words “secular” and “socialist” be “permanently removed” from the Constitution's Preamble which were added in the 42nd amendment during the emergency. In April 2019, party member Sanjay Raut called for the burka to be banned.


title: Shiv Sena

text: During the 2018 Maharashtra Council election and the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, many candidates fielded by Shiv Sena had criminal records or had criminal charges pending against them.


title: Shannon Lee

text: Shannon Emery Lee Keasler (born April 19, 1969) is an American actress and businesswoman. She is the only living child of martial artist Bruce Lee and retired martial arts teacher Linda Lee Cadwell, the granddaughter of Cantonese opera singer Lee Hoi-chuen, and the younger sister of actor Brandon Lee.


title: Shannon Lee

text: Shannon was born on April 19, 1969, at UCLA Medical Center, Santa Monica in Santa Monica, California. She is the youngest child and only daughter of martial arts film star Bruce Lee and Linda Emery. In her youth she studied Jeet Kune Do, the martial art created by her father, under Richard Bustillo, one of her father's students.


title: Shannon Lee

text: In 1993, Lee played a party singer in her father's biopic "". In 1994, she acted in "Cage II." In 1997, Lee acted in "High Voltage."


title: Shannon Lee

text: In 1998, Lee acted in the Hong Kong action film "Enter the Eagles", directed by Corey Yuen, co-starring Michael Wong and Anita Yuen. In the film, Lee had a fight scene with Benny Urquidez, who went on to teach her kickboxing. On television, she guest-starred in an episode of the television series "Martial Law" alongside Sammo Hung.


title: Shannon Lee

text: In 2000, Lee sang a cover of "I'm in the Mood for Love" for the film "China Strike Force" directed by Stanley Tong.


title: Shannon Lee

text: Lee appeared in the sci-fi television film "Epoch", which first aired on the Sci Fi Channel in 2001. That same year, she played the leading role in the action film "Lessons for an Assassin". She was also the host of the first season of the game show "WMAC Masters".


title: Shannon Lee

text: Lee is president of the Bruce Lee Foundation. She was the executive producer of the 2008 television series "The Legend of Bruce Lee", based on her father's life, and the 2009 documentary film "How Bruce Lee Changed the World."


title: Shannon Lee

text: In 2015, Perfect Storm Entertainment and Shannon Lee announced that the series "Warrior", based on an original idea by Bruce Lee, would be produced and air on Cinemax. Filmmaker Justin Lin was chosen to direct the series, which debuted April 5, 2019.


title: Shannon Lee

text: Lee is the daughter of Bruce Lee, granddaughter of Lee Hoi-chuen and Grace Ho, sister of Brandon Lee, and niece of Robert Lee Jun-fai and Peter Lee Jung-sum. Lee's paternal great-grandfather was Ho Kom Tong, half-brother of Robert Hotung.


title: Shannon Lee

text: In her youth, Lee studied Jeet Kune Do, with her father's disciple Richard Bustillo, but did not practice it seriously until the late 1990s. To train for parts in action movies, she studied Jeet Kune Do with Ted Wong.


title: Shannon Lee

text: She studied Taekwondo under Tan Tao-liang "Flash Legs" and Wushu under Eric Chen. She also studied under the tutelage of the director of "Enter the Eagles", Yuen De, Jackie Chan's Chinese opera brother. Because the film "Enter the Eagles" required her to fight Benny Urquidez, Urquidez himself taught her kickboxing.


title: Marriott International

text: Marriott International, Inc. is an American multinational company that operates, franchises, and licenses lodging including hotel, residential, and timeshare properties. It is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland. The company was founded by J. Willard Marriott and his wife Alice Marriott.


title: Marriott International

text: Marriott is the largest hotel chain in the world by the number of available rooms. It has 30 brands with 8,000 properties containing 1,423,044 rooms in 131 countries and territories. Of these 8,000 properties, 2,149 are operated by Marriott, and 5,493 are operated by others pursuant to franchise agreements. The company also operates 20 hotel reservation centers.


title: Marriott International

text: Marriott International, Inc. was formed in 1993 when Marriott Corporation split into two companies: Marriott International, Inc., which franchises and manages properties, and Host Marriott Corporation (now Host Hotels & Resorts), which owns properties.


title: Marriott International

text: Since the founders were Mormon missionaries, copies of the "Book of Mormon" are provided in hotel rooms in addition to the Bible.


title: Marriott International

text: Marriott Corporation was founded by John Willard Marriott in 1927 when he and his wife, Alice Marriott, opened a root beer stand in Washington, D.C. After serving a Mormon mission in New England, Marriott traveled to Washington, D.C. where he experienced the humid summer weather of the city. Marriott was convinced that what residents of the city needed was a place to get a cool drink, and so after returning to Utah and graduating from The University of Utah, Marriott purchased the rights to franchise an A&W root beer stand in Columbia Heights. The first summer saw brisk business, but as cold weather approached they realized the seasonal nature of their business and received permission from A&W to start selling food. He named the restaurant Hot Shoppes and watched as it grew in popularity. Always looking for new ways to improve his company, he bought the vacant lot next to one of his Hot Shoppes, removed the curb, and began offering the first drive-in service on the East Coast. This move popularized the restaurants, and by 1932, the Marriott's owned 7 Hot Shoppes in the D.C. area. In 1953, Hot Shoppes, Inc. became a public company via an initial public offering.


