title: Gene

text: Additionally, a "start codon", and three "stop codons" indicate the beginning and end of the protein coding region. There are 64 possible codons (four possible nucleotides at each of three positions, hence 4 possible codons) and only 20 standard amino acids; hence the code is redundant and multiple codons can specify the same amino acid. The correspondence between codons and amino acids is nearly universal among all known living organisms.


title: Gene

text: Transcription produces a single-stranded RNA molecule known as messenger RNA, whose nucleotide sequence is complementary to the DNA from which it was transcribed. The mRNA acts as an intermediate between the DNA gene and its final protein product. The gene's DNA is used as a template to generate a complementary mRNA. The mRNA matches the sequence of the gene's DNA coding strand because it is synthesised as the complement of the template strand. Transcription is performed by an enzyme called an RNA polymerase, which reads the template strand in the 3' to 5' direction and synthesizes the RNA from 5' to 3'. To initiate transcription, the polymerase first recognizes and binds a promoter region of the gene. Thus, a major mechanism of gene regulation is the blocking or sequestering the promoter region, either by tight binding by repressor molecules that physically block the polymerase or by organizing the DNA so that the promoter region is not accessible.


title: Gene

text: In prokaryotes, transcription occurs in the cytoplasm; for very long transcripts, translation may begin at the 5'  end of the RNA while the 3' end is still being transcribed. In eukaryotes, transcription occurs in the nucleus, where the cell's DNA is stored. The RNA molecule produced by the polymerase is known as the primary transcript and undergoes post-transcriptional modifications before being exported to the cytoplasm for translation. One of the modifications performed is the splicing of introns which are sequences in the transcribed region that do not encode a protein. Alternative splicing mechanisms can result in mature transcripts from the same gene having different sequences and thus coding for different proteins. This is a major form of regulation in eukaryotic cells and also occurs in some prokaryotes.


title: Gene

text: Translation is the process by which a mature mRNA molecule is used as a template for synthesizing a new protein. Translation is carried out by ribosomes, large complexes of RNA and protein responsible for carrying out the chemical reactions to add new amino acids to a growing polypeptide chain by the formation of peptide bonds. The genetic code is read three nucleotides at a time, in units called codons, via interactions with specialized RNA molecules called transfer RNA (tRNA). Each tRNA has three unpaired bases known as the anticodon that are complementary to the codon it reads on the mRNA. The tRNA is also covalently attached to the amino acid specified by the complementary codon. When the tRNA binds to its complementary codon in an mRNA strand, the ribosome attaches its amino acid cargo to the new polypeptide chain, which is synthesized from amino terminus to carboxyl terminus. During and after synthesis, most new proteins must fold to their active three-dimensional structure before they can carry out their cellular functions.


title: Gene

text: Genes are regulated so that they are expressed only when the product is needed, since expression draws on limited resources. A cell regulates its gene expression depending on its external environment (e.g. available nutrients, temperature and other stresses), its internal environment (e.g. cell division cycle, metabolism, infection status), and its specific role if in a multicellular organism. Gene expression can be regulated at any step: from transcriptional initiation, to RNA processing, to post-translational modification of the protein. The regulation of lactose metabolism genes in "E. coli" ("lac" operon) was the first such mechanism to be described in 1961.


title: Gene

text: A typical protein-coding gene is first copied into RNA as an intermediate in the manufacture of the final protein product. In other cases, the RNA molecules are the actual functional products, as in the synthesis of ribosomal RNA and transfer RNA. Some RNAs known as ribozymes are capable of enzymatic function, and microRNA has a regulatory role. The DNA sequences from which such RNAs are transcribed are known as non-coding RNA genes.


title: Gene

text: Some viruses store their entire genomes in the form of RNA, and contain no DNA at all. Because they use RNA to store genes, their cellular hosts may synthesize their proteins as soon as they are infected and without the delay in waiting for transcription. On the other hand, RNA retroviruses, such as HIV, require the reverse transcription of their genome from RNA into DNA before their proteins can be synthesized. RNA-mediated epigenetic inheritance has also been observed in plants and very rarely in animals.


title: Gene

text: Organisms inherit their genes from their parents. Asexual organisms simply inherit a complete copy of their parent's genome. Sexual organisms have two copies of each chromosome because they inherit one complete set from each parent.


title: Gene

text: According to Mendelian inheritance, variations in an organism's phenotype (observable physical and behavioral characteristics) are due in part to variations in its genotype (particular set of genes). Each gene specifies a particular trait with a different sequence of a gene (alleles) giving rise to different phenotypes. Most eukaryotic organisms (such as the pea plants Mendel worked on) have two alleles for each trait, one inherited from each parent.


title: Gene

text: Alleles at a locus may be dominant or recessive; dominant alleles give rise to their corresponding phenotypes when paired with any other allele for the same trait, whereas recessive alleles give rise to their corresponding phenotype only when paired with another copy of the same allele. If you know the genotypes of the organisms, you can determine which alleles are dominant and which are recessive. For example, if the allele specifying tall stems in pea plants is dominant over the allele specifying short stems, then pea plants that inherit one tall allele from one parent and one short allele from the other parent will also have tall stems. Mendel's work demonstrated that alleles assort independently in the production of gametes, or germ cells, ensuring variation in the next generation. Although Mendelian inheritance remains a good model for many traits determined by single genes (including a number of well-known genetic disorders) it does not include the physical processes of DNA replication and cell division.


title: Gene

text: The growth, development, and reproduction of organisms relies on cell division; the process by which a single cell divides into two usually identical daughter cells. This requires first making a duplicate copy of every gene in the genome in a process called DNA replication. The copies are made by specialized enzymes known as DNA polymerases, which "reads" one strand of the double-helical DNA, known as the template strand, and synthesize a new complementary strand. Because the DNA double helix is held together by base pairing, the sequence of one strand completely specifies the sequence of its complement; hence only one strand needs to be read by the enzyme to produce a faithful copy. The process of DNA replication is semiconservative; that is, the copy of the genome inherited by each daughter cell contains one original and one newly synthesized strand of DNA.


title: Gene

text: The rate of DNA replication in living cells was first measured as the rate of phage T4 DNA elongation in phage-infected "E. coli" and found to be impressively rapid. During the period of exponential DNA increase at 37 °C, the rate of elongation was 749 nucleotides per second.


title: Gene

text: After DNA replication is complete, the cell must physically separate the two copies of the genome and divide into two distinct membrane-bound cells. In prokaryotes (bacteria and archaea) this usually occurs via a relatively simple process called binary fission, in which each circular genome attaches to the cell membrane and is separated into the daughter cells as the membrane invaginates to split the cytoplasm into two membrane-bound portions. Binary fission is extremely fast compared to the rates of cell division in eukaryotes. Eukaryotic cell division is a more complex process known as the cell cycle; DNA replication occurs during a phase of this cycle known as S phase, whereas the process of segregating chromosomes and splitting the cytoplasm occurs during M phase.


title: Gene

text: The duplication and transmission of genetic material from one generation of cells to the next is the basis for molecular inheritance and the link between the classical and molecular pictures of genes. Organisms inherit the characteristics of their parents because the cells of the offspring contain copies of the genes in their parents' cells. In asexually reproducing organisms, the offspring will be a genetic copy or clone of the parent organism. In sexually reproducing organisms, a specialized form of cell division called meiosis produces cells called gametes or germ cells that are haploid, or contain only one copy of each gene. The gametes produced by females are called eggs or ova, and those produced by males are called sperm. Two gametes fuse to form a diploid fertilized egg, a single cell that has two sets of genes, with one copy of each gene from the mother and one from the father.


title: Gene

text: During the process of meiotic cell division, an event called genetic recombination or "crossing-over" can sometimes occur, in which a length of DNA on one chromatid is swapped with a length of DNA on the corresponding homologous non-sister chromatid. This can result in reassortment of otherwise linked alleles. The Mendelian principle of independent assortment asserts that each of a parent's two genes for each trait will sort independently into gametes; which allele an organism inherits for one trait is unrelated to which allele it inherits for another trait. This is in fact only true for genes that do not reside on the same chromosome or are located very far from one another on the same chromosome. The closer two genes lie on the same chromosome, the more closely they will be associated in gametes and the more often they will appear together (known as genetic linkage). Genes that are very close are essentially never separated because it is extremely unlikely that a crossover point will occur between them.


title: Gene

text: DNA replication is for the most part extremely accurate, however errors (mutations) do occur. The error rate in eukaryotic cells can be as low as 10 per nucleotide per replication, whereas for some RNA viruses it can be as high as 10. This means that each generation, each human genome accumulates 1–2 new mutations. Small mutations can be caused by DNA replication and the aftermath of DNA damage and include point mutations in which a single base is altered and frameshift mutations in which a single base is inserted or deleted. Either of these mutations can change the gene by missense (change a codon to encode a different amino acid) or nonsense (a premature stop codon). Larger mutations can be caused by errors in recombination to cause chromosomal abnormalities including the duplication, deletion, rearrangement or inversion of large sections of a chromosome. Additionally, DNA repair mechanisms can introduce mutational errors when repairing physical damage to the molecule. The repair, even with mutation, is more important to survival than restoring an exact copy, for example when repairing double-strand breaks.


title: Gene

text: When multiple different alleles for a gene are present in a species's population it is called polymorphic. Most different alleles are functionally equivalent, however some alleles can give rise to different phenotypic traits. A gene's most common allele is called the wild type, and rare alleles are called mutants. The genetic variation in relative frequencies of different alleles in a population is due to both natural selection and genetic drift. The wild-type allele is not necessarily the ancestor of less common alleles, nor is it necessarily fitter.


title: Gene

text: Most mutations within genes are neutral, having no effect on the organism's phenotype (silent mutations). Some mutations do not change the amino acid sequence because multiple codons encode the same amino acid (synonymous mutations). Other mutations can be neutral if they lead to amino acid sequence changes, but the protein still functions similarly with the new amino acid (e.g. conservative mutations). Many mutations, however, are deleterious or even lethal, and are removed from populations by natural selection. Genetic disorders are the result of deleterious mutations and can be due to spontaneous mutation in the affected individual, or can be inherited. Finally, a small fraction of mutations are beneficial, improving the organism's fitness and are extremely important for evolution, since their directional selection leads to adaptive evolution.


