title: Alireza Firouzja

text: In May, Firouzja participated in the Superbet Chess Classic held in Bucharest, Romania, the first leg of 2022 Grand Chess Tour. As the top seed going into the event, he finished with a -1 score with 1 win and 2 losses in the 10 player single robin super tournament, tying for 7th place with Ian Nepomniachtchi. He lost the third round to Ian Nepomniachtchi, won the fifth round against Leinier Dominguez and lost the final round to Maxime-Vachier Lagrave, who went on to win the tournament.


title: Alireza Firouzja

text: From June 16 to July 5, Firouzja participated in the 2022 Candidates Tournament held in Madrid, Spain, having qualified to play by winning the Grand Swiss in 2021. He finished in sixth place, ending with a 6/14 score, winning against Richárd Rapport in round 9 and Fabiano Caruana in round 14 while losing against Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura and Nepomniachtchi (twice).


title: Alireza Firouzja

text: From July 18 to July 24, Firouzja participated in the Croatia GCT Rapid & Blitz where he tied 2nd overall – behind Magnus Carlsen – alongside compatriot Maxime Vachier-Lagrave with 22/36 points – earning him $27,500 and 9 GCT points for his second-place finish. Firouzja did not play in the 44th Chess Olympiad in Chennai, along with Vachier-Lagrave and Étienne Bacrot, citing exhaustion and hot weather.


title: Alireza Firouzja

text: From August 15 to August 21, Firouzja played in the FTX Crypto Cup as part of the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour. He finished with 15/21 points, behind first-place finisher Magnus Carlsen and tying for second alongside Praggnanandhaa on points but placing third due to tiebreak rules. His third-place finish with 15 points earned him $37,500.


title: Alireza Firouzja

text: From August 26 to August 30, Firouzja participated in the Saint Louis Rapid & Blitz tournament as part of the Grand Chess Tour and won first place with four rounds to spare. Firouzja finished with 26/36 points (11/18 points in the rapid section and 15/18 points in the blitz section), setting the record for the youngest player to win a Grand Chess Tour event and breaking the record for the most dominant win by being 5 points ahead of the field.


title: Alireza Firouzja

text: On September 11, Firouzja won the Sinquefield Cup, a 9 player round robin tournament, after defeating Ian Nepomniachtchi in a rapid tiebreak match. He finished with a score of 5/8 (+3-1=5) and his Sinquefield cup victory in Saint Louis earned him $87,500 alongside his $100,000 bonus for winning the Grand Chess Tour with a 6.5 point lead ahead of runner-up, Wesley So.


title: Alireza Firouzja

text: On September 16, Firouzja finished tied first on points, alongside Fabiano Caruana, with 6.5/9 in the Champions Showdown:Chess 9LX – a rapid chess 960 tournament. On the verge of scoring a hat-trick in Saint Louis, Firouzja eventually lost the playoff against Caruana after losing the armageddon game, stumbling into a zugzwang with the black pieces. His second-place finish earned him $31,250.


title: Alireza Firouzja

text: Firouzja moved to Chartres, France in 2019 and subsequently obtained French citizenship in July 2021.


title: Partition of Ireland

text: The partition of Ireland () was the process by which the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland divided Ireland into two self-governing polities: Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. It was enacted on 3 May 1921 under the Government of Ireland Act 1920. The Act intended both territories to remain within the United Kingdom and contained provisions for their eventual reunification. The smaller Northern Ireland was duly created with a devolved government (Home Rule) and remained part of the UK. The larger Southern Ireland was not recognised by most of its citizens, who instead recognised the self-declared 32-county Irish Republic. On 6 December 1922, a year after the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, the territory of Southern Ireland left the UK and became the Irish Free State, now the Republic of Ireland.


title: Partition of Ireland

text: The territory that became Northern Ireland, within the Irish province of Ulster, had a Protestant and Unionist majority who wanted to maintain ties to Britain. This was largely due to 17th-century British colonisation. However, it also had a significant minority of Catholics and Irish nationalists. The rest of Ireland had a Catholic, nationalist majority who wanted self-governance or independence. The Irish Home Rule movement compelled the British government to introduce bills that would give Ireland a devolved government within the UK (home rule). This led to the Home Rule Crisis (1912–14), when Ulster unionists/loyalists founded a paramilitary movement, the Ulster Volunteers, to prevent Ulster being ruled by an Irish government. The British government proposed to exclude all or part of Ulster, but the crisis was interrupted by the First World War (1914–18). Support for Irish independence grew during the war.


title: Partition of Ireland

text: Irish republican party Sinn Féin won the vast majority of Irish seats in the 1918 election. They formed a separate Irish parliament and declared an independent Irish Republic covering the whole island. This led to the Irish War of Independence (1919–21), a guerrilla conflict between the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and British forces. In 1920 the British government introduced another bill to create two devolved governments: one for six northern counties (Northern Ireland) and one for the rest of the island (Southern Ireland). This was passed as the Government of Ireland Act, and came into force as a "" on 3 May 1921. Following the 1921 elections, Ulster unionists formed a Northern Ireland government. A Southern government was not formed, as republicans recognised the Irish Republic instead. During 1920–22, in what became Northern Ireland, partition was accompanied by violence "in defence or opposition to the new settlement" – see The Troubles in Northern Ireland (1920–1922). The capital, Belfast, saw "savage and unprecedented" communal violence, mainly between Protestant and Catholic civilians. More than 500 were killed and more than 10,000 became refugees, most of them from the Catholic minority.


title: Partition of Ireland

text: The War of Independence resulted in a truce in July 1921 and led to the Anglo-Irish Treaty that December. Under the Treaty, the territory of Southern Ireland would leave the UK and become the Irish Free State. Northern Ireland's parliament could vote it in or out of the Free State, and a commission could then redraw or confirm the provisional border. In early 1922, the IRA launched a failed offensive into border areas of Northern Ireland. The Northern government chose to remain in the UK. The Boundary Commission proposed small changes to the border in 1925, but they were not implemented.


title: Partition of Ireland

text: Since partition, Irish nationalists/republicans continue to seek a united independent Ireland, while Ulster unionists/loyalists want Northern Ireland to remain in the UK. The Unionist governments of Northern Ireland were accused of discrimination against the Irish nationalist and Catholic minority. A campaign to end discrimination was opposed by loyalists who said it was a republican front. This sparked the Troubles (c. 1969–1998), a thirty-year conflict in which more than 3,500 people were killed. Under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, the Irish and British governments and the main parties agreed to a power-sharing government in Northern Ireland, and that the status of Northern Ireland would not change without the consent of a majority of its population. The treaty also reaffirmed an open border between both jurisdictions.


title: Partition of Ireland

text: During the 19th century, the Irish nationalist Home Rule movement campaigned for Ireland to have self-government while remaining part of the United Kingdom. The nationalist Irish Parliamentary Party won most Irish seats in the 1885 general election. It then held the balance of power in the British House of Commons, and entered into an alliance with the Liberals. IPP leader Charles Stewart Parnell convinced British Prime Minister William Gladstone to introduce the First Irish Home Rule Bill in 1886. Protestant unionists in Ireland opposed the Bill, fearing industrial decline and religious persecution of Protestants by a Catholic-dominated Irish government. English Conservative politician Lord Randolph Churchill proclaimed: "the Orange card is the one to play", in reference to the Protestant Orange Order. The belief was later expressed in the popular slogan, ""Home Rule means Rome Rule"". Partly in reaction to the Bill, there were riots in Belfast, as Protestant unionists attacked the city's Catholic nationalist minority. The Bill was defeated in the Commons.


title: Partition of Ireland

text: Gladstone introduced a Second Irish Home Rule Bill in 1892. The Irish Unionist Alliance had been formed to oppose home rule, and the Bill sparked mass unionist protests. In response, Liberal Unionist leader Joseph Chamberlain called for a separate provincial government for Ulster where Protestant unionists were a majority. Irish unionists assembled at conventions in Dublin and Belfast to oppose both the Bill and the proposed partition. The unionist MP Horace Plunkett, who would later support home rule, opposed it in the 1890s because of the dangers of partition. Although the Bill was approved by the Commons, it was defeated in the House of Lords.


title: Partition of Ireland

text: Following the December 1910 election, the Irish Parliamentary Party again agreed to support a Liberal government if it introduced another home rule bill. The Parliament Act 1911 meant the House of Lords could no longer veto bills passed by the Commons, but only delay them for up to two years. British Prime Minister H. H. Asquith introduced the Third Home Rule Bill in April 1912. Unionists opposed the Bill, but argued that if Home Rule could not be stopped then all or part of Ulster should be excluded from it. Irish nationalists opposed partition, although some were willing to accept Ulster having some self-governance within a self-governing Ireland ("Home Rule within Home Rule"). Winston Churchill made his feelings about the possibility of the partition of Ireland clear: "Whatever Ulster's right may be, she cannot stand in the way of the whole of the rest of Ireland. Half a province cannot impose a permanent veto on the nation. Half a province cannot obstruct forever the reconciliation between the British and Irish democracies." In September 1912, more than 500,000 Unionists signed the Ulster Covenant, pledging to oppose Home Rule by any means and to defy any Irish government. They founded a large paramilitary movement, the Ulster Volunteers, to prevent Ulster becoming part of a self-governing Ireland. They also threatened to establish a Provisional Ulster Government. In response, Irish nationalists founded the Irish Volunteers to ensure Home Rule was implemented. The Ulster Volunteers smuggled 25,000 rifles and three million rounds of ammunition into Ulster from the German Empire, in the Larne gun-running of April 1914. The Irish Volunteers also smuggled weaponry from Germany in the Howth gun-running that July. Ireland seemed to be on the brink of civil war. Three border boundary options were proposed.


title: Partition of Ireland

text: On 20 March 1914, in the "Curragh incident", many of the highest-ranking British Army officers in Ireland threatened to resign rather than deploy against the Ulster Volunteers. This meant that the British government could legislate for Home Rule but could not be sure of implementing it. In May 1914, the British government introduced an Amending Bill to allow for 'Ulster' to be excluded from Home Rule. There was then debate over how much of Ulster should be excluded and for how long, and whether to hold referendums in each county. Some Ulster unionists were willing to tolerate the 'loss' of some mainly-Catholic areas of the province. In July 1914, King George V called the Buckingham Palace Conference to allow Unionists and Nationalists to come together and discuss the issue of partition, but the conference achieved little.