title: Marriott International

text: The company opened its first hotel, the Twin Bridges Motor Hotel, in Arlington, Virginia, on January 16, 1957. It cost $9 per night, plus an extra $1 for every person that was in the car. Its second hotel, the Key Bridge Marriott in Rosslyn, Arlington, Virginia, was opened in 1959 and is Marriott International's longest continuously operating hotel.


title: Marriott International

text: In 1976, the company opened two theme parks named Marriott's Great America in California and in Illinois. Six Flags acquired the latter in 1984, while Cedar Fair has owned the California park since 2006.


title: Marriott International

text: In April 1995, Marriott acquired a 49% interest in The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company. Marriott believed that it could increase sales and profit margins for The Ritz-Carlton, a troubled chain with many properties either losing money or barely breaking even. The cost to Marriott was estimated to have been about $200million in cash and assumed debt. The next year, Marriott spent $331million to acquire The Ritz-Carlton, Atlanta, and buy a majority interest in two properties owned by William Johnson, a real estate developer who had purchased The Ritz-Carlton, Boston in 1983 and expanded his Ritz-Carlton holdings over the next twenty years. Ritz-Carlton expanded into the timeshare market. Ritz Carlton benefited from Marriott's reservation system and buying power. In 1998, Marriott acquired majority ownership of The Ritz-Carlton.


title: Marriott International

text: In 1997, the company acquired the Renaissance Hotels and Ramada brands from Chow Tai Fook Group and its associate company, New World Development. Marriott International also signed an agreement to manage hotels owned by New World Development.


title: Marriott International

text: In 2003, the company completed the corporate spin-off of its senior living properties (now part of Sunrise Senior Living) and Marriott Distribution Services.


title: Marriott International

text: In 2005, Marriott International and Marriott Vacation Club International were two of the 53 entities that contributed the maximum of $250,000 to the Second inauguration of George W. Bush.


title: Marriott International

text: On July 19, 2006, Marriott implemented a smoking ban in all buildings it operated in the United States and Canada effective September 2006.


title: Marriott International

text: In 2007, Marriott became the first hotel chain to serve food that is completely free of trans fats at all of its North American properties.


title: Marriott International

text: Hotels franchised or operated by the company were affected by the 2003 Marriott Hotel bombing, the Islamabad Marriott Hotel bombing in 2008, and the 2009 Jakarta bombings.


title: Marriott International

text: On November 11, 2010, Marriott announced plans to add over 600 hotel properties by 2015, primarily in emerging markets: India, where it planned to have 100 hotel properties, China, and Southeast Asia.


title: Marriott International

text: On January 21, 2011, Marriott said that adult movies would not be included in the entertainment offered at new hotels, which would use an Internet-based video on demand system.


title: Marriott International

text: Effective March 31, 2012, Bill Marriott assumed the role of executive chairman of the company and relinquished the role of chief executive officer to Arne Sorenson.


title: Marriott International

text: In 2011, Mitt Romney received $260,390 in director's fees from Marriott International, despite the fact that he had already stepped down from the board of directors to run for President of the United States. His released 2010 tax returns showed earnings in 2010 of $113,881 in director's fees from Marriott. In February 2012, "Bloomberg News" reported on Romney's years overseeing tax matters for Marriott, which had included several "scams" (quoting John McCain) and legal actions brought against Marriott, which Marriott lost in court, over its manipulations of the U.S. Tax Code.


title: Marriott International

text: In December 2012, Guinness World Records recognized the JW Marriott Marquis Dubai, a five star hotel, as the tallest hotel in the world.


title: Marriott International

text: On October 3, 2014, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) fined Marriott $600,000 for unlawful use of a "containment" feature of a Wi-Fi monitoring system to deliberately interfere with client-owned networks in the convention space of its Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center in Nashville. The scheme disrupted operation of clients' mobile phone hotspots via Wi-Fi deauthentication attacks. Marriott International, Inc., the American Hotel and Lodging Association and Ryman Hospitality Properties responded by unsuccessfully petitioning the FCC to change the rules to allow them to continue jamming client-owned networks, a position which they were forced to abandon in early 2015 in response to backlash from clients, mainstream media, major technology companies, and mobile carriers. The incident drew unfavorable publicity to Marriott's practice of charging exorbitant fees for Wi-Fi.


title: Marriott International

text: On April 1, 2015, Marriott acquired Canadian hotel chain Delta Hotels, which operated 38 hotels at that time.


