title: Hammer and sickle

text: Two federal subjects of the post-Soviet Russian Federation use the hammer and sickle in their symbols: the Vladimir Oblast has them on its flag and the Bryansk Oblast has them on its flag and coat of arms, which is also the central element of its flag. In addition, the Russian city of Oryol also uses the hammer and sickle on its flag.


title: Hammer and sickle

text: The former Soviet (now Russian) national airline, Aeroflot, continues to use the hammer and sickle in its symbol.


title: Hammer and sickle

text: The "de facto" government of Transnistria uses (with minor modifications) the flag and the emblem of the former Moldavian SSR, which includes the hammer and sickle. The flag can also appear without the hammer and sickle in some circumstances, for example on Transnistrian-issued license plates.


title: Hammer and sickle

text: Three out of the five currently ruling Communist parties use a hammer and sickle as the party symbol: the Chinese Communist Party, the Communist Party of Vietnam and the Lao People's Revolutionary Party. In Laos and Vietnam, the hammer and sickle party flags can often be seen flying side by side with their respective national flags.


title: Hammer and sickle

text: Many communist parties around the world also use it, including the Communist Party of Greece, the Communist Party of Chile, both the Communist Party of Brazil and the Brazilian Communist Party, the Purba Banglar Sarbahara Party from Bangladesh, the Communist Party of Sri Lanka, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) Liberation, the Communist Party of India, the Communist Party of India (Maoist), the Indian Communist Marxist Party, the Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist), the Egyptian Communist Party, the Communist Party of Pakistan, the Communist Refoundation Party in Italy, the Communist Party of Spain, the Communist Party of Denmark, the Communist Party of Norway, the Romanian Communist Party, the Lebanese Communist Party, the Communist Party of the Philippines and the Shining Path. The Communist Party of Sweden, the Portuguese Communist Party and the Mexican Communist Party use the hammer and sickle imposed on the red star.


title: Hammer and sickle

text: Many symbols having similar structures and messages to the original have been designed. For example, the Angolan flag shows a segment of a cog, crossed by a machete and crowned with a socialist star while the flag of Mozambique features an AK-47 crossed by a hoe. In the logo of the Communist Party USA, a circle is formed by a half cog and a semicircular sickle-blade. A hammer is laid directly over the sickle's handle with the hammer's head at the logo's center. The logo of the Communist Party of Turkey consists of half a cog wheel crossed by a hammer, with a star on the top.


title: Hammer and sickle

text: Tools represented in other designs include: the brush, sickle and hammer of the Workers' Party of Korea; the spade, flaming torch and quill used prior to 1984 by the British Labour Party; the pickaxe and rifle used in communist Albania; and the hammer and compasses of the East German emblem and flag. The Far Eastern Republic of Russia used an anchor crossed over a spade or pickaxe, symbolising the union of the fishermen and miners. The Fourth International, founded by Leon Trotsky, uses a hammer and sickle symbol on which the number 4 is superimposed. The hammer and sickle in the Fourth International symbol are the opposite of other hammer and sickle symbols in that the head of the hammer is on the right side and the sickle end tip on the left. The Trotskyist League for the Fifth International merges a hammer with the number 5, using the number's lower arch to form the sickle. A sickle with a rifle is also used by the Marxist and Islamist group People's Mojahedin of Iran.


title: Hammer and sickle

text: The Communist Party of Britain uses the hammer and dove symbol. Designed in 1988 by Michal Boncza, it is intended to highlight the party's connection to the peace movement. It is usually used in conjunction with the hammer and sickle and it appears on all of the CPB's publications. Some members of the CPB prefer one symbol over the other, although the party's 1994 congress reaffirmed the hammer and dove's position as the official emblem of the party. Similarly, the Communist Party of Israel uses a dove over the hammer and sickle as its symbol. The flag of the Guadeloupe Communist Party uses a sickle, turned to look like a majuscule G, to represent Guadeloupe.


title: Hammer and sickle

text: The flag of the Black Front, a Strasserist group founded by early Nazi Party members and expelled around the time of the Night of the Long Knives purge, along with his supporters and the Sturmabteilung and originator of the ideology and the Black Front himself Otto Strasser, featured a crossed hammer and sword, symbolizing the unity of the workers and military.


title: Hammer and sickle

text: In 1938, the Dobama Asiayone, an anti-British nationalist group in the then British Burma, adopted a tricolour flag charged with red sickle and hammer. From 1974–2010, the flag of Burma (Myanmar) featured a bushel of rice superimposed on a cogwheel surrounded by fourteen white stars; the rice representing the peasants and the cogwheel representing the workers, the combination symbolizing that the peasants and workers be the two basic social classes for State building, while the fourteen equal-sized white stars indicate the unity and equality of fourteen member states of the Union.


title: Hammer and sickle

text: The flag of Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM, Party of the Revolution in Swahili), currently the ruling political party of Tanzania, has a slightly different symbol with a hammer and a hoe ("jembe") instead of a sickle to represent the most common farm tool in Africa.


title: Hammer and sickle

text: The National Bolshevik Party used the hammer and sickle in their flag, but colored black instead of gold and in a design similar to the Nazi flag, a brighter red flag than the USSR, with a black hammer and sickle on a white disk in the center.


title: Hammer and sickle

text: The symbols of the liberal socialist parties of Radical Civic Union in Argentina and the Czech National Social Party in the Czech Republic features a hammer and a quill with the former representing workers and the latter representing clerks.


title: Hammer and sickle

text: The hammer and sickle has long been a common theme in socialist realism, but it has also seen some depiction in non-Marxist popular culture. Andy Warhol who created many drawings and photographs of the hammer and sickle is the most famous example of this.


title: Hammer and sickle

text: In several countries in the former Eastern Bloc, there are laws that define the hammer and sickle as the symbol of a "totalitarian and criminal ideology" and the public display of the hammer and sickle and other Communist symbols such as the red star is considered a criminal offence. Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova (1 October 2012 – 4 June 2013) and Ukraine have banned communist symbols including this one. A similar law was considered in Estonia, but it eventually failed in a parliamentary committee. In Ukraine, the legislature equals communist symbols including hammer with sickle to Nazi swastika symbols.


title: Hammer and sickle

text: In 2010, the Lithuanian, Latvian, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Romanian, and Czech governments called for the European Union to criminalize "the approval, denial or belittling of communist crimes" similar to how a number of EU member states have banned Holocaust denial. The European Commission turned down this request, finding after a study that the criteria for EU-wide criminal legislation were not met, leaving individual member states to determine the extent to which they wished to handle past totalitarian crimes.


title: Hammer and sickle

text: In February 2013, the Constitutional Court of Hungary annulled the ban on the use of symbols of fascist and communist dictatorships, including the hammer and sickle, the red star and the swastika, saying the ban was too broad and imprecise. The court also pointed to a judgement of the European Court of Human Rights in which Hungary was found guilty of violation of article 10, the right to freedom of expression. In June 2013, the Constitutional Court of Moldova ruled that the Moldovan Communist Party’s symbols—the hammer and sickle—are legal and can be used.


title: Hammer and sickle

text: In Indonesia, the display of communist symbols is banned and the country's Communist party was also banned by decree of president Suharto, following the 1965–1966 killings of communists in which over 500,000 people were killed. In January 2018, an activist protesting against Bumi Resources displayed the hammer and sickle, was accused of spreading communism, and later jailed.


title: Hammer and sickle

text: In Poland, dissemination of items which are "media of fascist, communist or other totalitarian symbolism" was criminalized in 1997. However, the Constitutional Tribunal found this sanction to be unconstitutional in 2011.


title: Hammer and sickle

text: In Unicode, the "hammer and sickle" symbol is U+262D (☭). It is part of the Miscellaneous Symbols (2600–26FF) code block. On systems where Compose key is available, it could be written as codice_1. It was added to Unicode 1.1 in 1993.


title: Smiley

text: A smiley, sometimes referred to as a smiley face, is a basic ideogram that represents a smiling face. Since the 1950s it has become part of popular culture worldwide, used either as a standalone ideogram, or as a form of communication, such as emoticons. The smiley began as two dots and a line to represent eyes and a mouth. More elaborate designs in the 1950s emerged, with noses, eyebrows, and outlines. A yellow and black design was used by New York-based radio station WMCA for its ""Good Guys"" campaign in the early 1960s. More yellow-and-black designs appeared in the 1960s and '70s, including works by Franklin Loufrani and Harvey Ross Ball. Today, The Smiley Company holds many rights to the smiley ideogram and has become one of the biggest licensing companies globally.


title: Smiley

text: In October of 1971 Loufrani trademarked the name and his design in France while working as a journalist for "France Soir". Competing terms were used such as "smiling face" and "happy face" before consensus was reached on the term "smiley", less often spelled "smilie".


title: Smiley

text: Today, the smiley face has evolved from an ideogram into a template for communication and use in written language. This began with Scott Fahlman in the 1980s when he first theorized ascii characters could be used to create faces and demonstrate emotion in text. Since then, those Fahlman's designs have become digital pictograms, known as emoticons. They are loosely based on the ideograms designed in the 1960s and 70s, continuing with the yellow and black design.


title: Smiley

text: The earliest known use of "smiley" as an adjective for "having a smile" or "smiling" in print was in 1848. James Russell Lowell used the line "All kin' o' smily roun' the lips" in his poem "The Courtin’". Early designs were often called ""smiling face"" or ""happy face."" In 1961 the WMCA's Good Guys, incorporated a black smiley onto a yellow sweatshirt, and it was nicknamed the "happy face." The Spain brothers and Harvey Ross Ball both had designs in the 70s that concentrated more on slogans than the actual name of the smiley.


title: Smiley

text: When Ball's design was completed, it was not given an official name. It was however labeled as ""The Smile Insurance Company"" which appeared on the back of the badges he created. The label was due to the fact the badges were designed for commercial use for an insurance company. The Spain brothers used the slogan Have a nice day, which is now frequently known for the slogan rather than the naming of the smiley.


title: Smiley

text: The word smiley was used by Franklin Loufrani in France, when he registered his smiley design for trademark while working as a journalist for France Soir in 1971. The smiley accompanied positive news in the newspaper and eventually became the foundation for the licensing operation, The Smiley Company.


title: Smiley

text: The name smiley became commonly used in the 70s and 80s as the yellow and black ideogram began to appear more in popular culture. The ideogram has since been used as a foundation to create emoticon emojis. These are digital interpretations of the smiley ideogram and have since become the most commonly used set of emojis since they adopted by Unicode in 2006 onwards. Smiley has since become a broader term that often includes both the ideogram design, but also emojis that use the same yellow and black design.