title: Partition of Ireland

text: The Home Rule Crisis was interrupted by the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, and Ireland's involvement in it. Asquith abandoned his Amending Bill, and instead rushed through a new bill, the Suspensory Act 1914, which received Royal Assent together with the Home Rule Bill (now Government of Ireland Act 1914) on 18 September 1914. The Suspensory Act ensured that Home Rule would be postponed for the duration of the war with the exclusion of Ulster still to be decided.


title: Partition of Ireland

text: During the First World War, support grew for full Irish independence, which had been advocated by Irish republicans. In April 1916, republicans took the opportunity of the war to launch a rebellion against British rule, the Easter Rising. It was crushed after a week of heavy fighting in Dublin. The harsh British reaction to the Rising fuelled support for independence, with republican party Sinn Féin winning four by-elections in 1917.


title: Partition of Ireland

text: The British parliament called the Irish Convention in an attempt to find a solution to its Irish Question. It sat in Dublin from July 1917 until March 1918, and comprised both Irish nationalist and Unionist politicians. It ended with a report, supported by nationalist and southern unionist members, calling for the establishment of an all-Ireland parliament consisting of two houses with special provisions for Ulster unionists. The report was, however, rejected by the Ulster unionist members, and Sinn Féin had not taken part in the proceedings, meaning the convention was a failure.


title: Partition of Ireland

text: In 1918, the British government attempted to impose conscription in Ireland and argued there could be no Home Rule without it. This sparked outrage in Ireland and further galvanised support for the republicans.


title: Partition of Ireland

text: In the December 1918 general election, Sinn Féin won the overwhelming majority of Irish seats. In line with their manifesto, Sinn Féin's elected members boycotted the British parliament and founded a separate Irish parliament (Dáil Éireann), declaring an independent Irish Republic covering the whole island. Unionists, however, won most seats in northeastern Ulster and affirmed their continuing loyalty to the United Kingdom. Many Irish republicans blamed the British establishment for the sectarian divisions in Ireland, and believed that Ulster Unionist defiance would fade once British rule was ended.


title: Partition of Ireland

text: The British authorities outlawed the Dáil in September 1919, and a guerrilla conflict developed as the Irish Republican Army (IRA) began attacking British forces. This became known as the Irish War of Independence.


title: Partition of Ireland

text: In September 1919, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George tasked a committee with planning Home Rule for Ireland within the UK. Headed by English Unionist politician Walter Long, it was known as the 'Long Committee'. The makeup of the committee was Unionist in outlook and had no Nationalist representatives as members. James Craig (the future 1st Prime Minister of Northern Ireland) and his associates were the only Irishmen consulted during this time. During the summer of 1919, Long visited Ireland several times, using his yacht as a meeting place to discuss the "Irish question" with the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland John French and the Chief Secretary for Ireland Ian Macpherson.


title: Partition of Ireland

text: Prior to the first meeting of the committee, Long sent a memorandum to the British Prime Minister recommending two parliaments for Ireland (24 September 1919). That memorandum formed the basis of the legislation that partitioned Ireland - the Government of Ireland Act 1920. At the first meeting of the committee (15 October 1919) it was decided that two devolved governments should be established — one for the nine counties of Ulster and one for the rest of Ireland, together with a Council of Ireland for the "encouragement of Irish unity". The Long Committee felt that the nine-county proposal "will enormously minimise the partition issue...it minimises the division of Ireland on purely religious lines. The two religions would not be unevenly balanced in the Parliament of Northern Ireland." Most northern unionists wanted the territory of the Ulster government to be reduced to six counties, so that it would have a larger Protestant/Unionist majority. Long offered the Committee members a deal - "that the Six Counties ... should be theirs for good ... and no interference with the boundaries".


title: Partition of Ireland

text: Many Unionists feared that the territory would not last if it included too many Catholics and Irish Nationalists, any reduction in size would make the state unviable. The six counties of Antrim, Down, Armagh, Londonderry, Tyrone and Fermanagh comprised the maximum area unionists believed they could dominate. The remaining three Counties of Ulster had large Catholic majorities: Cavan 81.5%, Donegal 78.9% and Monaghan 74.7%. However, in the 1921 elections in Northern Ireland, Fermanagh - Tyrone (which was a single constituency), the results were: 54.7% Nationalist / 45.3% Unionist. On 28 November 1921 both Tyrone and Fermanagh County Councils declared allegiance to the new Irish Parliament (Dail). On 2 December the Tyrone County Council publicly rejected the "...arbitrary, new-fangled, and universally unnatural boundary". They pledged to oppose the new border and to "make the fullest use of our rights to mollify it". On 21 December 1921 the Fermanagh County Council passed the following resolution: "We, the County Council of Fermanagh, in view of the expressed desire of a large majority of people in this county, do not recognise the partition parliament in Belfast and do hereby direct our Secretary to hold no further communications with either Belfast or British Local Government Departments, and we pledge our allegiance to Dáil Éireann." Shortly afterwards both County Councils offices were seized by the Royal Irish Constabulary, the County officials expelled, and the County Councils dissolved.


title: Partition of Ireland

text: In what became Northern Ireland, the process of partition was accompanied by violence, both "in defense or opposition to the new settlement". The IRA carried out attacks on British forces in the north-east, but was less active than in the south of Ireland. Protestant loyalists in the north-east attacked the Catholic minority in reprisal for IRA actions. The January and June 1920 local elections saw Irish nationalists and republicans win control of Tyrone and Fermanagh county councils, which were to become part of Northern Ireland, while Derry had its first Irish nationalist mayor. In summer 1920, sectarian violence erupted in Belfast and Derry, and there were mass burnings of Catholic property by loyalists in Lisburn and Banbridge. Loyalists drove 8,000 "disloyal" co-workers from their jobs in the Belfast shipyards, all of them either Catholics or Protestant labour activists. In his Twelfth of July speech, Unionist leader Edward Carson had called for loyalists to take matters into their own hands to defend Ulster, and had linked republicanism with socialism and the Catholic Church. In response to the expulsions and attacks on Catholics, the Dáil approved a boycott of Belfast goods and banks. The 'Belfast Boycott' was enforced by the IRA, who halted trains and lorries from Belfast and destroyed their goods. Conflict continued intermittently for two years, mostly in Belfast, which saw "savage and unprecedented" communal violence between Protestant and Catholic civilians. There was rioting, gun battles and bombings. Homes, business and churches were attacked and people were expelled from workplaces and from mixed neighbourhoods. The British Army was deployed and an Ulster Special Constabulary (USC) was formed to help the regular police. The USC was almost wholly Protestant and some of its members carried out reprisal attacks on Catholics. From 1920 to 1922, more than 500 were killed in Northern Ireland and more than 10,000 became refugees, most of them Catholics.


title: Partition of Ireland

text: The British government introduced the Government of Ireland Bill in early 1920 and it passed through the stages in the British parliament that year. It would partition Ireland and create two self-governing territories within the UK, with their own bicameral parliaments, along with a Council of Ireland comprising members of both. Northern Ireland would comprise the aforesaid six northeastern counties, while Southern Ireland would comprise the rest of the island. The Act was passed on 11 November and received royal assent in December 1920. It would come into force on 3 May 1921. Elections to the Northern and Southern parliaments were held on 24 May. Unionists won most seats in Northern Ireland. Its parliament first met on 7 June and formed its first devolved government, headed by Unionist Party leader James Craig. Republican and nationalist members refused to attend. King George V addressed the ceremonial opening of the Northern parliament on 22 June. Meanwhile, Sinn Féin won an overwhelming majority in the Southern Ireland election. They treated both as elections for Dáil Éireann, and its elected members gave allegiance to the Dáil and Irish Republic, thus rendering "Southern Ireland" dead in the water. The Southern parliament met only once and was attended by four unionists.


title: Partition of Ireland

text: On 5 May 1921, the Ulster Unionist leader Sir James Craig met with the President of Sinn Féin, Éamon de Valera, in secret near Dublin. Each restated his position and nothing new was agreed. On 10 May De Valera told the Dáil that the meeting "... was of no significance". In June that year, shortly before the truce that ended the Anglo-Irish War, David Lloyd George invited the Republic's President de Valera to talks in London on an equal footing with the new Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, James Craig, which de Valera attended. De Valera's policy in the ensuing negotiations was that the future of Ulster was an Irish-British matter to be resolved between two sovereign states, and that Craig should not attend. After the truce came into effect on 11 July, the USC was demobilized (July - November 1921). Speaking after the truce Lloyd George made it clear to de Valera, 'that the achievement of a republic through negotiation was impossible'.


title: Partition of Ireland

text: Speaking in the House of Commons on the day the Act passed, Joe Devlin (Nationalist Party) representing west Belfast, summed up the feelings of many Nationalists concerning partition and the setting up of a Northern Ireland Parliament while Ireland was in a deep state of unrest. Devlin stated:


title: Partition of Ireland

text: Ulster Unionist Party politician Charles Craig (the brother of Sir James Craig) made the feelings of many Unionists clear concerning the importance they placed on the passing of the Act and the establishment of a separate Parliament for Northern Ireland:


title: Partition of Ireland

text: The Irish War of Independence led to the Anglo-Irish Treaty, between the British government and representatives of the Irish Republic. Negotiations between the two sides were carried on between October to December 1921. The British delegation consisted of experienced parliamentarians/debaters such as Lloyd George, Winston Churchill, Austen Chamberlain and Lord Birkenhead, they had clear advantages over the Sinn Fein negotiators. The Treaty was signed on 6 December 1921. Under its terms, the territory of Southern Ireland would leave the United Kingdom within one year and become a self-governing dominion called the Irish Free State. The treaty was given legal effect in the United Kingdom through the Irish Free State Constitution Act 1922, and in Ireland by ratification by Dáil Éireann. Under the former Act, at 1 pm on 6 December 1922, King George V (at a meeting of his Privy Council at Buckingham Palace) signed a proclamation establishing the new Irish Free State.