title: Gene

text: Genes with a most recent common ancestor, and thus a shared evolutionary ancestry, are known as homologs. These genes appear either from gene duplication within an organism's genome, where they are known as paralogous genes, or are the result of divergence of the genes after a speciation event, where they are known as orthologous genes, and often perform the same or similar functions in related organisms. It is often assumed that the functions of orthologous genes are more similar than those of paralogous genes, although the difference is minimal.


title: Gene

text: The relationship between genes can be measured by comparing the sequence alignment of their DNA. The degree of sequence similarity between homologous genes is called conserved sequence. Most changes to a gene's sequence do not affect its function and so genes accumulate mutations over time by neutral molecular evolution. Additionally, any selection on a gene will cause its sequence to diverge at a different rate. Genes under stabilizing selection are constrained and so change more slowly whereas genes under directional selection change sequence more rapidly. The sequence differences between genes can be used for phylogenetic analyses to study how those genes have evolved and how the organisms they come from are related.


title: Gene

text: The most common source of new genes in eukaryotic lineages is gene duplication, which creates copy number variation of an existing gene in the genome. The resulting genes (paralogs) may then diverge in sequence and in function. Sets of genes formed in this way compose a gene family. Gene duplications and losses within a family are common and represent a major source of evolutionary biodiversity. Sometimes, gene duplication may result in a nonfunctional copy of a gene, or a functional copy may be subject to mutations that result in loss of function; such nonfunctional genes are called pseudogenes.


title: Gene

text: "Orphan" genes, whose sequence shows no similarity to existing genes, are less common than gene duplicates. The human genome contains an estimate 18 to 60 genes with no identifiable homologs outside humans. Orphan genes arise primarily from either "de novo" emergence from previously non-coding sequence, or gene duplication followed by such rapid sequence change that the original relationship becomes undetectable. "De novo" genes are typically shorter and simpler in structure than most eukaryotic genes, with few if any introns. Over long evolutionary time periods, "de novo" gene birth may be responsible for a significant fraction of taxonomically restricted gene families.


title: Gene

text: Horizontal gene transfer refers to the transfer of genetic material through a mechanism other than reproduction. This mechanism is a common source of new genes in prokaryotes, sometimes thought to contribute more to genetic variation than gene duplication. It is a common means of spreading antibiotic resistance, virulence, and adaptive metabolic functions. Although horizontal gene transfer is rare in eukaryotes, likely examples have been identified of protist and alga genomes containing genes of bacterial origin.


title: Gene

text: The genome is the total genetic material of an organism and includes both the genes and non-coding sequences. Eukaryotic genes can be annotated using FINDER.


title: Gene

text: The genome size, and the number of genes it encodes varies widely between organisms. The smallest genomes occur in viruses, and viroids (which act as a single non-coding RNA gene). Conversely, plants can have extremely large genomes, with rice containing >46,000 protein-coding genes. The total number of protein-coding genes (the Earth's proteome) is estimated to be 5 million sequences.


title: Gene

text: Although the number of base-pairs of DNA in the human genome has been known since the 1960s, the estimated number of genes has changed over time as definitions of genes, and methods of detecting them have been refined. Initial theoretical predictions of the number of human genes were as high as 2,000,000. Early experimental measures indicated there to be 50,000–100,000 "transcribed" genes (expressed sequence tags). Subsequently, the sequencing in the Human Genome Project indicated that many of these transcripts were alternative variants of the same genes, and the total number of protein-coding genes was revised down to ~20,000 with 13 genes encoded on the mitochondrial genome. With the GENCODE annotation project, that estimate has continued to fall to 19,000. Of the human genome, only 1–2% consists of protein-coding sequences, with the remainder being 'noncoding' DNA such as introns, retrotransposons, and noncoding RNAs. Every multicellular organism has all its genes in each cell of its body but not every gene functions in every cell .


title: Gene

text: Essential genes are the set of genes thought to be critical for an organism's survival. This definition assumes the abundant availability of all relevant nutrients and the absence of environmental stress. Only a small portion of an organism's genes are essential. In bacteria, an estimated 250–400 genes are essential for "Escherichia coli" and "Bacillus subtilis", which is less than 10% of their genes. Half of these genes are orthologs in both organisms and are largely involved in protein synthesis. In the budding yeast "Saccharomyces cerevisiae" the number of essential genes is slightly higher, at 1000 genes (~20% of their genes). Although the number is more difficult to measure in higher eukaryotes, mice and humans are estimated to have around 2000 essential genes (~10% of their genes). The synthetic organism, "Syn 3", has a minimal genome of 473 essential genes and quasi-essential genes (necessary for fast growth), although 149 have unknown function.


title: Gene

text: Essential genes include housekeeping genes (critical for basic cell functions) as well as genes that are expressed at different times in the organisms development or life cycle. Housekeeping genes are used as experimental controls when analysing gene expression, since they are constitutively expressed at a relatively constant level.


title: Gene

text: Gene nomenclature has been established by the HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee (HGNC), a committee of the Human Genome Organisation, for each known human gene in the form of an approved gene name and symbol (short-form abbreviation), which can be accessed through a database maintained by HGNC. Symbols are chosen to be unique, and each gene has only one symbol (although approved symbols sometimes change). Symbols are preferably kept consistent with other members of a gene family and with homologs in other species, particularly the mouse due to its role as a common model organism.


title: Gene

text: Genetic engineering is the modification of an organism's genome through biotechnology. Since the 1970s, a variety of techniques have been developed to specifically add, remove and edit genes in an organism. Recently developed genome engineering techniques use engineered nuclease enzymes to create targeted DNA repair in a chromosome to either disrupt or edit a gene when the break is repaired. The related term synthetic biology is sometimes used to refer to extensive genetic engineering of an organism.


title: Gene

text: Genetic engineering is now a routine research tool with model organisms. For example, genes are easily added to bacteria and lineages of knockout mice with a specific gene's function disrupted are used to investigate that gene's function. Many organisms have been genetically modified for applications in agriculture, industrial biotechnology, and medicine.


title: Gene

text: For multicellular organisms, typically the embryo is engineered which grows into the adult genetically modified organism. However, the genomes of cells in an adult organism can be edited using gene therapy techniques to treat genetic diseases.


title: Kick-Ass 2 (film)

text: Kick-Ass 2 is a 2013 black comedy superhero film written and directed by Jeff Wadlow, based on the graphic novels "Book Two" and "Book Three" of "Kick-Ass: The Dave Lizewski Years" by Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr., and serving as a sequel to 2010's "Kick-Ass". It stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Chloë Grace Moretz, and Jim Carrey, with the former trio reprising their roles from the first film. The film follows Dave Lizewski / Kick-Ass (Taylor-Johnson), who joins a vigilante team called "Justice Forever", while Mindy Macready / Hit Girl (Moretz) attempts to live a normal life, and Chris D'Amico (Mintz-Plasse) taking up the mantle of The Motherfucker and forming a supervillain team to take revenge on Kick-Ass.


title: Kick-Ass 2 (film)

text: "Kick-Ass 2" was released on 14 August 2013 in the United Kingdom, 16 August in the United States, and 24 February 2014 in Japan by Universal Pictures, United International Pictures, and Toho-Towa, respectively. The film earned $60.8 million on a $30 million budget. It received mixed reviews from critics, with many deeming it inferior to the first film.


title: Kick-Ass 2 (film)

text: Four years after the death of Damon Macready and defeating Frank D'Amico, Dave Lizewski, bored after having retired from fighting crime as Kick-Ass, begins training with Hit-Girl (Mindy Macready) to become a real hero. Following the death of his father, Chris D'Amico accidentally kills his own mother by kicking her tanning bed, causing it to short-circuit. Now in control of his father's criminal empire, Chris decides to become a supervillain named The Motherfucker, adapting a BDSM suit for his costume, and assembles a gang of supervillains called the Toxic Mega Cunts with his aide Javier and gains a cult following on Twitter, swearing vengeance on Kick-Ass. The other leading members of the Toxic Mega Cunts include African-American UFC fighter Black Death, short-stature mob enforcer The Tumor, ex-Triad gang member Genghis Carnage, and the only woman on the team, former Russian bodyguard Mother Russia.


title: Kick-Ass 2 (film)

text: Mindy's guardian, Marcus, discovers she is still fighting crime and makes her promise to give it up. Dave resumes his life as Kick-Ass, joining the superhero team Justice Forever (which Dave had inspired), led by ex-mafia member and born-again Christian, Colonel Stars and Stripes. Kick-Ass begins a sexual relationship with Night Bitch, one of the members (after breaking up with his girlfriend Katie Deauxma due to her mistakenly believing him to have been cheating on her with Mindy). He and Marty, who is also on the team as Battle Guy, alienate their friend Todd from participating in their heroics because Todd's superhero persona "Ass-Kicker" is an obvious knockoff of Kick-Ass. Mindy, attempting to lead a normal life, tries out for the dance team at school, and promptly asks a boy to take her on a date after declining to join Justice Forever. The date ends up as a cruel prank planned by bullies in her school, but Mindy gets her revenge the next day, resulting in her suspension from school and her grounding by Marcus when he finds out.


title: Kick-Ass 2 (film)

text: Dave's father discovers Dave is Kick-Ass after finding his superhero costume, and they have an argument which leads Dave to leave home. After his imprisoned uncle has Javier killed, a now-deranged Chris kills Colonel Stars and Stripes, and attempts to rape Night Bitch the following day, but fails due to impotence and has her beaten up instead. Chris's henchwoman Mother Russia kills the arriving authorities, resulting in a police clampdown on both costumed villains and vigilantes. When the police track Dave through his IP address, Dave's father surrenders, claiming that he is Kick-Ass, in Dave's place. Chris, tipped off by Todd, who has joined the Toxic Mega Cunts unaware that they are psychopaths, has Mr. Lizewski murdered in police custody, revealing his true identity.


title: Kick-Ass 2 (film)

text: The Toxic Mega Cunts sabotage Mr. Lizewski's funeral and kidnap Dave, but Mindy rescues him. Afterwards, Dave, Mindy and the remaining members of Justice Forever, joined by a resurgence of masked do-gooders, battle and defeat the outnumbered Toxic Mega Cunts. Mindy, as Hit-Girl, defeats and kills Mother Russia with the help of an adrenaline dose in battle, while Dave and Chris fight on a rooftop. Chris crashes through a skylight, landing in a water tank where he is mauled by a shark.


