title: Stellar classification

text: A different set of spectral peculiarity symbols are used for white dwarfs than for other types of stars:


title: Stellar classification

text: Finally, the classes P and Q are left over from the system developed by Cannon for the "Henry Draper Catalogue". They are occasionally used for certain non-stellar objects: Type P objects are stars within planetary nebulae (typically young white dwarfs or hydrogen-poor M giants); type Q objects are novae.


title: Stellar classification

text: Stellar remnants are objects associated with the death of stars. Included in the category are white dwarfs, and as can be seen from the radically different classification scheme for class D, non-stellar objects are difficult to fit into the MK system.


title: Stellar classification

text: The Hertzsprung–Russell diagram, which the MK system is based on, is observational in nature so these remnants cannot easily be plotted on the diagram, or cannot be placed at all. Old neutron stars are relatively small and cold, and would fall on the far right side of the diagram. Planetary nebulae are dynamic and tend to quickly fade in brightness as the progenitor star transitions to the white dwarf branch. If shown, a planetary nebula would be plotted to the right of the diagram's upper right quadrant. A black hole emits no visible light of its own, and therefore would not appear on the diagram.


title: Stellar classification

text: A classification system for neutron stars using Roman numerals has been proposed: type I for less massive neutron stars with low cooling rates, type II for more massive neutron stars with higher cooling rates, and a proposed type III for more massive neutron stars (possible exotic star candidates) with higher cooling rates. The more massive a neutron star is, the higher neutrino flux it carries. These neutrinos carry away so much heat energy that after only a few years the temperature of an isolated neutron star falls from the order of billions to only around a million Kelvin. This proposed neutron star classification system is not to be confused with the earlier Secchi spectral classes and the Yerkes luminosity classes.


title: Stellar classification

text: Several spectral types, all previously used for non-standard stars in the mid-20th century, have been replaced during revisions of the stellar classification system. They may still be found in old editions of star catalogs: R and N have been subsumed into the new C class as C-R and C-N.


title: Stellar classification

text: While humans may eventually be able to colonize any kind of stellar habitat, this section will address the probability of life arising around other stars.


title: Stellar classification

text: Stability, luminosity, and lifespan are all factors in stellar habitability. We only know of one star that hosts life, and that is our own—a G-class star with an abundance of heavy elements and low variability in brightness. It is also unlike many stellar systems in that it only has one star in it (see Habitability of binary star systems).


title: Stellar classification

text: Working from these constraints and the problems of having an empirical sample set of only one, the range of stars that are predicted to be able to support life as we know it is limited by a few factors. Of the main-sequence star types, stars more massive than 1.5 times that of the Sun (spectral types O, B, and A) age too quickly for advanced life to develop (using Earth as a guideline). On the other extreme, dwarfs of less than half the mass of our Sun (spectral type M) are likely to tidally lock planets within their habitable zone, along with other problems (see Habitability of red dwarf systems). While there are many problems facing life on red dwarfs, many astronomers continue to model these systems due to their sheer numbers and longevity.


title: Stellar classification

text: For these reasons NASA's Kepler Mission is searching for habitable planets at nearby main-sequence stars that are less massive than spectral type A but more massive than type M—making the most probable stars to host life dwarf stars of types F, G, and K.


title: Cahokia

text: The Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site (11 MS 2) is the site of a pre-Columbian Native American city (which existed 1050–1350 CE) directly across the Mississippi River from modern St. Louis, Missouri. This historic park lies in south-western Illinois between East St. Louis and Collinsville. The park covers , or about , and contains about 80 manmade mounds, but the ancient city was much larger. At its apex around 1100 CE, the city covered about and included about 120 earthworks in a wide range of sizes, shapes, and functions.


title: Cahokia

text: Cahokia was the largest and most influential urban settlement of the Mississippian culture, which developed advanced societies across much of what is now the Central and the Southeastern United States, beginning more than 1,000 years before European contact. Today, the Cahokia Mounds are considered to be the largest and most complex archaeological site north of the great pre-Columbian cities in Mexico.


title: Cahokia

text: Cahokia Mounds is a National Historic Landmark and a designated site for state protection. It is also one of the 24 UNESCO World Heritage Sites within the United States. The largest prehistoric earthen construction in the Americas north of Mexico, the site is open to the public and administered by the Illinois Historic Preservation Division and supported by the Cahokia Mounds Museum Society. In celebration of the 2018 Illinois state bicentennial, the Cahokia Mounds were selected as one of the Illinois 200 Great Places by the American Institute of Architects Illinois component (AIA Illinois). It was recognized by "USA Today Travel" magazine, as one of the selections for 'Illinois 25 Must See Places'.


title: Cahokia

text: Although some evidence exists of occupation during the Late Archaic period (around 1200 BCE) in and around the site, Cahokia as it is now defined was settled around 600 CE during the Late Woodland period. Mound building at this location began with the emergent Mississippian cultural period, around the 9th century CE. The inhabitants left no written records beyond symbols on pottery, shell, copper, wood, and stone, but the elaborately planned community, woodhenge, mounds, and burials reveal a complex and sophisticated society.


title: Cahokia

text: The city's complex construction of earthen mounds required digging, excavation and transportation by hand using woven baskets. Construction made use of of earth, and much of the work was accomplished over a matter of decades. Its highly planned large, smoothed-flat, ceremonial plazas, sited around the mounds, with homes for thousands connected by laid out pathways and courtyards, suggest the location served as a central religious pilgrimage city.


title: Cahokia

text: The city's original name is unknown. The mounds were later named after the Cahokia tribe, a historic Illiniwek people living in the area when the first French explorers arrived in the 17th century. As this was centuries after Cahokia was abandoned by its original inhabitants, the Cahokia tribe was not necessarily descended from the earlier Mississippian-era people. Most likely, multiple indigenous ethnic groups settled in the Cahokia Mounds area during the time of the city's apex.


title: Cahokia

text: Historian Daniel Richter notes that the apex of the city occurred during the Medieval Warming Period. This period appears to have fostered an agricultural revolution in upper North America, as the three-fold crops of maize, beans (legumes), and gourds (squash) were developed and adapted or bred to the temperate climates of the north from their origins in Mesoamerica. Richter also notes that Cahokia's advanced development coincided with the development in the Southwest of the Chaco Canyon society, which also produced large-scale works in an apparent socially stratified society. The decline of the city coincides with the Little Ice Age, although by then, the three-fold agriculture remained well-established throughout temperate North America.


title: Cahokia

text: Cahokia became the most important center for the Mississippian culture. This culture was expressed in settlements that ranged along major waterways across what is now the Midwest, Eastern, and Southeastern United States. Cahokia was located in a strategic position near the confluence of the Mississippi, Missouri, and Illinois rivers. It maintained trade links with communities as far away as the Great Lakes to the north and the Gulf Coast to the south, trading in such exotic items as copper, Mill Creek chert, and whelk shells.


title: Cahokia

text: Mill Creek chert, most notably, was used in the production of hoes, a high demand tool for farmers around Cahokia and other Mississippian centers. Cahokia's control of the manufacture and distribution of these hand tools was an important economic activity that allowed the city to thrive. Mississippian culture pottery and stone tools in the Cahokian style were found at the Silvernale site near Red Wing, Minnesota, and materials and trade goods from Pennsylvania, the Gulf Coast, and Lake Superior have been excavated at Cahokia. Bartering, not money, was used in trade.


title: Cahokia

text: At the high point of its development, Cahokia was the largest urban center north of the great Mesoamerican cities in Mexico and Central America. Home to about 1,000 people before "circa" 1050, its population grew rapidly after that date. According to a 2007 study in "Quaternary Science Reviews", "Between AD 1050 and 1100, Cahokia's population increased from between 1,400 and 2,800 people to between 10,200 and 15,300 people". an estimate that applies only to a high-density central occupation area. Archaeologists estimate the city's population at between 6,000 and 40,000 at its peak, with more people living in outlying farming villages that supplied the main urban center.


title: Cahokia

text: As a result of archeological excavations in the early 21st century, new residential areas were found to the west of Cahokia; this discovery increased estimates of historic area population. If the highest population estimates are correct, Cahokia was larger than any subsequent city in the United States until the 1780s, when Philadelphia's population grew beyond 40,000. Its population may have been larger than contemporaneous London and Paris.


title: Cahokia

text: One of the major problems that large centers like Cahokia faced was keeping a steady supply of food. A related problem was waste disposal for the dense population, and Cahokia is believed to have become unhealthy from polluted waterways. Because it was such an unhealthy place to live, Snow believes that the town had to rely on social and political attractions to bring in a steady supply of new immigrants; otherwise, the town's death rate would have caused it to be abandoned earlier.


title: Cahokia

text: The population of Cahokia began to decline during the 13th century, and the site was abandoned by around 1350. Scholars have proposed environmental factors, such as environmental degradation through overhunting, deforestation and pollution, and climatic changes, such as increased flooding and droughts, as explanations for abandonment of the site. However, more recent research suggests that there is no evidence of human-caused erosion or flooding at Cahokia.


title: Cahokia

text: Political and economic problems may also have contributed to the community's decline. It is likely that social and environmental factors combined to produce the conditions that led people to leave Cahokia.


title: Cahokia

text: Another possible cause is invasion by outside peoples, though the only evidence of warfare found are the defensive wooden stockade and watchtowers that enclosed Cahokia's main ceremonial precinct. There is no other evidence for warfare, so the palisade may have been more for ritual or formal separation than for military purposes. Diseases transmitted among the large, dense urban population are another possible cause of decline. Many theories since the late 20th century propose conquest-induced political collapse as the primary reason for Cahokia's abandonment.


title: Cahokia

text: Together with these factors, researchers found evidence in 2015 of major floods at Cahokia, so severe as to flood dwelling places. Analysis of sediment from beneath Horseshoe Lake has revealed that two major floods occurred in the period of settlement at Cahokia, in roughly 1100–1260 and 1340–1460.


title: Cahokia

text: The original site contained 120 earthen mounds over an area of , of which 80 remain today. To achieve that, thousands of workers over decades moved more than an estimated of earth in woven baskets to create this network of mounds and community plazas. Monks Mound, for example, covers , rises , and was topped by a massive building another high.