title: Marriott International

text: On November 16, 2015, Marriott announced the acquisition of Starwood for $13billion. A higher offer for Starwood at $14billion from a consortium led by China's Anbang Insurance Group was announced March 3, 2016. After Marriott raised its bid to $13.6billion on March 21, Starwood terminated the Anbang agreement and proceeded with the merger with Marriott. Following receipt of regulatory approvals, Marriott closed the merger with Starwood on September 23, 2016, creating the world's largest hotel company with over 5700 properties, 1.1million rooms, and a portfolio of 30 brands. The Starwood acquisition gave Marriott a larger non-US presence; approximately 75% of Starwood's revenues were from non-US markets.


title: Marriott International

text: On November 30, 2018, Marriott disclosed that the former Starwood brands had been subject to a data breach. After the disclosure, Attorney General of New York Barbara Underwood announced an investigation into the data breach. The cyberattack was found to be a part of a Chinese intelligence-gathering effort that also hacked health insurers and the security clearance files of millions more Americans. The hackers are suspected of working on behalf of the Ministry of State Security, the country's Communist-controlled civilian spy agency. Initially, Marriott said that 500 million customers' personal information had been exposed. In January 2019, the company updated the number of guests affected to "less than 383 million" customers, and claimed many of the customer's payment cards had expired.


title: Marriott International

text: In February 2020, the company discovered a data breach that included the theft of contact information for 5.2 million customers.


title: Marriott International

text: In April 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the company instituted additional cleanliness standards, including requiring the use of electrostatic sprayers with disinfectant, adding disinfecting wipes in all hotel rooms, and removing or re-arranging furniture in public areas to allow more space for social distancing. During the pandemic, global occupancy fell as low as 31%.


title: Marriott International

text: President and CEO Arne Sorenson died on February 15, 2021, from pancreatic cancer. On February 23, 2021, Anthony Capuano was appointed to fill Sorensen's vacancy as CEO and Director, having previously served as Marriott's group president of global development, design and operations.


title: Marriott International

text: In November 2021, the company was criticized for refusing to host the World Uyghur Congress at one of its properties in Prague, citing reasons of "political neutrality".


title: Marriott International

text: In August 2022, employees began moving into the company's new 21-story, 785,000-square-foot headquarters building on Wisconsin Avenue, ahead of an official opening on September 21. The new building was constructed over four years as part of a $600 million downtown Bethesda campus, together with the adjacent Marriott Bethesda Downtown hotel.


title: Marriott International

text: Marriott International reported Total CO2e emissions (Direct + Indirect) for the twelve months ending 31 December 2020 at 5,166 Kt (-1,643 /-24.1% y-o-y) and aims to reach net zero emissions by 2050.


title: Marriott International

text: The Luxury Collection is a hotel brand of Marriott International with several notable hotels including Hotel Alfonso XIII, Gritti Palace Hotel, IVY Hotel + Residences, Hotel Imperial, ITC Grand Chola, Marqués de Riscal Hotel, The Nines, Palace Hotel, San Francisco, The Park Tower Knightsbridge Hotel, Phoenician Resort, Hotel President Wilson, The St. Anthony Hotel, and Royal Hawaiian Hotel. As of December 31, 2020, there were 118 hotels comprising 23,243 rooms operating under the brand. The Luxury Collection is notable as the first "soft brand" hotel chain.


title: Marriott International

text: Most hotels of the brand are located in converted historic buildings, including palaces or older hotels. The brand also enlists notable designers to craft luxury travel accessories that are available exclusively on the brand's website.


title: Marriott International

text: The Royal Penthouse Suite at Hotel President Wilson in Geneva, part of The Luxury Collection, billed at per night, is listed at the top of the World's 15 Most Expensive Hotel Suites list compiled by CNN in 2012.


title: Marriott International

text: The Luxury Collection brand began on January 13, 1992, when ITT Sheraton designated 28 of its most expensive hotels and 33 of the Sheraton Towers, as the ITT Sheraton Luxury Collection.


title: Marriott International

text: In February 1994, ITT Sheraton Hotels and Resorts acquired a controlling interest in CIGA (Compagnia Italiana Grandi Alberghi, or Italian Grand Hotels Company), an Italian international hotel chain that owned several luxury properties in Europe. The majority of the CIGA hotels were folded into The Luxury Collection. CIGA's original logo, the four horses of St. Mark, was kept for The Luxury Collection brand logo until 2010; each Luxury Collection hotel now uses its own logo.


title: Marriott International

text: Marriott developed three theme parks, of which two opened: Marriott's Great America in Santa Clara, California and Marriott's Great America in Gurnee, Illinois. A third site was proposed but never built in the Washington D.C. area, but was cancelled due to strong opposition by surrounding residents. The parks were operated by Marriott from 1976 until 1984, and were themed to celebrate American history. The American-themed areas under Marriott's tenure of ownership included "Carousel Plaza" (the first section beyond the main gates); small-town-themed "Hometown Square"; "The Great Midwest Livestock Exposition At County Fair" with a Turn of the Century rural-fair theme; "Yankee Harbor", inspired by a 19th-century New England port; "Yukon Territory," resembling a Canadian/Alaskan logging camp; and the French Quarter-modeled "Orleans Place". At the opening, the parks had nearly identical layouts.


