title: Donkey Kong

text: "Donkey Kong Jr. Math" is an edutainment game for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), wherein players must solve math problems in order to win. It is the only game in the "Education Series" of NES games in North America. One player enters arithmetic answers for points, or two players race to create a math formula to reach the number shown by Donkey Kong, incorporating platform gameplay.


title: Donkey Kong

text: "Donkey Kong Circus" is a "Game & Watch Panorama" series game released in 1984. In this game, the player controls Donkey Kong, who is placed on a barrel while juggling pineapples and avoiding flames. This game is very similar to "Mario the Juggler", the last Game & Watch game, as they both involve a character juggling while avoiding objects.


title: Donkey Kong

text: "Donkey Kong Hockey" was developed by Nintendo R&D1 and released in 1984 as part of the "Game & Watch Micro Vs." series. The game features one LCD screen and two attached control pads. The hockey features Donkey Kong as one of the players and Mario as the other.


title: Donkey Kong

text: "Return of Donkey Kong" was a proposed Nintendo Entertainment System game announced in 1987 and to be developed by Nintendo. The player would have controlled Donkey Kong himself. No such game was ultimately released for NES.


title: Donkey Kong

text: A prototype game, "Super Donkey", was discovered in 2020 to have been in development for the SNES in the early 1990s. It was a platform game featuring similar graphics to the Nintendo game "Yoshi's Island". It features a protagonist wearing a pilot suit, and sprites of Donkey Kong alongside a barrel. The name suggests it may have been considered as a new "Donkey Kong" game before being repurposed for Yoshi.


title: Donkey Kong

text: In June 1994, after ten years with no new games in the series, "Donkey Kong", a remake of the original arcade title was released for the Game Boy, adding 96 new levels. New gameplay mechanics were added, including some from "Super Mario Bros. 2" and "Donkey Kong Junior". Another decade later in 2004, Nintendo would revive this style of gameplay with the "Mario vs. Donkey Kong" series.


title: Donkey Kong

text: "Donkey Kong Country" was the first fully new entry in the series for 10 years. Released in November 1994 for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), and developed by British game developer Rare, the game took the "Donkey Kong" series in a new direction, becoming a showcase title to show off then-revolutionary computer-generated imagery (CGI) graphics. It was released mere months after the original game's Game Boy remake, which introduced the red tie worn by Donkey Kong. In "Donkey Kong Country", the original Donkey Kong's grandson, also called Donkey Kong, is the hero and he and his sidekick Diddy Kong have to save his hoard of bananas from the thieving King K. Rool and his Kremling Krew. It is an action side-scrolling game similar to the "Mario" series and was enormously popular for its graphics, music, and gameplay. The sequel, "" involves Diddy and his girlfriend Dixie Kong embarking on a journey to Crocodile Isle to rescue DK from the clutches of K. Rool. In "" both DK and Diddy are captured again by a mysterious robot named KAOS—who is, in actuality, being operated by K. Rool—and Dixie and her cousin Kiddy Kong have to venture to the Northern Kremisphere to save them in the final game of the series for the SNES.


title: Donkey Kong

text: The "Donkey Kong Country" SNES trilogy games are primarily platforming games in which players complete side-scrolling levels to progress forward. Each game contains approximately 6 to 8 different 'worlds', each of which contains 5 or 6 levels and a boss character battle which advances the player to the succeeding world. Each world is uniquely themed and levels consist of tasks such as swimming, riding in mine carts, launching out of barrel cannons, or swinging from vine to vine. Each game also includes two main playable Kong characters; if both Kongs are together, one follows the other (which the player controls), and the player can switch between them as needed. If the lead Kong then gets hit by an enemy, they run off the screen and the player will take control of the other Kong until they can later free the first one from a barrel. If the Kong is hit by an enemy when traveling alone, the player loses a life. To defeat an enemy, players can either execute a roll, jump or ground slam, which can also unveil secret items. However, some enemies cannot be taken down like this, so the player must either throw a barrel or use the assistance of a friendly animal. The player can gain additional lives by collecting items scattered throughout the levels, including 100 bananas; all four golden letters that spell out K–O–N–G; extra life balloons; and golden animal tokens that lead to bonus levels. There are also many secret passages that can lead to bonus games where the player can earn additional lives or other items.


title: Donkey Kong

text: In several levels, players can gain assistance from various animals, who are found by breaking open crates. These "Animal Buddies" include Rambi the rhino, Expresso the ostrich, Enguarde the swordfish, Winky the frog, and Squawks the parrot, among others. These animals have certain unique abilities that the player can use such as Rambi's ability to charge at enemies. Animal friends can sometimes give players access to otherwise inaccessible bonus games, examples being Rambi and Enguarde busting through walls.


title: Donkey Kong

text: The "Donkey Kong Land" games are handheld counterparts of the "Country" games adapted to the hardware of the Game Boy. "Donkey Kong Land" was released in 1995, "Donkey Kong Land 2" in 1996 and "Donkey Kong Land III" in 1997. They were presented in distinctive yellow cartridges instead of the typical grey ones.


title: Donkey Kong

text: "Diddy Kong Racing" is a 1997 racing game for the Nintendo 64 developed by Rare. It is the first game to spin off from the "Donkey Kong Country" series. It currently stands as the Nintendo 64's sixth-best selling game. A racing game like "Mario Kart 64", "Diddy Kong Racing" also has a distinctive adventure mode and allows players to choose between three different vehicle types; cars, planes, and hovercraft. This game debuts Banjo the Bear and Conker the Squirrel, who appeared later in their own game franchises.


title: Donkey Kong

text: A Nintendo 64 sequel to Rare's "Donkey Kong Country" games was released in November 1999 as "Donkey Kong 64", a 3D platform game in the style of "Super Mario 64" and "Banjo-Kazooie", where Donkey Kong and his DK crew must save the Donkey Kong Island from being destroyed by King K. Rool. The playable characters are Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, and the newly introduced Lanky Kong, Tiny Kong, and Chunky Kong. Players must navigate 3D environments while collecting Golden Bananas and other items as they advance through the game. It also features multiplayer arena-battle modes for up to four players.


title: Donkey Kong

text: DK64 is only playable with the included Expansion Pak, and like the "Donkey Kong Land" series, features a unique banana-yellow cartridge.


title: Donkey Kong

text: Following the sale of Nintendo's 49% stake in Rare to Microsoft on September 24, 2002, which caused Rare to lose the rights to the "Donkey Kong" characters, Rare announced concentration on Xbox games, resulting in the cancelation of certain projects. "Diddy Kong Pilot" was a planned sequel to "Diddy Kong Racing", but with flying as the only means of transportation, a demo of which was shown as at Space World 2001. The first iteration was shown at E3 2001, but was not published by the time Rare was bought by Microsoft in 2002. After Rare was sold to Microsoft, the second iteration of "Diddy Kong Pilot" in 2003 was reworked into the game "Banjo-Pilot" in 2005. However, in November 2011, a collector who had purchased a prototype cartridge leaked its ROM onto the internet.


title: Donkey Kong

text: One was a GameCube racing game, "Donkey Kong Racing". It showed various characters, including Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, and Taj the Genie of "Diddy Kong Racing" racing each other while riding Rambi, Enguarde, Expresso, Ellie, Zinger, Necky, Army, and Chomps Jr., animals introduced in Rare's previous "Donkey Kong" games. Rare later reworked the game into "Sabreman Stampede", which incorporates many of the same ideas without the racing aspect, but this was also later cancelled.


title: Donkey Kong

text: "Donkey Kong Coconut Crackers" was a puzzle game prototype developed by Rare for the Game Boy Advance. Similar to "Donkey Kong Racing" and "Diddy Kong Pilot", the former was canceled along with this game in August 2002, one month before Microsoft's acquisition of Rare, while the latter received no official announcement of the cancelation. The game was eventually reworked into "It's Mr. Pants", and was released on December 7, 2004.


title: Donkey Kong

text: Rare continued to support Nintendo's portable consoles, the Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS. Rare developed new versions of the original "Country" games for the Game Boy Advance that were released between 2003 and 2005. "Diddy Kong Racing DS" was an enhanced remake for the Nintendo DS released in 2007, with Banjo and Conker being replaced by Dixie and Tiny Kong.


title: Donkey Kong

text: The "Donkey Konga" trilogy marked Donkey Kong's first appearance on the GameCube. Developed by Namco and released in 2003, this musical rhythm game relies upon use of the DK Bongos accessory to hit a beat in time with the tune. The tunes included pop songs and themes from some previous Nintendo games, including the "Super Smash Bros. Melee" version of the DK Rap. A sequel, "Donkey Konga 2", was released in 2004, and Japan got exclusively a third installment, "" released in 2005.


title: Donkey Kong

text: "Diddy Kong Racing Adventure" was a rejected pitch made by the Climax Group for a "Diddy Kong Racing" sequel on the GameCube around 2004. The project was never announced to the public and only became known after an amateur video game archivist acquired the prototype and published a video about it in November 2016.


title: Donkey Kong

text: "Donkey Kong Jungle Beat" was released in Japan in December 2004 and elsewhere in early 2005, it was a platform game that used the DK Bongos as a controller; tapping one drum repeatedly made Donkey Kong run, tapping both at the same time made him jump, tapping both alternately made him attack, and clapping or blowing in to the microphone caused an explosion, shown by a ripple in the screen, attracting assorted jewels or clearing obstacles to progress. A New Play Control! remake of "Donkey Kong Jungle Beat" was released for Wii in Japan on December 11, 2008, and in North America and Europe the following year. The bongo controls were replaced with a more traditional control scheme; players use the Wii Remote and Nunchuk to control Donkey Kong instead of tapping on the DK Bongos.


title: Donkey Kong

text: Two arcade games were released exclusively in Japan based on "Donkey Kong Jungle Beat". The first was "Donkey Kong Jungle Fever", a medal game released in 2005, and the second was a sequel, "Donkey Kong Banana Kingdom" (released on November 16, 2006). Both games were developed and published by Capcom on the Triforce arcade system board. Neither title has been released outside Japan.


title: Donkey Kong

text: Released in 2005 for the Game Boy Advance, "DK: King of Swing" is a puzzle-platform game developed by Paon that features gameplay similar to "Clu Clu Land". Here, the player must navigate levels using only the GBA's left and right shoulder buttons. A sequel released in 2007, "DK: Jungle Climber" was Donkey Kong's only starring role on the Nintendo DS. It features pseudo-3D visuals that more closely resemble the "Donkey Kong Country" games, dual screen gameplay, and a team-up mechanic with Diddy Kong.


