title: Igor and Grichka Bogdanoff

text: The journal "Classical and Quantum Gravity" (CQG) published one of the Bogdanoffs' papers, titled "Topological field theory of the initial singularity of spacetime"; Ian Russell, assistant director of its journals division, later issued a statement stating that "we deployed our standard peer-review process on that paper." After the publication of the article and the publicity surrounding the controversy, mathematician Greg Kuperberg posted to Usenet a statement written by the journal's senior publisher, Andrew Wray, and its co-editor, Hermann Nicolai. The statement read, in part,


title: Igor and Grichka Bogdanoff

text: Regrettably, despite the best efforts, the refereeing process cannot be 100% effective. Thus the paper ... made it through the review process even though, in retrospect, it does not meet the standards expected of articles in this journal... The paper was discussed extensively at the annual Editorial Board meeting ... and there was general agreement that it should not have been published. Since then several steps have been taken to further improve the peer review process in order to improve the quality assessment on articles submitted to the journal and reduce the likelihood that this could happen again.


title: Igor and Grichka Bogdanoff

text: The statement was quoted in "The New York Times," "The Chronicle of Higher Education", and "Nature." Moreover, "Die Zeit" quoted Nicolai as saying that had the paper reached his desk, he would have immediately rejected it.


title: Igor and Grichka Bogdanoff

text: The "Chinese Journal of Physics" published Igor Bogdanoff's "The KMS state of spacetime at the Planck scale", while "Nuovo Cimento" published "KMS space-time at the Planck scale". According to physicist Arun Bala, all of these papers "involved purported applications of quantum theory to understand processes at the dawn of the universe", but ultimately turned out to be a "hoax perpetrated on the physics community."


title: Igor and Grichka Bogdanoff

text: Not all review evaluations were positive. Eli Hawkins, acting as a referee on behalf of the "Journal of Physics A", suggested rejecting one of the Bogdanoffs' papers: "It would take up too much space to enumerate all the mistakes: indeed it is difficult to say where one error ends and the next begins."


title: Igor and Grichka Bogdanoff

text: Eventually, the controversy attracted mainstream media attention, opening new avenues for physicists' comments to be disseminated. "Le Monde" quoted Alain Connes, recipient of the 1982 Fields Medal, as saying, "I didn't need long to convince myself that they're talking about things that they haven't mastered." "The New York Times" reported that the physicists David Gross, Carlo Rovelli, and Lee Smolin considered the Bogdanoff papers nonsensical. Nobel laureate Georges Charpak later stated on a French talk show that the Bogdanoffs' presence in the scientific community was "nonexistent".


title: Igor and Grichka Bogdanoff

text: Robert Oeckl's official MathSciNet review of "Topological field theory of the initial singularity of spacetime" states that the paper is "rife with nonsensical or meaningless statements and suffers from a serious lack of coherence", follows up with several examples to illustrate his point, and concludes that the paper "falls short of scientific standards and appears to have no meaningful content." An official report from the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), which became public in 2010, concluded that the paper ""ne peut en aucune façon être qualifié de contribution scientifique"" ("cannot in any way be considered a scientific contribution").


title: Igor and Grichka Bogdanoff

text: The CNRS report summarized the Bogdanoffs' theses thus: ""Ces thèses n’ont pas de valeur scientifique. […] Rarement aura-t-on vu un travail creux habillé avec une telle sophistication"" ("These theses have no scientific value. [...] Rarely have we seen a hollow work dressed with such sophistication""")"."


title: Igor and Grichka Bogdanoff

text: On December 30, 2004, the Bogdanoffs sued for defamation over the publication of a critical article titled "The Mystification of the Bogdanoffs". In September 2006, the case was dismissed after the Bogdanoffs missed court deadlines; they were ordered to pay €2,500 to the magazine's publisher to cover its legal costs. There was never a substantive ruling on whether or not the Bogdanoffs had been defamed.


title: Igor and Grichka Bogdanoff

text: Alain Riazuelo, an astrophysicist at the Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris, participated in many of the online discussions of the Bogdanoffs' work. He posted an unpublished version of Grichka Bogdanoff's Ph.D. thesis on his personal website, along with his critical analysis. Bogdanoff subsequently described this version as "dating from 1991 and too unfinished to be made public". Rather than suing Riazuelo for defamation, Bogdanoff filed a criminal complaint of copyright ("droit d'auteur") violation against him in May 2011.


title: Igor and Grichka Bogdanoff

text: The police detained and interrogated Riazuelo. He was convicted in March 2012. A fine of €2,000 the court imposed was suspended, and only €1.00 of damages was awarded, but in passing judgement the court stated that the scientist had "lacked prudence", given "the fame of the plaintiff".


title: Igor and Grichka Bogdanoff

text: The verdict outraged many scientists, who felt that the police and courts should have no say in a discussion of the scientific merits of a piece of work. In April 2012, a group of 170 scientists published an open letter titled "L'affaire Bogdanoff: Liberté, Science et Justice, Des scientifiques revendiquent leur droit au blâme" ("The Bogdanoff Affair: Liberty, Science and Justice, scientists claim their right of critique").


title: Igor and Grichka Bogdanoff

text: In 2014, the Bogdanoffs sued the weekly magazine "Marianne" for defamation, on account of reporting the magazine had published in 2010 which had brought the CNRS report to light. The magazine was eventually ordered to pay €64,000 in damages, much less than the €800,000 each which the Bogdanoffs had originally demanded. The Bogdanoffs also sued the CNRS for €1.2 million in damages, claiming that the CNRS report had ""porté atteinte à leur honneur, à leur réputation et à leur crédit"" ("undermined their honor, reputation and credit") and calling the report committee a ""Stasi scientifique"", but a tribunal ruled against them in 2015 and ordered them to pay €2,000.


title: Igor and Grichka Bogdanoff

text: In 2005, the Bogdanoffs became professors at Megatrend University in Belgrade, where they were appointed to Chairs of Cosmology and made directors of the 'Megatrend Laboratory of Cosmology'. Mića Jovanović, the rector and owner of Megatrend University, wrote a preface for the Serbian edition of "Avant le Big Bang." Jovanović himself later became embroiled in controversy and resigned his post, when he was found out to not have obtained a Ph.D. at the London School of Economics as he had claimed. This scandal, combined with the presence of the Bogdanoffs, contributed to an atmosphere of controversy surrounding Megatrend.


title: Igor and Grichka Bogdanoff

text: The Bogdanoff twins, who denied having undergone plastic surgery, became known for their prominent cheekbones and chins. In 2010, "The Sydney Morning Herald" described the twins' cheekbones as "so high and bulbous as to appear to threaten their owners' vision", adding that the twins' appearance at the Cannes Film Festival had "caused a stir around the world". The "Herald" noted that the twins' cheekbones had become noticeably larger in the 1990s, and that "growth in their lips and chins continued unabated through the last decade". According to former education minister Luc Ferry, a friend of the brothers, they had both received botox injections for cosmetic treatment.


title: Igor and Grichka Bogdanoff

text: The twins became popular Internet memes, especially among enthusiasts of cryptocurrency, jokingly depicting the Bogdanoffs as "all-powerful market makers". Their status as "crypto memes" was covered by several outlets upon their deaths, including CNN, "Business Insider", and "The Daily Telegraph". The twins "went along with their meme fame", according to "Business Insider", and said they predicted cryptocurrency in the 1980s on "Temps X".


title: Igor and Grichka Bogdanoff

text: Igor Bogdanoff had six children, four from his first marriage and two from his second. He married his second wife, Amélie de Bourbon-Parme, civilly in Paris on 1 October 2009 and religiously in Chambord two days later.


title: Igor and Grichka Bogdanoff

text: The Bogdanoff twins were both hospitalized, at the Georges Pompidou European Hospital in Paris, in critical condition on 15 December 2021, after contracting COVID-19. Grichka died on 28 December, and Igor died six days later, on 3 January 2022. They were 72 and both were unvaccinated. The funeral for both twins was held on 10 January 2022, in the Church of the Madeleine, in Paris, France.


title: Igor and Grichka Bogdanoff

text: The Bogdanoff brothers published a number of works in science fiction, philosophy and popular science. Since 1991, they signed their books as "Bogdanov", preferring "v" to "ff".


title: Jenna Elfman

text: Jennifer Mary Elfman (née Butala, born 1971) is an American actress. She is best known for her leading role as Dharma on the ABC sitcom "Dharma & Greg" (1997–2002), for which she received the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy in 1999, and three nominations for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series. After making her film debut in "Grosse Pointe Blank" (1997), she has appeared in "Krippendorf's Tribe" (1998), "Dr. Dolittle" (1998), "EDtv" (1999), "Keeping the Faith" (2000), "Town & Country" (2001), "" (2003), "Clifford's Really Big Movie" (2004), and "Big Stone Gap" (2014).


title: Jenna Elfman

text: Elfman has also played leading roles on other television comedies, including "Courting Alex" (2006), "Accidentally on Purpose" (2009–2010), "1600 Penn" (2012–2013), "Growing Up Fisher" (2014), and "Imaginary Mary" (2017). She also had a recurring role on the FX legal drama "Damages" in 2012, and has been a series regular on the AMC horror drama series "Fear the Walking Dead" since 2018.


title: Jenna Elfman

text: Elfman was born Jennifer Mary Butala in Los Angeles, California. She was the youngest of three children born to homemaker Sue Butala (née Grace) and Richard Butala, a Hughes Aircraft executive. Her paternal uncle is Tony Butala, lead singer of the American vocal trio The Lettermen since 1958. She is of Croatian ancestry on her father's side and was raised Roman Catholic.


title: Jenna Elfman

text: Elfman attended high school at St. Genevieve High School in the San Fernando Valley for a year, before eventually graduating at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts; she then attended college at California State University, Northridge (CSUN). She trained in ballet from age 5, but later gave it up when a tendon separated from bone. She studied at the Westside School of Ballet, receiving a full scholarship.


title: Jenna Elfman

text: Elfman began her professional career as a dancer, appearing in music videos for Depeche Mode ("Halo", 1990), Anthrax ("Black Lodge", 1993), and Chris Isaak ("Somebody's Crying", 1995), and touring with the rock band ZZ Top on their 1994 tour as a "Legs Girl". After appearing in television commercials, Elfman was cast in the short-lived 1996 American sitcom "Townies" on ABC. In 1997, Elfman was cast in "Dharma & Greg" on ABC as Dharma Freedom Finkelstein Montgomery. The show ran for five seasons until its cancellation in 2002.


