title: Bhubaneswar

text: Bhubaneswar is emerging as the new sports capital of India, as the FIH and the IOA president, Narindar Batra, recently stated in a ceremony, while unveiling the new logo for the Indian hockey team jersey, which is sponsored by the government of Odisha. The state, Batra mentioned, provides equal importance and opportunity for all sports such as cricket, football, field hockey, tennis, badminton, chess and many more.


title: Bhubaneswar

text: The city's widely circulated Odia-language newspapers are "Sambad", "Dharitri", "Pragatibadi", "Samaja", News 7, Argus, "Khabara", "Orissa Bhaskara", "Prameya" and "Samaya". "Orissa Post" and "Odia Age" are the English-language newspaper that is produced and published from Bhubaneswar. Other popular English-language newspapers published and sold in Bhubaneswar include "The Times of India", "The Statesman", "Hindustan Times", "The Hindu", "The Indian Express" and the "Asian Age". Bhubaneswar has substantial circulation of financial dailies, including "The Economic Times", "The Financial Express", "Business Line" and "Business Standard". Vernacular newspapers, such as those in the Hindi, Bengali and Telugu languages are read by minorities. Major periodicals based in Bhubaneswar include "Saptahika Samaya", "Saptahika Samaja" and "Kadambini".


title: Bhubaneswar

text: All India Radio, the national state-owned radio broadcaster, airs several AM channels from the radio station located in Cuttack. Bhubaneswar has five local radio stations broadcasting on FM, including two from AIR. India's state-owned television broadcaster Doordarshan Odia provides two free-to-air terrestrial channels, while a mix of Odia, Hindi, English and other regional channels are accessible via cable subscription and direct-broadcast satellite services. Some of the Odia language television channels are Sidarth TV, Manjari, Colors Odia, Sarthak TV and Tarang TV. Odia-language 24-hour television news channels include News 7, Argus, Odisha TV, Kanak TV, ETV News Odia, MBC TV and Naxatra News.


title: Bhubaneswar

text: The following are some of the notable people associated (i.e. either born or spent a significant part of their life) with Bhubaneswar:


title: Manowar

text: Manowar is an American heavy metal band from Auburn, New York. Formed in 1980, the group is known for lyrics based on fantasy (particularly sword and sorcery) and mythology (particularly Norse mythology and Greco-Roman mythology), as well as numerous songs celebrating the genre and its core audience. The band is also known for a loud and emphatic sound. In an interview for MTV in February 2007, bassist Joey DeMaio lamented that "these days, there's a real lack of big, epic metal that is drenched with crushing guitars and choirs and orchestras... so it's nice to be one of the few bands that's actually doing that". In 1984, the band was included in the Guinness Book of World Records for delivering the loudest performance, a record which they have since broken on two occasions. They also hold the world record for the longest heavy metal concert after playing for five hours and 1 minute in Bulgaria (at Kavarna Rock Fest) in 2008. They also have been known for their slogan "Death to false metal". The band maintains a strong cult following.


title: Manowar

text: Manowar's history began in 1980 when Joey DeMaio, the future bassist of the band, met guitarist Ross the Boss while working as a bass tech and fireworks manager for Black Sabbath on the Heaven & Hell Tour. Ross the Boss, a former member of the punk rock band the Dictators, was the guitar player in Black Sabbath's support band, Shakin' Street. The two bonded over their shared musical interests, became friends and decided to form a band with the suggestion and advice of Ronnie James Dio during the tour.


title: Manowar

text: At the end of the tour with Black Sabbath, the duo got together to form Manowar. To complete the roster, they hired drummer Donnie Hamzik and singer Eric Adams, a former classmate and friend of DeMaio. The name Manowar was suggested to Joey DeMaio and Ross the Boss by their instrument designer, John "Dawk" Stillwell.


title: Manowar

text: On the strength of their debut demo, Manowar secured a recording contract with label Liberty Records in 1981. The label pressured the band to produce a good number of songs in a short time towards a debut album. The resultant album, "Battle Hymns", was released the following year. The legendary actor and director Orson Welles served in the role of narrator on "Dark Avenger".


title: Manowar

text: Soon after the album's release, Manowar engaged in their first tour. The band played support for hard rocker Ted Nugent, but their collaboration lasted only a few months. Manowar then decided to put together a short tour by themselves and all the arrangements were made in a few weeks by their manager. Despite these setbacks, the band gained domestic fame on this short tour and also began to get their first European fans, particularly in the United Kingdom and in Germany. Stressed from the strain of the continuing performances, Hamzik decided to leave the band at the end of this tour and was replaced with Scott Columbus.


title: Manowar

text: By 1983, the band left Liberty Records and struck a deal with Megaforce Records in the US and Music for Nations in Europe—signing the contract in their own blood. The signing was a cover story in the 1983 July–August issue No. 47 of "Kerrang!".


title: Manowar

text: When Manowar returned home, they immediately went into a recording studio to produce what, in the intentions of the group, would have been a simple EP, but came out instead, due to the quantity and quality of the tracks made in that period, as the band's second album, "Into Glory Ride". An EP was actually published in 1983 with the title "Defender" containing, as its main track, the eponymous song, which included more work by Orson Welles. The atmosphere of the album evoked classical heroic fantasy and mythology, and served as a predecessor to Viking metal. It contained several innovative features, both in style and sound, and led to a huge increase in the number of fans of the group, particularly in the United Kingdom, where the band planned a long tour that was ultimately canceled. The song "Defender" was later re-recorded and included in the "Fighting the World" album of 1987.


title: Manowar

text: To apologize for the failure of their UK tour, Manowar decided to dedicate their next album to the United Kingdom. The album, "Hail to England", was recorded and mixed in just six days and was released in early 1984.


title: Manowar

text: Manowar soon returned to work in the recording studio. After leaving Music for Nations, the quartet released "Sign of the Hammer" ten months after their previous album.


title: Manowar

text: Following further disagreements with their new label, the group changed record label to Atlantic Records in 1987. Via Atlantic, they released "Fighting the World", which enjoyed more extensive distribution and increased the band's prominence in the international heavy metal scene. Album art was designed by Ken Kelly.


title: Manowar

text: In 1988, Manowar released the album "Kings of Metal", which is the band's best known work. Songs like "Heart of Steel", "Kings of Metal" and "Hail and Kill" are performed regularly in concerts. "Kings of Metal" is Manowar's highest-selling album worldwide.


title: Manowar

text: Manowar embarked on a world tour, for a period of approximately three years, with stops in almost all European nations. During that tour, Joey DeMaio "fired" Ross the Boss. According to a 2008 interview with the guitarist, "Joey felt that Manowar would be better without me". He was replaced by David Shankle, who was chosen by members of the band after a search among about 150 candidates. Scott Columbus later also decided to leave the band during the Kings of Metal tour. Columbus himself picked his replacement Kenny Earl Edwards (soon nicknamed 'Rhino').


title: Manowar

text: A new musical unit after the recent changes, Manowar released "The Triumph of Steel" in 1992. It gained some success and was particularly famous for the presence of a suite lasting no less than 28 minutes entitled "Achilles, Agony and Ecstasy in Eight Parts", inspired by the events of the "Iliad" and the hero Achilles. After this release, the band went on a world tour for two years. After the expiration of their contract with Atlantic, the band signed with Geffen Records. In 1994, Shankle unexpectedly left the band to form his own group. He was replaced by Karl Logan, a musician met by DeMaio during a motor meeting. The same year saw the unexpected return of Scott Columbus, who replaced Edwards.


title: Manowar

text: In 1996, they released "Louder Than Hell", their first new studio album in four years. Despite good sales the album was criticized for its simple style.


title: Manowar

text: Despite such criticisms, Manowar released a new collection, called "Anthology", and their first live album, "Hell on Wheels", released by BMG International in the guise of a double CD containing all the most popular songs of the group. Not having the time to record a new studio album because of the ongoing promotional tour, Manowar released a second live album, "Hell on Stage".


title: Manowar

text: In 2002, six years after the last studio album, Manowar released the "Warriors of the World" album. "Warriors of the World" presented a sound somewhat renewed in style, but maintained the usual energy and power. The most famous tracks from the album became "Warriors of the World United", "House of Death" and "Call to Arms", in addition to Puccini's aria "Nessun Dorma", covered in honor of the Italian fans and sung live for the first time in a concert in Milan, Italy.


title: Manowar

text: Manowar then began a long world tour, called "Warriors of the World United Tour" that kept them busy and away from a recording studio for a long time. To compensate for the lack of studio albums, the band released several DVDs: in 2002 the video "Fire and Blood", in 2003 "Hell on Earth Part III" and in 2005 "Hell on Earth Part IV". These (and all DVDs since the year 2000) were directed by Neil Johnson, and have all been certified Gold in Germany.


title: Manowar

text: In 2003, DeMaio founded his own record label, Magic Circle Music, which became the official home of the band, having been created to fit the needs of Manowar, and other bands of similar genre. Under the label Magic Circle were also released the EP "The Sons of Odin" with footage taken during the Earthshaker Fest 2005.


title: Manowar

text: Manowar released "Gods of War" through Magic Circle Music in 2007. After playing numerous shows in Europe, including a concert that spanned the course of two nights, they worked on a new EP, entitled "Thunder in the Sky", which was released in 2009. The EP consisted of two discs: the first playing the regular track list; the second playing the song "Father" in fifteen different languages.


title: Manowar

text: On June 1, 2010, "Classic Rock" magazine published an interview with drummer Scott Columbus who said that he had not worked with the band since April 2008 and had left the band. He also said that statements made in the past, regarding his break in 1990 and 2008 because of an illness and a personal tragedy, were largely untrue and were made without his agreement. On October 15, 2010, Joey DeMaio announced on Facebook that Hamzik was officially a member of Manowar again after a 26-year absence.


title: Manowar

text: On April 4, 2011, Columbus died at the age of 54. On April 5, 2020, Columbus' daughter Teresa publicly announced that her father's cause of death was suicide, and urged for more awareness on mental illness and depression.


title: Manowar

text: Manowar's subsequent release was a re-recording of their 1982 debut album "Battle Hymns". This album was released on November 26, 2010, with the narration of Sir Christopher Lee and formally entitled "Battle Hymns MMXI". On July 21, 2011, the band embarked on a UK tour for the first time in 16 years in November and performed the "Battle Hymns" album in its entirety.


title: Manowar

text: Manowar's next studio album, "The Lord of Steel", was released worldwide on June 16, 2012, exclusively on iTunes and on the band's own online store. The album sees a reversion from the symphonic elements present on the "Gods of War" album back to a more straightforward, heavy metal sound. The song "El Gringo" is featured in the soundtrack to the film of the same name.


