title: Kingdom of Jerusalem

text: Immediately after the First Crusade, land was distributed to loyal vassals of Godfrey, forming numerous feudal lordships within the kingdom. This was continued by Godfrey's successors. The number and importance of the lordships varied throughout the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and many cities were part of the royal domain. The king was assisted by a number of officers of state. The king and the royal court were normally located in Jerusalem, but due to the prohibition on Muslim inhabitants, the capital was small and underpopulated. The king just as often held court at Acre, Nablus, Tyre, or wherever else he happened to be. In Jerusalem, the royal family lived firstly on the Temple Mount, before the foundation of the Knights Templar, and later in the palace complex surrounding the Tower of David; there was another palace complex in Acre.


title: Kingdom of Jerusalem

text: Because the nobles tended to live in Jerusalem rather than on estates in the countryside, they had a larger influence on the king than they would have had in Europe. The nobles, along with the bishops, formed the "haute cour" (high court), which was responsible for confirming the election of a new king (or a regent if necessary), collecting taxes, minting coins, allotting money to the king, and raising armies. The "haute cour" was the only judicial body for the nobles of the kingdom, hearing criminal cases such as murder, rape, and treason, and simpler feudal disputes such as recovery of slaves, sales and purchases of fiefs, and default of service. Punishments included forfeiture of land and exile, or in extreme cases death. The first laws of the kingdom were, according to tradition, established during Godfrey of Bouillon's short reign, but were more probably established by Baldwin II at the Council of Nablus in 1120. Benjamin Z. Kedar argued that the canons of the Council of Nablus were in force in the 12th century but had fallen out of use by the thirteenth. Marwan Nader questions this and suggests that the canons may not have applied to the whole kingdom at all times. The most extensive collection of laws, together known as the Assizes of Jerusalem, were written in the mid-13th century, although many of them are purported to be twelfth-century in origin.


title: Kingdom of Jerusalem

text: There were other, lesser courts for non-nobles and non-Latins; the "Cour des Bourgeois" provided justice for non-noble Latins, dealing with minor criminal offences such as assault and theft, and provided rules for disputes between non-Latins, who had fewer legal rights. Special courts such as the "Cour de la Fond" (for commercial disputes in the markets) and the "Cour de la Mer" (an admiralty court) existed in the coastal cities. The extent to which native Islamic and Eastern Christian courts continued to function is unknown, but the "ra'is" probably exercised some legal authority on a local level. The "Cour des Syriens" judged non-criminal matters among the native Christians (the "Syriacs"). For criminal matters non-Latins were to be tried in the "Cour des Bourgeois" (or even the "Haute Cour" if the crime was sufficiently severe).


title: Kingdom of Jerusalem

text: The Italian communes were granted almost complete autonomy from the very early days of the Kingdom, thanks to their military and naval support in the years following the First Crusade. This autonomy included the right to administer their own justice, although the kinds of cases that fell under their jurisdiction varied at different times.


title: Kingdom of Jerusalem

text: The king was recognised as head of the Haute Cour, although he was legally only "primus inter pares".


title: Kingdom of Jerusalem

text: After the loss of all territory in the Levant in 1291, there were late attempts at further crusades, nominally proposing to recapture Jerusalem, but with the rise of the Ottoman Empire


title: Kingdom of Jerusalem

text: their character was more and more that of a desperate defensive war rarely reaching beyond the Balkans (Alexandrian Crusade, Smyrniote crusades).


title: Kingdom of Jerusalem

text: Henry IV of England made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1393–4, and he later vowed to lead a crusade to recapture the city, but he did not undertake such a campaign before his death in 1413.


title: Kingdom of Jerusalem

text: The Levant remained under Ottoman control from 1517 until the Partition of the Ottoman Empire in 1918.


title: Kingdom of Jerusalem

text: With the Fall of Ruad in 1302, the Kingdom of Jerusalem lost its final outpost on the Levantine coast, its possession closest to the Holy Land now being Cyprus.


title: Kingdom of Jerusalem

text: Henry II of Jerusalem retained the title of king of Jerusalem until his death in 1324, and the title continued to be claimed by his successors, the kings of Cyprus.


title: Kingdom of Jerusalem

text: The title of "king of Jerusalem" was also continuously used by the Angevin kings of Naples, whose founder, Charles of Anjou, had in 1277 bought a claim to the throne from Mary of Antioch. Thereafter, this claim to the Kingdom of Jerusalem was treated as a tributary of the crown of Naples, which often changed hands by testament or conquest rather than direct inheritance. As Naples was a papal fief, the Popes often endorsed the title of King of Jerusalem as well as of Naples, and the history of these claims is that of the Neapolitan Kingdom.


title: Kingdom of Jerusalem

text: In 1441, control of the Kingdom of Naples was lost to Alfonso V of Aragon and the title thus was claimed by the kings of Spain, and after the War of the Spanish Succession both by the House of Bourbon and the House of Habsburg.


title: Kingdom of Jerusalem

text: The title is still in "de facto" use by the Spanish Crown, currently held by Felipe VI of Spain. It was also claimed by Otto von Habsburg as Habsburg pretender until 1958, and by the kings of Italy until 1946.


title: Claudia Black

text: Claudia Lee Black (born 11 October 1972) is an Australian actress, best known for her portrayals of Aeryn Sun in "Farscape", Vala Mal Doran in "Stargate SG-1" and Sharon "Shazza" Montgomery in the film "Pitch Black". She has had prominent roles in video games, such as Chloe Frazer in "Uncharted", Morrigan in "Dragon Age", Admiral Daro'Xen and Matriarch Aethyta in "Mass Effect" and Tess Everis in "Destiny" and Samantha Byrne in "Gears of War 3", "Gears of War 4", and "Gears 5". She also had a recurring role as Dahlia in "The Originals" and starred as Dr. Sabine Lommers in The CW's "Containment".


title: Claudia Black

text: Black was born and raised in a Jewish family in Sydney, New South Wales. She studied at the Anglican Kambala School in Sydney. She has lived in Australia, New Zealand, Spain, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States. Her parents are medical academics based in Australia, Jules and Judy Black.


title: Claudia Black

text: Black has acted in Australia and New Zealand in television and movies. She portrayed a transgender woman named Jill Mayhew in the Australian television series "Good Guys, Bad Guys". She had a leading role in the New Zealand soap opera "City Life" playing the role of Greek lawyer Angela Kostapas.


title: Claudia Black

text: Black gained international recognition for her role in "Farscape", and was nominated for a Saturn Award in the Best Actress category in 2001, 2002 and 2005, winning in the latter. She has appeared in the feature films "Queen of the Damned" and "Pitch Black". After "Farscape" ended, Black appeared as Vala Mal Doran in the "Stargate SG-1" episode "Prometheus Unbound"; her performance was well-received and she was invited to reprise her role in the show's ninth season when series regular Amanda Tapping went on maternity leave. Black returned to the series as a regular cast member for the tenth and final season, and also starred in "" and "", films which wrapped up the series' story lines. Black co-starred with Ben Browder in both series.


title: Claudia Black

text: In the NBC TV show "Life" (2007), Black was cast in the supporting role of Jennifer Conover for the initial pilot. Due to Black's second pregnancy, the part was recast and the role was given to the actress Jennifer Siebel when the series was bought by the TV network. NBC still used footage of Black, and none of Siebel, when promoting the TV series' debut.


title: Claudia Black

text: Popular at science fiction conventions, Black showed her talent at singing and playing the guitar at the "Farscape" conventions, and in 2007 sang on the debut album of musician and fellow "Farscape" actor Paul Goddard.


title: Claudia Black

text: Black has also performed in theater. She played Portia in a tour of the "Merchant of Venice". She has had parts in "Spotlight on Women", "The Picture of Dorian Gray", "Loose Ends" and "Pick Ups" for the Belvoir street theatre; "Little Women" and "The World Knot" for the Bicentennial Opera.


title: Claudia Black

text: Since 2007, Black has been a prolific video game voice actress. She has gained particular attention for her work with BioWare's "Dragon Age" and "Mass Effect" series. Her son Odin Black voiced her "Dragon Age" character's son in "Dragon Age: Inquisition". She also played Chloe Frazer in the "Uncharted" series. In 2008, she narrated the audiobook "Swallowing Darkness" by Laurell K. Hamilton. In 2014, Black had a voice-over role in "Rick and Morty" as Ma-Sha in the episode "Raising Gazorpazorp". In 2016, she appeared in "" as Engineer Audrey "Mac" MaCallum.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: The Moscow theater hostage crisis (also known as the 2002 Nord-Ost siege) was the seizure of the crowded Dubrovka Theater by Chechen terrorists on 23 October 2002, which involved 850 hostages and ended with Russian security services killing or causing the death of at least 170 people. The attackers, led by Movsar Barayev, claimed allegiance to the Islamist separatist movement in Chechnya. They demanded the withdrawal of Russian forces from Chechnya and an end to the Second Chechen War.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: Due to the layout of the theater, special forces would have had to fight through of corridor and advance up a well-defended staircase before they could reach the hall in which the hostages were held. The attackers had numerous explosives, with the most powerful in the center of the auditorium. Spetsnaz operators from Federal Security Service (FSB) Alpha and Vympel, supported by a Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) SOBR unit, pumped a chemical agent into the building's ventilation system and began the rescue operation.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: All 40 of the insurgents were shot dead when unconscious, and up to 130 hostages died during the siege, including 9 foreigners, due to the toxic substance pumped into the theater. The identity of the gas was not disclosed at the time, although it was believed by some to have been a fentanyl derivative, such as carfentanil. A study published in 2012 concluded that it had been a mixture of carfentanil and remifentanyl. The same study pointed out that in a 2011 case at the European Court of Human Rights, the Russian government stated that the aerosol used was a mixture of a fentanyl derivative and a chemical compound with a narcotic action.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: The hostages were seized on 23 October at the House of Culture of State Ball-Bearing Plant Number 1 in the Dubrovka area of Moscow about four kilometers south-east of the Moscow Kremlin. During Act II of a sold-out performance of "Nord-Ost" a little after 9:00 PM, 40–50 heavily armed and masked men and women drove in a bus to the theater and entered the main hall firing assault rifles in the air.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: The black-and-camouflage-clad Chechens took approximately 850–900 people hostage, including members of the audience and performers, among them an MVD general. The reaction of spectators inside the theater to the news that the theater was under terrorist attack was not uniform: some people remained calm, some reacted hysterically, and others fainted. Some performers who had been resting backstage escaped through an open window and called the police; in all, some 90 people managed to flee the building or hide.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: The militant leader told the hostages that the attackers (who identified themselves as a suicide squad from "the 29th Division") had no grudge against foreign nationals (about 75 in number from 14 countries, including Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and the United States) and promised to release anyone who showed a foreign passport.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: The gunmen were led by Movsar Barayev, nephew of slain Chechen rebel militia commander Arbi Barayev, and threatened to kill the hostages unless Russian forces were immediately and unconditionally withdrawn from Chechnya. They said the deadline was one week, after which they would start killing the hostages.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: A videotaped statement was acquired by the media in which the gunmen declared their willingness to die for their cause. The statement contained the following text:


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: According to the Kremlin's aide Sergei Yastrzhembsky, "When they were told that the withdrawal of troops was unrealistic within the short period, that it was a very long process, the terrorists put forward the demand to withdraw Russian troops from anywhere in the Republic of Chechnya without specifying which area it was." The hostage-takers demanded termination of the use of artillery and air forces in Chechnya starting the next day (Russian forces ceased using heavy weapons until 28 September), a halt to the notorious "zachistka" ("mopping-up") operations, and that President of Russia Vladimir Putin should publicly declare that he was striving to stop the war in Chechnya. By the time of the hostage-taking, the conflict in the embattled republic was killing an average of three federal troops daily.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: Cell phone conversations between the hostages trapped in the building and their family members revealed that the hostage-takers had grenades, mines and improvised explosive devices strapped to their bodies, and had deployed more explosives throughout the theater. The militants used Arabic names among themselves, and the female terrorists wore Arab-style "niqab" clothes which are highly unusual in the North Caucasus region.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: Mufti Akhmad-Khadzhi Shamayev, official leader of Chechnya's Muslims, said he had no information about who the attackers were and condemned attacks on civilians. The pro-Moscow Islamic leader of Chechnya also condemned the attack.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: All hostages were kept in the auditorium and the orchestra pit was used as a lavatory. The situation in the hall was nervous and it frequently changed depending on the mood of the hostage-takers, who were following reports in the mass media. Any kind of misinformation caused hopelessness among the hostages and new aggression among their captors, who would threaten to shoot hostages and blow up the building, but no major incidents took place during the siege. The gunmen let members of the audience make phone calls. One hostage used her mobile phone to plead with authorities not to storm the auditorium, as truckloads of police and soldiers with armored vehicles surrounded the building.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: The attackers released 150 to 200 people, including children, pregnant women, Muslims, some foreign-born theater-goers and people requiring medical treatment in the early hours after they invaded. Two women managed to escape (one of them was injured while escaping). The terrorists said they were ready to kill ten hostages for any of their number killed if the security forces intervened.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: At 1:30 AM, Olga Romanova, a 26-year-old civilian acting on her own, entered the theater, crossing the police cordon by herself. She entered the theater and began urging the hostages to stand up to their captors. There was considerable confusion in the auditorium. The terrorists believed she was a Federal Security Service (FSB) agent and she was shot and killed seconds later. Romanova's body was later removed from the building by a Russian medical team, incorrectly reported by the Moscow police as the body of the first hostage who was killed while trying to escape. Romanova was described as "strong-willed", and lived near the theater. It is unknown how she crossed the police lines undetected.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: The Russian government offered the hostage-takers the opportunity to leave for any country other than Russia or Chechnya if they released all hostages unharmed. The hostages made an appeal, possibly under orders or duress, for Putin to cease hostilities in Chechnya and asked him to refrain from assaulting the building. Because of the crisis, Putin canceled an overseas trip that would have included meetings with then-U.S. President George W. Bush and other world leaders.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: The hostage-takers demanded to talk with Joseph Kobzon, a member of parliament and singer, and with International Red Cross representatives. Kobzon (accompanied by three people, including a man waving some white fabric like a flag), entered the building about 1:20 PM. Shortly thereafter, a man in his sixties, appearing feeble and distraught, left the theater. The Interfax news agency identified him as a British citizen, but did not provide details. A woman and three children, believed to be Russians, were let out a few minutes later.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: Other well-known public and political figures such as Aslambek Aslakhanov, Irina Khakamada, Ruslan Khasbulatov, Boris Nemtsov and Grigory Yavlinsky took part in negotiations with the hostage-takers. Ex-President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev also announced his willingness to act as an intermediary in the course of negotiations. Militants also demanded that representatives of the International Red Cross and "Médecins Sans Frontières" (Doctors Without Borders) come to the theater to lead negotiations. FSB Colonel Konstantin Vasilyev attempted to enter the patio of the theater, but was shot at while approaching the building and forced to retreat.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: According to the FSB, thirty nine hostages were set free by the terrorists on 24 October 2002, but they repeated via one of the hostages an earlier threat to start shooting their captives if Russia failed to take their demands seriously. Negotiations on the release of non-Russian nationals were conducted by various embassies and the Chechens promised to release all foreign hostages. The kidnappers claimed they were ready to release 50 Russian hostages if Akhmad Kadyrov, head of Chechnya's pro-Moscow administration, would come to the theater, but Kadyrov did not respond, and the release did not take place.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: A hot water pipe burst overnight and was flooding the ground floor. The hostage-takers called the flooding a "provocation" and an FSB spokesman said no agreement had been reached on having the pipe repaired. It later turned out that the sewer system was used by the Russian special forces for listening purposes.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: During the third day, the following people took part in negotiations with the militants: journalists Anna Politkovskaya, Sergei Govorukhin and Mark Franchetti as well as public figures Yevgeny Primakov, Ruslan Aushev and again, Aslambek Aslakhanov. The terrorists demanded negotiations with an official representative of Vladimir Putin. Relatives of the hostages staged anti-war demonstrations outside the theater and in central Moscow.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: The hostage-takers agreed to release seventy-five foreign citizens in the presence of diplomatic representatives of their states. 15 Russian citizens were released, including eight children (aged 7 to 13). After a meeting with Putin, the FSB head Nikolai Patrushev offered to spare the lives of the Chechens if they released the remaining hostages unharmed.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: A group of Russian doctors including Dr. Leonid Roshal, head of the Medical Center for Catastrophes, entered the theater to bring medicine for the hostages and said the terrorists were not beating or threatening their captives. He said most of the hostages were calm and that only "two or three" of the hostages were hysterical. Some hot food, warm clothes, and medicine had also been taken in by the Red Cross.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: NTV channel journalists recorded an interview with Movsar Barayev, in which he sent a message to the Russian government:


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: We have nothing to lose. We have already covered 2,000 kilometers by coming here. There is no way back... We have come to die. Our motto is freedom and paradise. We already have freedom as we've come to Moscow. Now we want to be in paradise.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: He also said the group had come to Moscow not to kill the hostages or to fight with Russia's elite troops, as they had had enough fighting in Chechnya over the years: "We came here with a specific aimto put an end to the war and that is it."


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: At 9:55 PM, four hostages (citizens of Azerbaijan) were released, bringing the total number of hostages that were set free on this day to 19.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: After dusk, a man identified as Gennady Vlakh ran across the square and gained entry to the theater. He said that his son was among the hostages, but his son did not seem to be present and the man was led away and shot by the Chechens.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: There is considerable confusion surrounding this incident, and Vlakh's body was cremated before it was identified.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: Around midnight, a gunfire incident took place as Denis Gribkov, a 30-year-old male hostage, ran over the backs of theater seats toward the female insurgents who were sitting next to a large improvised explosive device. A male Chechen shot at him and missed, but stray bullets hit and severely wounded Tamara Starkova and fatally wounded Pavel Zakharov, who were evacuated from the building soon after. Gribkov was removed from the auditorium and later found dead from gunshot wounds.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: During the night, Akhmed Zakayev, a Chechen envoy and associate of the separatist President Aslan Maskhadov, appealed to the extremists and asked them to "refrain from rash steps". The Chechens told the BBC that a special representative of President Putin planned to come to the theater for talks the next day. Two members of the Spetsnaz Alpha Group moving around in the no-man's land were seriously wounded by a grenade fired from the building by the terrorists, which was blamed by the Moscow police chief Vladimir Pronin on the media news leak.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: According to an officer in the Russian special forces cited by "The Guardian", the leak was controlled: "We leaked the information that the storming would take place at three in the morning. The Chechen fighters were on their guard. They began shooting, but there was no raid. Then there was the natural reactiona relaxation. And at 5 a.m. we stormed the place."