title: Partition of Ireland

text: Under the treaty, Northern Ireland's parliament could vote to "opt out" of the Free State. Under Article 12 of the Treaty, Northern Ireland could exercise its opt-out by presenting an address to the King, requesting not to be part of the Irish Free State. Once the treaty was ratified, the Houses of Parliament of Northern Ireland had one month (dubbed the "Ulster month") to exercise this opt-out during which time the provisions of the Government of Ireland Act continued to apply in Northern Ireland. According to legal writer Austen Morgan, the wording of the treaty allowed the impression to be given that the Irish Free State temporarily included the whole island of Ireland, but legally the terms of the treaty applied only to the 26 counties, and the government of the Free State never had any powers—even in principle—in Northern Ireland. On 7 December 1922 the Parliament of Northern Ireland approved an address to George V, requesting that its territory not be included in the Irish Free State. This was presented to the king the following day and then entered into effect, in accordance with the provisions of Section 12 of the Irish Free State (Agreement) Act 1922. The treaty also allowed for a re-drawing of the border by a Boundary Commission.


title: Partition of Ireland

text: Sir James Craig, the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland objected to aspects of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. In a letter to Austen Chamberlain dated 14 December 1921, he stated:


title: Partition of Ireland

text: Michael Collins had negotiated the treaty and had it approved by the cabinet, the Dáil (on 7 January 1922 by 64–57), and by the people in national elections. Regardless of this, it was unacceptable to Éamon de Valera, who led the Irish Civil War to stop it. Collins was primarily responsible for drafting the constitution of the new Irish Free State, based on a commitment to democracy and rule by the majority.


title: Partition of Ireland

text: De Valera's minority refused to be bound by the result. Collins now became the dominant figure in Irish politics, leaving de Valera on the outside. The main dispute centred on the proposed status as a dominion (as represented by the Oath of Allegiance and Fidelity) for Southern Ireland, rather than as an independent all-Ireland republic, but continuing partition was a significant matter for Ulstermen like Seán MacEntee, who spoke strongly against partition or re-partition of any kind. The pro-treaty side argued that the proposed Boundary Commission would give large swathes of Northern Ireland to the Free State, leaving the remaining territory too small to be viable. In October 1922, the Irish Free State government established the North-Eastern Boundary Bureau (NEBB) a government office which by 1925 had prepared 56 boxes of files to argue its case for areas of Northern Ireland to be transferred to the Free State.


title: Partition of Ireland

text: De Valera had drafted his own preferred text of the treaty in December 1921, known as "Document No. 2". An "Addendum North East Ulster" indicates his acceptance of the 1920 partition for the time being, and of the rest of Treaty text as signed in regard to Northern Ireland:


title: Partition of Ireland

text: As described above, under the treaty it was provided that Northern Ireland would have a month – the "Ulster Month" – during which its Houses of Parliament could "opt out" of the Irish Free State. The Treaty was ambiguous on whether the month should run from the date the Anglo-Irish Treaty was ratified (in March 1922 via the Irish Free State (Agreement) Act) or the date that the Constitution of the Irish Free State was approved and the Free State established (6 December 1922).


title: Partition of Ireland

text: When the Irish Free State (Agreement) Bill was being debated on 21 March 1922, amendments were proposed which would have provided that the Ulster Month would run from the passing of the Irish Free State (Agreement) Act and not the Act that would establish the Irish Free State. Essentially, those who put down the amendments wished to bring forward the month during which Northern Ireland could exercise its right to opt out of the Irish Free State. They justified this view on the basis that if Northern Ireland could exercise its option to opt out at an earlier date, this would help to settle any state of anxiety or trouble on the new Irish border. Speaking in the House of Lords, the Marquess of Salisbury argued:


title: Partition of Ireland

text: The British Government took the view that the Ulster Month should run from the date the Irish Free State was established and not beforehand, Viscount Peel for the Government remarking:


title: Partition of Ireland

text: Viscount Peel continued by saying the government desired that there should be no ambiguity and would to add a proviso to the Irish Free State (Agreement) Bill providing that the Ulster Month should run from the passing of the Act establishing the Irish Free State. He further noted that the Parliament of Southern Ireland had agreed with that interpretation, and that Arthur Griffith also wanted Northern Ireland to have a chance to see the Irish Free State Constitution before deciding.


title: Partition of Ireland

text: The treaty "went through the motions of including Northern Ireland within the Irish Free State while offering it the provision to opt out". It was certain that Northern Ireland would exercise its opt out. The Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, Sir James Craig, speaking in the House of Commons of Northern Ireland in October 1922, said that "when the 6th of December is passed the month begins in which we will have to make the choice either to vote out or remain within the Free State." He said it was important that that choice be made as soon as possible after 6 December 1922 "in order that it may not go forth to the world that we had the slightest hesitation." On 7 December 1922, the day after the establishment of the Irish Free State, the Parliament of Northern Ireland resolved to make the following address to the King so as to opt out of the Irish Free State:


title: Partition of Ireland

text: Discussion in the Parliament of the address was short. No division or vote was requested on the address, which was described as the Constitution Act and was then approved by the Senate of Northern Ireland. Craig left for London with the memorial embodying the address on the night boat that evening, 7 December 1922. King George V received it the following day.


title: Partition of Ireland

text: If the Houses of Parliament of Northern Ireland had not made such a declaration, under Article 14 of the Treaty, Northern Ireland, its Parliament and government would have continued in being but the Oireachtas would have had jurisdiction to legislate for Northern Ireland in matters not delegated to Northern Ireland under the Government of Ireland Act. This never came to pass. On 13 December 1922, Craig addressed the Parliament of Northern Ireland, informing them that the King had accepted the Parliament's address and had informed the British and Free State governments.


title: Partition of Ireland

text: While the Irish Free State was established at the end of 1922, the Boundary Commission contemplated by the Treaty was not to meet until 1924. Things did not remain static during that gap. In April 1923, just four months after independence, the Irish Free State established customs barriers on the border. This was a significant step in consolidating the border. "While its final position was sidelined, its functional dimension was actually being underscored by the Free State with its imposition of a customs barrier".


title: Partition of Ireland

text: The Anglo-Irish Treaty (signed 6 December 1921) contained a provision (Article 12) that would establish a boundary commission, which would determine the border "...in accordance with the wishes of the inhabitants, so far as may be compatible with economic and geographic conditions...". In October 1922 the Irish Free State government set up the North East Boundary Bureau to prepare its case for the Boundary Commission. The Bureau conducted extensive work but the Commission refused to consider its work, which amounted to 56 boxes of files. Most leaders in the Free State, both pro- and anti-treaty, assumed that the commission would award largely nationalist areas such as County Fermanagh, County Tyrone, South Londonderry, South Armagh and South Down and the City of Derry to the Free State, and that the remnant of Northern Ireland would not be economically viable and would eventually opt for union with the rest of the island as well. The terms of Article 12 were ambiguous, no timetable was established or method to determine the wishes of the inhabitants. Article 12 did not call for a plebiscite or specify a time for the convening of the commission (the commission did not meet until November 1924). In Southern Ireland the new Parliament fiercely debated the terms of the Treaty yet devoted a small amount of time on the issue of partition, just nine out of 338 transcript pages. The commission's final report recommended only minor transfers of territory, and in both directions.


title: Partition of Ireland

text: The Commission consisted of only three members Justice Richard Feetham, who represented the British government. Feetham served as chairman of the Commission. Feetham was a judge and graduate of Oxford. In 1923 Feetham was the legal advisor to the High Commissioner for South Africa.


title: Partition of Ireland

text: Eoin MacNeill, the Irish governments Minister for Education, represented the Irish Government. In 1913 MacNeill established the Irish Volunteers and in 1916 issued countermanding orders instructing the Volunteers not to take part in the Easter Rising which greatly limited the numbers that turned out for the rising. On the day before his execution, the Rising leader Tom Clarke warned his wife about MacNeill: "I want you to see to it that our people know of his treachery to us. He must never be allowed back into the national life of this country, for so sure as he is, so sure he will act treacherously in a crisis. He is a weak man, but I know every effort will be made to whitewash him."


title: Partition of Ireland

text: Joseph R. Fisher was appointed by the British Government to represent the Northern Ireland Government (after the Northern Government refused to name a member). It has been argued that the selection of Fisher ensured that only minimal (if any) changes would occur to the existing border. In a 1923 conversation with the 1st Prime Minister of Northern Ireland James Craig, British Prime Minister Baldwin commented on the future makeup of the Commission: "If the Commission should give away counties, then of course Ulster couldn't accept it and we should back her. But the Government will nominate a proper representative for Northern Ireland and we hope that he and Feetham will do what is right."


title: Partition of Ireland

text: A small team of five assisted the Commission in its work. While Feetham was said to have kept his government contacts well informed on the Commissions work, MacNeill consulted with no one. With the leak of the Boundary Commission report (7 November 1925), MacNeill resigned from both the Commission and the Free State Government. As he departed the Free State Government admitted that MacNeill "wasn't the most suitable person to be a commissioner." The source of the leaked report was generally assumed to be made by Fisher. The Irish Free State, Northern Ireland and UK governments agreed to suppress the report and accept the "status quo", while the UK government agreed that the Free State would no longer have to pay its share of the UK's national debt (the British claim was £157 million). Éamon de Valera commented on the cancelation of the southern governments debt (referred to as the war debt) to the British: the Free State "sold Ulster natives for four pound a head, to clear a debt we did not owe."


title: Partition of Ireland

text: The final agreement between the Irish Free State, Northern Ireland, and the United Kingdom (the inter-governmental Agreement) of 3 December 1925 was published later that day by Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin. The agreement was enacted by the "Ireland (Confirmation of Agreement) Act" and was passed unanimously by the British parliament on 8–9 December. The Dáil voted to approve the agreement, by a supplementary act, on 10 December 1925 by a vote of 71 to 20. With a separate agreement concluded by the three governments, the publication of Boundary Commission report became an irrelevance. The President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State W. T. Cosgrave informed the Irish Parliament (the Dail) that the only security for the Catholic minority in Northern Ireland now depended on the goodwill of their neighbours.


title: Partition of Ireland

text: Both governments agreed to the disbandment of the Council of Ireland. The leaders of the two parts of Ireland did not meet again until 1965. Since partition, Irish republicans and nationalists have sought to end partition, while Ulster loyalists and unionists have sought to maintain it. The pro-Treaty Cumann na nGaedhael government of the Free State hoped the Boundary Commission would make Northern Ireland too small to be viable. It focused on the need to build a strong state and accommodate Northern unionists. The anti-Treaty Fianna Fáil had Irish unification as one of its core policies and sought to rewrite the Free State's constitution. Sinn Féin rejected the legitimacy of the Free State's institutions altogether because it implied accepting partition. In Northern Ireland, the Nationalist Party was the main political party in opposition to the Unionist governments and partition. Other early anti-partition groups included the National League of the North (formed in 1928), the Northern Council for Unity (formed in 1937) and the Irish Anti-Partition League (formed in 1945).