title: Jenna Elfman

text: In 2012, Elfman and her husband Bodhi started their podcast, "Kicking and Screaming by Jenna and Bodhi Elfman".


title: Jenna Elfman

text: In 2013, Elfman appeared in two NBC comedy series, "1600 Penn" and "Growing Up Fisher", which were each cancelled after a single season.


title: Jenna Elfman

text: In 2016, Elfman was cast in the ABC comedy series "Imaginary Mary". Like "1600 Penn" and "Growing Up Fisher", the series was cancelled after its first season.


title: Jenna Elfman

text: In February 1991, she met actor Bodhi Pine Elfman (né Saboff) during an audition for a Sprite commercial. Four years later, they were married on February 18, 1995. Bodhi is of Jewish descent, and Jenna was raised Catholic. When they met, he was a practicing Scientologist. Jenna became a Scientologist after her husband introduced her to its teachings.


title: Jenna Elfman

text: In 2005, she appeared at the Scientology-backed Citizens Commission on Human Rights' "" museum grand opening, and she and husband Bodhi are listed on the organization's website as members of the board of advisers from the arts, entertainment, and media community.


title: Jenna Elfman

text: On May 24, 2006, she was the keynote speaker at the Human Rights Hero Award event in participation with the Scientology-affiliated groups Youth for Human Rights International and Artists for Human Rights (AFHR), an organization formed with the purpose of bringing artists together with the common cause of raising awareness of human rights around the world.


title: Jenna Elfman

text: On March 27, 2008, she and actor Charlie Sheen co-hosted the Scientology-affiliated New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Project Charity Event at Geisha House in Hollywood.


title: Jenna Elfman

text: Elfman participated in fundraising activities, including donating an hour of her time for auction, donating a print of her lips, participating in a telethon fundraiser, hosting a comedy show, and asking for charity donations instead of birthday presents.


title: Jenna Elfman

text: Elfman participated in awareness-raising initiatives, including modeling for a fashion show, reading to schoolchildren as part of the National Education Association Read Across America program, and hosting a party in her home to raise awareness for causes headed by the Environmental Working Group.


title: Paramount Global

text: Paramount Global (doing business as Paramount) is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate owned and operated by National Amusements (79.4%) and headquartered at One Astor Plaza in Midtown Manhattan, New York. It was formed on December 4, 2019, as ViacomCBS Inc. through the re-merger of the second incarnation of CBS Corporation and the second incarnation of Viacom (which were split from the original incarnation of Viacom in 2006). On February 16, 2022, during its Q4 earnings presentation, the company announced that it would change its name to Paramount Global.


title: Paramount Global

text: Paramount's main properties include the namesake Paramount Pictures film and television studio, the CBS Entertainment Group (consisting of the CBS and The CW television networks, television stations, and other CBS-branded assets), media networks (consisting of U.S.-based cable television networks including MTV, Nickelodeon, BET, Comedy Central, VH1, CMT, Paramount Network and Showtime) and the company's streaming services (including Paramount+, Showtime OTT and Pluto TV). It also has a dedicated international division that manages international versions of its pay TV networks, as well as region-specific assets including Argentina's Telefe, Chile's Chilevisión, the United Kingdom's Channel 5, Australia's Network 10 and a 30% stake in the Rainbow S.p.A. studio in Italy.


title: Paramount Global

text: As of 2019, the company operates over 170 networks and reaches approximately 700 million subscribers in 180 countries.


title: Paramount Global

text: Paramount Pictures, CBS, and Viacom each had a history of being associated with one another through a series of various corporate mergers and splits. Paramount Pictures was founded in 1912 as the Famous Players Film Company. CBS was founded in 1927, which Paramount Pictures held a 49 percent ownership stake in from 1929 to 1932. In 1952, CBS formed CBS Television Film Sales, a division which handled syndication rights for CBS's library of network owned television series. This division was renamed CBS Films in 1958, and again renamed CBS Enterprises Inc. in January 1968, and finally renamed Viacom (an acronym of Video and Audio Communications) in 1970. In 1971, this syndication division was spun off amid new FCC rules forbidding television networks from owning syndication companies (these rules were eventually abolished completely in 1993). In 1985, Viacom purchased MTV Networks and Showtime/The Movie Channel Inc. from Warner Communications and American Express. In 1986, Viacom was acquired by its present owner, theater operator company National Amusements.


title: Paramount Global

text: Meanwhile, Paramount Pictures was acquired by Gulf and Western Industries in 1966, which then re-branded itself as Paramount Communications in 1989. Viacom then purchased Paramount Communications in 1994.


title: Paramount Global

text: In 1999, Viacom made its biggest acquisition to date by announcing plans to merge with its former parent CBS Corporation (the renamed Westinghouse Electric Corporation, which had merged with CBS in 1995). The merger was completed in 2000, resulting in CBS reuniting with its former syndication division. On January 3, 2006, Viacom was split into two companies: CBS Corporation, the former's corporate successor and the spun-off Viacom company.


title: Paramount Global

text: On September 29, 2016, National Amusements, the parent company of CBS Corporation and Viacom, wrote to Viacom and CBS encouraging the two companies to merge back into one company. On December 12, the deal was called off.


title: Paramount Global

text: On January 12, 2018, CNBC reported that Viacom had re-entered talks to merge back into CBS Corporation, after the merger of AT&T-Time Warner and Disney's proposed acquisition of most of 21st Century Fox's assets were announced. Viacom and CBS also faced heavy competition from companies such as Netflix and Amazon. Shortly afterward, it was reported that the combined company could be a suitor for acquiring the film studio Lionsgate. Viacom and Lionsgate were both interested in acquiring The Weinstein Company. Following the Weinstein effect, Viacom was listed as one of 22 potential buyers that were interested in acquiring TWC. They lost the bid, and on March 1, 2018, it was announced that Maria Contreras-Sweet would acquire all of TWC's assets for $500 million. Lantern Capital would later acquire the studio.


title: Paramount Global

text: On March 30, 2018, CBS made an all-stock offer slightly below Viacom's market value, insisting that its existing leadership, including long-time chairman and CEO Les Moonves, oversee the re-combined company. Viacom rejected the offer as too low, requesting a $2.8  billion increase and that Bob Bakish be maintained as president and COO under Moonves. These conflicts had resulted from Shari Redstone seeking more control over CBS and its leadership.


title: Paramount Global

text: Eventually, on May 14, 2018, CBS Corporation sued its and Viacom's parent company National Amusements and accused Redstone of abusing her voting power in the company and forcing a merger that was not supported by it or Viacom. CBS also accused Redstone of discouraging Verizon Communications from acquiring it, which could have been beneficial to its shareholders.


title: Paramount Global

text: On May 23, 2018, Les Moonves explained that he considered the Viacom channels to be an "albatross," and while he favored more content for CBS All Access, he believed that there were better deals for CBS than the Viacom deal, such as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Lionsgate, or Sony Pictures. Moonves also considered Bakish a threat because he did not want an ally of Shari Redstone as a board member of the combined company.


title: Paramount Global

text: On September 9, 2018, Les Moonves exited CBS following multiple accusations of sexual assault. National Amusements agreed to not propose a CBS-Viacom merger for at least two years after the date of the settlement.


title: Paramount Global

text: On May 30, 2019, CNBC reported that CBS Corporation and Viacom would explore merger discussions in mid-June 2019. CBS's board of directors was revamped with people who were open to merging; the re-merger was made possible with the resignation of Moonves, who had opposed all merger attempts. The talks had started following rumors of CBS acquiring Starz from Lionsgate. Reports said that CBS and Viacom reportedly set August 8 as an informal deadline for reaching an agreement to recombine the two media companies. CBS announced to acquire Viacom as part of the re-merger deal for up to $15.4 billion.


title: Paramount Global

text: On August 2, 2019, it was reported that CBS and Viacom agreed to merge back into one entity, with both companies agreeing on the management team for the merger. Bob Bakish would serve as CEO of the combined company with the president and acting CEO of CBS, Joseph Ianniello, overseeing CBS-branded assets. On August 7, 2019, CBS and Viacom separately reported their quarterly earnings as the talks about the re-merger continued.


title: Paramount Global

text: On August 13, 2019, CBS and Viacom officially announced their merger; the combined company was to be named ViacomCBS, with Shari Redstone serving as chair. Upon the merger agreement, Viacom and CBS jointly announced that the transaction is expected to close by the end of 2019, pending regulatory and shareholder approvals. The merger required approval by the Federal Trade Commission.


title: Paramount Global

text: On October 28, 2019, the merger was approved by National Amusements, which then announced the deal would close in early December; the recombined company trades its shares on Nasdaq under the symbols "VIAC" and "VIACA" after CBS Corporation delisted its shares on the New York Stock Exchange.


title: Paramount Global

text: On November 25, 2019, Viacom and CBS announced the merger would close on December 4 and begin trading on NASDAQ on next day. On December 4, 2019, Bakish confirmed that the ViacomCBS merger had closed.


title: Paramount Global

text: On December 10, 2019, days after the merger, Bakish announced that ViacomCBS would look to divest Black Rock, the building that held CBS's headquarters since 1964. He stated, "Black Rock is not an asset we need to own and we believe that money would be put to better use elsewhere." On December 20, 2019, ViacomCBS agreed to acquire a 49% minority stake in film studio Miramax from beIN Media Group for $379 million. As part of the purchase, Paramount Pictures reached a long-term deal for exclusive distribution rights to its library, and first-look agreements to co-develop new film and television projects based on Miramax-owned properties.


title: Paramount Global

text: On March 2, 2020, executive vice president Dana McClintock announced that he would depart the company after 27 years in CBS Communications. On March 4, the company announced plans to potentially sell its Simon & Schuster publishing unit, with Bakish arguing that it lacked a "significant connection for our broader business.”


title: Paramount Global

text: On June 19, 2020, Jaime Ondarza, formerly the senior vice president of Turner Broadcasting South Europe and Africa, became the new head of ViacomCBS Networks International for France, Spain, Italy, the Middle East, Greece, and Turkey.


title: Paramount Global

text: On August 4, 2020, ViacomCBS announced that the company's connected video advertising platform, EyeQ, is set to launch in fall 2020.


title: Paramount Global

text: On September 14, 2020, ViacomCBS announced an agreement to sell the CBSi owned CNET Media Group to Red Ventures for $500 million. The deal included the eponymous CNET tech site, as well as ZDNet, GameSpot, the "TV Guide" digital assets, Metacritic, and Chowhound. The deal closed on October 30, 2020.


