title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: Stratford is a popular tourist destination, owing to its status as the birthplace and burial place of playwright and poet William Shakespeare; it receives approximately 2.7 million visitors a year. The Royal Shakespeare Company resides in Stratford's Royal Shakespeare Theatre.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: The name is a combination of the Old English "strǣt" (from Latin "stratum"), meaning 'street', "ford", indicating a shallow part of a river or stream, allowing it to be crossed by walking or driving and "avon" which is the Celtic word for river. The 'street' was a Roman road which connected Icknield Street in Alcester to the Fosse Way. The ford, which has been used as a crossing since Roman times, later became the location of Clopton Bridge. A survey of 1251–52 uses the name Stratford for the first time to identify Old Stratford and the newer manors. The name was used after that time to describe the area specifically surrounding the Holy Trinity Church and the street of the Old Town.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: The Stratford area was settled during the Roman period: archeological remains of three probable Roman settlements have been found within a few miles of modern-day Stratford, including one at Tiddington (now a part of Stratford).


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: The settlement which later became known as Stratford was first inhabited by Anglo-Saxons following their 7th-century invasion of what would become known as Warwickshire, but was then part of the Kingdom of Mercia. It is likely that an Anglo-Saxon monastery existed at the site of what is now Holy Trinity Church, which was founded after the land was acquired by Egwin, the third Bishop of Worcester (693-714). The monastery was likely destroyed by Viking invaders in 1015. The land remained in the ownership of the Bishops of Worcester until the 16th century. The area around Holy Trinity Church is still known as "Old Town" as it was likely the original area of settlement around the monastery. The focus of the settlement at Stratford was later moved north, closer to the river crossing, which was better positioned for trade.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: Stratford remained a village until the late 12th century when it was developed into a town by lord of the manor, Bishop John of Coutances. John laid out a new town plan in 1196 around half a mile (0.8 km) north of the original settlement, based on a grid system to expand Stratford and allow people to rent property in order to trade within the town. Additionally, a charter was granted to Stratford by King Richard I in 1196 which allowed a weekly market to be held in the town, giving it its status as a market town. These two charters, which formed the foundations of Stratford's transformation from a village to a town, make the town of Stratford over 800 years old.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: John of Coutances' plans to develop Stratford into a town meant Stratford became a place of work for tradesmen and merchants. By 1252 the town had approximately 240 burgages (town rental properties owned by a king or lord), as well as shops, stalls and other buildings. Stratford's new workers established a guild known as the Guild of the Holy Cross for their business and religious requirements. The guild developed into the town's main institution of local government, and included the most important townsmen, who elected officials to oversee local affairs. They built a Guild Chapel in the 13th century, Stratford-upon-Avon Guildhall and almshouses on Church Street in around 1417. The guild also established an educational institution in the late 13th century.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: Many of the town's earliest and most important buildings are located along what is known as Stratford's Historic Spine, which was once the main route from the town centre to the parish church. The route of the Historic Spine begins at Shakespeare's Birthplace in Henley Street. It continues through Henley Street to the top end of Bridge Street and into the High Street where many Elizabethan buildings are located, including Harvard House. The route carries on through Chapel Street where Nash's House and New Place are sited. The Historic Spine continues along Church Street where the Guild buildings are located dating back to the 15th century, as well as 18th- and 19th-century properties. The route then finishes in the Old Town, which includes Hall's Croft and the Holy Trinity Church.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: During Stratford's early expansion into a town, the only access across the River Avon into and out of the town was over a wooden bridge, which was first mentioned in 1235. However, the bridge could not be crossed at times due to the river rising and was described by antiquarian John Leland as "a poor bridge of timber and no causeway to it, whereby many poor folks and other refused to come to Stratford when the Avon was up, or coming thither stood in jeopardy of life." In 1484, a new masonry arch bridge was built to replace it called Clopton Bridge, named after Hugh Clopton, a wealthy local man who later became the Lord Mayor of London, who paid for its construction. The new bridge made it easier for people to trade within Stratford and for passing travellers to stay in the town.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: The medieval structures of local governance underwent significant changes during the Tudor period: The Guild of the Holy Cross was abolished in 1547 under King Edward VI's suppression of religious guilds, and the inhabitants of Stratford petitioned the Crown for a charter of incorporation as a borough, which they received in 1553. This allowed the formation a new Town Council which inherited the property and responsibilities of the abolished guild. The Charter of Incorporation refounded Stratford's school as the King Edward VI School


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: The Cotswolds, located close to Stratford, was a major sheep-producing area up until the latter part of the 19th century, with Stratford one of its main centres for the processing, marketing, and distribution of sheep and wool. Consequently, Stratford also became a centre for tanning during the 15th–17th centuries. Glove making was also an important industry, which was at its zenith in the 15th and 16th centuries. As was malting (the processing of grain to turn it into malt).


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: John Shakespeare, originally a farmer, had moved to Stratford in 1551, from the nearby village of Snitterfield and became a successful glover (glove maker) and businessman, and an official on the Town Council. He met and married Mary Arden a member of the local gentry in around 1557, and together they had eight children, including Stratford's most famous son William Shakespeare in 1564, believed to be at the house now known as Shakespeare's Birthplace.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: Stratford was the centre of considerable activity and some fighting during the English Civil War. Being located at the junction of several main roads, it was strategically important for both the Royalist and Parliamentarian armies. Due to its close proximity to the Parliamentarian stronghold of Warwick, Stratford remained under Parliamentarian control for the majority of the conflict, although it was only directly occupied by troops for sporadic intervals. In February 1643, Stratford was occupied by Royalist forces under Colonel Wagstaffe, but was recaptured by Parliamentarians under Lord Brooke on 25 February after an engagement on the nearby road to Warwick. Having secured the town, Brooke returned to Warwick.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: In one notable incidence in February 1643, Stratford's Market Hall (at the site of the current Town Hall) was destroyed after three barrels of gunpowder which were being stored there blew up. From March 1644, until part of the following year, Stratford appears to have been continuously occupied by Parliamentarian troops. There was however one further Royalist raid in April 1645. A number of famous people passed through Stratford during the conflict: In April 1643, Prince Rupert passed through, he was at Stratford again in July, where he met the Queen Henrietta Maria, who was travelling through the Midlands, and she was the guest of honour of Susanna Hall, William Shakespeare's daughter, at New Place. Oliver Cromwell was at Stratford in December 1646, and again in 1651, before the Battle of Worcester.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: Despite Stratford's increase in trade, it barely grew between the middle of the 13th century and the end of the 16th century, with a survey of the town showing 217 houses belonged to the lord of the manor in 1590. Growth continued to be slow throughout the 17th century, with hearth tax returns showing that at most there were approximately 429 houses in the town by 1670. However, more substantial expansion began following several enclosure acts in the late 18th century, with the first and largest development by John Payton who developed land on the north side of the old town, creating several streets including John Street and Payton Street. In 1769, the actor David Garrick staged a major Shakespeare Jubilee over three days which saw the construction of a large rotunda and the influx of many visitors. This contributed to the growing phenomenon of Bardolatry which made Stratford a tourist destination.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: Before the dominance of road and rail, Stratford was an important gateway to the network of British canals. The River Avon was made navigable through Stratford in 1639, by the construction of locks and weirs, providing Stratford with a navigable link to the River Severn to the south-west and to near Warwick to the north-east, this allowed, in the words of Daniel Defoe "a very great Trade for Sugar, Oil, Wine, Tobacco, Iron, Lead and in a word, all heavy goods which are carried by water almost as far as Warwick; and in return the corn, and especially the cheese, is brought back from Gloucestershire and Warwickshire to Bristol". Between 1793 and 1816 the Stratford-upon-Avon Canal was built, linking the Avon at Stratford with Birmingham. By the early 19th century, Stratford was a flourishing inland port, and an important centre of trade, with many canal and river wharves along what is now Bancroft Gardens.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: The first railway in Warwickshire; the Stratford and Moreton Tramway was opened to Stratford in 1826: this was a horse-drawn wagonway, long, which was intended to carry goods between the Stratford-upon-Avon Canal, the rural districts of south Warwickshire and Moreton-in-Marsh. The tramway fell into disuse by the early 1900s, and the tracks were lifted in 1918. A surviving remnant of this is the Tramway Bridge over the river Avon, a brick arch bridge which now carries pedestrians. The first steam railway to reach Stratford was a branch of the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway from to the south, which opened on 12 July 1859. This was soon followed by the Stratford on Avon Railway's branch from Hatton from the north, which opened on 9 October 1860. Both branches initially had separate termini, but they soon agreed to join the two branches and open the current railway station, which was opened on 24 July 1861. Both branches later came under the control of the Great Western Railway. The connection of Stratford to the growing national railway network, helped enable the development of the modern tourism industry.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: Stratford did not become a major centre of industry during the industrial revolution, but some industries did grow up locally: Edward Fordham Flower opened a large canal side brewery in Stratford in 1831; the Flower & Sons Brewery, on Clopton Road survived until 1967, when the company was taken over by Whitbread. Several lime kilns were opened locally, and the manufacture of tarpaulin and oilcloth flourished. The advent of rail transport in the middle of the century caused a major decline in river and canal transport, and the River Avon navigation through Stratford was abandoned in 1875. It was restored as a navigation by volunteers almost a century later in 1974.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: Victorian Stratford's growth as a tourist destination was further enhanced by Edward Fordham Flower and his son Charles Edward Flower, owners of a local brewery business, and important figures in local affairs: Through their campaigning and fundraising efforts, the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre was opened on the banks of the Avon in 1879. The original theatre was destroyed by fire in 1926, and its replacement was opened in 1932 to the designs of Elisabeth Scott, making it the first important building erected in Britain from the designs of a woman architect.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: In 1974, the old borough of Stratford was abolished and merged into the much larger Stratford-on-Avon District, The area of the borough became a successor parish with a Town Council.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: Stratford-upon-Avon is within the Stratford-on-Avon parliamentary constituency which has been represented by Nadhim Zahawi since 2010. Stratford was within the West Midlands Region constituency of the European Parliament which was represented by seven Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). Stratford is governed by three tiers of local government:


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: Stratford is south-east of Birmingham. It is close to the northern edge of the Cotswolds, with Chipping Campden to the south. Stratford is around to the north-east of the borders with both Worcestershire and Gloucestershire. Other than those already mentioned, significant towns and villages nearby include Alcester, Wellesbourne, Evesham, Reddich and Henley-in-Arden.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: Stratford's location next to the River Avon means it is susceptible to flooding, including flash floods.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: Stratford has several suburbs: The town's urban area encompasses the contiguous sub-villages of Alveston, Shottery and Tiddington, which were formerly independent, but now form part of the civil parish of Stratford, other distinct suburbs of the town include Bishopton, Bridge Town, Clopton and Old Town.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: Stratford has a temperate maritime climate, as is usual for the British Isles, meaning extremes of heat and cold are rare. Sunshine hours are low to moderate, with an average of 1512.3 hours of sunshine annually. Rainfall is spread evenly throughout the year, with an annual average of , with over of rain recorded on 114.1 days per year according to the 1981–2010 observation period. Stratford's warmest month is July, with an average maximum temperature of and January is the coldest month with an average high of . The average summer maximum temperature is , with a winter average high of .