title: Partition of Ireland

text: De Valera came to power in Dublin in 1932, and drafted a new Constitution of Ireland which in 1937 was adopted by plebiscite in the Irish Free State. Its articles 2 and 3 defined the 'national territory' as: "the whole island of Ireland, its islands and the territorial seas". The state was named 'Ireland' (in English) and 'Éire' (in Irish); a United Kingdom Act of 1938 described the state as "Eire". The irredentist texts in Articles 2 and 3 were deleted by the Nineteenth Amendment in 1998, as part of the Belfast Agreement.


title: Partition of Ireland

text: During the Second World War, after the Fall of France, Britain made a qualified offer of Irish unity in June 1940, without reference to those living in Northern Ireland. On their rejection, neither the London or Dublin governments publicised the matter.


title: Partition of Ireland

text: Ireland would have joined the allies against the Axis by allowing British ships to use its ports, arresting Germans and Italians, setting up a joint defence council and allowing overflights.


title: Partition of Ireland

text: In return, arms would have been provided to Ireland and British forces would cooperate on a German invasion. London would have declared that it accepted 'the principle of a United Ireland' in the form of an undertaking 'that the Union is to become at an early date an accomplished fact from which there shall be no turning back.'


title: Partition of Ireland

text: Clause ii of the offer promised a joint body to work out the practical and constitutional details, 'the purpose of the work being to establish at as early a date as possible the whole machinery of government of the Union'. The proposals were first published in 1970 in a biography of de Valera.


title: Partition of Ireland

text: In May 1949 the Taoiseach John A. Costello introduced a motion in the Dáil strongly against the terms of the UK's "Ireland Act 1949" that confirmed partition for as long as a majority of the electorate in Northern Ireland wanted it, styled in Dublin as the "Unionist Veto".


title: Partition of Ireland

text: Congressman John E. Fogarty was the main mover of the "Fogarty Resolution" on 29 March 1950. This proposed suspending Marshall Plan Foreign Aid to the UK, as Northern Ireland was costing Britain $150,000,000 annually, and therefore American financial support for Britain was prolonging the partition of Ireland. Whenever partition was ended, Marshall Aid would restart. On 27 September 1951, Fogarty's resolution was defeated in Congress by 206 votes to 139, with 83 abstaining – a factor that swung some votes against his motion was that Ireland had remained neutral during World War II.


title: Partition of Ireland

text: From 1956 to 1962, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) carried out a limited guerrilla campaign in border areas of Northern Ireland, called the Border Campaign. It aimed to destabilise Northern Ireland and bring about an end to partition, but ended in failure.


title: Partition of Ireland

text: In 1965, Taoiseach Seán Lemass met Northern Ireland's Prime Minister Terence O'Neill. It was the first meeting between the two heads of government since partition.


title: Partition of Ireland

text: The Unionist governments of Northern Ireland were accused of discrimination against the Irish nationalist and Catholic minority. A non-violent campaign to end discrimination began in the late 1960s. This civil rights campaign was opposed by loyalists and hard-line unionist parties, who accused it of being a republican front to bring about a united Ireland. This unrest led to the August 1969 riots and the deployment of British troops, beginning a thirty-year conflict known as the Troubles (1969–98), involving republican and loyalist paramilitaries. In 1973 a 'border poll' referendum was held in Northern Ireland on whether it should remain part of the UK or join a united Ireland. Irish nationalists boycotted the referendum and only 57% of the electorate voted, resulting in an overwhelming majority for remaining in the UK.


title: Partition of Ireland

text: The Northern Ireland peace process began in 1993, leading to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. It was ratified by two referendums in both parts of Ireland, including an acceptance that a united Ireland would only be achieved by peaceful means. The remaining provisions of the "Government of Ireland Act 1920" were repealed and replaced in the UK by the "Northern Ireland Act 1998" as a result of the Agreement. The "Irish Free State (Consequential Provisions) Act 1922" had already amended the 1920 Act so that it would only apply to Northern Ireland. It was finally repealed in the Republic by the "Statute Law Revision Act 2007".


title: Partition of Ireland

text: In its 2017 white paper on Brexit, the British government reiterated its commitment to the Agreement. On Northern Ireland's status, it said that the government's "clearly-stated preference is to retain Northern Ireland's current constitutional position: as part of the UK, but with strong links to Ireland".


title: Partition of Ireland

text: While not explicitly mentioned in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, the Common Travel Area between the UK and the Republic of Ireland, EU integration at that time and the demilitarisation of the boundary region provided by the treaty resulted in the virtual dissolution of the border.


title: Partition of Ireland

text: Following partition, most sporting bodies continued on an all-Ireland basis. The main exception was association football (soccer), as separate organising bodies were formed in Northern Ireland (Irish Football Association) and the Republic of Ireland (Football Association of Ireland). At the Olympics, a person from Northern Ireland can choose to represent either the Republic of Ireland team (which competes as "Ireland") or United Kingdom team (which competes as "Great Britain").


title: Valerian (herb)

text: Valerian ("Valeriana officinalis", Caprifoliaceae) is a perennial flowering plant native to Europe and Asia. In the summer when the mature plant may have a height of , it bears sweetly scented pink or white flowers that attract many fly species, especially hoverflies of the genus "Eristalis". It is consumed as food by the larvae of some Lepidoptera (butterfly and moth) species, including the grey pug.


title: Valerian (herb)

text: Crude extract of valerian root may have sedative and anxiolytic effects, and is commonly sold in dietary supplement capsules to promote sleep, but there is insufficient clinical evidence that it is effective for this purpose. Its roots and leaves cause a catnip-like response in cats.


title: Valerian (herb)

text: Valerian has been used as a herb in traditional medicine since at least the time of ancient Greece and Rome. Hippocrates described its properties, and Galen later prescribed it as a remedy for insomnia. In medieval Sweden, it was sometimes placed in the wedding clothes of the groom to ward off the "envy" of the elves. In the 16th century, Pilgram Marpeck prescribed valerian tea for a sick woman.


title: Valerian (herb)

text: John Gerard's "Herball, or Generall Historie of Plantes", first published in 1597, states that his contemporaries found valerian "excellent for those burdened and for such as be troubled with croup and other like convulsions, and also for those that are bruised with falls." He says that the dried root was valued as a medicine by the poor in the north of England and the south of Scotland, such that "no brothes, pottages or phisicalle meates are woorth [worth] anything if Setwall [valerian] were not at one end."


title: Valerian (herb)

text: The 17th century astrological botanist Nicholas Culpeper thought the plant was "under the influence of Mercury, and therefore hath a warming faculty." He recommended both herb and root, and said that "the root boiled with liquorice, raisons and aniseed is good for those troubled with cough. Also, it is of special value against the plague, the decoction thereof being drunk and the root smelled. The green herb being bruised and applied to the head taketh away pain and pricking thereof."


title: Valerian (herb)

text: The name of the herb is derived from the personal name "Valeria" and the Latin verb "valere" (to be strong, healthy). Other names used for this plant include garden valerian (to distinguish it from other "Valeriana" species), garden heliotrope (although not related to "Heliotropium"), setwall and all-heal (which is also used for plants in the genus "Stachys"). Red valerian, often grown in gardens, is also sometimes referred to as "valerian", but is a different species ("Centranthus ruber"), from the same family but not very closely related. It is also called cat's love for its catnip-like effects.


title: Valerian (herb)

text: Because of valerian's historical use in traditional medicine for diverse purposes, such as for sedation or pain relief, laboratory research has been directed at the GABA receptor, a class of receptors on which benzodiazepines act. Valeric acid, which is responsible for the typical odor of mostly older valerian roots, does not have any sedative properties. Valproic acid, a widely prescribed anticonvulsant, is a derivative of valeric acid.


title: Valerian (herb)

text: Valerian also contains isovaltrate, which has been shown to be an inverse agonist for adenosine A receptor sites. Hydrophilic extractions of the herb commonly sold over the counter, however, probably do not contain significant amounts of isovaltrate. Valerenic acid in valerian stimulates GABA(A) and serotonin receptors as a positive allosteric modulator and partial agonist, respectively. This includes the 5-HT which is implicated in the sleep-wake cycle.


title: Valerian (herb)

text: The chief constituent of valerian is a yellowish-green to brownish-yellow oil present in the dried root, varying in content from 0.5 to 2.0%. This variation in quantity may be determined by location; a dry, stony soil yields a root richer in oil than moist, fertile soil.


title: Valerian (herb)

text: Although valerian is a common traditional medicine used for treating insomnia, there is no good evidence it is effective for this purpose. Valerian has not been shown to be helpful in treating restless leg syndrome or anxiety.


title: Valerian (herb)

text: The European Medicines Agency (EMA) approved the health claim that valerian can be used as a traditional herb to relieve mild nervous tension and to aid sleep; the EMA stated that although there is insufficient evidence from clinical studies, its effectiveness as a dried extract is considered plausible.


title: Valerian (herb)

text: The American Academy of Sleep Medicine's 2017 clinical practice guidelines recommended against the use of valerian in the treatment of insomnia due to poor effectiveness and low quality of evidence.


title: Valerian (herb)

text: Oral forms are available in both standardized and unstandardized forms. Standardized products may be preferable considering the wide variation of the chemicals in the dried root, as noted above. When standardized, it is done so as a percentage of valerenic acid or valeric acid. In commonly used doses, valerian is recognized as GRAS in the United States.


title: Valerian (herb)

text: Because the compounds in valerian produce central nervous system depression, they should not be used with other depressants, such as ethanol (drinking alcohol), benzodiazepines, barbiturates, opiates, kava, or antihistamine drugs.


title: Valerian (herb)

text: As an unregulated product, the concentration, contents, and potential contaminants in valerian preparations cannot be easily determined. Because of this uncertainty and the potential for toxicity in the fetus and hepatotoxicity in the mother, valerian use is discouraged during pregnancy. Headache and diarrhea have occurred among subjects using valerian in clinical studies.


title: Valerian (herb)

text: Valerian root is a cat attractant in a way similar to catnip. Its roots and leaves are one of three alternatives for the one-third of domesticated or medium-sized cats who do not feel the effects of catnip.