title: Paramount Global

text: On November 17, 2020, various news outlets had reported that companies such as Vivendi, Bertelsmann's Penguin Random House and News Corp's HarperCollins had considered acquiring Simon & Schuster for as much as $1.7 billion. ViacomCBS had expected the bids to be placed before November 26. On November 25, 2020, Penguin Random House agreed to purchase Simon & Schuster for $2.175 billion; however, the deal was blocked two years later by U.S. federal judge Florence Y. Pan. On August 16, 2021, ViacomCBS announced that they had agreed to sell the CBS Building to the real estate investment and management firm Harbor Group International for $760 million, leasing the space back under a short-term lease. On September 28, 2021, ViacomCBS announced that they had agreed to partner with software and data firm VideoAmp. On October 28, 2021, ViacomCBS announced that they had agreed to acquire a majority stake in the Spanish-language content producer TeleColombia & Estudios TeleMexico. On November 30, 2021, ViacomCBS announced that they had agreed to sell the CBS Studio Center to Hackman Capital Partners and Square Mile Capital Management for $1.85 billion.


title: Paramount Global

text: On January 5, 2022, "The Wall Street Journal" reported that WarnerMedia and ViacomCBS were exploring a possible sale of either a majority stake or all of The CW, and that Nexstar Media Group (which became The CW's largest affiliate group when it acquired former WB co-owner Tribune Broadcasting in 2019) was considered a leading bidder. The news led to speculation that, should a sale take place, new ownership could steer the network in a new direction, transforming The CW from a young adult-oriented network into one that featured more unscripted and even national news programming. However, reports also indicated that WarnerMedia and ViacomCBS could include a contractual commitment that would require any new owner to buy new programming from those companies, allowing them to reap some continual revenue through the network. Network president/CEO Mark Pedowitz confirmed talks of a potential sale in a memo to CW staffers, but added that "It's too early to speculate what might happen" and that the network "must continue to do what we do best."


title: Paramount Global

text: On February 15, 2022, during a presentation to investors, ViacomCBS announced that it would change its name to Paramount Global (effectively retiring the Viacom name after 52 years dating back to the original company founded in 1971) beginning the following day; in a memo to staff announcing the change, it was stated that the rebranding was intended to leverage the "iconic global name", and would "reflect who we are, what we aspire to be, and all that we stand for." The company will primarily do business as simply "Paramount". In May 2022, Berkshire Hathaway had acquired a $2.6 billion stake in Paramount.


title: Paramount Global

text: On August 15 Nexstar confirmed it had "entered into a definitive agreement" to acquire a 75% majority share in The CW; the remaining 25% would be shared equally by Paramount Global (the former ViacomCBS) and Warner Bros. Discovery (the company resulting from Discovery's acquisition of WarnerMedia). Additionally, Nexstar indicated that Mark Pedowitz would remain the network's chairman and CEO and have "responsibility for day-to-day operations. Though no monetary terms were announced, Nexstar reportedly would not pay any cash or stock up front, and would absorb approximately $100 million of network debt. As the sale does not entail the transfer of any FCC broadcast licenses (unlike the "Big Four" networks, The CW does not directly own any of its affiliates), no regulatory approvals are required, only customary financial closing conditions expected to be cleared in Nexstar's fiscal third quarter, i.e. by the start of October 2022; as such, Nexstar immediately took operational control of the network on August 15. On October 3, it was officially announced Nexstar closed the deal to acquire the majority ownership of The CW, and that longtime CEO Mark Pedowitz would be stepping down, planning to revive his production company Pine Street Entertainment, Dennis Miller will take his role as president of The CW.


title: Paramount Global

text: Other assets owned by Paramount include Simon & Schuster (book publisher), VidCon (multi-genre online video conference) and Bellator (mixed martial arts promoter). The company also has an undisclosed stake in FuboTV, which acquired in 2020.


title: Before Sunrise

text: Before Sunrise is a 1995 romantic drama film directed by Richard Linklater and co-written by Linklater and Kim Krizan. The first installment in the "Before" trilogy, it follows Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Céline (Julie Delpy) as they meet on a Eurail train and disembark in Vienna to spend the night together.


title: Before Sunrise

text: Inspired by personal experiences, Linklater collaborated with Krizan, who previously appeared in his films "Slacker" (1991) and "Dazed and Confused" (1993), to develop the screenplay. Casting was extensive; it took nine months for Hawke and Delpy to be cast with principal photography taking place entirely in Vienna.


title: Before Sunrise

text: The plot is considered minimalistic, consisting mostly of monologues and casual conversation with extended dialogue as the characters navigate Vienna. Their contrasting ideas and perspectives on life and love are detailed, with Jesse a romantic disguised as a cynic, and Céline seemingly a romantic. "Before Sunrise" also explores time, death, and self-discovery.


title: Before Sunrise

text: "Before Sunrise" premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 19, 1995, and was theatrically released eight days later. It grossed $22.5 million against a $2.5 million budget and received critical acclaim, particularly for its exploration of postmodern romance, the screenplay, Linklater's direction, and acting performances. "Before Sunrise" also received a rating of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, and appeared on many critics' lists of the greatest films of the year. A sequel, "Before Sunset", was released in 2004, and a third film, "Before Midnight", was released in 2013.


title: Before Sunrise

text: On June 16, 1994, Jesse meets Céline on a train from Budapest, and they strike up a conversation. Jesse is going to Vienna to catch a flight back to the United States, whereas Céline is returning to university in Paris after visiting her grandmother. When they reach Vienna, Jesse asks Céline to disembark with him, saying that 10 or 20 years down the road, she might not be happy with her significant other and might wonder how her life would have been different if she had picked someone else. Alternatively, she may just realize Jesse himself is not that different from the rest. Lacking the money to rent a room for the night, they decide to roam around in Vienna until Jesse's flight the next morning.


title: Before Sunrise

text: After visiting a few landmarks in Vienna, they share a kiss at the top of the Wiener Riesenrad at sunset and start to feel a romantic connection. As they continue to roam around the city, they begin to talk more openly with each other, with conversations ranging from topics about love, life, religion, and their observations of Vienna. Céline tells Jesse that her last boyfriend broke up with her six months ago, claiming that she "loved him too much". When questioned, Jesse reveals he had initially come to Europe to spend time with his girlfriend who was studying in Madrid, but they broke up soon after he was there. He found a cheap flight home, via Vienna, but it did not leave for two weeks so he bought a Eurail pass and traveled around Europe.


title: Before Sunrise

text: When they are walking alongside the Donaukanal, they are approached by a man who offers to write them a poem with a word of their choice inside. Jesse and Céline decide on the word "milkshake", and are soon presented with the poem "Delusion Angel" (written for the film by poet David Jewell)—a poem that Jesse cynically claims the man had already previously written and just inserts the words people choose. In a Viennese café, Jesse and Céline stage fake phone conversations with each other, playing each other's friends they pretend to call. Céline reveals that she was ready to get off the train with Jesse before he convinced her. Jesse reveals that after he broke up with his girlfriend, he bought a flight that really was not much cheaper, and all he really wanted was an escape from his life.


title: Before Sunrise

text: They admit their attraction to each other and how the night has made them feel, though they understand that they probably will not see each other again. They decide to make the best of what time they have left, with the film leaving it ambiguous as to whether or not they had sex. At that point, Jesse explains that, if given the choice, he would marry her instead of never seeing her again. The film ends the next day at the train station, where, just as Céline's train is about to leave, the couple decides not to exchange any contact information but instead meet at the same place in six months.


title: Before Sunrise

text: "Before Sunrise" was inspired by a woman named Amy Lehrhaupt, whom writer/director Richard Linklater met in a toy shop in Philadelphia in 1989. They walked around the city together, conversing deep into the night. In 2013, Linklater revealed that Lehrhaupt had died in a motorcycle accident before the release of "Before Sunrise."


title: Before Sunrise

text: Originally, in the screenplay, who the two people were and the city they spend time in was vague. Linklater realized that because the film is so much a dialogue between a man and a woman, it was important to have a strong female co-writer. He chose Kim Krizan, who had small roles in his two previous films "Slacker" and "Dazed and Confused". According to Linklater, he "loved the way her mind worked – a constant stream of confident and intelligent ideas".


title: Before Sunrise

text: Linklater and Krizan talked about the concept of the film and the characters for a long time. He wanted to explore the "relationship side of life and discover two people who had complete anonymity and try to find out who they really were". He decided to put Jesse and Céline in a foreign country because "when you're traveling, you're much more open to experiences outside your usual realm". He and Krizan worked on an outline. They wrote the actual screenplay in 11 days.


title: Before Sunrise

text: Linklater spent nine months casting the film because he saw so many people but had trouble finding the right actors for the roles of Jesse and Céline. When Linklater first considered casting Hawke, he thought that the actor was too young for the part. Linklater saw Hawke at a play in New York City and reconsidered after talking to the actor. For Céline, Linklater met Julie Delpy and liked her personality. After they did a final reading, Linklater knew that Delpy and Hawke were right for the roles. Once Delpy and Hawke agreed to do the film, they went to Austin and talked with Linklater and Krizan for a few days.


title: Before Sunrise

text: As the film trilogy has become more renowned and beloved by fans, in 2016, Delpy told "Creative Screenwriting" regarding Before Sunrise, "Ethan and I basically re-wrote all of it. There was an original screenplay, but it wasn't very romantic, believe it or not. It was just a lot of talking, rather than romance. Richard hired us because he knew we were writing and he wanted us to bring that romance to the film. We brought those romantic ideas and that's how I wrote something that actually got made, without really getting credit for it. But, if I had written "Before Sunrise" and been credited, then I doubt it would have been financed".


title: Before Sunrise

text: In 2019, credited screenwriter Kim Krizan refuted Delpy's claim that the actors re-wrote the entire script and that it wasn't romantic by telling Illeana Douglas, "Success has many parents, but failure is an orphan.". Some have even called Krizan "the real Céline."


title: Before Sunrise

text: While all principals have acknowledged the final film was "workshoped" after Linklater and Krizan wrote the script, only Delpy is on the record suggesting a full re-write of the script. Linklater and Krizan are credited for writing Before Sunrise, while Delpy and Hawke are credited for co-writing the sequels and Krizan credited with story credit for Before Sunset and characters created by credit on Before Midnight.


title: Before Sunrise

text: "Before Sunrise" revolves largely around the twin themes of self-fulfillment and self-discovery through a significant other, charging the concept through the introduction of a twelve-hour time constraint in which the goals implicit to the two themes have to be realized. They are underlined by the poem ""Delusion Angel"", which evokes a longing for complete and unifying, possibly even redeeming, understanding between two partners in a world which is itself unknowable, and over which one can exercise no control.