title: Manowar

text: After the Lord of Steel tour was over in 2013, Manowar released a live EP, titled "The Lord of Steel Live", which included six live tracks recorded during the tour.


title: Manowar

text: On July 28, 2013, Manowar announced that they would be re-recording their 1988 release "Kings of Metal" with an expected release date of late 2013. Brian Blessed recorded his narration for the track "The Warrior's Prayer" at Circle (Recording) Studios in Birmingham, England. Like the re-recording of "Battle Hymns MMXI", this album allowed the band to use modern day technology.


title: Manowar

text: "Kings of Metal MMXIV" was released through iTunes as a digital download on February 4, 2014. Hard copies of the album were released on February 28.


title: Manowar

text: On May 22, 2015, Manowar announced that they were currently working on a new studio album that was set to be released in early 2016. This album was not released, and instead they went to Europe in early 2016 for the "Gods and Kings World Tour 2016" which included their first concerts in Slovakia, Latvia and Belarus.


title: Manowar

text: On May 25, 2016, the band announced that they would embark on their next world tour dubbed "The Final Battle". They would later recruit drummer Marcus Castellani from the tribute band Kings of Steel as their drummer for the tour.


title: Manowar

text: On October 25, 2018, it was revealed that guitarist Karl Logan was arrested on August 9 in Charlotte, North Carolina, for allegedly possessing child pornography and was charged with six counts of third-degree exploitation of a minor. Manowar issued a statement shortly after saying that Logan would not perform with them. They then said that their upcoming album and tour would not be affected. Following Logan's arrest, former guitarist David Shankle expressed interest in rejoining the band.


title: Manowar

text: On January 1, 2019, Manowar announced that guitarist E.V. Martel would join them on their tour. On March 22, 2019, the band announced that they would release a trilogy of EP's based upon The Final Battle World Tour. The first EP, "The Final Battle I", was released on March 29 in an exclusive pre-sale at the merchandise booth in Frankfurt and also during the European shows. It was then released on iTunes worldwide that day. The EP was digitally and physically released on May 30. Former HammerFall and Yngwie Malmsteen drummer Anders Johansson was announced as the new live drummer shortly after and made his debut at the March 25 show in Brno. Despite the tour's name, bassist Joey DeMaio dismissed any claims of Manowar's retirement, mainly due to the fans' demands to have them continue to perform.


title: Manowar

text: In June 2019, the band's appearance at Hellfest was cancelled for undisclosed reasons. Fans who were to attend the show expressed their disappointment towards their cancellation. Manowar stepped in and said that they did not cancel their performance, but that it was the festival's organizers who cancelled their appearance in an announcement that appeared on their website. Swedish band Sabaton replaced Manowar in the lineup. Joey DeMaio later said that the band filed a lawsuit against the Hellfest organizers.


title: Manowar

text: In May 2020, Manowar announced that they would embark on a tour, beginning in April 2021 in Europe, to celebrate their 40th anniversary. However, the band did not tour in 2020 and 2021.


title: Manowar

text: On June 4, 2022, the day of the first show of their 2022/23 tour, it was announced drummer Anders Johansson could not perform with the band on their upcoming "Crushing The Enemies of Metal Anniversary Tour '22/'23" due to family commitments, and was replaced by Dave Chedrick for the tour. On September 2, 2022, following the announcement by guitarist E.V. Martel that he would not be available for touring next year, the band announced Michael Angelo Batio as their touring guitarist for their upcoming 2023 “Crushing The Enemies Of Metal” Anniversary Tour.


title: Manowar

text: The Faceless Warrior, also known as the King of Metal, is the band's mascot. The character first appeared in 1988 on the cover of the album "Kings Of Metal", and has since appeared in the cover artwork of almost every following Manowar album, as well as on merchandise and in almost every Manowar live show to follow.


title: Manowar

text: In a May 2002 interview with Metal-Rules.com, vocalist Eric Adams was asked, "Who is that guy in your album cover? Do you have any name for him?". He replied, "No because he is you, he is her, he is this person he is that person and so on. He has no face and that was in [sic] purpose because everyone needs a heroes [sic] in their life and our music is all about heroes and you know being the leader not the follower. It's picture [sic] of hero and you being that hero is that what it is all about. So there is no real name for it. It's a fantasy world man. Put your face there are you are the hero!"


title: Manowar

text: "The Sign of the Hammer" is a cultural gesture developed in the early years of the band, after the release of their fourth album of the same name, and serves as a signature of the band. The sign is most likely to have been shaped from the vocalist Eric Adams. It is formed by raising a right fist above the head, while using the left hand to grab the back of the right wrist. The Media Company "Heilbronner Stimme" published an article describing the Sign of the Hammer as, "the striking greeting. A gesture that unites. A gesture that fits the pathos of the self-proclaimed Kings of Metal. A gesture that has become the trademark of the group founded in 1980".


title: Manowar

text: The first official appearance of the gesture was on the front cover of the band's fifth album, "Fighting the World", where vocalist Eric Adams is shown making the gesture in a drawing of the band members. The gesture then appeared in the official music video for "Blow Your Speakers", shown being made by the band members and crowd during a concert, as well as in the full cover art of the album "The Triumph of Steel". Since then, the sign has been featured in almost every official music video of the band.


title: Manowar

text: Manowar have a very important place in the history and evolution of heavy metal music and are a huge influence in the Heavy Metal genre especially on subgenres such as: Power Metal, Epic/ Symphonic/ Melodic Metal, Viking metal, War Metal, Pagan Metal, Folk Metal, Doom Metal, Gothic Metal and Death Metal and "on every power metal band to emerge in the past 25 years". "Manowar's influence in the Rock Music industry is undeniable, they have left their mark in the Heavy Metal genre thanks to a combination of unique craftsmanship and characteristic songwriting". Manowar has influenced a huge amount of Heavy Metal bands and artists around the world, such as: Sabaton, Burning Witches, Rhapsody of Fire, Brothers of Metal, Warkings Amon Amarth Battle Beast, Beast in Black, Death, Elvenking, Symphony X, Firewind, Abbath Battleroar, Exmortus, Hammer King, Jack Starr's Burning Starr, Battle Born, Rocka Rollas, Týr, Warrior Path, Wotan, Wizard, HammerFall, Van Canto, Ensiferum, Avatar, Trivium, Majesty, Angra, Eternal Champion, Evertale, Death Dealer, Burning Point, Crystal Viper, Scared Outcry, Imperial Age, Therion, Hercules, Lost Horizon, Visigoth, Atlantean Kodex, Vhäldemar, Grand Magus, HolyHell, Skelator, Doomsword, Ironsword, Metal Law, Orden Ogan Pegazus, Battlerage, Hellish War, Holy Martyr, Grey Wolf, Moonspell Cryonic Temple, Runelord, Iron Kobra, Trick or Treat Hürlement, Assedium, Wrathblade, Rosae Crucis, Validor, Stormburner, Hysterica, Stormwarrior, Skullview, Steelpreacher, Kramp, Mike Lepond's Silent Assassins, Axe Steeler, Paladine, Vanlade, Claymorean,Arch Enemy, Korpiklaani, Marius Danielsen, Seven Witches, Adramelch, Steel Attack, Stormwarrior, Aktarum, Atramentus, Derdian, Dread Sovereign, White Skull, Heathen Foray, High Reeper& Hippie Death Cult, Ironflame, Khemmis, Nocturnal, Seven Kingdom, Silver Bullet, Vanir, Veonity, Winter's Verge, Winterhymn, Wintersun, Falconer, Children of Bodom Destroy Destroy Destroy Holy Dragons Arryan Path, Guardians of Time, Sons of Apollo, Sound Storm, Sulphur Aeon, Unleash the Archers Wolfthooth, Crom, Coronatus Perpetual EtudeBrainstorm Untamed Land Feuerschwanz Immortal and many more.


title: Angelina Jordan

text: Angelina Jordan (born Angelina Jordan Astar; 10 January 2006) is a Norwegian singer now living in Los Angeles, whose audition for the 2014 season of "Norway's Got Talent", singing "Gloomy Sunday" in the style of Billie Holiday, became a viral video online and brought her worldwide press coverage at the age of eight. She went on to win the competition with her performance of George Gershwin's "Summertime". Since then she has worked to raise millions of dollars on behalf of environmental causes and children's charities around the world. She always performs barefoot, after befriending a young shoeless girl and giving her shoes to her. Jordan wrote a book about the experience and became the youngest published author in Norway.


title: Angelina Jordan

text: Jordan has released multiple digital singles, two EPs, and one album called "It's Magic". She appeared on the first season of "Little Big Shots" in 2016, and the second season of "" in 2020, where her cover version of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" brought her much attention.


title: Angelina Jordan

text: In August 2020, it was announced that she has signed with Republic Records. Her first single under that label, "Million Miles", was released in November 2020.


title: Angelina Jordan

text: After Jordan's performances of two Billie Holiday songs, "Gloomy Sunday" and "I'm a Fool to Want You", on "Norway's Got Talent", as well as "Fly Me to the Moon" on a TV talk show, all went viral online in March 2014, she was featured in "Time", "Daily Mirror", "People", and other news outlets around the world. She continued in the competition singing Nancy Sinatra's version of "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)" live in the semi-finals, and won with her performance of George Gershwin's "Summertime", in the style of Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong's 1958 recording of the song.


title: Angelina Jordan

text: In September 2014, she performed "Fly Me to the Moon" on the US television show "The View", bringing her wider fame in the United States. She also performed on several TV 2 programs in Norway over the next few years, including multiple appearances on "Allsang på Grensen" ("Singalong at the Border", referring to the border fortress of Fredriksten where outdoor concerts are held) and on TV4 in Sweden.


title: Angelina Jordan

text: Jordan had a small guest role in the final episode of the Netflix series "Lilyhammer", playing a girl who sings in a bar.


title: Angelina Jordan

text: In December 2014, she partly realized a personal ambition of singing at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert by performing for Peace Prize recipients Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi at the Save the Children's Peace Prize Celebration.


title: Angelina Jordan

text: Jordan's recording debut, the three-song maxi-single "My Christmas", was released in December 2014. To support the release, Jordan performed the songs on multiple TV shows, including an appearance on Christmas Day.


title: Angelina Jordan

text: In 2015, Jordan began recording music that would eventually be collected on the six-song "Angelina Jordan – The EP", released on 27 November 2017. Many of the tracks were posted to her official YouTube channel well in advance of the EP release, in the form of music videos and lyric videos. These included her covers of Screamin' Jay Hawkins' "I Put a Spell on You", the music video for which was directed by Per Heimly, and Amy Winehouse's "Back to Black", in which Jordan sang her own original lyrics. These two music videos became the most popular videos on her official YouTube channel, surpassing 5 million views each by 2020. In 2017, she created a second YouTube channel specifically to present performances of cover songs.