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: In 2011, Stratford-upon-Avon had a population of 27,894 which was an increase from 25,505 in 2007. The town's population is set to increase over the next few years following government approval to build 800 new homes in Shottery, which also includes plans for a new relief road, up to 500 new homes planned in the Bishopton area of the town, and 270 homes on the Loxley Road.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: Apart from tourism, which is a major employer, especially in the hotel, hospitality industry and catering sectors, other industries in the town include boat building and maintenance, bicycles, mechanical and electrical engineering, food manufacture, Information Technology, call centre and service sector activities, a large motor sales sector, industrial plant hire, building suppliers, market gardening, farming, storage and transport logistics, finance and insurance, and a large retail sector. Major employers in the town include the NFU Mutual Insurance Company (and Avon Insurance), Amec Foster Wheeler, Sitel, Tesco, Morrisons, Marks & Spencer, B&Q and Pashley Cycles. There are, nominally, three theatres run by the prestigious Royal Shakespeare Company, which attract large audiences and income for the town.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: The regular large influx of tourists is the major source of the town's prosperity, receiving between 2.5 million and 3 million visitors annually. Stratford is a major English tourist town due to it being the birthplace of William Shakespeare, whom many consider the greatest playwright of all time. In 2010 the District Council spent £298,000 on tourism promotion and supports an official open-top tour bus service. In 2010 Stratford-on-Avon District Council launched a re-branded official tourism website for the Stratford area called Discover Stratford after opening a new tourist information centre on Henley Street in May 2010, which has since moved back to the original location on Bridgefoot.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: Apart from the town centre, Maybird Shopping Park, usually referred to locally as "The Maybird Centre" or simply "The Maybird", is a large shopping centre situated on Birmingham Road, approximately a five-minute drive from the town centre. The Rosebird Centre is a much smaller shopping centre located on Shipston Road, consisting of Waitrose, a pet shop and a pharmacy/GP surgery. Bell Court Shopping Centre is in the centre of the town with entrances from Wood St, Ely St, High St & Rother Street. it has several restaurants and shopping offers.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: The first real theatre in Stratford was a temporary wooden affair built in 1769 by the actor David Garrick for his Shakespeare Jubilee celebrations of that year to mark William Shakespeare's birthday. The theatre, built not far from the site of the present Royal Shakespeare Theatre, was almost washed away in two days of torrential rain that resulted in terrible flooding. To celebrate the 300th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth in 1864, brewer Charles Edward Flower instigated the building of a temporary wooden theatre, known as the Tercentenary Theatre, which was built in a part of the brewer's large gardens on what is today the site of the new, and temporary, Courtyard Theatre. After three months the Tercentenary Theatre was dismantled, with the timber used for house-building purposes.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: In the early 1870s, Flower gave several acres of riverside land to the local council on the understanding that a permanent theatre be built in honour of Shakespeare's memory, and by 1879 the first Shakespeare Memorial Theatre had been completed. It proved to be a huge success, and by the early 20th century it was effectively being run by the actor/manager Frank Benson. The theatre burned down in 1926, with the then artistic director, William Bridges-Adams, moving all productions to the local cinema. An architectural competition was arranged to elicit designs for a new theatre, with the winner, English architect Elisabeth Scott, creating the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. The new theatre, adjoining what was left of the old theatre, was opened by the then Prince of Wales, later Edward VIII, in 1932. The new theatre had many illustrious artistic directors, including the actor Anthony Quayle. Sir Peter Hall was appointed artistic director (designate) in 1959, and formed the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) in 1961.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: The Royal Shakespeare Company also runs two smaller theatres, the Swan Theatre, which was created in the 1980s out of the shell of the remains of the original Memorial Theatre and is modelled on an Elizabethan theatre, quickly becoming one of the finest acting spaces in the United Kingdom, and The Other Place theatre. Along with the Royal Shakespeare Theatre (RST), the Swan Theatre closed in 2007 for refurbishment and reopened in November 2010. The Other Place, a Black box theatre, was extended to become the temporary RSC Courtyard Theatre, opening in July 2006 and was the home of the RSC while the RST was being refurbished – its interior is similar to the interior of the refurbished RST. The Courtyard Theatre closed in 2015 and was replaced by The Other Place in March 2016, which returned as a 200-seat studio theatre within the steel extension in which the Courtyard Theatre was located.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: Stratford is also home to The Bear Pit Theatre which was founded in 2008 as a voluntary organisation. It has 100 seats and is part of the Little Theatre Guild. The Attic Theatre is Stratford-upon-Avon's premiere fringe theatre. Established by husband-and-wife team John and Catherine Partridge and in 2009, who also run the award-winning Tread The Boards Theatre Company. The venue is located next door to Cox's Yard and hosts an intimate 90-seat auditorium in the Grade 2 listed Attic space. The Waterside Theatre (which is not part of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre complex) re-opened in December 2004, then closed again in September 2008. During this span, the theatre housed the Shakespearience visitor attraction. This has now been turned into the Clore Learning Centre, the Royal Shakespeare Company's education and events venue. In 1988, Stratford-upon-Avon was the venue for the disastrous provincial try-out of the ill-fated musical "Carrie", based on the Stephen King novel.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: Stratford ArtsHouse, previously the Civic Hall, is home to Orchestra of the Swan, a professional chamber orchestra staging up to 10 orchestral concerts with international soloists per year. Kempe Studio of The Rudolf Kempe Society, whose patron is Dame Judi Dench, is based in a house at 58 Waterside called The Muses and hosts musical events and masterclass lessons. No. 1 Shakespeare Street holds regular evenings of live music.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: Tudor World is a museum which explores the time when Shakespeare lived. It is based in a Grade II* listed town centre Tudor building and is the only museum in the country dedicated to Tudor times. Every week there is a walk around the town with Shakespeare. The Mechanical Art and Design museum, but better known as MAD museum, is a museum in Henley Street of "brilliant-but-bonkers machines" made by Kinetic artists. Items on show include mechanised flipbooks and a musical typewriter.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: There are five houses relating to William Shakespeare's life which are owned and cared for by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. These include Hall's Croft (the one-time home of Shakespeare's daughter, Susanna, and her husband Dr. John Hall) and Nash's House, which stands alongside the site of New Place which was owned by Shakespeare himself, wherein he died. In Shottery is Anne Hathaway's Cottage, the home of Shakespeare's wife's family prior to her marriage. Mary Arden's House (Palmer's Farm), the family home of his mother, is in Wilmcote. Elsewhere in the district are farms and buildings at Snitterfield, that belonged to the family of Shakespeare's father. In addition, King Edward VI School, located on the corner of Church Street and Chapel Lane, is a grammar school thought to have been attended by Shakespeare. In 2016, the school room where Shakespeare is believed to have studied opened to visitors.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: Stratford has one library, located in Henley Street within a medieval building. Since 2008, Stratford has hosted the Stratford-upon-Avon Literary Festival, which holds two literary events a year, with one event in spring and a shorter festival in autumn. The festival has talks from celebrity guests, workshops and educational programmes and has become one of the most noted literary festivals in the country, with speakers including: Kirsty Wark, Alan Johnson MP, Baroness Shirley Williams, Tom Kerridge, Sir Tim Rice, John McCarthy, Michael Rosen, Howard Jacobson, Jeffrey Archer, Michael Palin, Jeremy Paxman, Alastair Campbell and Paul Merton.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: Every year, Shakespeare's birthday is celebrated in Stratford. The celebration takes place over two days on the weekend closest to 26 April, the date of his christening, and includes musical performances, drama and a parade through the town. In 2016, events were held in Stratford to mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: The Garrick Inn is reputedly the oldest pub in Stratford, with an inn existing on the site since medieval times. The Dirty Duck, located along Waterside, is a popular pub for actors performing at the nearby RSC theatres. A Wetherspoon pub is situated on Sheep Street. For the last ten years, the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) has held a cider and beer festival in the town.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: Henley Street, one of the town's oldest streets, underwent substantial architectural change between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. John Shakespeare's large half-timbered dwelling, purchased by him in 1556, was in 1564 the birthplace of his son William. According to a descriptive placard provided for tourists there:


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: The property remained in the ownership of William Shakespeare's direct descendants until 1670, when his granddaughter, Elizabeth Barnard, died. As she had no children, Elizabeth left the estate to her relative Thomas Hart, Shakespeare's great-nephew. The main house became a tenanted inn called the "Maidenhead" (later the "Swan and Maidenhead") following the death of John Shakespeare in 1601. Members of the Hart family continued living in the small adjoining cottage throughout the century.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: At the end of the 19th century, Edward Gibbs "renovated" the building to more closely represent the original Tudor farmhouse. Adjacent to Shakespeare's Birthplace stands the Shakespeare Centre, completed in 1964 and not far from the Carnegie Library, opened in 1905. The large half-timbered building, which now comprises numbers 19, 20 and 21, was formerly the "White Lion Inn". It is first mentioned in 1603. and was adjoined on the east by a smaller inn called the "Swan". In 1745 the latter was purchased by John Payton, who also acquired the "Lion" five years later and rebuilt the whole premises on a greatly enlarged scale. The work was completed by James Collins of Birmingham, builder, in 1753. Payton "brought the house into great vogue" though Byng in 1792 complained that "at the noted White Lion, I met with nothing but incivility" (cited from "Torrington Diaries" (ed. Andrews), iii, 152).