title: Valerian (herb)

text: Valerian is unusual in having flowers with "handedness", that is, having neither radial nor bilateral symmetry.


title: Valerian (herb)

text: Valerian is considered an invasive species in many jurisdictions outside its natural range, including the US state of Connecticut where it is officially banned, and in New Brunswick, Canada, where it is listed as a plant of concern.


title: Good Luck Charlie

text: Good Luck Charlie is an American sitcom that originally aired on Disney Channel from April 4, 2010, to February 16, 2014. The series' creators, Phil Baker and Drew Vaupen, wanted to create a program that would appeal to entire families, not just children. It focuses on the Duncan family of Denver as they adjust to the births of their fourth and fifth children, Charlotte "Charlie" (Mia Talerico) and Toby (Logan Moreau). In each episode, Teddy Duncan (Bridgit Mendler) adds to a video diary that contains advice for Charlie about their family and life as a teenager. Teddy tries to show Charlie what she might go through when she is older for future reference. Each video diary ends with Teddy (or another family member, even Charlie) saying the eponymous phrase, ""Good luck, Charlie"".


title: Good Luck Charlie

text: Among other decisions, executives included adult-centric scenes and changed the series title from "Oops" to "Love, Teddy" and finally to "Good Luck Charlie" in order to ensure the series would appeal to all family members. "Good Luck Charlie" premiered on Disney Channel in the United States on April 4, 2010. A feature-length Christmas Disney Channel Original Movie based on the series, entitled "Good Luck Charlie, It's Christmas!", premiered in December 2011. The series finale aired on February 16, 2014, with a one-hour episode.


title: Good Luck Charlie

text: Set in Denver, Colorado, the series follows the Duncan family, who are still adjusting to the birth of their fourth child, Charlotte "Charlie" Duncan (Mia Talerico). When parents Amy (Leigh-Allyn Baker), a nurse, and Bob (Eric Allan Kramer), an exterminator, return to work, they ask their three older children—PJ (Jason Dolley), Teddy (Bridgit Mendler), and Gabe (Bradley Steven Perry)—to help raise their little sister. At the same time, Teddy, PJ, and Gabe try to deal with school and general social challenges in their lives.


title: Good Luck Charlie

text: The events in each episode become material for a video diary that Teddy is making for Charlie. Teddy hopes the videos will provide useful advice for Charlie after they have both grown up and Teddy has moved out. At the end of each video, she (and/or other cast members) says, "Good luck, Charlie" or may even say it indirectly such as "Wish them good luck, Charlie." During the movie, Amy reveals to Teddy that she is pregnant with her fifth child, but this story plot is not brought into the series until the third season, during which Amy gives birth to a baby boy, Toby. Each episode ends, after the video diary, with an event that is weird and usually cannot happen in real life.


title: Good Luck Charlie

text: "Good Luck Charlie" was created by Phil Baker and Drew Vaupen, who have been writing together since 1993 on shows ranging from "Suddenly Susan" to "Sonny with a Chance". The pair aspired to create a program that would appeal to entire families rather than simply kids. Inspired by the success of reruns of shows such as "Full House" and "George Lopez" with young audiences, Vaupen and Baker turned to family sitcoms. "We wanted to do a show about a family, to bring back a family sitcom and make it about a real family, not wizards, nobody's a pop star, nobody has a TV show", said Vaupen, referring to "Wizards of Waverly Place", "Hannah Montana", and "Sonny with a Chance". Veteran writer-producer Dan Staley ("Cheers") later joined the show as executive producer. Disney's Gary Marsh said "because most network television abandoned the traditional sitcom, Disney has been able to snatch up a lot of experienced talent for behind the camera, including executive producer Dan Staley..."


title: Good Luck Charlie

text: The series was publicly announced in July 2009 with a press release announcing the first season order as well as the primary cast.


title: Good Luck Charlie

text: "Good Luck Charlie"s central family, the Duncans from Denver, Colorado, was carefully crafted for broad appeal. While the series is still told primarily through the view point of the Duncan children, the children's parents, Amy and Bob, are less on the periphery and writers attempt to add scenes that adult viewers can relate to. For example, in one scene in the pilot episode Amy confesses to Bob that she is overwhelmed with becoming a working new mother again. "She's not sure she can pull this off", says Bonnet. "And just playing that scene the way we did, a very real scene between husband and wife, kind of makes this show different". The writers also try to include jokes for adult viewers while remaining chaste enough for their young target audience. Unlike most previous Disney Channel series such as "Sonny with a Chance", "Hannah Montana", or "Cory in the House", both parents are seen in the Duncan family. "It felt like the right time to have a show with two parents, to debunk the myth that Disney never has the mom in the picture", says Adam Bonnett, Senior Vice President of original programming for Disney Channel. "Because it is a myth".


title: Good Luck Charlie

text: Because a series about the rich and famous might alienate viewers in a troubled economy, the Duncans were made middle class. According to Gary Marsh, Entertainment President of Disney Channel Worldwide, "What we want to do is acknowledge the reality of the times in which we live, where two parents work, where kids are expected to help out around the house in meaningful ways. Real-life issues happen. Everyone isn't living 'The Life of Riley' all the time." Broadening Disney Channel's appeal was a concern when choosing the names of the characters and the title of the program. "You want a title that says, a) this is a sitcom and, b) this is something that will interest the main demographic but also we're trying to expand the Disney brand beyond just girls", Vaupen commented. The series' title was originally ""Love, Teddy"", the phrase Teddy had used to end her video diary entries during development. However, ""Love, Teddy"" immediately felt feminized and almost excludes boys", Vaupen said. "We also didn't want to have the word 'Baby' in the title because that would exclude certain people". The Duncan baby was originally named "Daisy" during development, but producers thought that "Charlie", which is generally a masculine name, would attract more boys.


title: Good Luck Charlie

text: As "Good Luck Charlie" is low concept and character-driven, "the actors not only had to carry the show, they also had to have "pitch-perfect" chemistry with each other to make the family dynamic believable". Bonnet says Disney Channel executives "just fell in love with" Bridgit Mendler, who stars as teenaged Teddy Duncan. "She has all the attributes of a Disney star", said Bonnet. Mendler had previously auditioned for "Sonny with a Chance", and network executives wanted to find a role for her. Mendler first heard about "Good Luck Charlie" in late November 2008. After several rounds of auditions and cast reads, she finally secured the part in January 2009. Mendler and Jason Dolley, who plays Teddy's older brother PJ, have starred in preceding Disney Channel series and movies before both were cast in "Good Luck Charlie"; Mendler had a recurring role on "Wizards of Waverly Place" and Dolley starred in "Cory in the House" and numerous Disney Channel television movies. "Variety" magazine's Brian Lowry says their careers "[reflect] the Disney Channel's knack for identifying young performers and rolling them from one project to the next, in a fashion reminiscent of the old studio system". The character of PJ was initially called Casey.


title: Good Luck Charlie

text: Both Eric Allan Kramer, who plays Bob Duncan, and Leigh-Allyn Baker, who plays Amy Duncan, have also guest starred in preceding Disney Channel shows, and both Kramer and Baker had respectively guest starred in one episode each of the NBC sitcom "My Name Is Earl", where "Charlie" writers Erika Kaestle & Patrick McCarthy had served as writers and supervising producers. Both Baker and Kramer were in the same episode of the NBC sitcom "Will and Grace", entitled "Sour Balls". Baker says Disney had been "courting [her] to play a mom", but she had always felt too young. "I kind of feel like hey, you know what? When I'm done with this stint, I'll actually be the age everyone thinks I am to be able to play the part". Baker, who was a new mother herself, was nine months pregnant at the time she was auditioning for the role.


title: Good Luck Charlie

text: Like most series featuring baby actors, producers of "Good Luck Charlie" had originally intended to have identical twins play Charlie Duncan, the title character and the Duncans' new baby. Hiring two babies would allow for longer work days without violating child labor laws as well as the ability to substitute one child for the other if one was unavailable. However, the show makers were unsuccessful in finding the proper set of twins and decided to cast Mia Talerico instead. Marsh says casting Talerico, who was ten months old at the time of her casting for the role, was their highest risk while creating the show: "It's like flying without a net. She may have a bad day and we can't shoot and it'll cost us tens of thousands of dollars. But so far, so good. She's the most obedient actor I've ever worked with". The role of Toby was cast for the fourth season; Logan Moreau was selected for the role.


title: Good Luck Charlie

text: The "Good Luck Charlie" pilot, entitled "Study Date", was shot in February 2009, at Sunset Bronson Studios (where "Hannah Montana" was taped) and the series was picked up later that year. The show's production occurs at Sunset Bronson Studios in Los Angeles even though the show is set in Denver, Colorado. The house that is used as the Duncan's house throughout the show is located in Pasadena, CA. Starting with the second season, the series is taped at Los Angeles Center Studios, where "Shake It Up" was also taped. The show operates on a weekly schedule. Scripts for a new episode are issued on Monday before a read-through, Wednesdays are rehearsal and network run-through day, final scripts are issued on Thursday, and the episode is shot in front of a live studio audience on Friday night. According to Mendler, occasionally "episodes are too big to handle with a live audience [and are] taped without an audience, but mostly they're live".


title: Good Luck Charlie

text: "Good Luck Charlie" was renewed for a second season in July 2010, three months after its premiere. The third season was ordered in August 2011. In June 2013, Disney Channel announced that the series would end its run after four seasons. The finale aired on February 16, 2014, with a one-hour episode.


title: Good Luck Charlie

text: The series earned positive reviews. Robert Lloyd of "The Los Angeles Times" described it as a "professional sitcom from sitcom professionals" with efficient jokes and typical sitcom characters, and situations which are "willfully arranged". However, Lloyd praised the series for offering a "contextually novel picture of a teenage girl taking care of her baby sister with a persuasive nonchalance and practical ease that transcends the strenuous comedy that surrounds it". Neal Justin of the "Star Tribune" said the "slapstick heavy, laugh-track fueled sitcom" had no redeeming qualities other than "keeping your 11-year-old sedated for a half hour". Rob Owen of the "Pittsburgh Post-Gazette" said "Good Luck Charlie" would appeal to kids, but not adults. "Parents have seen the same sort of show done before and better in ABC's 1980s-era TGIF lineup", wrote Owen. Contrarily, Brian Lowry of "Variety" magazine said "Good Luck Charlie" was "a surprisingly refreshing throwback to ABC's "TGIF"-style sitcoms". He commented that while the series did not "push sitcom boundaries", it was "sprightly" and "pleasantly handled".