title: Smiley

text: For thousands of years, smiling faces have been used as ideograms and as pictograms. The oldest known smiling face was found by a team of archaeologists led by Nicolò Marchetti of the University of Bologna. Marchetti and his team pieced together fragments of a Hittite pot from approximately 1700 BC that had been found in Karkamış, Turkey. Once the pot had been pieced together, the team noticed that the item had a large smiling face engraved on it, becoming the first item with such a design to be found.


title: Smiley

text: The Danish poet and author Johannes V. Jensen was amongst other things famous for experimenting with the form of his writing. In a letter sent to publisher Ernst Bojesen in December 1900, he includes both a happy face and a sad face. It wasn't until the 1900s that the design evolved from a basic eye and mouth design, into a more recognisable design.


title: Smiley

text: In the Russian newspaper "Ekaterinburgskaya Nedelya" dated May 28, 1896, the first case of the use of emoticons in Russia was recorded (it is possible that these are the first printed emoticons in history): in a humorous heading, four emoticons were depicted with typographical symbols and punctuation marks - and four emotions of a visitor to the fair Petersburg merchant


title: Smiley

text: One of the first known commercial uses of a smiling face was in 1919, when the Buffalo Steam Roller Company in Buffalo, New York applied stickers on receipts with the word ""thanks"" and a smiling face above it. The face contained a lot of detail, having eyebrows, nose, teeth, chin and facial creases, reminiscent of "man-in-the-moon" style characteristics. Another early commercial use of a smiling face was in 1922 when the Gregory Rubber Company of Akron, Ohio ran an ad for "smiley face" balloons in The Billboard This smiley face had hair, a nose, teeth, pie eyes, and triangles over the eyes.


title: Smiley

text: Ingmar Bergman's 1948 film "Port of Call" includes a scene where the unhappy Berit draws a "sad" face closely resembling the modern "frowny", but including a dot for the nose in lipstick on her mirror, before being interrupted. In 1953 and 1958, similar happy faces were used in promotional campaigns for the films "Lili" (1953) and "Gigi" (1958). In the early 1960s, The Funny Company, an American children's TV programmer, had a noseless Smiling face used as kids' club logo; the closing credits ended with the message, "Keep Smiling!"


title: Smiley

text: In recent times, the face now known as a smiley has evolved into a well-known image and brand, recognisable for its yellow and black features. Despite the use of smiling faces in popular culture during the early 20th century in the United States, no one in the 1960s had commercialized a smiley-design. The first time a combination of yellow and black was used for a smiling face was in late 1962, when New York City radio station WMCA released a yellow sweatshirt as part of a marketing campaign. By 1963, over 11,000 sweatshirts had been given away. They had featured in Billboard magazine and numerous celebrities had also been pictured wearing them, including actress Patsy King and Mick Jagger. The radio station used the happy face as part of a competition for listeners. When the station called listeners, any listener who answered their phone "WMCA Good Guys!" was rewarded with a "WMCA good guys" sweatshirt that incorporated the yellow and black happy face into its design. The features of the WMCA smiley was a yellow face, with black dots as eyes and had a slightly crooked smile. The outline of the face was also not smooth to give it more of a hand drawn look. Originally, the yellow and black sweatshirt (sometimes referred to as gold), had WMCA Good Guys written on the front with no smiley face.


title: Smiley

text: A number of United States-based designers created yellow and black happy faces over the next decade. In Worcester, Massachusetts, graphic designer Harvey Ross Ball created a happy face to raise the morale of the employees at the State Mutual Life Assurance Company. Ball created the design in ten minutes and was paid $45 (). His rendition, with a bright yellow background, dark oval eyes, full smile, and creases at the sides of the mouth, was imprinted on more than fifty million buttons and became familiar around the world. The design is so simple that it is certain that similar versions were produced before 1963, including those cited above. However, Ball's rendition, as described here, has become the most iconic version. In 1967, Seattle graphic artist George Tenagi drew his own version at the request of advertising agent, David Stern. Tenagi's design was used in an advertising campaign for Seattle-based University Federal Savings & Loan. The ad campaign was inspired by Lee Adams's lyrics in "Put on a Happy Face" from the musical "Bye Bye Birdie". Stern, the man behind this campaign, also later incorporated the Happy Face in his run for Seattle mayor in 1993. The Philadelphia-based brothers, Bernard and Murray Spain, also used the design on novelty items. They focused on the slogan "have a happy day", which mutated into "have a nice day." As with Harvey Ball, they also produced happy face badges, producing over 50 million with New York button manufacturer NG Slater.


title: Smiley

text: In 1972, Frenchman Franklin Loufrani legally trademarked the use of a smiley face. He used it to highlight the good news parts of the newspaper "France Soir". He simply called the design "Smiley" and launched The Smiley Company. In 1996 Loufrani's son Nicolas Loufrani took over the family business and built it into a multinational corporation. Nicolas Loufrani was outwardly skeptical of Harvey Ball's claim to creating the first smiley face. While noting that the design that his father came up with and Ball's design were nearly identical, Loufrani argued that the design is so simple that no one person can lay claim to having created it. As evidence for this, Loufrani's website points to early cave paintings found in France (dating from 2500 BC) that he claims are the first depictions of a smiley face. Loufrani also points to a 1960 radio ad campaign that reportedly made use of a similar design.


title: Smiley

text: The rights to the Smiley trademark in one hundred countries are owned by the Smiley Company. Its subsidiary SmileyWorld Ltd, in London, headed by Nicolas Loufrani, creates or approves all the Smiley products sold in countries where it holds the trademark. The Smiley brand and logo have significant exposure through licensees in sectors such as clothing, home decoration, perfumery, plush, stationery, publishing, and through promotional campaigns. The Smiley Company is one of the 100 biggest licensing companies in the world, with a turnover of US$167 million in 2012. The first Smiley shop opened in London in the Boxpark shopping centre in December 2011.


title: Smiley

text: In 2022, there was a number of birthday celebrations for the smiley. Many of these came in the form of collaborations between The Smiley Company and large retailers, such as Nordstrom.


title: Smiley

text: The earliest known smiley-like image in a written document was drawn by a Slovak notary to indicate his satisfaction with the state of his town's municipal financial records in 1635. The gold smiling face was drawn on the bottom of the legal document, appearing next to lawyer's Jan Ladislaides signature.


title: Smiley

text: A disputed early use of the smiley in a printed text may have been in Robert Herrick's poem "To Fortune" (1648), which contains the line "Upon my ruins (smiling yet :)". Journalist Levi Stahl has suggested that this may have been an intentional "orthographic joke", while this occurrence is likely merely the colon placed inside parentheses rather than outside of them as is standard typographic practice today: "(smiling yet):". There are citations of similar punctuation in a non-humorous context, even within Herrick's own work. It is likely that the parenthesis was added later by modern editors.


title: Smiley

text: On the Internet, the smiley has become a visual means of conveyance that uses images. The first known mention on the Internet was on 19 September 1982, when Scott Fahlman from Carnegie Mellon University wrote:


title: Smiley

text: Yellow graphical smileys have been used for many different purposes, including use in early 1980s video games. Yahoo! Messenger (from 1998) used smiley symbols in the user list next to each user, and also as an icon for the application. In November 2001, and later, smiley emojis inside the actual chat text was adopted by several chat systems, including Yahoo Messenger.


title: Smiley

text: The smiley is the printable version of characters 1 and 2 of (black-and-white versions of) codepage 437 (1981) of the first IBM PC and all subsequent PC compatible computers. For modern computers, all versions of Microsoft Windows after Windows 95 can use the smiley as part of Windows Glyph List 4, although some computer fonts miss some characters.


title: Smiley

text: Later additions to Unicode included a large number of variants expressing a range of human emotions, in particular with the addition of the "Emoticons" and "Supplemental Symbols and Pictographs blocks in Unicode versions 6.0 (2010) and 8.0 (2015), respectively.


title: Smiley

text: These were introduced for compatibility with the ad-hoc implementation of emoticons by Japanese telephone carriers in unused ranges of the Shift JIS standard.


title: Smiley

text: KDDI has gone much further than this, and has introduced hundreds more in the space with lead bytes 0xF3 and 0xF4.


title: Smiley

text: The smiley has now become synonymous with culture across the world. It is used for communication, imagery, branding and for topical purposes to display a range of emotions. Beginning in the 1960s, a yellow "happy face" was used by numerous brands in print to demonstrate happiness.


title: Smiley

text: Franklin Loufrani used the word smiley when he designed a smiling face for the newspaper he was working for at the time. The Loufrani design came in 1971, when Loufrani designed a smiley face for the newspaper, "France-Soir". The newspaper used Loufrani's smiley to highlight stories that they defined as ""feel-good news."" This particular smiley went onto form The Smiley Company. "Mad" magazine notably used the smiley a year later in 1972 across their entire front page for the April edition of the magazine. This was one of the first instances that the smiling face had been adapted, with one of the twenty visible smileys pulling a face.


title: Smiley

text: In the United States, there were many instances of smiling faces in the 1900s. However, the first industry to mass adopt the smiley was in comics and cartoons.


title: Smiley

text: The logo for and cover of the omnibus edition of the "Watchmen" comic book series is a smiley badge, worn by the character the Comedian, with blood splattered on it from the murder which initiates the events of the story.


title: Smiley

text: In the DC Comics, shady businessman "Boss Smiley" (a political boss with a smiley face for a head) makes several appearances.


title: Smiley

text: As music genres began to create their own cultures from the 1970s onwards, many cultures began to incorporate a smiling face into their culture. In the late 1970s, the American band Dead Kennedys launched their first recording, "California über alles". The single cover was a collage aimed to look like that of a Nazi rally prior to World War II. The usual swastika banners used at rallies, was replaced on the single cover with three large smileys. In the UK, the happy face has been associated with psychedelic culture since Ubi Dwyer and the Windsor Free Festival in the 1970s and the electronic dance music culture, particularly with acid house, that emerged during the Second Summer of Love in the late 1980s. The association was cemented when the band Bomb the Bass used an extracted smiley from the comic book series "Watchmen" on the center of its "Beat Dis" hit single.


title: Smiley

text: In addition to the movie adaptation of "Watchmen", the film "Suicide Squad" has the character Deadshot staring into the window of a clothing store. Behind a line of mannequins is a yellow smiley face pin, which had been closely associated to another DC comic character, Comedian. The 2001 film "Evolution" has a three-eyed smiley for its logo. It was later carried onto the movie's spin-off cartoon, "".