title: Before Sunrise

text: An important role is played by the theme of spontaneous and uninhibited response to one's environment. It is reflected by the actions of Jesse and Céline, whose joint stream of consciousness, initiated by a previously unmeditated decision to leave the train together, allows them to temporarily detach themselves from the world, and enter a realm where only the other's company is of importance. Come morning, Jesse remarks that he and Céline have again entered "real time".


title: Before Sunrise

text: It could be argued that "Before Sunrise" subsumes its main themes under that of life. In one scene, Céline and Jesse visit the Friedhof der Namenlosen, the Cemetery of the Nameless in Simmering. The people buried in the cemetery have found anonymity in death; by learning to know and understand one another, Céline and Jesse experience and embrace life, suspending their own mortality.


title: Before Sunrise

text: The film leaves audience members to decide for themselves whether Jesse and Céline will actually meet again in six months. Critic Robin Wood has written that after he published an essay on the film (in a 1996 issue of "CineAction"), Linklater wrote him to say that "neither he nor the two actors ever doubted that the date would be kept."


title: Before Sunrise

text: "Before Sunrise" had its world premiere at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival. It was released in the United States on January 27, 1995.


title: Before Sunrise

text: The film was entered into the 45th Berlin International Film Festival where Linklater won the Silver Bear for Best Director.


title: Before Sunrise

text: The review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 100% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 46 reviews, with an average rating of 8.4/10. The site's critics consensus reads, "Thought-provoking and beautifully filmed, "Before Sunrise" is an intelligent, unabashedly romantic look at modern love, led by marvelously natural performances from Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 77 out of 100 based on 18 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade B on scale of A to F.


title: Before Sunrise

text: Film critic Roger Ebert gave "Before Sunrise" three out of four and described Delpy as "ravishingly beautiful and, more important, warm and matter-of-fact, speaking English so well the screenplay has to explain it (she spent some time in the States)". In her review for "The New York Times", Janet Maslin wrote, ""Before Sunrise" is as uneven as any marathon conversation might be, combining colorful, disarming insights with periodic lulls. The film maker clearly wants things this way, with both these young characters trying on ideas and attitudes as if they were new clothes". Hal Hinson, in his review for "The Washington Post" wrote, ""Before Sunrise" is not a big movie, or one with big ideas, but it is a cut above the banal twentysomething love stories you usually see at the movies. This one, at least, treats young people as real people".


title: Before Sunrise

text: In his review for the "Los Angeles Times", Peter Rainer wrote, "It's an attempt to make a mainstream youth movie with a bit more feeling and mysteriousness than most, and, in this, it succeeds". Marjorie Baumgarten, in her review for "The Austin Chronicle", wrote, ""Before Sunrise" represents a maturation of Linklater's work in terms of its themes and choice of characters". In his review for "The New Yorker", Anthony Lane wrote, "Just once, for a single day, Jesse and Céline have given life the sort of shape and charge that until now they have found only in fiction, and may never find again". "Entertainment Weekly" gave the film an "A−" rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote, "Small movies can be as daring as big ones, and Linklater, in his offhand way, is working without a net here. "Before Sunrise" may be the closest an American has come to the discursive talk gamesmanship of Eric Rohmer".


title: Before Sunrise

text: Online film critic James Berardinelli has cited the film as "the best romance of all time". "Entertainment Weekly" rated "Before Sunrise" #25 on their Top 25 Modern Romances list. In a 2008 "Empire" poll, "Before Sunrise" was ranked as the 200th greatest movie of all time. In 2010 British newspaper "The Guardian" ranked "Before Sunrise"/"Before Sunset" #3 on their critics' list of 25 best romantic films of all time, and #2 in an online readers' poll.


title: Before Sunrise

text: The film grossed $1.4 million in 363 theaters on its opening weekend, and went on to gross $5.5 million in the United States and Canada and $22.5 million worldwide, nine times its $2.5 million budget.


title: Before Sunrise

text: "Before Sunset" was released in 2004 with Linklater, Krizan, Hawke, and Delpy to equally positive reviews, with the review-gathering site Rotten Tomatoes logging a 95% "Fresh" rating. A second sequel, "Before Midnight", was released in 2013, again to rave reviews.


title: Before Sunrise

text: Jesse and Céline also had a very short scene together in Linklater's 2001 animated film "Waking Life". In this scene, the two are together in bed talking, though since the film is all about lucid dreaming, and from the plot points established in "Before Sunset", the thought is that this scene never existed in reality.


title: Proxima Centauri

text: Proxima Centauri is a small, low-mass star located away from the Sun in the southern constellation of Centaurus. Its Latin name means the 'nearest [star] of Centaurus'. It was discovered in 1915 by Robert Innes and is the nearest-known star to the Sun. With a quiescent apparent magnitude of 11.13, it is too faint to be seen with the unaided eye. Proxima Centauri is a member of the Alpha Centauri star system, being identified as component Alpha Centauri C, and is 2.18° to the southwest of the Alpha Centauri AB pair. It is currently from AB, which it orbits with a period of about 550,000 years.


title: Proxima Centauri

text: Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf star with a mass about 12.5% of the Sun's mass (), and average density about 33 times that of the Sun. Because of Proxima Centauri's proximity to Earth, its angular diameter can be measured directly. Its actual diameter is about one-seventh (14%) the diameter of the Sun. Although it has a very low average luminosity, Proxima Centauri is a flare star that randomly undergoes dramatic increases in brightness because of magnetic activity. The star's magnetic field is created by convection throughout the stellar body, and the resulting flare activity generates a total X-ray emission similar to that produced by the Sun. The internal mixing of its fuel by convection through its core, and Proxima's relatively low energy-production rate, mean that it will be a main-sequence star for another four trillion years.


title: Proxima Centauri

text: Proxima Centauri has two known exoplanets and one candidate exoplanet: Proxima Centauri b, Proxima Centauri d and the disputed Proxima Centauri c. Proxima Centauri b orbits the star at a distance of roughly with an orbital period of approximately 11.2 Earth days. Its estimated mass is at least 1.07 times that of Earth. Proxima b orbits within Proxima Centauri's habitable zone—the range where temperatures are right for liquid water to exist on its surface—but, because Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf and a flare star, the planet's habitability is highly uncertain. A candidate super-Earth, Proxima Centauri c, orbits roughly away every . A sub-Earth, Proxima Centauri d, orbits roughly away every 5.1 days.


title: Proxima Centauri

text: Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf, because it belongs to the main sequence on the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram and is of spectral class M5.5. The M5.5 class means that it falls in the low-mass end of M-type dwarf stars, with its hue shifted toward red-yellow by an effective temperature of . Its absolute visual magnitude, or its visual magnitude as viewed from a distance of , is 15.5. Its total luminosity over all wavelengths is only 0.16% that of the Sun, although when observed in the wavelengths of visible light the eye is most sensitive to, it is only 0.0056% as luminous as the Sun. More than 85% of its radiated power is at infrared wavelengths.


title: Proxima Centauri

text: In 2002, optical interferometry with the Very Large Telescope (VLTI) found that the angular diameter of Proxima Centauri is . Because its distance is known, the actual diameter of Proxima Centauri can be calculated to be about 1/7 that of the Sun, or 1.5 times that of Jupiter. The star's mass, estimated from stellar theory, is , or 129 Jupiter masses (). The mass has been calculated directly, although with less precision, from observations of microlensing events to be .


title: Proxima Centauri

text: Lower mass main-sequence stars have higher mean density than higher mass ones, and Proxima Centauri is no exception: it has a mean density of , compared with the Sun's mean density of . The measured surface gravity of Proxima Centauri, given as the base-10 logarithm of the acceleration in units of cgs, is 5.20. This is 162 times the surface gravity on Earth.


title: Proxima Centauri

text: A 1998 study of photometric variations indicates that Proxima Centauri completes a full rotation once every 83.5 days. A subsequent time series analysis of chromospheric indicators in 2002 suggests a longer rotation period of  days. This was subsequently ruled out in favor of a rotation period of  days.


title: Proxima Centauri

text: Because of its low mass, the interior of the star is completely convective, causing energy to be transferred to the exterior by the physical movement of plasma rather than through radiative processes. This convection means that the helium ash left over from the thermonuclear fusion of hydrogen does not accumulate at the core but is instead circulated throughout the star. Unlike the Sun, which will only burn through about 10% of its total hydrogen supply before leaving the main sequence, Proxima Centauri will consume nearly all of its fuel before the fusion of hydrogen comes to an end.


title: Proxima Centauri

text: Convection is associated with the generation and persistence of a magnetic field. The magnetic energy from this field is released at the surface through stellar flares that briefly (as short as per ten seconds) increase the overall luminosity of the star. On May 6, 2019, a flare event bordering Solar M and X flare class, briefly became the brightest ever detected, with a far ultraviolet emission of . These flares can grow as large as the star and reach temperatures measured as high as 27 million K—hot enough to radiate X-rays. Proxima Centauri's quiescent X-ray luminosity, approximately (4–16) erg/s ((4–16) W), is roughly equal to that of the much larger Sun. The peak X-ray luminosity of the largest flares can reach  erg/s ( W).


title: Proxima Centauri

text: Proxima Centauri's chromosphere is active, and its spectrum displays a strong emission line of singly ionized magnesium at a wavelength of 280 nm. About 88% of the surface of Proxima Centauri may be active, a percentage that is much higher than that of the Sun even at the peak of the solar cycle. Even during quiescent periods with few or no flares, this activity increases the corona temperature of Proxima Centauri to 3.5 million K, compared to the 2 million K of the Sun's corona, and its total X-ray emission is comparable to the sun's. Proxima Centauri's overall activity level is considered low compared to other red dwarfs, which is consistent with the star's estimated age of 4.85 years, since the activity level of a red dwarf is expected to steadily wane over billions of years as its stellar rotation rate decreases. The activity level appears to vary with a period of roughly 442 days, which is shorter than the solar cycle of 11 years.


title: Proxima Centauri

text: Proxima Centauri has a relatively weak stellar wind, no more than 20% of the mass loss rate of the solar wind. Because the star is much smaller than the Sun, the mass loss per unit surface area from Proxima Centauri may be eight times that from the solar surface.


title: Proxima Centauri

text: A red dwarf with the mass of Proxima Centauri will remain on the main sequence for about four trillion years. As the proportion of helium increases because of hydrogen fusion, the star will become smaller and hotter, gradually transforming into a so-called "blue dwarf". Near the end of this period it will become significantly more luminous, reaching 2.5% of the Sun's luminosity () and warming up any orbiting bodies for a period of several billion years. When the hydrogen fuel is exhausted, Proxima Centauri will then evolve into a helium white dwarf (without passing through the red giant phase) and steadily lose any remaining heat energy.