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: Payton was succeeded as innkeeper by his son John, and its reputation as one of the best inns on the Holyhead Road must have contributed not a little to the prosperity of the town. David Garrick stayed at the "White Lion Inn" during the Shakespeare Jubilee of 1769. and George IV, as Prince Regent, visited it when he came to Stratford in 1806. Its great days came to an end after John Payton the younger sold it to Thomas Arkell in 1823. The building is now home to the Enchanted Manor Museum at the Creaky Cauldron and Magic Alley; the Box Brownie Café; Doug Brown's Really Good Gift Company; and the Not Just Shakespeare Tourist Information Centre. Henley Street is now a major tourist and shopping precinct with many "al fresco" cafés and street entertainers.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: Sheep Street runs from Ely Street eastwards to the Waterside. It was a residential quarter in the 16th century, some of the buildings were rebuilt following the fire of 1595, although many, such as Number 40, date from 1480. Formerly a two-story building that was extended in the early twentieth century has a lower story of substantial close-set studding: the upper is of more widely spaced thin vertical timbers. As the name suggests Sheep Street, which leads down from the Town Hall to Waterside and the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, was from early times and until the late 19th century, the area where sheep, brought from the neighbouring Cotswold Hills to be bought and sold. Today it is the restaurant centre of the town.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: The Shrieves House is one of the oldest still lived in houses in the town and William Shakespeare is said to have based his character of Sir John Falstaff on one of the residents, his godson's uncle. Oliver Cromwell is thought to have stayed here in 1651. He wrote a letter from the town to Lord Wharton on 27 August 1651, before the Battle of Worcester. Behind The Shrieves House is a museum called "Tudor World" with recreations of 16th-century life in theatrical settings. Just off Sheep Street is Shrieves Walk, a very quaint walkway with several small independent stores. A Wetherspoons is also on Sheep Street.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: This area of Stratford, which runs from the foot of Bridge Street to Holy Trinity Church (and leads directly off Sheep Street and Chapel Lane) runs alongside the River Avon and offers access to the Waterside Theatre and all areas of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. The Bancroft Gardens and river area is a very popular place for people watching, enjoying picnics and river activities. In the summer the River Avon is busy with rowing boats, motor boats and river cruises. The Stratford-upon-Avon Canal is busy with colourful narrowboats passing through or mooring up in the canal basin. There are often jugglers, fire-eaters and magicians entertaining the public on the lawns.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: On the edge of the gardens is a water fountain, known as the Swan Fountain. It was unveiled in 1996 by the Queen Elizabeth II to recognise that Stratford has been a market town since 1196. It is from here the Stratford Town Walk meet every day (even Christmas Day), to offer a guided walking tour of the town. The tour passes the Shakespeare houses, Royal Shakespeare Theatre’s, 15th-century timber-framed buildings, William Shakespeare's school and visits Holy Trinity Church where Shakespeare was baptised and is buried. Waterside is also the location of The Dirty Duck pub which is frequented by actors from the nearby RSC theatres, theatre critics and theatregoers.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: Harvard House is located at 26 High Street. Other attractions include the Stratford Butterfly Farm, which is on the eastern side of the river Avon and the Bancroft Gardens and Stratford Armouries located three miles () from the centre of Stratford on Gospel Oak Lane. Each year on 12 October (unless this is a Sunday, in which case 11 October) Stratford hosts one of the largest mop fairs in the country. Ten days later, the smaller Runaway fair is held. The Guild Chapel, at the intersection of Church Street and Chapel Lane, had a long association with William Shakespeare's family. The chapel offers a view of fine paintings from the early 1500s which had been covered up during the Reformation to save them from destruction. Centuries later, they were uncovered and are now visible.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: Stratford is from the United Kingdom's second largest city, Birmingham, and is easily accessible from junction 15 of the M40 motorway. The A46 road links Stratford with the M40, Warwick and Coventry to the north-east, and Evesham and Ashchurch to the south-west, where it joins the M5 motorway.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: Bus Services are mostly provided by Stagecoach in Warwickshire (formerly Midland Red South) and Diamond West Midlands.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: Stratford now has two railway stations. The main town centre station, railway station, has regular direct rail links with Birmingham (Snow Hill station and Moor Street station) and also with , , and ; some direct trains travel daily to/from London Marylebone. In 2013, an out-of-town station, Stratford-upon-Avon Parkway, opened the town's north-western outskirts with park and ride facilities.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: Stratford station is now the southern terminus of two branch lines from Birmingham and ; up to 1976, the line formerly continued south of the town to join the Cotswold Line at , until this link was closed and dismantled.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: There has been a campaign in recent years to restore the Honeybourne link, which would entail rebuilding of track.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: Stratford-upon-Avon's train service has been criticised by the Royal Shakespeare Company and others for its limited direct services to London, which consists of a handful of daily direct trains, with connections available from . In 2018, the RSC described the services to the station as "woefully inadequate" for an international tourist destination.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: Until 1952, Stratford was also served by Stratford Old Town railway station of the former Stratford-upon-Avon and Midland Junction Railway.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: Several companies offer sightseeing cruises along the river Avon and the canal, some using old river barges that have been converted for this use. The town is the terminus of the Stratford-upon-Avon Canal where it meets the river Avon.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: The manually-powered Stratford-upon-Avon chain ferry was opened in 1937 and links Waterside, roughly halfway between the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and Holy Trinity Church, with the water meadows on the opposite side of the river. It was the last of its kind to be built in Britain.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: The town has numerous cycle paths, such as the Stratford greenway, a traffic free cycle path, which used to be part of the rail network until the early 1960s; it is now part of the Sustrans National Cycle Network (routes National Cycle Route 5 and National Cycle Route 41). Starting from town, it heads along the river Avon and racecourse towards Welford-on-Avon and Long Marston with a cycle hire and café available at the start of the Greenway at Seven Meadows Road.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: Birmingham Airport is to the north-west, with scheduled flights to many national and international destinations.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: Stratford is also home to several institutions set up for the study of Shakespeare, including the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, which holds books and documents related to the playwright, and the Shakespeare Institute. William Shakespeare is believed to have studied at King Edward VI School. Previously an all-boys school, from September 2013 up to 25% of the year 12 intake can be girls. It is one of the few remaining grammar schools in England, selecting its pupils exclusively using the 11-plus examination. There is also an all-girls grammar school, Stratford-upon-Avon Grammar School for Girls, colloquially known as 'Shottery School' after its location in the village of Shottery, a short distance from the town centre.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: Finally, there is a non-selective secondary school, Stratford-upon-Avon School, formerly known as the Hugh Clopton Secondary Modern School, which was demolished to make way for the new high school. There are no independent secondary schools in the town, but there are many primary schools, including St. Gregory's Catholic Primary School, Stratford-upon-Avon Primary School (often known locally as "Broad Street" due to its location), Bishopton Primary School, Willows Church of England Primary School and Thomas Jolyffe Primary School both state and independent, as well as Stratford-upon-Avon College.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: Stratford-upon-Avon Rugby Club is situated on Loxley Road at their home ground Pearcecroft. The club fields three senior sides and a colts under 18 team with the 1st XV currently playing in Midlands 1 (West). The club also has a large mini and junior section. Stratford-upon-Avon Cricket Club Ground is by the river Avon opposite the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. The first match recorded there was in 1880; it has hosted first-class games since 1951 and women's One Day Internationals since 2005. Stratford Town F.C. are based at the DCS Stadium in Tiddington; they won the Midland Alliance in the 2012–3 season and were promoted to Division One South & West of the Southern Football League.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: The town's 5k parkrun event started in February 2016 and operates on the Recreation Ground every Saturday at 9 am. A junior parkrun started in June 2019 and takes place every Sunday at 9 am for children aged 4 to 14. Stratford Racecourse is located along the Luddington Road, about one mile from the centre of town which holds 18 meetings every year. It is a National Hunt course with an oval track of approximately a mile and a quarter and is considered to be one of the UK's leading small racecourses. "Adventure Bike Rider" (established in 2010) is United Kingdom bimonthly motorcycling newspaper.


title: Stratford-upon-Avon

text: With the Royal Shakespeare Company in the town, many famous actors have at some point lived or stayed in Stratford or the surrounding villages. Some of these include:


title: Katie Lowes

text: Katie Quinn Lowes (born September 22, 1982) is an American actress and theater director. She is best known for her role as Quinn Perkins in the ABC political drama series "Scandal" (2012–2018) and her portrayal of Rachel DeLoache Williams in the Netflix drama series "Inventing Anna" (2022).


title: Katie Lowes

text: Lowes was born in Queens, New York City and grew up in Port Washington, New York. Her father is Irish Catholic, and her mother is Jewish.


title: Katie Lowes

text: She was cast in the stage play "Four Saints in Mexico". In 2004, Lowes landed her first screen role in the FX series "Rescue Me" and later co-starred opposite Marcia Gay Harden in the Showtime pilot, "Hate". Lowes later guest starred in the number of television series, including "The Sopranos", "Without a Trace", "NCIS", "Ghost Whisperer", "Castle", "Leverage", and "The Closer". In 2008, she starred opposite Laurie Metcalf in The CW short-lived comedy-drama series, "Easy Money". In addition to her television performances, Lowes appeared in a number of low-budget films, including "The Job" (2009), "Bear" (2010), and "Café" (2011).


title: Katie Lowes

text: Lowes is best known for her role as Quinn Perkins, formerly Lindsay Dwyer, in the ABC political drama series "Scandal" created by Shonda Rhimes. Before "Scandal", Lowes had guest roles on Shonda Rhimes' "Grey's Anatomy" and "Private Practice". Before landing her breakout role on the show, she worked as nanny for Connie Britton's adopted son.


title: Katie Lowes

text: With her husband, Adam Shapiro, she is one of the founders and directors of the Los Angeles-based IAMA Theater Company, and a supporter of Southern California's black box theater community.


title: Katie Lowes

text: In July 2018, Lowes made her Broadway debut, along with her husband Shapiro, in the Broadway production of "Waitress". They remained in the production until October 7, 2018.


title: Katie Lowes

text: On May 14, 2021, CBS announced that Lowes will star opposite Pete Holmes in a sitcom based around the life of laid-off auto worker-turned-professional bowler Tom Smallwood. The multi-camera series has a mid-season debut planned for the 2021–22 television season. On November 24, CBS announced the sitcom has been retitled "How We Roll", and received an adjusted first season order of 11 episodes. On December 10, 2021, CBS announced the series will premiere on March 31, 2022.


title: Katie Lowes

text: Lowes played Rachel DeLoache Williams in Shonda Rimes' "Inventing Anna", a Netflix miniseries released in February 2022.