title: Cahokia

text: Monks Mound is the largest structure and central focus of the city: a massive platform mound with four terraces, 10 stories tall, it is the largest man-made earthen mound north of Mexico. Facing south, it is high, long, wide and covers . It contains about of earth. The mound was built higher and wider over the course of several centuries, through as many as 10 separate construction episodes, as the mound was built taller and the terraces and apron were added.


title: Cahokia

text: Monks Mounds was named for the community of Trappist monks who resided there for a short time, after Euroamericans settled in the area. Excavation on the top of Monks Mound has revealed evidence of a large building, likely a temple or the residence of the paramount chief, which would have been seen throughout the city. This building was about long and wide, and could have been as much as high. It was about .


title: Cahokia

text: The east and northwest sides of Monks Mound were twice excavated in August 2007 during an attempt to avoid erosion due to slumping. These areas were repaired to preserve the mound.


title: Cahokia

text: Early in its history, Cahokia underwent a massive construction boom. Along with the early phase of Monks Mound, an overarching urban layout was established at the site. It was built with a symbolic quadripartite worldview and oriented toward the four cardinal directions with the main east-west and north-south axes defined with Monks Mound near its center point. Four large plazas were established to the east, west, north, and south of Monks Mound.


title: Cahokia

text: To the south of Monks Mound is the Grand Plaza, a large area that covered roughly and measured over in length by over in width. Researchers originally thought the flat, open terrain in this area reflected Cahokia's location on the Mississippi's alluvial flood plain, but instead soil studies have shown that the landscape was originally undulating ridge and swale topography. In one of the earliest large-scale construction projects, the site had been expertly and deliberately leveled and filled by the city's inhabitants. It is part of the sophisticated engineering displayed throughout the site. It was used for large ceremonies and gatherings, as well as for ritual games, such as chunkey. The game was played by rolling a disc-shaped chunky stone across the field. The men would throw spears where they thought the chunky stone would land. The game required a great deal of judgment and aim.


title: Cahokia

text: The major ceremonial north-south 'axis' connects the main precinct with the large ridgetop mortuary mound to its south now known as the Rattlesnake Mound (Mound 66). The feature, named the Rattlesnake Causeway by archaeologists, was an elevated embankment about wide, roughly in length and varies in height from to almost as it traverses a low swampy area to the south of the Grand Plaza. It is aligned 5° east of north, a direction thought to mimic the maximum southern moon rise of 5° west of north, albeit in reverse. This is thought to have had symbolic associations to the builders in connection with their lunar maize goddess of the underworld. This is further strengthened by its close proximity to the ridgetop mortuary Mound 72, the underworld connotations of the low water-filled area the causeway traversed, and its terminus at the mortuary complex at the Rattlesnake Mound. The causeway itself may have been seen as a symbolic "Path of Souls".


title: Cahokia

text: The high-status central district of Cahokia was surrounded by a 2-mi-long palisade that was equipped with protective bastions. A later addition to the site, when the palisade was constructed, it cut through and separated some pre-existing neighborhoods. Archaeologists found evidence of the stockade during excavation of the area and indications that it was rebuilt several times. Its bastions showed that it was mainly built for defensive purposes.


title: Cahokia

text: Beyond Monks Mound, as many as 120 more mounds stood at varying distances from the city center. To date, 109 mounds have been located, 68 of which are in the park area. The mounds are divided into three different types: platform, conical, and ridge-top. Each appeared to have had its own meaning and function. In general terms, the city center seems to have been laid out in a diamond-shaped pattern about from end to end, while the entire city is across from east to west.


title: Cahokia

text: During excavation of Mound 72, a ridge-top burial mound south of main urban precinct, archaeologists found the remains of a man in his 40s who was probably an important Cahokian ruler. The man was buried on a bed of more than 20,000 marine-shell disc beads arranged in the shape of a falcon, with the bird's head appearing beneath and beside the man's head, and its wings and tail beneath his arms and legs.


title: Cahokia

text: The falcon warrior or "birdman" is a common motif in Mississippian culture. This burial clearly had powerful iconographic significance. In addition, a cache of sophisticated, finely worked arrowheads in a variety of different styles and materials was found near the grave of this important man. Separated into four types, each from a different geographical region, the arrowheads demonstrated Cahokia's extensive trade links in North America.


title: Cahokia

text: Archeologists recovered more than 250 other skeletons from Mound 72. Scholars believe almost 62% of these were sacrificial victims, based on signs of ritual execution, method of burial, and other factors. The skeletons include:


title: Cahokia

text: The relationship of these burials to the central burial is unclear. They were unlikely to have all deposited at the same time. Wood in several parts of the mound has been radiocarbon-dated to between 950 and 1000 CE.


title: Cahokia

text: Excavations have indicated that Mound 72 was not constructed as a single mound, but rather as a series of smaller mounds. These mounds were reshaped and covered over to give Mound 72 its final ridge-top shape.


title: Cahokia

text: Excavations near Mound 34 from 2002 to 2010 revealed a copper workshop. This unique find was originally discovered in the 1950s by archaeologist Gregory Perino, but its exact location was lost for 60 years. It is the only known copper workshop to be found at a Mississippian culture site. The area contains the remains of three tree stumps thought to have been used to hold anvil stones. Analysis of copper found during excavations showed that it had been annealed, a technique involving repeatedly heating and cooling the metal as it is worked, as blacksmiths do with iron.


title: Cahokia

text: Artisans produced religious items, such as long-nosed god maskettes, ceremonial earrings with a symbolic shape, thought to have been used in fictive kinship rituals. Many of the stylistically related Mississippian copper plates, such as the Wulfing cache from southeastern Missouri, some of the Etowah plates from Georgia, and many of the Spiro plates from Oklahoma, are associated with the Greater Braden style and are thought to have been made in Cahokia in the 13th century.


title: Cahokia

text: The Cahokia Woodhenge was a series of large timber circles located roughly to the west of Monks Mound. They are thought to have been constructed between 900 and 1100 CE, with each one being larger and having 12 more posts than its predecessor. The site was discovered during salvage archaeology undertaken by Dr. Warren Wittry in the early 1960s interstate highway construction boom. Although the majority of the site contained village house features, a number of unusually shaped, large post holes were also discovered. When the holes were plotted out, they formed several arcs of equally spaced holes. Detailed analytical work supported the hypothesis that the placement of these posts was by design, and Wittry hypothesized that the arcs could be whole circles. He began referring to the circles as "woodhenges", comparing the structures to England's well-known circles at Woodhenge and Stonehenge.


title: Cahokia

text: Additional excavations in the 1960s–1980s used predictions based on verified posthole locations and spacing to locate other postholes and confirm the existence of five separate timber circles in the general vicinity. The circles are now designated Woodhenges I through V in Roman numerals. In 1985, a reconstruction of Woodhenge III was built with the posts being placed into the original excavated post positions. The circle, which has 48 posts in the circle and a 49th central post, has been used to investigate archaeoastronomy at Cahokia. The Illinois Historic Preservation Division that oversees the Cahokia site hosts public sunrise observations at the vernal and autumnal equinoxes and the winter and summer solstices. Out of respect for Native American beliefs, these events do not feature ceremonies or rituals of any kind.


title: Cahokia

text: Until the 19th century, a series of similar mounds was documented as existing in what is now the city of St. Louis, some to the west of Cahokia. Most of these mounds were leveled during the development of St. Louis, and much of their material was reused in construction projects.


title: Cahokia

text: The lone survivor of these mounds is Sugarloaf Mound. Located on the west bank of the Mississippi, it marked the initial border between St. Louis and the once autonomous city of Carondelet.


title: Cahokia

text: One of the largest Mississippian sites is Kincaid Mounds State Historic Site, located in Massac and Polk counties in southern Illinois. It is southeast of Cahokia, located in the floodplain of the Ohio River. With a total of 19 mounds at the complex, it is considered the fifth-largest Mississippian site in terms of the number of monuments. It is believed to have been a chiefdom, as an elite burial mound was among those found. The site is designated as a National Historic Landmark.


title: Cahokia

text: The Cahokia Museum and Interpretive Center, which receives up to a million visitors a year, was designed by AAIC Inc. The building, which opened in 1989, received the Thomas H. Madigan Award, the "St. Louis Construction News & Reviews" Readers Choice Award, the Merit Award from the Metal Construction Association, and the Outstanding Achievement Award from the Brick Manufacturer Association.


title: Cahokia

text: Cahokia Mounds was first protected by the state of Illinois in 1923 when its legislature authorized purchase of a state park. Later designation as a state historic site offered additional protection, but the site came under significant threat from the federal highway building program in the 1950s. The highway program reduced the site's integrity; however, it increased funding for emergency archeological investigations. These investigations became intensive, and today continue. They have resulted in the present understanding of the national and international significance of the site. The site was designated a National Historic Landmark on July 19, 1964, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1966.


title: Cahokia

text: In 1982, UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) designated the site a World Heritage Site. This is the only such self-contained site in Illinois and among 24 World Heritage Sites in the United States in 2009.


title: Cahokia

text: The designation has helped protect the property and attract funds to conduct research on this significant civilization.


title: Jus soli

text: Jus soli ( , , ; meaning "right of soil"), commonly referred to as birthright citizenship, is the right of anyone born in the territory of a state to nationality or citizenship.


title: Jus soli

text: "Jus soli" was part of the English common law, in contrast to "jus sanguinis", which derives from the Roman law that influenced the civil-law systems of mainland Europe.


title: Jus soli

text: "Jus soli" is the predominant rule in the Americas; explanations for this geographical phenomenon include: the establishment of lenient laws by past European colonial powers to entice immigrants from the Old World and displace native populations in the New World, along with the emergence of successful Latin American independence movements that widened the definition and granting of citizenship, as a prerequisite to the abolishment of slavery since the 19th century.


title: Jus soli

text: Outside the Americas, however, "jus soli" is rare. Since the Twenty-seventh Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland was enacted in 2004, no European country grants citizenship based on unconditional or near-unconditional "jus soli".