title: Good Luck Charlie

text: On June 20, 2013, Disney Channel announced that Season 4 Episode 19, "Down a Tree", would feature a married lesbian couple, making "Good Luck Charlie" the first Disney Channel series to do so. LGBT rights organization GLAAD as well as actresses Miley Cyrus and Evan Rachel Wood expressed their support and lauded Disney for the inclusion of the characters. By contrast, the One Million Moms division of the American Family Association protested and asked Disney not to air the episode. In a statement to "TV Guide", a Disney Channel spokesperson stated that the episode was "developed to be relevant to kids and families around the world and to reflect themes of diversity and inclusiveness." Disney aired the episode as planned on January 26, 2014.


title: Good Luck Charlie

text: The series premiered to 4.7 million viewers, making it the highest-rated series premiere for a Disney Channel Original Series since "The Suite Life on Deck" in 2008, and the week's highest-rated cable program. "Maclean's" reported that overall, the first season "has been doing about as well as Disney's more successful shows – "The Suite Life" and so on".


title: Good Luck Charlie

text: On June 24, 2012, the episode "Special Delivery" became the most watched episode ever of "Good Luck Charlie", earning 7.48 million viewers, surpassing the episode "Snow Show (Part 1)" which had 7.24 million viewers as well as the episode "Good Luck Jessie NYC Christmas" that garnered 5.8 million viewers and the series' pilot episode "Study Date" which had 4.68 million viewers. The most-watched episode of the series was "Special Delivery" with 7.5 million viewers. The least watched episode was "The Unusual Suspects" with 1.9 million viewers. The most viewed episode in the United Kingdom and Ireland was "Special Delivery" with 602,000 viewers when it aired on October 12, 2012.


title: Good Luck Charlie

text: After being ordered in July 2010, a feature-length Christmas Disney Channel Original Movie entitled "Good Luck Charlie, It's Christmas!" began production in March 2011. The film premiered December 2, 2011, on the Disney Channel. The film was directed by Arlene Sanford and written by Geoff Rodkey. The Disney Channel Original Movie follows the Duncan family on their road trip to Amy Duncan's parents' house for Christmas.


title: Good Luck Charlie

text: An Indian adaptation of the show titled "Best of Luck Nikki", premiered on Disney Channel India on April 3, 2011. Sheena Bajaj plays Dolly Singh, a character similar to that of Teddy Duncan, Ananya Kolvankar portrays Nikita "Nikki" Singh a character similar to that of Charlie and Gurdeep Kohli portrays Himani Singh, a character similar to that of Amy. The series ran for 4 seasons, 104 episodes and 3 special episodes and ended on April 16, 2016. A Pakistani adaptation of the show titled "Peek-A-Boo Shahwaiz" premiered on Play Entertainment from 15 July 2018.


title: Good Luck Charlie

text: Although a soundtrack for the show was not released, several songs were produced for the show. "Hang in There Baby", performed by Bridgit Mendler, was written by Aris Archontis, Jeannie Lurie, and Chen Neeman. The premiere was on Radio Disney on March 26, 2010. "My Song for You", performed by Mendler and Harper, was featured in the Season 3 Christmas episode "A Duncan Christmas". "My Song for You" peaked at number two on "Billboard" Kid Digital Songs and three on Holiday Songs.


title: Tsukimichi: Moonlit Fantasy

text: The light novel is written by Kei Azumi and illustrated by Mitsuaki Matsumoto. It began serialization online in 2012 on the user-generated novel publishing website Shōsetsuka ni Narō, and it moved to the AlphaPolis website in 2016. It was also later acquired by AlphaPolis, who have published seventeen volumes since May 2013.


title: Tsukimichi: Moonlit Fantasy

text: A manga adaptation with art by Kotora Kino has been serialized online via AlphaPolis' manga website since 2015 and has been collected in ten "tankōbon" volumes.


title: Tsukimichi: Moonlit Fantasy

text: An anime television series adaptation was announced on October 20, 2020. The series is animated by C2C and directed by Shinji Ishihira, with Kenta Ihara handling series' composition, Yukie Suzuki designing the characters, and Yasuharu Takanashi composing the series' music. It aired from July 7 to September 22, 2021, on Tokyo MX and other channels. Crunchyroll has acquired the license to the anime and will stream it worldwide excluding Asian territories. Medialink has licensed the series in Southeast Asia and South Asia, and is streaming it on their Ani-One YouTube channel, but this series is only viewable in their YouTube channel with Ani-One Ultra Membership scheme. The opening theme song, "Gamble", is performed by syudou while the ending theme song, "Beautiful Dreamer", is performed by Ezoshika Gourmet Club. On April 27, 2022, Crunchyroll announced that the series will receive an English dub, which premiered the following day.


title: Tsukimichi: Moonlit Fantasy

text: The first season of the anime series has the highest overseas sales record among all Nippon TV anime.


title: Stockton, California

text: Stockton is a city in and the county seat of San Joaquin County in the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California. Stockton was founded by Carlos Maria Weber in 1849 after he acquired Rancho Campo de los Franceses. The city is named after Robert F. Stockton, and it was the first community in California to have a name not of Spanish or Native American origin. The city is located on the San Joaquin River in the northern San Joaquin Valley. Stockton is the 11th largest city in California and the 58th largest city in the United States. It was named an All-America City in 1999, 2004, and 2015 and again in 2017.


title: Stockton, California

text: Built during the California Gold Rush, Stockton's seaport serves as a gateway to the Central Valley and beyond. It provided easy access for trade and transportation to the southern gold mines. The University of the Pacific (UOP), chartered in 1851, is the oldest university in California, and has been located in Stockton since 1923. In 2012, Stockton filed for what was then the largest municipal bankruptcy in US historywhich had multiple causes, including financial mismanagement in the 1990s, generous fringe benefits to unionized city employees, and the 2008 financial crisis. Stockton successfully exited bankruptcy in February 2015.


title: Stockton, California

text: Stockton is situated amidst the farmland of California's San Joaquin Valley, a subregion of the Central Valley. In and around Stockton are thousands of miles of waterways that make up the California Delta.


title: Stockton, California

text: Interstate 5 and State Route 99, inland California's major north–south highways, pass through the city. State Route 4 and the dredged San Joaquin River connect the city with the San Francisco Bay Area to its west, creating the Stockton Deepwater Shipping Channel. Stockton and Sacramento are California's only inland sea ports.


title: Stockton, California

text: According to the United States Census Bureau, the city occupies a total area of , of which is land and , comprising 4.76%, is water.


title: Stockton, California

text: When Europeans first arrived in the Stockton area, it was occupied by the Yatchicumne, a branch of the Northern Valley Yokuts Indians. They built their villages on low mounds to keep their homes above regular floods. A Yokuts village named Pasasimas was located on a mound between Edison and Harrison Streets on what is now the Stockton Channel in downtown Stockton.


title: Stockton, California

text: The Siskiyou Trail began in the northern San Joaquin Valley. It was a centuries-old Native American footpath that led through the Sacramento Valley over the Cascades and into present-day Oregon.


title: Stockton, California

text: The extensive network of waterways in and around Stockton was fished and navigated by Miwok Indians for centuries. During the California Gold Rush, the San Joaquin River was navigable by ocean-going vessels, making Stockton a natural inland seaport and point of supply and departure for prospective gold-miners. From the mid-19th century onward, Stockton became the region's transportation hub, dealing mainly with agricultural products.


title: Stockton, California

text: Carlos Maria Weber was a German émigré in the United States in 1836. He was born Karl and then went by Charles in the United States, spending time in Texas. He then came overland from Missouri to California with the Bartleson-Bidwell Party in 1841 and began to go by Carlos, when he began working for John Sutter. In 1842 Weber settled in the Pueblo of San José.


title: Stockton, California

text: As an alien, Weber could not secure a land grant directly, so he formed a partnership with Guillermo (William) Gulnac. Born in New York, Gulnac had married a Mexican woman and sworn allegiance to Mexico, which then ruled California. He applied in Weber's place for Rancho Campo de los Franceses, a land grant of 11 square leagues on the east side of the San Joaquin River.


title: Stockton, California

text: Gulnac and Weber dissolved their partnership in 1843. Gulnac's attempts to settle the Rancho Campo de los Franceses failed, and Weber acquired it in 1845. In 1846 Weber had induced a number of settlers to locate on the rancho, when the Mexican–American War broke out. Considered a Californio, Weber was offered the position of captain by Mexican Gen. José Castro, which he declined; he later, however, accepted the position of captain in the Cavalry of the United States. Capt. Weber's decision to change sides lost him a great deal of the trust he had built up among his Mexican business partners. As a result, he moved to the grant in 1847 and sold his business in San Jose in 1849.


title: Stockton, California

text: At the start of the California Gold Rush in 1848, Europeans and Americans started to arrive in the area of Weber's rancho on their way to the goldfields. When Weber decided to try his hand at gold mining in late 1848, he soon found selling supplies to gold-seekers was more profitable.


title: Stockton, California

text: As the head of navigation on the San Joaquin River, the city grew rapidly as a miners' supply point during the Gold Rush. Weber built the first permanent residence in the San Joaquin Valley on a piece of land now known as Weber Point. During the Gold Rush, the location of what is now Stockton developed as a river port, the hub of roads to the gold settlements in the San Joaquin Valley and northern terminus of the Stockton - Los Angeles Road. During its early years, Stockton was known by several names, including "Weberville," "Fat City," "Mudville" and "California's Sunrise Seaport." In 1849 Weber laid out a town, which he named "Tuleburg," but he soon decided on "Stockton" in honor of Commodore Robert F. Stockton. Stockton was the first community in California to have a name that was neither Spanish nor Native American in origin.


title: Stockton, California

text: Thousands of Chinese came to Stockton from the Kwangtung province of China during the 1850s due to a combination of political and economic unrest in China and the discovery of gold in California. After the gold rush, many worked for the railroads and land reclamation projects in the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta and remained in Stockton. By 1880 Stockton was home to the third-largest Chinese community in California. Discriminatory laws, in particular the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, restricted immigration and prevented the Chinese from buying property. The Lincoln Hotel, built in 1920 by the Wong brothers on South El Dorado Street, was considered one of Stockton's finest hotels of the time. Only after the Magnuson Act was repealed in 1962 were American-born Chinese allowed to buy property and own buildings.