title: Katie Lowes

text: Lowes lives in Los Angeles with her husband, actor Adam Shapiro. Shapiro played her character's boyfriend in an episode of "Scandal". In May 2017, she announced that she and her husband were expecting their first child, a boy. She announced the birth of their son, Albee Shapiro, on October 5, 2017. Lowes gave birth to their daughter, Vera Shapiro, on November 22, 2020.


title: Gutenberg Bible

text: The Gutenberg Bible (also known as the 42-line Bible, the Mazarin Bible or the B42) was the earliest major book printed using mass-produced movable metal type in Europe. It marked the start of the "Gutenberg Revolution" and the age of printed books in the West. The book is valued and revered for its high aesthetic and artistic qualities as well as its historical significance. It is an edition of the Latin Vulgate printed in the 1450s by Johannes Gutenberg in Mainz, in present-day Germany. Forty-nine copies (or substantial portions of copies) have survived. They are thought to be among the world's most valuable books, although no complete copy has been sold since 1978. In March 1455, the future Pope Pius II wrote that he had seen pages from the Gutenberg Bible displayed in Frankfurt to promote the edition, and that either 158 or 180 copies had been printed (he cited sources for both numbers).


title: Gutenberg Bible

text: The 36-line Bible, said to be the second printed Bible, is also referred to sometimes as a Gutenberg Bible, but may be the work of another printer.


title: Gutenberg Bible

text: The Gutenberg Bible, an edition of the Vulgate, contains the Latin version of the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament. It is mainly the work of St Jerome who began his work on the translation in 380 AD, with emendations from the Parisian Bible tradition, and further divergences


title: Gutenberg Bible

text: While it is unlikely that any of his early publications would bear his name, the initial expense of press equipment and materials and of the work to be done before the Bible was ready for sale suggests that he may have started with more lucrative texts, including several religious documents, a German poem, and some editions of Aelius Donatus's "Ars Minor", a popular Latin grammar school book.


title: Gutenberg Bible

text: Preparation of the Bible probably began soon after 1450, and the first finished copies were available in 1454 or 1455. It is not known exactly how long the Bible took to print. The first precisely datable printing is Gutenberg's 31-line Indulgence which is known to already exist on 22 October 1454.


title: Gutenberg Bible

text: Some time later, after more sheets had been printed, the number of lines per page was increased from 40 to 42, presumably to save paper. Therefore, pages 1 to 9 and pages 256 to 265, presumably the first ones printed, have 40 lines each. Page 10 has 41, and from there on the 42 lines appear. The increase in line number was achieved by decreasing the interline spacing, rather than increasing the printed area of the page. Finally, the print run was increased, necessitating resetting those pages which had already been printed. The new sheets were all reset to 42 lines per page. Consequently, there are two distinct settings in folios 1–32 and 129–158 of volume I and folios 1–16 and 162 of volume II.


title: Gutenberg Bible

text: The most reliable information about the Bible's date comes from a letter. In March 1455, the future Pope Pius II wrote that he had seen pages from the Gutenberg Bible, being displayed to promote the edition, in Frankfurt. It is not known how many copies were printed, with the 1455 letter citing sources for both 158 and 180 copies. Scholars today think that examination of surviving copies suggests that somewhere between 160 and 185 copies were printed, with about three-quarters on paper and the others on vellum.


title: Gutenberg Bible

text: In a legal paper, written after completion of the Bible, Johannes Gutenberg refers to the process as "Das Werk der Bücher" ("the work of the books"). He had introduced the printing press to Europe and created the technology to make printing with movable types finally efficient enough for the mass production of entire books to be feasible.


title: Gutenberg Bible

text: Many book-lovers have commented on the high standards achieved in the production of the Gutenberg Bible, some describing it as one of the most beautiful books ever printed. The quality of both the ink and other materials and the printing itself have been noted.


title: Gutenberg Bible

text: The paper size is 'double folio', with two pages printed on each side (four pages per sheet). After printing the paper was folded once to the size of a single page. Typically, five of these folded sheets (10 leaves, or 20 printed pages) were combined to a single physical section, called a quinternion, that could then be bound into a book. Some sections, however, had as few as four leaves or as many as 12 leaves.


title: Gutenberg Bible

text: The 42-line Bible was printed on the size of paper known as 'Royal'. A full sheet of Royal paper measures 42 x 60 centimetres and a single untrimmed folio leaf measures 42 x 30 cm. There have been attempts to claim that the book was printed on larger paper measuring 44.5 x 30.7 cm, but this assertion is contradicted by the dimensions of existing copies. For example, the leaves of the copy in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, measure 40 × 28.6 cm. This is typical of other folio Bibles printed on Royal paper in the fifteenth century. Most fifteenth-century printing papers have a width-to-height ratio of 1:1.4 (e.g. 30:42 cm) which is mathematically a ratio of 1 to the square root of 2. Man suggests that this ratio was chosen to match the so-called Golden Ratio of 1:1.6; in fact the ratios are not at all similar (a difference of about 12 per cent). The ratio of 1:1.4 was a long established one for medieval paper sizes. A single complete copy of the Gutenberg Bible has 1,288 pages(4 X 322 = 1288) (usually bound in two volumes); with four pages per folio-sheet, 322 sheets of paper are required per copy. The Bible's paper consists of linen fibers and is thought to have been imported from Caselle in Piedmont, Italy based on the watermarks present throughout the volume.


title: Gutenberg Bible

text: In Gutenberg's time, inks used by scribes to produce manuscripts were water-based. Gutenberg developed an oil-based ink that would better adhere to his metal type. His ink was primarily carbon, but also had a high metallic content, with copper, lead, and titanium predominating. Head of collections at the British Library, Dr Kristian Jensen, described it thus: "if you look [at the pages of The Gutenberg Bible] closely you will see this is a very shiny surface. When you write you use a water-based ink, you put your pen into it and it runs off. Now if you print that's exactly what you don't want. One of Gutenberg's inventions was an ink which wasn't ink, it's a varnish. So what we call printer's ink is actually a varnish, and that means it sticks to its surface."


title: Gutenberg Bible

text: Each unique character requires a master piece of type in order to be replicated. Given that each letter has uppercase and lowercase forms, and the number of various punctuation marks and ligatures (e.g. the character "", commonly used in writing) the Gutenberg Bible needed a set of 290 master characters. It seems probable that six pages, containing 15,600 characters altogether, would be set at any one moment.


title: Gutenberg Bible

text: The Gutenberg Bible is printed in the blackletter type styles that would become known as Textualis (Textura) and Schwabacher. The name "Textura" refers to the texture of the printed page: straight vertical strokes combined with horizontal lines, giving the impression of a woven structure. Gutenberg already used the technique of justification, that is, creating a vertical, not indented, alignment at the left and right-hand sides of the column. To do this, he used various methods, including using characters of narrower widths, adding extra spaces around punctuation, and varying the widths of spaces around words.


title: Gutenberg Bible

text: Initially the rubrics—the headings before each book of the Bible—were printed, but this practice was quickly abandoned at an unknown date, and gaps were left for rubrication to be added by hand. A guide of the text to be added to each page, printed for use by rubricators, survives.


title: Gutenberg Bible

text: The spacious margin allowed illuminated decoration to be added by hand. The amount of decoration presumably depended on how much each buyer could or would pay. Some copies were never decorated. The place of decoration can be known or inferred for about 30 of the surviving copies. It is possible that 13 of these copies received their decoration in Mainz, but others were worked on as far away as London. The vellum Bibles were more expensive, and perhaps for this reason tend to be more highly decorated, although the vellum copy in the British Library is completely undecorated.


title: Gutenberg Bible

text: There has been speculation that the "Master of the Playing Cards," an unidentified engraver who has been called "the first personality in the history of engraving," was partly responsible for the illumination of the copy held by the Princeton University library. However, all that can be said for certain is that the same model book was used for some of the illustrations in this copy and for some of the Master's illustrated playing cards.


title: Gutenberg Bible

text: Although many Gutenberg Bibles have been rebound over the years, nine copies retain fifteenth-century bindings. Most of these copies were bound in either Mainz or Erfurt. Most copies were divided into two volumes, the first volume ending with The Book of Psalms. Copies on vellum were heavier and for this reason were sometimes bound in three or four volumes.


title: Gutenberg Bible

text: The Bible seems to have sold out immediately, with initial sales to owners as far away as England and possibly Sweden and Hungary. At least some copies are known to have sold for 30 florins, about three years' wages for a clerk. Although this made them significantly cheaper than manuscript Bibles, most students, priests or other people of ordinary income would not have been able to afford them. It is assumed that most were sold to monasteries, universities and particularly wealthy individuals. At present only one copy is known to have been privately owned in the fifteenth century. Some are known to have been used for communal readings in monastery refectories; others may have been for display rather than use, and a few were certainly used for study. Kristian Jensen suggests that many copies were bought by wealthy and pious laypeople for donation to religious institutions.


title: Gutenberg Bible

text: The Gutenberg Bible had a profound effect on the history of the printed book. Textually, it also had an influence on future editions of the Bible. It provided the model for several later editions, including the 36 Line Bible, Mentelin's Latin Bible, and the first and third Eggestein Bibles. The third Eggestein Bible was set from the copy of the Gutenberg Bible now in Cambridge University Library. The Gutenberg Bible also had an influence on the Clementine edition of the Vulgate commissioned by the Papacy in the late sixteenth century.


title: Gutenberg Bible

text: Joseph Martini, a New York book dealer, found that the Gutenberg Bible held by the library of the General Theological Seminary in New York had a forged leaf, carrying part of Chapter 14, all of Chapter 15, and part of Chapter 16 of the Book of Ezekiel. It was impossible to tell when the leaf had been inserted into the volume. It was replaced in the fall of 1953, when a patron donated the corresponding leaf from a defective Gutenberg second volume which was being broken up and sold in parts. This made it "the first imperfect Gutenberg Bible ever restored to completeness." In 1978, this copy was sold for US$2.2 million to the Württembergische Landesbibliothek in Stuttgart, Germany.


title: Gutenberg Bible

text: As of 2009, 49 Gutenberg Bibles are known to exist, but of these only 21 are complete. Others have pages or even whole volumes missing. In addition, there are a substantial number of fragments, some as small as individual leaves, which are likely to represent about another 16 copies. Many of these fragments have survived because they were used as part of the binding of later books.