title: Proxima Centauri

text: The Alpha Centauri system may form naturally through a low-mass star being dynamically captured by a more massive binary of within their embedded star cluster before the cluster disperses. However, more accurate measurements of the radial velocity are needed to confirm this hypothesis. If Proxima Centauri was bound to the Alpha Centauri system during its formation, the stars are likely to share the same elemental composition. The gravitational influence of Proxima might have stirred up the Alpha Centauri protoplanetary disks. This would have increased the delivery of volatiles such as water to the dry inner regions, so possibly enriching any terrestrial planets in the system with this material.


title: Proxima Centauri

text: Alternatively, Proxima Centauri may have been captured at a later date during an encounter, resulting in a highly eccentric orbit that was then stabilized by the galactic tide and additional stellar encounters. Such a scenario may mean that Proxima Centauri's planetary companions have had a much lower chance for orbital disruption by Alpha Centauri. As the members of the Alpha Centauri pair continue to evolve and lose mass, Proxima Centauri is predicted to become unbound from the system in around 3.5 billion years from the present. Thereafter, the star will steadily diverge from the pair.


title: Proxima Centauri

text: Based on a parallax of , published in 2020 in Gaia Data Release 3, Proxima Centauri is from the Sun. Previously published parallaxes include: in 2018 by Gaia DR2, , in 2014 by the Research Consortium On Nearby Stars; , in the original Hipparcos Catalogue, in 1997; in the Hipparcos New Reduction, in 2007; and using the Hubble Space Telescope fine guidance sensors, in 1999. From Earth's vantage point, Proxima Centauri is separated from Alpha Centauri by 2.18 degrees, or four times the angular diameter of the full Moon. Proxima Centauri has a relatively large proper motion—moving 3.85 arcseconds per year across the sky. It has a radial velocity toward the Sun of 22.2 km/s. From Proxima Centauri, the Sun would appear as a bright 0.4-magnitude star in the constellation Cassiopeia, similar to that of Achernar or Procyon from Earth.


title: Proxima Centauri

text: Among the known stars, Proxima Centauri has been the closest star to the Sun for about 32,000 years and will be so for about another 25,000 years, after which Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B will alternate approximately every 79.91 years as the closest star to the Sun. In 2001, J. García-Sánchez "et al." predicted that Proxima Centauri will make its closest approach to the Sun in approximately 26,700 years, coming within . A 2010 study by V. V. Bobylev predicted a closest approach distance of in about 27,400 years, followed by a 2014 study by C. A. L. Bailer-Jones predicting a perihelion approach of in roughly 26,710 years. Proxima Centauri is orbiting through the Milky Way at a distance from the Galactic Centre that varies from , with an orbital eccentricity of 0.07.


title: Proxima Centauri

text: Ever since the discovery of Proxima Centauri, it has been suspected to be a true companion of the Alpha Centauri binary star system. Data from the Hipparcos satellite, combined with ground-based observations, were consistent with the hypothesis that the three stars are a gravitationally bound system. For this reason, Proxima Centauri is sometimes referred to as Alpha Centauri C. Kervella et al. (2017) used high-precision radial velocity measurements to determine with a high degree of confidence that Proxima and Alpha Centauri are gravitationally bound. Proxima Centauri's orbital period around the Alpha Centauri AB barycenter is years with an eccentricity of ; it approaches Alpha Centauri to at periastron and retreats to at apastron. At present, Proxima Centauri is from the Alpha Centauri AB barycenter, nearly to the farthest point in its orbit.


title: Proxima Centauri

text: Six single stars, two binary star systems, and a triple star share a common motion through space with Proxima Centauri and the Alpha Centauri system. (The co-moving stars include HD 4391, γ Normae, and Gliese 676.) The space velocities of these stars are all within 10 km/s of Alpha Centauri's peculiar motion. Thus, they may form a moving group of stars, which would indicate a common point of origin, such as in a star cluster.


title: Proxima Centauri

text: As of 2022, three planets (two confirmed and one candidate) have been detected in orbit around Proxima Centauri, with one being among the lightest ever detected by radial velocity ("d"), one close to Earth's size within the habitable zone ("b"), and a possible gas dwarf that orbits much farther out than the inner two ("c").


title: Proxima Centauri

text: Ever since the first exoplanets were discovered, there has been a search for exoplanets in the Alpha Centauri system. Multiple measurements of Proxima Centauri's radial velocity constrained the maximum mass that a detectable companion could possess. The activity level of the star adds noise to the radial velocity measurements, complicating detection of a companion using this method. In 1998, an examination of Proxima Centauri using the Faint Object Spectrograph on board the Hubble Space Telescope appeared to show evidence of a companion orbiting at a distance of about 0.5 AU. A subsequent search using the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 failed to locate any companions. Astrometric measurements at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory appear to rule out a Jupiter-sized planet with an orbital period of 2−12 years.


title: Proxima Centauri

text: In 2017, a team of astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array reported detecting a belt of cold dust orbiting Proxima Centauri at a range of 1−4 AU from the star. This dust has a temperature of around 40 K and has a total estimated mass of 1% of the planet Earth. They tentatively detected two additional features: a cold belt with a temperature of 10 K orbiting around 30 AU and a compact emission source about 1.2 arcseconds from the star. There was a hint at an additional warm dust belt at a distance of 0.4 AU from the star. However, upon further analysis, these emissions were determined to be most likely the result of a large flare emitted by the star in March 2017. The presence of dust is not needed to model the observations.


title: Proxima Centauri

text: Proxima Centauri b, or Alpha Centauri Cb, orbits the star at a distance of roughly with an orbital period of approximately 11.2 Earth days. Its estimated mass is at least 1.17 times that of the Earth. Moreover, the equilibrium temperature of Proxima Centauri b is estimated to be within the range where water could exist as liquid on its surface; thus, placing it within the habitable zone of Proxima Centauri.


title: Proxima Centauri

text: The first indications of the exoplanet Proxima Centauri b were found in 2013 by Mikko Tuomi of the University of Hertfordshire from archival observation data. To confirm the possible discovery, a team of astronomers launched the Pale Red Dot project in January 2016. On August 24, 2016, the team of 31 scientists from all around the world, led by Guillem Anglada-Escudé of Queen Mary University of London, confirmed the existence of Proxima Centauri b through a peer-reviewed article published in "Nature". The measurements were performed using two spectrographs: HARPS on the ESO 3.6 m Telescope at La Silla Observatory and UVES on the 8 m Very Large Telescope at Paranal Observatory. Several attempts to detect a transit of this planet across the face of Proxima Centauri have been made. A transit-like signal appearing on September 8, 2016, was tentatively identified, using the Bright Star Survey Telescope at the Zhongshan Station in Antarctica.


title: Proxima Centauri

text: In 2016, in a paper that helped to confirm Proxima Centauri b's existence, a second signal in the range of 60 to 500 days was detected. However, stellar activity and inadequate sampling causes its nature to remain unclear.


title: Proxima Centauri

text: Proxima Centauri c is a candidate super-Earth or gas dwarf about 7 Earth masses orbiting at roughly every . If Proxima Centauri b were the star's Earth, Proxima Centauri c would be equivalent to Neptune. Due to its large distance from Proxima Centauri, it is unlikely to be habitable, with a low equilibrium temperature of around 39 K. The planet was first reported by Italian astrophysicist Mario Damasso and his colleagues in April 2019. Damasso's team had noticed minor movements of Proxima Centauri in the radial velocity data from the ESO's HARPS instrument, indicating a possible additional planet orbiting Proxima Centauri. In 2020, the planet's existence was confirmed by Hubble astrometry data from c. 1995. A possible direct imaging counterpart was detected in the infrared with the SPHERE, but the authors admit that they "did not obtain a clear detection." If their candidate source is in fact Proxima Centauri c, it is too bright for a planet of its mass and age, implying that the planet may have a ring system with a radius of around 5 . In 2022 a study was published which disputed the radial velocity comfirmation of the planet.


title: Proxima Centauri

text: In 2019, a team of astronomers revisited the data from ESPRESSO about Proxima Centauri b to refine its mass. While doing so, the team found another radial velocity spike with a periodicity of 5.15 days. They estimated that if it were a planetary companion, it would be no less than 0.29 Earth masses. Further analysis confirmed the signal's existence leading up the discovery's announcement in February 2022.


title: Proxima Centauri

text: Prior to the discovery of Proxima Centauri b, the TV documentary "" hypothesized that a life-sustaining planet could exist in orbit around Proxima Centauri or other red dwarfs. Such a planet would lie within the habitable zone of Proxima Centauri, about from the star, and would have an orbital period of 3.6–14 days. A planet orbiting within this zone may experience tidal locking to the star. If the orbital eccentricity of this hypothetical planet is low, Proxima Centauri would move little in the planet's sky, and most of the surface would experience either day or night perpetually. The presence of an atmosphere could serve to redistribute the energy from the star-lit side to the far side of the planet.


title: Proxima Centauri

text: Proxima Centauri's flare outbursts could erode the atmosphere of any planet in its habitable zone, but the documentary's scientists thought that this obstacle could be overcome. Gibor Basri of the University of California, Berkeley, mentioned that "no one [has] found any showstoppers to habitability." For example, one concern was that the torrents of charged particles from the star's flares could strip the atmosphere off any nearby planet. If the planet had a strong magnetic field, the field would deflect the particles from the atmosphere; even the slow rotation of a tidally locked planet that spins once for every time it orbits its star would be enough to generate a magnetic field, as long as part of the planet's interior remained molten.


title: Proxima Centauri

text: Other scientists, especially proponents of the rare-Earth hypothesis, disagree that red dwarfs can sustain life. Any exoplanet in this star's habitable zone would likely be tidally locked, resulting in a relatively weak planetary magnetic moment, leading to strong atmospheric erosion by coronal mass ejections from Proxima Centauri. In December 2020, a candidate SETI radio signal BLC-1 was announced as potentially coming from the star. The signal was later determined to be human-made radio interference.


title: Proxima Centauri

text: In 1915, the Scottish astronomer Robert Innes, director of the Union Observatory in Johannesburg, South Africa, discovered a star that had the same proper motion as Alpha Centauri. He suggested that it be named "Proxima Centauri" (actually "Proxima Centaurus"). In 1917, at the Royal Observatory at the Cape of Good Hope, the Dutch astronomer Joan Voûte measured the star's trigonometric parallax at and determined that Proxima Centauri was approximately the same distance from the Sun as Alpha Centauri. It was the lowest-luminosity star known at the time. An equally accurate parallax determination of Proxima Centauri was made by American astronomer Harold L. Alden in 1928, who confirmed Innes's view that it is closer, with a parallax of .