title: Kick-Ass 2 (film)

text: Justice Forever decides to take a break from its superhero duties, helping people in their ordinary lives instead. Mindy tells Dave that she is leaving New York due to being wanted for murder, but that the citizens need Kick-Ass. As police officers raid Marcus's home to investigate Mindy's whereabouts, Dave accepts the responsibility and begins training and upgrading his equipment.


title: Kick-Ass 2 (film)

text: In a post-credits scene, Chris, who has survived the shark attack, and whose limbs and genitals were bitten off by the shark, complains for attention over an out of reach cup of water.


title: Kick-Ass 2 (film)

text: Additionally, comic book creators Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr., former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Chuck Liddell, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson's stepdaughter Angelica Jopling make cameo appearances in the film.


title: Kick-Ass 2 (film)

text: On 8 May 2012, it was reported that a sequel to "Kick-Ass" (2010) would be distributed by Universal Studios, and that Matthew Vaughn had chosen Jeff Wadlow, who also wrote the script, to direct the sequel. Later that month, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Chloë Grace Moretz entered negotiations to reprise their roles as Kick-Ass and Hit-Girl, respectively. Chad Gomez Creasey and Dara Resnik Creasey performed uncredited work on Wadlow's script to make Hit-Girl more feminine and less crass in light of Moretz's older age. In July 2012, Christopher Mintz-Plasse confirmed that he would return as Chris D'Amico who becomes the supervillain The Motherfucker. Mintz-Plasse expressed relief that a rape and child murder scene from the comic book would not be included in the film and went on to compare the gang violence in the story to the film "The Warriors" (1979). That same month, it was announced that John Leguizamo would play a character named Javier, one of The Motherfucker's bodyguards. In August 2012, it was reported that Donald Faison would play the superhero Doctor Gravity. Also that month, Yancy Butler was set to reprise her role as Angie D'Amico, Lyndsy Fonseca stated that she would return as Katie Deauxma in a smaller role, Robert Emms was cast as the former police officer turned superhero Insect Man, Morris Chestnut was confirmed to replace Omari Hardwick as Hit-Girl's guardian Marcus Williams, Lindy Booth was confirmed to play Night Bitch, a superhero seeking to avenge the murder of her sister, Andy Nyman was announced to play one of the villains named The Tumor, and Claudia Lee joined the cast as Brooke, the leader of a gang of school bullies.


title: Kick-Ass 2 (film)

text: In September 2012, Jim Carrey was cast in the role of Colonel Stars and Stripes, the leader of superhero group Justice Forever. Also in September, Enzo Cilenti was confirmed to appear in the film. It was confirmed that bodybuilder Olga Kurkulina would portray the villainess Mother Russia. It was revealed that Clark Duke would reprise his role as Marty Eisenberg, who becomes the superhero Battle Guy, and that Augustus Prew would take over the role of Todd Haynes, who becomes the superhero Ass-Kicker, from Evan Peters. Principal photography began on 7 September 2012 in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. Once filming in Mississauga wrapped in late September, the cast and crew continued shooting in London, England, at Ashmole Academy. Filming concluded on 23 November 2012.


title: Kick-Ass 2 (film)

text: In the film's opening weekend, "Kick-Ass 2" opened in fifth place, with $13.3 million, behind "The Butler" (in its first weekend), "We're the Millers", "Elysium", and "Planes" (all in their second weekends). This placed it below industry experts' expectation of around $15 million and studio higher hopes of as much as $19.8 million, in line with the first film. The film would gross $28.8 million in the United States and $32 million in other countries for a total gross of $60.8 million, much less than the first film's total of $96.1 million.


title: Kick-Ass 2 (film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of based on reviews and an average rating of . The site's critical consensus reads: ""Kick-Ass 2" falls short in its attempt to emulate the original's unique blend of ultra-violence and ironic humor." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 41 out of 100 based on 35 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.


title: Kick-Ass 2 (film)

text: Mark Olsen of the "Los Angeles Times" said ""Kick-Ass 2" is a lesser version of what it appears to be, an uncertain jumble rather than a true exploration of outrage, violence and identity." Olsen found Hit-Girl dealing with ordinary life more interesting than Kick-Ass trying to be a superhero, but feels the story is marred by bad jokes about bodily functions. He criticized Taylor-Johnson's performance as "a charisma-free zone". Manohla Dargis of "The New York Times" said "There isn't anything good to say about "Kick-Ass 2", the even more witless, mirthless follow-up to "Kick-Ass"." Dargis further criticized the misogyny and the poorly delivered jokes, as well as the director's failure to grasp the terrible beauty of violent imagery. "PopMatters" said "Like the age old admonition that too many cooks spoil the broth, "Kick-Ass 2" suffers from having too many characters and not enough time to deal with them all." Gibron wishes there had been more time to explore the supporting characters, like Mother Russia. He notes the echoes of Carrie White in the Hit-Girl high school sequences. He suggests a Hit-Girl film would be preferable to "limp, unlikable results offered [by this film]".


title: Kick-Ass 2 (film)

text: Justin Chang of "Variety" said ""Kick-Ass 2" improves on its 2010 predecessor in at least one respect: It doesn't make the mistake of trying to pass off its bone-crunching brutality as something shocking or subversive." John DeFore of "The Hollywood Reporter" said the "Sequel offers exactly the blend of R-rated nastiness and candy-colored action fans expect."


title: Kick-Ass 2 (film)

text: Peter Bradshaw of "The Guardian" said "The sequel to 2010's punk-superhero rampage has lost quite a bit of shock value – but Chloë Grace Moretz's Hit-Girl is still the coolest thing in a cape." Owen Williams, writing for "Empire" magazine, notes that despite the larger cast of characters this feels like a smaller film, and calls it a "faithful adaptation of its namesake source comic" and in the absence of Mark Strong he praises Mintz-Plasse for holding his own as the villain. He calls it a "more modest success than the first "Kick-Ass"" and gives it 3 out of 5 stars.


title: Kick-Ass 2 (film)

text: "Kick-Ass 2" was released on digital download on 3 December 2013, and on Blu-ray and DVD on 17 December 2013 by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment.


title: Kick-Ass 2 (film)

text: Several months before "Kick-Ass 2" was released, Jim Carrey withdrew support for the film on account of the amount of violence in it in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Carrey wrote: "I did "Kick-Ass" a month before Sandy Hook and now in all good conscience I cannot support that level of violence. My apologies to others involved with the film. I am not ashamed of it but recent events have caused a change in my heart."


title: Kick-Ass 2 (film)

text: Mark Millar replied in his official forum, saying, "Yes, the body-count is very high, but a movie called "Kick-Ass 2" really has to do with what it says on the tin," and compared it to films by Quentin Tarantino, Sam Peckinpah, Chan-wook Park, and Martin Scorsese. Millar insisted the film concentrated on the consequences of violence rather than the violence itself.


title: Kick-Ass 2 (film)

text: Moretz also commented, "It's a movie. If you are going to believe and be affected by an action film, you shouldn't go to see "Pocahontas" because you are going to think you are a Disney Princess. If you are that easily swayed, you might see "The Silence of the Lambs" and think you are a serial killer. It's a movie and it's fake, and I've known that since I was a kid... I don't want to run around trying to kill people and cuss. If anything, these movies teach you what not to do."


title: Kick-Ass 2 (film)

text: In April 2012, while "Kick-Ass 2" was still in pre-production, Mark Millar stated that a third film was also planned. In June 2013, however, he revealed that it was not confirmed and would be dependent on how successful the second film was. Later the same month, he further elaborated that if it went ahead, the third film would be the final installment: ""Kick-Ass 3" is going to be the last one... I told Universal this and they asked me, 'What does that mean?' I said, 'It means that this is where it all ends.' They said, 'Do they all die at the end?' I said, 'Maybe' – because this is a realistic superhero story... if someone doesn't have a bullet proof vest like Superman, and doesn't have Batman's millions, then eventually he is going to turn around the wrong corner and get his head kicked in or get shot in the face. So Kick-Ass needs to reflect that. There has to be something dramatic at the end; he cannot do this for the rest of his life."


title: Kick-Ass 2 (film)

text: Moretz has shown interest in returning for a third installment and would also be interested in exploring Hit-Girl's dark side: "I want to see something we haven't seen yet. Now we've seen who Mindy is, now we've seen who Hit-Girl is, I think we need to meld the characters together and have Mindy become Hit-Girl and Hit-Girl become Mindy. Maybe her natural hair has a streak of purple in it, maybe she really does go kind of crazy and go a bit darker since she lost her father." She also added, "I would only do the third one if it was logical. It needs to be a good script and a director, probably Matthew (Vaughn). The third film needs to fully wrap up the series and has to be a good note to end on."


title: Kick-Ass 2 (film)

text: On 30 August 2013, Millar stated that the film is "in the pipeline". In May 2014, while at a press junket for "Godzilla", Taylor-Johnson stated he is still up for a third film but he is not contracted for it and there are no plans for one currently. In the same month, Christopher Mintz-Plasse revealed he had not heard anything but expressed doubt that a third film would happen due to the second installment's disappointing box office performance.


title: Kick-Ass 2 (film)

text: In June 2014, Chloë Grace Moretz echoed her co-stars' sentiments when asked about "Kick-Ass 3", stating that "I hope, I wish. That'd be fun. That'd be great. I doubt it but I would love it". She also cited the second film's lower box office gross as the key obstacle to the third chapter being produced and suggested file sharing was a factor: "The hard thing is if fans want a third movie, they've got to go buy the ticket to go see the movie. It was like the second most pirated movie of the year, so if you want a movie to be made into a second, a third, a fourth and a fifth, go buy a ticket. Don't pirate it." In August 2014, Moretz reiterated her previous statements and said "sadly, I think I'm done with [Hit-Girl]". In February 2015, Matthew Vaughn spoke optimistically about a "Hit-Girl" prequel. He stated "If that happens, I'm pretty sure I can persuade Aaron and Chloe to come back and finish the story of Kick-Ass." On 17 June 2015, Vaughn stated in an answer to Yahoo that he is working on a prequel on how Hit-Girl and Big Daddy became superheroes and plans to make "Kick-Ass 3" after.


title: Kick-Ass 2 (film)

text: In June 2018, Vaughn announced his intention to set up Marv Studios, under which banner he will produce a reboot of the "Kick-Ass" series.