title: Smiley

text: In the film "Forrest Gump" it is implied the titular character inspired the smiley face design after wiping his face on a T-shirt while running coast to coast.


title: Smiley

text: In the late-1980s, the smiley again became a prominent image within the music industry. It was adopted during the growth of acid house across Europe and the UK in the late 1980s. According to many, this began when DJ, Danny Rampling, used the smiley to celebrate Paul Oakenfold's birthday. This sparked a movement where the smiley moved into various dance genres, becoming a symbol of 1980s dance music.


title: Smiley

text: In 2022, David Guetta collaborated with Felix Da Housecat and Kittin to release the song, "Silver Screen", a reimagined version of the 2001 dance track. Guetta's version celebrated positivity and happiness. The music video features a cameo from street artist, André Saraiva and portrays different groups portraying the message ""Take The Time To Smile."" The video partners that message with numerous smileys, on the side of buildings, on placards and on posters.


title: Smiley

text: Vittel announced in 2017 that they would be using the smiley on a special edition design of its water bottles. AdAge referred to its use as a "feel-good effect" and water bottles using the smiley icon had an 11.8% increase in sales, compared to the standard bottles, with 128 million bottles sold across Europe which featured the smiley-design.


title: Smiley

text: In the UK, "Jammie Dodgers", a legendary biscuit line, incorporate the smiley engraved into circular cookies.


title: Smiley

text: As part of his early works, graffiti artist Banksy frequently used the smiley in his art. The first of his major works that included a smiley was his Flying Copper portrait, which was completed in 2004. It was during a period when Banksy experimented with working on canvas and paper portraits. He also used the smiley in 2005 to replace the face of the grim reaper. The image became known as ""grin reaper."" In 2007, The Smiley Company partnered with Moschino for the campaign, ""Smiley for Moschino.""


title: Smiley

text: During the Covid-19 pandemic, fashion label Pull & Bear announced they would be releasing t-shirts with a smiley design incorporated on the front. Other fashion labels that have used the smiley on their garments include H&M and Zara. The smiley has also featured on high-end fashion lines, including Fendi and Moncler. High end French jeweller Valerie Messika produced white gold and yellow pendants, which contained a smiley face.


title: Smiley

text: For the 50th birthday of the Smiley, Galeries Lafayette in Paris, Beijing and Shanghai and 10 Nordstrom department stores sold limited edition smiley products to commemorate the anniversary. During the same year, Lee Jeans announced the launch of a new clothing collection, Lee x Smiley.


title: Smiley

text: In 1980, Namco released the now famous Pac-man, a yellow faced cartoon character. In 2008, the video game used the yellow smiley as part of its branding for the game. The smiley appeared throughout the game and also on the cover. The smiley normally appeared on the side of a grenade, which is something that became synonymous with the Battlefield series.


title: Smiley

text: The 1987 Atari ST game "MIDI Maze", released on other platforms as "Faceball 2000", features round, yellow Smileys as enemies. When a player is eliminated, these enemies taunt the player with the phrase "Have a nice day."


title: Smiley

text: During the London 2012 opening ceremony, early on in the show a number of giant yellow beach balls were released into the audience. Each had a large smiley face. Walmart uses a smiley face as its mascot. In 2022, Assouline published "50 Years of Good News," a breakdown of the cultural development of the smiley and its use.


title: Smiley

text: In 2022, the International Day of Happiness was celebrated by projecting a smiley onto a number of landmarks around the globe. In Seoul, South Korea, a smiley celebrating happiness was projected onto The Seoul Tower.


title: Smiley

text: In 1997, Franklin Loufrani attempted to trademark rights to the ideogram he created in the United States. Wal-Mart contested his application, as it began using its "Rolling Back Prices" campaign a year prior. The fallout led to a 2002 court case, and a seven-year ongoing case. The fallout resulted in Wal-Mart phasing out the use of the smiley. In 2006. Despite that, Wal-Mart sued an online parodist for alleged "trademark infringement" after he used the symbol. The District Court found in favor of the parodist when in March 2008, the judge concluded that Wal-Mart's smiley face logo was not shown to be "inherently distinctive" and that it "has failed to establish that the smiley face has acquired secondary meaning or that it is otherwise a protectable trademark" under U.S. law. In June 2010, Wal-Mart and The Smiley Company founded by Loufrani settled their 10-year-old dispute in front of the Chicago federal court. The terms remain confidential. In 2016, Wal-Mart brought back the smiley face on its website, social media profiles, and in selected stores.


title: Smiley

text: The band Nirvana created its own smiley design in 1991. It was claimed that Kurt Cobain was the designer of the Nirvana smiley, and following his death was one of the reasons why it became so iconic. As recently as 2020, media reports suggested a Los Angeles-based freelance designer was in fact behind the designs.


title: Smiley

text: Fashion house Marc Jacobs designed a smiley in 2018, which had a yellow outline, with the letters M and J replacing the eyes. The mouth design was similar to the original Nirvana design. In January 2019, legal representatives of Nirvana announced they were suing Marc Jacobs for a breach of copyright. Following the announcement by a judge in Los Angeles that the suit could move forward, Marc Jacobs announced a countersuit against Nirvana. In 2020, a Los Angeles-based designer suggested that he was the creator of the Nirvana smiley and therefore became an interjector in the case between Nirvana and Marc Jacobs.


title: Pax Romana

text: The Pax Romana (Latin for 'Roman peace') is a roughly 200-year-long timespan of Roman history which is identified as a period and as a golden age of increased as well as sustained Roman imperialism, relative peace and order, prosperous stability, hegemonial power, and regional expansion, despite several revolts and wars, and continuing competition with Parthia. It is traditionally dated as commencing from the accession of Augustus, founder of the Roman principate, in 27 BC and concluding in 180 AD with the death of Marcus Aurelius, the last of the "Five Good Emperors". Since it was inaugurated by Augustus at the end of the final war of the Roman Republic, it is sometimes also called the Pax Augusta. During this period of about two centuries, the Roman Empire achieved its greatest territorial extent and its population reached a maximum of up to 70 million people. According to Cassius Dio, the dictatorial reign of Commodus, later followed by the Year of the Five Emperors and the Crisis of the Third Century, marked the descent "from a kingdom of gold to one of iron and rust".


title: Pax Romana

text: The Pax Romana is said to have been a "miracle" because prior to it there had never been peace for so many years in a given period of history. However, Walter Goffart wrote: "The volume of the "Cambridge Ancient History" for the years AD 70–192 is called 'The Imperial Peace', but peace is not what one finds in its pages". Arthur M. Eckstein writes that the period must be seen in contrast to the much more frequent warfare in the Roman Republic in the 4th and 3rd centuries BC. Eckstein also notes that the incipient Pax Romana appeared during the Republic, and that its temporal span varied with geographical region as well: "Although the standard textbook dates for the Pax Romana, the famous “Roman Peace” in the Mediterranean, are 31 BC to AD 250, the fact is that the Roman Peace was emerging in large regions of the Mediterranean at a much earlier date: Sicily after 210 [BC], the Italian Peninsula after 200 [BC]; the Po Valley after 190 [BC]; most of the Iberian Peninsula after 133 [BC]; North Africa after 100 [BC]; and for ever longer stretches of time in the Greek East."


title: Pax Romana

text: The first known record of the term "Pax Romana" appears in a writing by Seneca the Younger in AD 55. The concept was highly influential, and the subject of theories and attempts to copy it in subsequent ages. Arnaldo Momigliano noted that ""Pax Romana" is a simple formula for propaganda, but a difficult subject for research."


title: Pax Romana

text: The Pax Romana began when Octavian (Augustus) defeated Mark Antony and Cleopatra in the Battle of Actium on 2 September 31 BC and became Roman emperor. He became princeps, or "first citizen". Lacking a good precedent of successful one-man rule, Augustus created a junta of the greatest military magnates and stood as the front man. By binding together these leading magnates in a coalition, he eliminated the prospect of civil war. The Pax Romana was not immediate, despite the end of the civil wars, because fighting continued in Hispania and in the Alps. Nevertheless, Augustus closed the Gates of Janus (a ceremony indicating that Rome was at peace) three times, first in 29 BC and again in 25 BC. The third closure is undocumented, but Inez Scott Ryberg (1949) and Gaius Stern (2006) have persuasively dated the third closure to 13 BC with the commissioning of the Ara Pacis. At the time of the Ludi Saeculares in 17 BC the Concept of Peace was publicized, and in 13 BC was proclaimed when Augustus and Agrippa jointly returned from pacifying the provinces. The order to construct the Ara Pacis was no doubt part of this announcement.


title: Pax Romana

text: Augustus faced a problem making peace an acceptable mode of life for the Romans, who had been at war with one power or another continuously for 200 years. Romans regarded peace not as an absence of war, but as a rare situation which existed when all opponents had been beaten down and lost the ability to resist. Augustus' challenge was to persuade Romans that the prosperity they could achieve in the absence of warfare was better for the Empire than the potential wealth and honor acquired when fighting a risky war. Augustus succeeded by means of skillful propaganda. Subsequent emperors followed his lead, sometimes producing lavish ceremonies to close the Gates of Janus, issuing coins with Pax on the reverse, and patronizing literature extolling the benefits of the Pax Romana.


title: Pax Romana

text: After Augustus' death in AD 14, most of his successors as Roman emperors continued his politics. The last five emperors of the Pax Romana are known as the "Five Good Emperors".


title: Pax Romana

text: Roman trade in the Mediterranean increased during the Pax Romana. Romans sailed East to acquire silks, gems, onyx and spices. Romans benefited from large profits and incomes in the Roman empire were raised due to trade in the Mediterranean.


title: Pax Romana

text: As the Pax Romana of the western world by Rome was largely contemporaneous to the Pax Sinica of the eastern world by Han China, long-distance travel and trade in Eurasian history was significantly stimulated during these eras.


title: Pax Romana

text: The prominence of the concept of the "Pax Romana" led to historians coining variants of the term to describe other systems of relative peace that have been established, attempted, or argued to have existed. Some variants include:


title: Pax Romana

text: More generically, the concept has been referred to as "pax imperia", (sometimes spelled as "pax imperium") meaning "imperial peace", or—less literally—"hegemonic peace". Raymond Aron notes that imperial peace—peace achieved through hegemony can—sometimes, but not always— become civil peace. As an example, the German Empire's imperial peace of 1871 (over its internal components like Saxony) slowly evolved into the later German state. As a counter-example, the imperial peace of Alexander the Great's empire dissolved because the Greek city states maintained their political identity, and more importantly, embryos of their own armed forces. Aron notes that during the Pax Romana, the Jewish war was a reminder that the overlapping of the imperial institutions over the local ones did not erase them and the overlap was a source of tension and flare-ups. Aron summarizes that, "In other words, "imperial peace" becomes civil peace insofar as the memory of the previously independent political units are effaced, insofar as individuals within a pacified zone feel themselves less united to the traditional or local community and more to the conquering state."