title: Jus soli

text: Almost all states in Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania grant citizenship at birth based upon the principle of "jus sanguinis" ("right of blood"), in which citizenship is inherited through parents rather than birthplace, or a restricted version of "jus soli" in which citizenship by birthplace is automatic only for the children of certain immigrants.


title: Jus soli

text: "Jus soli" in many cases helps prevent statelessness. Countries that have acceded to the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness are obligated to grant nationality to people born in their territory who would otherwise become stateless persons. The American Convention on Human Rights similarly provides that "Every person has the right to the nationality of the state in whose territory he was born if he does not have the right to any other nationality."


title: Jus soli

text: "Lex soli" is a law used in practice to regulate who and under what circumstances can assert the right of "jus soli". Most states provide a specific "lex soli—"in application of the respective "jus soli—"and it is the most common means of acquiring nationality. However, a frequent exception to "lex soli" is imposed when a child is born to a parent in the diplomatic or consular service of another state on a mission to the state in question.


title: Jus soli

text: There is a trend in some countries toward restricting "lex soli" by requiring that at least one of the child's parents be a citizen, national or legal permanent resident of the state in question at time of the child's birth. Modification of "jus soli" has been criticized as contributing to economic inequality, the perpetuation of unfree labour from a helot underclass and statelessness. "Jus soli" has been restricted in the following countries:


title: Jus soli

text: Some countries that formerly observed "jus soli" have moved to abolish it entirely, conferring citizenship on children born in the country only if at least one of the parents is a citizen of that country.


title: Bobby Sands

text: Robert Gerard Sands (; 9 March 1954 – 5 May 1981) was a member (and leader in the Maze prison) of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) who died on hunger strike while imprisoned at HM Prison Maze in Northern Ireland. Sands helped to plan the 1976 bombing of the Balmoral Furniture Company in Dunmurry, which was followed by a gun battle with the Royal Ulster Constabulary. Sands was arrested while trying to escape and sentenced to 14 years for firearms possession.


title: Bobby Sands

text: He was the leader of the 1981 hunger strike in which Irish republican prisoners protested against the removal of Special Category Status. During Sands's strike, he was elected to the British Parliament as an Anti H-Block candidate. His death and those of nine other hunger strikers was followed by a new surge of IRA recruitment and activity. International media coverage brought attention to the hunger strikers, and the republican movement in general, attracting both praise and criticism.


title: Bobby Sands

text: Sands was born in Dunmurry in 1954 to John and Rosaleen Sands. After marrying, they relocated to the new development of Abbots Cross, Newtownabbey, County Antrim, outside North Belfast. Sands was the eldest of four children. His younger sisters, Marcella and Bernadette, were born in 1955 and 1958, respectively. He also had a younger brother, John, born in 1962.


title: Bobby Sands

text: In 1961, after experiencing harassment and intimidation from their neighbours, the family abandoned the development and moved in with friends for six months before being granted housing in the nearby Rathcoole development. Rathcoole was 30% Catholic and featured Catholic schools as well as a nominally Catholic, but religiously mixed, youth football club, an unusual circumstance in Northern Ireland, known as Stella Maris, the same as the school Sands attended and where the training was held. Sands was a member of this club and played left-back. There was another youth club in nearby Greencastle called Star of the Sea and many boys went there when the Stella Maris club closed.


title: Bobby Sands

text: By 1966, sectarian violence in Rathcoole, along with the rest of the Belfast metropolitan area, had considerably worsened, and the minority Catholic population there found itself under siege. Despite always having had Protestant friends, Sands suddenly found that none of them would even speak to him, and he quickly learned to associate only with Catholics.


title: Bobby Sands

text: He left school in 1969 at age 15, and enrolled in Newtownabbey Technical College, beginning an apprenticeship as a coach builder at Alexander's Coach Works in 1970. He worked there for less than a year, enduring constant harassment from his Protestant co-workers, which according to several co-workers he ignored completely, as he wished to learn a meaningful trade. He was eventually confronted after leaving his shift in January 1971 by a number of his coworkers wearing the armbands of the local Ulster loyalist tartan gang. He was held at gunpoint and told that Alexander's was off-limits to "Fenian scum" and to never come back if he valued his life. He later said that this event was the point at which he decided that militancy was the only solution. In late 1971 while working as a barman at the Glen Inn (a pub in Glengormley), Sands approached a man who he knew to be connected to the IRA and told him he would like to join; the man told Bobby to think it over as things in Rathcoole were bad and Catholics in the area were very isolated. Later that year, the same man from the pub spotted Bobby playing football on a pitch near the Sands house. As an initiation, he asked Sands to transport a gun from Rathcoole to Glengormley because the local IRA volunteer who was supposed to do the job had failed to show up. Bobby left the game on the spot, changed clothes and took the gun. This is when Bobby's involvement with the IRA began in earnest, according to O'Hearn: Sands soon recruited some of his mates into a small auxiliary unit of about six or seven volunteers. Bobby was their section leader. They were isolated, so they worked with other volunteers from surrounding areas.


title: Bobby Sands

text: In June 1972, Sands's parents' home was attacked and damaged by a loyalist mob and they were again forced to move, this time to the West Belfast Catholic area of Twinbrook, where Sands, now thoroughly embittered, rejoined them. By 1973, almost every Catholic family had been driven out of Rathcoole by violence and intimidation, although there were some who remained.


title: Bobby Sands

text: Sands was arrested and charged in October 1972 with possession of four handguns found in the house where he was staying. Sands was convicted in April 1973, sentenced to five years imprisonment, and released in April 1976.


title: Bobby Sands

text: Upon his release, he returned to his family home in West Belfast, and resumed his active role in the Provisional IRA. Sands and Joe McDonnell planned the bombing of the Balmoral Furniture Company in Dunmurry on 14 October 1976. The showroom was destroyed but as the IRA men left the scene there was a gun battle with the Royal Ulster Constabulary. Leaving behind two wounded, Seamus Martin and Gabriel Corbett, the remaining four (Sands, McDonnell, Seamus Finucane, and Sean Lavery) tried to escape by car, but were arrested. One of the revolvers used in the attack was found in the car. On 7 September 1977, the four men were sentenced to 14 years for possession of the revolver. They were not charged with explosive offences.


title: Bobby Sands

text: Immediately after his sentencing, Sands was implicated in a fight and sent to the punishment block in Crumlin Road Prison. The cells contained a bed, a mattress, a chamber pot and a water container. Books, radios and other personal items were not permitted, although a Bible and some Catholic pamphlets were provided. Sands refused to wear a prison uniform, so was kept naked in his cell for twenty-two days without access to bedding from 7.30 am to 8.30 pm each day.


title: Bobby Sands

text: In late 1980, Sands was chosen Officer Commanding of the Provisional IRA prisoners in the Maze Prison, succeeding Brendan Hughes, who was participating in the first hunger strike. Republican prisoners organised a series of protests seeking to regain their previous Special Category Status, which would free them from some ordinary prison regulations. This began with the "blanket protest" in 1976, in which the prisoners refused to wear prison uniforms and wore blankets instead. In 1978, after a number of attacks on prisoners leaving their cells to "slop out" (i.e., empty their chamber pots), this escalated into the "dirty protest", wherein prisoners refused to wash and smeared the walls of their cells with excrement. Sands wrote about the brutality of Maze prison guards: "The screws [prison guards] removed me from my cell naked and I was conveyed to the punishment block in a blacked out van. As I stepped out of the van on arrival there they grabbed me from all sides and began punching and kicking me to the ground ... they dragged me by the hair across a stretch of hard core rubble to the gate of the punishment block. The full weight of my body recoiled forward again, smashing my head against the corrugated iron covering around the gate."


title: Bobby Sands

text: While in prison, Sands had several letters and articles published in the Republican paper "An Phoblacht" under the pseudonym "Marcella" (his sister's name). Other writings attributed to him are: "Skylark Sing Your Lonely Song" and "One Day in My Life". Sands also wrote the lyrics of "Back Home in Derry" and "McIlhatton", which were both later recorded by Christy Moore, and "Sad Song For Susan", which was also later recorded. The melody of "Back Home in Derry" was borrowed from Gordon Lightfoot's 1976 song "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald". The song itself is about the penal transportation of Irishmen in the 19th century to Van Diemen's Land (modern day Tasmania, Australia).


title: Bobby Sands

text: The 1981 Irish hunger strike started with Sands refusing food on 1 March 1981. Sands decided that other prisoners should join the strike at staggered intervals to maximise publicity, with prisoners steadily deteriorating successively over several months. The hunger strike centred on five demands:


title: Bobby Sands

text: The significance of the hunger strike was the prisoners' aim of being considered political prisoners as opposed to criminals. Shortly before Sands's death, "The Washington Post" reported that the primary aim of the hunger strike was to generate international publicity.


title: Bobby Sands

text: Shortly after the beginning of the strike, Frank Maguire, the Independent Republican Member of Parliament (MP) for Fermanagh and South Tyrone, died suddenly of a heart attack, precipitating the April 1981 by-election.


title: Bobby Sands

text: The sudden vacancy in a seat with a nationalist majority of about 5,000 was a valuable opportunity for Sands's supporters "to raise public consciousness". Pressure not to split the vote led other nationalist parties, notably the Social Democratic and Labour Party, to withdraw, and Sands was nominated on the label "Anti H-Block/Armagh Political Prisoner". After a highly polarised campaign, Sands narrowly won the seat on 9 April 1981, with 30,493 votes to 29,046 for the Ulster Unionist Party candidate Harry West. Sands became the youngest MP at the time. Sands died in prison less than a month later, without ever having taken his seat in the Commons.


title: Bobby Sands

text: Following Sands's election win, the British government introduced the Representation of the People Act 1981 which prevents prisoners serving jail terms of more than one year in either the UK or the Republic of Ireland from being nominated as candidates in British elections. The enactment of the law, as a response to the election of Sands, consequently prevented other hunger strikers from being elected to the House of Commons.