title: Angelina Jordan

text: In November 2015, Jordan published the book "Mellom to hjerter" ("Between Two Hearts"), which was illustrated by her grandmother, Iranian artist Mery Zamani. The book tells the story of her meeting a poor motherless girl in the Middle East who has no shoes. After a long conversation in which they discuss their dreams in life, she gives the girl her shoes and the girl promises to pray for Jordan to fulfill her dream to become a successful singer. According to Jordan the book is based on a real incident that happened when she was six, which she cites as the reason for always performing barefoot.


title: Angelina Jordan

text: In April 2016, Jordan performed "Fly Me to the Moon" on the first season of the noncompetitive children's talent show "Little Big Shots". A year later she performed "What a Difference a Day Makes" on the UK version of the show. She also performed "I Put a Spell on You" on the German edition of the show, "Little Big Stars", in 2017.


title: Angelina Jordan

text: In December 2016, she performed on "Alan Walker is Heading Home", a live concert broadcast from Bergen, Norway, where she sang Walker's songs "Sing Me to Sleep" and "Faded".


title: Angelina Jordan

text: On 15 June 2018, a full album of recordings with Staff Band of the Norwegian Armed Forces (Forsvarets stabsmusikkorps), called "It's Magic", was released. The next day, Jordan and the band performed the full album live in a concert attended by Norway's Prime Minister.


title: Angelina Jordan

text: On 27 June 2018, Jordan performed "Fly Me to the Moon" for Quincy Jones in The O2 Arena in London, as part of his 85th birthday celebration, and also joined with other singers to perform "Man in the Mirror" to close the show.


title: Angelina Jordan

text: In 2019, Jordan performed for former president Barack Obama and other public figures at the Brilliant Minds conference in Stockholm.


title: Angelina Jordan

text: In October 2019, she competed in the second season of "", which was aired in January and February 2020. Her first appearance on the show, singing an original arrangement of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody", received a "golden buzzer" from judge Heidi Klum (meaning that Jordan would pass directly into the finals). As with her "Norway's Got Talent" audition six years earlier, a video of Jordan's performance began to go viral on YouTube, quickly reaching 10 million views. The performance also garnered praise from Queen's official Twitter account. Shortly afterwards, the video was taken down and Jordan released a studio version of the same arrangement under her own copyright. Jordan's second performance (in the finals), a similarly reworked "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" based largely on a version by Sara Bareilles, was also well received, but she was not among the top 5 acts.


title: Angelina Jordan

text: In August 2020, Jordan's manager (her uncle, Michael Astar) announced that she had signed with Republic Records. Her first single on the label, "Million Miles", was released on 6 November 2020, on all major digital platforms. An official lyric video was posted to her official YouTube channel the same day. The track was produced by the Norwegian duo Stargate, who also co-wrote the song with Jordan. She has since released two additional music videos for the song: one showing her singing the song "live" in a recording studio, the other an "official music video" featuring her younger sister.


title: Angelina Jordan

text: In June 2022, after a two-year hiatus brought on by the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, Jordan resumed singing in front of live audiences with an appearance in the first episode of the final season of "Allsang på Grensen".


title: Angelina Jordan

text: Jordan was born in Oslo, Norway, and has lived for extended periods both there and in Los Angeles. She also lived for a time in the Middle East. She has a younger sister who has been featured in some of her music videos. Her father, Gerry Christian Slattman, is Swedish. Her Norwegian mother, Sara Astar, is the daughter of Iranian artist and poet Mery Zamani and a Japanese father.


title: Angelina Jordan

text: Jordan attended the Oslo Waldorf School and participated in the Oslo School of Music and Performing Arts after-school program, where she received vocal training and piano lessons. In addition to singing and playing the piano, she plays violin, guitar and flute, and also paints.


title: Wasim Akram

text: Wasim Akram HI (; born 3 June 1966) is a Pakistani cricket commentator, coach, and former cricketer and captain of the Pakistan national cricket team. Akram is widely regarded as one of the greatest fast bowlers of all time, and several critics regard him as the greatest left-arm fast bowler in cricket history. He is often revered as "The Sultan of Swing" (),


title: Wasim Akram

text: In October 2013, Wasim Akram was the only Pakistani cricketer to be named in an to mark the 150th anniversary of "Wisden Cricketers' Almanack".


title: Wasim Akram

text: A left-arm fast bowler who could bowl with significant pace, he holds the world record for most wickets in List A cricket, with 881, and he is second only to Sri Lankan off-spin bowler Muttiah Muralitharan in terms of ODI wickets, with 502 in total. He is considered to be one of the founders, and perhaps the finest exponent of, reverse swing bowling.


title: Wasim Akram

text: He was the first bowler to reach the 500-wicket mark in ODI cricket, and he did so during the 2003 World Cup. In 2002, Wisden released its only list of best players of all time. Wasim was ranked as the best bowler in ODI of all time, with a rating of 1223.5, ahead of Allan Donald, Imran Khan, Waqar Younis, Joel Garner, Glenn McGrath and Muralitharan. Wasim took 23 four-wicket hauls in 356 ODI matches played. On 30 September 2009, Akram was one of five new members inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame. He was the bowling coach of Kolkata Knight Riders. However, he took a break from the position for IPL 6, citing a need to spend more time with family in Karachi, and he took a further break from IPL 2017; he was replaced by Lakshmipathy Balaji.


title: Wasim Akram

text: He was working as director and bowling coach of Islamabad United in Pakistan Super League until he left to join Multan Sultans in August 2017. In October 2018, he was named in the Pakistan Cricket Board's seven-member advisory cricket committee. In November 2018, he joined PSL franchisee Karachi Kings as a President.


title: Wasim Akram

text: The Government of Pakistan awarded him the Hilal-e-Imtiaz on 23 March 2019 for his life time achievements In field of cricket.


title: Wasim Akram

text: Wasim Akram was born on 3 June 1966 to a Punjabi Muslim family in Lahore. Akram's father, Chaudhary Muhammed Akram, was originally from a village near Amritsar, who moved to Kamonki, in the Pakistani Punjab after the partition of India in 1947. His mother's name is Begum Akram. He has 3 siblings. Two elder brothers Naeem Akram and Nadeem Akram. He has one younger sister, Sofia Akram. He was educated at Government Islamia College, Civil Lines, Lahore.


title: Wasim Akram

text: At the age of 30, Akram was diagnosed with diabetes. "I remember what a shock it was because I was a healthy sportsman with no history of diabetes in my family, so I didn't expect it at all. It seemed strange that it happened to me when I was 30, but it was a very stressful time and doctors said that can trigger it." Since then he has sought to be involved in various awareness campaigns for diabetes.


title: Wasim Akram

text: Akram married Huma Mufti in 1995. They had two sons from their marriage of 14 years: Tahmoor (born 1996) and Akbar (born 2000). Huma died of multiple organ failure at Apollo Hospital in Chennai, India, on 25 October 2009.


title: Wasim Akram

text: On 7 July 2013, it was reported that Akram had become engaged to an Australian woman, Shaniera Thompson, whom he had met while on a visit to Melbourne in 2011. Akram married Shaniera on 12 August 2013, saying he has started a new life on a happy note. He was quoted as saying: "I married Shaniera in Lahore in a simple ceremony, and this is the start of a new life for me, my wife, and for my kids."


title: Wasim Akram

text: He moved from Lahore to Karachi with his wife and children. On 3 September 2014, the couple tweeted that they were expecting their first baby—the third child of the Akram family. On 27 December 2014, Shaniera gave birth to a baby girl, Aiyla Sabeen Rose Akram, in Melbourne.


title: Wasim Akram

text: In his autobiography titled "Sultan: A Memoir", Akram revealed that he was addicted to cocaine after his playing career ended.


title: Wasim Akram

text: In 1988, Akram signed for Lancashire County Cricket Club in England. From 1988 to 1998, he opened their bowling attack in their NatWest Trophy, Benson and Hedges Cup, and Sunday League tournaments. He was a favourite of the local British fans, who used to sing a song called "Wasim for England" at Lancashire's matches. In 1998, with Akram as captain, Lancashire won the NatWest Trophy and Sunday League and finished second in the County Championship, having lost only five matches in all competitions during the season.


title: Wasim Akram

text: Akram made his Test cricket debut for Pakistan against New Zealand in 1985, and in his second Test match, he claimed 10 wickets. A few weeks prior to his selection into the Pakistan team, he was an unknown club cricketer who had failed to make it even to his college team. He came to the trials at Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore in Pakistan, but for the first two days he did not get a chance to bowl. On the third day, he got a chance; his performance convincing Javed Miandad to insist upon his inclusion in the national team. Akram was hence given an opportunity to play for Pakistan, without any significant domestic experience.


title: Wasim Akram

text: Akram's rise in international cricket was rapid during the late 1980s. He was a part of the Pakistan team that toured the West Indies in 1988. However, a groin injury impeded his career in the late 1980s. Following two surgeries, he re-emerged in the 1990s as a fast bowler who focused more on swing and accurate bowling.


title: Wasim Akram

text: Akram started his ODI career against New Zealand in Pakistan in 1984 under the captaincy of Zaheer Abbas. He rose to prominence by taking five wickets in his 3rd ODI against Australia in the 1985 Benson & Hedges World Championship. His wickets included those of Kepler Wessels, Dean Jones, and captain Allan Border. Wasim Akram is currently the highest wicket taker for Pakistan in One Day International cricket


title: Wasim Akram

text: In the 1984–85 Rothmans Four-Nations Cup and the 1985–86 Rothmans Sharjah Cup, Akram took five wickets with a run rate of less than 3.50. The 1985–1986 Austral-Asia Cup involved Australia, India, New Zealand, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and was played in Sharjah, UAE. Akram, with the help of Abdul Qadir, bowled out New Zealand's batting line-up for 64 in the second semi-final of the cup. Pakistan won that game with more than 27 overs to spare, obtaining one of the biggest wins in Pakistani history. In the final against India, he and Imran Khan shared five wickets. Akram's wickets included Dilip Vengsarkar and Ravi Shastri.


title: Wasim Akram

text: In the 1987 Cricket World Cup held for the 1st time in South Asia, Akram struggled on Pakistani pitches; he managed only 7 wickets throughout, with an average of over 40 runs per wicket across all 7 matches. Akram played West Indies, Sri Lanka and England twice. All group matches were played in Pakistan.