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: Early Saturday morning, 26 October, forces from Russia's Spetsnaz (Special Forces, literally "special purpose") from the FSB (Alpha Group and Vympel), with the assistance of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) SOBR unit, surrounded and stormed the theater; all were heavily armed and masked. Deputy Interior Minister Vladimir Vasilyev stated that the raid was prompted by a panic among the captives due to the execution of two female hostages. The raid was planned shortly after the hostages were initially seized and the shooting cited as a proximate cause had occurred about three hours before the operation began.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: Early in the morning before dawn, at around 5:00a.m. Moscow time, the searchlights that had been illuminating the main entrance to the theater went out.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: Inside, although many hostages at first took the gas (aerosol) to be smoke from a fire, it soon became apparent to gunmen and hostages alike that a mysterious gas had been pumped into the building. Different reports said it came either through the specially created hole in the wall, that it was pumped through the theater's ventilation system, or that it emerged from beneath the stage. The security services pumped an aerosol anaesthetic, later stated by Russian Health Minister Yuri Shevchenko to be based on fentanyl, into the theater through the air conditioning system. The discovery caused panic in the auditorium. Hostage Anna Andrianova, a correspondent for "Moskovskaya Pravda", called Echo of Moscow radio studio and told on-air in a live broadcast interview that the government forces had begun an operation by pumping gas into the hall:


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: The Chechens, some of whom were equipped with gas masks, responded by firing blindly at the Russian positions outside. After thirty minutes, when the gas had taken effect, a physical assault on the building commenced. The combined forces entered through numerous building openings, including the roof, the basement, and finally the front door.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: When the shooting began, the terrorists told their hostages to lean forward in the theater seats and cover their heads behind the seats. Hostages reported that some people in the audience fell asleep, and some of the gunmen put on respirators. As the terrorists and hostages alike began to fall unconscious, several of the female terrorists made a dash for the balcony but passed out before they reached the stairs. They were later found shot dead. Two of the Spetsnaz Alpha Group were also overcome by the gas.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: After nearly one and a half hours of sporadic gun battles, the Russian special forces blew open the doors to the main hall and poured into the auditorium. In a fierce firefight, the federals killed most of the hostage-takers, both those still awake and those who had succumbed to the gas.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: According to the Russian government, fighting between the troops and the still-conscious Chechen fighters continued in other parts of the building for another 30 minutes to one hour. Initial reports stated that three terrorists were captured alive (the BBC reported that a "handful of surviving fighters were led away in handcuffs") and two of them managed to escape. Later, the government claimed that all hostage-takers had been killed in the storming.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: Alpha team troops said that "this is our first successful operation [in] years". "Moskovskij Komsomolets" cited a Russian special forces operative saying that "if it were a usual storming, we'd have had 150 casualties among our men, added to the hostages."


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: At 7:00 a.m., rescuers began carrying the bodies of hostages out of the building. Bodies were laid in rows in the foyer and on the pavement at the main entrance to the TC, unprotected from falling rain and snow. None of the bodies witnessed by "The Guardian" correspondent Nick Paton Walsh had bullet wounds or showed signs of bleeding, but "their faces were waxy, white and drawn, their eyes open and blank." Shortly, the entire space was filled with bodies of the dead and those unconscious from the gas but still alive.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: Ambulances were standing by and ordinary city buses were brought in. Medical workers were expecting to treat victims of explosions and gunfire but not a secret chemical agent. If the drug used was indeed a fentanyl derivative or other μ-opioid receptor agonist, an opioid receptor antagonist drug like naloxone would have counteracted the chemical agent's effects, but would have had to be administered by rescue workers immediately upon arriving. Some reports said the drug was used to save some hostages.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: The bodies of dead hostages were put in two buses which were parked at the TC. Initial reports said nothing about casualties among the hostages. The crisis HQ representatives went to the college hall, where relatives of the hostages had been waiting, and told them that allegedly there were no fatalities among the hostages. The first official report of fatalities among the hostages came at about 9:00 a.m. Despite the death of five children which had been already reported by medical personnel, the official statement claimed there were no children among the dead.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: At 1:00 p.m., Vasilyev announced at a press conference a "definitive" death toll of 67 hostages, who he said were killed by Chechens, but again said no children nor foreigners were among those killed. Armed guards were posted at the hospitals where victims were taken and doctors were ordered not to release any of the theater patients in case militants had concealed themselves among the hostages.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: The hostages' family members panicked as the government refused to release any information about which hospitals their loved ones had been taken to, or even whether their relatives were among the dead. The official number of the dead rose to 90, including 25 children, while it was still claimed that the final attack was provoked by the terrorists executing their captives. Later the same day, the official death toll among hostages had risen to at least 118 and the officials had not specified exactly what killed them. By 28 October, of the 646 former hostages who remained hospitalized, 150 were still in intensive care and 45 were in critical condition.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: Seventy-three hostages (including six minors) were rendered no medical aid. There were several Chechens among the hostages and it may be that some of them were not treated because of their Chechen names. Money and other valuables belonging to the victims vanished; official reports stated that the valuables were stolen by an FSB officer who was later killed in a car crash. The Russian authorities initially maintained that none of the deaths among the hostages occurred through poisoning. They spoke of health problems that were exacerbated by the three-day ordeal with very little food or water, or indeed, medical attention.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: The number of estimated casualties varies widely because many hostages remained unaccounted for and were not included in the official list (see below). Some estimates have put the civilian death toll at more than 200 with 204 names on one list, or even 300, including people who died during the year after the siege from complications from the poison gas. Some former hostages and relatives of the victims claim that the death toll from the chemical agent is being kept secret. According to official numbers, 40 terrorists and about 130 hostages died during the raid or in the following days.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: Doctor Andrei Seltsovsky, Moscow's health committee chairman, announced that all but one of the hostages killed in the raid had died from the effects of the unknown gas rather than from gunshot wounds. The cause of death listed for all hostages was declared to be "terrorism," claiming they died from heart attacks or other physical ailments. Among the fatalities, 17 were "Nord-Ost" cast members, including two child actors. Of the foreign nationals, three were from Ukraine, and the others were citizens of Austria, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, the Netherlands and the United States. About 700 surviving hostages were poisoned by the gas, and some of them received injuries leading to disabilities of the second and third class (by the Russian/ex-Soviet disability classification system; indicate medium- and maximum-severity debilitation). Several Russian special forces operatives were also poisoned by the gas during the operation. According to court testimony from Prof. A. Vorobiev, Director of the Russian Academic Bacteriology Center, most, if not all, of the deaths were caused by suffocation when hostages collapsed on chairs with heads falling back or were transported and left lying on their backs by rescue workers; in such a position, tongue prolapse causes blockage of breathing.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: The Chechen radical militant group The Special Purpose Islamic Regiment (SPIR) conducted the operation. The group was led by Movsar Barayev.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: Military commander Shamil Basayev posted a statement on his website claiming ultimate responsibility for the incident, resigning all official positions within the Chechen government and promising new attacks. He also apologized to Chechnya's elected president and separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov for not informing him of the planned raid and asked him for forgiveness. Basayev defended the hostage-taking for giving "all Russians a first-hand insight into all the charms of the war unleashed by Russia and take it back to where it originated from" and said that his "main goal will be destroying the enemy and exacting maximum damage" and "the next time, those who come won't make any demands, won't take hostages." A series of suicide bombings aimed at civilian targets in Russia followed in 2003 and 2004.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: The Russian government claimed that wiretapped phone conversations prove that Maskhadov knew of the plans in advance, which he denied. Aslan Maskhadov and his representatives in the West condemned the attack which they said had nothing to do with official policy. Maskhadov said he felt responsible for those "who resorted to self-sacrifice in despair", but also said the "barbaric and inhumane policies" of the Russian leadership were ultimately to blame and criticized the storming of the theater. He offered to start unconditional peace talks with the Russian government to find a political solution to the conflict in Chechnya.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: The siege was seen as a public relations disaster for Maskhadov, and his more radical Islamic field commanders correspondingly benefited. Some commentators suggested that Movladi Udugov was in charge from behind the scenes. Russian military expert Pavel Felgenhauer suggested that the aim of the extremist leaders seemed to have been to provoke the Russian government forces "to kill ethnic Russians in Moscow on a large scale", which happened. According to the report by Russian investigators, Zura Barayeva, the widow of Arbi Barayev, led the female members of the group, while a man known as Yasir, identified by his documents as Idris Alkhazurov, was said to be the group's "ideologist" believed to be trained in Saudi Arabia. Russian officials said Chechen militants received financing from groups based in Turkey and that they intercepted telephone calls from the captors to unidentified embassies in Moscow, as well as to Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: After the raid, Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov said that "the operation was carried out brilliantly by special forces;" he claimed he had wanted a negotiated end to the crisis, but the final attack was made necessary by the reported killing of hostages. The Russian presidential special envoy for human rights in Chechnya, Abdul-Khakim Sultygov, said the bloody outcome was "a good lesson to the terrorists and their accomplices."


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: Deputy Interior Minister Vasilyev launched a Moscow-wide operation to catch anyone who might have helped the militants, while his superior, Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov, urged people to be vigilant and to report anyone acting suspiciously to police. On 29 October, Vasilyev said he had the authority to state only that special chemical agents had been used and that some 30 suspected militants and their collaborators, including several civil servants and security officers, had been arrested around the theater and in other parts of the city in what Gryzlov called an "unprecedented operation" to identify what he described as a vast terrorist network in Moscow and the surrounding region.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: Russian President Vladimir Putin defended the scale and violence of the assault in a televised address later on the morning of 26 October, stating that the government had "achieved the near impossible, saving hundreds... of people" and that the rescue "proved it is impossible to bring Russia to its knees". Putin thanked the special forces as well as the Russian citizens for their "bravery" and the international community for the support given against the "common enemy". He also asked forgiveness for not being able to save more of the hostages, and declared Monday a national day of mourning for those who died. He vowed to continue fighting "international terrorism".