title: Bobby Sands

text: Sands died on 5 May 1981 in the Maze's prison hospital after 66 days on hunger strike, aged 27. The original pathologist's report recorded the hunger strikers' causes of death as "self-imposed starvation", amended to simply "starvation" following protests by the dead strikers' families. The coroner recorded verdicts of "starvation, self-imposed".


title: Bobby Sands

text: Sands became a martyr to Irish republicans, and the announcement of his death prompted several days of rioting in nationalist areas of Northern Ireland. More than 100,000 people lined the route of Sands's funeral, and he was buried in the 'New Republican Plot' alongside 76 others. Their graves are maintained by the National Graves Association, Belfast.


title: Bobby Sands

text: In response to a question in the House of Commons on 5 May 1981, the British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher said, "Mr Sands was a convicted criminal. He chose to take his own life. It was a choice that his organisation did not allow to many of its victims".


title: Bobby Sands

text: Cardinal Basil Hume, head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, condemned Sands, describing the hunger strike as a form of violence. However, he noted that this was his personal view. The Roman Catholic Church's official stance was that ministrations should be provided to the hunger strikers who, believing their sacrifice to be for a higher good, were acting in good conscience.


title: Bobby Sands

text: At Old Firm football matches in Glasgow, Scotland, some Rangers fans have been known to sing songs mocking Sands to taunt fans of Celtic. Of those who identify with a particular religion, Rangers fans are mainly Protestant and predominantly sympathetic to unionists; Celtic fans are traditionally more likely to support nationalists. Celtic fans regularly sing the republican song "The Roll of Honour", which commemorates the 10 men who died in the 1981 hunger strike, amongst other songs in support of the IRA. Sands is mentioned in the line "They stood beside their leader – the gallant Bobby Sands." Rangers' taunts have since been adopted by the travelling support of other UK clubs, particularly those with strong British nationalist ties, as a form of anti-Irish sentiment. The 1981 British Home Championship football tournament was cancelled following the refusal of teams from England and Wales to travel to Northern Ireland in the aftermath of his death, due to security concerns.


title: Bobby Sands

text: In Europe, there were widespread protests after Sands's death. 5,000 Milanese students burned the Union Flag and chanted "Freedom for Ulster" during a march. The British Consulate at Ghent was raided. In Paris, thousands marched "behind a huge portrait of Sands, to chants of 'the IRA will conquer'".


title: Bobby Sands

text: In the Portuguese Parliament, the opposition stood in a minute's silence for Sands. In Oslo, one demonstrator threw a tomato at Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, but missed. In the Soviet Union, "Pravda" described it as "another tragic page in the grim chronicle of oppression, discrimination, terror, and violence" in Ireland. Many French towns and cities have streets named after Sands, including Nantes, Saint-Étienne, Le Mans, Vierzon, and Saint-Denis. According to Beresford, the conservative-aligned West German newspaper "Die Welt" took a negative view towards Sands saying "the British Government was right and [Sands] was simply trying to blackmail the state with his life."


title: Bobby Sands

text: A number of political, religious, union and fund-raising institutions chose to honour Sands in the United States. The International Longshoremen's Association in New York announced a 24-hour boycott of British ships. Over 1,000 people gathered in New York's St. Patrick's Cathedral to hear Cardinal Terence Cooke offer a reconciliation Mass for Northern Ireland. Irish pubs in the city were closed for two hours in mourning.


title: Bobby Sands

text: The New Jersey General Assembly, the lower house of the New Jersey Legislature, voted 34–29 for a resolution honouring his "courage and commitment."


title: Bobby Sands

text: The American media expressed a range of opinions on Sands's death. "The Boston Globe" commented, a few days before Sands's death, that "[t]he slow suicide attempt of Bobby Sands has cast his land and his cause into another downward spiral of death and despair. There are no heroes in the saga of Bobby Sands". The "Chicago Tribune" wrote that "Mahatma Gandhi used the hunger strike to move his countrymen to abstain from fratricide. Bobby Sands's deliberate slow suicide is intended to precipitate civil war. The former deserved veneration and influence. The latter would be viewed, in a reasonable world, not as a charismatic martyr but as a fanatical suicide, whose regrettable death provides no sufficient occasion for killing others".


title: Bobby Sands

text: In an editorial, "The New York Times" wrote that "Britain's prime minister Thatcher is right in refusing to yield political status to Bobby Sands, the Irish Republican Army hunger striker", but added that by appearing "unfeeling and unresponsive" the British Government was giving Sands "the crown of martyrdom". The "San Francisco Chronicle" argued that political belief should not exempt activists from criminal law:


title: Bobby Sands

text: Terrorism goes far beyond the expression of political belief. And dealing with it does not allow for compromise as many countries of Western Europe and United States have learned. The bombing of bars, hotels, restaurants, robbing of banks, abductions, and killings of prominent figures are all criminal acts and must be dealt with by criminal law.


title: Bobby Sands

text: Some American critics and journalists suggested that American press coverage was a "melodrama". Edward Langley of "The Pittsburgh Press" criticised the large pro-IRA Irish-American contingent which "swallow IRA propaganda as if it were taffy", and concluded that IRA "terrorist propaganda triumphs."


title: Bobby Sands

text: Archbishop John R. Roach, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, called Sands's death "a useless sacrifice". "The Ledger" of 5 May 1981 claimed that the hunger strike made Sands "a hero among Irish Republicans, or nationalists, seeking the reunion of Protestant-dominated and British-ruled Northern Ireland with the independent and predominantly Catholic Irish Republic to the south". "The Ledger" quoted Sands as saying "If I die, God will understand" and "Tell everyone I'll see them somewhere, sometime".


title: Bobby Sands

text: In Hartford, Connecticut, a memorial was dedicated to Bobby Sands and the other hunger strikers in 1997, the only one of its kind in the United States. Set up by the Irish Northern Aid Committee and local Irish-Americans, it stands in a traffic island known as Bobby Sands Circle at the bottom of Maple Avenue near Goodwin Park.


title: Bobby Sands

text: The Iranian government renamed Winston Churchill Boulevard, the location of the Embassy of the United Kingdom in Tehran, to Bobby Sands Street, prompting the embassy to move its entrance door to Ferdowsi street to avoid using Bobby Sands Street on its letterhead. A street in the Elahieh district is also named after Sands. An official blue and white street sign was affixed to the rear wall of the British embassy compound saying (in Persian) "Bobby Sands Street" with three words of explanation "militant Irish guerrilla". The official Pars News Agency called Bobby Sands's death "heroic". There have been claims that the British pressured Iranian authorities to change the name of Bobby Sands Street but this was denied. A burger bar in Tehran is named in honour of Sands.


title: Bobby Sands

text: Nine other IRA and Irish National Liberation Army members who were involved in the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike died after Sands. On the day of Sands's funeral, Unionist leader Ian Paisley held a memorial service outside Belfast City Hall to commemorate the victims of the IRA. In the Irish general election held the same year, two anti H-block candidates won seats on an abstentionist basis.


title: Bobby Sands

text: The death of Sands resulted in a new surge of IRA activity and an immediate escalation in the Troubles, with the group obtaining many more members and increasing its fund-raising capability. Both nationalists and unionists began to harden their attitudes and move towards political extremes. Sands's Westminster seat was taken by his election agent, Owen Carron, standing as 'Anti H-Block Proxy Political Prisoner' with an increased majority. Shortly after Sands's death, the Representation of the People Act 1981 was passed through parliament. As a result of the Act, other prisoners on hunger strike were unable to stand in the second 1981 by-election in Fermanagh and South Tyrone.


title: Bobby Sands

text: The Grateful Dead played the Nassau Coliseum the following night after Sands died and guitarist Bob Weir dedicated the song "He's Gone" to Sands. The concert was later released as "Dick's Picks Volume 13", part of the Grateful Dead's programme of live concert releases.


title: Bobby Sands

text: Songs written in response to the hunger strikes and Sands's death include songs by Easterhouse, Black 47, Nicky Wire, Meic Stevens, The Undertones, Eric Bogle, Soldat Louis and Christy Moore. Moore's song, "The People's Own MP", has been described as an example of a rebel song of the "hero-martyr" genre in which Sands's "intellectual, artistic and moral qualities" are eulogised. The U.S. rock band Rage Against the Machine listed Sands as an inspiration in the sleeve notes of their self-titled debut album and as a "political hero" in media interviews.


title: Bobby Sands

text: Celtic F.C., a Scottish football club, received a €50,000 fine from UEFA over banners depicting Sands with a political message, which were displayed during a game on 26 November 2013 by Green Brigade fans.


title: Bobby Sands

text: Sands married Geraldine Noade while in prison on robbery charges on 3March1973. His son, Gerard, was born 8 May 1973. Noade soon left to live in England with their son.


title: Bobby Sands

text: Sands's sister, Bernadette Sands McKevitt, is also a prominent Irish republican. She was a founding member of the 32 County Sovereignty Movement in 1997. She opposed the Good Friday Agreement, stating that "Bobby did not die for cross-border bodies with executive powers. He did not die for nationalists to be equal British citizens within the Northern Ireland state."


title: Jeff Probst

text: Jeff Probst (; born November 4, 1961) is an American reality show host and executive producer. He is best known as the Emmy Award-winning host of the U.S. version of the reality television show "Survivor" since 2000. He was also the host of "The Jeff Probst Show", a syndicated daytime talk show produced by CBS Television Distribution from September 2012 to May 2013.


title: Jeff Probst

text: Probst was born at the Wesley Medical Center in Wichita, Kansas, to Jerry and Barbara Probst, and moved to Bellevue, Washington halfway through high school. After graduating from Newport High School in 1979, he attended Seattle Pacific University and worked at Boeing Motion Picture/Television studio as a producer and narrator of marketing videos.


title: Jeff Probst

text: In addition to "Survivor", Probst once hosted FX's original half-hour show dedicated to answering viewer letters, "Backchat", along with "Sound FX", a music series featuring Orlando Jones (1996). Probst also hosted the VH1 series "Rock & Roll Jeopardy!" from 1998 to 2001, and was a correspondent for the syndicated program "Access Hollywood". He also wrote and directed the Lionsgate released film, "Finder's Fee". "People" magazine named Probst one of the "50 Most Beautiful People" in 2001. He often contributes to "Jeopardy!" by giving "Survivor" related clues from the show's venues, has twice appeared on Celebrity "Jeopardy!", first in 2001 and again in 2003, and made several cameo appearances during the April 1, 2010 episode.