title: Wasim Akram

text: Akram took his hundredth wicket at Sharjah during the 1989–1990 Champions Trophy, the 2nd Match against West Indies. His 100th wicket was that of Curtly Ambrose. In that match, he took a five-wicket haul for the second time in his career. In the same match, Akram took his first hat-trick against West Indies. All three batsman were bowled out. On 4 May 1990 in Sharjah, Akram took his second ODI hat-trick against Australia. All three batsmen were bowled this time as well.


title: Wasim Akram

text: His best years in the late 1980s were from 1986 to 1989, during which time he took 100 wickets at 22.71 runs per wicket, and his economy rate was less than 3.9 runs per over, with a total of four 4-wicket hauls. His first two hauls against Sri Lanka and Bangladesh came in Sri Lanka in 1986.


title: Wasim Akram

text: Up until December 1991, Akram took 143 wickets in 107 matches, with an average of almost 24 and an economy rate of 3.84.


title: Wasim Akram

text: Akram was a significant figure in the 1992 Cricket World Cup held in Australia and New Zealand when Pakistan won the tournament. In the final, against England, his innings of 33 runs off 19 balls pushed Pakistan to a score of 249 runs for 6 wickets. Akram then took the wicket of Ian Botham early on during the English batting innings; and, when brought back into the bowling attack later on, with the ball reverse swinging, he produced a spell of bowling which led to Allan Lamb and Chris Lewis being bowled in successive deliveries in one over. His performances earned him the Man of the Match award for the final. In 1993, Akram took two consecutive 4-wicket hauls against Sri Lanka in Sharjah, in which 7 out of 8 wickets were either LBW or bowled.


title: Wasim Akram

text: In the 1992–1993 Total International Series in South Africa (involving Pakistan, West Indies and South Africa), he took 5 wickets against South Africa and got his 200th wicket in his 143rd match. Akram took 46 wickets in calendar year 1993, his best year ever in ODIs. His average was less than 19, with an economy rate of less than 3.8 runs per over. He took six 4-wicket hauls in 1993, the most by him in any year. In the 1996 Cricket World Cup, Akram missed the quarterfinal match against India which Pakistan lost and went out of the World Cup. Wasim's great career was often tainted by controversy, not least in the Caribbean in April 1993, his maiden tour as Pakistan's captain. During the team's stop-over in Grenada, he was arrested along with three teammates—Waqar Younis, Aaqib Javed and Mushtaq Ahmed—and two female British tourists; he was charged with possession of marijuana. Between 1994 and 1996, he took 84 wickets in 39 matches.


title: Wasim Akram

text: From January 1992 to December 1997, Akram played 131 matches and took 198 wickets at an average of 21.86, with 14 4-wicket hauls in ODIs.


title: Wasim Akram

text: In 1999, he led Pakistan to the finals of the World Cup where they capitulated and were defeated by Australia in the final by eight wickets with almost 30 overs to spare. This was the start of the match-fixing controversies, as critics believed Akram had set up the match for Australia. However, none of the allegations could be proved.


title: Wasim Akram

text: He was Pakistan's best bowler in the 2003 Cricket World Cup, taking 12 wickets in 6 matches. However, Pakistan failed to reach the super six of the tournament, and Akram was one of the eight players to be sacked by the Pakistan Cricket Board as a result.


title: Wasim Akram

text: Akram won 17 Man-of-the-Match awards in 104 Tests. He took four hat-tricks in international cricket—two in ODIs and two in Tests. As a result, he shares the record for most international hat-tricks with Lasith Malinga. He finished with 22 Man-of-the-Match awards in ODIs. In 199 ODI match wins, he took 326 wickets at under 19 apiece with a run rate of 3.70 and took 18 four-wicket hauls. His 257 not-out against Zimbabwe in 1996 is the highest innings by a number-8 batsman in Tests. He hit 12 sixes in that game, and it stands to this day as the record for the most sixes by any player in a single Test innings.


title: Wasim Akram

text: Prior to his retirement, he was one of eight senior players dropped for the 2003 Sharjah Cup, and was then omitted from the Pakistan squad for the subsequent Bank Alfalah Cup triangular series. Due to his omission from the team, he did not participate in a farewell match. Akram fulfilled his contract play for Hampshire until the end of the English season.


title: Wasim Akram

text: Since retiring from cricket, Akram has worked and taken up commentary for television networks and can currently be seen as a sports commentator for ESPN Star Sports and ARY Digital among others. He did commentary on a variety of sporting tournaments including the 2009 Women's Cricket World Cup in Australia, the 2009 ICC World Twenty20 in England, the 2009 ICC Champions Trophy in South Africa, and the 2011 ICC World Cup in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.


title: Wasim Akram

text: In 2010, Akram was appointed the bowling coach consultant of Kolkata Knight Riders, the Indian Premier League team for Kolkata. Sourav Ganguly was always keen to have Akram as the bowling coach for India, during the former's stint as Indian captain. Although this never happened, his dreams were realised to some extent, when Akram was appointed as the bowling coach cum mentor for the franchise.


title: Wasim Akram

text: Akram has thus been playing a vital role in the grooming of Indian pacers like Mohammed Shami and Umesh Yadav, who owe their success in international cricket a lot to the bowling legend.


title: Wasim Akram

text: While working for the Kolkata Knight Riders, he was also responsible for the signing of Pakistani domestic left-arm fast-bowler Mohammad Irfan.


title: Wasim Akram

text: Akram has also been coaching in Pakistan fast bowling camps, his most notable discovery being the teenage Pakistani bowlers Mohammad Amir and Junaid Khan.


title: Wasim Akram

text: Akram has also worked as director and bowling coach of PSL franchise Islamabad United during 2016 and 2017 season. He has also worked with Multan Sultans as director and bowling coach. He is currently chairman and bowling coach of Karachi Kings. He is also currently the Vice President of Kashmir Premier League.


title: Wasim Akram

text: During his professional career he bowled with genuine speed and hostility. Akram was a man possessed of accurate control of line and length, accompanied by seam and swing bowling skills, extended to both inswingers and outswingers. With a very quick bowling action, he could bowl equally well from both sides of the wicket. His mastery of reverse swing with the cricket ball meant he was at his most dangerous towards the end of a bowling innings, and earned him the nickname of one of the "Sultans of Swing", the other one being Waqar Younis.


title: Wasim Akram

text: As well as often being able to find the edge of the bat, Akram would also focus his bowling attack on the stumps and had a particularly lethal inswinging yorker. Of his 414 Test wickets, 193 were taken caught, 119 were taken leg before wicket and 102 were bowled. In partnership with Waqar Younis, he intimidated international batsmen in the 1990s. Together Wasim and Waqar, known as "the two Ws" of the Pakistani team, were one of the most successful bowling partnerships in cricket.


title: Wasim Akram

text: With the bat he was especially effective against spin bowlers. However, he liked to slog and was criticised for his lack of high scores and giving away his wicket too cheaply. In October 1996 he scored 257 runs not out, of the team's total of 553 against lowly Zimbabwe on a typical flat South Asian pitch at Sheikhupura. He also achieved good scores for the Pakistan team such as his scores of 123 and 45* against Australia to take Pakistan to victory in a low scoring match. His batting was also valuable sometimes to the Pakistan ODI side, such as in the Nehru Cup in 1989, when needing six runs and two balls to win the match, he hit the first delivery he faced, from part-time off-spinner and batting legend, Viv Richards, for a six and secured the cup.


title: Wasim Akram

text: West Indian batting great Viv Richards rates Akram as best fast bowler he ever faced after Dennis Lillee.


title: Wasim Akram

text: In December 2012 after Ricky Ponting announced his retirement he said that Wasim Akram and Curtly Ambrose were the toughest bowlers he had faced "Akram for the exact opposite, you could get a few runs off him, but you just knew there was an unplayable ball around the corner, be it with an old ball or with a new ball," – Ricky Ponting.


title: Wasim Akram

text: In 2022 he released another autobiographical book, "Sultan: A Memoir", co-written with Australian sports journalist Gideon Haigh.


title: Wasim Akram

text: Akram was awarded Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1993 for his sporting achievements. He was awarded Lux Style Award for Most Stylish Sports Person in 2003.


title: Wasim Akram

text: In 1992, after he had been successful against the English batsmen, accusations of ball tampering began to appear in the English media, though no video evidence of foul play was ever found. Akram and Younis had been able to obtain prodigious amounts of movement from both new and old cricket balls. The skill of the reverse swing delivery was relatively unknown in England and around the cricketing world during that period.


title: Wasim Akram

text: A far larger controversy was created when critics alleged that he was involved in match fixing. An inquiry commission was set up by the Pakistan Cricket Board headed by a Pakistan high court judge, Malik Mohammad Qayyum. The judge wrote in his report that:


title: Martin Kemp

text: Martin John Kemp (born 10 October 1961) is an English musician and actor, best known as the bassist in the new wave band Spandau Ballet and for his role as Steve Owen in "EastEnders".


title: Martin Kemp

text: He is the younger brother of Gary Kemp, who is also a member of Spandau Ballet and an actor. In 2012, Kemp finished third in the tenth series of "Celebrity Big Brother", and in 2017 he appeared as a judge on the BBC series "Let It Shine".


title: Martin Kemp

text: Kemp was born to Frank and Eileen Kemp at their house in Islington, north London, and attended Rotherfield Junior School. From the age of 7 he attended the Anna Scher Theatre drama club with his brother Gary, and appeared in many TV shows, including "Jackanory", "The Tomorrow People" and "Dixon of Dock Green". In his last year with Anna Scher, he won a role in "The Glittering Prizes", appearing alongside Tom Conti and Nigel Havers.


title: Martin Kemp

text: Kemp grew up in north London and attended Central Foundation Boys' School, Islington. Along with pictures of other famous ex-pupils, a large photo of him adorns a wall of fame at the school. After leaving school at 16, he began an apprenticeship in a print factory but soon became disenchanted.


title: Martin Kemp

text: Kemp's life changed when Steve Dagger, the manager of his brother Gary's band the Gentry, suggested Martin should replace the band's bass-player. Kemp learned to play bass in three months and performed for the first time with the Gentry at a college party. Eventually the band was renamed Spandau Ballet and Kemp left his printing job to concentrate on the band full-time.


title: Martin Kemp

text: Spandau Ballet went on to have a great deal of success in the New Romantic era, with four of their albums reaching the top ten of the UK Albums Chart. "True" also gave the band their first UK number-one album and, with the album's title track, single. Kemp also performed with the band on the popular 1984 famine-relief-project song "Do They Know It's Christmas?", written by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure. Because of a dispute over royalties, the band split up in the early 1990s.