title: Gutenberg Bible

text: Today, few copies remain in religious institutions, with most now owned by university libraries and other major scholarly institutions. After centuries in which all copies seem to have remained in Europe, the first Gutenberg Bible reached North America in 1847. It is now in the New York Public Library. In the last hundred years, several long-lost copies have come to light, considerably improving the understanding of how the Bible was produced and distributed.


title: Gutenberg Bible

text: In 1921 a New York rare book dealer, Gabriel Wells, bought a damaged paper copy, dismantled the book and sold sections and individual leaves to book collectors and libraries. The leaves were sold in a portfolio case with an essay written by A. Edward Newton, and were referred to as "Noble Fragments". In 1953 Charles Scribner's Sons, also book dealers in New York, dismembered a paper copy of volume II. The largest portion of this, the New Testament, is now owned by Indiana University. The matching first volume of this copy was subsequently discovered in Mons, Belgium.


title: Gutenberg Bible

text: The only copy held outside Europe or North America is the first volume of a Gutenberg Bible (Hubay 45) at Keio University in Tokyo. The Humanities Media Interface Project (HUMI) at Keio University is known for its high-quality digital images of Gutenberg Bibles and other rare books. Under the direction of Professor Toshiyuki Takamiya, the HUMI team has made digital reproductions of 11 sets of the bible in nine institutions, including both full-text facsimiles held in the collection of the British Library.


title: Gutenberg Bible

text: The last sale of a complete Gutenberg Bible took place in 1978, which sold for $2.4 million. This copy is now in Austin, Texas. The price of a complete copy today is estimated at $25−35 million.


title: Gutenberg Bible

text: A two-volume paper edition of the Gutenberg Bible was stolen from Moscow State University in 2009 and subsequently recovered in an FSB sting operation in 2013.


title: Arginine

text: Arginine is the amino acid with the formula (HN)(HN)CN(H)(CH)CH(NH)COH. The molecule features a guanidino group appended to a standard amino acid framework. At physiological pH, the carboxylic acid is deprotonated (−CO) and both the amino and guanidino groups are protonated, resulting in a cation. Only the -arginine (symbol Arg or R) enantiomer is found naturally. Arg residues are common components of proteins. It is encoded by the codons CGU, CGC, CGA, CGG, AGA, and AGG.


title: Arginine

text: Arginine was first isolated in 1886 from yellow lupin seedlings by the German chemist Ernst Schulze and his assistant Ernst Steiger. He named it from the Greek "árgyros" (ἄργυρος) meaning "silver" due to the silver-white appearance of arginine nitrate crystals. In 1897, Schulze and Ernst Winterstein (1865–1949) determined the structure of arginine. Schulze and Winterstein synthesized arginine from ornithine and cyanamide in 1899, but some doubts about arginine's structure lingered until Sørensen's synthesis of 1910.


title: Arginine

text: It is traditionally obtained by hydrolysis of various cheap sources of protein, such as gelatin. It is obtained commercially by fermentation. In this way, 25-35 g/liter can be produced, using glucose as a carbon source.


title: Arginine

text: Arginine is classified as a semiessential or conditionally essential amino acid, depending on the developmental stage and health status of the individual. Preterm infants are unable to synthesize arginine internally, making the amino acid nutritionally essential for them. Most healthy people do not need to supplement with arginine because it is a component of all protein-containing foods and can be synthesized in the body from glutamine via citrulline. Additional dietary arginine is necessary for healthy individuals under physiological stress, for example during recovery from burns, injury and sepsis, or if the major sites of arginine biosynthesis, the small intestine and kidneys, have reduced function.


title: Arginine

text: Arginine is an essential amino acid for birds, as they do not have a urea cycle. For some carnivores, for example cats, dogs and ferrets, arginine is essential, because after a meal, their highly efficient protein catabolism produces large quantities of ammonia which need to be processed through the urea cycle, and if not enough arginine is present, the resulting ammonia toxicity can be lethal. This is not a problem in practice, because meat contains sufficient arginine to avoid this situation.


title: Arginine

text: Animal sources of arginine include meat, dairy products, and eggs, and plant sources include seeds of all types, for example grains, beans, and nuts.


title: Arginine

text: Arginine is synthesized from citrulline in the urea cycle by the sequential action of the cytosolic enzymes argininosuccinate synthetase and argininosuccinate lyase. This is an energetically costly process, because for each molecule of argininosuccinate that is synthesized, one molecule of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is hydrolyzed to adenosine monophosphate (AMP), consuming two ATP equivalents.


title: Arginine

text: The pathways linking arginine, glutamine, and proline are bidirectional. Thus, the net use or production of these amino acids is highly dependent on cell type and developmental stage.


title: Arginine

text: On a whole-body basis, synthesis of arginine occurs principally via the intestinal–renal axis: the epithelial cells of the small intestine produce citrulline, primarily from glutamine and glutamate, which is carried in the bloodstream to the proximal tubule cells of the kidney, which extract citrulline from the circulation and convert it to arginine, which is returned to the circulation. This means that impaired small bowel or renal function can reduce arginine synthesis, increasing the dietary requirement.


title: Arginine

text: Synthesis of arginine from citrulline also occurs at a low level in many other cells, and cellular capacity for arginine synthesis can be markedly increased under circumstances that increase the production of inducible NOS. This allows citrulline, a byproduct of the NOS-catalyzed production of nitric oxide, to be recycled to arginine in a pathway known as the citrulline-NO or arginine-citrulline pathway. This is demonstrated by the fact that, in many cell types, NO synthesis can be supported to some extent by citrulline, and not just by arginine. This recycling is not quantitative, however, because citrulline accumulates in NO-producing cells along with nitrate and nitrite, the stable end-products of NO breakdown.


title: Arginine

text: Arginine plays an important role in cell division, wound healing, removing ammonia from the body, immune function, and the release of hormones. It is a precursor for the synthesis of nitric oxide (NO), making it important in the regulation of blood pressure. Arginine is necessary for T-Cells to function in the body, and can lead to their deregulation if depleted.


title: Arginine

text: Arginine's side chain is amphipathic, because at physiological pH it contains a positively charged guanidinium group, which is highly polar, at the end of a hydrophobic aliphatic hydrocarbon chain. Because globular proteins have hydrophobic interiors and hydrophilic surfaces, arginine is typically found on the outside of the protein, where the hydrophilic head group can interact with the polar environment, for example taking part in hydrogen bonding and salt bridges. For this reason, it is frequently found at the interface between two proteins. The aliphatic part of the side chain sometimes remains below the surface of the protein.


title: Arginine

text: Arginine residues in proteins can be deiminated by PAD enzymes to form citrulline, in a post-translational modification process called citrullination.This is important in fetal development, is part of the normal immune process, as well as the control of gene expression, but is also significant in autoimmune diseases. Another post-translational modification of arginine involves methylation by protein methyltransferases.


title: Arginine

text: Arginine is the immediate precursor of NO, an important signaling molecule which can act as a second messenger, as well as an intercellular messenger which regulates vasodilation, and also has functions in the immune system's reaction to infection.


title: Arginine

text: Arginine is also a precursor for urea, ornithine, and agmatine; is necessary for the synthesis of creatine; and can also be used for the synthesis of polyamines (mainly through ornithine and to a lesser degree through agmatine, citrulline, and glutamate.) The presence of asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA), a close relative, inhibits the nitric oxide reaction; therefore, ADMA is considered a marker for vascular disease, just as -arginine is considered a sign of a healthy endothelium.


title: Arginine

text: The amino acid side-chain of arginine consists of a 3-carbon aliphatic straight chain, the distal end of which is capped by a guanidinium group, which has a p"K" of 13.8, and is therefore always protonated and positively charged at physiological pH. Because of the conjugation between the double bond and the nitrogen lone pairs, the positive charge is delocalized, enabling the formation of multiple hydrogen bonds.


title: Arginine

text: Intravenously administered arginine is used in growth hormone stimulation tests because it stimulates the secretion of growth hormone. A review of clinical trials concluded that oral arginine increases growth hormone, but decreases growth hormone secretion, which is normally associated with exercising. However, a more recent trial reported that although oral arginine increased plasma levels of -arginine it did not cause an increase in growth hormone.


title: Arginine

text: Research from 1964 into amino acid requirements of herpes simplex virus in human cells indicated that "...the lack of arginine or histidine, and possibly the presence of lysine, would interfere markedly with virus synthesis", but concludes that "no ready explanation is available for any of these observations".


title: Arginine

text: Further medical evidence indicates that "absorbing more arginine may indirectly cause cold sores by disrupting the body's balance of arginine and another amino acid called lysine."


title: Arginine

text: Further reviews conclude that "lysine's efficacy for herpes labialis may lie more in prevention than treatment." and that "the use of lysine for decreasing the severity or duration of outbreaks" is not supported, while further research is needed. A 2017 study concludes that "clinicians could consider advising patients that there is a theoretical role of lysine supplementation in the prevention of herpes simplex sores but the research evidence is insufficient to back this. Patients with cardiovascular or gallbladder disease should be cautioned and warned of the theoretical risks."


title: Arginine

text: A meta-analysis showed that -arginine reduces blood pressure with pooled estimates of 5.4 mmHg for systolic blood pressure and 2.7 mmHg for diastolic blood pressure.


title: Arginine

text: Supplementation with -arginine reduces diastolic blood pressure and lengthens pregnancy for women with gestational hypertension, including women with high blood pressure as part of pre-eclampsia. It did not lower systolic blood pressure or improve weight at birth.


title: Arginine

text: Both liquid chromatography and liquid chromatography/mass spectrometric assays have found that brain tissue of deceased people with schizophrenia shows altered arginine metabolism. Assays also confirmed significantly reduced levels of γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA), but increased agmatine concentration and glutamate/GABA ratio in the schizophrenia cases. Regression analysis indicated positive correlations between arginase activity and the age of disease onset and between L-ornithine level and the duration of illness. Moreover, cluster analyses revealed that L-arginine and its main metabolites L-citrulline, L-ornithine and agmatine formed distinct groups, which were altered in the schizophrenia group. Despite this, the biological basis of schizophrenia is still poorly understood, a number of factors, such as dopamine hyperfunction, glutamatergic hypofunction, GABAergic deficits, cholinergic system dysfunction, stress vulnerability and neurodevelopmental disruption, have been linked to the aetiology and/or pathophysiology of the disease.