title: Proxima Centauri

text: In 1951, American astronomer Harlow Shapley announced that Proxima Centauri is a flare star. Examination of past photographic records showed that the star displayed a measurable increase in magnitude on about 8% of the images, making it the most active flare star then known.


title: Proxima Centauri

text: The proximity of the star allows for detailed observation of its flare activity. In 1980, the Einstein Observatory produced a detailed X-ray energy curve of a stellar flare on Proxima Centauri. Further observations of flare activity were made with the EXOSAT and ROSAT satellites, and the X-ray emissions of smaller, solar-like flares were observed by the Japanese ASCA satellite in 1995. Proxima Centauri has since been the subject of study by most X-ray observatories, including XMM-Newton and Chandra.


title: Proxima Centauri

text: Because of Proxima Centauri's southern declination, it can only be viewed south of latitude 27° N. Red dwarfs such as Proxima Centauri are too faint to be seen with the naked eye. Even from Alpha Centauri A or B, Proxima would only be seen as a fifth magnitude star. It has apparent visual magnitude 11, so a telescope with an aperture of at least is needed to observe it, even under ideal viewing conditions—under clear, dark skies with Proxima Centauri well above the horizon. In 2016, the International Astronomical Union organized a Working Group on Star Names (WGSN) to catalogue and standardize proper names for stars. The WGSN approved the name "Proxima Centauri" for this star on August 21, 2016, and it is now so included in the List of IAU approved Star Names.


title: Proxima Centauri

text: In 2016, a superflare was observed from Proxima Centauri, the strongest flare ever seen. The optical brightness increased by a factor of 68× to approximately magnitude 6.8. It is estimated that similar flares occur around five times every year but are of such short duration, just a few minutes, that they have never been observed before. On 2020 April 22 and 23, the "New Horizons" spacecraft took images of two of the nearest stars, Proxima Centauri and Wolf 359. When compared with Earth-based images, a very large parallax effect was easily visible. However, this was only used for illustrative purposes and did not improve on previous distance measurements.


title: Proxima Centauri

text: Because of the star's proximity to Earth, Proxima Centauri has been proposed as a flyby destination for interstellar travel. If non-nuclear, conventional propulsion technologies are used, the flight of a spacecraft to Proxima Centauri and its planets would probably require thousands of years. For example, "Voyager 1", which is now travelling relative to the Sun, would reach Proxima Centauri in 73,775 years, were the spacecraft travelling in the direction of that star. A slow-moving probe would have only several tens of thousands of years to catch Proxima Centauri near its closest approach, before the star would recede out of reach.


title: Proxima Centauri

text: Nuclear pulse propulsion might enable such interstellar travel with a trip timescale of a century, inspiring several studies such as Project Orion, Project Daedalus, and Project Longshot. Project Breakthrough Starshot aims to reach the Alpha Centauri system within the first half of the 21st century, with microprobes travelling at 20% of the speed of light propelled by around 100 gigawatts of Earth-based lasers. The probes would perform a fly-by of Proxima Centauri to take photos and collect data of its planets' atmospheric compositions. It would take 4.25 years for the information collected to be sent back to Earth.


title: Armenians

text: Armenians (, "hayer" ) are an ethnic group native to the Armenian highlands of Western Asia. Armenians constitute the main population of Armenia and the "de facto" independent Artsakh. There is a wide-ranging diaspora of around five million people of full or partial Armenian ancestry living outside modern Armenia. The largest Armenian populations today exist in Russia, the United States, France, Georgia, Iran, Germany, Ukraine, Lebanon, Brazil, and Syria. With the exceptions of Iran and the former Soviet states, the present-day Armenian diaspora was formed mainly as a result of the Armenian genocide.


title: Armenians

text: Armenian is an Indo-European language. It has two mutually intelligible spoken and written forms: Eastern Armenian, today spoken mainly in Armenia, Artsakh, Iran, and the former Soviet republics; and Western Armenian, used in the historical Western Armenia and, after the Armenian genocide, primarily in the Armenian diasporan communities. The unique Armenian alphabet was invented in 405 AD by Mesrop Mashtots.


title: Armenians

text: Most Armenians adhere to the Armenian Apostolic Church, a non-Chalcedonian Christian church, which is also the world's oldest national church. Christianity began to spread in Armenia soon after Jesus' death, due to the efforts of two of his apostles, St. Thaddeus and St. Bartholomew. In the early 4th century, the Kingdom of Armenia became the first state to adopt Christianity as a state religion.


title: Armenians

text: The earliest attestations of the exonym "Armenia" date around the 6th century BC. In his trilingual Behistun Inscription dated to 517 BC, Darius I the Great of Persia refers to "Urashtu" (in Babylonian) as "Armina" (Old Persian: 𐎠𐎼𐎷𐎡𐎴) and "Harminuya" (in Elamite).


title: Armenians

text: In Greek, "Armenios" () is attested from about the same time, perhaps the earliest reference being a fragment attributed to Hecataeus of Miletus (476 BC). Xenophon, a Greek general serving in some of the Persian expeditions, describes many aspects of Armenian village life and hospitality in around 401 BC.


title: Armenians

text: Some have linked the name "Armenia" with the Early Bronze Age state of "Armani (Armanum, Armi)" or the Late Bronze Age state of "Arme (Shupria)". "Armini", Urartian for "inhabitant of Arme" or "Armean country," referring to the region of Shupria, to the immediate west of Lake Van. The Arme tribe of Urartian texts may have been the Urumu, who in the 12th century BC attempted to invade Assyria from the north with their allies the Mushki and the Kaskians. The Urumu apparently settled in the vicinity of Sason, lending their name to the regions of Arme and the nearby lands of Urme and Inner Urumu. The location of the older site of Armani is a matter of debate. Some modern researchers have placed it in the same general area as Arme, near modern Samsat, and have suggested it was populated, at least partially, by an early Indo-European-speaking people. The relationship between Armani and the later Arme-Shupria, if any, is undetermined. Additionally, their connections to Armenians is inconclusive as it is not known what languages were spoken in these regions.


title: Armenians

text: It has also been speculated that the land of "Ermenen" (located in or near "Minni"), mentioned by the Egyptian pharaoh Thutmose III in 1446 BCE, could be a reference to Armenia.


title: Armenians

text: Armenians call themselves "Hay" (, pronounced [ˈhaj]; plural: հայեր, [haˈjɛɾ]). The name has traditionally been derived from "Hayk" (), the legendary patriarch of the Armenians and a great-great-grandson of Noah, who, according to Movses Khorenatsi (Moses of Khorene), defeated the Babylonian king Bel in 2492 BC and established his nation in the Ararat region. It is also further postulated that the name "Hay" comes from, or is related to, one of the two confederated, Hittite vassal states—Hayasa-Azzi (1600–1200 BC). Ultimately, "Hay" may derive from the Proto Indo-European words "póti" (meaning "lord" or "master") or "*h₂éyos"/"*áyos" (meaning "metal").


title: Armenians

text: Khorenatsi wrote that the word "Armenian" originated from the name Armenak or Aram (the descendant of Hayk). Khorenatsi refers to both Armenia and Armenians as "Hayk‘" (Armenian: Հայք) (not to be confused with the aforementioned patriarch, Hayk).


title: Armenians

text: While the Armenian language is classified as an Indo-European language, its placement within the broader Indo-European language family is a matter of debate. Until fairly recently, scholars believed Armenian to be most closely related to Greek and Ancient Macedonian. Eric P. Hamp placed Armenian in the "Pontic Indo-European" (also called Graeco-Armenian or Helleno-Armenian) subgroup of Indo-European languages in his 2012 Indo-European family tree. There are two possible explanations, not mutually exclusive, for a common origin of the Armenian and Greek languages.


title: Armenians

text: Some linguists tentatively conclude that Armenian, Greek (and Phrygian) and Indo-Iranian were dialectally close to each other; within this hypothetical dialect group, Proto-Armenian was situated between Proto-Greek (centum subgroup) and Proto-Indo-Iranian (satem subgroup). This has led some scholars to propose a hypothetical Graeco-Armenian-Aryan clade within the Indo-European language family from which the Armenian, Greek, Indo-Iranian, and possibly Phrygian languages all descend. According to Kim (2018), however, there is insufficient evidence for a cladistic connection between Armenian and Greek, and common features between these two languages can be explained as a result of contact. Contact is also the most likely explanation for morphological features shared by Armenian with Indo-Iranian and Balto-Slavic languages.


title: Armenians

text: It has been suggested that the Bronze Age Trialeti-Vanadzor culture and sites such as the burial complexes at Verin and Nerkin Naver are indicative of an Indo-European presence in Armenia by the end of the 3rd millennium BCE. The controversial Armenian hypothesis, put forward by some scholars, such as Thomas Gamkrelidze and Vyacheslav V. Ivanov, proposes that the Indo-European homeland was around the Armenian Highland. This theory was partially confirmed by the research of geneticist David Reich (et al. 2018), among others. Similarly Grolle (et al. 2018) supports not only a homeland for Armenians on the Armenian highlands, but also that the Armenian highlands are the homeland for the "pre-proto-Indo-Europeans". A large genetic study in 2022 showed that many Armenians are "direct patrilineal descendants of the Yamnaya".


title: Armenians

text: Genetic studies explain Armenian diversity by several mixtures of Eurasian populations that occurred between 3000 and 2000 BCE. But genetic signals of population mixture cease after 1200 BCE when Bronze Age civilizations in the Eastern Mediterranean world suddenly and violently collapsed. Armenians have since remained isolated and genetic structure within the population developed ~500 years ago when Armenia was divided between the Ottomans and the Safavid Empire in Iran. A genetic study (Wang et al. 2018) supports the indigenous origin for Armenians in a region south of the Caucasus which he calls "Greater Caucasus".


title: Armenians

text: In the Bronze Age, several states flourished in the area of Greater Armenia, including the Hittite Empire (at the height of its power in the 14th century BCE), (Mitanni (South-Western historical Armenia, 1500–1300 BCE), and Hayasa-Azzi (1500–1200 BCE). Soon after Hayasa-Azzi came Arme-Shupria (1300s–1190 BCE), the Nairi Confederation (1200–900 BCE), and the Kingdom of Urartu (860–590 BCE), who successively established their sovereignty over the Armenian Highland. Each of the aforementioned nations and tribes participated in the ethnogenesis of the Armenian people. Under Ashurbanipal (669–627 BCE), the Assyrian empire reached the Caucasus Mountains (modern Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan).