title: Jeff Probst

text: He was also a frequent guest star on the sketch show "MADtv", guest starring once a season since the show's 9th season.


title: Jeff Probst

text: He is the host of "Survivor", a globally-syndicated American reality show which he has hosted since its inception in 2000. He has stated that he had worked hard to get a meeting with series creator Mark Burnett, because he believed the show was "something special." He delivers the series' signature catch-phrase to losing contestants, "The tribe has spoken. It's time for you to go", which was included in TV Land's "The 100 Greatest TV Quotes and Catch Phrases" special in 2006.


title: Jeff Probst

text: Probst made a guest appearance in a 2003 episode of "Space Ghost Coast to Coast" on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim.


title: Jeff Probst

text: On October 20, 2008, "TV Guide" reported that Probst was developing a new reality TV series for CBS called "Live For The Moment" that was to feature people with terminal illnesses being taken on "the last adventure of their life" before they die. Only the pilot was aired, on January 28, 2010.


title: Jeff Probst

text: On April 1, 2009, Probst appeared on the CBS reality television special "I Get That a Lot", in which he worked a cash register.


title: Jeff Probst

text: In October 2011, he appeared as himself on the sitcom "How I Met Your Mother", in the episode "The Stinson Missile Crisis".


title: Jeff Probst

text: In January 2012, Probst was announced as director of his second feature film, coming-of-age story "Kiss Me", starring John Corbett and Sarah Bolger, with production scheduled to begin in Los Angeles, California, the following month.


title: Jeff Probst

text: From September 10, 2012, Probst hosted "The Jeff Probst Show", a syndicated daytime talk show produced by CBS Television Distribution from September 2012 to May 2013. CBS did not pick up the show for a second season, citing low ratings. Starting in October 2012, Probst has hosted the recurring Adult Swim special, "The Greatest Event in Television History", which consists of remakes of 1980s TV show title sequences.


title: Jeff Probst

text: In February 2013, Probst teamed up with Christopher Tebbetts to release the first of Scholastic's adventure series "Stranded", aimed at middle school students, grades 4–6. It follows the story of Vanessa, Buzz, Carter, and Jane as they are left on a deserted island and forced to fend for themselves. It started out as a regular vacation but when a storm sets in, the kids are shipwrecked in the middle of the South Pacific without any parents. They must find a way to work together if they are ever to get off the island. "Stranded" is the first of the three-book series.


title: Jeff Probst

text: In November 2013 and January 2014, Probst appeared as himself on the sitcom "Two and a Half Men" in two season 11 episodes, "Some Kind of Lesbian Zombie" and "Baseball. Boobs. Boobs. Baseball.".


title: Jeff Probst

text: In December 2016, Probst appeared as himself on the sitcom "Life in Pieces", in the episode "Swim Survivor Zen Talk".


title: Jeff Probst

text: Probst was married to his first wife, psychotherapist Shelley Wright, from 1996 to 2001. In 2004, after filming on "" wrapped, he began dating one of the contestants, Julie Berry. They broke up in early 2008. Probst married his second spouse, Lisa Ann Russell, on December 5, 2011. Through this marriage, Probst is a stepfather to Russell's two children, son Michael (born in 2004) and daughter Ava (born in 2006), from her former marriage to actor Mark-Paul Gosselaar. Probst has stated that he and his partner amicably share custody with Gosselaar and his second partner, and that the children consider all four to be parents.


title: Jeff Probst

text: Probst keeps the snuffer that he uses to snuff the torches when a contestant is voted out of the game as a souvenir after every season of "Survivor".


title: Jeff Probst

text: He has written a book called "Stranded", based on the show "Survivor." As an ordained minister, he has presided over the weddings of several of his friends.


title: Jeff Probst

text: On September 21, 2008, Probst won the first Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program. He won the same award in 2009, 2010, and 2011. The "Los Angeles Times" attributed Probst's undefeated track record in the category to his penchant for interacting with contestants on a compassionate personal level unseen in any of his competitors, transcending his role of host to that of counselor.


title: Stephen Port

text: Stephen Port (born 22 February 1975) is a British convicted serial rapist and serial killer. He is responsible for the murder of four men and for committing multiple rapes. Port received a life sentence with a whole life order on 25 November 2016, meaning he will never be released. He still maintains his innocence.


title: Stephen Port

text: Port was born in Southend-on-Sea, Essex. When he was a year old, his family moved to Dagenham in East London, where he grew up and where his parents still live. He was described as being a "loner" and was often bullied at school during his childhood. Former teachers also described Port's personality as "quiet". His neighbour described him as having a peculiar, childlike personality, exhibiting odd behaviour as a grown man, such as playing with children's toys. After leaving school, aged 16, he went to art college, but it proved too expensive for his parents and he spent two years training as a chef instead. A former romantic partner of Port's described his personality as childish and gave that as the reason for ending their relationship. He came out as gay in his mid-twenties.


title: Stephen Port

text: He lived with his parents until his early thirties, then lived alone in a flat in Barking, London, and worked as a chef at a Stagecoach bus depot in West Ham. Port also briefly appeared on an episode of the television show "MasterChef". He was described as having an athletic appearance at the time of the murders due to regularly going to the gym. He was bald, and disguised this in public by wearing a blonde toupée. The hairpiece was professionally fastened and increased his confidence when meeting other men.


title: Stephen Port

text: Port met his victims via online gay and bisexual social networks and dating or hookup apps and constructed biographies in which he made false claims about his background, including one in which he pretended to have graduated from Oxford University and served in the Royal Navy. In another he gave his occupation as a special needs teacher. Port used "gamma"-hydroxybutyric acid (GHB), a date rape drug, adding it to drinks given to his victims, raped them, and murdered four of them in his flat in Barking. The prosecution said "postmortem examinations on the four young men who died revealed that each had died from a drug overdose featuring high levels of GHB", but Port surreptitiously used other drugs on his victims: amyl nitrite (poppers), Viagra, mephedrone, and methamphetamine (crystal meth).


title: Stephen Port

text: Port contacted his first murder victim, Anthony Walgate, 23, a fashion student originally from Hull, who on occasion worked as an escort, on 17 June 2014 pretending to be a client and offered £800 for his services; they later met at Barking station. At his flat Port drugged Walgate with GHB and raped him; he died after Port gave him a fatal overdose of the drug. In the early morning of 19 June, Port dragged the body to the pavement outside his flat and used his own mobile phone to call an ambulance. Not giving his name, he told an operator that he had been driving past and had seen a "young boy" who was "collapsed or had had a seizure or was drunk" on the street. Port then returned to his flat. Shortly before 8:00a.m. Walgate was pronounced dead. Evidence linking Port to Walgate's death was missed at this time. Port was convicted of perverting the course of justice in March 2015 because his account of the death to the police varied. He was sentenced to eight months, but was released in June and was electronically tagged.


title: Stephen Port

text: Between August 2014 and September 2015 Port murdered three more men: Gabriel Kovari, 22, who had moved to London from Slovakia and had briefly lived with Port; Daniel Whitworth, 21, from Gravesend in Kent, who worked as a chef; and Jack Taylor, 25, who lived with his parents in Dagenham, and worked as a forklift truck driver. The bodies of the second and third victims were found in the graveyard of the church of St Margaret of Antioch in Barking, by the same woman on separate occasions walking her dog; the last victim was found in the park adjacent to the graveyard. Port had planted a fake suicide note alongside the body of Whitworth that suggested he was responsible for the death of Kovari, the previous victim, and that he had killed himself out of guilt.


title: Stephen Port

text: Port used a number of Internet hook-up sites and apps as a means of initially contacting his victims, including Sleepyboy, Grindr, Hornet, Fitlads, Badoo, Gaydar, Flirt, DaddyHunt, PlanetRomeo, Manhunt, Slaveboys and CouchSurfing.


title: Stephen Port

text: The families of the victims of Stephen Port were given compensation by the Metropolitan Police over the force's handling of the investigation into the killings. The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) re-investigated the Met over its initial handling of their cases.


title: Stephen Port

text: The original inquests into the deaths returned open verdicts. Coroner Nadia Persaud said she had "some concerns surrounding Whitworth's death which have not been answered by the police investigation". Her statement continued: "most concerning are the findings by the pathologist of manual handling prior to his death" and noted that "the bed sheet that he was found wrapped in was not forensically analysed, and the bottle of GBL which was found near him was also not tested for fingerprints or DNA". A detective was asked why the bed sheet had not been tested.


title: Stephen Port

text: In 2015, Port was charged with four counts of murder and four of administering a poison, but at the Old Bailey in June 2016 prosecutors added six more counts of administering a poison, seven charges of rape and four of sexual assault. He also faced four alternative charges of manslaughter. Port appeared via videolink from HM Prison Belmarsh and denied all charges.


title: Stephen Port

text: On 23 November 2016, Port was convicted of the assaults by penetration, rapes and murders of Anthony Walgate, 23, Gabriel Kovari, 22, Daniel Whitworth, 21, and Jack Taylor, 25, as well as the rapes of three other men he drugged, and ten counts of administering a substance with intent, and four sexual assaults. He was found guilty on all counts. In total, eleven men were known victims of Port's crimes.


title: Stephen Port

text: Commenting on the case, Malcolm McHaffie, Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor for CPS London, said:Over a period of three years the defendant committed a series of murders and serious sexual offences against young men. Port manipulated and controlled these men through the chilling and calculated use of the drug GHB, which he administered without their permission ... This was a technically challenging case, complicated by a significant amount of evidence taken from the numerous social media sites Port used.


title: Stephen Port

text: At the Old Bailey on 25 November 2016, Mr Justice Openshaw sentenced Port to life imprisonment with a whole life order. Port is incarcerated in HMP Belmarsh.