title: Martin Kemp

text: Spandau Ballet announced they had reformed at a press conference on on 25 March 2009. The band also announced a world tour, beginning with dates in the UK and Ireland in October 2009.


title: Martin Kemp

text: Kemp and his brother Gary returned to acting in 1990, both appearing in the British film "The Krays", in which they played the notorious gangster twins Ronald and Reginald Kray. Their performances received a great deal of critical acclaim.


title: Martin Kemp

text: After "The Krays", Martin Kemp moved to Los Angeles in the early 1990s and made appearances in television series such as "The Outer Limits" and "". He also appeared in several Hollywood films, including "" (1992) and "Embrace of the Vampire" (1994).


title: Martin Kemp

text: In 1995, Kemp moved back to the United Kingdom and took a break from acting for a short while, recovering from removal of two benign brain tumours. He resumed his acting career in 1998 when he made a guest appearance in the ITV police drama series "The Bill". He went on to become popular for his role as villain Steve Owen in the BBC's top soap opera, "EastEnders", from December 1998. His character was involved in some of the soap's highest-rated storylines, such as the Saskia Duncan murder and "Who Shot Phil?". By the time he left the series in 2002, he was one of the best-known faces on British television. He was the subject of "This Is Your Life" in 1999, when he was surprised by Michael Aspel while filming a scene for "EastEnders". Kemp won three TV Quick Awards for Best Soap Actor (2000, 2001, 2002), a National Television Award for Most Popular Actor (2000) and five British Soap Awards (Villain of the Year in 2000, Best Actor in 2001 and 2002, and Sexiest Male in 2001 and 2002) for his work on "EastEnders".


title: Martin Kemp

text: Kemp signed a contract with ITV in 2002 and starred in several television dramas, including "The Brides in the Bath", in which he played real-life murderer George Smith, and "Can't Buy Me Love" opposite fellow "EastEnders" star Michelle Collins, which was based on a true story about a man who conned his wife and friends into believing he had won the lottery. He also starred in the short-lived crime drama series "Family" in 2003. From 2004 to 2007, he was the face of furniture chain ScS. He starred in a low-budget British film titled "Back in Business" which had a limited release in a few cinemas in February 2007 and one month later was released on DVD. He founded his own production company and in March 2008 directed a low-budget 20-minute short film entitled "Karma Magnet", which starred his brother Gary and featured Martin's wife and son, Shirlie and Roman. This was released only online.


title: Martin Kemp

text: Kemp appeared on a celebrity special of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" in January 2008 with his brother Gary to raise awareness of and funds for the Encephalitis Society. Along with his son, Kemp also featured in one edition of a factual television series for Five, "Dangerous Adventures For Boys", based on the best-selling book written by Conn and Hal Iggulden, "The Dangerous Book for Boys". In 2008, he appeared on the Discovery Channel television programme "Chop Shop" where the cast built him a gangster car. He hosted "TV's 50 Hardest Men" for Sky1 in July 2008 and guest-starred as Mr. Burley in BBC drama series "Waterloo Road". The year 2011 saw him starring as "Dr. Lawrence" in "Jack Falls". In November 2011 Kemp appeared as a contestant on the second series of ITV's 71 Degrees North but quit after three days. Kemp's first feature film as director, "Stalker", was released in 2011.


title: Martin Kemp

text: Kemp was announced as the thirteenth celebrity to participate in the summer series of "Celebrity Big Brother" 2012. Kemp appeared in the final episode and was placed third on 7 September 2012.


title: Martin Kemp

text: From February to April 2016, Kemp appeared as The Childcatcher in the UK and Ireland tour of the musical "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang", alongside Jason Manford, Phil Jupitus and Michelle Collins.


title: Martin Kemp

text: Kemp hosted the first series of "Martin Kemp's Murder Files", aired from November 2016, on the UK TV channel Quest. The show provided detailed accounts of crimes and a step-by-step forensic analysis as to how the evil killers were eventually identified. Murderers featured on the show included the Yorkshire Ripper and the Green River Killer.


title: Martin Kemp

text: In December 2017, he appeared as Captain Hook in "Peter Pan - The World's Biggest Pantomime" at the Barclaycard Arena in Birmingham and the SSE Arena in Wembley alongside Bradley Walsh as Smee.


title: Martin Kemp

text: In November 2019, Kemp and his wife released their first album together as Martin & Shirlie, titled "In the Swing of It" via Sony Music. The album contains duet covers of classic jazz standards plus two original songs written by their daughter Harley Moon Kemp.


title: Martin Kemp

text: In June 2020, Kemp, with his son Roman premiered as hosts of the new Sunday breakfast programme for ITV, "Martin & Roman's Sunday Best!". In October 2020, Kemp with his wife Shirley published "Shirlie and Martin Kemp: It's a Love Story", an autobiography-cum-relationship advice book. The Kemps said the book was published in response to "growing media interest" in the couple's longlasting relationship.


title: Martin Kemp

text: In February 2021, Kemp appeared in "McDonald & Dodds", starring alongside Jason Watkins and Rob Brydon. On 24 March 2021, Kemp and son Roman featured in an episode of ITV's "DNA Journey". In April 2021, Kemp and his son Roman Kemp began presenting "Martin & Roman’s Weekend Best"; a spin-off of Martin & Roman's Sunday Best!.


title: Martin Kemp

text: In December 2021, Kemp appeared as Father Christmas as part of a government campaign to encourage people to get their coronavirus vaccinations ahead of the Christmas holidays.


title: Martin Kemp

text: Kemp has been married to Shirlie Holliman since 1988. Holliman is a former backing singer of the group Wham! and one half of the 1980s pop duo, Pepsi & Shirlie. The couple have a daughter, Harley Moon (born August 1989) and a son, Roman (born January 1993).


title: Martin Kemp

text: He is a patron of British/Irish charity the Encephalitis Society. At the time he became a patron, he confirmed that he had controlled epilepsy since the 1990s, as a result of two brain tumours. Following surgery to remove the tumours, Kemp had a protective metal plate implanted over his brain under the scalp. The plate is unnoticeable but not undetectable; during an appearance on the Frank Skinner Show in 2002, Kemp jokingly remarked he could never slip quietly through metal-detectors at airports, as the plate would set the alarm off.


title: Martin Kemp

text: On 20 January 2006, Kemp opened a new CT scanning suite at Russells Hall Hospital, Dudley, West Midlands.


title: Edith Wharton

text: Edith Wharton (; born Edith Newbold Jones; January 24, 1862 – August 11, 1937) was an American novelist, short story writer, and interior designer. Wharton drew upon her insider's knowledge of the upper-class New York "aristocracy" to portray realistically the lives and morals of the Gilded Age. In 1921, she became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in Literature, for her novel "The Age of Innocence". She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1996. Among her other well known works are "The House of Mirth" and the novella "Ethan Frome".


title: Edith Wharton

text: Edith Wharton was born Edith Newbold Jones on January 24, 1862 to George Frederic Jones and Lucretia Stevens Rhinelander at their brownstone at 14 West Twenty-third Street in New York City. To her friends and family she was known as "Pussy Jones". She had two older brothers, Frederic Rhinelander and Henry Edward. Frederic married Mary Cadwalader Rawle; their daughter was landscape architect Beatrix Farrand. Edith was baptized April 20, 1862, Easter Sunday, at Grace Church.


title: Edith Wharton

text: Wharton's paternal family, the Joneses, were a very wealthy and socially prominent family having made their money in real estate. The saying "keeping up with the Joneses" is said to refer to her father's family. She was related to the Rensselaers, the most prestigious of the old patroon families, who had received land grants from the former Dutch government of New York and New Jersey. Her father's first cousin was Caroline Schermerhorn Astor. Fort Stevens in New York was named for Wharton's maternal great-grandfather, Ebenezer Stevens, a Revolutionary War hero and General.


title: Edith Wharton

text: Wharton was born during the Civil War; however, in describing her family life Wharton does not mention the war except that their travels to Europe after the war were due to the depreciation of American currency. From 1866 to 1872, the Jones family visited France, Italy, Germany, and Spain. During her travels, the young Edith became fluent in French, German, and Italian. At the age of nine, she suffered from typhoid fever, which nearly killed her, while the family was at a spa in the Black Forest. After the family returned to the United States in 1872, they spent their winters in New York City and their summers in Newport, Rhode Island. While in Europe, she was educated by tutors and governesses. She rejected the standards of fashion and etiquette that were expected of young girls at the time, which were intended to allow women to marry well and to be put on display at balls and parties. She considered these fashions superficial and oppressive. Edith wanted more education than she received, so she read from her father's library and from the libraries of her father's friends. Her mother forbade her to read novels until she was married, and Edith obeyed this command.


title: Edith Wharton

text: Wharton wrote and told stories from an early age. When her family moved to Europe and she was just four or five she started what she called "making up." She invented stories for her family and walked with an open book, turning the pages as if reading while improvising a story. Wharton began writing poetry and fiction as a young girl, and attempted to write her first novel at the age of 11. Her mother's criticism quashed her ambition and she turned to poetry. She was 15 years old her first published work appeared, a translation of a German poem "Was die Steine Erzählen" ("What the Stones Tell") by Heinrich Karl Brugsch, for which she was paid $50. Her family did not want her name to appear in print since writing was not considered a proper occupation for a society woman of her time. Consequently, the poem was published under the name of a friend's father, E. A. Washburn, a cousin of Ralph Waldo Emerson who supported women's education. In 1877, at the age of 15, she secretly wrote a novella, "Fast and Loose". In 1878, her father arranged for a collection of two dozen original poems and five translations, "Verses," to be privately published. Wharton published a poem under a pseudonym in the "New York World" in 1879. In 1880, she had five poems published anonymously in the "Atlantic Monthly", an important literary magazine. Despite these early successes, she was not encouraged by her family or her social circle, and though she continued to write, she did not publish anything more until her poem "The Last Giustiniani" was published in "Scribner's Magazine" in October 1889.


title: Edith Wharton

text: Between 1880 and 1890, Wharton put her writing aside to participate in the social rituals of the New York upper classes. She keenly observed the social changes happening around her, which she used later in her writing. Wharton officially came out as a debutante to society in 1879. She was allowed to bare her shoulders and wear her hair up for the first time at a December dance given by a Society matron, Anna Morton. Wharton began a courtship with Henry Leyden Stevens, the son of Paran Stevens, a wealthy hotelier and real estate investor from rural New Hampshire. His sister Minnie married Arthur Paget. The Jones family did not approve of Stevens.