title: Donkey Kong

text: Developed by Paon and released in 2007, "Donkey Kong Barrel Blast" was Donkey Kong's first title role on the Wii, but it was originally developed for the GameCube. It was to make use of the DK Bongos peripheral introduced alongside "Donkey Konga". Due to the declining sales of the GameCube, development shifted to Wii and its motion controls.


title: Donkey Kong

text: In "Donkey Kong Country Returns", a 2010 Wii game that succeeded the original "Country" trilogy, new gameplay elements were added such as levels in which the characters and foreground environments appear as silhouettes, spawning several new gameplay mechanics. Collecting K-O-N-G letters will not award any lives to the player, but instead unlock all bonuses and hidden levels. Additionally, collecting puzzle pieces unlocks artwork. In the original trilogy, the player can switch between characters if they are both on the screen. This is changed in the Retro Studios games, where the player has to choose character(s) before each level. Each character has their own specific characteristics: Donkey is the larger and stronger of the two, and can defeat enemies more easily, while Diddy is faster and more agile, but not as powerful, and can use his barrel jetpack to glide the air over short distances and his peanut gun to stun enemies. A port of the game was released for Nintendo 3DS.


title: Donkey Kong

text: Released in 2014, "Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze" for Wii U marked the debut of Dixie and Cranky as playable characters in the Retro Studios era. Dixie, returning from "Donkey Kong Country 3", can spin her ponytail into a propeller and slowly descend through the air, with an initial boost in height at the start, allowing her and Donkey Kong to fly up out-of-reach platforms or items, and can also use her candy gun to stun enemies. Cranky, in a similar mechanic to the "DuckTales" video game, can use his cane to bounce on dangerous surfaces such as spiky thorns and reach higher areas and defeat certain enemies the other Kongs cannot. In "Tropical Freeze", the Kongs are able to pluck items from the ground and pick up and throw stunned enemies. Additionally, filling up a 'Kong-POW' meter allows Donkey Kong and his partner to perform a special move which defeats all on-screen enemies and converts them into items depending on the partner. The game was ported to the Nintendo Switch in 2018 with Funky Kong being featured as a playable character, functioning similarly to Donkey Kong but with additional hit points, an extra jump, and the ability to stand on spikes.


title: Donkey Kong

text: Barrels appear prominently in the franchise, first appearing as obstacles that Mario must avoid. The "Donkey Kong Country" series would expand their role to weapons, powerups, vehicles, warps, and enemies. Examples include DK Barrels, which release a partner Kong from confinement when thrown, Blast Barrels, which act as cannons that launch the Kongs, and Invincibility Barrels, which provide temporary invulnerability.


title: Donkey Kong

text: The arcade trilogy, SNES trilogy, and Game Boy trilogy all feature a different main playable character in each game: Mario, Donkey Kong Jr., and Stanley in the former and Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, and Dixie Kong in the latter two. The "Country" and "Land" games allow the player to swap to a second character when they are in their party. "Donkey Kong 64" eventually allows the player to swap between five different Kongs. The Retro games also implement character swapping.


title: Donkey Kong

text: The Kongs and various other animals in the franchise have displayed varying degrees of anthropomorphism. While Donkey Kong originally appears as a simple ape, later characterization of the Kongs includes full speech, clothing and mechanical and alchemical knowledge. The Kremlings are depicted similarly, being shown as having invented advanced machines in some games. In "Donkey Kong 64", the Kremlings operate an mechanical island build by Snide the Weasel.


title: Donkey Kong

text: Other animals are usually less anthropomorphized, with animal buddies being depicted as akin to pets and enemies as simple obstacles.


title: Donkey Kong

text: Climbing and swinging on vines and ropes has featured consistently in the series. Climbing appears first in "Junior". "Donkey Kong" for Game Boy introduces horizontal rope climbing. "Country" introduces swinging on vines.


title: Donkey Kong

text: The platforming trope of rideable mine carts, and analogous vehicles such as rollercoaster cars and toboggans, appear in all of the "Country" games. A rolling vehicle appears in the "Donkey Kong" attraction in "Nintendo Land".


title: Donkey Kong

text: Characters in the franchise at certain points demonstrate full awareness of being in a video game. The premise of "Donkey Kong Land" is the protagonists intentionally reenacting the events of "Donkey Kong Country" on the Game Boy to prove that the gameplay would be as good as on the SNES. In other games, Cranky Kong makes references to the simpler graphics of the arcade games and some of the game manuals are written from his point of view.


title: Donkey Kong

text: Mario, Yoshi, and Link appear in "Diddy's Kong Quest", being acknowledged as video game heroes, while Sonic and Earthworm Jim are alluded to as "no hopers" in reference to their rivalry as other companies' platforming mascots.


title: Donkey Kong

text: Characters in the Kongs' world have been shown playing real video games. In "Dixie Kong's Double Trouble", Wrinkly Kong plays "Super Mario 64". "Killer Instinct" arcade cabinets appear in "Donkey Kong Country" and "Diddy's Kong Quest". A playable "Donkey Kong" arcade cabinet and "Jetpac" game appear within "Donkey Kong 64". Banjo and Conker play on Game Boy units in "Banjo-Kazooie" and "Conker's Bad Fur Day" respectively, the former playing one of the "Donkey Kong Land" games and the latter "Killer Instinct".


title: Donkey Kong

text: The original game is set on a construction site that is alluded to many times in later titles. The Game Boy remake and "Donkey Kong Land" feature a world called "Big City," which in the latter is called both Big City and "Big Ape City." This city was acknowledged by Nintendo as the setting of the arcade game. In the "Super Mario" series, "New Donk City" in "Super Mario Odyssey," of which Pauline is mayor, features numerous references to the original "Donkey Kong" game. In "Mario Kart Tour", New York City, also the setting of "Mario Bros.", uses the same aesthetics as New Donk City, with Pauline and the original Donkey Kong featuring prominently.


title: Donkey Kong

text: A jungle setting is used first in "Donkey Kong Junior" and more expansively in "Donkey Kong Country", which depicts the Kongs' native habitat, Donkey Kong Island. This island is the primary setting of "Land", "64", "Returns", and "Tropical Freeze".


title: Donkey Kong

text: "Gangplank Galleon" is a pirate ship commanded by K. Rool and featured in "Country", "Land", "Country 2", "Land 2", and "64". Many levels are set on the deck, inside the hull, on top of the rigging, and around the ship.


title: Donkey Kong

text: Crocodile Isle is home of the Kremlings and appears in "Country 2" and "Land 2". It features swamps, castles, volcanoes, caves, an amusement park and an enormous hornet's nest. After it is destroyed, the Kremlings build a mechanical version of Crocodile Isle and attempt to use it to destroy Donkey Kong Island.


title: Donkey Kong

text: The Northern Kremisphere is a region with a Second Industrial Revolution theme that serves as the setting for "Country 3" and "Land 3".


title: Donkey Kong

text: After appearing in the original "Donkey Kong" and "Donkey Kong Jr.", the Mario character would star in his own franchise, beginning with the "Mario Bros." arcade game, and followed by "Super Mario Bros." With the success of the succeeding "Super Mario" series, Mario would go on to be become Nintendo's mascot. In addition to the "Super Mario" series, the "Mario" franchise would spawn other spin-offs, including "Mario Kart" and "Mario Party". Donkey Kong would appear as a playable character in the vast majority of the spin-offs.


title: Donkey Kong

text: The roots of the "Mario" franchise in "Donkey Kong" would be further acknowledged in "Super Mario Odyssey", with many elements of the "DK" franchise featured in the New Donk City level. DK and Diddy Kong have their own Amiibo figures as part of the "Super Mario" line.


title: Donkey Kong

text: Following his appearance in "Diddy Kong Racing", Banjo went on to star in "Banjo-Kazooie", leading to the "Banjo-Kazooie" series. Although originally owned by Nintendo, Microsoft is the current owner of the "Banjo-Kazooie" series due to their acquisition of Rare in 2002.


title: Donkey Kong

text: Following his appearance in "Diddy Kong Racing", Conker the Squirrel went on to star in "Conker's Pocket Tales", leading to the "Conker" series. Unlike Banjo, Conker was never under the ownership of Nintendo; "Conker's Pocket Tales" and "Conker's Bad Fur Day" were self-published by Rare.


title: Donkey Kong

text: The "Donkey Kong" series has been represented in every game of the "Mario Kart" series. Donkey Kong appears racing alongside characters from "Mario" and other franchises. The first character from the "Donkey Kong" series to appear as a playable character in the "Mario Kart" series is Jr. in "Super Mario Kart". The adult Donkey Kong first appears in "Mario Kart 64", Diddy appears in "", "Mario Kart Wii" and "Mario Kart Tour". At the era of partnership with Paon (2004–2008), Funky Kong appears in "Mario Kart Wii". He made returns in "Mario Kart Tour" along with Dixie Kong, which marks the first appearance in the "Mario series" since the partnership with Paon was ended. Additionally, the "Mario Kart" series features several "Donkey Kong" themed tracks, most notably DK Jungle from "Mario Kart 7" and "Mario Kart 8", which is based on the world of "Donkey Kong Country Returns".


title: Donkey Kong

text: In the "Mario Party" series, Donkey Kong debuted as a playable character in "Mario Party" for the Nintendo 64, a role he kept until "Mario Party 5". Here, he was given a space on the board maps as a foil to Bowser. He returned as a playable character in "Mario Party 10" for the Wii U, "" for the Nintendo 3DS, and "Mario Party Superstars" for the Nintendo Switch. Diddy Kong makes cameo appearances in "Mario Party DS" and "Mario Party 9", and is an unlockable character in "" and "Super Mario Party".


title: Donkey Kong

text: Donkey Kong has appeared as a playable character in almost every game of the "Mario" sports series since the Nintendo 64 era, including "Mario Golf", "Mario Tennis", "Super Mario Strikers", and "Mario Superstar Baseball". The first character from the "Donkey Kong" series that appears as a playable character in the "Mario" sports series is Donkey Kong Jr. in "Mario's Tennis". Diddy is also featured as a playable character in many games. At the era of partnership with Paon (2004–2008), other additional characters apart from "Donkey Kong" and "Diddy Kong", such as Dixie, Funky, Tiny, and Baby Donkey Kong, but also Kritter, Klaptrap and King K. Rool, have made sporadic appearances. Donkey Kong appears as a playable character in "Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games" and every game in the "Mario & Sonic" series thereafter. Diddy was introduced to the series in "Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games".