title: Armenians

text: Luwianologist John D. Hawkins proposed that "Hai" people were possibly mentioned in the 10th century BCE Hieroglyphic Luwian inscriptions from Carchemish. A.E. Redgate later clarified that these "Hai" people may have been Armenians.


title: Armenians

text: The first geographical entity that was called Armenia by neighboring peoples (such as by Hecataeus of Miletus and on the Achaemenid Behistun Inscription) was the Satrapy of Armenia, established in the late 6th century BCE under the Orontid (Yervanduni) dynasty within the Achaemenid Persian Empire. The Orontids later ruled the independent Kingdom of Armenia. At its zenith (95–65 BCE), under the imperial reign of Tigran the Great, a member of the Artaxiad (Artashesian) dynasty, the Kingdom of Armenia extended from the Caucasus all the way to what is now central Turkey, Lebanon, and northern Iran.


title: Armenians

text: The Arsacid Kingdom of Armenia, itself a branch of the Arsacid dynasty of Parthia, was the first state to adopt Christianity as its religion (it had formerly been adherent to Armenian paganism, which was influenced by Zoroastrianism, while later on adopting a few elements regarding identification of its pantheon with Greco-Roman deities). In the early years of the 4th century, likely 301 CE, partly in defiance of the Sassanids it seems. In the late Parthian period, Armenia was a predominantly Zoroastrian-adhering land, but by the Christianisation, previously predominant Zoroastrianism and paganism in Armenia gradually declined. Later on, in order to further strengthen Armenian national identity, Mesrop Mashtots invented the Armenian alphabet, in 405 CE. This event ushered the Golden Age of Armenia, during which many foreign books and manuscripts were translated to Armenian by Mesrop's pupils. Armenia lost its sovereignty again in 428 CE to the rivaling Byzantine and Sassanid Persian empires, until the Muslim conquest of Persia overran also the regions in which Armenians lived.


title: Armenians

text: In 885 CE the Armenians reestablished themselves as a sovereign kingdom under the leadership of Ashot I of the Bagratid Dynasty. A considerable portion of the Armenian nobility and peasantry fled the Byzantine occupation of Bagratid Armenia in 1045, and the subsequent invasion of the region by Seljuk Turks in 1064. They settled in large numbers in Cilicia, an Anatolian region where Armenians were already established as a minority since Roman times. In 1080, they founded an independent Armenian Principality then Kingdom of Cilicia, which became the focus of Armenian nationalism. The Armenians developed close social, cultural, military, and religious ties with nearby Crusader States, but eventually succumbed to Mamluk invasions. In the next few centuries, Djenghis Khan, Timurids, and the tribal Turkic federations of the Ak Koyunlu and the Kara Koyunlu ruled over the Armenians.


title: Armenians

text: From the early 16th century, both Western Armenia and Eastern Armenia fell under Iranian Safavid rule. Owing to the century long Turco-Iranian geo-political rivalry that would last in Western Asia, significant parts of the region were frequently fought over between the two rivalling empires. From the mid 16th century with the Peace of Amasya, and decisively from the first half of the 17th century with the Treaty of Zuhab until the first half of the 19th century, Eastern Armenia was ruled by the successive Iranian Safavid, Afsharid and Qajar empires, while Western Armenia remained under Ottoman rule. In the late 1820s, the parts of historic Armenia under Iranian control centering on Yerevan and Lake Sevan (all of Eastern Armenia) were incorporated into the Russian Empire following Iran's forced ceding of the territories after its loss in the Russo-Persian War (1826-1828) and the outcoming Treaty of Turkmenchay. Western Armenia however, remained in Ottoman hands.


title: Armenians

text: The ethnic cleansing of Armenians during the final years of the Ottoman Empire is widely considered a genocide, resulting in an estimated 1.5 million victims. The first wave of persecution was in the years 1894 to 1896, the second one culminating in the events of the Armenian genocide in 1915 and 1916. With World War I in progress, the Ottoman Empire accused the (Christian) Armenians as liable to ally with Imperial Russia, and used it as a pretext to deal with the entire Armenian population as an enemy within their empire.


title: Armenians

text: Governments of the Republic of Turkey since that time have consistently rejected charges of genocide, typically arguing either that those Armenians who died were simply in the way of a war, or that killings of Armenians were justified by their individual or collective support for the enemies of the Ottoman Empire. Passage of legislation in various foreign countries, condemning the persecution of the Armenians as genocide, has often provoked diplomatic conflict. (See Recognition of the Armenian genocide)


title: Armenians

text: Following the breakup of the Russian Empire in the aftermath of World War I for a brief period, from 1918 to 1920, Armenia was an independent republic plagued by socio-economic crises such as large-scale Muslim uprisings. In late 1920, the communists came to power following an invasion of Armenia by the Red Army; in 1922, Armenia became part of the Transcaucasian SFSR of the Soviet Union, later on forming the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic (1936 to 21 September 1991). In 1991, Armenia declared independence from the USSR and established the second Republic of Armenia.


title: Armenians

text: Armenians are believed to have had a presence in the Armenian Highland for over 4,000 years. According to legend, Hayk, the patriarch and founder of the Armenian nation, led Armenians to victory over Bel of Babylon and settled in the Armenian Highland. Today, with a population of 3.5 million (although more recent estimates place the population closer to 2.9 million), they not only constitute an overwhelming majority in Armenia, but also in the disputed region of Artsakh. Armenians in the diaspora informally refer to them as "Hayastantsi"s (), meaning those that are from Armenia (that is, those born and raised in Armenia). They, as well as the Armenians of Iran and Russia, speak the Eastern dialect of the Armenian language. The country itself is secular as a result of Soviet domination, but most of its citizens identify themselves as Apostolic Armenian Christian.


title: Armenians

text: Small Armenian trading and religious communities have existed outside Armenia for centuries. For example, a community survived for over a millennium in the Holy Land, and one of the four-quarters of the walled Old City of Jerusalem has been called the Armenian Quarter. An Armenian Catholic monastic community of 35 founded in 1717 exists on an island near Venice, Italy. There are also remnants of formerly populous communities in Turkey (Istanbul), India, Myanmar, Thailand, Belgium, Portugal, Italy, Israel, Poland, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt.


title: Armenians

text: Regardless, most of the modern days diaspora consists of Armenians scattered throughout the world as a direct consequence of the genocide of 1915, constituting the main portion of the Armenian diaspora. However, Armenian communities in the Georgian capital city of Tbilisi, in Syria and in Iran existed since antiquity.


title: Armenians

text: Within the diasporan Armenian community, there is an unofficial classification of the different "kinds" of Armenians. For example, Armenians who originate from Iran are referred to as "Parskahay" (), while Armenians from Lebanon are usually referred to as "Lipananahay" (). Armenians of the Diaspora are the primary speakers of the Western dialect of the Armenian language. This dialect has considerable differences with Eastern Armenian, but speakers of either of the two variations can usually understand each other. Eastern Armenian in the diaspora is primarily spoken in Iran and European countries such as Ukraine, Russia, and Georgia (where they form a majority in the Samtskhe-Javakheti province). In diverse communities (such as in Canada and the U.S.) where many different kinds of Armenians live together, there is a tendency for the different groups to cluster together.


title: Armenians

text: Before Christianity, Armenians adhered to Armenian Indo-European native religion: a type of indigenous polytheism that pre-dated the Urartu period but which subsequently adopted several Greco-Roman and Iranian religious characteristics.


title: Armenians

text: In 301 AD, Armenia adopted Christianity as a state religion, becoming the first state to do so. The claim is primarily based on the fifth-century work of Agathangelos titled "The History of the Armenians." Agathangelos witnessed at first hand the baptism of the Armenian King Trdat III (c. 301/314 A.D.) by St. Gregory the Illuminator. Trdat III decreed Christianity was the state religion.


title: Armenians

text: Armenia established a Church that still exists independently of both the Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox churches, having become so in 451 AD as a result of its stance regarding the Council of Chalcedon. Today this church is known as the Armenian Apostolic Church, which is a part of the Oriental Orthodox communion, not to be confused with the Eastern Orthodox communion. During its later political eclipses, Armenia depended on the church to preserve and protect its unique identity. The original location of the Armenian Catholicosate is Echmiadzin. However, the continuous upheavals, which characterized the political scenes of Armenia, made the political power move to safer places. The Church center moved as well to different locations together with the political authority. Therefore, it eventually moved to Cilicia as the Holy See of Cilicia.


title: Armenians

text: Armenia has, at times, constituted a Christian "island" in a mostly Muslim region. There are, however, a minority of ethnic Armenian Muslims, known as Hamshenis and Crypto-Armenians, although the former are often regarded as a distinct group or subgroup. In the late tsarist Caucasus, individual conversions of Muslims, Yazidis, Jews, and Assyrians into Armenian Christianity have been documented. The history of the Jews in Armenia dates back over 2,000 years. The Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia had close ties to European Crusader States. Later on, the deteriorating situation in the region led the bishops of Armenia to elect a Catholicos in Etchmiadzin, the original seat of the Catholicosate. In 1441, a new Catholicos was elected in Etchmiadzin in the person of Kirakos Virapetsi, while Krikor Moussapegiants preserved his title as Catholicos of Cilicia. Therefore, since 1441, there have been two Catholicosates in the Armenian Church with equal rights and privileges, and with their respective jurisdictions. The primacy of honor of the Catholicosate of Etchmiadzin has always been recognized by the Catholicosate of Cilicia.


title: Armenians

text: While the Armenian Apostolic Church remains the most prominent church in the Armenian community throughout the world, Armenians (especially in the diaspora) subscribe to any number of other Christian denominations. These include the Armenian Catholic Church (which follows its own liturgy but recognizes the Roman Catholic Pope), the Armenian Evangelical Church, which started as a reformation in the Mother church but later broke away, and the Armenian Brotherhood Church, which was born in the Armenian Evangelical Church, but later broke apart from it. There are other numerous Armenian churches belonging to Protestant denominations of all kinds.


title: Armenians

text: Through the ages many Armenians have collectively belonged to other faiths or Christian movements, including the Paulicians which is a form of Gnostic and Manichaean Christianity. Paulicians sought to restore the pure Christianity of Paul and in c.660 founded the first congregation in Kibossa, Armenia.


title: Armenians

text: Another example is the Tondrakians, who flourished in medieval Armenia between the early 9th century and 11th century. Tondrakians advocated the abolishment of the church, denied the immortality of the soul, did not believe in an afterlife, supported property rights for peasants, and equality between men and women.