title: Edith Wharton

text: In the middle of her debutante season, the Jones family returned to Europe in 1881 for her father's health. In spite of this, George Frederic Jones died of a stroke in Cannes in 1882. Stevens was with the Jones family in Europe during this time. After returning to the United States with her mother, Wharton continued her courtship with Stevens, announcing their engagement in August 1882. The month the two were to marry, the engagement abruptly ended.


title: Edith Wharton

text: Wharton's mother, Lucretia Stevens Rhinelander Jones, moved back to Paris in 1883 and lived there until her death in 1901.


title: Edith Wharton

text: On April 29, 1885, at the age of 23, Wharton married Edward Robbins (Teddy) Wharton, who was 12 years her senior, at the Trinity Chapel Complex in Manhattan. From a well-established Boston family, he was a sportsman and a gentleman of the same social class and shared her love of travel. The Whartons set up house at Pencraig Cottage in Newport. In 1893, they bought a house named Land's End, on the other side of Newport, for $80,000, and moved into it. Wharton decorated Land's End with the help of designer Ogden Codman. In 1897, the Whartons purchased their New York home, 884 Park Avenue. Between 1886 and 1897, they traveled overseas in the period from February to June – mostly visiting Italy, but also Paris and England. From her marriage onwards, three interests came to dominate Wharton's life: American houses, writing, and Italy.


title: Edith Wharton

text: From the late 1880s until 1902, Teddy Wharton suffered from acute depression, and the couple then ceased their extensive travel. At that time, his depression manifested as a more serious disorder, after which they lived almost exclusively at their estate The Mount in Lenox, Massachusetts. During those same years, Wharton herself was said to suffer from health problems with asthma and also from periods of depression.


title: Edith Wharton

text: In 1908, Teddy Wharton's mental condition was determined to be incurable. In that year, Wharton began an affair with Morton Fullerton, an author and foreign correspondent for "The Times" of London, in whom she found an intellectual partner. She divorced Edward Wharton in 1913, after 28 years of marriage. Around the same time, she was beset with harsh criticisms leveled by the naturalist writers.


title: Edith Wharton

text: In addition to novels, Wharton wrote at least 85 short stories. She was also a garden designer, an interior designer, and a taste-maker of her time. She wrote several design books, including her first major published work, "The Decoration of Houses" (1897), co-authored by Ogden Codman. Another of her "home and garden" books is the generously illustrated "Italian Villas and Their Gardens" of 1904, illustrated by Maxfield Parrish.


title: Edith Wharton

text: She eventually crossed the Atlantic 60 times. In Europe, her primary destinations were Italy, France, and England. She also went to Morocco in North Africa. She wrote many books about her travels, including "Italian Backgrounds" and "A Motor-Flight through France."


title: Edith Wharton

text: Her husband Edward Wharton shared her love of travel and for many years they spent at least four months of each year abroad, mainly in Italy. Their friend Egerton Winthrop accompanied them on many journeys there. In 1888, the Whartons and their friend James Van Alen took a cruise through the Aegean islands. Wharton was 26. The trip cost the Whartons $10,000 and lasted four months. She kept a travel journal during this trip that was thought to be lost but was later published as "The Cruise of the Vanadis", now considered her earliest known travel writing.


title: Edith Wharton

text: In 1897, Edith Wharton purchased Land's End in Newport, Rhode Island, from Robert Livingston Beeckman, a former U.S. Open Tennis Championship runner-up who became governor of Rhode Island. At the time, Wharton described the main house as "incurably ugly." Wharton agreed to pay $80,000 for the property, and spent thousands more to alter the home's facade, decorate the interior, and landscape the grounds.


title: Edith Wharton

text: In 1902, Wharton designed The Mount, her estate in Lenox, Massachusetts, which survives today as an example of her design principles. She wrote several of her novels there, including "The House of Mirth" (1905), the first of many chronicles of life in old New York. At The Mount, she entertained the cream of American literary society, including her close friend, novelist Henry James, who described the estate as "a delicate French chateau mirrored in a Massachusetts pond". Although she spent many months traveling in Europe nearly every year with her friend, Egerton Winthrop (John Winthrop's descendant), The Mount was her primary residence until 1911. When living there and while traveling abroad, Wharton was usually driven to appointments by her longtime chauffeur and friend Charles Cook, a native of nearby South Lee, Massachusetts. When her marriage deteriorated, she decided to move permanently to France, living first at 53 Rue de Varenne, Paris, in an apartment that belonged to George Washington Vanderbilt II.


title: Edith Wharton

text: Wharton was preparing to vacation for the summer when World War I broke out. Though many fled Paris, she moved back to her Paris apartment on the Rue de Varenne and for four years was a tireless and ardent supporter of the French war effort. One of the first causes she undertook in August 1914 was the opening of a workroom for unemployed women; here they were fed and paid one franc a day. What began with 30 women soon doubled to 60, and their sewing business began to thrive. When the Germans invaded Belgium in the fall of 1914 and Paris was flooded with Belgian refugees, she helped to set up the American Hostels for Refugees, which managed to get them shelter, meals, and clothes, and eventually created an employment agency to help them find work. She collected more than $100,000 on their behalf. In early 1915, she organized the Children of Flanders Rescue Committee, which gave shelter to nearly 900 Belgian refugees who had fled when their homes were bombed by the Germans.


title: Edith Wharton

text: Aided by her influential connections in the French government, she and her long-time friend Walter Berry (then president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Paris), were among the few foreigners in France allowed to travel to the front lines during World War I. She and Berry made five journeys between February and August 1915, which Wharton described in a series of articles that were first published in "Scribner's Magazine" and later as "", which became an American bestseller. Travelling by car, Wharton and Berry drove through the war zone, viewing one decimated French village after another. She visited the trenches, and was within earshot of artillery fire. She wrote, "We woke to a noise of guns closer and more incessant ... and when we went out into the streets it seemed as if, overnight, a new army had sprung out of the ground".


title: Edith Wharton

text: Throughout the war, she worked tirelessly in charitable efforts for refugees, the injured, the unemployed, and the displaced. She was a "heroic worker on behalf of her adopted country". On April 18, 1916, Raymond Poincaré, the then-President of France appointed her Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, the country's highest award, in recognition of her dedication to the war effort. Her relief work included setting up workrooms for unemployed French women, organizing concerts to provide work for musicians, raising tens of thousands of dollars for the war effort, and opening tuberculosis hospitals. In 1915, Wharton edited "The Book of the Homeless," which included essays, art, poetry, and musical scores by many major contemporary European and American artists, including Henry James, Joseph Conrad, William Dean Howells, Anna de Noailles, Jean Cocteau, and Walter Gay, among others. Wharton proposed the book to her publisher, Scribner's. She handled all of the business arrangements, lined up contributors, and translated the French entries into English. Theodore Roosevelt wrote a two-page introduction in which he praised Wharton's effort and urged Americans to support the war. She also kept up her own work during the war, continuing to write novels, short stories, and poems, as well as reporting for "The New York Times" and keeping up her enormous correspondence. Wharton urged Americans to support the war effort and encouraged America to enter the war. She wrote the popular romantic novel "Summer" in 1916, the war novella, "The Marne", in 1918, and "A Son at the Front" in 1919, (though it was not published until 1923). When the war ended, she watched the Victory Parade from the Champs Elysees' balcony of a friend's apartment. After four years of intense effort, she decided to leave Paris in favor of the peace and quiet of the countryside. Wharton settled north of Paris in Saint-Brice-sous-Forêt, buying an 18th-century house on seven acres of land which she called Pavillon Colombe. She lived there in summer and autumn for the rest of her life. She spent winters and springs on the French Riviera at Sainte Claire du Vieux Chateau in Hyères.


title: Edith Wharton

text: Wharton was a committed supporter of French imperialism, describing herself as a "rabid imperialist", and the war solidified her political views. After the war, she traveled to Morocco as the guest of Resident General Hubert Lyautey and wrote a book, titled "In Morocco", about her experiences. Wharton's writing on her Moroccan travels is full of praise for the French administration and for Lyautey and his wife in particular.


title: Edith Wharton

text: During the post-war years, she divided her time between Hyères and Provence, where she finished "The Age of Innocence" in 1920. She returned to the United States only once after the war to receive an honorary doctorate from Yale University in 1923.


title: Edith Wharton

text: "The Age of Innocence" (1920) won the 1921 Pulitzer Prize for literature, making Wharton the first woman to win the award. The three fiction judges – literary critic Stuart Pratt Sherman, literature professor Robert Morss Lovett, and novelist Hamlin Garland – voted to give the prize to Sinclair Lewis for his satire "Main Street", but Columbia University's advisory board, led by conservative university president Nicholas Murray Butler, overturned their decision and awarded the prize to "The Age of Innocence". She was also nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1927, 1928, and 1930.


title: Edith Wharton

text: Wharton was friend and confidante to many gifted intellectuals of her time: Henry James, Sinclair Lewis, Jean Cocteau, and André Gide were all her guests at one time or another. Theodore Roosevelt, Bernard Berenson, and Kenneth Clark were valued friends as well. Particularly notable was her meeting with F. Scott Fitzgerald, described by the editors of her letters as "one of the better known failed encounters in the American literary annals". She spoke fluent French, Italian, and German, and many of her books were published in both French and English.


title: Edith Wharton

text: In 1934, Wharton's autobiography "A Backward Glance" was published. In the view of Judith E. Funston, writing on Edith Wharton in "American National Biography", What is most notable about "A Backward Glance," however, is what it does not tell: her criticism of Lucretia Jones [her mother], her difficulties with Teddy, and her affair with Morton Fullerton, which did not come to light until her papers, deposited in Yale's Beinecke Rare Book Room and Manuscript Library, were opened in 1968.


title: Edith Wharton

text: On June 1, 1937, Wharton was at her French country home (shared with Ogden Codman), where she was at work on a revised edition of "The Decoration of Houses," when she suffered a heart attack and collapsed.


title: Edith Wharton

text: She died of a stroke on August 11, 1937, at "Le Pavillon Colombe", her 18th-century house on Rue de Montmorency in Saint-Brice-sous-Forêt. She died at 5:30 p.m., but her death was not known in Paris. At her bedside was her friend, Mrs. Royall Tyler. Wharton was buried in the American Protestant section of the Cimetière des Gonards in Versailles, "with all the honors owed a war hero and a chevalier of the Legion of Honor...a group of some one hundred friends sang a verse of the hymn 'O Paradise'..."


title: Edith Wharton

text: Despite not publishing her first novel until she was forty, Wharton became an extraordinarily productive writer. In addition to


title: Edith Wharton

text: her 15 novels, seven novellas, and eighty-five short stories, she published poetry, books on design, travel, literary and cultural criticism, and a memoir.