title: Donkey Kong

text: Nintendo's first "Donkey Kong" game for the Game Boy Advance after Rare left was "Mario vs. Donkey Kong", a return to the earlier arcade-style games that incorporated many elements from the Game Boy version. While its style was that of other games, the Rare design for Donkey Kong carried over. The modern Donkey Kong assumes the villain role in the game: wanting a Mini Mario clockwork toy, he finds that they are sold out at a local toy store. Enraged, he terrifies the Toads at the factory and steals the toys. This sets up the game's plot, where Mario chases Donkey Kong until he can take the Mini Marios back from Donkey Kong. The game was followed by "" for the Nintendo DS, "" on DSiWare, "" in 2010 for the DS, "" for the Nintendo 3DS in 2013 and "" for the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U in 2015.


title: Donkey Kong

text: Donkey Kong has appeared as a playable character in every game of the "Super Smash Bros." series first appearing as one of eight characters in the original "Super Smash Bros." for the Nintendo 64. He is the first heavy fighter in the series, and featured many slow but powerful attacks. Diddy Kong was later introduced as a playable character in "Super Smash Bros. Brawl" as an agile fighter. In "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate", King K. Rool was introduced as a playable character, bringing with him an arsenal of his attacks from the Rare games' boss fights. Banjo and Kazooie were revealed as part of the first Fighter Pass for "Ultimate" in 2019 in a trailer set at Donkey Kong's treehouse, acknowledging Banjo's origins in the Kongs' world. Other characters, like Cranky and Dixie, have appeared throughout the series as collectible trophies. There have been many stages based on games in the "Donkey Kong" series, including Congo (Kongo) Jungle in "Super Smash Bros.", Kongo Jungle and Jungle Japes in "Super Smash Bros. Melee", Rumble Falls and 75m in "Super Smash Bros. Brawl", and Jungle Hijinx in "Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U". Kongo Jungle from "Super Smash Bros. Melee", renamed Kongo Falls, returns in "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate", along with the N64 Kongo Jungle, Jungle Japes, and 75m.


title: Donkey Kong

text: The "Saturday Supercade" is the character's first role in a television series. In it, Donkey Kong (voiced by Soupy Sales) has escaped from the circus and Mario (voiced by Peter Cullen) and Pauline (voiced by Judy Strangis) are chasing the ape. As with the original game, Donkey Kong will often grab Pauline, and Mario has to save her.


title: Donkey Kong

text: The "Donkey Kong Country" television series was developed based on the game of the same name. The animation was produced in Canada, but located in Toronto and aired in France in 1997 and in the United States on Fox Kids in 1998 to 1999, the series lasted two seasons with 40 total episodes featuring exclusive characters including Bluster Kong, Eddie the Mean Old Yeti and Kaptain Scurvy.


title: Donkey Kong

text: The "Planet of Donkey Kong", later "DKTV.cool" was broadcast in France from 4 September 1996 to 1 September 2001. It was presented by Mélanie Angélie and Donkey Kong, voiced by Nicolas Bienvenu. After the departure of Angélie, the programme continued without a host and was renamed as DKTV.cool on 1 July 2000. The show had several editions, especially during the summer, including "Diddy's Holidays", airing on weekends around 7 am during mid-1997, and "Donkey Kong Beach" at 9.30 on Saturday mornings in the same year.


title: Donkey Kong

text: A 2007 documentary, "", chronicles the competitive following for the arcade version of "Donkey Kong".


title: Donkey Kong

text: Donkey Kong is set to appear in "The Super Mario Bros. Movie", scheduled to be released in early 2023, voiced by Seth Rogen.


title: Donkey Kong

text: The "Donkey Kong" franchise has generally received positive critical reception, despite some spin-offs received more mixed reception.


title: Donkey Kong

text: Both "Donkey Kong" and "Donkey Kong Country" are frequently cited as two of the best video games of all time; the former for its impact on the golden age of arcade video games, and the latter for its "groundbreaking" usage of pre-rendered 3D graphics and atmospheric music. "Maxim" included "Donkey Kong Country" at number 14 on their list of 'The 30 Best Video Game Franchises of All Time', describing the series as "some of the best platforming games on Nintendo's consoles". In the 2017 book the "100 Greatest Video Game Franchises", "Donkey Kong" is characterized as "a symbol, representing both the timelessness and "timeliness" of video games".


title: Donkey Kong

text: After the first "Donkey Kong" was released, Universal Studios sued Nintendo, alleging that the video game was a trademark infringement of "King Kong", the plot and characters of which Universal claimed for their own. In the case, "Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Nintendo Co., Ltd.", a United States District Court ruled that Universal had acted in bad faith, and that it had no right over the name "King Kong" or the characters and story. The court further held that there was no possibility for consumers to confuse Nintendo's game and characters with the "King Kong" films and their characters. The case was an enormous victory for Nintendo, which was still a newcomer to the U.S. market. The case established the company as a major player in the industry and arguably gave the company the confidence that it could compete with the giants of American media.


title: Donkey Kong

text: The success of the "Donkey Kong" series has resulted in "Guinness World Records" awarding the series with seven world records in the "Guinness World Records: Gamer's Edition 2008". The records include: "First Use of Visual Storytelling in a Video Game" for the rudimentary cut scenes featured in the original "Donkey Kong" arcade game, and "Most Collectible Items in a Platform Game" for "Donkey Kong 64".


title: Donkey Kong

text: In 2007, the USHRA Monster Jam racing series licensed Donkey Kong's appearance for a monster truck. The truck is driven by Frank Krmel, and is owned by Feld Motorsports. The truck is decorated to look like the character and has Donkey Kong's tie on the front. The truck made its first introduction in the Monster Jam event at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States on December 8, 2007. It went to the Monster Jam World Finals 9, as well as World Finals 10, where it was the fastest qualifier.


title: Donkey Kong

text: "It's on like Donkey Kong" is an expression used in pop culture that is inspired by the original game. Nintendo requested a trademark on the phrase with the United States Patent and Trademark Office in November 2010.


title: Marsha Blackburn

text: Mary Marsha Blackburn (née Wedgeworth; born June 6, 1952) is an American politician and businesswoman serving as the senior United States senator from Tennessee, a seat she has held since 2019. She is a member of the Republican Party. Blackburn was a state senator from 1999 to 2003, and represented in the United States House of Representatives from 2003 to 2019, during which time The National Journal rated her among the House's most conservative members.


title: Marsha Blackburn

text: On November 6, 2018, she became the first woman to be elected to the U.S. Senate from Tennessee, defeating former Democratic Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen. She took over as the state's senior senator in January 2021, when outgoing Senator Lamar Alexander retired. Blackburn, a supporter of the Tea Party movement, is a staunch backer of former president Donald Trump.


title: Marsha Blackburn

text: Marsha Wedgeworth was born in Laurel, Mississippi, to Mary Jo (Morgan) and Hilman Wedgeworth, who worked in sales and management. She placed fourth during a beauty pageant in high school.


title: Marsha Blackburn

text: Blackburn attended Mississippi State University on a 4-H scholarship, earning a Bachelor of Science in home economics in 1974. Blackburn was a member of the Chi Omega sorority, the Sigma Alpha Epsilon Little Sisters of Minerva (an auxiliary to a male fraternity) and was elected both as secretary and president of the Associated Women Students at Mississippi State University, wherein she worked to advance social issues through the AWS Zero Population Growth and the AWS venereal disease programs.


title: Marsha Blackburn

text: In 1973, before graduating, Blackburn worked as a sales manager for the Times Mirror Company. From 1975 to 1978, she worked in the Castner Knott Division of Mercantile Stores, Inc. In 1978, she became the owner of Marketing Strategies, a promotion-event management firm. She continues to run this business.


title: Marsha Blackburn

text: Blackburn was a founding member of the Williamson County Young Republicans. She was chair of the Williamson County Republican Party from 1989 to 1991. In 1992, she ran for Congress in Tennessee's 6th congressional district, losing to incumbent Bart Gordon, and was a delegate to the 1992 Republican National Convention. In 1995, Blackburn was appointed executive director of the Tennessee Film, Entertainment, and Music Commission by Tennessee governor Don Sundquist, holding that post through 1997.


title: Marsha Blackburn

text: Blackburn was a member of the Tennessee Senate from 1998 to 2003, and rose to be minority whip. In 2000, she took part in the effort to prevent the passage of a state income tax bill.


title: Marsha Blackburn

text: Redistricting after the 2000 Census moved Blackburn's home from the 6th district into the 7th district, and created a gerrymandered district that stretched "in reptilian fashion" for 200 miles from eastern Memphis to southwest Nashville. In 2002, Blackburn ran in the Republican primary for this congressional seat. Of the four main candidates, she was the only one from the Nashville suburbs. The other three (Mark Norris, David Kustoff, and Brent Taylor) were all from Memphis or its suburbs. Blackburn was endorsed by the conservative Club for Growth. The three Memphians split the vote in that area, and she won the primary by nearly 20 percentage points.


title: Marsha Blackburn

text: In the general election, Blackburn defeated Democratic nominee Tim Barron with 70% of the vote. She was the fourth woman elected to Congress from Tennessee, and the first not to succeed a husband. She was reelected seven times with no substantial opposition, even running unopposed in 2004.


title: Marsha Blackburn

text: Redistricting after the 2010 census made the 7th district more compact; it lost its shares of Nashville and Memphis while picking up all of Clarksville. But it was no less Republican than its predecessor; with a Cook Partisan Voting Index of R+18, it is one of the South's most Republican districts.


title: Marsha Blackburn

text: In November 2007, Blackburn unsuccessfully ran for Republican conference chair. She was a senior advisor on Mitt Romney's 2008 presidential campaign, before resigning her position in the Romney campaign and endorsing Fred Thompson for president. Blackburn was an assistant whip in Congress from 2003 to 2005, as well as deputy whip from 2005.


title: Marsha Blackburn

text: In October 2017, Blackburn announced her candidacy for the Senate seat being vacated by Bob Corker. In her announcement, she said that House Republicans were frustrated with Senate Republicans, who they believed acted like Democrats on important issues, including Obamacare. In the announcement, Blackburn called herself a "hardcore, card-carrying Tennessee conservative", said she was "politically incorrect", and noted with pride that liberals had called her a "wingnut". She dismissed compromise and bipartisanship, saying "No compromise, no apologies." She also said that she carried a gun in her purse. On August 2, Blackburn received 610,302 votes (84.48%) in the Republican primary, winning the nomination.