title: Marriott International

text: In 1984, Marriott disposed of its theme park division; both parks were sold and today are associated with national theme park chains. The Gurnee location was sold to Six Flags where it operates today as Six Flags Great America. The Santa Clara location was sold to the City of Santa Clara, who retained the underlying property and sold the park to Kings Entertainment Company, renamed Paramount Parks in 1993. From 1993 to 2006, the Santa Clara location was known as Paramount's Great America. In 2006, Paramount Parks was acquired by Cedar Fair Entertainment Company; the Santa Clara park operates today as California's Great America. In the years after their sale, the layouts of both of the parks have diverged substantially.


title: Marriott International

text: Marriott Bonvoy is Marriott's loyalty program and was formed in the February 2019 merger of its three former rewards programs: Marriott Rewards, Ritz-Carlton Rewards, and Starwood Preferred Guest.


title: Marriott International

text: Starwood Preferred Guest (also known as SPG) was founded in 1999 as the first in the industry to enforce a policy of no blackout dates, no capacity controls, and online redemption. In 2012, Starwood Preferred Guest began offering lifetime status and a dedicated Starwood ambassador for loyal members.


title: Marriott International

text: Ritz-Carlton Rewards was founded in 2010. Members were able to receive air miles instead of reward points and able to earn ten points (or two miles) for every dollar spent on any Ritz-Carlton room rates. Despite the restriction of membership to only one of the two programs, members of Ritz-Carlton Rewards were able to earn points in other Marriott hotels, while Marriott Rewards members were able to earn points at a Ritz-Carlton.


title: Benny Hill

text: Alfred Hawthorne Hill (21 January 1924 – 20 April 1992), better known as Benny Hill, was an English comedian, actor, singer and writer. He is remembered for his television programme "The Benny Hill Show", an amalgam of slapstick, burlesque and double entendre in a format that included live comedy and filmed segments, with Hill at the focus of almost every segment.


title: Benny Hill

text: Hill was a prominent figure in British television for several decades. His show was among the most-watched programmes in the UK, with the audience peaking at more than 21 million in 1971. "The Benny Hill Show" was also exported to many countries around the world. He received a BAFTA Television Award for and a Rose d'Or, and was nominated for the BAFTA for Best Entertainment Performance and two Emmy Awards for Outstanding Variety. In 2006, Hill was voted by the British public number 17 in ITV's poll of TV's 50 Greatest Stars.


title: Benny Hill

text: Outside television, Hill starred in films including the Ealing comedy "Who Done It?" (1956), "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" (1968) and "The Italian Job" (1969). His comedy song "Ernie (The Fastest Milkman in the West)" was 1971's Christmas number one on the UK Singles Chart and earned Hill an Ivor Novello Award from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors in 1972.


title: Benny Hill

text: Alfred Hawthorne Hill was born on 21 January 1924 in Southampton, Hampshire. His father, Alfred Hill (1893–1972), later manager of a surgical appliance shop, and grandfather, Henry Hill (born 1871), had both been circus clowns. His mother was Helen ("née" Cave; 1894–1976).


title: Benny Hill

text: After leaving Taunton's School in Southampton, Hill worked at Woolworths and as a milkman, a bridge operator, a driver and a drummer before becoming assistant stage manager with a touring revue. He was called up in 1942 and trained as a mechanic in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, British Army. He served as a mechanic, truck driver and searchlight operator in Normandy after September 1944 and later transferred to the Combined Services Entertainment division before the end of the war.


title: Benny Hill

text: Inspired by the "star comedians" of British music hall shows, Hill set out to make his mark in show business. He took on the nickname of "Benny" in homage to his favourite comedian, Jack Benny.


title: Benny Hill

text: After the Second World War, Hill worked as a performer on radio, making his debut on "Variety Bandbox" on 5 October 1947. His first appearance on television was in 1950. In addition, he attempted a sitcom anthology, "Benny Hill", which ran from 1962 to 1963, in which he played a different character in each episode. In 1964, he played Nick Bottom in an all-star TV film production of William Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream". He also had a radio programme lasting for three series called "Benny Hill Time" on BBC Radio's Light Programme, from 1964 to 1966. It was a topical show; for example, a March 1964 episode featured James Pond, 0017, in "From Moscow with Love" and his version of The Beatles. He played a number of characters in the series, such as Harry Hill and Fred Scuttle.


title: Benny Hill

text: Hill appeared in five full-length feature films—"Who Done It?" (1956), "Light Up the Sky!" (1960), "Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines" (1965), "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" (1968) and "The Italian Job" (1969). He also made two short-subject films—"The Waiters" (1969) and "Eddie in August" (1970)—the latter being a TV production. Finally, a clip-show film spin-off of his early Thames Television shows (1969–1973), called "The Best of Benny Hill" (1974), was a theatrically released compilation of "Benny Hill Show" episodes.