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: On 29 October, Putin released another televised statement, saying: "Russia will respond with measures that are adequate to the threat to the Russian Federation, striking all the places where the terrorists themselves, the organizers of these crimes and their ideological and financial inspirations are. I stress, wherever they may be located." It was commonly assumed Putin was threatening the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. Putin's comments came as British Prime Minister Tony Blair phoned him to congratulate him on the ending of the siege.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: President Putin was unhappy with the coverage of the hostage crisis by NTV, the last nationwide TV channel effectively independent of the government. In January 2003 the management of NTV was replaced, resulting in a profound effect on its editorial policy.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: The attacks prompted Putin's government to take harsher measures against Chechen separatists. On 28 October, two days after the crisis, he announced that unspecified "measures adequate to the threat" would henceforth be taken in response to terrorist activity, with reports of 30 fighters killed near the Chechen capital Grozny. The Russian Ministry of Defense cancelled plans to reduce the 80,000 troop presence in the tiny breakaway Chechen republic.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: In early November, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov announced Russian forces had launched large-scale operations against separatists throughout Chechnya. The actions of the military caused a new wave of refugees, according to the pro-Moscow Chechen official and the hostage crisis negotiator Aslanbek Aslakhanov.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: On 29 May 2008, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) unanimously condemned Russia for enforced disappearances in five cases from Chechnya, including the disappearance of two young women in Ulus-Kert (the prosecutor's office initially stated to media that Aminat Dugayeva and Kurbika Zinabdiyeva had been arrested on suspicion of involvement with the Moscow siege).


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: President Maskhadov's unconditional offer for peace talks with Russia was swiftly dismissed, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov compared such calls with the suggestion that Europe should conduct such talks with the former al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Russia also accused former Chechen Republic leader Akhmed Zakayev of involvement in the attack. When he visited Denmark for a peace congress in October 2002 (the World Chechen Congress event in Copenhagen), the Russians demanded his arrest and extradition; Zakayev was held for over a month, but was released after Danish authorities stated they were not convinced that sufficient evidence had been provided. The Kremlin also accused the Danish authorities of "solidarity with terrorists" by allowing the meeting of about 100 Chechens, Russian human rights activists and lawmakers from Russia and other European countries to gather and discuss ways to end the fighting.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: In early November, the Russian Duma approved a broad array of anti-terrorism legislation ranging from far-reaching restrictions on media coverage of terrorism-related incidents to secret burials for killed terrorists (one lawmaker went as far as to suggest wrapping terrorists' corpses in pigskin and another suggested "carting them around the city with their legs dangling"). The new media law severely restricted the media's reporting of anti-terrorist operations, banning publication or broadcast of "any statement that hinders an operation to break such a siege, or attempts to justify the aims of the hostage-takers". These new policies prompted renewed fears in Russia that Putin was systematically taking control of all Russian media. Sergei Yushenkov, whose Liberal Russia party voted against the change, was quoted by Reuters as saying: "On a wave of emotion, we have in fact legitimised censorship and practically banned criticism of the authorities in emergency situations." Coverage of Chechnya had already been severely restricted, needing the cooperation of both the Russian military and the Moscow-backed Chechen administration (see Russian government censorship of Chechnya coverage). A law by which corpses of people convicted or accused of terrorism would not be released to their families, but disposed of in secret was approved, applying to the bodies of the militants killed in the Moscow crisis, and later applying even to President Maskhadov, who was killed in 2005.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: In 2003, Human Rights Watch reported Chechens in Moscow were subjected to increased police harassment after the hostage crisis. Moscow's Chechens rose in numbers from about 20,000 in the Soviet period to an estimated 80,000 in 2002.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: Many in the Russian press and in the international media warned that the death of so many hostages in the special forces' rescue operation would severely damage President Putin's popularity. This prediction reportedly turned out to be wrong. Shortly after the siege, the Russian president had record public approval ratings; in December 2002, 83% of Russians reportedly declared themselves satisfied with Putin's rule and his handling of the siege.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: The official investigation that the Moscow City Prosecutor's Office had been carrying out for three and a half years failed to provide positive information on the gas agent that killed hostages, possible antidote to that agent, the number of hostages released by the operation, the number of militants who had seized the theater (hostages claimed that they saw more than 50 militants, whereas only 40 hostage takers were in the building according to the official version), and the names of officials who had made the decision about the assault. On 1 June 2007, news came that the official investigation had been suspended. The reason provided was that the "culprit had not been located".


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: The same month, Tatiana Karpova, co-chair of the Nord-Ost Organization of former hostages and families of the dead, demanded a new criminal investigation. She claimed the authorities failed to meet their obligations related to right to life. She stated her concern about the lack of medical care for the injured, and future medical problems for the survivors. In July 2007, relatives of those who died in the hostage-taking urged the Office of the Prosecutor General of Russia to investigate whether senior officials were responsible for the deaths.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: The Duma refused to consider a proposal by the liberal democratic Union of Rightist Forces party to form an investigative commission charged with probing the government's actions in the theater siege.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: An independent investigation of the event was undertaken by Russian politicians Sergei Yushenkov, Sergei Kovalev, journalist Anna Politkovskaya, Hoover Institute scholar John B. Dunlop, and former FSB officers Aleksander Litvinenko and Mikhail Trepashkin. According to their version, the FSB knew about the terrorist group's arrival in Moscow and directed them to the theater through their agent provocateur Khanpasha Terkibayev ("Abu Bakar"), whose name was in the list of hostage takers and who left the theater alive. In April 2003 Litvinenko gave information about Terkibayev ("the Terkibayev file") to Sergei Yushenkov when he visited London. Yushenkov passed this file to Politkovskaya and she was able to interview Terkibayev in person. A few days later, Yushenkov was assassinated by gunfire in Moscow. Terkibayev was later killed in an apparent car crash in Chechnya.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: In June 2003, Litvinenko stated in an interview with the Australian television programme "Dateline", that two of the Chechen militants involved in the siege—whom he named "Abdul the Bloody" and "Abu Bakar"—were working for the FSB, and that the agency manipulated the terrorists into staging the attack. Litvinenko said: "[w]hen they tried to find [Abdul the Bloody and Abu Bakar] among the rotting corpses of dead terrorists, they weren't there. The FSB got its agents out. So the FSB agents among Chechens organized the whole thing on FSB orders, and those agents were released". "Abu Bakar" (presumably Terkibayev) was also described as an FSB agent and organizer of the theater siege by Anna Politkovskaya, Alexander Khinshtein and other journalists. Sanobar Shermatova and a co-author had pointed out in "Moskovskie novosti" that Terkibaev had for a number of years been involved in "anti-Wahhabi" activities.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: John Dunlop identifies "Abu Bakar" as Ruslan Elmurzaev, claimed by Mikhail Trepaskin to have been a resident of Moscow, not Chechnya, and to have been involved in various criminal activities operating out of the Hotel Salyut in Moscow. There were reports that Elmurzaev had not been killed in the storming of the theater. Film director Sergei Govorukhin, one of the volunteer negotiators at Dubrovka, has said that he is convinced that Elmurzaev, who he identified as an FSB agent, is still alive. Russian prosecutors were unable to show Elmurzaev's corpse and during a visit to Chechnya in October 2003, Russian intelligence officers confirmed to him that Elmurzaev was alive and well and living in Chechnya.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: The titular leader of the hostage takers was one Movsar Baraev, the nephew of the late and infamous "wahhabi" kidnapper Arbi Baraev, a figure reported to have shadowy connections to both the FSB and GRU. In January 2003, the French journalist Anne Nivat reported that Baraev had been arrested two months before the hostage-taking incident. This information being true, Baraev was already in Russian custody when the theater siege occurred. Nivat also reported that two of the female hostage takers were also in Russian custody at the time of the siege while late Duma Deputy Yurii Shchekochikhin wrote that another female hostage taker was in custody at the time.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: That "Abu Bakar" was in control and not Baraev was supported by an article in "Moskovskie novosti" by journalists Shermatova and Teit, in which it was reported that a hushed conversation between Abu Bakar and Baraev had been accidentally captured by NTV. Baraev declared that the hostage takers had been sent by Shamil Basaev only to be quietly corrected by Abu Bakar to add 'Aslan Maskhadov', in order to link the latter to the hostage taking.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: There is also the figure of Arman Menkeev, a retired major in the GRU and a specialist in making explosive devices. He was arrested by the Interior Ministry in November 2002 at the Moscow Oblast base allegedly used by the terrorists but was released shortly afterwards. He may have subsequently been rearrested but was not charged with a crime and is apparently not in custody. FSB officers, who interrogated Menkeev in Lefortovo prison, classified him as "loyal to the Russian government", adding that "He knows how to keep a military and state secret". The plastic explosive used by the terrorists was in fact "imitation plastic explosives" which had a "Ministry of Defense origin". The Moscow City Prosecutor's Office claimed that Menkeev could have been the source of this material. Apart from two suicide belts, which were more of a danger to the wearers, the bombs placed in the theater (and elsewhere in Moscow prior to the siege) lacked essential elements like batteries; this provided the required conditions for the successful storming of the theater.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: As evidence against Maskhadov, Russians cited a tape first shown on Al Jazeera and subsequently on Russian television, although only a fragment of the original tape was shown on Russian TV. On the original full length tape it was evident that it had been made in late summer, not in October, and had concerned a military operation against federal forces, not an act of hostage taking. Nevertheless, Maskhadov had been discredited although there is no credible evidence to link him with the siege. In the end, it could be said that both the Russian government and the Chechen extremists had achieved their goals; talk of negotiations had ended and Maskhadov's reputation had been damaged.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: After the siege, 61 former hostages sought compensation for physical and emotional suffering totaling almost US$60 million from Moscow city authorities. According to Russia's then-new anti-terrorism law, the region where an act of terror occurs should pay compensation for moral and material damages. Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov's office denounced the suits, saying it could not be held responsible as "the Chechen issue and its consequences are not within the jurisdiction of the Moscow authorities in any way." The Moscow administration earlier agreed to pay 50,000 roubles ($1,570) in compensation to each former hostage and 100,000 roubles ($3,140) to relatives of those killed. In all but one of the cases, Moscow city courts rejected the compensation claims.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: In July 2003, 80 plaintiffs from Russia, Ukraine, the Netherlands, and Kazakhstan turned to the European Court for Human Rights, claiming that their right to life had been violated by Russian authorities' handling of the standoff. In April 2007, Igor Trunov, the claimants' advocate, reported that the ECHR had finally begun hearings into a complaint filed in 2003 by the victims against the Russian government. Trunov added that not only Russian citizens, but also those from Ukraine, the Netherlands, and Kazakhstan, filed complaints in the Strasbourg Court. The plaintiffs demand €50,000 each in compensation for the violation of their human rights. The case was accepted by the court in December 2007.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: On 8 July 2008, "The Moscow Times" reported that the hearings at the European Court of Human Rights will be closed to the public at the request of Russian authorities as, according to Igor Trunov, they "have promised full disclosure on how they handled the crisis", including "the makeup of the knockout gas used in the storming of the theater by commandos."