title: Marsha Blackburn

text: Early in the campaign, retiring Republican incumbent Corker said that Blackburn's opponent, Democrat Phil Bredesen, was "a very good mayor, a very good governor, a very good businessperson", that he had "real appeal" and "crossover appeal", and that the two of them had cooperated well over the years. But Corker said he would vote for Blackburn and donate to her campaign, and questioned whether Bredesen would be able to win a Senate seat in a red state like Tennessee. After Corker's praise for Bredesen, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell warned Corker that such comments could cost the Republican Party its Senate majority. Shortly after Corker's comments, President Trump tweeted an endorsement of Blackburn. Blackburn largely backed Trump's policies, including a U.S.–Mexico border wall, and shared his opinion regarding National Football League national anthem protests. Vice President Mike Pence endorsed Blackburn on April 23, 2018. During the campaign, Blackburn pledged to support Trump's agenda and suggested that Bredesen would not, asking, "Do you think Phil Bredesen would vote with crying Chuck Schumer or would he vote with our president when it comes to support our troops and supporting our veterans?"


title: Marsha Blackburn

text: In October 2018, singer-songwriter Taylor Swift endorsed Bredesen. The endorsement was notable given that Swift had been publicly apolitical, but spoke out because Blackburn's "voting record in Congress appall[ed] and terrifie[d]" her. Swift shared a link to the nonpartisan voter registration website Vote.org, which saw a significant spike in page views and new registrations. Swift's endorsement was criticized by Trump.


title: Marsha Blackburn

text: For most of the campaign, polls showed the two candidates nearly tied. But after Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Blackburn pulled ahead. Some believe the hearings mobilized Republican voters in the state, even though Democrats won the House. Blackburn won the election with 54.7% of the vote to Bredesen's 43.9%, an unexpectedly large margin. She carried all but three counties in the state (Davidson, Shelby, and Haywood), the most counties ever won in an open Senate election in Tennessee.


title: Marsha Blackburn

text: Blackburn is a Tea Party Republican. She has been called staunchly conservative, and has sometimes attended functions of, and met with leaders of, far-right groups. She has called herself "a hard-core, card-carrying Tennessee conservative." She scored 100% on American Conservative Union's 2004, 2005, 2007, and 2009 ratings of Congress, and was estimated by GovTrack to be the most ideologically conservative member of the Senate for the 2019 legislative year.


title: Marsha Blackburn

text: Blackburn opposes abortion and sought to overturn "Roe v. Wade". In 2013, she was chosen to manage debate on a bill promoted by House Republicans that would have prohibited abortions after 22 weeks' gestation, with limited exceptions for rape or incest. She replaced the bill's prior sponsor, U.S. Representative Trent Franks, after Franks made controversial and dubious statements.


title: Marsha Blackburn

text: In 2015, Blackburn led a panel that investigated the Planned Parenthood undercover video controversy, in which anti-abortion activists published a video purporting to show that Planned Parenthood illicitly sold fetal tissue. Subsequent investigations into Planned Parenthood found no evidence of fetal tissue sales or of wrongdoing, but in 2017, when Blackburn announced that she was running for Senate, she ran a controversial advertisement saying that she "fought Planned Parenthood and we stopped the sale of baby body parts". In 2015, Blackburn claimed that 94% of Planned Parenthood's business revolves around abortion services, which FactCheck.org found to be "wrong".


title: Marsha Blackburn

text: In March 2016, Blackburn chaired the Republican-led Select Investigative Panel, a committee convened to "explore the ethical implications of using fetal tissue in biomedical research". Democrats on the panel characterized the probe as a politically motivated witch hunt.


title: Marsha Blackburn

text: In March 2022, Blackburn called "Griswold v. Connecticut", a landmark Supreme Court decision holding that the Constitution protects the liberty of married couples to buy and use contraceptives without government restriction, "constitutionally unsound" as a ruling that "gave the court permission to bypass our system of checks and balances".


title: Marsha Blackburn

text: In 2009, Blackburn sponsored legislation requiring presidential candidates to show their birth certificates. The bill was in response to conspiracy theories, commonly known as "birther" theories, that alleged that Barack Obama was not born in the United States. Her spokesperson said that Blackburn did not doubt that Obama was an American citizen.


title: Marsha Blackburn

text: In 2017, Blackburn said she was in discussions with Ivanka Trump on ways to make child care more affordable. In 2021, when President Biden proposed universal pre-K for 3- and 4-year-olds and subsidized child care for low- and middle-income families, Blackburn likened the proposal to the communist policies of the Soviet Union. She also falsely claimed that the Biden administration proposed to put children in pre-K even if their families did not want to.


title: Marsha Blackburn

text: Blackburn opposed the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), saying upon its passage, "freedom dies a little bit today." She supported efforts to repeal the legislation. In 2017, while arguing for its repeal, Blackburn falsely stated that two of its popular provisions (protections for people with preexisting conditions and allowing adult children to be on their parents' health plans until they're 26) "were two Republican provisions which made it into the [Obamacare] bill." In her declaration that she would run for the Senate in 2018, she said that the failure to repeal the Affordable Care Act was "a disgrace".


title: Marsha Blackburn

text: At October 2013 congressional hearings on the Affordable Care Act, Blackburn said the healthcare.gov website violated HIPAA and health information privacy rights. The next day, when a CNN interviewer pointed out that the only health-related question the site asked was "do you smoke?" Blackburn repeated her criticism of the site for violating privacy rights.


title: Marsha Blackburn

text: According to "The New York Times" in 2017, Blackburn's best-known legislation was her co-sponsorship of a bill that revised the legal standard the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) had used to establish that "a significant and present risk of death or serious bodily harm that is more likely than not to occur", rather than the previous tougher standard of "imminent danger", before suspending the manufacturer's opioid drug shipments. The legislation passed the House and the Senate unanimously, but was criticized in internal Justice Department documents and by the DEA's chief administrative law judge as hampering DEA enforcement actions against drug distribution companies engaging in black-market sales. Joe Rannazzisi, who had led the Drug Enforcement Administration's Office of Diversion Control, said he informed Blackburn's staffers what the effects would be as a result of the passage of a 2016 law she co-sponsored. Blackburn said her bill had "unintended consequences", but Rannazzisi said they should have been anticipated. He said that during a July 2014 conference call he told congressional staffers the bill would cause more difficulties for the DEA if it pursued corporations that were illegally distributing such drugs. Blackburn and Representative Tom Marino, the main co-sponsor of her House bill, sent a letter requesting an Office of Inspector General investigation regarding Rannazzisi, saying he tried to intimidate Congress in the July conversation. Rannazzisi said he was removed from his DEA position in August 2015.


title: Marsha Blackburn

text: Blackburn rejects the scientific consensus on climate change. In a 2014 debate with science communicator Bill Nye, Blackburn rejected the science and urgency of the issue, claiming that there is "no consensus" in the scientific community and that climate change remains "unproven".


title: Marsha Blackburn

text: Blackburn opposes net neutrality in the United States, calling it "socialistic". She opposes municipal broadband initiatives that aim to compete with Internet service providers. She supported bills that restrict municipalities from creating their own broadband networks, and wrote a bill to prevent the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from preempting state laws that blocked municipal broadband.


title: Marsha Blackburn

text: In 2017, Blackburn introduced to the House a measure to dismantle an Obama-administration online privacy rule that the FCC adopted in October 2016. Her measure, which was supported by broadband providers but criticized by privacy advocates, repealed the rule that required broadband providers to obtain consumers' permission before sharing their online data, including browsing histories. The measure passed the House in a party-line vote in March 2017, after a similar measure had been passed the Senate the same week. She subsequently proposed legislation that expanded the requirement to include internet companies as well as broadband providers.


title: Marsha Blackburn

text: As of 2017, Blackburn had accepted at least $693,000 in campaign contributions from telecom companies.


title: Marsha Blackburn

text: Blackburn has advocated for increased regulation of technology companies and has criticized alleged anti-conservative bias on major platforms. In June 2018, she published an op-ed arguing for greater oversight and restrictions on technology companies that sparked a vocal backlash among employees at Google. During a 2020 Commerce Committee hearing in which she claimed that tech companies stifle free speech, Blackburn asked Google chief Sundar Pichai about the employment status of an employee who had criticized her.


title: Marsha Blackburn

text: Blackburn opposes same-sex marriage and in 2004 and 2006 voted for proposed constitutional amendments to ban it. Of the Supreme Court's 2015 decision in "Obergefell v. Hodges", Blackburn said, "Despite this decision, no one can overrule the truth about what marriage actually is—a sacred institution between a man and a woman." In 2010, she voted against repealing the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy.


title: Marsha Blackburn

text: During her tenure as a representative, Blackburn sought to remove Kevin Jennings, a gay man who worked in the United States Department of Education, saying that Jennings "has played an integral role in promoting homosexuality and pushing a pro-homosexual agenda in America’s schools".


title: Marsha Blackburn

text: In 2013, Blackburn voted to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act in the House, but voted against the Senate's version of the act, which expanded VAWA to apply to people regardless of sexual orientation. She argued that increasing the number of targets for VAWA funding would "dilute the money that needs to go into the sexual assault centers, domestic abuse centers, [and] child advocacy centers", and said VAWA ought to remain focused on supporting women's shelters and facilitating law enforcement against crimes against women, rather than addressing other groups or issues.


title: Marsha Blackburn

text: Blackburn voted against the Employment Non-Discrimination Act to ban discrimination against LGBT employees. In August 2019, she co-signed an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not prohibit employment discrimination based upon sexual orientation or gender identity. Blackburn has a 0% rating from the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights group.


title: Marsha Blackburn

text: In November 2016, Blackburn joined Trump's presidential transition team as vice chair. She was a staunch supporter of his, and backed most of his policies and proposals. She nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize for his negotiations with North Korea. "Vox" speculated that Blackburn's ties to Trump, who won Tennessee in the 2016 election by 26 points, helped boost her Senate candidacy.


title: Marsha Blackburn

text: During Trump's first Senate impeachment trial, Blackburn left the chamber for a television interview. She also garnered attention by reading a book during the proceedings. Blackburn spent time during the trial to tweet about Lt. Col. Vindman, calling him unpatriotic for allegedly "badmouth[ing] and ridicul[ing]" the United States in front of Russia. In November 2019, #MoscowMarcia started trending on Twitter after Blackburn tweeted allegations against Vindman on her Twitter account. "The Week" characterized her tweet as a "conspiratorial smear". In her post, she wrote "Vindictive Vindman is the 'whistleblower's' handler". The tweet was in reference to Vindman, a decorated army official and Purple Heart veteran, who became a central figure in Trump's impeachment proceedings in Congress after testifying he heard Trump pressure the president of Ukraine to investigate the son of one of his chief political rivals, former Vice President Joe Biden.