title: Benny Hill

text: Hill's audio recordings include "Gather in the Mushrooms" (1961), "Pepys' Diary" (1961), "Transistor Radio" (1961), "Harvest of Love" (1963) and "Ernie (The Fastest Milkman in the West)", which was the UK Singles Chart Christmas number-one single in 1971. He received an Ivor Novello Award from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors in 1972.


title: Benny Hill

text: Hill had struggled on stage and had uneven success in radio, but in television he found a medium that played to his strengths. "The Benny Hill Show" had a music hall-derived format combining live on-stage comedy and filmed segments, and its humour relied on slapstick, innuendo and parody. Recurring players on his show during the BBC years included Patricia Hayes, Jeremy Hawk, Peter Vernon, Ronnie Brody and his co-writer from the early 1950s to early 1960s, Dave Freeman. Short, bald Jackie Wright was a frequent supporting player who in many sketches had to put up with Hill slapping him on the top of his head.


title: Benny Hill

text: Hill remained mostly with the BBC through to 1968, except for a few sojourns with ITV and ATV stations between 1957 and 1960 and again in 1967. In 1969, his show moved from the BBC to Thames Television, where it remained until its cancellation in 1989, with an erratic schedule of one-hour specials. The series showcased Hill's talents as an imaginative writer, comic performer and impressionist. He may have bought scripts from various comedy writers, but if so, they never received an onscreen credit (some evidence indicates he bought a script from one of his regular cast members in 1976, Cherri Gilham, to whom he wrote from Spain, telling her he was using her "Fat Lady" idea on the show in January 1977).


title: Benny Hill

text: The most common running gag in Hill's shows was the closing sequence, the "run-off", which was literally a running gag in featuring various members of the cast chasing Hill, along with other stock comedy characters such as policemen, vicars and old women. This was commonly filmed using "under-cranking" camera techniques and included other comic features such as jogging instead of a run at full speed and characters running off one side of the screen and reappearing running on from the other. The tune used in all the chases, Boots Randolph's "Yakety Sax", is so strongly associated with the show that it is commonly referred to as "The Benny Hill Theme". It has been used as a form of parody in many ways by television shows and films. In a 2015 UK-wide poll the show's theme song was voted number 1 on the ITV special "The Sound of ITV – The Nation's Favourite Theme Tune".


title: Benny Hill

text: From the start of the 1980s, the show featured a troupe of attractive young women, known collectively as "Hill's Angels". They would appear either on their own in a dance sequence or in character as foils against Hill. Sue Upton was one of the longest-serving members of the Angels. Jane Leeves appeared, as well. Henry McGee and Bob Todd joined Jackie Wright as comic supporting players, and the later shows also featured "Hill's Little Angels", a group of cute children including the families of Dennis Kirkland (the show's director) and Sue Upton. Jenny Lee-Wright (who first appeared on Hill's show in 1970) earned the nickname "The Sexiest Stooge" – coined by Hill.


title: Benny Hill

text: The alternative comedian Ben Elton made a headline-grabbing allegation, both on the TV show "Saturday Live" and in the pages of "Q" magazine (in its January 1987 issue), that "The Benny Hill Show" incited crimes and misdemeanours. "We know in Britain, women can't even walk safe in a park anymore. That, for me, is worrying." A writer in "The Independent" newspaper, though, opined that Elton's assault was "like watching an elderly uncle being kicked to death by young thugs". "GQ" magazine stated, "pompous and portentous as this is, blaming Hill for rape statistics is like pointing a finger at concert pianists for causing elephant poaching". Elton later parodied himself in "Harry Enfield & Chums" as Benny Elton, a politically correct spoilsport, in which Elton ends up being chased by angry women, accompanied by the "Yakety Sax" theme, after trying to force them to be more feminist. A spokesman for the Broadcasting Standards Authority commented that "the convention is becoming increasingly offensive ]...] It's not as funny as it was to have half-naked girls chased across the screen by a dirty old man."


title: Benny Hill

text: In late May 1989, Hill announced that after 21 years with Thames Television he was quitting and taking a year off. His shows had earned Thames £26 million, with a large percentage due to the success of his shows in the United States. John Howard Davies, the head of Light Entertainment at Thames Television, was cited by the British press as the man who sacked Benny Hill when the company decided not to renew Hill's contract. "The show was past its sell-by date", Davies told "The Guardian" newspaper. "Benny was all right when he was young, but when you're in your 60s, it's a slightly different matter to leer at a pretty girl."


title: Benny Hill

text: In 1991, Hill started work on a new television series called "Benny Hill's World Tour" which would see Hill performing his sketches in various places around the world where his show had become popular. However, Hill only managed to record one special called "Greetings from New York" (with regular cast members such as Henry McGee, Bob Todd and Sue Upton), with the show becoming billed as "his final TV appearance" when released onto DVD.