title: Kick-Ass 2 (film)

text: On 23 June 2019, it was announced that a third film is in development under Marv Studios, with Taylor-Johnson, Mintz-Plasse and Fonseca respectively set to reprise their roles as Dave Lizewski/Kick-Ass, Chris D'Amico and Katie Deauxma, respectively, with Moretz expressing doubt that she would reprise her role as Mindy Macready/Hit-Girl because of the way the sequel was handled; the third film is intended to be the last film of the original series before a reboot of the "Hit-Girl & Kick-Ass" series is produced.


title: Storming of the Bastille

text: The Storming of the Bastille ( ) occurred in Paris, France, on 14 July 1789, when revolutionary insurgents stormed and seized control of the medieval armoury, fortress, and political prison known as the Bastille. At the time, the Bastille represented royal authority in the centre of Paris. The prison contained only seven inmates at the time of its storming, but was seen by the revolutionaries as a symbol of the monarchy's abuse of power; its fall was the flashpoint of the French Revolution.


title: Storming of the Bastille

text: In France, 14 July is a national holiday, usually called Bastille Day in English. However, the expression Bastille Day is properly incorrect, as the event celebrated during the national holiday is the Fête de la Fédération of 1790, which was itself the 1st anniversary of the Bastille Day.


title: Storming of the Bastille

text: During the reign of Louis XVI France faced a major economic crisis. This crisis was caused in part by the cost of intervening in the American Revolution and exacerbated by a regressive system of taxation, as well as poor harvests in the late 1780s. On 5 May 1789, the Estates-General convened to deal with this issue, but were held back by archaic protocols and the conservatism of the Second Estate, representing the nobility who made up less than 2% of France's population.


title: Storming of the Bastille

text: On 17 June 1789, the Third Estate, with its representatives drawn from the commoners, reconstituted itself as the National Assembly, a body whose purpose was the creation of a French constitution. The king initially opposed this development but was forced to acknowledge the authority of the assembly, which renamed itself the National Constituent Assembly on 9 July.


title: Storming of the Bastille

text: Paris, close to insurrection and in François Mignet's words, "intoxicated with liberty and enthusiasm", showed wide support for the Assembly. The press published the Assembly's debates; political debate spread beyond the Assembly itself into the public squares and halls of the capital. The Palais-Royal and its grounds became the site of an ongoing meeting. The crowd, on the authority of the meeting at the Palais-Royal, broke open the prisons of the "Abbaye" to release some grenadiers of the French guards, reportedly imprisoned for refusing to fire on the people. The Assembly recommended the imprisoned guardsmen to the clemency of the king; they returned to prison for a token one-day period and received a pardon. The rank and file of the regiment, previously considered reliable, now leaned toward the popular cause.


title: Storming of the Bastille

text: On 11 July 1789, Louis XVI—acting under the influence of the conservative nobles of his privy council—dismissed and banished his finance minister, Jacques Necker (who had been sympathetic to the Third Estate) and completely reconstituted the ministry. The marshals Victor-François, duc de Broglie, la Galissonnière, the duc de la Vauguyon, the Baron Louis de Breteuil, and the intendant Foulon, took over the posts of Puységur, Armand Marc, comte de Montmorin, La Luzerne, Saint-Priest, and Necker.


title: Storming of the Bastille

text: News of Necker's dismissal reached Paris on the afternoon of Sunday, 12 July. The Parisians generally presumed that the dismissal marked the start of a coup by conservative elements. Liberal Parisians were further enraged by the fear that a concentration of Royal troops—brought in from frontier garrisons to Versailles, Sèvres, the Champ de Mars, and Saint-Denis—would attempt to shut down the National Constituent Assembly, which was meeting in Versailles. Crowds gathered throughout Paris, including more than ten thousand at the Palais-Royal. Camille Desmoulins successfully rallied the crowd by "mounting a table, pistol in hand, exclaiming: "'Citizens, there is no time to lose; the dismissal of Necker is the knell of a Saint Bartholomew for patriots! This very night all the Swiss and German battalions will leave the Champ de Mars to massacre us all; one resource is left; to take arms"!'"


title: Storming of the Bastille

text: The Swiss and German regiments referred to were among the foreign mercenary troops who made up a significant portion of the pre-revolutionary Royal Army, and were seen as being less likely to be sympathetic to the popular cause than ordinary French soldiers. By early July, approximately half of the 25,000 regular troops in Paris and Versailles were drawn from these foreign regiments. The French regiments included in the concentration appear to have been selected either because of the proximity of their garrisons to Paris or because their colonels were supporters of the reactionary "court party" opposed to reform.


title: Storming of the Bastille

text: During the public demonstrations that started on 12 July, the multitude displayed busts of Necker and of Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, then marched from the Palais Royal through the theater district before continuing westward along the boulevards. The crowd clashed with the Royal German Cavalry Regiment ("Royal-Allemand") between the Place Vendôme and the Tuileries Palace. From atop the Champs-Élysées, Charles Eugene, Prince of Lambesc (Marshal of the Camp, Proprietor of the Royal Allemand-Dragoons) unleashed a cavalry charge that dispersed the remaining protesters at Place Louis XV—now Place de la Concorde. The Royal commander, Baron de Besenval, fearing the results of a blood bath amongst the poorly armed crowds or defections among his own men, then withdrew the cavalry towards Sèvres.


title: Storming of the Bastille

text: Meanwhile, unrest was growing among the people of Paris who expressed their hostility against state authorities by attacking customs posts blamed for causing increased food and wine prices. The people of Paris started to plunder any place where food, guns, and supplies might be hoarded. That night, rumors spread that supplies were hoarded at Saint-Lazare, a huge property of the clergy, which functioned as a convent, hospital, school, and even a jail. An angry mob broke in and plundered the property, seizing 52 wagons of wheat, which were taken to the public market. That same day multitudes of people plundered many other places including weapon arsenals. Royal troops did nothing to stop the spreading of social chaos in Paris during those days.


title: Storming of the Bastille

text: The regiment of Gardes Françaises (French Guards) formed the permanent garrison of Paris and, with many local ties, was favourably disposed towards the popular cause. This regiment had remained confined to its barracks during the initial stages of the mid-July disturbances. With Paris becoming the scene of a general riot, Charles Eugene, not trusting the regiment to obey his order, posted sixty dragoons to station themselves before its depot in the Chaussée d'Antin. The officers of the French Guards made ineffectual attempts to rally their men. The rebellious citizenry had now acquired a trained military contingent. As word of this spread, the commanders of the royal forces encamped on the Champ de Mars became doubtful of the dependability of even the foreign regiments.


title: Storming of the Bastille

text: The future "Citizen King", Louis-Philippe, duc d 'Orléans, witnessed these events as a young officer and was of the opinion that the soldiers would have obeyed orders if put to the test. He also commented in retrospect that the officers of the French Guards had neglected their responsibilities in the period before the uprising, leaving the regiment too much to the control of its non-commissioned officers. However, the uncertain leadership of Besenval led to a virtual abdication of royal authority in central Paris. On the morning of 13 July, the electors of Paris met and agreed to the recruitment of a "bourgeois militia" of 48,000 men from the sixty voting districts of Paris, to restore order. Their identifying cockades were of blue and red, the colours of Paris. Lafayette was elected commander of this group on 14 July and subsequently changed its name to the National Guard. He added the colour white, the colour of the King, to the cockade on 27 July, to make the famous French tri-colour.


title: Storming of the Bastille

text: On the morning of 14 July 1789, the city of Paris was in a state of alarm. The partisans of the Third Estate in France, now under the control of the Bourgeois Militia of Paris (soon to become Revolutionary France's National Guard), had earlier stormed the Hôtel des Invalides without meeting significant opposition. Their intention had been to gather the weapons held there (29,000 to 32,000 muskets, but without powder or shot). The commandant at the Invalides had in the previous few days taken the precaution of transferring 250 barrels of gunpowder to the Bastille for safer storage.


title: Storming of the Bastille

text: At this point, the Bastille was nearly empty, housing only seven prisoners: four forgers arrested under warrants issued by the Grand Châtelet court; James F.X. Whyte, an Irish born "lunatic" suspected of spying and imprisoned at the request of his family; Auguste-Claude Tavernier, who had tried to assassinate Louis XV thirty years before; and one "deviant" aristocrat suspected of murder, the Comte de Solages, imprisoned by his father using a "lettre de cachet" (while the Marquis de Sade had been transferred out ten days earlier).


title: Storming of the Bastille

text: The high cost of maintaining a garrisoned medieval fortress, for what was seen as having a limited purpose, had led to a decision being made shortly before the disturbances began to replace it with an open public space. Amid the tensions of July 1789, the building remained as a symbol of royal tyranny.


title: Storming of the Bastille

text: The regular garrison consisted of 82 "invalides" (veteran soldiers no longer suitable for service in the field). It had however been reinforced on 7 July by 32 grenadiers of the Swiss Salis-Samade Regiment from the regular troops on the Champ de Mars. The walls mounted 18 eight-pound guns and 12 smaller pieces. The governor was Bernard-René de Launay, son of a previous governor and actually born within the Bastille.


title: Storming of the Bastille

text: The official list of "vainqueurs de la Bastille" (conquerors of the Bastille) subsequently compiled has 954 names, and the total of the crowd was probably fewer than one thousand. A breakdown of occupations included in the list indicates that the majority were local artisans, together with some regular army deserters and a few distinctive categories, such as 21 wine merchants.


title: Storming of the Bastille

text: The crowd gathered outside the fortress around mid-morning, calling for the pulling back of the seemingly threatening cannon from the embrasures of the towers and walls and the release of the arms and gunpowder stored inside. Two representatives from the Hotel de Ville (municipal authorities from the Town Hall) were invited into the fortress and negotiations began, while another was admitted around noon with definite demands. The negotiations dragged on while the crowd grew and became impatient. Around 1:30 pm, the crowd surged into the undefended outer courtyard. A small party climbed onto the roof of a building next to the gate to the inner courtyard of the fortress and broke the chains on the drawbridge, crushing one "vainqueur" as it fell. Soldiers of the garrison called to the people to withdraw, but amid the noise and confusion these shouts were misinterpreted as encouragement to enter. Gunfire began, apparently spontaneously, turning the crowd into a mob. The crowd seems to have felt that they had been intentionally drawn into a trap and the fighting became more violent and intense, while attempts by deputies to organise a cease-fire were ignored by the attackers.