title: Marsha Blackburn

text: After Biden won the 2020 United States presidential election, Blackburn supported Trump's false claims of victory and raised funds to support the Trump campaign's effort to overturn the election results in court. In an interview on November 20, she briefly called Biden the "president-elect", but later retracted this as a mistake. On January 2, 2021, Blackburn and 10 other Republican senators announced that they would vote to oppose certification of the results of the election on January 6, the joint session of Congress in which the certification of a presidential election occurs, citing false allegations of widespread election fraud, irregularities, and unconstitutional changes to voting laws and voting restrictions. But after a mob of Trump supporters violently stormed Capitol Hill that day, she voted to certify the results of the election.


title: Marsha Blackburn

text: Blackburn supported Trump's 2017 executive order imposing a temporary travel and immigration ban barring citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S. She has often expressed support of Trump's immigration policy, especially his plan to greatly expand the Mexico–United States barrier. In March 2021, Blackburn visited the southern border of the United States with several other Republican senators; she accused President Biden of encouraging a surge of illegal immigration.


title: Marsha Blackburn

text: After the 2018 Thousand Oaks shooting on November 7, 2018, which resulted in 12 deaths, Blackburn responded to a question about the shooting in a Fox News interview by saying, "how do we make certain that we protect the Second Amendment and protect our citizens? We've always done that in this country. Mental health issues need to be addressed."


title: Marsha Blackburn

text: In October 2021, Blackburn requested feedback from gymnast Aly Raisman and others on the structural failures of Olympic sport sexual abuse investigations, writing, "This was a systemic failure, and every single person in authority who turned a blind eye to your abuse must be held accountable". She sent the United States Center for SafeSport a letter demanding answers to questions posed during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on sex offender Larry Nassar.


title: Marsha Blackburn

text: In December 2020, Blackburn posted, "China has a 5,000-year history of cheating and stealing. Some things will never change..." on her Twitter account. The European Union bureau chief for China's state-owned "China Daily", Chen Weihua, responded by tweeting, "This is the most racist and ignorant US Senator I have seen. A lifetime bitch". In what appeared to be a thinly veiled reference to Chen, Blackburn asserted in her response that the U.S. would "not bow down to sexist communist thugs". One of Chen's tweets was, with an apparently sarcastic comment, retweeted by Republican Senator Marco Rubio. The Chinese American rights group Tennessee Chinese American Alliance protested Blackburn's comments as insulting to people of Chinese descent.


title: Marsha Blackburn

text: In August 2022, Blackburn led a congressional delegation to Taiwan, where she met with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen. Her visit was the third such delegation to visit Taiwan following Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit early that month. During her visit, Blackburn voiced support for Taiwan, calling it an "independent nation" and a "country", and also supported further U.S.-Taiwan relations and combating the "New Axis of Evil", which she defines as Iran, Russia, and North Korea, led by China. China claims Taiwan as part of its own territory and condemns most visits by U.S. lawmakers.


title: Marsha Blackburn

text: <nowiki>*</nowiki>Write-in and minor candidate notes: In 2002, write-ins received 31 votes. In 2006, James B. "Mickey" White received 898 votes; William J. Smith received 848 votes; John L. Rimer received 710 votes, and Gayl G. Pratt received 663 votes.


title: Marsha Blackburn

text: Blackburn is married to Chuck Blackburn. They live in Brentwood, a suburb of Nashville in Williamson County, and have two children. She is a Presbyterian.


title: Marsha Blackburn

text: Blackburn is a member of The C Street Family, a prayer group that includes members of Congress. She is a former member of the Smithsonian Libraries Advisory Board.


title: Marsha Blackburn

text: Blackburn is the author of "The Mind of a Conservative Woman: Seeking the Best for Family and Country". The book was published on September 1, 2020, by Worthy Books.


title: Pine nut

text: Pine nuts, also called piñón (), pinoli (), pignoli or chilgoza (), are the edible seeds of pines (family Pinaceae, genus "Pinus"). According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, only 29 species provide edible nuts, while 20 are traded locally or internationally owing to their seed size being large enough to be worth harvesting; in other pines, the seeds are also edible, but are too small to be of notable value as a human food.


title: Pine nut

text: In Asia, two species in particular are widely harvested: Korean pine ("Pinus koraiensis") in northeast Asia (the most important species in international trade) and chilgoza pine ("Pinus gerardiana") in the western Himalaya. Four other species, Siberian pine ("Pinus sibirica"), Siberian dwarf pine ("Pinus pumila"), Chinese white pine ("Pinus armandii") and lacebark pine ("Pinus bungeana"), are also used to a lesser extent. Russia is the largest producer of "Pinus sibirica" nuts in the world, followed by Mongolia, which produces over 10,000 tonnes of forest-grown nuts annually. The majority of the harvest is exported to China. Afghanistan is an important source of pine nuts, behind China and Korea.


title: Pine nut

text: Pine nuts produced in Europe mostly come from the stone pine ("Pinus pinea"), which has been cultivated for its nuts for over 5,000 years. Pine nuts have been harvested from wild trees for far longer. The Swiss pine ("Pinus cembra") is also used, to a very small extent.


title: Pine nut

text: In North America, the main species are three of the pinyon pines: Colorado pinyon ("Pinus edulis"), single-leaf pinyon ("Pinus monophylla"), and Mexican pinyon ("Pinus cembroides"). The other eight pinyon species are used to a small extent, as are gray pine ("Pinus sabineana"), Coulter pine ("Pinus coulteri"), Torrey pine ("Pinus torreyana"), sugar pine ("Pinus lambertiana") and Parry pinyon ("Pinus quadrifolia"). Here, the nuts themselves are known by the Spanish name for the pinyon pine, "piñón" (plural: "piñones").


title: Pine nut

text: In the United States, pine nuts are mainly harvested by Native American and Hispano communities, particularly in the Western United States and Southwestern United States, by the Uto-Aztecan Shoshone, Paiute, Navajo, Pueblo, Hopi, Washoe, and Hispanos of New Mexico. Certain treaties negotiated by tribes and laws in Nevada guarantee Native Americans' right to harvest pine nuts, and the state of New Mexico protects the use of the word "piñon" for use with pine nuts from certain species of indigenous New Mexican pines.


title: Pine nut

text: The pine nut (seed) species will take a time that depends on the exact species (e.g., 36 months for a stone pine seed) to complete its maturity; to reach full maturity, the environmental conditions must be favorable for the tree and its cone.


title: Pine nut

text: For some American species, development begins in early spring with pollination. A tiny cone, about the size of a small marble, will form from mid-spring to the end of summer; the premature cone will then become and remain dormant (with a cessation of growth) until the following spring. The cone will then commence growth until it reaches maturity near the end of summer. The mature piñon pine cone is ready to harvest ten days before the green cone begins to open. A cone is harvested by placing it in a burlap bag and exposing it to a heat source such as the sun to begin the drying process. It takes about 20 days until the cone fully opens. Once it is fully open and dry, the seed can be easily extracted in various ways. The most common and practical extraction method used is the repeated striking of the burlap bag containing the cone(s) against a rough surface to cause the cone(s) to shatter, leaving just the job of separating by hand the seed from the residue within the bag.


title: Pine nut

text: Another option for harvesting is to wait until the cone opens on the tree (as it naturally will) and harvest the cone from the piñon pine, followed by the extracting process mentioned above. Fallen seed can also be gathered beneath the trees.


title: Pine nut

text: Because pine nuts are an important food source for many animals, overharvesting of pine nuts threatens local ecosystems, an effect occurring during the early 21st century with increased culinary uses for pine nuts. In the United States, millions of hectares of productive pinyon pine woods have been destroyed due to conversion of lands, and in China and Russia, destructive harvesting techniques (such as breaking off whole branches to harvest the cones) and removal of trees for timber have led to losses in production capacity.


title: Pine nut

text: The elevation of the pinyon pine is an important determinant of the quantity of pine cone production, and therefore, will largely determine the number of pine nuts the tree will yield.


title: Pine nut

text: American pinyon pine cone production is most commonly found at an elevation between , and ideally at . This is due to higher temperatures at elevations lower than during the spring, which dry up humidity and moisture content (particularly snow packs) that provide for the tree throughout the spring and summer, causing little nourishment for pine cone maturity.


title: Pine nut

text: Although there are several other environmental factors that determine the conditions of the ecosystem (such as clouds and rain), without sufficient water, the trees tend to abort cones. High humidity encourages cone development. There are certain topographical areas found in lower elevations, such as shaded canyons, where the humidity remains constant throughout the spring and summer, allowing pine cones to fully mature and produce seed.


title: Pine nut

text: At elevations above , the temperature substantially drops, drastically affecting the state of the dormant cone. During the winter, frequent dramatic changes in temperature, along with drying, gusty winds, make the cones susceptible to freeze-drying that damages them permanently; in this case, growth is stunted and the seeds deteriorate.


title: Pine nut

text: When first extracted from the pine cone, they are covered with a hard shell (seed coat), thin in some species, thick in others. The nutrition is stored in the embryo (sporophyte) in the centre. Although a nut in the culinary sense, in the botanical sense pine nuts are seeds; being a gymnosperm, they lack a carpel (fruit) outside.


title: Pine nut

text: The shell must be removed before the pine nut can be eaten. Unshelled pine nuts have a long shelf life if kept dry and refrigerated (); shelled nuts (and unshelled nuts in warm conditions) deteriorate rapidly, becoming rancid within a few weeks or even days in warm humid conditions. Pine nuts are commercially available in shelled form, but due to poor storage, can have poor flavor and may be already rancid at the time of purchase. Consequently, pine nuts are often frozen to preserve their flavor.


title: Pine nut

text: European pine nuts may be distinguished from Asian ones by their greater length in comparison to girth; Asian pine nuts are stubbier, shaped somewhat like long kernels of corn. The American piñon nuts are known for their large size and ease of shelling. In the United States, "P. edulis", the hard shell of New Mexico and Colorado, became a sought-after species due to the trading post system, and the Navajo people who used the nuts as a means of commerce. The Italian pine nut ("P. pinea") was brought to the United States by immigrants, and became a favored treat along the East Coast in the early 1930s, when bumper crops of American pine nuts were readily available at low prices.


title: Pine nut

text: When dried for eating, pine nuts are 2% water, 13% carbohydrates, 14% protein, and 68% fat (table). In a reference serving, dried pine nuts supply of food energy and are a rich source (20% or more of the Daily Value, DV) of numerous micronutrients, particularly manganese (419% DV), phosphorus (82% DV), magnesium (71% DV), zinc (67% DV), copper (65% DV), vitamin E (62% DV), vitamin K (51% DV), and the B vitamins, thiamin and niacin (29–35% DV), among others (table).