title: Stephen Port

text: The bodies of the four men were found in the vicinity of Port's flat, in a period of just over a year, from June 2014: Walgate (the first) outside his front door and the other three in or near a nearby graveyard. The Metropolitan Police, however, failed to link the deaths. The first three victims were initially thought not to have died in suspicious circumstances, and despite the "PinkNews" website and the force's LGBT independent advisory group correctly believing there was a serial murderer at large, the police had told them the crimes were not linked.


title: Stephen Port

text: A BBC One documentary broadcast in March 2017 suggested a "catalogue of police failings" in the Met's response to the deaths. Crucial witnesses were not questioned; for example, Port's neighbour who had witnessed Port in a dazed state, with a large container full of white powder and bottles of clear liquid, when he made an unexpected visit to his home, and also reported receiving suspicious text messages from Port regarding Kovari.


title: Stephen Port

text: Kovari's previous landlord, John Pape, searched on the internet for other unexplained deaths in the Barking area, and was astonished at the similarities in the case of Anthony Walgate, especially the locations in which the bodies were found; however, Barking & Dagenham Police did not link the two cases. Upon learning of Whitworth's death, he called the detective at Barking & Dagenham Police and demanded to know whether they thought the now three cases were linked or could be murder, as he was concerned for his own personal safety; he was assured that they were not linked and not murder. He also offered to be interviewed since he felt he might have relevant information regarding Kovari's last movements, but no one contacted him in response, even after he had organisations such as "PinkNews" contact the police on his behalf. The woman who found Kovari's body and found Whitworth's body two weeks later in the same location and almost exactly the same position, also reported thinking that Barking & Dagenham Police "had no idea what they were doing" not to connect the two cases.


title: Stephen Port

text: Whitworth's step-mother says that when police informed her of his death, they led her to believe he had overdosed on drugs, despite no investigation having taken place, and discounted the bruising under his arms which a coroner later stated meant that third-party involvement could not be ruled out. They took the supposed suicide note left with his body at face value, sending a small fragment to her and Whitworth's father, asking them to verify whether it was his handwriting. Although they said they were unsure, it was established at trial that Barking & Dagenham Police had recorded this as confirmation it was Whitworth's handwriting, and that the police had not submitted the note for expert analysis.


title: Stephen Port

text: When the couple were later shown the complete document, Whitworth's father immediately commented that he saw nothing to indicate it had been written by his son. The couple had also asked whether the police had investigated who was meant by "the guy I was with last night", and that the response was that it would never be possible to find out all the answers. Asking about challenging the open verdict or continuing the investigation, his stepmother encountered what she described as an attitude of "it is what it is, deal with it".


title: Stephen Port

text: Similarly, Taylor's sister reported the police simply telling the family "Jack's dead" and accepting the syringe in his pocket, white powder in his wallet and needle marks on his arm as indicating that he had sat down by himself and overdosed on drugs, although her brother was very anti-drugs. She and another sister contacted Barking & Dagenham Police 11 days after his death for an update on their investigation and were astonished to discover none was taking place. They then researched for themselves and came across the three previous cases, but the police responded by denying there was any connection.


title: Stephen Port

text: Eventually, two weeks after his death, the police agreed to take the two sisters to where Taylor's body had been found, and at Barking Station, told them that CCTV footage of Taylor and another man had been found. The sisters were surprised not to have been notified, and more surprised to be told the police were not attempting to identify the other man. One described the attitude of the police as "shocking". In response to their questioning the credibility of the police account of what the footage showed, a sergeant later contacted them to say that upon review, the footage did not show Taylor entering the churchyard alone. They then requested that images of the other man be made public in order to identify him; the police were reluctant, saying that they did not normally release CCTV images, but eventually gave in, and two days later Port was identified from the images and arrested.


title: Stephen Port

text: Following Port's conviction, the Independent Police Complaints Commission opened an investigation into whether 17 police officers should face disciplinary action. , this was expected to be completed in Spring 2018, but not made public until after a verdict in a new joint inquest on all four deaths; the inquests on Kovari and Whitworth were later quashed. The families have also opened a civil claim against the Metropolitan Police.


title: Stephen Port

text: The Metropolitan Police also reported in 2016 that they were re-examining 58 unexplained deaths involving date-rape drugs, although a spokeswoman said there was nothing to suggest that Port was linked to any of them.


title: Stephen Port

text: Police identified Port as a "significant witness" subject to a rape allegation hours after his first victim was found dead.


title: Stephen Port

text: In June 2022 the Independent Office of Police Conduct reopened investigations into the way the deaths were handled due to alleged "material flaws" in its previous investigation.


title: Stephen Port

text: In 2019, Gerald Matovu, who was known to have supplied Port with the GHB used in the killings, was arrested and later convicted of the murder of actor and businessman Eric Michels. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 31 years. Using similar methods to Port, Matovu had targeted Michels on Grindr and had given him a fatal dose of GHB.


title: Stephen Port

text: In August 2018 it was revealed that Port had lodged an appeal against his murder convictions. In November 2018 it was announced that Port's appeal had been rejected.


title: Stephen Port

text: In August 2020, in a Brazilian chat show programme, , hosted by Fábio Porchat, an audience member named Rafael told his story of dating Port. Rafael had moved to London in 2012 at 19 years old and had been working as a waiter when he met Port on a dating website. After they started dating, Rafael moved into Port's apartment, where they lived together for a little longer than a month. After they broke up, Rafael moved back to Brazil, where he got a different job and started another relationship. One day, he decided to search for Port's name online and found out about the murders through an article on BBC. Rafael said he first read the words “documentary”, “Stephen Port” and “serial killer”, and was interested since he thought Port had made a documentary on a serial killer, until he read it and realized what it was actually about. After he discovered the truth about Port, Rafael said that “looking back, there [were] a lot of strange things going on”. Another former partner of Port's also claimed to have broken up with Port due to his unusual behaviour.


title: Stephen Port

text: In July 2020, it was announced that a fresh inquiry was set to take place in January 2021, to examine all four deaths and probe into any police failings.


title: Stephen Port

text: In 2017 the BBC aired the documentary "How Police Missed the Grindr Killer" which examined the botched investigation into Port's murders.


title: Stephen Port

text: In 2019 it was announced the BBC would produce a drama thriller titled "The Barking Murders", written by Neil McKay, which would be based on the investigation led by the families of Port's victims. Stephen Merchant would portray Port while Sheridan Smith and Jaime Winstone would feature in supporting roles. In January 2021 it was announced that the broadcast of the programme, already filmed and now called "Four Lives", would be delayed until the inquests into the deaths of Port's victims were complete, which themselves had been delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The series aired in January 2022.


title: Merge sort

text: In computer science, merge sort (also commonly spelled as mergesort) is an efficient, general-purpose, and comparison-based sorting algorithm. Most implementations produce a stable sort, which means that the order of equal elements is the same in the input and output. Merge sort is a divide-and-conquer algorithm that was invented by John von Neumann in 1945. A detailed description and analysis of bottom-up merge sort appeared in a report by Goldstine and von Neumann as early as 1948.


title: Merge sort

text: Example C-like code using indices for top-down merge sort algorithm that recursively splits the list (called "runs" in this example) into sublists until sublist size is 1, then merges those sublists to produce a sorted list. The copy back step is avoided with alternating the direction of the merge with each level of recursion (except for an initial one-time copy, that can be avoided too). To help understand this, consider an array with two elements. The elements are copied to B[], then merged back to A[]. If there are four elements, when the bottom of the recursion level is reached, single element runs from A[] are merged to B[], and then at the next higher level of recursion, those two-element runs are merged to A[]. This pattern continues with each level of recursion.


title: Merge sort

text: Example C-like code using indices for bottom-up merge sort algorithm which treats the list as an array of "n" sublists (called "runs" in this example) of size 1, and iteratively merges sub-lists back and forth between two buffers:


title: Merge sort

text: Pseudocode for top-down merge sort algorithm which recursively divides the input list into smaller sublists until the sublists are trivially sorted, and then merges the sublists while returning up the call chain.


title: Merge sort

text: Pseudocode for bottom-up merge sort algorithm which uses a small fixed size array of references to nodes, where array[i] is either a reference to a list of size 2 or "nil". "node" is a reference or pointer to a node. The merge() function would be similar to the one shown in the top-down merge lists example, it merges two already sorted lists, and handles empty lists. In this case, merge() would use "node" for its input parameters and return value.


title: Merge sort

text: In sorting "n" objects, merge sort has an average and worst-case performance of O("n" log "n"). If the running time of merge sort for a list of length "n" is "T"("n"), then the recurrence relation "T"("n") = 2"T"("n"/2) + "n" follows from the definition of the algorithm (apply the algorithm to two lists of half the size of the original list, and add the "n" steps taken to merge the resulting two lists). The closed form follows from the master theorem for divide-and-conquer recurrences.


title: Merge sort

text: The number of comparisons made by merge sort in the worst case is given by the sorting numbers. These numbers are equal to or slightly smaller than ("n" ⌈lg "n"⌉ − 2 + 1), which is between ("n" lg "n" − "n" + 1) and ("n" lg "n" + "n" + O(lg "n")). Merge sort's best case takes about half as many iterations as its worst case.


title: Merge sort

text: For large "n" and a randomly ordered input list, merge sort's expected (average) number of comparisons approaches "α"·"n" fewer than the worst case, where formula_1


title: Merge sort

text: In the "worst" case, merge sort uses approximately 39% fewer comparisons than quicksort does in its "average" case, and in terms of moves, merge sort's worst case complexity is O("n" log "n") - the same complexity as quicksort's best case.


title: Merge sort

text: Merge sort is more efficient than quicksort for some types of lists if the data to be sorted can only be efficiently accessed sequentially, and is thus popular in languages such as Lisp, where sequentially accessed data structures are very common. Unlike some (efficient) implementations of quicksort, merge sort is a stable sort.


title: Merge sort

text: Merge sort's most common implementation does not sort in place; therefore, the memory size of the input must be allocated for the sorted output to be stored in (see below for variations that need only "n"/2 extra spaces).