title: Edith Wharton

text: In 1873, Wharton wrote a short story and gave it to her mother to read. Her mother criticized the story, so Wharton decided to write only poetry. While she constantly sought her mother's approval and love, it was rare that she received either. From the start, the relationship with her mother was a troubled one. Before she was 15, she wrote "Fast and Loose" (1877). In her youth, she wrote about society. Her central themes came from her experiences with her parents. She was very critical of her work and wrote public reviews criticizing it. She also wrote about her own experiences with life. "Intense Love’s Utterance" is a poem written about Henry Stevens.


title: Edith Wharton

text: In 1889, she sent out three poems for publication. They were sent to "Scribner's", "Harper’s" and "Century". Edward L. Burlingame published "The Last Giustiniani" for "Scribner’s". It was not until Wharton was 29 that her first short story was published. "Mrs. Manstey's View" had very little success, and it took her more than a year to publish another story. She completed "The Fullness of Life" following her annual European trip with Teddy. Burlingame was critical of this story but Wharton did not want to make edits to it. This story, along with many others, speaks about her marriage. She sent "Bunner Sisters" to Scribner's in 1892. Burlingame wrote back that it was too long for Scribner's to publish. This story is believed to be based on an experience she had as a child. It did not see publication until 1916 and is included in the collection called "Xingu".


title: Edith Wharton

text: After a visit with her friend, Paul Bourget, she wrote "The Good May Come" and "The Lamp of Psyche". "The Lamp of Psyche" was a comical story with verbal wit and sorrow. After "Something Exquisite" was rejected by Burlingame, she lost confidence in herself. She started travel writing in 1894.


title: Edith Wharton

text: In 1901, Wharton wrote a two-act play called "Man of Genius". This play was about an English man who was having an affair with his secretary. The play was rehearsed but was never produced. Another 1901 play, "The Shadow of a Doubt", which also came close to being staged but fell through, was thought to be lost, until it was discovered in 2017. Its world premiere was a radio adaptation broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 2018. She collaborated with Marie Tempest to write another play, but the two only completed four acts before Marie decided she was no longer interested in costume plays. One of her earliest literary endeavors (1902) was the translation of the play "Es Lebe das Leben" ("The Joy of Living"), by Hermann Sudermann. "The Joy of Living" was criticized for its title because the heroine swallows poison at the end, and was a short-lived Broadway production. It was, however, a successful book.


title: Edith Wharton

text: Many of Wharton's novels are characterized by subtle use of dramatic irony. Having grown up in upper-class, late-19th-century society, Wharton became one of its most astute critics, in such works as "The House of Mirth" and "The Age of Innocence".


title: Edith Wharton

text: Versions of her mother, Lucretia Jones, often appeared in Wharton's fiction. Biographer Hermione Lee described it as "one of the most lethal acts of revenge ever taken by a writing daughter." In her memoir, "A Backward Glance", Wharton describes her mother as indolent, spendthrift, censorious, disapproving, superficial, icy, dry and ironic.


title: Edith Wharton

text: Wharton's writings often dealt with themes such as "social and individual fulfillment, repressed sexuality, and the manners of old families and the new elite." Maureen Howard, editor of "Edith Wharton: Collected Stories, "notes several recurring themes in Wharton's short stories, including confinement and attempts at freedom, the morality of the author, critiques of intellectual pretension, and the “unmasking” of the truth. Wharton's writing also explored themes of “social mores and social reform” as they relate to the “extremes and anxieties of the Gilded Age”. These themes were expressed in her ghost stories, in which supernatural specters function as richly costumed variations on a theme of all-too-human cruelty.


title: Edith Wharton

text: A key recurring theme in Wharton's writing is the relationship between the house as a physical space and its relationship to its inhabitant's characteristics and emotions. Maureen Howard argues “Edith Wharton conceived of houses, dwelling places, in extended imagery of shelter and dispossession. Houses – their confinement and their theatrical possibilities…they are never mere settings."


title: Edith Wharton

text: American children's stories containing slang were forbidden in Wharton's childhood home. This included such popular authors as Mark Twain, Bret Harte, and Joel Chandler Harris. She was allowed to read Louisa May Alcott but Wharton preferred Lewis Carroll’s "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and Charles Kingsley’s "The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby". Wharton's mother forbade her from reading many novels and Wharton said she "read everything else but novels until the day of my marriage." Instead Wharton read the classics, philosophy, history, and poetry in her father's library including Daniel Defoe, John Milton, Thomas Carlyle, Alphonse de Lamartine, Victor Hugo, Jean Racine, Thomas Moore, Lord Byron, William Wordsworth, John Ruskin, and Washington Irving. Biographer Hermione Lee describes Wharton as having read herself "out of Old New York" and her influences included Herbert Spencer, Charles Darwin, Friedrich Nietzsche, T. H. Huxley, George Romanes, James Frazer, and Thorstein Veblen. These influenced her ethnographic style of novelization. Wharton developed a passion for Walt Whitman.


title: Veeramae Vaagai Soodum

text: Veeramae Vaagai Soodum () is a 2022 Indian Tamil-language action thriller film written and directed by Thu Pa Saravanan and produced by Vishal and Dato Abdul Malik under the banner of Vishal Film Factory and Malik Streams Corporation. It stars Vishal, Dimple Hayathi, Baburaj in the lead roles. The title is a reference of a lyric of the title track of 1986 film Vikram, composed by Ilaiyaraaja (father of Yuvan Shankar Raja). This was the last film of noted actor-director R. N. R. Manohar, who died on 17 November 2021 from COVID-19 complications and was posthumously released in February 2022, 3 months after his death.


title: Veeramae Vaagai Soodum

text: The film was released in theatres on 4 February 2022. where it was declared as a commercial failure at the box office.


title: Veeramae Vaagai Soodum

text: Purushottam aka Porus is an aspiring police trainee, whose aim is to become a IPS officer. He hails from a middle-class family consisting of his father, sister Dwaraka and her mother. However, their happiness is short lived when Dwaraka is kidnapped by influential industrialist Nedunchezhiyan's brother Elanchezhiyan aka Ela, but manages to escape where she is killed by Nedunchezhiyan and Ela, as she witnessed the murder of a social activist named Parishuddam, when he started a protest against his factory, which destroyed a prosperous village. Dwaraka's murder is placed on her eve-teaser Guna, the brother of a local don named Selvam.


title: Veeramae Vaagai Soodum

text: However, Porus learns that Guna has been murdered in prison and decides to investigate in his own way where he uncovers some brutal murders, which is orchestrated by Nedunchezhiyan and his gang. Porus finds out that a girl named Divya was to be abducted by Ela, but Dwaraka was accidentally kidnapped by him. Nedunchezhiyan's men learn about this and attack Divya, but Porus arrives in time and thrashes the goons, but can't save Divya. However, Porus' friend Faizal, who was killed by Nedunchezhiyan's gang, had received a recording of Dwaraka's confession about the murder and stores it in his phone. Porus tells a hacker to check Faizal's phone and the hacker gives the recording to Porus and learns about Parishuddam's murder.


title: Veeramae Vaagai Soodum

text: After learning from his henchman, Nedunchezhiyan kidnaps Porus' father and tells Porus to hand over the recording or else he would see his father die. Porus brings the recording where he is thrashed by the gang, but Porus retaliates by thrashing the gang and also kills Ela. Porus brings Selvam where he tells him to avenge Guna's death. Selvam kills Nedunchezhiyan with a Chainsaw, while Porus leaves the factory with his father. With Divya's father's help, Porus stuffs a dead Nedunchezhiyan and Ela into a meat grinder and feeds their flesh to a crocodiles in a zoo (where Divya's father works) as there would be no evidence about their deaths. After this, Porus is finally appointed as an IPS officer.


title: Veeramae Vaagai Soodum

text: The film was tentatively titled as Vishal 31. On 29 August 2021, the film's title was announced as Veerame Vaagai Soodum.


title: Veeramae Vaagai Soodum

text: Vishal was cast as an aspiring police officer named Porus. Dimple Hayathi was cast in as the female lead opposite Vishal which was her second Tamil film after "Devi 2", while Malayalam actor Baburaj was cast in as the main antagonist.


title: Veeramae Vaagai Soodum

text: Yuvan Shankar Raja composed the soundtrack and background score of the film while collaborating with actor Vishal for the eleventh time after "Sandakozhi", "Thimiru", "Thaamirabharani", "Theeradha Vilaiyattu Pillai", "Avan Ivan", "Samar", "Poojai", "Irumbu Thirai", "Sandakozhi 2" and "Chakra". The first single "Rise Of A Common Man" was released on 22 December 2021. The second single was released on January 14, 2022.


title: Veeramae Vaagai Soodum

text: The film received mixed reviews from critics. "India Herald" gave the film 3 stars for its performances and action writing "Overall, A Regular Action Drama with Vishal's Action is the saving grace." "Pinkvilla" gave the film 3 out of 5 praising the story and performances but criticized the outdated plot, writing "Director Thu Pa Saravanan needs an appreciation here. He definitely came up with a good story and with the good cast that elevated the story, he has done a great job." "Movicrow" gave the film 2.25 out of 5 writing "What might have been a simple and relatable actioner, turns into a lengthy boring fair as the movie takes itself so seriously by trying to touch and bring together too many needless topics." Ashameera Aiyappan of "Firstpost" gave the film 2 out of 5 criticizing the plot writing "The film argues that bravery is enough to win. But it is not enough to be bold; one also needs to be smart. Unfortunately, the film fails on that front." Sowmya Rajendran of "The News Minute" gave the film 1.5 out of 5 criticizing the execution and writing but praised the action sequences and score, writing "Thu Pa Saravanan’s film is so full of cliches and convenient coincidences that I wondered if the title ‘Kaadhil Poo Soodavum’ would have been more suitable since that's what it demands from the audience."


title: Great horned owl

text: The great horned owl (Bubo virginianus), also known as the tiger owl (originally derived from early naturalists' description as the "winged tiger" or "tiger of the air"), or the hoot owl, is a large owl native to the Americas. It is an extremely adaptable bird with a vast range and is the most widely distributed true owl in the Americas. Its primary diet is rabbits and hares, rats and mice, and voles, although it freely hunts any animal it can overtake, including rodents and other small mammals, larger mid-sized mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrates. In ornithological study, the great horned owl is often compared to the Eurasian eagle-owl ("Bubo bubo"), a closely related species, which despite the latter's notably larger size, occupies the same ecological niche in Eurasia, and the red-tailed hawk ("Buteo jamaicensis"), with which it often shares similar habitat, prey, and nesting habits by day, thus is something of a diurnal ecological equivalent. The great horned owl is one of the earliest nesting birds in North America, often laying eggs weeks or even months before other raptorial birds.