title: Pine nut

text: Pine nuts have been eaten in Europe and Asia since the Paleolithic period. They are frequently added to meat, fish, salads and vegetable dishes or baked into bread.


title: Pine nut

text: In Italian they are called "pinoli" (in the US they are often called "pignoli", but in Italy "pignolo" is actually a word far more commonly used to describe a fussy, overly fastidious or extremely meticulous person) and are an essential component of Italian pesto sauce; the upsurge in the popularity of this sauce since the 1990s has increased the visibility of the nut in America, primarily on the West Coast. "Torta della nonna" (literally "granny's cake") is a generic Italian dish name that in most families indicates an old family recipe for any kind of cake but often is used for a tart or a pie filled with custard, topped with pine nuts and optionally dusted with icing sugar. Pignoli cookies, an Italian American specialty confection (in Italy these would be called "biscotti ai pinoli"), are made of almond flour formed into a dough similar to that of a macaroon and then topped with pine nuts.


title: Pine nut

text: In Catalonia, a sweet is made of small marzipan balls covered with pine nuts, painted with egg and lightly cooked, and those are called "Panellets". Pine nuts are also featured in the "salade landaise" of southwestern France. The Nevada, or Great Basin, pine nut has a sweet fruity flavor and is promoted for its large size, sweet flavor and ease of peeling. Pine nuts are also widely used in Middle Eastern cuisine, reflected in a diverse range of dishes such as "kibbeh", "sambusak", and "fatayer", desserts such as baklava, and many others.


title: Pine nut

text: Throughout Europe and Middle East the pine nuts used are traditionally from "Pinus pinea" (stone pine). They are easily distinguished from the Asian pine nuts by their more slender shape and more homogeneous flesh. Because of the lower price, Asian pine nuts are also often used, especially in cheaper preparations. Pine nuts contain thiamine (vitamin B) and protein.


title: Pine nut

text: Pine nut coffee, known as "piñón" (Spanish for pine nut), is a specialty found in the southwest United States, especially New Mexico, and is typically a dark roast coffee having a deep, nutty flavor; roasted and lightly salted pine nuts can often be found sold on the side of the road in cities across New Mexico to be used for this purpose, as well as a snack.


title: Pine nut

text: Some raw pine nuts can cause taste disturbances, lasting from a few days to a few weeks after consumption. A bitter, metallic, unpleasant taste is reported. There are no known lasting effects, with the United States Food and Drug Administration reporting that there are "no apparent adverse clinical side effects". Raw nuts from "Pinus armandii", mainly in China, may be the cause of the problem. Metallic taste disturbance is typically reported 1–3 days after ingestion, being worse on day two and typically lasting up to two weeks. Cases are self-limited and resolve without treatment.


title: Pine nut

text: Pine nuts have long been a dietary staple in some Native American tribes. Today, though some tribes still use pine nuts in traditional cooking, others use the hard outer shell of the pine nut as a bead for decorative purposes in traditional regalia and jewelry. In the Great Basin area of the US, collecting pine nuts is a protected right through state law and treaty.


title: Pine nut

text: In northern California, pine nuts are collected from the grey pine or bull pine. Tribes burn designs into the hard shell, reflecting the same design they use in baskets; however, they are often left blank, or burned to blacken. These are more often used in women's regalia and jewelry.


title: Basking shark

text: The basking shark (Cetorhinus maximus) is the second-largest living shark and fish, after the whale shark, and one of three plankton-eating shark species, along with the whale shark and megamouth shark. Adults typically reach in length. It is usually greyish-brown, with mottled skin, with the inside of the mouth being white in color. The caudal fin has a strong lateral keel and a crescent shape. Other common names include bone shark, elephant shark, sail-fish, and sun-fish. In Orkney, it is commonly known as hoe-mother (sometimes contracted to homer), meaning "the mother of the pickled dog-fish".


title: Basking shark

text: The basking shark is a cosmopolitan migratory species, found in all the world's temperate oceans. A slow-moving filter feeder, its common name derives from its habit of feeding at the surface, appearing to be basking in the warmer water there. It has anatomical adaptations for filter-feeding, such as a greatly enlarged mouth and highly developed gill rakers. Its snout is conical and the gill slits extend around the top and bottom of its head. The gill rakers, dark and bristle-like, are used to catch plankton as water filters through the mouth and over the gills. The teeth are numerous and very small, and often number 100 per row. The teeth have a single conical cusp, are curved backwards and are the same on both the upper and lower jaws. This species has the smallest weight-for-weight brain size of any shark, reflecting its relatively passive lifestyle.


title: Basking shark

text: Basking sharks have been shown from satellite tracking to overwinter in both continental shelf (less than ) and deeper waters. They may be found in either small shoals or alone. Despite their large size and threatening appearance, basking sharks are not aggressive and are harmless to humans.


title: Basking shark

text: The basking shark has long been a commercially important fish as a source of food, shark fin, animal feed, and shark liver oil. Overexploitation has reduced its populations to the point where some have disappeared and others need protection.


title: Basking shark

text: The basking shark is the only extant member of the family Cetorhinidae, part of the mackerel shark order Lamniformes. Johan Ernst Gunnerus first described the species as "Cetorhinus maximus", from a specimen found in Norway, naming it. The genus name "Cetorhinus" comes from the Greek "ketos", meaning "marine monster" or "whale", and "rhinos", meaning "nose". The species name "maximus" is from Latin and means "greatest". Following its initial description, more attempts at naming included: "Squalus isodus", in 1819 by Italian Zoologist Saverio Macri (1754–1848); "Squalus elephas", by Charles Alexandre Lesueur in 1822; "Squalus rashleighanus", by Jonathan Couch in 1838; "Squalus cetaceus", by Laurens Theodorus Gronovius in 1854; "Cetorhinus blainvillei" by the Portuguese biologist Felix Antonio de Brito Capello (1828–1879) in 1869; "Selachus pennantii", by Charles John Cornish in 1885; "Cetorhinus maximus infanuncula", by the Dutch Zoologists Antonius Boudewijn Deinse (1885–1965) and Marcus Jan Adriani (1929–1995) in 1953; and "Cetorhinus maximus normani", by Siccardi in 1961.


title: Basking shark

text: The oldest known members of Cetorhinidae are members of the extinct genus "Keasius," from middle Eocene of Antarctica, the Eocene of Oregon and possibly the Eocene of Russia. Members of the modern genus "Cetorhinus" appear during the Miocene, with members of the modern species appearing during the Late Miocene. The association of "Pseudocetorhinus" from the Late Triassic of Europe with Cetorhinidae is doubtful.


title: Basking shark

text: The basking shark is a coastal-pelagic shark found worldwide in boreal to warm-temperate waters. It lives around the continental shelf and occasionally enters brackish waters. It is found from the surface down to at least . It prefers temperatures of , but has been confirmed to cross the much-warmer waters at the equator. It is often seen close to land, including in bays with narrow openings. The shark follows plankton concentrations in the water column, so is often visible at the surface. It characteristically migrates with the seasons.


title: Basking shark

text: The basking shark regularly reaches in length with some individuals reaching . The average length of an adult is around weighing about . Historical sightings suggest basking sharks around in length, including three basking sharks estimated at ~40 fod () and a one ~45 fod () were reported between 1884 and 1905, but these visual estimates lack good evidence. A specimen trapped in a herring net in the Bay of Fundy, Canada, in 1851 has been credited as the largest recorded. Its weight has been estimated at . A study looking at the growth and longevity of the basking shark suggested that individuals larger than ~ are unlikely. This is the second-largest extant fish species, after the whale shark.


title: Basking shark

text: They possess the typical shark lamniform body plan and have been mistaken for great white sharks. The two species can be easily distinguished by the basking shark's cavernous jaw, up to in width, longer and more obvious gill slits that nearly encircle the head and are accompanied by well-developed gill rakers, smaller eyes, much larger overall size and smaller average girth. Great whites possess large, dagger-like teeth; basking shark teeth are much smaller and hooked; only the first three or four rows of the upper jaw and six or seven rows of the lower jaw function. In behaviour, the great white is an active predator of large animals and not a filter feeder.


title: Basking shark

text: Other distinctive characteristics include a strongly keeled caudal peduncle, highly textured skin covered in placoid scales and a mucus layer, a pointed snout—distinctly hooked in younger specimens—and a lunate caudal fin. In large individuals, the dorsal fin may flop to one side when above the surface. Colouration is highly variable (and likely dependent on observation conditions and the individual's condition): commonly, the colouring is dark brown to black or blue dorsally, fading to a dull white ventrally. The sharks are often noticeably scarred, possibly through encounters with lampreys or cookiecutter sharks. The basking shark's liver, which may account for 25% of its body weight, runs the entire length of the abdominal cavity and is thought to play a role in buoyancy regulation and long-term energy storage.


title: Basking shark

text: Basking sharks do not hibernate, and are active year-round. In winter, basking sharks often move to deeper depths, even down to and have been tracked making vertical movements consistent with feeding on overwintering zooplankton.


title: Basking shark

text: They are slow-moving sharks (feeding at about ) and do not evade approaching boats (unlike great white sharks). They are not attracted to chum.


title: Basking shark

text: Though the basking shark is large and slow, it can breach, jumping entirely out of the water. This behaviour could be an attempt to dislodge parasites or commensals. Such interpretations are speculative, however, and difficult to verify; breaching in large marine animals such as whales and sharks might equally well be intraspecific threat displays of size and strength.


title: Basking shark

text: Argos system satellite tagging of 20 basking sharks in 2003 confirmed basking sharks move thousands of kilometres during the summer and winter, seeking the richest zooplankton patches, often along ocean fronts. They shed and renew their gill rakers in an ongoing process, rather than over one short period.


title: Basking shark

text: A 2009 study tagged 25 sharks off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and indicated at least some migrate south in the winter. Remaining at depths between for many weeks, the tagged sharks crossed the equator to reach Brazil. One individual spent a month near the mouth of the Amazon River. They may undertake this journey to aid reproduction.


title: Basking shark

text: On 23 June 2015, a , basking shark was caught accidentally by a fishing trawler in the Bass strait near Portland, Victoria, in southeast Australia, the first basking shark caught in the region since the 1930s, and only the third reported in the region in 160 years. The whole shark was donated to the Victoria Museum for research, instead of the fins being sold for use in shark fin soup.


title: Basking shark

text: While basking sharks are not infrequently seen in the Mediterranean Sea and records exist in the Dardanelles Strait, it is unclear whether they historically reached into deeper basins of Sea of Marmara, Black Sea and Azov Sea.