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: On 20 December 2011, the European Court of Human Rights published its judgement in the case, ordering Russia to pay the 64 applicants a total of 1.3 million euros in compensation. The court also found that Russia had violated Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights when handling the hostage crisis, "with inadequate planning and conduct of the rescue operation", and with the "authorities' failure to conduct an effective investigation into the rescue operation", although the Court found that there had been "no violation of Article 2 of the Convention on account of the decision by the authorities to resolve the hostage crisis by force and to use the gas."


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: It was reported that efforts to treat victims were complicated because the Russian government refused to inform doctors what type of gas had been used. In the records of the official investigation, the agent is referred to as a "gaseous substance". In other cases, it is referred to as an "unidentified chemical substance".


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: The Russian Federation, as a member-state of the Chemical Weapons Convention, undertook "never and under no circumstances to carry out any activities prohibited to member-states of this Convention to develop, to accumulate, to stockpile and to use chemical weapons that can cause death, temporary incapacitation, or permanent harm to humans or animals." The Convention obliges the states to fulfill the conditions of toxic chemicals' use that allow to exclude or considerably reduce the degree of injury and gravity of consequences. (The Convention allows the use of some chemical agents like tear gas for "law enforcement including domestic riot control", but requires that "riot control agents" have effects that "disappear within a short time following termination of exposure.")


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: Analysis of drug residue from the clothing of two British hostages and the urine of a third British hostage, by a team of researchers at the British chemical and biological defense laboratories at Porton Down, Wiltshire, England, indicated "two" fentanyl derivatives were used. Neither of those two were fentanyl or 3-methylfentanyl (the Russian Minister of Health earlier said fentanyl or one of its derivatives had been used, but did not accurately specify which derivatives).


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: The Porton Down analysis by James R. Riches and his colleagues showed that while fentanyl or 3-methylfentanyl were absent from the urine of one survivor and residues of the agent in the clothing of two other British survivors, the veterinary large animal sedative drug carfentanil and anesthetic agent remifentanil were identified by liquid chromatographic tandem mass spectrometry in one hostage's urine and on the clothing of three hostages who had returned to Britain after the hostage rescue. The authors concluded that carfentanil and remifentanil were used as a mixture in the chemical agent employed by Russian troops to subdue the Chechen terrorists and hostages at the Barricade Theater, perhaps suspended in the anesthetic agent halothane.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: In 2003, HBO broadcast "Terror In Moscow", a documentary directed by Dan Reed. Interviews with hostages and footage taken inside and outside the theater during the crisis are shown.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: The 2006 play "In Your Hands" is based on the events of the Moscow theater siege, written by Natalia Pelevine, opened in London at the New End Theatre. In April 2008, Pelevine said that Russian authorities had banned the play following its Russian debut in the city of Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan near Chechnya.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: The play "We Declare You a Terrorist", by Tim J. Lord and based upon the attack, premiered at the 2009 Summer Play Festival.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: The 2015 first-person shooter game "Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege" cites the crisis and FSB response as an inspiration for their hostage rescue game mode.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: Christopher Nolan's movie "Tenet", released in August 2020, opens with a prologue that fans and critics have speculated is based on the attack.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: Part III Episode 6 (2019) of the Netflix Spanish drama series "The Money Heist" ("La Casa de Papel") contains repeated in-dialog references to Putin's use of halothane gas, and his indifference to the fate of hostages and hostage takers. Exasperated Spanish authorities approve a Putin-style assault on the Bank of Spain, which has been captured by robbers who have dozens of hostages. Halothane gas is used in the fictional assault.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: Episode 9 of the 1st season of "", "One Kind of Madman", depicts a group of Albanian terrorists raiding a Sofia, Bulgaria theatre, holding the audience and US student performers hostage and demanding a ransom paid in cryptocurrency in exchange for release. The synopsis was inspired by the Moscow theater hostage crisis, and within the episode, the Bulgarian commissar threatens and attempts to pump in poison gas in order to resolve the threat at all costs exactly just like the Russians did in 2002, which the lead FBI International team lead agent retorted that the casualty could be reaching 170 should the Bulgarians do so. Though in the episode, the hostage crisis was barely resolved without the need of pumping in poison gas when all the terrorists inside the theatre was killed, and Bulgarian law enforcement only had seconds to go before pumping in the poison gas via the air conditioning system.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: A Russian DLC for Postal 2 known as "Штопор ЖжОт" (translated as "Corkscrew Rules") contains a reference to the attack, as the protagonist finds himself in a theater during a mission when terrorists start swarming in and attack the player, while also fighting against police forces.


title: Moscow theater hostage crisis

text: "Conference (Конференция") tells the story of survivor Natasha (Natalya Pavlenko) who 17 years later returns to the deadly terrorist siege in the Moscow theatre to hold a memorial evening, finally able to confront her survivor's guilt and her estranged daughter and husband. The 2020 film is by Russian writer and director Igor I. Tverdovskiy.


title: Poppy Montgomery

text: Poppy Montgomery (born Poppy Petal Emma Elizabeth Deveraux Donahue; June 19,1972) is an Australian-born actress. She played FBI agent Samantha Spade on the CBS mystery drama "Without a Trace" from 2002 to 2009 and played Detective Carrie Wells on the CBS/A&E police drama "Unforgettable" from 2011 to 2016.


title: Poppy Montgomery

text: Montgomery was born in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, to mother Nicola (née Montgomery), an executive and market researcher, and father Phil Donahue, a restaurateur. She is one of six children. Her parents named all their daughters after flowers – Poppy, Rosie, Daisy, Lily and Marigold – and their son, Jethro Tull, after the rock band Jethro Tull.


title: Poppy Montgomery

text: Montgomery disliked school, being expelled from six private academies before finally dropping out at the age of 15 to pursue stage acting and to travel around Bali with her then-boyfriend. Montgomery emigrated to the United States at the age of 18, arriving in Florida to meet a boyfriend whom she had met when he was an exchange student. After five days, she realized that "[she] couldn't stand him" and took a bus to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career.


title: Poppy Montgomery

text: When Montgomery moved to Los Angeles, she stayed with two of her brother's friends while sending a head shot every day to Julia Roberts's former manager, Bob McGowan, until he signed her. She appeared in several small television roles during the late 1990s, including on "NYPD Blue".


title: Poppy Montgomery

text: Montgomery's big break was winning the role of Marilyn Monroe in the 2001 CBS miniseries "Blonde", based on a Joyce Carol Oates novel. The next role she was offered was a starring role as Samantha Spade on the CBS mystery drama "Without a Trace". The series revolved around a missing-persons unit of the FBI in New York City. On being offered the part, she later said, "They (the producers) called me up and said, 'Will you do it?' I said, 'Um' and they said, 'Anthony LaPaglia is in it' and I said, 'sure'. It was that simple." Montgomery portrayed Samantha Spade for seven seasons, from when the show began on 26 September 2002 until it ended on 19 May 2009.


title: Poppy Montgomery

text: In April 2011, Montgomery completed filming a television biographical film "Magic Beyond Words", appearing as Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling.


title: Poppy Montgomery

text: The same year, she began starring in the CBS police drama "Unforgettable" as Carrie Wells, a former homicide detective who is convinced to join the NYPD in Queens by her ex-boyfriend after she leaves Syracuse because the investigation into her sister's murder was shut down. The character has hyperthymesia, which allows her to have perfect recall, and she uses her memory to solve crimes. The first season, with 22 episodes, ran from September 2011 until May 2012, and CBS initially cancelled the show on 12 May 2012. "Unforgettable" was later renewed for a second season, with 13 episodes running from July 2013 to May 2014, and a third season, with 13 episodes running from June 2014 to September 2014. In October 2014, after the third season's conclusion, CBS cancelled the series again. In February 2015, A&E picked up the series for a fourth season of 13 episodes. The season ran on A&E from November 2015 to January 2016, and the series was cancelled in February 2016.


title: Poppy Montgomery

text: Montgomery posed in a series of provocative photographs on "Maxim"'s website in their "Girls of "Maxim"" feature.


title: Poppy Montgomery

text: Montgomery met actor Adam Kaufman in 2005 in Mexico while working on the independent film "Between", and in 2010, they worked together again in the TV film "Lying to be Perfect". In 2007, Kaufman began a recurring role on "Without a Trace" in the season-five episode "At Rest" as Brian Donovan, Samantha's love interest for the rest of the series. In June 2007, Montgomery announced her pregnancy with Kaufman, which was written into season six. On 23 December 2007, she gave birth to their son Jackson Phillip. Montgomery's "Without a Trace" co-star Anthony LaPaglia became Jackson's godfather. On 10 October 2011 in "Life & Style", Montgomery and Kaufman were reported to have separated.