title: Merge sort

text: A natural merge sort is similar to a bottom-up merge sort except that any naturally occurring runs (sorted sequences) in the input are exploited. Both monotonic and bitonic (alternating up/down) runs may be exploited, with lists (or equivalently tapes or files) being convenient data structures (used as FIFO queues or LIFO stacks). In the bottom-up merge sort, the starting point assumes each run is one item long. In practice, random input data will have many short runs that just happen to be sorted. In the typical case, the natural merge sort may not need as many passes because there are fewer runs to merge. In the best case, the input is already sorted (i.e., is one run), so the natural merge sort need only make one pass through the data. In many practical cases, long natural runs are present, and for that reason natural merge sort is exploited as the key component of Timsort. Example:


title: Merge sort

text: Formally, the natural merge sort is said to be Runs-optimal, where formula_2 is the number of runs in formula_3, minus one.


title: Merge sort

text: Tournament replacement selection sorts are used to gather the initial runs for external sorting algorithms.


title: Merge sort

text: One drawback of merge sort, when implemented on arrays, is its working memory requirement. Several methods to reduce memory or make merge sort fully in-place have been suggested:


title: Merge sort

text: An external merge sort is practical to run using disk or tape drives when the data to be sorted is too large to fit into memory. External sorting explains how merge sort is implemented with disk drives. A typical tape drive sort uses four tape drives. All I/O is sequential (except for rewinds at the end of each pass). A minimal implementation can get by with just two record buffers and a few program variables.


title: Merge sort

text: Naming the four tape drives as A, B, C, D, with the original data on A, and using only two record buffers, the algorithm is similar to the bottom-up implementation, using pairs of tape drives instead of arrays in memory. The basic algorithm can be described as follows:


title: Merge sort

text: Instead of starting with very short runs, usually a hybrid algorithm is used, where the initial pass will read many records into memory, do an internal sort to create a long run, and then distribute those long runs onto the output set. The step avoids many early passes. For example, an internal sort of 1024 records will save nine passes. The internal sort is often large because it has such a benefit. In fact, there are techniques that can make the initial runs longer than the available internal memory. One of them, the Knuth's 'snowplow' (based on a binary min-heap), generates runs twice as long (on average) as a size of memory used.


title: Merge sort

text: With some overhead, the above algorithm can be modified to use three tapes. "O"("n" log "n") running time can also be achieved using two queues, or a stack and a queue, or three stacks. In the other direction, using "k" > two tapes (and "O"("k") items in memory), we can reduce the number of tape operations in "O"(log "k") times by using a k/2-way merge.


title: Merge sort

text: A more sophisticated merge sort that optimizes tape (and disk) drive usage is the polyphase merge sort.


title: Merge sort

text: On modern computers, locality of reference can be of paramount importance in software optimization, because multilevel memory hierarchies are used. Cache-aware versions of the merge sort algorithm, whose operations have been specifically chosen to minimize the movement of pages in and out of a machine's memory cache, have been proposed. For example, the algorithm stops partitioning subarrays when subarrays of size S are reached, where S is the number of data items fitting into a CPU's cache. Each of these subarrays is sorted with an in-place sorting algorithm such as insertion sort, to discourage memory swaps, and normal merge sort is then completed in the standard recursive fashion. This algorithm has demonstrated better performance on machines that benefit from cache optimization.


title: Merge sort

text: Merge sort parallelizes well due to the use of the divide-and-conquer method. Several different parallel variants of the algorithm have been developed over the years. Some parallel merge sort algorithms are strongly related to the sequential top-down merge algorithm while others have a different general structure and use the K-way merge method.


title: Merge sort

text: The sequential merge sort procedure can be described in two phases, the divide phase and the merge phase. The first consists of many recursive calls that repeatedly perform the same division process until the subsequences are trivially sorted (containing one or no element). An intuitive approach is the parallelization of those recursive calls. Following pseudocode describes the merge sort with parallel recursion using the fork and join keywords:


title: Merge sort

text: This algorithm is the trivial modification of the sequential version and does not parallelize well. Therefore, its speedup is not very impressive. It has a span of formula_4, which is only an improvement of formula_5 compared to the sequential version (see Introduction to Algorithms). This is mainly due to the sequential merge method, as it is the bottleneck of the parallel executions.


title: Merge sort

text: Better parallelism can be achieved by using a parallel merge algorithm. Cormen et al. present a binary variant that merges two sorted sub-sequences into one sorted output sequence.


title: Merge sort

text: In one of the sequences (the longer one if unequal length), the element of the middle index is selected. Its position in the other sequence is determined in such a way that this sequence would remain sorted if this element were inserted at this position. Thus, one knows how many other elements from both sequences are smaller and the position of the selected element in the output sequence can be calculated. For the partial sequences of the smaller and larger elements created in this way, the merge algorithm is again executed in parallel until the base case of the recursion is reached.


title: Merge sort

text: The following pseudocode shows the modified parallel merge sort method using the parallel merge algorithm (adopted from Cormen et al.).


title: Merge sort

text: In order to analyze a recurrence relation for the worst case span, the recursive calls of parallelMergesort have to be incorporated only once due to their parallel execution, obtaining


title: Merge sort

text: This parallel merge algorithm reaches a parallelism of formula_8, which is much higher than the parallelism of the previous algorithm. Such a sort can perform well in practice when combined with a fast stable sequential sort, such as insertion sort, and a fast sequential merge as a base case for merging small arrays.


title: Merge sort

text: It seems arbitrary to restrict the merge sort algorithms to a binary merge method, since there are usually p > 2 processors available. A better approach may be to use a K-way merge method, a generalization of binary merge, in which formula_9 sorted sequences are merged. This merge variant is well suited to describe a sorting algorithm on a PRAM.


title: Merge sort

text: Given an unsorted sequence of formula_10 elements, the goal is to sort the sequence with formula_11 available processors. These elements are distributed equally among all processors and sorted locally using a sequential Sorting algorithm. Hence, the sequence consists of sorted sequences formula_12 of length formula_13. For simplification let formula_10 be a multiple of formula_11, so that formula_16 for formula_17.


title: Merge sort

text: These sequences will be used to perform a multisequence selection/splitter selection. For formula_18, the algorithm determines splitter elements formula_19 with global rank formula_20. Then the corresponding positions of formula_21 in each sequence formula_22 are determined with binary search and thus the formula_22 are further partitioned into formula_11 subsequences formula_25 with formula_26.


title: Merge sort

text: Furthermore, the elements of formula_27 are assigned to processor formula_28, means all elements between rank formula_29 and rank formula_30, which are distributed over all formula_22. Thus, each processor receives a sequence of sorted sequences. The fact that the rank formula_9 of the splitter elements formula_33 was chosen globally, provides two important properties: On the one hand, formula_9 was chosen so that each processor can still operate on formula_35 elements after assignment. The algorithm is perfectly load-balanced. On the other hand, all elements on processor formula_28 are less than or equal to all elements on processor formula_37. Hence, each processor performs the "p"-way merge locally and thus obtains a sorted sequence from its sub-sequences. Because of the second property, no further "p"-way-merge has to be performed, the results only have to be put together in the order of the processor number.


title: Merge sort

text: In its simplest form, given formula_11 sorted sequences formula_12 distributed evenly on formula_11 processors and a rank formula_9, the task is to find an element formula_42 with a global rank formula_9 in the union of the sequences. Hence, this can be used to divide each formula_22 in two parts at a splitter index formula_45, where the lower part contains only elements which are smaller than formula_42, while the elements bigger than formula_42 are located in the upper part.


title: Merge sort

text: The presented sequential algorithm returns the indices of the splits in each sequence, e.g. the indices formula_45 in sequences formula_22 such that formula_50 has a global rank less than formula_9 and formula_52.


title: Merge sort

text: For the complexity analysis the PRAM model is chosen. If the data is evenly distributed over all formula_11, the p-fold execution of the "binarySearch" method has a running time of formula_54. The expected recursion depth is formula_55 as in the ordinary Quickselect. Thus the overall expected running time is formula_56.


title: Merge sort

text: Applied on the parallel multiway merge sort, this algorithm has to be invoked in parallel such that all splitter elements of rank formula_57 for formula_58 are found simultaneously. These splitter elements can then be used to partition each sequence in formula_11 parts, with the same total running time of formula_60.


title: Merge sort

text: Below, the complete pseudocode of the parallel multiway merge sort algorithm is given. We assume that there is a barrier synchronization before and after the multisequence selection such that every processor can determine the splitting elements and the sequence partition properly.


title: Merge sort

text: Firstly, each processor sorts the assigned formula_61 elements locally using a sorting algorithm with complexity formula_62. After that, the splitter elements have to be calculated in time formula_63. Finally, each group of formula_11 splits have to be merged in parallel by each processor with a running time of formula_65 using a sequential p-way merge algorithm. Thus, the overall running time is given by


title: Merge sort

text: The multiway merge sort algorithm is very scalable through its high parallelization capability, which allows the use of many processors. This makes the algorithm a viable candidate for sorting large amounts of data, such as those processed in computer clusters. Also, since in such systems memory is usually not a limiting resource, the disadvantage of space complexity of merge sort is negligible. However, other factors become important in such systems, which are not taken into account when modelling on a PRAM. Here, the following aspects need to be considered: Memory hierarchy, when the data does not fit into the processors cache, or the communication overhead of exchanging data between processors, which could become a bottleneck when the data can no longer be accessed via the shared memory.


title: Merge sort

text: Sanders et al. have presented in their paper a bulk synchronous parallel algorithm for multilevel multiway mergesort, which divides formula_11 processors into formula_68 groups of size formula_69. All processors sort locally first. Unlike single level multiway mergesort, these sequences are then partitioned into formula_68 parts and assigned to the appropriate processor groups. These steps are repeated recursively in those groups. This reduces communication and especially avoids problems with many small messages. The hierarchical structure of the underlying real network can be used to define the processor groups (e.g. racks, clusters...).