title: Pax Romana

text: The concept of Pax Romana was highly influential, and there were attempts to imitate it in the Byzantine Empire, and in the Christian West, where it morphed into the Peace and Truce of God ("pax Dei" and "treuga Dei"). A theoretician of the imperial peace during the Middle Ages was Dante Aligheri. Dante's works on the topic were analyzed at the beginning of the 20th century by William Mitchell Ramsay in the book "The Imperial Peace; An Ideal in European History" (1913).


title: Boosie Badazz

text: Torence Ivy Hatch (born November 14, 1982), better known by his stage name Boosie BadAzz or simply Boosie (formerly Lil Boosie), is an American rapper. Hatch began rapping in the 1990s as a member of the hip hop collective Concentration Camp, eventually pursuing a solo career in 2000 with the release of his debut album "Youngest of da Camp". After leaving the label the following year, he signed with Pimp C's Trill Entertainment to release his second studio album, "For My Thugz" (2002). One of the most prominent figures of Southern


title: Boosie Badazz

text: hip hop, Hatch has gone on to release seven solo studio albums, as well as six collaborative albums and 42 mixtapes.


title: Boosie Badazz

text: In 2009, Hatch was sentenced to 4 years in prison on drug and gun charges. In 2010, he was indicted on first-degree murder charges, and was also sentenced to 10 years on multiple charges of drug possession with intent of distribution. After serving 5 years in prison, Hatch was released early on March 5, 2014.


title: Boosie Badazz

text: Boosie was born Torence Hatch on November 14, 1982, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and grew up on West Garfield Street. His mother, Connie Hatch (née Givens), was a school principal whose father was a pastor. His father, Torrence Hatch Sr., died in 1997. He was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes as a child.


title: Boosie Badazz

text: Lil' Boosie's cousin Young Dee introduced Boosie to Baton Rouge rapper C-Loc in the late 1990s. He was mentored by Young Bleed and C-Loc as well as MD. and joined the group Concentration Camp, as the youngest member in 1998. The group consisted of Young Bleed, C-Loc, Happy Perez, Boo, Max Minelli, J-Von, Lee Tyme and Lucky Knuckles. He eventually debuted on C-Loc's fifth album, 'It's A Gamble' in 2000 under his old alias Boosie and Concentration Camp third studio album "Camp III ":" Thug Brothas" in 2000.


title: Boosie Badazz

text: The departure of Young Bleed from the Camp helped put Lil Boosie in a prime position amongst the group. Alongside C-Loc and Max Minelli, he served as one of the "faces" of the Camp. At 17 years of age, he recorded his debut album, the aptly-titled" Youngest of da Camp," (Camp Life Entertainment, 2000). The album production was mostly handled by Happy Perez, and featured C-Loc, Max Minelli and Donkey.


title: Boosie Badazz

text: In 2001 he joined Trill Entertainment backed by its CEO the late Pimp C of UGK. Soon after, Trill independently released the album "For My Thugz" under his new alias Lil Boosie in 2002. The album featured Pimp C, Young Bleed, Webbie while he also put out his first mixtape title "Boosie 2002 (Advance)" featuring contributions by Max Minelli and Pimp C.


title: Boosie Badazz

text: Later in the summer of 2003, Boosie collaborated with Webbie on the album ", "presented by Pimp C. In 2004, the duo worked together again on "Trill Azz Mixtape Vol. 1, "which also featured an appearance of Torrence "Bad Azz". In the same year, he released Trill Azz Mixes II which introduced Phat, later known as Lil Phat. He paired up again with Webbie, to release their second compilation album, Gangsta Musik. He caught the eye of some Universal Music Group representatives.


title: Boosie Badazz

text: In 2004 Lil Boosie and South Coast Coalition released "Both Sides of the Track". Boosie also released a compilation mixtape title "Bad Ass" with a few new tracks like "Trill Shit". It also featured the track I Smoke, I Drank by Body Head Bangerz featuring Boosie and Young Bleed off their debut album . January 1, 2005, Boosie teamed up with Lava House Records to release United We Stand, Divided We Fall. He also released Street Code with Pat Lowrenzo. In 2005, Lil Boosie released Bad Ass (Advance) to promote Bad Azz.


title: Boosie Badazz

text: In early 2006, Trill released "Bad Ass Mixtape Vol.1" as a follow-up to (Bad Ass Advance). In 2006, Boosie's major label debut album "Bad Azz" was released. It contained the single "Zoom" featuring Yung Joc. A Bad Azz DVD followed where the rapper explained the death of his father due to drugs and his fight against diabetes. In early December 2006, the mixtape "Streetz Iz Mine" was released by Lil Boosie and DJ Drama (Gangsta Grillz), featuring a guest appearance by Webbie.


title: Boosie Badazz

text: In 2007, Lil Boosie released "Bad Azz Mixtapes Vol. 2" while together with Webbie he featured on the remix of "Wipe Me Down" by rapper Foxx. It was put on the Trill Entertainment compilation album "," which was released in 2007. In 2008 Boosie released "Da Beginning Mixtape". At Lil Boosie's Fourth of July Bash party, he passed out his new mixtape, "4th Of July Bash". In December 2008, Lil Boosie released "", which features Da Click (Hatch Boy, Locco, Quick and Bleek). In 2008, he was featured on the single "Independent" by Webbie and was among several rappers to be featured on "Out Here Grindin" by DJ Khaled.


title: Boosie Badazz

text: In March 2009 Boosie released "The Return Of Mr. Wipe Me Down" as a promotion mixtape to his second major album. The Runners and V-12 produced some of the mixtape. Lil Boosie again passed out an untitled mixtape at his July of 4th Bash. Songs from the tape eventually ended up on Da Click: "Street Kingz" which was released July 14. In 2009, Lil Boosie released his second major album "". The first single from the album, "Better Believe It", featured Webbie and Young Jeezy. Promotional music videos for songs from the album, such as "I'm a Dog" and "Loose as a Goose," were released.


title: Boosie Badazz

text: Also in 2009, Lil Boosie presented his debut label Bad Azz Entertainment. Lil Boosie released "Thug Passion" on his Bad Azz Entertainment label in 2009. In the summer (July) of 2009, Lil Boosie and Hurricane Chris released a mixtape titled "Category 7: Bad Azz Hurricane". Lil Boosie also released a mixtape titled "Untouchables" with LoLa Monroe. Lil Boosie also released a mixtape titled "The 25th Hour". On an interlude on the mixtape, he speaks on his prison term.


title: Boosie Badazz

text: In 2010 Lil Boosie and C-Loc, his former CEO, released Unbreakable as a Compilation CD. In 2010, Lil Boosie announced in prison, facing charges of murder and conspiracy, that he wanted to move forward with his career. Boosie released his fourth studio album, "Incarcerated," on September 28 on Asylum Records. According to MTV News, the project is almost entirely produced by B.J., although Mouse on Tha Track did some work on it as well. Webbie, Foxx and Lil Trill are among the featured guests.


title: Boosie Badazz

text: Lil Boosie released Gone Til' December in 2010, which is a mixtape album consisting of new music. The 25th Hour tape was originally released in his hometown of Baton Rouge, Louisiana – but other versions have spread around the internet. The version that he dropped featured songs like "Be Careful" featuring Money Bag$, "I Did You Wrong" feat. Lil Quick, "I Been Icy," "My Children," and "I Ain't Mad At Cha."


title: Boosie Badazz

text: Other notable guest appearances include: Lil Jas, Hatch Boy, Yung Giga of Bad Azz Entertainment, as well as Lil Trill. There are some other mixtapes floating around the internet with similar titles, so Bad Azz Entertainment released it as "Should've Been My Beatz" on Amazon, Rhapsody and others. Lil Boosie released 22504 with B.G. In 2011 Quick release Hit After Hit 3 with Lil Boosie. In 2012 My Brother's Keeeper was released with Money Bagz and Quick. Also Under Investigation was released as a free download on Livemixtapes with Ray Vicks.


title: Boosie Badazz

text: I have about 500 songs at the moment. I feel that I'm making the best music I've ever made. The more I go through in life the better my music gets and it's been crazy the last three years. I keep my music heartfelt and stick to making real music. I wouldn't even say it's hip hop music. My music is 'reality rap'. Hip hop music can make you dance and bob your head, but it can't make you cry or touch your heart like reality rap.


title: Boosie Badazz

text: On September 13, 2013, it was reported that judges related to his case agreed to return his hard drives and his computers. The equipment contained a lot of music he had recorded before going to jail. Jeff Weiss, who covered Boosie's trial for "Rolling Stone", reported that Boosie's attorneys believed that he would be released within the next five months. On March 10, 2014, Boosie made his first comments to the public following his release from prison. During the press conference he revealed his new record deal with Atlantic Records. His first single released would be "Show Da World" with Webbie. Lil Boosie was feature on "Wuda Cuda Shuda" by 2 Chainz, "Beat Up the Block" by Dorrough Music, "Face Down" by DJ Mustard, "Beez Like" by Young Jeezy, "Jet Fuel" by T.I., "Made Me" (Remix) by Snootie Wild.


title: Boosie Badazz

text: In October 2014, Boosie changed his stage name to Boosie Badazz. and explained in a May 2015 interview with Noisey: "I got tired of just people, grown men, like "What up Lil Boosie?" No, I'm grown. It should be Mr.! You know, I'm Boosie Badazz. I'm a dad, man. Just take the shit off! That's how I was feeling ... Boosie Badazz is just like, more people say Badazz when they see me than Boosie, so I just stuck with the Boosie Badazz."


title: Boosie Badazz

text: In April 2014, Boosie announced that his sixth studio album "Touchdown 2 Cause Hell" would be released on July 15, 2014, but was later pushed back to September 23, 2014. The album would be delayed yet again, until he unveiled the track list and announced a May 26 release date on April 22, 2015. The project features 17 new tracks with guest appearances from Rich Homie Quan on the single "Like A Man," Webbie on the street single "On That Level," as well as Chris Brown, Rick Ross, T.I. and Keyshia Cole.