title: Storming of the Bastille

text: The firing continued, and after 3:00 pm, the attackers were reinforced by mutinous "gardes françaises", along with two cannons each of which was reportedly fired about six times. A substantial force of Royal Army troops encamped on the Champ de Mars did not intervene. With the possibility of mutual carnage suddenly apparent, Governor de Launay ordered the garrison to cease firing at 5:00 pm. A letter written by de Launay offering surrender but threatening to explode the powder stocks held if the garrison were not permitted to evacuate the fortress unharmed, was handed out to the besiegers through a gap in the inner gate. His demands were not met, but Launay nonetheless capitulated, as he realised that with limited food stocks and no water supply his troops could not hold out much longer. He accordingly opened the gates, and the "vainqueurs" swept in to take over the fortress at 5:30 pm.


title: Storming of the Bastille

text: Ninety-eight attackers and one defender had died in the actual fighting or subsequently from wounds, a disparity accounted for by the protection provided to the garrison by the fortress walls. Launay was seized and dragged towards the Hôtel de Ville in a storm of abuse. Outside the Hôtel, a discussion as to his fate began. The badly beaten Launay shouted "Enough! Let me die!" and kicked a pastry cook named Dulait in the groin. Launay was then stabbed repeatedly and died. An English traveller, Doctor Edward Rigby, reported what he saw, "[We] perceived two bloody heads raised on pikes, which were said to be the heads of the Marquis de Launay, Governor of the Bastille, and of Monsieur Flesselles, Prévôt des Marchands. It was a chilling and a horrid sight! ... Shocked and disgusted at this scene, [we] retired immediately from the streets."


title: Storming of the Bastille

text: The three officers of the permanent Bastille garrison were also killed by the crowd; surviving police reports detail their wounds and clothing.


title: Storming of the Bastille

text: Three of the "invalides" of the garrison were lynched plus two of the Swiss regulars of the Salis-Samade Regiment. The remaining Swiss were protected by the French Guards and eventually released to return to their regiment. Their officer, Lieutenant Louis de Flue of the Salis-Samade Regiment wrote a detailed report on the defense of the Bastille, which was incorporated in the logbook of the Salis-Samade and has survived. It is (perhaps unfairly) critical of the dead Marquis de Launay, whom Flue accuses of weak and indecisive leadership. The blame for the fall of the Bastille would rather appear to lie with the inertia of the commanders of the 5,000 Royal Army troops encamped on the Champ de Mars, who did not act when either the nearby Hôtel des Invalides or the Bastille were attacked.


title: Storming of the Bastille

text: Returning to the Hôtel de Ville, the mob accused the "prévôt dès marchands" (roughly, mayor) Jacques de Flesselles of treachery, and he was assassinated on the way to an ostensible trial at the Palais-Royal.


title: Storming of the Bastille

text: The King first learned of the storming only the next morning through the Duke of La Rochefoucauld. "Is it a revolt?" asked Louis XVI. The duke replied: "No sire, it's not a revolt; it's a revolution." Indeed, the storming of the Bastille is occasionally suggested to be the founding point of the Revolution in national discourse. In his book "The French Revolution: From Enlightenment to Tyranny", however, historian Ian Davidson argued that Louis XVI capitulating to the Third Estate at Versailles has a better claim to being the founding event, noting that the "bourgeois Revolutionaries" of Versailles had a major role in steering the future of the revolution, using parliamentary and political mechanisms, for the next three years. Nonetheless, the fall of the Bastille marks the first time the regular citizens of Paris, the "sans-culottes", made a major intervention into the Revolution's affairs. For this stage of the Revolution, the "sans-culotte" were allies to the "bourgeois Revolutionaries".


title: Storming of the Bastille

text: At Versailles, the Assembly were for a few hours ignorant of most of the Paris events. The representatives remained however concerned that the Marshal de Broglie might still unleash a pro-Royalist coup to force them to adopt the order of 23 June, and then dissolve the Assembly. Noailles apparently was first to bring reasonably accurate news of the Paris events to Versailles. M. Ganilh and Bancal-des-Issarts, dispatched to the Hôtel de Ville, confirmed his report.


title: Storming of the Bastille

text: By the morning of 15 July, the outcome appeared clear to the king as well, and he and his military commanders backed down. The twenty-three regiments of Royal troops concentrated around Paris were dispersed to their frontier garrisons. The Marquis de la Fayette took up command of the National Guard at Paris; Jean-Sylvain Bailly – leader of the Third Estate and instigator of the Tennis Court Oath – became the city's mayor under a new governmental structure known as the "Commune de Paris". The king announced that he would recall Necker and return from Versailles to Paris; on 17 July, in Paris, he accepted a tricolour cockade from Bailly and entered the Hôtel de Ville to cries of "Long live the King" and "Long live the Nation".


title: Storming of the Bastille

text: Immediately after the violence of 14 July members of the nobility – little assured by the apparent and, as it was to prove, temporary reconciliation of king and people – started to flee the country as "émigrés". Among the first to leave were the comte d'Artois (the future Charles X of France) and his two sons, the prince de Condé, the prince de Conti, the Polignac family, and (slightly later) Charles Alexandre de Calonne, the former finance minister. They settled at Turin, where Calonne, as agent for the count d'Artois and the prince de Condé, began plotting civil war within the kingdom and agitating for a European coalition against France.


title: Storming of the Bastille

text: The news of the successful insurrection at Paris spread throughout France. In accord with principles of popular sovereignty and with complete disregard for claims of royal authority, the people established parallel structures of municipalities for civic government and militias for civic protection. In rural areas, many went beyond this: some burned title-deeds and no small number of châteaux, as the "Great Fear" spread across the countryside during the weeks of 20 July to 5 August, with attacks on wealthy landlords impelled by the belief that the aristocracy was trying to put down the revolution.


title: Storming of the Bastille

text: On 16 July 1789, two days after the Storming of the Bastille, John Frederick Sackville, British ambassador to France, reported to Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Francis Osborne, 5th Duke of Leeds, "Thus, my Lord, the greatest revolution that we know anything of has been effected with, comparatively speaking—if the magnitude of the event is considered—the loss of very few lives. From this moment we may consider France as a free country, the King a very limited monarch, and the nobility as reduced to a level with the rest of the nation."


title: Storming of the Bastille

text: On 22 July 1789 the populace lynched Controller-General of Finances Joseph Foullon de Doué and his son-in-law Louis Bénigne François Bertier de Sauvigny. Both had held official positions under the monarchy.


title: Storming of the Bastille

text: About 900 people who claimed to have stormed the Bastille received certificates ("Brevet de vainqueur de la Bastille") from the National Assembly in 1790, and a number of these still exist.


title: Storming of the Bastille

text: Although there were arguments that the Bastille should be preserved as a monument to liberation or as a depot for the new National Guard, the Permanent Committee of Municipal Electors at the Paris Town Hall gave the construction entrepreneur Pierre-François Palloy the commission of disassembling the building. Palloy commenced work immediately, employing about 1,000 workers. The demolition of the fortress itself, the melting down of its clock portraying chained prisoners, and the breaking up of four statues were all carried out within five months.


title: Storming of the Bastille

text: In 1790, Lafayette gave the wrought-iron, one-pound and three-ounce key to the Bastille to U.S. President George Washington. Washington displayed it prominently at government facilities and events in New York and in Philadelphia until shortly before his retirement in 1797. The key remains on display at Washington's residence of Mount Vernon.


title: Storming of the Bastille

text: Palloy also took bricks from the Bastille and had them carved into replicas of the fortress, which he sold, along with medals allegedly made from the chains of prisoners. Pieces of stone from the structure were sent to every district in France, and some have been located. Various other pieces of the Bastille also survive, including stones used to build the Pont de la Concorde bridge over the Seine, and one of the towers, which was found buried in 1899 and is now at Square Henri-Galli in Paris, as well as the clock bells and pulley system, which are now in the Musée d’Art Campanaire. The building itself is outlined in brick on the location where it once stood, as is the moat in the Paris Metro stop below it, where a piece of the foundation is also on display.


title: Pratibha Patil

text: Prathibha DeviSingh Patil (born 19 December 1934) is an Indian politician and lawyer who served as the 12th president of India spanning from 2007 to 2012. She is the first woman to become the president of India. A member of the Indian National Congress, she previously served as the Governor of Rajasthan from 2004 to 2007, and was a member of Lok Sabha from 1991 to 1996.


title: Pratibha Patil

text: Patil was born in a Marathi family on 19 December 1934 in the British Raj Indian village of Nadgaon of Jalgaon of Maharashtra, India. She is the daughter of Narayan Rao Patil. She was educated initially at R. R. Vidyalaya town and subsequently was awarded a master's degree in Political Science and Economics by Mooljee Jetha College, Jalgaon (then under Poona University), and then a Bachelor of Law degree by Government Law College, Bombay, affiliated to the University of Bombay (now University of Mumbai). Patil then began to practice law at the Jalgaon District Court, while also taking interest in social issues such as improving the conditions faced by Indian women.


title: Pratibha Patil

text: Patil married Devisingh Ramsingh Shekhawat on 7 July 1965. The couple has a daughter, Jyoti Rathore and a son, Raosaheb Shekhawat, who is also a politician.


title: Pratibha Patil

text: In 1962, at the age of 27, she was elected to the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly for the Jalgaon constituency. Thereafter she won in the Muktainagar (formerly Edlabad) constituency on four consecutive occasions between 1967 and 1985, before becoming a Member of Parliament in the Rajya Sabha between 1985 and 1990. In the 1991 elections for the 10th Lok Sabha, she was elected as a Member of Parliament representing the Amravati constituency. A period of retirement from politics followed later in the decade.


title: Pratibha Patil

text: Patil had held various Cabinet portfolios during her period in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly and she had also held official positions while in both the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha. In addition, she had been for some years the president of the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee and also held office as Director of the National Federation of Urban Co-operative Banks and Credit Societies and as a Member of the Governing Council of the National Co-operative Union of India.


title: Pratibha Patil

text: On 8 November 2004 she was appointed the 17th Governor of Rajasthan, the first woman to hold that office.


title: Pratibha Patil

text: Patil was announced as the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) candidate on 14 June 2007. She emerged as a compromise candidate after the left-wing parties of the alliance would not agree to the nomination of former Home Minister Shivraj Patil or Karan Singh. Patil had been loyal to the INC and the Nehru–Gandhi family for decades and this was considered to be a significant factor in her selection by INC leader Sonia Gandhi, although Patil said that she had no intention of being a "rubber-stamp president".