title: Great horned owl

text: The great horned owl is generally colored for camouflage. The underparts of the species are usually light with some brown horizontal barring; the upper parts and upper wings are generally a mottled brown usually bearing heavy, complex, darker markings. All subspecies are darkly barred to some extent along the sides, as well.


title: Great horned owl

text: A variable-sized white patch is seen on the throat. The white throat may continue as a streak running down the middle of the breast even when the birds are not displaying, which in particularly pale individuals can widen at the belly into a large white area. South American great horned owls typically have a smaller white throat patch, often unseen unless actively displaying, and rarely display the white area on the chest. Individual and regional variations in overall color occur, with birds from the subarctic showing a washed-out, light-buff color, while those from the Pacific Coast of North America, Central America, and much of South America can be a dark brownish color overlaid with blackish blotching. The skin of the feet and legs, though almost entirely obscured by feathers, is black. Even tropical great horned owls have feathered legs and feet. The feathers on the feet of the great horned owl are the second-longest known in any owl (after the snowy owl). The bill is dark gunmetal-gray, as are the talons.


title: Great horned owl

text: All great horned owls have a facial disc. This can be reddish, brown, or gray in color (depending on geographical and racial variation) and is demarked by a dark rim culminating in bold, blackish side brackets. This species' "horns" are tufts of feathers, called plumicorns. The purpose of plumicorns is not fully understood, but the hypothesis that they serve as a visual cue in territorial and sociosexual interactions with other owls is generally accepted.


title: Great horned owl

text: The great horned owl is the heaviest extant owl in Central and South America and is the second-heaviest owl in North America, after the closely related, but very different-looking snowy owl. It is heavily built, with a barrel-shaped body, a large head, and broad wings. Its size can vary considerably across its range, with populations in interior Alaska and Ontario being largest and populations in California and Texas being smallest, though those from the Yucatán Peninsula and Baja California appear to be even smaller. Adult great horned owls range in length from , with an average of , and possess a wingspan of , with an average of . Females are somewhat larger than males. Mean body weight is for females and for males. Depending on subspecies, maximum weight can reach .


title: Great horned owl

text: The wing chord length is . The wing loading, the measured wing area compared to weight, is high, meaning the wings are relatively small in surface area for the bird's weight; the species' wing loading has been described as proportionately the highest among raptors. The tail, being relatively short as is typical of most owls, is long. Like other owl species, the great horned owl is capable of “silent flight”, which is the way owls fly while making almost no discernable noise, despite their large size. This is made possible thanks to three main components of the owl's wing structure. The leading edge of their feathers have serrations that help to disrupt the turbulence generated by wing flapping, then the softer feathers help deaden the sound, and finally the trailing fringe of the feathers that works to finish cutting the sounds made by flight. The structure of the great horned owl wing also allows it to fly at a very low speeds for the size of the species, as slow as 2 miles per hour when they are gliding on breezes.


title: Great horned owl

text: The legs, feet, and talons are large and powerful. Tarsal length is . The average foot span of a fully spread foot, from talon to talon, is around , as compared to in long-eared owls, in barn owls, and in the great grey owl. Great horned owls can apply at least 300 lb/in of crushing power in their talons, a pressure considerably greater than the human hand is capable of exerting. In some big females, the gripping power of the great horned owl may be comparable to much larger raptor species such as the golden eagle.


title: Great horned owl

text: The hard, inflexible bill of the great horned owl is long, although the culmen, the exposed bill portion as measured along the top of the beak, is only .


title: Great horned owl

text: The outer ear openings, which are concealed by feathers on the sides of the head, are relatively smaller than those of the Eurasian eagle owl, being in vertical axis, with the left ear slightly larger than the right. Like most exclusively (or near exclusively) nocturnal species, the great horned owl has asymmetrical ear holes that allow for the triangulation of sounds when hunting in the dark. The different-height holes, while still close together, are differentiated enough that the owl is able to use the timing and direction of the sound waves hitting each hole to precisely locate prey even if the prey is located under cover such as snow. The disc-like shape of their faces also helps to direct the sounds they hear toward their ears. While the true nature/purpose of the ear tufts that are present on the great horned owl is unknown, researchers agree that the tufts do not play any role in the hearing ability of the owl. It is estimated that their hearing is up to ten times that of a human being.


title: Great horned owl

text: The great horned owl's eyes, just slightly smaller than the eyes of a human being, are large even for an owl and rank proportionately among the largest eyes of all terrestrial vertebrates. The great horned owl has cylindrical eyes which creates more distance from the lens of the eye to the retina, which allows it to act more like a telephoto lens for farther distance sight compared to that possible from round eyes. They are visually highly adapted for nocturnal hunting and provide a wide, almost completely binocular field of view, a large corneal surface and a predominantly rod retina. The great horned owl's eye contains both rods and cones like most species that see in color, but the vision of a great horned owl closely resembles that of many other nocturnal species. The peak wavelengths that are observed by the cones is 555 nm and the research suggests that the great horned owl has relatively weak color vision, especially compared to other bird species. Despite (or perhaps as a result of) the poorer sense of color vision, the owl manages to have excellent night vision. Instead of turning its eyes, an owl must turn its whole head, and the great horned owl can rotate its neck 270°. The iris is yellow, except in the amber-eyed South American great horned owl ("B. v. nacurutu").


title: Great horned owl

text: The great horned owl's song is normally a low-pitched but loud (or also transcribed as , or , , ) and can last for four or five syllables. The call is resonant and has warranted descriptions as varied as "solemn" and "terrifying". The female's call is higher and rises in pitch at the end of the call. Female vocalizations are higher in pitch because of a smaller syrinx in the larger sex. Calling seems to peak after rather than before midnight. Usually, territorial hooting decreases in February or March at the onset of egg laying. On occasion, this species exhibits "an indescribable assemblage of hoots, chuckles, screeches, and squawks, given so rapidly and disconnectedly that the effect is both startling and amusing". Descriptions of some of these odd sounds including a growling note pair, a laughing , a high-pitched ; a weak, soft , a cat-like , a hawk-like note of , and a nighthawk-like . These vocalizations may be variously uttered when the birds are disturbed and angered at the nest (frequently preceding an attack on an interloping human or other animal), represent the vocal development of young owls, or are given during courtship and during territorial disputes with other owls. Young owls still in the care of their parents make loud, persistent hissing or loud, piercing screeching sounds that are often confused with the calls of the barn owl.


title: Great horned owl

text: The combination of the species' bulk, prominent ear tufts and barred plumage distinguishes it through much of the range, but it may be easily confused with the lesser or Magellanic horned owl ("B. magellanicus"), which may overlap in range. The Magellanic horned owl was once considered a subspecies of the great horned, but is now almost universally considered a distinct species, as is supported by genetic materials, with the great horned being the paraspecies. Overall coloration is similar, but the Magellanic is markedly smaller with smaller feet and a smaller head, with finer, but more numerous brownish bars on the underside, rather than the blotchy, irregular barring typical of great horned owls. Other eagle-owls may superficially be somewhat similar, but the species is generically allopatric with the exception of wintering snowy owls. More tropical species with ear tufts, the stygian owl ("A. stygius") and striped owl ("A. clamator"), are much smaller. Other large owls lack ear tufts.


title: Great horned owl

text: The great horned owl is part of the genus "Bubo", which may include as many as 25 other extant taxa, predominantly distributed throughout Africa. The great horned owl represents one of the one or two radiations of this genus across the Bering land bridge to the Americas. Whereas the Magellanic horned owl clearly divided once the owl had spread through the Americas, the consensus seems to be that the snowy owl and the great horned owl divided back in Eurasia and the snowy then spread back over the Arctic through northernmost North America separately from the radiation of the horned owl. The great horned and Eurasian eagle-owls may in fact be conspecifics, based on similarities in life history, geographic distribution, and appearance. In one case, a zoo-kept male great horned owl and female Eurasian eagle-owl produced an apparently healthy hybrid. Genetic testing indicates that the snowy owl, not the Eurasian eagle-owl, is the most closely related living species. Pleistocene era fossils have been found of "Bubo" owls in North America, which may either be distinct species or paleosubspecies, from as far east as Georgia, but predominantly in the Rocky Mountains and to the west of them. Almost all fossils indicate these owls were larger than modern great horned owls.


title: Great horned owl

text: A large number of subspecies, more than 20 altogether, have been named. However, many of these are not true subspecies and only examples of individual or clinal variation. Subspecies differences are mainly in color and size and generally follow Gloger's and Bergmann's rules: The most conservative treatments of great horned owl subspecies may describe as few as 10, although an intermediate number is typical in most writings.


title: Great horned owl

text: The breeding habitat of the great horned owl extends high into the subarctic of North America, where they are found up to the northwestern and southern Mackenzie Mountains, Keewatin, Ontario, northern Manitoba, Fort Chimo in Ungava, Okak, Newfoundland and Labrador, Anticosti Island and Prince Edward Island. They are distributed throughout most of North America and very spottily in Central America and then down into South America south to upland regions of Argentina, Bolivia and Peru, before they give way to the Magellanic horned owl, which thence ranges all the way to Tierra del Fuego, the southern tip of the continent. It is absent or rare from southern Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica to Panama (where only two records) in Central America and the mangrove forests of northwestern South America. The species is also absent from the West Indies, the Haida Gwaii and almost all off-shore islands in the Americas, its ability to colonize islands apparently being considerably less than those of barn owls and short-eared owls. Since the division into two species, the great horned owl is the second most widely distributed owl in the Americas, just after the barn owl.


title: Great horned owl

text: The great horned owl is among the world's most adaptable owls or even bird species in terms of habitat. The great horned owl can take up residence in trees that border all manner of deciduous, coniferous, and mixed forests, tropical rainforests, pampas, prairie, mountainous areas, deserts, subarctic tundra, rocky coasts, mangrove swamp forests, and some urban areas. It is less common in the more extreme areas of the Americas. In the Mojave and Sonora Deserts, they are absent from the heart of the deserts and are only found on the vegetated or rocky fringes. Even in North America, they are rare in landscapes including more than 70% old-growth forest, such as the aspen forest of the Rockies. They have only been recorded a handful of times in true rainforests such as the Amazon rainforest. In the Appalachian Mountains, they appear to use old-growth forest but in Arkansas are actually often found near temporary agricultural openings in the midst of large areas of woodland. Similarly in south-central Pennsylvania, the owls use cropland and pasture more than deciduous and total forest cover, indicating preference for fragmented landscapes. In prairies, grasslands and deserts, they can successfully live year round as long as there are rocky canyons, steep gullies and/or wooded coulees with shade-giving trees to provide them shelter and nesting sites.