title: Boosie Badazz

text: On October 30, 2014, Lil Boosie released his first mixtape since his release from prison titled "Life After Deathrow", featuring Yo Gotti, Trey Songz, LIV and Shy Glizzy. The project was largely conceptualized by Boosie's brother and manager Taquari "TQ" Hatch who serves as executive producer on the project. "Life After Deathrow" would feature songs like "I'm coming Home" and the hit "NO JUICE" produced by Mouse on Da Track.


title: Boosie Badazz

text: Boosie Badazz and C-Murder announced the "Penitentiary Chances" joint album on January 18, 2016, via AllHipHop. The project from the two Louisiana rappers was scheduled to be released April 15, 2016. All production is said to come from T-Rhythm and Moneybeats "SoundTrendsLlc". On December 15, 2017, Boosie Badazz released his seventh studio album "BooPac".


title: Boosie Badazz

text: On November 22, 2018, Boosie Badazz released "Boosie Blues Cafe" and on March 29, 2019, released "Badazz 3.5".


title: Boosie Badazz

text: Bad Azz Music Syndicate is a record label founded by Boosie Badazz and Taquari "TQ" Hatch. While Incarcerated, TQ suggested rebranding "Bad Azz Entertainment" due to the many invalid artist and associates that began repping "Bad Azz Ent" unbeknownst to Boosie. TQ felt there would be a need to reestablish the brand as a music company that would be able to sign artist in the future who were more diverse and even international.


title: Boosie Badazz

text: On October 22, 2008, Boosie was arrested after East Baton Rouge sheriff's deputies found marijuana and a Glock in his car. Boosie pled guilty to his third-offense possession of marijuana charge on September 22, 2009, and was sentenced to two years in prison the next day. Judge Chip Moore doubled the sentence on November 9 after finding Boosie had violated probation while awaiting sentencing. Between his plea and sentencing, Boosie was electronically monitored and placed under house arrest.


title: Boosie Badazz

text: On June 17, 2010, Boosie was indicted on charges on first-degree murder of Terry Boyd. He also faced charges for three counts of possession with intent to distribute narcotics (Schedule II: codeine and cocaine; Schedule I: marijuana), three counts of "conspiracy to commit possession with intent to distribute narcotics", and two counts of "conspiracy to introduce contraband into a penal institution". He has stated that he is innocent of these charges.


title: Boosie Badazz

text: District Attorney Hillar Moore stated that the killing seemed to be "over turf". If convicted, Boosie could have faced the death penalty. Prosecutors also stated that they believed the rapper may have been involved in at least five other murders. On June 28, Boosie entered a not-guilty plea in a Louisiana court room. While Boosie's defense addressed the fact that the rapper has several ongoing cases, they emphasized that he is not a murderer and rested their case without bringing any witnesses. The jury in the case came to a unanimous not-guilty verdict on the murder charge after less than 10 minutes deliberation.


title: Boosie Badazz

text: On November 29, 2011, Boosie was sentenced to eight years in state prison after pleading guilty to the drug charges. On May 11, 2012, a jury found Boosie not guilty of first degree murder.


title: Boosie Badazz

text: On December 7, 2012, his attorneys were able to argue that the drug ring charge was a set up: the informant offered to provide codeine syrup for Boosie, an admitted codeine addict, in exchange for his help. He was released on March 5, 2014. He remained on parole until 2018.


title: Boosie Badazz

text: Boosie has eight children with six women. He has said that he did not believe marriage was a good choice for him, because he didn't want to lose half of his fortune to his spouse in the event that he committed adultery, and has praised women who stay in a relationship with an unfaithful partner, saying he respects those women. In 2010, one of his ex-girlfriends, Walnita "Nita" Decuir, was arrested on charges related to drug distribution for attempting to smuggle illicit substances to Boosie, reportedly marijuana, codeine, and MDMA, who, at the time, was incarcerated.


title: Boosie Badazz

text: Shortly after "Bad Azz" was released, Boosie revealed that he had type 1 diabetes, having been diagnosed in childhood. In April 2020, he took to Instagram to ask the public for help in locating insulin glargine, also known as Lantus, asking followers in the Jacksonville area to call him.


title: Boosie Badazz

text: On November 25, 2015, at the age of 33, Boosie revealed he had been diagnosed with kidney cancer. He had successful surgery to remove the cancer.


title: Boosie Badazz

text: On November 14, 2020, which happened to be his 38th birthday, Boosie was shot in the leg after attending a candle light vigil for rapper MO3 in Dallas, Texas. Shortly after, it was reported that he may have to get his leg amputated. On November 22, Boosie stated he was at home healing with no amputations.


title: Boosie Badazz

text: In February 2020, Boosie was criticized for comments he made towards Zaya Wade, 12-year-old daughter of American basketball player Dwyane Wade, who had recently come out as transgender, with the support of her parents, among them being "Don't cut his dick off, bruh." In the same video, he went on to say that outlawing physical abuse of children gave them too much power over their parents.


title: Boosie Badazz

text: Also in February 2020, just days after the incident involving Zaya Wade, Boosie was asked by staff to leave a Planet Fitness in Georgia; Boosie alleged the gym's manager was hostile towards him for his comments towards Wade but a spokesperson for the company denied Boosie's claim that a personal grudge was the reason for his being asked to leave, instead stating that the rapper had failed to comply with company policies and had harassed members of the staff.


title: Boosie Badazz

text: In May 2020, Boosie came under fire for a now-deleted video he'd uploaded to Instagram in which he spoke positively of paying an adult woman to perform oral sex on his son and nephew, then 12 and 13 years old, below the age of consent in any U.S. state, and allowing his minor son to watch pornography, as he felt pornography was more appropriate for children to watch than "cartoons with two men kissing." Previously in 2017, in a birthday post aimed at his soon-to-be 14-year-old son, Boosie bragged that he had secured his son a "bad bitch" to perform fellatio on him for his birthday, in a post liked by 27,000 users, though he later claimed he'd been joking.


title: Boosie Badazz

text: Boosie went on a homophobic rant against gay rapper Lil Nas X in 2021. He urged Lil Nas X to commit suicide.


title: Theosophy

text: Theosophy is a religion established in the United States during the late 19th century. It was founded primarily by the Russian Helena Blavatsky and draws its teachings predominantly from Blavatsky's writings. Categorized by scholars of religion as both a new religious movement and as part of the occultist stream of Western esotericism, it draws upon both older European philosophies such as Neoplatonism and Asian religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism.


title: Theosophy

text: As presented by Blavatsky, Theosophy teaches that there is an ancient and secretive brotherhood of spiritual adepts known as the Masters, who—although found around the world—are centered in Tibet. These Masters are alleged by Blavatsky to have cultivated great wisdom and supernatural powers, and Theosophists believe that it was they who initiated the modern Theosophical movement through disseminating their teachings via Blavatsky. They believe that these Masters are attempting to revive knowledge of an ancient religion once found around the world and which will again come to eclipse the existing world religions. Theosophical groups nevertheless do not refer to their system as a "religion". Theosophy preaches the existence of a single, divine Absolute. It promotes an emanationist cosmology in which the universe is perceived as outward reflections from this Absolute. Theosophy teaches that the purpose of human life is spiritual emancipation and says that the human soul undergoes reincarnation upon bodily death according to a process of karma. It promotes values of universal brotherhood and social improvement, although it does not stipulate particular ethical codes.


title: Theosophy

text: Theosophy was established in New York City in 1875 with the founding of the Theosophical Society by Blavatsky and Americans Henry Olcott and William Quan Judge. In the early 1880s, Blavatsky and Olcott relocated to India, where they established the Society's headquarters at Adyar, Tamil Nadu. Blavatsky described her ideas in two books, "Isis Unveiled" and "The Secret Doctrine". She sought to produce purportedly supernatural phenomena to support her beliefs regarding the Masters, although was repeatedly accused of fraudulently doing so. Following Blavatsky's death in 1891, there was a schism in the Society, with Judge leading the Theosophical Society in America to split from the international organization. Under Judge's successor Katherine Tingley, a Theosophical community named Lomaland was established in San Diego. The Adyar-based Society was later taken over by Annie Besant, under whom it grew to its largest extent during the late 1920s, before going into decline. The Theosophical movement still exists, although in much smaller form than in its heyday.


title: Theosophy

text: Theosophy played a significant role in bringing knowledge of South Asian religions to Western countries, as well as in encouraging cultural pride in various South Asian nations. A variety of prominent artists and writers have also been influenced by Theosophical teachings. Theosophy has an international following, and during the 20th century had tens of thousands of adherents. Theosophical ideas have also exerted an influence on a wide range of other esoteric movements and philosophies, among them Anthroposophy, the Church Universal and Triumphant, and the New Age.


title: Theosophy

text: Theosophy's founder, the Russian Helena Blavatsky, insisted that it was not a religion, although she did refer to it as the modern transmission of the "once-universal religion" that she said had existed deep into the human past. That Theosophy should not be labeled a religion is a belief that has been maintained by Theosophical organizations, who instead regard it as a system that embraces what they see as the "essential truth" underlying religion, philosophy, and science. As a result, Theosophical groups allow their members to hold other religious allegiances, resulting in Theosophists who also identify as Christians, Buddhists, or Hindus.


title: Theosophy

text: Scholars of religion who have studied Theosophy have characterized it as a religion. In his history of the Theosophical movement, Bruce F. Campbell noted that Theosophy promoted "a religious world-view" using "explicitly religious terms" and that its central tenets are not unequivocal fact, but rather rely on belief. Olav Hammer and Mikael Rothstein termed it "one of the modern world's most important religious traditions". Various scholars have pointed to its eclectic nature; Joscelyn Godwin described it as a "universally eclectic religious movement", while scholar J. Jeffrey Franklin characterized Theosophy as a "hybrid religion" for its syncretic combination of elements from various other sources. More specifically, Theosophy has been categorized as a new religious movement.


title: Theosophy

text: Scholars have also classified Theosophy as a form of Western esotericism. Campbell for instance referred to it as "an esoteric religious tradition", while the historian Joy Dixon called it an "esoteric religion". More specifically, it is considered a form of occultism. Along with other groups like the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Theosophical Society has been seen as part of an "occult revival" that took place in Western countries during the late 19th century. The historian of religion Wouter Hanegraaff noted that Theosophy helped to establish the "essential foundations for much of twentieth-century esotericism".


title: Theosophy

text: Although Theosophy draws upon Indian religious beliefs, the sociologist of religion Christopher Partridge observed that "Theosophy is fundamentally Western. That is to say, Theosophy is not Eastern thought in the West, but Western thought with an Eastern flavour."