title: Armenians

text: The Orthodox Armenians or the Chalcedonian Armenians in the Byzantine Empire were called Iberians ("Georgians") or "Greeks". A notable Orthodox “Iberian” Armenian was the Byzantine General Gregory Pakourianos. The descendants of these Orthodox and Chalcedonic Armenians are the Hayhurum of Greece and Catholic Armenians of Georgia.


title: Armenians

text: Armenian is a sub-branch of the Indo-European family, and with some 8 million speakers one of the smallest surviving branches, comparable to Albanian or the somewhat more widely spoken Greek, with which it may be connected (see Graeco-Armenian). Today, that branch has just one language – Armenian.


title: Armenians

text: Five million Eastern Armenian speakers live in the Caucasus, Russia, and Iran, and approximately two to three million people in the rest of the Armenian diaspora speak Western Armenian. According to US Census figures, there are 300,000 Americans who speak Armenian at home. It is in fact the twentieth most commonly spoken language in the United States, having slightly fewer speakers than Haitian Creole, and slightly more than Navajo.


title: Armenians

text: Armenian literature dates back to 400 AD, when Mesrop Mashtots first invented the Armenian alphabet. This period of time is often viewed as the Golden Age of Armenian literature. Early Armenian literature was written by the "father of Armenian history", Moses of Chorene, who authored "The History of Armenia". The book covers the time-frame from the formation of the Armenian people to the fifth century AD. The nineteenth century beheld a great literary movement that was to give rise to modern Armenian literature. This period of time, during which Armenian culture flourished, is known as the Revival period (Zartonki sherchan). The Revivalist authors of Constantinople and Tiflis, almost identical to the Romanticists of Europe, were interested in encouraging Armenian nationalism. Most of them adopted the newly created Eastern or Western variants of the Armenian language depending on the targeted audience, and preferred them over classical Armenian (grabar). This period ended after the Hamidian massacres, when Armenians experienced turbulent times. As Armenian history of the 1920s and of the Genocide came to be more openly discussed, writers like Paruyr Sevak, Gevork Emin, Silva Kaputikyan and Hovhannes Shiraz began a new era of literature.


title: Armenians

text: The first Armenian churches were built on the orders of St. Gregory the Illuminator, and were often built on top of pagan temples, and imitated some aspects of Armenian pre-Christian architecture.


title: Armenians

text: The first Armenian churches were built between the 4th and 7th century, beginning when Armenia converted to Christianity, and ending with the Arab invasion of Armenia. The early churches were mostly simple basilicas, but some with side apses. By the fifth century the typical cupola cone in the center had become widely used. By the seventh century, centrally planned churches had been built and a more complicated "niched buttress" and radiating "Hrip'simé" style had formed. By the time of the Arab invasion, most of what we now know as classical Armenian architecture had formed.


title: Armenians

text: From the 9th to 11th century, Armenian architecture underwent a revival under the patronage of the Bagratid Dynasty with a great deal of building done in the area of Lake Van, this included both traditional styles and new innovations. Ornately carved Armenian Khachkars were developed during this time. Many new cities and churches were built during this time, including a new capital at Lake Van and a new Cathedral on Akdamar Island to match. The Cathedral of Ani was also completed during this dynasty. It was during this time that the first major monasteries, such as Haghpat and Haritchavank were built. This period was ended by the Seljuk invasion.


title: Armenians

text: Many types of sports are played in Armenia, among the most popular being football, chess, boxing, basketball, ice hockey, sambo, wrestling, weightlifting, and volleyball. Since independence, the Armenian government has been actively rebuilding its sports program in the country.


title: Armenians

text: During Soviet rule, Armenian athletes rose to prominence winning plenty of medals and helping the USSR win the medal standings at the Olympics on numerous occasions. The first medal won by an Armenian in modern Olympic history was by Hrant Shahinyan, who won two golds and two silvers in gymnastics at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki. In football, their most successful team was Yerevan's FC Ararat, which had claimed most of the Soviet championships in the 70s and had also gone to post victories against professional clubs like FC Bayern Munich in the Euro cup.


title: Armenians

text: Armenians have also been successful in chess, which is the most popular mind sport in Armenia. Some of the most prominent chess players in the world are Armenian such as Tigran Petrosian, Levon Aronian and Garry Kasparov. Armenians have also been successful in weightlifting and wrestling (Armen Nazaryan), winning medals in each sport at the Olympics. There are also successful Armenians in football – Henrikh Mkhitaryan, boxing – Arthur Abraham and Vic Darchinyan.


title: Armenians

text: Armenian music is a mix of indigenous folk music, perhaps best-represented by Djivan Gasparyan's well-known duduk music, as well as light pop, and extensive Christian music.


title: Armenians

text: Instruments like the duduk, the dhol, the zurna and the kanun are commonly found in Armenian folk music. Artists such as Sayat Nova are famous due to their influence in the development of Armenian folk music. One of the oldest types of Armenian music is the Armenian chant which is the most common kind of religious music in Armenia. Many of these chants are ancient in origin, extending to pre-Christian times, while others are relatively modern, including several composed by Saint Mesrop Mashtots, the inventor of the Armenian alphabet. Whilst under Soviet rule, Armenian classical music composer Aram Khatchaturian became internationally well known for his music, for various ballets and the Sabre Dance from his composition for the ballet Gayane.


title: Armenians

text: The Armenian Genocide caused widespread emigration that led to the settlement of Armenians in various countries in the world. Armenians kept to their traditions and certain diasporans rose to fame with their music. In the post-Genocide Armenian community of the United States, the so-called "kef" style Armenian dance music, using Armenian and Middle Eastern folk instruments (often electrified/amplified) and some western instruments, was popular. This style preserved the folk songs and dances of Western Armenia, and many artists also played the contemporary popular songs of Turkey and other Middle Eastern countries from which the Armenians emigrated. Richard Hagopian is perhaps the most famous artist of the traditional "kef" style and the Vosbikian Band was notable in the 40s and 50s for developing their own style of "kef music" heavily influenced by the popular American Big Band Jazz of the time. Later, stemming from the Middle Eastern Armenian diaspora and influenced by Continental European (especially French) pop music, the Armenian pop music genre grew to fame in the 60s and 70s with artists such as Adiss Harmandian and Harout Pamboukjian performing to the Armenian diaspora and Armenia. Also with artists such as Sirusho, performing pop music combined with Armenian folk music in today's entertainment industry. Other Armenian diasporans that rose to fame in classical or international music circles are world-renowned French-Armenian singer and composer Charles Aznavour, pianist Sahan Arzruni, prominent opera sopranos such as Hasmik Papian and more recently Isabel Bayrakdarian and Anna Kasyan. Certain Armenians settled to sing non-Armenian tunes such as the heavy metal band System of a Down (which nonetheless often incorporates traditional Armenian instrumentals and styling into their songs) or pop star Cher (whose father was Armenian). Ruben Hakobyan (Ruben Sasuntsi) is a well recognized Armenian ethnographic and patriotic folk singer who has achieved widespread national recognition due to his devotion to Armenian folk music and exceptional talent. In the Armenian diaspora, Armenian Revolutionary Songs are popular with the youth. These songs encourage Armenian patriotism and are generally about Armenian history and national heroes.


title: Armenians

text: Carpet-weaving is historically a major traditional profession for the majority of Armenian women, including many Armenian families. Prominent Karabakh carpet weavers there were men too. The oldest extant Armenian carpet from the region, referred to as Artsakh (see also Karabakh carpet) during the medieval era, is from the village of Banants (near Gandzak) and dates to the early 13th century. The first time that the Armenian word for carpet, "kork", was used in historical sources was in a 1242–1243 Armenian inscription on the wall of the Kaptavan Church in Artsakh.


title: Armenians

text: Common themes and patterns found on Armenian carpets were the depiction of dragons and eagles. They were diverse in style, rich in color and ornamental motifs, and were even separated in categories depending on what sort of animals were depicted on them, such as "artsvagorgs" (eagle-carpets), "vishapagorgs" (dragon-carpets) and "otsagorgs" (serpent-carpets). The rug mentioned in the Kaptavan inscriptions is composed of three arches, "covered with vegatative ornaments", and bears an artistic resemblance to the illuminated manuscripts produced in Artsakh.


title: Armenians

text: The art of carpet weaving was in addition intimately connected to the making of curtains as evidenced in a passage by Kirakos Gandzaketsi, a 13th-century Armenian historian from Artsakh, who praised Arzu-Khatun, the wife of regional prince Vakhtang Khachenatsi, and her daughters for their expertise and skill in weaving.


title: Armenians

text: Armenian carpets were also renowned by foreigners who traveled to Artsakh; the Arab geographer and historian Al-Masudi noted that, among other works of art, he had never seen such carpets elsewhere in his life.


title: Armenians

text: Khorovats, an Armenian-styled barbecue, is arguably the favorite Armenian dish. Lavash is a very popular Armenian flat bread, and Armenian paklava is a popular dessert made from filo dough. Other famous Armenian foods include the kabob (a skewer of marinated roasted meat and vegetables), various dolmas (minced lamb, or beef meat and rice wrapped in grape leaves, cabbage leaves, or stuffed into hollowed vegetables), and pilaf, a rice dish. Also, ghapama, a rice-stuffed pumpkin dish, and many different salads are popular in Armenian culture. Fruits play a large part in the Armenian diet. Apricots ("Prunus armeniaca", also known as Armenian Plum) have been grown in Armenia for centuries and have a reputation for having an especially good flavor. Peaches are popular as well, as are grapes, figs, pomegranates, and melons. Preserves are made from many fruits, including cornelian cherries, young walnuts, sea buckthorn, mulberries, sour cherries, and many others.


title: Armenians

text: A 2012 study found that haplogroups R1b, J2, and T were the most notable haplogroups among Armenians.


title: Armenians

text: Most notable mtDNA haplogroups among the Armenian samples are H, U, T, J, K and X while the rest of remaining Mtdna of the Armenians are HV, I, X, W, R0 and N.


title: Armenians

text: The UCLA conference series titled "Historic Armenian Cities and Provinces" is organized by the Holder of the Armenian Educational Foundation Chair in Modern Armenian History. The conference proceedings are edited by Richard G. Hovannisian. Published in Costa Mesa, CA, by Mazda Publishers, they are:


title: Tesco

text: Tesco plc () is a British multinational groceries and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Welwyn Garden City, England. In 2011 it was the third-largest retailer in the world measured by gross revenues and the ninth-largest in the world measured by revenues. It has shops in Ireland, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia. It is the market leader of groceries in the UK (where it has a market share of around 28.4%).