title: Stockton, California

text: The city was officially incorporated on July 23, 1850, by the county court, and the first city election was held on July 31, 1850. In 1851 the City of Stockton received its charter from the State of California. Early settlers included gold seekers from Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe, the Pacific Islands, Mexico and Canada. The historical population diversity is reflected in Stockton street names, architecture, numerous ethnic festivals and the faces and heritage of a majority of its citizens. In 1870 the Census Bureau reported Stockton's population as 87.6% white and 10.7% Asian. Many Chinese were immigrating to California as workers in these years, especially for the Transcontinental Railroad.


title: Stockton, California

text: Benjamin Holt settled in Stockton in 1883 and with his three brothers founded the Stockton Wheel Co., and later the Holt Manufacturing Company.


title: Stockton, California

text: On Thanksgiving Day, November 24, 1904, Holt successfully tested the first workable track-laying machine, plowing soggy San Joaquin Valley Delta farmland. Company photographer Charles Clements was reported to have observed that the tractor crawled like a caterpillar, and Holt seized on the metaphor. "Caterpillar it is. That's the name for it."


title: Stockton, California

text: On April 22, 1918, British Army Col. Ernest Dunlop Swinton visited Stockton while on a tour of the United States. The British and French armies were using many hundreds of Holt tractors to haul heavy guns and supplies during World War I, and Swinton publicly thanked Holt and his workforce for their contribution to the war effort. During 1914 and 1915, Swinton had advocated basing some sort of armored fighting vehicle on Holt's caterpillar tractors, but without success (although Britain did develop tanks, they came from a separate source and were not directly derived from Holt machines). After the appearance of tanks on the battlefield, Holt built a prototype, the gas-electric tank, but it did not enter production.


title: Stockton, California

text: On January 10, 1920, a major fire on Main Street threatened an entire city block. At about 2 a.m., a blaze was discovered in the basement of the Yost-Dohrmann store, which was gutted, and adjacent businesses were damaged by flames and water. Damage was estimated at $150,000.


title: Stockton, California

text: Stockton is the site of the first Sikh temple in the United States; Gurdwara Sahib Stockton opened on October 24, 1912. It was founded by Baba Jawala Singh and Baba Wasakha Singh, successful Punjabi immigrants who farmed and owned on the Holt River.


title: Stockton, California

text: In 1933, the port was modernized, and the Stockton Deepwater Channel, which improved water passage to San Francisco Bay, was deepened and completed. This created commercial opportunities that fueled the city's growth. Ruff and Ready Island Naval Supply Depot was established, placing Stockton in a strategic position during the Cold War. During the Great Depression the town's canning industry became the battleground of a labor dispute resulting in the Spinach Riot of 1937.


title: Stockton, California

text: During World War II, the Stockton Assembly Center was built on the San Joaquin County Fairgrounds, a few blocks from what was then the city center. One of 15 temporary detention sites run by the Wartime Civilian Control Administration, the center held some 4,200 Japanese-Americans removed from their West Coast homes under Executive Order 9066, while they waited for transfer to more permanent and isolated camps in the interior of the country. The center opened on May 10, 1942, and operated until October 17, when the majority of its population was sent to Rohwer, Arkansas. The former incarceration site was named a California Historical Landmark in 1980, and in 1984 a marker was erected at the entrance to the fairgrounds.


title: Stockton, California

text: In September 1996, the Base Realignment and Closure Commission announced the final closure of Stockton's Naval Reserve Center on Rough and Ready Island. Formerly known as Ruff and Ready Island Naval Supply Depot, the island's facilities had served as a major communications outpost for submarine activities in the Pacific during the Cold War. The site is slowly being redeveloped as commercial property.


title: Stockton, California

text: Historically an agricultural community, Stockton's economy has since diversified into other industries, which include telecommunications and manufacturing.


title: Stockton, California

text: Stockton's central location, relative to both San Francisco and Sacramento, as well as its proximity to the state and interstate freeway system, together with its comparatively inexpensive land costs, have prompted several companies to base their regional operations in the city.


title: Stockton, California

text: The city of Stockton has two shopping malls, located adjacent to each other: Weberstown Mall and Sherwood Mall. It has the only Dillard's in the Northern California region at the Weberstown Mall, as well as one of the three Sears stores still operating in the Northern California region.


title: Stockton, California

text: Beginning in the late 1990s, Stockton had commenced some revitalization projects. Newly built or renovated buildings include the Bob Hope Theater, Regal City Centre Cinemas and IMAX, San Joaquin RTD Downtown Transit Center, Lexington Plaza Waterfront Hotel, Hotel Stockton, Stockton Arena, the San Joaquin County Administration Building, and the Stockton Ballpark.


title: Stockton, California

text: A new downtown marina and adjacent Joan Darah Promenade were added along the south shore of the Stockton Deep Water Channel during 2009. Various public art projects were also installed throughout the area (see Stockton's public art section).


title: Stockton, California

text: The Stockton real estate market was disproportionately affected by the 2007 subprime mortgage financial crisis, and the city led the United States in foreclosures for that year, with one of every 30 homes posted for foreclosure. From September 2006 to September 2007, the value of a median-priced house in Stockton declined by 44%.


title: Stockton, California

text: Stockton's Weston Ranch neighborhood, a subdivision of modest tract homes built in the mid-1990s, had the worst foreclosure rate in the area according to ACORN, a now defunct national advocacy group for low and moderate-income families. Stockton found itself squarely at the center of the 2000s' speculative housing bubble. Real estate in Stockton more than tripled in value between 1998 and 2005, but when the bubble burst in 2007, the ensuing financial crisis made Stockton one of the hardest-hit cities in United States.


title: Stockton, California

text: Stockton housing prices fell 39% in the 2008 fiscal year, and the city had the country's highest foreclosure rate (9.5%) as well. Stockton also had an unemployment rate of 13.3% in 2008, one of the highest in the United States. Stockton was rated by Forbes in 2009 as America's fifth most dangerous city because of its crime rate. In 2010, mainly due to the aforementioned factors, Forbes named it one of the three worst places to live in the United States.


title: Stockton, California

text: Following the 2008 financial crisis, in June 2012 Stockton became the largest city in U.S. history to file for bankruptcy protection. It was surpassed by Detroit in July 2013. The city approved a plan to exit bankruptcy in October 2013, and voters approved a sales tax on November 5, 2013, to help fund the exit.


title: Stockton, California

text: The collapse in real estate valuations had a negative effect on the city's revenue base. On June 28, 2012, Stockton filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy. On April 1, 2013, the United States Bankruptcy Court Eastern District of California ruled that Stockton was eligible for bankruptcy protection.


title: Stockton, California

text: The Stockton bankruptcy case lasted longer than two years and received nationwide attention. On October 4, 2013, Stockton City Council approved a bankruptcy exit plan by a 6–0 vote to be filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Eastern District of California, Sacramento. Voters approved a -cent sales tax on November 5, 2013, to help fund the bankruptcy exit.


title: Stockton, California

text: On October 30, 2014, a federal bankruptcy judge approved the city's bankruptcy recovery plan, thus allowing the city to continue with the planned pension payments to retired workers. The city exited from Chapter 9 bankruptcy on February 25, 2015.


title: Stockton, California

text: As part of a privately funded experiment in Universal Basic Income in 2019, the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration (S.E.E.D.) conducted a pilot project that gave a $500 stipend to 125 randomly selected residents for an 24-month period with “no strings attached." It was made possible by the Economic Security Project, an advocacy group chaired by Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, which provided the first $1 million for the program, and a dozen other Silicon Valley organizations and private donors who funded the rest of its $3 million budget. The positive benefits of the program during the first year were described in an interim report published in March 2021.


title: Stockton, California

text: Stockton’s climate lies right on the boundary of, and fluctuates between, hot-summer Mediterranean (Köppen: "Csa") and cool semi-arid ("BSk"). Stockton is characterized by very hot, arid summer and cool, wet winter. In an average year, nearly 95% of the of precipitation falls from October through April. Located in the Central Valley, the temperature range is much greater than in the nearby Bay Area. The degree of diurnal temperature variation is roughly twice as high in the summer as in the winter. Tule fog blankets the area during some winter days. Stockton lies in the fertile heart of the California Mediterranean climate prairie delta, about equidistant from the Pacific Ocean and the Sierra Nevada. The intermediate climate between the coast and the Central Valley gives a similar climate to that of Badajoz, Spain.


title: Stockton, California

text: At the airport, the highest recorded temperature was on July 23, 2006 and September 6, 2022, and the lowest was on January 11, 1949. There are an average of 88 afternoons annually with high temperatures of or higher, and 19 afternoons of or above; 19 mornings see low temperatures at or below freezing. The wettest "rain year" was from July 1982 to June 1983 with and the driest from July 1975 to June 1976 with .


title: Stockton, California

text: The most rainfall in one month was in February 1998 and the most rainfall in 24 hours was on January 21, 1967. There are an average of 56.5 days with measurable precipitation. Only light amounts of snow have been recorded, and the only instance of measurable snowfall occurred on February 5, 1976, with measured.


title: Stockton, California

text: The 2010 United States Census reported that Stockton had a population of 291,707. The population density was . The racial makeup of Stockton was 108,044 (37.0%) white (22.1% non-Hispanic white), 35,548 (12.2%) African American, 3,086 (1.1%) Native American, 62,716 (21.5%) Asian (7.2% Filipino, 3.5% Cambodian, 2.1% Vietnamese, 2.0% Hmong, 1.8% Chinese, 1.6% Indian, 1.0% Laotian, 0.6% Pakistani, 0.5% Japanese, 0.2% Korean, 0.1% Thai), 1,822 (0.6%) Pacific Islander (0.2% Samoan, 0.1% Tongan, 0.1% Guamanian), 60,332 (20.7%) from other races, and 20,159 (6.9%) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 117,590 persons (40.3%). 35.7% of Stockton's population was of Mexican descent, and 0.6% Puerto Rican.


title: Stockton, California

text: The 2010 census reported that 285,973 people (98.0% of the population) lived in households, 3,896 (1.3%) lived in non-institutionalized group quarters, and 1,838 (0.6%) were institutionalized.