title: Theosophy

text: At a meeting of the Miracle Club in New York City on 7 September 1875, Blavatsky, Olcott, and Judge agreed to establish an organisation, with Charles Sotheran suggesting that they call it the Theosophical Society. Prior to adopting the name "Theosophical", they had debated various potential names, among them the Egyptological Society, the Hermetic Society, and the Rosicrucian Society. The term was not new, but had been previously used in various contexts by the Philaletheians and the Christian mystic Jakob Böhme.


title: Theosophy

text: Etymologically, the term came from the Greek ("god(s)") and ("wisdom"), thus meaning "god-wisdom", "divine wisdom", or "wisdom of God". The term appeared (in both Greek and Latin) in the works of early church fathers, as a synonym for theology. In her book "The Key to Theosophy", Blavatsky said that the term "Theosophy" had been coined by "the Alexandrian philosophers", especially Ammonius Saccas.


title: Theosophy

text: Blavatsky's Theosophy is not the only movement to use the term "theosophy" and this has resulted in scholarly attempts to differentiate the different currents. Godwin drew a division by referring to Blavatskian Theosophy with a capital letter and older, Boehmian theosophy with a lower-case letter. Alternately, the scholar of esotericism Wouter J. Hanegraaff distinguished the Blavatskian movement from its older namesake by terming it "modern Theosophy".


title: Theosophy

text: Followers of Blavatsky's movement are known as Theosophists, while adherents of the older tradition are termed theosophers. Causing some confusion, a few Theosophists – such as C. C. Massey – were also theosophers.


title: Theosophy

text: In the early years of Blavatsky's movement, some critics referred to it as "Neo-Theosophy" to differentiate it from the older Christian theosophy movement. The term "Neo-Theosophy" would later be adopted within the modern Theosophical movement itself, where it was used—largely pejoratively—to describe the teachings promoted by Annie Besant and Charles Webster Leadbeater by those who opposed their innovations.


title: Theosophy

text: According to the scholar of religion James A. Santucci, discerning what the term "Theosophy" meant to the early Theosophists is "not as obvious as one might think". As used by Olcott, the term "Theosophy" appeared to be applied to an approach that emphasized experimentation as a means of learning about the "Unseen Universe"; conversely, Blavatsky used the term in reference to gnosis regarding said information.


title: Theosophy

text: Although the writings of prominent Theosophists lay out a set of teachings, the Theosophical Society itself states that it has no official beliefs with which all members must agree. It therefore has doctrine but does not present this as dogma. The Society stated that the only tenet to which all members should subscribe was a commitment "to form a nucleus of the Universal Brotherhood of Humanity without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste or color". This means that there were members of the Theosophical Society who were skeptical about many, or even all, of the Theosophical doctrines, while remaining sympathetic to its basic aim of universal brotherhood.


title: Theosophy

text: As noted by Santucci, Theosophy is "derived primarily from the writings" of Blavatsky, however revisions and innovations have also been produced by subsequent Theosophists like Annie Besant and Charles Leadbeater. Blavatsky said that these Theosophical doctrines were not her own invention, but had been received from a brotherhood of secretive spiritual adepts whom she referred to as the "Masters" or "Mahatmas".


title: Theosophy

text: Central to Theosophical belief is the idea that a group of spiritual adepts known as the Masters not only exist but were responsible for the production of early Theosophical texts. For most Theosophists, these Masters are deemed to be the real founders of the modern Theosophical movement. In Theosophical literature, these Masters are also referred to as the Mahatmas, Adepts, Masters of Wisdom, Masters of Compassion, and Elder Brothers. They are perceived to be a fraternity of human men who are highly evolved, both in terms of having an advanced moral development and intellectual attainment. They are said to have achieved extra-long life spans, and to have gained supernatural powers, including clairvoyance and the ability to instantly project their soul out of their body to any other location. These are powers that they have allegedly attained through many years of training. According to Blavatsky, by the late 19th century their chief residence was in the Himalayan kingdom of Tibet. She also said that these Masters were the source of many of her published writings.


title: Theosophy

text: The Masters are believed to preserve the world's ancient spiritual knowledge, and to represent a Great White Brotherhood or White Lodge which watches over humanity and guides its evolution.


title: Theosophy

text: Among those whom the early Theosophists believed as Masters were Biblical figures like Abraham, Moses, Solomon, and Jesus, Asian religious figures like Gautama Buddha, Confucius, and Laozi, and modern individuals like Jakob Bohme, Alessandro Cagliostro, and Franz Mesmer. However, the most prominent Masters to appear in Theosophical literature are Koot Hoomi (sometimes spelled Kuthumi) and Morya, with whom Blavatsky said to be in contact. According to Theosophical belief, the Masters approach those deemed worthy to embark on an apprenticeship or "chelaship". The apprentice would then undergo several years of probation, during which they must live a life of physical purity, remaining chaste, abstinent, and indifferent to physical luxury. Blavatsky encouraged the production of images of the Masters. The most important portraits of the Masters to be produced were created in 1884 by Hermann Schmiechen. According to scholar of religion Massimo Introvigne, Schmiechen's images of Morya and Koot Humi gained "semi-canonical status" in the Theosophical community, being regarded as sacred objects rather than simply decorative images.


title: Theosophy

text: Campbell noted that for non-Theosophists, the beliefs regarding the existence of the Masters are among the weakest made by the movement. Such statements are open to examination and potential refutation, with challenges to the existence of the Masters therefore undermining Theosophical beliefs.


title: Theosophy

text: The idea of a brotherhood of secret adepts had a long pedigree stretching back several centuries before the foundation of Theosophy; such ideas can be found in the work of the Rosicrucians, and was popularized in the fictional literature of Edward Bulwer-Lytton. The idea of having messages conveyed to a medium through spiritually advanced entities had also been popularized at the time of Theosophy's foundation through the Spiritualist movement.


title: Theosophy

text: According to Blavatsky's teachings, many of the world's religions have their origins in a universal ancient religion, a "secret doctrine" that was known to Plato and early Hindu sages and which continues to underpin the center of every religion.


title: Theosophy

text: She promoted the idea that ancient societies exhibited a unity of science and religion that humanity has since lost, with their achievements and knowledge being far in excess of what modern scholars believe about them. Blavatsky also taught that a secret brotherhood has conserved this ancient wisdom religion throughout the centuries, and that members of this fraternity hold the key to understanding miracles, the afterlife, and psychic phenomena, and that moreover, these adepts themselves have paranormal powers.


title: Theosophy

text: She stated that this ancient religion would be revived and spread throughout humanity in the future, replacing dominant world religions like Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism.


title: Theosophy

text: Theosophy tended to emphasize the importance of ancient texts over the popular ritual and custom found within various religious traditions.


title: Theosophy

text: The Theosophical depiction of Buddhism and Hinduism, however, drew criticism both from practitioners of orthodox Buddhist and Hindu traditions, as well as from Western scholars of these traditions, such as Max Müller, who believed that Theosophists like Blavatsky were misrepresenting the Asian traditions.


title: Theosophy

text: Theosophy promotes an emanationist cosmology, promoting the belief that the universe is an outward reflection from the Absolute.


title: Theosophy

text: Theosophy presents the idea that the world as humans perceive it is illusory, or "maya", an idea that it draws from Asian religions. Accordingly, Blavatsky taught that a life limited by the perception of this illusory world was ignorant and deluded.


title: Theosophy

text: According to Blavatsky's teaching, every solar system in the universe is the expression of what is termed a "Logos" or "Solar Deity". Ranked below this Solar Deity are seven ministers or planetary spirits, with each of these celestial beings being in control of evolution on a particular planet.


title: Theosophy

text: In "The Secret Doctrine", Blavatsky stated that each planet had a sevenfold constitution, known as the "Planetary Chains"; these consist not only of a physical globe but also of two astral bodies, two mental bodies, and two spiritual bodies, all overlapping in the same space. According to Blavatsky, evolution occurs on descending and ascending arcs, from the first spiritual globe on to the first mental globe, then from the first astral globe to the first physical globe, and then on from there.


title: Theosophy

text: She said that there were different levels of evolution, from mineral on to vegetable, animal, human, and then to superhuman or spiritual. Different levels of evolution occur in a successive order on each planet; thus when mineral evolution ends on the first planet and it proceeds on to vegetable evolution, then mineral evolution begins on the second planet.


title: Theosophy

text: In "The Secret Doctrine", Blavatsky advocated the idea of seven "Root Races", each of which was divided into seven Sub-Races.


title: Theosophy

text: In Blavatsky's cosmogony, the first Root Race were created from pure spirit, and lived on a continent known as the "Imperishable Sacred Land". The second Root Race, known as the Hyperboreans, were also formed from pure spirit, and lived on a land near to the North Pole, which then had a mild climate. The third lived on the continent of Lemuria, which Blavatsky alleged survives today as Australia and Rapa Nui. Blavatsky alleged that during the fourth Round of the Earth, higher beings descended to the planet, with the beginnings of human physical bodies developing, and the sexes separating. At this point, the fourth Root Race appeared, living on the continent of Atlantis; they had physical bodies but also psychic powers and advanced technology. She said that some Atlanteans were giants, and built such ancient monuments as Stonehenge in southern England, and that they also mated with "she-animals", resulting in the creation of gorillas and chimpanzees. The Atlanteans were decadent and abused their power and knowledge, so Atlantis sank into the sea, although various Atlanteans escaped, and created new societies in Egypt and the Americas.


title: Theosophy

text: The fifth Root Race to emerge was the Aryans, and was found around the world at the time she was writing. She believed that the fifth Race would come to be replaced by the sixth, which would be heralded by the arrival of Maitreya, a figure from Mahayana Buddhist mythology. She further believed that humanity would eventually develop into the final, seventh Root Race. At this, she stated that humanity will have reached the end of its evolutionary cycle and life will withdraw from the Earth.


title: Theosophy

text: Lachman suggested that by reading Blavatsky's cosmogonical beliefs as a literal account of history, "we may be doing it a disservice." He instead suggested that it could be read as Blavatsky's attempt to formulate "a new myth for the modern age, or as a huge, fantastic science fiction story".


title: Theosophy

text: Blavatsky taught that Lord Maitreya—a figure she borrowed from Buddhism —would come to Earth as a messianic figure. Her ideas on this were expanded upon by Besant and Leadbeater. They said that Maitreya had previously incarnated onto the Earth as Krishna, a figure from Hinduism. They also said that he had entered Jesus of Nazareth at the time of the latter's baptism, and that henceforth Maitreya would be known as "the Christ". Besant and Leadbeater said that Maitreya would again come to Earth by manifesting through an Indian boy named Jiddu Krishnamurti, whom Leadbeater had encountered playing on a beach at Adyar in 1909. The introduction of the Krishnamurti belief into Theosophy has been identified as a millenarian element.