title: Merge sort

text: Merge sort was one of the first sorting algorithms where optimal speed up was achieved, with Richard Cole using a clever subsampling algorithm to ensure "O"(1) merge. Other sophisticated parallel sorting algorithms can achieve the same or better time bounds with a lower constant. For example, in 1991 David Powers described a parallelized quicksort (and a related radix sort) that can operate in "O"(log "n") time on a CRCW parallel random-access machine (PRAM) with "n" processors by performing partitioning implicitly. Powers further shows that a pipelined version of Batcher's Bitonic Mergesort at "O"((log "n")) time on a butterfly sorting network is in practice actually faster than his "O"(log "n") sorts on a PRAM, and he provides detailed discussion of the hidden overheads in comparison, radix and parallel sorting.


title: Merge sort

text: Although heapsort has the same time bounds as merge sort, it requires only Θ(1) auxiliary space instead of merge sort's Θ("n"). On typical modern architectures, efficient quicksort implementations generally outperform merge sort for sorting RAM-based arrays. On the other hand, merge sort is a stable sort and is more efficient at handling slow-to-access sequential media. Merge sort is often the best choice for sorting a linked list: in this situation it is relatively easy to implement a merge sort in such a way that it requires only Θ(1) extra space, and the slow random-access performance of a linked list makes some other algorithms (such as quicksort) perform poorly, and others (such as heapsort) completely impossible.


title: Merge sort

text: As of Perl 5.8, merge sort is its default sorting algorithm (it was quicksort in previous versions of Perl). In Java, the Arrays.sort() methods use merge sort or a tuned quicksort depending on the datatypes and for implementation efficiency switch to insertion sort when fewer than seven array elements are being sorted. The Linux kernel uses merge sort for its linked lists. Python uses Timsort, another tuned hybrid of merge sort and insertion sort, that has become the standard sort algorithm in Java SE 7 (for arrays of non-primitive types), on the Android platform, and in GNU Octave.


title: Steven Strait

text: Steven Strait (born March 23, 1986) is an American actor and singer. He is best known for starring in the adventure film "Sky High" (2005) and the science fiction series "The Expanse" (2015–2022).


title: Steven Strait

text: Strait was born and raised in Greenwich Village, a neighborhood of Manhattan, New York, the son of Jean (née Viscione) and Richard Dyer Strait. His ancestry is Dutch and Italian. He attended Village Community School, Xavier High School and took classes at the Stella Adler Studio of Acting.


title: Steven Strait

text: During his teen years, Strait modeled for several magazines, including "L'uomo Vogue", "Spoon" magazine, "Details", "Surface", "Hollister Co.", and "Pop" magazine, and worked with photographers Bruce Weber, Herb Ritts, and Ellen von Unwerth.


title: Steven Strait

text: Strait began taking acting lessons at the age of eleven. In the sixth grade, he began to take performing classes at the Village Community School. Although forced into it at first, he found a passion for acting after he performed live for the first time. He has worked at both the Stella Adler Acting Studio and the Black Nexxus Acting Studio in New York City.


title: Steven Strait

text: In 2004, he moved to California to pursue a career in acting. After his first audition, he received an acting job, and in 2005, he appeared in his first film, "Sky High", where he played a teenage superhero named Warren Peace. He covered The Fixx's song "One Thing Leads to Another" for the film's soundtrack.


title: Steven Strait

text: His next film starring role was in "Undiscovered", about young singers and actors in the entertainment industry who want to become stars. In 2006, he starred as Caleb Danvers in the supernatural thriller film "The Covenant", which opened on September 8. Strait appeared opposite Camilla Belle in "10,000 BC", a film about prehistoric Earth, released in March 2008. He played a young mammoth hunter, D'Leh, as he travels through unknown lands on a quest to rescue his people from slavery.


title: Steven Strait

text: Strait appeared in the 2008 film "Stop-Loss" as Michael Colson. In 2009, he played Tony, the son of Andy Garcia's character, in the film "City Island".


title: Steven Strait

text: In November 2010, he guest starred on the NBC series "Chase" as Jackson Cooper, a fugitive with a dark past who manipulates his teenage girlfriend with promises of freedom from her father and a life filled with romance and adventure.


title: Steven Strait

text: From 2012 to 2013, Strait co-starred on the Starz series "Magic City", which centered on Miami mobsters and other characters from Miami Beach in the late 1950s. Strait played the son of Jeffrey Dean Morgan's character, Ike Evans.


title: Steven Strait

text: In 2012, Strait played Freddy in the sci-fi thriller "After". The story centered on two bus crash survivors who wake to discover that they are the only people left in their small town.


title: Steven Strait

text: In 2014, Strait was cast in the lead role of James "Jim" Holden in the science fiction series "The Expanse", which began airing in December 2015 on SyFy. After two seasons, The Expanse began filming the third season on July 12, 2017. The third season aired in 2018 on SyFy; it was to be the show's final season, but due to overwhelming fan support the show was picked up by Amazon for three more seasons.


title: Steven Strait

text: Strait has signed to Lakeshore Records and is scheduled to record and release a full-length solo album. He also contributed seven songs to the "Undiscovered" soundtrack.


title: Hanja

text: Hanja (Hangul: ; Hanja: , ), alternatively known as Hancha, are Chinese characters () used in the writing of Korean. Hanja was used as early as the Gojoseon period, the first ever Korean kingdom.


title: Hanja

text: Although a phonetic Hangul, also known as Chosŏn'gŭl in North Korea, had been created by Sejong the Great in 1446 through the promulgation of the Hunminjeongeum, it did not come into widespread official use until the late 19th and early 20th century. Thus, until that time it was necessary to be fluent in reading and writing Hanja to be literate in Korean, as Korean documents, history, literature and records throughout its history until the contemporary period were written primarily in Literary Chinese using Hanja as its primary script. Therefore, a good working knowledge of Chinese characters is still important for anyone who wishes to interpret and study older texts from Korea, or anyone who wishes to read scholarly texts in the humanities. A high proficiency in Hanja is also useful for understanding the etymology of Sino-Korean words as well as to enlarge one's Korean vocabulary.


title: Hanja

text: Hanja were once used to write native Korean words, in a variety of systems collectively known as "idu", but by the 20th century Koreans used hanja only for writing Sino-Korean words, while writing native vocabulary and loanwords from other languages in Hangul. By the 21st century, even Sino-Korean words are written in the Hangul alphabet most of the time, with the corresponding Chinese character sometimes written next to it to prevent confusion if there are other characters or words with the same Hangul spelling. According to the "Standard Korean Language Dictionary" published by the National Institute of Korean Language (NIKL), approximately half (50%) of Korean words are Sino-Korean, mostly in academic fields (science, government, and society). Other dictionaries, such as the "Urimal Keun Sajeon", claim this number might be as low as roughly 30%.


title: Hanja

text: There is no traditionally accepted date for when literary Chinese () written in Chinese characters () entered Korea. Early Chinese dynastic histories, the only sources for very early Korea, do not mention a Korean writing system. During the 3rd century BC, Chinese migrations into the peninsula occurred due to war in northern China and the earliest archaeological evidence of Chinese writing are dated to this period. A large number of inscribed knife money from pre--Lelang sites along the Yalu River have been found. A sword dated to 222 BC with Chinese engraving was unearthed in Pyongyang.


title: Hanja

text: From 108 BC to 313 AD, the Han dynasty established the Four Commanderies of Han in northern Korea and institutionalized the Chinese language. According to the "Samguk Sagi", Goguryeo () had "hanmun" from the beginning of its existence, which starts in 37 BC. It also says that the king of Goguryeo composed a poem in 17 BC. The Gwanggaeto Stele, dated to 414, is the earliest securely dated relic bearing "hanmun" inscriptions. "Hanmun" became commonplace in Goguryeo during the 5th and 6th centuries and according to the "Book of Zhou", the Chinese classics were available in Goguryeo by the end of the 6th century. The "Samguk Sagi" mentions written records in Baekje () beginning in 375 and Goguryeo annals prior to 600. Japanese chronicles mention Baekje people as teachers of "hanmun". According to the "Book of Liang", the people of Silla () did not have writing in the first half of the 6th century but this may have been only referring to agreements and contracts, represented by notches on wood. The "Bei Shi", covering the period 386-618, says that the writing, armour, and weapons in Silla were the same as those in China. The "Samguk Sagi" says that records were kept in Silla starting in 545.


title: Hanja

text: Some western writers claimed that knowledge of Chinese entered Korea with the spread of Buddhism, which occurred around the 4th century. Traditionally Buddhism is believed to have been introduced to Goguryeo in 372, Baekje in 384, and Silla in 527.


title: Hanja

text: Another major factor in the adoption of "hanmun" was the adoption of the "gwageo" (), copied from the Chinese imperial examination, open to all freeborn men. Special schools were set up for the well-to-do and the nobility across Korea to train new scholar officials for civil service. Adopted by Silla and Goryeo, the "gwageo" system was maintained by Goryeo after the unification of Korea until the end of the nineteenth century. The scholarly élite began learning the "hanja" by memorising the "Thousand Character Classic" (), "Three Character Classic" () and "Hundred Family Surnames" (). Passage of the "gwageo" required the thorough ability to read, interpret and compose passages of works such as the "Analects" ((), "Great Learning" (), "Doctrine of the Mean" (), "Mencius" (), "Classic of Poetry" (), "Book of Documents" (), "Classic of Changes" (), "Spring and Autumn Annals" () and "Book of Rites" (). Other important works include "Sūnzǐ's Art of War" () and "Selections of Refined Literature" ().


title: Hanja

text: The Korean scholars were very proficient in literary Chinese. The craftsmen and scholars of Baekje were renowned in Japan, and were eagerly sought as teachers due to their proficiency in "hanmun". Korean scholars also composed all diplomatic records, government records, scientific writings, religious literature and much poetry in "hanmun", demonstrating that the Korean scholars were not just reading Chinese works but were actively composing their own. Well-known examples of Chinese-language literature in Korea include "Three Kingdoms History" (), "Memorabilia of the Three Kingdoms" (), "New Stories of the Golden Turtle" (), "The Cloud Dream of the Nine" (), "Musical Canon" (), "The Story of Hong Gildong" () and "Licking One's Lips at the Butcher's Door" ().