title: Stockton, California

text: There were 90,605 households, out of which 41,033 (45.3%) had children under the age of 18 living in them, 41,481 (45.8%) were heterosexual married couples living together, 17,140 (18.9%) had a female householder with no husband present, 7,157 (7.9%) had a male householder with no wife present. There were 7,123 (7.9%) unmarried heterosexual partnerships, and 720 (0.8%) same-sex married or registered domestic partnerships. 19,484 households (21.5%) were made up of individuals, and 7,185 (7.9%) had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 3.16. There were 65,778 families (72.6% of all households); the average family size was 3.69.


title: Stockton, California

text: The population was spread out, with 87,338 people (29.9%) under the age of 18, 34,126 people (11.7%) aged 18 to 24, 76,691 people (26.3%) aged 25 to 44, 64,300 people (22.0%) aged 45 to 64, and 29,252 people (10.0%) who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 30.8 years. For every 100 females, there were 96.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 92.5 males.


title: Stockton, California

text: There were 99,637 housing units at an average density of , of which 46,738 (51.6%) were owner-occupied, and 43,867 (48.4%) were occupied by renters. The homeowner vacancy rate was 3.2%; the rental vacancy rate was 9.4%. 146,235 people (50.1% of the population) lived in owner-occupied housing units and 139,738 people (47.9%) lived in rental housing units.


title: Stockton, California

text: Due to a number of socio-economic problems, Stockton has been subject to a series of negative national rankings:


title: Stockton, California

text: According to the city's 2020 comprehensive annual financial report, the top employers in the city were:


title: Stockton, California

text: The Bob Hope Theatre in downtown Stockton, formerly known as the Fox California Theatre, built in 1930, is one of several movie palaces in the Central Valley. Bob Hope often came to Stockton to visit close friend and billionaire tycoon Alex Spanos, who donated much of the money to revitalize the theater after Hope's death. The University of the Pacific Faye Spanos Concert Hall often hosts public performances, as does the Stockton Memorial Civic Auditorium. The Warren Atherton Auditorium at the Delta Center for the Arts on the campus of the San Joaquin Delta College is a 1,456-seat theater with a proscenium and full grid system. The Stockton Empire Theater is an art deco movie theater that has been revitalized as a venue for live music.


title: Stockton, California

text: Founded in 1951, the Stockton Civic Theatre offers an annual series of musicals, comedies and dramas. It maintains a 300-seat theater in the Venetian Bridges neighborhood. The company also hosts the annual Willie awards for the local performing arts.


title: Stockton, California

text: Stockton has over 275 restaurants, ranging in variety reflective of the population demographics. A mix of American, African American, BBQ, Cambodian, Chinese, Filipino, Greek, Italian, Mexican and Vietnamese restaurants are abundant in the community reflecting the city's diverse culture. Cantonese restaurant On Lock Sam still exists and dates back to 1895.


title: Stockton, California

text: The Stockton Ports Baseball Team play their home games at Banner Island Ballpark, a 5,000 seat facility built for the team in downtown Stockton. The Ports played their home games at Billy Hebert Field from 1953 to 2004. The Ports have been a single A team in Stockton since 1946 in the California Minor Leagues. Stockton has minor league baseball dating back to 1886. The Ports have produced 244 Major League players including Gary Sheffield, Dan Plesac, Doug Jones, Pat Listach, and Stockton's own Dallas Braden among others. The Ports have eleven championships and are currently the A class team for the Oakland Athletics. The Ports had the best win–loss percentage in all Minor League Baseball in the 1980s.


title: Stockton, California

text: A 10,000-seat arena, Stockton Arena, located in Downtown Stockton, opened in December 2005 and is home to the Stockton Kings (NBAGL)


title: Stockton, California

text: Stockton is home to the oldest NASCAR certified race track West of the Mississippi. The Stockton 99 Speedway opened in 1947 and is a quarter mile oval paved track with grandstands that can accommodate 5,000 spectators.


title: Stockton, California

text: Stockton's designation for Little League Baseball is District 8, which has 12 leagues of teams within the city. Stockton also has several softball leagues including Stockton Girls Softball Association, and Port City Softball League, each having several hundred members.


title: Stockton, California

text: Rowing Regatta featuring Junior, Collegiate and Master Level Rowing & Sculling Competition is organized by the University of the Pacific annually on the Stockton's Deep Water Channel. Teams from throughout Northern California compete in this Olympic sport which is also the oldest collegiate sport in the United States.


title: Stockton, California

text: Stockton hosts a wide variety of sports events every year: from resident hockey, baseball and soccer games through basketball at the University of the Pacific and at the Stockton Arena; golf championships at two 18-hole courses and a Par 3 Executive Course; rowing, sailing and fishing on the Delta and the Stockton Channel; martial arts and cage fighting. There are four public golf courses open year-round, Van Buskirk, Swenson, and The Reserve at Spanos Park and Elkhorn Golf Course. Private courses include The Stockton Golf & Country Club, Oakmoore, and Brookside Golf & Country Club.


title: Stockton, California

text: Stockton is one of a handful of cities that lays claim to being the inspiration for the 1888 poem "Casey at the Bat." The University of the Pacific was the summer home of the San Francisco 49ers Summer Training Camp from 1998 through 2002.


title: Stockton, California

text: Stockton is also the base of UFC fighters Nick and Nate Diaz. Nick is the former WEC and Strikeforce Welterweight champion, while Nate is the winner of The Ultimate Fighter 5. Both brothers are Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belts under Cesar Gracie and operate a school in Stockton which teaches Brazilian jiu-jitsu to children and youth.


title: Stockton, California

text: The City of Stockton has a small children's amusement park, Pixie Woods; the park opened in 1954 and has since welcomed more than one million visitors.


title: Stockton, California

text: On November 3, 2020, Kevin J. Lincoln II was elected mayor, defeating incumbent mayor Michael Tubbs. He assumed office on January 1, 2021.


title: Stockton, California

text: Stockton is also seat of San Joaquin County, for which the government of San Joaquin County is defined and authorized under the California Constitution and law as a general law county. The county government provides countywide services such as elections and voter registration, law enforcement, jails, vital records, property records, tax collection, public health, and social services. The county government is primarily composed of the elected five-member Board of Supervisors and other elected offices including the Sheriff, District Attorney, and Assessor, and numerous county departments and entities under the supervision of the county administrator.


title: Stockton, California

text: The city cut its police force by more than 20% during the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis, but voters approved a sales tax on November 5, 2013, that provided funds to hire an additional 120 police officers.


title: Stockton, California

text: On July 16, 2014, officers responded to an armed bank robbery, which resulted in the four perpetrators taking three hostages and leading them on an hour-long high-speed pursuit. Over the course of the car chase, one suspect fired over 100 rounds from an AK-47s at police, disabling 14 police vehicles, including the department's own Lenco BearCat armored personnel carrier. More than 30 officers shot over 600 rounds into the getaway vehicle. Two perpetrators were killed, two hostages were injured, one hostage was killed by police ammunition, and numerous vehicles and other property were damaged or destroyed by the nearly 1,000 rounds of ammunition fired by the robbers and police. The department faced criticism with its handling of the incident in the aftermath.


title: Stockton, California

text: In 2012, the City of Stockton was the 10th most dangerous city in America, reporting 1,417 violent crimes per 100,000 persons, well above the national average, and 22 murders per 100,000 (above the average of 4.7). In 2013, violent crime lessened to 1,230.3 crimes per 100,000 population, making it 19th on the list of the most dangerous cities. Stockton has experienced a high rate of violent crime, reaching a record high of 71 homicides in 2012 before dropping to 32 for all of 2013.


title: Stockton, California

text: Stockton Police Chief Eric Jones credited 2013's drop in the murder rate to Operation Ceasefire, a gun violence intervention strategy pioneered in Boston and implemented in Stockton in 2012, combined with a federal gun and narcotics operation.


title: Stockton, California

text: On January 17, 1989, the Stockton Police Department received a threat against Cleveland Elementary School from an unknown person. Later that day, Patrick Purdy, who was later found to be mentally ill, opened fire on the school's playground with a semi-automatic rifle, killing five children, all Cambodian or Vietnamese refugees, and wounding 29 others, and a teacher, before taking his own life. The Cleveland Elementary School shooting received national news coverage and is sometimes referred to as the Cleveland School massacre.


title: Stockton, California

text: The Stockton Fire Department was first rated as a Class 1 fire department by the Insurance Services Office in 1971. In 2005, all 13 of the city's stations met the National Fire Protection Association standard of a 5-minute response time. In 2009, it had 13 fire stations and over 275 career personnel. Due in part to staffing levels that placed five staff on ladder companies and four staff on engines, it was one of only 57 departments among 44,000 to receive the Class 1 rating in 2010.


title: Stockton, California

text: The department maintained this rating until 2011, when during the city's Chapter 9 bankruptcy proceedings and following a Civil Grand Jury investigation, the city reduced staffing levels from 220 full-time staff to 177, and the 2011 budget from $59 million to $40 million. The department was cut by 30%. The bankruptcy was due in part to a 1996 decision made by the city to provide firefighters with free health care after retirement, which they later expanded to all city employees. The benefit gradually grew into a $417 million liability.


title: Stockton, California

text: , the department consists of 12 firehouses that house 12 Engine Companies and three Truck Companies. In 2015 the Fire Department responded to over 40,000 emergency calls for service, including more than 300 working structure fires. The department is one of the busiest in the United States. The Stockton Fire Department is assisted on medical emergency calls by American Medical Response.


title: Stockton, California

text: Stockton is part of four public school districts: Stockton Unified School District, Lincoln Unified School District, Lodi Unified School District, and Manteca Unified School District. There are more than 40 private elementary and secondary schools, including Saint Mary's High School. Stockton is also home to public charter school systems including Aspire Public Schools, Stockton Collegiate, Stockton Unified Early College Academy, and Venture Academy.


title: Stockton, California

text: The University of the Pacific moved to Stockton in 1924 from San Jose. The university is the only private school in the United States with less than 10,000 students enrolled that offers eight different professional schools. It also offers a large number of degree programs relative to its student population. The men's Pacific Tigers basketball team has been in the NCAA Tournament nine times. The Tigers have played their home games at the Alex G. Spanos Center since 1982, prior to that playing at the Stockton Memorial Civic Auditorium since 1952. The campus has been used in the filming of a number of Hollywood films (see below), partly due to its likeness to East Coast Ivy League universities.