title: Pratibha Patil

text: In the same month that she was selected, as a member of the UPA Patil was accused of shielding her brother, G. N. Patil, in the 2005 Vishram Patil murder case. Vishram Patil had narrowly defeated G. N. Patil in an election to be the President of the District Congress Committee of Jalgaon and in September of that year had been murdered. Vishram Patil's widow eventually accused G. N. Patil of involvement in the crime and claimed that Pratibha Patil had influenced the criminal investigation and that the issue needed to be examined before presidential immunity became active. Her accusations were rejected by the courts in 2009 but in 2015 G. N. Patil was charged. No reference to the alleged involvement of Pratibha Patil was made at this time.


title: Pratibha Patil

text: Due to the presidential role being largely a figurehead position, the selection of the candidate is often arranged by consensus among the various political parties and the candidate runs unopposed. Contrary to the normal pattern of events, Patil faced a challenge in the election. The BBC described the situation as "the latest casualty of the country's increasingly partisan politics and [it] highlights what is widely seen as an acute crisis of leadership". It "degenerated into unseemly mudslinging between the ruling party and the opposition". Her challenger was Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, the incumbent vice-president and a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) veteran. Shekhawat stood as an independent candidate and was supported by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), a group led by the BJP, although the Shiv Sena party, which was a part of NDA, supported her because of her Marathi origin.


title: Pratibha Patil

text: Those opposed to Patil becoming president claimed that she lacked charisma, experience, and ability. They also highlighted her time spent away from high-level politics and queried her belief in the supernatural, such as her claim to have received a message from Dada Lekhraj, a dead guru. Various specific issues were raised, such as a comment made by her in 1975 that those suffering from hereditary diseases should be sterilized. Another alleged that while a Member of Parliament for Amravati she diverted Rs 3.6 million from her MPLADS fund to a trust run by her husband. This was in violation of Government rules which barred MPs from providing funds to organization's run by their relatives. The parliamentary affairs minister denied any wrongdoing on Patils' part, and noted that the funds are used under MPLADS, by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India.


title: Pratibha Patil

text: Patil won the election held on 19 July 2007. She garnered nearly two-thirds of the votes and took oath on 25 July 2007, as India's 12th president but 1st woman President.


title: Pratibha Patil

text: Patil's term as the President of India saw various controversies and is widely considered as lacklustre. She commuted death sentences of 35 petitioners to life, a record. President's Office, however, defended this by saying that President had granted clemency to the petitioners after due consideration and examining the advice of the Home Ministry.


title: Pratibha Patil

text: Patil was noted for having spent more money on foreign trips, and having taken a greater number of foreign trips, than any previous president. Sometimes accompanied by as many as 11 members of her family, there had been 12 foreign trips spanning 22 countries by May 2012, when she was away on her 13th trip. Those completed travels had cost Rs 205 crore (Rs 2.05 billion). The Ministry of External Affairs said that taking family members "was not abnormal".


title: Pratibha Patil

text: Patil allegedly used public funds to build a retirement mansion on a plot of military land in Pune. Tradition is that a retiring president either takes residence in Government accommodation in Delhi or moves back to their residence in their home state; her use of government money to build a retirement home at the end of the presidential term was unprecedented. Other controversies that arose after her retirement included her desire to claim both an official government car and fuel allowance for the running of a private car, despite rules clearly stipulating that this was an either/or situation. She also took possession of many gifts that had been given to her in her official role and was later forced to return them.


title: Pratibha Patil

text: Patil set up Vidya Bharati Shikshan Prasarak Mandal, an educational institute which runs a chain of schools and colleges in Amravati, Jalgaon, Pune and Mumbai. She also set up Shram Sadhana Trust, which runs hostels for working women in New Delhi, Mumbai and Pune; and an engineering college for rural students in Jalgaon district. She also co-founded a cooperative sugar factory known as Sant Muktabai Sahakari Sakhar Karkhana at Muktainagar.


title: Pratibha Patil

text: In addition, Patil founded a cooperative bank, Pratibha Mahila Sahakari Bank, that ceased trading in February 2003 when its licence was cancelled by the Reserve Bank of India. Among other failings, the bank had given illegal loans to her relatives that exceeded the bank's share capital. It had also given a loan to her sugar mill which was never repaid. The bank waived these loans, and this drove it into liquidation. The government liquidator of the bank, P. D. Nigam, said, "The fact that relatives of the founder chairperson (Pratibha Patil) were among those indiscriminately granted loans and that some illegal loan waivers were done has come up in our audit." Six of the top ten defaulters in the bank were linked to her relatives. The INC claimed that Patil had not been involved with the bank since 1994 but "The Indian Express" reported that it had official documents showing her involvement as late as 2002.


title: Idris Elba filmography

text: Idris Elba is an English actor. He is known for portraying drug trafficker Stringer Bell on the HBO series "The Wire", DCI John Luther on the BBC One series "Luther" and Nelson Mandela in the biographical film "" (2013). He has been nominated four times for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film, winning one and was nominated five times for a Primetime Emmy Award.


title: James T. Kirk

text: James Tiberius Kirk is a fictional character in the "Star Trek" media franchise. Originally played by Canadian actor William Shatner, Kirk first appeared in "Star Trek" serving aboard the starship USS "Enterprise" as captain. Kirk leads his crew as they explore new worlds, new civilizations, and "boldly go where no man has gone before". Often, the characters of Spock and Leonard "Bones" McCoy act as his logical and emotional sounding boards, respectively. Kirk has also been portrayed in numerous films, books, comics, webisodes, and video games.


title: James T. Kirk

text: Kirk first appears in "Star Trek"'s episode, "The Man Trap", broadcast on September 8, 1966, although the first episode recorded featuring Shatner was "Where No Man Has Gone Before", which retained many elements of the first pilot "The Cage". Shatner continued in the role for the show's three seasons, and later provided the voice of the animated version of Kirk in "" (1973–1974). Shatner returned to the role for "" (1979) and in six subsequent films.


title: James T. Kirk

text: American actor Chris Pine portrays an alternative young version of the character in the 2009 "Star Trek" film. Pine reprised his role in "Star Trek Into Darkness" (2013) and in "Star Trek Beyond" (2016). Paul Wesley portrays the main timeline's Kirk on the Paramount+ series "", set prior to Kirk's captaincy of the Enterprise. Other actors have played the character in fan-created media, and the character has been the subject of multiple spoofs and satires.


title: James T. Kirk

text: James Tiberius Kirk was born in Riverside, Iowa, on March 22, 2233, where he was raised by his parents, George and Winona Kirk. Although born on Earth, Kirk lived for a time on , where he was one of nine surviving witnesses to the massacre of 4,000 colonists by . James Kirk's brother, George Samuel Kirk, is first mentioned in "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" and introduced and killed in "", leaving behind three children.


title: James T. Kirk

text: Kirk became the first and only student at Starfleet Academy to defeat the "Kobayashi Maru" test, garnering a commendation for original thinking after he reprogrammed the computer to make the "no-win scenario" winnable. Kirk was granted a field commission as an ensign and posted to advanced training aboard the USS "Republic". He was then promoted to lieutenant junior grade and returned to Starfleet Academy as a student instructor. According to a friend, students could either "think or sink" in his class, and Kirk himself was "a stack of books with legs". Upon graduating in the top five percent, Kirk was promoted to lieutenant and served aboard the USS "Farragut". While assigned to the "Farragut", Kirk commanded his first planetary survey and survived a deadly attack that killed a large portion of the "Farragut"s crew, including his commanding officer, Captain Garrovick.


title: James T. Kirk

text: Kirk became Starfleet's youngest starship captain after receiving command of the for a five-year mission, three years of which are depicted in the original "Star Trek" series. Kirk's most significant relationships in the television series are with first officer Spock and chief medical officer Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy. McCoy is someone to whom Kirk unburdens himself and is a foil to Spock. Robert Jewett and John Shelton Lawrence's "The Myth of the American Superhero" describes Kirk as "a hard-driving leader who pushes himself and his crew beyond human limits". Terry J. Erdman and Paula M. Block, in their "Star Trek 101" primer, note that while "cunning, courageous and confident", Kirk also has a "tendency to ignore Starfleet regulations when he feels the end justifies the means"; he is "the quintessential officer, a man among men and a hero for the ages". Although Kirk throughout the series becomes romantically involved with various women, when confronted with a choice between a woman and the "Enterprise", "his ship always won".


title: James T. Kirk

text: Roddenberry wrote in a production memo that Kirk is not afraid of being fallible, but rather is afraid of the consequences to his ship and crew should he make an error in judgment. Roddenberry wrote:


title: James T. Kirk

text: In "", Admiral Kirk is Chief of Starfleet Operations, and he takes command of the "Enterprise" from Captain Willard Decker. "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry's novelization of "The Motion Picture" depicts Kirk married to a Starfleet officer killed during a transporter accident. At the beginning of "", Kirk takes command of the "Enterprise" from Captain Spock to pursue his enemy from "Space Seed", Khan Noonien Singh. The movie introduces Kirk's former lover Carol and his son, David Marcus. Spock, who notes that "commanding a starship is [Kirk's] first, best destiny", dies at the end of "Star Trek II". In "", Admiral Kirk leads his surviving officers in a successful mission to rescue Spock from a planet on which he is reborn. Although Kirk is demoted to Captain in "" for disobeying Starfleet orders, he also receives command of a new "Enterprise", the USS "Enterprise"-A (NCC 1701-A). The ship is ordered decommissioned at the end of "".


title: James T. Kirk

text: In "Star Trek Generations", Captain Jean-Luc Picard finds Kirk living in the timeless Nexus, despite the fact that history recorded his death during the "Enterprise"-B's maiden voyage, Kirk having fallen into the Nexus in the incident that caused his "death". Picard convinces Kirk to return to Picard's present to help stop the villain Soran from destroying Veridian III's sun. Although Kirk initially refuses the offer, he agrees after realizing the Nexus cannot give him the one thing he has always sought: the ability to make a difference. The two leave the Nexus and stop Soran. However, Kirk is mortally wounded; as he dies, Picard assures him that he helped to "make a difference". Picard buries Kirk on the planet. Shatner has since written a series of novels featuring Kirk being brought back to life by a Borg-Romulan alliance to serve as an assassin against Picard, but he is restored to normal and returns to provisional active service in Starfleet, including opposing his Mirror Universe counterpart.


title: James T. Kirk

text: In this series, Chris Pine plays Kirk, Zachary Quinto plays Spock, Karl Urban plays Bones McCoy, Simon Pegg plays Montgomery "Scotty" Scott, Zoë Saldana plays Nyota Uhura, John Cho plays Hikaru Sulu, and Anton Yelchin plays Pavel Chekov.