title: Craig Sheffer

text: Craig Eric Sheffer (born April 23, 1960) is an American film and television actor. He is known for his leading roles as Norman Maclean in the film "A River Runs Through It, "Aaron Boone in the film "Nightbreed", Joe Kane in the film "The Program", and Keith Scott on the television series "One Tree Hill".


title: Craig Sheffer

text: Sheffer was born in York, Pennsylvania. His father worked as a prison guard. Before becoming an actor, Sheffer sold newspapers in New York City and "slept under the marble staircase" in Grand Central Terminal for weeks while living off Unification Church spaghetti dinners."


title: Craig Sheffer

text: Sheffer was first seen on a nationwide basis as Ian Hayden on the ABC daytime soap opera "One Life to Live", and on the 1983 prime time series"The Hamptons". His earliest starring assignment in films was as the best friend of troubled teenager Emilio Estevez in "That Was Then... This Is Now" (1985), a reformatory camp inmate in "Fire with Fire" (1986), an antagonistic rich kid in "Some Kind of Wonderful" (1987), and the romantic love interest of an overweight cosmetician in "Baby Cakes " (1989).


title: Craig Sheffer

text: Sheffer played the lead role of Aaron Boone/Cabal in "Nightbreed" (1990), author Norman Maclean in "A River Runs Through It" in (1992), and played Heisman Trophy candidate quarterback Joe Kane in "The Program" in 1993.


title: Craig Sheffer

text: Sheffer's other films include "Fire in the Sky" (1993), "Head Above Water" (1996), and "Sleep With Me" (1994) (top-billed, as the apex of a romantic triangle which included Eric Stoltz and Meg Tilly). Sheffer played the leading role in Clive Barker's franchise sequel, "". He also played the main character in 1997's "Bliss" which starred Sheryl Lee, Terence Stamp and Leigh Taylor-Young.


title: Craig Sheffer

text: Sheffer played Constant Bradley in the 1996 miniseries "A Season in Purgatory." He played Keith Scott on the CW Network series "One Tree Hill" for three seasons before his character was killed off halfway through season 3 (he also had several guest appearances in season 4). He directed the feature film "American Crude", a dark comedy starring Ron Livingston and Rob Schneider; it was released straight to DVD in June 2008. Sheffer had a cameo appearance in the movie "Stand Up Guys".


title: Varna (Hinduism)

text: Varṇa (), in the context of Hinduism, refers to a social class within a hierarchical caste system. The ideology is epitomized in texts like "Manusmriti", which describes and ranks four varnas, and prescribes their occupations, requirements and duties, or "Dharma".


title: Varna (Hinduism)

text: Communities which belong to one of the four varnas or classes are called savarna Hindus. The Dalits and tribals who do not belong to any varna were called avarna.


title: Varna (Hinduism)

text: This quadruple division is a form of social stratification, quite different from the more nuanced system "Jātis" which correspond to the European term "caste".


title: Varna (Hinduism)

text: The varna system is discussed in Hindu texts, and understood as idealised human callings. The concept is generally traced to the "Purusha Sukta" verse of the Rig Veda.


title: Varna (Hinduism)

text: The commentary on the Varna system in the "Manusmriti" is often cited. Counter to these textual classifications, many Hindu texts and doctrines question and disagree with the Varna system of social classification.


title: Varna (Hinduism)

text: The Sanskrit term "varna" is derived from the root "", meaning "to cover, to envelop, count, classify consider, describe or choose".


title: Varna (Hinduism)

text: The word appears in the "Rigveda", where it means "colour, outward appearance, exterior, form, figure or shape". The word means "color, tint, dye or pigment" in the "Mahabharata". Varna contextually means "colour, race, tribe, species, kind, sort, nature, character, quality, property" of an object or people in some Vedic and medieval texts. Varna refers to four social classes in the "Manusmriti".


title: Varna (Hinduism)

text: The earliest application to the formal division into four social classes (without using the term "varna") appears in the late Rigvedic "Purusha Sukta" (RV 10.90.11–12), which has the Brahman, Rajanya (instead of Kshatriya), Vaishya and Shudra classes forming the mouth, arms, thighs and feet at the sacrifice of the primordial Purusha, respectively:


title: Varna (Hinduism)

text: Some modern indologists believe the Purusha Suktam to be a later addition, possibly as a charter myth. Stephanie Jamison and Joel Brereton, a professor of Sanskrit and Religious studies, state, "there is no evidence in the Rigveda for an elaborate, much-subdivided and overarching caste system", and "the varna system seems to be embryonic in the Rigveda and, both then and later, a social ideal rather than a social reality".


title: Varna (Hinduism)

text: Ram Sharan Sharma states that "the Rig Vedic society was neither organized on the basis of social division of labour nor on that of differences in wealth ... [it] was primarily organised on the basis of kin, tribe and lineage."


title: Varna (Hinduism)

text: In the post-Vedic period, the varna division is described in the "Dharmashastra" literature, the "Mahabharata" and in the "Puranas".


title: Varna (Hinduism)

text: The varna system is extensively discussed in the Dharma-shastras. The Varna system in Dharma-shastras divides society into four varnas (Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishya and Shudras). Those who fall out of this system because of their grievous sins are ostracised as outcastes (untouchables) and considered outside the varna system. Barbarians and those who are unrighteous or unethical are also considered outcastes.


title: Varna (Hinduism)

text: Recent scholarship suggests that the discussion of varna as well as untouchable outcastes in these texts does not resemble the modern era caste system in India. Patrick Olivelle, a professor of Sanskrit and Indian Religions and credited with modern translations of Vedic literature, Dharma-sutras and Dharma-shastras, states that ancient and medieval Indian texts do not support the ritual pollution, purity-impurity as the basis for varna system. According to Olivelle, purity-impurity is discussed in the Dharma-shastra texts, but only in the context of the individual's moral, ritual and biological pollution (eating certain kinds of food such as meat, urination and defecation). In his review of Dharma-shastras, Olivelle writes, "we see no instance when a term of pure/impure is used with reference to a group of individuals or a varna or caste". The only mention of impurity in the Shastra texts from the 1st millennium is about people who commit grievous sins and thereby fall out of their varna. These, writes Olivelle, are called "fallen people" and impure, declaring that they be ostracised. Olivelle adds that the overwhelming focus in matters relating to purity/impurity in the Dharma-sastra texts concerns "individuals irrespective of their varna affiliation" and all four varnas could attain purity or impurity by the content of their character, ethical intent, actions, innocence or ignorance, stipulations, and ritualistic behaviours.


title: Varna (Hinduism)

text: The first three varnas are described in the "Dharmashastras" as "twice born" and they are allowed to study the "Vedas". Such a restriction of who can study Vedas is not found in the Vedic era literature.


title: Varna (Hinduism)

text: "Manusmriti" assigns cattle rearing as Vaishya occupation but historical evidence shows that Brahmins, Kshatriyas and Shudras also owned and reared cattle and that cattle-wealth was mainstay of their households. Ramnarayan Rawat, a professor of History and specialising in social exclusion in the Indian subcontinent, states that 19th century British records show that Chamars, listed as untouchables, also owned land and cattle and were active agriculturalists. The emperors of Kosala and the prince of Kasi are other examples.


title: Varna (Hinduism)

text: Tim Ingold, an anthropologist, writes that the "Manusmriti" is a highly schematic commentary on the varna system, but it too provides "models rather than descriptions". Susan Bayly states that "Manusmriti" and other scriptures helped elevate Brahmin in the social hierarchy and these were a factor in the making of the varna system, but the ancient texts did not in some way "create the phenomenon of caste" in India.


title: Varna (Hinduism)

text: The Chandogya Upanishad indicates that varna is allocated on the basis of one's birth and previous birth:


title: Varna (Hinduism)

text: The Vajrasuchi Upanishad, however, states that the status of brahman is not based on birth, knowledge, or karma, but on the direct realisation of one's own Atman (inner self, soul).


title: Varna (Hinduism)

text: The "Mahabharata", estimated to have been completed by about the 4th century CE, discusses the Varna system in section 12.181.


title: Varna (Hinduism)

text: The Epic offers two models on Varna. The first model describes Varna as colour-coded system, through a sage named Bhrigu, "Brahmins Varna was white, Kshtriyas was red, Vaishyas was yellow, and the Shudras' black". This description is questioned by another prominent sage Bharadwaja who says that colours are seen among all the Varnas, that desire, anger, fear, greed, grief, anxiety, hunger and toil prevails over all human beings, that bile and blood flow from all human bodies, so what distinguishes the Varnas, he asks? The "Mahabharata" then declares, according to Alf Hiltebeitel, a professor of religion, "There is no distinction of Varnas. This whole universe is Brahman. It was created formerly by Brahma, came to be classified by acts."


title: Varna (Hinduism)

text: The "Mahabharata" thereafter recites a behavioural model for Varna, that those who were inclined to anger, pleasures and boldness attained the Kshatriya Varna; those who were inclined to cattle rearing and living off the plough attained the Vaishyas; those who were fond of violence, covetousness and impurity attained the Shudras. The Brahmin class is modelled in the epic, as the archetype default state of man dedicated to truth, austerity and pure conduct. Indeed, it goes on to assert that all men are children of Brahmins, which does not make sense, unless understood this way.In the "Mahabharata" and pre-medieval era Hindu texts, according to Hiltebeitel, "it is important to recognize, in theory, Varna is nongenealogical. The four Varnas are not lineages, but categories."


title: Varna (Hinduism)

text: Ancient Buddhist texts mention Varna system in South Asia, but the details suggest that it was non-rigid, flexible and with characteristics devoid of features of a social stratification system.


title: Varna (Hinduism)

text: "Digha Nikaya" provides a discussion between Gotama Buddha and a Hindu Brahmin named Sonadanda who was very learned in the Vedas.


title: Varna (Hinduism)

text: Gotama Buddha asks, "By how many qualities do Brahmins recognize another Brahmin? How would one declare truthfully and without falling into falsehood, "I am a Brahmin?"


title: Varna (Hinduism)

text: Sonadanda initially lists five qualities as, "he is of pure descent on both the mother's and the father's side, he is well versed in mantras, he is of fair color handsome and pleasing, he is virtuous learned and wise, and he is the first or second to hold the sacrificial ladle".


title: Varna (Hinduism)

text: Buddha then asks the Brahmin, "If we omit one of these qualities you just listed, could not one be still a true Brahmin?"


title: Varna (Hinduism)

text: Sonadanda, one by one, eliminates fair colour and looks, then eliminates Varna in which one was born, and then eliminates the ability to recite mantra and do sacrifices as a requirement of being a Brahmin.