title: Theosophy

text: According to Theosophy, the purpose of human life is the spiritual emancipation of the soul. The human individual is described as an "Ego" or "Monad" and believed to have emanated from the Solar Deity, to whom it will also eventually return. The human being is presented as composed of seven parts, while operating on three separate planes of being. As presented by Sinnett and often repeated in Theosophical literature, these seven parts are the Body ("Rupa"), Vitality ("Prana-Jiva"), the Astral Body ("Linga Sarira"), the Animal Soul ("Kama-Rupa"), the Human Soul ("Manas"), the Spiritual Soul ("Buddhi"), and the Spirit ("Atma"). According to Theosophical teaching, it is the latter three of these components that are immortal, while the other aspects perish following bodily death. Theosophy teaches that the Spiritual Soul and the Spirit do not reside within the human body alongside the other components, but that they are connected to it through the human soul.


title: Theosophy

text: In "The Voice of the Silence", Blavatsky said that within each individual human there is an eternal, divine facet, which she referred to as "the Master", the "uncreate", the "inner God", and the "higher self". She promoted the idea that uniting with this "higher self" results in wisdom. In that same book, she compared the progress of the human soul to a transition through three halls; the first was that of ignorance, which is the state of the soul before it understands the need to unite with its higher self. The second is the Hall of Learning, in which the individual becomes aware of other facets of human life but is distracted by an interest in psychic powers. The third is the Hall of Wisdom, in which union with the higher self is made; this is then followed by the Vale of Bliss. At this point the human soul can merge into the One.


title: Theosophy

text: Throughout her writings, Blavatsky made a variety of statements about rebirth and the afterlife, and there is a discrepancy between her earlier and later teachings on the subject. Between the 1870s and circa 1882, Blavatsky taught a doctrine called "metempsychosis".


title: Theosophy

text: In "Isis Unveiled", Blavatsky stated that on bodily death, the human soul progresses through more spiritual planes. Two years later, she introduced the idea of reincarnation into Theosophical doctrine, using it to replace her metempsychosis doctrine. In "The Secret Doctrine", she stated that the spirit was immortal and would repeatedly incarnate into a new, mortal soul and body on Earth.


title: Theosophy

text: According to Theosophical teaching, human spirits will always be reborn into human bodies, and not into those of any other life forms. Blavatsky stated that spirits would not be reborn until some time after bodily death, and never during the lifetime of the deceased's relatives.


title: Theosophy

text: Blavatsky taught that on the death of the body, the astral body survives for a time in a state called kama-loka, which she compared to limbo, before also dying. According to this belief, the human then moves into its mental body in a realm called devachan, which she compared to Heaven or paradise. Blavatsky taught that the soul remained in devachan for 1000 to 1500 years, although the Theosophist Charles Webster Leadbeater said that it was only 200.


title: Theosophy

text: Theosophy espouses the existence of karma as a system which regulates the cycle of reincarnation, ensuring that an individual's actions in one life affect the circumstances of their next one. This belief therefore seeks to explain why misery and suffering exist in the world, attributing any misfortune that someone suffers as punishment for misdeeds that they perpetrated in a prior life. In Blavatsky's words, karma and reincarnation were "inextricably interwoven". However, she did not believe that karma had always been the system that governed reincarnation; she believed that it came into being when humans developed egos, and that one day will also no longer be required.


title: Theosophy

text: Besant and Leadbeater said they were able to investigate people's past lives through reading the akashic record, an etheric store of all the knowledge of the universe. They, for instance, stated to have attained knowledge of their own past lives as monkey-like creatures residing on the moon, where they served as pets to the "Moon-man" (a prior incarnation of the Master Morya), his wife (Koot Humi), and their child (the Lord Maitreya). When they were attacked by "savages" and animals "resembling furry lizards and crocodiles", Besant sacrificed herself to save Morya, and for that act made the karmic evolutionary leap to becoming a human in her next incarnation.


title: Theosophy

text: Theosophy does not express any formal ethical teaching, a situation that generated ambiguity. However, it has expressed and promoted certain values, such as brotherhood and social improvement.


title: Theosophy

text: During its early years, the Theosophical Society promoted a puritanical attitude toward sexuality, for instance by encouraging chastity even within marriage.


title: Theosophy

text: By 1911, the Theosophical Society was involved in projects connected to a range of progressive political causes. In England, there were strong links between Theosophy and first-wave feminism. Based on a statistical analysis, Dixon noted that prominent English feminists of the period were several hundred times more likely to join the Theosophical Society than was the average member of the country's population. Theosophical contingents took part in feminist marches of the period; for instance, a Theosophical group operating under the banner of Universal Co-Freemasonry marched as part of the Women's Coronation Procession in 1911.


title: Theosophy

text: The Theosophical Society did not prescribe any specific rituals for adherents to practice. However, ritualized practices have been established by various Theosophical groups; one such group is the Liberal Catholic Church. Another is the meetings of the United Lodge of Theosophy, which has been characterized as having a "quasi-sacred and quasi-liturgical" character.


title: Theosophy

text: The Theosophical Society was largely the creation of two individuals: Helena Blavatsky and Henry Steel Olcott.


title: Theosophy

text: Established Christianity in the United States was experiencing challenges in the second half of the nineteenth century, a result of rapid urbanization and industrialization, high rates of immigration, and the growing understanding of evolutionary theory which challenged traditional Christian accounts of history. Various new religious communities were established in different parts of the country, among them the Free Religious Association, New Thought, Christian Science, and Spiritualism. Theosophy would inherit the idea – then popular in the United States – that emphasized the idea of free will and the inevitability of progress, including on a spiritual level. It was also influenced by a growing knowledge about Asian religions in the United States.


title: Theosophy

text: Prior to her arrival in the United States, Blavatsky had experience with esoteric currents like Spiritualism.


title: Theosophy

text: In the United States, Judge had been devoting himself to the promotion of Theosophy with little success.


title: Theosophy

text: During her lifetime, Blavatsky had suggested to many different persons that they would be her successor. Three of the most prominent candidates – Olcott, Judge, and Besant – all met in London shortly after her death to discuss the situation. Judge said that he too was in contact with the Masters, and that they had provided him with a message instructing him to co-delegate the Society's Esoteric Section with Besant. Olcott, however, suspected that the notes from the Masters which Judge was producing were forged, exacerbating tensions between them. Besant attempted to act as a bridge between the two men, while Judge informed her that the Masters had revealed to him a plot that Olcott was orchestrating to kill her. In 1893, Besant came down on Olcott's side in the argument and backed the internal proceedings that Olcott raised against Judge. A two-stage enquiry took place, which concluded that because the Society took no official stance on whether the Masters existed or not, Judge could not be considered guilty of forgery and would be allowed to retain his position. The details of this trial were leaked to the journalist F. Edmund Garrett, who used them as the basis of his critical book, "Isis Very Much Unveiled". Judge then announced that the Masters had informed him that he should take sole control of the Esoteric Section, deposing Besant; she rejected his beliefs. Amid calls from Olcott that Judge should stand down, in April 1895 the American section voted to secede from the main Society. Judge remained its leader, but died within a year.


title: Theosophy

text: Olcott then sent Besant to the United States to gain support for the Adyar-based<ref name="Adyar-based">


title: Rishab Shetty

text: Prashant Shetty, known professionally as Rishab Shetty, is an Indian actor and film maker who primarily works in Kannada cinema. He is known for his critical and commercial blockbuster," Kantara", for which he directed and acted as the main lead. He is the recipient of several accolades, including the National Film Award for Best Children's Film at the 66th National Film Awards for "".


title: Rishab Shetty

text: Rishab Shetty was born in Keradi village of Kundapura taluk, in Udupi district, Karnataka. He did his schooling from Kundapura and later joined Vijaya College to pursue B.Com. He started his theater journey by doing yakshagana plays in Kundapura. He actively participated in plays while studying in Bengaluru. He was appreciated for his work and success in these plays encouraged him to pursue acting as a professional career.


title: Rishab Shetty

text: After his college, Rishab Shetty worked in several odd jobs like selling water cans, real estate and did hotel work while also parallelly trying his chances in movies. While working he also acquired a diploma in film direction from the Government Film and TV Institute in Bangalore. He started working in film industry as a clap boy, spot boy, assistant director etc. He met Rakshit Shetty while working in the industry, they became friends later on.


title: Rishab Shetty

text: His first major role was in the movie "Tuglak". He played a small role of a police officer in Pawan Kumar's "Lucia" and then played a key role in the film "Ulidavaru Kandante", which was directed by Rakshit Shetty. Then in 2016, his debut directorial movie Ricky starring Rakshit Shetty released which received an average response at the box office. In the same year, he directed Kirik Party, which became an industry hit. After Kirik Party Shetty went on to direct , the movie received a good response from the audience as well as critics and went on to win the National Film Award for Best Children's Film at the 66th National Film Awards.


title: Rishab Shetty

text: He debuted as a male lead in Bell Bottom (2019 film) which was a well received Kannada movie of 2019. Rishab Shetty's major role after Bell Bottom was of Mangaluru-based Gangster 'Hari' in the film Garuda Gamana Vrishabha Vahana released in the year 2021, the film was a commercial and critical success in which the performance of Rishab Shetty and Raj B. Shetty was widely appreciated by critics and audience.


title: Rishab Shetty

text: In 2022 Rishab Shetty in collaboration with Hombale Films released the movie Kantara (film) which he directed and starred in. Kantara (film) was a super hit of 2022, becoming the second highest-grossing Kannada movie of all time. Initially released only in the Kannada language and after receiving rave reviews and a massive box office collection, the movie was released in four other Indian languages. The movie received nationwide appreciation with several actors and movie critics praising the movie and Shetty's performance as a protagonist.


title: Cinderella (1950 film)

text: Cinderella is a 1950 American animated musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney. Based on the fairy tale of the same name by Charles Perrault, it is the 12th Disney animated feature film. The film was directed by Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske, and Clyde Geronimi. Mack David, Jerry Livingston, and Al Hoffman wrote the songs, which include "Cinderella", "A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes", "Oh, Sing Sweet Nightingale", "The Work Song", "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo", and "So This is Love". It features the voices of Ilene Woods, Eleanor Audley, Verna Felton, Rhoda Williams, James MacDonald, Luis van Rooten, Don Barclay, Mike Douglas, William Phipps, and Lucille Bliss.