title: Poppy Montgomery

text: In late 2011, Montgomery began dating Shawn Sanford, director of lifestyle marketing for Microsoft, whom she met in Puerto Rico. In April 2013, she gave birth to their daughter, Violet Grace. In November 2014, she gave birth to their son Gus Monroe. On the 4 April 2014 episode of "Live! with Kelly and Michael", Montgomery revealed that on Chinese New Year, she and Sanford were married at Disneyland in a ceremony with their children present.


title: Poppy Montgomery

text: Montgomery holds both Australian and American citizenship. She moved from Los Angeles to New York City in 2013 to continue filming "Unforgettable".


title: Varun Tej

text: Konidela Varun Tej (born 19 January 1990) is an Indian actor who works in Telugu films. He made his debut as a lead in the film "Mukunda" (2014). He later starred in the critically acclaimed war film "Kanche" (2015), directed by Krish. He then went on to appear in commercially successful films such as "Fidaa" (2017), "Tholi Prema" (2018), "" (2019) and "Gaddalakonda Ganesh" (2019) and "F3: Fun and Frustration" (2022).


title: Varun Tej

text: Varun Tej is the son of Telugu actor and producer Nagendra Babu. He is a nephew of actors Chiranjeevi and Pawan Kalyan. His younger sister Niharika is also an actress. Actors Ram Charan, Allu Arjun, Allu Sirish, Sai Tej and Panja Vaisshnav Tej are his cousins. He was educated at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad, and at St. Mary's College, Hyderabad.


title: Varun Tej

text: Tej debuted as a child artist in his father Nagendra Babu's film "Hands Up!" when he was just ten years old. He made his adult debut with "Mukunda", starring opposite fellow newcomer Pooja Hegde. The film earned mixed reviews. His second venture was the 2015 war film "Kanche", starring opposite Pragya Jaiswal and received positive reviews from critics. Tej's performance as Dhupati Haribabu was praised with "The Times of India" praising his "capability to shift gears from intense to sobriety". His second release that year "Loafer", was a box office failure, along with his 2017 outing "Mister."


title: Varun Tej

text: The later half of 2017 saw the release of "Fidaa", where he played an NRI falling in love with a village belle. The film was commercially successful grossing over 90 crore at the box office. His 2018 release "Tholi Prema" was also a box office success and Tej's performance as an impulsive young man was widely appreciated. His next film that year was space thriller "Antariksham 9000 KMPH", directed by Sankalp Reddy.


title: Varun Tej

text: In 2019, Tej's first release was "" which is a multistarrer with Venkatesh, Tamannaah and Mehreen Pirzada are also a part of this movie which is huge blockbuster. After "F2", he dubbed in Telugu for Aladdin's role in the film "Aladdin." He later starred in "Gaddalakonda Ganesh," a remake of Tamil film "Jigarthanda", directed by Harish Shankar which was successful at the box office.


title: Varun Tej

text: As of January 2020, Tej has two films under production, "Ghani", and F2's sequel "F3." Tej is playing the role of a boxer, in "Ghani" directed by Kiran Korrapati.


title: Kippah

text: A ', ', or is a brimless cap, usually made of cloth, traditionally worn by Jewish males to fulfill the customary requirement that the head be covered. It is worn by all men in Orthodox Jewish communities during prayers and by most Orthodox Jewish men at all other times. Among non-Orthodox Jewish communities, those who wear them customarily do so only during prayer, while attending a synagogue, or in other rituals, and often women may also wear them in those communities.


title: Kippah

text: The Yiddish term might be derived from the Polish or the Ukrainian , perhaps ultimately from Medieval Latin ("cowl, hood"). It may also be of Turkic origin (akin to , meaning "rainwear"); the word is often associated with the phrase (), formed from the Aramaic word for 'king' and the Hebrew root , meaning 'fear'. or is another Yiddish term for the same thing.


title: Kippah

text: Halachic authorities debate as to whether wearing a at all times is required. According to the Rambam, Jewish law dictates that a man is required to cover his head during prayer.


title: Kippah

text: In non-Orthodox communities, some women also wear , and people have different customs about when to wear a when eating, praying, studying Jewish texts, or entering a sacred space such as a synagogue or cemetery. The Reform movement has historically been opposed to wearing , but in recent years it has become more common and accepted for Reform men and women to cover their heads during prayer and Jewish study.


title: Kippah

text: However, according to several prominent authorities, the practice has since taken on the force of law because it is an expression of (reverence for Heaven, i.e. God). The 17th-century authority Rabbi David HaLevi Segal (The "Taz") holds that the reason is to enforce the Halakhic rule to avoid practices unique to Gentiles. Since, he points out, Europeans are accustomed to go bare-headed, and their priests insist on officiating with bare heads, this constitutes a uniquely Gentile practice, and therefore Jews would be prohibited from behaving similarly. Thefore he rules that wearing a is required by halacha.


title: Kippah

text: Other halachic authorities like Sephardi , the Chida (Rabbi Chaim David Yosef Azulai), hold that wearing a head covering is a , an additional measure of piety. In a recent responsum, former Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel Ovadia Yosef ruled that it should be worn to show affiliation with the religiously observant community.


title: Kippah

text: The Talmud states, "Cover your head in order that the fear of heaven may be upon you." Rabbi Hunah ben Joshua never walked 4 cubits () with his head uncovered. He explained: "Because the Divine Presence is always over my head." This was understood by Rabbi Yosef Karo in the Shulchan Arukh as indicating that Jewish men should cover their heads, and should not walk more than four cubits bareheaded. Covering one's head, such as by wearing a , is described as "honoring God". The modifies this ruling, adding that the "Achronim" established a requirement to wear a head covering even when traversing fewer than four cubits, and even when one is standing still, indoors and outside. cites a story from the Talmud (Shabbat 156b) about Rav Nachman bar Yitzchak, who might have become a thief had his mother not saved him from this fate by insisting that he cover his head, which instilled in him the fear of God. In Orthodox communities, boys are encouraged to wear a from a young age in order to ingrain the habit.


title: Kippah

text: The argument for the has two sides. The Vilna Gaon said one can make a without a , since wearing a is only a ("exemplary attribute"). In the 21st century, there has been an effort to suppress earlier sources that practiced this leniency, including erasing lenient responsa from newly published books. Or Zarua (13th century) wrote that "our rabbis in France" customarily made blessings while bareheaded, but he criticized this practice.


title: Kippah

text: According to 20th-century Rabbi Isaac Klein, a male Conservative Jew ought to cover his head when in the synagogue, at prayer or sacred study, when engaging in a ritual act, and when eating. In the mid-19th century, Reformers led by Isaac Wise completely rejected the after an altercation in which Rabbi Wise's was knocked off his head. Nowadays, almost all Conservative synagogues require men to wear a head covering (usually a ), but in Reform synagogues there is no requirement. However, may be provided to anybody who wishes to wear them.


title: Kippah

text: In the Middle Ages in Europe, the distinctive Jewish headgear was the Jewish hat, a full hat with a brim and a central point or stalk. Originally used by choice among Jews to distinguish themselves, it was later made compulsory by Christian governments in some places as a discriminatory measure. In the early 19th century in the United States, rabbis often wore a scholar's cap (large saucer-shaped caps of cloth, like a beret) or a Chinese skullcap. Other Jews of this era wore black pillbox-shaped .


title: Kippah

text: Often, the color and fabric of the can be a sign of adherence to a specific religious movement, particularly in Israel. Knitted or crocheted , known as , are usually worn by Religious Zionists and Modern Orthodox Jews. They also wear suede or leather . Knitted were first made in the late 1940s, and became popular after being worn by Rabbi Moshe-Zvi Neria. Members of most Haredi groups wear black velvet or cloth .


title: Kippah

text: More recently, have been observed made in the colors of sports teams, especially football. In the United States, children's featuring cartoon characters or themes such as "Star Wars" have become popular; in response to this trend, some Jewish schools have banned with characters that do not conform to traditional Jewish values. have been inscribed on the inside as a souvenir for a celebration (bar/bat mitzvah or wedding). for women are also being made and worn. These are sometimes made of beaded wire to seem more feminine. A special baby has two strings on each side to fasten it and is often used in a ceremony.


title: Kippah

text: The Israelites on Sennacherib's marble relief appear with headdress. The ambassadors of Jehu on the Shalmaneser stele have head coverings, and their costume seems to be Israelite. One passage of the older literature is of significance: 1 Kings 20:31 mentions (), which are placed around the head. This suggests portrayals of Syrians on Egyptian monuments, represented wearing a cord around their long, flowing hair, a custom still followed in Arabia.


title: Kippah

text: Evidently the costume of the poorest classes is represented; but as the cord gave no protection against the heat of the sun, there is little probability that the custom lasted very long. Much more common was the simple cloth skullcap, dating to Egyptian times. Persons of high society routinely shaved their heads, to prevent lice. Conversely, their skullcaps also served as protection against irritation from their wigs.


title: Kippah

text: The Israelites might have worn a headdress similar to that worn by the Bedouins, but it is unknown whether a fixed type of headdress was used. That the headdress of the Israelites might have been in the style may be inferred from the use of the noun (the verb meaning "to roll like a ball", Isaiah 22:18) and by the verb ("to wind", compare Ezekiel 16:10; Jonah 2:6). As to the form of such turbans, nothing is known, and they may have varied according to the different classes of society. This was customary with the Assyrians and Babylonians, for example, whose fashions likely influenced the costume of the Israelites—particularly during and after the Babylonian Exile. In Yemen, the wrap around the cap was called ; the head covering worn by women was a .