title: Varna (Hinduism)

text: Sonadanda asserts that just two qualities are necessary to truthfully and without falling into falsehood identify a Brahmin; these two qualities are "being virtuous and being learned and wise". Sonadanda adds that it is impossible to reduce the requirement for being a Brahmin any further, because "for wisdom is purified by morality, and morality is purified by wisdom; where one is, the other is, the moral man has wisdom and the wise man has morality, and the combination of morality and wisdom is called the highest thing in the world". Brian Black and Dean Patton state Sonadanda admits after this, "we [Brahmins] only know this much Gotama; it would be well if Reverend Gotama would explain meaning of the two [morality, wisdom]".


title: Varna (Hinduism)

text: Peter Masefield, a Buddhism scholar and ancient Pali texts translator, states that during the Nikāya texts period of Buddhism (3rd century BC to 5th century AD), "Varna" as a class system is attested, but the described "Varna" was not a caste system. The Pali texts enumerate the four Varnas "Brahmin", "Kshatriya","Vessa" (Vaishya) and "Sudda" (Shudra). Masefield notes that people in any "Varna" could in principle perform any profession. The early Buddhist texts, for instance, identify some Brahmins to be farmers and in other professions. The text state that anyone, of any birth, could perform the priestly function, and that the Brahmin took food from anyone, suggesting that strictures of commensality were as yet unknown. The Nikaya texts also imply that endogamy was not mandated in ancient India. Masefield concludes, "if any form of caste system was known during the Nikaya period - and it is doubtful that it was - this was in all probability restricted to certain non-Aryan groups".


title: Varna (Hinduism)

text: Ādi purāṇa, an 8th-century text of Jainism by Jinasena, is the earliest mention of Varna and Jati in Jainism literature. Jinasena does not trace the origin of Varna system to Rigveda or to Purusha Sukta, instead traces varna to the Bharata legend. According to this legend, Bharata performed an "ahimsa-test" (test of non-violence), and those members of his community who refused to harm or hurt any living being were called as the priestly varna in ancient India, and Bharata called them "dvija", twice born. Jinasena states that those who are committed to ahimsa are "deva-Brāhmaṇas", divine Brahmins.


title: Varna (Hinduism)

text: The text Adi purana also discusses the relationship between varna and jati. According to Padmanabh Jaini, a professor of Indic studies, Jainism and Buddhism, the Adi purana text states "there is only one jati called "manusyajati" or the human caste, but divisions arise account of their different professions". The varna of Kshatriya arose when Rishabh procured weapons to serve the society and assumed the powers of a king, while Vaishya and Shudra varna arose from different means of livelihood in which they specialised.


title: Varna (Hinduism)

text: Sikhism is a late 15th-century religion that originated in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent. Sikh texts mention "Varna" as "Varan", and "Jati" as "Zat" or "Zat-biradari". Eleanor Nesbitt, a professor of Religion and specialising in Christian, Hindu and Sikh studies, states that the "Varan" is described as a class system in 18th- to 20th-century Sikh literature, while "Zat" reflected the endogamous occupational groups (caste).


title: Varna (Hinduism)

text: The Sikh texts authored by the Sikh Gurus and by non-Sikh Bhagats such as the Namdev, Ravidas and Kabir, states Nesbitt, declared the irrelevance of "varan" or "zat" of one's birth to one's spiritual destiny. They taught that "all of humanity had a single refuge" and that the divine teaching is for everyone. Sikhism teaches a society without any "varan". In practice, states Harjot Oberoi, secondary Sikh texts such as the "Khalsa Dharam Sastar" in 1914 argued that the entry of certain Sikh castes into major Sikh shrines should be barred. Similarly, in practice and its texts, the Gurus of Sikhism did not condemn or break with the convention of marrying (and marrying off their children) within the "jati", and all the Sikh Gurus were Khatri, had Khatri wives and practiced arranged marriages within their "zat". According to Dhavan, the Rahit-namas and other prescriptive Sikh texts from mid-18th century onwards accommodate and affirm the "natal and marriage traditions of different caste groups within the Sikh community".


title: Varna (Hinduism)

text: Ravidassi Sikhs and Ramgarhia Sikhs follow their own textual and festive traditions, gather in their own places of worship. These are varan-based (caste-based) religious congregations that emerged from Sikhism, states Nesbitt. The Ravidassia group, for example, emphasizes the teachings of Bhagat Ravidas – a poet-saint born in a family whose traditional untouchable occupation related to dead animals and leather. They consider the teachings of living Gurus and the texts of Ravidass Dera as sacred and spiritually as important as the historic Sikh Gurus. This is rejected by Khalsa Sikhs. The disagreements have led the Ravidassia Sikhs to launch the Ravidassia religion movement which, amongst other things seeks to replace the "Guru Granth Sahib" in their Gurdwaras with the texts of Ravidas.


title: Varna (Hinduism)

text: The terms "varna" (theoretical classification based on occupation) and "jāti" (caste) are two distinct concepts. Jāti (community) refers to the thousands of endogamous groups prevalent across the subcontinent. A jati may be divided into exogamous groups based on the same gotras. The classical authors scarcely speak of anything other than the varnas; even Indologists sometimes confuse the two.


title: Alireza Firouzja

text: Alireza Firouzja (, ; born 18 June 2003) is an Iranian and French chess grandmaster. Firouzja is the youngest ever 2800-rated player, beating the previous record set by Magnus Carlsen by more than five months.


title: Alireza Firouzja

text: A chess prodigy, Firouzja won the Iranian Chess Championship at age 12 and earned the Grandmaster title at 14. At 16, Firouzja became the second-youngest 2700-rated player and won a silver medal at the 2019 World Rapid Chess Championship. In November 2021, at 18, he won the FIDE Grand Swiss tournament and an individual gold medal at the European Team Chess Championship. He won a bronze medal at the 2021 World Blitz Chess Championship. In 2022, Firouzja won the Grand Chess Tour.


title: Alireza Firouzja

text: Firouzja left the Iranian Chess Federation in 2019 because of the country's longstanding policy against competition with opposing Israeli players. He played under the FIDE flag until mid-2021, when he became a French citizen and began representing France, where he had already been living.


title: Alireza Firouzja

text: Firouzja was born on 18 June 2003 in Babol, Iran. He started playing chess at the age of eight. He has an older brother, Mohammadreza, born in 1998, who also plays competitive chess.


title: Alireza Firouzja

text: Firouzja won the gold medal in the U12 section at the Asian Youth Chess Championships held in 2015 in Suwon. In adult tournaments, one of Firouzja's earliest successes was in the 10th Nana Aleksandria Cup in 2015, held in Georgia. In a strong field with 15 grandmasters, Firouzja finished with 5/9, including a victory against grandmaster Vugar Rasulov and four draws against four other grandmasters. He had further successes in the Iranian chess championship semi-final, an unbeaten 7/9 (+5-0=4), which served as a qualifier to the main championship held the following year. He then took part in the strongest open tournament held that year, the Qatar Masters 2015, in which he scored 4½/9, including victories against grandmasters Pavel Tregubov and Neelotpal Das.


title: Alireza Firouzja

text: At the age of twelve, he won the 2016 Iranian Chess Championship, scoring 8/11 points (+5−0=6), a full point ahead of his nearest competitors, and became the youngest ever to win the title.


title: Alireza Firouzja

text: These results in the Iranian championship semi-finals, the Qatar Masters and the Iranian championship increased Firouzja's rating to 2475 at age 12 years and 7 months.


title: Alireza Firouzja

text: Later that year, he played in the Asian Nations Cup for Iran in which he scored 5½/7 on board 4 and a notable draw against grandmaster Wei Yi, who was at that time the youngest supergrandmaster in the world. Firouzja then experienced some negative results.


title: Alireza Firouzja

text: In August 2016, the Iranian chess federation scheduled a match between 13-year–old Firouzja (2485 FIDE) and then 16-year-old Parham Maghsoodloo (2510 FIDE). Maghsoodloo's age and experience proved too much for the younger Firouzja, and Firouzja lost all three games.


title: Alireza Firouzja

text: Firouzja played in the Stars Cup 2016, an initiative by the Iranian chess federation which pitted the nation's established top players and its new wave of rising stars against some of the strongest grandmasters in the world. Featuring such notable players as Nigel Short, Evgenij Miroshnichenko, Gabriel Sargissian, Aleksey Dreev, Romain Édouard, Ivan Sokolov, Lu Shanglei, and Jaan Ehlvest, it was Firouzja's first major test against such calibre of opposition and he scored 2/10, though he did score a victory over Miroshnichenko. Firouzja also played in his first Olympiad for Iran on the fourth board and finished with 4½/8.


title: Alireza Firouzja

text: In February 2017, Firouzja finished tied for 3rd place (6/9) in the Khazar cup, behind the winner, Ferenc Berkes. In April 2017, Firouzja had his best performance to date when he scored 6/9 in the Aeroflot Open 2017, a tournament of about 80 grandmasters, including several players in the top 100. There, he scored victories over German grandmasters Alexander Donchenko, Matthias Blübaum and Falko Bindrich and also beat grandmasters Emilio Córdova and Maxim Vavulin. This result secured Firouzja a grandmaster norm and a of 2746, his highest rating performance until then.


title: Alireza Firouzja

text: In June 2017, he had a 7/9 performance at the Asian Junior U20 Championship. This result took him over the 2500 rating threshold for the first time. Later that year, the 2nd Stars cup tournament took place in Iran, again with an impressive list of foreign grandmasters: Baadur Jobava, Loek Van Wely, Alexei Shirov, Lázaro Bruzón Batista, Eltaj Safarli and Ivan Sokolov. Firouzja scored 3½/6 (+2-1=3), beating Jobava and Van Wely. His victory over Jobava was particularly notable as it was 13-year–old Firouzja's first victory over a supergrandmaster (Jobava was rated 2714 at the time).


title: Alireza Firouzja

text: In January 2018, he had a string of impressive results in the Iranian chess championship semi-final (7½/9) and the World Youth U16 Chess Olympiad (8/9), which increased his rating to 2549.


title: Alireza Firouzja

text: In February 2018, he participated in the Aeroflot Open. He finished 40th out of 92, scoring 4½/9 points (+2−2=5), earning his final norm required for the title Grandmaster (GM) in the process. He was awarded the GM title by FIDE in April 2018.