title: Benny Hill

text: In February 1992, Thames Television, which received a steady stream of requests from viewers for "The Benny Hill Show" repeats, finally gave in and put together a number of re-edited shows. Hill died on the same day that a new contract arrived in the post from Central Independent Television, for which he was to have made a series of specials. He had turned down competing offers from Carlton and Thames.


title: Benny Hill

text: Johnny Carson and sidekick Ed McMahon were both fans of Hill and tried several times to get him to come to Los Angeles and be a guest on Carson's "The Tonight Show".


title: Benny Hill

text: Radio and TV host Adam Carolla said that he was a fan of Hill and that he considered Hill "as American as The Beatles". During an episode of "The Man Show", Carolla performed in what was billed as a tribute to "our favourite Englishman, Sir Benny Hill" (Hill was never knighted) in more risqué versions of some of the sketches. Carolla played a rude and lecherous waiter, a typical Hill role, and the sketch featured many of the staples of Hill's shows, including a Jackie Wright-esque bald man, as well as the usual scantily clad women.


title: Benny Hill

text: Michael Jackson was a Hill fan: "I just love your Benny Hill," the young Jackson told a bemused British music-press critic during a 1970s tour, "he's so funny!". In 1987, Genesis filmed a video for their song "Anything She Does", featuring Hill as his character Fred Scuttle, an incompetent security guard who lets a ridiculous number of fans backstage at a Genesis concert. In a June 2011 interview with "The Observer", the rapper Snoop Dogg declared himself to be a fan of Hill.


title: Benny Hill

text: In the Omnibus episode "Benny Hill – Clown Imperial" filmed shortly before his death, celebrities such as Burt Reynolds, Michael Caine, John Mortimer, Mickey Rooney and Walter Cronkite, among others, expressed their appreciation of and admiration for Hill and his humour — and in Reynolds' case, the appreciation extended to the Hill's Angels, as well. The novelist Anthony Burgess made no secret of his admiration for Hill. Burgess, whose novels were often comic, relished language, wordplay and dialect, admired the verbal and comedic skill that underlay Hill's success. Reviewing a biography of Hill, "Saucy Boy", in "The Guardian" in 1990, Burgess described Hill as "a comic genius steeped in the British music hall tradition" (as were Chaplin and Laurel, two of Hill's childhood idols) and "one of the great artists of our age". A meeting between the two men was described in a newspaper article by Burgess and recalled in the "Telegraph" newspaper by the satirist Craig Brown.


title: Benny Hill

text: Hill never owned his own home in London and instead preferred to rent a flat rather than buy one. He rented a double-room apartment on London's Queen's Gate for 26 years until around 1986 when he moved to Fairwater House in Teddington. While looking for somewhere to live, he stayed at 22 Westrow Gardens in Southampton.


title: Benny Hill

text: Despite being a millionaire, he continued with the frugal habits that he picked up from his parents, such as buying cheap food at supermarkets, walking for miles rather than paying for a taxi unless someone picked up the tab for a limousine, and constantly patching and mending the same clothes.


title: Benny Hill

text: Hill never married and he had no children. He had proposed to two women, but neither accepted. Shortly after his death in 1992, actress Annette Andre said that she turned down his proposal of marriage in the early 1960s. Rumours circulated that he was gay, but he always denied them.


title: Benny Hill

text: Hill was a Francophile and enjoyed visits to France, including to Marseille, where until the 1980s, he could go to outdoor cafes anonymously, travelling on public transport and socialising with local women. He spoke French fluently and also knew basic German, Spanish, Dutch and Italian. Foreign travel was the only luxury that he permitted himself, and even then, he would stay in modest accommodation.


title: Benny Hill

text: Hill's health declined in the late 1980s and after working for Thames Television. After a mild heart attack on 24 February 1992, doctors recommended him a heart bypass. He declined, and a week later was found to have kidney failure. Hill died at his flat in Teddington on 20 April 1992, at the age of 68. Two days later, after several days of unanswered telephone calls he was found dead in his armchair in front of the television. The cause of death was recorded as coronary thrombosis. Hill was buried at Hollybrook Cemetery, near his birthplace in Southampton, on 26 April 1992.


title: Benny Hill

text: Probate was granted on Hill's estate in London on 5 June 1992, when its value at the time of his death was given as £7,548,192, . Writing his will three decades before his death, he left the bulk of his estate to his parents, who had predeceased him; ultimately, Hill's estate was divided among his seven nieces and nephews.


title: Benny Hill

text: During the night of 4 October 1992, following speculation in the media that Hill had been buried with a large amount of gold and jewellery, grave robbers excavated the grave at Hollybrook Cemetery and broke open the coffin, the open grave being noticed by a passer-by the following morning. After a police examination of the scene, the coffin was re-closed and the grave filled back in by cemetery workers, and as a security measure, a -thick concrete slab was placed over it.


title: Benny Hill

text: In 1998, Channel 4 featured Hill in one of its "Heroes of Comedy" programmes. In 2002, D.J. Taylor of "The Independent" ranked him the third greatest British comedian of the 20th century after Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel.