title: James T. Kirk

text: The series takes place in an alternate course of events known as the "Kelvin Timeline" that reveal different origins for Kirk, the formation of his association with Spock, and how they came to serve together on the "Enterprise". Whereas "The Original Series" portrayed Kirk as having been born in Iowa, the "Star Trek" film portrays him being born on a shuttle escaping the starship USS "Kelvin" in an alternate timeline in which his father is killed when the "Kelvin" is attacked by a Romulan ship from the future. In the film, George and Winona Kirk name their son "James Tiberius" after his maternal and paternal grandfathers, respectively.


title: James T. Kirk

text: Although the film treats specific details from Star Trek as mutable, characterizations are meant to "remain the same" though with Kirk being initially portrayed as "a reckless, bar-fighting rebel" but who eventually matures. According to Pine, the character is "a 25-year-old [who acts like a] 15-year-old" and who is "angry at the world", until he enrolls in Starfleet Academy basically after being 'dared' by Captain Christopher Pike.


title: James T. Kirk

text: Kirk and Spock clash at Starfleet Academy, but, over the course of the film, Kirk focuses his "passion and obstinance and the spectrum of emotions" and becomes captain of the "Enterprise". He is also aided by a meeting with the time-displaced Spock of the original timeline, who inspires Kirk to live up to his full potential after learning about the parallel version of himself and his accomplishments as Captain in the elder Spock's timeline.


title: James T. Kirk

text: Jeffrey Hunter played the commanding officer of the USS "Enterprise", Captain Christopher Pike, in the rejected "Star Trek" television pilot "". In developing a new pilot episode, called "Where No Man Has Gone Before", series creator Gene Roddenberry changed the captain's name to "James Kirk" after rejecting other options like Hannibal, Timber, Flagg and Raintree. The name was inspired by Captain James Cook, whose journal entry "ambition leads me ... farther than any other man has been before me" inspired the episode title. The character is in part based on C. S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower hero, and NBC wanted the show to emphasize the captain's "rugged individualism". Jack Lord was Desilu Productions' original choice to play Kirk, but his demand for fifty-percent ownership of the show led to him not being hired. The second pilot episode was successful, and "Where No Man Has Gone Before" was broadcast as the third episode of "Star Trek" on September 22, 1966.


title: James T. Kirk

text: William Shatner tried to imbue the character with qualities of "awe and wonder" absent from "The Cage". He also drew upon his experiences as a Shakespearean actor to invigorate the character, whose dialogue at times is laden with jargon. Not only did Shatner take inspiration from Roddenberry's suggestion of Hornblower, but also from Alexander the Great – "the athlete and the intellectual of his time" – whom Shatner had played for an unsold television pilot two years earlier. In addition, the actor based Kirk partly on himself because "the fatigue factor [after weeks of daily filming] is such that you try to be as honest about yourself as possible". A comedy veteran, Shatner suggested making the show's characters as comfortable working in space as they would be at sea, thus having Kirk be a humorous "good-pal-the-captain, who in time of need would snap to and become the warrior". Changing the character to be "a man with very human emotions" also allowed for the development of the Spock character. Shatner wrote that "Kirk was a man who marveled and greatly appreciated the endless surprises presented to him by the universe ... He didn't take things for granted and, more than anything else, respected life in every one of its weird weekly adventure forms".


title: James T. Kirk

text: Shatner did not expect "Star Trek" to be successful, so when it was cancelled in 1969, he assumed it would be the end of his association with the franchise. Following "Star Trek's" popularity after its cancelation, Shatner went on to voice Kirk in the animated "Star Trek" series, star in the first seven "Star Trek" films, and provide voice acting for several games. "" director and writer Nicholas Meyer, who had never seen an episode of "Star Trek" before he was assigned to direct, conceived a ""Hornblower" in outer space" atmosphere, unaware that those books had been an influence on the show. Meyer also emphasized parallels to Sherlock Holmes, in that both characters waste away in the absence of stimuli: new cases for Holmes; starship adventures for Kirk.


title: James T. Kirk

text: Meyer's "The Wrath of Khan" script focuses on Kirk's age, with McCoy giving him a pair of glasses as a birthday present. The script states that Kirk is 49, but Shatner was unsure about being specific about Kirk's age because he was hesitant to portray a middle-aged version of himself. Shatner changed his mind when producer Harve Bennett convinced Shatner that he could age gracefully like Spencer Tracy. Spock's sacrifice at the end of the film allows for Kirk's spiritual rebirth; after commenting earlier that he feels old and worn out, Kirk states in the final scene that he feels "young." Additionally, Spock's self-sacrificing solution to the no-win "Kobayashi Maru" scenario, which Kirk had cheated his way through, forces Kirk to confront death and to grow as a character.


title: James T. Kirk

text: Both Shatner and test audiences were dissatisfied that Kirk was fatally shot in the back in the original ending of the film "Star Trek Generations". An addendum inserted while Shatner's "Star Trek Movie Memories" memoir was being printed expresses his enthusiasm at being called back to film a rewritten ending. Despite the rewrite, "Generations" co-writer Ronald D. Moore said that Kirk's death, which was intended to "resonate throughout the Star Trek franchise", failed to "pay off the themes [of death and mortality] in the way we wanted". Malcolm McDowell, whose character kills Kirk, was dissatisfied with both versions of Kirk's death: he believed Kirk should have been killed "in a big way". McDowell claims to have received death threats after "Generations" was released.


title: James T. Kirk

text: In "Star Trek" (2009), screenwriters Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci focused their story on Kirk and Spock in the movie's alternative timeline while attempting to preserve key character traits from the previous depictions. Kurtzman said casting someone whose portrayal of Kirk would show that the character "is being honored and protected" was "tricky", but that the "spirit of Kirk is very much alive and well" in Pine's depiction. Due to his belief that he could not take himself seriously as a leader, Pine recalled having difficulty with his audition, which required him "to bark "Trek" jargon'", but his charisma impressed director J. J. Abrams. Pine's chemistry with Zachary Quinto, playing Spock, led Abrams to offer Pine the role. Jimmy Bennett played Kirk in scenes depicting the character's childhood. The writers turned to material from the novel "Best Destiny" for inspiration as to Kirk's childhood.


title: James T. Kirk

text: In preparing to play Kirk, Pine decided to embrace the character's key traits – "charming, funny, leader of men" – rather than try to fit the "predigested image" of Shatner's portrayal. Pine specifically did not try to mirror Shatner's cadence, believing that doing so would become "an impersonation". Pine said he wanted his portrayal of Kirk to most resemble Harrison Ford's Indiana Jones or Han Solo characters, highlighting their humor and "accidental hero" traits.


title: James T. Kirk

text: A misunderstanding arose during the film's production about the possibility of Shatner making a cameo appearance. According to Abrams, the production team considered ways to resurrect Shatner's deceased Kirk character, but could not devise a way that was not "lame". However, Abrams believed Shatner misinterpreted language about trying to get "him" into the movie as a reference to Shatner, and not his character. Shatner released a YouTube video expressing disappointment at not being approached for a cameo. Although Shatner questioned the wisdom of not including him in the film, he predicted the movie would be "wonderful" and that he was "kidding" about Abrams not offering him a cameo.


title: James T. Kirk

text: Kirk also appears in "", which is set six years before the events of . He first appears in the final episode of Season 1, portrayed by Paul Wesley, and is set to appear as a recurring guest in Season 2. In this series, the "Enterprise" has another captain, Christopher Pike, who first appeared in "". Other fellow crew characters from the original series, such as Uhura, Spock and Nurse Chapel are main characters in "Strange New Worlds".


title: James T. Kirk

text: According to Shatner, early "Star Trek" reviewers described his performance as "wooden", with most of the show's acting praise and media interest going to Nimoy. However, Shatner's mannerisms when portraying Kirk have become "instantly recognizable" and Shatner won a Saturn Award for Best Actor in 1982 for "The Wrath of Khan". "Star Trek II" director Nicholas Meyer said Shatner "gives the best performance of his life" in "The Wrath of Khan". "The Guardian" called Pine's performance of Kirk an "unqualified success", and "The Boston Globe" said Pine is "a fine, brash boy Kirk". "Slate", which called Pine "a jewel", described his performance as "channel[ing]" Shatner without being an impersonation.


title: James T. Kirk

text: Slate.com described Shatner's depiction of Kirk as an "expansive, randy, faintly ridiculous, and yet supremely capable leader of men, Falstaffian in his love of life and largeness of spirit". "The Myth of the American Superhero" refers to Kirk as a "superhuman redeemer" who "like a true superhero ... regularly escapes after risking battle with monsters or enemy spaceships". Although some episodes question Kirk's position as a hero, "Star Trek" "never left the viewer in doubt for long". Others have commented that Kirk's exaggerated "strength, intelligence, charm, and adventurousness" make him unrealistic. Kirk is described as able to find ways "through unanticipated problems to reach [his] goals" and his leadership style is most "appropriate in a tight, geographically identical team with a culture of strong leadership." Although Roddenberry conceived the character as being "in a very real sense ... 'married' " to the "Enterprise", Kirk has been noted for "his sexual exploits with gorgeous females of every size, shape and type"; he has been called "promiscuous" and labeled a "womanizer". "The Last Lecture" author Randy Pausch believed he became a better teacher, colleague, and husband because he watched Kirk run the "Enterprise"; Pausch wrote that "for ambitious boys with a scientific bent, there could be no greater role model than James T. Kirk". David A. Goodman commented that Kirk "has as much reality as possible for a fictional character."


title: James T. Kirk

text: In 2012, IGN ranked the character Captain Kirk, as depicted in the original series, films, and the new Kirk in 2009 film "Star Trek", as the number one top character of the "Star Trek" universe. In 2016, Kirk was ranked as the #1 most important character of Starfleet within the "Star Trek" science fiction universe by "Wired" magazine, out of 100 characters of the franchise.


title: James T. Kirk

text: In 2018, CBR ranked Kirk the best Starfleet character of "Star Trek," including later television series.


title: James T. Kirk

text: In 1985, Riverside, Iowa petitioned Roddenberry and Paramount Pictures for permission to "adopt" Kirk as their town's "Future Son". Shatner and Roddenberry approved the proposal. Paramount wanted $40,000 for a license to reproduce a bust of Kirk, but the city instead set a plaque and built a replica of the "Enterprise" (named the "USS "Riverside""), and the Riverside Area Community Club holds an annual "Trek Fest" in anticipation of Kirk's birthday.