title: Basking shark

text: Basking sharks are usually solitary but during summer months in particular they aggregate in dense patches of zooplankton where they engage in social behaviour. They can form sex-segregated shoals, usually in small numbers (three or four), but reportedly up to 100 individuals. Small schools in the Bay of Fundy and the Hebrides have been seen swimming nose to tail in circles; their social behaviour in summer months has been studied and is thought to represent courtship.


title: Basking shark

text: Basking sharks have few predators. White sharks have been reported to scavenge on the remains of these sharks. Killer whales have been observed feeding on basking sharks off California in the US and New Zealand. Lampreys are often seen attached to them, although they are unlikely to be able to cut through the shark's thick skin.


title: Basking shark

text: The basking shark is a ram feeder, filtering zooplankton, very small fish, and invertebrates from the water with its gill rakers by swimming forwards with their mouths open. A basking shark has been calculated to filter up to of water per hour swimming at an observed speed of . Basking sharks are not indiscriminate feeders on zooplankton. Samples taken in the presence of feeding individuals recorded zooplankton densities 75% higher compared to adjacent non-feeding areas. Basking sharks feed preferentially in zooplankton patches dominated by small planktonic crustaceans called calanoid copepods (on average 1,700 individuals per cubic metre of water). They will also feed on copepods of the genera "Psuedocalanus" and "Oithona". Basking sharks sometimes congregate in groups of up to 1,400 spotted along the northeastern U.S. Samples taken near feeding sharks contained 2.5 times as many "Calanus helgolandicus" individuals per cubic metre, which were also found to be 50% longer. Unlike the megamouth shark and whale shark, the basking shark relies only on the water it pushes through its gills by swimming; the megamouth shark and whale shark can suck or pump water through their gills.


title: Basking shark

text: Basking sharks are ovoviviparous: the developing embryos first rely on a yolk sac, with no placental connection. Their seemingly useless teeth may play a role before birth in helping them feed on the mother's unfertilized ova (a behaviour known as oophagy). In females, only the right ovary appears to function, and it is currently unknown why only one of the organs seems to function.


title: Basking shark

text: Gestation is thought to span over a year (perhaps two to three years), with a small, though unknown, number of young born fully developed at . Only one pregnant female is known to have been caught; she was carrying six unborn young.


title: Basking shark

text: Mating is thought to occur in early summer and birthing in late summer, following the female's movement into shallow waters.


title: Basking shark

text: The age of maturity is thought to be between the ages of six and 13 and at a length of . Breeding frequency is thought to be two to four years.


title: Basking shark

text: Aside from direct catches, by-catches in trawl nets have been one of several threats to basking sharks. In New Zealand, basking sharks had been abundant historically; however, after the mass by-catches recorded in 1990s and 2000s, confirmations of the species became very scarce. Management plans have been declared to promote effective conservation. In June 2018 the Department of Conservation classified the basking shark as "Threatened - Nationally Vulnerable" under the New Zealand Threat Classification System.


title: Basking shark

text: The eastern north Pacific Ocean population is a U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service species of concern, one of those species about which the U.S. Government's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has some concerns regarding status and threats, but for which insufficient information is available to indicate a need to list the species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA).


title: Basking shark

text: The endangered aspect of this shark was publicised in 2005 with a postage stamp issued by Guernsey Post.


title: Basking shark

text: Historically, the basking shark has been a staple of fisheries because of its slow swimming speed, placid nature, and previously abundant numbers. Commercially, it was put to many uses: the flesh for food and fishmeal, the hide for leather, and its large liver (which has a high squalene content) for oil. It is currently fished mainly for its fins (for shark fin soup). Parts (such as cartilage) are also used in traditional Chinese medicine and as an aphrodisiac in Japan, further adding to demand.


title: Basking shark

text: As a result of rapidly declining numbers, the basking shark has been protected in some territorial waters and trade in its products is restricted in many countries under CITES. Among others, it is fully protected in the United Kingdom and the Atlantic and Mexican Gulf regions of the United States. Since 2008, it has been illegal to fish for, or retain if accidentally caught, basking sharks in waters of the European Union. It is partially protected in Norway and New Zealand, as targeted commercial fishing is illegal, but accidental bycatch can be used (in Norway any basking shark caught as bycatch and still alive must be released). As of March 2010, it was also listed under Annex I of the CMS Migratory Sharks Memorandum of Understanding.


title: Basking shark

text: Once considered a nuisance along the Canadian Pacific coast, basking sharks were the target of a government eradication programme from 1945 to 1970. , efforts were under way to determine whether any sharks still lived in the area and monitor their potential recovery.


title: Basking shark

text: It is tolerant of boats and divers approaching it, and may even circle divers, making it an important draw for dive tourism in areas where it is common.


title: Basking shark

text: On several occasions, "globster" corpses initially identified by non-scientists as a sea serpent's or plesiosaur's have later been identified as likely to be the decomposing carcasses of basking sharks, as in the Stronsay Beast and the "Zuiyo-maru" cases.


title: Mark Webber (racing driver)

text: Mark Alan Webber (born 27 August 1976) is an Australian retired professional racing driver who competed in Formula One from 2002 to 2013 and the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) between 2014 and 2016. He is a champion of the 2015 FIA WEC for Porsche with German Timo Bernhard and New Zealander Brendon Hartley.


title: Mark Webber (racing driver)

text: Webber began karting at age 12 or 13 and achieved early success, winning regional championships before progressing to car racing in the Australian Formula Ford Championship and the British Formula 3 Championship. He competed for two years opposite Bernd Schneider in the FIA GT Championship with the AMG Mercedes team, finishing runner-up in the 1998 season with five wins in ten races before finishing second in the 2001 International Formula 3000 Championship driving for Super Nova Racing. Webber made his F1 debut with the Minardi team in the 2002 season and finished fifth in his first race, the . He moved to the Jaguar squad for the and 2004 championships. For the 2005 season, he was granted an early release from his contract with Jaguar and joined the Williams team, securing his first podium finish at the . Webber remained at Williams until the 2006 campaign, driving for the Red Bull squad for the rest of his F1 career. He won nine F1 , thirteen pole positions and finished third in the World Drivers' Championship in the , and 2013 seasons.


title: Mark Webber (racing driver)

text: He left F1 after 2013 and moved to the WEC, sharing a Porsche 919 Hybrid with Bernhard and Hartley in the fully-professional Le Mans Prototype 1 class from the 2014 to 2016 seasons. The trio won eight races in the final two seasons and the 2015 World Endurance Drivers' Championship. He retired from motor sport in 2016, becoming a television pundit for Britain's Channel 4 and Australia's Network 10 and a driver manager. Webber received the Australian Sports Medal in 2000 and was appointed Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in the 2017 Australia Day Honours. Webber is an inductee of both the Australian Motor Sport Hall of Fame and the FIA Hall of Fame.


title: Mark Webber (racing driver)

text: On 27 August 1976, Webber was born to middle-class parents, motorcycle dealer and petrol station owner Alan Webber and his wife Diane, in the small New South Wales town of Queanbeyan located in the Tablelands, on the Queanbeyan River banks, near Canberra. His paternal grandfather was a firewood merchant. Webber has an elder sister, Leanne. He was educated at the nearby Isabella Street Primary School and Karabar High School (KHS). Webber represented KHS in athletics and rugby league and did Australian rules football, cricket and swimming after his mother encouraged him to get involved in as many sports as possible. At age 13, he was a ball boy for the rugby league team Canberra Raiders for a year and earned money delivering pizzas in the Canberra and Queanbeyan areas in his late schooling years. Webber also worked as an apprentice plumber and woodcutter. He lives in the small Buckinghamshire village of Aston Clinton with his wife Ann Neal and is stepfather to her son from a previous relationship.


title: Mark Webber (racing driver)

text: Webber began driving motorbikes on weekends from about age four or five on his maternal grandfather's farm. Webber was not encouraged to seriously take up motorcycling by his father, because he sponsored some local children who were injured in motorbike accidents. At about 12 or 13, he switched to karting, buying a go-kart from a school friend's father. He developed himself at a local indoor go-kart centre near his home. Webber received a second-hand worn out go-kart from his father in 1990 and drove it about once a month at the Canberra Go-Kart Club and in meetings in and around Canberra. Andy Lawson, owner of Queanbeyan Kart Centre, built karts around Webber's frame and Webber's father leased his petrol station and worked long hours at an car dealer to fund his son's karting activities. Webber opted for karting, and made his junior-level karting debut in 1991 aged 14, winning the 1992 Australian Capital Territory and New South Wales (NSW) State championships. In 1993, Webber won the Canberra Cup, the King of Karting Clubman Light Class titles, the 1993 Top Gun Award at the Ian Luff Advanced Driving School, and the 1993 NSW Junior National Heavy Championship in a Lawson kart with a larger, more powerful engine.


title: Mark Webber (racing driver)

text: In 1994, he made his car racing debut, competing in the eight-round Australian Formula Ford Championship featuring non-aerodynamically dependent open-wheel racing vehicles fitted with treaded tyres. He drove Craig Lowndes' championship-winning 1993 RF93 Van Diemen FF1600 car that his father purchased. Webber achieved a season-high third at Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit for 14th in the Drivers' Championship with 30 points and second in the Rookie of the Year standings. He was disqualified from the non-championship Formula Ford support race for passing the field on the formation lap. In late 1994, Webber's father asked English-born media officer Ann Neal to locate sponsorship for Webber; Neal located support from the Australian Yellow Pages after she and Webber reviewed six proposals. Webber moved to Sydney from Queanbeyan to be closer to Australia's motor racing industry. When not racing, he earned money working part-time as a driving instructor at Oran Park Raceway defensive driving school.


title: Mark Webber (racing driver)

text: He entered the 1995 Australian Formula Ford Championship with Yellow Pages Racing driving a 1995 Van Diemen car, finishing fourth overall with three victories, three pole positions and 158 points in a high-quality field. Webber finished second at both Mallala Motor Sport Park rounds of the 1995 Australian Drivers' Championship driving a Birrana Racing Reynard 90D-Holden car for seventh in the Drivers' Championship with 32 points. In October 1995, he moved to the London suburb of Hainault, to further his racing career. He entered the Formula Ford Festival at Brands Hatch with the Van Diemen factory team, and finished the race third. The result impressed team owner Ralph Firman Sr. enough to sign Webber to Van Diemen for both the 1996 European Formula Ford Championship and the 1996 British Formula Ford Championship, finishing third and second overall, respectively. He won four races in the British series, finishing second in the championship behind teammate Kristian Kolby, and was also third in the Formula Ford Euro Cup driving two of the three rounds with a win at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps. Webber won the Formula Holden support race, and the Formula Ford Festival.