title: Benny Hill

text: On 28 December 2006, Channel 4 broadcast the documentary "Is Benny Hill Still Funny?" The programme featured an audience that comprised a cross-section of young adults who had little or no knowledge of Hill, to discover whether his comedy was valid to a generation that enjoyed the likes of "Little Britain", "The Catherine Tate Show" and "Borat". The participants favourably rated a 30-minute compilation that included examples of Hill's humour from his BBC and ITV shows.


title: Benny Hill

text: In November 2021, That's TV announced that "The Benny Hill Show" would feature in its Christmas schedule alongside other ITV programmes like "Beadle's About" and "Kenny Everett's New Year Specials". In addition to operating a number of local television channels on Freeview, That's TV has another national slot on channel 65, meaning that Hill's show would be seen in full, nationwide on British television for the first time in nearly 20 years.


title: Brown v. Board of Education

text: Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segregated schools are otherwise equal in quality. The decision partially overruled the Court's 1896 decision "Plessy v. Ferguson", which had held that racial segregation laws did not violate the U.S. Constitution as long as the facilities for each race were equal in quality, a doctrine that had come to be known as "separate but equal". The Court's decision in "Brown" paved the way for integration and was a major victory of the civil rights movement, and a model for many future impact litigation cases.


title: Brown v. Board of Education

text: The underlying case began in 1951 when the public school system in Topeka, Kansas, refused to enroll local black resident Oliver Brown's daughter at the elementary school closest to their home, instead requiring her to ride a bus to a segregated black school farther away. The Browns and twelve other local black families in similar situations filed a class-action lawsuit in U.S. federal court against the Topeka Board of Education, alleging that its segregation policy was unconstitutional. A special three-judge court of the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas rendered a verdict against the Browns, relying on the precedent of "Plessy v. Ferguson" and its "separate but equal" doctrine. The Browns, represented by NAACP chief counsel Thurgood Marshall, then appealed the ruling directly to the Supreme Court.


title: Brown v. Board of Education

text: In May 1954, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous 9–0 decision in favor of the Browns. The Court ruled that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal", and therefore laws that impose them violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. However, the decision's 14 pages did not spell out any sort of method for ending racial segregation in schools, and the Court's second decision in "Brown II" () only ordered states to desegregate "with all deliberate speed".


title: Brown v. Board of Education

text: In the Southern United States, especially the "Deep South", where racial segregation was deeply entrenched, the reaction to "Brown" among most white people was "noisy and stubborn". Many Southern governmental and political leaders embraced a plan known as "Massive Resistance", created by Virginia Senator Harry F. Byrd, in order to frustrate attempts to force them to de-segregate their school systems. Four years later, in the case of "Cooper v. Aaron", the Court reaffirmed its ruling in "Brown", and explicitly stated that state officials and legislators had no power to nullify its ruling.


title: Brown v. Board of Education

text: For much of the 60 years preceding the "Brown" case, race relations in the United States had been dominated by racial segregation. Such state policies had been endorsed by the United States Supreme Court ruling in "Plessy v. Ferguson" (1896), which held that as long as the separate facilities for separate races were equal, state segregation did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause ("no State shall ... deny to any person ... the equal protection of the laws"). Racial segregation in education varied widely from the 17 states that required racial segregation to the 16 in which it was prohibited. Beginning in the 1930s, a legal strategy was pursued, led by scholars at Howard University and activists at the NAACP, that sought to undermine states' public education segregation by first focusing on the graduate school setting. This led to success in the cases of "Mendez v. Westminster", 64 F.Supp. 544 (C.D. Cal. 1946), "Sweatt v. Painter", 339 U.S. 629 (1950) and "McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents", 339 U.S. 637 (1950), suggesting that racial segregation was inherently unequal (at least in some settings), which paved the way for "Brown".


title: Brown v. Board of Education

text: The plaintiffs in "Brown" asserted that the system of racial separation in all schools, while masquerading as providing separate but equal treatment of both white and black Americans, instead perpetuated inferior accommodations, services, and treatment for black Americans. "Brown" was influenced by UNESCO's 1950 Statement, signed by a wide variety of internationally renowned scholars, titled "The Race Question". This declaration denounced previous attempts at scientifically justifying racism as well as morally condemning racism. Another work that the Supreme Court cited was Gunnar Myrdal's "" (1944). Myrdal had been a signatory of the UNESCO declaration.


title: Brown v. Board of Education

text: The United States and the Soviet Union were both at the height of the Cold War during this time, and U.S. officials, including Supreme Court justices, were highly aware of the harm that segregation and racism were doing to America's international image. When Justice William O. Douglas traveled to India in 1950, the first question he was asked was, "Why does America tolerate the lynching of Negroes?" Douglas later wrote that he had learned from his travels that "the attitude of the United States toward its colored minorities is a powerful factor in our relations with India." Chief Justice Earl Warren, nominated to the Supreme Court by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, echoed Douglas's concerns in a 1954 speech to the American Bar Association, proclaiming that "Our American system like all others is on trial both at home and abroad, ... the extent to which we maintain the spirit of our constitution with its Bill of Rights, will in the long run do more to make it both secure and the object of adulation than the number of hydrogen bombs we stockpile."