title: James T. Kirk

text: Kirk has been the subject of a wide range of television spoofs that aired in many countries, including "The Carol Burnett Show" and KI.KA's "Bernd das Brot". John Belushi's impression of Kirk for "Saturday Night Live", which he described as his favorite role, was "dead-on". Jim Carrey has been praised for his satire of the character in a 1992 episode of "In Living Color". Comedian Kevin Pollak is well known for his impressions of Shatner as Kirk.


title: James T. Kirk

text: Kirk's memorable scream of "Khan!" in the 1982 movie "" has become a pop culture icon in its own right, spawning internet memes and is widely parodied and paid tribute to.


title: James T. Kirk

text: Kirk has been referenced in the lyrics of many pop songs. Early examples include the 1979 song "Where's Captain Kirk?" by Spizzenergi, the 1982 rap song "Tough" by Kurtis Blow, and 1983's "99 Luftballons" by Nena (both German and English versions). More recently, in the 2003 remix of 1998’s That Don't Impress Me Much, Shania Twain puts forth Captain Kirk as one of the unattainable ideals to whom her unappealingly haughty suitor apparently thinks himself equal.


title: James T. Kirk

text: Kirk has been merchandised in a variety of ways, including collectible busts, action figures, mugs, t-shirts, and Christmas tree ornaments. A Kirk Halloween mask was altered and used as the mask worn by the character Michael Myers in the "Halloween" film franchise. In 2002, Kirk's captain's chair from the original "Star Trek" was auctioned for $304,000.


title: James T. Kirk

text: In a 2010 Space Foundation survey, Kirk tied with cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin as the No. 6 most popular space hero.


title: James T. Kirk

text: Captain Kirk has also been portrayed in feline form. First, anthropomorphically, in two episodes of the 1975 Filmation Saturday morning animated children’s series "The Secret Lives of Waldo Kitty". The cartoon is based around the title character’s fantasies about being various heroic felines based on popular culture icons. Later came scientific illustrator Jenny Parks' 2017 book "Star Trek Cats", in which Kirk is depicted as an orange tabby cat.


title: James T. Kirk

text: In addition to television, feature films, books, and parodies, Kirk has also been portrayed in non-canon fan fiction.


title: James T. Kirk

text: The "" fan production, known from 2008 until 2015 as "Star Trek: Phase II", portrays the further voyages of the original "Enterprise" crew. The series' creators feel that "Kirk, Spock, McCoy and the rest should be treated as 'classic' characters like Willy Loman from "Death of a Salesman", Gandalf from "The Lord of the Rings" or even Hamlet, Othello or Romeo. Many actors have and can play the roles, each offering a different interpretation of said character".


title: James T. Kirk

text: James Cawley played Kirk in most of the ten episode "Phase II" series from its beginning in 2004 before replacing himself with actor Brian Gross. "Wired" observes that while Cawley's depiction "lacks Shatner's vulnerability", the actor has enough swagger "to be passable in the role". Cawley's portrayal was well-known enough at Paramount that a group of "" writers called for Cawley's attention at a science fiction convention by shouting "Hey, Kirk!" at him while Shatner sat nearby.


title: James T. Kirk

text: First produced in 2013, the 11 episode series "Star Trek Continues" also looked to chronicle the "lost seasons" of "". The series developer and producer is anime voice actor Vic Mignogna, who also plays the role of Kirk. Rounding out the core cast is fellow voice actor Todd Haberkorn as Spock, Chris Doohan (son of the original Scotty actor James Doohan) as Scotty, and as McCoy first author-producer Larry Nemecek, followed by voice actor Chuck Huber. It also co-starred Grant Imahara ("MythBusters") as Sulu.


title: James T. Kirk

text: The first episode, "Pilgrim of Eternity" (with Michael Forest reprising his role as Apollo from the original series episode "Who Mourns for Adonais?") was released in 2013. The second episode, "Lolani" (featuring guest star Lou Ferrigno), was released in February 2014, and a third episode, "Fairest of Them All" was released in June 2014 and won a Burbank International Film Festival award for "Best New Media – Drama". "Star Trek Continues" also won a Geekie Award for "Best Web Series". On June 19, 2015, Episode 4 of the series was posted and titled "White Iris". All eleven full episodes have been released as of December, 2017.


title: James T. Kirk

text: In October 2021, Kirk's actor from "" William Shatner flew to space aboard a Blue Origin sub-orbital capsule. At age 90, he became the oldest person to fly to space and one of the first 600 to do so.


title: Microsoft Bing

text: Microsoft Bing (commonly known as Bing) is a web search engine owned and operated by Microsoft. The service has its origins in Microsoft's previous search engines: MSN Search, Windows Live Search and later Live Search. Bing provides a variety of search services, including web, video, image and map search products. It is developed using ASP.NET.


title: Microsoft Bing

text: Bing, Microsoft's replacement for Live Search, was unveiled by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on May 28, 2009, at the "All Things Digital" conference in San Diego, California, for release on June 3, 2009. Notable new features at the time included the listing of search suggestions while queries are entered and a list of related searches (called "Explore pane") based on semantic technology from Powerset, which Microsoft had acquired in 2008.


title: Microsoft Bing

text: In July 2009, Microsoft and Yahoo! announced a deal in which Bing would power Yahoo! Search. Yahoo! finished the transition in 2012.


title: Microsoft Bing

text: In October 2011, Microsoft stated that they were working on new back-end search infrastructure with the goal of delivering faster and slightly more relevant search results for users. Known as "Tiger", the new index-serving technology had been incorporated into Bing globally since August that year. In May 2012, Microsoft announced another redesign of its search engine that includes "Sidebar", a social feature that searches users' social networks for information relevant to the search query.


title: Microsoft Bing

text: The BitFunnel search engine indexing algorithm and various components of the search engine were made open source by Microsoft in 2016.


title: Microsoft Bing

text: , (Microsoft) Bing is the third largest search engine globally, with a query volume of 4.58%, behind Google (77%) and Baidu (14.45%). Yahoo! Search, which Bing largely powers, has 2.63%.


title: Microsoft Bing

text: Microsoft originally launched MSN Search in the third quarter of 1998, using search results from Inktomi. It consisted of a search engine, index, and web crawler. In early 1999, MSN Search launched a version which displayed listings from Looksmart blended with results from Inktomi except for a short time in 1999 when results from AltaVista were used instead. Microsoft decided to make a large investment in web search by building its own web crawler for MSN Search, the index of which was updated weekly and sometimes daily. The upgrade started as a beta program in November 2004, and came out of beta in February 2005. This occurred a year after rival Yahoo! Search rolled out its own crawler too. Image search was powered by a third party, Picsearch. The service also started providing its search results to other search engine portals in an effort to better compete in the market.


title: Microsoft Bing

text: The first public beta of Windows Live Search was unveiled on March 8, 2006, with the final release on September 11, 2006 replacing MSN Search. The new search engine used search tabs that include Web, news, images, music, desktop, local, and Microsoft Encarta.


title: Microsoft Bing

text: In the roll-over from MSN Search to Windows Live Search, Microsoft stopped using Picsearch as their image search provider and started performing their own image search, fueled by their own internal image search algorithms.


title: Microsoft Bing

text: On March 21, 2007, Microsoft announced that it would separate its search developments from the Windows Live services family, rebranding the service as Live Search. Live Search was integrated into the "Live Search and Ad Platform" headed by Satya Nadella, part of Microsoft's Platform and Systems division. As part of this change, Live Search was merged with Microsoft adCenter.


title: Microsoft Bing

text: A series of reorganizations and consolidations of Microsoft's search offerings were made under the Live Search branding. On May 23, 2008, Microsoft announced the discontinuation of Live Search Books and Live Search Academic and integrated all academic and book search results into regular search, and as a result this also included the closure of Live Search Books Publisher Program. Soon after, Windows Live Expo was discontinued on July 31, 2008. Live Search Macros, a service for users to create their own custom search engines or use macros created by other users, was also discontinued shortly after. On May 15, 2009, Live Product Upload, a service which allowed merchants to upload products information onto Live Search Products, was discontinued. The final reorganization came as Live Search QnA which was rebranded as MSN QnA on February 18, 2009, although it was discontinued on May 21, 2009.


title: Microsoft Bing

text: Microsoft recognized that there would be a problem with branding as long as the word "Live" remained in the name. As an effort to create a new identity for Microsoft's search services, Live Search was officially replaced by Bing on June 3, 2009.


title: Microsoft Bing

text: The Bing name was chosen through focus groups, and Microsoft decided that the name was memorable, short, and easy to spell, and that it would function well as a URL around the world. The word would remind people of the sound made during "the moment of discovery and decision making". Microsoft was assisted by branding consultancy Interbrand in their search for the best name for the new search engine. The name also has strong similarity to the word "bingo", which is used to mean that something sought has been found or realized, as is interjected when winning the game Bingo.


title: Microsoft Bing

text: Microsoft advertising strategist David Webster originally proposed the name "Bang" for the same reasons the name Bing was ultimately chosen (easy to spell, one syllable, and easy to remember). He noted, "It's there, it's an exclamation point [...] It's the opposite of a question mark." This name was ultimately not chosen because it could not be properly used as a verb in the context of an internet search; Webster commented "Oh, 'I banged it' is very different than 'I binged it'".


title: Microsoft Bing

text: Qi Lu, president of Microsoft Online Services, also announced that Bing's official Chinese name is "bì yìng" (), which literally means "very certain to respond" or "very certain to answer" in Chinese.


title: Microsoft Bing

text: While being tested internally by Microsoft employees, Bing's codename was "Kumo" (くも), which came from the Japanese word for "spider" (蜘蛛; くも, "kumo") as well as "cloud" (雲; くも, "kumo"), referring to the manner in which search engines "spider" Internet resources to add them to their database, as well as cloud computing.


title: Microsoft Bing

text: On July 31, 2009, The Laptop Company, Inc. stated in a press release that it would challenge Bing's trademark application, alleging that Bing may cause confusion in the marketplace as Bing and their product BongoBing both do online product search. Software company TeraByte Unlimited, which has a product called BootIt Next Generation (abbreviated to BING), also contended the trademark application on similar grounds, as did a Missouri-based design company called Bing! Information Design.