title: Mark Webber (racing driver)

text: In 1997, he elected to skip Formula Renault and Formula Vauxhall on sponsors advice, and signed a contract to progress to the higher-tier British Formula Three Championship with Alan Docking Racing (ADR). Webber was ADR's lead driver complemented by two funded non-competitive teammates, and was told to bring funding to ADR. Driving a Dallara F397 car powered by an old Mugen Honda engine purchased by the Webber family, he won the Brands Hatch Grand Prix event and came fourth overall with 131 points. Webber was voted Rookie of the Year as 1997's highest-placed rookie. His funding almost dried up mid-season until motor racing journalist Peter Windsor suggested Webber solicit funding from rugby union player and family friend David Campese to complete the year and stop Webber ending his international career early. Webber's season was put on a race-by-race basis and he received offers from Renault and Jackie Stewart. He also finished third in the Masters of Formula 3 and fourth in the Macau Grand Prix for ADR.


title: Mark Webber (racing driver)

text: After testing at the A1 Ring, Webber rejected an offer from Mercedes-Benz motorsports boss Norbert Haug to drive a CLK GTR car at the FIA GT Nürburgring 4 Hours in place of Alexander Wurz. However, he did agree to race for the AMG Mercedes team in the 1998 FIA GT Championship. Haug selected Webber after AMG Mercedes' Gerhard Ungar liked Webber's tenacity. Webber was paired with touring car driver Bernd Schneider, who mentored him driving-wise and in vehicle mechanics. Driving the 1 Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR, he and Schneider won five races and took eight podium finishes, finishing championship runner-up to teammates Klaus Ludwig and Ricardo Zonta after a title duel with the sister team lasting to the season's final round.


title: Mark Webber (racing driver)

text: In June 1998, Webber entered his first 24 Hours of Le Mans having pre-qualified due to Schneider's 1997 FIA GT Championship win. He, Ludwig and Schnieder retired their Le Mans-specific CLK-LM car after 75 minutes due to a steering pump fault causing an engine failure. Late in the year, Campese Management managed Webber until Neal resumed her professional relationship with Webber; she suggested that Webber enter the International Formula 3000 (IF3000) in 1999 pending funding. Webber entered the 1999 24 Hours of Le Mans after the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) abolished the FIA GT Championship GT1 category due to a lack of manufacturer entries for 1999. Sharing the No. 4 Mercedes-Benz CLR with Jean-Marc Gounon and Marcel Tiemann, an car aerodynamic fault caused Webber to go airborne in qualifying between Mulsanne Corner and Indianapolis corner and on the Mulsanne Straight in race-day warm up, forcing his withdrawal from the race.


title: Mark Webber (racing driver)

text: Webber's relationship with Mercedes-Benz cooled following Le Mans because he felt they were unworried about him. He rejected Haug's offer to compete in American open-wheel racing. Greg Moore's death in an accident in California in October 1999 prompted Webber to focus on European single-seater racing. His Mercedes-Benz contract was terminated around November following negotiations. Airline magnate Paul Stoddart, through talks with Jordan Grand Prix team owner Eddie Jordan, offered to underwrite $1.1 million for Webber to combine F3000 and planned Formula One (F1) testing. Webber signed to drive a Lola-Ford Zytek car for the Arrows F3000 team in the 2000 IF3000 Championship, finishing third in the Drivers' Championship with 21 points, winning at Silverstone, achieving two podium results and retiring four times.


title: Mark Webber (racing driver)

text: For 2001, he moved to the Benetton Formula-affiliated, reigning teams' champions Super Nova Racing, replacing Nicolas Minassian. Webber, the title favourite, tended to overestimate the Lola car's grip whilst combining F3000 racing with regular access to F1 vehicles for testing. Webber won at Imola, Monaco and Magny-Cours and was second at the Nürburgring. Four consecutive retirements in the final four rounds prevented him from winning the championship, and he scored 39 points, finishing runner-up to Justin Wilson.


title: Mark Webber (racing driver)

text: Webber made his F1 test debut with the Arrows team in a two-day session organised by Stoddart at the Circuit de Catalunya in December 1999. Plans to drive the Arrows A21 car at Silverstone in July 2000 was cancelled, when he and Stoddart rejected a binding contract for from team owner Tom Walkinshaw. Webber received a three-day evaluation test at Estoril two months later following talks with Benetton. After that, Webber and his legal team agreed terms with Benetton team owner Flavio Briatore to be Benetton's test and reserve driver. He developed the car for racers Jenson Button and Giancarlo Fisichella for 2001 and would replace one of them if they got ill or injured. Webber tested frequently for Benetton and helped to improve the team's performance for the season's end. He joined Briatore's managerial stable in May 2001 on a ten-year contract when Neal said that she wanted to step back from driver management.


title: Mark Webber (racing driver)

text: Ron Walker and telecommunications company Telstra successfully lobbied for Webber to replace Fernando Alonso at Minardi for the first three races of the season. Webber's Minardi PS02-Asiatech car was underdeveloped and he was barely able to fit inside it due to his height. He hoped to become experienced enough to make progress in F1. He qualified 18th for the season-opening and finished fifth following a plethora of first-lap retirements in his debut race. Stoddart consequently retained Webber for the rest of the season. At the four races later, Webber and his teammate Alex Yoong were withdrawn from the race due to three wing failures during practice. He outperformed Yoong and the latter's two-race replacement Anthony Davidson since he was the only Minardi driver using power steering due to budgetary constraints. Webber frequently beat the Arrows and Toyota teams, and his best result for the rest of the season was eighth at the . Webber was 16th overall with two points.


title: Mark Webber (racing driver)

text: In 2002, Webber's management were concerned about Minardi's financial situation. They arranged a test session and evaluation in the more powerful Jaguar R3 in mid-2002. Toyota and Jaguar were interested in Webber, but he joined Jaguar in November 2002, replacing the aging Eddie Irvine. Webber was underprepared as his Jaguar R4 car had a highly unreliable Cosworth V10 engine and rapidly wearing rear tyres. At the season's third round, the , he qualified a season-high third but crashed after losing grip driving through water to cool his tyres late in the rain-affected race. Webber scored points seven times in 2003 with his best result being three sixth-places for 10th in the Drivers' Championship with 17 points. Webber crashed less frequently than he had done in F3000, and his qualifying and race pace saw him outperform both Antônio Pizzonia and Wilson. He was touted as a future star despite poor reliability and a weak car package.


title: Mark Webber (racing driver)

text: Webber was offered a five-year extension to his contract but signed a two-year extension instead. During the season, Webber contributed to the Jaguar R5's technical development and was consistent year-round, extracting extra car performance and regularly outperforming his Red Bull-backed teammate Christian Klien. He drove the underperforming and unreliable R5 vehicle causing him to retire from 8 out of 18 races. However, Webber scored points four times with a season-high start of second at the and a best finish of sixth at the . He placed 13th overall with 7 points.


title: Mark Webber (racing driver)

text: Frank Williams, the Williams team owner, was interested in Webber and he and Neal thought driving for the team would advance his career. Webber activated a performance clause that released him from Jaguar if an improved offer came along. Williams released Sauber driver Fisichella from his contract with the team and Webber was signed by Williams to replace Fisichella for . He was granted an early release from Jaguar following the season-ending so he could test for Williams, and prepared for the season by doing fitness training with cyclist Lance Armstrong at a training camp in Texas.


title: Mark Webber (racing driver)

text: Webber replaced the Toyota-bound Ralf Schumacher at Williams, and was joined by Nick Heidfeld for most of the season and Pizzonia for the final five races following injury to Heidfeld. The Williams FW27 car was aerodynamically poor due to incorrectly calibrated wind tunnels, lacked race speed and was poor starting, seeing him lose positions after qualifying well. In a pre-season test session in mid-February, he sustained a broken left-side rib and damaged rib cartilage when he did not exercise correctly prior to driving. In the first two races of the season he competed on painkillers prescribed to him by FIA medical director Gary Hartstein to manage the pain from these injuries. Webber finished third in Monaco for his first F1 podium finish and tallied points in ten races in 2005. His best start was second in Spain and qualified within the top five in the first seven rounds. Webber was involved in five race collisions and burnt his right hip in France due to heat generated by an failed external electronics box penetrating his car's cockpit. He was 10th in the Drivers' Championship with 36 points, admitting that his reputation faltered. Webber out-qualified Heidfeld nine times, beat him six times and out-qualifying Pizzonia five times that season.


title: Mark Webber (racing driver)

text: Although informed by Frank Williams and technical director Patrick Head of his poor performance, Webber remained at Williams for since no other driver wanted to drive for the team. He became distant from Williams and disliked its management because he expected to feel comfortable there; he stayed with the team because he felt "there was something left" and was loyal to Williams, and rejected an offer to join the BMW Sauber team. Webber's teammate that year was GP2 Series champion Nico Rosberg. His FW28 car ran Bridgestone tyres and a Cosworth V8 engine after BMW ended its partnership with Williams and purchased the Sauber team. His unreliable, under-powered car retired inside the top three in both Australia and Monaco early in 2006. Webber was 14th overall tallying 7 points; his best results were two sixth places in Bahrain and San Marino.


title: Mark Webber (racing driver)

text: Webber did not re-sign with the team after he was offered less money for a two-year contract. Webber became disillusioned with F1 because their press relations would not let competitors speak freely to the press. Briatore directed Webber to the Red Bull Racing team; they became interested in the team after they purchased Jaguar in late 2004 and signed world championship-winning technical director Adrian Newey to design the RB3-Renault car. His switch from Williams to Red Bull was confirmed in August 2006, replacing Klien and partnering the experienced David Coulthard. His move to Red Bull had been surprising as it was formed to promote young drivers and the drinks company.


title: Mark Webber (racing driver)

text: Before the season, Webber enquired about Red Bull adviser and junior formula team owner Helmut Marko for his treatment of young drivers and was told by team principal Christian Horner to obey Marko to avoid conflict. The RB3 proved to be a quick but unreliable car, causing Webber to retire seven times during the season. He scored his first points of 2007 when he finished seventh in the United States and took his second career podium finish with a third-place finish at the three races later. Webber scored once more that year with another seventh place at the . He was on course to finish well at the rain-affected until Toro Rosso's Sebastian Vettel crashed into the rear of his car behind the safety car, eliminating both drivers from the race. Webber tallied 10 points for 12th overall and beat his teammate Coulthard 15 times in qualifying.