title: Brown v. Board of Education

text: In 1951, a class-action lawsuit was filed against the Board of Education of the City of Topeka, Kansas, in the United States District Court for the District of Kansas. The plaintiffs were thirteen Topeka parents on behalf of their 20 children.


title: Brown v. Board of Education

text: The suit called for the school district to reverse its policy of racial segregation. The Topeka Board of Education operated separate elementary schools due to a 1879 Kansas law, which permitted (but did not require) districts to maintain separate elementary school facilities for black and white students in 12 communities with populations over 15,000. The plaintiffs had been recruited by the leadership of the Topeka NAACP. Notable among the Topeka NAACP leaders were the chairman McKinley Burnett; Charles Scott, one of three serving as legal counsel for the chapter; and Lucinda Todd.


title: Brown v. Board of Education

text: The named African-American plaintiff, Oliver Brown, was a parent, a welder in the shops of the Santa Fe Railroad, as well as an assistant pastor at his local church. He was convinced to join the lawsuit by a childhood friend, Charles Scott. Brown's daughter Linda Carol Brown, a third grader, had to walk six blocks to her school bus stop to ride to Monroe Elementary, her segregated black school one mile (1.6 km) away, while Sumner Elementary, a white school, was seven blocks from her house.


title: Brown v. Board of Education

text: As directed by the NAACP leadership, the parents each attempted to enroll their children in the closest neighborhood school in the fall of 1951. They were each refused enrollment and redirected to the segregated schools.


title: Brown v. Board of Education

text: The case "Oliver Brown et al. v. The Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas" was named after Oliver Brown as a legal strategy to have a man at the head of the roster. The lawyers, and the National Chapter of the NAACP, also felt that having Mr. Brown at the head of the roster would be better received by the U.S. Supreme Court justices. The 13 plaintiffs were: Oliver Brown, Darlene Brown, Lena Carper, Sadie Emmanuel, Marguerite Emerson, Shirley Fleming, Zelma Henderson, Shirley Hodison, Maude Lawton, Alma Lewis, Iona Richardson, Vivian Scales, and Lucinda Todd. The last surviving plaintiff, Zelma Henderson, died in Topeka, on May 20, 2008, at age 88.


title: Brown v. Board of Education

text: The District Court ruled in favor of the Board of Education, citing the U.S. Supreme Court precedent set in "Plessy v. Ferguson". Judge Walter Huxman wrote the opinion for the three-judge District Court panel, including nine "findings of fact", based on the evidence presented at trial. Although finding number eight stated that segregation in public education has a detrimental effect on negro children, the court denied relief on the ground that the negro and white schools in Topeka were substantially equal with respect to buildings, transportation, curricula, and educational qualifications of teachers. This finding would be specifically cited in the subsequent Supreme Court opinion of this case.


title: Brown v. Board of Education

text: The case of "Brown v. Board of Education" as heard before the Supreme Court combined five cases: "Brown" itself, "Briggs v. Elliott" (filed in South Carolina), "Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County" (filed in Virginia), "Gebhart v. Belton" (filed in Delaware), and "Bolling v. Sharpe" (filed in Washington, D.C.).


title: Brown v. Board of Education

text: All were NAACP-sponsored cases. The "Davis" case, the only case of the five originating from a student protest, began when 16-year-old Barbara Rose Johns organized and led a 450-student walkout of Moton High School. The "Gebhart" case was the only one where a trial court, affirmed by the Delaware Supreme Court, found that discrimination was unlawful; in all the other cases the plaintiffs had lost as the original courts had found discrimination to be lawful.


title: Brown v. Board of Education

text: The Kansas case was unique among the group in that there was no contention of gross inferiority of the segregated schools' physical plant, curriculum, or staff. The district court found substantial equality as to all such factors. The lower court, in its opinion, noted that, in Topeka, "the physical facilities, the curricula, courses of study, qualification and quality of teachers, as well as other educational facilities in the two sets of schools [were] comparable." The lower court observed that "colored children in many instances are required to travel much greater distances than they would be required to travel could they attend a white school" but also noted that the school district "transports colored children to and from school free of charge" and that "no such service [was] provided to white children." In the Delaware case the district court judge in "Gebhart" ordered that the black students be admitted to the white high school due to the substantial harm of segregation and the differences that made the separate schools unequal.


title: Brown v. Board of Education

text: Under the leadership of Walter Reuther, the United Auto Workers donated $75,000 to help pay for the NAACP's efforts at the Supreme Court. The NAACP's chief counsel, Thurgood Marshall—who was later appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1967—argued the case before the Supreme Court for the plaintiffs. Assistant attorney general Paul Wilson—later distinguished emeritus professor of law at the University of Kansas—conducted the state's ambivalent defense in his first appellate argument.