title: Kippah

text: In "Goldman v. Weinberger", 475 U.S. 503 (1986), the United States Supreme Court ruled in a 5–4 decision that active military members were required to remove the indoors, citing uniform regulations that state only armed security police may keep their heads covered while indoors.


title: Kippah

text: Congress passed the Religious Apparel Amendment after a war story from the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing about the "camouflage " of Jewish Navy Chaplain Arnold Resnicoff was read into the "Congressional Record". Catholic Chaplain George Pucciarelli tore off a piece of his Marine Corps uniform to replace Resnicoff's when it had become blood-soaked after being used to wipe the faces of wounded Marines after the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing. This amendment was eventually incorporated into U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) regulations on the "Accommodation of Religious Practices Within the Military Services".


title: Kippah

text: This story of the "camouflage " was re-told at many levels, including a keynote speech by President Ronald Reagan to the Baptist Fundamentalism Annual Convention in 1984, and another time during a White House meeting between Reagan and the American Friends of Lubavitch. After recounting the Beirut story, Reagan asked them about the religious meaning of the . Rabbi Abraham Shemtov, the leader of the group, responded: "Mr. President, the to us is a sign of reverence." Rabbi Feller, another member of the group, continued: "We place the on the very highest point of our being—on our head, the vessel of our intellect—to tell ourselves and the world that there is something which is above man's intellect: the infinite Wisdom of God."


title: Kippah

text: Passage of the Religious Apparel Amendment and the subsequent DOD regulations were followed in 1997 by the passing of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). However, the Supreme Court struck down RFRA as beyond Congress' powers to bind the states in the 1997 case "City of Boerne v. Flores". RFRA is constitutional as applied to the Federal government, as seen in "Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniao do Vegetal".


title: Kippah

text: The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA), 114 Stat. 804, 42 U. S. C. §2000cc-1(a)(1)-(2), upheld as constitutional in "Cutter v. Wilkinson", 44 U.S. 709 (2005), requires by inference that Orthodox Jewish prisoners be reasonably accommodated in their request to wear .


title: Kippah

text: The French government banned the wearing of , hijabs, and large crosses in public primary and secondary schools in France in March 2004.


title: Kippah

text: The provincial government of Quebec, Canada passed "An Act respecting the laicity of the State" in June 2019, which prohibits the wearing of "religious symbols" by government employees including teachers, police officers, judges, prosecutors, and members of certain commissions.


title: Kippah

text: Though it is not required, when a non-Jew wears a in a synagogue, it is considered a sign of respect. are often provided to guests at a Bar or Bat Mitzvah. They are also often provided at bereavement events and at Jewish cemeteries. According to the Conservative Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, there is no halakhic reason to require a non-Jew to cover their head, but it is recommended that non-Jews be asked to wear a where ritual or worship is being conducted, both out of respect for the Jewish congregation and as a gesture of respect including the non-Jewish guest.


title: St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

text: St. John's is the capital and largest city of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, located on the eastern tip of the Avalon Peninsula on the island of Newfoundland.


title: St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

text: Its name has been attributed to the belief that John Cabot sailed into the harbour on the Nativity of John the Baptist in 1497, although it is most likely a legend that came with British settlement. A more realistic possibility is that a fishing village with the same name existed without a permanent settlement for most of the 16th century. The city was founded by Spanish fishermen from the Guipúzcoa port of Pasajes de San Juan, who arrived in those lands at the beginning of the 16th century in search of fishing, settled and called the place San Juan de Pasajes, today is known as San Juan de Terranova. Indicated as "São João" on a Portuguese map from 1519, it is one of the oldest cities in North America. It was officially incorporated as a city in 1888. With a metropolitan population of approximately 212,579 (as of February 9, 2022), the St. John's Metropolitan Area is Canada's 20th-largest metropolitan area and the second-largest Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) in Atlantic Canada, after Halifax.


title: St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

text: The city has a rich history, having played a role in the Seven Years' War, the American Revolutionary War, and the War of 1812. Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi received the first transatlantic wireless signal in St. John's. Its history and culture have made it into an important tourist destination. St. John's was referred to as "" (Johnstown), in the poetry of Donnchadh Ruadh Mac Conmara (1715–1810), and among speakers of the Irish language in Newfoundland.


title: St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

text: St. John's was used by fishermen setting up seasonal camps in the early 1500s. Sebastian Cabot declared in a handwritten Latin text in his original 1545 map that St. John's earned its name when he and his father, the Venetian explorer John Cabot, in the service of England, became the first Europeans to sail into the harbour, on the morning of 24 June 1494 (per British and French historians, in 1497), the feast day of Saint John the Baptist. However, the locations of Cabot's landfalls are disputed. A series of expeditions to St. John's by Portuguese from the Azores took place in the early 16th century, and by 1540 French, Spanish and Portuguese ships crossed the Atlantic annually to fish the waters off the Avalon Peninsula. In the Basque Country, it is a common belief the name of St. John's was given by Basque fishermen because the bay of St. John's is very similar to the Bay of Pasaia in the Basque Country, where one of the fishing towns is called St. John (in Spanish, San Juan, and in Basque, Donibane).


title: St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

text: The earliest record of the location appears as "São João" on a Portuguese map by Pedro Reinel in 1519. When the English mariner John Rut visited St. John's in 1527, he found Norman, Breton and Portuguese ships in the harbour. On 3 August 1527, Rut wrote a letter to King Henry on the findings of his voyage to North America; this was the first known letter sent from North America. St. Jehan is shown on Nicolas Desliens's world map of 1541, and San Joham is found in João Freire's Atlas of 1546.


title: St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

text: On 5 August 1583, an English Sea Dog, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, claimed the area as England's first overseas colony under Royal Charter of Queen Elizabeth I. There was no permanent population, however, and Gilbert was lost at sea during his return voyage, thereby ending any immediate plans for settlement.


title: St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

text: By 1620, the fishermen of England's West Country controlled most of Newfoundland's east coast. In 1627, William Payne, called St. John's "the principal prime and chief lot in all the whole country".


title: St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

text: Sometime after 1630, the town of St. John's was established as a permanent community. Before this they were expressly forbidden by the English government, at the urging of the West Country fishing industry, from establishing permanent settlements along the English-controlled coast.


title: St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

text: The population grew slowly in the 17th century: St. John's was Newfoundland's largest settlement when English naval officers began to take censuses around 1675. The population grew in the summers with the arrival of migratory fishermen. In 1680, fishing ships (mostly from South Devon) set up fishing rooms at St. John's, bringing hundreds of Irish men into the port to operate inshore fishing boats.


title: St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

text: The town's first significant defenses were likely erected due to commercial interests, following the temporary seizure of St. John's by the Dutch admiral Michiel de Ruyter in June 1665.


title: St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

text: The inhabitants fended off a second Dutch attack in 1673, when it was defended by Christopher Martin, an English merchant captain. Martin landed six cannons from his vessel, the "Elias Andrews", and constructed an earthen breastwork and battery near Chain Rock commanding the Narrows leading into the harbour. With only 23 men, the valiant Martin beat off an attack by three Dutch warships. The English government planned to expand these fortifications (Fort William) in around 1689, but construction didn't begin until after the French admiral Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville captured and destroyed the town in the Avalon Peninsula Campaign (1696). When 1500 English reinforcements arrived in late 1697, they found rubble where the town and fortifications had stood.


title: St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

text: The French attacked St. John's again in 1705 (Siege of St. John's), and captured it in 1708 (Battle of St. John's), devastating civilian structures with fire on each instance.


title: St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

text: The harbour remained fortified through most of the 18th and 19th centuries. The final battle of the Seven Years' War in North America (known as the French and Indian War in the US) was fought in 1762, in St. John's. Following a surprise capture of the town by the French early in the year, the British responded and, at the Battle of Signal Hill, the French surrendered St. John's to British forces under the command of Colonel William Amherst.


title: St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

text: There has been some controversy regarding which European settlement is the oldest in North America. As mentioned above, while English fishermen had set up seasonal camps in St. John's in the 16th century, they were expressly forbidden by the English government, at the urging of the West Country fishing industry, from establishing permanent settlements along the English-controlled coast. As a result, the town of St. John's was not established as a permanent community until after the 1630s. With respect to the oldest surviving permanent English settlements in North America, it was preceded by Jamestown, Virginia (1607), the Cuper's Cove colony at Cupids in Newfoundland (1610), St. George's, Bermuda (1612), and the Bristol's Hope colony at Harbour Grace in Newfoundland (1618). Each of these English settlements were far later than other European settlements in North America, such as St. Augustine, Florida established by Spain in 1565.


title: St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

text: On 24 April 1800, the "United Irish Uprising" occurred when 19 Irish soldiers who were part of the British garrison stationed in Newfoundland mutinied. The mutineers, who were suspected to be members of the Society of United Irishmen, fled to the countryside after the mutiny failed, and were apprehended in a manner of weeks and court-martialled. Of the 17 mutineers captured, 8 were executed, 4 were let go while 5 were sentenced to penal transportation.


title: St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

text: The 18th century saw major changes in Newfoundland: population growth, beginnings of government, establishment of churches, reinforcement of commercial ties with North America and development of the seal, salmon and Grand Banks fisheries. St. John's population grew slowly. Although it was primarily a fishing station, it was also a garrison, a centre of government and a commercial hub. St. John's served as a naval base during the American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812.