title: Cinderella (1950 film)

text: During the early 1940s, Walt Disney Productions had suffered financially after losing connections to the European film markets due to the outbreak of World War II. Because of this, the studio endured box office bombs such as "Pinocchio" (1940), "Fantasia" (1940), and "Bambi" (1942), all of which would later become more successful with several re-releases in theaters and on home video. By 1947, the studio was over $4 million in debt and was on the verge of bankruptcy. Walt Disney and his animators returned to feature film production in 1948 after producing a string of package films with the idea of adapting Charles Perrault's "Cendrillon" into an animated film.


title: Cinderella (1950 film)

text: After two years in production, "Cinderella" was released by RKO Radio Pictures on February 15, 1950. It became the greatest critical and commercial hit for the Disney studio since the first full-length animated film "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (1937) and helped reverse the studio's fortunes. It received three Academy Award nominations, including Best Music, Original Song for "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo".


title: Cinderella (1950 film)

text: Decades later, it was followed by two direct-to-video sequels, "" (2002) and "" (2007), and a 2015 live-action adaptation directed by Kenneth Branagh. The castle featured in the film has become an icon of The Walt Disney Company, serving as a basis for the production logo of Walt Disney Pictures. A real life construction of the castle was built at the Magic Kingdom park at Walt Disney World, as well at Tokyo Disneyland.


title: Cinderella (1950 film)

text: In 2018, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".


title: Cinderella (1950 film)

text: When Cinderella is a young girl, her widowed father marries Lady Tremaine, a widow with two daughters of her own. He dies shortly thereafter. Lady Tremaine, jealous of her stepdaughter's beauty and determined to forward her own daughters' interests, orders Cinderella to become a scullion in her own château, overburdening her with chores. Cinderella's stepsisters, Anastasia and Drizella, also take advantage of her meekness, mocking her and adding to her workload. Despite this, Cinderella remains kind of heart, obediently doing her chores whilst taking care of the mice and birds that live in the château, making friends of them, mainly of two mice named Jaq and Gus. She also protects them from being eaten by her stepmother's cat Lucifer, who makes her duties even harder in retaliation.


title: Cinderella (1950 film)

text: One day, the local King becomes impatient for his son to provide him with grandchildren. Despite the objections of the Grand Duke, the King invites all the eligible maidens in the kingdom to a royal ball, so that the Prince will choose one as his wife. Wanting to attend, Cinderella finds a dress of her late birth mother's to fix up. Her stepmother and stepsisters, afraid she will upstage them at the ball, deliberately keep her busy with no time to spare. Jaq, Gus, and the other animals decide to fix up the dress for Cinderella, using beads and a sash discarded by the stepsisters. However, when Cinderella attempts to go to the ball with her family, her stepsisters recognize their belongings and angrily tear the dress into rags, before leaving Cinderella behind.


title: Cinderella (1950 film)

text: A distraught Cinderella runs out to the garden in tears, kneeling on a stone bench. There, she is met by her Fairy Godmother, who has come to help. She transforms Jaq, Gus, and two other mice into four white horses, a pumpkin into a coach, and Cinderella's old horse Major and bloodhound Bruno into a coachman and footman, respectively. The fairy godmother also gives Cinderella a shimmering ball gown and glass slippers, but warns her that the magic will all end on the stroke of midnight.


title: Cinderella (1950 film)

text: Cinderella arrives at the ball, and is not recognized by her stepsisters, though her stepmother believes something is familiar about her. The Prince is instantly smitten, so the King orders the Grand Duke to make sure the romance goes without a hitch. The Duke prevents anyone from interfering as Cinderella and the Prince dance a waltz and wander out to the palace grounds, falling deeper in love. However, when Cinderella hears the clock tolling midnight, she runs away before she and the Prince can exchange names. Despite the efforts of the Grand Duke, Cinderella flees the palace, losing one of her slippers on the staircase. The palace guards pursue, but when the magic ends on the stroke of 12, Cinderella and the animals revert to their former appearances and hide in the woods. Cinderella discovers the other glass slipper is still on her foot, and takes it home with her.


title: Cinderella (1950 film)

text: The Prince promises he will marry none but the girl who fits the glass slipper. Elated, the King orders the Grand Duke to try the shoe on every girl in the kingdom until he finds a match. When the news reaches the chateau, Cinderella is shocked to realize it was the Prince she met. Hearing Cinderella humming the waltz from the ball, Lady Tremaine realizes the truth and locks Cinderella in her attic bedroom. While the stepsisters unsuccessfully try on the slipper, Jaq and Gus steal the key back from Lady Tremaine. As they take the key to Cinderella, Lucifer attempts to stop them by trapping Gus and battling the other mice. The birds summon Bruno, who scares Lucifer out of the house, and a freed Cinderella hurries to meet the Grand Duke.


title: Cinderella (1950 film)

text: In a last effort to prevent Cinderella from overshadowing her daughters, Lady Tremaine causes a page to trip and break the glass slipper. Cinderella reveals she has the other slipper, which the Grand Duke places on her foot, much to Lady Tremaine's shock. Cinderella and the Prince are married, and share a kiss as they set off in a carriage for their honeymoon.


title: Cinderella (1950 film)

text: In 1922, Walt Disney produced a Laugh-O-Gram cartoon based on "Cinderella", and he had been interested in producing a second version in December 1933 as a Silly Symphony short. Burt Gillett was attached as the director while Frank Churchill was assigned as the composer. A story outline included "white mice and birds" as Cinderella's playmates. To expand the story, storyboard artists suggested visual gags, some of which ended up in the final film. However, by early 1938, the story proved to be too complicated to be condensed into a short so it was suggested as a potential animated feature film, starting with a fourteen-page outline written by Al Perkins. Two years later, a second treatment was written by Dana Cofy and Bianca Majolie, in which Cinderella's stepmother was named Florimel de la Pochel; her stepsisters as Wanda and Javotte; her pet mouse Dusty and pet turtle Clarissa; the stepsisters' cat Bon Bob; the Prince's aide Spink, and the stepsisters' dancing instructor Monsieur Carnewal. This version stuck closely to the original fairy tale until Cinderella arrives home late from the second ball. Her stepfamily then imprisons Cinderella in a dungeon cellar. When Spink and his troops arrive at the la Pochel residence, Dusty takes the slipper and leads them to free Cinderella.


title: Cinderella (1950 film)

text: By September 1943, Disney had assigned Dick Huemer and Joe Grant to begin work on "Cinderella" as story supervisors and given a preliminary budget of $1 million. However, by 1945, their preliminary story work was halted. During the writing stages of "Song of the South" (1946), Dalton S. Reymond and Maurice Rapf quarreled, and Rapf was reassigned to work on "Cinderella". In his version, Cinderella was written to be a less passive character than Snow White, and more rebellious against her stepfamily. Rapf explained, "My thinking was you can't have somebody who comes in and changes everything for you. You can't be delivered on a platter. You've got to earn it. So in my version, the Fairy Godmother said, 'It's okay till midnight but from then on it's up to you.' I made her earn it, and what she had to do to achieve it was to rebel against her stepmother and stepsisters, to stop being a slave in her own home. So I had a scene where they're ordering her around and she throws the stuff back at them. She revolts, so they lock her up in the attic. I don't think anyone took (my idea) very seriously."


title: Cinderella (1950 film)

text: In spring 1946, Disney held three story meetings, and subsequently received treatment from Ted Sears, Homer Brightman, and Harry Reeves dated March 24, 1947. In the treatment, the Prince was introduced earlier in the story reminiscent of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" (1937), and there was a hint of the cat-and-mouse conflict. By May 1947, the first rough phase of storyboarding was in the process, and an inventory report that same month suggested a different approach with the story "largely through the animals in the barnyard and their observations of Cinderella's day-to-day activities".


title: Cinderella (1950 film)

text: Following the theatrical release of "Fun and Fancy Free" (1947), Walt Disney Productions' bank debt declined from $4.2 million to $3 million. Around this time, Disney acknowledged the need for sound economic policies but emphasized to the loaners that slashing production would be suicidal. To restore the studio to full financial health, he expressed his desire to return to producing full-length animated films. By then, three animated projects—"Cinderella", "Alice in Wonderland" (1951), and "Peter Pan" (1953)—were in development. Disney felt the characters in "Alice in Wonderland" and "Peter Pan" were too cold, while "Cinderella" contained elements similar to "Snow White", and greenlit the project. Selecting his top-tier animation talent, Ben Sharpsteen was assigned as supervising producer while Hamilton Luske, Wilfred Jackson, and Clyde Geronimi became the sequence directors. Nevertheless, production on "Alice" resumed so that both animation crews would effectively compete against each other to see which film would finish first.


title: Cinderella (1950 film)

text: By early 1948, "Cinderella" had progressed further than "Alice in Wonderland", and was fast-tracked to become the first full-length animated film since "Bambi" (1942). During a story meeting on January 15, 1948, the cat-and-mouse sequences began to grow into an important element in the film so much that Disney placed veteran story artist Bill Peet in charge of the cat-and-mouse segments.


title: Cinderella (1950 film)

text: By the late 1940s, Disney's involvement during production had shrunken noticeably. As he was occupied with trains and the filming of "Treasure Island" (1950), the directors were left to exercise their own judgment more on details. Although Disney no longer held daily story meetings, the three directors still communicated with him by mailing him memoranda, scripts, Photostats of storyboards, and acetates of soundtrack recordings while he was in England for two and a half months during the summer of 1949. When Disney did not respond, work resumed and then had to be undone when he did. In one instance, when Disney returned to the studio on August 29, he reviewed Luske's animation sequences and ordered numerous minor changes, as well as a significant reworking of the film's climax. Production was finished by October 13, 1949.


title: Cinderella (1950 film)

text: Mack David and Jerry Livingston had asked Ilene Woods to sing on several demo recordings of the songs. They had previously known her from her eponymous radio show, which was broadcast on ABC. The show featured fifteen minutes of music, in which David and Livingston had their music presented. Two days later, Woods received a telephone call from Disney, with whom she immediately scheduled an interview. Woods recalled in an interview with the "Los Angeles Times", "We met and talked for a while, and he said, 'How would you like to be Cinderella?'," to which she agreed.


title: Cinderella (1950 film)

text: For the role of Lucifer, a studio representative asked June Foray if she could provide the voice of a cat. "Well, I could do anything," recalled Foray, "So he hired me as Lucifer the cat in "Cinderella"".