title: Alireza Firouzja

text: Firouzja took part in the Malaysian Open 2018 in August 2018 in which he tied for 2nd place behind winner Wang Hao. In the same month, he took part in the World Junior Chess Championship held in Gebze, Turkey, finishing with 7½/11.


title: Alireza Firouzja

text: In July, Firouzja represented Iran at the Asian Nations Cup, held in Hamadan. Iran won all three open events, and Firouzja was the top individual performer in the classical event with 6/7.


title: Alireza Firouzja

text: He won individual gold at the World Youth U16 Chess Olympiad, held from 25 November to 2 December, with a score of 8/9 points (+7−0=2; 2736 performance rating).


title: Alireza Firouzja

text: At the 2018 World Rapid Championship held in Saint Petersburg, Firouzja finished sixth in a field of world-class players, behind Daniil Dubov, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Hikaru Nakamura, Vladislav Artemiev and Magnus Carlsen. Starting as the 169th seed in a tournament of 206 participants, Firouzja scored 10/15 (+8−3=4) with a performance rating of 2848, the second-highest in the event behind winner Dubov. At the World Blitz Championship, he placed 42nd out of 150 with a score of 12/21 (+10−7=4). He led the field by a clear point after 7 rounds with 6½/7, but his form faltered after losing to the eventual winner Carlsen in round 8.


title: Alireza Firouzja

text: 2019 was a significant year for Firouzja as he managed to make a rating leap from 2618 in January to 2723 in December. Firouzja won the Iranian Chess Championship for a second time in 2019, finishing in clear first with 9/11 (+7−0=4).


title: Alireza Firouzja

text: A string of impressive results would follow. In February, Firouzja took clear 1st place, with 7½/9, in the strong Fajr Cup held in Tehran, Iran, ahead of notable grandmasters such as Pavel Ponkratov, Sergey Volkov, Yuriy Kuzubov, Sergey Fedorchuk, and the best Iranian player of the previous generation, Ehsan Ghaem Maghami. Later that month, he played in his third Stars Cup. This time it had a reduced field of four grandmasters: Safarli, Tiviakov, Bosiocic and Alekseev. It was played in a double round-robin format. Firouzja finished undefeated (+3-0=5).


title: Alireza Firouzja

text: In March, he competed in the World Team Chess Championship with Iran. He scored 7/9 points (+6−1=2), and Iran placed sixth out of ten. This series of consecutive results increased his rating to 2657 in the April 2019 rating list and he broke into the world top 100.


title: Alireza Firouzja

text: Later in May, he participated in the 3rd Sharjah Masters. He tied for 1st–7th on 7/9 (+5−0=4), placing fourth on tiebreak. Ernesto Inarkiev won the event. In April, Firouzja competed in the Chess.com Bullet Chess Championship, losing in the quarterfinals to the eventual winner Hikaru Nakamura. Later in April, Firouzja placed second on tiebreak behind Constantin Lupulescu in the Reykjavik Open with 7/9 (+6−1=2). During the event's rest day, he won the European Fischer Random Championship with 8/9 (+7−0=2).


title: Alireza Firouzja

text: Firouzja competed in the Grenke Chess Open, held from 18 to 22 April. He won his first two games but refused to play against the Israeli FIDE Master Or Bronstein in the third round, thus forfeiting the game. This was in line with Iranian government policy, as Iran does not recognise the state of Israel and sanctions players who compete against Israelis. Firouzja then lost in the fourth round to 1945-rated Antonia Ziegenfuss. He won his remaining five games to place 27th with 7/9. In May, Firouzja faced Peruvian grandmaster José Martinez-Alcantara in round one of the 2019 Junior Speed Chess Championship, an online blitz and bullet competition hosted by Chess.com. Firouzja won the match with an overall score of 18–7. Later in May, he competed in the French Rapid and Blitz Championships, held in Le Blanc-Mesnil. He won the rapid event by defeating Alberto David in the final.


title: Alireza Firouzja

text: In June, Firouzja took part in the 18th edition of the Asian Chess Championship, held from 6 to 16 June in Xingtai. He finished the tournament in sixth place with 6/9 points (+5−2=2). Though only the top five were set to qualify for the Chess World Cup 2019, Firouzja narrowly qualified for a spot in the World Cup as 1st-placed Lê Quang Liêm and 5th-placed Rinat Jumabayev had already qualified in previous events. He later finished fourth in a Blitz event held on the final day of the tournament with 6½/9 pts (+6−2=1).


title: Alireza Firouzja

text: Firouzja represented Tatvan in the Turkish Super League from 17 to 28 July. He scored 11½/13 (+10–0=3), thus increasing his rating to 2702. This made Firouzja the first Iranian to reach a rating of 2700 or above. It also made him the youngest player in the world rated 2700 or more, and the second youngest player in history (after Wei Yi) to achieve that feat.


title: Alireza Firouzja

text: At the FIDE World Cup in September, Firouzja defeated Arman Pashikian in round one and Daniil Dubov in round two. This made Firouzja the first Iranian player to reach the third round of a Chess World Cup. In round three, he faced the number-one seed Ding Liren. Firouzja drew with Ding in the two classical games, but lost both of the rapid tiebreakers and was eliminated from the tournament.


title: Alireza Firouzja

text: On 27 December, Firouzja announced that he would no longer play under the Iran chess federation after Iran withdrew its players from the 2019 World Rapid and Blitz Championship to uphold their ban against Iranians playing against Israelis. He instead competed as a FIDE-licensed competitor. Firouzja competed in the World Rapid Chess Championship from 26 to 28 December. He finished the tournament as runner-up with 10½/15 (+8–2=5), one point short of winner Magnus Carlsen. He was the first-ever Iranian-born grandmaster to go on a podium in the history of the competition. At the World Blitz Chess Championship held from 29 to 30 December, Firouzja placed sixth with 13½/21 (+12–6=3).


title: Alireza Firouzja

text: Firouzja participated in the Tata Steel Chess Tournament in January. He became the first Iranian to compete in the Masters' bracket of the tournament; Parham Maghsoodloo had previously competed in the 2019 Tata Steel Challengers. This was the first time that Firouzja faced the world elite in a classical round-robin tournament, and he said in an interview that his expectations were not oriented towards winning the event, but gaining more experience at the top level. He finished with 6½/13 (+4–4=5), placing ninth.


title: Alireza Firouzja

text: In February, Firouzja competed in the Masters section of the Prague International Chess Festival, a 10-player category XIX round-robin event, as a late replacement for Wei Yi, who could not attend due to the COVID-19 pandemic. After a tie for first–fifth on 5/9, Firouzja won the tournament with a 2–0 blitz tiebreak victory over Vidit Gujrathi, giving him his first "supertournament" victory.


title: Alireza Firouzja

text: On 15 April, Firouzja faced Magnus Carlsen in the final of the Chess24 Banter Blitz Cup and won 8½–7½. Firouzja then competed in the Magnus Carlsen Invitational, a rapid tournament held by Chess24 from 18 April to 3 May, along with Carlsen and six other top players. Carlsen defeated Firouzja in their match by a score of 2½–1½. Firouzja placed sixth overall and did not advance to the four-way playoff.


title: Alireza Firouzja

text: In October, Firouzja participated in the annual Norway Chess supertournament, in Stavanger. The tournament was held with a football scoring system (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw and 0 points for a loss). In the case of a draw, players played an armageddon game for an additional 1/2 point. Firouzja finished in second place, behind World Champion Magnus Carlsen and ahead of Levon Aronian, Fabiano Caruana and Jan-Krzysztof Duda. By the standard scoring method, Firouzja's score of 4 victories, 1 loss and 5 draws would have been enough to tie for 1st place, but Carlsen's extra points from wins in the armageddon segment relegated Firouzja to second place. His performance rating for the event was 2880.


title: Alireza Firouzja

text: Firouzja participated in the 83rd Tata Steel Masters in January. Going into the final round of the tournament, Firouzja had the chance to tie for first with a win in his final game. However, due to the tournament's tiebreaker rules, he would be unable to compete for first place even if he finished with the same number of points as the tournament's leaders. In his final round matchup against Radosław Wojtaszek, the arbiters suggested mid-game that the two move to a different table, irritating Firouzja. The situation generated controversy and the event organizers ultimately apologized. The game ultimately ended in a draw, and Firouzja placed fifth in the tournament with a score of 8/13 (+4-1=8), level with Andrey Esipenko and Fabiano Caruana on points who finished third and fourth, respectively. He had a 2806 TPR for the event and went up to number 13 in the world rankings.


title: Alireza Firouzja

text: In June Firouzja participated in the Paris Rapid and Blitz, part of the Grand Chess Tour. He performed poorly in the rapid, scoring 7/18, but scored 11/18 to finish second to Wesley So in the blitz.


title: Alireza Firouzja

text: He was the 8th seed at the Chess World Cup 2021, but was knocked out in the second round by Javokhir Sindarov.


title: Alireza Firouzja

text: In September, Firouzja finished in second place in the Norway Chess supertournament 2021 edition, behind Magnus Carlsen, but ahead of a field including World Championship challenger Ian Nepomniachtchi and former challenger Sergey Karjakin. He scored +5-2=3 in standard time control games, finishing with four consecutive wins, and moved into the world's top 10 for the first time in the October 2021 rating list (10th in October, 9th in November).


title: Alireza Firouzja

text: In November Firouzja participated in the 2nd FIDE Grand Swiss Tournament. Firouzja won the tournament with a score of 8/11, half a point ahead of Fabiano Caruana, thus qualifying for the Candidates Tournament 2022. He became the fourth-youngest player to qualify for a Candidates Tournament.


title: Alireza Firouzja

text: That same month Firouzja represented France in the European Team Chess Championship, where he scored 8/9 against grandmaster opposition for a tournament performance rating of over 3000. The two November results took his rating above 2800 for the first time, and to number 2 in the December standard ratings list. At the age of 18 years, 5 months, he became the youngest player to be rated over 2800, breaking the previous record of 18 years and 336 days held by Magnus Carlsen.


title: Alireza Firouzja

text: After winning the World Chess Championship 2021, Magnus Carlsen said: "If someone other than Firouzja wins the Candidates Tournament, it is unlikely that I will play the next world championship match."


title: Alireza Firouzja

text: From 29 to 30 December, Firouzja also participated in the World Blitz Chess Championship, where he tied for first place with Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Jan-Krzysztof Duda, scoring 15/21 points. He finished in third place after the tiebreaks, won by Vachier-Lagrave.