title: St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

text: Guglielmo Marconi received the first transatlantic wireless signal in St. John's on 12 December 1901 from his wireless station in Poldhu, Cornwall. St. John's was the starting point for the first non-stop transatlantic aircraft flight, by Alcock and Brown in a modified Vickers Vimy IV bomber, in June 1919, departing from Lester's Field in St. John's and ending in a bog near Clifden, Connemara, Ireland. In July 2005, the flight was duplicated by American aviator and adventurer Steve Fossett in a replica Vickers Vimy aircraft, with St. John's International Airport substituting for Lester's Field (now an urban and residential part of the city).


title: St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

text: During the Second World War, the harbour supported Royal Navy and Royal Canadian Navy ships that were engaged in anti-submarine warfare. It was the site of an American Army Air Force base, Fort Pepperrell, that was established as part of the "Lend-Lease" Destroyers for Bases Agreement between the United Kingdom and United States. The base included several US-manned coast defence guns, and a Canadian-manned battery of two Lend-Lease 10-inch M1888 guns was at Fort Cape Spear. The base was transferred to Canadian control in 1960 and is now known as CFS St. John's. The Knights of Columbus Hostel fire in December 1942 saw 99 military and civilian lives lost.


title: St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

text: St. John's, and the province as a whole, was gravely affected in the 1990s by the collapse of the northern cod fishery, which had been the driving force of the provincial economy for hundreds of years. After a decade of high unemployment rates and depopulation, the city's proximity to the Hibernia, Terra Nova and White Rose oil fields led to an economic boom that spurred population growth and commercial development. As a result, the St. John's area now accounts for about half of the province's economic output.


title: St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

text: St. John's was destroyed by major fires in 1816, 1817, 1819, 1846 and 1892, when each time a large part of the city was destroyed. The most famous was the Great Fire of 1892.


title: St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

text: ...about eight o’clock, a fire broke out in a house in a part of the town in St. John’s in Newfoundland known by the name of the King’s Beach, and speedily communicated to the houses adjoining, and burnt with so much fury, that one hundred and twenty houses, the homes of about a thousand men, women, and children, were consumed before the conflagration was stayed.


title: St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

text: There were two citywide fires in 1817 "known jointly as 'The Great Fire of 1817'. Then in 1819 fire "destroyed 120 houses".


title: St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

text: There was a further major fire in 1846, which started at the shop of a cabinetmaker named Hamlin, located on George Street off Queen Street, when a glue pot boiled over. The fire spread along Water and Duckworth Streets destroying all of the buildings in its path aided by the large quantities of seal oil that were stored in the merchants' premises. The fire was also aided by an attempt to blow up a house on Water Street which scattered burning embers across the city.


title: St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

text: The final major conflagration the nineteenth century began on the afternoon of July 8, 1892 atop Carter's Hill on Freshwater Road. Initially, the fire did not cause any widespread panic; however, a series of catastrophic coincidences caused the fire to spread and devour virtually all of the east end of the city, including much of its major commercial area, before being extinguished.


title: St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

text: St. John's is along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, on the northeast of the Avalon Peninsula in southeast Newfoundland. The city is North America's most easterly city, excluding Greenland; it is closer to London, England than it is to Edmonton, Alberta. It is also closer to all of Ireland than to Miami, also on the east coast of North America. The city is the largest in the province and the second largest in the Atlantic Provinces after Halifax, Nova Scotia. Its downtown area lies to the west and north of St. John's Harbour, and the rest of the city expands from the downtown to the north, south, east and west. The city covers a total of (larger than Montreal), but the majority of its area remains covered by undeveloped woods.


title: St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

text: Coniferous trees such as black spruce, white spruce, and balsam fir dominate the native vegetation. The largest deciduous tree is white birch; species of lesser stature include alder, cherry and mountain ash. Of introduced tree species, sycamore maple is most abundant and Norway maple is common. Blue spruce, common horsechestnut, European beech and littleleaf linden are among the other non-native species grown.


title: St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

text: Mean temperatures range from in February to in August, showing somewhat of a seasonal lag in the climate. The city is also one of the areas of the country most prone to tropical cyclone activity, as it is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east, where tropical storms (and sometimes hurricanes) travel from the United States. The city is one of the rainiest in Canada outside of coastal British Columbia. This is partly due to its propensity for tropical storm activity as well as moist, Atlantic air frequently blowing ashore and creating precipitation.


title: St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

text: Of major Canadian cities, St. John's is the foggiest (124 days) and windiest ( average speed). Precipitation is frequent and often heavy, falling year round. On average, summer is the driest season, with only occasional thunderstorm activity, and the wettest months are from October to January, with December the wettest single month, with nearly of precipitation on average. This winter precipitation maximum is unusual for humid continental climates, which typically have a late spring or early summer precipitation maximum (for example, most of the Midwestern United States). Most heavy precipitation events in St. John's are the product of intense mid-latitude storms from the Northeastern United States and New England states, and these are most common and intense from October to March, bringing heavy precipitation (commonly of rainfall equivalent in a single storm), and strong winds.


title: St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

text: In winter, two or more types of precipitation (rain, freezing rain, sleet and snow) can fall from passage of a single storm. Snowfall is heavy, averaging approximately per winter season. However, winter storms can bring changing precipitation types. Heavy snow can turn into heavy rain, melting the snow cover, and possibly back to snow or ice (perhaps briefly) all in the same storm, resulting in little or no net snow accumulation. Snow cover in St. John's is variable, and especially early in the winter season, may be slow to develop, but can extend well into the spring months (March, April). The St. John's area is subject to freezing rain events (called "silver thaws"), the worst of which paralyzed the city in April 1984 and April 2017.


title: St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

text: On January 17, 2020, St. John's declared a state of emergency due to a snowstorm that brought an estimated —a one-day snowfall record for St. John's—and hurricane force winds up to . The following day, the Canadian Army was called in to aid snow removal. The state of emergency ended eight days later.


title: St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

text: The highest temperature ever recorded in St. John's was on 14 August 1876. The coldest temperature ever recorded was on 16 February 1875.


title: St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

text: St. John's architecture has a distinct style different from the rest of Canada, and its major buildings are remnants of its history as one of the first British colonial capitals. Buildings took a variety of styles according to the means available to build them.


title: St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

text: Starting as a fishing outpost for European fishermen, St. John's consisted mostly of the homes of fishermen, sheds, storage shacks, and wharves constructed out of wood. Like many other cities of the time, as the Industrial Revolution took hold and new methods and materials for construction were introduced, the landscape changed as the city grew. The Great Fire of 1892 destroyed most of the downtown core, and most residential and other wood-frame buildings date from this period.


title: St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

text: Often compared to San Francisco due to the hilly terrain and steep maze of residential streets, housing in St. John's is typically painted in bright colours, earning its downtown the nickname Jelly Bean Row. The city council has implemented strict heritage regulations in the downtown area, including restrictions on the height of buildings. These regulations have caused much controversy over the years. With the city experiencing an economic boom a lack of hotel rooms and office space has seen proposals put forward that do not meet the current height regulations. Heritage advocates argue the current regulations should be enforced while others believe the regulations should be relaxed to encourage economic development.


title: St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

text: To meet the need for more office space downtown without compromising the city's heritage, the city council amended heritage regulations, which originally restricted height to in the area of land on Water Street between Bishop's Cove and Steer's Cove, to create the "Commercial Central Retail – West Zone". The new zone will allow for buildings of greater height. A , 12-storey office building, which includes retail space and a parking garage, was the first building to be approved in this area.


title: St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

text: In the 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada, St. John's had a population of living in of its total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of . With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.


title: St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

text: At the census metropolitan area (CMA) level in the 2021 census, the St. John's CMA had a population of living in of its total private dwellings, a change of from its 2016 population of . With a land area of , it had a population density of in 2021.


title: St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

text: Apart from St. John's, the CMA includes 12 other communities: the city of Mount Pearl and the towns of Conception Bay South, Paradise, Portugal Cove-St. Philip's, Torbay, Logy Bay-Middle Cove-Outer Cove, Pouch Cove, Flatrock, Bay Bulls, Witless Bay, Petty Harbour-Maddox Cove and Bauline.


title: St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

text: There are 52,410 total private dwellings in St. John's with an occupancy rate of 90.9%. The median value of a private dwelling in St. John's is $309,631, lower than the national median value of $341,556 but higher than the provincial median value of $219,228.


title: St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

text: St. John's has a median age of 40.5 compared to 41.2 nationally and 46.0 in Newfoundland and Labrador. Children under 15 make up 13.9% of the population while people 65 and over make up 16.5%. 70.6% of residents aged 25 to 65 have a post secondary certificate, diploma or degree, while 20.6% have a secondary school diploma or equivalent, 7.4% have an apprenticeship or trades certificate, and 8.8% hold no certificates, diplomas or degrees. The city has an unemployment rate of 8.9%, much lower than the provincial rate of 15.6% but somewhat higher than the national rate of 7.7%.


title: St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

text: The 2021 census reported that immigrants (individuals born outside Canada) comprise 7,515 persons or 7.0% of the total population of St. John's. Of the total immigrant population, the top countries of origin were United Kingdom (805 persons or 10.7%), Philippines (625 persons or 8.3%), United States of America (510 persons or 6.8%), India (485 persons or 6.5%), Syria (455 persons or 6.1%), China (420 persons or 5.6%), Nigeria (310 persons or 4.1%), Bangladesh (195 persons or 2.6%), Pakistan (155 persons or 2.1%), and Eritrea (150 persons or 2.0%).


title: St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

text: As of 2016, approximately 88.1% of the city was white, 7% were visible minorities and 4.9% were aboriginal. The largest visible minority group were Chinese Canadian (1.6%) followed by South Asian (1.5%), Black (1.4%) and Arab (1.0%).


title: St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

text: English was mother tongue spoken by the majority of residents of St. John's (92.9%) with the second most common language, Chinese, as the mother tongue of 1.1% of the population.